If salvation depended upon the conformity of the believer to some set of rules or regulations, then no one would get to heaven. Paul said that all have sinned. Furthermore, if salvation came through a person’s deeds, then there would be no need at all for faith. If you are good enough, you go to heaven. You could believe whatever you want, but if you kept the Law, God would “owe” you heaven. But four times the Bible says, “The just shall live by faith.”

The bottom line is that if we could lose our salvation, we would. Taken in context, no verse of Scripture contradicts that truth.

When God spoke to Abram in the land of Chaldea, Abram made a choice. He reckoned in his heart that this God was One who could be trusted, whose Word was true, and whose promises were certain. He did not suddenly reform his sinful nature and become righteous, but he made a simple choice, to believe God and to trust Him. When he did so, God immediately ceased charging any sin to Abram’s account. From that moment on, Abram was wholly and unconditionally righteous in God’s sight. Yet, Abram remained a sinner.

Many are the sins recorded of Abraham in the Old Testament. He lied twice about his relationship with Sarah, saying that she was his sister instead of his wife. This, so that he could preserve his life, protecting himself against the whims of Gentile leaders who desired Sarah for her beauty. They would not kill her brother in order to have her, but they would kill her husband.

In another situation, Abraham succumbed to Sarah’s scheme to give him a son by her maid, Hagar. God had promised to make Abraham the father of a great nation, but Sarah laughed at that promise. She persuaded Abraham that if he were to have a son, it must be through someone other than herself, since she was beyond child-bearing age. Here, Abraham chose to believe his wife rather than the God who had brought him so far. He slept with Hagar, and fathered a son, Ishmael.

God did not then start charging Abraham’s sins to him again. Abraham had already determined that God was to be trusted. He had entered into a relationship with God that would last forever. His momentary rationalization did not change that relationship. That glitch in his faith did not negate God’s promises, else Isaac would never have been born. It is true that Abraham fell for Sarah’s plot, probably figuring that that was how God intended to keep His promise. He still trusted God, but he also had begun to lean toward his own reasoning. Once a person enters into a relationship of faith with God, though he may from time to time falter, giving in to temptation or fear, God does not cast him aside. In spite of all his failings and the continuation of his sins, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews included this great man in the “Faith Hall of Fame,” Hebrews 11: 8-12.

We all sin. There are times in the lives of all Christians when we rationalize what we know in order to do what we desire. However, just as God continued in His providence toward Abraham, just as He kept His Word to him and gave him solid reason to hope in the fulfillment of every promise, so also does God continue to love and to provide for Christians throughout our lives on earth, regardless of our failings or the occasional weakness of our faith. It is better to trust in God than to put confidence in man.

Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain...” (John 15:16). It is why we are saved in the first place. It is why we are chosen. We are here for a single purpose, to be fruitful. Does this mean that we should have our pockets filled with apricots? No, but if we plant an orange tree, and it is fruitful, what does it bear? Oranges. And if we plant wheat, what does it produce? Much wheat. The Christian is to bear Christians. We are to participate in fruitful ministries in whatever way we can, whether through personal witness, or through participation in the ministries of others. This is the most important reason to support your local church, for by doing so, you participate in the ministries of that church. The fruit your church bears is then credited to your account, laying up great treasure in heaven for you. But the best way to ensure your own fruitfulness is to learn the Scriptures and use them in a personal ministry to the lost, depending upon the God who called you and saved you to also make you fruitful. God would not have saved you if He did not intend for you to minister the gospel to others, whether through personal testimony or the support of others.

“ ‘As long as the ultra-Orthodox were outsiders to the state they had no interest in a Torah state, but now that they feel that the state is theirs, they want their kind of state,’ observes Moshe Halbertal, a religious philosopher at the Hebrew University and Hartman Institute. ‘But the conception of Judaism they want to bring to that state is fundamentally anti-democratic — it is untempered by any of the adaptations that Judaism has gone through in relation to modernity and political power elsewhere around the world.’”

That was quoted from the Jerusalem Post of 2/23/99. The writer is complaining that Israel is not conforming to the world, while democratic principles demand that they do so. The fact is, Israel ought not be a democracy at all, but a theocracy. It was their shift from having God as their King to having a man serve in that capacity that has brought them to their current low estate. Now, the ultra-Orthodox Jews, the ones who attempt to stick most closely to the law of Moses, desire to participate in the democratic systems of Israel, but they want to be the arbiters of what is right.

There is a day coming, perhaps within the decade, when Israel will have her King sitting on the throne. There will be no democracy in that day, but Jesus Christ will rule with a rod of iron. Even the ultra-Orthodox do not have it right today. Pharisaical in the extreme, they set themselves up as judges of others, while doing the very thing that their more liberal adversaries are doing. No government in Israel will be right until their King is crowned. Until then, they will continue to reason among themselves, following the ways of the Gentiles.

If a Christian does not occasionally go through periods when he isn’t very popular, there is a good chance that he is not fulfilling his or her personal ministry. If everyone loves you all the time, then you’re probably compromising the truth somewhat in order to avoid controversial situations. Nobody likes the preacher who steps on folks’ toes. It is practically impossible to minister in a worldly environment, maintaining an eternal perspective, without offending someone sometime.

On the other hand, some folks are just downright unfriendly. It may be that people do not like you simply because you are one of those who are hard to like. A good test of your “likeability quotient” is to determine the degree to which you think of other people rather than of yourself. Do you spend more time dwelling on your own problems than you do trying to help others with theirs? Do you automatically grab the best towel? The best seat? The best cut of meat? Is the television usually turned to your favorite programs? Are your entertainment habits geared to your own preferences or to those of others? The Law of Christ is the love of God, poured out in our hearts, reaching out to those to whom the Holy Spirit would have us minister.

If, however, your life is characterized by a genuine love for others, and you still find yourself unpopular, there is a good chance that you are fulfilling your ministry. Then you may stand on the Word of God, knowing that He will glorify Himself in your unpopularity. Then you may know that you are laying up treasure in heaven, and that these momentary trials are a small price to pay for the rewards you will receive for your honest labors.

If you find yourself unpopular, examine yourself. If you are standing on the Word of God, dislike will be turned to respect eventually, even if it is not until the judgment seat of Christ. Seek not earthly approval, but heavenly. Trust God, not men.

God did make a great nation of the descendants of Abraham. Indeed many nations descended from his seed, if the descendants of Ishmael are taken into consideration. Under David and Solomon, Israel was as great and as powerful as any nation of that time, though they were not a people of conquest of other lands like so many of their contemporaries.

God did also bless Abraham, both materially, and in Isaac, the son of promise. Abraham’s name looms as large in the history of the world as any who ever lived, outside of Christ Himself. And Abraham has already become a great blessing to all the nations of the earth through the grace offered freely to all through his most important “descendant,” Jesus Christ. In those senses the covenant has been fulfilled.

However, Israel has never extended her boundaries to the limits that God set for them. That will not happen until the Son of God sits on the throne of Israel and reigns from there over the entire world. That promise has not yet been fulfilled, though its fulfillment is made sure by its partial earlier fulfillment. It is a near certainty that the resurrected Abraham’s name will loom still larger over the earth during the millennial kingdom and in eternity. And not everyone who will participate in the blessing of Abraham to all the world have yet tasted the glory of God’s grace. Even that portion of the covenant is only partially fulfilled.

Both Daniel and Ezekiel prophesied during the first seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, and both prophesied an end-times restoration of Israel to the land, with her fullest glory beginning with the return of the Messiah to the earth. Ezekiel gives remarkably detailed of conditions on the earth and in Israel during Messiah’s reign, as Isaiah also does. A literal interpretation of the Bible allows for no other possibility than that Israel will yet occupy the full extent of the land that God gave to Abraham, and that she will do so under the reign of her Messiah.

Many liberal theologians try to show that the Church is “spiritual Israel,” and that the promises that God made to Israel now apply to the Church. It is a difficult and illogical stretch at best. Among those theologians, even one of the greatest, Oswald Allis, states plainly that, if a literal interpretation is the correct method for interpreting the Bible, then a dispensationalist, premillennial, pretribulational interpretation must be correct. The argument among theologians is whether we ought to take the Bible for what it says or apply our reason to it and make it mean something altogether different. If a literal interpretation makes perfect sense, why make perfect nonsense out of it. If every other prophecy that has ever been fulfilled has been fulfilled literally, why should we believe that the few remaining ones will not be fulfilled literally also. The very idea is preposterous, and all the more so when you consider that many prophecies relating to the end-times have already been fulfilled, and literally. Essentially, what we often find is that liberal theologians attack every point of a literal interpretation because such an approach shoots down their fanciful theories as to future events. What is strange is that those theologians take every other portion of Scripture literally except prophecy. The basic premise seems untenable, especially when a literal interpretation makes such perfect sense, and conforms very precisely to the world in which we live today.

The devil always likes to diminish the believers’ hopes. His temptation of Eve declared God to be a liar, and he has been trying for countless millennia to persuade men of that lie. If Satan could only prove one verse of the Bible to be wrong, he would have done so long ago. If one verse could be disproved, the whole thing would fall apart, and would be worth less than the sleaziest novel, for it is a Book that professes to present the truth, whereas a novel is admittedly a work of fiction. But God’s Word is sure, and can be trusted. God did not lie when He said, “I will...” Believers today are looking for a day when His promises to Abraham and his descendants will realize their greatest and fullest fulfillment. If that promise were to be broken, then we would have no basis for our faith in any of the promises of God. If God tricked Abraham, then he might be tricking us also, and where is the reason behind our hope?

Was Abraham just your average Joe? Was he nice? Was he mean? If he were our neighbor today, what would we think of him? The Bible paints a clearer portrait of Abraham than we often consider.

First of all, Abraham was a wealthy man. He had great herds and many servants. He was a manager. An administrator. A policy-maker. Abraham was a man who was experienced in the management of a large estate. He was prominent in the land of Chaldea, respected among his peers. Perhaps one of the reasons that God chose Abraham was because He knew that he would be a good steward of the lands and resources that He was about to appoint for His chosen people.

But Abraham had other qualities as well. Any rich man would do just fine if managerial expertise were the only determining factor. While God may have taken Abraham’s abilities under consideration, He was looking for other things altogether. Abraham was decisive. When God called him, he determined that he would trust this God, that he would follow Him unquestioningly. When the time came for him to pack up his life and move it to another part of the world, he didn’t hesitate out of fear or timidity. There were times when circumstances overwhelmed him, such as when he lied about his relationship with Sarah in order to preserve his life, but Abraham was not a fearful man in general.

Neither, however, was Abraham an impulsive man. He thought things through. Yet, when called upon to leave Haran and go to the land of Canaan, he did as he was instructed. He had decided before that he would trust God, and so he did. When called upon to offer his son, the child of promise, as a burnt offering, he took his beloved child and went out to slay him. When Abraham left Haran, he was already an old man, seventy-five years old, but he did not excuse himself at all with the claim of being too old to start over in life. Instead, he figured that God would not lead him out if He didn’t have something better for him. When he arose to sacrifice Isaac, it was because God had promised that Isaac would be the son through whom the promises would come to Abraham and his descendants. he believed God, and knew that God must raise him from the dead in order to keep His Word. He did not fear to sacrifice him.

Because Abraham was a faithful man. He was a man who trusted God, who believed that what God promised, He would also deliver. He was obviously a cautious man, for he anticipated problems and sought solutions to them, as is borne out in his deceptions of the Gentile rulers who desired his wife. But when God spoke, Abraham believed and acted.

But he was also a faithless man. He did sleep with Hagar. He did lie to the Gentile kings about Sarah. Twice. He did move down to Egypt for the sake of food. He was an ordinary Joe insofar as the vicissitudes of life affected him. But in the big moments, the times when his security and his stability were most threatened, he acted on faith. Three times, the Bible says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Abraham was a loving man, a family man. When his nephew Lot chose the prime farmland, Abraham did not quibble over it. When Lot was captured, Abraham raised an army and fought against four kings in order to save him. When Sodom and Gomorrah were threatened, he prayed fervently that the cities might be spared, because Lot dwelt in Sodom. When he sent Ishmael packing, he surely grieved over the estrangement from that son. Though he acted on faith in the sacrifice of Isaac, his heart must’ve been very troubled by the fact that this son whom he loved, would see him as a betrayer, as one who would kill a son with whom he lived in favor of a God whom he could not see. When Joseph was sold into Egypt, Abraham grieved for a long, long time over that lost son. Even as God grieves over every soul who is lost today. Long years after Sarah had died, Abraham continued to maintain her tent, for this is where Isaac took Rebekah when he married her. And Abraham was very careful to seek a proper wife for his son Isaac, sending his servant all the way back to Haran to seek a wife among his family.

Abraham was rich, capable, wise, loving, brave and faithful. But he was also selfish, fearful, foolish, poor in spirit, proud and faithless. He was in fact just like every one of us. But he believed God, and God accounted it to him for righteousness. Even after Abraham first trusted God, he suffered many lapses in heart and deed. But God continued to love him. He had not chosen Abraham because of any merit whatsoever in the man, but by His grace he chose him. By His grace he chooses every believer and, though we are sometimes faithless, God fulfills his promise of providence, showing us that we can trust His promise of eternal life.

Almost as an afterthought were those words spoken. Of course, there is no such thing as an afterthought with God. He knew from eternity past precisely what He would say to Abram in the giving of that covenant. But those twelve words reach all the way around the world, to the inclusion of even the tiniest nation or tribe. Had God not spoken them, no Gentile would ever have been saved except those who became proselytes to the Jews and the Law of Moses. What a door was opened in that single clause!

Abram surely did not understand the significance of God’s words in that brief utterance. His heart was probably focused more narrowly on the fact that he was to become a great nation, on the fact that his would become a great name, and on the benefits that would accrue to him from the protection that God was promising. Abram likely saw this covenant from a personal perspective. He had no Holy Spirit dwelling within him, and was surely as self-centered as any man. But he did believe God, and so that final clause of the covenant became effective for all of us.

Because Abram believed God, righteousness was imputed to him. He was saved, though he was not born again of the Seed of God. Today men and women and children all around the world enter into a relationship with God that Abram never dreamed of, through the new birth. Had Abram not believed God without understanding, none of us would ever have had a chance to be saved. Because he did, everyone today may share in the blessings of faithful Abraham. Every word of God is important, and all reach beyond understanding to infinity.