18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb:
20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

10 And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then have ye imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles.
11 But behold, I will show unto you a God of miracles, even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and it is that same God who created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are.

"To begin with, Abraham was in the world, a wicked world very much like our own. From childhood to the grave, he was a stranger in his society because he insisted on living by the principles of the gospel and preaching them to others wherever he went, even if it meant getting into trouble. Those principles, teachings, covenants, ordinances, and promises were alien to the world, which was bitterly hostile to them. So Abraham's whole life, as is often stated, was a series of trials or tests, and by example and precept he tells us how to come through victorious.

"His object? Not to conquer or impress but to bless all with whom he comes into contact, ultimately shedding the blessing that God gave to him upon the whole human race. For that he is first of all the magnanimous, the great-hearted, the ever-hospitable Abraham, who always does the fair and compassionate thing no matter how badly others may behave toward him. He is the friend of God because he is the friend of man, pleading on his knees for Sodom and Gomorrah. That is the moral pattern for all men to follow.

"Only by 'doing the works of Abraham' can we hope to establish a better order of things on the earth, that order of Zion lost since the days of Noah. This takes courage, tact, unfailing faith, and the constant aid of divine revelation. It entails more than human contrivance or human wisdom. — Abraham must acquire ever more and more knowledge. The guiding principle is intelligence, an awareness of things as they are: the physical world, the structure and nature of the cosmos, and the spiritual realtities that are behind everything. For Abraham, everything is a prelude to what lies beyond.