All right, we are in the 17th chapter of Genesis this morning. Here in the 17th chapter, we will see that this is the concluding verse of the 16th chapter and the first verse of the 17th chapter lock in some helpful data for us about the age of Isaiah. I've got Isaiah on the brain, don't I? of Abram. And so the 16th chapter concludes with telling us, reminding us that Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael. And then the 17th verse picks the story up, picks the narrative up, and that's a big span of time from being 86 to 99 years of age where the Lord appears to Abram. So 13 years have passed by in the narrative of the story of Abram and Sarai. So that's where we'll pick up from that concluding part of the 16th chapter and into, we'll move our way, begin moving our way through the 17th chapter. And so this morning, we are going to read from the 16th chapter, verses 15 and 16. So we'll include that in the public reading. And then we'll follow right along into the 17th chapter in verses 1 through 8. And so we will see. And so just as before we get to the reading of the text, in a moment I'm going to invite you to stand with me for the reading of the text. And when you're standing or as you're standing, if you will corporately say, give us the book, then I will read from the book. And then when I'm done, I'll say, this is the word of God. And there I'll invite us to say together, and we believe it. So what we have here in this 16th and 17th chapters, though, we're learning, as is the primary purpose of the Bible, is we're learning who God is. We're going to continue learning things about Abram and his life, and they're going to unfold some things and some experiences. events in his life, but ultimately we don't want to miss that this book is telling us about who God is. We don't want to miss that. So if you've made your way there to the 16th chapter, beginning in the 15th verse, I'll begin the reading. Will you stand with me for the reading of the word? This is the 15th verse. So Hagar bore Abram a son. Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him. Now, 17 verse 1, now when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.' Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. and I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God." This is the Word of God. So Heavenly Father, we do thank you. In the midst of this narrative, in the midst of this unfolding conversation and really here this is you revealing your own nature to Abram. We come before you today grateful to learn as he did in his day more of you and more than even of how we relate to you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. What we have here in this 17th chapter is really a very gracious visit of the Lord God Almighty. And here does sit the moment where the transition of His name takes place from Abram to Abraham. So as we've learned in the last chapter, And really, for that matter, we've been learning this all throughout the book of Genesis. That the names of the patriarchs, the names of the people of God, and the places that they encounter God at have significant meaning. Just as we learned that the name Ishmael means God hears. We learned that the well in which Hagar was visited by the messenger of the Lord while she's fleeing hardship in the home of Sarai, that that well is called God who sees. So we learn a lot. We learn two important attributes of God. God who hears and God who sees. Well, nothing gets diminished along the way. Some time ago when we were first introduced to Abram, back around the 12th chapter, we learned that the name Abram is literally the Hebrew name for father. Father Abraham is how that old children's song goes, isn't it? Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham. It's a double way of saying, we don't need to say Father Abraham. Now we do in the English because in the English, we don't stop to think about when we hear somebody's name, that we're not immediately firing on all cylinders that, oh, hey, by the way, father, we wouldn't call Abram father unless he was our father. In our English language, we use the proper names that are given to people. And by doing that, which is by the way, it's culturally acceptable and appropriate to do so. But also in doing so, we lose a lot of meaning of what the name means. So Abram just simply means father. And this is beautiful because God tells Abram all the way back in the 12th chapter that God is going to make him a father of many families is how the translation works or gets moved over into our English. And the difference between the 12th chapter and the 17th chapter is that we're still saying the same thing, but we're hearing deeper application to it. It's not just that Abraham is going to be the father of many families. That word families in the 12th chapter can literally and probably is even helpful for us to make sure that we carry with it that that he's saying you will be the father of many nations which is the preferred use here in the in the narrative or the translation here over into our English speaking words that this is what God is telling Abram that he's going to become the father of many or a multitude of nations Well, we kind of saw that in the 17th chapter with the birth of the Arab people. Ishmael being the founder there of the Arab people. Ishmael's mother, an Egyptian, and Abram of Ur of the Chaldeans and out of that then comes the birth of a people group or a nation who will be separated from all the other nations as the Arab people or the Persian nations. And so we learn a lot of just natural things just from the names themselves. What God does for us in the 17th chapter is he continues to do that. We learn that in the changing of Abram's name from father to being Abraham, which means father of many. God's going to say something to Abram, and when God says this to him, it's so altering that it alters his name. God changes his name from Abram, so he's not just known as the father of this household, he's known as the father of nations. Now this is somewhat perplexing, but it's also at the same time very beautiful. perplexing in the sense that Abraham is never referred to. We never see the tracing of people. They always want to aim toward Abraham. But the lineage of the world populations come really from Noah at the flood, the modern civilization. Prior to the flood, We would have traced everything back as families were doing. Everything would have been traced back to Adam and Eve. And so it's different in this sense that Abram is not at the starting point of a global physical offspring. And that is because Abraham will always be referred to as the father of the spiritual nation of God. Just the Jewish people. We must really remember this. We must not get lost in what can be easily confusing in the prophetic world to think that the Bible's emphasis is only about the Jewish people. It involves the Jewish people. But there is, and we know this from the New Testament, Paul's writings to the church in the Galatian region. Paul's writings to the church in Rome. The writings that we have to the Hebrews who live in Rome, in the book of Hebrews, that there's always a connection to the Gentiles to Father Abraham. Not to Abram, but to Abraham. And that is because Abraham is the father of many nations. And I will say here, that's the secondary thing that we will learn. The primary thing we learn comes well before this, as we read through the text, That name change comes at the fifth verse. But before we ever even get there, we get a new name of God. And that is in the first verse. So we've been given this precision of the age of Abram at this time. He's 99 years old. The Lord, that's Yahweh, has appeared appeared to Abram and said to him. Notice he doesn't say, I am Yahweh. Abraham already knows him as Yahweh. I am the Lord. That's that English translation, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that most of your English translations, the translators insert that in there. That's to help the English reader fire on a better cylinder here, that this is Yahweh. This is this exact, precise God. It's not just any God we'll do here. It is this God known as Yahweh. And God's going to introduce himself to Abraham. He's going to introduce himself to him as El Shaddai. That's the Hebrew word that's used here. Translated into English is God Almighty. Now that's significant. That's important. Yahweh is the same God, so every name that we have of God in the Bible is always referring to this God, the Almighty, El Shaddai, Yahweh, Jehovah. This is God Almighty, El Shaddai. That L, E-L, that is the generic word God, and then Shaddai, is the word referring to that this God is the Almighty God. Now that's important. It's important in lots of respects. It's important that we not lose sight of the fact of where Abraham is living. Abraham is dwelling, he's a sojourner in the land of Canaan. And in the land of Canaan, it is a land that has increasingly become pluralistic, universalist. Any God and every God gets equal attention and equal respect. This is culturally speaking. And this is what happens when a people de-evolve in their worship of God. So to use, they devolve. This is not original with me. This is, I like how The play on the word is, this really is becoming devolution. It's not de-evolving or evolving. This is devolution. Plurality, syncretism, universalism is demonic. And that is, man begins to make a God for himself, patterned after his own mind of what he thinks God should be like. So when we have these moments, and by the way, this is not an everyday occurrence, is it, in Abram's life? At this point, we can track at least three times in his 99 years in which he has this conversation with God. Now, it appears as though there's going to be more that are still before us, but can you imagine? So just so that we're tracking this, sometimes the idea in humanity is, wouldn't it be good for God to speak to me? What would happen to me if God would just tell me exactly what He wants me to do? Wouldn't that be so helpful? Well, first of all, understand this. This is actually not very common that God would do this. And in Abraham's life, at this point, it's pretty rare. So we should see that this is the anomaly. This is not the normal. This is not the daily. This is not the weekly experience that Abraham has with God. It does help us see this is a significant moment. This is a significant person. This is very helpful for us to see. So God's going to come and he's going to say to Abram when he visits him at his 99th year, in his 99th year, he's going to say, I am El Shaddai. Then he gives him instructions of what he should do. He tells Abram, you should walk before me, your translation may say, and be perfect. You should walk before me and be blameless. Walk before me by devoting yourself to worshiping God Almighty alone. This would be, really, the argument of the Reformation. God alone. Christ alone, scripture alone. These ideas of bringing every God with you to the table, and then the idea of thinking, well, I might as well pray out to the God of the Jews as well, just to make sure I've got all my bases covered, right? I mean, that's what we hear from people, perhaps that's even what we say sometimes. And let me say, if that's what you're saying, you should stop saying that. You should just come along the way with God Almighty yourself. He is your shield and your protector. It's not this God that you have on the shelf and that God that you have on the shelf. It's not any God. It's not a trendy God. It's not the new God. It's not this nation's God. The God you want to be sure that you are on His side is the Almighty. So this becomes important in Abram's day, that God would introduce himself to him as God Almighty. In other words, distinguishing the God of Abraham superior. He's not saying that all these other gods have some value or are worth a little bit of attention. He says these other gods are nothing. If you have the Almighty God, why in all the world give any attention to any lesser God, is the argument. God comes introducing himself to Abraham as the Almighty. This will be helpful for Abram, as he's still being known at this time as Abram. This will be helpful for him because he's living among the nations of a people who will bow down to any God and every God and any of them will do. And then God comes along after he introduces himself to Abram and he says, this is what you should do. You should walk before me and be blameless. So at one level we can say that there sits this, at a raw form, this covenant that God is making with Abraham. Here's the thing Abram, I'm God Almighty and because I'm God Almighty you should walk before me and be blameless. Then God goes further and He reminds Abram of things He's already told him. Matter of fact, if you compared and contrasted Genesis chapter 12 with this, you would see the very similar usage of the covenant that God is making and establishing with Abram. What we have in the 12th chapter is God telling Abram something that Abram knows nothing about. He's a much younger man at that time and God is telling him, I'm going to do this with you. I'm going to make you the father of many nations. Remember, some of that dialogue, Abram says, I don't know how you're going to do that, God. I mean, we're around chapter 15, 14, 15. Abram is saying, what? Is my inheritance? I have nobody to give my inheritance to. I have nobody to give my name to. Remember, there Abram even says, are you meaning my Egyptian slave, the boy born from an Egyptian slave? And he's not meaning Hagar. He's meaning another servant, and Abram is not the father of that Egyptian slave. This is a natural birth from another family of the Egyptians that came with them out of Egypt. And so God says, no, it's not here. And then as we see in the 16th chapter, that messy exchange with Sarai and Hagar and Abram, The confusion is 86 years old. We got to we got to we're going to have to have a plan B if there's going to be an inheritance to pass on. If there's going to be any idea of a a a many nations being born from the house of Abram, we're going to have to have we're going to have to have some more individuals. We're going to have to have we're going to have to do something about this. So what happens here is Abram or Sarai, as you remember from that 16th chapter, that Sarai instructs her maidservant, who is an Egyptian, to go in to marry Abram and that the two shall consummate their marriage and the offspring there is the 16th verse of the 16th chapter is Ishmael. Well, no, that's not what God had in mind. So here's man trying to figure out. He doesn't fully comprehend. He doesn't fully understand. It's not that he doesn't want to believe God. He's acting from his limited awareness of how God's going to do the impossible. What God's really doing is setting the stage that by the time we're done with this, nobody will be able to say what man did. Everyone will be able to say what God did. And that's really important. That's important for the reader. It's important for the spiritual ancestors or the spiritual descendants of our ancestors to know that this was God's doing. So in the second verse of the 17th verse, here's God still speaking to Abram. He says, I will establish my covenant between me and you. He's already told him this, by the way. And I will multiply you exceedingly. He's already told him this, right? We can track at least twice, almost word for word, the times in which God has said this to Abram. And this will be a third time. Abram fell on his face. So we're going to get a narrative reaction. We're going to step out of the dialogue and we're going to get to see the physical reaction of Abram when God is speaking to him. He falls on his face. And God continued to walk God continued to talk with him. There's a couple of things just to observe there. When we have an encounter with God, it really should leave us fully humbled. And I'm going to make the argument, I'm not talking that you should wait until you hear an audible voice from God to respond to God like this. Because in all reality, You'll be waiting for a very long time. You have something that is glorious. Every time you open up this Bible, this book of books, written by men, inspired by the Holy Spirit, you're hearing God speak. You're submitting yourself to the voice of God. So you are hearing from God. Arguably, you're hearing from God more often than Abram did. You have the capacity and the means in which to hear from God daily, which, by the way, I think that would be a right way to respond to God, your daily hearing from him. So Abram, what does he do? He humbles himself. This is a sign. It's a action of humility. He falls on his face. God doesn't stop him from worshiping him. God doesn't stop him from humbling himself. God continues speaking. the Almighty God continues speaking and he says as for me as for else should I behold my covenant is with you and you will be the father of a multitude of nations your translation may still be using the term families But it's the same thing. It's interchangeable here. Nations or families, nationalities, geopolitical regions or families at large. You'll be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer, verse five, no longer will your name be called Abram or no longer will your name be father. But now your name shall be father of many. Your name shall be Abraham. for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations." Now, time-wise, I'm not going to be able to get all the way through all eight verses here, so I'm going to stop the narrative here in the fifth verse, and then Lord willing, next week we'll pick up verses 6, 7, and 8, which will speak more of some of the fruition of the covenant, the promise that God's going to give to Abraham about the the multiplying of the nations and even the language of the land that is spoken of in the eighth verse. We'll speak about all of that and it will be really helpful. And I argue, I think it will be a blessing for us to spend some time thinking about what God will do both to the physical nation of Abraham, as well as to the spiritual nations of Abraham. And that would be you and me. So 13 years have gone by since the last time that Abraham had heard from God. And so there's just some simple observations, just in a bullet point kind of a way. Let's re-track our way through these seven verses. God appeared to Abram. God spoke to Abram. God told Abram, reminded him of the covenant. Abram fell on his face. God continued speaking. God gave him a new name. And God will establish his covenant to be your God and you are to be his people. So we think of this, let's make some application of this and consider what benefit is here for us. What are we learning about God? And what can we learn about ourselves through Abraham, the father of many nations? What can we apply here to this? So notice, again, do not miss the way in which God identifies himself as the Almighty. Now, this is, I think, very important that we not miss this. In a nation such as ours, there is a movement toward plurality, equal honor and equal respect of everybody's God. Let me make the argument that that's not what religious freedom is. It does mean that anyone is able and they can worship whatever God they want to do. And humanity has proven that they will worship any God, that they want to. So no one's being forced to not worship their own God in our land. But religious freedom does not mean that recognition cannot be given to the Almighty God. And so the argument here is that Abraham, I should attempt to try to just start referring to him as Abraham now. We've come to that transitional piece here. Abraham is living in a in a region of the world at the time of world history where it's very similar to what kind of a day we might be living in. Everybody's God is equal to everybody else's God. And it is so because I demand you to treat my God the way you treat your God. And I'm sorry, I cannot and we must not treat everybody else's God with the same reverence and respect as we do to the Almighty. If so, we should drop our Sunday services and instruct you to just go do whatever you want to do. Not just any God will do. Only the Almighty God saves. rescues, restores, provides. You say, well, I don't know, preacher. I'm doing pretty well without your God. I got all the money I want. I got all the family I can love. I'm doing just fine. Well, that may be true for the temporal moment, but Abraham stands as a representative of everlastingness, the eternalness of God. We're not just talking about the temporal day. When we talk about Abraham, we are including the singularity of El Shaddai, the Almighty God, and in Him we are not bowing down to everybody else's God. We're not living a pluralistic experience, even though we live in a pluralistic society. Idolatry was normal in Abram's day. Idolatry is the norm in our day. This is, to use that phrase that I spoke of earlier, this is devolution. This is the normal course for fallen man to devolve in his awareness of God into idolatry. Fallen man will at one point eventually worship himself even above God. This is what the reformers we're arguing for. We're not in a day of reinventing God. We're not in a day to make God look more appealing today. We are in a day where we need a reforming of who God is so that people know that they've come in contact and they have a relationship with the Almighty God. And then they're not confused here as to a Buddhist god, or a Muslim god, or a Mormon god, or a Hindu god of some kind of a multiple armed octopus looking creature. That's what culture will do. Culture that does not bow the knee and fall on their face before the Almighty God will eventually make their own gods. They will do what the nation of Israel will do. Timeline forward from chapter 17 here. They will melt down their gold and have their priest Aaron fashion it into the shape of their Egyptian gods and call that the God who delivered them from Egypt. That's what man will do when he ceases from falling in humility before the Almighty God. There are many indicators of this kind of living being played out right in front of us right now. Now, I don't know. I did not watch every piece of the Republican National Convention this week. But you know what? There were some very troubling things. One of which was the early prayers to a Hindu God. And that Hindu God was referred to as the Almighty God. That's not the only disturbing observation I make of that. What maybe is even more disturbing than that is that there was not a person in that arena that attempted to correct the prayer. Well, I don't know. People just don't want to shake the boat today. Any God will do. And who am I to say you can't pray to your God? I say, feel free to pray to your God. But you're praying to a rock. You're praying to an image in man's mind. You're not praying to the Almighty. When nobody in the room protests, Giving the name El Shaddai to another God, that's telling of the kind of day you currently live in. So what shall we do? We shall humble ourselves before the Lord and ask Him to save us. Save us from the ideologies of men. This name El Shaddai, this is not the only place in the Bible that God will refer to Himself or that man will refer to Him, will refer to Yahweh as El Shaddai. It's the title that is mostly used in the book of Job. It's not until after Moses that God will begin to identify Himself to the people more than just the Almighty. God will tell Moses when Moses says, in other words, what God shall I tell Pharaoh has sent me to demand you let his people go? And in a very personal name, God says, I am. In the English, it's kind of like, well, you are what? No, that's I am, period. I am all sufficient. I'm self-sufficient. I have everything. I have need for nothing. This is the kind of God that is introduced himself or reintroducing himself to Abraham here in the 17th chapter. God is telling Abraham that he, he alone, the Almighty, El Shaddai, is self-sufficient. He has everything and he needs nothing. He is enough for us And in Him we have enough. We have enough to satisfy our desires. We have enough to supply us of our needs. He secures our happiness. He provides sufficient rest for us. Is he the Almighty? Or do you see him as the Almighty? Do you treat him as the Almighty? Are you walking before him as though he is the Almighty? This is what God's telling Abraham to do in that first verse where he tells him, walk before me and be blameless. Live your life. All of your conversations, all of your thoughts, all of your job, Your work, your thinking, your doing, your being, everything is under the authority of the Almighty. Walk before me. That's instruction that God expects us to go about our daily life. This again would be how the reformers would say that we are to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. It's not to glorify God and enjoy Him someday. to glorify God now. This is the New Testament, isn't it? Whatever your hands find to do, do all for the glory of God. You have a labor job, do it as though it's to the Lord. You have a thinking job, do everything to the glory of God. You have a doing responsibility. You have daily routines. You have You have children to raise. You have diapers to change. You have mouths to feed. Do all as though God is, because He is the Almighty. Do it in such a way that it displays His glory, knowing at the same time, God doesn't need you to be glory, because He is. He's all-sufficient. He's self-sufficient. What we do in our daily life, in the temporal day, is we show that He is superior, He is supreme, He is sufficient for all of my needs. Now, I want to say just a few more final things here about what many in the world want to do by claiming Abraham as the father of their religions. This is happening right here in your own city. I participate in a multi-religion dialogue on a monthly basis. In other words, I sit down with other religious leaders of other religions, not just Christianity. I sit down at a table and we dialogue and discuss the things that are different about us. Mostly, everyone wants to talk about how similar we are. But I think it's very important that we recognize here that Abraham, when religions want to attach their founding to Abraham, they can't all do that. And I say we mustn't let them take claim for that. This word does not tell us that Abraham is the father of all religions, does it? Tells us He is the Father of many nations. And what is it unique about these nations? Is that these nations that are of the spiritual house of Abraham, these nations are Christian nations. These nations recognize the Almighty. I mean, don't let The modern media convince you that the founding of our country is not on a framework of the Almighty. Go and read the documents yourselves. They're not superior to the Bible, okay? That's another dialogue that I have with other religions in our region as well. They want to make the argument that the Constitution is equally inspired to the Word of God. I completely reject that argument. However, I still argue it's a pretty good document. But it's not inspired at the same level that I want to use or that we should use whenever we read the Bible. I want to make the argument it's influenced by the sufficiency of scripture. It's influenced by those who acknowledge, they may not know, but they acknowledge there is an almighty God. And that language is all over our documents. that does, by argument, make us a Christian nation. Now, I know that we're in a time right now where this is getting very, very confusing and very problematic because, well, preacher, I just don't know if I'm there. I don't know that I'm, listen, I agree with you. I look at our nation and I think, I don't know that we're all that, I don't know that we're all that much of a Christian nation right now. But I would say it is a grace of God that there is not just a remnant of Christians in this nation. There is actually an army of Christians who are still arguing for the glory of God. And we make argument with our government to bend the knee to the Almighty God. Not just any God in a day like this. There's never a day for that. This is a day when governments, if we expect God to bring the blessing from his all-sufficient, all-powerful, almighty being to that nation, that nation must repent of her sins. This is complicated because what do we do when we see that the Bible makes references of nations? And we can see throughout all of the Bible that when there are nations that submit themselves to the almighty God, God does indeed bless them. There even are occasions when pagan nations, God blesses them for a time. Why would He do that? Because His people have rebelled against Him. And God will, in a sense, bless a foreign nation to rise up and afflict His people. So they will once again cry out to God. This is why church historians refer to the nation of Wales as one of the nations of revivals. One of the nations, this is the way the historians refer to this, the nation of Wales. Now it's a small, almost insignificant nation today. But there was a time when the people of Wales repented of their sins as a nation and the spirit of God flooded the nation. And there was an upswell of prosperity and blessing and kindness of God. But just like the pattern of the Bible, there came another generation after them who forgot their God. And most church houses today are almost empty in the nation of Wales. You know, there's other nations. which is really kind of like the mother nation of Wales. England has seen many revivals. Scotland has seen many revivals. Are you paying attention to what's going on in these regions today? There's a flood of worship of other gods going on. Near collapse of old historic nations that once revered God as the Almighty. are almost no longer in existence. You're not sure, you believe me, you should go home and do some research and see what's going on in London, in England right now. It's on the brink of collapse. And that's because a people now live there who do not bow to the Almighty God. And they've given the title of Almighty God to their false god. and the people of God have gone into hiding. There's another nation that historians will refer to as the land of revivals. That is the United States of America. America has seen at least three what historians will call great awakenings. All of these times are when nations, cities, governments, repent of their sins and turn to God. There are certain markers that you will know that true revival has broke out. One of those is your jail cells empty out. Not because there's not a police force to incarcerate people, but because people begin to repent of their sins. And they begin to walk circumspectly before the Lord. Another indication of revival that hits a nation is alcohol and drug use almost disappears. The abuse of alcohol is a marker of a people who have forgotten their God and they have forgotten how God wants them to use alcohol. A nation that has no-fault divorce is a marker of a nation who no longer fears God as the Almighty. So, the markers are all around us. One can say, well, boy, yeah, it's getting really bad, isn't it, preacher? And it is. But you know what it also is? It also means that the fields are ripe unto harvest. It's a dark day. And here's the language of the Bible. but the sun will rise soon. And so, church, what should we do? We should walk circumspectly before our God. Your homes are places of worship. Your homes are little seminaries where you're training theologians to argue the thoughts of man. You're training boys and girls to give with all of their might, to work with their hands, to work with their minds, You're training these households to actually leave a lasting impact upon the nation. And so I say to you, this is no day to shrink back. This is a day to rise up with joy, to walk circumspectly before your Lord and cry out to Him as the Almighty, as El Shaddai, remembering that you are among the house of the Father of nations. Abraham is our spiritual father. He's not our saving father. He's not our Savior. But it is the faith that Abraham has that is the seed of the faith that you and I have. And what is it? This faith is given to the Almighty. And so we would put Abraham before us as a patriarch of the Christian faith. And we can do so because we have the benefit of the New Testament that ties us to Abraham here in the 17th chapter. And so to the glory of God, I say go home and raise up a nation of worshipers of God. And if you're not worshiping God currently in your home, then it's time to repent and begin establishing your home as a nation of worshiping the Almighty God. And by the grace of God, may we live to see another great awakening in our day. And this for the glory of God. And this, dear church, I say, ought to be some of the things we hope for in the temporal day, knowing that our hope is in eternity, our hope is in glory, our hope is in Christ. And what a glory in Christ if the impact of us worshiping Him in the temporal day comes forth and spreads an awakening in the land today.