Abraham: Faith and Fear
Genesis 12
“It is only the fear of God that can free us from the fear of man.” -John Witherspoon
***IF you were to WRITE A BOOK about your life...and you gave EQUAL TIME and EQUAL WEIGHT to every person and every event in your life...it would be IMPOSSIBLE to read!!!
-Impossibly LONG
-Impossibly BORING
-It would MAKE NO SENSE to give equal weight to your “first day in the 4th grade” as you did to the day you got MARRIED or the day your FIRST CHILD was BORN.
Different PEOPLE and different EVENTS deserve more or less TIME and ATTENTION...right?
SO...bring that understanding of PRIORITY with you as you consider God’s Word...and why not everything gets the same amount of SPACE and DETAIL.
-The FIRST 11 Chapters of Genesis...from the CREATION to the FLOOD covers a period of at least 1,600 years.
-The NEXT 39 Chapters of Genesis...from Abraham to Joseph (the Patriarchs of the Jewish people...covers a period of just 361 years...and in those chapters…
ONE MAN stands out above all the rest:
The SIGNIFICANCE of Abraham:
-4 chapters in Genesis devoted to CREATION and the first family.
God makes the heavens and the earth and everything that fills them FROM NOTHING, and His highest creation is man and woman. Adam and Eve have perfect fellowship with God for a short time, are deceived and rebel against God and are put out of the Garden. They experience separation from God and begin to physically die. They have children and the “first family” has some major problems with their first son, Cain, killing his brother Abel.
-1 chapter is GENEOLOGY. Genesis 5 is the record of the human race from Adam to Noah.
-3 chapters on JUDGMENT and SALVATION Genesis 6-9 Noah is the only man on earth who has a RELATIONSHIP and finds FAVOR in God’s eyes. God starts the clock on the world’s destruction and for 120 years, Noah PREACHES (by words and example) as he builds the vessel that will save himself, his family and other living creatures from the world-wide flood.
-1 chapter is the formation of the NATIONS. Genesis 10 shows how the human race began again through Noah’s sons– Shem, Ham and Japheth.
1 chapter on the SCATTERING of the nations. The people are building a city and a tower that will be a monument to “HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT” and God comes down and CONFUSES the language of the people so they cannot communicate with each other.
14 chapters on the Old Testament’s CENTRAL character. ABRAHAM...the man of faith!
Why? Why only 9 verses in Chapter 11 about how all the different PEOPLE GROUPS of the world and LANGUAGES of the world got their start? We’re really curious about such things!
BUT...this is God’s Book...and His Story...and He puts the EMPHASIS on the things most important to His PURPOSES!!!
God’s emphasis is on the MORAL and SPIRITUAL more than the physical. And REDEMPTION trumps DEPRAVITY!
Center stage is a REDEEMING GOD!
1.) The call to LEAVE the familiar and FOLLOW into the great unknown! (v.1-6)
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.
The Bible doesn’t give us any CLEAR reason why God choose Abram except that he comes through the “BRANCH of the family TREE” that God has chosen to use. Abram can trace his line back to SHEM and to NOAH (who walked with God) to ENOCH (who walked with God) to SETH (who walked with God) to Adam.
***Go back with me to Genesis 11:27-32 because these 6 verses give us MUCH information that is helpful in understanding Abram’s CIRCUMSTANCES when God calls him in Genesis 12…
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.
The ATTRACTION of Haran:
-SAFETY in numbers
The city of Haran was in the MOUNTAIN in the region of Mesopotamia and it would have been safer because of the LOCATION and the POPULATION.
-FAMILY duty calls
Abram was the OLDEST of Terah’s sons. When his father died, the rights and responsibilities of the family fell on his shoulders. He has already become responsible for his brother Haran’s family (and his nephew Lot) and his own wife is unable to have children, so staying to take care of the family would have made a lot of sense.
-The DESTINATION is unknown
Go back to verse One...the PROMISE is clear but the LOCATION is not disclosed.
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."
In other words...GET UP...GET GOING, and I’ll LET YOU KNOW when we get there! (“Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”)
The NATURE of the call:
-UNCONDITIONAL Sometimes God’s promises are “conditional”...if you will OBEY Me, these things will happen...BUT if you disobey...the result will be something else. But notice this PROMISE to Abram...God simply says “This IS what is going to happen...not because you are perfect, and not because you are never going to fail me or sin against Me, but because I have a plan and you have a part in that plan:
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."
-Involved “taking back” from the descendants of HAM. The Canaanites were the descendants of Noah’s son Ham and his son and Canaan. This land...the best land in the area...was to be inhabited by the people of God’s blessing and Ham and his descendants had been cursed by God after the flood.
2.) The opportunity to establish a TESTIMONY. (v.7-9)
7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring 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. 9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
Abram builds ALTARS as he proceeds. The Lord appears to Abram at Shechem and renews His promise to him. Shechem was considered a “sacred place” in the cult worship of the Canaanites...but Abram builds an altar to the LORD God there. What is the significance of an ALTAR in the Old Testament?
These markers are for WORSHIP, for WITNESS and for IDENTIFICATION.
We think in terms of the act of WORSHIP probably more than anything else, but the ALTAR would serve other purposes: Martin Luther, in his commentary on this passage wrote that the ALTARS were Abram’s way of “preaching” to the culture God was bringing him into. This is accurate.
***It was, in a sense, like NEIL ARMSTRONG stepping foot on the MOOM and planting an American flag. CLAIMING that place for the United States.
Abram walks into the territory of the Canaanites and builds the altar FOR God, but also PROCLAIMS the POWER and the RIGHTS of the ONE TRUE GOD over that land for His people.
One last purpose...the “Identification” is the power of those piles of rocks, later on, to remind God’s people of the reason they were there. What God had SAID or DONE that should not be forgotten.
3.) The temptation to RETREAT into fear. (v.10-20)
So...here is Abram...fearlessly progressing into the land where God had led him. Everything is great, right?!
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ’This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you."
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.
17 But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have you done to me?" he said. "Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ’She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!" 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
FAMINE brings them to Egypt.
There is no rebuke or any “hint” in Scripture that Abram going to Egypt because they needed food was wrong BUT they knew they were going into a potentially “HOSTILE” culture and Abram is thinking in advance about the ATTITUDES they might face and comes up with a PLAN to “SAVE HIS OWN SKIN” (and where is his faith in God at a time like this??)
“God...I’m going to try to figure my way out of this, and if I need your help, I’ll let you know!”
Abram’s HALF-TRUTH: “Say you’re my sister.” (Genesis 20:12) They had the same father but different mothers.
Telling “the TRUTH...the WHOLE truth...and NOTHING BUT the truth” is DIFFICULT. Psychologists who study human interaction find that we all tend to LIE a LOT!
-Exaggeration is lying.
-Excluding certain “facts” is lying.
-Minimizing some parts while emphasizing other parts...is lying.
WHY do we lie?
Because we don’t want to look BAD. Because we want someone to think better of us than they would otherwise.
Because we are AFRAID of the consequences.
Because we don’t BELIVE and we don’t FULLY TRUST God.
Abram’s MOTIVE: Not LOVE for Sarai but concern for his own NECK. He even admits this...I want them to TREAT ME WELL for your sake...not KILL me for your sake. If we say I’m your brother, I’ll be rewarded. If we admit I’m your husband...they’ll want to get me out of the way!
The GODLESS Pharaoh acts more honorably than the GOD-FEARING Abram. Why did you lie to me and put me in a dangerous position? Take your wife and get out of here!
God’s not done with Abram...far from it! There are many more CHALLENGES, TESTS and TRIAL ahead for Abram and God will “MAKE” him into the father of a great nation.
Sometimes Abraham is going to SUCCEED and sometimes he is going to FAIL. And you will see that every time he FAILED it was because he tried to rely on his own STRENGTH...his own IDEAS...his own RESOURCEFULNESS. Every time he SUCCEEDED...it was because he simply took GOD at His WORD and BELIEVED and stepped out in FAITH.
Application: Past VICTORIES don’t win today’s BATTLES.
The fact that Abram left Haran and launched out into the “great unknown” when God told him to did not guarantee victory for the rest of his life.
