Genesis

1. Genesis Chapter 23

2. John 8:56-58 • 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad." • 57 Then the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?" • 58 Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."

3. ego (eg-o'); a primary pronoun of the first person I eimi has the force of a predicate to be,to exist Ego eimi= I am the being or I am the existence.

4. Sarah lived 127 fruitful years; Although in her first 90 years, she was barren, but by faith, she was called the “mother of believers” • Isa 51:2 • “Look to Abraham your father,And to Sarah who bore you;” • (Isaiah 51: 2); • sharing with her man Abraham, the “father of believers” all the years of his strife, carrying with him the hardships and receiving with him the divine promises . • She walked with the Spirit of obedience, so that the apostle Peter asked the women believers to follow her example, saying: “As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and not afraid with any terror” (1 Peter 3:6).

5. Eph 5:22-25 • Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. • 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,

6. If Abraham’s faith raised him above events; as by faith he fought the kings to set his nephew Lot free; and by faith he took his son Isaac to the land of Moriah to slay him . • Yet that faith does not contradict the human tender feelings that drove the fountains of tears before the body of Sarah ! • Faith does not deprive us from emotions, but sanctifies them and makes them grow. • That is what we see in Abraham our father, the man of faith.

7. the Lord Christ Himself, who could not help weeping as he saw the tears of Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus died; that the Jews said: “See how He loved him ! “ (John 11: 35, 36). • The epistles of the apostle Paul came loaded with holy human emotions: we see him several times recalling how his disciple Timothy wept for the departure or imprisonment of his mentor (2 Timothy 1: 3, 4).

8. “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11: 13).

9. Gen 23:4 • "I am a foreigner and a visitor among you. Gen 23:6 • You are a mighty prince Gen 23:7 • Then Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, the sons of Heth.

10. Gen 19:9 • 9 And they said, "Stand back!" Then they said, "This one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge; now we will deal worse with you than with them."

11. Gal 1:10 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. 1 Thess 2:4-8 • 4 But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. 5 For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness — God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. 8 So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.

12. James 4:4-6 • 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain,"The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously"? • 6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: • "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."

13. Humility Cures Worldliness • James 4:7-10 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

14. St. Erineos commenting on the thought of faith, lived by our father Abraham, and strongly proclaimed by refusing to accept the cave as a free gift from anybody, in patient anticipation for his descendants to receive the whole land -- the land of promise -- from the hand of God,,

15. saying: [The promise of God remained steadfast, saying to him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are -- northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever” (Gen. 13: 14, 15). • And he also said: “Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you” (Gen. 13: 17). • However, “God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on” (Acts 7: 5); he stayed a foreigner and sojourner all his days. • And when his wife Sarah died, as the sons of Heth wanted to give him a burial place for free, he refused to take it as a gift, but paid 400 silver Shekels for the cave owned by Ephron the Hittite. • He thus patiently anticipated the realization of God’s promise, and refused to accept from anybody something that God promised to give him.

16. St. Basil, the Great, believes that Abraham, as a man of faith, did not own a thing; all he • owned in all his life, was a place of burial for himself, his wife, and his children. ... • As though proclaiming that all he demands of land, is no more than what is wide enough for his dead body, in anticipation of the resurrection from the dead !

17. The character of Sarah • is of mingled light and shade. On the one hand we have seen that lapse from faith which resulted in the birth of Ishmael, and that lack of self-control and charity which resulted in a quarrel with Abraham, an act of injustice to Hagar, and the disinheriting of Ishmael. Yet on the other hand we see in Sarah, as the New Testament writers point out (Heb 11:11; 1 Peter 3:6), one who through a long life of companionship with Abraham shared his hope in God, his faith in the promises, and his power to become God's agent for achieving what was humanly impossible.

18. In fact, to Sarah is ascribed a sort of spiritual maternity, correlative with Abraham's position as "father of the faithful"; for all women are declared to be the (spiritual) daughters of Sarah, who like her are adorned in "the hidden man of the heart," and who are "doers of good" and "fearers of no terror" (1 Peter loc. cit., literally rendered). • That in spite of her outbreak about Hagar and Ishmael she was in general "in subjection to her husband" and of "a meek and quiet spirit," appears from her husband's genuine grief at her decease, and still more clearly from her son's prolonged mourning for her (Gen 24:67; compare 17:17 and 23:1 with 25:20).