GENESIS
ABRAHAM
Genesis 11:10-12:3
INTRODUCTION
God created the world in a state of absolute blessedness. Upon Adam and Eve's sin, the curse descends upon the world. God promises Eve though that her seed (son) would one day destroy the serpent and lift the curse from the earth. Yet at first things spiral downward to such an extent that God wipes out the world by means of a universal flood. You would have thought that man would have learned his lesson after all the devastation of the flood. Yet immediately after Noah's deliverance by means of the ark, man once again falls deeply into sin. Man's rebellion against God becomes so severe that he decides to build a temple to challenge God in the heavens. God breaks up this organized rebellion by scattering mankind across the face of the earth.
All seems lost. In fact all is lost unless God does something to change the situation. Chapter 12 in Genesis is not simply another new chapter in the book; it is THE new chapter in the book of Genesis. With the coming of Abraham, God begins to undo the effects of the curse. The curse even today has not been completely eradicated; that will not occur until the return of Christ. Yet the process of undoing the curse starts with Abraham. He will rightfully and truly be known as the father of not only Jews but also of Christians.
Unfortunately, many Christians simply do not understand just how significant Abraham is. His significance is seen in the fact that all 3 of the great religions of the west claim him to be their founder: Christianity, Judaism AND Islam. The passage before us explains why all 3 of these religions at least want to claim to be spiritual descendants of Abraham. If these 3 religions have understood his significance correctly, then it is of paramount importance that we in fact are related to him, physically or spiritually.
THE CALL OF ABRAM (11:28-32)
After the drunken episode of Noah and his sons, Noah curses Canaan, the son of Ham who disgraced his father Noah, and blesses Shem. At this point the author of Genesis begins to delineate the lineage of Shem, the son Noah blessed. God had promised to raise up one of the descendants of Eve to defeat the serpent; by blessing Shem, Noah has declared that this son promised to Eve will emerge from the family of Shem and not from the families of his other 2 sons, Ham and Japheth.
Many times whenever we see a genealogical list in the book of Genesis, our eyes tend to glaze over. To a certain degree this is justifiable. The lists are important though because they show that God is keeping His promise first to Eve, then to Seth, and finally to Shem (Noah's son), the promise that God is going to raise up Eve's Son first through the family of Seth and then later through the family of Shem. These are the designated ancestors of Eve's Son who will destroy the serpent. The genealogies show that God is keeping His word. What's even more wonderful is that God did not only keep His word to Eve, Seth, Shem, etc., He's keeping it to you and me as well. When God promises something, we can trust Him to keep His word.
The lineage of Shem runs thus:
The great OT commentators—Keil and Delitzsch—claim that Abram actually deposited Terah in Haran and moved on to Canaan. This is based upon the facts that Terah birthed Abram when he was 70 years old and that he died when he was 205 years old in Haran. Since Abram left Haran to go to Canaan when he was 75 years old, he left Terah in Haran 60 years before Terah died.
Before we go any further, we need to note that at this point the major character is called "Abram," which means "exalted father." Only later after some major events have occurred will God change his name to "Abraham," which means "father of a great multitude." (At that time Sarai's name will be changed to Sarah.) Since we are working chronologically out of Genesis, we will call him "Abram" until the chapter in which God changes his name.
Another thing must be noted: Sarai is childless, barren. Time will eventually show that the infertility problem does not lie with Abram but with Sarai.
THE BLESSING (12:1-3)
It is a dangerous trek that Abram is taking. Why does Abram take this trek along with his family? Because of the promise God makes to Abram while he was living in Ur of the Chaldeans (Acts 7:4).
"Now the Lord said to Abram,
'Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives,
And from your father's house
To the land which I will show you;
And I will make you a great nation,
And I will BLESS you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a BLESSing;
And I will BLESS those who BLESS you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth shall be BLESSed'" (Gen. 12:1-3).
SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS COVENANT
The Great Covenant of the OT
Many Christians believe that the great covenant of the OT is the covenant God made with Moses on Mt. Sinai called the Ten Commandments. According to Paul (Gal. 3:15-18), the covenant with Moses is NOT the great covenant of the OT. The covenant God made with Abram, THIS is the covenant of the OT. This is THE great promise of the OT.
Moreover, see how this promise is linked directly to Abram:
"I will bless those who bless YOU;
and the one who curses YOU I will curse."
In other words, the way a person responds to Abram determines the way, God will respond to him, either blessing (salvation) or curse (damnation). Because no other person receives such a status in the OT--even Moses, we see that Moses is not THE man of the OT; it is Abram, that is, Abraham. The 3 great world religions have realized this; that is the reason they all claim their origins go back to Abraham.
Emphasis on the Word "Bless"
As you look closely at this covenant God makes with Abram, one word in particular jumps out, the word "bless." It occurs no less than five times in these 3 verses.
Just exactly what does the word "bless" and its cognates mean? A New Testament synonym for it would be "salvation." We see this with Paul's pronouncement in Gal. 3:13-14:
"Christ redeemed us from the CURSE of the Law,
having become a CURSE for us, for it is written:
'CURSEd is every man who hangs on a tree,'
in order that in Christ Jesus the BLESSING OF ABRAHAM might come to the Gentiles,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit by faith."
As a result, with this promise to Abram, God is going to undo the effects of the curse which Adam and Eve ushered into the world and will now bring about salvation to the world. This promise is made to only 2 people, Abram here and later to someone else. Who that person is we shall see later.
The World Will Receive This Blessing by Faith/Belief
God is going to bless all the nations through him, not just the Jews, but all the families of the earth. In other words, the fact that all peoples will be blessed because of Abraham means that there must be a way in which ALL peoples can be blessed and not just the Jewish people. This is the beginning of the gospel of faith/belief (Gal. 3:8). If people were to receive this blessing by only keeping the Law as the Jews asserted, then only Jews could be saved because only they had the Law. However, since God promises Abram to bless ALL peoples, then this blessing must come to all peoples by another means, a means in which all people can participate. Paul will claim and the story of Abraham will later prove that this blessing is received by faith and faith alone, something all people and not just the Jews can exercise.
THE BIBLE IN A NUTSHELL: The Blessing of God
Many times people try to get a handle on the Bible and give up in utter frustration because of all the different stories in the Bible. Sometimes trying to get a handle on the Bible is like trying to get ahold of a bunch of worms slittering around in a bucket. Yet there are 2 different ways you can summarize the Bible in a nutshell. The theme of blessing is one of those 2 ways.
"Blessed are the poor . . .
Blessed are those who mourn . . .
Blessed are the gentle . . .
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst . . .
Blessed are the merciful . . .
Blessed are the pure in heart . . .
Blessed are the peacemakers . . .
Blessed are those who have been persecuted . . ." (Matt. 5:3-10).
The blessing God promised to Abraham is nothing less than the salvation which Jesus Christ brings (Gal. 3:13-14).
Finally, blessing plays a huge role when John describes the second coming of Jesus in the Book of Revelation. In that book John pronounces no less than SEVEN blessings. Since seven is normally considered the perfect number, then this seven-fold blessing in Revelation implies that at the end of history when Jesus returns, the universe will finally once and for all experience the blessing God had always intended for the universe.
As if to underscore the completed state of blessing God intends for the universe at the second coming of Christ, the apostle John not only pronounces the seven-fold blessing; he also informs what will NOT be in the transformed universe: "There shall no longer be any curse." The curse Eve and Adam brought into the world will come to an end only upon the return of Christ; however, it definitely is coming to an end upon that return.
According to the NT Jesus is the seed promised to Eve who brings us the blessing which God promised to Abram.
ABRAM'S RESPONSE
So what was Abram's response to God's call and to God's promise? He believed God so much that he took his family and left his home for the place that God was leading him to.
Now look at the extent and depth of his faith. Abram did not know where God was leading him (Heb. 11:8), but he still followed Him. Abram left his cultural identity when he left his land; he left the security that families provide whenever he left his family (Terah) in Haran. This was one of the greatest acts of abandonment the world has ever seen.
God even today still calls us to abandonment. Many times we use the church. We use it to make us better dads, moms, parents, citizens, or even to make us wealthy or give us social status. The wonderful thing is that Christ does make us better parents, better people; however, the way it makes us better is by calling us to abandon everything for the sake of Christ. "If any one comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters for My sake, he is not worthy to be My disciples" (Luke 14:26).
Well, today God is calling our church to abandonment. For 160 years this year we've been having SS and a traditional worship service at 9:45 and 11:00. Because time changes but God's Word stays the same, the staff believes that God has called us to abandon this schedule. It's not going to be easy for everybody. Sometimes younger adults just don't get senior adults. They think they are being old-fogey, while all along they are trying to hold on to the one thing which has not changed in their lives, the church. Their bodies have broken down, their loved ones have departed, their influence has waned, change, change, change, change, change. So when something which touches them to the core, the worship service, changes, it is tough. Yet God didn't promise that it would be easy for Abram to leave Ur and God doesn't promise it to be easy for us either. But who wants to stay in Ur when God is promising even those in their 70's and 80's a chance to enter the Promised Land!
Yet senior adults are not the only ones called to abandonment. The switch in worship services is for the purpose of reaching younger adults and their families for Jesus. This means some younger adults are going to have to abandon their schedule of running out of church once SS is over. It means that when the contemporary worship service attracts new people that the younger adults are going to have to reach out and assimilate them into their groups. Now the younger adults don't have to abandon these things. That's fine, but they need to realize that if they don't, then they are going to remain in Ur of the Chaldees and miss out on entering the Promised Land, even though all the worship services have been changed to their liking.
Our abandonment may be impressive; however, look at what Abram did even though he lived at the beginning of Christianity. Abram did not follow God after He had given him 66 books in the Bible to read which encouraged him that God would care for him. God did not call him AFTER he had met the resurrected Jesus. All he had were the first 11 chapters of Genesis which are mainly about gloom and doom. Whereas we have example after example of people God was faithful to (Abram being one of them), all Abram really had were Enoch and Noah. Yet he still believed God. If Abram believed God with only 11 chapters to read, surely we too can believe God when we have 66 books to go by.
You need to know that the Bible is impressed with Abram because of his faith. Because of his great faith in God, he is not only called Abraham the believer (Gal. 3:9), he is the only person in the OT called "the friend of God" (2 Chron. 20:7; Is. 41:8). That is how impressed the Bible is with Abram. It is my prayer that one day God will express how impressed He is with the faith we individually exhibit and the faith this church exhibits at this time in her history.