Abraham (Hebrews 11:8-10 Jeff Kliewer)

Prayer for Wisdom, Truth, and Protection from False Doctrine

Lord we pray for wisdom for our church here Cornerstone and for the church throughout the country throughout the world. We are under attack under the social justice regime. Give us wisdom and let us hold strong and true to your word and to you and to you alone.

Let us be aware and and diligent and watchful For those false doctrines that could come in and let us choose the better we choose you Lord. You you alone are to be exalted. So protect us and give us wisdom and then Lord as we're out in our neighborhoods when we're with our families There's a world that does need to hear that truth.

Give us a heart and a desire To speak your word to lives that net desperately need to hear it this morning Lord is. Pastor Jeff takes us back into Hebrews chapter 11 as we look at Abraham Lord as we learn about having our eyes focused on a promise as we see the the benefits of Pursuing that eternal promise.

Let that change our lives. We pray Lord you would speak through pastor Jeff and open our hearts to hear we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Let's all stand if we're able to.

Mountains bow down every ocean To the Lord of hosts was like him like him lion and the lamb Seated on the throne Reocean to the Lord of praise Seeing of the Sun to the end of every nations of the earth.

Like him lying Father we do praise you today Lord and we pray for all the fathers here as well Lord that you will bless us Lord and lead us and guide us Lord and help us to seek your will for our lives and and the lives of our children and our family and Everybody that who's you place in our path Lord help us to Set our mind on the things above Lord not on not on earthly things and to focus on you and to seek to Strengthen our relationship with you Lord and to continue continually be in prayer and in your word we're so thankful for your love Lord for your guiding hand Lord in your word Lord and we just we praise you and we seek you Lord and we seek to love you and Come to know you better every day Lord.

Thank you for this time in this place that you give us Lord. We pray that you open our hearts and our minds to the message today Lord and and just continually help us to grow In you in Jesus name. We pray.

Amen. Reaches to the heaven Stretches to the sky. It's just.

Please have a seat. Well, isn't that good news that he never lets go of us if We are faithless. He remains faithful for he will never disown himself. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. The precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening the eyes. More to be desired are they than gold even much fine gold? Sweeter also than honey and drippings from the honeycomb. Lord God, would you make your words sweet to us this morning?

Let it be like honey to us. Make it valuable to us Lord God that we would treasure it more than gold or silver or any of the things of this world. God we pray that you would show us that your words are right that you would correct our thinking by your speech.

God show us that your words are pure. Enlighten our eyes. Help us to see you. We need you Lord God, and we ask that you would do this by your word through the preaching in Jesus name. Amen. So I was hanging out with some of the teens from our church Yesterday at an event and some of them said that they find some of my stories to be fantastical.

I'm not sure they believe me. Telling especially the stories of my two grandfathers. I have one grandfather who was in a Russian gulag and hid his Bible in a water canteen as he survived the gulag and my other grandfather was in World War two and was dodging bullets and heard a call from God and became a missionary to Guatemala where my mom grew up as A missionary kid and some of these teens were finding that a little bit unbelievable, but it's true.

So believe me but you know as great as my grandparents and my Grandfathers are and what a great example they were to their children. My hero is actually my father. I'm gonna open this morning by telling a little bit about my own dad.

One of his earliest memories was seeing a lady at age four. My father saw Lady Liberty as He sailed into Ellis Island. He was an immigrant from Germany. And so coming into Ellis Island He remembers seeing the Statue of Liberty there in the harbor.

He then moved to Oklahoma where he began to help out on the farm and That only lasted for less than a year because Oklahoma is very different from Germany. Very dry very sandy very hot. So they decided to make their way north and they tried to get into Canada.

But thanks be to God that border was closed to him because of his to Burke my grandfather's tuberculosis History, so they settled in Washington State and that's where my my dad grew up. My father was part of a Mennonite Church and they preached the gospel.

And so as a young man, he went under the waters of baptism proclaiming his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now how awesome was it last week to see ten young men give testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ and proclaim that faith in the waters of baptism that was one of the most exciting days of my life as a pastor and Seeing that was it was just awesome.

So praise God for what he's doing here at the church. My dad was baptized as a young man and then continued in the church grew up. He was a hard worker even from his youth he was an apple picker during the summers where they would go out and fill baskets all day long under the Sun and then as he got a little older he began to go up to Alaska during the summers and fish for salmon and That's some back-breaking work right there, you know pulling in the nets on the the boats off of the Alaskan Shore he learned to work.

That's why he's so thick and strong. So he was a football player. I've got his height, but you can see I'm kind of long and gangly. My dad is thick and strong. So he was a college football. Well high school football player and then played basketball for George Fox University but something happened at George Fox a young lady caught his eye that missionary kid from Guatemala Jan and they decided to get married as Sophomores in college.

Now nowadays not many people would even consider doing that. But what would that mean for a college basketball player? If you're getting married, you probably need to work and raise a family. So perish the thought he put Being a man and raising a family over sports another gasp.

John confessed that he watches TV and we all gasped but but yeah, he he decided to put away basketball and childish things for the sake of Raising a family and being a man and so he did and the first thing they did when they moved in together is they bought?

A mobile home. Now making a good economic decision. They took that home and moved it to a different park. Which you know location location location caused it to go up? $20 ,000 in value. So they sold that and they bought a duplex where they lived in one and rented the other.

Then they sold that and took the profits from that and invested in a larger maybe eight unit Complex and they sold that and bought a 16 unit. All of this was in Seattle, Washington. They were working in real estate working other jobs as well and just working hard.

Until they realized that my younger brother was having pneumonia repeatedly so the Seattle Rain anybody here from Seattle area the Pacific Northwest? It just rains all the time. So they decided they needed to move the family out and leaving that business behind.

Selling everything they moved to Florida, which is where I grew up at. Maybe age 5 we moved down there. He had to start fresh he had to start over he didn't have any of his business contacts. But he was willing to leave the beautiful Pacific Northwest with the trees and the hills that he loved for the hot humid Florida flatness.

But it was a sacrifice. He was willing to make for the family because he's a genuine father. So that's where I grew up. He was a bus driver. He delivered mail he threw newspapers to the sidewalk he worked in every way that he could to provide for the family and Then an opportunity came along the apartment complex that he had sold was giving payments every month.

But all of a sudden they cashed out The apartment in Seattle and so he had this cash which was going to be subject to capital gains tax. Some of you guys know about that now they're trying to raise that again.

But in any case He decided to reinvest and the bottom the real estate market in Florida was at an all-time low there was no takers on a 96 unit apartment complex and Basically on all credit and that little down payment that he had he was able to buy a 96 unit apartment complex.

God blessed him. So here's how I grew up. Every Saturday we were at shades of Covington mowing lawns. That's what we did. Can you imagine we had to work? Work for a living. We had to paint because the units when there'd be a turnover we'd be in there to be the cleaners and the painters and That's how we grew up nowadays.

People get paid for not working, which I don't know how that's gonna work over the long term but my dad taught me to be a man by example and Then by teaching me as I became a teenager to do the kind of things that he did.

He was always at our basketball games always Walking the walk. We were in church every Sunday and he Lived the faith that my parents were teaching us at home. Not everybody here has a father like that.

Not everybody had an example of the faith. Now every father here should strive To live the faith that we're preaching to our kids. To make sacrifices and to work by the sweat of our brow to provide and do whatever is necessary to raise a family.

Not everybody has a father like Walt Cleaver. But all of us have a father of the faith. What's his name? Abraham the father of the faith and Whether or not you had an earthly father that gave you this example.

I think it not a coincidence that today as we go through Hebrews 11 We just so happen to come upon verse 8. Let's go there now Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8 We just so happen to come across. The story of Abraham, do you know in the Hebrew language?

There is no word for coincidence. Because the Hebrews believe in Providence they believe in God orchestrating all things. Nothing's a coincidence. And so it is that we come to the father of the faith on Father's Day.

Before I read it. Let's remember where we are in Hebrews chapter 11 the overall idea beginning in chapter 10 verse 38 is that we must continue in the faith if We shrink back God finds no pleasure in us.

We must have an abiding continuing faith. Not just a prayer. You don't just pray a sinner's prayer and think that your your eternity is sealed. A genuine born-again Experience will be an abiding faith a continuing faith not shrinking back from the faith you once confessed.

So in chapter 11 verse 1 faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen. Now who is the first example of faith? That we see in Hebrews 11. You about to say Abel you skip the verse look at verse 3.

By faith we. The first one is us and us having a knowledge that there is a God. Based on the created things we can't see God, but we know there is an invisible God based on the things that have been made and.

So us who believe in God are the first example of Faith. Faith is not blind. Faith is taking God at his word. The next example is verse 4 we come to Abel and Abel is an example of one who took God at his word offering an animal sacrifice.

Just like God did himself in the Garden of Eden to make the covering of skin. For Adam and Eve in the same way Abel offered a blood sacrifice picturing substitutionary atonement and It pleased God. Likewise verse 5 Enoch was pleasing to God.

We don't know much about what he did. But this we know in a godless generation. He walked with God. He walked the walk. He was a genuine believer and his life reflected that. Next we come to Noah in verse 7 who condemned the world.

How did Noah condemn the world? By offering the ark of salvation preaching Righteousness, but no one came except for his own family into the ark and So he condemned the world in that they rejected the offer of salvation and God destroyed the earth with the flood.

Where they were carried away. So let's read verses 8 to 10 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.

So the big idea here is that Abraham Abraham walked by faith. Because he was looking to a city an eternal city. Whose architect and builder is God himself? He went to the promised land to build an inheritance and Yet in his lifetime.

He only lived in tents. He never saw the city of God. He only welcomed it from afar looking to that and living by faith that God will fulfill the promise That was made to him in Genesis 12 verses 1 to 3.

He's told that he would be blessed and all the world would be blessed through his seed. But at the time he was given that promise he had no son. Sarah was barren. And so for all of those years as Abraham approached a hundred years old He did not have a son.

Turn with me to Genesis chapter 15 and notice the first thing About Abraham about his faith and what an example it is to us. Obedience is motivated by promises. So in Hebrews 11 8 it said by faith. Abraham Obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.

He obeyed. Turn again to Genesis chapter 15 verses 1 to 6 he had been promised not only a land but a seed a son and yet his wife was barren and. So we come to Genesis 15 1 to 6 after these things. The Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

Fear not Abram. I Am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. Now pause there for a moment. Hebrews 11 verse 8 tells us that faith is motivated by a promise. Abraham had been given a promise of a land and a people.

We are not Abraham. Abraham was given the promise of Descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. It referred to Israel the nation That would come from him. He was promised this land.

That's not given to the church. And yet the faith of Abraham is Taking hold of whatever it is that God said to him. What did God say to us? He promised us eternal life the forgiveness of sin and a future city.

What did Jesus say before he departed. If I go I go to prepare a place for you that where I am. There you may be also. Jesus promises us eternal life with him. He promises us a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

He promises to come back again To reign on earth and that we would reign with him for a thousand years until a new heaven and new earth is prepared for us the city of God. These promises belong to us and to our children forever.

God has spoken these things and to take him at his word. To believe the promise orients our entire life. Abraham left or of the Chaldees to go to the promised land and Yet in his waiting on the promise.

He wasn't seeing it with his eyes. Look at Genesis 15 verse 2 Abraham said Oh Lord God What will you give me? For I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus now that always strikes me as a little funny because I wonder if Eliezer was kind of within the hearing of Abraham like What am I chopped liver like?

Come on Abraham. It's a little insulting. This guy's gonna be my heir. Well, no, the promise was for a son a seed to come from Abraham. So in verse 3 Abram said behold You have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir and Behold the word of the Lord came to him.

This man Shall not be your heir your very own son Shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said look toward the heaven. Number the stars if you are able to number them, then he said to him so shall your offspring.

Be it's a promise. It's a promise that Abraham couldn't see. He left everything for that promise. Here's what you need to know about er of the Chaldees. Where Abraham was from it was for that time. Probably the most modern city in the world er of the Chaldees in the time of Abraham had writing.

Reading and writing to the point where most people living there were literate. They have discovered those cuneiform writings. Archaeologists have discovered that this was a very literate society beyond that er of the Chaldees had trigonometry.

Before the Pythagorean theorem was named by Pythagoras they had defined it in er of the Chaldees. This was an advanced place they had. It was a city with buildings and the opportunity for wealth and trade and industry.

For Abraham to leave er of the Chaldees as his father brought him out. Terah brought him out to Haran for him not to go back but to go on to the promised land. Meant making a break with this world to take God at his word.

He believed God and so look at verse 6. It is one of the most important verses in the Bible. Genesis 15 6 and He referring to Abraham believed the Lord and He God counted it to Abraham as Righteousness.

This verse forms the argument of Romans chapter 4 The just shall live by faith. Abraham was credited with righteousness from God. Not based on anything that Abraham did but based on faith. Abraham had never laid eyes.

Well, I'll take that back. I was gonna say he never laid eyes on Jesus. But I think he did see a pre-incarnate version an expression of Jesus appearing to him in Genesis 18, which we'll get to in a minute.

But Abraham didn't know the gospel. He didn't know that Christ would be crucified on a cross. Held up at Calvary for the sins of the world. He didn't know Jesus would rise from the dead and yet the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ the righteousness of Christ was credited to Abraham even ahead of time on the basis of faith.

Before Abraham offered Isaac or went to offer Isaac Obeying God and that great action that he did even before that he believed God. Genesis 15 verse 6 and it was counted to him as righteousness brothers and sisters.

The first thing you need to know about faith is faith alone justifies you before God. Your faith placed in Jesus Christ is the only ground of your salvation. If you came in here this morning thinking that you're a rather good person.

I Mean you look after the grandkids. You help your neighbor and you don't do anything terribly bad. You're trusting that maybe you're good enough that on the day you die you're gonna take your chances and you'll go before God to be judged if You stand before him with your works good bad and ugly.

You will be found guilty in his sight and cast off for all eternity. But if you stand before the father in a foreign alien righteousness a righteousness, that's not your own a Righteousness that was lived and won by Jesus Christ.

You will be declared righteous. The righteousness of Christ is imputed. It's given to those who have faith like Abraham Genesis 15 6 he believed God and that faith was credited accounted to him as righteousness.

There is no other way. Salvation is by grace through faith. It's what unites you with Christ and the righteousness of Christ is credited to your account just as Abraham experienced. It's a gospel. Romans chapter 4 Expounds on that secondly turn with me now to Hebrews 11 verse 9.

We left off in verse 8. As a matter of fact, it's the second part of verse 8 That I'd like to draw your attention to. From the first we learned that faith is taking God at his word. Believing his promises, but secondly it says and he went out not knowing Where he was going some of you Walk around your house not knowing where you're going.

I've wound up in the laundry room a couple times just like looking around. Trying to get a mental cue to remind myself why I came in this room. Then I see the paper towels up there and I'm remember. Oh, yeah, I came to get paper towels.

This isn't the case with Abraham. The issue here not knowing where he's going refers to a Progressive revelation where he's only been shown so much at a time. He was sent West Abraham go to the promised land where the Canaanites live.

He didn't know the boundaries. He didn't know the specifics of what would happen to him there. All he knew was that he was called to go. His friends thought he was crazy. You're leaving her to go where.

To where the Canaanites live? What will you do there? Why are you going? All he could say is God told me and So he went. He obeyed in faith. Now faith requires these steps of obedience into the unknown.

When you take those steps God is there. We who've walked with Christ for some time know that this is true. It's when you step out into the unknown because God has called you to something that you experience God more than in any other way.

When I went to the mission field as an inner-city missionary I began to see God in new ways and experience his power in ways that never would have happened if I stayed on my couch. We Just sent Jonathan Leonard down to Charlotte and when he gets back, he's gonna teach us how to go to the Cherry Hill Women's Center and plead with women not to murder their babies and To offer them life in Christ and hope in the gospel the crucified and risen Savior Offered to them and help in their lives.

We will adopt your baby. We Will help you in your life. We will do whatever is needed to come alongside you those of you who in faith go into that unknown place that terrifying place and in faith stand and plead for the sake of the Savior Jesus Christ and the rescue of these unborn babies you.

You will encounter Christ there in ways you will never experience him on your couch. We must step out in faith and not all of you will be called to go there. Others will step out as teachers in the youth ministry or the children's ministry.

We have a new men's Bible study starting tomorrow. Some of you guys should come to that. It might be scary to do that because it could get a little bit personal. Some some guy might pull you aside and just ask you.

How is your walk with God? How is your purity? Are you entangled in sin? But you need to step out in faith and go to a group like that. Because you'll encounter Christ there. Here's what I want to show you in the Old Testament go back to Genesis now Abraham when he stepped out in faith.

He encountered God. First of all, let's look at Genesis 14 verses 18 to 20. He makes it out to Canaan and he discovers that the Canaanites are vicious and wicked people. When the king of Sodom is the ally that you're rescuing, you know, things have gotten bad because we know what happens to that in Genesis 18 and 19, but Lot is living in Sodom and there are Opposing marauding bands of warriors that come through and wipe out the kings of the land and they take Lot captive and all of these kings and warriors are heading back to their land and there is little Abraham with his 300 men of his household and Eliezer of Damascus right by his side.

In faith, he rallies his men and he believes God for the victory and he tracks down those warriors and he fights through the night and he kills them and he rescues Lot and Coming back from that kind of faith filled victory.

Where he stepped out and put his own neck on the line. Risking his life for the sake of Lot and in the name of God who was his shield according to Genesis 15. I am your shield your reward. He believed he walked in faith.

And so what did he experience? Look at Genesis 14 verse 18 19 and 20. Melchizedek king of Salem Brought out bread and wine he was priest of God Most High and He blessed him and said blessed be Abram by God Most High possessor of heaven and earth and Blessed be God Most High who has delivered your enemies into your hand and Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

After stepping into the unknown Going where he did not know what would happen risking his life trusting in God. He came back and met a pre-incarnate Christ. This very well could have been Jesus himself.

It's possible. It was a picture of Christ a type of Christ or it's probably more likely that it was Christ himself Bringing out bread and wine picturing his broken body and spilled blood the priests from Salem from Jerusalem.

He is the king of righteousness. Melchizedek means king of righteousness. He's greater than Abraham for he blesses him. Abraham is less than him for he tithes up to him. But Abraham understood that he was in the presence of God and yet after this battle He continues on childless and now he's nearing a hundred years old.

A hundred years waiting on the promise to be fulfilled and yet it hasn't come true. Where is his son? All he has is Eliezer of Damascus so turn with me to Genesis 18. He continued to wait in the promised land continued to hope in God Believing the promise and so look how God rewards him.

This is fascinating Genesis 18 verses 1 2 and The Lord Appeared now before I read on what does it mean? From the Hebrew when you see the capital L capital O capital R capital D. That's the tetragrammaton the four letters.

It's YHWH. It is God's personal name. It is God Himself as he revealed himself in the burning bush to Moses. Who's who am I? I am who I am. That's what when we see Lord capitalized in the Old Testament, that's Yahweh Jehovah.

The Lord appeared to him. Did you catch that? The Lord appeared to Abraham By the oaks of Mamre and he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked and behold three men Were standing in front of him when he saw them.

He ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth now Abraham Welcomed them because they were strangers, but there's something more going on here. He recognized that he was in the presence of holiness.

He bowed himself to the ground. He recognized that these were no mere men. He was being visited by Yahweh and As the story unfolds we're told that two of the men Go on to Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy the city.

These two angels Go on to execute God's judgment, but look at verse 22 of the 18th chapter after two of them leave. There's still one man standing there. So the men turned from there and went towards Sodom but Abraham stood still before the Lord Yahweh.

The third one is more than an angel he's Yahweh and There was Abraham standing in the presence of the pre-incarnate Christ Jesus himself appeared to Abraham verse 23. Then Abraham drew near and said will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked.

He begins to intercede. He's speaking with God pleading That God would not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but as it turns out, there's not even ten righteous in the city. Although Abraham pled if there were even ten verse 32 and Yahweh says he would not destroy and then in verse 33 the Lord went his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham and Abraham returned to his place.

Now I find that fascinating. Abraham was visited by Jesus Christ. The Lord came to him. If he had remained in Ur of the Chaldees He would have had wealth. He would have prospered. He would have had greater things of this world.

Maybe they had carts and buggies big and nice houses silver and gold honey dripping from the comb. But Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees to believe the promise and going into the unknown. He met God Christians that is a trade-off will take all day long.

To leave behind the things of this earth to go into a place of unknown consequence. Knowing that when you step out in faith that way God will meet you there. He met Jesus face to face third out of four Hebrews 11.

Verse 9. Another thing about Hebrew about Abraham's faith. It says 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.

Another thing about faith is that it builds what looks like an only temporary structure. Tents he lived in tents. Tents are what you pop up for a campout. That's not where you live forever. But Abraham and Isaac and Jacob never had brick and mortar.

They lived in tents. They built temporary things That actually had eternal value. The tents they live in lived in represented something more. When Abraham went To the promised land there came a time where there was a famine and he had to go south where he entered into the Philistine territory led by a Bimelech and Abraham pretended that Sarah was not his wife.

Why did he do that? To spare his own neck. He thought if they see her beauty, they're gonna kill me and take her. But if she's just my sister then they'll give me gifts and care for me. See, this was sinful lack of faith on Abraham's part.

Here's what's so great about Hebrews chapter 11. It never mentions the sins of the Hall of Faith. It never mentions them because in Christ our sins are covered and forgiven and for all eternity. They will never be remembered.

Isn't that good news? That is wonderful news and Yet in the Old Testament, we still have record of these things for our example for our learning in that territory a Bimelech Began to give him gifts because God worked in a Bimelech's heart to rescue him to rescue Abraham.

And so they dwelt side by side and Abraham built a well right on the southern border of the current promised land. But before long a Bimelech's men and Abraham's men disputed over that well, they were trying to claim it for themselves.

So Abraham called a Bimelech and said listen we dug this well, this is ours and he took seven ewe lambs and Gave those lambs as a gift to a Bimelech and he planted a tamarisk tree There in Beersheba and what is the significance of all of this?

Well, it was a covenant of peace to say this well belongs to Israel. To Abraham and his descendants. It was a marker to indicate a peace treaty between the two that was belonging to Abraham as part of his inheritance and yet Abraham Isaac and Jacob after the patriarchs died their descendants were carried off to Egypt and The promised land for 400 years was overrun by Canaanites.

What he built there seemed Unlasting it seems so temporary and pointless and meaningless because it was just swallowed up by the Canaanites anyway. And there they were in slavery for 400 years in Egypt Until God parted the Red Sea and brought them back and through Joshua at the edge of the sword Conquered the promised land and gave them back their land until the Babylonians came and wrecked Judah and destroyed the land and Sent them into captivity and everything seemed meaningless again.

The Temporary structures didn't seem to last but he brought him back after 70 years in captivity, they came back into the promised land and they rebuilt the temple and regained the territory until in 70 AD the Romans came and wiped him out again and Scattered them to the ends of the earth and it seemed that all their building was for naught Meaningless lost to the wind.

Until in 1948 The promised land was given back to the Jews, but Beersheba was designated to the Arabs to the descendants of Abimelech and To the Egyptians. The line was drawn farther north and that tamarisk tree and those wells in Beersheba were now held in Arab hands and dishonoring the treaty made between Abimelech and Abraham.

The Arab people in that Philistine territory and the Egyptians and all the surrounding countries Gathered together at Beersheba to conquer Israel and there in 1948 Israel that tiny nation won a massive victory over all the surrounding powers that gathered against them because God is their shield and Beersheba was re-established as the southernmost point in Israel.

Israel runs from Beersheba to Dan. From south to north the promised land. Here's what I'm saying to you. The gift and call of God is irrevocable. What God has spoken is permanent. Although we experience it on a temporary basis in Canada Grace Life Church preaching the gospel built a glorious sanctuary seating 600 people and they gathered every Sunday morning and Just like that the government came in and seized it from them and to this day.

It's behind fences in the 1990s. Faithful men and women built this building by their tithes and offerings. In a day the government could come and snatch it away and all the brick and mortar the tent in which we currently gather could be taken from us and Certainly in the tribulation after the rapture.

This will not be a house of worship. It will be owned by pagans again, and you've sown into your family. You've preached the gospel to your nephew. Maybe your own children and you wonder where has that seed gone has it been scattered to the wind?

And sometimes it feels like the church is losing even though Christ said I will build my church and the gates of hell will not Prevail against it. What we learn from Abraham is that what God has made permanent though.