INDIVIDUALS VS THE MAJORITY

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1) ADAM

- He was made in God’s image !

- He had in subjection all the animals on the earth !

- He could speak to God face-to-face!

- He was blessed by God !

- He was to fill the earth !

- He could have lived forever !

- He was made out of dust !

- He was put into a paradise !

- He could eat from every tree except one !

- He could do whatever he wanted recognizing God’s authority !

- Refusing this authority would mean death !

- The devil said if you eat from the tree of knowledge you will become like God !

- You won’t die !

- But they died !

- In fact, he showed the way to humanity to disobey God and to death !

- Only individuals stayed faithful to God !

 

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2) CAIN and ABEL

- The first two sons of Adam and eve are Cain and Abel!

- Abel became a shepherd of the flock, but Cain became a cultivator of the ground.

- After some time, Cain brought some fruits of the land as an offering to God. But Abel brought some firstlings of his flock, including their fat.

- While God looked with favor on Abel and on his offering, he did not look with any favor on Cain and on his offering.

- So Cain grew hot with anger and was dejected.

- Then God told Cain to change of attitude!

- But he didn’t care!

- Then he told Abel to go over into the field and he killed his brother!

- Cain went the wrong way!

- God told him to change his way!

- But he kept going the wrong way!

- As a consequence, he killed his brother!

- That’s man’s reality!

- We see the same history everywhere in the Bible, especially with the Israelites!

- And God warned them again and again so many times that it is ridiculous for them!

- And humanity keeps doing the same!

- And look at where we are and where we are going!

 

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3) NOAH

- After Noah reached 500 years of age, he became father to Shem, Ham, and Japheth!

- He was a righteous man!

- He was a faithful servant of God!

- But the earth was filled with violence!

- Everything was corrupted!

- So God decided to destroy humanity except Noah and his family!

- Think of that: Only Noah found favor in the eyes of God!

- Think about what will happen when Jesus comes back to clean the earth!

- That’s why it is important to read all the Bible not to forget!

- And if we forget or we don’t care that’s our responsibility!

- God told Noah to build an ark!

- He did exactly what God told him!

- Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth!

- Once again, only Noah and his family found favor in God’s eyes!

- What a shame for all humanity!

- A lot to think about!

 

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4) Abraham

- Chapter 11-12

- Abram’s wife Sarai was barren; she had no child!

- Terah took Abram his son and Lot his grandson, the son of Haran, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram his son, and they went with him out of Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. In time they came to Haran and began dwelling there. The days of Terah were 205 years. Then Terah died in Haran.

- God told Abram to go to Canaan!

- So Abram was 75 when he left haran and he left with his whole family!

- They went to Sheshem and God told him that he would give his offspring the land of Canaan!

- Because of the famine, Abram went to Egypt!

- Abram told his wife to say to the Egyptians that she was his sister so he would stay alive!

- Sarai was brought to Pharaoh’s house!

- But God struck Pharaoh because of Sarai!

- So Pharaoh gave back Sarai to Abram and he left!

 

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5) ABRAHAM

Chapter 13

- Abraham went out of Egypt to the Negeb and Bethel!

- Lot was with him!

- Both had too much livestock for the land!

- So Abraham told Lot to a place to go and Abraham went to another place!

- And Lot went to live in Sodom!

- Now the men of Sodom were wicked, gross sinners against God!

- God told Abraham that he was going to give him the land he was living in!

 

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6) ABRAHAM

Chapter 14

- There was a war and Lot and his household became prisoners!

- When Abraham was told, he organized his men and he freed Lot and his household!

Chapter 15

- Abraham had a vision!

- God told him that his offspring would become slaves in a foreign land and would be afflicted for 400 years!

- But after that his offspring would come back to the land of Canaan!

 

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ABRAHAM

Chapter 16

- Sarai had no children so she gave her Egyptian servant Hagar to her husband!

- And she became pregnant!

- But she began to despise her mistress!

- So Sarai humiliated her and she ran away from her!

- Then God’s angel appeared to her!

- He told her to return to her mistress and humble herself!

- And she had to call her child Ishmael!

- And he would become a great nation!

- Abraham was 86 years when Hagar bore Ishmael to him!

 

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8) ABRAHAM

Chapter 17

- When Abraham was 99, God appeared to him and told him he would become a great nation!

- And God changed his name from Abram to Abraham!

- And he told him again that they would get the land of Canaan!

- And he established a covenant with him: every male had to get circumcised!

- The one not being circumcised had to die!

- And he changed the name of Abraham’s wife from Sarai to Sarah!

- And she was to have a child!

- But Abraham began to laugh and to say in his heart: “Will a man 100 years old have a child born to him, and will Sarah, a woman 90 years old, give birth?”

- Thus Abraham and all the men belonging to him were circumcised!

 

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9) ABRAHAM

Chapter 18

- Abraham saw 3 men and he met them and invited them to eat something!

- So he told his wife to prepare bread!

- And he asked one of his attendant for preparing a young bull!

- Finally, one of them told him that next year Sarah was to have a son!

- And Sarah began to laugh to herself because she was too old!

- God said to Abraham he was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah!

- Then Abraham had a discussion with God!

- And God told him he was not going to destroy the two cities if he was to find 50 or 45 or 40 or 30 or 20 or 10 righteous men he would not destroy the two cities!

- Think about the men who could have such a discussion with God!

- Not many indeed!

- God really considered Abraham as a faithful servant!

 

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10) ABRAHAM

Chapter 20

- Once again Abraham doesn’t say that Sarah is his wife but just his sister!

- He tries to survive!

- We remember what did David!

- And many others were or are ready to kill for a woman!

- So king Abimelech sends for Sarah and takes her!

- But God warns him!

- And he tells Abimelech to send Sarah back if he doesn’t want to die!

- Thus Abraham does his part to survive and so does God!

- So as Abraham, we have to do our part if we want God to do his part!

- There is no other way!

 

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11) ABRAHAM

Chapter 21

- And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, just as God had commanded him.

- Here we have a faithful servant of God!

- He does just as God commands him!

- That is a big difference with the Israelites!

- That is a big difference with those who go to the restaurant and choose the menu!

- Here there is no choice!

- Or better said only one choice: God’s one!

 

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12) ABRAHAM

Chapter 22

- God wants to put Abraham to the test!

- So he asks Abraham for offering his son as a sacrifice!

- Remember that God told Abraham that Isaac would become a great nation!

- So Abraham does exactly as God tells him!

- And Abraham takes the knife to kill his son!

- But God’s angel stops him!

- What a faith!

- An unbelievable act of faith!

- That’s what we can call a faithful servant of God!

- Whenever you think of faithfulness, think of this incredible act of faith!

- You can read this chapter of Genesis as much as you want!

- Whenever you feel bad, think of it or read it!

- That’s pure faithfulness!

- Pure gold!

- That’s why the Bible is worth reading and studying carefully and daily without limits!

- To be told about such incredible faithful servants of God!

 

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13) ABRAHAM

- Abraham has a son Isaac who has two sons Esau and Jacob!

- Jacob finds favor in the eyes of God!

- He gets twelve sons and a daughter called Dinah!

- She is raped and then offered a marriage!

- Jacob’s sons accept the marriage but the men must get circumcised!

- When the men are still in pain, Jacob’s sons kill all of them because of Dinah!

- And they take all the possessions of the men!

- Thus Jacob’s sons behave badly and with violence!

- But God Protects Jacob and his family!

- Not a good start for the Israelites!

- Once again the Bible tells us about God and a faithful servant!

- Here it is Abraham!

- Then God will choose Joseph, Jacob’s son to keep Jacob’s family going!

- And Jacob’s family will go to Egypt!

- And they will become slaves!

- But God will free them from the hands of the Egyptians!

 

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14) JOSEPH

- In Genesis 37, we are told about Joseph being 17 years old!

- Jacob has a preference for him and he clearly shows his preference for him!

- Thus Jacob is a bad example!

- If parents want to bring troubles in their families, they just have to show preferences!

- That’s really a bad start!

- And we know what happened later!

- Now thanks to the Bible we have many good and bad examples!

- Good examples to follow and bad examples to keep away!

- As a consequence, Joseph’s brothers begin to hate him!

- And they can’t speak peaceably to him!

- And Joseph has dreams showing that he will prevail over his brothers!

- So things get worse and worse!

- Finally his brothers sell him!

- And he finds himself as a slave in Egypt!

- He is sold to Potiphar, a court official of Pharaoh and the chief of the guard!

 

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15) JOSEPH

- God is with Joseph!

- We can add Joseph is with God!

- Joseph is a faithful servant of God!

- He is put over the house of his master!

- He becomes his personal attendant!

- Joseph is responsible for everything!

- At the same time, Joseph grows to be well-built and handsome!

- And Potiphar’s wife wants to have sex with him!

- But Joseph wants to stay faithful to his master and to God so he refuses!

- And Potiphar’s wife accuses him of trying to rape him!

- So Potiphar takes him to prison!

- But God keeps being with Joseph!

- And the chief officer of the prison puts him in charge of all the prisoners!

 

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16) JOSEPH

- Pharaoh sends two of his officers to prison!

- Then both have a dream!

- And Joseph tells them the interpretation!

- Then he asks the first to remember him and speaks to Pharaoh about him!

- The second will die!

- But he forgets Joseph!

- Does it remind you something?

- And Joseph stays in prison!

- He must be patient!

- It is a way for God to test human beings!

- And usually they aren’t patient!

- And it is easy for them to forget God!

- And it is easy to understand why they usually don't understand him!

 

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17) JOSEPH

- After two years, Pharaoh has a dream!

- It is about seven fat cows and seven thin ones!

- And the seven thin ones eat the seven fat ones!

- Then Pharaoh has a second dream with seven full ears of grain and seven thin ones!

- And the seven thin ones swallow up the seven full ones!

- And Pharaoh becomes agitated and wants the interpretation of his dreams!

- But no one can interpret them!

- And his officer finally remembers Joseph and tells Pharaoh about him!

- So Pharaoh sends for Joseph who tells the interpretation of the dreams!

- And Joseph tells Pharaoh about seven years of abundance and seven years of famine!

- So Joseph tells Pharaoh to put a man in charge over the land of Egypt to collect all the food during the abundance and store it and safeguard it and save the people!

- So Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge!

- He will be second only after Pharaoh!

- Joseph was 30 years old!

- And Joseph had two sons Manasseh and Ephraim!

- And people would come from everywhere to buy food from Joseph!

 

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18) JOSEPH

- Jacob sends ten of his sons except Benjamin to Egypt to get some food!

- He doesn’t want to lose him like Joseph!

- In Egypt they meet Joseph because he is the man in charge of selling grain!

- He recognizes them but they don’t!

- And he remembers his dreams about his brothers and he understands everything!

- He accuses them of being spies!

- So they tell him they were 12 brothers, one is no more and the youngest is with their father!

- Then to check what they say, he lets them go but one of them must stay in Egypt and they must come back with their youngest brother!

- And they remember what they did to their brother Joseph and He hears them!

- Then he goes away and weeps and comes back!

- And he asks his servants to put the money back to his brothers’ bags!

- Later his brothers realize that their money was in their bags and they are afraid of being accused of theft!

- When they come back to Jacob they tell him everything!

- But he tells them he will never let Benjamin go!

- Thus Joseph understands that everything happened because of God’s will!

- Thus he was sent to Egypt to be able to save his own family!

- But he wants to test his brothers to see if they have changed!

- Of course, he had to survive in a foreign country!

- He got into trouble without having done anything wrong!

- But God was with him and Joseph became the second most important man in Egypt!

- Does it remind you of Daniel?

- And Joseph got a lot of experience!

 

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19) JOSEPH

- Because of the famine, Jacob must send his sons to Egypt again to buy some food!

- But Judah tells his father they must go with Benjamin!

- Otherwise they will get into trouble!

- Judah offers his life as a guarantee for his safety!

- Jacob tells them to take double the money with them and also the money that was returned to them!

- When Joseph sees Benjamin, he invites all his brothers to a meal with him!

- But when Joseph’s brothers are told to go to Joseph’s house, they think it is because of the money that was returned in their bags and they are afraid of dying!

- But they are told not to be afraid!

- And they also told about the meal!

- Then Joseph asks them more questions!

- When Joseph sees Benjamin again, he wants to cry so he goes to another room!

- Then he washes his eyes and eats with them!

- And Benjamin receives more food!

- And Joseph’s brothers are amazed!

- Because they don’t know what’s on!

- But Joseph knows!

 

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20) JOSEPH

- He tells his man to put the food and the money in his brother’s bags!

- He also tells him to put his silver cup in Benjamin’s bag!

- His brothers leave in the morning!

- Then he asks his man to chase after his brothers and Joseph’s silver cup is found in Benjamin’s bag!

- Benjamin must become Joseph’s slave!

- The other brothers can leave!

- They say that their father is going to die if Benjamin doesn’t come back!

- Judah wants to stay instead of Benjamin as a guarantee for him!

- Thus Joseph puts his brothers to the test!