PM Genesis 12:1-9 & Acts 7:1-8 The Faith of Abraham

Then I'd like to take another reading at the same time from Acts chapter 7.! But first Genesis chapter 12 on page 10. Now the Lord said, or had said, as it may be equally rendered to Abram, Go from your country and from your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

And I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.

And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had acquired, and the people that they had acquired in Haran. And they set out to go to the land of Canaan.

When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east.

And there he built an altar to the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on, still going, toward the Negev.

Could we stop our reading at that point, and we'll take another reading after we've sung. Let's sing further in this altar. So this is a prayer.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . .

. . .

God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, Go out from your land and from your kindred, and go into the land that I will show you.

Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.

Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.

And God spoke to this effect, that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others who would enslave them and afflict them 400 years.

But I will judge the nation that they serve, said God, and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision.

And so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

We'll leave God's word at that point and come back to it further in the New Testament in the letter to the Hebrews, from which we'll take the passage we're going to reflect on tonight.

But first of all, let's sing once more in Psalm... Let's look now at Hebrews chapter 11. And Hebrews chapter 11...

Let me see now if I can find the... I'm not sure if the page number in my Bible here is the same as yours, but Hebrews is before James and after 2 Timothy.

After Philemon, actually. Hebrews chapter 11...

I'd like us to read from verse 8. Hebrews chapter 11... By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.

Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants of as many as the stars of heaven, and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Amen. May God bless all these readings. We have taken this evening. And bless us through his spirit. About the faith of Abraham, as is said on your sheet.

And I do believe that the example of Abraham, the life and experience of Abraham, can tell us a great deal in displaying, in opening up what the first verse of Hebrews 11 tells us.

It's like someone has asked the question, What is faith? And then comes the answer in verse 1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

For by the people of old, including Abraham, received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

So faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So we might ask the question, and I think it will become clear through this message, as to what Abraham sought to be assured of, and what were the convictions of Abraham about things he did not yet see.

So I would like us to do that under four headings here. The origins of Abraham's faith. Then we could consider the hindrances to Abraham's faith.

Then the testing of Abraham's faith. And the supports of Abraham's faith. And hopefully by the end we'll be able to relate to his experience as being not just an Old Testament experience, but a very much a New Testament experience as well.

So first of all, in the origins of Abraham's faith, the first thing I would like to say is there's no natural explanation as to how Abraham came to be a believer.

In the one true God. No natural explanation at all. By all accounts, actually, it was more likely that he would have continued as a pagan.

For that's what he was. Both he and his whole family. When Joshua was about to lead Israel across the Jordan into the land of promise, Canaan, Joshua addressed them.

You can read about that in Joshua 24. He addressed them and he too began at the beginning, began telling them about Abraham. He wanted them to know what their roots were.

He wanted them to know the stuff of which they were made as a people. And it's quite a, as we read it, it's quite a humbling thing that he said to them.

He said, Joshua said to all the people, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates River.

Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor, and they served other gods. So that was Abraham's situation.

He was a member of a family which was pagan and served other gods. He did not yet know the Lord. And he would not have come to know the Lord unless the Lord himself had intervened.

He intervened. In Joshua, he then goes on to say, Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the river and led him through the land of Canaan and made his offspring merry.

So Joshua's telling them there about their roots, the roots of their ancestry. And they were not, if ever the Israelites at that point were to commend themselves as being a very special people with very special ancestors, that would have brought them down to the ground.

That would have been with a bump. Our fathers were pagans. At least Abraham was. So how did Abraham come to be a true believer in the one true God?

And that's why we read also Acts chapter 7 because Stephen gives the answer to that question in Acts 7. As he's beginning to, in fact, the very first words that Stephen utters to the Jewish council were, Brothers and fathers, hear me, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham.

That's how it happened. And we can honestly say and correctly say that if the God of glory had not appeared to Abraham, Abraham would have been an unbeliever still.

Still ignorant and foolish in his idolatry. So, we need, we all need intervention, direct intervention by God if we are going to, before we can have faith in God, before we can have the assurance of the things we do not see and the conviction about the things that we would hope for.

God needs to give us that assurance. God needs to give us that conviction. If he doesn't do it, then nothing, we will never, we will have those things. We will never have that faith.

Paul in his letter to the Ephesians is very clear about where we stand by nature. In the second chapter he says that, he writes to the Ephesians he says, you were dead.

Not just that you were slumbering, just sleeping away your lives. You were dead. In trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world.

And he says, we all carried out the desires of the body and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath. Just like the rest. I like that little bit there.

Just like the rest. And so that's what Abraham was. He was just like the rest. There was nothing to mark him out by nature from any of the other inhabitants of Ur in Chaldea.

He was a typical Chaldean. So, we don't know exactly what was the nature of the Lord's appearance to Abraham while he was living in Ur.

But we do know that it was life changing and it was life directing. He was given his marching orders. I want you to go.

I want you to go from this place to a place I will show you. And it's so enigmatic, isn't it? So mysterious. Where are you sending me, Lord?

I would like to know. I'd like to get my mail redirected by the post office. Could you please give me the forwarding address of where I'm going? No. No, the Lord didn't tell him anything.

He says, just trust me. I will show you. Not that I am showing you right now. I will show you. It's that act of obedience through which God acts.

And the Lord is never late in what he does. He always exactly does things exactly the moment he intends to. You may recall reading about the crossing of the Jordan River by the Israelites when the priests carrying the ark it was when their feet touched the water that the water stood up and they were able to cross over in dry land.

If they dilly-dallied and dangled their ankles over the water the water would not have parted. It was when the feet touched that the waters divided and they walked through.

And so it's the same for Abraham here. The Lord isn't giving him any clues. It's just one thing. I will be with you. I will show you this land I'm taking you to.

So this is the origin of Abraham's faith. But his faith had hindrances as well. It wasn't all a walk in the park as you might say.

It was a walk through the wilderness to a place as yet undisclosed. So what were the hindrances to his faith? First of all there was the attractiveness of the world.

The time that Abraham lived even then, although it's a very long time ago, we're talking like about 3,800 years ago, 1800 BC, but even by that time, Ur in Chaldea was a very advanced civilization for its day.

Archaeologists have discovered all kinds of artifacts which show that the Chaldeans were advanced for their own day that is.

Not for our day, but for their day. And it was the place to live among all the possible places in the Fertile Crescent, in the civilization as it was there, which was roughly about near where Baghdad is now.

In those days it was perhaps even more civilized than Baghdad is now. we all think of the hanging gardens of Babylon for example. That was part of the glory of Chaldea.

So Abraham had choices. He could have said, well, Lord, you're not showing me or telling me where I'm going. One thing I know is that here is the really good place to live and to bring up families, although he didn't have any children at that time.

But he thought it's a good place for me to be with my family. He could have said that, I want to stay and take care of my father Tara, I would want to mentor and tutor my nephew Lot and so on.

But he didn't do those things. He was not kept back by a place, even though it was a comfortable place. But I mentioned Tara and Lot and that brings me on to the second hindrance, because his family connections held him back.

We read in Genesis 12, which we read together, that the command, let's remind ourselves of the terms of God's command to him.

If you go to Genesis 11, you'll notice there it says, now the Lord said to Abraham. That actually should probably more correctly be rendered, the Lord had said.

Hebrew language doesn't have a past perfect, and you've got to infer things like an event before another past event. You've got to infer that from the context like here, because if you were to read Genesis, you would be led to believe, Genesis 12, then you believe that he's setting out from Haran.

Haran. But that's not what Stephen said. Stephen said that in Acts chapter 7, that God had given Abraham this command while he was still in Ur.

So what happened? What was going on here? Well, it seems that, in fact, Stephen says before Abraham lived in Haran, God had said to him, go out from your land.

And here's the point, which is the same in Genesis and in Acts. Here's the point. Go out from your land and from your kindred and go to the land, I will show you, and from your kindred.

There was no mention of taking his father with him, no mention of taking his nephew Lot with him. He was commanded to go on his own, to leave his kindred.

But it's a little bit tricky sometimes, isn't it, when your family wants you to do one thing and you believe God wants you to do another. It can be a little bit tricky. And Abraham was trying to balance, juggle his responsibilities.

And you notice that the Genesis passage tells us a little bit of the answer to that. Because it says that, that's why I say that God had said to him while he was in Ur, but according to Genesis 12, he's now in Haran, he's taken his father with him, he's taken his family and his nephew and all them.

And we read that he departed from Haran. I think Stephen also says the same thing. In verse 4 of Acts 7 it says, and after his father died, God removed him from there to this land in which you are now living.

So, I'm not saying that fathers are a hindrance, by the way, we should always obey the fifth commandment, which it still is, I think, honour your father and your mother. So, it's this, as I say, juggling, trying to obey what the Lord wants, but also to honour one's father and mother.

Abraham was clearly trying to do both. And it was only when his dad died in Haran that he could move on. But it was technically a bit of a hindrance for him not to be able to obey God's command freely until a family situation made it possible.

I mentioned Lot. Lot turned out to be a bit of a hindrance as well. He was still alive when they left from Haran, so he came along.

But as they went, they discovered there were insufficient resources on the way. Not so much what they had with them, but they needed pasture lands for their flocks and wells and things like that.

And so, you had the herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abraham trying to get the same water at the same time and the same pasture lands. So he said, look, let's split.

Let's go one way. You go one way, I'll go the other. And Abraham very generously gave Lot the option of choosing which way to go.

So we know from Genesis 14 that Lot looked at the well-watered plains of Sodom. As we were thinking this morning, he didn't give any consideration to the values of the inhabitants of Sodom.

He just looked upon what he saw according to the values of this world in terms of the worth of the pasture lands and the amount of water.

So anyway, his worldly choice was made and he went off to Sodom. At that point, you may think Abraham was free of Lot, or at least free to choose and follow God more closely.

As it happened, Lot was then captured, taken off by raiders and lay Abraham to intervene once again before he could move on. So Lot, in his own way, was a bit of a hindrance.

Then we can think of his wife, Sarah. Now at that point she was known as Sarai. Her name was changed as well as his. His was changed from Abraham, exalted father, to Abraham, father of many nations, and Sarai and Sarah, roughly the same, my princess.

So she was a bit of a hindrance at points because we read in Genesis that she did not have the faith sufficient to believe what God had promised would become a reality.

We know about the, if you read Genesis 18, when Abraham and Sarah were visited by what looked like three men, on the plains of Mamre, one of those men spoke in the character and language of God.

We know it was in all probability a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ taking on a semblance of human form, along with two angels who also took on a semblance of human form.

But during their visit, Sarah was heard to laugh when she heard this time next year tell Sarah she'll have a son. Sarah didn't believe that. She was incredulous.

She was very sceptical, perhaps even cynical, because she'd spent a long time in her life in a barren state. Our sympathy goes out to her because she desperately wanted children, but she had not known that particular blessing.

So she laughed. the amount of suffering that she'd gone through, and we do sympathize, had led her to a point of cynicism where she was not able to exercise the faith needed.

However, we mustn't be hard on Sarah because she did actually change from that. We read in verse, let me see now, yes, in verse number 11, by faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age.

Isn't that remarkable? How often, from the point have we ever heard of somebody having faith as the power to conceive? But because she reached a point where she herself submitted to the Lord's will and trusted him, then she was then, it was through her faith that she was given the power to conceive.

A little bit like the lady who followed the Lord Jesus and touched the hem of his garment, and Jesus turned and says, your faith has made you whole. So faith, although it's not the cause of healing, it's the occasion and instrument through which the Lord may heal, or the Lord may give power to conceive, the Lord may do many things in our lives, and the Lord loves to honor faith where he sees it being exercised.

So that's why Sarah herself is included in this roll call of faith as we sometimes call it. But before that time though, until the point when she, probably after the visit of the Lord to the tent, and hearing it from the Lord himself, she had faith that it would become a reality.

But until that point she was a hindrance. Then of course there was Abraham's own weaknesses which were a hindrance to his faith. Twice, if we read about in Genesis, how he lied, first to Pharaoh and then to a king called Abimelech, a king of Gerar, he lied about Sarah and the relationship he had with her because he was afraid that these rulers would kill him and take his wife.

so he said to them, she's my sister. She wasn't his sister but she was related to him in a kind of removed way.

So there was a bit of truth about what he said but it was a lie. He intended it to be received in that way that she's my sister. Because he was afraid of what would happen to him.

Now, it's easy to condemn Abraham for these hindrances to his faith. But that's not the purpose of why I'm doing this.

I'm doing this to show, to be realistic, how many things in this world would mount an attack to our faith.

How many things would oppose our faith, weaken our faith. And the important thing is to be aware of what things could do that.

So we could be prepared. So these were the hindrances to Abraham's faith. Then we think of thirdly the testing of Abraham's faith.

Now his faith was tested in various ways as we can see ever since he left Ur and Chaldea and relocated to Canaan. But none of these trials was anything remotely like the testing he experienced when God said to him, finally said to him, go and sacrifice your son Isaac to me on one of the mountains I am going to show you.

He and Sarah had waited many years for this child and now God is saying that go and sacrifice him. Isaac was the one that God had promised would be the progenitor of his children, of his dynasty as it were.

But how could that be if he is going to be sacrificed? It didn't make sense. But the great thing about Abraham's faith is that and the great thing about faith in general is that because it's faith and faith is the critical element of faith is trust, trusting the one who said it, Abraham did that.

He didn't know how God would later on produce more offspring through Isaac but he knew that he would do even if Isaac were to die.

And this comes out in the Hebrews 11 passage. We read there that he considered that God was able, this is verse 19 of Hebrews 11, he considered God was able even to raise him from the dead if Abraham were to reach the point of killing Isaac.

God would restore him. So Abraham certainly believed in resurrection because he knew that God would have to resurrect Isaac to fulfill his promises.

But nevertheless it was not something which Abraham could just simply be happy about or relax with. No matter what God could do afterwards, the very idea of giving up his child on an altar, after all the Israelites before the Israelites, but God's people had been commanded not to indulge in any form of human sacrifice, which we know that the Moabites did, and others.

So how could this be? He couldn't make sense of it. And I think when things happen in our lives which don't make sense, there's only one answer, to go on trusting, go on believing, because the Lord will never ultimately allow himself to be dishonoured or his word to be dishonoured.

One of the prayers which David is recorded as saying with regards to God's promise to him, and I remember a very precious sermon on this by C.H.

Spurgeon, when David turns to God in prayer and says, do as thou hast said, do as you have promised. When God makes a promise, he can't go back on it.

Abraham knew that. So he went on trusting, and that's the only answer to this. And we're given a clue as to why God tested it.

The reason why he tested Abraham is given to us in 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 6 to 7. Abraham himself is not mentioned in that passage, but his situation is mentioned.

1 Peter chapter 1 verses 6 and 7, we're told, Peter says to these Christians, you should rejoice that you're being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, although now for a little while, and then it says, if necessary, if necessary, you're being grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

A very useful thing to remember in this is that the word in the New Testament for testing and the word for temptation is the same word. and we have to work out from the context which it is.

So, in this passage in 1 Peter, we read that now for a little while, if necessary, your faith is tested. If necessary.

So, it was necessary, very necessary for Abram's faith to be tested so that it would be shown, not just for his own sake, but for our sake, so that Abram's faith would be shown to be genuine.

we look at the Old Testament and sometimes as Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, chapter 10, 1 Corinthians, he says that the people of Israel and what they did and how they lived in the wilderness and so on is given to us as an example of what not to do, of how not to behave, how not to think, but the Old Testament also has precious examples of believers who did act correctly in faith and they are examples of what we should be doing, not what we should not be doing, but what we should be, how we should be approaching our own lives and the temptations and the trials that we go through.

So whenever we undergo trials which we don't understand, we can turn to that passage in Peter and those two little words, if necessary, and see that it is necessary.

We may not think it's necessary, but it's good to know that when we are tried and tested that it is necessary for our faith to be stretched and tried in that way.

So let's think lastly tonight about the support of Abram's faith. we've thought about the origins of it, we've thought about the hindrances, we've thought about the testing of it, let's think about the supports, what was it supported him?

There are two main points of support here. The first one is God himself. Remember again Stephen spoke of the God of glory, the glorious God appeared to Abram in Aaron Chaldea and from that moment on God was with him.

God did not leave him and God confirmed to him that he would be blessed and his offspring would be blessed and through them all him and his offspring all the earth would be blessed.

So God himself, the glorious God, was with him every step of the way and although as I say he showed his humanness just like us all in failing at many points, yes God never failed him.

He was the Lord's choice. The Lord had chosen this man. The Lord was going to stay with this man. The Lord doesn't turn his back on us because we fail. He draws near us.

His heart goes out to us when we fail. I think sometimes we so often think of the Lord as a recriminating judge or even a recriminating parent.

But recrimination seems to be in the mix always for some folks but it's not true. I was reading a book recently called Gentle and Lowly by Dale Ortland in which he draws and comments liberally upon the works of Thomas Goodwin who wrote a book called The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Ortland has written this book Gentle and Lowly to show how Jesus is never more close to us than when we are suffering and indeed in self inflicted occasions of sin that he is with us to take us out of that not to condemn us in it.

So despite all those weaknesses I mentioned God was with Abraham he never left him and the second thing was the desire that God placed in Abraham's heart we read about that in Hebrews in chapter 11 from verse 9 that we read there that by faith he went to live in a land of promise as in a foreign land living in tents and so on for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God and later on it says in verse 14 for people who speak thus make it clear they are seeking a homeland if they have been thinking of that land from which they come out they would have had opportunity to return but as it is they desire their desire is for a better country a heavenly country therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city so Abraham had this desire for a permanent homeland a city which had foundations and you know the thing is he never actually found it he went to

Canaan but he never received one yard square of Canaan to set his foot on said Stephen not one yard square which he would call his own when Sarah died he had to buy a patch of ground from someone the cave of Machpelah in which to bury his wife but he never as regards living in the land he never actually had anywhere which he could call his own and yet his faith knew that God was remaining faithful to him and would remain faithful in giving that land to his descendants because he said he would David again do as thou hast said he really believed that he knew that Ur was not that city it was a city built by man for man and Canaan itself was not that homeland as I say because he didn't receive any of it so those two things supported

Abram's faith God himself and his promises and secondly the desire God had placed in his heart he was supported all through that never wavering so in conclusion what can we say about Abram and his faith in Romans 4 11 Abram is called the father of all those who have faith in what ways are we encouraged to identify with him so thinking about the origins of his faith before he ever acted in faith as we say he had a personal encounter with God the God of glory and we must also faith is not hereditary and God has no grandchildren only children and his children are those who come to him personally in prayer and meet with him personally and if tonight you if you do not feel or do not think that you have ever met with

God the Lord personally you could do that you can do that right now you can do that when you go home if you want to do so in the privacy of your own room just kneel down and speak to him and he will assure you of his presence with you if we bow before him and acknowledge him as the Lord of our life that is the personal encounter that Abraham had and we too if we want to be counted as God's children we too need that personal encounter we too can also expect our faith to be hindered by things like the attractiveness of the world by family connections which may be unsympathetic or distracting to our faith we too might be hindered by the skepticism of others and even by our own weakness but the Lord's aware of these things and we know from his word that he gives more grace and he knows what we go through the picture of Jesus in Hebrews chapter 4 of the great high priest the one who is tempted and tested in every way just as we are yet without sin that he is the person who comes before God's throne of grace on our behalf so that the Lord may give us more grace so we too can be hindered and just like Abram's faith was severely tested in the command to offer up

Isaac God knows that we all have our Isaacs that we would want to withhold from the Lord and not surrender and that was the point was Abram prepared to surrender Isaac into the will of God that was the real heart of the testing rather and in such a case with all our Isaacs we no doubt could have built up a very good set of reasons not to obey the Lord the question is will we pass the test like Abraham did or will we lose a blessing through lack of faith it was in here's a really strong point it was in surrendering all to the Lord on Mount Moriah that Abraham gained his clearest understanding of Christ and Christ's work of substitutionary sacrifice and atonement if Abraham had never followed through and shown himself prepared to follow through to the very end then he would never have seen what the

Lord showed him on that mountain regarding what he was going to do when he would give up and we can echo the words to Abraham here when he was going to give up his son his only son whom he loved those are the words the terms in which he spoke to Abraham and we see them echoing down through the years this is my beloved son Jesus so Abraham through that through the provision of a ram caught in the thicket by its horns replacing Isaac he was Abraham then understood that God was going to provide a sacrifice as he said to his son when Isaac said here's the wood here's the lamb here's the wood and the fire where is the lamb and the way that the Hebrew word that's used by the way when he said where is the lamb for a burnt offering where that word where is a word which assumes that it's something that should be there it's almost as though

Isaac is saying am I the lamb where is it that thing which should be here and years later John the Baptist answered Isaac's question here's the wood here's the fire where's the lamb John the Baptist says here there is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world now Abraham was shown so much about that through that incident that he called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh and that can be variously translated either the Lord will see to it or in the mountain of the Lord it will be seen and the question beg by that is what will be seen and that's why we say that he saw the Lord showed him there the great truths that he was going to provide an atoning sacrifice for Abraham's sin and for the sin of everyone who puts their trust in him and maintains faith and that's the last thing here what are the supports of your faith and of mine they can only be the same as

Abraham's that's why he's called the father of all those who have faith because the supports of our faith are the same as the supports of his faith God himself the God of glory who has appeared to us in our spirits by revealing himself to us as our saviour and secondly our desire to be with him in the city that he has built for us we desire to be with him there which is far better as Paul says is far better to depart here where there is no continuing city there's no permanent home here for us far better to depart and be with Christ that is the same desire that Abraham had so the faith of Abraham as we've thought about these things do they resonate with you in terms of the origins of your own faith the hindrances to faith the testings that we sometimes go through and will go through before we leave this earthly plane and the supports of our faith well let us hope so let's put our trust in him let's remember that at the basis of the very heart of faith is this one thing called trust that whatever happens we should trust him as Job says even though he slay me

I will trust him because he's worth it let's pray great