Genesis (Written)

Genesis 13:1-18
This Land I Give to You

Introduction: What does “being rich” mean to you? Today one of the points I’ll talk about is just that. If you walk from where we are right now to the public restrooms by the road, you’ll see those nice tropical looking picnic tables with the palm roofs by the lagoon.

On the last one, right where the view of the lagoon is best is where a guy named Wally lives. He’s lived there for years. You might have even noticed him at one time or another. He rides a tricycle around Siesta Key every day and enjoys life to the fullest.

He has almost no possessions and yet he’s one of the coolest cats in town. He’d tell you that he’s perfectly content with life. He has a place right on the water, takes a shower at public expense every day, gets a paycheck from the military and so always has enough for a steak, and he even has a grill that he can use for free.

There are hundreds of people within ¼ of a mile of us who have paid millions of dollars to live here and many of them are as miserable as they can be. Wally doesn’t pay a penny and he’s as happy as a lark. Which are the poor ones and which is wealthy?

Text Verse: (Luke 1:68-75) “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people,
⁶⁹ And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David,
⁷⁰ As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets,
Who have been since the world began,
⁷¹ That we should be saved from our enemies
And from the hand of all who hate us,
⁷² To perform the mercy promised to our fathers
And to remember His holy covenant,
⁷³ The oath which He swore to our father Abraham:
⁷⁴ To grant us that we,
Being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
Might serve Him without fear,
⁷⁵ In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Returning to the Promised Land

¹Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South.

As a reminder, last week we saw Abram’s journey to Egypt which occurred because of a famine in the land of Canaan. While they were there, Abram had told his wife to tell anyone they met that she was his sister.

He did this in order to protect his own life in case someone wanted to kill him so that they could have her because she was an extremely beautiful lady. While in Egypt, Pharaoh’s house eventually took her in so that she could become Pharaoh’s wife.

But in the process of this, God afflicted them with plagues to keep her from being taken as his wife. When Pharaoh found out what happened, it says this –

And Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way.” ²⁰ So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had.

And so in this first verse today we see the fulfillment of Pharaoh’s demand. Abram and all who were with him headed northeast out of Egypt and back to the land of Canaan. The verse says they went up from Egypt to the South, but that doesn’t mean they headed south.

Instead, they travelled to the South of the Land of Canaan which is an area known as the Negev, which means “south.” This would be like saying we travelled from Sarasota to the Deep South, which is actually north from where we are because Sarasota, Florida is technically not a part of the Deep South.

Because of this, different translations of the Bible will translate this differently – they will either say the South or the Negev. It is a place and not a direction.

 ² Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.

Even before he had gone to Egypt, Abram was already wealthy and had servants and goods, but while he was in Egypt his wealth increased even more when Pharaoh took his wife Sarai. When he did, he treated Abram well and gave him a great deal.

The Hebrew term for “very rich” is kaved meod, and the words indicate heaviness. In other words, he was heavy in livestock, in silver, and in gold.

As people, we generally look at others who have a lot of stuff or expensive things as more important than people who don’t have as much. We want to be associated with rich or important people more than those who are less so. If we ever meet someone famous, we want to tell others about it – even years later.

But the Bible doesn’t teach this. If a person is rich or famous, it isn’t always an indication of divine favor. And if a person is poor it is no indication of divine disfavor. A good job that earns a lot of money or fame doesn’t guarantee happiness, and more often than not it brings about just the opposite.

Sports stars and movie stars make millions of dollars and yet they’re the ones who are continuously going through divorce after divorce or who put guns in their mouth because life is so crummy.

The heaviness of wealth, such as Abram had, is something that requires great care or it becomes a burden too heavy to manage and the blessing can easily become a curse. Solomon, the richest man ever to live, gives this thought on wealth –

He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver;
Nor he who loves abundance, with increase.
This also is vanity.
¹¹ When goods increase,
They increase who eat them;
So what profit have the owners
Except to see them with their eyes?
¹² The sleep of a laboring man is sweet,
Whether he eats little or much;
But the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep.

Any of you who know me well enough know that I love to sleep. Outside of Jesus and my family, it is my favorite thing. If being rich will deprive me of my sleep, I’d rather not ever be wealthy.

And in Luke 16, it says this about the possessions we prize so highly, like big houses, fast cars, or expensive watches –

“Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him. ¹⁵ And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Some of the people I hold in the highest regard are the people who live rather simple lives and who spend a lot of their time doing things for others, both nice things for friends and charity work for others. One of them is here right now and she’s surely not wealthy by the world’s standards.

But I’m sure that the life she lives is far more rewarding than if she were weighed down with wealth and status. I don’t know if she thinks so or not, but she is blessed because she is a blessing. What more could one want at the end of their life than to know that God was pleased with how they lived?

Something that will never impress me is how much money you have or how big the house is that you live in. I clean toilets in a mall and take out the garbage there every morning of the week except Sunday and I’m neither ashamed of it, nor do I mind a bit.

It pays the bills and helps meet our needs. What more should I ask for? Abram was blessed with a great deal and maybe someday you or I will be that way too, but what God favors is our faith, not stuff.

³ And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, ⁴ to the place of the altar which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the Lord.

These verses take us back to Chapter 12, to the place where he had built an altar sometime soon after first coming into the Promised Land. If you remember, I said then that Bethel means “House of God” which is a picture of heaven and Ai means “Heap of Ruins” which would be a picture of hell.

Abram is living between these, both physically and spiritually, and for a second time he calls on the name of the LORD. While living on earth, between the only two possible destinations of the after- life, Abram sets his eyes and his affections on the Lord.

Despite being a man of great wealth and power, his eyes are right where they should be – focused on Him. If we can just learn from faithful people like this, then our lives will be so much better off. All the money, fame, and power in the world aren’t worth doodly squat when we come to the end of our lives.

And so if you think about it, it doesn’t hold any real importance now either. If honoring the Lord is all that matters at the end of our lives, and we don’t know what moment will be the end of our life, then honoring Him is all that matters throughout our lives.

Think it through… any one of us could die as we leave here today. If the only thing of true value is our walk with the Lord at that moment, then it is the only thing of true value at any moment, because any moment could be our last moment. It’s so simple to see, but most people never really see it.

II. If You go Right, I will go Left

When I was young, I heard about a town that had only two cars in it. This was when automobiles were just invented and there were no established road signs of any kind and even roads didn’t really exist. Wherever the wagons went is where cars went. Despite having the entire town to drive in with only one other car on the road, the two cars had a head-on accident.

It seems funny now, but it’s kind of the same things as walking down the sidewalk and getting into a “which way do I go” when running into someone else. You step right and he steps left and you’re both still in each other’s way. Then you step left and he steps right and the same thing happens again.

Another funny example is something I saw on TV just a couple weeks ago. I was watching a news story about the delivery people in New York who ride their bikes making local deliveries. Kevin Bacon did a movie about them called Quicksilver back in the 80s.

The guy in the story said that when he’s going by a crosswalk, if a person starts doing what he called “the dance” he knew they would have an accident. If the person would just stop until he passed, things would go ok, but if not, then there would be trouble.

Abram and his nephew Lot are going to face “the dance” in the next few verses and we’ll see how it turns out –

⁵ Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents. ⁶ Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.  ⁷ And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt in the land.

Abram isn’t the only one who has flocks, servants, and property. Lot has also been blessed with a lot too. In fact, together they’ve got so much between the two of them that living together isn’t an option anymore. Depending on the time of the year and where they are living, there simply isn’t enough grass to feed all the animals.

And so the dance begins. Lot and Abram are probably close to home and enjoying life, but their servants are out in the field. There’s no real division of property and so whoever gets to a nice spot first gets the claim. And if they come to the same field from different directions, they will both claim they got there first.

As unlikely as this story may seem, especially considering that more than 6 million people live there today, it’s not that tough to imagine. First, whatever lands a person moves into need to be cleared and they need to be maintained.

And also, it says that the Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land too. Any land they’d cleared would be land they claimed and Abram and Lot would do their best to not interfere with them. These people moved there before they did and would have established communities and more people than them.

And so they face the dance. The question is, will they both stand still, will one dance and the other hold fast, or will there be more trouble. Because they are relatives, we can only hope they get along and don’t side with their own servants…

⁸ So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are brethren. ⁹ Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left.”

Abram graciously stands fast and calms the situation deferring to his nephew Lot. He is the head of the clan because he is the son of Terah. But this is a good indication of something I said a few sermons ago.

Lot was probably older than Abram. Abram’s older brother Haran was 60 years older than he was and Lot was probably born even before Abram. So even though he’s Lot’s uncle, he’s probably younger than him.

And so despite being the head of the clan he shows respect to the elder family member by offering the choice of resolving the matter. If Lot goes to the left, Abram will go right, and if Lot takes the right, Abram will go left.

In these verses we can apply a few things to our own lives. The first is that there is an order in deferring to others in every culture and we need to learn that order and pay heed to it.

In the Bible we’re taught to show respect in a variety of ways. We’re to respect our parents, we’re to respect those who are older than us, we’re to respect those who are in positions of authority, and in fact in Philippians Paul says –

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. ⁴ Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”

And how did Jesus Himself say it? “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”

Abram may have been the head of the family because of his birth position, but he understood that sometimes deferring to another is the wisest choice and the one which brings about peace.

Another thing we can learn from these verses is what Abram said, “We are kinsmen.” If you look over your dealings with others in this light, then in fact everyone on earth is your kinsman because we all have one father in Adam.

When we lift ourselves above another person, we are really only showing contempt for God who created each of us. And this is certainly why Paul told us to act in lowliness of mind and esteem others as better than ourselves. It’s not easy, but it is right.

And finally, we can look back to what God already promised to Abram – that his descendants would posses the land. So why should he worry about the decision Lot made, whatever he decided wouldn’t affect what God had already determined. And this is true for each of us.

God has already promised eternal life to anyone who has called on Jesus… it’s done. He’s already given us the sealing of the Spirit and the Lord is already building us a home that we can rest in.

Just as Abram knew that the land would be his, every one of us who has accepted Jesus has a better promise – one of glory that will never fade away. So why should we strive about temporary things that have no true importance? But strive we do…

¹⁰ And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. ¹¹ Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other.

Lot probably didn’t take long in making his decision. He looked toward the plain of the Jordan where the land was lush and well-watered. Unlike the other areas of the land which were highly dependent on the rain cycle, the plain of the Jordan received water and nutrients from the Jordan as it flowed south.

This would be especially true during the flooding season just like the Nile in Egypt, which Lot would have seen when they were there. Instead of worrying about famines, which sent them to Egypt in the first place, there would be a much better chance of having grass and crops even when there was no rain.

Kind of an interesting thought about this verse and one which I am pretty certain is correct, some scholars have taken the words “like the Garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt” ke-gan Yehovah ke-eretz Mizrayim” not as two comparisons, but one. In other words, this is the spot where the Garden of the Lord was and the land of Egypt is being compared to it.

Having a Hebrew scholar on our staff at Church on the Beach, I checked with him and he verified that this is a possible translation based on other precedents set in the Bible.

Let’s stand back and think about it. Adam was created and then was placed in the Garden of Eden. When he disobeyed, he was sent east of Eden and Cain went further east, to the land of Nod. After the flood, the same area that Cain went to is where Nimrod went.

But God called Abram back to the place where the Garden of Eden was and this is the same land where God’s presence dwelt in the Temple and where Jesus walked. And it is the same place which will look very similar to this period again in the millennial reign of Christ according to Ezekiel chapter 47.

Let’s take a minute and read those verses –

Then he brought me back to the door of the temple; and there was water, flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the front of the temple faced east; the water was flowing from under the right side of the temple, south of the altar. ² He brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside to the outer gateway that faces east; and there was water, running out on the right side.³ And when the man went out to the east with the line in his hand, he measured one thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the water came up to my ankles. ⁴ Again he measured one thousand and brought me through the waters; the water came up to my knees. Again he measured one thousand and brought me through; the water came up to my waist. ⁵ Again he measured one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross; for the water was too deep, water in which one must swim, a river that could not be crossed. ⁶ He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he brought me and returned me to the bank of the river.⁷ When I returned, there, along the bank of the river, were very many trees on one side and the other. ⁸ Then he said to me: “This water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed. ⁹ And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes. ¹⁰ It shall be that fishermen will stand by it from En Gedi to En Eglaim; they will be places for spreading their nets. Their fish will be of the same kinds as the fish of the Great Sea, exceedingly many. ¹¹ But its swamps and marshes will not be healed; they will be given over to salt. ¹² Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.”

The Land of Israel is where all things started and it is the place where all things will find their completion. No wonder the whole world has and will continue to covet this land and to come against it. It is where the Lord dwells and where His favored people live.

¹² Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. ¹³ But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord.

Back to our story –

Unfortunately for Lot, he didn’t pay attention to the lessons of the past. Mixing with the ungodly is what brought about the Flood of Noah, and the world didn’t yet have the words of Paul that said, “Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.”

In the chapters ahead, we’re going to see where Lot’s wrong choice of moving into the land of Sodom would leave him in very sad straits and which would even cost him the life of his wife.

Again, we have a valuable lesson in these verses for each of us. We’re told by James, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Lot moved to Sodom and dwelt among those who worked in wickedness. He may have maintained his own righteousness, but it affected his life and his family in the same negative way that living like this will affect your own life and family. In the end, he thought he would find paradise, but instead he found hell.

We all have choices to like this to make and ultimately, the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in is more than usually brought on by our own bad decisions.

III. Read Your Bible More than Once

This is our final thought for the day and I’m going to tie in to it your responsibility as a Christian in a way which will, I hope, convict you of the thing you need to do in order to keep from making the same mistakes as Lot and so many others in the Bible.

You may know that I traveled around the country in 2010 and I preached at every capital in the US. When I did, I made a challenge to anyone following me to read their Bible for 30 minutes a day. God gives you a similar challenge as well, and we can see it in the following verses –

¹⁴ And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; ¹⁵ for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. 

In chapter 12, we read this – “Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land. ⁷ Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

God has now twice promised the land to Abram. The Lord is repeating His word to him to remind him about what he had already been told.

Let me ask you, who here has read the book of Philippians at least once? Has anyone read it more than once? Now, can anyone here quote Philippians 4:6, 7? Let me give you the first four words of it – Be anxious for nothing. Can you quote the rest? Let me just quote it for you…

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; ⁷ and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Why did God remind Abram of the promise? Because he wanted him to remember it! Why should we read the Bible more than once, more than twice, even every day of our life? Because God wants us to know it and remember it!

In fact, long before Jesus came, when the people had only the Law of Moses, only the first five books of the Bible, God said this to the people of Israel –

““Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. ⁶ “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

At the time when there were only 5 books in the Bible, God asked them to meditate on it day and night and during every activity that they were engaged in. How much more should we be meditating on the same word now that we have 61 more books than they had!

The Bible tells us of Jesus and Jesus reveals the Father to us. I could say this a thousand times and it wouldn’t be enough. The only way to know God intimately is through His word. If you’re relying on the Holy Spirit to reveal God to you, guess what – He has. He breathed out the Bible through His prophets… for you.

¹⁶ And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. ¹⁷ Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.”

There are two things going on in this promise to Abram. The first is that the land is being given to him and his descendants and the second is that his descendants will be like the dust of the earth in number. These two promises are connected, but they are different.

The promise of the land to his descendants is a physical promise, not a spiritual one. It is a promise to the physical descendants of Abraham – not to the church. This has become evident, not only from the Bible, but in history too. And the history confirms the precept. When Israel was exiled, the land laid fallow. Only when the people of Israel returned has the land again become usable.

The land promise which is made to Abraham is reiterated to his son Isaac and then his son Jacob. We are not physical descendants of Isaac or Jacob. On the other hand, the promise of a multitude of descendants is a promise concerning all people of faith in the work of Jesus. It is not a physical right, but a spiritual one.

The Bible confirms the precept in both the book of Romans and the book of Galatians. It is through faith that one becomes Abraham’s seed. In Romans, Paul says, “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.”

To be an heir of the land, one is born physically into the people of Israel, but to be an heir of the promises of God which lead to eternal life, one must be born spiritually through faith and the imputed righteousness of God through Christ Jesus.

¹⁸ Then Abram moved his tent, and went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar there to the Lord.

This brings us to the last verse of chapter 13. Abram walked throughout the length and breadth of the land and eventually pitched his tent by the terebinth trees of Mamre at the ancient city of Hebron. Hebron exists even to this day and it’s the spot where Abraham’s tomb is located.

In this area, he built an altar. This “altar” in Hebrew is a place of sacrifice. Abram is the patriarch of the family and so the responsibility for sacrificing belongs to him. This will continue up until the time of Moses when corporate sacrifices for the people of Israel are instituted under the clan of the Levites.

As God directs the nations and the people of the earth, His purposes are being worked out for all of us. Abram sacrificed to the Lord in anticipation of the coming Redeemer. Since Christ came, the sacrifices are done. We now have His cross as our point of meeting with the Creator. Let me explain how Jesus’ life and death are significant to you…

The Lord’s Promise to Abram

Abram went up from Egypt with all that he had
And his nephew Lot was with him too
From the land of Egypt many goods they did add
And they came to the South and kept on passing through

And he journeyed to Bethel where his tent had been before
To the place of the altar between Bethel and Ai
And there he called on the Lord, a duty he wouldn’t ignore
Abram was a man of faith, and he was a faithful guy

Lot was with him and he had flocks, herds, and tents
And the land couldn’t support them both they had so much stuff
And so fighting resulted, some very trying events
They realized the land where they were just wasn’t enough

The Canaanites and Perizzties, they dwelt in the land
Abram had to tread carefully to avoid their fighting hand

Then Abram said to Lot, let us not live in strife
And between our herdsmen, let there be peace
For we are brethren, let us protect each other’s life
Let us separate so that this fighting will cease

The whole land is before you, is it not?
Please separate from me, my handsome nephew Lot

If you take the left, why then I’ll go to the right
If you take the right, then to the left I will go
Come nephew, let this not result in a fight
Let us part amicably, let it be so

Lot lifted his eyes and favored the Jordan’s plain
The beautiful spot, the Garden of the Lord
It was like the land of Egypt, that didn’t need the rain
It was watered from the river, when he saw it he was floored

And so they separated from each other, to the east went Lot
And Abram dwelt in Canaan, he really loved the spot
And the Lord said to Abram after Lot separated from him
Lift now your eyes north, south, east, and west
This land I give you forever, you will fill it to the brim
As the dust of the earth they will be, see how you are blessed

If a man could number the earth’s dust
Then your descendants could also be counted too
This is a sure promise, one you can trust
It is a vow from your Creator to you

Arise and walk through the land, up and down and side to side
I’m giving to you everything that you have eyed

And so Abram moved his tent to the place of Mamre’s trees
They are in Hebron which is still there today
And he built an altar to the Lord, an offering to please
And there in Hebron is where he did stay

Hallelujah and amen…

Genesis 12:10-20
Outside the Land of Promise

Introduction: Today we’re going to continue through, and finish up, Genesis 12. In these verses are some things that seem foreign to our current idea about how to do things and Abraham, the great man of faith, is often called weak, lacking faith, or even sinful in what occurred. But I’ve never looked at these verses this way.

What we need to do when reading the Bible, is put aside our own thoughts which come from a modern world view and try to insert ourselves into the times, locations, cultures, situations that we read about. If we don’t do this, we can find ourselves making unfounded judgments about the way things were done.

This isn’t always easy, because some of the things that happen are so foreign to us, that we simply can’t process how these things could be. When we come to passages like this, we need to continually ask ourselves, “What is God trying to tell me here?”

If we do this, then we will be far better off than throwing unfounded accusations at biblical figures. When the Bible condemns an action, we should too. But when it doesn’t, it usually means that we should accept it at face value and not insert our own condemnations, but instead attempt to learn from them.

Text Verse: Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls—¹⁸ Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:17, 18

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Going Where God Leads

In the first half of Genesis 12, God had made the great promise and proclamation to Abram –

“Get out of your country, From your family And from your Father’s house, To a land that I will show you. ² I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

In obedience to this, he departed just as the Lord had spoken to him, taking along his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran.

As he passed through the land, the Lord appeared to him and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” It would be good to note that it says “to your descendants I will give this land.” It doesn’t say that Abram would receive it.

After building an altar to the Lord at that place he moved two more times. First to the mountain east of Bethel and then further south, into the Negev desert.

This is where we start today’s passage –

¹⁰ Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.

The famine, like all natural events on earth, was directed by God. Abram would have no doubt about this as he already had a relationship with the Lord, had heard His promises, and had believed them and offered offerings to Him.

Many commentaries barbecue Abram for leaving the Promised Land and heading to Egypt, stating he lacked faith in the move. I don’t see that here at all. The land promise was made at this time to his descendents, not to him.

He received the promise and believed it, confirming that belief by building an altar and offering on it. And then after that he moved further south. Maybe he was sightseeing and checking out the land. We have nothing else to go on. But eventually a famine comes.

Famines are used throughout the Bible for the correction of the people of the land. Abram was living among the Canaanites and certainly saw their lifestyle and may have even preached to them, who knows… A famine comes along at some point and there’s no reason to think that Abram didn’t realize it was to correct the very people he was dwelling with – the Canaanites.

A good example of this kind of correction from God due to disobedience is found when King David took an unauthorized census of the people of Israel. Famine was one of the choices David was given as punishment in 2 Samuel 24 –

“So Gad came to David and told him; and he said to him, ‘Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies, while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take back to Him who sent me.’”

David chose wisely because he understood God’s great mercy, even to the disobedient –

“And David said to Gad, ‘I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.’”

And of course, this led to David’s purchase of the land which became the TempleMount in Jerusalem. Even in disobedience and punishment, God’s purposes always work out to fulfill His plan.

The Promised Land is mountainous and it is completely dependent on two seasons of rain in order to grow its crops and provide water. Apart from correcting the Canaanites, the famine may have had a secondary purpose of teaching Abram that everything comes from the Lord and so he was completely dependent on Him. He would also learn that direction and deliverance is found in Him alone.

And so the natural thing to do would be to go where the Lord was providing food and water, to Egypt. I can’t personally find any fault in Abram’s decision. It’s logical and it’s what any right thinking person would do.

What would be less right thinking would be to stay put in a land with no hope of providing anything to eat or drink. But we too often get stuck in our rut and become unwilling to move, even though it’s the right thing to do.

We can look at famines in America in the past and around the world even now and see people who won’t simply get up and move when it’s time to do so. Whose fault is that? In some cases, it’s because of national borders or war, but in many, it’s simply a resistance to move on.

And in the same way, how often do we get spiritually dried up in a church that has nothing to offer, like a barren desert, but we stay because we feel at home with the people around us… as if they are the reason for staying. In cases like this, we hint that God is only a side issue and a secondary priority in our spiritual life.

Clinging to a spiritually dead church because it’s our home would be like Abram staying in Canaan when there was nothing to eat. We need to follow the Lord and His provision, not sit idly and become so malnourished, either physically or spiritually, that we are no longer of any use to Him or to those dependent on us.

And so off to Egypt he goes. The Hebrew name for Egypt is Mizraim. This name came from one of the sons of Ham, a brother of Canaan. The English name for Egypt comes from the Greek.

One possibility is that it goes back to a king named Aegyptus, but what is more probable is that it comes from the color of the soil around the Nile which the Greeks called aegyptios and also from a vulture which has the same dark color which is called aegyps.

¹¹ And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “Indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance.

Believe it or not, Sarai is probably somewhere around 65 years old at this time. What a silver-tongue Abram must have been to call a lady of this age “a woman of beautiful countenance.” Oh, but she really was as we’ll see in a moment. He wasn’t just being nice, but Sarai was a woman of true beauty.

I don’t want to tread on any thin ice here, but if I can think of a modern parallel to Sarai that everyone has seen, I’d propose Raquel Welch. I didn’t say “I’d propose TO Raquel Welch.” I was merely suggesting that she is one such as Sarai.

Raquel Welch was born in Chicago on 5 September 1940 and that would make her as of today 71 years, 8 months, and 29 days old or 3743 weeks old, or 26,204 days old, or 628,896 hours old, or 37,733,760 minutes old, or 2,264,025,600 seconds old.

And just to check and make sure she didn’t suddenly wrinkle up and blow away since her last movie, I did an image search on Google and yes, she still looks lovely.

So if Raquel looks good at this age, then there is no reason to assume that a woman younger than her couldn’t be just as lovely in Abram’s time as well. And as a second reason to believe this, Sarai lived to 127 years of age and so she was really only in her middle ages at this time. Although the ages of people continue to decrease throughout Genesis, at this time, 65 really isn’t that old.

¹² Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live.

Abram was so convinced of her beauty that he actually feared for his life. I do this a lot when I’m out with my own wife. She is so incredibly beautiful and such a pleasant soul, that I’m continuously in fear around her. I know exactly how Abram felt.

¹³ Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you.”

In Genesis 11:31, we saw that Sarai was Abram’s sister because she was a daughter of Terah his father. Later, in Genesis 20, we’ll see that she was actually Abram’s half sister, meaning she came from a different mother. This is what that account says –

And Abraham said, “Because I thought, surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will kill me on account of my wife. ¹² But indeed she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. ¹³ And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said to her, ‘This is your kindness that you should do for me: in every place, wherever we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

So Abram isn’t lying, nor is he asking Sarai to lie. They simply aren’t telling the whole story. I think every commentary I’ve ever read which addresses this issue says that what Abram did was wrong, lacking faith, and/or sinful – every one of them.

And yet, I’ve read this story probably 50 times and I’ve never felt this way about it. The logic of these commentaries is that he was willing to sacrifice his wife for his own safety and that he was lacking in faith toward God in asking her to say this.

That’s really inserting a personal opinion and a personal worldview into the story. Here’s an example of a typical commentary on this story. This one is from Matthew Henry –

“The grace Abram was most eminent for was faith, and yet he thus fell through unbelief and distrust of the divine Providence, even after God had appeared to him twice. Alas, what will become of the willows, when the cedars are thus shaken.”

How do we know that this very action of Abram wasn’t an action based on faith, not lacking it? Let’s read it again –

¹³ Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you.”

He’d been given a promise by God that his descendants would be given the land. Nothing was said about Sarai – and to this point, she’s barren. There is nothing to suggest that Abram was required to have only one wife and we’ll see that after her death he will have another wife named Keturah, and concubines to boot.

He has no idea that Sarai will ever have children, only later will come God’s promise that the child will come through Sarai. All he’s doing here is ensuring that he won’t be killed because he’s her husband. Does this in any way negate his belief in God’s promise?

So why should we assume Abram was either lacking faith or sinning. One thing is for sure, if Abram were killed because of Sarai, her life would certainly be in jeopardy. With him out of the picture, she would be at the whims of whoever got to her first.

We’re going to see in just a few chapters that when Abram’s nephew Lot is abducted, he goes after the entire army who took him, fights against them, and brings Lot and the others back safely. Why don’t we assume at this point that he wouldn’t do the same for her when the opportunity arose?

In other words, he may see Sarai as the very instrument which saves him in the first place and keeps him alive. God has made a promise to him and she is a part of that plan. I have no problem at all with what he’s done here. The very thing that makes him a faithful man is that his actions were based on faith.

If God were to come to one of you and promise that you’d be wealthy someday, would you assume that a pot of gold was going to fall out of the sky at your feet? Or would you assume that He would use your circumstances to get you to the point He promised?

I think any reasonable consideration would say that both you and your surroundings are involved in the process. You’re simply exercising your faith through hard work and the opportunities that God places in your path as you go. Abram is doing the same.

II. I Will Bless You

¹⁴ So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful.

Abram was born 352 years after the flood and this about 75 years later or about 430 years after the flood. There probably wasn’t much difference in the complexions of the world’s people by then.

Although changes certainly occurred as people moved away from Babel and started breeding among family groups, they would start to have more and more differences between them.

The Chinese would look more and more Chinese the further east they moved and the Scandinavians would look more and more Scandninavianish the further north they moved, but these changes would be gradual.

If you look at the people in paintings from 500 years ago, they look pretty much like their offspring 500 years later. So the beauty of Sarai isn’t so much a beauty of difference and novelty, but a real beauty which would be recognizable in any society.

¹⁵ The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh.

Archaeology apparently shows that by this time there was already a monarchy established in the area. This was about 430 years after the flood and about 330 years after the Tower of Babel, but the people had moved as far as Egypt and established a large society.

According to Jewish and Arabic writers, it was at the time of Reu the son of Peleg that Egypt was established and this is actually right in line with the Bible, so we can be confident it’s correct.

And that’s really not hard to imagine when we see what kind of a society America grew to in much less time. After the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we went from 13 rural colonies with a few larger cities to 50 states filled with industry, agriculture, and a large society.

The main seat of government when Abram moved to Egypt was in the delta region which is in the northernmost part of the land and very close to where Abram probably arrived. The people under Pharaoh would have immediately noticed Abram and his large company arriving from outside of their region.

None of this is improbable and in fact, it’s more than likely, especially considering God’s hand in it all.

^{15 (con’t)} And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house.

Regardless of what Abram thought when he asked Sarai to say she was his sister, this couldn’t have been easy on him. This doesn’t mean his faith had to be weakened at all, but being taken in by Pharaoh isn’t the same as being taken in by some lesser person.

He may have planned to rescue her otherwise, but it would be a lot less likely under Pharaoh. However, Abram is described throughout the Bible as a man of faith and he certainly exercised his faith in prayers to God for his wife.

Once again, I just don’t see things the way other commentators do. I don’t see anything sinful or lacking faith in his actions and if you look at how things do turn out, there’s no reason to think they aren’t a response to prayers of faith, offered by a faithful man. As James says it in the New Testament –

The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. ¹⁷ Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. ¹⁸ And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. Prayer really does work.

¹⁶ He treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

In the process of handing over Sarai, Abram is actually blessed just as God promised. He received all kinds of gifts because of her and these are the wealth of nomads. If you travel around the Middle East, you’ll see the nomadic families with all of their livestock and possessions. The more of these, the higher status they are.

So concerning both the blessings promised by God and the safety of Sarai, we need to remember that not everything that happens is recorded in the Bible. Only the things that are relevant to the story are given to us.

Abraham will do this same thing again in Genesis 20. He will tell Abimelech the King of Gerar that Sarah is his sister. After Abimelech finds out that she is his wife, God will speak to him and say this:

“Now therefore, restore the man’s wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”

We’re often not given all the information in the biblical account to allow us to reason out what happened based on other passages in the Bible. Abram was a prophet and so why can’t we assume that every step he’s taking is taken by faith. He understood that everything will work out according to God’s plan.

Speaking of Abraham and his line, right down to Israel, we read this in the 105^th Psalm –

When they went from one nation to another, From one kingdom to another people, ¹⁴ He permitted no one to do them wrong; Yes, He rebuked kings for their sakes, ¹⁵ Saying, “Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm.”

Did Abram know this? There’s no reason to assume he didn’t. God had given him a promise and so why should he think that things wouldn’t apply in this situation too?

I don’t mean to belabor the point about what he did with his wife, but nowhere else does the Bible say that what Abram did was wrong or that he lacked faith and so I think we need to avoid that line of thinking and see God’s hand in everything that’s occurred.

And in our own lives, we need to do the same. I don’t care how bad a situation is or how frustrating it is, or how much we may lose – financially, personally, or interpersonally. Whatever happens, we need to understand that it happened because God allowed it and so it’s a part of what He ordained for us.

If we can see that in everything that happens, then we really are living by faith in a world which would otherwise seem scary, overwhelming, or maybe even pointless.

But the psalmist said we can have confidence in what happens when we trust in the Lord –

You are my portion, O Lord;
I have said that I would keep Your words.
⁵⁸ I entreated Your favor with my whole heart;
Be merciful to me according to Your word.
⁵⁹ I thought about my ways,
And turned my feet to Your testimonies.
⁶⁰ I made haste, and did not delay
To keep Your commandments.
⁶¹ The cords of the wicked have bound me,
But I have not forgotten Your law.
⁶² At midnight I will rise to give thanks to You,
Because of Your righteous judgments.
⁶³ I am a companion of all who fear You,
And of those who keep Your precepts.
⁶⁴ The earth, O Lord, is full of Your mercy;
Teach me Your statutes.

One last thing about Abram’s time in Egypt – ancient tradition recorded by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus says that it was he who delivered arithmetic and astronomy to the Egyptians. These were sciences which came from the Chaldeans of Babylon where Abram came from.

If this is true, then all of the wisdom for the great achievements of Egypt like the building of the pyramids came from Abraham. Only when they had been given insights from him were they able to combine them with the great physical construction which is found throughout the land.

III. The Wife is Restored

¹⁷ But the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.

The first time God’s chosen people enter Egypt, which was 430 years after the Flood, it results in plagues on Pharaoh’s house. And then 430 years after that, the chosen line of Israel will again be in Egypt, enslaved by the Egyptians under Pharaoh’s rule and it will again result in plagues.

As it says in Ecclesiastes and as we will learn is O so true, both in the Bible and in history –

That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.

The patterns of the Bible are rich, complex, and astonishing. How wonderful it is when we think about how God has woven everything together in this great drama we’re participating in.

God shows that He is in complete control of the situation. The psalm I read earlier said, “He permitted no one to do them wrong; Yes, He rebuked kings for their sakes…” Even when it may seem that things had turned out for the worse for Abram, the Lord had a handle all of it each step of the way.

And it is no different in our own lives. He made a promise to Abram and Abram believed it. He has made a similar promise to us and we need to hold fast to it, even when things seem beyond our control… what is it? Romans 8:28 –

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Should we have any less faith in whatever our trial is than Abram did? This is exactly what he is commended for in Hebrews 11, the great Hall of Faith of the Bible, and it is what God will commend us for when we stand in front of him.

¹⁸ And Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way.”

Regardless of whether Abram acted in faith or faithlessly, he gets rebuked by Pharaoh. God’s hand of judgment for having this prophet’s wife in his home must have been heavy on him. This is so evident to him that instead of killing him, which you’d think he’d do, he realizes that would be an even greater mistake.

So instead, he rebukes Abram and ensures him that he hadn’t yet done anything to her. “I might have taken her as my wife” means that to that point she hadn’t been violated by him.

Before we finish up this verse, let’s look at the similarity in terminology between this account and that of the Exodus, 430 years later, when Pharaoh speaks to Moses –

Pharaoh says to Abram, “Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way.”

Pharaoh says to Moses, “Then he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, ‘Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel. And go, serve the Lord as you have said. ³² Also take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also.’”

Two Pharaohs – 430 years apart – both bid the prophet of God to be gone.

²⁰ So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had.

And so Abram left having journeyed to Egypt, gained more wealth, and was also delivered from the famine of the land of Canaan. God had protected him and blessed him in his pilgrimage and he would continue to do so all the days of his life.

In a spiritual application of what we’ve seen here today, I’d like to remind you from the sermon two weeks ago that Abram pitched his tent between Bethel, the House of God (a picture of heaven), and Ai, the heap of ruins (a picture of hell). After that, he headed south and then into Egypt.

In the same way, Jesus came and dwelt among us as a human being, living on earth between heaven and hell. From there, he journeyed into the land of chaos, pictured by Egypt.

You see, like Sarai who belonged to Abram, but was taken to the house of Pharaoh, we were all created by God, but we strayed into the land of chaos and sin. From that place though, we have been delivered by Jesus, our rightful husband.

By faith in Him and what He has done, we can be rejoined to God and He will safely take us back to the Land of Promise. Abram means “Exalted Father” and Sarai means “Princess”

To our great and exalted heavenly Father, we are a princess and a treasure worth seeking out. And so He stepped out of His eternal home of heaven and walked among us. He keeps us safe – even when at times we might think we are left unattended.

This is why I believe Abram had faith during the entire episode. It’s because his life and his actions only look forward to the greater salvation found in Jesus. May we never forget the great deeds God has accomplished on our behalf in the Person and work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Abram in Egypt

Now there was a famine in the land
And so Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there
The famine was severe which came from God’s hand
And so to a more fertile land, his journey he did prepare

And it came to pass as they closed in on their destination
Outside of Egypt, Abram told Sarai his wife
You really are a beauty, almost beyond imagination
And for a beauty like you, other people will want to take my life

Please my lovely bride; say that you are my sister
That it may be well with me for your sake
And that I may live, and not killed by another mister
Yes, for you certainly my life they will take

So it was when Abram came into Egypt finally
That the Egyptians saw the woman, she was very beautiful
And the princes of Pharaoh told him of her immense beauty
And so she went to his home, to Abram she was so dutiful

And Pharaoh treated Abram well for her sake
He gave him sheep, oxen, donkeys, camels, and servants too
What a trade it was, so much did Abram make
Why Abram could have started his own little zoo

But the Lord plagued Pharaoh with great plagues because of Abram’s wife
So much so that Pharaoh feared even for his own life.

And so Pharaoh called Abram and asked him quite plainly
What is this thing which you have done, even to me

Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife?
Why did you say she was your sister instead?
I could have taken her and then lost my own life
Yes, because of you, right now I could be dead

Now therefore, here is your wife – take her and go your way
I don’t want to see you any more, not another day

So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him
And they sent him away with his wife and all he had
Yes, they sent him away before things got too grim
And when Abram left, they were surely very glad

Now in the story of Abram there certainly is a lesson
For each of us to remember as we live out our days
We need to be sure of our convictions, not just a’guessin’
That God is in control and He deserves all our praise

Live your life with faith like Abram had
And in the end, you’ll see that life ain’t that bad

Hallelujah and amen…

 

 

The Fourth Dispensation – God’s Promise
Genesis 12:1-9

Today we’re staring chapter 12 of Genesis and it is the beginning of the fourth “dispensation” or way of working in human history. So far we’ve seen three dispensations. The first was Innocence, which covered man’s very short time in the Garden of Eden.

After that came the second dispensation, Conscience. This went from the time of being expelled from the garden until the time of the Flood of Noah. And the third was Government, which went from the time after the Flood right up until where we are now. The fourth dispensation is a time of promise to the sons of God.

We’ve seen God’s Funnel at work ever since the time of Adam. God chose one of his Adam’s, Seth, to establish His line which will lead to Jesus. From Seth, one son has been selected from each of the subsequent generations – all the way down to Abraham.

And now, throughout this Dispensation of Promise, we will see God validate a covenant that He made to Abraham in his son Isaac and then in his son Jacob, who is Israel.

Introduction: What kind of a God do we serve? Is He changing? Vindictive? Does he promise and then renege? Or is God the faithful and covenant keeping God who truly is unchanging, all knowing, and the sovereign ruler of the universe? We had better hope for the second option, or our faith is in vain!

Text Verse: You will give truth to Jacob
And mercy to Abraham,
Which You have sworn to our fathers
From days of old. Micah 7:20

We all have choices to make and how immensely important is the choice, “Shall I take God at His word?” When we do, it leads to life. When we don’t there is only sadness and condemnation awaiting us and so… May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Divine Directions

¹ Now the Lord had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.

This is known as the call of Abraham and it actually occurred when he was living in Ur by the EuphratesRiver and so goes back to that time. We know this because Stephen confirms it in Acts chapter 7. From Acts 7 we read –

“Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, ³ and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ ⁴ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. Acts 7:2-4

In this call, Abraham or Abram, is asked to cut three specific ties. The first is to his country. It would be like God asking one of us to leave America, renounce our citizenship, and go to a place that He will show us. Until recently no one on earth would have wanted to leave this greatest nation on God’s green earth.

And even now, despite our current woes, it is still the place of our widest range of affections and the place we are so comfortable in – because of language, because of familiarity, because of ties and heartstrings, and for a host of other reasons.

The second tie he’s asked to cut is his place of family. This certainly means more than just the people in his house. It includes all of the people of his culture. You never know how much your surrounding culture is ingrained in you until you go to another one.

When I went to live in Malaysia, there were things there that were so foreign that even when I left 3 years later, I couldn’t get used to them. Thinking about them today still drives me insane. **Talk about dinner time.**

The third tie he is called to cut is his father’s house. This really is his home and family. This included his cousins and those he grew up with. It included the smells that came when passing through the front door, and the place where he automatically left his shoes without even thinking about it after working in the field.

Maybe it included the tree that he planted at six and then watched grow for so many years of his life. Abram is being called to cut all these ties and to move to a place that he has never seen and without even being told why. All God said is that it would be “…a land that I will show you.”

We don’t know how old he was when he received this call, but in the last chapter we looked at it said his father Terah, was 70 years old when he had Abram, Nahor, and Haran. So it has been more than 290 years since God spoke directly to man.

The last time He did was after the flood in the year 1657AM. This was in chapter 9 verse 17 when God made a covenant with the people of the world – “And God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.’”

Like bookends on the time where God was silent, He closed His mouth after making a covenant with Noah and then He opens it again to direct Abram to go to the covenant land He will give him. The sign of the covenant will come later, but God now speaks and His word is a covenant in and of itself… and here is the promise –

² I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.

Abram’s gonna be rewarded and receive restoration for everything he’s giving up. He was told to leave his country and in place of it he will be made into a great nation. He was told to leave his family and in place of this he is promised to be blessed. And he was told to leave his father’s house and in place of it he’s promised that his name will be made great.

If you look at what Abram gave up and what he received, the difference is immense. He gave up a land of idolatry to inherit the covenant land of God. He left his family and he would become the father of many nations. And he left his father’s house and he became the man of faith, renown throughout history.

This is the way God works in the life of those who are obedient to Him. What we give up for the sake of Christ is to be counted as rubbish in comparison to the glories which He will bestow upon us by simply calling out to Him in faith. Nothing which is left behind can compare to the beauty of what lies ahead.

Jesus Himself said – “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, ³⁰ who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

³ I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;

God has spoken and made a promise to Abram. The only thing that we could call a condition on this promise is that he leaves his country, family, and father’s house and go to the land he’d be shown. If he does this, then the promise stands and it must be otherwise unconditional because nothing else is added.

If not, then this isn’t the Creator God and Abram would have wasted his life pursuing that which is less than God. Like so many who had gone before him and so many who have come since, misdirected faith is wasted faith….

Either Jesus is Lord or He isn’t. Either we are saved by grace through faith alone or by grace through faith but with works being necessary. Either Christianity is true and islam is false, or islam is true and Christianity is false, or they are both false.

Either Ellen G. White of the 7^th Day Adventists was a prophet or she was a false prophet. Either Mormonism is true and Christianity is false or Momonism is false. Either Jesus is a created being as claimed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Jesus is the uncreated God.

Where is your faith directed? It is the most important question in the world because if your faith is misdirected, then you are still in your sins and only hell awaits. You see, in the book of Numbers we are told this:

“God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Numbers 23:19

Abram was asked to leave home and go off to a place that God would show him. And in exchange God made a promise – an otherwise unconditional promise – to him. And because it’s written in what we believe is God’s word, then we are asked and expected to believe it just as it was spoken and just as it is recorded.

This is especially important because this promise of a blessing is passed from Abram to his son Isaac and then from Isaac to Jacob who is Israel. The promise to Isaac is in Genesis chapter 26 –

² Then the Lord appeared to him and said: “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. ³ Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. ⁴ And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; ⁵ because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”

And from Isaac, the promise was passed down to his second son, Jacob, who is Israel, in Genesis chapter 28 –

Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. ¹¹ So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. ¹² Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. ¹⁴ Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. ¹⁵ Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”

The reason why I’m quoting these verses is because Paul brings them up in Romans chapter 9 through 11 and says they still and always will apply to the people of Israel. In chapter 11 he says –

Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. ²⁹ For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

What is Paul saying here? Well, who is he speaking about? He is speaking about unbelieving Jewish people – in general, the nation of Israel. And what does he say? They are enemies of the church because of the gospel. That’s pretty clear.

An unbelieving Jew is no different than any other unbeliever. If they don’t hold to the gospel, they are the gospel’s enemies and are thus enemies of those who hold to the gospel. One plus one is two.  But Paul didn’t stop there like so many scholars seem to believe.

Replacement theology says that the church replaced Israel; that Israel is out and so for them it’s end of story baby. But how someone can come to that conclusion when reading Romans is more than mystifying. What else does Paul say? “Concerning election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.”

Who are the fathers? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 sons of Israel and even David is called a patriarch in the book of Acts. Israel is beloved because of the promises made to these people. They are the elect of God. If they are elect, then they cannot be cast off as a corporate body, only individually when they reject Christ.

And so God still must, and does, have a plan and a purpose for them. Why? Again, just as before, Paul explains it in the same verse. It’s because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Anybody who has read and studied chapters 9 through 11 in Romans and cannot see this clearly has been blinded. Either they were blinded by God, during Israel’s time of punishment, or they are blinded by one of two other things.

The first possibility is a hatred of the Jewish people – anti-Semitism. And this is more prevalent in Christianity than you may realize. The second would be an unwillingness to open their eyes to what God has done because they would rather hold to what they have been taught rather than what God has revealed.

God has never rejected Israel and this is so obvious and so clear in our world today. All of the prophecies which predicted Israel’s return were fulfilled in 1948, proving God’s faithfulness to this unfaithful nation. This book, called the Holy Bible, is based on the covenant promises of God to His people.

The only time that a covenant like this can be broken is when it is conditional, and this covenant, after Abram’s getting up and going, ain’t conditional. But people know better than Paul and they know better than God too.

Or, they think they do. And so they insert the church into the picture where it doesn’t belong and they remove Israel from where it does belong.

Let us remember this, especially in this nation today, where we are so close to turning our blessing upon the people of Israel into a curse. The nation who fights against God’s elect is the nation that will disappear in fire and destruction.

God has chosen to plant the people of Israel once again in the Land of Israel. Who would we be fighting against if we decide they aren’t worth fighting for? …God!

^3(con’t) And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

This half of verse three is fulfilled in two ways – first, through the line of Abram which became the Jewish people. Through this line have come the very oracles of God, the Holy Bible. With only a few exceptions, every book in the Bible came from and was saved for posterity by Jewish hands.

And also from the Jewish people have come wonderful blessings which have graced all the people of the world. Although they are only 2% of 1% of the population of the world, they have made up about 20% of the Nobel laureates in the past century.

And the areas where they have lagged in these awards are subjective areas where ungodly people make ungodly choices about ungodly things – such as giving algore a Nobel Peace Prize for something that is based on an outright lie or giving barak obama a Nobel Peace Prize which covered the period of his presidency when he had accomplished… actually nothing.

When put side by side in real human achievement though, the Jewish people have excelled in literature, chemistry, medicine, physics, economics, etc.

Apart from the Jewish people as a whole though, but still as a part of the Jewish people, this blessing given by God to Abraham finds its ultimate fulfillment in the greatest Jewish Person, Jesus Christ –

the Messiah of the world who came from Abraham and in whom truly, all of the families of the earth are blessed.

Jesus took on humanity through the line of Abraham and He tasted God’s wrath and human death for everyone. It is through Him that all people, tribes, tongues, and nations are reconciled to God.

II. Obedience to the Word

⁴ So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.

So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him. He is being obedient to the word which he was given. It’s probably good to note that the word of the LORD to Abram is the same as the word of the LORD today.

The only difference is that instead of it coming in dreams, visions, or prophetic utterances, it now comes in the page of the Bible – and I personally believe only in this way.

Do you know that the Bible has rules about the conduct of a church? For example, in the book of 1 Corinthians there are specific rules about speaking in tongues in a church. And do you know that they are almost never obeyed?

If the Bible has been breathed out by the Holy Spirit as the Bible states, and the Holy Spirit gives the guidance for speaking in tongues, then you can know – 100% you can be certain – that if a church which isn’t obeying the rules given about tongues, then the tongues have not come from the Holy Spirit.

Don’t be led astray in your thinking by people who would rather make a show than learn their Bible.

It isn’t complicated. Abram was given a word from the Lord and he obeyed. We have, likewise, been given the word of the Lord and we disobey it at our on loss.

If we can’t get such simple things straight, then what do we expect about the weightier matters which affect our souls? Pay attention to the call of the Lord and don’t lose out over pride or ego. If you want to be remembered by God as a person of faith, then obey the word of the Lord, just as our father Abraham did.

^4(con’t) And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Abram was born in the year 2009AM and his father died in the year 2084AM when Abram was 75 years old. Once his father was dead, Abram left Haran and headed to the Promised Land.

⁵ Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.

Abram is now the leader of the family. He leads the way in this new adventure. Their father Terah died, O so close to the Promised Land, but he never entered it. And how many people start their journey of faith, but never finish it.

They study about Jesus, hear what they need to do, and they never make the final leap of faith into His protective care. And so they remain forever outside of the grace of God.

But Abram and his wife, and Lot and everything they had, including human servants, picked up and departed to Canaan – the land of servants. And the Bible says they safely arrived too.

When I lived in Malaysia, there was a pretty sizeable portion of Indians who lived there, 8% of the population. When Malaysia was being colonized by the British, some of the wealthy landowners in India picked up to move there.

When they did, they took along their Indian servants. The Brits eventually left, but the Indians, who worked in the tea plantations and as house servants, stayed. This is one way the people of the world get around – some by choice and some by force.

⁶Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land.

After entering Canaan, Abram went as far as Shechem. This location is key to the Bible in both testaments. It’s between MountGerizzim and MountEbal. Here, God will meet with Abram. It is the spot where Israel’s daughter Dinah will be raped and Israel’s sons Simeon and Levi kill all the men of the town.

It’s the spot where Joseph’s bones would be buried after Israel returns from Egypt and it became a town which belonged to the Levites. After the Israel divided and became two countries, it would become the capital of the northern 10 tribes of Israel.

It is also the same town known in the New Testament as Sychar where Jesus spoke to the woman at the well in John 4. The history of the place is rich and goes back through the ages to Abram and the place where God first met him in the Promised Land.

There in Shechem, Abram stopped at Alon Moreh, or the terebinth of Moreh. Some translators say “oak” and some say “plain of Moreh.” The word Moreh means “teacher” and in a moment we will see where the name came from and who the Teacher is.

III. A Promised Possession

⁷ Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.”

This verse is one of the most important to know and understand of any you will come across in the Bible. By it, you can continue dating history. By it, you can understand how long the people of Israel were in Egypt, by it you can understand the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith apart from the law.

So much is tied up in this one verse, that if we were to take it as a stand alone for a Bible study, we could spend hours on it. The Lord “appeared to Abram” What does this exactly mean? It is the first time this phrase occurs in the Bible and I believe that this is a divine visitation by the Master of time and space, Jesus.

Numerous times in the Old Testament, the Lord appears in human form to people. It will happen to Abraham, to Joshua, to the parents of Samson, to Gideon and to others. This is the eternal Christ who is coming to meet Abram.

Yes, I believe Jesus appears in His own past and directed human history leading to Himself. When He came to Abram, he made an unconditional promise, “To your descendants I will give this land.”

There is nothing tied up in the promise and it is God’s land to parcel out. We will see how this promise will be made true throughout the rest of the Bible. This verse is so important that Paul cites it Galatians 3 and he uses it to say that it points to the work of Christ. Here is what he says –

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. ¹⁷ And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. ¹⁸ For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

^{7 (con’t)}And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

After receiving the promise, Abram built an altar to the Lord there. The spot where the Lord stood is hallowed by His presence and he acknowledges this in the building of the altar.

In building this altar, he is making an open profession of his belief in Jehovah, thus establishing worship of the true God on the soil of the Promised Land, and he is also declaring faith in the promise he has just been given. We could equate this altar with our accepting baptism – it is an open profession of our faith.

Here at the Terebinth of the Teacher, Abram met the great Teacher who would be recognized as such over 40 times in the New Testament gospels.

⁸ And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east;

After leaving the shade of the Terebinth of the Teacher, Abram moved to a mountain east of Bethel and west of Ai. Bethel means “House of God” and it will become a very important place throughout the Bible. It is where Jacob saw the ladder reaching to heaven which Jesus claimed in the book of John was Him.

Ai means “heap of ruins.” The spot where he is now is a picture of life on earth. The house of God, Bethel, is a picture of heaven and the heap of ruins, Ai, is a picture of hell. Abram is between them – having “pitched his tent.” Pitching one’s tent means you are a temporary pilgrim on your way to somewhere else.

Abram then is a picture of us. We are pilgrims in the land of servants and we are between heaven and hell. Will we be a servant of the Lord and take the ladder, which is Jesus, to heaven, or will we be a servant of sin and be destroyed in the heap of ruins?

All of us have a choice to make while we are here before we move on. Abram made the right choice.

^{8 (con’t)} there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.

Abram knew that the only house where divine protection can be realized is the house where the proper worship of God is established – a lesson for each of us – particularly when children are involved.  And so Abram built an altar and called on, or invoked, the name of the Lord.

By invoking the name of the Lord, he is acknowledging that the Lord is the Mediator between him and God. This is why the Lord appeared to him at the Terebinth of the Teacher. Jesus is our one and only Mediator and somehow, Abram knew this too.

⁹ So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

We finish up today with this verse. Abram was a pilgrim in the land of servants and after meeting with the great Teacher, he heads toward the South.

I hope you’ve seen how rich and deep these passages about Abram are and the beautiful pictures and symbols they contain. They all point to Jesus Christ and His work in time and history as He carefully works out the great plan of redemption for mankind.

He has given us pictures of paradise and pictures of hell and he has shown us the way to obtain the former and avoid the latter. In the end, what He asks for is very simple – faith.

Jesus asks us to believe that He is who He said He is and He did what He said He has done. If we can just believe, He promises that He will safely carry us to the home which He has prepared for us.

Abram built an altar where the Lord had been and he continued to worship the Lord as he traveled. For some of us, the Lord has already tread upon our hearts and so we need to consecrate our hearts to Him as an altar worthy of His greatness.

Some of us may not yet have received Christ. Let me take just a minute and explain how you can…

If you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are eternally saved. The Bible says that even now you are seated with Him in the heavenly realms. I would pray that you would dedicate your life to acknowledging that fact by placing Him properly in the altar of your own heart. To the glory of God who saved you.

The Call of Abraham

Now the LORD had said to Abram, “A directive I have for you”
Get out of your country and from your family too

And depart from your father’s house, my son
Yes, leave everything behind
I want you to leave because you are the one
You are a great part of the plan I have designed

Off to a land that I will show you
There I will make you a great nation
I will bless you, this is what I’ll do
But you must first start on this great migration

I will make your name great, my promise is true
And you shall be a blessing
I will curse him who curses you
There will be no second guessing

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed
So Abram departed, and for the journey he was dressed

He departed as the Lord had spoken, taking along no doubt
And Lot went with him as did his wife and others too
He was seventy-five years old when they headed out
So to the place called Haran, the company bid “Adieu”

Off to the land of Canaan, Abram did head away
And they arrived in that land – the land of promise
They passed through to Shechem and there they did stay
Abram was of faith and not a doubting Thomas

There at the Terebinth of Moreh, with Canaanites all around
The Lord appeared to him saying, To your descendants I give this piece of ground

So he built an Altar to the Lord whom he met there
Yes, he built the altar on that very spot
He acknowledged his Mediator, the one who handles prayer
And so should we do the same, with contemplative thought

Abram then moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel
And there he pitched his tent, Bethel on the west
And to the east was Ai, a picture of the place called hell
Abram was a pilgrim on the earth, but he passed the test

There he called on the name of the Lord
And clung faithfully to God’s holy word

So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south
And surely as he went the praise of the Lord was in his mouth

We remember Abram this man whose faith was great
And each of us should surely follow in his path
Let us love the Lord with all our heart and let us patiently wait
For the coming of Jesus, who keeps us from God’s wrath

Yes, let us love our Lord and give Him all our praise
Let us serve the King and glorify Him all of our days

Hallelujah and Amen…

The Jew
(Author Unknown)

*Scattered by God’s avenging hand,
Afflicted and forlorn,
Sad wanderers from their pleasant land,
Do Judah’s children mourn;

*And e’en in Christian countries, few
Breathe thoughts of pity for the Jew.

*Yet listen, Gentile, do you love
The Bible’s precious page?
Then let your hearts with kindness move
To Israel’s’ heritage:

*Who traced those lines of love for you –
Each scared writer was a Jew.

*And then as years and ages passed,
And nations rose and fell,
Though clouds and darkness oft were cast
O’er captive Israel,
*The oracles of God for you
Were kept in safety by the Jew.

*And when the great Redeemer came
For guilty man to bleed,
He did not take an angel’s name
No – Born of Abraham’s seed
*Jesus, who gave His life for you,
The gentle Savior was a Jew.

*And though His own received Him not
And turned in pride away,
Whence is the Gentile’s happier lot?
Are you more just than they?
*No: God in pity turned to you –
Have you no pity for the Jew?

*Go, then, and bend your knee to pray
For Israel’s ancient race;
Ask the dear Savior every day
To call them by His grace;
*Go, for a debt of love is due
From Christian Gentiles to the Jew.

 

Introducing Abraham
Genesis 11:10-32

In the past few weeks, we’ve left the flood and Noah behind and then we traveled to Babylon to see how the world moved away from God and towards a system of false religion.

This week the Bible backs up to a date before that time to list the line of Shem and about half way through the list of names, it catches up with the story of Babel when we get to Shem’s great, great, great grandson Peleg. Eventually today, we’ll arrive at the great hero of our faith named Abram or Abraham.

Before we jump into the Bible, let me tell you about the land of Ur where some of Shem’s descendants moved to, which is south of Babylon. It’s the land that Abraham was called out from and by the time he left, false religion had completely taken over.

It was a city of Mesopotamia midway between the modern city of Baghdad and the head of the Persian Gulf. In ancient times the EuphratesRiver flowed near the city walls and because it controlled the outlet to the sea, it was favorably located for the development of commerce and for attaining political dominance.

It was the principal center of worship of the Sumerian moon god Nanna. There are three known dynasties from the area and from their earliest days they had set up their own deities.

The oldest dynasty, which goes back to the time of the flood itself, built a temple to the goddess Ninhursag. It was from this land that Abraham received his call to leave with his family and go to a land God would grant to him and his descendants forever, the land of Canaan which today is known as Israel.

Introduction:  The names we’ll go through in the next 30 minutes or so are listed with almost no commentary at all, but they’re important for a few reasons. First, they continue to establish the line of people who will eventually become the people of Israel leading to Jesus.

They also continue to provide dating for the age of the world. We know when things have happened and so we can tell both how long ago this people lived and how long from the creation they lived.

These verses, like others we’ve looked over, are the only such records on the face of the earth. And yet, curiously, they are included in the most printed document in human history – the Holy Bible. God surely works in wondrous ways!

Text Verse: Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” ⁵⁷ Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” John 8:56-58

From the beginning, Jesus was and He always will be. Even before the great man of faith, Abraham, existed, Jesus Christ is. The entire Bible speaks of the Person and work of Jesus, so…

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. The Generations of Shem 

¹⁰ This is the genealogy of Shem: Shem was one hundred years old, and begot Arphaxad two years after the flood. ¹¹ After he begot Arphaxad, Shem lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.

This is now the fifth set of generations or genealogies that the Bible has given us. So far we’ve seen the generations of the heavens and the earth in Genesis 2; the generations of Adam in Genesis 5; the generations of Noah in Genesis 6; and the generations of the sons of Noah in Genesis 10. Now we further refine God’s workings in human history by looking at the generations of Noah’s second son, Shem.

The Flood of Noah ended in the year 1657 AM and so Shem was 100 years old in the year 1659 AM when his son Arphaxad was born. After Arphaxad was born, Shem lived 500 years and so he died in the year 2159 AM.

If you notice from the time of Shem on, the lives of the people get progressively shorter and each of their first recorded children will often come at an earlier age as well. Shem is the last person to live to 600 years of age. He lived long after Abram was born, which was 10 generations later… Amazing.

¹² Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Salah. ¹³ After he begot Salah, Arphaxad lived four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters.

Arphaxad was born in the year 1659 and he had Salah in the year 1694 AM. Arphaxad died in the year 2097 at 438 years of age.

¹⁴ Salah lived thirty years, and begot Eber. ¹⁵ After he begot Eber, Salah lived four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters.

Salah was born in the year 1694 AM and he had Eber in the year 1724 AM. Salah died in the year 2127 AM at 463 years of age.

¹⁶ Eber lived thirty-four years, and begot Peleg. ¹⁷ After he begot Peleg, Eber lived four hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters.

Eber was born in the year 1724 AM and he had his son Peleg in the year 1758 AM. Eber died in the year 2188 AM at 464 years of age. He is the last person who would live to be more than 450 years of age and in fact, he is the last one who would even live beyond 300 years. Man’s years drop quickly after the flood.

The name Eber means “One from beyond” or “He who crossed over” and his name is where the term “Hebrew” comes from. Eber was alive at the time of the divisions of languages and he certainly was the father of the family line that maintained the original language of the earth which we call Hebrew today.

Because his name means, “He who crossed over” and it’s recorded that his descendants lived in Ur which is on the opposite side of the Euphrates from Babylon, it’s probable that he and several generations of his descendants moved away from Babylon to Ur some time after the time of the Tower of Babel.

The reason why I say this is that In Genesis 14, we will see the word Hebrew used for the first time in the Bible when speaking about Abraham. He is the man who “crossed over” the Euphrates and away from the area of Babel.

It’s likely that Eber was with him because he lived until 2188 and Abram was born in 2009 – 179 years before Eber died. So this group of people, with this special language, the Hebrew language, crossed over the Euphrates as directed by God’s divine hand.

And in Joshua 24:2 we read that Abraham’s father who will be introduced later, lived on the other side of the Euphrates and worshipped other gods –

“And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods.”

Abraham being a Hebrew certainly crossed the Euphrates with several generations of his fathers, including Eber.

¹⁸ Peleg lived thirty years, and begot Reu. ¹⁹ After he begot Reu, Peleg lived two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters.

Peleg was born in the year 1758 AM and he had Reu in the year 1788. Peleg died in the year 1997 AM at 239 years of age. He died 191 years before his father Eber and 9 years before his great, great, great grandfather Noah. Yes, Noah was still alive at this time.

Peleg is the last person in this line of Shem who was mentioned in the generations of the sons of Noah in Genesis 10. He was listed with his brother Joktan, and Joktan’s sons were mentioned, but not Peleg’s.

Joktan is no longer relevant to the story and so this line in Chapter 11 focuses on Peleg and those who come after him. It is he, not Joktan, who is an ancestor of Jesus.

Peleg’s name means “division” and during his lifetime the nations were divided. From the time of Peleg on, the world is going to move out in many directions. And the languages will be as varied and difficult to understand by others as they are to this day.

²⁰ Reu lived thirty-two years, and begot Serug. ²¹ After he begot Serug, Reu lived two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters.

Reu was born in the year 1788 AM and he had his son Serug in the year 1820 AM. Reu died in the year 2027 at 239 years of age.

²² Serug lived thirty years, and begot Nahor. ²³ After he begot Nahor, Serug lived two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.

Serug was born in the year 1820 AM and he had his son Nahor in the year 1850 AM. Serug died in the year 2050 AM at 230 years of age.

²⁴ Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and begot Terah. ²⁵ After he begot Terah, Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters.

Nahor was born in the year 1850 AM and he had his son Terah in the year 1879 AM.  Nahor died in the year 1998 AM at the age of 148. This was 22 years before his father Serug and 8 years before his great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather Noah.

Yes, Noah was still alive in the 9^th generation when Abraham’s father Terah was born and even when Nahor died. The environment of the post flood world is obviously much harsher on humans than it was before the flood.

And this harshness has a cumulative effect, transferring down the line. We know this because Noah lived 350 years after the flood and each generation lived less than the one before. So whatever affects us is something that transfers to the next generation.

Noah outlived many of those who came after him and the incredible thing to me is to think about all of the trouble and turning from God that had come about since the flood.

All the people had to do was to go up to Noah and ask him if the story about the flood was true. He was related to them all, so all they needed to do was “go ask grandpa.”

But the Bible shows us that people like Nimrod rejected this and went out fighting against God and trying to do things their own way. And is this really any different than us? We have photographs and movies about the holocaust in Germany and yet there are people in almost every country that deny it happened.

Nobody denies that America used two atom bombs on Japan and yet something which has much more evidence, from the same time frame, is denied. If you go to Japan today, there is almost no trace of the atom bomb’s destruction and what is there could be blamed on a fire or a normal aerial attack, but no one denies it occurred.

If you go to Germany, not only are there memorials and photographs but the concentration camps are still there and the ovens are there. Everything is there for anyone who will simply open their eyes, and yet people deny it happened.

This is a very sad human condition called peanutheaditis and it didn’t just exist in the early post flood world, but it continues on to this day. Peanutheaditis can be defined as the denying of that which is certain and in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Another good example of peanutheaditis concerns the modern state of Israel. There is more than abundant evidence that there never was a group of people known as the “palestinians.” In fact, all you need to do is read the book, Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain to know this is true. And you can read it right on line for free.

He documented his travels through the Holy Land in 1869 and marks out how many people lived there and what the people groups were. This was before the modern state of Israel and even the Zionist movement and so it is completely unbiased.

It shows without a shadow of a doubt that the land of Israel didn’t have the volumes of so called “palestinians” that they claim nowadays. And there are plenty of other historical records about the land and the people to verify the truth of this matter.

There also never was a palestinian government, palestinian money, or any other way to connect the palestinians to the land. But this doesn’t matter to people who hate the Bible and hate the truth.

Instead of believing the truth, they allow the terrible affliction known as peanutheaditis to direct every thought and every action of their lives.

There is a cure for peanutheaditis though. It’s not a terminal disease by any stretch. Rather, all one needs to do is to read and believe their Bible, follow Jesus obediently, and open their eyes to the truth of history, and reject the lies of the world.

I hope each person here will pursue the remedy for peanutheaditis all the days of their life and will remain healthy, happy, and content that we can know truth, we can reject lies, and we can stand firm on the surety of God and His gospel message which tells us about Jesus His Son.

²⁶ Now Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Terah was born in the year 1879 AM and from this point, the Bible dating can get confusing and you really need to dig to figure things out. Abram is listed first in this verse, but he is not the oldest son. We know this because the eldest, Haran, died back in their hometown of Ur. I’ll explain this a little bit later.

Abram is actually the second son of Terah and once again we see God’s guiding hand in the process of Divine Election. We saw it when Adam’s oldest son Cain was replaced by Seth and we saw it when Noah’s oldest son Japheth was replaced by Shem.

The pattern continues with Abram replacing Haran and it will continue all the way through the Bible, leading us to a greater knowledge of the Person of Jesus Christ.

Verse 26 ends the generations of Shem and leads us into a new section of the biblical account, which is our next main thought of the day…

II. The generations of Terah

²⁷ This is the genealogy of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot.

This is now the sixth set of generations that the Bible has given us – the generations of the heavens and the earth; the generations of Adam; the generations of Noah; the generations of the sons of Noah; the generations of Shem, and now those of Terah.

One of the things I try to do when going through verse by verse like this is to remind people that there are keys to understanding the Bible and how things will develop. We just talked about one of those keys – seeing the second son replace the first. This is the key of Divine Election.

In the verse we just read, we see Terah and then three of his sons listed. Right after that, it says, “Haran begot Lot.” Because Lot is mentioned like this, we can guess that we will be seeing him again, and the chances are that he will show up again in a significant way.

Because Lot is introduced now, it is a good time to mention that he very well may be older than Abram. Most people who have read the story of Abram and Lot know that he is Abram’s nephew and we normally associate nephews being younger than their uncles.

But Abram’s older brother Haran was 60 years older than he was and so it’s likely that Lot was older than him as well. In fact, studies of the way these two guys interact have some scholars convinced this is the case. 

²⁸ And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

Haran was the oldest son of Terah. I said I’d explain how I knew that a little later, and a little later isn’t yet. So you’ll have to wait till… a little later. Here, however, we see that Haran died in Ur before the family left.

Before we go on, we can look back on some great parallels between the line of Adam to Noah before the flood and the line of Noah to Abram after the flood. Some of them are pretty cool.

Noah rose above the waters of the flood. And Adam was created out of the land which was brought out of the waters of creation.

Adam ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which caused a curse on his seed, just as Noah was drunk by the fruit of the vine which ended in a curse on his seed.

Cain was a builder and the first to organize a culture on earth before the flood and he did it in the land east of Eden which was around where Iraq is today. This culture was separated from God and led to overall wickedness in the world.

Nimrod was a builder and the first to organize a culture on the earth after the flood and he did it in the land which is around where Iraq is today. This culture was separated from God and led to overall wickedness in the world.

Noah was the tenth man from Adam and was saved from the world of physical death by flooding waters. Abram was the tenth from Shem and was saved from the world of spiritual death in flame – the meaning of Ur where he came from is light or flame.

The Bible says there will be two destructions of the world – one by flood and one by fire.

The world into which Adam was created was given the great lights of the sky for signs and for seasons. The world into which Noah arrived was given the rainbow as a sign of the covenant.

In Genesis 5, before the flood, the 10 generations of Adam are given from Adam to Noah. This genealogy ends with the listing of Noah’s three sons – all of whom would have an important impact on the rest of the Bible story.

In Genesis 11, after the flood, the 10 generations of the sons of Noah are given, from Shem to Abram. This genealogy ends with the listing of Terah’s three sons – all of whom would have an important impact on the rest of the Bible story.

These parallels aren’t at all obvious and they have to be searched for. They’re put here to show us that there is a divine hand behind the writing of these accounts and that He is in control of all things.

So let’s stop here, for just a minute and think about that. If God has been in control of all of these things even down to the minutest details, then shouldn’t that make us feel better about the things that are getting us down in life right now?

Why should we assume that God, who was in charge of every detail of the pre-flood world and the post flood world, right up to the time of Abram should somehow stop being in control of it during out own lives. The big question during the attacks of 911 was “Where is God in all of this?”

The answer, if you follow these accounts like we are, is that He was right there and completely aware of everything that happened to every person that it happened to. And that same God is still in control when you wake up and wonder how you’re going to pay your bills or what will happen to the family problem you’re facing.

God isn’t unaware of your trials and He asks you to not worry about things that seem hopeless or out of control. Going through these names, and dates, and ages, and places might seem to make your head hurt, but here are two things for you to consider –

First, I’m the one who had to sit down and type all of this up. So it’s really not all that bad for you.

And secondly and more to the point, God gives us these minute details to show us that He really does have His hand on the ages and on the people of the world. And He has His hand in every single detail to show His immense wisdom and greatness.

Never feel like you’re just an unwanted grain of sand on an infinitely long beach. No matter how many grains of sand there are, He is tending to and aware of each and every one of them.

 ²⁹ Then Abram and Nahor took 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.

The two remaining sons of Terah both married their own relatives. Abram married his half sister Sarai. We learn later in Genesis that she was the daughter of his father Terah, but they had a different mother, meaning Terah had more than one wife.

Nahor on the other hand married the daughter of his oldest brother Haran. And then we have another daughter of Haran mentioned, Iscah. Remember, what I’ve said a jillion times – when a person is mentioned like this in the Bible, even if it’s only once, their name is important to something else in the Bible.

Iscah means “on who looks forth” and because her name is mentioned only once with no other known significance, most scholars – and I mean most going back thousands of years – say that Iscah and Sarai are the same person.

This is a cheap way of resolving the problem and it doesn’t resolve it at all. Iscah is not Sarai and Sarai is not Iscah. It’s very clear they are two people.

The reason why she is mentioned is that she is most probably Lot’s wife. If you know the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom, the destroying angels told him, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”

And then we read…

But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Iscah, or “Jessica” in English, means “One who looks forth.” Instead of living out her name, she looked back instead and became the seasoning for many curry dishes in the Middle East.

³⁰ But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

By the time these pilgrims are ready to leave Ur and head towards the Promised Land, Abram and Sarai had been married long enough to know that Sarai was barren. It’s probable that others in the family already had children, but there were none for Sarai.

And just like the introduction of people’s names, verses like this will always lead to something interesting later in the Bible. For those of you who know the story of Abram and Sarai, you know that her being barren will affect the course of human history in enormous ways and it continues to affect it to this day.

She is the first person mentioned who is barren, but there will be many more in the pages of the Bible. When a statement like this is made, it will inevitably lead to a happy resolution and to a demonstration of the greatness and glory of God. Stay tuned in the weeks ahead to the wonderful story of Abram and Sarai…

³¹ And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there.

Off goes the family, escaping the flame of Ur and heading for spiritual renewal in the land that God will lead them to. On the way to Canaan… they stopped.

The reason isn’t given, but they stop in a place called Haran and we can guess that when they stopped, Terah their father knew he couldn’t go on, maybe because he was just too old. Instead of going any further, it seems they established a foothold in the land and called it Haran after their dead son and brother.

Abram wouldn’t leave this place until Terah died. Only after that would he continue on to the land he was promised to come to. If you think about it, there are people all around the world that are symbolically a lot like Terah.

They come to know that there is a Promised Land and they start their journey towards it, but they never make the commitment to complete the journey. It’s sad too, because God doesn’t make it hard on the lost soul.

He makes the call and waits for the response. When He receives it, He ushers them the rest of the way to glory. All the work is done and He only asks that we receive it by faith. But so many, like Terah, see it only from a distance. They never make it to the place God intends for them… very sad.

³² So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.

Terah was born in the year 1879 and he had his son Abram in the year 2009 AM. Terah died and Abram was called to move to the land of Canaan in the year 2084 AM. Terah was 205 years old at his death and he is the last person to live over 200 years of age and believe it or not Shem is still alive at this point.

A bit earlier, I said that Abram was the second son of Terah and that I’d explain that later. Well, later is now. It’s a bit confusing, but Genesis 12:4 says that Abram left Haran to go to the Promised Land when he was 75 years old.

His father Terah would have been 130 when he had Abram in the year 2009. But Terah was 70 when he had his first child. That means that Haran, the oldest son, was 60 years older than him.

The funny thing about this is that we actually need the New Testament to confirm this. Without Acts 7, we could only speculate, but in Stephen’s speech in Acts 7, it says this –

Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell.

Only when Terah died did God call Abraham to move. Next week, we’ll actually start into the account of Abraham’s call and his move to the land of Canaan. He is one of the greatest heroes of faith in the Bible and yet he faced plenty of failures and failings just like we all do.

But God uses real, fallible people for His purposes and He always carries them to a happy end. Don’t forget this as you go home today. Yes you have troubles and your own shortcomings, but God can and will use you as you submit to Him and His leading.

The Generations of Shem and Terah

Shem was 100 when he begot is son named Arphaxad
It was two years after the flood
After he begot Arphaxad five hundred more years he had
And other sons and daughters received his life blood

Arphaxad lived 35 years and he begot Salah his son
And then Arphaxad lived 403 years more
He added other sons and daughters before his race was run
And then Arphaxad stepped through eternity’s door

Salah lived 30 years and then came Eber – a baby boy
Salah then added on another 403 years just like his dad
During that time, more children came to give him joy
And he kicked off at 433 thinking life wasn’t that bad

Eber was 34 when along came Peleg which means “division”
And we continue to follow the line recorded with such precision

After having Peleg Eber lived 430 years more
And he had other children before knocking on heaven’s door

Peleg lived thirty years before he begot Reu his son
And then another 209 years Peleg continued to live
And during Peleg’s time, came many languages instead of just one
And so the people spread out as if having gone through a sieve

Reu’s son Serug came when he was aged 32 years
When he saw his son he was surely filled with joyful tears

After Serug arrived, Reu live 207 years more
And other sons and daughters were added to his store

Serug lived 30 years and begot Nahor, Abram’s grandpa
And then Serug lived 200 years after that birth
And other sons and daughters Serug in his life saw
And he kicked the bucket after 230 years of mirth

Nahor had his son Terah when he was just 29
And little Terah probably made Nahor’s face shine

And other sons and daughters Nahor did add
And he died at 148 thinking life wasn’t that bad

Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran in the land of Ur
And Haran begot Lot which made him happy for sure

But Haran died in his native land
And then Abram and Nahor took wives from their kin
Abram married Sarai and Nahor took Milcah’s hand
Back then marrying your family wasn’t a sin

Milcah’s dad was Haran and she had sister, Iscah by name
And Abram’s wife Sarai was barren, she had no child
But the barren woman would be the one of great fame
When someday on her womb God finally smiled

So Terah took Abram and Lot and Sarai his daughter in law
And they headed out for Canaan, from Ur they did withdraw

And when they came to Haran, they dwelt there
Until the time that Terah closed his eyes and died
He was 205 years old when they said his funeral prayer
And in the ground of Haran his body does abide

This is the line of Shem and the line of Terah too
These lines that lead to our Lord and Savior Jesus
They are recorded for us to carefully read through
Because God recorded them for especially for us

Hallelujah and Amen…

Genesis 11:1-9
The Tower of Babel

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Matt 24:14

Introduction: Within just a short 100 year period after the Flood of Noah, the world had walked away from the knowledge of what happened and had not only rejected God and the lesson of recent history, but they had actually come together to work against Him and establish their own society and religion apart from Him.

Text Verse: “Whom will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
¹⁰ For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”
¹¹ For with stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people, Isaiah 28:9-11

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. A Tower to Heaven, verses 1-4

¹ Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.

Two terms are used here to assure us that everybody on earth understood each other. The first is “language” which is the Hebrew word saphah and means literally, lip. Everyone had the same lip.

The second word used is “speech.” The Hebrew word is devarim which means “words.” It may interest you that this word, devarim, is the Hebrew name of the fifth book of the Bible – Deuteronomy. If that seems odd, it’s because the Hebrew name for biblical books is often the first main word in that book.

In the case of Deuteronomy, the book begins with “These are the words…” or elleh ha’devarim… And so the word Devarim is given as the title.

Genesis = Bereshit = In the Beginning
Exodus = Shemot = Names
Leviticus = Vayikrah = And called
Numbers = Ba’midbar = In the wilderness

Anyway… the whole earth had one language and one speech. The reason that two terms are given here, language and speech, is because they make up the two major parts the understanding of our communication. The words are the substance of the language.

If I write, “Charlie, go park the car in the yard,” anyone who reads those words and understands them will know what I mean. But there is another part to language and that is the spoken part. If I’m from Boston, a Floridian will think I’ve completely abused such a simple sentence when I say “Chahlie, go pahk the cah in the yahd.”

The spoken part, or the lip, is how we speak the words, how we form our mouth, how we use the air and the muscles of our mouth, and so on. It includes all of the matter of the speech that comes from our heads and then proceeds past our tongues and lips. So the Bible is telling us that the whole world once had just one language and one way of speaking that language.

This should seem completely obvious if you think about it. Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives were the only people on the ark and they obviously spoke the same language and they had one lip, or one way of “parking the care in the yard,,, Charlie.”

Whether you believe in Noah or the Tower of Babel or not, the same thing will be true even with evolution. There was a point when there was one language on the earth and only one. From a biblical perspective, I will be as bold as I can be and say that this language was certainly Hebrew.

This is the original language of the world, it was the language that God spoke to Adam, and it is the same language that continued on through one group of people and which gets its name from the great great grandson of Noah, whose name was Eber.

This language was lost for all intents and purposes at the first exile of the Jewish people, where Aramaic became the spoken language of the Jews. But it was resurrected for common use after more than 2500 years by a guy named Eliezer Ben Yehuda.

It is the language of Israel and the Jewish people today and it will be the language spoken around the world in place of English in the millennial reign of Christ. If you believe some reports, Hebrew was even proposed as the language for America at its founding.

This wouldn’t surprise me a bit, but God’s plans come in His timing and it will occur at some point in the future. The wee little book of Zephaniah, right towards the end of the Old Testament tells us this –

“Therefore wait for Me,” says the Lord, “Until the day I rise up for plunder; My determination is to gather the nations To My assembly of kingdoms, To pour on them My indignation, All My fierce anger; All the earth shall be devoured With the fire of My jealousy. ⁹ “For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, (or a pure lip) That they all may call on the name of the Lord, To serve Him with one accord. Zephaniah 3:8, 9

The day has come for the pure language to be restored to the nation of Israel and someday it will be, I am certain, the universal language of the world, like English is now. When Jesus comes back and sits among His people, He will speak Hebrew.

² And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

Depending on which version of the Bible you use, you may or may not have a correct translation in this verse. I use the NKJV for my sermons and what you just heard… is wrong. If you use the King James Version, the New King James Version, the English Standard Version, or some others, it will say, “as they journeyed from the east” instead of “As men moved eastward…” That is the NIV.

The NIV and some others got it right. Both options are possible from the Hebrew which is be-nah-se-am miqeddem but we do know from the Bible which is correct. First, the mountains of Ararat, which are the focus of the last main narrative, is west, not east of the plain of Shinar, which is in the area of Mesopotamia.

And secondly, the exact same term is explained elsewhere, such as in Genesis 13:11… coming soon to a sermon near you.

As they traveled eastward, they came to the plain of Shinar. The land of Shinar is the same area that Cain dwelt in before the flood and it is the same area which has been in complete spiritual opposition to God, both actually and symbolically, from that time all the way through to the end of the Bible.

It is where false religion got its foothold with Cain and where it will rise up again in the verses ahead. And even to this day, the area is a hotbed of false religion and fighting against God and against God’s people. And it is also the place where Israel was sent when they were disobedient to His word.

We read this in the second verse of Daniel chapter 1 – “And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the articles into the treasure house of his god.”

The word Shinar is mentioned 7 times in the Bible and the last time it’s used is prophetically speaking of a date which is future even to us now. This, in Zechariah chapter 5 –

⁵ Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, “Lift your eyes now, and see what this is that goes forth.” ⁶ So I asked, “What is it?” And he said, “It is a basket that is going forth.” He also said, “This is their resemblance throughout the earth: ⁷ Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the basket”; ⁸ then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he thrust her down into the basket, and threw the lead cover over its mouth. ⁹ Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women, coming with the wind in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. ¹⁰ So I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are they carrying the basket?” ¹¹ And he said to me, “To build a house for it in the land of Shinar; when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base.”

It’s important to follow the story we’re looking at today in order to understand everything that is coming on us in the future, including all the trouble and woe in the book of Revelation.

³ Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. ⁴ And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Two verses, in a seemingly obscure passage about people who lived over four thousand years ago, which point to every false religion that has ever existed or that will ever exist until the Lord Jesus returns and puts an end to them. Let’s read them again –

NOW LET’S BREAK IT DOWN – Then they… the impetus for false religion – the ideas and thoughts of men. Then they said to one another… the idea comes from a person and he says it to another person and they agree on the terms. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Let’s do it!

^{3 (cont)} Come… Yeah man! Here we go, let’s work on this idea.

^{3 (cont)} Let us make bricks… We are going to make something with our own hands. (Do you see where this is going yet?)

And bake them thoroughly… Ha’vah nil-be-nah le-vah-nim v’nis-re-phah lis-re-phah (21 sec). We have a little rhyming in the words… almost like they’re doing something naughty – “

We’ll make these bricks
And we’ll bake these bricks
We’ll bake them through and through
And we’ll get to heaven… Yes, that’s what we will do

“Not only will we make bricks, but we’ll put them through the fire, just like a sacrifice that we should have made to God.”

^{3 (cont)} They had brick for stone… Brick for stone. Who made the stones? God did. Who made the bricks? Man did. Do you see the difference? Let me take you forward to what God told the Israelites concerning the altar of sacrifice –

²² Then the Lord said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. ²³ You shall not make anything to be with Me—gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. ²⁴ An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you. ²⁵ And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. Exodus 20.

Moses repeats this in Deuteronomy 27 before the Israelites went into the Promised Land. And in both Joshua 8 and 1 Kings 6, we see the Israelites care in following this procedure – once at Mount Ebal and once when building the Temple in Jerusalem. The temple in Jerusalem did use cut stone, but it was done in the quarry and no iron tool was used at the site of the temple.

Do you see the significance of all of this yet? Let’s go on.

^{3 (cont)} And they had asphalt for mortar… This is a mineral pitch, which, when hardened, forms a strong cement which is commonly used in Assyria even to this day. It forms the mortar found on the burnt brick reaching back into antiquity.

The people weren’t just making their own bricks to work their way back to heaven, they were uniting them in an attempt to reach God. You may not see the symbolism, but every brick is a false religion and every one of them is being united against the truth of God.

⁴And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens… The people rejected God’s way of approaching Him and decided that they could make up their own way to get to God. Have you ever heard the term, “All paths lead to God?” This is where it started. But God has and always will reject this. Man doesn’t work to God, God comes to man.

Let’s go back over these verses and clarify what is happening here. The people have moved east – away from God’s presence, just as man was cast east out of Eden and Cain moved further east of Eden to the Land of Nod, the land of wandering.

And this is just as the disobedient Israelites were cast out of God’s presence… to the east – to Shinar, the place which symbolically represents exile and banishment from God’s presence.

In this land which is apart from God, the people have determined that their way to God is the right way and have begun to build a tower to heaven – to the throne of God itself…working their way to heaven. This is exactly what every false religion on earth – every one of them has in common – works-based salvation.

And not only is this a type of works based salvation, but it is a type of what we call in modern terms “ecumenicalism.” This is an attempt to unite supposed Christian sects into one cohesive unit. At the same time, these are uniting with non-Christian religions in what we call religious pluralism.

A tower is being built, right before our eyes where all world religions are being brought together as equal in power and equal in truth. The only religion which is unacceptable is a religion which is intolerant of untruth; the one with the exclusive claim… the only one God accepts – Christianity.

“My Son is the only way – there is no other.”

The Tower of Babel is again being built, right before our eyes, and the United Nations is the largest force behind this tower of confusion and chaos.

It doesn’t matter where you go on this planet or what religion you look at, it will ultimately be a religion of working to please God. But the Bible, from the first page to the last proclaims that God does the work to reconcile us to Him. There is one way and one way alone to be right with God. And works are not involved. Paul sums it up in Ephesians chapter 2 –

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast.

^{4 (cont)} Let us make a name for ourselves… the people of the world and every false religion looks for their own glory, no matter how piously they seem do it, this is the goal – “I, even I, have earned my salvation. I have done the deeds. I have merited God’s favor. I.” But the Bible teaches a vastly different lesson –

“Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. 11 For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; For how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.”

And again –

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
In the city of our God,
In His holy mountain.
² Beautiful in elevation,
The joy of the whole earth,
Is Mount Zion on the sides of the north,
The city of the great King.
³ God is in her palaces;
He is known as her refuge.

^4(cont) Lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth…. We will build the tower. We will reach the heights. We will be like God and we will be gods. And we will unite so that our efforts will be united. Our deeds will collectively rule the world and from this spot we will be the rulers.

Whether it is a false religious religion like islam or mormonism, or a false political religion, like communism or progressive liberalism – the goal is always the same – shun God and work out our own salvation.

Progressive liberalism? You mean America’s democrat party? If you don’t believe this, just read the writings of Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama. Their own words testify to their true intentions.

One other idea about building this tower to heaven comes from the writings of the ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. Not only were they defying God by attempting to work their way to Him, but they were also attempting to defy Him should He ever presume to go back on His word about flooding the earth again.

He says that their intention was to build a tower so tall that any floodwaters couldn’t cover it. The materials used bear this out. They used burnt brick cemented together with bitumen, or asphalt to keep it watertight. Anyone inside of it would be safe, just like Noah was in the ark. They’re building their own little ark…

This then is an example of not believing the very words and promises of God because God promised to never flood the world again. And just like the Tower of Babel supposedly protecting from another worldwide flood, we have an exact repeat of this in our modern society in the lies about global warming.

“We need to act because the world will flood.” You hear it on the news everyday. “We need to save ourselves. We cannot trust God’s word which states that this will never happen again.”

Every twisted thought of man – whether it is murder of the unborn, promoting vegetarianism in order to save the wildlife, or fighting against capital punishment of killers, the reason behind it is always the rejection of the truth of God’s word. Always.

II. Unless the Lord Builds the House, verses 5 & 6

⁵ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

The Lord came down… Before the flood, a different type of terminology was used. Before the flood there was still a place where the Garden of Eden was located. Before the flood, the Lord talked with Adam, with Eve, and with Cain. Before the flood there were cherubim who guarded the Garden of Eden.

Before the flood, He spoke with Noah in several different ways and He established a covenant with him. And before the flood, the Lord is the one who shut the door of the ark. But after the flood, Noah went out of the ark and it says nothing about the Lord opening the door.

After the flood, Noah built an altar at the top of the mountain of Ararat and the smoke of the offering soared even higher to reach the Lord. His presence since the time of the flood is symbolically on high and now the Lord descends to bring about judgment and inflict discipline on those who have so quickly and so shamefully been disobedient to the commands they were given through Noah.

The omniscient Lord of creation is coming down “to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.”

Just think how the Lord comes down to visit every new building that we erect for whatever false religion pops up. And every time, His visitation is the same – “I’m sorry, this isn’t the way. Can’t you get something so simple, so tender, and so heartfelt right?” I have done it all and all you need to do is simply accept it by faith.”

⁶ And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.

It is true… man is created in God’s image and is capable of amazingly great things. But the things we do and the things we make can ultimately have only one of two end purposes – either the glorification of self or the glorification of God.

If it is for self, it is a futile attempt at achieving immortality. If it is to glorify God, then it will truly, in some capacity, be a work of eternal significance. The Bible says in the 127^th Psalm –

Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
² It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.

The Lord came down and looked upon the work of the men in Shinar and He was displeased. A little over 2000 years later, the Lord accomplished His own great work… and it was marvelous –

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
¹¹ He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.

III. A World of Confusion, verses 7-9

⁷ Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

Come let Us… once again, the nature of God is brought into the pages of the Bible. Yes, there is one God, but He refers to Himself here in the plural, “US”, just like He did in Genesis 1 and in Genesis 3, and just as He will in Isaiah chapter 6 and in Zechariah chapter 12 and elsewhere in the Old Testament – and just as He will do throughout the entire New Testament.

Come let Us. Come let Us go down and confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

The most effective way of getting people to quit a task is to simply throw that task into confusion. God confused the language of the people in which way? He did it by their lip, their speech, not by their words. And this explains why all the way back in verse one the idea of the language of man was divided into two concepts.

As the people were working, their speech became confusing to one another to the point where one person would ask for a brick and the other person would bring a stick; one would ask for some clay and the other would ask, “What did you say?”

In no time at all, fights broke out, people killed each other, and decided to pick up their family and bail out of the great task they had set out on.

Here then is a miracle of God which disperses the people of the world and which caused devolution from one culture and monotheism to a cacophony of cultures and a world rife with religious beliefs which encompass the earth even to this day.

But by another miracle of God, the world’s people are reunited in the family of God and all speak in one religious voice, not as individuals, but through God’s manifestation of Himself in the Person of Jesus. He is the true Universal Translator for everyone who has been reunited into God’s family through His shed blood.

This is never more evident than what occurred in the book of Acts, chapter 2 –

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. ² And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. ⁵ And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. ⁶ And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. ⁷ Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? ⁹ Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹ Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” ¹² So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”

In 3 more weeks, we will again celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the uniting of all believers under one Head. Regardless of our physical looks, our cultural backgrounds, or our languages, God has accepted us as His own through the work of Jesus and the powerful sealing of the Holy Spirit.

⁸ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

In Genesis 10, we read about Eber and his sons. One was named Peleg and we read this about him – “for in his days the earth was divided…”

The entire reason why that description of him was included was to tell us that the people of the earth were divided at the time that he lived. It wasn’t a division of the lands of the earth into continents. Instead it was a division of the people of the world by their speech.

As they moved out into the world with their increasingly distinct languages, they developed written languages to assist them in their lives and to keep their cultures tied together. One of my favorite of all written languages is the Korean alphabet.

Despite looking complex, like Chinese or Japanese, it is actually one of the simplest to read languages of all. Speaking it is another matter, but to learn to read it, if taught properly, is a cake walk.

I attended a Korean church for several years and wanted to learn to read it, so I went on line and tried several sites, almost giving up because Koreans do not know how to teach Korean.

But then I clicked on a site developed by a… yes, by a Jewish guy. His instruction allowed me to read Korean within a few days. I still don’t understand it well, but I can read it.

It was originally developed by Korea’s great King SeJong who lived in the 1400s. It is a masterful piece of both artwork and functionality and is beautiful in its simplicity and ease of use.

 ⁹ Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Just as in verse 8, the credit for the dispersion of the people is given solely to the Lord. It is He who directs the winds which blow across the nations and through time and it is He who fashions the changes in everything, from the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly, to the number and size of the nations on the earth. He is in complete control of everything that happens around us.

The city the people left behind was called Babel, which means confusion and the explanation is given right in the same sentence, “because the Lord confused the language of all the earth.” And spiritual Babylon is the city of confusion even to this day.

In the place where religion is developed by man, there is confusion. In the place where people attempt to please God through their works, there is confusion. And in the place where God’s word is disregarded or distorted, there is confusion.

God has given us His word and His word reveals His Son, Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ reveals the unseen Father – nothing confusing there.

Apart from this revelation, there is only confusion and disorder, but when we open our eyes and our hearts to the truth of God’s word, confusion is replaced with right thinking. Anger is replaced with peace. And discontentment is replaced with the hope of a better life at the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Tower of Babel

Now the whole earth had one language and one speech
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east
That at last to the plain in the land of Shinar they did reach
And the people dwelt there, from the greatest to the least

Then someone said, “Come, let us make some bricks”
“And let us bake them thoroughly, through and through”
They had brick for stone, and clay was used in the mix
And they had asphalt for mortar to bind the bricks two by two

Another said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city”
And also a tower who’s top to heaven it will reach
Let us make a name for ourselves, to be scattered would be a pity
Let’s start building now, I know you understand my speech

We will work our way to God
And by our deeds heavenly streets we will trod

We will reach the highest heights
And we ourselves will be gods.. shining like heavenly lights

But the Lord came down to see the city
And to view the tower built by the sons of men
And He shook His head knowing it was a pity
They’d rejected Him and His glory, once again

And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are united as one”
“And one language they all have to share in their task”
If this is what they begin to do and what they have already done
Then nothing they intend will be very far from their grasp.

Come, let Us go down and their language we will confuse
That they may not understand one another’s speech
So the Lord scattered them, giving their plan the blues
And they ceased building the city, the goal no longer in reach

Therefore its name is called Babel and confusion rules the place
Because the Lord confused the language of the human race

And from there the Lord scattered them to all corners of the earth
And the Lord filled the world with many types of speech
Across the globe man has gone, spanning its entire girth
And also across the globe, man does the gospel teach

And the gospel unites us all to the glory of the Lord
As we wait on His return as promised in His word

Until He comes we live by faith in the promises He’s made
And continue on in His strength and resting in His shade

Hallelujah and Amen…

Next week’s sermon is Genesis 11:10-32, Introducing Abraham