Thank you and greetings, friends. Genesis chapter seventeen and verse one gives us another of the great I Ams which reveal the characteristics of God, God Jehovah, the Lord God Almighty. And up until the first chapters in Genesis, no one knew the character of God. He is revealing, in the book of Genesis, some of the characteristics of himself. No one can explain God, deity. No one can describe deity other than the words of your Bible and mine. God has revealed in your Bible and mine some of his great characteristics. We have already looked at some, that he says, I am the Lord. That is, he's the one who is over us, and the one whom we should try to live to please. He is Lord, is Master, Adonai. And then he could say to Abram, I am thy shield. He's the one who protects us, in other words, who gives us life, and... keeps us living in this world until our life is ended, for it will end. Our lives will be over by and by. We know when. But he is, excuse me, the shield even for us today. We're shielded from accidents every moment. We're shielded from disease. We're shielded from harm and danger. And we're provided for. And then he could say that he is king. He's the ruler. The ruler of the universe. The ruler of this world. And by and by some time he's going to show. And he's going to rule over this world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained the Lord Jesus Christ. And that will be the millennial reign of one thousand years as we read in the Book of Revelation. He is the great I am of eternity, the eternal one, the one who without beginning and is without end. In the seventeenth chapter of Genesis and verse one, we have this great revelation made to Abram. It's remarkable that Abraham, whose name changed to Abraham, was known as the friend of God. And God is revealing here, to Abraham his great characteristic. In this one in verse one we read, And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, just like one year being one hundred years of age, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am, I am the Almighty God. The Almighty God. He is El Shaddai. He is the strong one, and he is the one from whom all sustenance is derived. He is the strong one, the almighty one. There is no strength, no power beyond, or even to equal God. who is the Almighty God. He is the only being who has the Almighty strength, the overpowering, superior, supreme. Omnipotence means supreme. He is the one with all power, all strength, all endurance. God is not only omnipotent and all-powerful, he is also omniscient. He knows everything, and is also omnipresent. He is everywhere at the same time. And of course, this only causes our minds to reel, for this we cannot understand. Yet we cannot understand, we cannot explain, we cannot describe deity. But here we have revealed, for the first time to human mankind, that God is the Almighty One. The One who possesses all power can do everything after the power of His own will. He could speak words and worlds came into existence. Our very world here came into existence, so that by the power of God, even, without any materials with which to work, he spake the world into existence, and man has all the materials that he is able to work with. He cannot manufacture. He can manufacture things from the materials God has given, but he is not able to create anything. God is the Creator. And so he reveals himself to Abram as the Almighty. I am the Almighty God, and then because he is, there's something that must take place in man. And it's first revealed here and required here of this great man Abram. And we'll notice a moment what God requires. of not only Abram, but you and me and everybody else in the world at any one time. I am the Almighty God. What difference does that make with us? Walk before me and be thou perfect. Walk before me and be thou perfect. We do walk before God. He's everywhere beholding the evil and the good. He sees all things. so that when we stoop to do something wrong, he's there. When we do something that's right and proper, he is there. His eyes behold everything. Walk before me, and be thou perfect. God's standards are supreme. They are perfect, like his own character, and therefore he'll not lower the standard because I cannot reach that perfect standard. But I can try. I can continually strive to meet God's perfect standard, to the best of my human ability. In other words, because the standard is perfect and I cannot reach it one hundred percent, does not excuse me from trying to do my best. I am the Almighty God. Walk before me. Live before me. Move before me. Do things before me. Speak before me. Think before me. Walk before me. Walk has everything to do with life in the Scriptures. Walk means conversation. It means our attitude in the world. It means what we are in the world. And what we ought to be really, walk before me and be thou perfect. In other words, God wants us to do what's right. He sent us into the world to do what's right. He didn't send us here to do anything wrong. We of our own selves are the ones that do wrong. And then God says that and will only be part of it. You walk before me and be thou perfect, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. These are the promises made to Abraham. The Abrahamic covenant. the covenant that God made with him because Abram was a friend of God. Abram strove to live for God, and he tried to meet that perfect standard that God had explained and set. I am the Almighty God, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. He's going to make Abraham the father of all the faithful. And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, Notice, friends, this great man Abram, he becomes, as a child, before God. He fell on his face. He fell on his face. And he said, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be father of many nations. This is the covenant God made with Abram while he had fallen on his face. The lack of reverence today, friends, is one of the great catastrophes in our nation, in our world. We've either placed God on the shelf out of reach, or else we've tried to make him a human being like ourselves. There's no reverence for God because he's the almighty, omniscient, omnipresent God. No, we can do anything we like today. We can say whatever we wish today. We can go or go wherever we wish today. Well, my friend, no reverence for God, no respect for God, no restraint because we must meet God. Satan has warped our mind so that the world at large has lost its reverence for God. But Abram fell on his face, and he showed his reverence for God by falling on his face. And God says, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Just think of that. Here is the Abramic covenant. I'll make you father of many nations. He's the father of all the believers, the father of all the faithful. And then neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called, shall be Abraham, for a father of many nations, have I made thee. So Abram had his name changed to Abraham. This is typical throughout the Scriptures. Many individuals, both men and women, their names were changed after they had a meeting with God. And that's true today. We who have trusted Christ were no longer called sinners, but called saints. We're no longer unbelievers, but believers. We're no longer living in sin. We seek to live for the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed God, we thank thee for thy precious word it revealed. Thou art the Almighty God. Help us, our Father, with reverence. We walk before thee and live before thee from day to day. We pray for our president. We pray for all the officials in our great government. We pray, the Lord, that the difficulties will roll away, and our nation will again stand in its pristine glory and in its faithfulness, in its righteousness. We pray that many souls will trust the Savior before it's too late. In the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.