SABBATH

God's Gift to Us

Biblestudy: Abraham (Part Four)

#BS-AB04

Given 06-Feb-90; 74 minutes

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description: Abraham is the only biblical character singled out as a type of God the Father. He is also the only one to receive the approbation "friend of God." As a result, we, as Abraham's offspring or seed, receive incredible material and spiritual blessings, including the Holy Scriptures, the chief means through which we learn "the deep things of God." Because of this, we have to make God central in our lives, submitting to His law, reproducing the obedient spirit of faith the father of the faithful and the friend of God demonstrated. Like him, after our calling we are obligated to cross the river separating ourselves from the world, leaving the old man or carnal self behind. Our new life is one of continual, often unsettling and unstable movement on a pilgrimage toward God's Kingdom (Hebrews 11:8-10).


transcript:

We are going to be continuing tonight in our study of Abraham and I think that we saw from the previous Bible studies that there are indications that historically Abraham had far more impact on world history than a cursory glance would reveal.

Josephus writes about him, there are things in the Austrian Chronicle, and archeology also reveals things that can neither be proved or disproved, but they indicate a man who came from quite a sophisticated society and had a considerable impact wherever he went.

Now we saw from those sources that he was a mathematician, a scientist, an astronomer; that he was a fine public speaker, he was an intelligent, balanced personality, a teacher of truth, an originator of a fine culture, a prince, a ruler, a military leader whenever necessary, a founder of nations, and the father of the faithful.

That is quite a lineup of accomplishments, but it is the last one that the Bible is supremely interested in, and the one that we are going to spend some time on this evening, because biblically, spiritually, this is one very important individual.

I think that we all understand that the Bible makes extensive use of symbols and types in which things and people represent Christ, or Satan, or aspects of the works of the Holy Spirit. There are many types of Christ that are given in the Bible: Moses as a mediator, Aaron as a high priest, David as a king, Isaac as a son, and on and on it goes. However, to the best of my knowledge, in all of the Bible there is only one type of God the Father, and that is this man, Abraham.

We have to understand that all types are not perfect. They are shadows, they are not the reality, so we can only go so far with them as a teaching vehicle, and then they begin to break down and lose the truth.

Now I do not think that God would choose a dumb dodo to represent Him as a type. I also do not mean to imply that Abraham accomplished what he did purely as a result of his natural ability and that God chose him because of that ability, because if that was so then God owes Abraham something. But it is not of works, it is of grace. But the combination of Abraham’s natural abilities combined with God’s Spirit and Abraham’s yieldedness through faith, enabled God to do mighty spiritual works through him so that he is altogether unique. He is a landmark in the spiritual history of this world.

He was chosen by God to become the father, in type, of a new spiritual race. You might call them the file leader; you know you go single file as it were. I might use another word here, archegos. Remember when we went through the book of Hebrews, where it says Jesus is the Captain of our salvation? That word captain is archegos. It means the pioneer, it means the one who goes before, and certainly Abraham went on before the rest of us.

He was destined to become the leader of a mighty host of born sons of God. That is what the promise says. Now we are going to begin this study back in the book of Isaiah 41.

Isaiah 41:8 “But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham My friend.”

Let us go back to the book of James.

James 2:23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God.

Now I want you to consider this. That no others by implication (I am talking about biblical characters here), or deduction, no others are considered a friend of God. Only Abraham of all the billions who have lived is directly called God’s friend. That is unique. A friend is someone to whom we are attached by affection, by esteem, this is a person who is not hostile to us. A friend is a favored companion.

Now think of this. All of us would like to have friends in high places. Now why? Because they can do things for us whenever there is a need. They open doors. They hide the traffic tickets that we get. They are ones who we appeal to when we feel that we were unjustly done in by somebody or when we need something we feel is urgent or necessary for the conduct of our business, the continuance of our life, or whatever.

But I want you to think about this. This is not saying that God is Abraham’s friend, but rather the other way around, Abraham is God’s friend. Now we would all like to say that God is our friend, but how many of us can God say to us, that we are His friend?

So, the one who is already in the highest position, that is, God, is saying someone who is considerably lower, that is, Abraham, that Abraham is His friend. Now that is quite a turnabout, because it puts the one in the highest position of being able to do things for the progeny of Abraham. Not because they are good or deserving, but because they are from His friend, Abraham. That has interesting ramifications. Turn with me back to the book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 7:7-9 "The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”

He is obviously talking about Israel, and we are loved for the sake of the fathers. That certainly includes the beloved Abraham. “For the sake of” means, for the benefit of, for the good of, for the advantage of, for the enhancement of. Now we receive the benefit, but it is done because of the love and friendship of someone else. Now certainly He loves us, but this benefit comes as the result of His love for someone else as well. He is the one to whom God gave great promises.

What we have received as a result of this is the material wealth of the nation of Israel as well as our spiritual heritage as being the people of the Book. It is this Book—the Bible, the Word of God—that has come to the world through the Israelitish people, the descendants of Abraham. So the descendants of Abraham have become its keepers, its teachers, and all of this has come to us as a result of the friendship that God has with Abraham. All the benefits that lie to us or accrue to us as a result of having this Book being its teachers and keepers came as a result of that.

Let us continue on this thing and go back a little further, this time to Abraham himself. This occurs in the middle of the meal that Abraham served his three spiritual guests and Abraham is going to shortly after this ask God to intercede for the sake of Sodom and Lot who was there.

Genesis 18:18-19 And the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”

The very purpose for God choosing Abraham was to pass on the faith, the way of life, and the central values of life that God was concerned with Abraham passing on, are reflected in this Book. We might say are reflected in the 13 and a half chapters, I believe it is, that are devoted almost exclusively to Abraham. So, he is a man who is of great value to you and me in understanding things that pertain to this life of faith to which we also have been called. Though Abraham is not here to pass it on to you and me personally, God faithfully recorded the things He wanted passed on of Abraham’s life, and so Abraham is teaching us. He is passing it on through this means.

Galatians 3:29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

You and I are the subject here. If we are in Christ, if we have had the gospel preached to us, if we have believed the gospel, if we have repented, believed in God, if we have been baptized, we have had hands laid on us, and we are put, by God’s Spirit, into the church, that is, in Christ, as part of His body, then if we have met those qualifications, then we are Abraham’s seed.

Seed is what is ultimately produced by a plant (in the metaphor here), in order that there can be a continuation, a reproduction. It is an offshoot, I guess you could say, of the fruit that is produced. So we are the offshoot of the plant, as it were, Abraham. We are his seed. Of course, seed brings forth more plants, and therefore more seed.

You begin to see a picture of a never-ending cycle of passing on that which was originally given to Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob, on down through their progeny, their descendants, and here it is, you and me today. There has been an unbroken line from Jesus Christ. He says that the grave would never prevail against the church. So, there has been an unbroken line all the way down through the ages, and I think we can be assured it was unbroken from Abraham as well. Right through Christ, all the way down to us today, the seed keeps being reproduced.

So here we are now, we have qualified in this manner, we are now Abraham’s seed and there are things we need to learn about Abraham. Being a part of this spiritual race or family whom Abraham is pictured as being the father of is not dependent upon a blood relationship with Abraham. That is what Galatians 3:29 is showing.

Galatians 3:26-28 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

So being part of Abraham’s family, being part of his seed, is not dependent on a blood relationship to Abraham, but to be in Christ. Race, gender, and social status mean nothing in this regard.

Now let us go to the book of Romans. We are trying to establish here why this man is important to us. He is the friend of God, a type of the Father. The promises were made to this man, and we are his progeny, we are his seed. As we are showing, he was the beginning of a new race, a spiritual race, a spiritual Family, and we are his seed.

Romans 9:6-9 But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.”

Paul is using Isaac’s birth as symbolic to all Christians in regard to our being Abraham’s children. Isaac did not come into Abraham’s family by natural processes. Remember, Sarah was barren and Abraham was beyond that time that he could by natural means produce a child. So Isaac did not come into Abraham’s family by natural processes, but rather by means of a miracle by God that had its basis in a promise that God made to Abraham and Sarah. This is the lesson to you and me.

God was the one that set the time of Isaac’s begettal, and thus also of his birth. So, except for the divine help, Abraham and Sarah would have never had Isaac. And so it is with us. God’s call enables us to become children of God, or we might say, children of Abraham. There is no physical means by which this can be accomplished. I do not mean people with their intellect cannot be attracted by the truths and even embrace them. There is no way that they are going to be begotten unless God has called these people and opened up their minds and granted their repentance. “No one can come to the Son unless the Spirit of the Father draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day”, Jesus said.

So it is God’s call that enables us to become children of Abraham and there is no physical means by which this can be accomplished. Therefore, like Isaac, in a spiritual sense, we too are unique. We are children of promise, we are children who are here by a miraculous event taking place in our life. The point I want to make here is you are not here by mistake or by means of your own natural ability.

If there is one thing that God is showing in this context here in chapter 9, if we would read a great deal more of it, God is not only the maker of this creation, He is its absolute Sovereign. It is by election is the theme that Paul is pressing home here. We are Abraham’s children by God’s design and He has moved on His part to make us His friends to.

Now this places a burden on you and me because it puts us in a unique position: to whom much is given much is required. We have one opportunity for salvation. God shows in several places through prophecy that He deals with people the way He does because, as He says in Amos 3, “You only have I known of all peoples.” That is, known in the way that we are known to Him. Remember what He said, “For this reason I have known Abraham.”

So we do not want to slip into the position of giving lip service to the idea of God, just coming and warming a seat and just kind of going along with things. We do not want to be in the position of giving lip service to God, while in actual fact, relegating Him to less than a central part of our life. We give Him courtesy, or we might use Him as a last resort. But as a reality, with whom we must reckon, we sometimes tacitly disregard Him by not making Him central to every issue of life.

Let us go from Romans now to the book of John.

John 8:37-40 "I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.” They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.”

I read this because we have here an example of a people that claimed that they descended from Abraham, and indeed they did, physically. But they did not make God central to their life, central to every issue in their life. Notice the dialog as it passes back and forth between Jesus and the Jews.

The Jews insisted they were Abraham’s children, but Jesus said their reaction to Him was proof that their claim that Abraham was their spiritual father was false. Abraham received a message from God and he believed it and he submitted to it. Now remember that. Now Jesus’ word, it says here in verse 37, His message had no place in them. We can paraphrase that last phrase as His message did not have free course in them, or made no headway in them, or it gained no ground in them. It simply was not central in their lives and thus it was not used as a guide to a way of living. The natural result of that was they broke God’s law. They did not submit to it.

Now, a conclusion can be reached. To be able to claim Abraham as our spiritual ancestor, I think indeed is a glorious privilege, but of and by itself, it will not automatically do anything for us any more than it did for the Jews to claim they were descendants of Abraham. It is only if we catch and reproduce the same spirit of submitting and trusting in the word of God as Abraham did that it will avail us anything. If we are able to do that, if we are able to catch that spirit of faith, the same spirit of faith that Abraham did, then it will produce the works of Abraham and cause us to reject the works of our former spiritual father, Satan (verse 44).

So, the proof is in what was produced. That means that we cannot just somehow or another expect to earn God’s favor, the title of the friend of God, merely by claiming spiritual descendance from Abraham. It takes more than that. It takes producing the fruit of Abraham, the works of Abraham. Abraham produced those by faith.

II Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, . . .

Remember Galatians 3 and being in Christ. If one is in Christ he is Abraham’s seed and an heir according to the promise. But being Abraham’s seed has a requirement that we produce the same kind of works that Abraham did by the same means. Abraham did not attempt to kill. Abraham did not do the kinds of things that the Jews were doing.

II Corinthians 5:17 . . . he is a new creation; . . .

Remember that I mentioned earlier that God through Abraham was going to begin a new race, as I called it, a new family, a spiritual Family, a spiritual race.

II Corinthians 5:17 . . . old things have passed away [we turn from, we reject the ways of our former spiritual father, Satan]; behold, all things have become new.

This man Abraham is an important cog in the development of that family, that race. He cannot save us, but his example in many areas is essential to our proper development, and is given to help us understand him and to be inspired and encouraged.

So, we are going to be going over some of the very same scriptures that we did in the previous Bible studies, but at that time we were looking at them for their historical value. Now we are going to be looking at them for their more important spiritual value.

Now faith and Abraham seem to be synonymous. I do not mean that there was no faith exhibited before Abraham. Hebrews 11 shows very clearly that “by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” In verse 5, “Enoch was translated so that he did not see death. So God translated him, “for before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God,” and “without faith it is impossible to please Him.” So, he had faith. In verse 7, “Noah, being divinely warned about things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark,” saving his household, “by which he condemned the world and became the heir of righteousness which is according to faith.”

So, there was faith exhibited before Abraham. But Abraham is the first shown in the Bible in any detail who lived by faith. Those men were examples of faith in very specific areas. Of course, the implication is they must have lived by faith as well in order to be exhibited in those specific areas as examples of faith. But God did not choose to show their lives in a way that He chose to show Abraham’s life.

Abraham is the first shown in the Bible in any detail to live by faith. There are thirteen and a one-half chapters on him. In fact, if you just want a quick summary, all you have to do is look in Hebrews 11 and compare the amount of given to him in Hebrews 11 with the space given to anybody else in that chapter. I think the next closest one is Moses, and Abraham has at least twice as much space devoted to him as given to Moses.

With that beginning let us turn over to the book of Isaiah. This is a value to you and me only if we can make applications in our life.

Isaiah 51:1-2 “Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him.”

What God is dealing with here is something that we might say is, that things with God, things that He does with human beings, begins with small beginnings. Abraham was just one. He was alone at the time of his calling, I do not mean that he was not married, he indeed was married. However, God’s purpose, His plan started somewhere. This new spiritual Family, this spiritual race, as it where that was going to spring from Abraham, began with just one person, Abraham, “I called him alone.” It had the smallest of beginnings.

I do not know if you realize it, but this process is repeated with each one of us, though to a much lesser extent, and not as important either. But even as a tremendous multitude is coming from that very small beginning, so with us. What is produced as a result of God’s call of you and me, as small as it is, as weak as we are, there is going to be far more produced out of our lives than otherwise would occur without God’s call. The life of faith begins, in Abraham’s case, not with his own devising, but it was an act of God. Again, so it is with us.

Now let us go back to Genesis 12 and look at that call in a little bit more detail.

Genesis 12:1-4 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

The principles that are here apply to you and me as well. Not always as specifically as we would like it, but nonetheless, the general principles here apply to you and me.

Now I think that we understand from the material that we were able to get from Josephus and the Austrian Chronicle that there was some preparation in Abraham’s life prior to this time. Remember that Abram, a mathematician, an astronomer, had deduced that the heavenly bodies were not gods, but rather were subject to a higher power, otherwise why would they be moving in the same course? They would have the liberty, the freedom to move about as gods would be able to. So he began to publish this information and spread it about the area of Chaldea. So, there was some preparation prior to Abram’s calling.

I want you to notice the call. In verse 2, “I will,” God says, “make you a great nation. I will bless you.” Verse 3, “I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you.” I want you to notice this, the promises” I will, I will, I will, I will, but you have got to get out. That was the word of God, the message of God, to Abraham. It was the one that he responded to. It was a word of promise, a message of promise. I will, I will, I will, promises there. It was the gospel in very simple, rudimentary form, but it showed Abraham, and it shows us if we will see it, that history is not aimless but rather it is God’s action to produce sons and heirs.

Now I do not know whether Abraham was able to comprehend that all at once. But I do feel that he understood, certainly a measure of it, and he was moved—he reacted. He knew that history, at least the history of his family [words missing] in which it was moving. In other words, the history of his family was not going to be one that was being knocked from pillar to post, but that this God was going to be aiming toward a culmination, a purpose that He was going to be working out, and that required God’s action to produce sons and heirs.

Now God’s word then, the Scripture, is to you and me. It is the revelation of God’s unbreakable role. “I will,” He says. Now what we have to act on, we will eventually see here, is exactly same thing that Abraham acted on.

First of all, let us go back to the book of Galatians again. Eventually we are going to see that Abraham’s faith was not sheer as we might say, like a nylon stocking is sheer, something that had no basis or substance to. We are going to see that Abraham’s faith was always based upon something that was absolutely sure, something that had value to it, substance to it, solidity to it, it had the absolute word and power of God behind it, and he could add it up, and reach a conclusion and then follow through on it.

His faith had a very solid foundation.

Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.”

Remember I said what we see there in Genesis 12:1 is the gospel in very simple, rudimentary form. You can go back to Genesis 12 and see that is exactly what the apostle Paul was drawing on. In one of these Bible studies we will probably go through the promises and see how God gradually expanded them to include more and more. But here in its most rudimentary form He was, “preaching the gospel to Abraham.”

Abraham believed and he obeyed. His faith rested on the character and the power of the one who said, “I will.” The result (this is what we want, results), was separation from the world. Or we might put it a little bit more specifically, the result was Abraham’s separation from his world, his country, his kindred, his father’s house.

I thought that I would digress just a little bit here, because when this God became a man, He did things in much the same way. So that we can see a pattern in the life of Jesus Christ that is very similar to what we see here of the God of the Old Testament.

I am just going to stick to this narrow principle here, but let us go back to Matthew 4, where Jesus called some of His disciples. Here we have a calling. Notice the similarity.

Matthew 4:18-19 And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him.

So there was a call, a word of promise, there was belief and obedience, and a separation occurred. They got separated from their nets.

Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

Again, this is more general, but it is the same principles. It is addressed to those who are burdened and weary, and it contains a call, a promise of rest, and if they will come to Him, it is implied that they will be separated from their burdens and weariness.

Now let us go to one that is not directly the word of Jesus but it is a quotation from the Old Testament.

II Corinthians 6:11-12 O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.

The Corinthian church was in deep spiritual hot water. The world, the lust of the flesh, was quite a pull to these people. They were in danger of mixing their religious ideas, the truth of God, with the world.

II Corinthians 6:14-18 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.” “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

See all the I will’s? But again, the same pattern. Promises combined with a command to separate oneself, and this time it is from an evil union with the world.

There is a tendency to think that Abraham just up and left. Considering the possible size of the group that Abraham left Haran with, remember I extrapolated from Genesis 14 that the 318 fighting men that were born in Abraham’s house, that means that there were parents for these 318 men, who must also been servants of Abraham’s. So that is 3 times 318 for the parents. If they were fighting men, they were of fighting age so they must have been around the age of 20 or above. It is very likely that some of them were married, so there were women too with at least some of those 318 men. In addition, there was very likely children. In addition to that, there were other servants that were not fighting, and so Abraham had a considerable entourage. By the time we get to Genesis chapter 14, it is very strongly implied that very little time took place between Genesis 12 and Genesis 14, not enough time for 318 to be born in his house, that is for sure. So Abraham must have left Haran with a considerable amount of people that could have easily been around two thousand.

Now if you can just begin to imagine the logistics of moving that many people, you can understand, maybe, some of the problems that Abraham had getting that many people on the move and keeping them organized. So I do not think that he just up and left. It is not like you and me, with nothing to tie us down, except maybe two children or something. We would be able to hope in our automobile and take of for Pasadena or some place in a very short period of time.

Considering the size of the group that Abraham undoubtedly had with him, what was done was done with a great deal of alacrity. But I do not believe that Abraham left without a struggle. This is the pattern man, you understand. Did you have a struggle leaving the world? Most of us do.

Let us look at his calling again.

Genesis 12:1 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, . . .

So he had to leave behind his country, kindred, his father’s house. Now let us go back to Stephen’s preaching before the Jews in Acts 7, and let us pick up another piece of information.

Acts 7:2-4 And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell.

So Abraham, we find from that, was told before going to Haran (see Haran was where he left from), but he did not leave for Canaan until after his father Terah died in Haran.

Genesis 11:32 So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.

“Now the Lord had said to Abram.” The Lord had said, past perfect. It indicates something said in the indefinite past. We know from Acts 7:2 that it was said while he was still in Ur. So it indicates something that was said in the indefinite past, but how far in the past, is not given. Now look at verse 31.

Genesis 11:31 And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there.

The word dwelt does not indicate an overnight stop at a hotel. It indicates a fairly considerable length of time. How much time is pure conjecture, but I will just throw out something. It may be a period of several months, at least long enough to say, they lived there, that they dwelt there. Let us go to Joshua 24 to pick up another interesting piece of information.

Joshua 24:1-2 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods.

An interesting piece of information. That Terah, Abraham’s father was an idolater. There is no positive indication in scripture that he repented as a result of the preaching of Abraham concerning the existence of God or because of Abraham’s calling. Now, Ur was in the general area of Mari. Remember I gave you some information from Werner Keller’s Bible as History book, about Mari. A very sophisticated and advanced city at the time of Abraham.

Now in order to go from that area to Haran, they had to go away from Canaan. They had to go a considerable distance, north, away from Canaan, the opposite direction from where God was going to take Abraham.

Genesis 11:31 And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot . . .

Something I never noticed before today. “Terah took Abraham”! Abraham was not in charge at this point. Terah was the patriarch. The verse does give at least some indication that Terah was at least agreeable to what Abraham was doing. Notice,

Genesis 11:31 And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there.

Now all we can do is conjecture, but whatever, God did not want Terah along, so He permitted him to die, and then apparently, Abram quickly left. The indication to me is that he was having some trouble leaving his father’s house. I do not know what the reasons are, but there was still authority there that he feared leaving. Terah took Abram, and Abram followed, even though Haran was in the opposite direction from Canaan.

Now, I would have to agree that it was entirely possible that God wanted Abram to go from Ur to Haran and then down to Canaan. That is certainly a possibility, and I am open to any other ideas. But the fact that it says that Terah took Abram, not the other way around, indicates that at this time Terah was still in charge as the patriarch and Abram was following.

He was battling, I think, some of the same things that we do. The desire to not upset our family anymore than it had been upset, the desire to keep peace in any way that he possibly can, the desire to not bring dishonor or pain or whatever it might be to his father. But at any rate, there is at least an indication that Abraham was having a hard time tearing himself away. So even the father of the faithful had a hard time leaving his roots.

Now for you and me, it can be a very difficult step. But we have to understand that we cannot take the old man to the place of promise. It cannot be saved, and it cannot be improved. It has to be left behind.

Genesis 12:6-9 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

Although Abram actually began in Ur, his pilgrimage did not actually begin until he left Haran because he was still in his own country. But once it began, it never ended. There were periods of relative stability, but even in those periods, Abraham lived in tents so he was always reminded that he had no settled place. Now please get this because this is very important to our life in these end times. He was always reminded that he had no settled place.

There is a very interesting contrast right from his own family with his brother Nahor. Nahor did not come out with them when they left Haran, but he remained there in the old land. He built a city, he either named it after himself or his children named it after him, and it was to this same area that Abraham later sent his servant to get a wife for Isaac. Two brothers, same family, same father, but entirely lifestyles and destinies. It is interesting to see that the one who appeared to be ruthless and unstable had the greater destiny.

Now let us consider this. Let us go back to Jeremiah. Here the subject is Moab, but God makes an interesting contrast between Moab and Israel.

Jeremiah 48:11 “Moab has been at ease from his youth; he has settled on his dregs, . . .

This metaphor here has to do with wine making. When wine is fermenting, you do not want to stir it up. You want the wine to reach a place where the dregs settle to the bottom, and then the good wine is on top of it. Now He is comparing this to Moab, one of the enemies, neighbors of Israel, and Moab has been at ease from his youth. Moab has not been getting all stirred up. Moab has not had to move from one place to another. Moab has been stable, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, as one would pour wine in the process of making it.

Jeremiah 48:11 . . . and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, nor has he gone into captivity. Therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent has not changed.”

A very interesting contrast. Now we know the physical Israelites were bumped from pillar to post. They were in a very strategic place in the world, settled on a land bridge between Mesopotamia and Egypt, between Greece and Egypt, and it seems as though every conquer that came through made it part of his area of conquest. So, they lived in a very unsettled territory.

A spiritual Israelite, a true son of Abraham will not ever have a simple life. We can see that from the life of Abraham, the life of Isaac, and the life of Jacob. Certainly, there will be periods of stability but not for long. We are on the move and that is a trail that is going to sometimes require very painful sacrifices.

But God established the pattern for the training of His new spiritual race in this life and that pattern is established in the faithful.

Now let us go back to Hebrews.

Hebrews 11:8-10 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Hebrews 11:13-16 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

Strangers and pilgrims. See others were included in this but Abraham is the main person in mind here because he picks up again with Abraham immediately in verse 17 again. So, movement, instability, and separation from the world are central to God’s purpose for His sons. Modern terminology would have us walking to the beat of a different drummer and many trials fall on us as a result of this. It is from this instability, this movement, that we learn what is in our hearts, and I hope that we never forget what this pilgrim teaches us about our weaknesses.

Abraham went from Ur to Haran to Shechem to Moreh to Bethel to Hebron to Beersheba down to Egypt back to Hebron and on and on it went. It says in verse 8 of chapter 11, “He knew not where he was going.” Somebody else was directing and guiding his steps, and that is the way a life of faith is. It is full of changes and that requires no small sacrifices. It is a life that in some cases, brethren, seems at times virtually unmanageable, out of control. But it is manageable if we allow it by faith to be managed by God. Now even though we may not be literally moving like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did, there are sufficient changes in doctrine, in policy, in personnel, in the movements in the work, to keep us living by faith.

We do it for the same basic reason that Abraham did. Because we see, grasp, understand, comprehend, have vision. We believe and see something others do not see. A city whose builder and maker is God and so we yield accordingly.

Abraham did not just go on the strength of his call. That verse back there in Genesis 12:7 says that God appeared to him in Moreh. And so to us who live by faith God gives special revelation of Himself. I am not talking about visions, but He gives encouragements, guidance. He gives understanding, He gives vision so that we might be empowered to go on.

Let us go back to Genesis 12 again. I want you to look at the last sentence in verse 6: “And the Canaanites were then in the land.” And now verse 10:

Genesis 12:10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.

Now is it not interesting that the Canaanites were still there, and the Land of Promise was subject to famine, and as we see later on, warfare.

Let us look at this in a larger sense to you and me. This earth is our inheritance, but it is possessed by others. It is ours because Christ confirmed the promise, and we are in Christ. It is ours but it is possessed by others. And indeed, we may be persecuted in our own possession. It is torn by warfare, it is raped and torn by greedy men stripping it of its wealth, it is subject to devastating acts of nature, and we live unsettled lives on our own inheritance.

Now we might have hoped whenever we were converted that by obedience we would be freed from such living, but such is not the path for the heirs of God. Abraham might have thought the same thing, “Boy, I better get out of this land where they are after my hide, and I’m being persecuted.” But it was not that way. He got into his own possession and he was always on the move. There was warfare and there was famine. Though he became wealthy, he never led a settled life.

The question for the sons of Abraham is: Can they be content with God only? Can we? Or do we need more? Now look at Acts 7. I think it is interesting what Stephen brought out about Abraham in his defense before the Jews. To me this is something that is very important to you and me, and perhaps it is central to why God called Abraham His friend. Because it reveals to me what was important to Abraham and why he was willing to live by faith.

Acts 7:4-8 "Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him. But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years. And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’ Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs."

Though Abraham entered into his promised inheritance, he did not live in it as if living in it was the consummation of God’s purposes for him. Rather, what Stephen is pointing out is that what was important to Abraham was the covenant and the personal relationship that God had established with him, whatever Abraham’s state and place of residence. A relationship in which circumcision was the God given sign. You see what I said there? What Abraham cherished more than anything else was not the land, was not the reward, it was his relationship with God.

That is why I said to you earlier that what caused, what motivated Abraham to move, to leave, was the character and power of that God who said “I will.” He did not want anything to break that relationship that had been in existence. That is what Abraham cherished and that was why he was the friend of God.

Brethren it is the relationship that is important to God. When Christ died, He opened the way, figuratively, into the Holy of Holies so we could have a relationship with God, so that a covenant could be made with Him, so that we could enter into an agreement to become His son, and have our sins forgiven.

Thus we begin to see the importance of simple, every day, mundane almost, prayer and Bible study. Do not friends communicate with each other? Is that not part of the friendship, is that not the way that friendships are developed? Is that not the way that friendships continue and become tighter and tighter and more and more binding—through communication? And of course you see, Abraham submitted to Him because he believed and trusted his Friend. That is what friends do. That is what was important to Abraham, the relationship that had been established on the call of God.

That is what will help us to come out of this world, to separate ourselves from it, to submit to God. It is the relationship. A relationship that God wants to continue to develop through communication, walking with Him, trusting Him, when He tells us, His friend, to do something.

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