16 - The Great Plan Begins 2010
Notes
Transcript
We saw last time that Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, had decided to defy the judgment of God on his descendants, as well as God’s command to scatter throughout the earth, by attempting to build the Tower of Babel.
God, Who has never permitted men to realize a lasting social order from which He is excluded, confounded the language of the builders of the Tower of Babel.
“But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."—11: 5-7
Nimrod and his followers were confounded in their evil plan by no longer being able to understand one another. Hence, they were scattered throughout the world just as God had commanded in the first place.
In the last half of Genesis 11, Moses returns to the tables of ancestry that had occupied his attention in Chapter 10. He focuses on Abram’s family tree, starting with Shem.
“Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.”—11:10
Moses continues on until he reaches Terah, the father of Abram. He names Terah’s 3 sons—Abram, Nahor, and Haran—for these men are significant in what follows.
He thus traces Abram’s descent from Noah through Shem. It was in Shem’s line that God had found, at last, the man upon whose daring faith the rest of the Bible is made to hinge.
When Moses arrives at Terah, he pauses to look at Abram’s family ties. He had two brothers, a niece, and a nephew.
His brother Haran’s three children were Milcah, Iscah, and Lot. Thus Lot is introduced into the story, a man who stands out so often in scripture due to his contrast to Abram.
Abram’s second brother, Nahor, married their niece Milcah, which was a common arrangement in those days. For instance, when Abram married Sara, he was actually marrying his half-sister (20:12).
The marriage of Abram’s brother Nahor is mentioned by Moses because he became the grandfather of Laban (Father of Rachel and Leah), and Rebekah (Isaac’s wife and Jacob’s mother).
Thus, Moses focuses on Abram the person and prepares his readers for much that follows by noting some of his hero’s immediate family ties. His final observation records that Sara was barren and had no children.
“The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.”—11: 29-30
The story of Abram is so significant in the counsels of God that the Spirit of God devotes 25 percent of the book of Genesis to the details. Having focused on the person of Abram, Moses next records Abram’s initial venture as a pilgrim.
We aren’t told how God revealed Himself to Abram, only that He communicated with him when he was a pagan idolater in a land called Ur.
Up through the first eleven and a half chapters of Genesis it looks grim for the human race. It is marked by failure upon failure, judgment after judgment, and sorrow upon sorrow. We see only endless frustration on God’s part, and the deep depravity of sin on man’s part.
But this all changes in the last half of Genesis 11. Rays of hope begin to glimmer with God’s call to Abram. The work of God in calling Abram and his family was the beginning of the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15.
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
Genesis 11:27-32 provides a bridge between the primeval history and the patriarchal history sections of Genesis. With the introduction of Abram, his wife Sara, his brother Nahor, and his nephew Lot, the journey of faith begins from Ur of the Chaldees in southern Mesopotamia, to Haran, five hundred miles up the Euphrates River.
Ur of the Chaldees where Abram lived was an important city of Babylonia. It was a city of luxury and attainment, and was also a pagan center of moon worship. Abram was sovereignly called out of dark, superstitious paganism into a life of faith. With no Bible, no prior knowledge of God, and certainly not having been raised in an atmosphere of faith, this makes Abram’s call all the more amazing!
The pilgrim family of Abram set out in obedience to God and journeyed until they came to the city of Haran, and there the sojourners made their first stop.
Haran was what we might call a frontier town of the Babylonian Empire and, like Ur of the Chaldees, was devoted to the worship of the moon God. There the whole pilgrimage bogged down and, it would seem, remained inert and inactive for about 25 years until the death of Terah.
Terah represents the old nature in scripture. And the old nature can make only token responses to divine things. Terah had become a chain around Abram’s faith and he greatly erred in not fully obeying God (12:1) by allowing the world and the flesh to insert themselves between him and the divine call.
But God is patient. If we were asked to describe the developing life of the Bible character, Abraham, in one word, it would be "faith." In fact, that is exactly how Paul described him in Galatians 3:9 when he said,
"So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer."
The Hebrew writer spoke of Abraham’s faith in Hebrews 11:8.
"By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going."
Abraham showed his faith in the early biblical descriptions of his life by obeying God’s order to go when he had no idea where he was supposed to be going. According to the Hebrew writer, his faith amounted to going without knowing.
In Stephen’s description of Abraham’s call, we see this clearly.
"The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, 'Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.'"
God did not initially show Abraham where He wanted him to go. The order from God to disembark came with very little explanation.
A wonderful article by Dave Redick, the editor of The Preacher's Study, is worth quoting. He points out several nuggets about the life of faith. The first is:
The Call of Faith Involves Uncertainty
Very few of us like to move on a whim. In fact, I hate to uproot from one area and move to another at all. If I’m going to move (which I haven’t done in 19 years as of this teaching), I cautiously evaluate what we are leaving and compare it to what we will gain by the move.
There was no opportunity for Abraham to consider the place God was sending him because God didn’t tell him where it was. When God told him to move, He couldn’t pick up the phone and have a Canaanite newspaper sent to him.
He couldn’t contact the local Canaan Chamber of Commerce to consider his business prospects in this land God wanted him to go to. There was no Internet where he could check out the price of housing. God didn’t tell him where he was going!
All he had to go on was a command to leave his home from a God he didn’t really know and the promise that he would be shown more about it in the future.
If Stephen’s record of the call is complete in Acts 7, we see that Abram had exactly one sentence. One verse!
"Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you."
That’s not very much information. Beyond that, the only answer implied was "trust Me."
Compared to Abraham, how much information do you and I have about God’s will today? We have 66 books! 1189 chapters! These writings contain story after story and promise after promise of God’s faithfulness – more than enough to give us the confidence we need to produce faith.
We also learn from Abraham’s initial call that:
The Call of Faith Isn’t Always Convenient
Think for a few moments about all the things that little six-letter command, "depart," meant to Abraham. He had to uproot whatever business he was in. He had to uproot his family. He probably had to sell those holdings that couldn’t be taken with him from Ur.
He had to endure all of the questions of well-meaning friends and family. Think about that!
"Abram,” they might have said, “Why would you leave all you have here to follow a God you can’t even see? We’ve never seen this God of yours. You and your relatives have lived here for many years. Do you mean to tell us that you are going to liquidate all you have and move without even knowing where you are going?"
The risk for Abraham was very real. He had to go to a place where there were strange people. Who could know what kind of danger he would come across? Would there be highway robbers lying in wait along whatever route God chose? To add to this, those who went with him also had to endure all the inconvenience and risk.
The scripture is clear that the "God of Glory" hadn’t appeared to Terah or Sarai or Lot. They knew very little of the compulsion that drove Abram. Surely there must have been some searching questions!
What does that mean to you and me? Simply that we should expect faith to be difficult at times. Faith has never been easy! We should expect challenges to the status-quo. Many of the people in our life will not understand our actions.
There will be times when following God in obedience will mean inconvenience. We’ll be misunderstood. People at times may think we’re crazy. They surely must have thought Abraham was one fry short of a Happy Meal!
Listen to how the Apostle Peter put it in 1 Peter 4:12: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you…"
Faith can sometimes be a "fiery ordeal," and to a generation that sometimes considers it an ordeal to just get out of bed to come to church on Sunday, that’s a real challenge!
The call of faith may involve uncertainty. And it may involve inconvenience. Thirdly, we learn from Abram’s call that:
The Call Of Faith Is Stronger Than Family Ties
"Depart from your country and your relatives…" is what God said to Abram in Acts 7:3. He was to leave his relatives behind in Ur. The reason for that is likely that they were all idol worshippers.
As already mentioned, the ruins of Ur that have been excavated show that the city was full of idol worship – especially worship of the so-called god of the Moon – the patron god of Ur. Even Terah, Abraham’s father, according to Joshua 24:2, was an idol worshipper.
Jesus clearly taught us that the call of faith is stronger than our family allegiances. In Matthew 10:37 He said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."
Does that mean that Jesus is anti-family? Not at all! Some of the strongest teaching about family loyalty anywhere is found in the Bible. For instance, Paul said in 1 Timothy 5:8, "…if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever."
Being a Christian will make any man a better husband, son, father, or grandfather. Being a Christian will make any woman a better wife, daughter, mother, or grandmother.
It’s just that when compared to our dedication to Him, our faith must be stronger than our family ties. If it all ever comes down to a choice between God’s will and my family’s will, faith means I will choose God.
The call to faith must be stronger than family ties.
At the outset, Abram was very young in the faith. He had much to learn. But with trial and error, ups and downs, successes and failures, Abram began to take those giant steps forward that lifted him from the darkness and obscurity of paganism into the spotlight of faith.
One day his name would be changed by God Himself from Abram to Abraham as a symbol of transformation from a life of paganism and worldliness to that of a man of faith in the living God!