Genesis 11,12
Peace be with you, listening
friends. We greet you in the name of God, the Lord of peace, who wants everyone
to understand and submit to the way of righteousness that He has established,
and have true peace with Him forever. We are happy to be able to return today
to present your program The Way of Righteousness.
In past lessons, we have been learning about God and
His way of righteousness. We have seen Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Seth and
Enoch, Noah and the people of his generation, and Nimrod and the tower of
Babel. Only a few of our ancestors followed God and His way
of righteousness;
most followed Satan and his way of
unrighteousness.
Today we have come to the story of a man whose name is
well known in the Word of God, and who had an important place in God's plan to
redeem the children of Adam. The Scripture refers to this man as "the
friend of God" and "the father of all who
believe." Do you know who it is? It is the prophet
of God, Abraham {Ibrahim in Arabic}. The Holy
Scriptures speak a great deal about Abraham. His name appears in the Writings
of the Prophets more than three hundred times. Therefore, God willing, today
and in coming lessons, we will search the Scriptures to discover what they teach
concerning this man who was called the friend of
God. Today
we intend to look into the beginning of the story of Abraham, to see how
God called himto
follow Him, and why He called him.
Before we begin, you should know that, at first,
Abraham's name was not Abraham, but Abram. Two lessons from now we
will see why God changed Abram's name to Abraham. Today, however, let us keep
in mind that Abraham was first calledAbram. In chapter eleven of the
book of Genesis, we learn that Abram belonged to the descendants
of Shem.
Do you remember Shem, Ham and Japheth? They were the three sons of Noah.
Between Shem and Abram, there were ten generations, just as there were ten
generations between Adam and Noah. Abram's father's name was Terah. The
Scripture says: "Terah became the father of
Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot." (Gen. 11:27) Lot was the
son of Abram's older brother. Lot's Father had died {Note: in Wolof culture
that would make Abram Lot's functional father}. Abram's wife's name was Sarai. "Now
Sarai was barren; she had no children." (Gen. 11:30) Abram and
Sarai had the same father, but not the same mother.
Abram lived in a city named Ur, which was located in
the country of Chaldea, known today as Iraq. This city was not far from where Nimrod
tried to build the city of Babel with its tall tower. The people of the land
worshiped idols. Like all of Adam's offspring, Abram
was born in the darkness of sin. Abram's father did not know the true God
and neither did Abram.
However the Scriptures tell us that one day the
Lord God revealed Himself to Abram and spoke with him. You need to know that
in early times, God occasionally spoke directly with people, because they did
not yet have the Writings of the Prophets. Today God speaks to people through the
Holy Scriptures.
That is why we no longer need words which resound from the sky, or visions, or
angels in order to know God's way of righteousness. When we meditate upon the
Holy Scriptures, we are listening to the voice of
God.
Let us listen now to what God said to Abram. In
chapter twelve, verse one, we read: "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.'" (Gen. 12:1) Did you hear
what God commanded Abram? He told Abram to leave his father's house, bid
farewell to his relatives, leave his country, and move to a country to which
God would lead him. To man's way of thinking, what God asked Abram to do was extremely
difficult, but God had plans to greatly bless him.
Let us now reread this verse and the two verses which
follow, to know why God called Abram to
leave his home and go to another country.
"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. 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. I
will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all
peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Gen. 12:1-3)
Why did God command Abram to move to another country?
This is why: God planned to make of Abram a
new nation from which the prophets of God and the Savior of the world would
arise.
That is why God promised Abram saying, "I will
make you into a great nation…and you will be a blessing…and all peoples on
earth will be blessed through you."
Here is a great truth. Do you understand it?
God chose Abram to become the father of the ancestors through which the
promised Redeemer would come into the world. This Redeemer was destined to be
the Savior for all the peoples of the world, so that whoever believes in Him,
might be saved from the dominion of sin and Satan, and from the eternal fire.
Thus, we see that when God called Abram, He was moving forward with His plan to
send the Savior of sinners into the world. Abram himself was not the Savior of
the world, but he was to become the father of a
nation from which the promised Savior would come.
That is the promise {or covenant} God made to Abram-on
the condition that he leave his country and go to the place that God would show
him. Did Abram obey God? What do you think? The Word of God tells us:
"So Abram left,
as the Lord had told him…Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out
from Haran. 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." (Gen. 12:4-5)
Why did Abram obey God, turning his back on his
father's home and religion? There is only one reason. Abram
had confidence in God. Abram did not know where he was going, but
he believed the word of the Lord which said, "Move out! If you move, I
will greatly bless you!" Abram had confidence in God and left his country
as the Lord God had told him. And God, in His faithfulness, led Abram to the
land of Canaan, which today is called Palestine or Israel.
Next, the Scriptures say: "Abram
traveled through the land…At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The
Lord appeared to Abram and said, 'To your offspring I will give this land.'" (Gen. 12:6-7) Thus we
learn that God, who promised to make Abram the father of a new nation, also
promised him a new country as well. That is what God meant when He appeared to
Abram and promised him, "To your offspring I will
give this land."
Again, we see something which surpasses human wisdom.
The land of Canaan had people living throughout it. How could Abram and his
descendants possess it? Abram was seventy-five years old.
His wife was sixty-five and childless. Could two elderly people have enough
children and descendants to fill the land? How could this happen?
Let us try to illustrate what God promised Abram. It
is like an elderly man who has no children and comes from a far off land to
visit Senegal. He comes with his elderly wife, who has never been able to
conceive. When they arrive, someone says to them, "One day you and your
descendants will possess the whole land of Senegal!" The old man laughs
and says, "You are very funny! My descendants are going to possess the
land? I do not even have any descendants! I am an old man; I have no children,
and my wife is unable to conceive--and you say to me that my descendants are
going to multiply and possess Senegal? Are you ill?"
Perhaps this illustration seems a little absurd;
nonetheless, this is the kind of promise God made to Abram-to a man who was old
and childless, with a wife who could not conceive. Listen to what God promised
Abram in chapter thirteen. He said,
"All the land that
you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your
offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the
dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and
breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you." (Gen. 13:15-17)
Did God do what He
promised? Did He make of Abram a great nation? Did
He give the land of Palestine to Abram's descendants? He surely did! In future
lessons we will see that Abram became the father of the Hebrew nation to which
God gave the land that, today, is called Israel.
Next, the Scriptures say: "So
[Abram] built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to
him. From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his
tent…. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the
name of the Lord."(Gen. 12:7,8) What was the first thing that Abram did,
upon arriving in the new country which God had promised to give him? He slaughtered
an animal and burned it on an altar he constructed. Just as Abel, Seth, Enoch
and Noah did, Abram, in the same way, offered up animal sacrifices to God. Why
did Abram do this? He did it because God had not done away with His law which
states: "Without the shedding of
blood, there is no forgiveness of sin!" (Heb. 9:22) Abram,
like all of Adam's offspring, was a sinner. The only reason God
could overlook Abram's sins was because Abram believed God and brought to Him the
blood of a sacrifice,
which was an illustration of the holy Redeemer who was to come into the
world to die in the place of sinners.
Our time is about up. What we have studied today is
very important and must not be forgotten. Do you understand now why God called Abram to turn
his back on his father's house and move to another country? Yes, God intended
to make of Abram a new nation, which would be a "door
of blessing" for all peoples of the earth. What God planned to do
with Abram was part of the wonderful plan that He announced in the
Garden of Paradise on the day that our ancestors, Adam and Eve, sinned. Do you
remember how God had promised One who would come into the world to deliver the
children of Adam from the power of Satan? Two thousand years later, in the time
of Abram, God had not forgotten His promise.
Today we have seen how God, in His faithfulness,
called Abram so that he might become the father of a nation through which the
promised Savior would come into the world. That was why God promised Abram
saying, "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. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will
curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Gen. 12:2,3)
Have you grasped today's lesson? Allow us to ask you a
couple of questions which summarize what we have studied today. First: Why
did God call Abram to leave home and go to another country? Because God planned to
make of Abram a new nation. Second: Why
did God want to make of Abram a new nation? Because it was through
this nation that God planned to give us the prophets, the Scriptures and at
last, the holy Redeemer Himself. Thus, in summary, we see that when God called
Abram, God was moving forward with His
plan to bring into the world the Savior of sinners.
Friends, we must stop here today. In our next lesson,
God willing, we will learn why Abram was called "the friend of
God."…God bless you as you meditate on His promise to Abram:
"I will make you
into a great nation. You will be a blessing…and all peoples on earth will be
blessed through you." (Gen. 12:2,3)
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