Well, good morning. She was. Let me tell you what you did this morning. You woke up this morning. You looked out the window. You might have opened the door and stepped out. And you said, you saw that fog and the rain and the drizzle. You said, this is the day that follows Wednesday, so it must be thirsty. Very well. I knew you would. I just knew you would. You probably finished it, though, in a different way than I did. Habits of a lifetime die hard, don't they? I want this morning, I wish this morning, if I may, to make a few closing comments on the life of Abraham and then move over to the life of Jacob. I felt that time-wise we should not spend any longer with Abraham, and then there's chapter twenty-two, and what do we do with that? We must make some comments. even though it only is brief, on chapter twenty-two in connection with Mount Moriah. And as you will know, this is the culmination of God's dealings with Abraham. This is a high water march. This is the place where we rise to heights that previously we had not known. And this is the point that's carried over into the New Testament, to which our Lord makes reference himself when he was here. It was the ultimate in God's walk with Abraham. It was the ultimate in Abraham's walk with God. No higher point of experience could have been had by any man when he was here than Abraham had in chapter twenty-two of Genesis. He has walked with the Lord, as you know, from the time the God of glory appeared unto him first in Ur of the Chaldees. He's come through Heron or Caron. He's come down into the land. From the land he's gone down into Egypt with its disastrous consequences. He's come back out of Egypt again. He's had those dealings with Hagar in chapter sixteen and chapter twenty-one, and he's had the experience with Abimelech, the king of the Philistines in chapter twenty. And now when we come to chapter twenty-two, we reach what I like to call at any rate, the ultimate in his experiences with God. I don't know of anything that's comparable in the Old Testament with this passage that we have here. And I doubt if any man has come to the height that Abraham did come in his acknowledgement, in his appreciation, and in his honoring of God as Abraham did. So we're not going to go into the details of the chapter. We all know the story very well. We know that Abraham did on this occasion what he had done earlier when he left her of the Chaldees. He left the place where he was, not knowing where he was going. Because God appeared unto him and he said, Get thee into the place that I will show thee up. Take thy son, thy only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him there as a sacrifice or an offering. unto me so Abraham rises up early in the morning he is going on a very difficult journey it's the last difficult journey of his life God has exacted of him the expression of his faith such as none of us have been required to do through these varied experiences in the receiving this son and you know as we were commenting yesterday morning just exactly what was involved in Abraham getting Isaac and that Sarah being the mother rather than Hagar And you know all the testings and the trials. And finally, Abraham, in his advanced years, comes to be the father of the one who's the covenant promised. And now that Isaac has grown considerably, and Abraham is much older even now than he was, for he was a hundred years old when Isaac was born, when his heart laughs, now what will his heart do? How will his heart react now when God says to him, Get into the place that I would tell thee of, and take thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him there to me upon an altar for a burnt offering. We are not told, but the instantaneous response of this man of faith and trust and confidence in God is sufficient to assure us that there was no vacillation, there was no doubting, there was no hesitation in the heart of Abraham. He didn't protest, he didn't have anything to say to the Lord. as to why this should be. I have waited all these years, and now you have given me the promised heir, and now you're requesting that I give him back again in sacrifice. No such comments are given to us. No such reasons of his heart. We don't know. But we do know that he rose up early in the morning, as it says here in verse three of chapter twenty-two, and he prepared his animals and two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and he made the preparation for the sacrifice. And then it was on the third day when God revealed to him, as we have it in verse four, he saw the place afar off. That so significant place, that so remarkable place, that place that stands out and will stand out forever in the history of mankind and doubtless in the history of the universe. For it was here that we had another comparable experience, you remember. in connection with the life of David the king and also something finally in the days of our Lord himself. They saw the place afar off. I'm reminded of the words of the master in John chapter seventeen. And there were five words there at the opening of that steward's son's prayer. Sometimes called the high priestly prayer. That's only a small portion of the prayer actually. The prayer rather is an account of a steward's son. speaking to his father concerning the commission that was given to him, the mission that he had now fully accomplished. But those five words are, to me, the most poignant words that we have between the master and his father in all the New Testament. And there are these. Father, the hour is come. There is so much wrapped up in those five words, or the two words even, the hour. Abraham is going to give us a picture of exactly what was going on in terms of human experience between the father and his son on the journey to the cross. It was a three-day journey for Abraham. It was millennia or millennial long for the father and his son. It even went back from before time was. certainly, as Peter says, before the world was ordained. And how long that was, we cannot measure, we cannot compute, that the Father and the Son were moving together all through these pages of human history, through these pages of the Old Testament, through the lives of the prophets, the sayings of the prophets, the sacrifices of Israel, the countless sacrifices of the Levitical priesthood, and on down even into the days of the New Testament. These two have been traveling together from before the world was with this, the place in view. And our Lord says, Father, the hour has come. I cannot tell you at times how that appeals to me. There is more depth of pathos, there's more depth of feeling, there's something awesome about those words. You'll recall in the Gospel by John particularly we read frequently, they couldn't do this, they couldn't do that, that couldn't happen to him, something else couldn't happen to him because his hour was not yet come. And then in the garden when he was betrayed and Judas came with the band, he said, this is your hour and the power of darkness. But just before that happened, standing on the edge of the garden, he lifts up his eyes to heaven and he encompasses, he brings together All the previous thousands of years. And the plan from before the world was, he brings them all together. And he looks to his father and he says, Father, the hours come. What tremendous things are wrapped up in those words. And then the master followed by saying, Father, glorify thy son. That thy son also may glorify thee. And I don't know how you associate that or what meaning you put upon that, because it is often linked with passages later on in that chapter, John seventeen. And the Lord is looking forward to the time when he shall be resurrected, he shall be glorified, he shall be caught up into heaven. May I suggest to you, rather, that it can be linked with those five words. Father, the hour is come. Because it is directly associated with those words. That's when the master said it. These are the circumstances under which he said, Father, Glorify thy Son. It takes you back in measure perhaps to chapter twelve of John when the Greeks came up to the feast and they said to Philip, I suppose they'd pick Philip because he had a Greek name and they said, we would see Jesus. And Philip and Andrew go to the Lord and they say, there are some folks here, these Greek folks here, and they want to see you. And the Lord said, the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, that abides alone. And who he would ever have been alone, singularly alone, solitarily alone, in all the fullness of his own personal completeness, if he hadn't fallen into the ground to die. And it was only because he was to go into the ground to die, that corn of wheat was to fall into the ground to die, that it bore much fruit. And you and I are here this morning as the result of that corn of wheat falling into the ground and die. But what he had said was, now as they are, that the Son of Man should be glorified except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abideth alone. When is a man then to be glorified? When he dies to death? and lives to God. For if we live to self, we die. But if we die to self, we live. And the Lord has given us himself as the example and proof of that. Now is the Son of Man glorified except a corn if we fall into the ground and die, it abided the Lord. And it was through that death he was to be glorified as well as to glorify God. So he looks to heaven and he says, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy sons. Where? How? In the hour. By the cross. So Abraham and Isaac journeyed together as we have in the early part of this chapter. Let me call your attention to the fact that as they're going, they're talking. But you have several times mentioned about this offering. At the close of verse two, offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains that I will tell thee of. He hadn't told them. yet and then in verse three towards the close he claved the wood for the burnt offering and then farther down verse six Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and and so on and then Isaac says at the close of verse seven where is the lamb for a burnt or ascending offering and Abraham replies in verse eight my son God will provide himself a lamb for the ascending offering now this this story is so very well known And it is used so frequently that perhaps we have come to a final conclusion as to what the teaching really is. And it is used often in Sunday school, as every Sunday school teacher knows, and every Sunday school teacher has used, I suppose, as a picture of reconciliation, a picture of substitution, particularly. And the substitution we teach in the boys and the girls in the Sunday school, here are a marvelous picture. Isaac is to be the offering. He's laid upon the altar. And then, and then there's a provision made for him. And so our Lord became the provision for us poor, miserable sinners. And he becomes the sin offering for us. Well, you will see that repeatedly it is not a sin offering. And it is not a sinner finding a substitute. That is an application. But that cannot be the interpretation. When I was a young Christian, I used to hear frequently, it said very dramatically and very definitively, off the platform, that the Bible passages only have one interpretation and many applications. And of course I accepted that as being the final word on the subject for a long time until I began to read a little for myself and do a little thinking for yourself. That can be dangerous, but anyway, try it once in a while. And I discovered that that's a very acceptable statement because Somebody of importance said it, and somebody else of importance picked it up and repeated it. And if you repeat anything enough times, everybody takes it for granted. That's the way it is. But that's not necessarily true, I may say to you, that I can give you several examples from the scripture, whereas the Bible has two or more interpretations made so by the Spirit of God himself. He is not restricted to one interpretation of any passage. I know there may be multiple applications. I realize that. But nevertheless, it is not true. that the Bible passages only have one interpretation and many applications. Now, I know you don't want any examples for that because you'll find them yourself. But nevertheless, that is so. Now, we have used this passage here in Genesis chapter twenty-two as a sample of the sinner being delivered. And so the Lord is the ram caught in the second. I have no question about that. And then the one who should be upon the altar slain is relieved and he is... has provided a substitute for him. And then we apply that to the sinner and to the death of Christ. But it is not so. There is no suggestion of a sin offering anywhere here. There's no trespass offering anywhere here. This is a burnt offering. This is an ascending offering. And repeatedly, as I have pointed out to you, in this chapter, it is always stated as a burnt offering. Always stated as a sin offering. Whether it were to be Isaac himself, or whether it were to be the ram, of consecration in the thicket, it was always to be a burnt offering. Well, you see, that spoils the picture. No, it doesn't spoil the picture at all. In fact, it enhances the picture. If you want to say, well, the ram caught in the thicket by its horns was the substitute for the man, for the boy, yes, very well. But does that alter the fact that it was to be a burnt offering? Isaac was to be a burnt offering. He was to be an ascending offering. And why are you and I here if we in our entirety, in our whole life, spirit, soul and body, have not been meant to be, to God, constantly an ascending offering? I suggested to you last evening that there are seven offerings in the New Testament priesthood, which a priest may offer. Here is one of them, the Christian himself. is to be an ascending offering, a burnt offering, with nothing for anyone else but holy for God. And Isaac was to be that, that ascending offering, that burnt offering. And yes, there was a provision made. And the angel of the Lord, it's remarkable, I think, here that he should be called the angel of the Lord, because it is the same one who in verse one says, God Elohim, the triune God, did test or prove Abraham. the same one who is the angel of the Lord in verse eleven and at the close of verse eighteen he says thou hast obeyed my voice so when the angel of the Lord speaks and says thou hast obeyed my voice it's the voice of verse one the voice of the triune God now the angel of the Lord comes to Abraham at the time when his hand is raised to slay his son and he calls to him out of heaven and he shows him a substitute So there's a ram caught in the thicket, and I've wondered about that. And I don't want to strain these things too far. But I have wondered at times if this ram caught in the thicket with its horns, it says, is not a picture of the master when he was here, in his consecration of life. And let me suggest to you that this probably is the mountain sheep, the two-pronged mountain sheep, and because it speaks of his horns in the plural. And may I suggest to you that it's the title of the Lord Jesus as he was here. as he came, the consecrated one. But what do the two horns represent to us, do you suppose? Well, may I say to you, let me suggest this to you, that you remember he said in John chapter twelve again, he said, Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Shall I say, Father, save me from this hour? How can I say that? Because it was for this cause, came I unto this hour. That's why he was here. in total and full consecration to be the whole burnt offering first to God. That's on our behalf. I recognize that. While there is part of the burnt offering of himself that was strictly for his father, the burnt offering was to be accepted for the offerer, you remember, in Leviticus three. So the burnt offering, while it was holy for God, the whole thing went up in smoke. as an ascending offering to the Lord. Nevertheless, the offerer was associated with the offering. So our Lord was here. Well, what are the horns? Well, I like to think of it this way anyway, if you allow me the proof. I like to think of the fact that the very fact he was here, he said, for this cause came I. How did he come? He came via the virgin's womb. Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not. the sacrifice and the offering of transgression for sin thou didst not delight in but a body hast thou prepared me you follow that from exodus twenty one through psalm forty and on to hebrew ten because that's that's the story as you recall the born ear in exodus twenty one the servant forever when you come to psalm forty You read it again. Mine ear has he digged or opened or bored through. That's where he says, sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin, thou wouldest not. Then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of me. I delight to do thy will, oh my God. So he speaks about the bored ear and he speaks about the sacrifice in Psalm forty. When you come over to Hebrews chapter ten, Psalm forty is repeated, but it's added this to it. Instead of the bored ear, what you have is a body hast thou prepared me. Now the Lord is here in his human body. And this body has been specially prepared to be the burnt offering. So the fact he is here in the flesh, this one horn, I suggest to you, and the fact that he being God is here, or he says even as man before Abraham was, I am. My father and I are one. The very fact that you have someone here who combines in himself the human side or the human body and the divine side for is God and man complete he's caught in a thicket by the horns because he says for this cause came I unto this hour if I were not here then this might not have happened but because I am here it has to happen so the one who is present in John chapter twelve is the God man and he is caught for the sacrifice of the burnt offering so we may see pictures and types of our Lord wherever we look carefully and so as it was in this case the angel the Lord spoke to Abraham stayed his hand and then he looked and he saw the ram caught in the thicket by his horns after Abraham then relieving his son puts the ram upon the altar and offers him for a sacrifice then it says the angel the Lord calls unto him again and that's verse fifteen and then he makes a very strong statement And he says this, if you notice, verse sixteen. By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee. And so he goes on to the multiplication of his seed. And in thy seed, verse eighteen, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And Christ comes to the front. In the word of the angels after the sacrifice has been made. God puts himself under oath. Now you will recall Psalm-hundred-and-ten, verse four, that says the Lord swore and will not repent, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And when you go over to the epistle to the Hebrews, that whole theme is developed of a priest under oath. And the contrast is made between the Levitical priesthood, the Aaronic priesthood, and the Melchizedek priesthood. Because the one is a priesthood by oath, and the other is a priesthood by inheritance. It is hereditary. And so the sons of Aaron each successively passed on the high priestly office to their successors. But our Lord, being a priest after the order of Melchizedek, there is no cessation. There is no termination. He has neither beginning of days. Nobody went before him. He succeeded no one in his office. He does not have end of life. He shall never have a successor after him. He is the high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. You recall in the high priest's palace on the night of our Lord's betrayal, when the high priest put the Lord under oath and said, We are jure thee by the living God. Thou tell us if thou be the Christ or not. And he told, he said, Thou saith. And so on. The high priest renteth garments. Now what does that indicate? Well, in the Old Testament, you'll find it indicates different things. Sometimes it's an exclamation of very much a surprise, an astonishment. Sometimes it's an exclamation of grief when they rent their clothes. And then, as the case of Samuel and Saul, it indicated a cessation, a termination of an office. And I suggest to you, when the high priest rent his garment that night, when the Lord stood before him. It was the termination of the Aaronic high priesthood. There was to be no high priest after that as far as God is concerned. And there never again will be. So the last high priest after the order of Aaron that ever was to stand representatively in the presence of God. Because you say, well, but then you read about the high priest in Acts chapter five. I know you do. But the rent garment that night, as far as I can consider it, the rent garment that indicated that there's no more a high priestly service the veil of the temple is rent in twain and the rent garments of the high priest correspond with the rent veil in the temple and now there's no more ironic high priesthood and there never will be again now some of you are going to say to me yes but brother Dave over in the epistle to or over in the prophecy of Ezekiel rather we have priests after the order of Zedok offering sacrifices in the millennium that's true And there will be animal sacrifices offered again in Jerusalem and likely elsewhere in the millennium. I don't have any difficulty with that. Do you? Yeah, some of you do. Well, I know. A lot of people do. I don't have any difficulty whatsoever with the animal sacrifice in the millennium period. But however, did you notice though, the sons of Zedok are to be engaged in the priestly ministry, but there's no high priest. in the millennium after the order of Aaron. Why? Because that's when our Lord takes his place as the Melchizedek high priest for the nation of Israel. And that'll be after the battle in the valley, as I suggested to you the other night in Genesis fourteen. Very well then. So what God is doing, he is putting himself under oath. One of the rare occasions when God puts himself under oath. But he says, Abraham, I swear by myself that because you have done this thing, and you have not withheld your son your only son from me I am going to do this and this and this and I am going to bring in through you the seed which is Christ Galatians three tells us in who all the nations of the earth shall be blessed it's the ultimate it's the high point nothing else could Abraham ever have desired and I think that's why it says he called the place Jehovah Jireh. In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen or perceived. May I relate that to the Lord's words in the Gospel by John. Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. What day was that? It was the day when the Lord promised to him under oath he would bring in the seed. Not seeds as of many Galatians says but one seed. And so he's promising to Abraham now that the result of this experience, wherein Abraham did not return, did not keep his son rather, but offered him up to the Lord, he's promising him the Christ, the Messiah. Jehovah Jireh, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. Well, there you go. I never did like these quartz clocks. I used to like the wind-up kind because they could run down before you were finished. And now they are finished before I'm run down. That's modern technology for you. Share with me now with you briefly for the few moments I have left to chapter twenty-eight. And I want to have time for just a few comments in closing this morning regarding Jacob. There are six times in the life of Jacob when the Lord appears to Jacob. and these are very instructive too. So we have a different man altogether than the one we have just been considering. I have stepped over Isaac, though the Lord had appeared to Isaac, but then we don't have time, we have to be selective. So I just want to make a few comments about Jacob. Now, the story of Jacob and Esau and connects with the blessing of the birthright, you all know very well. And you know that the consequences of that was The whole thing was instigated by his mother, Rebecca. She paid a heavy price for that. Anyone pays a price for deceit. Anyone, no matter whom they are deceiving, and especially in relation to the things of God, as the birthright blessing was, must, of course, reap the consequences, the sad consequences. Subterfuge has never, never has had room in the purposes and plans of God. And so when the Lord looks At Nathaniel in John chapter one he says, Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile. Not a marvelous thing to say. An Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile. You say, Why did you mention Nathaniel? Because he's closely linked to the experience of Jacob. Jacob, because of his trickery in gaining the blessing which stood, the priestly blessing of the father, he hears via his mother the Esau has sworn to kill him. He's going to work vengeance on his brother because he took away his birthright, you remember, with the mess of lentils, and now he's taken away the blessing by deceit with the venison, which was goat meat, and also the hairy garment. So that was Rebecca's doing her whole thing. And so he's now made afraid of Esau's brother. That fear of his brother is going to last for over twenty years. But Esau had said, now, The old man is ready to die. I'll wait till he's dead, and we have the days of mourning, and then I'll slay my brother Jacob, and I will get the birthright. Well, he couldn't do it, of course, as Romans chapter nine tells us so clearly. God had chosen Jacob to be the covenant-carrying vessel, and Jacob, it must be. Regardless of his own twisted pathway, the covenant of God made before the boys were born must stand. And so Esau says, well, the old man's ready to die. I'll just wait till he's gone. And then I'll get my own back on Jacob. Well, now don't be too sure about the old man passing away that quickly. You see, because they were sure he was just about ready to go. He couldn't see any longer. And I said, was it you folks? I was telling him, my little grandson told me that my wife and I have been around long enough now. It's time we were going. Well, he thought that when he's five years old. He's eight now. He hasn't been mentioning to me anymore. He's got different things in his mind now. He has all kinds of things. Don't ask me where he got them from. But he comes out with all kinds of stink prayers when he goes to bed at night. You know, he tells the Lord what kind of a wife he wants. Don't want an ugly one, and I don't want a fat one, he told the Lord the other night. And I was there on one occasion. There was a thunder and lightning storm on, and we were getting ready for a meeting, and the little guy's standing at the front door. And it's lightning and thundering. He comes back in and goes into the bedroom where his dad was getting dressed for a meeting. He said, Papa, I was just talking to God out there. He said, Oh, well, what did the Lord say? He said, Well, I don't know for sure, but boy, he sure talks awful loud. He's getting his answer by thunder, you see. Well, he comes out with all kinds of things. When we were down visiting the last time, my wife and I, My wife's trying to get him away from the Ninja Turtles and some of these other things, you know, on TV. So she tells him, you know what you should do. You should be a missionary to the pygmies. Pygmies, he said. Who are the pygmies? Well, the little fellow is just about your size, but they're old, of course. And the people who are there now aren't going to be there all the time. And by the time you go up, you should be a missionary to the pygmies. Well, his mother told us afterwards. We were never to tell him that she told us. After we had gone, the little guy says, this mother... about his grandmother. He says, who does she think she is? Miss Christy telling me where I have to go? And so we thought the thing would die there. Well, we got a call from his dad a little while back and he said, you know what? No, he's saying no. No, he's saying. Well, he told him the other day he's got to go and be a missionary to the Pygmies. And I said to him, I don't know where did you get that idea. Well, he said, my abuela, told me. That's what I have to do. Well, he says, how in the world are you going to get to the Pygmies and be a missionary? I don't know. But Abuela will take care of the whole thing. So she's not Miss Chrissy anymore. She's the instigator of a future missionary. Well, Jacob is going to experience the consequences of his deceit. So he's fleeing for safety from his brother Esau. Now, as I said, I thought the old man was going to die. And when Jacob comes back twenty years later, the old man's still there. Well, I thought I'd buried mine a while ago. I don't mean my father. My father died at ninety-eight and he was a Christian for eighty-eight years and that was a long lifetime. No, I'm talking about the old man that we carry with us. We think at times we have him ready for burial, a nice decent honorable burial, but it is not so. Now when Jacob is fleeing from the wrath of his brother, you remember in Genesis chapter twenty-eight, he comes to a place which was called Luz at first and then came to be called Bethel later on. And it's a wilderness place. And then we have in verse We read about that place, the barrenness of it. He took up the stones and he put them for his pillows and lay down that place to sleep. And he dreamed. And behold, a ladder set up on the earth and the top it reached to heaven. Now, when we come to John chapter one, we discover what this ladder represents. You see lots of pictures, of course, about the ladder as the cross, right? But I think John one gives us a different slant on that. And the Lord interprets this passage here in John chapter one when he's talking to Nathaniel. because when he commented about Nathaniel and said, an Israelite indeed in whom there's no guile, Nathaniel heard it. And he said, Rabbi, how do you know me? And the Lord says, when you were under the fig tree, mind you, he had to get out from under that fig tree to know who the Lord was. When you were under the fig tree, he said, I saw you before Philip called you. And Nathaniel, because he was a guileless man, he could see what other people couldn't see. And immediately he said, Rabbi, thou art the son of God, thou art the king of Israel. What an remarkable confession to make. But that's for the man of the pure heart. Wasn't that how we started? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And he looks at Jesus of Nazareth, and he says, thou art son of God. His divine character and title, thou art the king of Israel. His monarchical title and character. He saw it just in a flash like that. And the Lord said to him, because I said, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you, and I knew you, seeing with the knowing. Do you believe, let me tell you, you'll see something greater than this. Now what's greater than seeing a man being and knowing him to be the Son of God and the King of Israel? The Lord said, Hereafter you shall see the heavens open and the angels of God ascending and descending on whom? Son of man. Ah. Is it greater to see him then as the Son of Man, who is going to open to heavens and bring into a permanent relationship of reconciliation and blessing earth and heaven together? What's going to link earth and heaven together? A man, my friend, from whom the angels ascend, for he is the source of the blessing of the days yet to come, and upon whom the angels of God descend. This is the ladder that Jacob saw. Notice what it says. It was set up on the earth. That's his humanity. The top reached into heaven. That's his deity. And this is the one through whom Jehovah stands at the top of the ladder. And he speaks to the sleeper. The fugitive from justice. Running from the consequences of his sin. But nevertheless the son of the covenant. He speaks to him. And he speaks to him about a marvelous promise. And. But this I'm going to have to shut down here. Let's look what he said. The top it reached to heaven. The angels of God ascending and descending on. That's Christ. The Lord or Jehovah stood above it. And he said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father. And the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest to thee will I give it unto thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth. Thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Plural again, I mean singular again, you see, that's in the singular, thy seat. And because, now notice this for a pilgrim, a wanderer who's to suffer the heat and the drought and the famine and the deceit and so on and the treachery of the Syrian for twenty years. Because I am with thee and will keep thee in all places within thou ghost. Jacob, lying at the foot of this ladder, fleeing from the results of his own duplicity, receives a covenant promise from God of his continual presence anywhere, everywhere. You say it must have been marvelous for him to have known that. Did he remember it in the cold of the night when the wolves were tearing the lambs and he was responsible for the loss? Did he remember it when he was out in the desert or out in the barren fields with the sheep in the heat of the day? Did he remember it when Laban changed his wages ten times? Did he remember that God has said, Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither so ever thou goest? And I will be with thee, but I will not leave thee alone. What a marvelous promise. The assured presence of God. Did he say it to him every day? No. Did he remind him of it every night? No. Did he come once a year and twenty years to tell him? No. Why? He had given him this covenant promise at the beginning, and that was to stand for the rest of his life. Has God made a covenant promise with you? Do you have this individual relationship with God that you know your pathway is determined by him? He will be with you in all places whithersoever you go. Lo, I am with you all the days. Not to twenty-eight. Even to the end of the age. All the days, the good days and the bad days. The bright days and the dull days. I'm with you all the days. Forgive me a little story. And I'll close this up so you know I'm going to quit. I often don't do that because when I'm speaking and I have my Bible open, everybody else has their Bible open and I do that. I see the Christians. They close their Bibles. They close their ears. They shut their eyes and they wait for me to quit. And I have the best thing I want to tell them yet, but they don't hear it. Well, recently in the last year and a half, we were visiting Cuba, my younger son and I. And we took this long journey, ten hours. We drove in a rented car. down to the eastern part of the island to visit an assembly of the foot of the mountains that has been growing and being prospered and blessed by the Lord in these recent years. It was a long journey. We didn't find anywhere to find anything to eat. You'd buy everything with rations, coupons. We didn't find anywhere to buy something to drink. And we drove for ten hours until we got to the fire and at the island. And then when we got there, we walked out through the field to the foot of the mountains. And there was a group of about ninety Christians waiting for us. They apologized because some of them hadn't come down from the mountains. so on. Couldn't all be there. And anyway, it was in a morning, a Wednesday morning, when they weren't having normally a gathering. But they'd come together and the ladies had put their big black cloth out in the open air there and they were cooking up lunch. Don't ask me what the ingredients were. So when we got there, the brethren said, no, we're going to have a meeting. Now you've come to visit us. You haven't been here for all these years. So we're going to have a meeting. And I said, oh, really? How long? Well, they said, lunch won't be ready at one o'clock and this was ten thirty so don't stop until lunch and then after we have lunch we'll have another one the same length you know so that was an hour and a half each that's a little bit longer than forty minutes but anyway I said well all right and I thought to myself no what will I tell the saints here for three hours today I've got to speak for three hours so I decided in a few minutes I decided that I would take up a little study with them on the manner in which all the Gospels terminate the ending of the four Gospels So I started off with Matthew twenty eight, of course, and that promise that I just quoted to you that the Lord said, go into all the world and teach all nations, preach the gospel to every creature. And then he said, Lo, I'm with you all the days, and I stress what I've just said to you, all the days, the good days and the bad days, the days at home and the days away from home, when you're alone and when you're with others, all the days, he said, I will be with you all the days, no matter the circumstances. And I made a point of that. The Lord puts us off into the test of the things we say, doesn't he? I even caught a glimpse of recognition from some face there. I just saw one. But it does happen. We make certain statements and we make certain confessions and we make certain professions and the preacher makes certain statements like that. And the Lord says, oh, yes, very well. Now, we'll see how that works. We're traveling home two days later after the little conference was over. We're traveling home and We're driving around a car, a government-owned, of course. Everything's government-owned. And on the way down, we had a flat tire. Well, there was a spare there, so we put the spare on. And we got down right to the last town, and there was a big balloon came out of the side of this tire we had just put on. So I said, oh. Now, you must understand that in Cuba today, you can't buy, borrow, beg, steal, or otherwise acquire a tire. You can't. You just can't. So forget it. It doesn't matter how much money you can't. You can't acquire a tire. So we put this tire on with the big bolt on the side of it. And we started back up this long trek through the heat of the day back towards the area of Havana. Well, we got outside a large city called Ciudad Abila a few miles and the balloon burst inside of the tires. So the spare was flat on the way down. That is, the one was the spare. Now the one we had originally had on and was put in the trunk flat. And now this one was the spare tire. It's blown to shreds to pieces. It's gone. And there we are at the side of the road, miles from nowhere. And we get out and look at the thing. And he was another brother by the name of Capote with us. And he said to me, he said, this is something. Where do we go from here? Where do we go from here? We've got four wheels, but we've only got three tires. So, my son got out and he said, well, let's jack it up and see what we can do so they're jacking up the tire. While they're jacking up this tire, I had to take all the luggage out of the trunk. I was the old man on the job. I could stand and watch these boys work. That part was all right, but while they're working the way there, someone said, by the way, I think I heard the preacher say yesterday, that, lo, I am with you all the days. And I think he said, good or bad. I think he said, it doesn't matter the circumstances. And I think he said, it doesn't matter where you are. The Lord said, lo, I am with you all the days. Preachers standing there saying, well, Lord, I know where we are, but I don't know where you are right now. And anyway, what do we do when we can't buy a tire? What are we going to do? We're hours from the end of our journey. Well, nothing bonded. They jacked it up and took that one off and that was no good. That was Shredge. So they took the one out of the trunk. And they went across the highway. They said, now you stay here with the car and we'll get the first thing back to town. Well, Long came up on the great big lumbering Russian tractors, agricultural tractors. They threw the tire up on there and climbed up on. And they, my boy explained to them what had happened to them. He said, all right, let's go to town. So they headed back. the town we had left. And he took them through a lot of winding streets and ended up in a little old wooden shack. And there were three black men in there working. And there was a police car sitting there. And these policemen were out. They had two tires in there getting them mended. So when the Russian tractor driver said, now look, you just get off here and these men look after you if there's anything can be done. So they got down. They went in with their tire. And there was a man came in off the street. They didn't know he was. He came in off the street about the same time as they did. And he said, what's going on here? And my boy said, well, we're visiting from Canada. And we've had trouble on the highway. And he said, are you both from Canada? And Capote, he doesn't know any English, you know. Capote, the Cuban brother, he's down there and hunched down beside the tire on the floor. And my boy said, yes, yes. And that was the end of it. So he said, the man turned to the black man that worked in there. He said, and there's two policemen standing by waiting to get their tires looked after. He said, drop what you're doing and attend to these men. They're visitors to our country. So they came over and took the wheel and they took it apart. They said, yes, we can put a patch in it. We can do this and that and the other thing. And so they fixed it all up and put it back on the wheel and blew the tire up. And my boy said to Kapoti, he said, I wonder how we're going to get back out where Dad is. The man standing by overheard it. And he said, where are you, man? Well, he said, we're so many miles out on the highway or kilometers out on the highway outside of Seko Di Abdullah. Well, he said, that's all right. I'll take in my car. So they got in the car and the tire fixed and went back out to where I was waiting out there under the juniper tree, incidentally. And they came back with the tire fixed and they're putting the tire on. And this man's kind of hunkered down beside them. And he said, where are you men going? I said, well, we're going back to La Salute. We're going back to Havana area. He said, you can't go to Havana without a spare tire. He said, if you get on the Alto Pista and you head back to this time of the day, the heat of the day, and he says, if you have a flat tire there, you'll rot before anybody finds you. Unless the vultures find your purse. So he said, you can't go back to Havana without a spare tire. Follow me. So we get in the car, and he got his car, and we followed him back to the very same old shack back into town. And he turned to you, he went to the men and he said to him, take the spare tire out of my car and put it in the trunk of these men's car. So he wondered, what's this? So sure enough, went over. He took the spare tire and wheel out of his car, got it in the trunk of our car. He said to us, now, have a good trip. And my son said to him, well, sir, now, what do you owe me? Oh, you, he said, you don't owe me anything. He said, you are visitors to our country. We must look after our visitors. So Alfred, he took out a couple of brand new ballpoint pens he had and a stick of gum, wrigglies, vermin, gum, the vest. And he said, well, can I give you these? Well, you have no idea what a stick of gum or a little box of chips is worth in Cuba. What the young folks do, they take a stick of gum, but they take the wrapper, you know, and they put it in their shirt pocket. That's a sign of prestige. Like you have the wrapper. You don't have to have anything in it. But if you have the wrapper, you stick it in your shirt pocket. And just watch out. Now you belong to the elite because you have a wrapper out of a stick of drunk. So he had them these. And you should have seen a big smile come over his face. My, he said, thank you so much. That's just wonderful. Come around to my mother-in-law's house and I'll give you some cold drinks before you start up. So we went around and had a cold drink and took a picture of the man and his wife who was there and sent it to him later on. Odin McCarty. We had a letter back from him. And we're going on our way back again and I said... By the way, who was it said about, Lord, I am with you all the days? Who is this man? Where did he come from? Who was he to tell them, the black men, to leave the policeman alone and fix our tire? Who was he to say to us, you can't go there without a spiritual eye, and give us a tire? Give us a tire. Well... They entertain angels and the wares. And the Lord, oftentimes it's like Abraham with Abimelech and like Jacob later on with Abimelech. I said,