Don’t be a loser Genesis 11:27 to 12:8
We tend to overlook the Old Testament – and we do so at our peril. Remember it was Jesus’ Scripture and the Scripture to which he alluded when he said: “It is written…”
I’d like to take time over Lent to look at the person of Abraham – a figure from which the three great religions of this world claim descendency – The Jewish Faith, Christianity and Islam
1. The Mission
Abraham as rightly been called the Father of all who believe. (Rom 4:11)
In other words: Abraham is the father of the faithful.
The New Testament uses Abraham’s experiences as the historical basis for teaching justification by faith
St Paul writes in Gal 3:6-9
6Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” 7Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
And further in Rom 4:13
13It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.
Abraham’s faith resulted in ACTION. It was not just head knowledge.
Faith - what is it?
Faith is responding to the Word of God.
A mnemonic for faith:
Forsaking
All (almost?)
I
Take/Trust in
Him.
In other words 100% commitment.
1.1 Who was Abraham?
Genesis 11:27 to Genesis 12: 1-8 givs the account of Terah, the Father of Abraham and the Call of Abram.
27 This is the account of Terah.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. 28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. 29 Abram and Nahor both married. 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. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.
31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.
Genesis 12 The Call of Abram
1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
2 "I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."
4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring [a] I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD , who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and 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 .
Abram was descended from Noah through his son Shem (Gen 11:10-27).
The term Semetic which is used to describe the Jewish people comes from this Shem.
The name Abram probably means "the father is exalted" .
God changed his name to Abraham as we better know him meaning "father of a multitude of nations"
His father Terah and the rest of his family were idol worshippers (Jos. 24:2)
He was living in Ur of the Chaldees, in Mesopotamia near the Persian Gulf
Ur of the Chaldees
Let us look at the city of Ur from archaeological records:
1) it was the ancient capital of Sumer
2) it was one of the wealthiest and largest cities
(C.L.Wooley showed in his excavations from 1922 to 1934)
3) It was the centre of commerce.
Ships came through the Persian Gulf up the Euphrates River bringing gold, ivory alabaster copper and hard wood to Ur
4) It was a centre of education. The ruins of a school having a large library of clay plates has for example been found
5) It was a centre of idolatry.
The moon god Nanna was worshipped. Ruins found include a great ziggurat temple, and other building dedicated to Nanna and idols in niches of homes.
Ur was very much like London today, a city of wealth and idolatry.
I have a city plan of Ur. SHOW SLIDE 1
You might be interested to see how advanced it was.
It even had a canal linking the west harbour with the northern harbour on the Euphrates river.
In short Abraham had every creature comfort he needed.
Yet God called him to leave the luxury he had in Ur to go to Canaan, the Promised Land, a journey that took him about 2,000 km.
Let us look at the journey Abraham made (SHOW SLIDE 2)
1.1 Terah
The story starts with Abraham and his father Terah in Gen 11.31
31Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
32Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.
Terah set out with Abraham to go to CANAAN but somehow never made it.
Terah got sidetracked in Haran.
Terah is symbolic of how sometimes we can get sidetracked.
When God calls us to do something, we only do half the job.
Haran was about half way to Canaan. (show the Map again)
1.2.1 The City of Haran
Let’s look at the city of Haran
Haran was on a main caravan route that connected the cities of the East with Damascus.
Haran was highly civilised and was also a centre of moon worship.
I wonder why Terah stayed there?
It wasn’t his original intention but he probably had 101 reasons
- I am 205 years old and I’m too old for this type of thing. That’s OK for my son Abraham who is a spring chicken (at 75).
- He liked his home comforts
- Well, had he not obeyed God by leaving Ur of the Chaldees
- They don’t have running water in the toilets in Canaan.
Halfhearted commitment is as bad as rebellion
Remember the famous words of Samuel to Kind Sual who did not completely follow God’s commands. God called Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites – and he preserved their king and their flocks. Samuel the prophet challenges Saul about this and Saul replies:
20 "But I did obey the LORD ," Saul said. "I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. 21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal." 22 But Samuel replied:
"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD , he has rejected you as king."
God has no place for those who follow him half heartedly.
1.2 Abraham (Show slides)
Abraham is a picture of how God wants us to follow Him, because unlike Terah Abraham made it to the Promised Land.
Slide 1: Abraham had it all going for him in Ur.
He lived like a prince. He didn’t have a care in the world …until..
Slide 2: God’s Call
We have no record of what God’s call sounded like. Was it a word of prophecy. Did God speak to him in a dream like he did to Samuel?
Slide 3. Abraham got the call of God
Abraham started off with Terah his father going to the Promised Land (see Neh 9:7 that Abraham was called in UR)
Slide 4: At Haran he parted company with Terah
Sometimes we have to part company with those who start with us, even if it is our own family – if we want to follow God.
As long as Terah was leading the way, Abraham wasn’t going to make it to Canaan
Slide 5 Abraham made it
Why did God call them to make this almost 2,000 km journey. And remember they had no cars or planes
And as an aside, West Semitic was the language of Ur as far as Upper Egypt, so Terah and Abraham was able to communicate on their travels quite easily.
I believe God wanted Abraham (and his father Terah) to cut off all their ties with their idolatrous past in order to enjoy communion with the true God and serve Him.
When we become Christians, the Lord calls us to go away from all that causes us to look away from God. To bury the old life and enter the new one.
Story: I had a good friend Nick Summerhayes who had a great deal of influence on me. He mocked God and was into drugs. When I became a Christian, I found that we had nothing more in common. I knew I had to cut myself off from him and his influence.
God called Abraham to leave all this pagan influence behind and follow him.
Do you recall the words of Christ in Luke 9:23-26
23Then he (Jesus) said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? 26If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels
Story: Jim Eliot said: He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
Jim Eliot was called by God to preach to the Andean Indians in South America.
In the 1950’s on one trip to a particular tribe, he and three fellow missionaries were attacked and killed.
His wife, Elisabeth Eliot with tremendous courage however continued to work there and through her ministry brought that tribe to the Lord.
The Lord does not want armchair Christians but Christians on fire.
The early Church was on fire for God.
Remember the boldness of Peter and John in Acts 4: 13 and 18 -20 in front of the High Priest and the whole Sanhedrin.
13When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16"What are we going to do with these men?" they asked. "Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. 17But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name."
18Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. 20For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."
1.3 Conclusions
Terah is for me a symbol of those who start off with God going to the Promised Land but stop off part of the way there at Haran.
Where are you on your journey.
Have you stopped off at Haran or are you ploughing on?
Abraham on the other hand went on to FINISH the journey into the Promised Land.
Hebrews 11:8
8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
9By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
Both Terah and Abraham wanted to follow God, but only Abraham made it.
So why did Terah not make it?
Let us look at the Parable of the Sower
3….“A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop–a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9He who has ears, let him hear.”
Terah was like the seed that fell among thorns which choked the plants. Jesus tells us the meaning of this in verse 22.
The one who received the seed that fell among thorns is the man who hears the word but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it and make it unfruitful.
Abraham was like the seed that fell on good soil Jesus in v. 23 says
But the one who receives the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Are we content to step off at Haran or do we want to receive the full blessings of God like Abraham as he journeyed into the promised land.
It was not plain sailing but we read in Gen 12 5
Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated in Haran and they set out for Canaan AND THEY ARRIVED THERE.
The challenge of the call of Abraham is that we must cut ourselves off from everything that hinders us from following the Lord or God’s commands to us WHOLEHEARTEDLY.
