The morning Manna will be provided at 6am. Thanks.

Studying Mission in the SSnet.org series Lesson 4, may the Holy Spirit be the speaker to your heart.

The Topic today is: “Mission as Abraham pleading and hosting Christ for Morning Manna of the Sabbath School Lesson Mission”.

The Opening Hymn will be 229 "Spirit of the Living God."

The Sabbath School Quarterly, downloadable from SSnet.org in the Teacher's Edition is on pages 37.

The SSnet.org site allows anyone, anywhere to read the lesson in their own language. Choose your own language to see God speaking also to your heart.

Why do you not click on this now?

https://www.adultbiblestudyguide.org/pdf.php?file=2023:4Q:SE:PDFs:EAQ423_03.pdf

---Today is Abraham and his VIP visitors in Genesis 18. Below is a short background of the built-up to this date in Abraham’s life.

---The first principle is to take the right date for the Exodus as calculation: not 1445 BCE as Horn-Wood-Thiele-Douglas-Schwantes et al presented it or is still presenting but 1450 BCE as Shea and Van Wyk is doing. Sorry.

---The second principle is not to doubt calculations of chronology in the Bible as approximations as Preterists love to do. That is a false perception of the accuracy of ancients to calculate their own chronologies.

---The false perception is not in the text but in the mind of the beholder in modern times.

---The years are 2165-2153 BCE for Amraphel or Hammurabi I. The law-Hammurabi was in 1790 BCE. He was a second one.  

---Notice the geographical condition of the climate and surroudings of the Dead Sea in these years in Genesis 13:10: ‚And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go unto Zoar‛.

---Egypt and the Dead Sea were countries to desired to live. Like the Garden of Eden.

---Five kings retired here in this ‘Beverly Hills‛ of Abraham and Lot’s time.

---Lot’s wife was very happy there in the “debt-valley of the rich”.

---Image and show was the name of the game.

---Fame was connected to how many diamonds and gold the camels outside the house had on their saddles and travel gear.

---But Lot’s wife was drawn in by these shiny flickering objects.

---Genesis 14:3 says that the Dead Sea was the area: “valley of Siddim—the same is the Salt Sea”.

---These kings from the East with Hammurabi I or Amraphel as the key player, colonized the area for 12 years.

---Maybe a punishment for Abraham’s lie to Pharaoh Neterkhet of the 2^nd Dynasty of Egypt.

---The one who suffered also a drought and talked about it in his 18^th year of his reign in the Famine Stela as seven years of severe drought.

---The inhabitants rebelled in the 13th year: ‚and in the thirteenth year they rebelled‛.

---It was the year 2152 BCE. According to strict biblical chronology [calculating the Exodus as 1450 BCE and Solomon’s fourth year as 970 BCE.

---In 2151 BCE which is the 14^th year. “And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, and smote. They attacked all the surrounding neigbors of Sodom and Gemorrah valley and then came to the valley itself as well”.

---These kings of the cities set their battle against the Imperialists, and they set the battle in array against them in the valley of Siddim.

---This beautiful “Garden of Eden” [not really, just idiom for beauty] valley of Siddim had one problem: slime pits. A good apple with little bad spots.

“Now the valley of Siddim was full of slime pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell there, and they that remained fled to the mountain.”

---Ismael was circumcised when Abraham was 99 years old in 2141 BCE (Genesis 17:25).

---At that time Ismael was 13 years old so Ismael was born when Abraham was 86 years old in 2154 BCE (Genesis 16:17).‛ (Van Wyk article online at academia.edu 2017: 118).

---The error with taking God’s promises in his own hands, Abraham made in the year 2155 BCE so Ishmael was born in 2154 BCE.

---The rebellion was in 2152 BCE and in 2151 BCE Lot was grabbed as well. “And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed“ (Genesis14:12).

---As punishment for Abraham’s lie and Egypt, colonization of Siddim Valley came. As punishment for Ishmael incident, Lot was captivated and taken away.

---Abraham had to wage a war to get Lot back again. God forgives the sinner for his sins, but he consequences of our sins He does not remove.

---I wonder if the latest SDA Commentary on Genesis noticed this connection here? I do not have one here in the Orient.

---After a very good military tactic Abraham brought the captives back and were victorious over Chedorlaomer and his coalition. As a result, many kings came to thank Abraham among them Melchizedek. “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine; and he was priest of God the Most High.“

---In the word Jerusalem is a part that may be connected to a priest who was serving in 2151 BCE as a priest for God and he came to Abraham as well.

---He brought bread and grapejuice to Abraham. Alcohol is out of the question. God and alcohol do not mix. Alcohol is a symbol of sin. It’s effects are also.

---After the blessing that God helped Abraham with good tactics, Abraham humbled himself and his own pride of achievements and recognized God in his life by paying tithe (Genesis 14:20) “And he gave him a tenth of all”. Do you?

---The year for the starting of Amraphel/Hammurabi’s reign would be according to my findings in my article, 2165 BCE (IJRSSH)2017, Vol. No. 7, Issue No. I, Jan-Mar pages 114-140 especially 133 athttp://www.ijrssh.com).

---Corrigenda are applicable to this article published in 2017. I only discovered later that I made an error with the Flood date.

---The diagram on page 133 should be adjusted for the son of Shem, Arpachsad. Arpachsad was not 100 years old when his son Salah was born, he was 35 years old.

---It is Arpachsad’s father Shem that was 100 years old.

---The other error in the diagram was the typo that Eber’s birth was 2555 when it was in 2525 BCE.

---Shelah’s birth was in 2555 but my diagram is wrong saying it is 2590 BCE. The last date is the birth of Arpachsad. [Thanks to a handout at Tokchun by a Sahmyook speaker of the calculation by Old Testament professor and later president of Sahmyook University, Sang-nae Kim].

---Thus 2 years earlier would be the Flood date at 2692 and not at 2690 BCE as given in the published diagram. It was a slip of the eye error. Apology.

---From Genesis 15:12-21 Abraham became a prophet. 

---He saw a vision with future predictions how the Israelites was to be enslaved with other nations in Egypt between 1850-1450 BCE = 400 years.

---It would happen in his own fourth generation meaning that it is his own (one), Isaac (two), Jacob (three) and Joseph (four) (see Genesis 15:16). 

---Joseph died in 1878 BCE and in 1850 Sesostris III did not remember Joseph and his role in the court any longer.

---The history of the burning of Sodom and Gemorrah and the other cities was after the circumcision of Ishmael.

---Chapter 15 is a promise of from God for the seed again but this time Abraham was in Canaan and the promise was to give the land Canaan to him.

---Abraham was 86 years old (see the 10 years since Haran in Genesis 16:3) because when they were circumcised later Ishmael was 13 years old. Isaac was not yet born.

---But Ishmael was born within the colonization period by Amraphel and gang of the beautiful Siddim Valley.

---The idea that Abraham was trying with Ishmael to give himself the promised “seed” is thus sustainable with God promising in 2165 BCE many seed, his lie in Egypt resulting in the colonization of the Siddim Valley and a delay until 2154 BCE when he was taking in his own hands [Ismael situation] the promised seed case.

---Then the capture of Lot after this with a flexible two or three year slide to 2149 BCE for this event.

---If Amraphel is active in his third year (starting 2165 as the first see article evidence) then 2162 minus 13 for the year Lot was grabbed, would bring one to 2149 BCE.

---Sodom and Gemorrah was destroyed after 2149 BCE and maybe after the circumcision of Ishmael when Isaac was not yet born. That was in Genesis 17. Does Moses want us to put chronology in this chapter 17 before the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah in chapter 18?

---The date for Ishmael’s circumcision was said above to be 2141 BCE. Sodom and Gemorrah and the visitors to Abraham would have been then after 2141 BC.

---Was Sodom and Gemorrah destroyed in 2140? Maybe.

---Hope this background material to Genesis 18 is helpful. Abraham was hosting Christ as well, Ellen White said. Churchfather John Chrysostom said the same. 

---Is your pastor preaching about the stories of Bible? It is not stories or narratives. It is events, acts and history. Whether God or humans. Correct?