Today I am going to talk about Abraham, namely the father of faith; I want to look into the issue about who he was and how God worked towards him. God appeared before Abraham quite often after he left his hometown, namely, Ur of the Chaldeans. The first time God appeared to Abraham was when he reached a place between Ai and Bethel. When God gave His Word to Abraham, he then called on the name of the Lord, built an altar, and gave a sacrifice offering to God.

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In today’s Scripture reading, we can see that God appeared to Abraham, our ancestor of faith and said to him, “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her’” (Genesis 7:15-16). God said that He would give Abraham a son by his wife Sarah the barren. Then Abraham replied: “It would be great if my son Ishmael lived before You and grew up well and inherited my lineage. I understand that You are now comforting me. I appreciate Your concern. Thank You.”

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We have been distributing our mission books for the spreading the gospel of the Lord all over the world, and at this rate even twenty thousand dollars will not suffice for postage every month. So we have decided not to send out books this week due to our worsening financial situation. It makes me sad to think that people who have ordered our gospel mission books would not get them, so I thought about sending our books to those who have not received many books from us so far, unlike the U.S.A. and Ghana. Sending out books of the Lord’s gospel is so very costly, but I believe it is mandatory for us to do this. We cannot just give up because of our little efforts to collect more funds to spread the gospel. If we carry on our task we can bring to Christ many people who will receive the remission of sins.

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When we look at the Word of God, especially the Book of Genesis, there are many passages that are difficult to understand. The passage that we have read together today is one of those difficult passages. As we can see here, Abraham the father of faith, referred to his wife as his sister. Wherever he went, he called his wife his sister, and he had Sarah call him her older brother. Because Abraham referred to his wife as his sister, he caused many kings to try to take his wife, and because of this, they suffered much hardship or calamity. Nevertheless, although he lied so much out of fear, Abraham later received much blessing from God. Why this happened is, humanly speaking, very difficult for us to comprehend.

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God decided to destroy Sodom. It was because the sins of the Sodomites abounded in that land. While God was determined to carry out this judgment, people were slow to put their faith in His Word concerning this and also had little faith. In today’s Scripture passage the angels sent by God visited Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and warned them, “We have come to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah along with their sins. We will destroy this land you are living in. Make haste and take your family out of this land right now.” Lot then passed this message of warning on to his daughters and his sons-in-law who were also living in Sodom. He told them urgently, “God said He will be destroying this land along with the sins of its inhabitants, so we should leave this land right now and escape to the mountains.”

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God spoke to Abraham: “Take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” God commanded that Abraham’s son be offered up as a burnt sacrifice. He told Abraham whom He loved, to offer his precious son that he had obtained at the age of a hundred as a burnt offering. What did Abraham, our father of faith do when he heard this Word from God? He actually tried to slaughter and offer his son as God the Father had told him to do. Just before he was about to kill his son, God prevented him from killing his son. But in his heart it was as if he had already killed his son and offered him to God. Through the Word of God, what lesson is God attempting to impart to us? God is revealing to us that what He actually and ultimately requires from us is that we should have the faith that believes in the righteousness of God.

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In today’s Scripture passage, Genesis 21:1-3 says: “And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac.” When God spoke these words to Abraham, Abraham was already 100 years old, and his wife Sarah was 91. Who would have thought that this Sarah at this age would bear and wean a child? But, truly God allowed Abraham and Sarah at this ripe old age to bear a child.

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As you may know, the Doctrine of Election was established primarily based on this single passage of Scripture which has brought about the most hotly contested and persistent debates in Christian communities. God clearly said, “The older shall serve the younger.” Here the words, “the older” refers to Esau, the firstborn son of Isaac, and “the younger” refers to Isaac’s second born son Jacob. The skin of the firstborn was red and hairy, so he was named Esau, which means “hairy.” And the second born child grabbed hold of his twin brother’s heel as they were being born, and so he was named Jacob, meaning “heel holder” or “supplanter.”

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