If you have your Bible, let me invite you to turn to the book of Galatians. We have commenced, renewed our exposition through the book of Galatians. Some months back we worked through Galatians 1 and 2, and now we are in the process of working through the central chapters, chapters 3 and 4. And when we complete that, we'll go back to Luke, and eventually we'll come back and look at chapters 5 and 6. I've noted a couple of times a basic outline we could give for Galatians 1 and 2. Paul is dealing with his own autobiography, telling about his call to be an apostle, because his authority was being challenged as an apostle. He's been addressing within these churches the problem of those who are teaching that you need to be circumcised to be a Christian, and so he's asserting the fact that he's an apostle. And then in the central chapters, his focus is upon the doctrine of justification by faith. We could say the pure gospel is the focus, defining it, defending it, is the focus of chapters three and four. And then finally, eventually we'll see in chapters five and six, the focus is on ethics. How are we to live as believers? And so we're in the midst of this meditation upon what is the core of the gospel? What is the doctrine of justification by faith? And so we're going to pick up in Galatians 3 and look at verses 15 through 22. As you're able, let me invite you to stand in honor of the reading and hearing of God's word. Galatians 3, verses 15-22. Paul writes, Brethren, I speak after the manner of men. Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many. but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given, which could have given life, Verily, righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." May God bless the reading and the hearing of His word in this place. Let's go to work together in prayer. Gracious God, we have come together to listen to your word, to listen to, through the medium of the inscripturated word, the teaching of the Apostle Paul as you inspired him. We would realize this morning that we are not receiving the words of any mere man, but we are receiving your God-breathed words to us. Help us to have the right spirit. Help us to have a spirit of reverence, a spirit of expectation. As we listen to your word, we ask this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, I gave the title of this message, When God Makes a Promise. And I meant by that to indicate that it's the beginning of a sentence that you are to complete. If I were to say to you, complete this sentence, when God makes a promise, he keeps it. That's how you would naturally complete the sentence. I don't know if you know this, but this passage focuses upon God as a promise making God and a promise keeping God. We all know as human beings what it's like to have promises broken. Maybe you have made promises in the past in various spheres of your life that you have broken. Or maybe you've been in situations where people have made promises to you and they haven't followed through. I know as parents, boy, I learned that, you know, children are like little lawyers. And you've got to be very careful what you say to them, because if they ask you, are we going to do thus and such, and you say yes, and then circumstances don't allow you to do it quite as quickly as they wanted, they are ready to take you to child court and say, but you promised. Some of you heard us tell the story that when our eldest was little, she got a little CD, a free CD with some crayons about the Crayola Crayon Factory in Eastern Pennsylvania, and she asked me if I could take her there, and I made the mistake of saying, yes, we'll go someday. And every year I heard about it. We haven't gone to the Crayola Crayon Factory yet. And I didn't follow through on that promise. I think she was probably about five I think it was probably when she was about 11 or 12, finally, we went to the Crayola Crayon Factory in Eastern Pennsylvania, which is a wonderful place to visit, by the way. Not much else there, but it is a tremendous place to visit. But she kept holding me to that promise, and I had to keep it. Well, the Scriptures teach us that the God of the Bible is not like fallible and weak men. that when he pledges to do something, that he follows through on it, and he does it. Again, as a minister, when I've conducted weddings, and you go through the wedding liturgy, and you're guiding a couple and taking those wedding vows, and they're standing before God, most importantly, and then standing before witnesses of a congregation, and they make vows to love and to cherish one another. in sickness and in health. Till death do they part. I wonder, how is it that so many people can stand forward and make those vows and then later break them? How can people do things like that? And yet we know how. Because we know our own hearts. And we know that we're not always the promise keepers that we should be. Certainly in the scriptures, there's a very high view held of keeping promises and keeping vows. In Ecclesiastes 5, 4 and 5, Solomon writes, When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldst not vow, than that thou shouldst vow and not pay. Jesus likewise taught that our yea should be yea and our nay, nay. And he taught his disciples that anyone who would come after him and be his follower should first sit down and count the cost, lest he be like one who starts to build a tower and isn't able to complete it, or one who goes out to war and doesn't have the forces needed to meet the enemy. He taught that in Luke 14. Do not make pledges and promises that you cannot keep. In our passage today, Paul is going to point out that there is a model for integrity and consistency and promise keeping. And it is found in the character of God himself. That our God is consistent. That our God is trustworthy. that our God is a promise-keeping God. Now I want to remind, I alluded to this a few moments ago, but let me call this back before your attention again. What is the book of Galatians about? Why does Paul write this letter? It's a polemical letter. It's one in which he is exhorting and confronting people that he believes have fallen into error, and he often says things that could be taken as being quite pejorative. We saw at the beginning of Galatians 3.1, he called them, oh, foolish Galatians. But the problem was, again, Paul had preached the pure gospel in his church, but then in his absence, false teachers had come in. And they had perverted the gospel. They had taught, not only did you need faith in Jesus, but you needed to keep the Old Testament law. And in particular, you needed to be circumcised. And Paul is now confronting these teachers. We could say that these teachers said that what you really needed was Jesus plus Moses. You needed what Jesus did on Mount Calvary and you need what Moses received on Mount Sinai. You need Jesus plus the law that was given to Moses as mediated through Moses. And in order to enter into this discussion with them, Paul counters And he says to them, wait a second, there is someone who is more important to consider in the holy history than Moses. I'm going to go back before Moses, even before Moses, and remember the promise that God made to Father Abraham. Even before God entered into the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, God justified Abraham by faith. The covenant of circumcision doesn't come until Genesis 17-18, but already in Genesis 15-6 it can be recorded that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him or credited to him for righteousness. And that's the polemic, the reasoning over scriptures that Paul continues to work through with the Galatians in the passage that we look at today. Let's start our exposition looking at chapter 3 and verse 15. Paul starts off by addressing the church here to whom he's writing and he starts off Brethren, I think I pointed out last week or maybe the week before how although Paul is going to have some hard things to say to these folk in Galatia, he still recognizes that they are his spiritual kin. that they are brethren. And so he's speaking to them as Christian brothers. He says, brethren, I speak after the manner of men. And this is a phrase that Paul uses elsewhere in his letters. It's found in First Corinthians nine, eight, Romans six, 19. When Paul says, I speak after the manner of men, he means I'm going to speak in ordinary, straightforward, an intelligible speech to you. Now, we might read this passage and say, oh, really, Paul? Because, quite honestly, this is a very difficult passage to understand. And perhaps even when I read it, you might have been sat there thinking, OK, what is he really saying here? How can we understand this? But Paul is telling them, I'm going to try to speak in a straightforward, plain manner with you. And then he says, here in verse 15. Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. And what Paul is doing here is he's not calling the covenant that God had with Abraham or the covenant he had with Moses a human covenant. What he is doing is drawing an analogy And this was often done in the Jewish way of thinking, an analogy from the lesser to the greater. What he is saying here is that if human beings know how to make contracts or covenants with one another, and if they know how to make covenants that are binding and that cannot be changed, then how much more does the God of the Bible know how to enter into contracts or covenants that are binding and will not be changed. Now, if you've ever entered into a contract or covenant, let's say you've sat down and you've entered into a mortgage to buy your home. After you close the deal with the attorneys, you don't go home and say, you know, I think I'm going to alter that agreement a little bit. I think the payment is a little too high. I'd like to lower the interest rate. And I'm just going to pencil in a few changes to the contract. No, you can't take that agreement and disannul it. and make it void. It's a binding agreement. The contract has to be agreed to by both parties. And this is Paul's point. Again, if human beings know how to enter into covenants that cannot be unilaterally disannulled or added to, how much more can we trust God to be faithful in the covenants that he has made to us? How much more can we trust him to keep the promises that he has made to us? And then in verse 16, Paul reminds us that covenant promises were made to Abraham of old. Now to Abraham, verse 16, and his seed were the promises made. And what he's referring to here is probably Got to go back to Genesis 12 verses 1 through 3. We read this last week. It's hard, again, to overestimate how important Genesis 12, 1 through 3 is for understanding all of holy history. But this is the place where when God calls Abraham, and to leave his father's house and go to a land that he will show him, and he promises, I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So a promise was made to Abraham that he would make him a great nation, and that through him all nations would be blessed. Now this is what is called an unconditional covenant. Does it say there, did God say to Abraham, Abraham, if you complete your part of the bargain, then I will do all these things for you. No. He simply makes a unilateral promise. Irrespective of Abraham, God makes this pledge or this promise to him. And then he's going to specifically interact with a promise that is made to Abraham in Genesis 22, 18, where it says, And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Actually, in thy seed. Now go back, think of Genesis 22, 18, and go back to Galatians 3, verse 16, where Paul here is going to engage in, I guess what we could call a bit of exposition, study of this particular promise that was given to Abraham, and he's going to focus in on a single word within this promise from Genesis 22, 18. He says, He saith not unto seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. So he makes a point of interpretation. And the point is, sounds kind of like a preacher, doesn't he? Now, friends and neighbors. Genesis 22, 18, God did not say to Abraham, I am going to bless thy seeds, plural, but I'm going to bless thy seed, singular. I want you to notice a couple of things about this. First of all, note that Paul models for us here a concern for every word of scripture. every word of Scripture. What he's saying is the interpretation of Genesis 22, 18. It matters whether or not the word is seeds or seed. It matters whether it's plural or singular. Jesus taught that not one jot or tittle would pass away from the written word till all was fulfilled, Matthew 5, 18. We call this the plenary verbal inspiration view of Scripture, plenary means full, that every word of Scripture is inspired and every word is important. And brethren, when you have that conviction, it's going to change a lot about your faith and your practice of the faith. Let me tell you one thing that will change. If you begin believing that every single word of God is inspired, the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture, then you're going to want to understand what every word is. For example, it's going to make you probably want to go to a church where they actually exposit the scriptures, where the messages aren't topics based on a couple of verses strung together from hither and yon. If God's word is fully inspired and every word matters, We better listen to what every word has to say. We better study it, and we better listen to it. It also, friends, will begin to affect the way you think about the text of Scripture. It's not just something for academics to ponder somewhere. But if Paul thought it made a difference in Genesis 22, 18, whether the word was plural or singular, and that difference made all the world's difference for the interpretation of that passage, guess what? That same principle applies to every other verse in the Scriptures. And so we better know what text of Scripture we have before us. Second, Paul is modeling, again, the importance of studying and expositing the scriptures. And then thirdly, Paul is making a sophisticated, logical argument against the Judaizers. The Judaizers were those who were teaching you need to be circumcised, you need to keep the law to be a Christian. And I think it's this sophisticated argument that gets maybe the reading of this to be a little bit murky. You know, it's God's Word and let's soldier through it and see if we can find the significance here. You see, the Judaizers wanted to go back to Moses and the law. They wanted to say Christ plus Moses. But once again, Paul trumps them by going even further back and say, no, not Christ plus Moses, but Christ in continuity with Abraham. who preceded Moses. Furthermore, he says, there was a promise made to Abraham, not that his seeds, plural, would be blessed. What does that mean? Not that his physical descendants merely, not merely those who are ethnically Jewish, would be blessed. But, Paul says, it's singular. but that his seed would be blessed. Not all the physical offspring of Abraham, but one from his line. And who is that one? Paul tells us that one is Christ. And to thy seed, verse 16, which is Christ? If you were to take the Gospels, and there are two Gospels that have what are called genealogies, where they trace the line, the physical descent of Jesus. In Matthew's Gospel, it is traced through Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, who adopted him and gave him sort of his legal line. And then in Luke's Gospel, Luke chapter 3, his lineage is traced through Mary. Both of them include the fact that Jesus came from the line of Abraham. If you search those genealogies in Matthew 1, you search the genealogy in Luke 3, you'll find that Jesus came through Abraham. The still further implication that Paul will draw later on as he's going to unfold this argument in Galatians 3, is that all those who are in Christ as the seed, singular, of Abraham, will also be blessed by virtue of the fact that they are in him, that they have union with him. You see what the point Paul's making? God promised that he would bless the seed, singular, of Abraham. By that, he's saying you're not blessed just because you're ethically Jewish, just because you're a physical descendant of Father Abraham. But you're blessed if you are in the seed. If you are in Christ. Whether you're Jew or Gentile, you are blessed if you are in Christ. If you know Christ. In verse 17, Paul makes the point that the law was given to Moses only some 430 years after the covenant was made with Abraham. And so look at verse 17. And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was 430 years after, cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect. You see his point here is? See, God made a promise to Abraham and the fact that 430 years later he gave the law to Moses does not disannul the promise that he made to Abraham. God is a covenant keeping God. He doesn't He would not allow one covenant to cancel out the promises that he previously gave, because he's an internally consistent, a faithful, and an unchanging God. In verse 18, then Paul adds that the inheritance of the believer does not come of the law. That is, the keeping of the law. So in verse 18 he says, for if the inheritance be of the law, It is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. What he's pointing out here is that God promised Abraham that all nations would be blessed in his seed. And when he did this, he did not make it contingent upon Abraham first doing something that God required. If that had been the case, Then Abraham might have claimed some ground for boasting. He could have said the nations were blessed through my seed because I was so faithful. Or he could say the nations were blessed because I was so obedient. And no, that's not the point at all, Paul is going to say. It's not through law keeping, but it's through promise. God gave this covenant to Abraham by promise. The start of verse 19 has Paul asking a key rhetorical question. Look at the very first sentence in verse 19. Wherefore then serveth the law? Wherefore then serveth the law? If you were to read it in Greek, it literally reads simply, why then the law? Why then the law? And really, that was a question that really occupied Paul's thought. It's there in Romans, it's here in Galatians. If God established this covenant with Abraham, if God promised to bless all nations through his seed, Christ, and he made this with no contingent obligation on the part of Abraham or the people, why 430 years later did God give the law on Mount Sinai to Moses? What is the significance of the law that was given to Moses? Paul reflects in verse 19 and he notes three important things about the law. First, he says in verse 19, it was added because of transgressions. It was added because of transgressions. The law was given due to the sinful and depraved inclinations of the human heart. It was given to restrain sin and to open the consciences of men to make them aware of their sin. Second, he says, it was in all aspects only provisional until the coming of Christ. Look at verse 19. After he says it was added because of transgressions, he says till the seed whose Christ should come to whom the promise was made. This is why we believe that once Christ has come, we're no longer obligated to keep what are called the ceremonial and civil aspects of the law. We're no longer obligated to try to keep the Passover. We're no longer obligated to try to keep the dietary laws, because those were provisional until the coming of Christ. The moral laws we've seen before, that does continue to extend, but the ceremonial, civil aspects of the law do not. And then thirdly, Paul says, that the law was ordained of angels. Look at verse 19 again. And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. The scriptures seem to affirm that God is so holy and men are so distant from him that even before the incarnation of Christ, God often used creatures to mediate his commands to his people. And it is taught in several places in the scriptures that angels were used to mediate the law to Moses. Stephen, the first Christian martyr in Acts 7.53, speaks of the law being given by the disposition of angels. And the mediator here probably refers to Moses himself. God used Moses as a mediator to give his law to his people. Next, in verse 20, Paul says, Now, a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. What does that verse mean? I have to tell you, as I was studying for this and looked at this verse and began to turn it over, I was comforted by the fact that I read the commentators and almost all of them said this verse is very difficult to understand. The old Puritan expositor Matthew Poole noted about verse 20 said, this text is acknowledged by all interpreters to be very obscure. John Brown, the Scottish divine in 1853 observed, perhaps no passage in scripture has received so many interpretations as this. And then John Brown, in his commentary on this verse, cites a scholar of his day who traced no less than 250 different interpretations of this verse. The Dutch scholar Herman Ritterbos, writing a commentary in 1953, said that there were at least 430 interpretations in this verse, matching the 430 years between Abraham and Moses in verse 17. Now, a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. What does that mean? But we can ask some questions. Is the mediator he's talking about here Moses? Or is it Christ? Or is it any mediator? Is Paul making a positive statement here? An approving statement? Something that he approves of? Or is he quoting his opponents as he often does? Is he contrasting the promise to Abraham and the giving of the law? What's going on here? Martin Luther interpreted verse 20 as follows. He says it means God offendeth no man and therefore needeth no mediator. But we offend God and therefore we need a mediator. That was Luther's interpretation. If we were to attempt to exposit this, with some trepidation, I think we should break it up and look at each part. First of all, it says, now a mediator is not a mediator of one. And I think the simplest way to interpret that is simply to conclude that Paul is making kind of an obvious point here, that if there is a mediator, that implies that he is mediating between two conflicting or opposing parties or sides or ideas. Now, a mediator is not a mediator of one. If you have one opinion, there's no need for mediation, right? And then the second part is, he adds, but God is one. And I think perhaps the point he's making here is stressing the idea that there is no inherent self-contradiction in God and in his character. There's no contradiction in God's character. God doesn't act with self-contradictory motives. He does not act inconsistently. He's not like the pre-Christian Greek gods who are capricious. One minute they can be friendly to men and the next minute they can play tricks on them. One minute they can bless, and the next minute they can curse. He's not like the god, the Allah of Islam. If you've ever read any of the Hadith about what Muslims believe about Allah, he's completely capricious. One day a man can do good works, and he can say that man can go into paradise. The next day it can be a man who's a mass murderer, has never done any good deeds, and he can capriciously allow that man to go into paradise. But the God of the Bible, I think Paul is saying, is not like that. The God of the Bible is one. He is not filled with illogical inconsistencies. And I think in this case it leads to Paul's greater point. God did not enter into a covenant with Abraham and justify him by faith. and then later on decide, no, I've got a better idea. Instead of that plan, I'll give them the law through Moses, and if they can keep the law, then they can be justified in my sight. No. I think what Paul is saying is that the giving of the law doesn't contradict the unconditional covenant of faith that God made with Abraham. This interpretation, I think, is supported by the next question Paul poses in verse 21. Is the law, then, against the promises of God? Is the law against the promises of God? Does the giving of a law contradict the promises that were made to Abraham? And Paul's answer to that, if you look at verse 21, what's his answer? God forbid, this is one of our favorite, favorite Pauline phrases in Greek, Meganito. Let it not even be thought about. Let it not even be mentioned. Does the law contradict the promises? No, not at all. And then he goes on to say in verse 21, for if there had been a law given which could have given life. Verily, righteousness should have been by the law. I think what he's saying here is that if the giving of the law was capable of giving life, if God could just give the law and we could just obey all the aspects of the law and be justified in God's sight, then Paul is saying, I wouldn't be preaching justification by faith alone. I would be preaching justification by the law. I would just I would preach you could be in good standing with God if you just get circumcised, if you just keep dietary laws, if you just obey Passover, if you just keep the Sabbath, if you just do all those things, you can be justified in God's sight. But instead, Paul says, I'm preaching the Abraham gospel, that you're justified by grace, through faith, not by works, lest any man should boast. The old Protestant fathers spoke of three uses of the law. First, they said it is like a bridle to restrain us from sin. Second, it is like a mirror to show us our sin and to make us aware of our need for Christ. And third, it is like a map to guide us in faithful living. But they never taught that the law can give life. Can the law give life? No. Paul sums things up in verse 22 by saying this. But the Scripture hath concluded, all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. The first half of this verse is also interesting to interpret. What does Paul mean here? But the Scripture hath concluded, all under sin. And the translation here in the King James Version, hath concluded, is a rendering of the Greek verb which means literally to make or to declare someone to be a prisoner. The Scripture has confined or imprisoned all under sin. I don't think that means that the Scripture has actively done this, but what it's saying is that the Scripture declares that men are all fast bound under sin. We are depraved There is a radical discord in our hearts that means we cannot keep God's law. That's why we can't be justified by law-keeping. We send in Adam, our first parent, and now we have added to that our own personal, individual transgressions of the law. This is man's problem. This is man's plight. If we don't get the first part of verse 22, we're not going to understand our existence or the existence of the rest of humanity upon planet Earth. But the scripture has concluded all under sin. It's so interesting. I mentioned this, I think, last week when we face things like the horrific bombing that took place in Boston. People have no category for sin. They just can't understand it. These fellows went to good schools. They were friendly. One fellow is married, he's got a child. Surely he would want to do good and do right. And this is the problem with the liberal, optimistic, humanistic view of human beings. They don't take into account the fact that we are sinners. The best of men are men at best. Paul is saying the scriptures, the scriptures have confined, imprisoned, declared what is the reality that all men are under sin. The problem with these Judaizers, I think Paul is saying, is they have way too optimistic a view of who you are. They think you can be in right standing by God by being circumcised? They keep it a few laws by keeping the Passover, by not working on the Sabbath. That's going to, you think your efforts, that's going to justify you in God's sight? You think you can be in right standing with God if you're a good person? Well, Paul says no. The solution to our plight is in the second half of verse 22. that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that belief. Not works of righteousness, but faith, belief in Jesus Christ. I said last week, Paul never gets tired of beating the drum of justification by faith alone. He just beats the drum and beats the drum and beats the drum. He never gets tired of it. He never tires of it. Let me draw a few spiritual applications as we come to the conclusion and work through the passage. First of all, I want you to note that we are all prone to fall into the trap of thinking that we can be justified by God by means of our own law keeping. We are all prone to the same error that the Galatians fell into. We are all prone to fall into the same snare, into the same pit. We are prone to think, if I follow the right formula, if I do the right things, if I say the right words, Even if I can find the right church, then all will be well between me and God, if I can just do the right things. Thomas Boston, the old Scottish Puritan, said this. He wrote, he said, The law is our first husband and gets everyone's virgin love. When Christ comes to the soul, he finds it married to the law. So as it neither can or will be married to another till it be obliged to part with the first husband. The law gets our virgin love and then Christ comes and says, I'm your true partner. You've got to be separated from thinking that you're going to get a right gain of right standing with God by what you do. But it's all what I have done today. This passage, hard to interpret as it is, calls us to examine ourselves once again. Isn't that what the Christian life is about? You know, some people present the Christian life as just some kind of simple, you walk an aisle, you pray a prayer, and it's all done with, you know. But those of us who've been on the path for a while know that's not what it is. It's continual, it's incessant. It's Lord's day by Lord's day, day by day, coming before the Lord and examining yourself. Testing yourself. Asking yourself, am I resting wholly in Christ or am I resting in myself? To whom am I looking? Who am I trusting? Trusting myself or am I trusting in Christ? And this passage is calling us once again to get in the prayer closet. This is a test that no one can take for you. No one can do it by prophecy. You must examine your own heart. Second spiritual point that this passage points us to is we are led by this passage to meditate on the consistent and faithful character of the God of the scriptures. He is a promise-keeping God. He is a covenant-keeping God. When God makes a promise, He keeps it. He made a promise to Abraham that in his seed, singular, all nations would be blessed. And it would be hundreds of years before this would happen in the fullness of time when Christ came. Abraham, in his lifetime upon the earth, never saw it. He just had to trust that this would be what God would accomplish. And the witness of the Scriptures is that this is, in fact, what God accomplished through Christ. This teaches us, it tells us that our God is a covenant-keeping God, He's a promise-keeping God. And what this tells us on a very practical level is that He will keep all the promises that He makes to us in His Word. He promises, for example, to save all those who look not to themselves, but who look to Christ. Children, youth, perhaps not profess faith yet in Christ publicly. I want you to understand that one of the promises God gives us in his word. Are you listening, children? One of the promises he gives us in his word is Romans 10, 13. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved." Did you know that even if you're a little child, and you pray, and you call upon the Lord with a sincere heart, and you say, God, I am a sinner, and I need You, and Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and I believe in Him. The Bible tells you that you will be saved. That's a promise God has given us in His Word. If you call upon Him, you will be saved. He's a faithful God. He will keep his word if you'll trust him. He promises those of you who are believers, he promises to sanctify those who are saved and he promises ultimately to glorify us. Jesus prayed for his disciples in John 17, 17, he prayed, sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is truth. Don't you think God the Father will listen to the prayers of Jesus the Son and sanctify his people? In the golden chain of redemption in Romans 8 30, Paul wrote that those whom God justified, he also glorified. One day, all the aches and pains we have in this tent will be done. One day, all the struggles with sin will be done and we will be glorified. That's one of God's promises to us. He kept his promise to Abraham, do you think he will keep this promise to you? Another promise he gives us in his word is that he works all things together for our good. Romans 8, 28, he works all things together for our good. Trials, triumphs. Victory, setbacks, discouragements, encouragements. He works all things together for our good. Did he keep his promise to Abraham? Will he keep this promise to you, fellow believer? He promises that he will provide for our material needs. Psalm 37, 25 says, I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. He said, consider the lilies of the field. Consider the birds of the air. Did he keep his promise to Abraham? Will he keep this promise? He promises in his word that he will come again one day to set all things right and to take us to himself. In John 14, three, he said to his disciples, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, you may be also. Did he keep his promise to Abraham? Will he keep his promise to his people, to his disciples? Friends, let us rest in this good word today. When God makes a promise, he keeps it. He keeps it. Give me about you a stand. Let's pray. Gracious and living God, we are thankful. That you have moved toward us, you loved us before we loved you. And you have been so kind as to send us father, your son in the fullness of time. And then you sent your apostles to establish the faith and to write down the scriptures so that we would have a confident, trustworthy place where we could learn about your will and your ways. And Father, we are so thankful that you have provided for your people in such sufficient ways. Gracious God, allow us to understand the truths that we have ponder today and to apply them in our lives. We ask this in Christ's name, Amen.