we're turning this morning to the book of genesis if you're visiting with us and we're working through this book i had one of you say to me this last week that you bought a few more boxes of mints to make it through genesis and romans and i want you to know if i see that nonsense going on here I go longer on purpose. Genesis chapter 18 this morning. Genesis chapter 18. This is a chapter that certainly, as we have been looking at the life of Abram now, really drives us to see why God is doing what he is doing. And that is really important for us today. So we are going to consider the whole of the chapter. So again, you see the connection and the big picture. So let's give our attention to the word of the Lord. And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree while I bring a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves. And after that, you may pass on since you have come to your servant. So they said, do as you have said. And Abraham went quickly, Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, quick, three seeds of fine flour, knead it and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man who prepared it quickly. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate. They said to him, where is Sarah, your wife? And he said, she's in the tent. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year. And Sarah, your wife shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now, Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, after I'm worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? The Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh and say, shall I indeed bear a child now that I'm old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you about this time next year and Sarah shall have a son but Sarah denied it saying I did not laugh for she was afraid he said no but you did laugh then the men set out from there and they looked down towards Sodom and Abraham went with them to set them on their way the Lord said shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. Then the Lord said, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me and if not i will know so the men turned from there and went towards sodom but abraham stood before the lord then abraham drew near and said will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked suppose there are 50 righteous within the city will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for 50 righteous who are in it far be it from you to do such a thing to put the righteous to death with the wicked so that the righteous fare as the wicked. Far be that from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? And the Lord said, If I find at Sodom 50 righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake. Abraham answered and said, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the 50 righteous are lacking. will you destroy the whole city for lack of five and he said i will not destroy it if i find 45 there again he spoke to him and said suppose 40 are found there he answered for the sake of 40 i will not do it then he said oh let the lord let not the lord be angry and i will speak suppose 30 are found there then he answered i will not do it if i find 30 there he said behold i have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 are found there. He answered, for the sake of 20, I will not destroy it. Then he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak again, but this once. Suppose 10 are found there. He answered, for the sake of 10, I will not destroy it. And the Lord went his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham and Abraham returned to his place. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word years ago i remember when i was in college i led a bible study for a group of athletes at the college that i attended and i remember we were in that study looking at and seriously addressing the problem of sin and the justice of god and most of them had never, ever in their Christianity given a lot of thought to this. They had not really thought about this. And I remember afterwards one of the ladies coming up and saying, you know, what all of us really need here is just love. We need grace, you know. You seem to be starting in the worst kind of place. And then I said to her very respectfully, I said, ma'am, I said, that's only half of the story. In other words, you'll never really appreciate the urgency and the thing that God is doing in this plan of salvation. You'll never really appreciate. You'll never really even begin to grasp the love of God. You'll never really begin to even understand grace until you have really understood and grasped and believed that this God is just and He is going to judge the living and the dead. It's a tough thing to raise today. It's a tough message to give today. I raise all of this this morning because that's what Genesis 18 is all about. God set Abraham and Sarah apart to him, and time has now come. And I'm emphasizing time, looking at Ecclesiastes. You'll see it in the in the title i took that from ecclesiastes time has now come to begin to raise up the holy nation to raise up the seed to bring a son the promised son that would come to abraham but nothing has moved quickly in this this whole story of abraham nothing's moved quickly in fact for 20 years they have been in the land and there's been no seed and we have really been shocked studying abraham and sarah's life how they really struggled to believe the promise and to trust the lord through all the circumstances of life they became do-it-yourselfers along the way and the consequence of this has been a lot of waiting the consequence of this has been a lot of patience on the part of the lord so we've seen the belief issue addressed over and over over and over and over promise rehearsed and again that comes out in chapter 18 as the lord now deals with sarah but why is god doing this today what why is what is the lord showing us why has he been so gracious to them it's been remarkable hasn't it i mean no one can accuse me of being lopsided here. We've really hit a lot of grace, haven't we? We have looked at an overwhelming measure and persistence and pursuit of God Almighty to pull these people out, and He just keeps coming, and they wreck it, they mess it up, and He cleans it up over and over and over and over. That's all we've seen. That's all we've known. And we've looked at, that's your life. That's what you've known that's what you've experienced it's what you've received but did you notice the structure of chapter 18 on the front end of this chapter you have the lord again restating the promise and calling them to believe but then in the very next scene what do you have he's about ready to destroy sodom and gomorrah and you know it would have been easy to break this up in two sermons but then it dawned on me as i was working through this and i i studied this this week the first part of genesis 18 what is god doing this morning god is presenting and saying it's time it's time time for the sun isaac is coming my nation is coming my holy nation that i'm setting apart in the earth it's coming and then he goes in the very next scene with abraham standing there linking the scenes together and he demonstrates before Abraham his justice that he's about ready to destroy a nation so in the middle of this God explains what it all means and that's what we're unpacking today what is God's concern what is his concern in this passage the concern is this and you can take this right to you does Abraham understand what he is set apart for does he understand his distinct calling and why god is doing this does he really grasp that in other words why is the seed necessary why is god going to all this work with these people and he just keeps demonstrating his patience and long-suffering and grace after grace after grace heaped upon them. Why is He doing all of this? Do they even get it? Do they even know why? Imagine if we didn't know why. Imagine if you're coming and doing Christianity and you have no idea about why you're here, what this is all about. You have no purpose in it. You're just here. You would never take seriously the reason God has set you apart. You would never understand or know what he's doing isn't that a big concern in this should i hide from abraham what i'm doing we'll come back to that and in that situation you would be no different than the world ignorance covers this world ignorance and blindness is the characteristic of an unbelieving world and then what would make us different if we don't share or understand why god is doing what he's doing with us why he set us apart and what all this means that would be a great tragedy have you ever stopped and asked this you ever stopped and said you know i've known in the course of my life so much blessing and grace why is god doing all that why do i need this that's genesis 18 in chapter 18 we have a fascinating scene abraham is sitting by the trees of mamre in his tent door in the heat of the day and the first thing that you notice is that the lord this is Yahweh himself. The Lord, as he lifted up his eyes, we will see the Lord is appearing to him. He lifted up, he lifts up his eyes and there are three men approaching his tent. One is the Lord because we know from verse 16 that the other two are angels with the Lord. Abraham sees these men and immediately he gets up and he runs to them and he treats them as kings. It's a remarkable scene where here he calls sarah you get everything ready he treats them he feeds them he gives them rest did you notice how much emphasis is given here on him preparing a banquet and a feast for these men verse five i will bring a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves and after that you may pass on since you have come to your servant and abraham ran to the herd took a tender and good calf gave it to a young man and he hastened to prepare it so he took butter and milk and the calf which he had prepared and he set it before them and he stood by them as they ate under the tree it's fascinating isn't it this passage is generally preached as i've heard it preached to emphasize hospitality and there is no doubt in my mind that the author of Hebrews, is certainly referencing this when he wrote, let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. What an amazing thing to think about. Abraham knew these men were special, and he would then find out who this really was. But up front, he didn't know. And the New Testament looks at this, and the New Testament is reading this, and the New Testament is saying, this is an amazing thing to consider, and we'll certainly come to this in Romans chapter 12 in the next week, but consider the hospitality. Our act of loving those, even whom we don't know, is one of the greatest demonstrations that grace has been given to us. And look how it shows itself. Look at Abraham's character. When we do this to the least even of our brethren, we're doing this to the Lord Himself. So that's the first thing I suppose we could say. It's a beautiful thing. But the text is not primarily about hospitality. What is this about? It's drawing an important contrast for you. A very important contrast. We know this reading the whole story and looking back on it. These two angels in the next scene go where? Into Sodom. And so Abraham in the first scene is sitting by his tent door and he immediately shows hospitality. And look at the love, look at the character of what the Lord has worked and the Lord has produced and the Lord has set apart his righteous to be. We're seeing fruits happen here. We're seeing what the believer looks like here. The two men then come into Sodom and who's sitting in the gate door? lot lot's ready to do the same lot's ready to do the same lot's ready to demonstrate hospitality but remember what happened in verse four of the next chapter the men of sodom both old and young all the people from every quarter surrounded the house and said where are the men who came to you tonight bring them out that we may know them carnally and all of a sudden the contrast is real sharp isn't it big contrast it's showing you that god's perspective of strangers whom he has sent and what the righteous and the wicked look like now let me give you a picture of sodom for a moment sodom and gomorrah if you were to look at this from scripture's own description you would go to the little book of Jude which is right before the apocalypse and revelation and you'll remember what Jude said about Sodom as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them remember these were the five cities of the plain in a similar manner to these having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh are set forth as an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. So Jude in the New Testament takes this and says there was an eternal example that was always to be taught throughout the generations about Sodom. What did Sodom and Gomorrah do? Well, the name Sodom, of course, is where we take Sodomy and it is unnatural, perverse, all kinds of unnatural sexual relations, sins. Designated to in some points as we see it here with the men as homosexuality. If you read Jewish literature, you'll find that they knew and they understood that every year this was such a wicked area out in the desert that they would have massive festivals and all sorts of gross immorality went on. Jude says they gave themselves over to this. They willingly gave themselves over and this became the cultural norm of the society. Jude calls it, and I don't like using the original words, I don't do this, but I want you to hear the word ek pornuo. That's what he calls it. It was an extreme form. They were so out of control, they were not even satisfied with their own people. Every stranger who came in the gate, this is what happened. The problem wasn't just this. In Ezekiel chapter 16, this was described. This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy, and they were haughty and committed abomination before me. Therefore, I took them away as I saw fit. Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, as we go through life and we receive the grace of the Lord, As we see happening here with Abraham and what the Lord is setting him apart to. And look at the hospitality. Look at the dramatic contrast that has been set up here between two nations. God's raising up a nation here. Look at that. Look at this nation. And God wants us to see that. And as we're going through this life, as we are moving through, we are bombarded with all of this evil, with the perversity. And guess what begins to happen to the righteous? They don't even think about it. In fact, we just want to stop up our children's ears. We don't want them to think about any of this. And we don't even realize how much our children are hearing and what they're exposed to and what has become so accepted that we're just silent, silent. And in the process of all of this, we forget how serious God takes this. Why am I saying all of this? Because the connection between Abraham's hospitality and the separate calling, all set in contrast to Sodom and Gomorrah here, is this. God is ready to judge and destroy Sodom. And guess what? Abraham has no clue. Abraham's not even thought about this. And Abraham has not reflected upon the justice of God. Go through this. The closest thing you would get is when Pharaoh was plagued. But God spared Pharaoh. He's not seen the justice of God. He's not understood the justice of God. He's not seen that played out. And isn't that us? We haven't even begun to taste the justice. We don't want to taste the justice of God. But have we considered it? Do they understand? Did Abraham understand what was going on in the earth? Did Abraham consider this, that this God is, we sung out at the beginning of the service, boys and girls, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. And does anyone know why God is unfolding this plan? Has anyone considered why God is unfolding this plan? Well, Abraham has really struggled to buy into this plan, hasn't he? Abraham all along the way has really struggled to understand why is God doing this and what does all of this even mean? And now you understand what the connection is. Are you ready for the connection? Side by side is the birth of a son and God's justice. See it? This is where the whole narrative is taking us this morning. Why does Abraham need this son? Why couldn't it be just any son? Why couldn't it be Ishmael? And remember, that was the son he had produced by his own efforts. Why couldn't it just be Ishmael? Abraham said, oh, that Ishmael would live before you. He hasn't gotten it yet. Why like this? And that's the issue that God raises in verse 9. What is the question that God, is God worried about food? What's the first thing God says, the Lord? Where's your wife? I mean, that should give you chills. His focus, his appearance is looking at a lowly woman who's about ready to, a barren woman who's about ready to give birth. Where's your wife? I want to know where she is. She's in the tent. The God of heaven and earth has come down and his whole desire is set there. At the time of life, I'm coming. It's time, Abraham. It's time. Feel the urgency here? There's an urgency to this narrative. It's time that the son come. And you should say, why? Why now? Why is the Lord waiting? What is he teaching all of us? Feel the urgency. Last week, God said to Abraham, the sun is coming. Abraham laughs. God says, really? Then every time you call him a name, it's going to be laughter. Hey, laughter, come here. Laughter, over here. Laughter, take this. That's what Isaac's name means. So a little laughter would run around, and they would have to say laughter over and over and over and over again. And here's Sarah. Sarah is behind the tent and she hears the Lord rehearse the promise again. And what does she do? She laughs. This family has a laughing problem. And the Lord is not happy about this. And think of, now you know who this is because he can see this emotion, he can see this action, and she's behind the tent. Why is she laughing? I didn't laugh. Yes, she did laugh. I see it. And you put all this together and you see the Lord so patient with these people and He's so patient with us. And what are you seeing here? Not only did they struggle to believe the promise, they had no idea why this son needed to be. They're laughing at the whole thing. Now, put laughter now in connection with justice. It kind of goes away, doesn't it? Why had God come? He's creating a holy nation. Abraham's seed is coming from this nation, and I love this chapter because now he's explaining this to us. At this point, all of a sudden, in verse 16, we read that they rose up and they looked toward Sodom. Wow. It's now late in the afternoon. The sun would have been receding into the corner of the west its light would have provided a ray gorgeous looking over sodom it's like a beautiful saturday afternoon in southern california the lights just hitting it god had come to abraham to bless but now the other intention is revealed they rise up abraham knows and sees that their faces are set towards sodom and right at that moment the lord turns to the angels think about this question for a minute right about that time the lord turns to the angels and he says something that drives this whole narrative notice what he says shall i hide from abraham what i am about to do now you know that was for abraham's benefit but ultimately for us the lord wasn't about to hide from abraham what he is about to do he doesn't do that why does the lord not do that because abraham is functioning as a prophet here as you'll see and in amos 3 7 we have a verse that says for the lord god does nothing without revealing his secret to the servants the prophets and then jesus said regarding you in john 15 no longer do i call you servants for a slave He doesn't know what his master's doing. Remember what I said before, that every single person sitting out here right now who's in the darkness and doesn't believe, they have no idea what's about ready to hit them. No idea. And Jesus looked at all of his people and said, you know what, I'm not treating you like that. I'm going to make it really clear to you what I'm doing. Why? Because I've called you my friends. For all things that I've heard from my Father, I have made known to you. That's why we're in church right now. That's why the Lord is doing this. He's making known to you. So the mark of friendship is witnessed in his desire to make known openly to you his will about what he is doing and that you would have understanding, that you would grasp this, that you wouldn't be in the darkness about this great plan that he's unfolding. Every time Jesus spoke about being in the darkness, he equated it with unbelief. And he would say things like, you guys can discern the weather, but you can't discern the time that's darkness that's no understanding to redeem the time to know the time redeeming the time because the days are evil so don't be said Paul in Ephesians unwise understand what the will of the Lord is understand what he said to you about the times in which you live and about what's going on and about where it's all going so what is God revealing to Abraham well he's about ready to see firsthand god's justice and what has happened to abraham he's completely ignorant to sodom and gomorrah and where it's all gone it hasn't gotten a hold of him the sexual morality out of control the gross materialism the covetousness the the hurting of the poor it it hasn't impacted him he hasn't felt that do you ever look at society and think about this in isaiah chapter 5 the lord described what happens in a society when it's ripe for judgment let me read this to you and you tell me if this is not very familiar to you woe to those who join house to house who add field to field until there's no more room and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land. The Lord has sworn in my hearing many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses without inhabitant. That happening? All the greed squelching out and pushing out the poor. Greed, greed, greed, greed. Investors, investors, investors. Greed overcame the society to the ruin of the cities and the poor until there were nothing left, until everything had been so shifted out that the society, this is where it went. It had totally corrupted itself. Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may run after strong drink who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight. We have that problem in our country. Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, valiant men mixing strong drink. The Lord says, I looked for justice in this society, but behold, bloodshed for righteousness. Behold, an outcry. Summary, injustice filled the earth. Now, look at verse 20 of our text. And the Lord said to Abraham, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave. Did you hear what the Lord just said? Every single sin is a cry to Him to make right the wrong that has been worked in the earth. I want you all to feel this this morning. It's so important. The Lord said to Cain, your brother's blood does what? Cries. How many cries went up from Sodom? Are you feeling this as you should? What happens to us? Well, we become kind of desensitized to everything and we're so used to the sin and the lines of morality get pushed back and back and back and we just learn to accept it. We learn to buy into it. We learn to stay silent about it and the next generation comes and that's all they've known. That's all they've seen. So now that's the accepted cultural norm. The Lord says to Abraham, consider this. I want you to consider this. Right now, just be quiet for a moment be quiet and listen to the cries can you hear it a cry just went up as you're sitting here think about the violence a cry just went up of a woman whose husband beats her and the Lord heard that cry and now she sits alone and no one to provide for her and she's got to take care of her children the Lord sees that right now an elderly woman just got out of her car and a group of thugs beat her and left her there to die right now. And we could just keep going. Right now a woman is weeping because last night her son was shot and killed. Right now is the cry of a young child, unloved and terrified. Right now are cries of millions of aborted babies right on up to the Lord. Right now are the cries from all of the abuses in the world of prostitution. Right now, a cry of a young person, drugs, killing and destroying him. Right now, all the cries of the poor. Right now, all the cries of the murders that have taken place, which we have no more rooms in our prisons for. I'm going to give you one that you should feel. And if this troubles you, think about it hitting the Lord. I read in the news not too long ago of a woman microwaving her baby. Right now, the cry. If you can barely take that, and you're a sinner, Think about the holy, just, perfect God who's ready to make all this right. The other day when that storm hit the Philippines and you saw the devastation, did that disturb you? Oh, it disturbed me big time. I hated seeing that. And I'm sickened by that devastation. And everyone says, where's God? Do we think that the world doesn't deserve that? The whole world. We hear the cries. We see it on our children. Sin has caused this. And then you start realizing, you know, we're not nearly as sensitive to sin as we should be. You think our land is not ripe? And the Lord is saying, Abraham, you need to understand this. Now, so what you have in verses 22 through 33 is no more laughter. I mean, the laughter's gone. See the contrast here? The Lord invites Abraham into the court. Okay, Abraham. And notice how it says this. Abraham, the two men lead to Sodom. Abraham's alone. He's standing before the Lord. Court is in session. Abraham's invited into the judgment. But Abraham now begins to intercede for Sodom. Lord, would you destroy the righteous with the wicked? Big concern. What if there's 50? Wouldn't you spare the city for 50? Far be it from you, O Lord, to slay the righteous with the wicked. Do you see what's happened to Abraham? Now he's completely serious. This is devastating to him. This has overwhelmed him. He is totally distressed because now he's tasting and seeing how just this God is. You can't do that. You can't slay the righteous. For 50, I won't do it. How many inhabitants do you think were in Sodom? Lord, just five, let me speak. I'm dust and ashes. I know I am. I know I'm just a creation of you. Five less. Five less. 45. I won't do it for 45. Lord, I know I'm speaking. I mean, he takes this down. 20. I won't destroy it for the sake of 20. Lord, don't be angry. I'm going to speak once more. Suppose there's 10. One more time. 10 righteous people. I won't do it for the sake of 10. What just happened to Abraham? He felt how great the problem is and that this God can't tolerate it and he's totally distressed. Now here's the sermon. Do you think now he's prepared to ask what God's going to do with his son? Do you think now he's looking for a son? Because God said in that son, all the nations of the earth will be what? blessed. And now you see what's going on here. Back in verse 19, the Lord said something. I have chosen Abraham that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. See the concern of God? Justice, righteousness, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham is and his descendants what he promised. I've set them apart for this. I've made promises to this man that he's going to be a great blessing and a nation and he will bless all the nations. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, what was one of the purposes of that? It was always for Abraham to teach who? Children. And now we're kind of convicted here because you're seeing a major responsibility of your parenting i want you as a father to be separate to me and i want you to show it in the way you train your children i want you to have them think about judgment and righteousness and sin and the judgment to come don't stop up their ears and don't no no no no no no you tell them what's going on in society. You talk to them as parents should talk. I mean, our immediate response is to go, oh, I don't want to hear that. Train them. Talk to them. You know what Pharaoh, in I think it's the eighth plague, asks Moses? You can go. You keep your children here. That's the devil. God called us to raise our children, to know him and to love him. And he tells us the future cries are ascending right now. Fathers, command your children. I've talked to older fathers and I asked them, I said, well, what do you, when you train your children, what do you look back and you regret? What do you think they said to me? I didn't value church like I should. I didn't have them around the table like I should. I didn't love them like I should in training them in the ways of the Lord. And I'm so grateful that the Lord is the ultimate overseer of our children. But He uses you. He uses me. God's telling Abraham the seed has got to come or there's no hope for this sad world and I want you in all of your ways to be a people separate to me and this is the people through whom that seed is going to come. Because unless I do that, those ashes and the smoke that's about ready to go up from Sodom is the end of it all. Now, let me close with this. Imagine this discussion in heaven, if you will, just for a moment, just for a moment. Imagine this discussion in heaven between the Father and the Son. Father, are you going to destroy the whole world? Jesus starts interceding. For the sake of 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, 5, 3, 1. What's the message the Bible gives you? There's none righteous. No, not one. God had every right to do it. Can you imagine what the Son said? In the volume of the book, it's written of me. Behold, here I am to do your will, O God. Send me! And this righteous one in whom the Father was well pleased, the one righteous one in whom the Father was well pleased, who had no sin, who was a son of Abraham. Instead of that judgment falling on you today, He came and that wrath was poured out upon Him. The judgment of Sodom was poured out on Him on the cross. And had that not been so, we would have all been made like Sodom. We would have all been made like Gomorrah. But God didn't do that. And today He wants you to know that he's extended that promise to you and to your children and that he has said to you, I want you to tell your children about my son. I want you to teach your children about my son who is the righteous one who came and who died and whoever believes in him will escape the wrath to come and through that righteous son, I'm going to judge the world. For all who believe in him, there's a way of escape. And you see, knowing then, That He is coming soon to judge the world. Don't you feel the cries right now? In Revelation 8, that's exactly what's coming up to the throne. Since He's receiving your cries, since He's hearing those cries, may we then and our children be found by Him, be diligent to be found by Him without spot and without blemish. Trust Him. Believe Him. See what he's done for you. Understand where this is all going, why he set you apart, and join in this great plan of God setting apart a people to himself, saving a holy generation to him who are saved by the blood and the righteousness of his beloved son, a son of Abraham. Let's pray. O Lord our God, we are grateful, Lord, and we bow the head in thanksgiving. That You have made known Your will. And that You've not left us in the darkness about this. But that today, we would never taste this. We would never choose to see this. We would put our head in the sand. But You call us here and bring us here and let us see very clearly things from Your perspective. And we are so moved. We are moved that You care to instruct us and that you have made us by grace your children and that you gave your Son that we might be holy and separate to you. May we always remember where this is all going and have strong faith to trust you in all circumstances. And Lord, for these children today, may they grow to love you and use us as fathers and mothers to teach them the ways of the Lord and to value what is most important. Forgive us that we've taken sin lightly. And may now our laughter of unbelief be changed to genuine, sincere, childlike trust that believes you. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.