Before I announce the text I desire to clear the road for it a little. We are never reasoned out of that we are never reasoned into. A prejudice is an unreasoning thing, and oftentimes even the Scripture, holy as it is and much as we reverence it, excites prejudice. We say, “Well, I don’t know whether that can be or not.” The truth is, we read our Bibles small, when we ought to read them large. I ask you this morning to disabuse your minds of all prejudice against my subject, and wait until I am through. Do not wait until I am through, but if God sends a word to you, be hospitable to it, open to it your heart. If it is true, accept it; if it is not true, reject it. The text that I shall read is in Genesis, seventeenth chapter and first verse: “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.” The word perfect is the one that excites prejudice. Now, open the door, and if there is anything in it that is good and for your peace, take it. I most devoutly pray that God will help me to present this passage so it will do you and me good. “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.” It is followed by several other passages, referring to the covenant which God would make with him. You know something of the history of Abram, how God spoke to him in Ur of the Chaldees and called him out to go into a land that he knew not of. It appears that he listened to the call, and started with his family for his destination, “not knowing whither he went.” The Lord directed him. But he hesitated, so Stephen says, on the borders of the Land of Canaan, in which were located the Canaanites, the Perizites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were hostile, cruel, rapacious tribes. For some reason, not unlikely Abram’s love for his father, he tarried on the border of the land, and did not go over into it immediately. He hesitated, as hundreds and thousands of God’s people have hesitated on the brink of some great cross, or some great necessity. Abram was my brother, and yours. He hesitated until his father Terah died, and then went over into the Land of Promise. After going up and down the land for some time, until two-thirds of his life was gone, this appearance came to him. I do not know how God appeared. If that poor slave-woman says the Lord spoke to her, and her hoe-handle shone with his glory, and she heard a voice, “Thy sins are forgiven,” I can not dispute it. God can speak to every heart, and he has his way of doing it. God appeared to Abram, God spoke to him. This is the record, “God appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.”