Abram's Adamic Failure

Abram’s Faith Tested by Famine, War, and the Promise of a Seed

Well, this morning we look to begin chapter 16, and we'll look at the first eight verses of chapter 16, and then next week we'll go into a little more detail as we round out chapter 16. And then we'll resume in chapter 17 a little bit more of our time considering the covenant structure of the Bible.

Chapter 17 is very important, and we'll consider how Hagar and Ishmael fit into chapter 17, and how the New Testament understands these things. And so, this chapter is very important. It will be very important as we move into chapter 17 and consider once more covenant theology.

And so I hope that this will be helpful for us as we understand it's difficult at times perhaps to grasp some of the concepts and the language of covenantal theology, and yet to put the time in, to take the time to do it, will help you to understand the flow of Scripture, and soon you'll be able to give a summary of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in a matter of minutes just by understanding that framework of the covenant.

Now as we head into chapter 16, we want to keep in mind the larger context. In fact, we want to keep in mind the whole story of Abram. In Genesis 12, God called Abram by sheer, sovereign, unconditional grace, and He gave him unconditional promises.

He would make him a great nation. He would bless him. He would make his name great. Bless those who blessed him. Curse those who cursed him. That through him, all of the families of the earth would be blessed.

And that his seed, his descendants, would inherit the land. Then as we see a pattern emerge, after Abram received such blessing, received such strength from the Lord, his faith is tested. And it was tested, not even by the end of chapter 12, when a famine came into the land and Abram descended into Egypt.

And he doesn't come through that encounter to Egypt very well. This is the first test of his faith, and he completely failed. The promises of the covenant, he completely failed. Protecting his wife, he completely failed.

Threatening what God had called him to be and do, he completely failed. All through unbelief, Abram endangered the purpose and plan of God, and so God had to come in and rescue Abram and rescue Sarai and rescue Lot and bring them back into the land of Canaan where Abram was restored repentantly to worship and call upon the name of the Lord at the altar.

And then we see, not surprisingly, his faith strong again. His resolve and his devotion strong in Genesis chapter 13. Abram demonstrates his renewed faith. And he also shows this humility that has come through the experience of failure.

We haven't quite seen the meekness and the humility of Abram in the narrative until this failure has come along. We see it in the way he settles the dispute between the herdsmen of Lot and his own herdsmen.

We see his humility in the way he offers his young nephew the best of the land all around him as far as he can see. We see not only his humility, but his faith. He's trusting in the Lord to provide for him in the midst of a famine, in the midst of the land that is promised to him.

He is trusting in God. And then that faith continues in chapter 14. His faith is perhaps as vibrant as ever. Though there's a world war raging all around the land, five armies against four armies, and they're ravaging the whole domain, Abram is willing to raise up a little force of 318 men, plus some other forces from his neighbors, and do a night raid against the successful army.

Of Keterleomer.

And so he wages this war and he rescues Lot. Such was his trust in the Lord. He knew what God had promised him and he knew that God would grant him the victory. That much Melchizedek, the priest king, the righteous king of peace, had promised him.

The Lord God most high has given victory into your hand. God Himself said, Abram, I am your shield. And so his faith was shown not only in the assault, but also in his refusal to take that serpent-like offer from the king of Sodom.

He wouldn't be stained with the worldliness that would keep him in the same predicament he found his nephew in. And now we come to chapter 15, which we considered over the past two weeks. And we see that though God has promised to be His shield.

And make His reward very great,.

We see the discouragement shining through in the midst of that faith and that trust. He signals to the Lord, the only reward I want is what You originally promised. It's what me and my wife have been waiting for all of these years, all of these decades in our marriage.

We want a child. We have a household, but we want a child. We want one of our own.

Lord, what's my reward?

Who is my heir? You promised. You promised that You'd give me children. You promised that You'd give me a seed. You promised that You'd build me a house. You promised me descendants in this land. So what is my reward?

What will You give me? Seeing as I go childless. And that's when the Lord gave His great promise. Come out, look at the night sky. Remember who I am, the maker of the heavens and the earth. In the depths of the earth, to use the language of Psalm 139, I knit together children, Abram.

Just like I knit together the canopy above you, the starry cosmos and all of its wonder.

I alone do these things, Abram.

Now that should have been enough, but it wasn't. Abram stretches a little bit further. How will I know? How will I know? And that's what we considered last week. God establishes a covenant with Abram.

An unconditional, unilateral covenant with Abram. And in the most striking way possible, God shows him just how committed he is to bless Abram and to bless the entire world through Abram. He has Abram cut the pieces of the animals, these clean, sacrificial animals, and make a corridor, as we considered.

And Abram, I'm sure, as he was waiting.

Throughout this whole day,.

Chasing off the birds that were coming to consume these animals and their carcasses, he must have been swallowing hard, his heart pounding. How can I walk through these pieces and be liable to a curse?

How can I stand before a holy God who I've already filled? He knows how wavering my faith and my doubt is. I'm not strong enough. I can't pass through this.

How could it be?

And he watches as Yahweh himself passes through these parts. We talked about the significance of that last week. And then we have no indication of the time. Weeks roll by, months roll by, perhaps years roll by.

And then we come to our plot this morning, beginning in verse one. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maid servant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, see now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children.

Please, go into my maid. Perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. Then Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband, Abram,.

To be his wife.

After Abram had dwelt 10 years in the land of Canaan, so he went into Hagar and she conceived. What a contrast to the last chapter. Derek Kidner says, and I think he's right, this chapter marks another stage in eliminating every means but miracle toward the promised birth, you see?

Exhausting every avenue that this could possibly come about unless it's done miraculously by God. And so this is part of the story. There's no other way unless God does it. God must proverbially make a child out of the dead, out of the dead womb of Abram's barren wife.

And what a contrast to the victories and the hilltops and the heights of success and faith and assurance and promise that we saw in the last chapter. What has happened? How the mighty have fallen, we want to say.

The seeming distance of God's promise.

Has fallen out of view.

It's made it fall out of view. And that the present reality of continued infertility and advancing age, every year is another year older for Sarai another year toward menopause if she's not there almost already.

All those seeds of faith that God had planted at every step when they came to the altar, when His faith was renewed, now these seeds of faith are becoming seeds of doubt. The morning must have been, Sarai, you know it's 10 years, it's been 10 years since we've been in Canaan, 10 years.

Some of you have been walking with the Lord for about that time. Thank God some of you have been walking with Him even longer, some of you not even so much. For those of you in that sort of general 10 year mark of walking with the Lord, how much time and how many things, how many seasons, how many circumstances have changed in the decade you've been walking with the Lord?

Take a moment to consider that. From the time He first called you, when you first felt His presence, His authority, the truth of His Word, the power of His salvation, the power, the cleansing power in the blood, how much has changed in your life?

How many trials have come and gone? How many circumstances have rolled, shocked, surprised, maybe challenged you? How many people have betrayed you? How many friends have come and gone? How many people have fallen away?

A lot happens in a decade, a lot happens in a decade. Abram was 75 years old when he entered Canaan. Sarai was 65. Perhaps initially, they thought Lot was going to be the heir but now he's chasing after Sodom and even if it was tongue in cheek, in chapter 15, Abram says, there's a Eleazar of Damascus.

This is the heir. This is the only heir I have. One born in my house. But then God clarified His promise. No, this one shall not be your heir. One born from your own body will be your heir. But now they're a decade deep in Canaan and there's no answer in sight.

And all of the pain and all of the time, the patience that becomes irritating, discouraging, hope, exhausting, is all captured in verse one. Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. What a banner statement to chapter 16.

They've been clinging to that promise ever since chapter 15. Every hour, every day, every morning. If there was the equivalent of the 99 cent purple dye test, they would have had a pallet of them outside of their tent.

Could it have been this month? Could it be this month? Maybe next month, Sarai.

Let's not lose heart.

God has promised. Maybe another month, Sarai. I know you're getting older. I know you're going through those hot flashes. It's been tough in the tent for me, too. But let's not lose our faith. God has promised.

Finally, their hope has dwindled to the point where Sarai herself begins to lose heart and she begins to scheme. Clearly, God is not in this. Clearly, God has not given me a child. It must be that though you're meant to be the father and from your body, your seed will come, Abram, but it won't be through me.

And so we read, she had an Egyptian maid servant whose name was Hagar. Now, how did a couple from Ur of the Chaldeans obtain an Egyptian maid? The probability seems very high that it was a gift from Pharaoh to Abram.

A very polite, please get out of my kingdom gift. Seeing as you cursed my household for the time you have been here. We read at the very beginning, in the midst of Abram's deceit, therefore he treated Abram well for Sarai's sake and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants.

So perhaps Hagar was one of these gifts initially or perhaps it was as he was leaving. It seems that Hagar was the consequence of Abram's failure in faith in chapter 12. Now that in itself is instructive to us, right?

Here's a consequence of Abram's sin in chapter 12. And notice that it's just been patiently waiting for all of these chapters for this entire decade it's been hovering there. The consequences of sin are inevitable one way or another.

God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. This is what Scripture teaches. And so Sarai could not possibly have schemed in this way if Abram did not decide to descend into Egypt in his doubt and in his deceitfulness.

Now the terminology used here of Hagar's status is in relation to Sarai, not in relation to Abram. Abram of course would have been the head of the house. He would have been the head of the home and in that sense he would have been head over all that was in the home, including the male and the female servants.

But here the relationship between Hagar and Sarai is emphasized. She was the right hand woman to Sarai. She was very close. She was the mistress, not just one of the other female servants, but right next to her.

The one that would be on her side at every situation.

It was a privileged position.

Almost a personal assistant. She would have had authority over the other female servants and perhaps even the other male servants. She was exalted in this status. And the Hebrew makes that clear. Different terms used for her status compared to other servants.

And so Sarai trusts her.

She trusts Hagar.

Hagar doesn't really have a say in this. This is part of the injustice of this fallen situation. Sarai says to Abram, see now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Now it's amazing to me how from that confession she'll go on to propose what she proposes.

Notice the confession here. See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. That's good theology. Where did she pick that up? In Egypt. When God closed all the wombs in the harem. And Pharaoh could produce no children.

And there they learned that Yahweh controls the doors of the womb. He decides what children come and when they come. So Sarai has the right confession. She does understand and she even confesses. Abram, we both know.

God is able to restrain and to bless. He's able to give and to take away. God himself has restrained me from bearing children. She recognizes that the maker of heaven and earth is the maker of all life.

But notice, even though she's confessing the sovereignty of God over her womb, she's acting against that belief. She's acting against that belief. She has a right confession but her actions speak against it.

And it makes me wonder, where do I have the right confession? God is sovereign but my actions totally speak against that. Anytime I grumble at some incontrollable providence in my life, I am doubting the confession that I make.

God is sovereign. I can't believe, why could this be happening? This makes no sense. She has a right confession. But in her actions, she denies it. She's claiming that God is sovereign but she's not acting that way.

She's not living that way as she's proposing for Abram to do this heinous thing.

She's doubting God.

She's taking matters into her own hands entirely. Please, go into my maid. Now here's the doubt. Perhaps I'll obtain a child by her. She doesn't even know if this will work. Perhaps. She moves from the utter confidence in the sovereignty of God to perhaps this is what we're to do.

I have no idea. Any thoughts? Maybe this will work, maybe it won't. Right confession lived out, applied, completely wrong. Now, at the time, this was not utterly unique. This was something that was customary.

Doesn't mean it's right, moral, or good. It just means that in a fallen world, in fallen situations, these kinds of things occurred in the ancient Near Eastern cultures. We have examples of this. The late Ephraim Spicers, a great scholar of Genesis, he cited several examples.

Just to give you a few, we have marriage contracts from a certain tribe, late Bronze Age tribe, called the Nuzi. And according to the contract, if the wife bears children, the husband may not take a second wife.

I love monogamy in the ancient Near East.

Beautiful.

But notice, if she fails to do so, the wife must procure for the husband a servant woman as her surrogate. If children result from this union, they will legally be the children of the childless wife. So this is a different culture in a different time period, but it seems to be parallel.

There's a surrogacy here. A servant can be the surrogate mother, and legally, in terms of the culture's definition, the offspring of that union would be the wives, the childless wives. Another law, more familiar perhaps than the Nuzi, is the Code of Hammurabi.

Same case, slave woman as a surrogate wife bears children, and then it's dealing with the repercussions of that. If this servant woman aspires to have an equal status with the barren wife, or is even accused of doing so, she can be branded with the mark of a slave, so now she's reduced in her status, but she cannot be excluded from the household.

She cannot be sent away.

She cannot be dismissed.

So there's a way of maintaining that hierarchy. And this is what Hagar's up against. She has to walk this fine line of being the most trusted, the most exalted servant, Sarai's right-hand woman, but if she can even be accused, potentially, of seeking to be equated with Sarai, then she can be reduced, and apparently, even sent away, as we'll see in chapter 21.

Think of the apparent reality, not just of Hagar, who we'll talk about later, but Sarai. Sarai felt personally responsible for the absence of the son. God had promised Abram offspring, and as far as Sarai's concerned, that's all on her.

She's the failure here.

She's the shameful woman. She's the obstacle to God's blessing on Abram. Since she has not given birth to a child, and since she's advancing in age, she takes that responsibility, that burden, that reproach, that shame.

She has to find a way to somehow be fruitful for Abram, to produce for Abram what a wife is meant to produce, especially in the eyes of the ancient Near Eastern culture, where a woman's value, socially, was constructed in part upon this.

In every culture at this time, barrenness was seen as a reproach. To have a son was to have a lineage, a dynasty, a house. That's why the rulers and the shakers of the earth had harems, that they could have many sons in a mighty dynasty.

Well, here's this promise to Abram. His children are going to bless every family in the earth. He's going to have a dynasty that will last. From it, kings and queens will come, and she can't even produce a child.

To be childless was this mark of reproach, and it must have, every day, caused anguish in her relationship to the Lord God. To me, I can only think, no wonder Sarai could start scheming and manipulating in this way.

She must have already been so distant from God, so distant from God. 1 Samuel 1, we have an example of this with Hannah. There was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim of the mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroboam, sorry, Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuth and Ephraimite, and he had two wives.

The name of one was Hannah, the name of the other, Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. This man went up from his city yearly to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh.

Also, the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And whenever the time came for Elkanah to make an offering, he would give portions to Peninnah, his wife, and to all her sons and daughters, but to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah.

Although the Lord had closed her womb, again, sovereign recognition, the Lord has closed Hannah's womb. And her rival, this is very interesting for Genesis 16, her rival, that is Peninnah, also provoked her severely to make her miserable.

Do you see this rivalry? Hannah, the childless one, has this mark of reproach, but Elkanah gives her a double portion,.

Shows his favor toward her.

So there's this rivalry now. Peninnah doesn't like the fact that this childless woman is getting more honor and more favor from her husband. And so she provokes her, makes her life miserable, must always flaunt her children.

Oh, sorry, I'll need to take him back now, time to nurse him. And so it was year by year when she went up to the house of the Lord that she provoked her, and therefore Hannah wept and did not eat.

The reproach, the misery,.

This is what Sarai's dealing with day by day. Her inability to have children was not just a social stigma, a social reproach, it must have impacted her understanding of who God was and how God regarded her.

If society regards me in this way, how does the Lord God regard me? If God has promised my husband all of this abundance and fruitfulness,.

He said it, your reward will be very great.

And my husband said, how will I know? Show me, oh, you're going to have children from your body. How excited Abram must have been when he rushed home.

And picked up Sarah and hugged her tight.

And swung her around.

He's gonna do it now, he's gonna do it. But now the weeks have rolled by and every month is a failure, is another failure, is another failure. No wonder she's so distant from the Lord. The flower is fading, the time is running out,.

She has to do something.

Every day is a humiliating day. And it seemed to her like the promise was actually depending on her. You know, sometimes in the Christian life it seems that way, doesn't it? It seems as though God's promise is actually depending on us.

If I just clean up my act, if I can just get my life together, how many times would that cycle have exhausted poor Sarah? I'll watch my mouth more, I'll be kinder to my servants, I'll do more on the home, I'll protect my thought life, I'll be careful not to gossip, I'm guarding my heart against envy and discontentment, I know how irritable I can be.

Maybe then, once I get these things in place, God will bring me a pregnancy and I'll be able to finally be what I've always wanted to be to Abram. Abram's name means father of many. What kind of cruel mockery is that?

Father of many, exalted father. When he introduced himself to Mamre or his other neighbors, what's your name? Abram.

Oh, how wonderful, exalted father.

Father of many, that's wonderful.

How many children do you have?

None.

I remember when Alicia and I were under the impression that we were barren and going to some of those family conferences and of course, everyone around you can't blame them, they're excited, they're thankful to the Lord for the gift of children, it's a blessing.

Excited to be in a position to disciple them, to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, to nurture them, so that all excitingly,.

They wanna share, how old are your children?

How's it going?

Are you gonna homeschool?

What's that gonna look like?

Are you nervous?

Let me tell you some advice. Inevitably, the wallet flips open with the 18 children and we're just there like, we watch kids' cartoon movies and we don't even have kids. We want them so bad. And it's an easy thing to get into a complex over it.

The promise is resting on me and it's my failure,.

That's what's holding it up.

And so, when she goes to Abram, surely he saw all of this pent up anguish, humiliation, this feeling of being an utter failure, this feeling of being cursed of God. Your life, your whole life and your whole future, Abram, would be better if you had never married me.

The servants in our home, they all have families and I, what am I to you but a roadblock, a failure? Surely Abram's heart was so tender, just like Elkanah's heart was tender to Hannah. Maybe this is how God will do it and Abram could have reasoned, that's true.

Maybe, Sarah, maybe, because he did say my body. He didn't say yours. Perhaps you're right when you say perhaps. We will obtain children by her. And so we read the statement, Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.

That is not the response we wanted to hear. That's not the response we wanted to hear. We wanted to hear, please go into my maid, Hagar, perhaps we will obtain children by her.

No, Sarai, no.

Don't you remember what God had said? We've been calling upon the name of the Lord, don't you know His promise is sure? Yes, it's been hard. I know that for you it's been harder,.

But we have to be patient, we cannot lose faith.

Has God ever failed?

Don't you remember the mighty things He's done already? Do you remember how He called us out of her and look at all He's done in this whole decade?

I know it's been hard, but don't forget the victory.

And the hope and the surety.

Do you remember His glory.

When He passed through the animal parts?

I can't, I can't forget that, Sarah, I won't. I will not do this thing.

What does he say?

He just nods. He goes in, he goes to Egypt again, he doubts. Abram heeded the voice of Sarai, and Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, and gave to her husband, Abram, to be his wife. Boy, that language sounds very familiar, doesn't it?

And she took and she gave, you almost heard it say, and he ate of it, and doesn't that sound familiar? It's very purposeful. There's echoes in these verses, the echoes of Adam and Eve, and the great temptation of Eve when she was deceived by the serpent and she offered the fruit that God had forbidden to her husband, and he ate.

She gave, he took, and he ate of it. Sarai would not wait for the Lord to fulfill His promise of offspring, and so she invents a way. Perhaps this is the way. It's easier for me to invent and to have some sense of control, some sense of maybe this will work, than it is to depend.

It's easier for me to manipulate than have faith. It's easier to do something than to wait. And Abram literally paid heed to the voice of Sarai. It's the same construction in Hebrew. The same exact construction.

When God rebukes Adam in the garden, and He says, because you paid heed to the voice of your wife, and you ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. It's the same dynamic here.

Notice that there's this theme then of this fallen relationship and the spread of the fall, and Adam is in every single one of us. Adam is in every lazy, passive husband, easily manipulated by trying to keep the peace in the lowest common denominator in the home.

Eve is in every woman, seeking to lead and take charge and usurp the leadership and the wisdom of her husband. We see this fallen dysfunction in the marriage of Abram and Sarai. And notice the parallel, it goes so deep.

Remember we talked about the suzerains and the vassals. The suzerain being the great king and the vassal being the lesser king. Sometimes the vice-regent, the co-ruler. And so in some ways, when they abandoned the Torah, the law of God in Genesis 3, they were receiving the Torah of the serpent, the law or the instruction of the serpent.

In that way, the serpent became, as it were, the suzerain over them. But also, it goes a step deeper. In some ways, the Genesis narrative in Genesis 3 is saying Adam somehow became a vassal to Eve because he heeded, he obeyed her instruction.

He listened to her. And so the parallel is very significant. Just notice a few of these things. In Genesis 2 and 3, Yahweh commanded regarding fruit. He gave a command regarding fruit. In Genesis 15, Yahweh promised fruit.

So there's a command about fruit, there's a promise about fruit. In the fall, Genesis 3, Adam pays heed to his wife. In Genesis 16, Abram pays heed to his wife. In Genesis 2, Adam set aside God's command because he accepted his wife's instruction and he took fruit.

In Genesis 16, Abram sets aside Yahweh's promise when he accepts his wife's instruction and therefore he produces the wrong fruit. See, all of these parallels are swarming within the text. Fruit here is a double entendre, double meaning.

In each case, whether it's Adam or Abram, the husband heeded the instruction, the Torah of the wife and not the instruction or promise of God. And in each case, this led to a disastrous result. So sin begins with a failure to believe God, to pay heed to what God has said, whether as a command or as a promise.

All sin begins with this attitude of unbelief. And that's why we can say that this failure of Abram is an Adamic failure. It's an Adam-like failure. He's gone from being the great hope in Genesis 15 to being another line of fallen Adams.

He passively, like Adam, receives what his wife brings to him. He does not question it, he just partakes of it. He does not rebuke her. He does not remind her of the promise of God, of the Word of God.

He simply receives what she brings to him. He becomes completely passive and complacent. Instead of doing what Adam was meant to do, protecting, guarding, leading, striking and chasing out that serpent so that it would not deceive the woman that he loves, he capitulates.

He allows Sarai, in her disillusionment and despair, to be deceived, to be further troubled. And he welcomes corruption and brokenness into his home, just like Adam welcomes corruption and brokenness into the world.

Now let me say this as a caveat. It's not always wrong to listen to your wife. In fact, you're a foolish man if you don't. God Himself, in a few chapters, will tell Abram, pay heed to your wife. So it's not just that whatever the wife says, the husband's to resist.

It's rather, whenever the wife says something that's apart from the will of the Lord. That's when the husband is called to resist, to lead, to wash his wife with the water of the Word. So it's not always wrong to listen to your wife.

A foolish husband will refuse the wisdom and discernment of the wife that God has given him. Often, God leads a husband through the wisdom and the wise, seasoned words of his wife. The problem is when the husband abdicates spiritual leadership, abdicates spiritual responsibility.

And that's just what is so disgusting and horrific about passivity. By being completely passive, Abram feels unresponsible as he literally takes corruption and dysfunction into his home. And as he puts a plague next to his lineage forever.

And he feels like, well, it wasn't my decision. She brought Hagar, Lord. She gave me the fruit.

It was her really, it was you, you gave me her.

Passivity in a husband is the gateway to dysfunction. And this is a test for both Abram and Sarah. I won't rehearse everything on the passivity of husbands because we spent a lot of time on that in Genesis 3 when we looked at the failure of Adam.

The point is this, this is a test of faith. We've seen many such tests of faith throughout these chapters so far. And of course now, after God has established this covenant in an unconditional, unilateral way in Genesis 15, which should have been so obvious to Abram and Sarah, they need to look through their apparent reality, their present despair, what seems to be so distant and forgotten, they need to actually exercise faith in the midst of that.

And trust that what God has promised to do by Himself, He will do by Himself. Notice also, before we move on, that there's no confession, there's no repentance, there's no seeking counsel from the Lord, there's no erecting an altar, there's no calling upon the name of the Lord.

It's just a completely fleshly scheme that Abram totally capitulates to. He might have thought that he was being pious when he was being passive. So how did we get from chapter 15 to this? We're looking at it all condensed nice and neat on a page and we're forgetting what it's like to actually live out week by week this life of faith.

And that's why I asked you at the beginning, just think back of what a 10 year stretch has been for you in your life, in your walk, and that's with you coming to church regularly and opening up the word and having brothers and sisters surrounding you and pointing you to the Lord week by week.