#7~ Abraham and Lot: HEBS. 11: STUDY 6-7-14
Did Abraham disobey God by taking Lot with him? -- We have talked about Abraham a couple of times already but I want to stay with Abraham at least for today.
Listen as I read our text from Hebrews 11: 8-10.
11:8- 10 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
10For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
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~ We see here in verse 8 that he "obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went."
Well there's no doubt that Abraham obeyed and went out, but did he go out when God commanded him to, and did he obey what God said about leaving his kindred, and yet he took Lot with him? --- There are a lot of people that have different ideas about this, but it seems to me that Abram did not fully obey what God said.
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Gen.12: 1-5 Now the LORD had said * (past tense, it's very important to recognize that fact.) unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
2And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
4So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
5And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
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In verse 1 God had told Abraham to get out of his homeland AND away from his kindred. -- He was to leave his father's house and all of his relatives and set out for the place where God was taking him.
It seems that he and his wife Sarah should have really been the only ones to make the journey.
~ Listen, so what we're about to read in Gen.11:27-33 was after the fact of God's command to Abram,
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ľ Back in Gen.11: 27-33 we read;
27Now these are the generations of Terah: (Abraham's father) Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
28And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
29And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.
30But Sarai was barren; she had no child. -- 31And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. 32And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
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We'll we're told here in verse 31 that at the beginning of Terah's journey that he intended to go to the land of Canaan, but when they arrived at this place called HARAN they stopped and stayed there, and that TERAH, Abram's father died there. -- How long they we're there in Haran we can not say.
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Genesis 11:31 tells us that it was Abraham's father, Terah, who brought the family to this place after Abraham's brother, also named Haran, died.
It's possible that Terah (Abram's father) was so heart broken at the death of his son HARAN that he wanted to find a new beginning in a new place. --- It may have been that Terah even founded this new city himself and named it in honor of his son HARAN'S memory, because we notice that the city and Abraham's son do have the same name.
~ Whether or not Abraham should have even joined his father Terah in going to Haran is debatable.
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ľ In Stephen's testimony before the Sanhedrin recorded in the Book of Acts 7: 2-4 we're told: -- listen--
2And he said, (Steven) Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, (same as Haran) 3And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. --- 4Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, HE removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.
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So we're plainly told here that "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,"
~ So according to Steven's testimony God had given to Abraham the command to leave all his kinfolk BEFORE HE JOURNEYED WITH TERAH HIS FATHER TO HAHAN.
ľ listen as I read it once again, Steven said;
Acts 7:2-4 And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, *** before he dwelt in Charran, 3And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. --- 4Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, HE removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.
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~Listen, God had commanded Abraham even before he went to Haran with his father Terah and his other kin that he was to depart from his father's house (meaning kin) and go to the land that He would show him.
ľ But what did Abraham do? -- He actually follows his father Terah to another place.
Some people have referred to this time in Abraham's life as the "wasted years at Haran", and maybe they were, we can't say for certain that God's plans for Abraham's life were put on hold as he waited in Haran for his father to die.
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~ Let me say right here, that Abraham and all his kinfolk were pagans, they lived in a land that didn't know a thing about the True and Living God, they were idol worshippers, I'm sure that God realized that Abraham didn't fully understand all that was involved in obeying all that HE had said thus far, as he would later on, --- God is long suffering and compassionate, so it seems to me like God was being patient with Abraham, back then in Abraham's life, he was like all people are, ignorant of the things of God.
~ God had a great plan for Abraham, through him and Sarah, the Promised Messiah would come, the Savior of all the human race. --- Notice I said through Abraham and Sarah, not Abraham and Hagar, who would become his Egyptian concubine later.
~Let me remind us that Abraham is the father of all the faithful, this includes we that believe in Jesus.
> Romans 4:11-- that he might be the father of all them that believe, --
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~ So with Lot we can be certain that it was not God's intention for him to go with Abraham to the land that God would lead him to go to. --- We need only to look at the next few chapters and see the enormous amount of grief and trouble that he caused his Uncle Abraham for many years to come.
~ In Genesis 13:6 we see that the land that God had provided for Abraham was simply not big enough to hold Abraham and Lot both, it was never God's plan for Lot to live there.
What God's plan was for Lot we really can't say. --- God certainly provided for Lot's safety in spite of his being "out of place" when He enabled his Uncle Abraham to rescue him from the captivity of the kings who warred against Sodom and Gomorrah (14:16), and later sent angels to lead Lot and his family out of Sodom (19:15).
So it seems that the Lord would have provided for Lot had he not journeyed with Abraham in Canaan, and the lives of both of them would have been a lot better.
~ We all know the story how that Lot and his two daughters were hid in a cave afraid that they might be destroyed as Sodom was, and that Lot got drunk and while in that state of mind the daughters lay with him and both became pregnant of their father Lot.
> Genesis 19: 36-38 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. 37And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.
38And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day. -- The Ammonites.
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But what I want to point out is, that Ruth was an Moabite's, she was a descendant of that relationship, and she was in the linage of Jesus the Messiah, the thought came to me, if Lot and his two daughters had not been in the cave that was brought about by God destroying Sodom and the other cities, would Lot have commented incest with his daughters, would there have ever been the Moabites? -- Would there have been Ruth?
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Well if that had not happened we can rest assured that Gods plan would have continued to go forward, the Messiah would still have come, even if it had been through other people.
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Some might wonder if Abraham really did anything wrong, it might even seem that Abraham's actions were rather commendable, because Lot had lost his father in Ur of the Chaldees, then his grandfather Terah died in Haran.
So wouldn't it be the right thing for Abraham to take his nephew Lot under his own wing so to speak?
~Well all that makes sense except for one thing, God had commanded Abraham to leave his kindred behind; he was to take none of them with him.
~ Lot was not a small child in need of a caretaker, he was a grown man, and let us understand that the callings of God are never to be used as a means for self-centeredness.
Listen, it is wrong to set aside our God-given responsibilities under the notion that we are doing so in order to honor and follow the Lord, doing something wrong can never be right.
~ Abraham voluntarily took Lot with him with the idea that he was doing what was in his nephew's best interest, even though the Lord had told him to go without his kindred.
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How often do we do the same type of thing? -- Often we take on responsibilities in our walk with the Lord that He never intended for us to take.
We do not follow exactly what God tells us to do; often we try to go beyond what He wants us to do. -- Perhaps God wants a person to teach a Sunday school class, but instead that individual thinks he ought to be a Pastor of some church, and so that person is in reality taking Lot along with him. -- Every person can't be a Pastor, there's a big difference between a Pastor and a Preacher, a Pastor needs a lot of patience's, he'll visit his people, and a lot of Preachers don't do that, many Preachers don't want to do that.
And there's a big difference between a Pastor and an Evangelist, the Evangelist can preach his message and move on, the Pastor must continue to shepherd his flock.
~ God knows how people will react, so He doesn't call every one to Pastor, it takes a special person to be a good Pastor, and dear heart not all is qualified.
~Listen, Abraham bringing his nephew Lot with him is also a picture of failing to make a "clean break" from where we were so that we can go to where God wants to take us.
God has called us out of the place where we were before to go somewhere entirely new.
We can-not bring the things of our old life with us on this journey. --- When He says to us: "Follow Me", we must walk away from where we are, and forsake our old way of living.
Peter and Andrew left their fishing nets behind (Mathew 4:20), Matthew walked away from his tax collecting post (Matthew 9:9), and Paul "resigned" his position as a Jewish leader (Philippians 3:4-8).
