Need a water, please. Precious bloody shadow, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you that we do have a resting place a resting place in the grace of God and the gifts that he has offered us through his completed work in Jesus Christ. And he offers by grace through faith, not of works. What a beauty. Beautiful and wonderful place for our soul to rest. Dear Heavenly Father, in this we take encouragement on this beautiful day. We ask this in Jesus name, amen. And you may be seated. Thank you. Come back and sing here in just a moment. But let me give some announcements. You've got a bulletin there that hopefully you picked up and it's got some announcements on the back. Let me give the big announcement up front. The big announcement is that next week no, this week there we go. This week is our House Prophecy conference. House Prophecy Conference begins Friday night at 06:00 p.m.. And we'll go six to nine on Friday, saturday morning, nine to noon. You get Saturday afternoon off and then we come back Sunday morning, 945 to noon. And we really are going to have some, I think, fascinating topics that we're going to discuss. We are going to look at the gap theory in Genesis, chapter one, and see whether or not that's a theory that we should hold to. The gap theory is the idea that between Genesis one one and one two, there was a long period of time and a cataclysmic chaos and we start again in Genesis one two. We're going to look at that and see any meat there that we want to hang on to. We're actually going to look at a growing phenomenon of conservative Christians who believe in a flat Earth. We're going to see why they believe in a flat Earth. Where is all that coming from? We'll look at it a little bit from a scientific point of view and we'll look at it from a biblical point of view and we'll see if we all go out of here flat Earthers. Does that scare you or excite you or just say, well, it'll be interesting. They're all basically genesis one issues. We're going to look at the makeup of the universe as God put it together. And really in an electrical sense, I am convinced that God created the universe to run on electricity and it always has, even before Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. It's run on electricity and we're going to see how it runs on electricity. And that really is going to give us a little bit of insight into our world. But then we're going to bring that down to ourselves. Let me give another teaser here I think I might have mentioned this Wednesday night. So in the beginning, God created the heavens of the Earth. The Earth was formless and void and darkness hovered over the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the darkness. You remember. And then the very next thing and God said, let there be light. This is where the electricity comes in right from the beginning. Let there be light. Okay, what is that? And do we have an electric universe? Let's look into that. And then when it gets down to me and you, are we electric? We are going to talk medical and look at our electrical bodies and learn how to recharge, how to get all that plugged in, how to get the electricity flowing the way it should. It'll be very practical. Now, when we do these Friday nights Saturday seminars, I feel permission to be totally as weird as we want to be in Towson, New Mexico, with the topics. And so there are some weird topics we're going to throw out there. And we're going to try again to give a scientific look, to give a biblical look to come to some good conclusions and some interesting things about the way we are fearfully and wonderfully made and how to medicate ourselves and how to feed ourselves and how to look at the universe. Oh, I think we're going to do a session. I'm trying to figure out how to fit all these sessions in. We're going to do a session on fossil fuels. Do you know they don't exist? How's that? I'll just put that out there. You have to come this weekend to find out. I thought I was putting it in my car. No, you're putting gasoline in your car, but fossil fuels don't exist, so that'll be fun, won't it? Okay. All sorts of fun stuff. Remember Friday night, we'll have some snacks here. We won't actually surf supper, but if you can survive on a bottle of water and cheese and cookies and muffins and peanuts, you got it. Friday night, Saturday morning, we'll have kind of the same stuff. It'll be casual if you can't get here by six. Get here? How's this get here when you can, leave when you must. There it is. We've got some guests coming in from out of town to join us, and so always look forward to seeing them. And speaking of that, they will be coming in through the week, helping with work week. Got some projects going around in the search. Ed and Nancy are already here from Pueblo, West Colorado, and they're going to get started in work week. And Rich and Jody were supposed to be here with you, but Jody's mother fell and broke a bone and so they're carrying for her and hope to get in later. But anyway, the Paul's from Oregon and people coming from Dallas and San Diego. Anyway, it'll be a fun weekend next weekend. So if you have time off and you want to do work week, you can come to that too. And then after the conference Monday, we're doing the first ever road trip. Okay? Everybody's been on a road trip. So how in the world is the first ever what's? The first ever one? We've done. There we go. We got some of these out of towners coming and we got some locals joining us. So we're going to take a Monday through Friday road trip through northern Mexico. You should have come next week. Are you still going to be here from South Carolina? North Carolina? Excuse me. Yes, my daughter in law is from North Carolina, so pardon me for committing the unpardonable sin there. But anyway, we are going to take five days touring northern New Mexico. I'm going to be the tour guide and I've been steady enough on my history and my politics and everything else to be ready to go. So it's going to be fun. Monday is the coombras toltec railroad. Tuesday and Wednesday is Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The Tram, the Nuclear museum. We got a docent schedule to give us a little tour. Thursday we're going to do Tows Pueblo and some local things right around here. And Friday we're going west out to Ghost Ranch area, abbecue area through there. It's going to be a lot of fun. And it's carpool and it's buy your own tickets. That's the cost of it. Carpool and buy your own tickets. So if you want to get in, you can do any all or none of it. How's that? You just decide what days you can do it. And there's a sheet back there that has all the information on it. And those of you online, it's not too late to make it to Taos. From anywhere in the United States, you can drive to Taos by Friday night. Except maybe Alaska. No, I think you can make it from Alaska, Ursula. As you were doing biological work, we were eating lunch. Very nice. We'll think about that dead elk as we have lunch. Thank you. Anyway, get involved in all that. So this Wednesday night, we're still doing dinner. Through the decades, we've gone from the was fun. Last week we had to live tiedye and everything. And now we're to the was Sloppy Joes. So we're having Sloppy Joes to celebrate the 80s. It'll probably be better than the Tuna Helper. Anyway, the Gulash was good and the Hamburger Helper was good. The tuna. Helper. I'm not so sure I want to go back to the 70s for that. But anyway, we are up to the 80s. So we've got sloppy jokes. 05:00 p.m. In the fellowship hall Bible study, we are doing the feast of dedication. Hanukkah is what will be studying this Wednesday night. 06:00 p.m. Right here. And got all the kids club. Hey, there's a new one. Science Club Tuesday. The first and third Tuesday of the month for those kiddos. That's this week. Tuesday at 04:00 or after school anyway. And so lots of fun going on there. And one more thing. I know this has been a long announcement day. One more thing. Next Sunday is Potluck Sunday. I know it's not the second Sunday of the month. And the Baptist regulations require second Sunday of the month for pot luck, but we broke it, so next Sunday is pot luck. And those of you who are here and local, we will have a number of out of town guests. So give your pot more luck and we'll feed everybody next Sunday and have a good time. Maybe shrimp. They just came back. Frank and Jean just came back from Louisiana. But no. So anyway, thanks. We're glad to have a guest from North Carolina. We give our guests a gift, and today your gift is going to be why, I am a pretribulation pre millennialist, and you should be, too. But you have to introduce yourself to get your gift. Cindy, stand and introduce yourself. Hey, I'm Cindy Osborne, and I'm from North Carolina. The simple part actually about 30 minutes up the road from Fort Bracket, if any of you are familiar with that area. I'm a full time RV, so we just raw trips. Nice. Excellent. So you can join us for the road trip. No. Cindy from half an hour north of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We're glad you're here, Cindy. Thanks for being here. And in addition to the little book that I'm going to give you, I also have a pen. Here we go. This pin is for our map back there where we have all our guests poke our map and we can remember you being here. Thanks for coming. I'll give that to you in just a moment. Ed and Nancy, you're not really guests. We're glad you're here. Thank you. Yes. Oh, thank you. Men's breakfast is going to be this Thursday and part of it, and for planning ahead purposes, the next Thursday during the road trip, we're inviting the women to come because men's breakfast is part of our road trip. Before we go out to the Tower Pueblo, we're going to have men and women's breakfast. If you would like to join us for that, I'm cooking. Well, I'm cooking this Thursday, too, but yes, but women don't come this Thursday. We will kick you out. But the next week, we've got a new dispensation just for a day. So all of that, and let me go ahead and say it at this point, too. Julia Staten. Many of you remember Julia Staten, who had been a part of our church a number of years ago, moved to California. Her son Randy died at the beginning of the week. He lived here and worked here up a shadow mountain. And so Julie is in town, but we pray for her and the preparations that are being made for that funeral as we lift others before the Lord today. And with that, why don't you stand, give a short greeting, and we'll come back, shake someone's hand. We'll come back here in just a moment and sing together. And now, well, ladies and gentlemen, let's take our hymnol and let's turn to him, number 508. And we will begin singing half Faith in God. We're going to sing the first and the last verses of what number? That's what I thought you all weren't listening. 500 and 808. First and the last verses. Let's just start with the course. No, let's know. And now let's just go right across the page to him. Number five. And won't it be nice that day when we're taken right above a ransom soul you may be seated. Musicians as well. As we come to our time of offering today, and we think of our missionaries of the month. You've got them on your bulletin. Colton and Shauna and their two children here, they serve in Papa, New Guinea, and we are praying for them this month and encouraging them this month. And I noticed just this morning, actually, Shauna put this nice little post on social media and I wanted to share what she had to say because it was kind of exciting. So let's see if I can find it here. There. I took a picture. Can you read it? I didn't think so, but I'll read it to you. Shauna said, lately we have one of the best problems that a missionary could hope for. We have so much interest in people hearing the gospel and not enough time or teachers to keep up. I mentioned last week that we welcome new believers from our outreach location to church, and now they have another group interested over there in hearing. One of our main teachers has been teaching his son in law several days a week and is super close to being done. Yesterday, a woman that I've been praying for for years came to one of our main female teachers out of the blue and said that she wants to hear and that they started right then and there. There's another group of young women going through the teaching right now. The young men in our church have expressed how hard it is to stand strong because they don't have a lot of believing friends. Colton responded by saying that it was time they start teaching their friends then. So they brought a group to a Monday night men's group and said, let's do this. They are now working with Colton and some of the teachers to start lessons with them. This past election season really worked to shake the apathy out of our church. We are seeing them being not okay with just leaving things the way they are, but are excited about making the Lord's name big in Kumon. Praise the Lord. We could not ask for anything more. However, we are just mere men and need your prayers. We need wisdom, direction, love, and endurance. And so that is what we will be praying for. Colton and Shauna in Papa One, New Guinea as they've got so many coming, interested in hearing them. By the way, when she talks about the teaching, they have a curriculum that gives chronological Bible teaching. And so they start at Genesis with people who know nothing about the Bible, and they begin to go along. And it is a fantastic program that they have. So let's pray for Colton and Shaunna. If you give Mark to missions this month, it goes to Colton and Shaunna. If you give unmarked, then it goes to the work of our church. And there's an offering box back there that you can either give during our office time here or at any time. And with that, let me lead this. No word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we are grateful for Colton and Shauna. They've been right here in our church with us, and we have met them and love them and correspond with them. And we just pray that you would encourage them today and their work that they're doing in Papua New Guinea. And thank you for the encouragement that they've had in recent weeks and the excitement that seems to be taking place among believers there. And we just pray that you would encourage that and give Colton and Shawna the wisdom and the strength and the energy that they need during this time and that these who are being taught to teach would be taught faithfully their Heavenly Father, and that many people would come to know Jesus Christ because of the sharing of the gospel there. We are grateful for them. We are also grateful for our church and the ministry that you allow us to have right here in this community and stretching around the world through the Internet as well. They're heavenly Father, for our extended family, we're grateful for them. And our prayer is to you for the blessings of this service, for the blessings on the Williams and for those like Julia Staten and the loss of her son and others that may be grieving their heavenly Father, watch over and care for them. I pray in Jesus name, amen. And with that, let's move into a time of offering. And once again, you can give back that. As a matter of fact, there's Julia coming in the door right there. So we were just praying for you, Julia. God bless you. And now let's come into a time of offering. Name that tune. Very good. I was hoping somebody would recognize it because it's the song we just sang, My Faithful Acceptance. Now, that was camouflaged a little bit with My Faithful Acceptance, but indeed, that is what it is. Julia and family, thanks for joining us today. We've been praying for you already this morning, and pray that these next few days bring great comfort from our Lord and the work that he has done through Randy in your lives and in this community. God bless you. We love you. Glad to see you back, even though it's under these circumstances. And now we come to a new sermon series today on the life and times of Abraham. And we'll be in this series how long do you think it'll take to cover the life and times of Abraham? Let's say at least three weeks. Okay. And I feel quite certain it'll take at least three weeks. We'll see. As we go through here, obviously you've got what I think probably we could sit and debate this as we turn to Genesis chapter eleven, beginning in verse 27, where we'll be in a moment, we could sit and debate this, but I suspect that Abraham, outside of Jesus Christ himself, is the most famous person that ever lived. Abraham the father of three religions christianity, Islam and Judaism. Of course, Abraham really almost a founder of Western civilization. Often, of course, we talk about Judeohristian ethic, abraham the beginning of that JudeoChristian mindset that was given. And so has there been a man who has been more well known down through time. Obviously, you could pick a fellow like King David, but King David would pretty much be known among the Christians and the Jews and the wellread, we'll leave it at that. And you could take someone like the Apostle Paul, but I would suspect that outside of Christianity itself, those who know of an Apostle Paul don't really know much about pause. Paul. They might have heard of St. Paul's Cathedral. Is that where the funeral is going to be? I haven't heard. For the Queen tonight, Monday, which I think is tonight here, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know if it's in St. Paul's or not. I think that's the Royal Church. But nonetheless, the fame that is given to his name wouldn't go much into the details of his life. So here we have this fella Abraham, who comes along and wow, it's just like a greater portion of the world knows and maybe even somewhat understands Abraham. Here we have a picture of the caravan of Abraham, a watercolor by James Tiso sometime before. A little backdrop for us as we meet Abraham. And let's get a little context before we meet Abraham, as we will soon come to Genesis, chapter eleven, verse 27. But what happens in Genesis one through eleven? Well, of course, in Genesis one you have one, and two you have creation. And then you get into Genesis chapter three, where things fall apart. Beginning it didn't take very long, did it? In Genesis chapter three, things fall apart. Let's just summarize this way too broadly, but summarize this in this way from Genesis chapter three through Genesis chapter eleven. No, just go through Genesis genesis text that's up to the time of Noah, you've got ten generations from Adam to Noah sounding Noah. Ten generations. God is working with whoever, mankind. There is no distinction. There really are not even races at this point because the Tower babel has not occurred and the languages and the ethnicities and whatnot that came after that. So God's work is with mankind for those ten generations. Well, do you remember how all that ends in Genesis chapter six? Again, it didn't take very long for things to go down quick. They lived a lot longer than we do in those generations. But nonetheless, in ten generations it went down to we'll skip the details of the story, but it went down to there's one righteous man in his family and that's all we've got. And so God sort of shifts gears a little bit there, if you will, and he begins to work with one family and that is the family of Noah, of course. And he begins to do all of his work through that singular family and their descendants. And so beginning in chapter 6789 really you have the story of the flood and coming down to that singular family and then chapters 910 and eleven, you have the story of that family and the children of that family and the spread of that family throughout all of the earth and all the things that took place there. But if you're very familiar with Genesis 910 and eleven, you may know that things didn't go all that well. You've got the Tower of Babel, you've got the people being scattered, you've got the separations that are taking place and you've got people going up against God rather than going for God. There's not really much good to lay out and say, oh, look what we accomplished. Now that's another ten generations. If we count Noah on both sides, we've got 19 altogether. So if we count Noah sort of as our pivot point, we've got pre Noah, which would be God is working with everybody. We've got post Noah going up through Genesis, chapter twelve, which will be in through the rest of our time in this series. And in that time God is working with a singular family. Now I want you to look at it this way. God's working with everybody that didn't really work out. God's working with a family that didn't really work out. Now I don't want to picture God is doing trial and error because it's certainly not this way. This has been the unveiling of God. But when it comes to Genesis twelve, which will be in again studying Abraham, we're only going to peek into it today. But when we get into Genesis twelve, god just says, I'm going to work with one man. All of my work is going to be in and through that one man. Now that is brand new in the Bible. That would definitely be, here's a new dispensation, here's a new administration, here's a brand new thing that is happening is that God comes together and he is working with one man and that man is Abraham. Through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. You are my focus, Abraham, which says, by the way, if you were living in Abraham's day, my advice would be get to know Abraham, be on his side, be friendly with Abraham, don't go up against Abraham. He's got God on his side. And so this is the man. And it really is the first time, I guess you could argue Adam would have some of the same characteristics. But since Adam, it is the first time that God has determined, I'm doing everything right here through this guy. And this is the man, Abraham that we are going to look at. And then, of course, that work of God is going to be extended then through the descendants of Abraham. Now that brings us up in the context. And now I want us to come to Genesis, chapter eleven. And we're going to look beginning at verses 27 through 30 is mostly what we're going to look at today, even before we get to Abraham. Here's a picture. The particular picture is Abraham casting out Hagar. And ishmael that Giovanni Francesco Barbieri? Did I pronounce it right? Painted in? That really has nothing to do with our story, but I liked the picture of Abraham. It's a good backdrop, don't you think, for studying Abraham here? So here's our picture of Abraham as Giovanni pictured Abraham. And with that, if you've got your Bible, turn to Genesis eleven, verse 27. And let's just read to a little bit of a genealogy. In fact, the genealogy started back about verse ten of chapter eleven. And it's a thrilling section of Scripture. So and so begat so and so begat so and so begat so and so begat so and so. And then we come up to Genesis, chapter eleven and verse 27, which speaks well. It starts in verse 26, actually. It says Terra lived 70 years and begat abram Nahor and haran. Can we stop right there? Abram is our man. We today call him Abraham. Probably more often than not, Abraham is going to come out of my mouth even when he was called Abram, just because we're so used to calling him Abraham, his name is going to get changed to Abraham. And maybe I'll be able to train my tongue to call him Abram when he's Abram and Abraham when he's Abraham. But let's just make a deal. You'll know who I'm talking about and won't really care, right? How's that? We're talking about this guy, Abraham. So Tara is the dad. He's got three sons here. We'll look at those in a moment. But the three sons again in verse 26, abraham, Nahor and Haran. Verse 27. Now these are the generations of Terra. Terah begat abram nahor and haran. Haran begat lot. And Haran died before his father Terra, in the land of his. Nativity in Er of the Caldes is over in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is you remember where, let's say Iraq. That area, Mesopotamia means between the two rivers. Mesos is between potato like the Potomac. It's a river between the two rivers. We're talking about Tigris and Euphrates. So over there in a place called Er of the Caldes. The Caldes are later going to be known as the Babylonians is where heron dies, born and died in Urban Cowdes. He had a son, Law, before he died, but he died before his dad, Terra. Verse 29. And Abram and Nahor took them wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarah, who later were going to know as Sarah, of course. And the name of Nahor's wife, Milka, the daughter of Heron, the father of Milka and the father of Iska. Okay, that gets weird. But we won't go into it nonetheless, because Nahor is not our key fellow. He has a wife named Milk, who happens to be the daughter of Heron, who happens to be what would that relation be? His niece. Yes, got that. But verse 30, sarah was baron, she had no child. Tara took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Heron, his son's son, and Sarah, his daughter in law, his son Abraham's wife. And they went forth to them from the Ur of the Caldes to go into the land of Canaan. Now let's stop right there. They left her of the Caldes to go where? Canaan. Canaan is what we know today. Is what? The promised land? Israel. I remember the old hymn on Canaan's fair and happy land, Canaan's, fair and happy shore, my possessions lie. That's as far as I can go with that song. I am bound for the promised land. If you want to look it up, that's the song. So Canaan is the promised lands. Now they're going from Ur, the Caldes, they're going to Canaan. You got it. This is Terra and his sons and their families now headed to Canaan. We don't know why, but they're headed there. And the end of verse 31. And they came to Haran and dwelt there. Now, let's stop for a little quiz. Tara and his family originally lived in of the Caldes. They decided to move to Canaan, but they stopped and lived in Haran. Haran is not in Canaan. Haran is north of Canaan in today, what would be the country of Syria. So they're headed the right direction, but for some reason, whatever the reason is, we don't exactly know. They stop and they live in Haran and they dwelt there. That's verse 31. Now verse 32 and the days of Terra, where 205 years. And Terra died in Haran. Again, we don't know exactly how long he lived in Haram. We don't know what the issue was that he ends up staying in Haran, but he never makes it to Canaan, the destination of where he was going. Now, isn't that an inspiring scripture? That's the kind of scripture you just read and it gives you warm fuzzies all over, right? Okay. Not really. It's a lot of detail in that scripture, a lot of family relationships, but it is an introductory scripture. And there are some things in this which an astute reader will pick up. There are some pattern alerts that are unique. Now, you wouldn't have picked it up just this morning, just from reading these. Three verses or five verses, whatever we got here. But had you been really studying closely and that's what we like to do, studying closely, genesis one through eleven. When you came here, you would notice a couple of things. First of all, let's put your eyes back on the text here in verse 27. The first thing it says, now, these are the generations of these are the generations of now, the word that is used there, the Hebrew word is Toledot, becomes a very key word in the book of Genesis. Now we'll take it in English. Generations. These are the generations of we have had what is it? I think five times up to this .6 times excuse me, six times up to this point, we have run into a passage that says, now these are the generations of now, these are the generations of now, these are the generations of going on here. We come to either number six or number seven. Now, these are the generations of now, just in reading that verse, it doesn't seem to be all that spectacular, what kind of pattern it is. If you read on through the book of Genesis, you find that the pattern continues. And when you begin to study that pattern, I think anytime you're studying anything scientifically and that's what we do with the word of God. Anytime you're studying anything scientifically, if you note a pattern of something, what happens? Oh, you say, okay, what do I do with this? What's this an indication of? What's happening here? I want to know what's going on. So here's this little pattern thing that's going on. These are the generations of what we find when we look at this is that every time we see it, it is like a red flag that goes up at Ponchos. Is that ponchos? Yes. Okay. I got a few Ponchos fans here in New Mexico. It would just be terrible to go to Ponchos. I don't know. Did they have them in Albuquerque? Okay. They're terrible. Right. Except the soapias. And you put the red flag up and here come the soapias. Isn't that what the red flag was for, as I recall? Well, there might have been a green flag and a red flag. Who knows? But I remember you put the flag up and they brought you stuff. That was a good concept right there. But these are the generations of it's kind of this flag that goes up that says, hey, something big is about to be introduced. We're going a different direction. I want to introduce you to some information that you need to know. It's kind of like, I don't know, you go to the theater, perhaps, and at the theater, when the lights begin to dim, oh, wow, it's about to happen. Well, this is the flag going up or the lights dimming, or whatever illustration you want to use. These are the generations of we've already seen it. We won't go back it would be fun to do, but we won't go back and look at those six previous times. But these are the generations of Adam. Here it is, first thing. These are the generations of Noah. These are the generations of Shem. And it's those important markers in the story that says, if you're trying to follow the plot of this, don't miss it. These are the generations of let's talk about Adam, let's talk about Noah, let's talk about Shim. Let's see the part that they have to play in this particular story. So we've looked through those and we're expecting, hey, this is going to be a big deal. Now go again and look at verse 27 and what does it say now? These are the generations of terror is no big deal. This is an anomaly in the pattern. It always introduces a big deal. As a matter of fact, I would argue that if we were to follow on the other side of this, it always introduces a big deal. Here's somebody important, here's an Isaac, here's a Jacob, here's a turn in the story that you've got to get. But here we've got this anomaly in that it comes and gives Terra. I don't know, we could go down to the plaza this afternoon and do some interviews and say, do you know Abraham? Have you heard of Abraham? And they might ask a question, somebody, are you talking about Abraham Lincoln or Abraham Maslow or Abraham? Which Abraham are you talking about? I'm talking about Abraham. Oh, you mean Abraham. That Abraham. Yeah, of course I know Abraham. Now, how many people would we have to talk to to say, do you know about Terra? Terra? I've got a cousin named Terra. Who's Terra? I don't know who Terra is. Nobody knows who Terra is, even Bible students. You could probably go down to the seminary and give them a test on Terra. And I would suspect that three quarters of them would not pass the test. I don't know who Terra is. He gets a few verses in the Bible he's mentioned a couple of the times later. But honestly, you didn't even think about Terra once last week, did you? So what's up with this raising the flag, dimming the lights, saying, here's the big deal. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduced you Tara. I don't know this guy. So that alerts us to the fact that something big should be going on with Tara. As a matter of fact, if you took all those segments, those markers, these are the generations of in the Book of Genesis, you would find that this one is the biggest section there is. We're not going to have another. These are the generations of until we get to chapter 25, verse eleven. So this story of Terra, if you will, is from Genesis 1127 to Genesis 20 511. That's the Terra chapter, if you will, the Terra section of the Torah. And so when we read about this. We say, this must be a mistake. I think that God meant to say, now, these are the generations of Abram. We wouldn't be surprised there. But it doesn't say that. Did God make a mistake? No, obviously not. So that means we have to look and say, okay, why do we have an anomaly in the pattern? What can I figure out about this? That's one unique pattern that the astute reader notices. The second thing that a good student of the Word would notice, you have to study these closely and really take your magnifying glass, genesis one to eleven. But you would have noticed that there is another marker when three sons are mentioned. You'll find if you look in genesis one through ten, there are a number of places where you have these genealogies, right? You ran into them when you promised that you would read the Bible through in a year. And then you got to chapter five, these genealogies. Well, there's one of two things that happen. One is, as you see in the beginning of this chapter or in the previous verses of this chapter, we started 1127. If you start at 1110 and read the sons of Seth, it's just going to be the oldest son. The old dad begot the oldest son. The oldest son begot another son. The other son, it was just one son mentioned. That's the pattern in the immediate context here is it's one son, it's one son, it's one son, it's one son, it's one sun. These are the generations of Terra. He had three sons. Now, do you really believe that those previous generations, they all only had one son? No, they had other sons in some other places you can go, and it mentions the various sons, and sometimes it even says, like, for Adam and he had other sons and daughters. Just sort of a blanket out there that's left there. And in some there are places where they're mentioned. But in the places where the sons are mentioned, it's four or five or six or seven sons that are mentioned there, but only in a few places. Do you have three sons. Now, what you would find again, I am one who believes that we ought to read the Bible scientifically. I've said that a number of times today. And that means, like a scientist, I don't know. I haven't been to the Very Large Array down south of Albuquerque. Any of you've been to the Very Large Array? I see the weatherman talking with little satellites behind him. That's about all I know about it. And I drove by the sign once. But I suspect that the Very Large Array is a very large taxpayer boondoggle. But that aside, maybe it's not. Who knows? I suspect that their job getting these, what, radio waves or something coming from space. I suspect that the people who are there working are looking for the slightest little blip. I mean, not much of anything. They're getting all sorts of feed, garbage, whatever out there that comes all the time and they know here's where it is. But, oh, look, this came one 10th of a millimeter higher in frequency than the other. It's an anomaly. Let's stop and check this out. I think that the average reader would look at that and say, it doesn't look like anything to me. It doesn't look like anything at all. I'm working on my fifth grandchild and they always show me the sonogram. I look at the sonogram and say, that's a lovely gray lampshade right there. I don't know what I'm looking at there. And then they start pointing it out. Oh, yeah. Okay. It's Winnie the Pooh. Now, a trained eye can see all sorts of stuff in a sonogram, a trained ear in a frequency or something. Well, you and I want to become trained in the Bible so that when there's the slight little, teeny tiny anomalies, we can catch them. And we do say, hey, is there anything to it? Can I create any kind of pattern? Well, what we find is when three sons are mentioned, it's kind of like with the generations of this sort of becomes a big deal. As a matter of fact, there's a little bit of a pattern that goes even with those three sons, you almost always have one who is kind of the main actor. If you got three sons, one of these guys is going to be a big deal. And one of these guys is just going to have a little bit of a supporting role. And another of these guys is going to be unique in some way. Originally on the outline, I think I changed it, but originally I said one is going to be a bad actor, but not necessarily a bad actor, just their pattern is going to go off the reservation somewhere, somehow. Now, so far, if we were looking, we would find where the first set of three really comes from. Adam's. Children Cain, Abel and Seth. Cain, Abel, and Seth. And then you've got let's go to Noah, you've got Shim, Ham and JFK. And we won't go through that little pattern of main actor, supporting actor, off the reservation actor, but they're all in there, in all of that. And now let's just skip the rest of them and we can look at several through the book of Genesis. But again we come to Genesis, chapter eleven, verse 27, terra, begat, Abram, nahor and Haran. And all of a sudden, ah, there's a little something here. Let's check this out. So here we've got a couple of things that are adding together in a unique pattern. These are the generations. You got three children that are given there that really says, okay, something is about to happen. Now there's a third thing which you might have even noticed if you read the Bible much. Every now and then you come across these verses that you just say, they kind of went overboard and expressing themselves like, I get it. So let's back up and look again. Let's start in verse 28. Now let's start in verse 29. So we know that Heron died. We got a lot we had that previous verse 28th, Abraham and Nahor took wives. Okay, so you got Sarah and you got noka. Abraham's wife, sarah milk's wife. Excuse me, nehru's wife. Noka, you got that? Okay. Verse 30, Sarah was barren, she didn't have any children. Verse 31 terra took Abram, his son. Now, first of all, go back to 26. Terra begat abram. Verse 27 terra begat abram. Is anybody surprised that Abram is Terra's son? No. So why did you go out of your way to tell me Abram was his son? Para took Abram, his son. And then it goes, and Lot, the son of Haron. Did we already know that Lot was the son of Haron? Couldn't he have just said, terra took Abraham, Abram and Lott? We would have already known that's his son and his grandson took Lot. Picking up in the middle of verse 31, the son of his son's son. Well, it already said the son of Haron, which was his son, which would make him his son's son. And again, are you getting the feeling in verse 31 that's like, yeah, we knew that already. Why do we needed some more goes on? It took Sarah, his daughter in law. Well, yeah, the previous verse told us that he married Sarah, his son married Sarah. That makes daughter in law, doesn't it? Yeah, sure enough took Sarah, his daughter in law. Just in case you don't know that's his son Abram's wife. Yeah, that would be the daughter in law. You're right. We got it. And it goes on. They went forth from the chalice to go to the land of Canaan. They came to Heron and dwelt there. When you look at verse 31, I am a believer, and I think many of you are, too. I am a believer that every word of the Bible is inspired. It's there for a reason. And it would not be anything unusual for me to be verbose, even unnecessarily verbose, right? No, I shouldn't ask your thoughts on that. Okay. So sometimes I repeat myself. Every now and then I'll go back and listen to a sermon. I rarely do it because I already knew all that stuff. But when I do go back, I realize, man, you repeat yourself an awful lot. But I still go out and somebody asked me what I said six times, but nonetheless okay, back to the sermon here. Here we go. Why is God being so verbose here? Why is he saying the obvious? His Lot, heron's son, his son's son. Why going on to it now? Could that be a part of understanding the story? So we got these three things here in these few, let's call them mundane verses in these few mundane verses. We got these things that are sort of like shouting out, saying hey, do something, do something. Listen, pay attention here. This is a biggie about to come up. And so we come into it now and all we know is this is a biggie bats come up. I don't really know the whole thing about it, but at least that ought to alert the reader. Now let's look and let's take this man Abram. We know from Genesis, chapter twelve and beyond, that God chose Abram. But why did he choose Abram? Now why? Questions. I always say on our ask theologian program, they're the hardest to answer. Why questions, that's a motive question. Motive always isn't always given. You and I are terrible at reading motive and understanding motive. Why question, that's pretty difficult. But inquiring minds want to know, right? Why did God choose Abram? What's up with this guy? And why was he chosen? As a matter of fact, especially when we're expecting that Terra is the guy, these are the generations of Terra. Why Abram and not Terra? Let's see if we can figure out anything to that question. Here is a vision of the Lord directing Abraham to count the stars. This was done by Julius Schneur von Cursefeld. Did I get it right? Does anyone know what a wood cut is? Yes. Good. You should make some. A wood cut is when they carve the picture in wood and then they roll ink on the upper parts, get the ink, the lower parts. It's a rubber stamp. That's what a woodcut is. So that's a pretty good rubber stamp, wouldn't you agree, doing that all by hand? And the old Bibles and things that only had black and white print used to have a lot of religious art done in woodcut because it was a way you could reproduce something, especially that which is photography or art, not letters. Letters was a different form of woodcut, I suppose. Only they usually use metal type, but the woodcut anyway. Now you know a little bit about art and the picture there that you see. But with that here, we're expecting something big of Terra. And yet it doesn't go to Terra, it goes to his son Abram. So what's up with that? You know, there are many who believe that here God directing Abraham to count the stars. And he said as the stars of the sky, so will your descendants be. There are many who believe that God first offered what today we call the Abrahamic covenant, that he offered that first to Terra and the Terra didn't receive it. Now I know as just a student of the Word, and we try to get our theology from the Word, you can read the Bible and you can't really directly find that in there. Nowhere does it say Terra, I'm about to give you this great thing and you can have it. And Tara says, no, I think I'll go a different direction. You can't read that directly out of scripture, but you can read between the lines a little bit, can't you? With all of these patterns that seem to point to Terra as the big deal, and Terra is the guy that leaves the Caldes to come to Canaan, but Terra doesn't quite get there. We could surmise a little bit. I would have to say I've used this a number of times, but I would have to say if I were a movie writer writing a movie about Abraham, I think the first chapter of the movie would be how Terra got the call from God, made it part way and decided no more. And the question of why did God choose Abram might be a little bit more. Well, actually, Abram chose God. Now I'll put it both ways. Abram chose God, and so God chose him. Terra rejected God, and so God didn't choose Terra. And let's see if we can put some meat to that here, just a little bit. So again, we have in verse 31, we have that he left to go to the land of Canaan, verse 31. But we know in chapter twelve, verse five, which we haven't read, but we know that that's where Abraham eventually he ends up there. Now, I want you to notice a little bit of parallel. I'll tell you what, you've got 1131 opened in your Bible. Let me pull up here on the screen. Let's go to Genesis twelve five. And what I want us to do is compare these two verses here. What verse did I say? There took Abram, his son, and Lot the sons of heron, his son's son Sarah, his daughter in law. Okay, tara took and here's the family kind of listed his wife and lost his brother's son. Certainly some parallelism that you would give with verse 31 continuing on. They went forth with all the substance they gathered, the souls they had gotten. They went forth to go to the land of Canaan. If you look at verse 31, what's it say? They went forth to go to the land of Canaan. And then in verse 31 it says, they came unto heron and dwelt there. But in chapter twelve, verse five, right here, they came into the land of Canaan. They came it really does look like we started the story with Terra in 1131, but something happened that didn't finish the story. And so just a few verses later, it picks up really using a lot of similarity on the very same words, certainly the same pattern that's given there that makes us think again, hey, there was so much about Terra, I was expecting good things from Terra, but Terra turns out to be nobody but here's Abram. Wait, that's the same chapter. That's the same story. That's the same verse, isn't it? No, it's just got a different names. It's just a few verses later, but there it comes in the same kind of pattern. And we begin to see that. And I think as we begin to see that, we come back and we say, okay, well, there's this idea that some have suspected the promise actually belonged to Terra. God chose Terra. Let me keep flipping through there. Let's speculate for a moment. Can we speculate for about 30 minutes what was up with Tara that they didn't choose him or that Terra backed out? We would want the scripture to give us the answer, of course. And so if we take in the scripture and go to Joshua 24, verse two, it tells us something about terror. It says, Joshua, seven of the people. Thus that's the the Lord God of Israel, your father's wealth on the other side. But it says there again, they served other gods. Now, if you'll allow me, let's translate. He served other gods. We're just talking about Terra, not all of them right now. So Terra served other gods. Well, this could be a conflict of interest, couldn't it? I am the one true God. I am going to work through you. I'm going to work through you exclusively. You're going to be the one man through whom I work with. Oh, this is wonderful. I will enter a business deal with you. It's very good. I've already got several other deals going on, too, with these various idols that are out there. God says, no, wait a minute, you don't understand. You've got to get rid of all of those. Well, this is my business, actually. I sell these items. How in the world am I going to make a living at this? Now, we don't know that Terra was an idle seller. Merchant of Idols. Welcome to Terra's idol house. House of Idols. What would you like? We got a fine selection here today. We don't know that to be the case, but there's a few indications. One is some pretty decent history that goes back not only the verse we saw in Joshua, but a long, long lasting tradition, if you look it up on the internet. What did Terra do as an occupation? He made idols when he sold them. That's there. Okay. Is there anything to the tradition? I don't know. We'll work on that and see. But do you know in the Bible sorry about the little I need a new wire. It was an anomaly. Do you know in the Bible, there is a word that is a Hebrew word that often is used in the King James Bible as if it were an English word that is just borrowed into English. But it's a Hebrew word and it is talking about household idols. It means household idols. And the word is terrafine. Maybe you've heard the word Terrafine before. If you look up what are Terraf theme? Theme im is plural. What are Terraf theme? It'll say they are idols, especially household idols. It was the kind that you would buy to sit on the shelf in your house. What's a terrafam it is. Well, why are they called a terra theme? Because terra made them and sold them. He's almost can you say he's the father of the household idol industry. With this there comes several intriguing stories that probably more false than true. But look it up sometime because I don't have time today. But look it up sometime and see the stories, the Apocryphal stories, let's call them, about Abraham Abram, as he would have been at that point, rejecting his father's idol making business and that Abram comes along somewhere and says, dad, we can't do this. This is against the God who has called us and things don't go well. And Abram ends up saying, sarah, my wife, my father's daughterinlaw and Lot my brother's son, my grandfather's son's, son son, get on the camel and we will go forth. And they end up in Canaan. Anything to it? I don't know. But if there is something to it, there's certainly a lot of alert that says something's here. Get your magnifying glass, look into this. This is not a normal story that I'm about to give you. And I think that if there's nothing to what I have just said, then we got to find something else because there's just too many indicators that there's something big here. Now, if indeed that's right, that God chose Terra in the first place, why would he have chosen terra in the first place? Maybe remember all that emphasis in what was it? Verse 31, all that emphasis that was given on the family relationships. And honestly, we never had that before in the book of Genesis. Not once. Could it be that Tara really was a good family man and that God says, hey, I need a good family man to carry this out. Sarah, I like your family style. You're devoted, no doubt about it. I think I can work with you. Let's do this. Could that be it's speculation, but could it be we actually know when we get to Abraham that the reason that God selected Abram to do his work was because Abram was a good family man? Never heard that in my life. You preacher makes so much stuff up here about Terracem and all that I can, but this one I got scripture for. Let's look in Genesis, the 18th chapter, genesis 18, verses 17 through 19. Now this obviously is much later in the story here, but Genesis 17, 1817. The Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed with him. Well, should I hide it from him? No, he says, I don't want to hide it from him. But then it goes on. Let's go down to verse 19 and God says, here why he's not going to hide it from him. He says, for I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which has been spoken of him. Now, right there, black and white, it says, I like this aspect of Abraham. He is going to command his children and his household after him, that they would keep the way of the Lord. It uses the words their justice and judgment. That sounds like the kind of guy that if God is going to work through just one guy, what does he need? He needs somebody who's going to pass it on to the next generation, doesn't he? And he needs someone who's going to keep the way of the Lord. And the way of the Lord is justice and judgment. And he sees in Abraham. Yeah. This is what I would like to do, and this is what I would like to carry out. Let's close with one more passage of scripture, proverbs chapter. But before I go there, I want you to look one more time. To do justice and judgment, he's going to pass on to his children to do justice and judgment. Proverbs 21, verse three says, to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. That's interesting. Abram is a guy who's going to do justice and judgment, and he's going to pass it on to his children. And God says, that's more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Here's a guy. If I'm going to work with one guy and that's what God does, this is the guy that I want. Tara, you started out a good family thing. God bless you. But you wouldn't give up the terrace. You wouldn't give up the family business. Here comes your son. He says, I will do the Lord's work. I will do justice and judgment, and I will make sure that my children know about it. To do it. To do justice and judgment. I have said, and we won't spend much time on this application, you can chew on it and go home with it. But I called here family, the values transfer place. Family is the place where we take our values and we transfer them, transfer them onto our children, to our grandchildren, and what a mighty task we have as parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and everything else to say. I want to make sure that I am instilling for me now in my granddaughter and grandson. I want to make sure that I am still instilling in them to do the work of the Lord. The work of the Lord. I have the full revelation now, and I know a lot more about it than Abram did, but I want to carry it out, and I want to do this work of the Lord and to bring that out in a beautiful way. And so here is Abraham making his journey from Ur. To Canaan 1850 painting there of taking the family and saying, come on, kids. Come on, nephew. Come on, wife. Come on, all of you in the extended family, let's come and carry it out. So I think that as we study Abraham, one thing we've got to remember is this is a guy who, it doesn't appear, was destined for something great in the work of God, but he took it in the last minute and carried it on. And that we're not going to properly understand abram if we don't understand abram as a family man, according to Genesis, chapter 18, verses 17 through 19. And so we'll continue to look at Abraham next week, and we'll see Abraham the family man as we go all the way through. Speaking of verbose, let me say one more thing. I don't think you can understand Paul without understanding that Paul's broken heart was for Israel. I don't think you can understand Abraham without understanding that for Abraham, family was everything. And so we're going to have to read some of the unique stories like she's my sister in the light of family is everything. And that's a statement from the Lord. Again, how are we going to do that? Stay tuned. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for our own families and for the love and cherishment that they give to us. We're grateful for the values that we have received from our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, and previous generations. We're grateful for this man, Abraham. Clearly, we stand here in an Abrahamic faith, and we're blessed by Abraham in so many ways and the knowledge of Abraham. As we learn of Abraham, we pray that ultimately it would give us a picture of God and his work with mankind and ultimately of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that has been made for us. We're grateful, your Heavenly Father for that most in Jesus name. Amen. Well, as we close out from here, I would be remiss to say we haven't preached the Gospel today. We preached Abraham today. The gospel of Jesus Christ is so wonderful that God said, hey, I tell you what. I used to work through one man. Now I'll work through any man, woman, boy or girl. I offer them a gift, just like I gave to Abraham by grace through faith, not of works. I have paid for this gift by my son Jesus Christ, who died, was buried, who rose again, lives again, and lives in heaven today, will come back again someday. But in the meantime, he's offering a gift. Your trespass is not held against you. That's the gift. Eternal life. That's the gift. Completeness in christ. That's the gift. And how wonderful it is to be able to leave this place saying, really, like Terra. Let's make an assumption here like Terra. If we want to receive the gift, it's there for us, and we can. And it's encouraging to go from this place knowing that there's not a person who is outside the reach of that blessed and gracious gift that our Savior has paid for and God the Father is offering through him. So we go with that encouragement today. And that would enable to us to have faith in God, right? But there we go. But we're not going to stay here today. You're just going to hear it played as we go out today. Thanks for being here with us. Don't forget Wednesday night it's the 80 here at the house. First Baptist, come join us 05:00 p.m. For supper this weekend. Friday night saturday night friday night saturday mornings sunday morning.