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Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church if you could find your seats and grab a hymnal and turn your song books to song 165, O Worship the King. Song 165, O Worship the King. Song 165, O Worship the King. On the first. O worship the king, all glorious above, and gratefully sing his wonderful love, our shield and defender, the ancient of days, pavilion in splendor and girded with praise. 165 on the second. O tell of his mind and sing of his grace, whose robe is the light, whose canopy space is chariots of wrath, the deep thunderclouds form, and dark is his path on the wings of the storm. Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite, it breathes in the air, it shines in the line, it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain, frail children of dust and feeble as frail, in thee do we trust, nor find to fail. Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end, our maker, defender, redeemer, and friend. All right, let's have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this day and thank you for the opportunity to praise you and to be in your house tonight. Pray that you would bless us all, fill us all with the Holy Spirit, and help this service to be honoring and glorifying to you. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. For our next song, we'll go to song 155, doxology, and we'll sing it through twice. Song 155. Song 165 on the first. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Thank you so much for coming to the Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't get a bulletin already, you can slip your hand real quick and then Usher can come by and get you one. We have on the front the bottom passage, thou shalt not steal. I have a feeling we might give away a few ice creams this evening. And so if you can quote that to Usher or myself or Brother Duncan or Brother Dylan, then you can get an ice cream treat or a couple pieces of candy from our candy bowl. On the inside we have our service and soul winning times, and then also I'm going to get a count for soul winning for the last few days. Is there anything to report on Monday by chance? What about Tuesday? Was there anything for Tuesday? All right, one for Tuesday. And then anything for today? I don't think anything. There was one. One for today. All right. Keep up the great work on soul winning. And then also on the right we have our expecting ladies. We also have our prayer list. Please continue to send in any prayer request items that you have. One to keep in prayer is Brother Paul weathers his job. So if you'd keep that and add that back to your list and everything like that. And I'll put that back in the bulletin. But we also have Miss Rebecca Negaro with some, if you just continue to be in prayer for her health, also the Hinckley family, Brother Ian's knee pain and Miss Camelia's health, and then Miss Elizabeth Urbanic. We're getting closer to that that cast day. When is that? I saw Ryan somewhere. All right. I know that we're getting really close. What is like a week maybe? Oh, she just got it off. Okay. I know we're super close. Hopefully she's doing good. We'll just continue to pray for her. And then also the Morgan family. She had a cousin who if she was asking if we could pray for his health and surgery. We also have Brother Jeff Goodwin had a dental appointment. I don't know if that already happened or not. Tomorrow. Okay. So we're going to be praying for tomorrow to go well. And then all he wants for Christmas is two front teeth. No, I'm just kidding. And then also Miss Lucy. I guess her mom's been battling with some cancer. And she recently had to go back to the hospital with some more brain tumor issues. And so please keep her in your prayers. And so let's just say a quick word of prayer for everyone that was mentioned here. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for our church, for Steadfast Baptist Church, and for our church family. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come here and to hear the Word of God being preached, to sing songs under your name. And I pray that you would just bless those that were mentioned here this evening. That you'd bless all of our expecting ladies. That you'd give them an easy pregnancy. That you'd give them strength for delivery. I pray that you just bless all of our health issues and concerns for several of our church family. That you would just please give them favor. If possible, you just give them just miraculous recovery. That you just give them wisdom. And that you'd bless all the appointments and all of the everybody's needs as far as wisdom. And that they just have favor in their job and the decisions that they're making. I just pray that you would just continue to use us to be a bright and shining light. And that you'd add more laborers to this church so that we can continue to get more people saved. And that everything we do would be an honor and glory of your son. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Also we have a couple upcoming events. We have Pastor Jones preaching this Sunday. And so I'd really encourage you to be out here for Sunday services. He's going to be preaching for us. It's going to be really good. And then also we have our men's conference. I'm going to try and get an email out tomorrow with all the details. If you haven't confirmed your spot but you did sign up, please make sure to confirm via email. And then also we have a couple soul winning marathons as well as our fire breathing Baptist fellowship will be in October. So I'm really looking forward to all that. We do also have those information cards over here on our cabinet. And so if you would like to fill these out with anybody that gets saved out soul winning or even just it doesn't have to be someone that gets saved. Even if it was just happens to be a really good contact, someone that's interested in the church. If you'd like to take them out for a fellowship, either getting coffee or a meal or something, you can do that. Give us the card back with the person that you took out and a receipt and we'll reimburse you. As well as if you just get their information we're going to be collecting these. And then when we send out flyers or any kind of invitations for special events, we can send it to them as well. So that's just another option there for you. Let's go to our third song for the evening. Let's go to 63. What a day that will be. 63. And that song number 63. What a day that will be. On the first. There is coming a day when no heartache shall come. No more clouds in the sky. No more tears to dim the eye. All is peace forevermore on that happy golden shore. What a day, glorious day that will be. What a day that will be. When my Jesus I shall see. And I look upon his face. The one who saved me by his grace. When he takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day that will be. There'll be no sorrow there. No more burdens to bear. No more sickness, no pain. No more parting over there. And forever I will be with the one who died for me. What a day, glorious day that will be. What a day that will be. When my Jesus I shall see. And I look upon his face. The one who saved me by his grace. When he takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day that will be. Good singing. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12, the Bible reads, Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a 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 him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran. And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sychem, under the plain of Mori. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Under thy seed will I give this land. And there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hei on the east. And there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his 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 will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee. And it came to pass, that when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman, that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And he entreated Abram well for her sake, and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and men servants, and maid servants, and she asses, and camels. And the Lord plagued Pharaoh in his house with great plagues, because of Sarai, Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why setst thou, she is my sister? So I might have taken her to me to wife. Now therefore, behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you for Genesis chapter 12. I pray that you would fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit, and help him to explain this chapter to us. And also, Lord, I pray that you would help us to pay attention, so we can derive as much as possible from this chapter, this portion of your word, Lord. We thank you for our church, and for all the works that you've enabled us to do here. And in Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Amen. So we're in Genesis chapter number 12, and it's a really famous chapter. We kind of came on the tail end of Genesis chapter 11. It kind of talks about Abram, and it kind of gives us a little bit of details about him. But it says in verse number one, it says, Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a 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 curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. And so this is some really famous scripture that we have here, where the Lord is talking to Abram, and he's telling him if he leaves his family, if he leaves the land that he grew up in, he's going to end up blessing him, and making him to be someone who's great. Specifically, it says in verse number two that he's going to make his name great, and that's definitely true today. I want to keep your finger here, but go to Romans chapter four for a moment. Go to Romans chapter four. Now when we think of Abram, we think of Abraham, and the Bible tells us later that Abram's name was changed to Abraham. It's the same person, but Abraham is definitely a household name. I mean, a lot of people name their kids Abraham, and when we think of Abraham, almost every time you're thinking about the Bible character. I mean, Abraham's a very famous character in the Bible. He's someone that we all look to and think highly of, and so God truly did make Abraham's name great. You know, it's interesting how many things are just seemingly so simple, but imagine if the Bible said he's going to make his name great, and we'd never heard of him. Nobody knows who Abraham is, or he's never mentioned again in the Bible, but God told Abraham very specifically he was going to make his name great, and then look, he's known as the father of the faith, and he's known as, you know, someone who everybody attributes to being part of that lineage. In fact, the three religions that are kind of, you know, in the compass of the Bible would be called the Abrahamic religions. What? Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They all are considered Abrahamic religions. Now, obviously, Judaism and Islam have nothing to do with Christianity, okay? They're false religions. They're wicked. I don't consider myself a Judeo-Christian. I'm just Christian, you know. I'm just Baptist, but what's interesting is how all these religions point to Abraham, and they look to Abraham, and Abraham is a essential person in their faith, in their religion, and so truly, the Bible is telling us something that really happened. Abraham's name is great. I mean, you want to talk about one of the greatest people ever. It's Abraham. Now, look at Romans chapter 4 verse 1. What shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh hath found? So, when he wants to point back, Paul wants to point back to someone that's really popular, someone that we all look to, someone that would be a father unto the Jews and unto everyone, he's saying it's Abraham. He's saying Abraham, our father, and this chapter is all about faith, but what I'm pointing out here is that Abraham's name was truly iconic. In fact, you can look it up. I think it was 78 times in the New Testament. It's like 70 plus times the name Abraham is mentioned. I mean, he's mentioned like three times as many times as Jesus' mother, Mary. Now, there's a lot of Marys in the Bible, so you can't add up every time the word Mary's used, but I'm just saying Abraham is a very well-known character. He's mentioned many times in the New Testament. Look at verse 13. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. So, when Paul is talking about Abraham, he's saying this guy is the heir of the world, the promise of him being an heir of the world. Truly, Abraham is considered an heir of the entire world. That's what that promise was. In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Now, go if you would to Galatians chapter number three for a moment. Go to Galatians chapter number three for a moment. The reality is that Abraham was someone who became great. Now, why did he become great? Because he followed God's instructions. That's why. The reality is, if you want to be someone who's truly great, and not just now, but for all of eternity, the only way to get that type of recognition is through God's commandments. Every single person who is great, so-called, but not following God's commandments will be forgotten, will be completely eradicated. No one will know who they are. No one cares about them. You want to talk about people that are the most honored, the most praised. They're the people in the Bible. I mean, you want to know about the most iconic people of all time on the earth would be what? Moses, Abraham, Jacob. These are the type of people that everyone talks about, everyone's mentioning. How about all of the disciples? How about Peter? How about John? I mean, you want to talk about the most common names on the planet. What are the most common names on the planet? Peter, John, Mary. Go to Mexico. Everyone's named Mary. It's like, what's your name? Maria. It's like, oh, surprise. I mean, look, you want to talk about the most popular people. It's the ones who followed God's commandments. Paul, another household name, another name where a lot of people are named after. Why? Because these guys were following God's commandments, and that's how you truly get great is by humbling yourself and serving the Lord. What if Abraham had said, you know what? I'm just going to live here. I'm just going to live in Ur of the Chaldees. I'm going to live in Mesopotamia and do my own thing. We would have never known about him. We would have never read about him. It wouldn't even matter, and the reality is the only way you're going to get true recognition is through following God's commandments, through following his word. Now, in Galatians chapter number three, it talks about this verse that we read in Genesis chapter 12 verse three. It says in verse number six, let's read this. It says, even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted them for righteousness, know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preach before the gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faith. Now keep your finger here because we're just flipping back and forth, but notice it says in these shall all nations be blessed. But if you go back to Genesis chapter number 12 and you look at verse number three again, how is it worded there? It says in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. And so essentially family here is meaning nations. Now it makes sense that in Genesis it's more family because back then it really was just like literal families. You know, it's just like a grouping of the Canaanites or the Jebusites or whatever. It's just this little family. But then we see as we go through time that it's like the nation of the Canaanites and the nation of the Jebusites, the nation of whatever. But that's what that meant. So notice that the blessing of Abraham is the blessing of Abraham to the Jews. Yes, but is it only to the Jews? No, it says all families of the earth. It doesn't say only Jews now. Here's another question. Is Abraham a Jew? No. Jew, if you're a Jew, you're of Judah. Guess what? Abraham produces his children like you get Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob becomes Israel. Israel begets Judah. And if you are of Judah, you are a Jew. Now look, Abraham's the great-great-grandparent of the Jews, but he's not a Jew. He's a Hebrew. He's not even Israelite. He's before the Israelites. So what's weird is when people try to make everything about being a Jew. Notice that Abraham's blessing here is specifically to every single person. And look, that's because God is the God of the whole earth. God is not a respecter of persons. God is not just like, well, you know what? I only want Jews to get saved. Genesis chapter 12. I only want Israel to get saved. Genesis chapter 12. And it's funny that there's all these people that want to point back to Israel and Jews in Genesis 12. It doesn't mention Israel. It doesn't mention Jew. That hasn't even happened yet. It's about Abraham specifically. It's about his seed. And we'll get to that verse in a moment. And it's about everyone. That's what Genesis chapter number 12 is about. Here's the players. Abraham, Jesus, and everyone. That's the only people in view of Genesis chapter number 12. It's not about Israel. It's not about Jews. That's a weird interpretation that's being put into Genesis chapter 12. It's like a backloading. Notice that it says in verse number 8, go back to Galatians chapter 3. I want to show you these verses again. It's explaining to us what this even meant. He's saying, why did God say, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Because truly, in Abraham, in his lineage, in his seed, would come Jesus Christ. And through that seed, Jesus Christ, every single person would have the blessing of being able to be saved through his seed, through Jesus Christ. Now it explains that in Galatians chapter 3 verse 8. It says in the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying. So why did he say that verse? Because he's saying, in the future, Gentile nations, all families, all nations are going to end up getting saved through your lineage, through your seed. That's why you're such an important person, because without Abraham, we're not going to get all the way down into Jesus Christ. Without his seed, without his lineage, we're not getting to Jesus Christ. And without Jesus, there is no hope. The Bible says, if God's not in the world, you have no hope. So we need that lineage. We need that seed of Jesus Christ to be saved. And it's saying that God knew that that would happen later. Now, when he's saying all nations, what he's basically saying here, he's not saying that everyone's going to get saved. That's obviously not what he's saying. Two ways to look at this. Number one, everyone has the blessing of the capability of getting saved. Okay, that's one way to look at it. But I think it's just generally saying the fact that some people from every nation are going to get saved. So he's just looking in general like all these nations receive a blessing of the fact that some of their people are going to get saved. Some heathen, some Gentiles of every nation get saved. We see that later in the book of Revelation, where truly every nation, tongue, tribe is represented in heaven giving blessing. Now, some people love to twist verse number eight. And they love to twist these four words that are mentioned here where it says, preach before the gospel. Now, people that are dispensational, and in fact, I've heard a lot of people preach this, but they will say that in the Old Testament there was no gospel. They'll say the gospel didn't even exist. And I'm thinking like, what in the world? Now, you say, well, how could you prove that? They'll go to a verse like this, and they'll change how you read it to try and make it sound like there was no gospel. This is basically how they would read it. Instead of saying, preach before the gospel, they would say, preached before the gospel. And so they're saying like, oh, there was God preaching to Abraham before the gospel, which obviously, did Abraham hear this before Jesus died on the cross? Sure. But is that what this verse is saying? No. And if you look it up, whether you look it up in the Greek or you look it up in other English translations or anything, it's not even plausible that that would be a rendering of this reading. What it's saying is it is saying that he was preaching before, meaning before this was going to end up happening, he's giving him the gospel, Abraham, he's telling him what the gospel is, and he's letting him know that the heathen are going to end up believing way before it ever happened. Now, why would God do that? Because God loves to tell us the future before it happens so we can realize that this is God's word, and to understand all kinds of everything. Look, we have the book of Revelation. A lot of that hasn't happened. Now, of course, the first few chapters did happen, and that was a part of history. But then when John gets his vision and he's seeing all these things going on in heaven, that hasn't happened yet. And so God is constantly giving us a picture of the future and what's going to happen in the future, and then his word always happens exactly as he told us that it would happen. Now, there's this false prophet that I grew up in his church and I grew up listening to him. His name is Jimmy Evans, and he literally has taught that there is no gospel in the Old Testament. He gets up and he says, and look, dispensations, other people will say that. He brings up a hypothetical scenario and he says, what if there was this woman in the jungle 3,000 years ago, and he's like, and she didn't hear the gospel because back then there was no gospel. And I'm like thinking, that's stupid. Okay. And then he says like, well, if she was a good moral person and she didn't hear the gospel, you know, would she go to heaven or would she go to hell? And he's like, well, she would not go to hell, but she wouldn't go to the inner city of Jerusalem. She would just go onto the earth and she would just live there. And I was like, that's Mormonism. Okay. You want to know what Mormonism teaches? Mormonism teaches that you basically get judged according to the amount of truth or knowledge you had at the time. Okay. You know what the Bible teaches? You either believe or damned. That's it. You either believe the gospel or you're damned. And that the gospel has always existed. Go to Acts chapter 10 for a moment. Go to Acts chapter 10. I love this verse because it proves that even Abraham was hearing the gospel in Genesis chapter number 12. And who preached it to him? God did. Hey, God is telling Abraham, hey, here's the gospel, Abraham. Let me explain the gospel to you. And look, Abraham has some of the greatest pictures of the gospel as you go through his timeline, his history, all the things that he does. Abraham's one of the greatest pictures in the Bible of the gospel. But you know what? Every single prophet is a picture of the gospel and preaches the gospel. Look at what it says in Acts chapter 10, verse 43. To him, meaning Jesus, give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. Now riddle me this. If Abraham didn't know the gospel, if Abraham wasn't saved, if Abraham wasn't looking forward to the Messiah, how could he give witness? All the prophets gave witness. Look, they were all pointing to Christ. They were all looking to the cross. Look, every single prophet is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ because the central theme of the entire Bible is the gospel. To say that there was no gospel in the Old Testament is to reject the actual understanding and meaning of all the Old Testament. All of the Old Testament, every sacrifice, every prophet, every picture, every story was only about Jesus Christ. It's such nonsense to get up and say, oh, in the Old Testament there was no gospel. What are you talking about? The Old Testament's only, everything's only the gospel. I mean, the whole Old Testament's just pointing to the gospel. Then you have the gospels and then you get into the New Testament epistles and it's talking about the gospel. And then in Revelation they have angels going around preaching the everlasting gospel. You know, it's like when does the gospel cease? Never. It's called the everlasting gospel. It's the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. What is that picture? The gospel. Now go over to Acts chapter 8. It's funny that these people want to say, oh, in the Old Testament there was no gospel. Well, here's my question. Then how did they get anybody saved in the beginning of the New Testament before Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Romans were written? What were they using? You know what they were using? The Old Testament. Now how do you know that? Well, look at Acts chapter number 8 and look at verse 34. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee of whom speak of the prophet this, of himself or of some other man? Now you know what they're reading? Isaiah. They were literally reading the book of Isaiah. And then notice what he's saying. Is this prophet talking about himself or someone else? What did Acts chapter 10 already tell us? That all the prophets give witness to who? Jesus Christ. It says in verse 35, then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and, notice this, and preached unto him Jesus. Well, riddle me this. How can you get somebody saved from the book of Isaiah when in the Old Testament there is no gospel? Look, it's just nonsense. Go to Luke chapter number 24. Go to Luke chapter 24. He said, yeah, but that's because they, you know, they knew. They had already seen Jesus, so they're giving him new revelation or new understanding. Well, let's see if Jesus has the same attitude. Let's just, if you could just go back and ask Jesus, like, hey, I didn't understand the Old Testament was about you. Let's see what Jesus' attitude would have been towards that person. He says in Luke 24 verse 25, then he said unto them, this is Jesus speaking, oh fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? Now what was Jesus' attitude? When these people are saying, hey, we thought that Jesus was the Christ, but he died. What was his attitude? You guys are fools and you're slow of heart to believe, and notice this, all that the prophets have spoken. He's saying, look, the Old Testament already told us everything. You have to understand this, at the time of Christ, that generation was really backslidden, was really far away from God, was not very spiritual, was not a wellspring of knowledge and faith toward the Lord and lots of people saved already. It was like a generation of reprobates and wicked evil people, and the knowledge of the Lord was vanishing and it was shrunk down to basically nothing. It's kind of like today. And we can't base a poor generation, a bad generation and say, well, this is what people have always been like. No, there's great times in the Old Testament. There was a revival in the Old Testament. There was times when there's thousands and millions of people that are saved and know the Lord and are serving the Lord and know his commandments. I mean, you read portions of scripture in the Old Testament where they're literally reading the Bible for a third of the day. They're just sitting there just reading the entire Bible a third of the day. They're studying the scriptures. They know the Bible and a lot of these people are saved. You're going to tell me they're going to sit here and be like, they didn't know the gospel or they didn't know. Look, that's nonsense. Jesus' attitude was saying these guys were idiots for not knowing the gospel from the Old Testament specifically. He said in verse 27, in the beginning of Moses and all the prophets, he expounded on them and all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. But there's no gospel in the Old Testament. Then how did Jesus do this? How would Jesus literally sit here and explain everything about himself in the Old Testament if he didn't even exist in the Old Testament? Because the Old Testament's all about him. Go to Acts chapter number 17. Go to Acts chapter number 17. This is a foolish utterance. Even the apostle Paul says something very interesting in Romans. He says in Romans chapter number 10, verse 8, but what sayeth it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith, which we preach. So when the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 10 is talking about people getting saved, he says, the word is nigh thee. It's in your mouth and it's in your heart. What does he mean by that? It's just like you and I, when we go and we knock on doors and we ask somebody what they have to do to be saved, what do they say? Be a good person, go to church. And then you say, have you heard of John 3 16? And they're like, Oh yeah, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not bear everlasting life. And you're like, right. Hey, the word is very nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. But here's the problem. They just haven't believed it yet. They don't understand it yet. It hasn't clicked yet, but here's the reality. Hey, in the Old Testament, they knew all the Bible. They, lots of them knew the Bible or familiar with the Bible. They can quote you scriptures. I mean, the Pharisees are readily thinking of scriptures. People are thinking of the Bible. There's lots of people that know the word of God, yet lots of times they're still not saved. And the reality is in the Old Testament, it's not like they didn't have the gospel. It's just a lot of times they didn't understand it. Okay. And even the disciples at times didn't understand some of the verses, didn't understand some of the things that Jesus was saying to them at the time. But look, in the Old Testament, they had the gospel. The apostle Paul saying, you already have it. He said in Romans chapter 10, Hey, I'm not coming here to tell you something that you guys don't have. You already have it. You're already saying it. You're already quoting it. It's already the verse. Look, the verses I'm going to show you to get saved, you already have. And then they tell me, Oh, they didn't have the gospel. Look, they already have it. You already have it. Mankind has always had it. The problem is they don't believe it. It's not a question of where is it. It's a question of believing it. You know, the Bible makes it clear that God's right there. If you just like reached out, he was just there. You'd touch him. He's very naive. You don't have to go up into heaven. You don't have to dig down into earth. Look, who hasn't heard John 3 16 in this world? Virtually everyone's heard John 3 16 in this world. And look, I'm not saying there aren't people that we need to educate and teach them some Bible. And sometimes you run into somebody and they're like, I've never heard of church. I've never heard of the Bible, but you and I both know that almost everyone basically already has everything needed to get saved. They just need some man to guide them. Don't they? They need some man to just slow down and explain it to them. Look at Acts chapter 17 verse one. Now, when they were pastored and epiphanies and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul's manner was went in unto them. And three Sabbath days reason with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead. And that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. Now here's the thing. How could Paul go into the synagogue with only the Old Testament and prove from the Old Testament that Jesus Christ was going to die and rise again if they had no gospel. It's because they did have the gospel. Now, obviously the New Testament, it's more revealed and the New Testament is more obvious and the New Testament is more clearly understood, but here's the thing. You can preach them with the gospel with the Old Testament only. Now, if you do this as your soul wanting method, I don't recommend it. Okay. Go back to Genesis for a moment. Go back to Genesis, but it's possible. And look at if all you had, we'd have like an Isaiah road or something. We'd have a Psalms road or something. We'd figure out a new way. We'd have a different way to teach someone all the things necessary to believe, to get saved. And obviously in the Old Testament, they may not have understood every detail. They're probably not going to understand that it was a cross specifically. But they knew it would be a tree. They knew that he'd be lifted up. They may not have understood the cross. They may have not understood certain details about his death, but they understood that Christ was going to come. They understood that Christ was going to die. They understood that Christ was going to rise again. Look, one of the doctrines of the Pharisees is the resurrection. You're going to tell me that they didn't believe in the resurrection when the literal doctrine of the Pharisees is the resurrection? They believe in the resurrection. Look, looking to the cross is no different than looking back to the cross. And just even today, you wouldn't have to know every detail to get saved. We don't explain everything. You don't have to know that he had vinegar on the cross. You don't have to know how many nails there were. Just don't be a Jehovah's Witness, okay? It was the print of the nails in his hands, okay? But at the end of the day, it's that faith in Christ that saves us that always has, always will. And someone who teaches that there's anything other than faith in Christ that gets someone to heaven is a lying false prophet, okay? Now, look at verse four. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken on him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran. And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and in the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land under the place of Sychem, under the plain of Mori. And the Canaanite was there in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. So Abram's following God's directions. He's following his commandments. He's following his leading. Now you have to understand, and I didn't understand this as a kid, is that Abram has not inherited the promised land. He's literally just traveling through it. He's just visiting it, okay, because it's not his. It's the Canaanite's land at this point in time. Now he's obviously going to live there, and he's going to be dwelling among them, but it's not his land owner. It's like renting, in a sense, or traveling, or being in an RV today, or whatever, or taking your coat to the Koah. Isn't there like the Koah where you have these tents or something like that you can go and dwell? That's basically what he's doing. Later they're going to inherit the promised land, okay, and Abraham didn't inherit the promised land, as Hebrews tells us, because that's a later future prophecy. But when he says that he's going to give this to his seed, notice in verse 7 it says, unto thy seed will I give this land. So he's telling them about future events again. Now what's interesting about this phrase here is, unto thy seed will I give this land, is explained to us in Galatians again. Go back to Galatians chapter 3 if you kept your finger there. But it says, unto thy seed will I give this land. Now Galatians 3 makes a very important point here about this phrase. It says in Galatians chapter 3 verse 16, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not and to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed. And then it says, which is Christ? So it tells us God wanted to have a very specific wording here, seed singular, because it was not about his descendants, it was about Christ. The promise given to Abraham has nothing to do with his physical descendants as a whole and everything to do with only Christ, one descendant specifically, one seed specifically, which was Jesus Christ. It says in verse 17, and this I say that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot this annul that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. He also elaborates and says this, not only is the land only Jesus Christ's, but it has nothing to do with the law. And in fact, owning this land has nothing to do with the law. So what is he saying there? He's saying even though Abraham's physical descendants, the children of Israel, come later and inherit the promised land and they're given the law by Moses, that has nothing to do with whether or not that's their land. The land is only given to Christ and it's not given by the law. It's given by promise, by faith specifically. Now what's interesting is that this land has been a high point of contention for all of history. And especially even today, the land of Israel is under hot contention today of whose it is. But let me tell you whose it is. Jesus Christ. You say when was it Jesus Christ? Always. When will it not be Jesus Christ? It's always Jesus Christ. It's never been the children of Israel's. It's never been the Jews. Now obviously the Lord allowed them to enter the promised land and he allowed them to have an inheritance in there. But that was as long as they were keeping the faith of the Lord and they're basically inheriting through Christ in that time. But the covenant he made with them in that land was a conditional covenant upon them keeping his commandments and the problem is they never did. They never kept his commandments and so eventually God dispelled them out of the land. Now in 1948 people brought back so-called Jews into the land and they say oh this is a miracle by God and he's given them this land and there's this ideology called Zionism today which says that is their land no matter what and we need to give it to them. So they basically pushed Palestinians out of the Middle East, out of Israel, gave it to Israelites, gave it to Jews so-called and ever since they've been fighting all about it and there's continued fight. In fact right now there's a lot of fighting about it. I've heard a lot of missile strikes are going on in both places and it's going to be a constant battle you know for that land. But the question is whose land is it? It's Christ. The Bible is clear and but they say no it's their land and whenever you ask them where they get that they'll say Genesis 12. They'll go back to Genesis chapter number 12 and they'll say unto thy seed but here's the problem a lot of them use modern versions too but one of the biggest promoters of this is John Hagee which is in San Antonio. Can there any good thing come out of San Antonio? I don't know. But he has on his website why should Christians support Israel okay and and this is what he says on his website Israel is the only nation on earth created by a sovereign act of God. Now that's stupid okay because just read Ezra chapter one Cyrus is saying God gave me all the nations of the earth okay. Look God everything that was given to every single person was given by God okay. This is not the only nation in an act by God that was given by him or whatever. He also says this as Christians we owe a debt of gratitude to the Jewish people. He says Jesus proclaimed that salvation is of the Jews. He said in Romans 15 27 go there if you would go there for a moment. Go to Romans 15. He says in Romans 15 27 Paul tells us that Gentiles have benefited from Jewish spiritual things. Jewish spiritual things. Now this is like almost an oxymoron because it's like Jewish is something carnal so that's like carnal spiritual things. It's like that doesn't really work okay but what is he trying to get at? Let's read this verse. It says it hath pleased them verily and their debtors they are for if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things. Now it says their spiritual things. Now the there is talking about people that dwell in Jerusalem so he's trying to make this big deal about as being Jewish spiritual things but here's here's the context. He says in verse number 25 but now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the Saints. So who is he talking about? Saved people that dwell in Jerusalem. So it's the saved spiritual things but he's not saying unsaved reprobate Jews spiritual things because that's an oxymoron okay and it's it's silly to be like oh we've benefited from the unsaved spiritual things. We didn't. Yeah did we benefit from people who are saved that happen to also be Jewish like Paul and like Peter and like John? Sure of course we did. You know what had nothing to do with him as a person. It had nothing to do with Peter as a person. It had everything to do with the fact they were saved okay and that's such a weird thing to say we owed a debt of gratitude to the Jewish people. Hey I owe a debt of gratitude to all of the saved people that have gone before us. Hey I'm standing on the shoulders of giants spiritually but has nothing to do with their ethnicity has nothing to do with their race and Abraham wasn't a Jew and I'm standing on his shoulders too okay but he says this it's our duty to minister them in material things. What a twisting of scripture. He's saying hey they're giving money to saved people in Jerusalem so we need to give money to unsaved people in Jerusalem today. They weren't giving money to unsaved Jews. They weren't building the synagogue back then. They weren't you know they were like hey we need that we need a new area in the in the synagogue we're gonna send to the Christian Gentile churches to build the Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem. That wasn't gonna happen. No obviously they were ministering spiritual things but this is what he says in this why we should support Christians to support Israel every word of the Bible was penned by Jewish hands and I'm like well you're looking in Romans why don't we just read a little bit further look what it says in chapter 16 verse 22 I Tertius who wrote this epistle salute you in the Lord oops I guess Tertius is Jewish now huh doesn't sound very Jewish to me look that's a that's a silly thing to say we're some of the Bible authors Jewish I'm sure they were but you know what Moses was not in this it was not a Jew he was a Levite and in fact most of the Bible was copied by Levites you know they were the scribes okay that's such a silly thing to say even Jeremiah you know and lots of other prophets you know they have other people writing physically like Baruch is physically writing for him so a lot of these epistles may have been written by people that weren't necessarily the title or the person that we think of or whoever they could have had an unsaved person physically write it that wouldn't even have mattered because obviously if Paul was addicted look every printer that's printed the Bible that you have in your hand here was unsaved who cares about who physically wrote it down so because unsaved Jews physically copied the Bible for centuries I now owe a debt of gratitude to them no just like I don't owe a debt of gratitude to the printer that printed my Bible do I have to now start giving money to every printing press that ever printed a Bible go over to John chapter 8 this is the silly logic that they have to use to prop up their doctrine because the Bible doesn't teach it the Bible teaches that those who rejected Christ even if they were a physical descendant were not of God they were not God's chosen people the Lord has no respect unto them let's see what Jesus thought about these people John chapter 8 look at verse 37 I know that your Abraham seed but he seek to kill me because my word hath no place in you so Jesus is looking at physical Jews and saying I know you are descendants of Abraham but he says my words nowhere to be found in you says in verse 30 I speak that which I see with my father and you do that what you have seen with your father answered and sent him Abraham is our father Jesus say unto them if you are Abraham's children you would do the works of Abraham but now you seek to kill me a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God this did not Abraham he do the deeds of your father then said they to him we be not born of fornication we have one father even God Jesus said unto them if God were your father you would love me for I proceeded forth and came from God neither came I of myself but he sent me why do you not understand my speech Tyler Baker and I'm sorry even because he cannot hear my word hear your father the devil and the lusts of your father he will do he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in when he speak of the lies because of his own for he's a liar and the father of it they say look I know that you're a physical descendants of Abraham but somehow at the same time you're not children of Abraham your children of the devil your children of Satan and he's a liar that would be banned today you know what did Jesus think about the Jews they were liars and of the devil that's what Jesus thought about these people go to Revelation chapter 2 go to Revelation chapter 2 actually just go to 1st Thessalonians 2 I'll read for you Revelation chapter 2 says this I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not but are the synagogue of Satan and there's a lot of people today calling themselves Jews in the Middle East and they're not they're liars they're of their father the devil and their synagogue is of their father Satan those people going to the Wailing Wall are worshiping the devil they're not worshiping God they don't have God the Father if you don't have the son you don't have the father that's what the Bible teaches 1st Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 14 for ye brethren became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen even as they have of the Jews who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have persecuted us and they pleased not God and are contrary to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins always for the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost how could you then say oh yeah let's go back to Genesis chapter 12 verses you know I'm gonna bless them to bless thee and curse him to curse thee well if I'm gonna actually take that logic correctly you know what I would do I would curse the Jews which say they're Jews and or not but do lie that are of the father of the devil which are blaspheming Christ and attacking Christ and don't want people to get saved who they what are they they're cursing Christ so you know what they're cursed go if you went to Romans chapter 2 go to Romans chapter 2 the Bible is clear on this subject it's crazy to me how anybody can be a New Testament Christian and then say we got to bless that Jew and I'm thinking like what verse did you find in the Bible that said that Genesis chapter 12 God said bless them that bless thee and I'll curse him that cursed thee Jews aren't found in Genesis chapter number 12 that's later of the tribe of Judah but guess what hey I'll bless every single Jew that saved but you know what the ones that hate Jesus Christ the ones that are reprobate I'm never gonna bless and the best blessing you give to any Jew is the gospel and a lot of these Zionist teachers they will teach also that Jews don't even have to get saved they'll teach they have their covenant and we have ours I'm thinking like you don't even know what the covenants are about then because the old covenant was replaced with the new covenant that's why it's called old why would it be called old if it's still in effect it's not like older it's just old it's it's ready to vanish away you know it decayed and it waxes old now you say well but they're Jews and and and we're you know Christians nope I'm a Jew and they're not Jews the Bible actually is look at Romans chapter 2 verse 28 free is not a Jew which is one outwardly neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh but he's a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in letter whose praise is not of men but of God so if you want to tell me that that land over there is the Jews well I'm ready to take it you know that land is more my land than it is theirs the land in the Middle East is more my land than any of those Christ rejecting circumcised you know head-bobbing devil-worshipping liars over there coin clipping what else can be done yeah blaspheming for sure go if you would to Jeremiah for a moment go to Jeremiah what happened well they rejected Christ but they always were rejecting the Lord he said hey they killed the prophets too you said why would they kill the prophet because they were preaching the gospel you know what the Jews never liked? the gospel. they didn't like it when Abraham preached it they didn't like it when Moses preached it they didn't like it when Jacob preached it hey they didn't like it when Joseph preached it hey they didn't like you when anybody preached it hey when Jeremiah preached that they put them in the dung pit. No? you know who liked the gospel? Nineveh. when Jonah went and preached unto them they liked it. which is a picture of what the Gentiles getting saved. You know what? The Jews constantly rejected the Lord. You do always resist the Holy Ghost, is what Stephen said, didn't he? He's saying, man, they killed him in this chapter and this chapter and this chapter and this chapter and then Stephen's just standing face and then he's like, you're going to kill me, aren't you? He's like, now I get it. Now I see. Hey, when you're a prophet of the Lord, you know who doesn't like you? The synagogue of Satan. That's why for hundreds of years Christians actually realized that Jews are not our friends. It's only like a recent thing where Christians have decided that now we need to bless that Jew and we need to give him more coins to clip and we need to give him more of our dollars. It's like, we need to help him build that blasphemous temple. We need to help them continue doing sacrifices that would be the most blasphemous thing on the planet because Christ was our once for all sacrament. Why would I want to help somebody blaspheming Christ? It makes no sense. In Hosea, I'll just read for you. It says, I will love them no more. He's talking about Ephraim and Ephraim was of Joseph, okay? He's saying, hey, I'm not going to love them no more. That's harsh. Look at Jeremiah 3 8. And I saw when for all their causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce. Now here's my question. Why I should support Israel? Why would I support Israel when God divorced them? Riddle me that. He's like, oh, God always blesses Israel and always blesses that Jew. What about when they rejected him and then God divorced Israel literally? That's what the Bible says. He says, also yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not. Now why did God not also divorce Judah? Because he was waiting for Christ to come. But then after Christ being come and then being rejected, then what happens? They're rejected too. Go to Matthew 21. Go to Matthew 21. Look, Israel just slowly picked off. You know, Dan pretty much just immediately is just, no one knows where Dan went. Okay. No one knows what happened today. They made their own prophet, Adam Fannin. I mean, I don't know what this name was, but they made their own little priest or whatever. His name was Jonathan. Okay. But they took him off and they went and did their own thing, worship false gods. Then Israel eventually got mixed in with the heat and became Samaria. Nobody knows what happens to them. It's basically like Judah's the last hope and then Christ comes and what do they do? They reject him too. It doesn't matter. 21 verse 42, Jesus say unto them, did he never read in the scriptures the stone which the builders rejected? The same has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I send you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. So what did Jesus say? Hey, you're going to lose everything and it's going to be given to somebody else. Now you say what physical nation? There isn't one. It's a spiritual nation made up of saved Jews. And if you're saved, you're a Jew. Say, well, I don't like Jews. Well, you're a Jew either way. Okay. If you're saved, you don't have to get that physical circumcision. You got it in your heart. That's funny is look, this affects every area of our life today and it's crazy. I'm going to give you a couple of other articles, but our governor, Greg Abbott is a rabid Zionist. Okay. And he recently made some kind of a Twitter post or something where he got out and he said, antisemitic platforms like Gab have no place in Texas. I was like, what in the world? He's like been hating on Gab. I guess he loves Facebook, huh? Jew book or something, but he hates Gab because it's antisemitic. Now look, I've been on Gab just barely works. Okay. Let alone. It's not a very effective platform yet, but Hey, I've been on there. I haven't seen any posts about Jews pro neck. I mean, it's just like, it's so silly to say that it's such an antisemitic platform, but what he did is he partnered with two people, Phil King and Craig Goldman. Okay. And Craig Goldman wrote some letters of legislation, house bill number 1555 and Abbott is trying to sign this thing in a law. He either did or is trying to get it passed. I don't know. I don't know if it officially got passed or not. You have to look that up, but here's what this house bill is about. He got so excited and he's championing this house, but it's called the Texas Holocaust and genocide advisory committee. So this bill wants to set up a special Holocaust. There was no Texas Holocaust number one. Okay. That's, that's silly. There might not be, that's a different sermon, right? But basically what they're trying to do is they're trying to have a committee where they go into all the public schools and private charter schools and they try to encourage and promote education about the Holocaust and education about these events and they want to have a Holocaust awareness week at schools or whatever, where they talk about all this. What does this have to do with Texas? Why in the world would you know, I think he's a, is he a cat? I think he's a Catholic. Okay. Which Catholics and Jews look up that in history. All right. But it's silly. And look, this Zionism is so extreme that in 2017, uh, I'll read for you. It says residents of one Texas city are being asked to sign a loyalty oath to Israel if they want to receive funds for hurricane Harvey relief. It was the city of Dickinson and it stems from the fact that Greg Abbott had wrote into law a pro Israel law at that time. It said that it prohibits the state from entering into a contract with any company unless it does not boycott Israel or take to or take action to penalize, inflict economic harm on or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel. So whenever hurricane Harvey came and destroyed a lot of Houston, Greg Abbott got out there and said, look, you can't receive any relief funds from the government, any government programs or grants unless you literally sign this, this document saying that you stand with Israel and you promote Israel. You would never boycott them or anything. That bizarre. And there was tons of businesses that are, you know, like from the Middle East, like from Pakistan or whatever. And they're like, I'm not signing that thing. And so they were literally trying to discriminate against the, look, what kind of a weird law to say you can't get hurricane funds unless you bless Israel. I wonder where that ideology is coming from. Oh yeah. A twisting of Genesis chapter number 12, isn't it? Another article. This is Greg Abbott quoting as Israel's number one trading partner in the United States. Texas is proud to reaffirm its support for the people of Israel and we will continue to build on our historic partnership. And he said in May, anti Israel policies are anti Texas policies and we will not tolerate such actions against an important ally. But this ideology is affecting Texas. What a shame. What a mockery to say that we're a Christian. God bless Texas while we're literally promoting the synagogue of Satan at the same time. You say, where does that come from? Well, go back to Genesis and we're going to kind of finish this chapter real quick. But what's so funny about this is when you read these verses and modern versions, which all these other people do, you know, most of these people are not independent of Baptist. They don't use the King James Bible. They read it in modern versions, but even the new King James, he will be like, Oh, it's the new King James. You know, King James came back from the dead and he gave us a new one. That's not how it works. Okay. But the new King James is a fraud too. And what's funny, I have one in my office, but in verse seven, let me read for you what it says in the new King James. You follow along, right? Then the Lord appeared to Abraham or Abram and said to your descendants, I will give this land. It literally says descendants plural. Now, if you go to the new King James Galatians chapter three, verse 16, it'll literally say, and he says the seed singular, not the seeds plural. I'm just like, how do you literally write that in your Bible then? How can, how can the Bible make such a big deal about the singular versus the plural? And then in your Bible, you literally change it to plural and then act like that's somehow easier to be understood. Is the word descendants better than seed? I mean, it's, it's a longer word even. It would probably be a harder word to be understood. And it's so silly to say, Oh, the new King James just makes it easier to be understood. No, it just makes it wrong. No, it just lies to you point blank. And of course, because it says descendants, then people go back to this and say, Oh, we got to bless that Jew and it's their land. God gave it to him. God gave it to Abraham and he gave it to that Jew and we better kill Palestinian women, children, and babies and infants because you know, if you want that hurricane Harvey relief, look, it's sick. It's sick. What they do. I'm not going to, I'm not going to bless them. I'm not going to promote them. You know, boycotting. I don't even know what to boycott. I mean, don't they own everything anyways? Boycott. I can't go to any bank, you know, all medias. I'm, I'm, I'm done on media. What else are they on? Pretty much everything on the government. So, I mean, you can't do anything with the government, right? That's so silly. Now let's read a little bit more of this. It's going to kind of shift now. We kind of, we covered a lot. It's going to give us a little story here and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this story, but it says in verse nine and Abraham journeyed going on still toward the South and there was a famine on the land and Abraham went down into Egypt to soldier in there. The family was grievous in the land and it came to pass when he was come near to enter into Egypt that he said in the Sarah his 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, they shall, that they shall say, this is his wife and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee thou art my sister that it may be well with me for thy sake and my soul shall live because of thee. And it came to pass that when Abraham was coming to Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her and commended her before Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. Now it's interesting, just for a side point, it was interesting is Abraham was 75 when he left. I don't know how much time has passed here, but Sarah is about 10 years younger. That means she's 65 and she's apparently a fox or something. I mean, she's like, she's 65 and man, it's just like, she's so attractive. They're just like, man, you know, just immediately notice verse 16. And he entreated Abram well for her sake and he had sheep and oxen and he asses and men servants and maid servants and she asses and camels. And the Lord plagued Pharaoh his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and said, what is this that thou has done unto me? Why didest thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidest thou she's my sister? So I might've taken her to me to wife. Now therefore behold thy wife, take her and go thy way. And Pharaoh commended his men concerning him and they sent him away and his wife and all that he had. Now, don't go to Psalms 105 and that's kind of the last place I'm going to have you turn. But I want to just point out a few things about this story that's kind of interesting. We see that Abram eventually journeys down into Egypt and he ends up being afraid that the Egyptians will kill him for envy of his wife because apparently Sarai is just like the most attractive woman ever, okay? And because she's so stunningly beautiful even at 65, I guess that's what happens when you obey your husband. You stay attractive. No, I'm just kidding. But because he's so attractive he's afraid he'll be killed so he just has this lie. He says, oh, I'm her brother, okay? Now I believe that's probably true and later they say that that's true but it's like a half sibling type relationship. But that half truth is still a whole lie because they're basically insinuating that they're not married and they're allowing her to potentially commit adultery with Pharaoh. But this is a problem because Sarai is a special woman. She's been promised to have a seed and God cannot allow that to be defiled or changed. Abram and Sarah have God's favor on them and so God can't allow Pharaoh to end up being with Sarai. What if he produces a child or something? Now it's not Abram's only begotten child or there's something, it just screws everything up. So God can't let that happen. And here's the reality. Even when we screw up, there's often times when God still will get us back on the right path, on the right track. And what I like about the Bible's characters is that they're complex characters. They have baggage. Sometimes they have baggage. Sometimes they do bad things. They screw up. They do wrong. It'd be weird if the world that we live in, when we read about the characters in the Bible, they never sinned. They never did wrong. We're reading about it like, why can't you be like Abram? Now there are some people in the Bible that are pretty great like Job or Daniel or something like that. But Abram's considered one of the greatest guys in the Bible. And man, he really screws up here. And this is bizarre. I mean, if your husband told you like, hey, I want you to just pretend like we're not married so other guys can start hitting on you, that would be weird. That's a weird sin. And like you're putting your wife in the threat of being taken advantage of, of committing adultery, of all kinds of horrible scenarios that could happen. I mean, he doesn't want to claim her as his wife. That's got to feel kind of like being rejected a little bit. I mean, this is a weird story. But that's because, you know what, you and I screw up too. And I bet if we started like looking at some of your behavior and my behavior, you'd be like, that was weird. Like, why did you do that? But you know what, sometimes God, let me say it this way. God gives us grace and long suffering because he knows that we're going to screw up, yet he will still use us. God still uses sinful man. He still uses people that screw up. And despite us being flawed and making mistakes, God still uses us. God used Abraham in a great way, even though he's flawed, even though he sins, and even though he sins in the future. He's not, this is not even a one time story. He does it in the future again too. The exact same thing. That also tells me that Abraham's thick. Sometimes he makes the same mistake multiple times, right? But here's what's cool. God protects him despite his mistake. And that's what's truly great about being saved, about being one of God's children, is that even though you screw up and do wrong, God still loves you. God will still protect you. God will still help you. Psalm 105, look at verse six. Oh, you seed of Abraham his servant. He, children of Jacob, his chosen. He is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He hath remembered his covenant forever. The word which he commanded to a thousand generations, which covenant he made with Abraham and his oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying unto thee, Will I give the land of Canaan a lot of your inheritance? When they were but a few men in number, yea, very few, and strangers in it, when they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people, he suffered no man to do them wrong. Yea, he reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. So notice, even though Abraham screwed up, he has God's favor on his life. He's one of God's chosen people. And here's the thing. If you're saved, you're God's chosen people too. And even though you may screw up, and even though you may do wrong, you know what? God still has his hand upon you, and God will often reprove evil people and protect you, even when you screw up. Isn't that great news? I feel like that's great news because, you know what, I still screw up. And I will screw up in the future, okay? Not because I want to, not because it's good, not because I'm making excuses, but just because it's reality. But what's cool about this reality is that God can still use people that are screwed up and sinful and do wrong. The Bible says in Psalm 37, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way. And so God wants us to obviously follow his commandments perfectly, but he realizes we're not going to. So sometimes our steps are exactly what God wants us to take. But then there's other times when our steps are like, whoa, but then he's just like, bam! He just plans it right where he wants it anyways. And even when you take a bad step, he just brings you back on the right track. Now you say, well, what do I do? The Bible says in Proverbs 24 verse 16, for a just man fall seven times and riseth up again, but the wicked shall fall into mischief. Here's probably the most important thing that you can get in your heart is the name of our church, the East Dead Fast. You will screw up. You will fall at times. You will lose zeal at times. You will have bad things happen. You know what? One of the worst things you can do is just quitting, quitting. Hey, the just man, he falls seven times, but he rises up. Hey, Abraham made a big mistake here, but you know what? He just kept serving the Lord, and then he makes the same mistake again, but then he keeps serving the Lord. And here's the reality. As long as you got breath in your lungs, serve God. Just keep serving him. You say, well, Pastor Shelley, I screwed up. Okay, get back up. Don't just live a life and say like, well, I'm only going to serve God as long as I'm perfect. I'm only going to go soul winning as long as I never skip. It's like, well, no. If you skipped for two years, just go soul winning next week. Go soul winning this week. If you screwed up, if you're sinful, well, I'm only going to go to church if I haven't missed in a while. No, if you've missed in a while, get back in the church. I don't want to read my Bible. I haven't been reading it for months. No, read the Bible tomorrow. Well, I'm not going to pray. I haven't been praying in a while. No, pray tomorrow. Just keep serving the Lord. Just keep getting back in the fight. Look, it's a constant fight. God realizes we're frail. God realizes we're sinful. God realizes we're going to make mistakes. You're still here, aren't you? You can't affect the past. You can only affect the future. It's easy to get a bad attitude. It's easy to screw up and to get sour and to want to quit. You know what? Sometimes in the Bible, even the men of God have really low points. Sometimes the men of God screw up really big. You want to know what separates the guy that ends well from the guy that doesn't? One quit and one didn't. It's not like Paul didn't screw up. Paul screwed up major in lots of ways. It's like everyone's telling him, don't go to Jerusalem. Don't go. The Holy Ghost is saying no, and he's just like, I must go. And then he gets arrested. But you know what about Paul still has a good attitude about it? And then he's in jail. What if Paul just decided I'm going to quit mentally? Then we wouldn't have all the great chapters at the end. We wouldn't have all the great stories and things he did later in the book of Acts. There's plenty of times where people in the Bible screw up, and then they just quit, and then they fall. Demas half forsaken me having loved this present world. He didn't get back in the fight. He said, well, I screwed up. I messed up. I forsook. I did something wrong. Just get back in the fight. Just continue to be steadfast. And at the end of your life, praise the Lord. God's not going to remember you for your faults because your sins are separated from you as far as the east is from the west. You're going to remember for the triumphs of being steadfast unto the end, of being faithful unto the end, and then receiving the crown of life. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for these great promises you gave us. Thank you for giving us the blessing of Jesus Christ through Abraham, and that we get to inherit the promised land, not through the law, not through ethnicity, not through race, but through grace. And I thank you so much that your grace is not just for salvation, but it's for every step of our life, and that as we screw up and as we fall short, that we would be reminded of your grace and your longsuffering and your patience and your kindness and your gentleness and your meekness, and the fact that Christ is there to be a propitiation for us, and that we would seek that grace, that we would always come back to the fold, that we would never want to give up, that we would never quit, but until our dying breath, we would be steadfast with the Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, for our final song, we'll go to song 472, This Is My Father's World. 472, This Is My Father's World. Song 472, This Is My Father's World, on the first. You want to do an intro? On the verse. This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears. All nature sings, and round me rings. This is my Father's world. I rest me in the fawn of rocks and trees, of skies and seasons in the wonders won. This is my Father's world, the birds their carol's praise. The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker's praise. This is my Father's world. He shines in all that's fair. In the rustling grass I hear Him pass. He speaks to me everywhere. This is my Father's world. Oh, let me ne'er forget, that though the rock seems oft so strong, what is the ruler yet? This is my Father's world. The battle is not done. Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied in earth, and heaven be won. God bless. You are dismissed. God bless.