Unfathomable Riches in Christ - Justification

And so just to bring us up to speed here, in the last three lessons we've said that an understanding of the identification truths is essential to grasping the meaning of our unfathomable riches in Christ. It's something that is different, you may have heard different ones to start with, for example, Lewis Sperry Schaefer, in his systematic theology, pulled together a summary of these unfathomable riches, and Hampton Keithley thought, well these are great, it's just a little bit too much volume, and so he kind of whittled that down. This is Hampton Keithley III.

By the way, both Mike and I had some kind of contact with him and knew him in some sense. He's home with the Lord. But before he went home with the Lord, Nancy got permission from him to reduce it down some more. document that we've been sending around here at Holly Hills. This is the one that Nancy got permission to reproduce. Others have put together listings of our unfathomable riches in Christ of different kinds. Last night I got one from a fellow I know over in Holland who said, do you mean this one? And I said, yeah, that's one of them. It was one by Arnold Fruchtenbaum. 33 things, and others have put them together as well.

And those are all good, but the difference that we're bringing out in this elective is that our being in Christ is the front door to all these things. That is, our being in Christ is the entrance, it's not simply a part of our unfathomable riches that we are in Christ. But the fact that we are in Christ is the means and the statement of everything else that we have as believers. Yes? How do our unfathomable riches in Christ relate to our blessings in the heavens? As a matter of fact, exactly. And here's why we would say that.

Ephesians 1.3 says we are blessed, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. So how many spiritual blessings do you have from God the Father? And then what's the location? In the heavenlies and what's the person? In Christ.

So in Christ, in the heavenlies, All to the credit of God the Father, you are blessed with a few spiritual blessings, most of them, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And as a matter of fact, that's not a specific, now here's one of them, It's a summary statement about all of them. So here is the Apostle Paul, when you move on, that's why we reference Ephesians not just 1.3 but 3.8, here's the Apostle Paul talking about the unfathomable riches of Christ. Those are one and the same statement, and it is in the heavenlies, in Christ, every spiritual blessing.

And even that word riches is used as we saw in chapter 1 and again in chapter 2. And we haven't gotten there yet, but we'll get there in chapter 2. So the next one, the related words redeem, redeemed, and redemption are part of a family of words related to slavery as it was practiced in biblical times. So we looked at those terms for slavery that applied to being redeemed, or the related words, last Sunday.

And the handout for that is available if you would like to pick that up. Thirdly, in Christ we are redeemed and forgiven so as to be justified. And this is what we want to put together too. Most of those summaries of here is what we have in Christ, which by the way I can say they are very well done. But the one thing we want to go a step further with here is these things are all because we are in Christ. We're blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

That's part one. But the other thing that these other listings don't show is what is the relationship between these things. If you're justified, or you're just simply justified. Well, as it turns out, we looked at it and we said no. Romans 3.24 says you're justified because through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So it is in Christ that you have the redemption and it's through that redemption that you're justified.

Then we see Ephesians 1.7 and Colossians 1.14 say that in Him we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So forgiveness and redemption are both in Him. And so let's ask this question. Here in the Church, by that I mean those from Acts 2 to the Rapture, here in the Church, is anybody going to get justified, going to be justified who is not in Christ? No. It is a prerequisite.

So what you see is you're in Christ, and you're therefore forgiven, and you're therefore redeemed. and they're therefore justifiable. God is free then, to put it one way, to declare you righteous because you are in Christ and you've been redeemed and you've been forgiven.

And we're going to introduce today one more part in that series that we're going to take another Sunday to look at entirely. So these are the two things we're doing differently. than from what I've ever seen done before. And that is, one, seeing that we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, in Christ, and all these things that we have are all because we're in Christ. In the heavenlies, to the credit of God the Father. And all we did was believe. But there's more to it than just listing these things individually.

They are biblically related. And so we want to show that. As far as I can tell, nobody's ever done that before. So we're seeing this for the first time. So now, in Christ we're redeemed and forgiven so as to be justified, which we've talked about before, but that's not all. So we're going to be looking at subsequent weeks at other things that are connected to those. So now, we look at What does the word justify mean in its simplest terms?

Declared righteous. So if you think about it, so here is forgiven and forgiven in the New Testament is put in the sense of the financial world a debt. Colossians 2, about 12 through 14, says that there was this debt note, a handwritten debt note, that was nailed to the cross. The debt's paid. The debt's ended. You killed it. The debt is paid. You've been redeemed.

And redemption is out of the slavery terminology, so forgiveness is out of an accounting and bookkeeping terminology. Redemption is out of a slavery terminology, and justified is out of the courtroom terminology, where you are declared righteous. See the difference there?

So scripture puts these terms together out of different realms. An accounting realm for forgiven. a slavery realm for redeemed. And now justified, justification, is a courtroom term. Isn't it interesting how the Bible puts that together? Yes sir? It's a legal term. Yes, I say a courtroom term, it's a legal term. Very good point. It's a legal term. And we're going to explore what does that mean here as we look at it.

So we see that In Romans 3.21-26, which you're free to turn to, or we have it in the middle of page one.

So Romans 3.21-26 says this, but now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. What does that mean? Witnessed by the law and the prophets. They wrote about it. Yeah, the Law and the Prophets. So think about it. What does that term, the Law and the Prophets, what does that mean?

We would call it the Old Testament. Did the Jews, even in New Testament times, call it the Old Testament? No. The Jews in more modern times, and possibly earlier, use the term Tanakh. But the Law and the Prophets you'll find in the New Testament particularly, is an expression that means the whole Old Testament. So you'll find it in the whole Old Testament, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I've got a question about that. Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. So we have justified a As Jim put it, legal term, a courtroom term. Can God just come up to anybody and just say, okay, I declare you justified. You're declared righteous.

He's sour. Okay, you're shaking your head no. Why do we say no? I thought God could do anything, right? Yeah. Yeah, but a hesitant yes. He gives us Okay, so first of all, God doesn't just kind of arbitrarily, randomly come up and say, well, you're justified and I'm sorry, not you. Vern, your glasses are a little bit out of focus, so you don't get it. So God doesn't just arbitrarily come up and say, well, you're justified and you're not.

It goes back to, within this, the church age, who is in Him and who is not, and how did you get to be in Him? You believe, and that's it. Nobody does anything to enhance, to add to, to earn being in Him. You believe, and that's it. And by the way, Lordship Salvation says that it's not just believing. As a matter of fact, they'll call that easy believism. That's the term that they'll use. Lordship Salvation says you have to believe in what?

So Jesus Christ is Lord. And make Him Lord. And you've got to do both of those or you're not saved. Right? According to the Lord's salvation. And how is it demonstrated that you in fact believe, made Him Lord and were saved? You don't sin. Yeah, you persevere. Right? You persevere. If you have somebody that backslides, you didn't do it. Right?

John MacArthur said that, you know, young children cannot be saved, in which case I'm not saved. Because I was, you know, born again at four and a half. What's that? I don't believe that's correct. No, no it's not. No, I think John MacArthur does say that those who are innocent, basically young children, they will be saved. Yeah, but I understand what you're saying, but he says they cannot believe. That's an adult decision. No, that's not how it happened.

But the bigger point is that MacArthur, and he's not the only spokesman for Lordship Salvation, but MacArthur would say you have to believe and make Christ Lord, and that's shown up in this TULIP acronym as the P, the Perseverance of the Saints. The true saint will persevere. And so backsliding someone who says, you know, I'm going to pitch this Christianity stuff even. Being fleshly, those kinds of things demonstrate that you weren't really saved in the first place because you didn't make Christ the Lord. Locked in. So all these things that are happening, they all happened before the foundation of the earth.

So the unbeliever then, God already knew and it didn't happen for them, right? Yeah, so we have the Ephesians, I think it's 1.4, the principle you're talking about, that talks about He chose us in Him, right? Which, by the way, I look at it and say, well, how am I choosable, right? God does not logically explain and reconcile that with you must choose, does He? God doesn't explain that.

So Calvinism and even Arminianism, open theism, they're all in agreement about one thing. What do you think? In agreement? You're kidding. Yes, they're in agreement about one thing. That I as a human being can figure out how God does salvation from beginning to end using my own human mental capacity. And so to think, well, the Calvinist and the Arminian and the open theist being in agreement, how is that possible? That's what they agree on. Sounds like Gnosticism. The only difference among them is that the Calvinist pins everything on sovereignty, God's sovereignty. The Arminian pins everything on man's sovereign choice, and God simply reacts to it.

And the Open Theist says God doesn't know the future, and God changes. But they are in full agreement that I as a human being can get it all figured out in my own head, how God does it all. One way that is close, maybe, is that God knows, but He doesn't, how shall I say, coerce us to make decisions? Yeah, so reconciling God's knowledge and God's sovereignty and how we choose, those are all issues that various isms try to lock in on. The reality is, what I see is the Bible teaches these things, doesn't reconcile it. Our responsibility is to understand, to teach and to understand what does the Bible say, and leave the rest up to God, because as Scripture says, His ways are higher than my ways, His thoughts higher than mine. They're higher than our thoughts. That's right. Okay, so let's look at this.

Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption, the full buying out of the slave market of sin, which is in Christ Jesus. One of the words that comes out here is, if the satisfaction of God's holiness and holy and righteous character, that is propitiation is this big word that we never use except in reading the Bible. Propitiation, pictured by the sacrifice on the altar. So here you get another thing. Remember we talked about forgiveness is a financial term and redemption is a slavery term. And being declared righteous, justified, is a legal and courtroom term. Now we have propitiation, which is an altar and temple term. Right? Religious term. Yes. So we have that. Can you maybe make that simple? Okay. Would it be he's satisfied? Yes. And so that's what I substitute in there, God's character satisfied. That's what it means. He must have been offended, right? Yeah.

Which is one reason why we never use the word perpetuation. Because people don't talk about God. And God being satisfied? You're kidding, right? So it's the satisfaction of God's character, which includes his righteousness and holiness, but as well as his justice. God can't just say, eh, I'm not so uptight about sin anymore, you know? Jesus died on the cross so I can kind of relax about it. No, that isn't the case. It was a complete and total, to the point, satisfaction of God's total character. Yes?

That's completely different from the Greek gods because they were never satisfied. Yeah, think about this. Do the Greek gods love you? The Greek gods didn't love you. Did the Greek gods bless you? Not happening. Did the Greek gods have kindness towards you?

Not so much. As a matter of fact, the people would give sacrifices and go to the temple and do all sorts of different things to try to get the Greek gods faiths or spirits or whatever, they'd try to make them happy. And a lot of times they'd be frustrated because they wouldn't get the result they wanted, so I don't know what to do to get the God to pay attention to me. Yes? They'd pick and choose also, they were very biased. Oh, very much so, yeah, because it was essentially the gods are manipulating me, how can I in return, manipulate the gods. That was really the mindset of a lot of people. And so it was, the gods are manipulating me, and I'm going to figure out how to manipulate the gods.

And even things that we do now are based on that, even though we've long since lost the reason why. Everybody celebrate New Year's? New Year's was the annual meeting of the gods to decide how the next year was going to go, and you wanted the gods to be favorable to you, so you put on party hats and made noise, and that was supposed to have the gods make favorable plans for you. So what happens, we celebrate New Year's and have all kinds of parties and have a ball drop and all that, and of course we're not thinking about the gods anymore.

But that's where it came from. It was a manipulation of the gods. And one of the messages that you see come out, even in this passage here, are we trying to manipulate God? Not even sort of. Can we do anything to change any of this? and to have God be favorable towards us. He already did it. So there's no manipulating this God.

Why would you want to manipulate somebody who's very... So you think of it, here's a God who loves me, as we'll see as we go on, with a great love with which he loves us, in kindness, in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. He blesses me. He loves me. And as a matter of fact, instead of me paying a price to manipulate him, he pays the price all himself. But forget manipulation. He's not having any of that. And he's not manipulating you.

This is astounding stuff. You can imagine the pagans who would, they're reading this, it's blowing their circuits. Wow, a God who loves me. A God who is so gracious. It's going to take me forever to catch up with it. Wow. Just as you read through Like Ephesians chapter 1, like we're doing in our Thursday night study, you read through it, you get a sense that there's none of this that they would have any expectation that God would do. Not the Jews, not the Greeks. Every line was mind-boggling to them. Here is a God that there's no manipulation, this God loves you, and he even paid the price. full on, completely himself.

Yeah. In the Greek culture, humility was a weakness. Yes. Yes, and so here's Christ who, what did he do? He humbled himself. What? Why would he do that? In the culture that made no sense at all. He humbled himself. It is one of the reasons why you see the Apostle Paul and the other apostles repeatedly exhorting people to be humble, because it was not a part of culture. But Christ humbled himself voluntarily on our behalf, and not to manipulate us, and not so that we can manipulate him. It is part of the problem with a lot of the works-based salvation plans that you hear about where I've got to do this and do that and keep from doing this to keep God from getting ticked off at me. It is, I'm still, I still have a mindset I'm going to manipulate God. No you're not. We've paid the full price, the whole price and everything. With grace it is eternal. It's going to take forever for us to just begin to grasp. The pagans had not the slightest concept of that. This was all mind-boggling to them.

Yeah. And there's a personal relationship that we have with his son, too, that you wouldn't have with any other God. Yeah. A personal relationship? Woo! As a matter of fact, here he writes to both the church at Rome and the church at Galatia. He writes both of them and talks about Abba Father. I'm going to run into the throne room and say, Papa, and jump on his lap. Such a thought would never, ever, ever enter the mind of the pagans. You could not even think of such a thing. Well, the Jews didn't think of him that way. No, the Jews didn't.

As a matter of fact, here's Jesus. Instead of saying, our father, of course he talked about, yeah you can pray like that, but my father, the idea that someone would have a special relationship with a father like that is just absolutely way out of the ballpark for their thinking. You can't have a special relationship with a father like that. And Paul writes to the believers in Rome and Galatia and says, oh yes you can. As a matter of fact, you can say, Papa, and run and jump on his lap.

The Jews were probably thinking of Mount Sinai, you know, the terrifying lightning. That's right. So what was the message of Mount Sinai? Here's God giving the law to Moses, and do you run up and jump on God's lap? No. No. What was going on at Sinai? Terrible, terrible. noise and thunder and clouds and flashes of lightning and if you get close to the mountain, what happens? You're supposed to kill it, right? You won't survive it. You're dead meat, right?

So this is the exact opposite of Papa, Abba. You run into the throne room and sit on the Father's lap. That's a good definition of propitiation. That's what you're satisfying. Yeah. God's character is so satisfied that I don't have this sort of, gee, I hope I survive entering the throne room, but I can run in with confidence and jump onto his lap.

Moses even said he was terrified when he was up there. Oh, I'm sure he was. It probably turned his hair a different color. It would be really something. Because they were scared, very scared, down on the ground level. And to actually be up there in the middle of this, yeah, that's got to be terrifying and frightening. So, God can and does declare us righteous. So we have some questions.

Looking at Romans 3.21-26, when did now in verse 21 begin? Yeah, so this is talking about the church age, Christ having just been crucified, buried, and resurrected. So that's the now. It wasn't during the time of Isaiah. It wasn't during the time of Daniel, not David. But now, this is Christ having been crucified, buried, and resurrected, and ascended, now here in the church age. What do we contribute to propitiation, redemption, and justification? What do we have to add to it? Yeah, we came up with the problem. That was all we had to add.

Let's say for example, in the Roman Catholic model, you get saved initially and entered into the realm of salvation through baptism, and then you have to accumulate merit. in the Roman Catholic system. And God being gracious, he's gracious enough to allow you to work to accumulate merit. And you don't approach him except through a priest. That's right. You're still approaching him through somebody instead of directly running into the throne room and saying, Papa. So there's still this tenuous character to it.

You've got to accumulate merit, right? And you've got to make sure you don't do one of the seven mortal sins that makes you slip out all together. Those are the banana peel sins, right? Those are the banana peel sins, and then you've got to start all over. Can you imagine if it was theoretically possible under the Catholic system? that you might have someone who is a pope who spoke ex-cathedra, that is, what the pope said was now inspired, but who then committed a mortal sin and spent the rest of his eternity in hell.

Isn't that interesting? Wow, I'm not sure that works. But the point is, what do we contribute to propitiation, the satisfaction of God's character? Not a theme, okay? to redemption and justification, it is entirely by grace through faith. Period. Nothing else. Grace doesn't open the door for me to work for something, or earn it, or be deserving of it. And faith isn't simply believing that God's given me a second chance. How are we the beneficiaries of these eternally momentous spiritual actions and events, Galatians 3, 10-14, for as many as are the works of the 613 statutes, the Law of Moses, are under a curse? Or it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.

How many of them? How many are there? 613. And by the way, that's a Jewish count and it's correct. They didn't mess up. 613 things. Everything that's in there is right. And you've got to remember all the different things that are included in that. And how they're defined. Yes. So hope you have it all down. So there are Christian churches that teach, and I unfortunately think of some people I know that are in them, teach that the law is written on your heart. Oh, zoo! By the way, how many of you have those memorized? How many of you haven't memorized without even working at it? By the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you have the law memorized. And you're empowered to live it out.

Ready for that? That's the new covenant in the Millennial Kingdom for the Jews. That's not for us. Christ died on the cross to accomplish many things. One of it was to separate us from all 613 laws. Every single one. So notice the intensity of what he says.

As many as are of the works of the 613 statutes, law of Moses, are under a curse. So, are you under the statutes of the Law of Moses? No. Are you under a curse? No. Can you do some of them and be okay? No. Because, cursed is everyone who does not abide by a few of the things?

Most of the things? 90%? 99.99%? No. all the things written in the book of the law. Yes? I've often wondered, maybe you could help, in the kingdom era, why does God write the law on the Jews' hearts, since he's already been satisfied by the work of Christ? Why would he want to go back? So let's talk about that. This is a very, very good question. It's a question not enough people ask. So thank you for bringing it up. Why would God in the Millennial Kingdom with the Jews want to have the law written on their hearts?

First of all, are people saved by obeying the law? No. People aren't saved by obeying the law. The law does not determine salvation. It never did. People from the time that Adam fell up until the last person born on this planet are saved by what? By grace and faith. They're saved by that means only. So what does the law do if it can't possibly even save you?

It glorifies God. It is an expression of God's good and holy and righteous character, isn't it? So that's part one. So that's the thing, but Deuteronomy 28, the first 14 verses of Deuteronomy 28 says that by this law as you obey it, you will be blessed. And if you don't obey it, verse 15 to the end of the chapter, if you don't obey it, you will be cursed.

So, if I have the law written on my heart in the Millennial Kingdom as a Jew, then I'm able to live out the law and I will be completely blessed. But my salvation is only determined by faith. So what will happen during the Millennial Kingdom? Will the Jews be blessed? Yes. And why will they be blessed?

Because they know and keep the law. So it's not for salvation. So Roy asks an excellent question. It is not for salvation that they know and live out the law. It is that they will be continuously and immensely blessed. That's what it's talking about. And again, they have to obey all 613 of them?

That's right. Yeah, you can't miss one. You know, here is Moses, he's out in the wilderness, and he had just given the law, and somebody says, hey, this guy was out picking up firewood, you know, a half hour past sundown. That's got to kill him. So it was possible, under the law of Moses, to be eternally saved by faith. but mess up on your firewood plans. And you're done. Yes?

I don't think it's that they will have to obey the law. grace on them, so they will obey the law. So yeah, this isn't one of those, because here's another aspect of the law, it's not just to my blessing or my curse, what happens if you fail the law? You get the penalties of the law, which could be death, like this guy collecting a firewood a half hour too late, right? Sun just gone down, that's too late to collect firewood. You're going to study rocks up close until you can't.

That's the way it is. It's also the fulfillment of the promise. It's not by their effort. So even their fulfillment of the law, knowing the law and having the law written on their heart, and being empowered to live out the law, is still gracious. And it's fulfillment. But for us here in the body of Christ, God wants righteousness to be lived out by an entirely different means, and our blessings are not earthly, and they're not conditional.

So here's why the Apostle Paul could start off in the book of Ephesians, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and his pen just goes crazy for several chapters. And he waits until the middle of chapter 4 to say, okay, now let's start talking about your lying and stealing problem. So, in the Millennial Kingdom, the blessings are earthly. The blessings are earthly, and so that's one thing.

In our case, are any of the blessings earthly? Not the ones he's talking about there. Are the earthly blessings that they get in the Millennium Kingdom spiritual? Other than salvation? Well, they are spiritual in the sense that it is based on the spiritual principle, even though it's earthly blessings. So they don't have all the blessings in the heavenlies if they trust Christ for their personal salvation.

So let's think about this right now. So here is a Jew right now who believes in Christ for his salvation. And what's his relationship to the law, the Jew? He's dead to it. He's dead to the law. So that's why Ephesians chapter 2, last half, Here's the Apostle Paul, in most English translations, they wipe this out.

But what he writes, starting in Ephesians 1.10, and he keeps writing it again and again, is it's because of the Messiah that the law has been taken out of the way. He did it.

Can you imagine that? The Messiah took the law out of the way. To the Jews, this is blank, blank, blank, shake your head. What? The Messiah took the law away. Yeah, so you and those Gentiles you're supposed to be separated from, you and those Gentiles are now part of one body. But the Jews don't believe that the Messiah has come yet, do they? No, they do not.

That's why the rabbi I sat down and talked with, you know, some years back over, you know, in Denver, He says, when the Messiah comes, we'll be asking, is this your first or second time? Which is sort of funny, except that part of it that's not funny is that it'll be too late. You won't get that opportunity. You've got to decide now, because you won't be able to ask the question. Yes?

Generally speaking, the churches around us that are Messianic Jews, they believe that they're saved by grace, apparently. Do they? But do they still have an element of the law in what they teach? Well, in order for me to, for example, call myself a Messianic Jew and to make that some special congregation or something like that, I have to set aside a part of what Scripture teaches. Because if I look at it, and we'll be looking at it this morning, here are Jews in the synagogue In Berea, there are Jews in the synagogue in Thessalonica.

They come to believe that Christ is Messiah. As Paul said in Thessalonica, Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. And what you find is Jews believed, from Paul's message, and God-fearing Gentiles, both men and women, And then he would tell them, you're all one in Christ. In Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave and free.

And so to make a special differentiation ethnically is to disbelieve a part of what Paul wrote. Yeah, but today in our society. I know. I'm saying right now to have these so-called messianic Jewish congregations, there's no biblical basis for that. Any more than I should say, you know, here's a Gentile congregation. It doesn't matter. We're one in Christ. It's like mixing Jews and the Church, Israel and the Church, mixing it together.

Yeah, and I'm still going to make a differentiation? No. Yeah, there's no basis for it. So the thing is, I can't go in and say, well, you Jews have to be all Gentile, and I can't say, the Gentiles, I mean, excuse me, the Jews cannot come in and say, well, you guys can't be so Gentile-y, you know, and to put ourselves, we're a Messianic Jewish congregation, no, the Bible does not teach that. That differentiation is not there.

Okay, Galatians 3.14, why is that blessing singular when in Ephesians it's unfathomable riches that come to us, but it's only singular if it's talking about Abraham. Alright, so let's talk about, this we're getting into something we don't have either the time or the background for, so I'll give you the short version.

So let's go back to Where is the blessing of Abraham initially given? He was a friend of God. Okay, so this is Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 through 3. So, the blessing of Abraham is Abraham's blessing which could apply to who? Israel. It could apply to Israel? All the Jews. And it applies to, who else? 14th day and also to the Gentiles. Yeah, to the Gentiles and us as well.

Now, what was not revealed to Abraham, or to any of the Jews who would read there in Genesis 12, what was not revealed is the church. And so the church and things regarding the church were not revealed until the New Testament. So what was the blessing? What did he talk about? Singular blessing. Okay, so the blessing of Abraham, if you look at Genesis 12, 1-3, is we have salvation by faith. As a matter of fact, there are different seeds of Abraham, but he still uses the word seed in the singular form.

So, that's the blessing of Abraham upon us. So, are we sons of Abraham? We are sons of Abraham. Yes, we are sons of Abraham. It doesn't mean that Abraham is part of the church. We have the blessing of Abraham. We are sons of Abraham. We have salvation by faith. But there are specific and particular blessings, plural, that are unique to us and the church. Okay, so then the blessing of Abraham fits in all three dispensations.

In other words, it was during the time of Abraham, it was during the time of the law, it was during the time of of the Gentiles in the church, and it's going to also be during the thousand year reign, right? So it's the blessing of Abraham, which is the topic sentence here. And here's the other part of it.

Why doesn't God just say, you know, this whole human experiment didn't work out very well. And, you know, so really People are just messing up left and right. I'm just going to claw into it all and just cut it off right now. At the end of 2018, I'm just going to terminate planet Earth and everybody on it. Why doesn't God do that?

He's not done yet. He's not done yet. Why hasn't He done it? He's waiting for the fullness of times according to His plans. He's waiting for the fullness of times and? And when God says he's going to do something, he doesn't go back on it? Yeah. God has promises to Abraham he's not done with yet. So if you look at it, God has laid things out and made promises Which is why he doesn't just go, hey, I'm done with these stupid, crazy people. What idiots these people are. They're just messing each other up and messing their relationship with me up and it's just really a disaster. And so I'm just going to terminate it. And he doesn't because he made promises. But if the promises were fulfilled by the end of 18, then he could. He would. He could. Yeah. But they're not. Right? But they're not.

And so his promises to a blessing include us and it will include people on him among your kingdom. Okay, we're out of time. We're going to pray before Brian goes and shatters the back doors here. Eagerness. Alright, thank you Lord for what you've revealed. Thank you that we can indeed count on a simple, pure declaration of righteousness. We thank you for, not because we were righteous, not because we deserved it, but because of what you did and accomplished. The blessings include our having been declared righteous because we've been redeemed and forgiven in you. Thank you for that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.