Latest / More Than Medicine / DWDP-Gen 17:17-27 God Promises, Abraham Obeys

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DWDP-Gen 17:17-27 God Promises, Abraham Obeys · More Than Medicine

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to More Than Medic, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hosted by author and physician, Dr.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Jackson.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Papa, can you tell me a story?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Do you really want me to tell you a story?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you go get your brother and your sisters, and I will tell you a story.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Devotions with Dr.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Papa.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Gather round, grab your Bibles, and let us look into the written word which reveals to us the living word who is our Lord Jesus Christ.
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  SPEAKER_02: Today we're in Genesis seventeen verses fifteen through twenty seven.
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  SPEAKER_02: Then God said to Abraham, As for Sarai, your wife, you should not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
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  SPEAKER_02: I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her.
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  SPEAKER_02: Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations.
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  SPEAKER_02: Kings of people will come from her.
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  SPEAKER_02: Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old?
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  SPEAKER_02: And will Sarah who is ninety years old bear a child?
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  SPEAKER_02: And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before you.
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  SPEAKER_02: But God said No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
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  SPEAKER_02: As for Ishmael, I have heard you, behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly.
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  SPEAKER_02: He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.
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  SPEAKER_02: But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.
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  SPEAKER_02: When he finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now go back to verse twelve in the previous week's lesson.
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  SPEAKER_02: And if you remember God told Abraham to circumcise not just Isaac, I'm sorry, Ishmael, but his entire household.
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  SPEAKER_02: And he told him to do so on which day?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: You got it the eighth day after birth.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now why the eighth day?
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  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever wondered that?
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  SPEAKER_02: And the Jews still circumcise their newborn boys on the eighth day.
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  SPEAKER_02: Thousands of years later they still circumcise on the eighth day.
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  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's a medical reason for that, which Abraham didn't understand at that time, and which the Jews did not understand for thousands of years.
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  SPEAKER_02: And here's the reason Vitamin K, which is necessary for proper clotting of blood, for proper clotting function, is low at birth and reaches normal levels by you guessed it the eighth day.
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  SPEAKER_02: And that's why all newborns are given a vitamin K injection at birth.
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  SPEAKER_02: Did you know that?
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  SPEAKER_02: No, lots of people don't realize that their newborns are given a vitamin K injection at birth as a supplement and to prevent spontaneous bleeding.
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  SPEAKER_02: A lot of my moms who participate in home births sometimes call me in a panic because their precious little newborns are spontaneously bleeding from their nose or mouth or their GI tract and sometimes profusely bleeding.
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  SPEAKER_02: A simple vitamin K injection solves that problem and it makes me look real smart and I become the hero of the day when I have them simply come by my office or go by the emergency room for a vitamin K injection which immediately stops the profuse bleeding.
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  SPEAKER_02: But how did God know to postpone circumcision to the eighth day when vitamin K was at its peak and bleeding was no longer a risk?
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  SPEAKER_02: Well I'll let you figure that one out all by yourself.
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  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, I'll give you a clue.
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  SPEAKER_02: He's the maker of the heavens and the earth, and all that therein is.
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  SPEAKER_02: All things are open and laid bare before him.
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  SPEAKER_02: Nothing is hidden from his eyes.
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  SPEAKER_02: Why would he not know that?
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  SPEAKER_02: Vitamin K peaks on day eight.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's not just a random suggestion on God's part.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now look at verse fifteen.
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  SPEAKER_02: God changes Sarah's name to Saraiah's name to Sarah, which means princess.
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  SPEAKER_02: Why princess?
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  SPEAKER_02: Well, he tells us in verse sixteen it's because she's gonna be like Abraham, the mother of a multitude.
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  SPEAKER_02: He tells us that that she's gonna God's gonna bless her and that she shall be a mother of nations and kings of peoples will come from her.
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  SPEAKER_02: God's predicting the future of the entire Hebrew nation that's gonna flow from this union between Abraham and Sarah.
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  SPEAKER_02: And how was that going to happen?
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  SPEAKER_02: She's eighty nine years old at this time, and she's as barren as a back desert.
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  SPEAKER_02: Well, verse seventeen.
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  SPEAKER_02: That divine suggestion was so preposterous that Abraham fell on his face and he actually laughed in God's face.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now remember when Zachariah the priest questioned God's intention to give him a son by his elderly wife Elizabeth a thousand plus years later?
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  SPEAKER_02: He ended up mute for nine months and unable to speak because he laughed in the presence of the angel who told him that he was going to have a son by his elderly wife Elizabeth.
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  SPEAKER_02: So laughing at God is dangerous business.
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  SPEAKER_02: Apparently, Abraham, who laughed in his heart, not out loud, but you see God sees the heart, right?
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  SPEAKER_02: So in verse eighteen, God provides an alternative proposition, a reasonable proposition, humanly speaking, considering that their age and Ishmael's availability.
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  SPEAKER_02: Abraham provides this alternative proposition.
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  SPEAKER_02: And he says, listen what he said in verse eighteen.
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  SPEAKER_02: And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before you.
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  SPEAKER_02: And in his human way of thinking, that was a legitimate proposition.
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  SPEAKER_02: But then in verse nineteen, God slams the door on that proposition, and God is quite emphatic and he says no.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now read, let me read you the rest of that verse, verse nineteen.
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  SPEAKER_02: But God said no, but Sarah, your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
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  SPEAKER_02: So three things here.
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  SPEAKER_02: Number one, ninety-year-old Sarah will bear a son.
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  SPEAKER_02: And yes, that is going to be a miracle.
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  SPEAKER_02: Number two, God gives his name in advance.
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  SPEAKER_02: And his name is going to be Isaac, which means he laughs.
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  SPEAKER_02: And God's saying, look, you just laughed at me, big boy.
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  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm going to get the last laugh, and you'll be reminded of it every single day of his life because his name's going to be Isaac, which means he laughs.
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  SPEAKER_02: And then number three, I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant.
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  SPEAKER_02: Here God sovereignly chooses Isaac over Ishmael, even though Ishmael was the firstborn, just as he later chooses Jacob over Esau, even though Esau was the firstborn, and just as he sovereignly chose Israel over all the other nations on earth to show forth his praise, and through whom to introduce the Messiah.
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  SPEAKER_02: And get this, just as he sovereignly chose you and me.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now go and figure.
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  SPEAKER_02: Why would he choose you and me to show forth the wonders of his mercy, his loving kindness and his grace to your neighbors and my neighbors and your family and my family, and your friends and my friends?
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  SPEAKER_02: Go figure.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now look at verse twenty.
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  SPEAKER_02: Let me read it to you.
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  SPEAKER_02: As for Ishmael, I have heard you.
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  SPEAKER_02: Behold, I will bless him and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly.
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  SPEAKER_02: He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.
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  SPEAKER_02: God doesn't forget Ishmael, who by the rule of primogeniture should receive all the privileges of the firstborn son, but he is not the chosen one.
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  SPEAKER_02: Nevertheless, he is Abraham's offspring.
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  SPEAKER_02: So God promises to bless Ishmael and make him fruitful.
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  SPEAKER_02: In fact, he informs Abraham that he will have twelve grandsons through Ishmael, all of whom will be noblemen, all of whom will be princes.
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  SPEAKER_02: Out of Ishmael will arrive arise a great nation.
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  SPEAKER_02: From Ishmael and his twelve sons have arisen one point five billion Arabs of the Middle East and North Africa and Southeast Asia, all of whom are opposed to the other sons of Abraham even today.
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  SPEAKER_02: Remember God told Abraham that Ishmael would be a wild donkey of a man.
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  SPEAKER_02: Oh my.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now verse twenty one, keep going.
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  SPEAKER_02: But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.
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  SPEAKER_02: But the everlasting covenant, which God called my covenant, I will establish with Isaac, whom your ninety year old wife will bear at this time next year.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now please put this in perspective.
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  SPEAKER_02: Abraham is a hundred years old.
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  SPEAKER_02: Sarah is ninety years old and barren.
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  SPEAKER_02: She is infertile.
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  SPEAKER_02: God has been talking to Abraham for twenty five years, that is one fourth of his life about this promise, about this covenant, and still there is no heir, there is no son, there is no offspring.
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  SPEAKER_02: And now God has even named the future son and given him a birth date one year from now.
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  SPEAKER_02: And he's excluded Ishmael on whom everyone has set their hopes, even though he's turning out to be a juvenile delinquent, a wild donkey of a man as God predicted.
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  SPEAKER_02: We're not done there.
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  SPEAKER_02: When he finished talking about God, when he finished talking with Abraham, God went up from him.
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  SPEAKER_02: When God finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.
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  SPEAKER_02: Once again, God goes up.
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  SPEAKER_02: The Bible treats these remarkable supernatural events as mundane, ordinary, everyday events.
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  SPEAKER_02: God came down, he spoke to a man, he made extraordinary promises, and then zoom, he goes back to heaven.
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  SPEAKER_02: Not even an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence.
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  SPEAKER_02: This amazes me that the scripture treats these events as if it was just an everyday ordinary event.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now I want you to look at verses twenty-three through twenty seven.
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  SPEAKER_02: In verse twenty-three, the Bible says, Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the servants who were born in his house, and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the very same day as God had said to him.
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  SPEAKER_02: In other words, in the same day that God had initiated the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, he took Ishmael, his own self, and every male in his household, and the whole crowd of them were circumcised in that very same day.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know about you, but to me it contain this verse contains one of the most amazing examples of both individual and corporate examples of obedience in the whole Bible.
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  SPEAKER_02: I mean, watch this.
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  SPEAKER_02: How many men worked for Abraham and his community and his household?
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  SPEAKER_02: Well, we know he had three hundred and eighteen armed soldiers who went to rescue Lot and his family from the five kings.
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  SPEAKER_02: They were probably twice that number that stayed behind to shepherd the camels, the sheep, and the cattle.
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  SPEAKER_02: Plus all these men had two or three sons apiece, all of whom were circumcised that very day, which is an amazing example of instant obedience.
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  SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine their response to Abraham that day?
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  SPEAKER_02: You want us to do what?
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  SPEAKER_02: To our what?
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  SPEAKER_02: With a sharp knife?
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  SPEAKER_02: And who told you to do this?
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  SPEAKER_02: You mean the same God who told you you were going to have a baby boy?
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  SPEAKER_02: And how many years ago was that?
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  SPEAKER_02: Like twenty five years ago?
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  SPEAKER_02: And exactly where is Sarah's baby boy?
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  SPEAKER_02: Are you Daffy Old Man?
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  SPEAKER_02: Now, none of that conversation happened.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Probably there were close to eight or nine hundred men and boys in Abraham's household.
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  SPEAKER_02: And all of them submitted to circumcision in one day, in obedience to Abraham's command, in obedience to God's command.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Let me read you verses twenty four through twenty seven.
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  SPEAKER_02: This is remarkable.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, and Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
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  SPEAKER_02: In the very same day Abraham was circumcised, and Ishmael his son, all the men of his household who were born in the house or bought with money from a foreigner were circumcised with him.
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  SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine that scene?
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  SPEAKER_02: Eight or nine hundred men walking around stiff legged and weak for nearly five to seven days after all of them were circumcised?
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  SPEAKER_02: It just it boggles my mind.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now, let me ask you, what is God told you to do that is out of the ordinary?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Give a tithe to your local church?
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  SPEAKER_02: That's otherworldly.
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  SPEAKER_02: Talk to your coworker about Jesus?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Go on a mission trip to another country and fulfill the Great Commission?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Build a relationship with an unchurched neighbor to eventually talk to them about Jesus?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Ask someone that you've offended to forgive you or even harder to forgive someone who offended you, which is a uniquely Christian phenomenon.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, Jesus said If you love me, you will obey me.
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  SPEAKER_02: Simple as that.
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  SPEAKER_02: Hard, but simple.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the challenge.
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  SPEAKER_02: Pray every day.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Lord show me where I am not fully obeying you and give me grace to fully obey.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: You're listening to devotions with Dr.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Papa.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: If you like what you hear, I pray you'd follow, like, or share, download it, tell all your friends about us, and we'll be back again next week.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Until then, remember Jesus loves you and your doctor loves you.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I pray that till next week, the Lord bless you.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, Instagram, or webpage at Jackson Family Ministry.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Also, don't forget to check out Doctor Jackson.