So it is with us. Does God do miracles today? Yes, all kinds of miracles: the miracle of conversion, of illuminating minds, of opening people's eyes and bringing them to Christ. And yet just as those miracles of healing were mediated through the praying of Abraham, so it is that wonderful things take place today by God's power, but through our praying and through our labouring. We have a link in the chain.
In chapter 20 we note the possibility that you can believe the essentials of the gospel, and have faith in Christ, and yet not believe in certain essential parts of that at the same time. We saw that even a veteran like Abraham could fall back to a twenty-year-old sin. So we are careful. We keep in mind our old sins: the old sin of pride, the old sin of jealousy; we keep mortifying it. Don't forget, that was your besetting sin. It may be revisited upon you, but not if you are ready, not if you are watching, but if careless it may be. We learn the need of purifying before any great work is given to us. And we learn the instrumentality of prayer for God's work and for great things to be achieved for him.
As individuals, and as a church, we must always follow the directions of Scripture and obey the commands of God in every way. Not only in our moral lives and good works and dedication to the Lord, but even in the way we set up our churches and order and run them. There's a pattern church in the New Testament. How often the churches of Christ have completely abandoned the biblical pattern and gone for popes and archbishops and bishops and synodical structures: all kinds of things that you don't see in the Bible. You see it today with so many people in Bible-believing churches appointing worship leaders, and song leaders, and different instruments, and choirs and entertainments. None of that is in the New Testament. Abraham is scrupulous in following God's commands, but not entirely. Some areas just left out. But before you were saved, were you very proud? Has it started to come back? Have you forgotten what you were saved from? Maybe you had an integrity problem, and how glad you were to conquer it by the grace of God through conversion. But now you slip back into the old ways, making far-fetched excuses, exaggerating this and that. And the devil will coach you on to slip back to the old ways. And some people had great difficulty with their tempers. Now you've been saved so long, you're going back to peevishness with the family, perhaps, and unreasonableness. Watch out for going back to old sins and old mistakes.