The end of Genesis 11 beginning of Genesis 12. Crucial passage for our understanding of this book and the whole Bible so much so that we have spent now two weeks two different sessions just trying to get a handle on what is happening in these verses and trying to have some sense of its significance for the ongoing message of the book of Genesis. And tonight, we're gonna be back here. We're going to be looking at it from a different kind of perspective. And this is the sort of thing that will repay repeated study and has so many complexities and so many levels of meaning that it's hard to know really at what point to move on and feel like you have gotten it. I'm going to date myself a little bit by saying that as I have been working with the Book of Genesis for a number of years now, I really have felt like somebody messing with a Rubik's Cube. Remember what those were? Probably if you're under 25 or so, you don't. But for a long time, I knew that the story of Abraham, and particularly the Abrahamic Covenant, are a key part of God's revelation and the foundation of everything else. But like I said, there's just so much here and it's hard to get your mind around how all of this fits together. And over the last several years, the Lord's given me the privilege of teaching a course on the Pentateuch, where I have been really forced to look at this book in depth and to research a good bit, trying to understand And I'm really looking forward tonight to sharing some of these concepts about how all of this fits together. Our theme is, our title, Surveying the Life of Abraham. You see there, the verse range is from the end of chapter 11, verse 27, all the way to chapter 25 and verse 11. We are not looking at all of that in any kind of detail tonight, but it is important to see that all of that is one story. Look with me at Chapter 11 verse 27 and we see there the familiar statement. These are the records of the generations of Tira and we have talked a lot about this Hebrew word told of those which has to do with generations or people being born or stories about people who were born from certain forefathers that comes up in Chapter 11 verse 27. The next time it comes up is not until chapter 25 and verse 12 when we read a short little section here. These are the records of the generations of Ishmael Abraham's son. And then shortly after that in verse 19 these are the records of the generations of Isaac. All of that to say that basically chapter 12 through chapter 25 are one story. And just in your own experience of reading, maybe it's a novel or some kind of historical book, a lot of times it is hard to keep the flow of thought. You get kind of bogged down in some interesting incident. But to keep it all together in your mind and know, how does this all fit together? What is the overall message? That really is a challenge that we haven't faced before in Genesis because we haven't dealt with something so long yet. And so tonight, I'd like us to get that big picture of this story in place, building on everything we've said before. And I hope that this will be helpful. We're going to start by looking in a little bit more detail at the first three verses of Chapter 12 and the structure of the original promise that the Lord made to Abraham when he called him from earth to make this pilgrimage to Canaan. And you have there in your scriptures, those three verses, maybe they're set aside in a way that you can see there are several different lines in a kind of a poetical format. And what I like to do is just lay those out here line by line in a certain pattern so that we can understand not just this little passage, but how this little passage is going to set up for everything that comes on in the next number of chapters. It begins now with a promise. And that is a very important point to remember. It begins with a commandment. It begins with God telling Abraham to do something. And particularly, he says, you need to go go out of your own country and leave behind your relatives and leave behind your father's house to the land that I will show you. And it's interesting how specific he is in what he tells him he has to leave. but how vague he is when he tells them where he's going. He says, you leave your country, you leave your relatives, you leave the house of your father. And those words had very strong emotional associations in the mind, the heart of Abraham. And that's one thing, but then to be told to go to a land that I'm going to show you, God doesn't tell him the name of the place or where it is or what it's going to be like when he gets there. Abraham had to take a step of faith. And of course we know that he did take that state personally. He did take the step and personally I would see that this is the moment of his conversion when he becomes a follower of Yahweh a believer save whatever terminology we might want to use. He commits himself to the Lord and shows his faith by obedience. But notice that that is not the end of the passage here. He says you go and just to explain a little bit the connection between these lines. The next three lines are actually giving you the purpose for which God is calling him. And that's why I phrase it here this way, you go so that certain things will happen. In other words, if you do this, this is the goal I'm wanting to accomplish through you. And there are three things he says, you go so that, number one, I may make you into a great nation. You go so that number two, I may bless you personally, probably talking there about his material prosperity. You go number three, so that I may make your name great and giving him a high position among all men in the earth and enabling him to achieve mobility, really. So you go and I'm going to do these three things for you. This is what I'm wanting to do. But that's not the end of it either. Verse three gives us another list of blessings or things that God wants to give him. But in between that and what we just read, you have a statement here that in my Bible says, and so you shall be a blessing. I think I pointed this out last time, but that's actually a command to that's an imperative, just like the first one is. And basically, the idea is you do this so that I can do these other things. And then there is a further step that's going to be possible. And now I want you to make this choice. Obey this command. Literally, this says, be a blessing. You follow me in having an effect on other people, be a blessing, and after that imperative, you have three other promises that the Lord makes. He says, Be a blessing, first of all, so that I may bless those who bless you. Secondly, so that the one who treats you with contempt, I may curse and a little bit of a contrast between these two lines. These two lines, God says, I may bless those plural and envisioning a whole bunch of people that God intends to bless redemptively through this man. But he narrows it down to the individual. And he says, Now, if there is an individual out there who treats you with contempt, I'm going to curse. I'm going to reject that person. The point is that God in this statement, his grace is abounding over the judgment part of it. And that's not the end. The final statement is the final goal of this whole thing. This thing is leading up to this climax. The ultimate purpose is so that in you, all families of the earth may be blessed. Now, we walk through that not to be technical, but because it really is going to give us the heart of the rest of these chapters. And let me picture it for you in just a little bit simpler terms. God says, go. That's the command. The going involves leaving something and making progress to somewhere else. And if he goes, God is going to then bless him in a certain way. We could use the word nationhood to summarize the initial blessing, those first three lines, which entail that he's going to have a lot of children. He's going to be made great in that sense by being given many descendants. And by virtue of the fact that God says, go to a land that I'm going to show you, it implies that all those people to be born are going to have a place to live. And God has a spot of real estate for them to occupy, to possess. But what God is doing for him and for his people is only a step along the way to accomplish the ultimate purpose, which is this international blessing, this blessing that we have mentioned before being spread to all families of the earth. That's the basic idea. This is the basic flow of thought. Now, let's keep this in mind. You've got something he's got to do. a responsibility as he meets that condition. God's going to make him personally great, and there's going to be a nation developed from him. And then thirdly, if that happens, as a result, God's blessing is going to be spread through all the world. Now, what we're going to see is that number two here. Those basic points are developed throughout this section of Genesis, and I'm going to call this the structure of the covenant program. First point was the structure of the original promise. Secondly, the structure of the whole package of promises that form what we call the Abrahamic covenant. So as we're going to find out here, it actually would be better, more accurate to call This section of chapters, the Abrahamic Covenants, plural, the whole package that's going to flow from here. Really appreciate the way that T. Desmond Alexander has mapped this out. Wonderful book on the Pentateuch called From Paradise to the Promised Land. And here is how we're going to approach this following these four main chapters, Chapter 12, Chapter 15, Chapter 17 and Chapter 22. What's going on in chapter 12? That's what we have already seen. God's initial call is this on the condition. God gave him a command, he says, you do this so that I can do the other. on the condition that Abraham leave his homeland. That's the first imperative and choose to be a blessing. That's the second one. God says, I'm going to do two things for you, make you a great nation and the means of universal blessing. And that's the first block in this program. And nothing so far has been said about a covenant. Technically, these promises are not a covenant. God hasn't formally made this into a covenant. It's almost like he's getting the ball rolling on the way to something much bigger. This is just a kind of a sneak preview into all that God intends to do. Well, you probably know some of the events that take place, but immediately here we find that Abraham obeys. He meets the condition, and it's an interesting question to ask. What if Abraham had said This is nuts. Who are you, Yahweh, anyway? Why don't you want to tell me where you're wanting me to go? Why are you making me give up everything that I've grown up with? This is crazy. What if Abraham had said no? Now, theologically, we want to back up and say, well, we believe in the sovereignty of God. The Lord told this to Abraham. Knowing that he himself would work faith in Abraham's heart and move upon him to take this step. So we're not really worried about him not meeting the condition. And that's fine. I'm not worried about it either. I don't think there was any chance that he wasn't going to fulfill it. But on the other hand, that doesn't take away. The reality that this man responding to God's work in his life made a choice and had to make a choice for all of this to happen. It really was quite a bit that was resting on Abraham at this point in the history of salvation. What ifs are hypothetical and they may be a waste of time. But nevertheless, we don't want to lose the fact that this man made a real and significant choice that had an impact on all of us. Now, he makes that choice, he meets the condition, and when we come to chapter 15, at that point, for the first time, we begin to read about covenants. And that's what we find on the next slide here. I'm going to call it God's first covenant with Abraham. This is the first time that this comes up, go ahead and jump to chapter 15. And verse one says, after these things that were the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am a shield to you, your reward shall be very great. Abram said, Oh, Lord God, what will you give me since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Since you have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This man will not be your heir, but one will come forth from your own body. He shall be your heir. God had not spoken this specifically to Abraham before this point. He is getting new revelation. He's getting more information about what God intends to do through him. And now he says, go outside, look at the heavens, see all the stars. If you're able to count them, so shall your descendants be. And now. With that challenge to believe to kind of follow up on his initial act of faith, how is Abraham going to respond? It says in the verse that Paul makes famous in Romans chapter four, he believed in the Lord and he reckoned it to him. Unto righteousness is the idea. God looked at his faith and he says, this is a believing man. And I'm going to treat him as a righteous man. Now, what's the Lord going to do next? The Lord takes him through what for us is going to look like a strange ceremony. And later on, we'll look at this in more detail in chapter 15. But it's at this point that God gives him more promises and that God actually makes a covenant with him. This is covenant language is business about cutting up this animal. And you have the two sides of the animal, and there is this deep sleep that comes upon him. And this passing through those animals, God is cutting with him, making with him a covenant. And as you look at the statements the Lord makes this is what you come up with. Abraham at this point has met the condition. He has gone forward into Canaan and he has believed specifically this promise about his descendants in response to the righteousness that Abraham has obtained by faith. God is making statements here that no longer say anything about what Abraham has to do. And in fact The idea of the Lord himself passing through these animals and Abraham just being passive. He's asleep watching this is conveying. Now we're no longer talking about something conditional. The condition has been met and I'm going to bless you in this amazing way. And he just backs up, repeats the idea of the nation and then specifically says, I'm going to give the land of Canaan to your descendants. Now, you read on in this chapter and really nothing is said specifically about that universal blessing, because that's not the point of this covenant in Chapter 15. This is very much of a of a staged or phased thing. It's developing. It's almost like the Lord is is calling him to do something and he blesses them when he takes the right step and he gives them a little bit more. And the whole thing is just growing and expanding and developing very much like the way the Lord works in our lives. We come finally. To the universal blessing promise in chapter 17. And at that point, if you go with me to Genesis 17, it says when Abram was ninety nine years old, The Lord appeared to him and says to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. Those again are commandments. As though the Lord is starting something new, as though the Lord is giving him new conditions, as though the Lord is saying, all right, let's go on to the next lesson. And now I'm challenging you, this is great, not to walk out of Canaan. and go somewhere. But what does it say here? It's really from the same root as the word go in chapter 12. It's not walk out and go somewhere. It is walk before me. It's the idea of his lifestyle now in obedience to the Lord and be blameless. And then he says, verse two, as a follow up to that and as the blessing that will come as a result of that, I will establish my covenant. That is future language. In other words, There is yet another covenant the Lord is going to make with him. There are further promises that he's going to develop. As for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you will be. This is new language. Before he said you're going to have many descendants. Now he says you're going to be the father of a multitude of nations. See how the thing is growing here and he changes his name from Abram to Abraham, which means father of a multitude. because of that promise. And he goes on to say, Kings are going to come forth from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you. And now he uses new language. In the next phrase for any everlasting covenant. I'm going to give you this land as an everlasting possession, verse eight, verse 13. It speaks of the everlasting covenant and another new element that God brings up in this chapter. There's something else that this man is going to have to do in order to demonstrate his commitment to God. This is where the first time in the Bible you have the ritual of circumcision instituted in this case as a symbol of this covenant that the Lord is promising to Abraham. And actually this is not at this point something that is actually taking place because Abraham still needs to be tested. In fact if you look at verse 10 it says this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and your descendants after you every male among you shall be circumcised in other words. In order to enter into the blessing of this covenant and and make the whole thing begin to happen, he's going to take this step. And this is the symbol. What we're saying here in Chapter 17 is this. God makes an eternal promise. Number one, to make Abraham the father of many nations, this is something new. To bless these nations through him and his seed and now for the first time you begin to read about the blessing coming not just through Abraham but through his seed. This ritual of circumcision is established as the external symbol of the covenant. However. The covenant will not actually be confirmed that is formally enacted that is made solid and actually formally in place until Abraham meets the condition of walking before God and being blameless. Now, after 17, he circumcises his family. And then we're going to jump ahead to the next key chapter, which is the climax of the whole story, and that is Genesis 22. The famous incident. Where the Lord calls on this man to sacrifice Isaac, and when he makes that choice, what does it say? As you look at chapter 22. And verse 15. The angel, the Lord is speaking and says, by myself, I have sworn. Declares the Lord, listen to this, because you have done this thing. and have not withheld your son, your only son. Indeed, I will greatly bless you. As the stars, I would greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand on the seashore and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. And now you have the formal confirmation of this covenant. It is an eternal covenant now. It's going to last forever. Again, the conditions have been met. The final test as to whether Abraham was going to walk before God and be blameless was whether he was going to follow through and sacrifice Isaac when he does. So God stops him. The Lord says, all right, the point's been made. Because you've done this. Now, this thing is going to be firm and he goes on, not just to make a promise. He actually swears to him. The Lord takes an oath at this point to formally validate the covenant from back in Chapter 17. And I have this summary in response to Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac. God swears to fulfill the covenant of Chapter 17. And specifically, he makes these promises. In addition to number one, reiterating that Abraham is going to have those many descendants, he promises that his seed, a new thing, is going to possess the gate of their enemies. And number three, that that seed is going to be the means of blessing all nations. Now, we've said a lot and I want again to boil this down and show you a little flowchart and hopefully we'll keep this in our minds. God says in chapter twelve, Walk out for the Lord. Leave your land, leave your family, go out. And when he does that, the Lord blesses him with this covenant that has to do with the first three promises about the nation. Now, that's in place in Chapter 15, and now the Lord says something new in Chapter 17. He says, Now you walk before me, I want more demonstration of faith by your growth in obedience here and finally tested when I tell you to do this horribly difficult thing of sacrificing yourself. And once he has done that in chapter 22, he has demonstrated his walking before God in obedience and being blameless. You have the other part of the chapter 12 promises. I'm swearing to you in a second covenant It is going to be through your seed, through Isaac and his line, that the redemptive promise is going to spread. Now, this is how all the promises and all the covenants fit together. You can just keep these little phrases and these arrows in mind. Hopefully that will all keep it hanging together, because it is very easy to get bogged down in all these interesting stories. Everything in here is somehow connected with this covenant program that the Lord is instituting here. But. It's not just about the covenant and what God intends to do through Abraham, it's also very much about what God is doing in Abraham. And I think particularly at this point, we begin to see the application for our lives. Here's what we're going to see. Number three, we've talked about the structure of the original promise. We have talked about the structure of the covenant program. And now, as far as Abraham's personal life is concerned, that was so much wrapped up in this whole thing, the choices that he had to make and how seriously he had to take God at his word. What's going on here as far as Abraham's life is concerned? And we're going to come and look at this. What is the body of all those chapters? in another one of these kind of sandwich formats. Remember that? All of these levels of parallelism. Let me show you. How does the whole section begin? The little genealogy of Tira and just the list of his people's names. How does the body of this end in chapter 22, after the story, after the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac and setting up for transitioning away from Abraham to the life of Isaac. It ends with the list of somebody else's descendants, those of Nahor, that are going to be the key to providing a wife for Isaac, Rebecca. So, that's the outer frame. What happens next? God promises to this man a son, descendants through a son, ultimately, more generally, and that's when his whole spiritual odyssey, his pilgrimage begins in chapter twelve, verses one to nine. That answers, on the other end, to the birth of that son, Isaac, and the climax of his experience with God actually offering this young man on the altar. As we move on, you find another sad incident. And that is where Abraham lies about his wife, Sarah, when they go down to Egypt. And yet God protects her, even though she is taken into that foreign court. And guess what? Corresponding to that, on the other end of things, he does it again with a different king in Gerar. And God, again in his mercy, protects her because she is so vital to this whole program. What is the next thing that happens? The next thing that happens, you read a little bit about Lot. And Lot makes a choice to take the land that is close to Sodom and eventually gets embroiled in that pagan culture. And what shows up at the other end, you've got the conclusion of the story of Lot and how when God steps in to judge that city, he flees and ends up in that a detestable relationship with his daughters, and he settles down there in Moab in chapter 19. And maybe your mind is trying to think through the content of Genesis to see what comes up next. But the next thing, in chapter 14, you read a story that seems to have nothing to do with all of this. And that is where Abraham goes to war, actually, against those kings. that come against Sodom and kind of kidnap a lot. And so not because he cares about Sodom but because he cares about a lot. He takes his soldiers and they go out and fight and God gives him the victory. He rescues a lot. You've got the story about Melchizedek there. What is he doing? He is he is interceding. He is standing up for them as it were protecting them. And that answers on the other hand. to the occasion before the destruction of Sodom that Abraham intercedes for Lot that he might be spared, if nobody else, in chapter 18. And what is going on as we get closer and closer to the middle? It is right in the middle that we have the two covenants that I've talked about. You have chapter 15, the first covenant with Abraham, followed up with the story of the birth of Ishmael and that answers to on the other side, the second covenant with Abraham followed up with God announcing it's not Ishmael. I'm going to give you a son through Sarah. They see how those two covenants that we talked about are right at the heart, right in the middle of this whole thing. We read these stories, it's so easy to Read a chapter and say, well, that's interesting. And maybe glean a few little lessons along the way. But we want to recognize of any number of things that happened in the life of Abraham, God chose to tell us only a few. And only the few that had to do with this issue of the promises that he had made to him and how Abraham was going to respond to those promises. That's what we're looking at here. And to follow that up with a quotation, Bruce Waltke writes, the plot is driven by Abraham's struggle to trust God in the face of a series of conflicts testing his faith. That's really what these stories are about. They are about the promises of God, but it's more the issue. What is Abraham going to do with those promises? His faith develops. He is very much of a growing, developing character. As he trusts God in spite of, look at this list of obstacles and impossibilities. He trusts God in spite of a childless wife. There are issues there of trust for God in times of famine in the promised land, exile in a hostile land, the kidnapping of his wife in pagan king's harems, an ungrateful nephew who seizes land for himself, war against mighty kings, family strife between rival wives and their children, his own withering body, and death itself with a promise unfulfilled. Sounds like a soap opera. And it sounds like most of our lives. All kinds of unexpected twists and turns and disappointments, failures, but moments of victory as well. And as you try to figure out How do all these things relate to each other? It's quite a list. In addition, Abraham's God is mysterious, asking him to sacrifice the child in whom his offspring will be reckoned. It's not just these odd events. Ultimately, it's God, in the mystery of his providence, orchestrating all of these events in the life of Abraham in order to grow his faith and in response to his faith, enacting a covenant program that had all of us in mind. And Abraham knew nothing about that. He knew nothing about it. And that brings me, finally, to the structure of Abraham's own personal growth in faith. And we're going to look at those same stories from another perspective. One of the things that's helpful as we put all this together is to pick up on the time or chronological clues that are given in the text. And a few times, not very many, we read about the age of Abraham at certain points. Very important to keep these in mind. How old was he when he first goes to Canaan? We are told that he was 75 years old. And I'm looking here at maybe two men, two folks, maybe three who are at that age. Can you imagine at 75 years old? Don't think that this is like people lived just hundreds of years because that was way before the flood and around the time of the flood. He is going to die. Yes, longer life than is normal now, but Even by their standards, this time, this is an old man. And God says you're going to need to travel 400 miles on foot, on camel, whatever he used, and start all over at 75. And it's not as though he gets there and bang, all these miracles start happening. This guy's going to have to wait years for anything to really happen. And that's what brings us to some of these other dates. When he fathers Ishmael, that's actually about ten years later, he is eighty five to eighty six years old. And of course, we know that that was a choice made outside the will of God. This is not what the Lord intended. God always had in mind Sarah for him, though Abraham perhaps didn't understand that going through it along the way in the beginning. And that's not going to happen through Sarah. the birth of Isaac until this man is 100. Hard for even to conceive of somebody that old having a child. But he had to wait 25 years. Can you imagine 25 years? I mean, the promise itself is just unbelievable anyway. And you're getting up every morning And you're just waiting year after year after year for over two decades before it happened. Some of the other dates just to round out the story to give you some idea. Sarah dies when he is one hundred and thirty seven. We read about the birth or the marriage of Isaac to Rebecca in chapter twenty five when he's one hundred and forty. And then he finally dies there in chapter twenty five at a hundred and seventy five. Now keep that in mind as we go to this final chart trying to notice some of the struggles some of the ups and downs in the life of this man. We call him the father of faith. The New Testament uses his life in that way, but it's not as though it was just this continual up and up of just unbroken growth and trust in the promises of God. This is this is remarkable just to get all of this together. God makes that initial call and he makes this huge leap of faith jumping out into the dark in chapter 12, but there's Those 25 years that have to pass before everything begins to happen. And as you read right after the very next thing, we're going to come back to this next time. What happens at the end of chapter 12? That's when he goes to Egypt. And whether or not we think going to Egypt was a good or bad thing, he makes a big mistake in chapter 12. This is when he lies to Pharaoh about his wife. and risks the whole thing. What if this woman had been captured by these people? He begins to climb out again as he interacts with Lot and in chapter 13, he chooses to follow the Lord instead of looking for the best land and going in the direction of Sodom, he is Just letting a lot make that decision is for himself. He is going to trust in what God has given him and wait for the Lord's provision. Chapter 14 is very exciting. That's the story of those kings that come and the war that takes place. And again, a great moment of faith and action on the part of Abraham. In fact, at the end of Chapter 14, this is when Melchizedek does come up and you're thinking great boss of this man at the end of chapter fourteen. And it's actually going to keep going, because in chapter fifteen, God makes the promise of the sun and he believes. And it's at that point you find a statement. Abraham believed the Lord and reckoned to him under righteousness. And you're really excited. And now he's going to take a nosedive, because the very next thing you read about is chapter sixteen. the whole business about where he takes matters into his own hands, just like Adam listened to his wife disobedience against the Lord. Abraham listens to his wife and is tempted by her to make a wrong choice, trying to advance the promise in his own way instead of allowing the Lord. to provide in his way in time. And it is quite a fall there in Chapter 16. Well, thankfully, that's not the end of the story, because things pick up again in Chapter 17. He does this difficult thing of circumcision and obedience to the Lord in that chapter. Chapter 18 is pretty good as well. At that point, even though Sarah is still struggling to believe the Lord, Abram seems to accept this promise. This is where he is interceding on behalf of Lot and demonstrating a basic confidence in the promises, the working out of God's purpose. And you have some material there in the middle that's not directly about Abraham. You have the story of Sodom and where Lot ends up. And what's after 20? After 20, he takes another nosedive. Because that's the story. Of his treachery, of his half lie that again endangers his wife with a Bimelech king of Gerrard. Now, in Chapter 21, Isaac is born again, you're not reading a whole lot at that point about Abraham and his faith. But what you do find very quickly is a story in Chapter 22, which is this man's greatest act of faith, and the thing that finally showed he finally got it. You see how his life is this back and forth between faith on the one hand, and a term we may or may not be familiar with, the word expediency. What does expediency mean? It means doing what seems will work. We might say pragmatism. We might say cutting short the trial and trying to fix the problem as quickly as I can because it's uncomfortable. Instead of just trusting the Lord, you're violating God's standards to make things happen more quickly. And this man's life. It's like the stock market minus the last up arrow. It is this continual. back and forth until the Lord works a victory in his life and we find the wonderful story of chapter 22. Now, as we wrap this up, we're going to try to come to some bottom line applications as to what in the world does all this have to do with me? And these are lessons that we're going to be seeing developed as we look in more detail at each of these stories along the way. But I think what we said is enough to establish the great relevance, really, this man, the New Testament. We had any question the New Testament confirms for us his life is recorded as a model, particularly in the area of faith. And first of all, I want us to consider this whole idea that his covenants were initially. They were initially conditional. And just to make this statement, there really is a lot riding on your faith. You have no idea. I have no idea what the Lord is at work to do. If I would just hang on to his promises and persevere. Abraham didn't have the foggiest. He just wanted to have a kid. And if he had great things in mind, it was for a stable place to live there in the land of Canaan. He had no idea that here we are. What? Over 4000 years later, talking about him and at the Church of Jesus Christ, we are now, Galatians tells us, the spiritual seed of Abraham. I think The hypothetical question is worth asking, where would we be, humanly speaking, if Abraham hadn't made that choice? There was a lot depending upon him. And we have no idea what may be depending upon us. But somebody says, I look at the ups and downs in the lives of Abraham and I find that I'm cutting corners sometimes and I have those moments of failure. What really was it? that God used to finally bring him through to where he was solidly committed to those promises and no longer taking things into his own hands. What was it that the Lord used? Well, we could say there was scripture in the sense of God gave him revelation and promises and encouraged him that way. But. In our lives, I don't think it's going to happen just with that. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word, but most of us, it's really not that easy. And I think what we find in the word about the life of Abraham gives us the full picture of how God develops faith in people. It's not just by memorizing Bible verses. If you and I are having trouble trusting God, there probably is only one way we're going to learn, and that is by trials. That is by testing. That is by the Lord, putting us in impossible situations. That are way beyond our ability to comprehend or to solve, and we're just left in a totally helpless position and we have come to the end of ourselves having failed and we say. I've seen enough to where I just need to follow, even if I feel like it's in the dark. Trials. It is, James says, the trying of our faith that works endurance, and it is that endurance that works in its character. If you're having trouble trusting God, there may be only one way that you and I are going to learn, and that is through trial. That's kind of the hard part of the story. We're going to see Abraham suffering a great deal. We're going to see him wrestling, and we're going to see him in pain. But aren't you thankful that Even though we're talking about a greater man, a great man, we are talking about a greater God. And that brings us to this last application. Be thankful that God is patient with your failures, that he didn't expect Abraham to have this all figured out on that first day when he appeared to him, that he he put up with his failures. And some of the things we're going to read about Abraham, especially about some of his descendants are just Despicable, really. And yet these are the founders of our faith, as it were. Remember the theme of Genesis, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And so we want to go away, not so much impressed with the life of this man and his great faith, great though it was, but with the God who put up with him and all his failures, who encouraged him, who appeared to him again and again, and who was the one ultimately responsible growing him in his quality of faith. I don't know what trial the Lord may have in mind for you or for me this week, but perhaps the Lord has suited these words for somebody here in view of whatever events are ahead.