Written by: Carol Walker - Interserve
Genesis 12 v 1-4
The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you.
I will make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.
I will bless those who bless you, and I will place a curse on those who harm you.
And all the people on earth will be blessed through you.”
So Abram left Haran as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. At this time Abram was 75 years old.
Notes
A man left a city. So…? Men leave cities every day, for business, for pleasure, and to fulfil family responsibilities. That’s hardly headline news.
But this man left a city with his family and lots of possessions. So…? Families move home. Others go on holiday. Young people go on “gap years”. People in the armed forces get new postings…
Ah, but Abram left a city more than 4,000 years ago… There were cities 4,000 years ago…? Indeed, there were cities, centralised state governments, sophisticated religious systems, domesticated animals, tools, weapons…
So, what is so special..?
Abram left a city in response to the call of God. His obedient act of faith has impacted the whole world, just as God promised. Today’s Bible passage refers to one of the most significant moments in history. The call of the sovereign Lord to this one man, asked for action against the norm; Abram had to leave family. It promised good; Abram would become a great nation and be blessed. It promised that Abram’s life would impact others, because God would have His hands on the out workings of his relationships. But the call climaxes in an expression of its ultimate purpose: Through Abram all the people on earth are to be blessed.
The rest of the Bible opens up to us how genuine God’s promise was and is. We see that even in the lifetime of Abram the process by which the promise was being fulfilled took surprising turns. For today though it is good to simply stop again and be reminded that God spoke to one man, who then obeyed, and so changed history. Our acts of obedience to God’s call may not get into the headlines, but in God’s good purposes can have huge long term effect.
Genesis 12 v 5-7
He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and everything they owned, as well as all the servants they had gotten in
Haran. They set out from Haran, planning to go to the land of Canaan, and in time they arrived there.
Abram traveled through that land as far as the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. The Canaanites were living in the land at that time. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” So Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
Notes
It is hard to choose what to leave out of a suitcase to keep the weight down to 20 kilos, especially if you are flying to the place that will be your home for years to come. Christian missionaries are amongst those who have to make such choices. Children’s teddies usually make it, but only a limited number of books get in as they weigh so much. Final days before travelling can be fraught with decisions about what to take, what to store and what to give to the charity store, and early days of arrival tend to be equally dominated by practical details.
When Abram left his country and his father’s family by land he did not travel so light. The earthenware pots came too. He was not planning to return. For him, the call of God was a one-way ticket to an unknown destination, and on paper the journey does not seem long or demanding. Abram planned to go to Canaan, got there, and was told by God that ‘This is the place.’
When Abram arrived at the tree of Moreh all his bags were still with him, but more importantly the Lord was with him too. We are not told whether he was able to set up his Internet connection straight away. The priority for Abram was his relationship with God; the connection that he re-established was worship of the Lord.
Abram provides us with a great model; he began as he meant to go on. As he had worshipped God in his old home, so he worshipped God in his new home. His first acts gave outward testimony to his inward relationship. No one could be in doubt about Abram’s faith. Do you keep up the connection everywhere?
Genesis 12 v 8-9
Then he traveled from Shechem to the mountain east of Bethel and set up his tent there. Bethel was to the west, and Ai was to the east. There Abram built another altar to the LORD and worshiped him. After this, he traveled on toward southern Canaan.
Notes
Abram’s journeying to southern Canaan took him the full length of the land promised by God. As he went, the land was marked out by prayer.
When God first called him Abram did not know where he was going. By the time his story was written down the locations he stopped at had become famous. Both Shechem and Bethel became places where some of Abram’s descendants were met by God.
Great works of God are usually preceded by prayer. In the early years of Christianity wandering monks would take up God’s call to worship Him in places where He was not recognised, and gradually Christian communities would grow up around them. At the start of the last century Christian missionaries chose to work and pray in North India, close to the Nepal Border. Foreigners were not allowed in Nepal at that time Elizabeth Tebbe tells us ‘the few Christian Nepalis who had found Christ in India and returned home were expelled’. In 1950 the way opened for people to come to serve the country in medical, educational and developmental work. Today there are tens of thousands of Christian
Nepalis. There has been great blessing, even though the country struggles with political unrest after the assassination of members of the royal family last year.
You may know of other stories. I certainly do. Like the country home now used as a missionary training college, after the original nineteenth century owner prayed it would be used to extend God’s kingdom throughout the world. God blesses places, much as He blesses plans. When our heart senses what God is calling us to do, we learn from Abram that the foundational action should be to ground our response in worship and prayer. God will do great things.
(Elizabeth Tebbe’s book is “People for the Hard Places; a brief history of Interserve’s 150 years.” P15, 16)
Genesis 12 v 10-13
At this time there was not much food in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to live because there was so little food. Just before they arrived in Egypt, he said to his wife
Sarai, “I know you are a very beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This woman is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but let you live. Tell them you are my sister so that things will go well with me and I may be allowed to live because of you.”
Notes
When Abram successfully arrived in the land to which God led him it must have seemed that the life of faith was fairly uncomplicated. You hear God, trust God, act, and God works it all out.
However Abram was soon to discover that taking one big, life-changing step of obedience does not make us immune from problems. If you have started out on the life of faith you may have found something similar. The first bold steps are so often accompanied by a rich, reassuring sense of God’s blessing and leading. Problems can be a disarming surprise.
After some time in the promised land Abram had a problem. Indeed, in a way which shows us that this man of faith was a vulnerable human being like the rest of us, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him that he had lots of tangled problems.
So, what really was Abram’s problem? Was it really the famine he could do nothing about? Or was it fear and forgetfulness that pushed him back on to his native wit? Abram is resourceful, but not prayerful, as he sets out on a journey away from the land God called him to. Soon fear leads to plans to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the truth, and to selfishly use those special to him in order to protect himself. In this latest journey Abram is going to get to know himself a little better, and his God a little more. It will not be a comfortable experience; the lesson remains, “Stay prayerful.” .. and watch out for the signs; are you stretching the truth, or using your friends? If so then faith has dropped out of the picture. It is high time to turn back to God.
Genesis 12 v 14-17
When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was very beautiful. The Egyptian officers saw her and told the king of Egypt how beautiful she was. They took her to the king’s palace, and the king was kind to Abram because he thought Abram was her brother. He gave Abram sheep, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
But the LORD sent terrible diseases on the king and all the people in his house because of Abram’s wife
Sarai.
Notes
It can be scary moving to a new area. What’s cool in California can be silly in Sydney. I grew up outside the city, and can still feel unsure of myself downtown until I have been around a while to watch and learn what is going on. It’s sometimes hard to know how to behave in order to get along easily, and can be tempting to drop standards away from home.
Abram knew it was going to be difficult in Egypt. He had a pretty accurate idea of what their attitudes and standards would be, but as a visitor did not want to rock the boat. His deception worked to begin with. In the short term, Abram benefited from cheating on Sarai and the Egyptian king, as the king treated him with special kindness. But the good times did not last. God does not tolerate men cheating on their wives; marriage is for life, and to be held in honour. If Abram won’t protect his wife, God will.
What had originally seemed like a good idea turned into a horrible mess for Abram, as God acted to break up the compromise. God’s honour was bound up with Abram’s honour, because He had made commitments to him. God’s honour is also bound up in the life of every Christian today. If He acts gently sometimes, He loves us enough to act drastically at others, for He is the good Father who disciplines His child, whether we are in Sydney, California, or a Lincolnshire village.
Genesis 12 v 18-20
So the king sent for Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me Sarai was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’ so that I made her my wife? Now, here is your wife. Take her and leave!” Then the king commanded his men to make Abram leave Egypt; so Abram and his wife left with everything they owned
Notes
Have you ever had a serious irreparable row with someone you were enjoying as a friend? It is a horrid experience.
Abram’s haranguing by the Egyptian king reads rather like a dressing down by a head master. The king had every right to reel off his tirade of questions; the troubles he faced were a direct result of Abram’s deception. The friendship was ruined, for every past moment enjoyed had become tainted with the sense of being cheated. When God called Abram, it was so that nations would be blessed through him. The lack of courage that made him compromise on truth had, instead, brought
dis-ease to people who had given him hospitality.
Did Abram stand with his chin up, still internally despising the Egyptians for their
letchery? Or were his feet shuffling, and his eyes exploring the floor as he recognised he had lost all the moral high ground? For that is what had happened. It must have felt awful to leave behind such acrimony and angerand humiliating to have to recognize that even people who do not share our faith can act with honour.
Today I received an e-mail quoting a monk from long ago. St. Mark the Ascetic apparently said, "Just as water and fire cannot be combined, so self-justification and humility exclude one another”. Perhaps the silence of Abram shows that he had learnt this important lesson. It was pointless to justify himself. He had to pack up and go.
“God” we are told in James 4:2, “opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” So it was in Abram’s life, and we will find the same.
Genesis 13 v 1-7
So Abram, his wife, and Lot left Egypt, taking everything they owned, and traveled to southern Canaan. Abram was very rich in cattle, silver, and gold.
He left southern Canaan and went back to Bethel where he had camped before, between Bethel and Ai, and where he had built an altar. So he worshiped the LORD there.
During this time Lot was traveling with Abram, and Lot also had flocks, herds, and tents. Abram and Lot had so many animals that the land could not support both of them together, so Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen began to argue. The Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at this time.
Notes
Habits don’t have value in themselves, but good habits can be very helpful.
When Abram got back to Bethel after the upsetting time in Egypt, he re-established his old habit, worshiping there again. A new start is made in the land of promise.
A new start does not mean a future without difficulties. Abram had fled to Egypt because of famine and succumbed to moral compromise. God pulls him out of that mess, but releases him to a new round of challenges. No human life is free from difficulties. They can be pressures from without that are completely outside of our control, like the famine Abram had faced. They can be the product of our own fears, misjudgements and deceptions, like the problems Abram had with the king of Egypt. They can also arise because people around us have the bad habit of arguing with each other. It happened in Abram’s world, and it happens in our own.
All around the world people get into conflict with one another over land, and the need for their own space. It still happens in the place where the herdsmen of Abram and Lot were arguing. It has happened this year in India, It happens in our local neighbourhood, and maybe even over our own meal tables! Jealousy as well as fear of loosing out, can fuel the argument. In Abram’s case his own wealth and success probably contributed to the tension. The love of money is, after all, the root of all evil. (1 Timothy 6:10).
It is a good habit to be content with what we have, and to know that God will provide for us. It needs God’s grace, but it sure takes the sting out of arguments.
word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken
from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by
Word Publishing Milton Keynes