A Man’s Faith, a Family’s Future—Abraham

And Abram and Nahor took them wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. But Sarai was barren. She had no child. And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife. And they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan.

And they came unto Haran and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran. Would you pray with me this morning? Our Lord, as we come together, we come before you now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, we just want to, the best we know how, commit and offer this service, this church meeting to you, this message, Lord, this hearing of your word to you.

this message, Lord, this hearing of your word to you. Lord, we have not gathered in our own name, but we have gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask you, therefore, to manifest yourself in our midst. Lord, I pray that you would be with and you would affect the hearing of your word for good to us this morning. Lord, please help me to say the things that you would have me to say and to apply the scriptures that we read in a way that you would have them to be applied, that your people might be strengthened, edified, encouraged, and exhorted to follow you, to do your will, especially as it relates to our family.

And I do want to, Lord, thank you for the families in our church. And I do want to ask you, Father, to continue to work in families in our church. And I do want to ask you, Father, to continue to work in families in our church, both families that have been together many years, decades, and others who are yet to be brought together. There’s so much that we can do in our family to glorify you.

And I pray you would do that through the families in this church. Work in us, Lord. Take away those things in our lives that should not be, that hinder our families glorifying you and put things into our families that need to be there, that you might be pleased and that you might be able to use us. And so, Lord, we just commit this time to you. We ask for your help and grace in Jesus’ name. Amen. These verses introduce to us Abram, I’ll say probably Abraham the whole time, although he’s not called Abraham until later, and his wife Sarah, as well as Lot. Now, Abram and Lot are related, as you probably know. So, Lot is Abraham’s brother’s son, so that would be his nephew.

And we’re familiar with both the story of Abram and the story of Lot. And the benefit that we have with Abraham and Lot is, unlike our own lives, we view the life of Abraham and the life of Lot as completed, right? We view it as done because, of course, they’ve already died. They’re with the Lord right now, both of them. Both of them, in fact, notwithstanding Lot’s end, it was a terrible and dishonorable end.

The Bible does specifically say that Lot was just. Lot was a believer in the Lord. Abraham said it, too, when he was a believer in the Lord. Abraham said it too when he was trying to get the Lord not to destroy Sodom on the basis of just 10 righteous. One of those was Lot, right? And so we have that, but when we live our own life, we don’t see the end, do we? We live our life day by day and we just see the here and now. Now, as we live and we get a few notches under our belt, we can look back and we have the benefit and wisdom of retrospect and past.

And what that does is that makes, or it’s supposed to anyway, make us wiser for the future, right? And those of you who are younger, those of us who are younger, I’m going to include myself in that just, you know, for fun. All the younger people in their 20s are like, you’re an old man. And all of you in your 70s, 80s, you’re like, you’re just a young thing.

But when the wisdom that we have is by, especially in our church setting, by interacting with people who have experience greater than ours, we can kind of borrow and ride on their wisdom so that we don’t do the same dumb that they did, that they acknowledge, that we acknowledge, I did this, it was dumb, don’t make that mistake. And then whatever they tell us to do that they have done and have received success in that thing, we also get the benefit of knowing what is successful and knowing what is not.

In our own life, however, we do not have that benefit. We live right now and we make decisions right now and make choices right now that will, without question, affect the hereafter. I’m not talking about the heaven hereafter, although that definitely is included. I’m primarily talking about the future of our life, the future of our family specifically. But it’s difficult for us to know now how this decision or that decision will affect our family five years, ten years down the road. But by looking at someone like Lot or someone like Abraham, we see the entirety. We see the end and the beginning together. We can see his choices in the moment and we can kind of maybe hypothesize about why he made the choices that he made based upon the words of Scripture, but we can also see how those choices ended up and then draw lessons.

This is what the Bible says when the Bible says that the things which were written aforetime were written for our admonition that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. That’s what I want to do this morning. I want to look at the life of Abraham and the life of Lot just very briefly as a survey in order for us to see how it turned out for him, especially how it turned out for his family in both cases.

Now you’ll notice in chapter 12, verse 1, we’re introduced to them in chapter 11, but in chapter 12, we’re introduced kind of looking backward. The Bible says, now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country. So that tells us why they left originally, even while his father was still alive. 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 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, this is the key. Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. If you can kind of boil down the life of Abram as seen in the book of Genesis, obviously you have it’s a life of faith, but built on, and we covered this not too long ago, if you remember, built on Abram’s faith is Abram’s obedience.

Almost every time Abram obeyed the Lord, not because he saw something he needed to do, or because God had some sort of sickle or hammer, you know, raised up ready to strike him down. No, it was because God said, do this thing. And Abram listened. And in response to his faith, as a result of his faith, he did the thing the Lord commanded. And this, in other words, verse four, the first part of verse four is repeated over and over and over in the scripture in Abram, Abram’s life.

The many steps of Abram was without fault, because that’s certainly not the case. But if you look over the whole of his life, the overarching theme of his life, you see a man of faith who obeyed the word of the Lord as revealed to him.

That’s what you see in Abram’s life. Look at chapter 12, if you would, at verse number 8. I want to show you one of the key factors of his life here.

In fact, if you look at verse number 7, it says this, 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.

See, at various times in Abram’s life, you can see in the Bible that he built an altar of worship to the Lord, and he built an altar to call upon the Lord. Look at the next verse, verse 8. The Bible tells us kind of the purpose of the altar. An altar, you know, we think of altar here. We’re not thinking of this. This is a mourner’s bench, not really an altar.

This is not an altar either. This is a platform. An altar is where a sacrifice is made. At this time in history, an altar would have been made of, usually made of stone. When you build an altar, stones would be gathered and piled up into kind of a table, if you will. And upon that table, a sacrifice, an animal sacrifice will be burnt, right? So that’s get in your mind when what is meant by this altar, because it repeats so many times in the Bible that it’s important for us to kind of have in our mind what it means, not kind of the cultural idea.

Verse eight says this, And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent. So notice Abram moved. So he built an altar in verse 7, and then he moved to another place. Of course, you can’t take your altar with you.

But it is notable, though, when you move, when Abram moved from place to place, the altar that he had built remained. And that was a testimony to where he was with God at that moment.

And then you will see it later that Abram at times will return to a previous altar that he had erected for the Lord. But what was the purpose of the altar? It says here, And pitched his tent, verse 8, middle, having Bethel on the west and Ha’on the east, and there he built an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. So what was the purpose of the altar?

The altar was a place where he would meet with God, where he would worship God, where he would fellowship with God. And as this verse says, a place where he would call upon the name of the Lord. So when he had something he needed to go to God about, he went to that altar. He went to that place. And there are so many pictures you can derive from this. You have this picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, how we always approach God by means of that bleeding Savior dying on the cross, which if you remember, that’s always what the altar and the sacrifice represent. It represents a bleeding Savior who is enduring the wrath of God, that fire consuming that animal. All of the Old Testament sacrifices on the altars represent the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet you see Abraham in picture form approaching God by the cross, right? That’s the only way he can approach God, and so it is today.

But that’s the way we fellowship with God. The reason the Bible says that Jesus is our peace with God. The reason why we have a relationship with God is because and only because of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not because of how good we are or how much faith we have. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about a Savior who died upon the cross. Without that, we have no access, no access to God. Our religion cannot give us access.

no access to God our religion cannot give us access no ritual can give us access no blessing from some man can give you access the only access you have is if you have been forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Christ that is it full stop and that’s how Abraham approaches God whenever he moves to a new place he he builds an altar. Look, if you would, at chapter 13.

You can see it again in verse number 18. The Bible says, Then Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord.

The altar is a significant place because in the story of Abraham, kind of is the big picture, it represents Abram’s fellowship with God. Wherever you see the altar, you know Abram’s probably doing good. Wherever he’s far from the altar, those of you that have studied the life of Abraham, know that whenever he’s far from the altar, he’s probably not doing so good. So does that mean that Abram was also like us, subject to the kind of ups and the downs and the ups and the downs of our Christian life?

Yes, he was. And you know what? The ups and downs in your life will be directly related to your walk with God. It’s not about the things people do to you or me. It’s not about how much money you might have or what kind of success or lack of success in your life, where you’re at spiritually is determined directly by your fellowship with the Lord on a daily basis.

That’s it. This is the principle taught through these altars. You do see something with Abram. The Bible never directly says it, but you got to know, given the fact that Abram was told by God to go here and go there, when he went into Canaan, he didn’t know why he was there, how long he’d been. God gave him very, very sparse information. So you imagine when he’s talking to God at these altars on a regular basis, he’s saying, Lord, what do you want me to do?

Will you tell me what to do? You know, asking for guidance. And the altars indicate that. But again, you ask for guidance. Why do you ask for guidance? It’s because you’re already in fellowship with the Lord. You know, when you’re seeking the Lord in prayer and when you’re seeking, you’re fellowshiping with God on a daily basis, because of that fellowship, he’s talking to you on a regular basis.

That’s the word. And then you’re talking to him and taking your issues and your questions to him on a daily basis. You see, it keeps those lines of communication open and that then in turn leads to God directly guiding our steps.

But with Lot, you never see Lot associated with an altar. Lot was a believer, but you never see Lot associated with an altar. Lot was a believer, but you’d never see Lot associated with an altar. You do see Lot moving, but you do not see him with an altar.

Now remember, in this day there were no churches, there were no places of worship, there wasn’t a tabernacle, there wasn’t a temple. None of that had been revealed by God, none of that had been built. And going back to the days of Noah and probably before that as well, the altar was the way, the means that men called upon God and worshipped God. Now what’s interesting, look at Galatians, I’m sorry, Genesis chapter 26, if you would.

26 verse number 25. This is not Abraham anymore. This is Isaac. That’s Abraham’s son. Verse 25 says this, And he, Isaac, built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there and there Isaac’s servants digged the well. Isaac digs an altar, builds an altar rather and calls upon God look forward a little bit further at Genesis 33 Genesis 33 this is Jacob in Shalem This is Jacob.

In Shalem, verse 18, a city of Shechem. Verse 20 says, And he, Jacob, erected there an altar and called it El Elohe Israel, the God of the God of Israel.

So what do you find here? Now, just looking at the pattern, altars are a major, this point of fellowship with Abraham and his God are a major feature in his life. And it’s associated with his spiritual success, with his walk with God. Abram was faithful, generally speaking, faithful with these altars and his fellowship with God. And you see his sons following this pattern.

You see Isaac and Jacob also building altars. Now, there was one time, I didn’t read it, but there was one time in Jacob’s life where he built an altar because God told him to build an altar. But the reason I didn’t read that is because I wanted to point out only the instances in which they built an altar as an expression of their fellowship to God so that they could fellowship with God. Where do you think they got the idea to fellowship with God this way?

Exactly. Jacob got it from Isaac who got it from Abraham. Now, I don’t know where Abraham got it from. To be honest with you, the impression I get from Abraham’s life is that Abraham was just like believing in whatever. Maybe he believed in the Lord, but God had not revealed anything to him at that point. Maybe he was an idolater. We don’t know. And then God just, boom, shows up on the scene and introduces himself to Abram and expects Abram to enter into this covenant and begin to walk with God.

And he does. I want to tell you something. Your mom, dad, your walk with God is setting a precedent and an example for your children. Whether you read your Bible, whether you are a person of prayer, whether you are a person who faithfully attends your local church, which is part of this Christian experience, part of this Christian life, that will directly affect whether your children do. I want to tell you something.

It’s very, very unlikely that your children are going to be faithful in your local church if you’re not faithful in a local church if you’re not faithful in your local church. It’s not likely that your children are going to stay faithful and walk with the Lord and stay in the Word and stay in prayer and fellowship with the Lord and maintain that relationship to God like they should if you don’t.

Because you’re setting an example for them. Now, this is just one characteristic of our life. There are so many things. Oh man. Yesterday Ben and I talked to a young man. I’m not even going to tell his name, but he talked to a young, I say young man, he’s probably in his 30s maybe. He’s had a hard time, grew up as a missionary kid.

and has dealt with a lot of bitterness, a lot of bitterness from his family, and has just had a lot of, made bad choices, bad things happened to him, you know, all that. When I was walking away with Ben, because basically when I was talking to him, what I was thinking was, I’m this kid’s dad. I say kid, I’m this kid’s dad. I say kid, I’m this man’s dad. I’m the missionary and my children are him, right? And the question I was asking myself was, what happened within the walls of that home on that mission field that made him so bitter?

Was it him? Was it his parents? Was it both? Was it neither? He indicated it had something to do with his immediate family. But I don’t know. I didn’t probe any more than that. But I thought how just terribly sad the precedent. And again, I don’t want to fault anybody without reason, but something happened there that went sideways. Some precedent was set, something that had a huge effect on this young man, missionary and all.

Abram built an altar, built altars to the Lord and maintained his walk with God and fellowship with his God. And that was picked up on most surely by Isaac and Jacob. The best chance you have with your kids is that, yes, we’ve talked about in our August family focus, we’ve talked about teaching our children and training our children. We’ve talked about all those things, have we not?

But an element of that, the best chance that you give to your kids for them to follow God in their life and fellowship and walk with God is that you do it as an example to them. is that you do it as an example to them.

Because if you and I don’t, our preaching is going to fall on deaf ears. Abram did. Now Abram did it. Do you think Abram was thinking of Isaac and Jacob? Isaac wasn’t even thought of. Abram’s 100 years old. He’s not even thinking he’s going to have a kid. He said, the heir of mine house is this servant of his. He’s not even, Abram was, that’s what I want you to see.

In the moment, Abram was not thinking of how his walk with God and fellowship with God at these altars would have any effect on his kids. But it would, regardless if he saw it or not. And I’m just here to serve notice and remind you and remind myself that that is true. You might not see it now, but it will have an effect on them for good or for bad in our family.

in our family. Now go back to Genesis, if you would, to chapter, walking through chapter 12, verse 10, the Bible says this, 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.

And she kind of flutters her eyes at him, Oh honey, until she reads the rest of the sentence. Gentlemen, don’t use a compliment to your wife to try to get her to do something that’s not in her best interest to say it. Give her compliments. Give her compliments. But verse 12, therefore, it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, this is all, this isn’t right.

Abram has now left the place God told him to go, and he’s left the altar. He’s in Egypt. God didn’t tell him to go to Egypt. The altar’s behind. Now he’s wandering. The indication is his fellowship to God is kind of broken down. And now because of external pressure, the famine, he’s gone into Egypt, which is not the place God told him to go, not the place God promised to give him. Now he’s kind of away a little bit.

So it is not that Abram was perfect in his life. It’s not that he was without fault. No, he had imperfections in his walk, a lot like us. That should be encouraging to us. And I want to tell you something. You know, we’re looking at how these things affect his family. Yeah, Abram had imperfections. Did these things that we’re going to read affect his family? Absolutely. But they did not undo everything he did.

They did not undo his example entirely. So take courage. You are not going, you and I are not going to be without fault in our family. Not to your wife, not to your husband, and not to your kids. They’re going to see problems in you. But it’s whether they can see that consistency in your fellowship to God, whether they see repentance, whether they see God’s correction. That’s going to, now when we mess up, but we got to be careful.

We can’t give ourselves a pass. When we mess up and we get away from the Lord like we read here, it’s going to affect them. And you’ll see it in just a minute. But it’s not going to undo everything. So you can’t just be like, well, there’s no use in trying now. No, no, no. Repent. Go back to the Lord.

And it doesn’t dissuade the Lord from working in his life because he’s in a relationship to God by grace. Right? God doesn’t have a relationship to us because we’re good people. His relationship is based upon His goodness and grace to us. When we mess up, it’s still there. We weren’t good and clean when we started this thing.

And so Abram left the walk of faith a little bit, was diverted, and went into Canaan, as we just read. But notice what he did. When he went, I said Canaan, he went down into Egypt. But in doing so, you know what he did? He compromised his own integrity by deception. That wouldn’t have happened in Canaan. You see, he got away from the Lord, and then now there’s faults found in his personal character because of that. Not only that, but you can see he said in verse number 12, he said, tell them that the Egyptians, that you’re my sister, because they will kill me, but they will save the alive. So he said he was afraid that they would kill him if they knew that he was married to Sarah.

But by doing that, you know what he did? He put himself before his wife and his own safety before hers. Now, here’s the thing. Don’t you love the Bible?

He rationalized it. Is that not us? I mean, it’d be one thing if the Lord said, if the Lord just said, all right, you know, Abram said this, Abram, you know, he told his wife to lie. That’s one thing. But then he rationalized it exactly like we do to make it, to put like a lipstick on the pig. When in fact, he was actually putting himself right before his wife. He had no assurance that they were going to be kind to her.

In fact he was basically by saying that he was her brother he was giving her over to them to save his own neck. And why did this happen? He shouldn’t even be in Egypt. He didn’t think that was going to happen when he left for Egypt did he?

not only that he put his wife in danger and you know why he was delivered out of that danger? he was only delivered because of God’s intervention in other words God spared him. I mean, this had the, Abram’s dumb decision, his failure of faith in this matter could have derailed it all. But it didn’t because God intervened. That’s the grace of God.

Do you see the picture? That’s you and that’s me. We do get away from the Lord sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that God’s going to stop operating in grace to us, and that doesn’t mean that He’s going to just let everything fall apart that He has planned in our life. No, He is going to continue to work in us. Now, that’s not an excuse. Abram’s going to pay for this.

In Genesis chapter 20, if you’ll peek there real quick, Abram, because he did it here, he deceived and he put himself before his wife. What you might not know, if you look at chapter 20 verse 13, he does it again with Abimelech. He tells Abimelech that Sarah is his sister, which is a half-truth, which is a full lie.

He married his half-sister. So she is his sister. But in Genesis 20, verse 13, look at this. This is striking. Verse 13, he’s speaking to Abimelech. He says this, And it came to pass when God calls me to wander from my father’s house. So he’s talking about in the beginning, in Ur, when he’s leaving Ur. That I said unto her, to his wife, this is the kindness which thou shalt show unto me.

You see how he framed that? That ain’t right, man. If you love me, you’ll do it. You know, that kind of stuff. This is the kindness that thou shalt show unto me. At every place whither we shall come, say of me, he’ll do it. You know, that kind of stuff. This is the kindness that thou shalt show unto me. At every place whither we shall come, say of me, he is my brother. So what happened in Egypt and later happened with Abimelech where he lied about his relationship with Sarah was not a one-off. You know what it was? It was a policy he set in his family.

A policy of deception. And you know what’s going to happen? Take a peek at Genesis 26. Just like his altars are going to be imitated, so his policy of deception is going to be imitated by his children. Genesis 26 verse number 6, And Isaac dwelt in Gerar, and the men of that place asked him of his wife, and he said, She is my sister. For he feared to say, She is my wife.

Less said he, The men of that place should kill me for Rebekah, because she was fair to look upon. Why do you think he had that idea? Why do you think he had that idea?

You see, our children pick up the bad policies, if you want to say it like that. They pick up the bad habits. They pick up the bad stuff that we do when we’re not exactly where we need to be. They pick that up too. Not just the good, but the bad. Beware. Beware. And they go back, if you would, to Genesis 13.

As we continue our walk here, the problem with Lot. The problem with Lot. I’m just going to summarize. The land could not bear all of their animals, and so Abram, because there was a contention, even though Abram was older than Lot, being his uncle, in meekness, Abram deferred to Lot’s choice to go where he wanted to go. And we’ll talk about that tonight with Lot’s choice and where he went, where he ended up going.

But this incident was all done. Remember, he comes back into Canaan, and now he’s back at the altar. And this strife comes up, and so Abram’s fellowshipping with God, right, with this altar in his life. And so there’s an issue that comes up, and what is his response? His response is meekness, because he’s fellowshipping with God, which we know later is the fruit of the Spirit. He has meekness and so he allows Lot to make his choice.

Chapter 13, verse 14. Lot leaves and Abram is left in the land alone. And God says, everywhere you look is yours. Lot’s not there anymore. So this actually ended up being a blessing to Abraham. Here’s what I want you to see. But this same instance that was a blessing to Abraham was a pivotal moment in the wrong direction for Lot. And the big difference is where Abraham was with the Lord versus where Lot was.

And so we continue our walk. Go to chapter 16. Of course, one of the main events that happens with Abraham and his wife, if you’ll look at verse number one. Now remember, God is already, in chapter 15, God promised, Abram said, what am I going to do, Lord? You said you were going to make my seed of the stars and all this stuff, right? And now he’s saying, I have no heir. The only heir I have is a servant who was born in my house. And so in chapter 16, verse 1, Now Sarah, Abram’s wife, bare him no children, and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold, now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing.

I pray thee, go in unto my maid, that it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of See that? You see what happened, of course, Abram gives in to his wife, and he basically takes Hagar as a concubine, which is like a lesser wife. Well, let me just stop here and say this. I know when you read in the Old Testament, you get the idea that people had all these multiple wives and stuff, but it was still morally wrong for men to have multiple wives back then.

Just because God, at every instance, God doesn’t put parentheses and say, that was wrong, doesn’t mean He approves of it. Just because the Lord says it doesn’t mean he approves of it, even if it’s in one of his servants, which it is in this case.

Our Lord later explained in the Gospels that just exactly why it was wrong, and it was wrong because of the precedent God set with Adam and Eve in the garden.

But why did she offer Hagar to be his wife? It was a faltering faith. You see, Sarai knew of what God had said to Abram. She knew that. She says it, the Lord hath restrained me. She blames God from bearing. And so she has this grand idea to give Hagar to Abram. You see, his wife’s faltering faith affected him. Notice this. This is so important. Abram relented.

In other words, his wife’s faith faltered. That and she then influenced him to do something that was contrary to what God had promised him and something that was morally wrong. They didn’t know, they knew what God was going to do but they had no idea how and in that intervening time when all the questions weren’t yet answered, Sarah’s faith faltered.

Listen, be careful of what you do when your face starts getting shaky. And she, the Bible says at the end of verse 2, and Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. That’s exactly like what we read, remember, was it a couple weeks ago? When we were talking about Adam and Eve, and she gave the fruit also to her husband with her and he did eat. The influence of the wife upon the husband.

You see, he should have continued to believe God to bring to pass the how of the promise of God, just as he had believed God the how of the promise of God, just as he had believed God the promise of the what of his promise. In faith, Abram should have told his wife, no. But he didn’t.

And what he does is he sinfully yields to his wife. And I’ll just repeat it because it’s in the text. The very same language is used. It is never right to follow your wife or your husband, as the case may be, into sin.

This is another example of that. And we might ask, well, if they did this, why didn’t God just take the baby away and just remove the issue? Or even prevent her from becoming with child or prevent the birth of Ishmael or whatever?

Why didn’t God just prevent all of this outcome? Well, it’s because that’s normally the way He does things. God almost never removes the consequences of our sin and our sinful behavior. Or in the case of this, our behavior done in unbelief. He allows us to know the bitter fruit of our sin. You know what, Sarah, she’s going to eat this bitter fruit and taste it in full measure.

Remember, Sarah’s the one that’s gonna be like, I don’t want this child or this handmaid to be heir with my son, with Isaac. It’s her fault. What this is, gentlemen, this is a failure of leadership by faith in Abraham. And she actually blames him. I’m not going to read it. It was Sarah’s idea. And then actually blames him. If you read, I’m not going to read it. Sarah, it was Sarah’s idea.

And then she comes and says, basically she says, look what you did. The Lord be judged between you and me. Look, what are you doing? And you know what? He ought to say, you know what, you’re right. It was my responsibility to say no when you were out of line and I didn’t.

Gentlemen, I just want to tell you, and I’m not trying to beat on the ladies. The truth is, in reality, if you look at statistics, it’s actually usually the reverse. The men give the women a lot more trouble than the reverse. But seeing we’re looking at it here, so you can apply it however you need to apply it. But again, the Lord must be supreme. And there are absolutely times when we have to say no. No. We’re not doing that.

And to take leadership. But sometimes men, due to that constant pressure from their wife, will yield in something that they should not yield in. Now generally, that’s few and far between, thankfully. If you can yield, yield. That’s what I told my kids. When they’re talking about marriage, I’ve told my kids, I’ve told kind of it’s a policy in their home. If your wife wants something and you can do it and not sin, then you ought to do it.

Just say yes. Your policy is yes. But there are times when you can’t say yes. Don’t. Don’t. Be the leader. Take the leadership and do right. Do right. That’s what Abram should have done. And boy, this turned out pretty ugly, didn’t it?

Now the last thing I want you to see is we go forward to chapter 17, which is the covenant of circumcision. This covenant with Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant, God gave Abraham a sign and that sign was circumcision. But this covenant didn’t happen out of the blue. It was, this covenant didn’t happen out of the blue. This covenant was the last in a number of numerous steps of his walk with God that led him to this point.

He walked with God for quite a while. He built altars. He fellowshiped with the Lord. And he obeyed the Lord. It came on the heels of his devotion to God. And so when you look at this covenant, basically God tells him that all the males in his family have to be circumcised, not just in his family, but in perpetuity, moving into the future with his descendants.

Think about how, I just want you to see, I’m just trying to just apply these things. Think about how this covenant with the sign of circumcision would affect his family.

And this was a good, I mean, we generally probably wouldn’t think of this as a good thing, but this was a mark. In fact, if you look at the verse, chapter 17, verse number 13, notice what it says. He that is born in thy house and he that is bought with thy money must needs be circumcised and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

It marked Abram and all his descendants. So to God, this was a sign of his special, unique relationship with this family, this line, in their very flesh. So Abraham’s walk with God would result in this covenant. And this covenant then would have a direct effect upon his whole house and all of his descendants because all of his descendants would be marked as participants in this sign in this covenant by the sign of circumcision in their bodies. Sarah is going to be blessed by this. Isaac is going to be blessed. Jacob, Joseph, all the 12 tribes and all of their descendants to this very day. That sign was what represented, was the token of this relationship that God originally had with a single man.

How it would bless his family to come. And this is, the principle with this is that just as your walk with God, just as your relationship to God, you do not know, I do not know, it is impossible for us to know how these things will redound in our family, how they will cascade down through the years in our family.

Abram’s family was permanently marked for good in their relationship to God. That doesn’t mean we can save our children, you know, individually, but man, we can give them, can we not give them a heritage? Can we not give them a spiritual example to set? Listen, I want to tell you, the enemy is going to come and try to destroy that and he does every person, every individual, every you, the enemy is going to come and try to destroy that and he does every person, every individual, every succeeding generation, he’s going to try to wipe it out and I’ve seen that done many times as well.

But we have to give our families that tradition, if you will. But I imagine that this sign of this covenant was probably a pretty hard thing to follow through with. But once again, what do we see Abram doing? Obeying by faith. That’s what we see. You see, his family, in Abram’s walk of faith, his family saw that when God told him to do this thing, no matter how hard it was, he was going to do it.

You think of all the things Abram went through, whatever the Lord told him to do, no matter if he fully understood it, he was going to do it. No matter if he saw, could see the purpose at the end of that thing, he was going to do it. No matter if he saw, could see the purpose at the end of that thing, he was going to do it. No matter whether it was difficult for him to obey, he was going to do it. And circumcision is probably near the top of that list. And his family saw this. Listen, you don’t live with a man and see these major events. They saw this example. You see, in each case, he demonstrated, and especially with the circumcision, that God was supreme in his life, and he was willing to do anything, anything that God commanded him to do, and he proved it once and for all in Genesis 22, because God told him to take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him as a burnt offering.

That was the supreme time where God tested Abraham at that time. And he said, am I supreme above all? Above everything? Because Isaac represented not only his love, because he loved Ishmael, but he definitely loved Isaac being the child of promise. But now, not only did he love Isaac in the human way, but also Isaac represented all the promises of God fulfilled to him, and he’s just going to wipe it all away.

Would he believe God and obey God supremely? That’s the question. And what Abraham proved is that God was supreme to him. And there was none above him. None above the Lord in his life. And you know what? Every person in his family would have seen that God reigned unopposed in the heart of Abraham.

Last verse I want you to see and we’ll be finished. Genesis chapter 18. Verse 19. The Lord speaks of Abraham in this way. God says of Abraham, He says, For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him. Now this is Abraham commanding his children. And they shall keep the way of the Lord and do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

Abraham would command his children to keep the way of the Lord. That’s what it says. But I want you to see this and notice this. Noting all of the facts we’ve seen up to this point. Behind, at the back of Abraham’s command for his children to follow the Lord, what do you have? Behind that was the force of a life in which God reigned supreme.

Behind that was an example that Abraham set for his family to which they could look. See, he did not just command his family to keep the way of the Lord. He showed his family how to do it by example.

That gives new meaning and force to mom and to dad’s commands when the children see in action that the Lord reigns supreme in your life. in action that the Lord reigns supreme in your life? Is that where the Lord, is that the throne where he sits in your life right now? Is that the example, mom and dad, that you have set for your family? Is that the example, husband, that you have set for your wife?

Is that the example, mom, that you have set for your children? Let’s pray together.