 |
|
|
|
Home |
Wingspread |
Archives |
Us |
|
|
|
|
Home |
Wingspread |
Archives |
Us |
January, 2020 |
 |
 |
|
|
Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on August 26, 1984 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. Genesis 22:17-18 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 THE BIBLE IS CALLED AN OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. It could easily have been called the “Old and New Contract,” or, as covenant theologians would say, it could have been called the “Old and New Covenant.” In the English language, the words “contract” and “covenant” are used to describe certain kinds of agreements that allow participation by two or more parties. When we enter into a contract, I get to set some terms, you get to set some terms, and we both agree. But the word “testament” describes a special kind of contract where only one party gets to write all the terms. That is why we usually limit the word “testament” to mean a “Last Will and Testament,” by which one individual gets to determine the inheritors of his estate. When you write your will, you essentially get to “play God.” You and you alone determine who shares in your estate and the conditions for sharing. You might decide that some of your heirs will only get a dollar, and they might think that is unfair. Tough! You are the only one who gets to make that decision. In both the Old and New Testaments, God wrote all the terms. He and He alone determines who gets to share in His inheritance, as well as the terms and conditions for sharing. We have nothing to do with setting the terms. God determines what He will give and to whom He will give it. He gets to choose the heirs of an estate He created and owns, an estate on which many people are now just squatters. Someone might want to argue with the Lord and say, “Well, I don’t think that’s fair. First of all, I don’t think Abraham was so great, nor do I think his heirs deserve all the goodness God has promised them.” Again, tough! God wrote all the terms of His testament. Using legal terminology, one of the parties entering into a contract is called the “party of the first part.” The other party is known as the “party of the second part,” and there may be additional parties as well. God’s testament is a contract in which God is the party of the first part. Some of God’s promises are unconditional while other promises are conditional. Unconditional promises have no conditions attached: the promise stands or falls solely on God’s honesty, integrity, consistency and ability to perform. When God gives an unconditional promise, it doesn’t matter what the party of the second part does. God is the only performer, and when He says something, that is the final word. Psalm 119:89 declares, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” When God gives an unconditional guarantee, the power of the Guarantor or the “Testator” establishes the validity of the contract. But when Gen gives a conditional promise, He conditions His performance upon the actions of the parties of the second part. You will never understand God’s book until you make those distinctions. People who preach using passages taken out of context love to hunt and peck from the Bible like a chicken pecking corn. They will take a conditional promise and apply it as though it were unconditional, or they will take an unconditional promise and make it conditional. But you cannot do that with God’s word. The Bible has both conditional and unconditional promises, and you have to be able to tell the difference. There is a division between God’s promises related to grace and His promises related to race. This concept is very hard for some people to accept. Many people have a visceral reaction when you bring up the subject of race because of the awfulness of racism, but we are not talking about racism. It is horrible when anyone oppresses another person or group because of their race. But understanding racial distinctions is a necessary part of understanding God’s word. It has been a tactic of Satan to turn people off by bending God’s truth out of shape. Satan is at his best when he closes people’s minds to the truth by corrupting the meaning of words. Certain words have a negative emotional impact only because Satan has twisted a good thing out of shape. Theologians have fought for years over the concept of election. The primary difference between John Calvin’s and Martin Luther’s theology was in the realm of election and predestination. God does elect people. God’s chosen people were His elect, but they turned their election into something to preen their feathers about and they thought, “We’re special!” Yes, they were special, but their election was more like being chosen for a special mission by a commanding officer in the army. He says, “I need a few volunteers to attack those gun placements on that hill,” and then he points to some men and says, “You, you, and you!” In other words, “You’re special! You’re the best men we’ve got for this job. Thanks for volunteering!” You see, election brings responsibility. We are supposed to elect officers or representatives to do a job. People are selected by a power that has the authority to make the selection. Likewise, God elects, and there is an election of race and an election of grace. When God elects a race, He essentially says to them, “These are the things I will do for you.” And within the election of race, God makes certain unconditional promises as well as certain conditional promises. God is faithful regarding His promises and He will perform them for His own sake. In the election of race, you receive God’s unconditional promises by simply being born a member of that race. God’s election of a particular race is not a modern idea, and as the end time approaches, Satan will fight against it and he will fight it under the flag of “fairness.” People will say, “I just cannot believe that God would select a race and elevate it by giving it promises above another race!” Well, He did. So some people will take offense and accuse God of racism. I am dealing with a delicate subject, and until we can graduate from an emotional overreaction to the connotations of a decision having been made related to race, we cannot understand God’s word. In order to enlarge the perimeters of our faith when we see God’s performance in regard to His word, it is necessary for us to understand His sovereign right to choose a people. Our faith can be fortified when we see God’s fulfillment of the unconditional promises He made to people who qualified solely by being born a member of a certain race. You and I can have nothing to do with any decisions concerning such an election. Now there have been very few decisions in my life I have not participated in; and it has been one of my goals to gain some control over my life. I had nothing to do with the way I was made; and if my parents had consulted me, I might have turned out a little differently. If you will pardon my being ludicrous, the point is there are many things we have no control over. But once you are born into an elected race, you receive what God has promised unconditionally, and you may also receive certain things conditionally, which you will receive only if you do certain things. God picked Abram and gave him a promise, saying, “I will bless you with seed and with land.” Abram and his wife Sarai were too old to have children, and when God told them they would have a child, they laughed. After a time, Abram and Sarai still had not produced any children; so they held what I would call a church committee meeting and decided they could accomplish God’s will through their own fleshly efforts. Sarai gave Abram her handmaid Hagar, and that union produced Ishmael. Abram loved Ishmael and pleaded with God, saying, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” But God said, “No! I will give Ishmael an unconditional promise: out him will come twelve princes. But he cannot receive the promises I have given to you and your seed.” God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning “father of many nations.” God also changed Sarai’s name to Sarah, meaning, “noblewoman,” because she would beget kings. The promises to Ishmael were also promises to a specific race. All the children of Ishmael had to do was be born, and they would become twelve princes. But to Abraham, and to Abraham only, God said, “You will have offspring like the starts in the sky and like the sand of the sea. Your offspring will possess the gates of his enemies; and by your seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed.” God told Abraham that only the son who would be born of him and Sarah would receive this promise. We read in Genesis 21, “And LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age . . . And Abraham was a hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.” Isaac was born according to the promise. Now in my opinion, Isaac was a dud, personality-wise. Everyone knows about Abraham, even the racy sides of him; Abraham was a conniver and a thief; at least he had some color. But all Isaac ever did was dig wells. It doesn’t require much imagination to dig a hole in the ground. He did learn to lie from his father, for he also lied about his wife and said she was his sister. Isaac was bland and dull, but he was God’s choice. It doesn’t matter what you or I think about him. Compare his life to the life of David or to any other giant of the faith in the Old Testament. You are not likely to hear even ten sermons on Isaac in the course of your lifetime. But the one thing Isaac was able to do was to father twins, and they fought each other in Rebekah’s womb. Esau must have won the fight because he came out first. Jacob came out second, grasping his brother Esau by the heel as they came out. So they named him Jacob, which means “heel catcher.” The law of primogeniture says the first one born gets the blessing. God had elected Abraham, Isaac, and Isaac’s son for this marvelous promise, and the first child born would get it, but Jacob lost the battle there in the darkness. Esau was born first while Jacob was trying to hold him back. I don’t know where life starts, but God does, and He decided to give the birthright promise to Jacob while he was still in the womb. God said that before the boys were born and before Esau could do anything wrong, “Jacob I loved; Esau I hated.” Some scholars translate the word “hated” to mean “less loved.” In other words, “Jacob I loved; Esau I less loved.” Jacob was God’s choice. Jacob’s name would be changed to Israel, and he would become the father or many children. It seems he would be the first man to take the prophecy concerning stars and sand literally, when you consider he became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Then God took all the promises given to Israel and He divided them. Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob, but he lost everything because of a terrible sin he committed. So God gave the birthright promises to the sons of Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh. But He gave the kingship, the scepter, and lawmaking to Judah. God gave promises that must go through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who became “Israel,” and then to Jacob’s sons, the children of Israel. These are promises fulfilled in history, and they are promises of a national destiny. In Galatians 3, Paul makes it clear that God promised a Seed, not “seeds,” and that the election of the Seed is fulfilled in Christ. Christ fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham that “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” God elected one member of the blessed race who by voluntary choice was born into that race as a son of the seed of David. Jesus was clothed in a tent of human flesh that was not born of just anyone, but of Mary, a descendant of David from the line of Judah. God will now blend race and grace together. Jesus was from the race of Abraham and He became the blessed Seed. He fulfilled the promise that out of Abraham would come a Seed that would bless the whole earth. The blessing is that Christ paid the price to buy the whole world by offering His life as a ransom for many. Christ died for the sins of the world in order that God might now elect a new race, through grace, which means “unmerited favor.” God now elects a new race to whom He will give unconditional promises, as long as they meet one essential condition. This is the meaning of being “born again.” You become part of this new race by the grace of being born again. Someone who wants to engage in the rhetoric will argue, like Nicodemus, “how can a grown man be born again?” The answer is by an implantation of new life; it’s as simple as that. God elects to give grace: He will give unmerited favor to you. The election of race is not dependent upon deserving the promises. Rather, those who are born receive the benefits due to the one who was first chosen, Abram. Likewise, those who are born again receive the benefits of a new race that are given in grace because of the first one, Christ, who earned God’s favor. The election of race does not give anyone a choice. You only have to be born of the seed of Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, and through Judah or Joseph. God will perform everything He promised to that race. But the same God says you can be born into a new race because of His grace. This promise is not given to those who are simply born in the line of Abraham by a natural process. The election of grace is promised to “whosoever will.” This gives you a choice; you can choose this election. Without Christ and without the election of grace, God might be accused of being racist, but the election of grace reveals He is not a racist. The election of race enables God to demonstrate His faithfulness. For if God did not perform what He promise to that race, often in spite of themselves, then He would not be faithful. That means any promise of God would be on shaky ground, and we would not be able to act in faith on any of His promises. That is the importance of understanding the election of race. God shaped the things of time and affected history to make what He had promised come to pass for an underserving people. We can read about the fulfillment of His promises in history books and see them with our own eyes. And if God would so faithfully keep His word to the underserving recipients of the election of race based merely upon the faith of Abraham, the “faither of faith,” how much more can we have faith that He will keep the promises He has made to the election of grace founded upon the work of His own dear Son? People who were not born a member of God’s chosen people might protest, saying, “I don’t like God because I was not born of that race. I’m an Ishmaelite” or “I’m a Japhethite” or “I’m a Jebusite!” None of that matters anymore, because you can be born again! I don’t mean being born again in some kind of foolish sense. You are not born again by reciting some prayer. You can be born again by a simple act of faith when you hang your body on a promise of God. God has promised to place everyone into a new race as an act of grace. The promise is for those who act in faith instead of trying to offer their own works of righteousness. God will cause you to be born anew by placing a substance of His life in you that will remain as long as you are faithing on His promises. And if that life remains, it will begin to change you. You may not see the change, but just as handling radioactive material will invisibly change you, God’s Spirit in you will change you for the better. The old man dies, while the new man is renewed as you walk in faith. That new life in you is a result of God placing His Spirit into you, and you don’t have to feel a thing. Because of your faith, which is courageously hanging on to God’s word, God puts His life in you and you are born again. It doesn’t have to be an emotional experience; rather it is an existential fact based upon God’s word. To keep the analogy, you are bombarded by cosmic rays every day, and they will change you whether you feel anything or not. You don’t have to be mystical to be a Christian. God has promised to place a life substance, His Holy Spirit, in every person who has faith in Jesus Christ and His promises. I wish I could deliver the church from the false notion that you have to “pray through” until you have some kind of mystical experience. I have heard people say, “But I have to feel something happen to me!” And I have heard other people lament, “I just don’t feel what I felt the first time I got saved!” It isn’t a matter of feeling; it is a matter of faith. God has given us His Testament; and the Testator, the party of the first part, has placed one condition on the election of grace and His act of placing us into the new race. That one condition is faith. You don’t have to have faith to be born into the election of race; all you have to do is to be born to receive promises that are national and will continue long into the Millennium. But the new race of grace has one condition attached to it. You cannot get into this new race by works. You cannot get into this new race simply by growing up in the church and learning how to act like a Christian. Faith is the only thing that gives you membership in the new race. Those who are the recipients of grace and belong to this new race become joint heirs with Christ, ruling and reigning with Him throughout eternity and sharing in everything promised to Him. That is much better than getting what Abraham was promised! Which would you rather do: produce children and get land, or rule and reign with Christ throughout eternity? Don’t get bogged down feeling sorry for yourself if you were not born of Abraham. And if you happen to discover your roots tie you to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then don’t be a fool and want to go back to that old path. Live free in Christ and reign forever! The book of Revelation says that God will choose 144,000 out of the tribes of Israel to be His witnesses during the Great Tribulation. If you are not a part of this group, you might resent the fact you weren’t chosen. You might say, “That’s not fair. I’m an Ishmaelite!” or “I’m a Hamite!” Then become a “Christite” by being born into the new race! Those in Christ will not have to go through the Great Tribulation; they will be caught up with the Lord to meet Him in the air. We will be looking down on this earth during the Great Tribulation, and we wouldn’t want to trade places with any of the 144,000! The election of grace is unmerited favor given to faithers who receive Christ’s righteousness and the gift of God’s Son. Christ is formed in your heart by faith. God puts His life into us, and that is what makes us different. Thank God you are a member of the race of grace, which should encourage you to exercise some faith! Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | December, 2020 Wingspread | November, 2020 Wingspread | October, 2020 Wingspread | September, 2020 Wingspread | August, 2020 Wingspread | July, 2020 Wingspread | June, 2020 Wingspread | May, 2020 Wingspread | April, 2020 Wingspread | March, 2020 Wingspread | February, 2020 Wingspread | January, 2020 Wingspread | | Year 2019 Wingspreads | August, 2016 Wingspread | 2016 Wingspreads | 2014 Wingspreads | 2013 Wingspreads | 2012 Wingspreads | 2011 Wingspreads | 2010 Wingspreads | 2009 Wingspreads | 2008 Wingspreads | 2007 Wingspreads | 2006 Wingspreads | 2005 Wingspreads | 2004 Wingspreads | 2003 Wingspreads | 2002 Wingspreads | 2001 Wingspreads | August, 2001 Wingspread | November, 2001 Wingspread | December, 2001 Wingspread | 2000 Wingspreads | 1999 Wingspreads | 2015 Wingspreads | Year 2017 Wingspreads | 2018 Wingspreads | Year 2020 Wingspreads | Year 2021 Wingspreads | Year 2022 Wingspreads | Year 2023 Wingspreads | | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
||
 |
 |
