And he made his home in a valley, and was friendly, and spoke to his neighbors, and praised God in everything he did. But there came a famine in Canaan and Abram, with all he had, moved into Egypt.

Now Abram was extremely wise and had studied all the wisdom of those before him. Father Noah was 500 years of age when the Great Flood began and Shem, his son, was 98. And the Flood took a year before things came back to where people could start a normal life. Abram was born 292 years after the Flood and Noah died 350 years after he survived the Deluge [500] and died when he was 950 years old. His son Shem lived another 500 years and died when he was 598 years of age. Both of these patriarchs were contemporaries of Father Abram and Shem outlived him. So we may know and understand the great wisdom Abram learned from these men about the world before the Flood and after. Their long life spans enabled them to study nature, the composition of the earth they walked on, its creatures and the starry sky.

So Abram sojourned in Egypt during the famine and he sold and bought and spoke of these things and the Egyptians learned of Father Abram about the stars and the seasons, about the numbers and the faith in God, the Maker of it all. But in Egypt, in time, they called his name Amon instead of God. And over some years Amon became different from God by reason of their own imaginations and inventions.

And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold while in Egypt. And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai; In those days, gold was a favorite means to pay for goods and services.

About this time God appeared unto Abram to make a covenant saying, `I give thee this land and thy own seed shall inherit it. And Sarah shall give thee a son.' And Sarai, Abram's wife, said to Abram, `Take Haggar to be a wife' for both were getting old. And Abram lost faith in God's promise of a son by Sarai and went in unto Haggar and with it demonstrated that he wanted to help out God with his own works and devisings and had a son he named Ishmael whom he ended up sending away with his mother.

And Abram bethought himself by faith, for they were already very old, and went also in unto Sarai and at long last, she bare him Isaac, his only son by Sarai. Only now he understood all manners of true faith, that God will do not His large and difficult part until man does his small and insignificant part, for in such an act of cooperation between God and man faith must grow in all manners of spiritual life.

And God called his name Abraham because of that covenant to make him a father of many nations. But Abraham worshipped God by faith and God tempted Abraham and asked him to make a sacrifice of his own son Isaac to test his faith if it was genuine faith. And Abraham took his son to the mount. He built the altar and was just about to sacrifice his son, knowing God would surely raise him from the dead, to make him a great nation - when the angel of God stayed his hand and behold, a ram caught in the thicket by his horns and Abraham took it and placed his hands upon its head and prayed to God, "God, forgive me, for I know not what I do." And God forgave Abraham, and he slew the ram in the place of his son and burned its fat upon the altar and his sins were requited of him and Abraham was full of joy and told his neighbors about God and how He made him glad. - And looking up in the night sky, Abraham, now quite aged and full of experience with the Lord, saw in his mind the meaning of sacrifices by faith and he saw the future, distant time, where an only son would once again be slain, to pay the price for sin.

The Arab nations, we know, are intimately tied to Abraham. The promise God gave to His faithful servant, extends to Abraham's seed. We read,

"And the angel of the Lord found her (Hagar) by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, `Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence cames thou? And whither wilt thou go?' And she said, `I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.' And the angel of the Lord said unto her, `Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.'" Gen. 16:7-9

"And the angel of the Lord said unto her, `I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.' And the angel of the Lord said unto her, `Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction.'" Gen. 16:1,11

"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." Matthew 6:9-13

Woman, all over the world are very beautiful, in particular also those of Arab countries - however, they are veiled and largely hidden away. In Islam women are looked upon as temptresses whose irresistible attractiveness rivals Alah's power to secure the allegiance of men. We read,

"The Muslim order faces two threats:

a) the infidel without and
b) the infidel within." [Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil, p. 12]

"The whole Muslim structure can be seen as an attack on, and a defense against, the disruptive power of female sexuality." It is a "whole system .... based on the assumption that the woman is a powerful and dangerous being." [Ibid., p. 14, xvi] This is the reason why in Islam women must be veiled and hidden from public eyes. If a man and a woman are thrown together alone, the automatic assumption is that they cannot resist temptation. Muslim men are titillated by the open ingenuousness of Western women, which they readily interpret as an invitation, only to be perplexed by indignant refusal.

Unfulfilled emptiness in the heart of Arabic men seeks to be satisfied. They seek bread from heaven and a message which can fill their hidden away desire and longing for meaning in life. God has ways to satisfy mankind's yearning for fulfillment - the desire to live in peace, have personal freedom, health and joy. Adventists from the West can say to you, `I am living for God, the God who was crucified; yet, not I live, but God lives in me because of faith and trust in God through His Word.'

This kind of submission is often what a "hungry", Arabic heart looks for to fill it with meaning.

[0020] Some 22% of the world's population belong to the Islamic faith. No Christian church has any significant missionary work worldwide to reach them. We hope to reach a few with a message that might span across otherwise impenetrable borders and attract their interest and hopefully help them to take another look at what God's Word teaches and be saved. In doing this we follow in the footsteps of the appeal made by Stephen Dickie in his Islam - God's Forgotten Blessing and of course the Bible admonition to go into all the world too.

[0200] The sons of Ishmael from the oldest to the youngest were: Nebaioth, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah (Genesis 25:13ff). Ishmael was 137 years old when he died.

[0500] The Great Flood of Noah's time was a Deluge which covered all the earth with water. It was not a rainstorm nor was it a seasonal rain, it was a breakup of the surface of the earth and the total annihilation of the Pre-Flood civilization. The immense flora and fauna of the days of Adam to Methusalah, was buried beneath the layers of the earth. Quakes and torrential streams of water carved the earth into shapes never seen before and buried all the vegetation and life deep underground to turn into oil, only drilled for and tapped within our more recent historical times for a never satisfied population who has forgotten to thank God for everything he gives.

[2000] The Fifth (5th) Trumpet 1st Woe:
"Revelation 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. 9:2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. 9:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 9:4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. [See *] 9:5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. 9:6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. 9:7 And the shapes of the locusts [were] like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads [were] as it were crowns like gold, and their faces [were] as the faces of men. 9:8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions. 9:9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings [was] as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. 9:10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power [was] to hurt men five months. 9:11 And they had a king over them, [which is] the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue [is] Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath [his] name Apollyon. 9:12 One woe is past; [and], behold, there come two woes more hereafter."

[* The trees and the green grass may refer to a refining and accepting of the truth.]

[2010] The Sixth (6th) Trumpet 2nd Woe:
"Revelation 9:13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 9:14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. 9:15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. 9:16 And the number of the army of the horsemen [were] two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. 9:17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses [were] as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. 9:18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. 9:19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails [were] like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt. 9:20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: 9:21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts."

[2020] The Seventh (7th) Trumpet 3rd Woe:
"Revelation 11:15-21: And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become [the kingdoms] of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. 11:16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, 11:17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. 11:18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. 11:19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail."