Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

This episode we finally get into Genesis 12, the story of Abraham after 11 chapters of the author of Genesis introducing the main characters, obviously God, and then of course the condition that humans face and the condition that the human race is in. And that’s what Genesis 1 through 11 is all about: laying out the entire problem that the human race finds itself involved in and mired in and now we start to find that God provides an answer to that problem starting in Genesis chapter 12.

So let’s go through the chapter. It starts off in verse one where Abraham is called by God. God promises a blessing on his seed first and we’re going to go deeper into these promises later on. But first He says, “I will show you the land.” He says, “I will bless you. I will make your name great. I will make you a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who dishonor you. And I will bless all families of the earth through you.”

So after God gives Abram these promises, he takes Sarai, Lot, his possessions and his servants into the land of Canaan. He builds an altar at Morah and east of Bethel. Then Abram goes down to Egypt because there is a famine in the land of Canaan. And in Egypt, Pharaoh saw Sarai, Abram’s wife, and took her to be his wife. And then God sent plagues on Pharaoh until Abram left to go up from Egypt in the first verse of the next chapter.

So let’s break this down a little bit more.

Verse one: The Lord said to Abram; another way that this could be translated is that the Lord had said as in before they left the land of Ur or the city of Ur. Essentially it’s saying this is not chronological. If you remember in chapter 11, Abram had already left his home city and so this is a way of saying the Lord told Abram this before he left Ur.

And in Acts chapter 7 verses 2 through 4, Stephen said, “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.”

So, Stephen, in the Bible that he was reading in the first century, confirms that God spoke to Abram before he left Ur and not after. The reason that’s important is because it’s important to note that Abram did not just leave Ur just because he felt like it. He left Ur at the command of God.

And it does seem like he disobeys by not obeying God fully because God said to go into the land that I will show you and to leave your family behind. But what he actually did is he took his father and his nephew Lot and he stopped in Haran, which is not the land that God had showed him. So it does seem like he disobeys God.

But the book of Hebrews seems to disagree. It says in Hebrews 11 verse 8: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

So Hebrews seems to take the long view recognizing that overall Abraham obeyed God in the long run, which really is important. It’s important for us that sometimes, yes, we have difficulty obeying in the moment, but it’s the long view that we should take in our lives.

Are we obeying God over the course of long periods of time? That’s not to say that we shouldn’t obey God in the short term. Of course we should. But the Bible seems to recognize, and we recognize this in ourselves, that we have difficulties with that. We have difficulties with obeying God in the short term sometimes. It’s hard to just step out in faith when you don’t know what God is leading you into. But the long term view is that if we obey in the long term, then we are living in obedience.

What that is, is the difference between immaturity and rebellion. A child who is immature will not always obey, but as they learn and grow they will learn to obey over the long term. Whereas a rebellious child will intentionally not obey even though he or she knows what the right thing is to do. So that’s the difference here, I think.

So God repeated this promise after Abram’s father died. His father died in the land of Haran. And God repeated the promise. Abram grew in faith at this point. And we see that Abram stopping in Haran and waiting until after his father died to leave did not invalidate God’s promise because God’s promise is more important than Abram’s faith.

But we are going to see that delayed obedience can cause trouble and it’s going to cause trouble for Abram. Immediate and full obedience would have produced better results and we’re gonna see that in the story of Lot and how Lot ended up causing Abram nothing but trouble. God had told Abram to leave his family. He did not leave his family behind. He brought Lot with him and ended up causing all sorts of trouble for Abram.

Another thing that we notice in verse 1, God says to leave your father’s house just like a man would leave his father and mother for his wife. In Genesis 2:24 it says, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

So I think this subtle reference to marriage is very significant because it shows us the type of relationship that God is calling Abram into. And as we know later in the writings of Paul, he tells us that this is actually pointing to our relationship with Christ. So this is not just a type of relationship where God just orders Abram around and he goes and does stuff and he doesn’t know why. This is a marriage type partnership that God is calling Abram into. He’s leaving his family, his mother and his father, just like he would if he were to get married and he’s going to bind himself in covenant later on with God. We’ll get more into all that later on as we go through these chapters about Abram.

So let’s get into this promise to Abram. Verse one, the first promise, God says, “I will show you the land.”

And we know that this is the land of Canaan. If you continue to read on, God is basically saying, “Abram, if you leave your country, I will show you a new country.”

But it requires trust in God because God does not tell him what the land is. He doesn’t tell him where it is. He doesn’t tell him who lives there. It’s gonna require trust in God.

The next promise in verse two, God says, “I will make of you a great nation.”

And this is going to come through Abram’s seed. And it’s not just Israel. It includes Gentiles being grafted in as well. Galatians 3:14 says, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

So we who are Gentiles also are able to receive that promise. We’re also able to receive the blessing of Abraham through faith in Christ and only through faith in Christ. So Israel is the primary recipients of this blessing. Gentile believers are able to partake in that as well.

Verse two, the third promise, God says, “I will bless you.”

And this word bless is related to giving a purpose. If you look through all the times the word bless is used so far in these first 12 chapters, Genesis 1:22 says: And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28 says: And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”

Genesis 2:3: So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Genesis 9:1 says: And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

So this word, “bless,” so far in this context, is related to God giving somebody or something a purpose. Blessing isn’t just riches and friends and family and all the things that you want out of life that make you happy. Blessing is more about God’s long-term purpose for your life.

So moving on to the next blessing, God says, “I will make your name great.”

It turns out even today that Abraham is honored by Christians, Muslims, and Jews, which is a very large percentage of world religions. So Abraham’s name is great, even today.

God says, “I will make you a blessing.”

And this is gonna come through the chosen seed, through the Messiah, who will come one day to bless the earth.

Number six, God says, “I will bless those who bless you.”

This applies to both the nations and to the church. God will bless the church when they bless Israel. When we pray for Abraham’s seed, when we pray for Abraham’s offspring, Israel, God will bless us. When nations, even today, bless and do not persecute Israel, God blesses those nations.

And the opposite of this is God says, “I will curse those who dishonor you.”

And we find looking through history that nations and empires have fallen after persecuting the Jews. You have Babylon, you have Greece, you have Rome, have Nazi Germany. All these examples of empires that have collapsed and fallen after persecuting the Jewish people. So God will curse those who dishonor Israel and this applies to the church as well. We need to be very careful that we are not cursing Israel.

That doesn’t mean that we have to agree with everything that the Israeli government does, but we need to pray for them. We need to love them. We need to bless them and honor them.

And then in verse three, the final promise God makes is, he says, “I will bless all the families of the earth through you.”

And this comes just one chapter after all the families of the earth being scattered because of the rebellion. So even those families who have been scattered because of the rebellion, they would be blessed through Abraham.

And this is a global promise that is fulfilled in Jesus. And it’s not just for Jews, but for Gentiles. This passage right here, this promise makes it very, very clear that this blessing is not just for Jews. It is for the whole earth. It is for Gentiles as well as Jews. And that actually turns out to be a big deal later on in the New Testament when Gentiles begin coming to faith in Jesus Christ and there ends up being conflict between the Gentile church and the Jewish church.

But this is good news right here because after the constant degeneration of the human race and this cycle of creation, sin, decreation, recreation, sin, decreation, in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, here we finally have hope that this cycle will be broken one day.

In verse six, it says that Abram passed through the land and goes to the oak of Moreh. Now this word Moreh means teaching. So this is the tree of teaching. Another way of saying it could be a tree of knowledge that should ring some bells as you’re listening and as you’re reading or a tree of wisdom. This is probably a center of pagan instruction where people would come to hear teaching in their pagan religions.

Here in verse 7 the Lord appeared to Abram at this tree and he offers land to Abram’s offspring. It says, “To your offspring I will give this land”

So what does that mean? God appears to offer land to Abram’s seed in front of a tree of knowledge. So Abram now has to choose between two trees: the tree of knowledge or the tree of his seed that God has offered to bless.

So this is Abram being faced with the very same choice that Adam and Eve faced, the choice between the tree of knowledge and the seed of life. Does he want pagan knowledge, pagan teaching, pagan instruction, or does he want God’s blessing of life on his seed?

And thankfully, he built an altar to the Lord at that place. He chose the seed of life. He made the choice that Adam and Eve could not make, or at least did not make.

So in verse eight, it says that he pitched his tent, meaning he became a nomad, which is interesting because Abram probably was very wealthy and probably did not need to live in tents. He probably did not need to be a nomad, but he did this because he was looking forward to a promised country. He knew that God would take him to the place that he needed to be.

And again, in between Bethel and Ai, he built an altar, or a place of sacrifice. He sacrificed and surrendered his life to the Lord at this place.

But then in verse 10, it says there’s a famine. There’s a famine in the land, which is a test of Abram’s faith. God had just promised to give Abram the land. He offered a sacrifice, surrendering himself to God’s will and to God’s direction. And now there’s a famine, which is going to test Abram’s faith. Abram probably was a very wealthy man. He was used to having plenty. But now, he’s going to have very little because of the famine.

So, in verse 10, he went down to Egypt. Egypt is a picture of slavery. So this is not a good thing. This language that he went down to Egypt is trying to tell us something. It’s trying to tell us that this is not a good decision that Abram is making. It’s saying that even though he just sacrificed to God to say, “I surrender to you,” now Abram is trying to make his own deliverance. He’s trying to take matters into his own hands and all that’s going to bring him is trouble.

He’s going to run into trouble there while he’s in Egypt with the king, with the pharaoh. And he’s also going to acquire an Egyptian slave girl named Hagar. And this is going to bring long-term trouble for Abram’s family. So this is not a good decision.

This is an example of many times in the Bible it does not give us outright commentary on what is right and what is not. What is good and what is bad. The Bible often doesn’t do that, especially in the Old Testament. It simply tells us the story. It gives us what happened. But the language that it uses, the phrases that it uses is supposed to remind us of certain things so that we can recognize, “Wait a minute. This is not right. Something very wrong is going on here.”

So moving on. In verse 13 Abram says to Sarai, “Say you are my sister.”

The reason being, when the Egyptians see Sarai they’re gonna see that she’s very beautiful. They’re gonna see that Sarai is Abram’s wife and they’re gonna kill Abram and take her and so he tells Sarai to say that she is Abram’s sister, which is a half-truth. It’s not completely wrong. Sarai is Abram’s half-sister.

So it’s not technically a lie, but here’s the issue: The issue is that the intent here is to deceive, therefore, it is a whole lie. Even though it is technically the truth, technicalities don’t matter when it comes to intent. Because the intent is to deceive.

Then in verses 14 and 15, Abram entered Egypt. The Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. Once again, this word, saw, should raise a red flag and should set off some alarm bells.

And sure enough, in verse 15, the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. So the Egyptians saw her and then they took her. Just as Eve saw the fruit was good and took it, Pharaoh saw the woman was beautiful and took her. So this is using subtle language to say this is the wrong decision. Pharaoh is not doing the right thing here.

But what Abram had hoped would happen is that if Sarai says, “I’m Abram’s sister,” that it would go well with Abram. And sure enough, it did. In verse 16, for her sake he, meaning Pharaoh, dealt well with Abram. He gave him sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

This is seven different categories of wealth here, meaning Pharaoh made Abram very rich. Abram had all the wealth he needed. He was worried about losing his wealth and the famine. He comes down and now he gains all this wealth. God still had a hand in blessing Abram despite his sin. That’s what this number seven is telling us, that this is still the work of God. That God’s work of creating blessing would still be completed even if Abram stumbled in sin.

And then in verse 17, God afflicts Pharaoh and his house with great plagues. So we see that God is protecting Abram from those who would curse him. So even though Abram’s sin is what brought on the curse, God is still protecting Abram because this is not dependent on Abram’s obedience. This promise is not dependent on Abram. It’s dependent on God and God is dependable and God always keeps his promises. And so even when Abram makes wrong decisions and sins and brings on curses, God is still going to protect him and curse those who dishonor him.

So as a result, Pharaoh returns his wife to Abram and sends them away and they leave Egypt.

So how does all this point to Jesus?

It’s fairly straightforward if you know the story of the Bible. If you’re not so familiar with the story of the Bible then it’s maybe not so straightforward, which is why we’re gonna do this section.

First, of course, Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise to Abram. This offspring, this seed that keeps getting mentioned over and over, Jesus fulfills all the promises. Jesus is the one that brings blessing to the nations. Jesus is the one who blesses all families of the earth. Jesus is the one whose name becomes great, ultimately, even greater than Abraham. And Jesus one day will rule the nations from Jerusalem, which is in the land that Abram was shown. Jesus is the one, he is the seed that comes through Abram’s offspring.

In Galatians 3:16 it says: The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.

So Paul is making the distinction here in this verse in Galatians that the promise to Abraham was to his single offspring; that there is one fulfillment, one person who would fulfill all these promises and that person is Jesus Christ.

So I’ve got some questions for reflection for you.

First, how does God solve the problem of humans falling further and further into rebellion? How did he solve the problem of needing a seed to crush the head of the serpent? So again, as I mentioned earlier, the first 11 chapters, this constant cycle that keeps happening. How does God solve this problem?

Second question, why did God choose Abram? I’m gonna give you a hint. That’s a trick question.

Third question, what should our disposition be toward Israel? How should we think of Israel? How should we treat them?

How do we identify with Abram as pilgrims? What country are we looking forward to?

How do we respond when we obey God and it doesn’t look the way we expect? If you remember, Abram obeyed God and went to the land that God showed him and received the blessings and the promises, and then all of a sudden there was a famine. And I’m sure Abram was thinking, God, you just blessed me and told me all these promises, why is there a famine? There should be blessing. How do we respond when we obey God and it doesn’t look the way we expect?

Then next, when God tests our faith, do we run to the answers the world provides or do we look to God for answers?

What happens when we take matters into our own hands?

Is a half truth a lie? I mentioned my own answer to this question. What I think about it. Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Meditate on that question. Think about it. Is a half truth a lie?

And then finally, what does the overall trajectory of our life look like? Are we growing in faith over time, even though there are missteps? Or are we stagnant in our faithfulness and trust in God?

So thank you again for listening to this episode. We’re gonna spend a lot of time with Abram now. If you’d like to support the podcast, a lot of different ways you can do it. I really appreciate your support. You can follow, you can subscribe. You can rate the show on whatever app you’re using. Boost those ratings, boost those numbers so that it gets noticed so that more people can be blessed by this Bible study. Because that is my ultimate goal, is to hopefully bless people and draw them closer to Jesus. And that’s why we spend so much time talking about Jesus at the end of the episode. So, that’s a really easy way, really easy thing that you can do. Just click that button, click follow and give it a five star rating if you like the show.

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