This is your Bible teacher of the air speaking, J.W. Bramhall, giving you a hearty invitation to join with us in the study of God's precious word and a wonderful theme that we would like to begin today. We would like to consider one of the most precious themes that can be found in the Bible. And the subject is this, God our Father and his family. God the Father and His family. My beloved radio friend, may I ask you a simple but a very earnest question and most important. Do you know God? Are you personally acquainted with Him? How important it is that we should know God. For God has revealed Himself to mankind. But our much more important that today you and I should know him and be able to address him as our Father. Have you never considered the opening words of what we call the Lord's Prayer, which he taught his own disciples when he was upon the earth, saying that they should pray after this manner, our Father who art in heaven? The most important words of that whole prayer are the first two words, Our Father. Tis a joy to realize the possibility of men and women, boys and girls, knowing God, and being able to address Him as Our Father. But may I first of all make a very clear distinction between this fact and that which is often by some thought in the world, the universal fatherhood of God. God is not the father of all men by intimacy and relationship. He is only the father of those who have believed upon the Lord Jesus. But again we raise the question. We ask of you, do you know God is your father? Can you say in genuine truth those words that opened the Lord's Prayer, Our Father. Now in all ages, God has always revealed himself, and he has done it in very many different ways, under different characters in every age, and in all periods of human history. But it was not until he sent his beloved son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God to the earth to do the work of redemption, that the fatherhood or the father name of God was revealed. Now may I first of all introduce our subject by touching upon some of the Old Testament names of God, only three of them that we may realize The Father name of God was not revealed in the Old Testament, as it has been particularly revealed within the new. Listen to the words that God said long ago to one of his greatest servants, a most intimate man, who knew God in such a relationship that he was called the friend of God. And what an honor that was. and God's revelation of himself to Abraham, whom he called his friend. In Genesis chapter seventeen in verse one, this is how God revealed himself to Abraham. God said to Abraham, I am the Almighty God, walk before my faith and be perfect. In order for Abram to inherit the promises of God, and become what God promised he would be, the father of a multitude, which is the meaning of the name Abraham, God's almighty power alone could do it. And God redeems himself as the omnipotent God, the almighty God. Do you believe, my radio friend, that God can do anything, and he can do it all? And yet, Our human intellect is not able to grasp the greatness of his omnipotence. It has been well said when we think of that name, the Almighty God. It reveals the ocean of God's omnipotence, which is beyond our human comprehension. Well, has it been stated that if all the stars in the Milky Way, astronomically they are estimated at thirteen millions, If all those stars could be placed into one bag, and every star would weigh a million times more than our Earth, God's omnipotent strength could carry them as easily as if they were but a single grain of sand. My radio friend, please let me emphasize the greatness of Almighty God. Well, did the poet write? Earth's oceans, they all surge in his hand. He steereth the world in its light. He weigheth the mountains in scales. He's the God of an infinite might. Of infinite might indeed. And so God's revelation to Abraham was that he was all, he was the Almighty God. But then there was a revelation by God given of himself to Moses at a later date. In the book of Exodus chapter three and verse fourteen, some of you may be well familiar with that chapter of the book of Exodus when God appeared before Moses in the burning bush. And when God commissioned Moses to go and be the deliverer of his people, God revealed himself to Moses in this particular way. In verse fourteen of that third chapter he said, I am that I am. Now this sounds very vague perhaps to our thinking. When we read such words, I am that I am. But may I declare what they mean? God says I am the self-existent one. I am the eternal one. I am the king of eternity. I have no beginning. I have no ending. You and I, my radio friends, we are but worms of fleeting dust. And yet God, by written inspiration, has placed within our reach the measureless measurement of his own existence. Listen to the words in Psalm ninety in verse two, where Moses has written saying, or God written of himself through Moses, and saying, From eternity to eternity, thou art God. God well raises his hand in the midst of the boundless universe, and he declares to all of his creatures, I live forever. For eternity has no calendar. The existence of God could never be measured. If a moment of time is an integral part of our measurement of years, to God a billion years is incomparably less than a moment may be to us. You and I, my radio friend, we have a beginning, but we have no ending. But God is an eternal being. He says, I am that I am. I am the great I am. Can you and I comprehend this? No, we may not be able to, but faith will accept the revelation of God as He has revealed Him in this particular Scripture. Then again, later to Moses and the children of Israel, in the book of Exodus chapter six, God said to Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah. Now the name of Jehovah was a new name up to that moment and became the covenant name of God in relationship to his earthly people throughout their history. It involved what God became to them as a Redeemer and as a Savior God, showing his compassion for their afflictions when in Egypt, proving his active intervention on their behalf. and manifesting his good pleasure to redeem them and bring them to himself and make them among all the nations of the earth his own peculiar and special possession. It was the most blessed covenant that God said to the nation of Israel, I will take you to me for a people and I will be your God. And this was a marvelous revelation to Israel. But we must confess, unfortunately it never was properly appreciated nor appropriated by them through their past history as a nation. Now let me repeat these names of God. Only three we are mentioning, for there are many others. God said to Abraham, I am the Almighty God. God said to Moses, I am that I am. God said to Israel, I am Jehovah. And each name of God in the Old Testament was a revelation of his person and also of his character. And when appropriated by faith, it revealed not only who he is, but also what he is. For God has given intelligent revelation of himself, and it is never blind faith when a soul will acknowledge and trust God. For it is written in Psalm chapter nine, verse ten, they that know thy name will put their trust in thee. We ask the question that we began with, radio friend. Do you know God? Do you know him at all? But we particularly request, will you not consider with us as we begin this subject of God the Father in this family? Do you know God as your Father? For we shall consider from the word of God the revelation of God's name as a Father. May the Holy Spirit speak to all of us and ask the question of each heart and within our hearts. Do I know God as my Father? Am I in relationship to him as his redeemed child? Blessed Father, we lift our hearts to thee, praying that the Holy Spirit will use the thoughts that we have expressed in thy name from thy word, to stir the conscience and the heart of many, to seek to know thee through the Lord Jesus our Savior. Amen.