Abram's Travels

Good morning. I just thought I'd let you know for the sake of Wayne's comment that Nancy and I, towards the end of this year, will have been married 35 years. And for the entire time we've been married, Nancy cuts my hair. And once in a while, I ask her to cut the other one. OK? All right.

Okay, just so you know, we ran out of supplements the last week or two, and so there are additional copies of that. If you were looking for those, we have those available. If we run out again, there's a sign-up sheet. So let us know if you didn't get one and would like to have one.

Alright, as we move into this chapter here, remember last week we had looked at the first three verses of Genesis chapter 12. And this is the beginning portion of what is typically called the covenant with Abraham. And one of the things that we point out here, because you're going to see it rather alternately, is he is called Abram up until chapter 17, but we will often refer to him as Abraham. So either name, talking about the same guy. Abram or Abraham. His name was changed to Abraham as we'll get there and find out for ourselves in chapter 17. The other thing, point out to you here, is this portion of it starts into telling about Abram's travels. He was told by the Lord, go to this land that I will show you. Now, the Lord is taking him to this land, but it's going to take a while, as we'll see.

Abram, or Abraham and his family, started out at the city of Ur, And one of the things we pointed out last week, this was not some primitive tribal village. This was an advanced civilization, probably for its time the most advanced city on the planet. And so he was there, started out there with his extended family. And one of the things that we showed, this ziggurat, as it's called, was the bottom portion of a tower that was there at Ur. It existed during Abraham's time.

Here you see in the foreground ruins. Some of the ruins of Ur have been reconstructed in part to see what it might have looked like earlier. There was a fellow by the name of Leonard Woolley who excavated the city of Ur and did a wonderful job until his wife could finally stand it no more. This remote location was a little bit too much year after year.

So anyway, here for example is a cosmetics box with lid. So this is not just some backward civilization. Here you find this box. This is pretty highly decorated. This is also something else that Leonard Woolley found. This is a board game. What is extremely frustrating, you can't find the rules. So I have no idea what they did or whether they used it for a paddle for the kids or what. We have no idea.

All right. Nonetheless, it was a very advanced civilization. As we go on, we'll show other indications that some of our concepts that we might have there kind of by presumption about ancient civilizations may not be quite correct in that there are evidences of some very advanced technology. But we'll look at that later.

Here is Abraham. His father was Terah. Abraham, as far as we have record, had two brothers. Terah took Abraham, whose name was at first Abram, along with all the rest of the extended family, and they moved up to the city of Haran. That's brought out in Genesis 11, and we'll see it again in chapter 15, and in a couple other passages there in the Old Testament. This migration to the north was a rather major one and impacted the background of certainly the book of Genesis as well as the rest of the Old Testament.

They would have moved by caravan. We're not told exactly how they got there. The likely routes are to go along the river where you've got some water and other vegetation as well as cities and civilization to draw upon. He may have gone right up along the Euphrates River up to Haran or he may have taken a side trip up the Tigris. Either way, went up the valley. Distance wise, approximately 500 miles. So it's wider than Colorado is across. So that's a fairly lengthy trip.

So they moved there, and as they did so, they changed empires. Roughly equivalent to us changing countries. So this was not a minor move, it was a major move. But the moving was not done for Abraham and Sarah, as we'll see. You have on page one of your handout, just a quote here so that we're not bouncing around too much, the end of Genesis 11.

And what we find there is, here's Terah taking Abram and his brothers, and they went as far as Haran and settled there. So the family, the extended family settled there. And that's an important point as we go through the book of Genesis, because even though Abram goes down towards Canaan, even before the end of this chapter, we'll find that they keep going back up to Haran and that area to see family. The days of Terah were 205 years and Terah died in Haran. So basically, here's Abram moving up to Haran and basically waiting until his father dies before he follows through on the Lord's direction to head down and go into the land of Canaan. Alright, so as they make this move to Haran, and make the migration. The whole family settles there, but Abram's waiting around until his father dies in order to head down to Canaan.

Something else that's important to recognize, and I think this is really valuable for us, is that Abram was raised a pagan. He was raised in a culture where it was polytheism. All the gods and the pantheon of gods He was raised a pagan. That's how he was brought up.

It says there right in Joshua, and they, Abram included, served other gods. They were just part of the polytheistic system of the rest of the culture. It's kind of like, what does everybody else think? Okay, let's do that too, right? And that's, Abraham was no different. He followed that same system. and serve the Pantheon, the multiple set of gods that were out there.

In the Hebrew expression in this verse, behind the river refers to the Euphrates River, and that's a pattern we see a number of times in Ezra and Nehemiah and these chapters we have noted here. But another key point, because Abram was brought up in rank paganism, think of what it was like. Here's Abram brought up in this with this idea that there's a whole bunch of gods out there. And one god controls this, another god takes care of that, and they battle against each other and have power struggles. And by the way, our celebration of New Year's, that was when the gods got together and made their plans for the year. Right? That's where we got our celebration of New Year's.

Now, here's what is astounding. It's astounding to imagine that the Lord just says, Abraham, And at first I imagine Abraham's thinking, who are you? Abraham, I am the God of the entire universe. The rest of these gods that you've been worshipping are nonsense.

I want you to know something. I'm going to make some promises to you. Why? Because I love you. Why? Completely out of grace, not by anything you've earned. Who are you? You can imagine how this is going on in Abram's mind. When he finally gets it settled in his mind, he's trying to think, okay, how do I sell this to Sarah? This is quite an ordeal he's going through. A huge adjustment. The Lord picked Abraham out not because he was this really righteous, great guy. But the Lord picked him out. Out of a completely polytheistic, pagan culture that did not know the Lord. And the Lord said, Abram, I'm going to make some promises to you.

Completely unilateral. You don't have to make promises back. Unconditional. There's no ifs or buts in this thing. And I'm going to do it entirely by grace. Entirely by mercy. Pure and simple. Gracious and merciful. That's the key thing. As we go through this account with Abraham, These two principles, keep in mind, gracious and merciful. God didn't make his promises to Abraham because Abraham was some really super fella. Oh, Abraham is such a great guy. He's such a good fella. No, he was a rank pagan. God made promises to Abraham, the pagan, by grace.

Grace alone. We pointed out, and I just want to underscore this difference here, grace and mercy. We use those words and sometimes it gets a little foggy. Mercy is when God withholds one or more punishments that are deserved. And we will find that God is merciful to Abram, even before we're done today. And we're going to see it again and again. You're guilty. Guess what? No penalty. Grace is when God gives blessings even though they are not deserved. God is going to be gracious to Abraham. One of the ways that we put that is mercy is when we don't get what we deserve. Grace is when we get what we don't deserve. Got that? Got that right?

Now, so Haran became home sweet home for a while for Abraham, waiting until his father died, and it remained the home for Abraham's extended family. Here is some old ruins on the left. There is some millstones, and that thing in the middle is completely bogus. That's not from Haran at all. So here is Haran, and you're going to see it spelled out in scripture at times as Padan Aram. This is one of the things that happens when you get different cultures and languages.

You know how we distort things, you know. We will say Los Angeles. But that's not how you pronounce it in Spanish, right? Nancy and I are even, having come from California with a little bit more Spanish background, we're even appalled to have people say things like, how do they say it? Buena Vista? You know, something like that. Anyway, so this is one of those pronunciation things in a different language.

So Padan Aram is how we will often see it as we go through the book of Genesis here. That'll continue to be home for Abraham's family. They would send for a wife for Isaac from this area where his family is from. And even Jacob would go back there and seek out a wife or two. Back at this, in the area of Haran where the family, the extended family of Abraham settled. We'll also find that a great number of the customs of the patriarchs come from this area around Haran.

It was called the Hurrian Empire. Now I've gotten a hold of some Hurrian music, believe it or not. It's actually been You laugh. No, I'm not kidding you. I've gotten a hold of some Hurrian music, okay? It's music from, you know, this culture around Hurrian. And I've got some recordings of it. I'm not kidding! Okay? But anyway, I'm a little slow on getting to it, but I'm Hurrian. Okay? Alright, here we go.

Anyway, the reason that they stuck with this Hurrian culture, even though they'd moved hundreds of miles away, is because they rejected the Canaanite culture. It's something we won't have time to go into immediately, but the Canaanite culture, even to the pagans around them, was profoundly disgusting. And it only got worse. That's one of the reasons why the Lord, when he went in there with the Israelites, said, drive them out. Drive them out. Wipe them out. Because these are a profoundly disgusting culture. These are profoundly disgusting people. Nonetheless, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob They rejected the Canaanite culture, said, we're not having anything to do with that. It was worse than the other pagan cultures around.

All right. Stephen, in the book of Acts, and these are some of his last words, Stephen summarized some things about Abraham. And right here, particularly in verse 4, I'd like us to take a look at it. You'll have this on page 1 of your handout as well.

Then he left the land of the Chaldeans, sometimes you'll hear it called Chaldees, that's fine, and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this country, this one Israel, the land of Canaan, in which they were now living. So the timing was they moved the whole extended family up to Haran and then when Abram's Father Terah died. That's when Abram went down into the land of Canaan.

Now, Hebrews 11.8 is another verse, you also have it on your handout, that is insightful so far as giving some understanding of what was happening with Abraham. This is sometimes called the faith chapter or the great hall of faith. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going."

Now, some of you may find that very comforting and perhaps even delightful to know that he went where he was not going. I really want you to get this in the right sense here. Don't take any delight in not knowing where you're going. The key point here is that God knew where he was going. Abraham went by faith to where God knew where he was going. That's the key point.

Now begins a decades-long camping trip. The camping trip that never ends. That's what this thing turns into here. Abram is going to pull up stakes hopefully not snakes, but steaks from Haran and head down to Canaan and go traveling around. He is going to be camping for years, for decades, okay? This is going to be one of those things that's really fun for a while, but camping for decades. All right, so you just got to get yourself ready for that.

Abram, and here's along with Sarah or Sarai as she's first called, she also gets her name changed, and Lot, they went down to Canaan. So this part of the family, the extended family, went down to Canaan. Once they got to Canaan, the Lord appeared to Abraham, and the Lord confirmed that this land was the land that God promised.

He at first told him, remember, the land that I will show you. Now he's there, so he says, okay, I'm showing you the land. So God said to your descendants, I will give this land, right here where you're standing, this place. And so here in ancient Shechem was where Abraham found himself. So this is the land that I will show you. Now he's shown him.

So Abraham responded, he built an altar for a sacrifice. The one on the right is kind of a little bit more shaped up and whatnot. Indications we have is the altars didn't have to be real fancy and formed and trim. It could be simply a stack of rocks. But nonetheless, he built an altar for a sacrifice.

And this is one of the three aspects of a covenant. We had pointed out a couple weeks back, a covenant had three things. One was a promise. So God made the promise, right? Here is the land that I'll show you. Did he show them? Yeah. The next thing was a swearing by a deity or it would be the deity swearing by himself. And that's what happened here earlier in chapter 12. Or the third thing, a confirming gesture or sacrifice. We're going to find out that it doesn't have to be a sacrifice, although that was commonly the case. Sometimes other gestures were included. But those three things were the common things in the covenant. All right, so what did he do?

He was in this place called Shechem. And you've likely heard some other things that happened here in this place called Shechem. Well, it turns out that Abraham's grandson, Jacob, built a well there in Shechem. just some years later on this long camping trip. So he built a well there in Shechem and that well is the place where Jesus talked to the woman at the well in John chapter 4.

So a long history takes place at this and we could talk about more things but that's one you're likely aware of. Then Abraham goes down to Bethel. It's about a dozen miles north of Jerusalem. And at Bethel, he builds another altar and makes a sacrifice. And you've likely heard of some other things that happened there. It's one that we will encounter as we continue to study. Jacob's name was changed to Israel at that place. And that's where we get the name Israel. So each of those places where he had a sacrifice is significant in biblical history.

But Abraham did not stay in Canaan. It's funny, you can go there, you can visit, the Lord can show him. It's just a tough place to stay. Yeah, he did not. Shockingly, they went down to Egypt. Now the tough part, whenever you go to Egypt, is living in two dimensions. Everybody's got to walk like this. So that's the tough part about living in Egypt. So that Egyptian walk thing is a tough thing to get used to. And you stand out like a sore thumb if you don't walk around like this.

Alright. So, there was a famine in the land, and so that drove him... Nancy, what are you smiling about? Anyway. Okay. There was a famine in the land, and that drove him down into Egypt, along with the rest of the family there. So this great famine put him there, down in Egypt, away from Canaan. Now, knowing that Sarah was an attractive woman, I don't know how you can tell, but anyway, knowing that Sarah was an attractive woman, Abraham cooked up a plot. Now, think about this.

Sarah must have been one babe, because she was getting on in years with this, and still he knew, boy, they'd be after her in a minute. So, here's the deal. Abraham said, you know, we can have you tell something that's kind of true, because it turns out that Sarah was a half-sister. And we might think that's a little odd, but actually in the Hurrian culture, that I'm telling you about slowly, in the Hurrian culture, being married to someone who was a sister was extra special and had particular legal protections. But Abraham knew that it wasn't going to be particularly helpful in Egypt where the same laws were not in place, and so he had to come up with a story. Tell them that you're my sister. which wouldn't quite be a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either.

Now, you have this on the bottom of page two. It is the family tree. And one of the things you may find shocking is all the crossover. Okay? Crossover and loops. And the particular one here we see is here's Abraham and Sarah put together and their relatives. It's like the thing we talked about last week where it seems like all these guys did was find their spouse at a family reunion. Okay. Abraham did not stay in Canaan.

But now we've got a question. Abraham went there and had to cook up this truth. How come? How come? Why? Why didn't Abraham just trust the Lord? After all, had not the Lord told him, you will have descendants? Had the Lord not told him, I will make you a great nation. Does that mean that Abraham is going to get killed off? No. So Abraham didn't trust the Lord. So that means the end of the grace and mercy, right?

No. Isn't that something? He blows it. He doesn't trust the Lord. He has his wife tell a half-truth. And so the Lord, you would think, oh heavens, that's the end of the grace and mercy. I just can't handle this guy, right? No. We're going to see, and this is amazing, the Lord shows His grace and mercy and then says, I'm going to make even more promises. Isn't this nuts? No. It's grace and mercy.

That's what it is. So when the Egyptians did take her into the harem, they paid Abraham well with animals and servants. And poor Sarah, she had to learn to walk funny. Okay. Now, so now they loaded up Abraham and said, oh boy, we got this great sister here. Wink wink. And now we're going to pay you up with, you know, camels and servants and load you up and turn you into a Middle East cowboy. Okay. All right.

Once Pharaoh knew that the plagues that were there, and boy did they get plagues. It says great plagues. It doesn't detail what they were. Of course, we know later on what some of those plagues were in Egypt. So we have an example of one of them, those locusts. Once Pharaoh realized these plagues were because Sarah was taken into the harem, he questioned Abraham harshly. How come you didn't tell me the truth the first time? and returned Sarah back to Abraham.

Now, here's the amazing thing. Abraham now had Sarah back, and he had the animals and the servants too. Now that's grace and mercy. Okay? That's grace and mercy. Mercy says Abraham and Sarah could have been killed through this thing, and probably Lot as well, since he was with them. That's mercy. The Lord didn't allow that to happen. Grace says, oh, by the way, keep all the camels and servants. Bless you. Do you deserve it? Absolutely not. But that's grace. That's what grace is.

God had been both merciful, withholding deserved punishment, and gracious to Abraham, not penalizing him, nor taking away the material blessings. Remember this slide we showed here? Mercy is when God withholds a punishment. He could have said, Abraham, you blew it big time. Sarah, you helped.

And because of that, this penalty is going to come about. None of that happened. God could have said, I'm taking away those camels and servants. Nope. The Lord blessed him and was gracious as well. God showed both grace and mercy. How about us as believers right here, right now? I'm sure you're probably like I am. I don't want a whole bunch of camels right now. But we do indeed walk by faith and not by sight. It's not a matter of driving by faith, not by sight. I do not recommend you do that as you leave the parking lot. No driving by faith. None of that. But walking by faith and not by sight.

Our walk is not dictated by the values and views of this world. What this world considers valuable and important. The way this world assesses things. Our walk with the Lord is not based on that. The world has nothing to shed in the way of light for our walk with the Lord. Our walk with the Lord isn't limited by what we see and hear. isn't limited by what we can touch and grasp and hold in our hand. Our walk is in the facts that God has revealed to us. Faith in the facts. Faith in the facts. What the Lord has revealed, those are the spiritual facts. And think of it as Christians.

Our hope, which is a certain hope, not an I hope so hope, Is it somewhere else in someone else? As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. It's in your back pocket? No. Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Our hope, our position, everything that we have is all in Him. Everything that happens here has a purpose for somewhere else. Isn't that amazing? Everything that happens here has a purpose for somewhere else. People will often, you know, think after some difficulty or tragedy comes along, they say, why me?

It's not about you, okay? That's the message. It's not about us. It is about what the Lord is doing and who we're being conformed to. All the hassles we go through here, and even the joys, are all for somewhere else and someplace else, not for here. That is amazing. Our hope, we have a blessed hope. By the way, it's a certain hope. But it's not for here. It's for somewhere else. Everything that is happening, all that we set our hope on, it's somewhere else. It's not here.

In Ephesians 2, 4-7, we see grace and mercy, just like we saw with Abraham. God being rich in mercy, and boy we saw that with Abraham, didn't we? God being rich in mercy because of his, is it wimpy skimpy love? No, because of His great love with which He loved us. Great love, massive love. By the way, that word rich, you can put in wealth of mercy there. Because of the wealth of mercy, because of His great, massive love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. It's not earned. and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches, the wealth of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

The ages to come. Are you ready to gasp for eternity? Gasping for eternity at God's grace. Wow! That's what he has in mind. Amazing grace. Phenomenal, wondrous grace. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, you have indeed been immensely gracious to Abraham. We saw an instance of both grace and mercy that are actually kind of unfathomable. And yet when we turn around, you've made it abundantly clear that you've shown us grace and mercy that are unfathomable as well. How much we have to thank you for. We praise you and we do thank you for the grace and mercy, yes, a wealth of each expressed to us. In Jesus' name, amen.