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Passing the Baton - Genesis 24

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Abraham was the recipient of God's promises and blessing for many years. Now it's time to make sure that his son Isaac will also make his mark and inherit the promises of God. Abraham wants to pass the mantle of patriarch and the baton of blessing to his son by ensuring he marries the right person and continues the family line so that "all the nations of the earth will be blessed," as God had promised. What are the key principles for such an endeavor?

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12/7/2003
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Passing the Baton
Genesis 24
Skip Heitzig
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Abraham was the recipient of God's promises and blessing for many years. Now it's time to make sure that his son Isaac will also make his mark and inherit the promises of God. Abraham wants to pass the mantle of patriarch and the baton of blessing to his son by ensuring he marries the right person and continues the family line so that "all the nations of the earth will be blessed," as God had promised. What are the key principles for such an endeavor?
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Making Your Mark

Making Your Mark

Are you satisfied with just getting through life or do you want to make a difference? God calls each of us to play an important role during our lifetime, but we often forget to seek His will. Join Pastor Skip Heitzig as he looks at the life of Abraham in this two-volume series. Abraham had both ups and downs when it came to his spiritual journey, but he made a lasting mark deep within the fabric of three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. You may find striking parallels between Abraham's life and your own experiences. Learn how to leave a lasting impression on your world as you study the life of this great father of faith. Don't just live--make a mark with your life!

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If you turn in your Bibles to Genesis 24, a message I've entitled "Passing the Baton". How important is it to consider the next generation? That includes your children, your grandchildren. Does age give us the right to turn inward and think only of ourselves and hold on to our resources selfishly rather than dispersing them for the next.

I read a story about a Scottish farmer named Fleming. He was a poor man, hardworking man, who worked to eak out a living for his poor family. As he was working one day, this farmer heard cries of a child in a nearby ditch. The farmer dropped his tools, ran over, and there in a bog up to his waist in mud was this child going deeper and deeper. The farmer pulled that kid out and saved him from a slow and agonizing death. Took him home, cleaned him up, they didn't know who he was, they kept him overnight. The next day a fancy carriage pulled up in front of the shack owned by the farmer and out stepped a well-dressed nobleman, who thanked the farmer for taking care of his son and offered to pay this farmer some money for saving him. The farmer said, "I can't take any money for doing that, that's what anybody would do." Just then the farmer's son poked his head out of the door of the hovel. And the nobleman seeing the son said, "Is that your boy?" The farmer said proudly, "Yes he is." And the nobleman started again, "I'll make you a deal, I'll take him and I'll give him the best education. If he's anything like his father he's going to grow up to be somebody you can be proud of." And that's exactly what happened, that young boy graduated later on from St. Mary's Medical College in London and became Sir Alexander Fleming who became known as the one who invented penicillin. Now some years went by and that nobleman's son had a dread disease. Do you know what saved him? Penicillin. That nobleman by the way was Lord Randolph Churchill and that nobleman's son was Sir Winston Churchill. Interesting how those two boys' journeys met and met again. Here's the point of that: What's fathers do with their sons will impact the world. Every generation is a product of the previous. Now here in our study Abraham is a true father to his son Isaac. He gets involved in his son's future, in his son's marriage. Now we're about to read a very ancient and what sounds to our ears very odd dating procedure. But we're going to sort of touch on that and at the same time bypass that to get into what I think is really the crux here. And the crux is Abraham is passing the baton of leadership and success as patriarch of the family to his son Isaac. And you could think of this on a number of levels I suppose. You could think in terms of your own business, somebody moving up in the office who's going to take your place, move up a notch. You could think of it in terms of a church, bringing in new leadership on any level. You could think of it and especially I hope you will in terms of your own family. What are you doing with your own family? Solomon said children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. So what are we doing with this wonderful heritage, this fruit that God has given to us? Of all of life's occupations, parenting is the most important. Listen to the wise words of Socrates to the men of his generation. He said to them, "Why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth and take so little care of the children to whom one day you must relinquish all. Well, it's a long chapter. If you look to the very end you see 67 verses. We're not going to read them all for obvious reasons. But we're going to read enough of them to find four principles, principles that were in Abraham's thinking that he used in passing this baton of leadership, of patriarch onto his son Isaac. And the first is the principle of selflessness. Selflessness. Look at the first four verses with me. "Now Abraham was old, well advanced in age and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. So Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house, who ruled over all that he had, "Please put your hand under my thigh (It's an ancient custom) and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but you shall go to my country and to my family and take a wife for my son Isaac." Notice the first verse, I want you to just look at the description of Abraham once again. I find it fascinating. It says, "Abraham was old," meaning there's not much time left. It continues, "he was well advanced in age," meaning he doesn't have much energy left. We don't know old he exactly was but scholars will pin it down from between age 137 to 175. Now his son Isaac is about forty years old and he's still single. I know that's going to encourage some of you. And so he's thinking, "I've got to help my son out here." And look also in verse 1, the description continues that the Lord had blessed him in all things. Now if you want a description of your life when you are old and advanced in years, wouldn't you like that to be said of you? "The Lord blessed you in all things. And I don't think this is just referring to financial blessings. This man Abraham has a legacy of faith, he has walked with God for so many many years. Now, here's a guy old and blessed. He's come to a point in his life where a lot of people frankly would turn inward. They got it made, they're blessed, they just want to sit where they're at, enjoy the status quo, enjoy the blessing, period. And Abraham could have been tempted to do that. He could have thought, "I'm just going to tell stories now that I am old, play golf out here at all the golf courses in Canaan and just soak it up." But rather than turning inward to himself, he turns outward toward his son, because he wants to make sure that his son is well taken care of by having a wife. Now we'll get to that a little bit more in just a moment.

I heard about a man who was sentenced for a crime. He committed it, he was sentenced to the penitentiary, he was a young man, he stood before a judge who knew this young man since he was just a little kid. In fact, the judge knew that young man's father, he knew him well because the young man's father was a legal scholar and wrote a famous legal work known as The Law of Trusts. He was well known but he was a busy guy. And the judge, before he sentenced him said, "Young man, you remember your father do you not?" "Oh, I remember him well, sir." And the judge said because he wanted to just lay this heavy thing on this young man before he sentenced him, he said, "Before I read your sentence, I want you just to think about your wonderful dad and let me ask you son, of all of the memories of that past relationship, what stands out more clearly than anything else? There was a pause in the courtroom and the young man said, "I remember going to Dad for advice. He looked up from what he was writing and he said, 'Run along, boy, I'm busy.' When I went for companionship, he turned me away and he said, 'Run along, son, this book must be finished.' Your honor, you remember him as a great lawyer, I remember him as a lost friend." And that judge looked at that boy and he muttered under his breath, 'Alas, finished the book, lost boy.'

Abraham wanted to make sure in his old advanced age that that boy was not lost, that he was taken care of. Hence this command. Now here's a principle I want to bring up from this: Leadership must include a selfless sharing of resources so the next generation can succeed. Once again, leadership must include a selfless sharing of resources so that the next generation can succeed. And let's bring it closer to home for us dads, Fathers we are responsible, you can try to pass it off to Sunday School teachers, pastors, and moms; but in the Bible as I see it fathers are responsible for the overall direction. Not just provision but direction of their child's future. Overcommitted men listen, or husbands and fathers who are entertaining the possibility of bailing from your marriage and responsibilities, listen to what Jim Dobson writes. "The western world stands at a great crossroads in its history. It is my opinion that our very survival as a people will depend on the presence or the absence of masculine leadership in the home." And when that masculine leadership is like this, selfless, it's a bright future. And it was for Isaac. So that's principle number one, the principle of selflessness.

Let's look at a second and we'll pick it up in verse 3, this is the principle of separation. Verse 3, he says, "'I'll make you swear by the Lord the God of heaven and the God of the earth, you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughter of the Canaanites among whom I dwell. But you'll go to my country, to my family, take a wife for my son Isaac.' And the servant said to him, 'Perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me into this land, (well that would be a real problem) must I take your son back to the land from which you came?' But Abraham said to him, 'Beware that you do not take my son back there.' (That's a solemn oath). The Lord God of heaven who took me out of my father's house and from the land of my family and who spoke to me and swore to me saying, 'To your descendants I will give this land, he will send his angel before you and you shall take a wife for my son from there. And if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be released from this oath. Only do not take my son back there, so the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter." Now you can readily see that Abraham had these non-negotiable convictions about how this process was going to go forth. Conviction number one, it can't be a Canaanite woman. Number two, you can't leave him back there or you can't take him back to Mesopotamia unless he decides 'Oh I just want a summer home here.' No, no, there has to be this separation, you have to have the right person and it has to be in the right place. Canaanite women, they're a bunch of pagans, I don't want that for my son," that's in his thinking. Mesopotamia isn't the promised land, God brought me from there to here, so he's got to stay in this land. So here's the plan: You go, you fetch the gal, God will give you favor and you bring her back. Abraham was operating under the principle I want you to consider, it's the principle of separation, he lived a separated life Abraham did. He left paganism in Mesopotamia and he came to this land and became devoted over time, completely to the Lord God. And Abraham, Dad, knew, "For Isaac my son to make his mark like I have made my mark, this boy has to also remain separated to God." That's the secret of his life is separation. Parents, do your best to see that your kids are saved and separated. It's just a word for holy, walking with God, influence them, that they're saved and separated.

I love what Charles Spurgend used to say, he put it in a little poem, you've heard me say it before, "Before a child reaches seven teach him all the way to Heaven. And better yet the work will thrive if he learns before he's five". This guy is forty, but that has been a long process of principles that have been fostered by father Abraham. Billy Sunday, you've probably heard about him, he's a great evangelist from last century, I have a book signed by him, it's a prized possession, but he said something striking. He said the great tragedy of my ministry is that I have lead thousands of people to Christ but my own sons are not saved. Abraham spent a life with Isaac, nurturing him, developing him, training him, and this is simply an extension of that belief system of separation. Ok, let's just talk about some, let's just sort of segway for a moment to the marriage of Isaac and his soon to be wife Rebecca. There is a principle that anybody considering marriage ought to follow, if you're a believer. It's the 2nd Corinthians 6 principle. You know what it is. Do not be unequally yoked together with an unbeliever. And that as you know probably is an illustration from farming where a farmer would take two animals, yoke them together at the neck to pull a plow to do work around the farm. Well a wise farmer is going to take two animals of the same size, strength, and temperament. Not an unclean and a clean animal, not an ox not a donkey and put them together, but he wants them same, relatively, so that that go in the same direction and not pull apart. And that's the same way in a relationship. Evan though what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians primarily doesn't have to do with marriage it's a good principle. In fact one of the translations of 2 Corinthians 6 puts it this way: Stop forming intimate and inconsistent relationships with unbelievers. Listen to this statistic, a survey of Christian teenagers reviled that forty percent of them said that they would date a non-Christian. And another twenty-five percent said they might. Well, if they might and they will, they just might and will marry them someday. And I've heard it, well there's no good looking guys at church. Or, there's no chicks, that's an old term, there's no gals to date at church. And so they go looking out in the world and maybe something overcomes them and they get married and then they discover after a while instead of going into same direction it's like we're trying to pull a plow and go in the opposite direction. We're pulling away from each other. That's why Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 7:19 "That we should marry only in the Lord". Oh, but we have so much in common, we both love jazz. What! You should have more in common than jazz. A spiritual walk and if you are in a dating process follow the folksy wisdom of Mark Twain who said "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterwards." especially if you're in a relationship like this.

Third principle, let's move on, it's the principle of supplication. The principle of supplication, that's just the fancy word of saying pray. There is a lot of prayer in this passage, we're not going to read as I've said every verse, but you can imagine this is a long trip it's four hundred fifty miles from where Abraham was with his servant to go to Mesopotamia and another four hundred fifty miles back, that's a long, laborious trip, especially on a camel. Which is how they got there, but they probably began everyday with pray. I say probably, I don't know for sure but there is a lot of prayer in the passage and I want you to scoot down to verse 10. The servant took ten of his masters camels and departed for all his master's goods were in his hand. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor. And he made his camels kneel down outside the city by a well of water at evening time. The time when women go out to draw water. Now you're about to read one of the strangest prayers ever prayed, listen to it. And he said "Oh Lord God of my master Abraham. Please give me success this day and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, here I stand by the well of water and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Now let it be that the young women to whom I say, Please let down your pitcher that I may drink and she says drink and I will also give your camels to drink. Let her be the one you've appointed for your servant Isaac." That's specific isn't it "and by this I will know that you've shown kindness to my master". And it happened before he finished speaking that behold Rebecca who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother came out with her pitcher on her shoulder. Now, the young women was very beautiful to behold, a virgin no man had know her. She went down to the well filled up her pitcher and came up. The servant ran to meet her and said, he's going to try it out, here it is. "Please let me drink a little water from your pitcher." And she said "Drink my lord" and she quickly let her pitcher down to her hand and gave him a drink and when she has finished giving him a drink she said "I will draw water for your camels also until they have finished drinking". Now at this time he's going Aaaahh, can you believe it? And she quickly emptied her pitcher into the trough ran back to well to draw water and drew for all the camels. That might not mean a lot to you and I but camels drink a lot of water, there's at least ten of them, and she has a pitcher that, Oh, maybe has a gallon or two, that's a lot of trips. She's industrious. And the man wondering at her, he's just going [facial expression? no sound] remains silent so as to know whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. WOW! It's such an unusual prayer not only how it's stated but that it's answered immediately, even before he's done speaking. God says "Oh, Hey over here. Here it is". Look at this 22nd verse, "So it was when the camels had finished drinking the man took a golden nose ring weighing half a shekel" that was cool back then, romantic. It sort of is now isn't it? [Laughter] I almost forgot. And two bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels of gold and said "Whose daughter are you? Tell me please is there any room in your fathers house for us to lodge?" So she said, "I am the daughter of Bethuel and Milcah's son whom she bore to Nahor" more over she said to him "We have both straw and feed enough and room to lodge". Now that's an awkward way of saying guess what, you are the winner of the grand prize, Isaac. That's what all of that jewelry and camel stuff meant. And you know, she looked at that gold and silver and camels and wealth and said Amen I get a witness here. She knew what was coming. By the way, this is the second recorded prayer in the Bible did you know that? The first is when Abraham interceded for Sodom this is the second. But here is the question that I want to pose to you. Where did Abraham's servant learn to pray like this? Where did Abraham's servant learn to pray like this? [Same question twice] He prays to Yawah, that's the tetragramaton, Jehovah, the covenant Israeli name of God. You say well what do you mean where did he learn to pray like? He's a Bible guy, Bible guys pray like that. But he's a gentile Bible guy. He's probably Eliezer from Damascus. That's how he's known in chapter 15. He's a gentile. I say it might be Eliezer that's the only servant named in Abraham's life. But it could be that it's not Eliezer, he'd be 85 at this time. He could have died for all we know. This could be a successor; if it was a successor it would be a local. A Canaanite. Either way it was some one from outside the family, a gentile servant, who is praying like Abraham would have prayed. Where did he learn to pray like that? No question that Abraham has taught his family including his servants to trust in and pray to Yawah. He learned it from the family. And uh, look down at verse 26, every phase of this journey is soaked in prayer. Verse 26: Then the man bowed down his head worshiped Yawah, the Lord. And he said "Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me being on the way the Lord lead me to the house of master's brethren." Ok, long story short, they take a trip all the way back now from Mesopotamia to where Isaac is in the land of Canaan. It's about a month trip. It's a long time to talk about who is this Isaac guy, you don't have a photograph of him do ya? [Laughter] But I want you to go down to verse 61 toward the end of the chapter. They're coming close, now, to where home is. Then Rebecca and her maids arose and they road on the camels and followed the man so the servant took Rebecca and departed. Now Isaac came from way of {ber???} for he dwelt in the south. And Isaac went down to meditate in the field in the evening and lifted up his eyes and he looked and there the camels were coming. See the word meditate, do not think in your mind ommm, or transcendental meditation it's a Hebrew word that means to seek the Lord in solitude. The Jewish targums, the rabbis all conclude he was quietly praying. He's probably praying Lord let her be the right one. Let her be a beauty, let her be one that will satisfy me the rest of my days. He was praying like the servant had been praying on this whole journey. Here's the point I want to make. What Abraham had done for a lifetime he passed on to his servants and to his son and that is you trust and you pray to God. Listen to Charles Haden Spurgen. He said, "Though grace does not run in the blood and regeneration is not of blood nor of birth yet it does frequently happen that God by means of one in a household draws the rest to Himself." He calls an individual and then He uses him to be a sort of spiritual decoy. Don't you like that? A decoy to bring the rest of the family into the gospel net. A dad and son were hiking up a mountain and it was getting steep and dangerous and the little boy was behind the dad and the dad was trying to find the right steps to take and he heard his son behind him. "Daddy, make sure you take the right steps cause I'm following right behind ya". And that's true in life for dad to sons. I remember when I was young I was struck one day by the importance of my father, he was well know in our community. And I thought how could I ever live up to his expectation. How could I ever follow in those foot steps, they're pretty big. Think of Isaac, Abraham has the name, the friend of God. Those are big imprints. How do you do it? By modeling as a father and training as a father the son to be like the father, pray, trust. So that's the third principle, supplication.

There's a fourth and we close with this, it's the principle of success. Now we skipped over it but I'm taking you back to verse 7. "And Abraham says to his servant, 'The Lord God of heaven who took me from my father's house and from the land of my family and who spoke to me and swore to me saying, 'To your descendants I will give this land (and now notice) he will send his angel before you and you shall take a wife for my son from there.'" Abraham was planning for success, that's a statement of faith. He's planning not for failure, not for defeat, but victory, success, "The Lord is going to guide you, go for it, go your way." He was a man of faith and what I mean by that is his present statement of faith, his present confidence was based upon the past track record. God's been faithful to take me out of Mesopotamia, he's been faithful to deliver me when I did stupid things in Egypt and with Hagar, all of that stuff God has been so good and faithful, I trust him now." And he makes this statement of faith planning for success.

I agree with Ramona Carroll who said, "Faith is putting all of your eggs in God's basket and then counting your blessings before they hatch. "Lord, it's all yours, I implicitly trust in you, it's going to be great." And making that declaration before they hatch.

Now look at verse 12, this is the servant praying once again, "Oh Lord God of my master Abraham please (notice this) give me sucdess this day and show kindness to my master Abraham. Do you see that word success? It's the word karah in Hebrew, it's a very simple meaning literally it means to happen. To happen. Or alternatively it means to appoint, to happen or to appoint. In other words he's saying, "Let the things that happen Lord be the things that you appoint. Let the things that happen be the things you appoint. You and I need to learn to measure success by the standard of God's will. Not the standard of our culture, not the standard of economy, not the standard of beauty. Success means doing what God wants period. If you do what God wants you're a success. I you don't do what God wants, you are a failure spiritually. That is success is obeying the will of God. A lot of people climb the ladder of success in life only to find the ladder is up against the wrong wall. You place it firmly against the wall of what God wants for my life.\

Now, you've already picked up on this, but ancient marriages were prearranged by parents. Pretty scary, huh? I couldn't convince my seventeen-year-old son that that would be a good move to save our lives. No way. However, as I look around today, I don't know if we're doing much better. Now Dad, Abraham entrusted the process to Eleazar saying God will make this happen. Eleazar trusted the process to God, trusted the process to God all the way along. Successful marriage is finding the person God wants you to be with. It's not, "Well will she hang with my friends?" Or, "Will my parents dig her?" They should, that would be nice but it's not always the case. Your friends may like her or may not. What does God want?

There's a young man who fell in love with a young girl and brought her home to introduce her to his parents. And Mom couldn't stand her, which frustrated the young man because he loved her so much and it happened three times, three different women he brought home, Mom kinda ditzed. He was so frustrated, so he dated and brought home a girl that was more like his mother, talked like her, kind of looked like her, acted like her. His father couldn't stand her. Here's the bottom line, put that aside for a moment. The bottom line is that parents and children should have the same goal. Should have the same goal, to find the person that will help them fulfill the will of God. Now last verse, got to look at it because you want to see the results of all this. Just in case you're thinking, "That's a goofy dating process." Verse 67, "Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent and he took Rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her. And so Isaac was comforted after his mother's death." Ta-Dah! It worked. And now the geneaology continues as the patriarch shifts the baton from one to the next.

I have at my house an heirloom, it's a 1895 Winchester repeater rifle. I almost borught it tonight but I thought it would look freaky to have the pastor on stage with a shotgun, I just wouldn't go there. But it was my grandfather's. And my grandfather used it when he homesteaded, that's how far back it goes, it's been in the family over a hundred years. He homesteaded a chunk of Laramie County, Wyoming with it. He passed it on to my father. My father kept it oiled, cleaned, he kept it in a nice case, he passed it on to me. I have it, I love it, I take it out and look at it and read the stories, think about what my dad told me. One day my seventeen-year-old son will have that passed down to him, the heirloom will continue. That's usually isn't it, what we think of when we think of passing things down to the next generation. We go, "Yeah that old rolltop desk, I should keep that in the family, that ancient Bible, that's a good thing to pass down. Or, that fine crystal. But there are better things to pass down: a good name, a good character and more than anything else a solid trust in Jesus Christ, faith in Christ. You don't want the saying of the judge to ever be said of you, "Alas, finished the book, lost the boy."

We're at the end. I want to give you three things for you to write down, unless you have a perfect memory you should write them down. Number one, turn your focus on the next generation, focus on them, the next generation. That includes time and effort, time and effort, effort and time. Focus on the next generation. Number two, pray for them, pray they'll be saved, pray they'll be holy, pray they'll find the right mate. Number three, walk for them. Walk for them. Focus on them, pray for them, walk for them. This is what I mean: By your lifestyle you can build a grid, a template that says by your lifestyle, "Here walk this way." And what a great thing to pass to the next generation.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we think of where we are in life, we think of the children you have given us, we could apply this on a number of levels but we want to think most applicably in our own lives that we would be those who not only make a mark in our culture but leave a mark in our family, in our relative's lives. It could be nephews or nieces. There's a lot of ways to look at this. But Lord we want to have the kind of a life that is worthy of passing on, one devoted to you. And Lord for that to happen we need to have our own walk, our own faith. WE cannot pass on what we do not have ourselves so I would pray that everyone here would be solidly rooted in Christ. There may be some parents who are here or their children or relatives or anyone, they don't have a solid relationship with Christ; I pray Lord that some here would say yes to you tonight and have the best thing to pass on. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Additional Messages in this Series

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9/28/2003
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When God Makes His Mark
Genesis 17:9-27
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8/3/2003
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Warning: Doubt Can Be Hazardous To Your Health!
Genesis 12:10-20
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Message Summary
Doubting God's promises is often the foundational reason we don't experience His blessing. The children of Israel wandered for forty years before entering the Land. Why? "They were not allowed to enter his rest because of their unbelief" (Hebrews 11:19). Their legacy was often to doubt, for the Psalmist says that they, "limited the Holy One of Israel" (Ps. 78:41). Now, even Abraham, the father of faith, struggles with trusting the most trustworthy Being that ever was!
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8/8/2003
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Two Men Under One Microscope
Genesis 13
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7/20/2003
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The Past: Guidepost Or Hitching Post?
Genesis 11:27-32
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Today we embark on a new journey, studying the life of Abraham. I'm calling it, Making Your Mark. Abraham made his mark deep within the fabric of the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. More than that, Scripture exonerates him as being an example of faith. But what about his past? How did he begin his journey of faith? You may find striking parallels to your own spiritual experience as we see five experiences that shaped Abraham's earlier life. Let’s learn the first steps in how to leave our mark of influence in our own culture.
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8/24/2003
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The Journey from Fear to Faith
Genesis 15:1-6
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8/17/2003
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The Glimmer of the Godly in a Cauldron of Crisis
Genesis 14
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11/9/2003
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The Gift of Laughter for Senior Citizens
Genesis 21:1-7
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Abraham is old here (age 100—a centenarian). His wife Sarah delivers the child promised by God (Isaac) and the result is joy and laughter. We learn five things about the nature of God in this passage.
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9/14/2003
completed
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Taking the Long Way Around
Genesis 16
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10/19/2003
completed
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Shock and Awe!
Genesis 19:23-29
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10/26/2003
completed
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Re-run of a Star's Worst Episode
Genesis 20
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The basic idea: Even after years have gone by, years of growth for Abraham, he relapsed into old behavior patterns. The sin principle is always a problem, even for the Christian. If the "old ways" are not sufficiently dealt with, they will grow and threaten to undo us. We look at four scenes in this rerun episode of Abraham, revealing how seriously this battle between the flesh and the spirit really is.
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10/5/2003
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How To Be God's Friend
Genesis 18:1-15
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10/12/2003
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Have I Got Plans For You!
Genesis 18:16-33
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11/23/2003
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Funeral for a Princess
Genesis 23
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This message highlights the death of Sarah and her husband's response.
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11/16/2003
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Faith... For Better or For Worse
Genesis 22:1-19
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Skip speaks about the greatest test of Abraham's life and how he responded to it.
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7/27/2003
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Buckle Up! You're Going on an Adventure!
Genesis 12:1-9
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Have you ever thought of life as an adventure? Most people don't. Daily life becomes the daily grind as many just survive: eking out a tasteless and meaningless existence hoping something better comes along in the future. There's one factor that can make all the difference—it's called God's will! To live life according to God's promises and commands, even though difficult at times, will be the most exciting way to make your journey through this life. In this second study on Abraham, Making Your Mark, let's see three principles that brought this sense of adventure.
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12/14/2003
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A Senior Saint's Sunset Years
Genesis 25:1-11
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Skip looks at Abraham's obituary as given in Genesis 25. After following his life from his call to leave his homeland, we now come to his last breath and subsequent burial. Encouragement and instruction for facing our own mortality will be considered.
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9/21/2003
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A New Start for an Old Soldier
Genesis 17:1-8
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8/31/2003
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A Dark Night; A Bright Future
Genesis 15:7-21
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There are 18 additional messages in this series.
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