Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): With a word about God's timing, here is Pastor Ed.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Today I'm here to remind you that God's always on time in your life. Even those of you waiting right now with great uncertainty or waiting for something or someone just wondering what the future might hold, listen, God's timing is always perfect even if it doesn't line up with you.

And His answer to prayer is always perfect even if it wasn't what you were asking for. Time is very important to God. Preciseness is very important to God. And I would just add this: the most important, as you read the Bible, the most important time to God is today. That's the most important time. It's today.

Guest (Male): It is time for Abounding Grace. So glad you've joined us. Pastor Ed Taylor is in the middle of a study in Galatians. In chapter three, the Apostle Paul drives home the point that God has promised salvation through Abraham and his seed, Jesus. And God always keeps His promises.

The Galatians needed to be reminded of that as legalists had come into the church telling them the work of Christ wasn't enough, that something more needed to be done. Let's join Pastor Ed now at verse 17.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Now he steps, if you look at these arguments he's making to kind of look at them as ladders, he explains a covenant, he goes back to the most important promise of the Bible and then as you look at that promise it ends in Jesus. Now he's taking the ladder, now we're going one more rung up in verse 17. He says, "And this I say that the law which was 430 years later cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ that it should make the promise of no effect."

What were the false teachers doing? Calling the believers back to the law, back to the law. He says this is where you need to land, in the law. Leave Jesus and go back to the law. Now he uses this number very quickly here, 430 years. That's a tricky number for you Bible students. If you were reading ahead you may have noticed that the law actually came 645 years later, not 430.

And this happens to be one of those texts that somebody may bring up to you and go, "Look, the Bible is filled with errors, filled with inconsistencies," to which you always have to say, "Prove it to me. Don't just show it to me, prove it to me." Because a careful study will explain this number. Now it is true that the law came 645 years approximately after the promise to Abraham.

But a careful study of the Bible will notice in Genesis chapter 26, the Lord repeated this covenant to Isaac. And then later in Genesis 28 in verse 15 to be exact, He repeated the covenant to Jacob. And it was after the repetition of the covenant to Jacob, that's the date, 430 years later exactly is when God gave Moses the law.

The point that he's making and you would know this too, you would understand this because if you're talking to someone and you're trying to remember something and you pull an exact number out and it's accurate and somebody goes, "Oh, that's not," no, no, you only have the number you remember. It may not be the 645, but you remember a number in your head and you're sharing it and you know it's exact for what you remember. That's all he's doing here. He could have remembered 645, he could have remembered 430, and I didn't do the math, but he could have used the number with Isaac.

But here's what he's saying, it's really the bottom line here, that the law came after Abraham. That's all he's wanting to say. The law came after Abraham and the law does not eliminate the promise made to Abraham. It doesn't replace it. But before we get into the rest of this section, I think it's important to pause and just consider how amazingly precise and exact the Holy Spirit is with little things, extremely precise, just like time.

It's a thought that comes to our mind when we consider when we're waiting on the Lord, we think of this. And the way we think of it is when we're waiting on God for something and it doesn't happen according to our timing, we're a little upset or a little impatient. But we pay attention to time like God pays attention to time. But when He doesn't act on the exactness on our timetable, we get frustrated about it.

But today I'm here to remind you that God's always on time in your life. Even those of you waiting right now with great uncertainty or waiting for something or someone just wondering what the future might hold, listen, God's timing is always perfect even if it doesn't line up with you. And His answer to prayer is always perfect even if it wasn't what you were asking for.

Time is very important to God. Preciseness is very important to God. And I would just add this: the most important, as you read the Bible, the most important time to God is today. That's the most important time. It's today, living out your life today. There are many listening to me right now that are being ripped off from today because they're living in the past.

And you're just living with regret, you're living with unforgiveness, you're living with condemnation, and it's just burying you and overwhelming you, and you're unable to enjoy today because you're living in the past. But you know as well as I do there is nothing we can do about our past. We can't change it, we can't undo it, we can only respond to it.

But today is the day that you and I, the Bible tells us, remember the Psalmist was praying, he says, "Teach us to number our days." Because not only are some listening to me have a hard time with the past, but others listening to me have a hard time with the future, and you're living in the future. And you go, "Well, how do I do that?" I'll tell you exactly how you do that. You live in a perpetual state of worry, fear, and anxiety about the future.

Especially with the conditions of our geopolitical world today and what's the future going to hold, and we're watching Bible prophecy come to life right before our eyes, but it can be a little concerning and a little scary, and so you're fearful and you're worried and you're overly concerned, and you too are being ripped off because you're living in the future.

According to God, the most important time to Him is today because today is where life is lived, not yesterday or tomorrow. Now, of course, God is not prohibiting us to look into the future, He's not prohibiting us to use our past as a testimony, that's not what He's saying. What He's saying is today is the day. You know why I believe today's most important? I have a scripture for you: 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 2.

The Bible says, "For He says: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." And you have to be willing to come to the cross. Not just look at it, talk about it, have a necklace, walk around it, but to come to the cross and see Jesus high and lifted up.

See Him taken down off the cross and buried. Three days later, Jesus rose again from the dead. And if today you will come to Him and repent of your sins, your life will be eternally changed. You can have and leave here with the assurance that when you die, you'll spend all of eternity with God. Putting it off won't help you. It won't support you.

It's important that you take today. In a few moments, you'll have an opportunity to receive the Lord Jesus Christ in your life right now in this moment. Let's come back to the text real quickly as we close. In verse 17, the point that he's making is that the law did come through Moses, but it doesn't eliminate the promise made, it doesn't erase the promise to Abraham.

The promise still stands. How? In Christ. It's an eternal promise. The law served a purpose. We're actually learning this in our midweek Bible study right now as we study through the book of Exodus. The law is being given, it's a new relationship, the nation of Israel has been delivered from Egypt, from slavery into freedom, and God is defining that freedom.

And we'll learn in our next study what the purpose of the law is, but I'll summarize it for you right now. You can read ahead, but I'll tell you exactly why God used the law. The law's purpose was to get you to Christ. And you go, "Well, how would that happen?" The law is intended to reveal to you you are unable to keep it all.

Really the law's intention is to reveal the character and nature of God as well as your character and nature and show you how separate you are. God perfect, we're imperfect. God righteous, we're not so righteous. God's fair, we're not so fair in our weaknesses and in our sin. Notice verse 18 now, the summary of his argument: "For if the inheritance is of the law," if you had to earn your inheritance, "then it's no longer a promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise."

Notice here, law and promise and inheritance are used. Law and promise are naturally opposite. Like oil and water, they cannot be combined. The law requires performance. "If you do, then I will," God says. And the law would provide an opportunity for you to perform and for you to do something. And even with the children of Israel, nobody kept the law.

And you were reminded of that every year, once a year, on the Day of Atonement for the failures of the nation and the imperfections and sinfulness of the nation. What did they do? The high priest would take a lamb and sacrifice that lamb and spread the blood on the mercy seat, pointing where? To Jesus, the Lamb, not just a lamb every year, but Jesus is the final Lamb, the Lamb of God that doesn't cover sin.

Because that's why they had to keep bringing a lamb every year because the blood was covering, a *kaphar*, it was covering sin until Messiah came. But now that Jesus has come, the inheritance is found in Him by faith. He's the Lamb of God that doesn't cover sin, He takes away the sins of the world. Why would you leave Jesus for a law, Paul says?

Why would you claim to have everything and not need the grace of Jesus just because you're a descendant of Abraham? The law requires performance, but a promise is just received. Just like an inheritance, he says. If you and I were settling an inheritance, we were in an attorney's office and someone named us in their will or in their trust.

As that's being read and as that's being covered, there we are, we're just going to be receiving the inheritance. There's nothing we need to do. It's just we are, we're named in it, it's there we are, this is what we get, this is what was given to us, and the only thing to do with an inheritance is receive it. That's it. And even the word is used there, notice, it says in verse 18: God gave to Abraham by promise.

That's what when something is given to you, you don't work for it. If something's given to you, you don't try to earn it. If something's given to you, what do you do? You receive it and enjoy it. It's a gift. But there is something in us, isn't there? There is something in us that when someone gives us a gift, somebody wants to buy our lunch.

This happens all the time. Somebody wants to buy our lunch. What's the first thing out of some of you, not all of you, but some of you? "I'll get next time." Well, I didn't ask you to get next time. I don't even know if we're going to lunch again. But right now, I just want to buy your lunch. "Well, I'll get it next time." Well, you don't need to get it next time. Just enjoy the food that's in your belly right now and we're covering it.

But that's in us. Immediately we're automatically, "I want to do for you too," and you have that sense of it's better to give than to receive. But we have in us, if you're going to give me something, I'll give it to you. No, I don't want anything. Just I just want to pick it up. That's it. You know, the proper response when somebody wants to pick up lunch is thank you.

Do you want to get the next one? Like I'd like to go with lunch with you a lot. It's just to receive. That's how an inheritance is and that's how a promise is. When someone promises something to you, all your expectation is is that they keep their promise. You're not trying to make them keep their promise, you're not forcing you're not trying to set it all up. If someone says "I'll be there," your expectation is they'll be here.

There's nothing else to it. And that's the point God is making. God has promised salvation through Abraham and his seed, singular, his seed Jesus. The believers in Galatia already have Him. And these legalists have come through, Judaizers, saying no, that's not enough. You need to work. And the way you work is through being circumcised and keeping the law.

And Paul is making a very important distinction. The two types of inheritances are not compatible. God's law leads to man's works, but God's grace leads to man's faith. And man can never succeed in fulfilling all of the law, but God can never fail in perfectly keeping His promise. And the promises of God to you are yes and amen, always in Christ.

The inheritance can't be earned, and the promises you've received, the scriptures you've been holding onto, they are yours by faith. Now, God keeps His promises, and He is abundantly fair, righteous, and just. The Holy Spirit is a gracious Spirit, always moving, always working on bringing people to salvation, of knowing Him personally.

Inevitably as you're sharing and loving people, I know people ask this question. It's a good question. As they're resisting or maybe skeptic about Christianity, they'll ask something like, "Okay, I can accept God and maybe He sent Jesus, but what about those who never heard? What about those in the jungle? What about those I mean here we are, we have a Bible, we're in the western world, we know the language, somebody can lay out the entire gospel, and in your conversation they're like what about those that have never heard or those that will never hear the gospel like we are, what about them?"

And let me just say if that's your question, that's a good question. You're really thinking. Now you may be a little bit resistant, but you're thinking and it's a valid question. What about those who have never heard? What about all those people? There is a good answer. And many times it's asked in the way of functionality, like how is God going to do that? What's God going to do?

How is He going to reach to all the billions of people on the planet? How's that going to happen? Now, if that's something that interests you, I answered that question in a full Bible study in our study in Romans. So you can go on our app or on our website and put in there "What about those who never heard?" I think was the title, or you can just email me, I'll find it for you and I'll send it to you.

It is a good question and the Bible has a good answer. But I have to say the underlying premise of that question actually isn't in the functionality. The underlying premise of that question is that God's not fair, or that God isn't going to be fair. Like I mean if He was fair then the world wouldn't be the way it is. And it's a fairness question. And here's what I've learned about God: God is fair.

He's actually beyond fair in His dealings with man. Fair would be this from God, just the baseline fairness of God, this would be fair: You have failed, My creation has failed and sinned against Me and I will start over and you guys are on your own, your eternity apart from Me because you already said you don't want Me. That would be fair. We would get what we deserve. That's fairness.

But God is beyond fair. God is not merely a God of justice, He's also a God of grace. And so what does the beyond fair sound like from God? Well, God would say this: "You guys blew it and you deserve separation, but I love you and I love you even though you've blown it, and I'm going to send My Son to die in your place and pay for your sins."

That's beyond fair. And so how God deals with those that haven't heard like you have heard, I believe it will be fair. You have the Great White Throne Judgment and I don't know how it all is going to go down, but we're all there and we're watching God distribute His judgment and His grace in heaven. I know this: at the end of the day as we're watching that scene, we will declare God fair, righteous, and just.

We will agree with Him because He is, He's demonstrated it. All the billions of people before the throne, God is judging the nations. But let me give it to you real quick summary on the functionality. And again, I developed this in another Bible study, but it's enough for you today because that may be the question you walked in with. Every person, if you think of the world right now as a dark room where you can't see, like completely dark, you can't see.

Even the smallest amount of light will light that room up. So you're just grasping for the smallest amount of light. And in the smallest amount of light leading the way, you can get out of the dark room and it can become bright again. Every human being in this dark world has been given a little light. Every single human being, external light, internal light as humans.

Let me give you an example. Every single person, man, woman, and child, language, tribe, tongue, nation, in the jungle, up the Amazon, no matter where they are, has been given this light. You ready? They've been given the light of creation. They see a tree, they see an animal, they see a mountain, and they must conclude: "I see that and I didn't make that.

I didn't have anything to do with it. And if they tried to, I think I'll try to make a tree, they can't. They can't even develop the seed. And I'll try to create an animal, they can't." And it forces them to consider something is greater than them. That's why all this false worship and all these false deities because there's a desire to worship in every man.

And they recognize they're not the creator so they look to something outside of themselves. However, if they respond to that light externally, God has given them an inside light, and that is the light of their conscience. Every human being on the planet Earth knows the difference between right and wrong. And you go, "Wait a minute, Pastor, those guys over there don't have our laws and they don't have our morality."

No, no, they have a God-formed conscience. And I'll tell you how you know. Everyone understands, even listening to me today, everyone understands right and wrong when they are wronged. Because immediately your response is, "That's not right. That's not fair. How could you do that to me?" It's like what do you mean, it's fair in my morals, it was not fair in my, and just the discussion about morality reveals you know right and wrong.

It may not be formed and it may not be polished, but the essence of right and wrong exists in every single human being and it moves them. It either moves them toward God or away from God as they choose. And if a person responds properly to the external light and a person responds properly to the internal light, let me tell you what happens.

A lot of different things happen. But for one guy that I haven't met yet, but I hope I do, as he woke up in the morning to be a village chief and go about his day, with things on his mind and issues in his life, out of the blue, these missionaries show up from America in his village. Just got off a boat on this wild ride up the Amazon River, and they come out and begin to play with the kids.

And begin to bless them with gifts and begin to tell them about the love of Jesus. And he hears along with his daughter, no doubt she was playing soccer, and these human beings that God had brought human beings for the exact right moment, the light of Christ was shown on this man and this village and 20-plus people respond to the gospel. That's one way.

Another way we see God responding to light and men and women responding and seeing God act on that is throughout the Muslim world today, God is speaking to men and women in their dreams and with visions, revealing the fullness of the gospel and men and women are getting saved right now and starting small home groups and underground churches, not only throughout the Muslim world, but for years this is how churches started in China.

Let me just tell you something. You ready? God, He is abundantly fair, righteous, and just, and He's going to take care of everyone and no one will be without an excuse standing before God. But that's not really the question, is it, what about those who have never heard? The real question is this: You have heard about the love of Jesus. What about you?

What will you do in response to the fullness of God's love for you? God declares: "I know what you've done, I know where you've been, I know what you've thought, but I love you and I sent My Son Jesus Christ to die for you." And today if you come to faith in Him, you will be saved. That's the good news, folks. And it's based upon the promises of God, and God, He always keeps His promises. Amen.

Guest (Male): This is Abounding Grace and Pastor Ed Taylor is leading a study of Galatians right now. You can hear these radio programs on our website anytime at aboundinggraceradio.com. Another way to go and grow in the Word is by downloading the Calvary Church app. This is a great way for you to take in the Word of God wherever you may be.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Hey, this is Pastor Ed and I'd like to tell you about my newest book. It's titled *Letting Go of Your Past*. God has been using this book, it's only been out for a few months and already so many are being set free and moving forward and gaining new insight on how it is to deal with the resentment in their life, or the anger, or the unforgiveness, or what it is to heal from deep traumatic hurts.

This little book is filled with wisdom of the Lord to help you move forward. *Letting Go of Your Past* is the title and you can get it right now wherever you get books or at calvarystore.com, calvarystore.com. If you need any help you can always call us. The number here is 877-30-GRACE.

Guest (Male): Request a copy of *Letting Go of Your Past* today when you give a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call 877-30-GRACE or order online at calvaryco.store. And please remember, we are listener-supported. We'd very much appreciate your standing with us.

If the Lord is leading you to take an active role in this ministry through either a one-time gift or ongoing support, please visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE. Well, that'll do it for today. Come back next time when Pastor Ed will pick up where he left off in Galatians here on Abounding Grace.