I want to tell you that this business of covenant drives all of Scripture, and it drives all of this plan of salvation. It's all bound up in this business of covenant. Now, if you're a child of God, you're a child of God by virtue of covenant, by virtue of covenant. And that word covenant is not a word that we use very often today, but it simply means agreement. And I say to you that if you're a child of God, you are by virtue of God committing Himself, God making certain agreements. And so covenant is central to Scripture. And you and I, if we are believers in Jesus Christ, are engaged in this covenant that God made with Abraham. And I want to just tell you that God has this thing that is called a covenant of grace. And my friends, this is the covenant in which God a plan in which God pledged Himself to break the friendship between sinners and Satan and to restore those sinners to fellowship with Himself on the basis of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. I'm ashamed to admit tonight that I was a Christian for several years before I understood God's covenant of grace. And it's very important that you have in your mind that definition that I gave you about God's covenant of grace. And I say to you again, it's God's pledge and His plan to save sinners, to restore them, to break their friendship with Satan, and to bring them into friendship with Himself. through the redeeming work of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you're saved tonight, it's because God pledged Himself in this covenant of grace to save sinners. Now, most of you are aware that there are several covenants in the Bible. And you have to be very careful whenever you come to these different covenants in the Bible. Because some, when they come to these different covenants, here we're dealing with the Abrahamic covenant, and some talk about the covenant that God made with Noah, the Noach covenant, and we're familiar with the covenant that God made at Mount Sinai with the people of Israel, the Mosaic covenant. And we get on into the life of the nation of Israel and we find David coming to the throne of the nation and there is the Davidic covenant. And I say to you, you have to be very careful because you can get the impression, and some in fact have taught this, that God is first trying one plan of salvation and then another. And here's poor God. He says, well, we've got this. He says to his heavenly counsel, we've got this problem on our hands. We need to find a way to save sinners. And he says, let's try this. And he gives that a go. And it doesn't work very well. And so in great lamentation, God says, well, that didn't work so hot. Better try something else. So I'm going to come up with a new plan. And here's another covenant. And that one didn't work either. And so God then tried another covenant. That one didn't work very well either. And so you have God frantically running from one thing to the other and not being able to find a solution. And I've even heard Baptist pastors stand in pulpits and say, and after God exhausted every other avenue, He finally decided to send His Son. And one of the angels, after all of these failed plans of salvation, said to the Lord, Well, Lord, what is your plan if this one doesn't work? And with tears streaming down his cheeks, God said, I have no other plan. It just breaks your heart, doesn't it? Here's poor God. Just poor God. He's not able to accomplish his plans. He's not able to accomplish his purposes. And what I'm saying to you tonight, my friends, is that the covenant of grace is the grand covenant. It's the covenant in which God pledges to restore sinners to Himself through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. And every other covenant that you find in the Bible is simply an outworking, a further manifestation, a subsidiary part of that grand covenant. Nothing replaces the covenant of grace. And when the Lord Jesus came to this earth, it wasn't because God had exhausted every other avenue and He finally sent His Son. God planned to send the Lord Jesus Christ even before the world began. And Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. The redeeming work of Christ Jesus is the central part of that covenant of grace, and it has been in the mind and the heart of God from eternity past, and nothing has ever taken the redeeming work of Jesus Christ from that central position that it occupies in the covenant of grace. Now that's my introduction. I want to just have that clearly in mind. And I grew up with this teaching of God trying one thing, and then God trying another, and then God trying another. And I know that several others have come up with that teaching as well, and I just want to say to you that you do terrible disservice to God, you dishonor God. when you portray Him as frantically running from one thing to the other and not being able to find a plan of salvation and finally sending His Son and not even being sure that that would work. That's terribly derogatory toward the honor of God. God's always had one plan of salvation, and that one plan of salvation, my friends, is going to bring to the throne of God in eternity future a multitude of redeemed people who've been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, and God's plan of salvation is not going to fail. And everybody in heaven, mind you, everybody in heaven will be there by virtue of the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I know that you don't need to convert theologians, but I feel better having said it. And so I did it for myself. That's very, very selfish of me, I guess. I do hope that you have this firmly in your minds. Now, the Abrahamic covenant is God carrying His plan of redemption forward. My friends, this is what the whole Bible is about. It's about God moving His plan of redemption forward. Now, here in Genesis chapter 17, look at verse 4, God is speaking to Abraham, and He says, As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, And I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you." Oh my, we're here in this covenant. Verse 8, "'Also I give to you and your descendants after you "'the land in which you are a stranger, "'all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, "'and I will be their God.'" Now, three points, as I said in the sermon. First of all, we have the provisions of this covenant. And this covenant that God made with Abraham, ladies and gentlemen, has to do with this business of fatherhood, fatherhood. Now, yes, there are many things here in the text that I'm not going to touch on this evening. Those of you who were not with us last Sunday night, I will simply say to you that I gave an overview of this 17th chapter of Genesis, and now I've gone back. I'm going back to work out just a few of the details. And so I hope that in the process of doing both those, I haven't neglected or ignored too many things. But this covenant has to do with Abraham as a father. And God here states four things about Abraham as a father. He first of all tells him that he's going to be the father of a multitude. Last Sunday evening, I talked with you about this chapter and I talked about the God who changes things and the God who makes a difference as He changes things. And I talked to you about how that God changed Abram's name from Abram, which means exalted father, to Abraham, which is father of a multitude. And God said to Abraham, Abraham, you're going to be the father of a multitude of people. And so Abram is not going to be a fitting name for you. That's the first provision in this covenant. Right there in verse 4, he says to him that he will be a father of many nations. And then this promise is repeated there in verse 5. And also in verse 6, where he is told that many nations will be made from him, from Abraham. And this change in his name reflects this. Now here's the second provision of this covenant. It has to do with Abraham as a father. He's going to be the father of many nations. And secondly, we're told that kings will spring from him. Look at your sixth verse there. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. I will make nations of you. That's the first provision in this covenant. Now here's the second provision. And kings shall come from you. Now, ladies and gentlemen, here is where this particular covenant takes on a thrilling aspect. kings shall come from you. And you all, being first-rate Bible scholars, know that Abraham was the father of the Jewish nation, and you know that in the process of time, the Jewish nation was ruled over by kings. And you know further that the nation had many great kings, all the kings of Israel. sprang from Abraham. They were all descendants of Abraham because he was the father of the Jewish nation. That includes David, that includes Solomon, and that includes Hezekiah and Jehoshaphat, these great names in the history of the Jewish nation. But I say to you, my friends, that all of these great kings who descended from Abraham did not exhaust this particular promise, that this particular promise looked beyond all those kings to the coming of another king, and that is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and this promise finds its ultimate fulfillment in the King of Kings. the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I said, this takes on a thrilling aspect to it. And then here's the third provision of this covenant. It has to do with this business of fatherhood. He's going to be the father of many nations, the father of a multitude. He's going to be the father of kings. And yes, even the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, sprang from Abraham. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this earth. as a member of the Jewish nation, with Abraham as his father. But now look at verse 7, and here's the third aspect to Abraham's fatherhood, and that is that there would be a spiritual aspect to it. He says there in verse 7, I will establish God is speaking to him. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you." Now, we're told here that there's a spiritual aspect to this covenant and that God is covenanting with Abraham and his descendants to be God. to them, to be God to them. Now, we come here, ladies and gentlemen, to a very important thing, and I believe that this has caused a great deal of confusion among the people of God down through the years. There are a lot of people who have the idea that God made this covenant with Abraham, and through Abraham, he made a covenant with all the Jews, And all that was necessary for the people to be saved in the Old Testament was just to be born into the Jewish nation. And just because they were descendants of Abraham, they were automatically in the kingdom. They were automatically children of God. And I say to you, my friends, listen, I have encountered people down through the years who have had that notion. May I put this very delicately? That's wrong. That's wrong. People were never brought into a saving relationship with God by virtue of their physical birth. That was Nicodemus' problem, you remember? And Jesus straightened him out. Jesus said to him when Nicodemus came to him that your physical birth is not sufficient, Nicodemus. You've got to be born again. You've got to be born from above. You've got to have a spiritual birth which the Spirit of God alone can supply. And many, I say, have made this very mistake. And many today have the idea, well, all the Israelites of the Old Testament era were in the kingdom by virtue of being Israelites. My friends, the true descendants of Abraham, the Bible makes this abundantly clear. I'm surprised that so many seem to miss this. The true descendants of Abraham are those who have the faith of Abraham. And Jesus engaged in controversy with the religious leaders of His day because they were priding themselves on being descendants of Abraham. And Jesus said to them, God can raise up descendants of Abraham from these stones. The issue is not the blood of Abraham. The issue is the faith of Abraham. And now I'm finding us again in this covenant because I'm telling you that if you are a child of God, if you're saved, if you have the faith of Abraham, you are a descendant of Abraham. And so there's a, the spiritual aspect of this covenant is what counts. And in speaking to Abraham along these lines and saying, I will be God to you and to your descendants, God is speaking about those who share the faith of Abraham. And my friends, He's pledging to be God to all of those who have the faith of Abraham. And if you have the faith of Abraham, my friend, He is God to you. He's God to you. And then there's one other provision pertaining to this business of fatherhood. Now, some of you are saying, well, this is more like a Bible study. It won't hurt you to study the Bible a little bit. You can profit from Bible study. Be patient, be patient. Here's the fourth provision of this covenant relating to the fatherhood of Abraham, and that is that it would have this everlasting quality about it. And God says there in verse 7, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant. And there in verse 8, he says, I will give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you're a stranger, all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Now, there are a lot of people who understand The spiritual aspect of the covenant that I've already talked about, the descendants of Abraham are those who have the faith of Abraham. But then when they come to this business of the land of Canaan, they backslide and they forget the spiritual, the spiritual nature of this covenant. May I just simply say to you tonight, if you are If you have the faith of Abraham, you have Abraham's God as your God, and you have the land of Canaan as your possession. The land of Canaan is your possession. Someone will say, well, how can that be, the land of Canaan? Do you understand that that physical land of Canaan that Abraham was living in was emblematic of the heavenly Canaan? Oh, this is getting good. I'm beginning to enjoy my own sermon. I hope there's nothing wrong with that. That physical land of Canaan in which Abraham was dwelling was emblematic of the heavenly Canaan. And that is the possession of every single child of God, and that is the fulfillment of what we have here in verse 8. Now, some of you are more exercised over the land of Canaan over there in the east than you are over the heavenly Canaan. And I don't care to get into all of the prophetic details and the ins and the outs, but I am saying to you that even Abraham himself looked beyond that physical land of Canaan, that earthly Canaan, to a heavenly Canaan, and that is brought out powerfully in Hebrews chapter 11. Just read it for yourself. And even Abraham did not see that physical land of Canaan as being the ultimate fulfillment of this promise. He looked forward to that heavenly Canaan. And if you have his faith, you're one of his descendants. And if you're one of his descendants, you possess a Canaan which is far superior to any earthly Canaan. You possess a heavenly Canaan and you will finally enter that heavenly Canaan in new time. You'll finally be received as of God. And all that Canaan will far surpass any earthly Canaan. That land of Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey. What shall we say about that heavenly Canaan? Must have grapes as big as watermelons. What a day that will be when we come into possession of that. Now, we're involved here. in this covenant that God made with Abraham. And in making this covenant with Abraham, God's not setting aside His plan of salvation. He's not setting aside the covenant of grace. He's carrying this covenant of grace forward. He's creating a nation now, and there had to be a nation so that the Messiah could come to a nation. And God's doing that. He's marking out a nation, and He's refining His plan of redemption, and He's moving it forward. Now, you have all been very patient with me as I have unburdened myself about some things that just kind of irritate me. Some of these things are kind of like rocks in my shoes. And Sylvia and my two sons and my sweet daughter-in-law and Annie, my Yorkie-poo, have to listen to me unburden myself from time to time about these things that just bug the tar out of me. And I have decided to give them peace tonight and just to unburden myself to you. And you've been very patient as I have done so. I'm through being tedious now. Some of you are saying, that'll be the day. And I want to just bring this to a quick conclusion here by talking with you about two things. I want to talk with you about the marvel of this covenant. The marvel of this covenant. And the marvel of it is found there in that fourth verse where God says to Abraham, as for me, my covenant is with you. My covenant is with you. And to feel the marvel of this covenant, now listen, we're all bound up here if we're believers. You all, have you followed me sufficiently enough to know that we're all here if we're believers in Jesus? That if we have the faith, faith in God, faith in His plan of salvation, faith in the redeeming work of Christ, we're all here. If we have the faith of Abraham, we're the descendants of Abraham. So, what God says here to Abraham, He says to each of us, and you tonight, I just like to send you away from here with your hearts singing. And I stew over the people of God today because it seems like their hearts don't sing sufficiently over this plan of salvation. And I wonder, how do you view this business of salvation anyway? What kind of plan of salvation do you have in that noggin of yours that doesn't make you want to sing and to glorify God? Oh, I think, of course, I'm not talking about any of you. I'm talking about those people who don't come on Sunday night. You sang pretty good tonight. But this plan of salvation was calculated, ladies and gentlemen, not only to restore us to a proper relationship with God and to bring glory to God in the process, but it was calculated to thrill a man's heart. And I'd just like to send you away tonight with your hearts singing, and here's the way I choose to do this. I'm just asking you to hear God speaking these words to you. Individual believer, just hear God saying to you, My covenant is with you. My covenant is with you. You are saved, God says, because I have established a covenant with you. And you will not appreciate the enormity of that statement if you don't understand the my and if you don't understand the you. Here is God saying to each believer, my covenant is with you. Now, think about God for a moment. Here is the sovereign God of the universe. And here you are. Oh, we've gotten so delicate about these things. We don't like to think of ourselves as wretched sinners, but that's what the Bible says about us. We've changed some of the words in our hymns. We don't like that word. We're such a worm as I. And we say, well, no, that's heaping indignity upon us. My friends, we were nothing but wretched, miserable sinners, unworthy of anything except the justice of a holy God, and yet here is God saying, My covenant is with you. There is a sense in which we can even understand those words, My covenant is with you. I'm enjoying my own sermon again. There's a sense in which we can understand God the Father speaking those very words to God the Son back there in eternity past. What we have God doing here in Genesis chapter 17 is establishing a covenant with one, Abraham, for the benefit of many, all of his descendants. And I'm saying, my friends, there's a sense in which we can understand God speaking these very words to the Lord Jesus Christ back there in eternity past, saying, My covenant is with you. And He made a covenant with His Son, Jesus Christ, there in eternity past, for the benefit of many. He made a covenant with one for the benefit of many. And in that covenant, God, God pledged himself to save a people and God appointed his son, Jesus, as the surety for those people to stand good for those people and to meet every demand on behalf of those people. And he appointed Jesus as that surety. And the Holy Spirit was part of that covenant and He said, those people, God, on whom you've set your heart and those people for whom Jesus has been appointed as the surety, those are the people and I will work in their hearts. I will work in their hearts. I will bring enlightenment to them and I will bring regeneration to them. Oh, my friends, you and I are part of this. and we should be thrilled to hear God saying these words to Jesus. My covenant is with you, and we should be thrilled to hear God saying these words to us. My covenant is with you. God desiring friendship with me, Roger Ellsworth, undeserving of anything pertaining to God, undeserving of it all, deserving only his wrath, and he says, I have placed my heart on you, and my covenant is with you, and I have written your name on the palm of my hand. This is beginning to get good, isn't it? The marvel of this covenant. And here's the certainty of it. God says there in verse 4, you shall be. He says, now, some of you have a very inferior view of God. You have God saying, well, I'm going to try to do this. I'm not sure I'll be able to succeed. Here's Abraham. He's 99 years old. And God says, I'm going to make you a father of many nations. And Abraham has only one descendant at this point, and God has already said, he ain't it. This promise is not going to be, that's the literal translation of the Hebrew. The promise is not going to be fulfilled through Ishmael. We talked about that last Sunday. Abraham said, oh, that Ishmael might live before him. God said, no way, Hosea. No way. Ishmael is not going to cut it. And here is Abraham, he's 99 years old, and God is not in a panic. God isn't saying, now I'm going to try to do this. I'm not sure we're going to be able to pull this off. This is a toughie. God says, Abraham, I'm going to make, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And it's interesting to me that he says there in verse 5, I have made you. What? How did that get in there, that past tense? I have made you. Not I will make you. Now he's using the past tense. I have made you. He says, Abraham, this is so sure, this covenant that I'm establishing with you, that we can speak of it in the past tense as if it were already accomplished. It's so sure of being accomplished that we might as well talk of it as being accomplished. I have made you. All my friends, God doesn't try to do anything. This is the sovereign God who rules and reigns over all. And when God says He will do something, He will do it. God will not fail to save His people. God will not fail to bring His people safely home. God has pledged Himself. And when God pledges Himself, He achieves what He pledges. Let's bow together for prayer.