Lesson 12

Alright, if you take your Bibles and turn to Genesis 12, please. Genesis 12. We left off with Abram and Sariah getting called out from the land that they were from. Specifically Abram, to go to a land that God would show them. Let's go ahead and look here in chapter 12 verse 1. "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, and to a land that I will show thee. " So Abram, just to remind you all, he was from Ur and God called him out of Ur to go to a land that God would show him. We learn later in the text the land is here in Canaan, which today is Israel. So that's what God told him to do. In fact, Chris was watching a documentary, archaeological documentary, about the ancient city of Ur this week. And someone said recently you can take a stone, throw it in any direction there in the land of Canaan, and you'll dig a little bit and you'll find some Jewish archaeology there, testifying to the descendants of Abraham being there. We'll learn more about that later, but it's very fascinating. So let's look in verse 2 and remind ourselves what God promised Abram. The reason he was leaving Ur to go to Canaan. God said in verse 2, "And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. And in thee, in you Abram, shall all the families of the earth be blessed. " All the families. Black people, white people, brown people, Asian people, Arab people, all families of the earth would be blessed through this man Abram. And what he's saying is that through Abram, the promised Savior that God promised back in the Garden of Eden, who would crush the head of the serpent and deliver a man from sin and death, would come. He's going to descend from Abram. In you, all the families of the earth would be blessed. Not cursed, like we were in Adam. Cursed is the ground for thy sake, that's what he told Adam. Blessed are all the families of the earth for your sake, Abram. And so let's go ahead and look here in verse 4. "So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him," meaning he left Ur to travel to this area right here, the land of Canaan at the time. If you'll look here in verse 4, it says, "And Lot," that's his nephew, "went with him, and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Huron. And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Huron. And they went forth into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. " All right, so here they are. They are now in the land of Canaan. You see Canaan right there, all right? And they have people, they have servants, they have much substance, cattle, wealth. They're very wealthy people, and they come and they start dwelling here in the land of Canaan. Now at the time, the reason it was called the land of Canaan is because Canaanites lived there, all right? And so did a lot of other people groups. If you'll look here in verse 6, "And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sychem unto the plain of Morai, and the Canaanite was then in the land. " All right? So this was not an unoccupied territory. It's not like he just came to open pasture and said, "Oh, all right, God's going to give this to me as my home. " No. It was filled with Canaanites. It was filled with other people. Look now in verse 7, "And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said unto thy seed," that means "into your offspring will I give this land. " "And there buildeth he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. " Now we need to pause right here. There's a lot that needs to be discussed, all right? So he tells Abram, "I'm going to give to you and to your offspring I won't give this land of Canaan. " Now, there's a problem with that. We're going to learn as we go. Abram's about 75 years old at this time. He has no children. No children. All right? So how can you have offspring with no children? Well, you can't. And he's an old man on top of that. So the time for him having children naturally, at least at this time, is over. The other problem is, how's he going to give him the land, not only with no children, but with it being occupied by all these other people? So in order for them to possess the land, the land's going to first have to be dispossessed to those people. In order to do that, he's got to first have children. So the whole thing seems bizarre, I'm sure, for God to tell him this. Certainly not humanly possible, okay? But God made a big promise. And he made sure that Abram was too old and his wife was too old to have children before he promised them children. He made sure the land was occupied with people who were stronger and mightier than him before he promised to give it to him. He made sure that all the odds were against Abram and that it was impossible for that promise to be fulfilled by Abram himself. Does that make sense? He can't have children on his own. He can't dispossess the population on his own. This had to be a promise that only God could fulfill, a work that only he could do. God is always in the business of making promises like that, okay? Just like he made back in the Garden of Eden when he promised to send someone to crush the head of the serpent and deliver man. Alright, let's go ahead and look here now. And in verse 7, "The Lord appeared unto Abram and said, 'Unto thy seed will I give this land, and there buildeth he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. '" Notice that with the promise there came an offering. Alright? The first offering we saw was when God sacrificed those innocent animals instead of Adam and Eve and covered them with those innocent animal skins. The next offerings we saw were the false offering of Cain who just gave him fruit of the ground and the true offering of Abel who offered a sacrifice like God had made for his parents. And that sacrifice was tied to the promise God made. And God accepted Abel on the basis of that sacrifice that Abel offered. Now we see God making a promise that the Savior is going to come through him and all the fenders of the earth are going to be blessed through him. And along with that promise, Abram also makes an offering. He builds an altar. It is impossible for the promise to be fulfilled apart from a sacrifice being made. Do you see the connection here? The promise is made. The offering is given. They are two inseparable qualities that pertain to the fulfillment of this promise. It is impossible for God to fulfill his promise to man to bless him, to let him inherit the earth apart from a sacrifice being made. Let's go ahead and look here now in verse 8. "And he that is Abram removed from thence into a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Haiai on the east. And there he builded an altar into the Lord and called upon the name of his God. " So we see him moving to another location. What he's doing, he is soldiering in this land. He's not coming in and building a house. He's living in tents. And he's moving from one place to the next to the next to the next. He owns no land there. He's just a traveler. He's just a soldier. He owns no home there. He has no land to call his own there. But everywhere he goes, he builds an altar and he calls on the name of his God. Let's talk about what that means, to call upon the name of the Lord. This is the first time we see it here in the Old Testament. It's misunderstood in the New Testament. Some people say to call upon the name of the Lord means say, "Lord Jesus, come into my heart and save me. " That's not what it means. That's not what Abram's doing here. What he's doing here is, he builds an altar, sacrifices made, and he calls upon the name of his God. Meaning, he puts his faith and trust in his God. Based on the promise God made, illustrated in the offering Abraham gave. Does that make sense? Same thing Abel was doing. So he's calling on the name of his God. "Lord, here I am in this land, and I'm going to trust you to give it to me. I'm going to trust you to give it to my descendants. I'm going to trust you to give me children, just like you said, and that you're going to bless the world through my offspring. I'm trusting you for that God, and I'm making this offering here as the basis of my trust, and I'm depending on you. " So all of this, his faith connected to the God's promise, illustrated by the offering, made. Does everyone understand so far? So all right, now let's go ahead and look. Move to chapter 13. "And Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and a lot with him, into the south. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. And he went on his journeys from the south, even to Bethel, under the place where his tent. . . " Notice he's still living in a tent. ". . . where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Aai, under the place of the altar which he had made there at the first. And there Abram called on the name of the Lord. " So here Abram is calling on the name of the Lord again. He's journeying. He went down to Egypt for a bit because of a famine. He comes back when the famine's over, and he comes back to Bethel, goes back to that same altar he made, makes a sacrifice to God, and calls on his name again. Now again, when people say in the New Testament, "We'll call on the name of the Lord," it means to ask Jesus to come into your heart. They're mistaken. They say, "Well, if you ask Jesus into your heart, you call on the name of the Lord, you'll be saved. " And so they say, "Just call out to him today and ask him to come into your heart and save you. " Well, that's not what Abram's doing. He's not building an altar and asking Jesus to come into his heart and save him. And then make a cycle along through there and say, "Well, maybe I'm not saved. I'll ask Jesus to come into my heart and save me again. " He keeps calling on the name of the Lord again and again and again. Why? Because he's reiterating his faith and his trust in God's promise that he gave, illustrated with the sacrifice that he makes. Calling on the name of the Lord is to put your trust and hope in God. That's what it means, okay? To put your trust and hope in God. You're looking at a verb, call, which means to invoke. And you're looking at a preposition. Anyone know grammar well enough to tell me what the preposition is? Preposition is on. Who? What's the object? What's the object of the preposition? What's the object? Yes. Look here. Look back in your text. Call on the name of the Lord. He's calling on. Call is the verb. That's the action he's doing. On is where the action is going. He's calling on the Lord's name. Doesn't even say he called on the Lord. Says he called on the Lord's name. How can you call on the Lord's name and not call on the Lord? What does it mean to call on the Lord's name? Anyone have an idea? Let's think it through. When you're looking in the Bible and it says to call on the name of the Lord, or when it says to trust in the name of the Lord, or anything like that, the name of the Lord means the authority of the Lord, the basis of the Lord himself. Let me give an example. How many of y'all have ever saw an old movie where there is a policeman and someone is running away from the policeman and the policeman says stop in the name of the law? Y'all ever seen anything like that? Have you? Okay. To stop in the name of the law means stop on the basis, the authority of the law. When I was in law enforcement and I would write a complaint out against someone, it would always say in the name of the state of Texas, it would say that on the complaint or on a warrant, it always listed the name of the state of Texas. And the reason it did is because I don't have any authority to go put my hands on someone and put them in a cage, but the state of Texas does. So everything that I did was done in the state's name. Abraham, his faith was based on God's name. See what he's doing here? His faith was based on the authority of the promise God gave him. Isn't that wonderful? That's what it means to call on the name of the Lord. To put your faith, your dependence on the authority of the promise God's made you, illustrated by the sacrifice he's making. So understand that. Abraham was sojourning here. Must have looked crazy. What are you doing here, Abraham? Well, God's going to make a great nation out of me. I'm going to have so many children, it's going to be unbelievable. And one day I'm going to own all this and all my offspring's going to own all this and all the people of the land, look at this old man over there with no child, and probably thinking he's crazy. The only way that Abraham could keep his sanity, because leaving your house is a big deal. Leaving your town where you have all your connections, your business dealings, your little security network, that's a big deal. And to go to a land of strangers and say, "Well, God's going to give me and my offspring this land one day, even though I have no offspring, there's no way I can dispossess these people, this land. " That's a big deal. And the only way the man could keep his sanity and keep living there was if he kept reminding himself that he's putting his trust on the authority of the promise God had made him, no matter what the circumstances looked like, no matter how he felt on the inside, no matter what the strangers in the land told him, he was depending on his God. Now, here's the thing. How this applies to us is this. We have to understand that Abram is a picture of everybody. He's called the father of our faith in the New Testament. Abram is a picture of everybody who puts their trust in the promise God made to send his son as a sacrifice for our sins. Think about it. Abraham was dwelling in what? A brick house? An adobe house? He was dwelling in what? A tent. A tent. What do we know about a tent? It's a tent, a permanent structure or a temporary structure? It's a temporary structure. Is a tent a mobile structure or a fixed structure? It's a mobile structure. That's why he keeps moving from place to place to place. He has these tents here. This is a picture of us, those of us who live in a strange world. Who live in a world that does not belong to us, that belongs to God's enemies, in a sense, they're occupying it. And here we are walking around in tents, our bodies. We're souls that are living in these mobile, temporary structures that get more and more frazzled every day we live. And we're finally, as the apostle Peter said, he said, in one of his passages, "I'm going to have to put this tent off of me and go to be with the Lord. " In other words, he realized he was dwelling in tents. That's what I am right now. I'm a man who's dwelling in a land occupied by people who don't believe in God, don't believe in his son, want nothing to do with him. But God's promised, as Jesus said, "The meek shall inherit," what? You remember that scripture? "The meek shall inherit the earth. " And so God has given us a promise that we're going to enjoy the earth one day forever, and the people who don't believe in God are going to be put out of it, the people who do are going to possess it. But meanwhile, we're living as strangers in the world in tents, and one day we're going to put that tent off and we're going to die. But in the meantime, how do we keep our sanity living in a crazy world? We do it putting our trust on the name, on the authority of the promise that God's given us. Makes sense? That's what Abram's doing. If you'll understand this here in the Old Testament, as we get into the New Testament, especially in the book of Galatians and Hebrews, it'll just become so much more clear to you. All right, now let's look here in verse five. "And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents. And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together, for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the herdman of Abram's cattle and the herbin of Lot's cattle. And the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land. " Now, here they were. Now, Lot, Abram was told to leave his father's house, but here's Lot still hanging around Abram. Abram should have been separated from Lot. Lot's still tagging around his uncle, but they both have so much substance and so much land. I'm sorry, and so many cattle and only so much land, so that now there's grazing rights, struggling between the herdman and all. And there's Canaanites and there's Perizzites around them. And the last thing you want to do is be fighting among yourselves when you're dwelling in places that may be a little hostile to you. So let's look at verse eight. "And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdman and thy herdman, for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee from me. " In other words, hey, there's plenty of room. Lot, leave. "If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. " In other words, you take your pick lot. You go wherever you want to go. I'll let you choose, and I'll just go the other way. Now that's a fair man right there. Verse 10, "And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest undesore. " So here's Lot. Lot says, "Oh, I can choose any place I want to. Where should I go? " Uncle Abraham said, "I could get first choice. " Lot starts looking around, and boy, he sees the plain of Jordan. He's got cattle, and there's plenty of water for his cattle, and plenty of sweet grass for his cattle. In verse 11, "Then Lot chose him, all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east, and they separated themselves the one from the other. " Verse 12, "And as say Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom. " Lot was all about creature comforts, riches, community. He pitches his tent near a city called Sodom. Verse 13, "But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. " Lot made a bad choice. He made a business decision that he thought would help his business without considering the company he was going to be putting his family and himself around. He's living over here with a bunch of reprobate, wicked people, and next thing you know, he ends up living among them. Very, very sad. Who you hang out with makes a big deal on your life. All right, let's look here in verse 14. "And the Lord said unto Abram, After that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it into thy seed forever. " This is very important. Lot's gone. Lot's living over here around Sodom. And now that Lot's gone, God takes Abram aside and gives him more specificity on this promise he made. He said, "Abram, you look north, south, east, and west as far as your eye can see. I'm going to give that land to whom? " What does the Scripture say? Who's God going to give the land to? To him? Excuse me? In his descendants. So right? To thee? That's to Abram. To your seed. That's his descendants. Now how long is he going to give them this land? Wow. Let's do this. Forever's a long time. The only way that God can give this land to Abraham and his descendants forever is if what happens? He has to have children. That's true. Specifically, the only way he can give it to him for this length of time, what has to happen? They have to keep reproducing and keep going. Let's do this. Huh? Do you think they can energize that? Yeah. Yeah, but. . . Okay, we're getting. . . Watch this. Let me narrow the question down. Look at this. For a moment, forget about the descendants. Think about the promise that God's going to give him, Abram, the land. How can God give Abram the land forever? What's going to have to happen for Abram to have this land forever? You stop. That's true. Authority? Yes, they have authority. Think practically. Let's say that Abraham's given the land today or at that time. Let's say he just gave him the land. For Abraham to have that land forever, how long is Abraham going to live? Forever. That's the only way he can have it forever. Is if Abraham lives forever. That's what you were going to say, isn't it? I figured it was. So for God to give this land to Abram. . . Now, if God just said, "I'm just going to give it to your descendants," then we may be thinking, "Well, they'll just possess the land as the generations continue to go. " But for God to give it to Abraham forever, Abraham's going to have to live forever, which means death will have to be overcome. This is all wrapped up in the promise that God is giving. Every one of his descendants, if they're going to possess the land forever, they have to live forever. In other words, they'll have to not perish but have everlasting life. Does that make sense? All right? That's all wrapped up in this promise. God is making a promise to Abram that he's going to be able to live forever in a particular part of the world and inherit something for an everlasting possession. And it's going to be on the basis of his offspring. The Savior is going to be born from him, and he doesn't even have a child. These are incredible promises God's making. You're going to have children, lots of children. You're going to have this land. You're going to have it forever, which means death is going to have to be overcome. When we continue reading this story of Abram, you're going to find out something. In fact, let's look here and I'll show you what it is. It's absolutely fascinating. This is fascinating. Let's look here now in verse 16. "And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. " In other words, you have a bunch of offspring. Verse 17. "Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee. " I'm going to give it to you, Abraham. You personally. You individually. Verse 18. "Then Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord. " Here he goes again. "Everywhere I go, I'm depending on the promise you made me, God, illustrated by the sacrifice I make. " All right. Now, let's move on. When you come to chapter 14, I want to try to get to a certain spot here before we close today. When you come to chapter 14, Lot has been living in the land of Sodom. The Bible says the people of Sodom were wicked exceedingly before God. Sodom is where we get the word sodomy from. These were homosexuals. These were people like the people we have today. I mean, if they had drag queen story, I started right here. And sodomy. Okay. And sodomy, excuse me. They were sodomites. The people that we have today that do this are also sodomites. They practice sodomy. All of that came from this ancient city. That's where the words came from. And so they were wicked people. And basically what happens is, I'm just going to give you a quick rundown. We'll look more at it later. But Lot and the people of Sodom get captured by enemy forces. Abram has to. . . His name gets changed to Abraham later. That's how come I keep saying Abram. But Abram goes and rescues Lot and those people. And also there was some drama there in chapter 14. But we don't need to focus on that because it interrupts our continuation of the story we're trying to make. So now Abram's rescued Lot. Lot's still in Sodom. He still didn't learn his lesson. Chapter 15. After these things, it is after Abram rescued Lot. The word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, "Fear not Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. " And Abram said, "Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? In the steward of my house is this Eleaser of Damascus. " And Abraham said, "Behold, to me thou hast given no seed. " Now what is he saying? God kept saying, "To thee will I give this land into thy seed forever. " And Abram saying, "God, it's been a while. I'm not getting any younger. What are you going to do? You tell me you're going to give me seed like the dust of the earth, but you've still given me no seed. I have no child at all. What are you going to do? How's this promise going to be performed? " A lot of times we do God like that. You know, we don't understand his full plan. And it's an honest question Abram was asking. And even though Abram didn't understand everything, and even though Abram, I'm sure, had lots of doubts coming his head from the devil, saying, "Oh yeah, God's going to promise this. You're going to end up dying here with no kids. " (sniff) "Abraham still everywhere he went. He built an altar and he trusted in God. God, I don't understand, but I trust you. " And you know, sometimes it's all we can do. God, I don't understand the situation I'm in, but I trust you nonetheless. So let's look and see how God responded to him. Verse 4, "And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, 'This shall not be thine heir. '" In other words, your steward, Eliezer, he's not going to inherit your goods. "But he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. " In other words, you're going to have a son physically, your own offspring, your own DNA. Someone coming forth from your own bowels shall be your heir. Look in verse 5, "And he that is God brought him forth abroad, and said, 'Look now toward heaven and tell the stars. '" And the word "tell" there's an ancient word that means "count. " Okay? Used to, in the Old English, when you use the word "tell," it would mean "to count" or "to reckon. " And he says, so he's saying, "Count the stars, if thou be able to number them. " And he said unto him, "So shall thy seed be. " He said, "Abram, can you count those stars? Man, there's so many I can't count them. That's how many kids you're going to have. You won't even be able to number them. There's going to be so many. It's amazing. Now, little side note, little side note. A few books down, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, you come to a book called Numbers. In the book of Numbers, they actually did number all of Abram's offspring at that time. But you can't truly number all of Abram's offspring, because God told Abram, "In you shall all families of the earth be blessed. " The reason is, the true children of Abram are not going to be those that come from his DNA, but those that share his faith in God and the sacrifice which already erased that he would make. Not those who share his DNA, but those who share his faith. Bible says in the New Testament, "They which be of faith are the seed of Abram. " But let's look here and see. Man, this is a big promise again. This is how many. . . you're not going to be able to count all your children, Abram. You're going to have so many. So let's look here in verse 6. "And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. " That's big. God made this big, big promise to Abram. You're going to get the land forever, which means I'm going to overcome death. You're going to live forever. You will not perish, but you will have everlasting life. I will give it to your seed forever. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Those who descend from you will also not perish, but have everlasting life. And the curse that came through Adam will be overcome, and the blessing will come through you. "And Abram believed in the Lord. " That means he put his trust. Let's do this again. What was the action? Believe. Believe means to trust, to rely on. Sometimes if we have a favorite football team or something, and we say, "Hey, we believe in you. You can do this. " All right? That's what it means. He believed in the Lord. That means he trusted, watched the preposition in. He put his trust in, in what? The Lord. He believed the promise that God made. And what happens when he believed the promise that God made? In verse 6, "And he believed in the Lord, and he that is the Lord counted it, or credited it to him for righteousness. " Abram was righteous in God's sight, sinless in God's sight, because he trusted the promise God made. Grace. Grace. That's it. Just like Noah. Noah put his faith in the ark, the promise God made that he would deliver him through the ark. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Abraham put his trust in the promise that God would deliver the world through the Savior that would descend from him, and he was found righteous in God's sight. He believed in the Lord. That's why when you look at John 3, 16, Jesus said, "For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. " In other words, inherit the promise of Abraham. Man, that's good stuff. It all boils down to us recognizing like Abram, "I can't have any kids. I can't fulfill this promise. I can't overcome death, but I'm going to believe in the Lord who promised that he would make that happen for me. " Today, it's the same thing. I can't make myself good enough to be accepted by God. I can't overcome death. I can't make myself right in the eyes of God, but I believe in the Lord who made a way so I could, which was the sacrifice he made, just like Abram kept offering every time he called on the name of the Lord. It's all connected. I trust in God that I will not perish but have everlasting life based on the sacrifice God has made for me. They were looking forward to the sacrifice. Today, we look back to the sacrifice. They trusted it would happen. Today, we trust that it did happen. You see the difference? Okay. With that said, that's probably a good man. I'd love to keep going. That's a good place for us to stop. We've got about a quarter till next week. God willing, we'll start back up and Abram is going to ask God to give him some kind of sign, some kind of illustration, some kind of confirmation on how God was going to go about doing this. We'll take back up in chapter 15 and look at that next week. Very bizarre passage of scripture, but it's really cool. Alright.