George Bernard Shaw once quipped, “If other planets are inhabited, then they must be using the earth for their insane asylum”. Funny but if we look at the world, it doesn’t seem so far fetched does it? I’m sure that’s what it must have looked like after God confused everyone at Babel.
After the creation story, the first 11 chapters of Genesis record one failure of man after another. Disobedience, murder, deception, drunkenness, nudity, sexual promiscuity, and rebellion. Sounds kind of up to date doesn’t it? What would you do if you were God looking down on the people he created?
We are now entering the longest and possibly most fascinating narrative in the entire Bible going right to end of Genesis. The lives of the Patriarchs. Over the next few months we are going to cover the entire life of Abraham and his offspring until he dies in Chapter 25.
There is so much we can learn about God in these stories, that will make our faith stronger, and we will see that there are no heroes in the Bible besides God, just a bunch of misfits like us who do their best to have faith and follow God. In the first 11 chapters we hear about many curses, and God needing to discipline, but now the mood starts to change, and the primary word we will hear is bless.
So after this whole tower of Babel fiasco God really gets to work, and the next narrative begins with some more genealogies. The focus now is on Shem’s line exclusively and rather than listing when these men died, it concentrates on how old they were when they had their children. We also see with the declining lifespans, that sin is beginning to take its toll on the human body.
There are listed here ten generations ending with Terah’s family and the birth of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. The story is going to start focusing in depth on the life of Abram who was born about 400 years after Shem’s birth. So that’s a long time, and the earth could have been greatly populated by then.
400 more years of God’s faithfulness from the promise he made to Noah and his children. In fact it goes back to Genesis 3:15 that a redeemer would come from the seed of the woman, who would defeat Satan. Well, Abram is the continuation of this promise.
If the first 11 chapters of Genesis are the record of four keys events, Creation, The Fall, The Flood, and the Tower of Babel, the rest of Genesis is now about the lives of four key men that God used: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. This will begin the nation of Israel, God raising a nation, not man.
Abram was nothing special to begin with, in fact he and his wife were idol worshippers until God called them. What we are going to see is that Terah’s son Nahor was “the man who stayed” when God said go. Terah tried to follow God but was “the man who stopped”, as he only got to Haran, another idolatrous community.
Abraham and Lot continued but we see that Lot became “the man who strayed” to Sodom. Finally there was Abraham who continued all the way to Canaan as God had commanded. But we see that even he screws up later. From here now we are going to spend time on the fascinating, faithful life of Abram who later gets renamed Abraham by the Lord.
So we see that:
I. God Promises and Calls (vv 1-3)
In the last chapter we saw that God said one thing and man did the other. Now with Abram, much like Noah, God said do this, and Abram unquestioningly does it. He was called from everything that gave security, home and family. Totally opposite of what the Nimrods were trying to accomplish for themselves. Abram must go from all his security to a strange place and what does it say? Abram negotiated, Abram whined, said I’m too old, sent someone else? No, Abram went, as God told him to.
God tells Abram, I will make your name great. The Nimrods wanted to make a name for themselves, but God wants to make Abram’s name great. Now from here all the way to the life of Paul we will see God changing people’s names. This is very significant and it all stems from Babel. God wants to make us great by using us to bless the world, and ultimately it won’t be our name anyway but His, that is glorified.
Notice God says I will bless them (many) who bless you, and curse him (individual) who dishonors you. Many more will be blessed than cursed in relation to Abram. See how powerful God’s blessings can be? Never underestimate what God can do.
Imagine how hard it must have been for him though to believe the Lord would make him a great nation, a barren wife, no children of his own at age 75. A true and sincere faith must yield and obey as well as cling to the promise that allows us to surrender to the Lord. Abraham believes the promise and:
II. He Obeys (vv 4-6)
Have you ever heard any of these slogans:
A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted.
Tests often follow triumphs.
Don’t run away from problems, they will follow you.
Stay where God has put you until He tells you to move.
The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.
No failure is permanent in the school of faith.
Faith and fear cannot dwell in the same heart.
These may all sound like cliches, but most cliches come from reality, and certainly they are all relevant in Abram’s life and I think in ours too. Just because it’s a cliche doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Abram was called as Jesus calls his church to forsake the world and all its idolatries, for the land he was living in was very prominent in the worship of idols as is ours. He doesn’t argue, make excuses, or complain, he just went with the little information that God gave him.
Like Abram we face three areas of testing in the “school of faith”. The first is circumstances. Abram completely changed his circumstances by leaving everything familiar to him, then as he obeys God’s command he finds that the land he is supposed to inherit is plagued by famine, and this is a test he doesn’t do well with as we will see. This is where we often find that tests follow triumphs.
Abram here, as well as Jonah in his story, demonstrate that we must not run from problems and discomfort. Abram refused to stay in the land and let God help him.
When God puts us in a time of testing, we are usually meant to be there, and God wants to help us grow. He wants us to rely on him not only to change a bad situation, but to claim his promise of peace through bad situations. It’s hard not to run, but sometimes it’s necessary, and I have seen and experienced far too many times when a person runs from a problem only to get into an even bigger one.
Now in verse 7:
III. God Appears (v. 7a)
Abram saw God in some form, but it was God’s word that led him to obey and have faith. It’s not enough to just see God, that would be similar to seeing a dead idol. We must hear God’s word in order to do anything. We see this around the world still where people are worshiping things that can’t talk.
People lighting incense and giving food to manmade idols because they don’t know what else to do, because these idols don’t tell them anything. So then religious people have to make something up. That is how just about every other religion operates.
Christianity is the only religion where the true God actually speaks to people, and where he actually came to earth to be with people. If you don’t believe Jesus was God incarnate, than he is just a profit like Mohammed or Buddha or the Watchtower Society, but we believe he was God, so the Bible is the only word directly from God. But if Jesus never said anything, what good would that have been?
So our God, Abram’s God appears in physical form, and speaks to His creation. And what is Abram’s response? What all of ours should be:
IV. Abram Worships (vv 7b-9)
Everywhere he goes he has his tent which tells people he is a traveler, a sojourner in the land, and his altar provides witness to the people that he follows God. We will see this is the case except when he goes to Egypt. Abram and his family are strangers, aliens in a pagan society and they are very noticeable. Not pushy, but noticeable. So were Jesus and his disciples, and so should we be today.
He seeks the Lord through prayer and his neighbors also witness him worshipping with an altar but no idols. He was not ashamed to worship God openly while his heathen neighbors watched him.
You know before I became a Christian I went to a Christian church for five years in my twenties, and amoung other things, I noticed that the people I knew from this church would always pray before meals in their homes, but never in restaurants. Now maybe that’s not a big deal, but it taught me as an unbeliever that they must be ashamed of their faith, which makes it no faith at all.
So I got to wondering, what would be the equivalent of building these altars today, how could we be worshipping publicly and witnessing to our unbelieving neighbors without being offensive? Or should we even worry about being offensive if we are simply worshipping our Lord and doing it in love with those around us?
Are people offended by Muslims bowing to Mecca several times a day? In fact I think many people respect their dedication even if they don’t agree with their religion. I’ve never met a Jehovah’s Witness who wasn’t a very nice person, and though many hate their door to door tactics, many respect their dedication and faith. A humble non pushy worshipping of our Lord in public shouldn’t be offensive to anyone.
I don’t see many people in Vancouver protesting the Gay pride parades, which are probably the most disgusting things you can ever witness. Clearly they are not concerned about offending to stand up for worshipping their lifestyle.
Some will say that that would make us look like the Pharisees who wore their special robes, and fasted and prayed so everyone would notice them. But remember it wasn’t that they did these things that Jesus objected, it was their motive that he was against, and the hypocritical arrogance they showed the rest of the time.
If you want to pray in public, whether it be at work, in a restaurant, anywhere, and it is not just for show, but something you would do anyway if no people were around, don’t be afraid to do it. You might even find others wanting to join you. If you are a student and would like to pray at the beginning of an exam, do it.
If you have a difficult task at work, and want to call upon the Lord, do it. If you feel the need to pray for someone else when you are with them, do it. You don’t need permission to pray for someone, and most people appreciate it even if they’re not believers.
Maybe we’re skeptical of pro athletes and entertainers who give credit to God on TV after a game or they receive a reward. What if they mean it, isn’t that what we are supposed to do? I don’t know all the ways we can worship publicly out there, I have a handiman friend who works in the school board maintenance office back in Mission. One of the ways he worships at work is by playing and singing Christian music in his office with the door open. Not for show, but because he loves it.
The point is, if you want to worship the Lord in public, however that looks, and it is coming from the heart, don’t be afraid to do it. That witness could save a soul or more.
Now let’s briefly look at where he pitches his tent with Bethel on the west (the good side) and Ai on the east (the bad side). This would be just north of Jerusalem, Bethel meaning “the house of God” and Ai meaning “ruin”. See how this symbolizes how we are between the world system, which is in ruins, and the heavenly home. East verses West? Which way do we turn?
So it’s looking pretty good for Abram so far but then:
V. He Gets Scared and Sins (vv 10-16)
A second classroom of faith is with people. As Abram heads south to Egypt he moves from faith to scheming, from confidence to fear. He stops witnessing and relying on the Lord and takes matters into his own hands by lying. Sure it’s only a half lie, but by God’s standards there is no such thing as half sin.
Remember he is supposed to be a blessing to people, so here he also goes from others to self. He wants to be OK and in doing so he brings judgment instead of blessing to the people he touches.
We see now that when he went to Egypt, he and Sarai try to fit in because they’re scared, and that’s when things start going badly. Is this not what the North American church has done? Over time the church has gotten afraid to be different, we have gone to Egypt and tried to fit in because of fear. Now rather than being aliens and sojourners on this earth, we have become like the pagans and our witness has lost much of its power.
I wonder if Abram had not continued down to Egypt after being disappointed by the drought in Canaan, would have been inclined to multiply his sin by lying. If he had thought that this journey was sanctioned by God, he probably wouldn’t have had to resort to lying out of fear, he would have been more secure in the Lord’s protection. This tells us that he knew he was going against God’s will in continuing south to Egypt.
Very interesting here that Abram violates the command we find in Ephesians to love your wife as Christ loved the church. Instead of risking sacrificing himself, he gives his wife away to be used as Pharaoh saw fit, we can only imagine what may have happened to her. One can only imagine how it must have felt for Abram to know that his beautiful wife was being used in every way by another man. Was the lie worth it?
Why did Abram do this, why does the church do this today? Because of a lack of faith. Fear in following God’s commands shows a lack of faith, doing our own thing apart from God shows a lack of faith. The church of today suffers from an extreme lack of faith, the very thing that saves us.
So rather than traveling through the world in our tents, being a witness for Jesus, we gather in isolated places on Sunday morning, people see the church from outside but have no idea what’s going on inside, so they never see our altar, our witness. They just see another building.
Now God doesn’t command most of us to pull up stakes and go to a strange country, but the challenges to our faith are just as real. Sometimes we have serious problems at home, in our family, on the job, or in the church; and we wonder why God lets these things happen, but it is in these situations that we claim our spiritual inheritance in Christ and display faith in God’s word, and obedience to his will. An untested faith is no faith at all. Faith by definition requires that it be put to the test.
So God may not command us to go to a strange country, but he certainly calls us to go outside of the confines of our church building and homes and show that we are devoted to the Lord. Jesus says, if you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you in heaven.
There’s a saying “if your feet are going, your faith is growing”, therefore the opposite is true as well. Notice how God keeps Abram moving. In five verses we hear verbs like departed, went forth, passed through, removed, and journeyed. Have the churches feet stopped moving, are we sitting in comfort? I have a short video clip that I am sure we can all relate to.
So Abram and Sarai sin, look at that, the Father of the Old Testament faith is imperfect, but still:
VI. God Intervenes (vv 17-20)
God didn’t abandon Abram and Sarai when they went to Egypt, he did not give them up to their sins. He remained faithful even when Abram did not. How relevant for us, we don’t deserve God’s faithfulness as we stray consistently from Him, but he cannot be unfaithful. When God makes a promise it is sealed in stone forever.
God delivers them in His own time and His own way. He always delivers His afflicted people sooner or later.
No doubt Abram was feeling guilty, he had basically prostituted his wife for the goods that were given to him. And the same is true for every believer who sins, we can’t escape the guilt that comes from going against the Lord who we pledged allegiance to. Often that is the only difference between a believer and non-believer, we feel bad about sinning because the Holy Spirit convicts us.
How about Abram’s witness to the Egyptian people? Surrounded by lost people who didn’t know God, Abram makes believers look bad by his deceit and lack of faith. So do we as Christians who act in public with selfishness, hostility, and dishonesty.
Notice how years later when Moses comes to the Pharaoh of that time, how difficult it was for Pharaoh to believe in the Lord in spite of all the miraculous plagues that He brought upon the Egyptian people. Abram’s negative witness had a lasting impact.
Our witness in just small situation may be the one thing that either turns a person away from Christ forever, or brings someone to him. And we never know when that exposure may happen. So we need to do our best to be faithful in every situation, every where we go.
Now we might say, “it didn’t end all bad, look at everything Abram and Sarai got from the Egyptians. God forgave and let them start over with lots of stuff”. Well, here’s the third test in the school of faith, things. Everything that Abram got, later caused trouble for him. Because of the wealth both he and Lot shared, they couldn’t live together and this spelled disaster for Lot’s family.
Hagar, the Egyptian servant given to Sarai brings division and sorrow into the family later. Yes the Christian life is a series of new beginnings and forgiveness, but that doesn’t mean the past won’t come back to haunt you. Stuff will never take the place of spiritual blessings, and we must believe God will provide if we are in his will.
God plans to make Abram’s name great spiritually, not in a worldly way. Does he reward Abram’s sin by giving him all this stuff? Not if we look at all the consequences to their well being and that of the Egyptians. Often our sin will hurt others more than ourselves
What have we learned today?
1. That the best of people may fall into the greatest of sins.
2. That the worst of sins committed by a believer will not repel the grace of
God.
3. That the severest of the world’s censures are sometimes deserved by the
Church.
There’s also a very common pattern we see here that has lasted until today.
We hear from the Lord and get excited about following Him, as is common when we become Christians – then we obey a little, maybe get baptised or get into some kind of ministry – then we may experience the Lord in being obedient – and our response will often be to worship – over time though we begin to lose faith because of circumstances, people, or things – we begin to choose our own way, start operating under our own power – ultimately reaping the consequences and needing to go back to the beginning of the cycle. Some never doget back to the beginning.
And this cycle continues throughout most people’s Christian lives. The only cure being to keep your eyes on Jesus and never get to a place where you think you don’t have to rely on him.
Take action this week in preparation for a time of sharing next Sunday. What have you sensed God asking you to do? Do it without question and see what happens.
Maybe it’s phoning someone, talking to someone at work, pursuing a dream, something you have felt God gently nagging you about. Stop putting it off, just surrender, pray, and go do it. The reward might be great, or the test even greater, but either way you went as God wants you to, you moved your feet, and he has your best eternal interest at heart and will not abandon you. He is the only one you can trust completely.
