I'm speaking to you on a series of messages on the sins of godly men. Now, I introduce this series by saying to you, it's no attempt to belittle those men. You know, our modern-day contemporary historians want to magnify the faults of our founding fathers, of our heroes, and They do that to destroy our confidence in our nation and our government. That's not what my intent is. It's not to belittle these men in any way, but rather to show and magnify the grace of God and God's mercy and goodness to us, and that what God used those men for and how they were used was not because of their own merit, not because of their own goodness, but rather God by the Holy Spirit of God used human beings in a marvelous way to do His work. Now, that's important for us to understand. Brother Stacy talked to us about that we should purge ourselves from certain things. Well, how do we purge from that? Well, in the third chapter, Brother Stacy made reference to that in the third chapter, Paul tells you how to do that, particularly, and that is by the Word of God. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for instruction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. And so, the Word of God, studying the Word of God, reading the Word of God, being taught by the Holy Spirit of God, is a means whereby that we are brought to be useful estimates of the Holy Spirit of God to do His work. So in talking about these men, and I do not want at all to belittle them or to in any way lessen our appreciation for them. The very men that I'm talking about, God honors. Most of these men are mentioned in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. They're God's hall of fame, men of faith. Some of them are women also. So I'm not wanting to try and belittle those men, but rather to show you marvelous grace of God, how that God can take a feeble vessels and use them to his honor and glory. Every God-called preacher will tell you that it's not me, but it's the Holy Spirit of God. It's God enabling me to speak to me. So all of us, every one of us are instruments to be used by God as God the Holy Spirit works in us. And he takes even vessels of dishonor and makes them the vessels of honor. Some have been preachers that God has called to be preachers who, life in the past, maybe they were drug addicts, maybe they were alcoholics. You would think that there was not a one person in the world that was worthy to be used of God to be an instrument of God's to do the Lord's work. He was a murderer. He was a blasphemer. But God miraculously used him on a marvelous way to be the great apostle that he was. So that's what I want to try to show us in these studies of these men. So I want to talk today about Abraham, 12th chapter of Genesis. We're going to look about the man Abraham. Now Abraham was a great instrument that God marvelously used. He is set for us, He's called the Father of our faith. Abraham was a man of great faith, and he is used in illustration of God, by God, how that a man believed God, trusted God, and he lived a life glorifying to the Lord. But there are some areas of his life that we would look at and show you today that Abraham was not always perfect. And so we get a misconception sometimes. We think that a preacher or some other, we as Christians, we must be perfect. We're not. We make mistakes. You make mistakes. But that doesn't mean that God casts us off. That doesn't mean that God gives up on us. The history of Israel was one of God's great grace and mercy. Israel would indeed turn from the Lord, abandon the Lord, but God would restore them and bring them back to a place of usefulness. And so that's what I want to see in Genesis chapter 12. We're going to talk today about Abraham. So if you look at that very beginning verse, now who was Abraham? Well, you'll have to look at some other scriptures besides here in Genesis chapter 12 to find out who Abraham was. We're introduced to him in the 11th chapter of Genesis. The 11th chapter of Genesis we read, the latter part, verse 29. And Abram and Nahor took them wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarah, the name of Nahor's wife Micah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Melchah, the father of Ishgah. But Sarah was barren, and she had no child. Now this is Abram, Abraham, as he dwelt in the land of Ur-Chaldees. He was living in Ur-Chaldees. This is a very highly civilized society. Large libraries are found in the ancient Babylonian cities, and it shows to us that this civilization, which Abraham grew up in, was a very developed civilization. But it was also a very ungodly civilization, worshiping pagan gods. This is the father of all the Jews. Where the Jewish race began? Well, it began with Abram. You'll turn with me to the book of Isaiah, and I'll read to you a few verses of scripture from Isaiah chapter 51. Isaiah 51, verses 1 and 2. Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seeketh the Lord. Look unto the rock which you were human, and to the hole of a pit which you were digged, the rock which you were human. You were cut out of a rock. Now, if you're aware of that process of making a marble slab and making a statue, there is a process involved. The very first thing is that there must be a person with great skill and ability, who is a sculptor, who will cut out the stone out of that rock. I was reading the other day about the development and the history of Mount Rushmore. It's an interesting story to read, and it's fascinating what they did there, and those pictures of those Presidents there at Mount Rushmore. Behind that mountain, even, there is some other interesting activities that went on. This architect was brought over, sculpture was brought over from Italy, he and his son, and they had a crew and they chiseled out the faces of these great people. Well, and really, and so we might say, as God would say here, look to this barren stone. You look at it and there was nothing, no beauty about it. There was no beauty about Mount Rushmore as the men began to develop it. You would not have seen what they saw. You would not have had the skilled eye. You would not have seen the features that they saw. But through their skill and abilities, they saw in that mountain of stone there, they saw the potential of it. And so it is that what God is saying here to Israel, in a sense, I hew you out. I hewed you out. I cut you out, out of a rock. That's all you were. so to speak, you were a rock that I cut you. Not only that, but you were in a pit. You'll see that in the last part. The pit which you were digged. God is telling Israel, you have no merit, nothing to glorify Him, because I dug you out of a pit. In Deuteronomy chapter six, God tells, reminds Israel, that I set my love upon you, not because you were the largest of nations, or because you were mighty, but because you were the fewest. Because I would love and chose your fathers, I chose you. In other words, what I'm pointing to is that we are called by God by sovereign grace. We were, as it were, in a pit. We were as on polished stones. We have nothing in ourselves to be glorified in. So God says, out of the pit which you were digged, look unto Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bare you. For I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. I want you to note particularly the word in verse 2, I called him alone. We're going to make some comments about that a few minutes later on. And so this is Abram, verse 31, back to the 11th chapter of Genesis. And I took Terah, and Terah took Abram, his son, rather, and Lot, the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarah, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth from the earth of Chaldeas to go to the land of Canaan. They came into Haran and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. 205 years is a pretty long time period. Of course, we have men in that very same time period living about to be 900 years of age. And so, they come to Haran, and Abram's father dies there. Terah dies there. Now, look at chapter 12 in verse 1. Now, the Lord... Now, note this word here. It's had said. It's past tense. It's referring to something that had already previously happened. And it happened when Abram dwelt in Ur-Chaldees. God spoke unto Abram. And what did he say to Abram? Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Well, that certainly has been fulfilled in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Paul, speaking about this blessing that God promised to Abram, refers to it and makes note of that, that the seed was Christ, and in Christ Jesus have all the nations of the world been blessed. And he says in verse 4 then, So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran. Now, the Lord had spoken to him prior to the time when he dwelt in the Urb-Chaldees, and they go partway, halfway to Canaan, and they stop there at Haran. And while they're there, Abram's father Terah dies. Now, I want to look at Joshua chapter 24 before I say any more here, Joshua chapter 24. And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood. Now, that's really talking about the other side of the river. That's a reference to the River of Jordan. even Terah the father of Abraham, the father of Nacor, and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. So this is the background to this man Abraham. His name originally was Abram, and God called him from Ur-Chaldees by his sovereign grace, and called him to come to a land that he would show him. You will note that he says he called him alone to leave his kindred and his family. And they come halfway. But he has all his family with him. He has his father with him. Lord is with him. I don't know all the whys, and I'm surmising, but it seems like, and other Bible scholars, not that I'm a scholar, but other Bible scholars seem to get this same understanding, that there is somewhat of a partial obedience on the part of Abram. We're surmising. We're not emphatically declaring that. But it seems, by comparing Scripture, that God said to Abram, I want you to leave your family, your father, and come to the land. Come alone. He said, I called thee alone. In fact, the matter, Terah did die in Erevah before he got to the land of Canaan. So he brings his family, his father, with him. I can understand that. He loves his father, and his father's an old man. And it may be in a simple act of mercy and kindness and compassion on the part of his father, to take his father with him, that's understandable. But there's also the implication of this, that there's no record that Terah was a godly man, or that Terah's interested in the things of the Lord as God is going to teach and show forth to Aaron. I don't know that. We're surmising some things. But the implication is of what we would call partial obedience. Abram is called to leave Ur of Chaldeas. That's his home country. That's where all of his descendants live. This is a great, marvelous, prospering area, Ur of Chaldeas. To go into the land there, I will show you. Now, understand, there's no GPSs. There's no maps. There's no Internet. We travel today, we call ahead of time, we look on the internet and we make reservations in hotels and so forth and do all these things. None of that. And the land that I will show you, you're going to follow me step by step into a land that I wish, Cain and Abraham have never been there before. He didn't have any relatives living there. I know something about that, to go into a foreign country, you don't know Any people living there, it's a strange country. My family and I have done that. There's always a lot of questions about how you're going to survive and so forth, things like that. Well, in Orlando I will show you, and I will bless thee. Promise, God promised him that. But it seems he goes to Heron and stops there for a while, and his father dies. If it is a case of partial disobedience, if it is a case of not giving up completely his family, his father, if that's the case, God causes him to do what he called him to do. One of the lessons in life that you'll learn as you live your Christian experience is, when God calls you to do something, When God tells you and instructs you to do something, you will do it freely or God will compel you to do it. He will make you to do it. Things will happen in your life. I can talk from personal experience. I know and I can tell you by experience that God, whatever God has ordained for you to do, He will discipline you. He will cause you. I'll use this word, He will make you. Now, some people don't like that terminology, God makes you. Well, in Ezekiel, I think Brother Stacy read that scripture a while ago, but in Ezekiel, God says, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to keep my commandments. Now, that's a blessed, comforting thing to know that God will cause you to do things. But human nature is, we don't like to be made to do anything. I said to you before, all of us are rebels by nature. You don't realize it, but you are. We're born that way. That's what it's talking about, fleeing you for us. None of us want to be told what to do. I hated, as a young person, being told, you've got to get out of bed. Now, no problem, because I understand now, if you're going to have a job and keep a job, you better get up. You know, I just thought that getting out of bed was a wasteful exercise, because I didn't have a job. If I got out of bed, it meant I had to go to school. Who wants to go to school? There's only one reason why I wanted to get out of bed, and that was go fishing or go play ball. And since I wasn't going fishing or playing ball, I didn't want to get out of bed. Youthful lust. Read the book of Proverbs. It tells you about the harm of staying in bed. The slugger tosses to and fro. Anyway, so by nature we're all rebels. And we don't like to be told what we've got to do. And we reluctantly sometimes follow the Lord. We half-hearted sometimes will follow the Lord. And there are things that interfere. You know, my early years as a young man in high school, I had no desire to be a preacher. I was a Christian, but I never intended to ever be a preacher. That was the last thing from my mind, and you never told me I ever wanted to be a preacher. My ambitions were, if I could do it, I wanted to be a lawyer. I still love law, still like to go down to the courtroom and observe the practice of lawyers. But, so youthful lust and ambitions and things that you want to be, I get concerned sometimes when I hear Christian young people talking about their plans for their lives, and there's no implications that God has any input into that. I hope that that's not true of you all here. I hope that all of you are seeking the Lord's will and direction all your lives. The Lord makes instructions to us, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things shall be added unto you. Take no thought for tomorrow. Not that we should not be having a vocation or a job, that's not what it's talking about. But the first priority is what does God have for me to do? What's God's desire for my life? How will God use me if I'm a child of God? If I've been saved by God's free and sovereign grace, if God has called me from darkness out alive, if Christ has redeemed me by his precious blood, if I am a child of God, a servant of the Lord, if I am a vessel of the Holy Spirit in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and God has placed me here in this world, what is my vocation to be? Paul says walk worthy of your vocation. What is it, first of all, to serve the Lord? But there are things that the devil will throw in your path. Maybe it's family. The Lord says something like this. If a man does not hate his mother and his father, his brother or his sister to come follow me, he's not worthy of me. Now, he's talking about in a relative sense that parents, family, mother, brothers and sisters, that they take second, third priority to, first of all, to follow the Lord. Sometimes it's family. Ruth and I have had at times to go in a different direction than what our family wanted us to go, what our family believed. And we must follow Jesus, not family, not friends, not folly ambitions. The song that Martin Luther wrote The mighty fortresses are God. There's a line in that that says, Let goods and kindreds go, this mortal life also. The body they may kill, God's truth a body of steel. His kingdom is forever. Let goods and kindred go. That's what Abraham was called to do, to leave Earl Cowleys, get out of this country, get out of this rich, wealthy, booming economy, get out of here and go on to a country that I will show you. What is it? Where is it? I will show you. And so it seems like he partially obeyed the Lord. But he ultimately did exactly as God told him to do. And he did it by faith. And I do not want to diminish that one bit. He by faith followed the Lord and went with the Lord, and God gave him everything that he promised. In the very same chapter of Isaiah, I mean Joshua, the 24th chapter, you will read, Joshua saying, that not one good thing did the Lord withhold. It came to pass that all the good things that are kept upon you, which the Lord has promised you, So the Lord will bring upon you all evil. And God fulfilled and kept his word that he made unto Abraham, and everything that God promised Abraham, it was completely fulfilled, because Abraham obeyed God, and they came to the land of Canaan. But in the land of Canaan, then, there are some other problems that arise. In the 12th chapter, again, of Genesis, you'll read this. And you'll have a hard time believing that this godly man who believes the Lord, and who's going to be mightily used of God, and who was mightily used of God, it's just hard to believe that he's going to do this very thing. The 14th verse of the 12th chapter of Genesis. Well, let me start reading about verse 10. And there was a famine in the land. Now, that's a very interesting thing, because you'll read about the Bible, and through the Bible, that there are various famines throughout the world and so forth. And you'll read later on about a man by the name of Jacob, and you'll read about a famine that came in the days and years of Jacob. And the Bible says that God caused the famine to come, a worldwide famine to come. Every farmer knows that when he plants, he's trusting God to give him the proper weather so this crop will grow. And if God doesn't give the weather, we're not going to have a good crop. There are people who are very rightly so concerned about our food supply because of the lack of water. And there's a very serious issue in the western part of our country about water supply. Well, that's a worldwide concern, and we're concerned that if there is a time of not much rain, that the world may experience actually a famine. Well, whatever the case may be, here I will tell you that a famine is brought about by God. He withholds a rain for a reason, and that reason is going to be, I believe, he's going to prove Abraham. and test him. The Bible talks about later on that God tempted, or God tested, rather, Abraham. And so an ill providence, I'll use that terminology, an ill providence falls upon the world. A famine sets in. Hard time. You lose a job. Somebody gets sick. God, who's in control of all things, brings about a trial testing time, a famine. So what does Abraham do? Well, let me read verse 10. And Abram went down, down, down. Now, if you look on your maps, the world map, you'll find that it's not geographically always correct to say down going to Egypt land. It is actually you go southwest going to Egypt land. But it's always described when you go to Egypt from Canaan land, you go down. That's just like when Jonah was going to get on a boat God had told him to go to Nineveh. Jonah wants to go to... He decides rather than going to Nineveh, he's going to go in the opposite direction. He's going to go to Joppa. He's going to go to the West. And so the Bible says he went down to Joppa to get a boat. You see, here's a lesson. Always when you're going contrary to the way that God tells you to go, you're going downhill. You're going down. You may not It may not appear that way. Oh, it may be that you're getting richer. It may be you're getting more successful. It may be that you're... But it's going to end up going downhill. So he goes down to Egypt land. You know what Egypt describes, is depicting? Egypt is figurative, symbolic of the world. Prosperity, wealth. So he goes down to Egypt land. to sojourn there. That's a word that also implies things. He didn't just go down there to visit. He goes down there to sojourn. God has said, Come to Canaan land. That's where God said, I'll bless you. What are you doing down in Egypt land? Well, there's a famine in the land. Well, did not God tell you He'd bless you? Why do you go to Egypt land? Same thing happened in the book of Ruth. Abimelech Elimelech, there was a famine in the house of bread in Bethlehem, and he goes to the land of Moab. And as a result of going to the land of Moab, Elimelech and his two sons die. Read the book of Ruth. He didn't save his life by going to the land of Moab. He died there in the land of Moab. So he goes down to Egypt, sojourned there, and the famine was grievous. He came to Palestine, he came near to enter into Egypt, that he said to Sarah his wife. Now just look at this. If it wasn't the Bible that said this, you'd have a hard time believing it. He said to Sarah's wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon, therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say this is his wife, and they shall kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say I pray thee that thou art my sister that it may be well with me for thy sake and my soul shall live because of thee can you imagine a Husband telling his wife and she was his half-sister But can you imagine a man telling his wife now when we get down here? I don't want you to tell them you're my wife you tell them you're my sister because I'm scared They're going to kill me and take you alive Now wait a minute Abram Didn't God make you a promise that I'm going to bless you and that I would multiply your seed, and that you would dwell, and that your seed would be as the stars of heaven, as the sand of the earth, and now you're afraid, when you go down to Egypt land, that God's going to kill you, let you be killed? He thinks that God can't take care of him. In a wicked, ungodly country, He thinks that God can't take care of him. Now, I will make a point that I don't think he should have gone in the first place. But he's there now. For whatever reason, he's there. And God is directing his path, allowing him to go down to Egypt land, and he just thinks that, I'm here in a bad place. And so the next step of his disobedience is he lies about his wife, Sarah. The thing that we're always saying is, sin will take you farther than you plan to go, and it will cost you more than you plan to pay, and you will stay longer than you plan to stay. Sin will cost you more than you plan to pay. He's going to lose his wife if what his plans is fulfilled. You tell them, you're my sister, and I'll give you... And that's what he did. Now God, in a marvelous, miraculous way, spared Sarah from any immoral conduct and kept men from molesting her. Let me just read on through here. It came to pass when the Egyptians see thee, verse 14, it came to pass when Abel was come to Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman, she was very fair. Somebody said that Sarah must have been a very beautiful woman, because now she's probably about 75 years of age. And the princess of Pharaoh saw her and commended her before Pharaoh, and the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house. She had become Pharaoh's wife. And he entreated Abraham well for her sake, and he had sheep and oxen, he asses, and the men servants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels. But the Lord, the Lord, thank goodness for the Lord, God's restraining power, Abram has committed himself to do something bad, and he's given Sarah over to be another man's wife, but the Lord! Young people, all of us as God's people will tell you from experience, Were it not for God's restraining grace, we would have been in a mess of a mess. Big mess. Our lives. I visit men in jail, and I tell them, wasn't for God's grace, I'd be the same place you are. You say, well, wait a minute. Some bad things did happen to me in my life. Why didn't God keep it from happening? You don't know how much God's restrained you and how much God prevented you from doing some things that you don't know anything about. God kept some people from killing you that you may have, you're in a bad place. I've been there. And you walk back out and you look back over and you think, what in the world was I doing there? And it's a wonder I didn't get killed when I was there. Or you do something that was crazy and years later you look back at it and you say, It was only God's restraining grace that kept me from getting kicked. I'll tell you just one little thing, and I don't want to try in any way to entice anyone else to do the same thing. My wife, we were not married yet, and she was riding with me, so she can testify about this thing. My brother can tell you about some experience. All of y'all can tell about some experience in days past. But a certain Sunday afternoon, her and I were out riding, car and I went down the two-lane highway and there was cars parked on both sides of the highway. I never realized it until I got in the middle of it, so to speak, but it's a big funeral going on, a big funeral. And there were cars on both sides of the highway and people all around. And I went through that stretch of highway making a hundred miles an hour, right If somebody had stepped out, a car had moved, no time. I was showing out, so to speak. And why am I telling you that? Because I want to illustrate and show you and talk to you, point out to you. God spared me and kept me from being involved in a bad, serious accident. God intervened in the life of Abram and Sarah And God plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abram's wife. Don't presuppose that God will keep you from every bad consequence when you do something bad. But also understand that even though you're in the midst of a wicked people and a wicked world, that God Almighty can take care of you and will take care of you. That was Abram's fault. He didn't believe that God would protect him, though God had promised that He would bless him and make of him a great nation. The man of faith doesn't believe that God is going to take care of his life and protect him from harm. If you're a child of God, No one can do anything to you without God allowing it to happen, and God can take care of you in the storms of your life. There's no temptation, or trial, or taking you, but such as is common. And God, but God is faithful with every temptation and every trial to provide a way of escape that you may bear upon. Three Hebrew men were thrown into a fiery furnace by ungodly country, nation, government, and they were thrown into a fiery furnace that was so hot that the men who put them in the fiery furnace were killed by the flame. And the three Hebrew children came out of that fiery furnace with not even the smell of smoke on them. God Almighty will keep His children safe regardless of what the world does to Now, you say, well, that means that God's people are never going to be hurt and never going to be persecuted. Yes, there have been and will be God's people being persecuted. Understand that if it happens, it happens by the will of God. Because someone will do you injury does not mean God has forsaken you. Trust the Lord to sustain you and keep you in the midst of every storm and every trial. So Abram doesn't believe God will keep his promises to him, the man of faith. Now, I'm not putting him down. What I'm trying to show you is that he's common like us, capable. He was capable of errors, just as you and I are. But God, in spite of that, marvelous by his grace, uses him as a mighty instrument, an example of God's faithfulness to him. And God is faithful to Abram. The third thing. Well, verse chapter 13. He went up out of Egypt, he and his wife, and all they had, and a lot with him. Now I don't want to spend time talking about a lot. I'm going to come to the 16th chapter, Genesis. In the 16th chapter, there's a problem. God has made promise to Abram that he's going to bless him, he's going to multiply him and give him children. His seed will be like the stars and sand. But Sarah is still barren. How are we going to solve that problem? Well, Sarah comes up with an idea. Chapter 1, Now Sarah, Abraham's wife, bare him no children. And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said to Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go into my maid, that I may obtain children by her. And here's the phrase. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarah. Please understand me, I do not mean to imply that a woman does not have the Holy Spirit dwelling in her, that the Holy Spirit does not direct her and guide her, I do not mean to imply that she's anything less in the eyes of God Almighty than a man is. What I want to talk about is headship and responsibilities of men. There is an order that God has established. You'll read it about in the 11th chapter of 1 Corinthians. that Jesus Christ is the head over all men, and that he submitted himself to the will of the Father, and the head of all women is man. There is an order. The problem in our present-day society is the loss of men who are responsible men. They have abandoned their responsibility to the Fathers. to the families. They've abandoned their responsibilities to their children, and they've turned that over to the mothers and school teachers and the policemen. And so, the reason why we have jails and prisons that are overcrowded is because fathers fail to be the fathers in the family. Now, that's a summary of our present-day society problems. And Abram abandons his responsibility He acquiesces to what Sarah's suggestion is. Now, Sarah, nothing wrong with, it's logical. In fact, Mary was customary for this to happen. And it did happen in the life of Jacob. You'll read about that his wife's handmaid, Rachel's, not Rachel, but Leah's handmaid gave him several children. So some of the twelve sons of Isaac come from Jacob, come from handmaids. While this is customary and what was ordinary in that day and time period, God had not spoken to Sarah. He had been talking all the time to Abram. And Abram has a responsibility as head of the family, as Sarah's husband, to do and believe and trust God to fulfill his promise and not to resort to some secondary process. what is the problem in our churches today is, many of our churches today, rather than trusting God to do His work by His Holy Spirit, what churches are doing, what we're doing, we're resorting to secondary processes, programs, to do the work of God. And so we have child evangelism, so we have Sunday schools, so we have many other things going on that are unscriptural, and by those programs, Gathering the world in, so to speak, so we can get them all saved. Well, we're gathering unregenerate people in, what we're gathering in. God's work must be done God's way in order for God to bless. This was not the way that God had ordained for Abram to have a child that he would use to bless the nations with. It's going to be Isaac. But God's promise to Abram is still on the books. God had said, God had told Abram. Now, Abram resorts to advice and a counsel from his wife. Not that a wife cannot give advice and counsel. I myself would be a lot better off sometimes if I had listened to my wife about some things. But the man's responsibility is to weigh and to evaluate that advice and counsel as our advice and counsel. We are to weigh that in the eyes and view of what God has said to us to do. And then we are responsible to lead our wives in the right direction and our children in the right direction. Fathers, we have a responsibility as husbands to protect the position that God has placed us in, in the headship responsibility of our families. Now, I know the world hates that, and women's laborers hate that, and the problem again, I'll tell you that we have, the reason why we have so many of our problems in our society is because we have abandoned God's program of headship in the families. And because men have abandoned that, As a result of the impact of socialism and evolutionary concept on our society, we have, for the most part, a society today that is lawless. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that right now. I just want to talk to you about, show you that Abram absent himself from his responsibility the head of the house. And so he listened to the voice of Sarah, not listening to the voice of God. I'm thankful for a wife that has supported me through my ministry and has been with me, my companion, my helpmate, all the years of our 58 years of marriage. And I commend her and talk to you and highly commend her role to all you younger women. But it has always been her position that I'm the head of the house. And one of the things that God has blessed our family with is with that relationship. And you young people, in establishing your marriage, and you young fellows, in establishing marrying a You need to look for a woman and understand this is God's order, that the husband is to be the head of the house and the head of the family. And don't marry a woman who does not agree with that. And you ladies, don't marry a man who doesn't understand his responsibility as a husband and as a father to provide for the family, to protect the family. and to be the priest in the family. There are three Ps for qualifications of a husband, and that is to be a provider, a protector, and the priest in the home. 17th chapter, we have another problem. In the 17th chapter, verse 17. Let me start at verse 15. God has come to Abram. They've entered into a covenant, chapter 17. God's made a covenant. Well, let me go back to verse 1 of the 17th chapter. And when Abram was 90 years old, 90 years and 9, the Lord appeared unto him and said to him, I am the Almighty God. Walk before me, and be thou perfect, and be thou complete. Abram's had some problems, and he needs to be instructed, reminded about some things. Abram is going to be matured and nurtured in the things of God. He is the great example to us, but he is the great example because God miraculously, marvelously, graciously taught him some things, and we see his weaknesses as God nurtured him along. All of us older Christians can relate to that. God's children have to be nurtured by God. And the way you're nurtured is by God's grace, by God's Word, teaching you that God Almighty is faithful. And this is what God's going to say to Abraham now. Abraham now is 99 years old, and he's had some problems. Halfway partial obedience, come out of the land of Ur of Chaldees, came halfway, stopped there, lost his father. He goes down to Egypt and he lies about Sarah. Can you think about it? This is Abram. He lies about his wife, gives her over to Pharaoh to be his wife. He fathers a child by a handmaid who is Ishmael. Do you know who Ishmael is? Ishmael is the father of all the Palestinians today and all the problems that that the nation of Israel is having with the Palestinians and the Arabs and so forth, can be traced right back to that very one thing right here. Abram hearkened to the voice of his wife. So God says, so to speak, let me take you aside, and I need to talk to you a little bit. Verse 1, And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God. Just remind you who I am, God. And here's what we all need to understand. Here's a problem that Abram maybe has forgotten or did not fully realize. You, in days past, you worshipped pagan gods, and you worshipped false gods. I need to remind you who I am. I am the Almighty God. Walk before me. Don't listen to the world around about you. Don't listen to your family. Don't even listen to your wife. Walk before me and be thou perfect. Now, there's not a perfect man, woman, or face of the earth. But Peter tells us, James, rather, says to us that we're to be perfect. That simply means that we are to be mature. Rather than participating in youthful lust, we are to be mature. That means to be full-grown adults. That's what this means, to be perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee. And thou shalt be a father of many nations, neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham. For a father of many nations have I made thee, and I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee, and I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed, that's Christ, after thee in their generations. for an everlasting covenant to be of God unto thee, and between thy seed after me. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, or the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and thou wilt be their God." I believe that God gave Israel, Abram, the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. Now the question is, who is the Israel? And I will tell you, it's the spiritual Israel of God. It's not national Israel. It's the spiritual. Now, I'm not anti-Semitic. I'm not against Israel. I'm all for us defending and protecting and helping Israel as much as we can as a nation. But understand, Israel that's living in the land of Israel right for the most part, they are unregenerate people, they are Antichrist people. So are we here in America, same way. I'm not against Israel, but I am against the concept that the Israel living in the land of Israel today is the Holy Nation. It's the spiritual nation of Israel that God makes promise to, and we could go on and go down that road and talk more about it, but I don't want to today. But God keeps His promises. And you come to the book of Judges, you'll find that God several times brought judgment against Israel and sent captives Enemies in to lead them into captivity and eventually go into 70 years of Babylonian captivity But God brings them back to the land to keep his promise to them until Messiah came Now having made that covenant then in the 15th verse of the 10th of this 17th chapter and God said to Abraham as for Sarah thy wife Thou shall not call her name Sarah anymore, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her and give thee a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of people shall be of her. Now, verse 17. Here's this man of faith. Here's this man that God came out of Ur of Chaldees. Here's this man that God promised that He'd make him a great nation. Here's this man that God said, I'll make a cup between you and me. Look at the next verse. Then Abram fell on his face and laughed. I don't believe it's a laugh of joy. It's foolishness. Because he's 99 years old. And Sarah, his wife, is 90 years old. Or some say she was maybe about 75 at this time. We do know that she was at least 10 years younger than Abraham was. So, it says here she's 90 years old. And Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, shall a child be born of him that's 100 years old and shall Sarah that's 90 years old bear? And so when she's going to Bring forth the child. She may have been 89, and maybe he's speaking about how old she'll be when the child is born. Maybe she's 90 right then. That's some question about it. But whatever it is, she's more than 75. And he laughs about it. This is crazy. He didn't say that out loud, but that's what it implies. What am I saying to us? What is the Bible saying to us? You will come to experience things in your life. You say, I believe God, I believe God, I believe this, I believe... But there'll come experiences in your life and you'll be inclined to say, it ain't so. God, you can't do it. It's too big a problem for you. Or it's out of your hands. He laughs. He doubted God's promise. You've never been there? I've been there. The devil is always right on your trail. He's always talking in your ear. He's on your shoulder. He's always your shadow. He's with you when you go to bed at night. He's there when you get up in the morning. He's with you throughout the whole day. He wants you to doubt God's promises to you. What he did 100 years ago, 200 years ago, what God did for some other people in times past, he can't, won't do it today. I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." Malachi 3, verse 6. Every child of God ought to know that verse of Scripture. That's God's promises to you concerning all of his promises. Hebrews says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. He does not change. God is immutable. But Abraham believes that this thing is too hard for God to do. I read in the book of Acts about a church praying for its pastor, Peter, who's in prison. And when the Lord came and got Peter, who was in the inner part of the church, in the inner part of the jail, chained between two soldiers, and when the Lord came by the angel and brought Peter out of that inner court's prison part and brought him to the very door of the where the church was meeting in the house there, and Peter is knocking on the door, and the young lady comes to the door, and she asks who's there, and he says, I'm Peter, and she doesn't believe him, and she runs and tells the congregation who's praying that God will give, will deliver Peter, and she tells them Peter's at the door, and they say, it can't be, it's his ghost. What happened? Here's a church praying. They're praying for God to do something, and God does it, and they don't believe it. They deny it. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He changes not. We as a church have experienced God's miraculous demonstration of his miracles, his working, among us as a congregation. You know, when we sold our property in Aberdeen, I could take you back to the history of our church, how it got started with six people meeting in the basement of our house. God blessed us with a building paid for in the city of Aberdeen, a very comfortable building. God bless us, we never owed a penny on it. And when we sold it, we sold it for the price that was close to the price that we had initially set. We got more from it than I expected that we would get from it, that some of us expected. We would not have long thought that we'd get as much money out of it as we did. We didn't get a million dollars out of it, just so somebody don't get it wrong. But we got a sufficient amount out of it. So when we sold the building, we said, where are we going to go? Where are we going to go? And we looked at different places, and they were more than we could afford. And we were all willing to go wherever God led us to, and to meet wherever God... And for a while, we met in a hotel room. And we're now meeting here in this room, which God has miraculously provided for us. in this school. But we have a building that's almost completed, but also that all the material, the money is in the bank to pay for all the material necessary to finish the building, because God worked miraculously, marveled ways. Sacrifice has been made. Hard labor has been put in. I don't take away one bit from what everybody has contributed, financially and time-wise, and prayer. But you know and I know, were it not for God's help, we would not be where we are, that maybe next, by the end of this month or the first of July or sometime, we're going to move into a building and owe nothing for it. Is that not a testimony of God's mighty power to us as a church? Hallelujah! Can I get a hallelujah? Amen! I mean, that's great! And when we sold that building, you and I never at all envisioned that that's what was going to happen. God has placed us in a location that when I take people down and show them where we are and what we have, they are amazed! that God has done that for us, for the small congregation that we are. Am I right, Roger? That's great and wonderful. But what I want to tell you, there's other issues down the road. There are some dark days down the road. There are some problems down the road that we're going to have to deal with. And the very first thing the devil is going to tell you is, God ain't going to help you. God won't keep his promises. God's giving you up. If I drop dead tomorrow, somebody's going to say, where in the world are we going to get a preacher? Well, I don't know, but I believe God will raise up a preacher. You'll go through some hard times as a church. We will all go through hard times in the years that lie before us. We all want to be 900 years old. We're going to have some problems in our lives to deal with. We're going to have some deaths to deal with. We're going to have some days of sorrow to deal with. But the question is, how do you see God in the midst of your storm? Do you see him abandoning you or keeping you? There's a story in the Bible, New Testament, about the disciples. The Lord and the disciples were on the eastern side of the of Sea of Galilee, and the Lord says to them, Let us cross over to the western side. And they get in their boats, and they start to cross the lake. Suddenly, a big storm comes up. And they begin roaring, oaring the boat as much as they can, and they're mariners, seamen, they live that lake, they know all about it, and they're doing everything they can to get across the other side, and the waves are sweeping over the boat, and the Lord is in the boat, wiping his brow, sweating. Huh? He's asleep! He knows what's going on, and what do they say? They run and wake him up and say, Lord, cares thou not that we perish? Every child of God is being there sometime or another. You've been in the midst of some storm, some trouble, some trial going on in your life, and you've said, Lord, don't you know what's going on? You're there by the will of God. You're in the midst of that storm by the will of God. God brought the storm up. That's what it seems to imply as you read the Sea of Galilee. It was something of a sudden big storm came up. Yesterday up in Aberdeen, we had a big windstorm. Our house, up at our house, rained and some wind. Downtown Aberdeen, they had trees blown over and roofs blown off of houses and everything. Big storm suddenly came up. Carest thou not that we perish? Doubting God's promises is a common problem with all of us. Abraham doubted God's promise, and he fell on his face and laughed. Now, I don't want to stop there, because you know the story. Sarah did bear a child. That boy grew up to be Abram's pride and joy. Whoo-hoo! 100 years old, and I got a baby boy! Whoo! And when the boy becomes of age, God said to Abraham, I want you to take him from the mountain, Moriah, and I want you to offer him up on a sacrifice to me. And you don't read one time that Abraham questioned God. Isaac questioned. Here's the fire, and where's the sacrifice? And what did Abraham say? God himself will provide the sacrifice. He doesn't know what God's got in store for him. He thinks that God is going to cause him and compel him to take the life of Isaac. And so he makes an order, binds up his son, lays him out on the altar, has the knife in his hand, and is about ready to cut the boy's throat, and God said, Abraham. Have you seen those signs along the highway? Says, that's you, God? I just imagine Abraham said, Is that you, God? Do thy son no harm? Right out there is a goat whose horns he got caught in a bulrush. You take that goat and sacrifice him in the place of your son. I've made Abraham shout hallelujah. Oh Lord, you're so good. You're so wonderful. But you don't read Abraham questioning and doubting God in all of that. Fact of the matter is, he makes a declaration. He says to the servants, you stay here and I and the Son will go and we shall return. He believed God, and Paul talks about that, that he believed that God would raise the boy back up again. And he received him as an airbag from the dead. A man of faith. He's the pattern of God's people. But he also had some faults, failures. But he grew, matured, and God mightily used him as a servant to the Lord, an example for all of us. Don't let the devil make you think because of failures and mistakes that you've made in your life that God can't use you. God is just putting you through the fires to purge you that you might become an instrument that God would use. But don't let the devil convince you that God has abandoned you and given you up just because you make some errors. See, that's what the devil wants you to think. Trust God. Believe God. Abraham believed God. That's a great statement. You read about it in Romans chapter 4. He's a great example. Well, just turn there. In the 4th chapter, he's a great pattern for us. Abraham believed God! And he was not weak in faith. That's what the Bible says. He was not weak in faith in the 4th chapter of Romans. When God talks about Abraham, He doesn't talk about it. Now, it's the Bible, and so it records everything about him in the honest way, and you can believe it to be true. But when God is talking about Abraham, He doesn't talk about his faults. He talks about what Abraham did by God's grace. That shows you God's faithfulness. If we sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It's not what you were, but what you are now. Church of Cork, Paul says, such were some of you, but now are you. That's what God's people are. Not what we were, it's what we've done days past. Paul said, forgetting those things which are behind, I pressed towards the mark of the prize of high calling in Christ Jesus. Oh, you can look at those things of the past and say, well, I made some bad mistakes, but God was faithful, God forgave me. Lord, I thank you that you kept me. from the problems I fell into and delivered me out of them. And Lord, help me today and tomorrow to walk faithfully toward you. Because God, here's the point, God is faithful. He keeps His Word. Though we're not faithful, He abides to be faithful. Page number 343 in your hymnals, if you'll turn there for me, please. That is, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Number 343.