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Ladies and Gentleman…Meet Abraham
Genesis 11:27-12:9
Skip Heitzig

Genesis 11 (NKJV™)
27 This is the genealogy of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot.
28 And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
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.
30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
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.
32 So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.
Genesis 12 (NKJV™)
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.
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."
4 So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
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.
6 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.
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; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
9 So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Lifestyles of the Righteous and Faithful - Abraham

Abraham has often been called, "the father of faith." In this inspiring series, we study the life of Abraham, an ordinary man who heard the voice of God and "did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith" (Romans 4:20).

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One of the things that I am impressed with about the Bible, and I am grateful actually to God for doing, is that it is not given to us in a systematic, theology kind of a way. That is, you don't open up Genesis and it doesn't say, "This is the doctrine of God." And then you don't open up Exodus and it says, "This is Christology, the doctrine of Jesus Christ." You don't open up the next book, where it says, "This is pneumatology and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit." The Bible is not given to us in a systematic, theology way. We have done that so that we can comprehend what God says, but the Bible is written with a bunch of stories about men and women, in a very simple story-like way. The Bible revolves around personalities of individuals. So we get to peer into their lives and see how they relate to God and how God worked in their lives, and they become examples rather than just didactic information. We get to see how different people struggled with God, how different people related to God and were disobedient or obedient. And what is impressive about the Scripture is that it never flatters its heroes. It does not write biographies and tell you that they were all wonderful individuals without any flaws. Now a lot of people who write biographies do that. They want to hide the truth from you. And so they will embellish the story to make the hero seem bigger than life, like he never struggles with anything and he's always wonderful. The Bible never does that. In fact, it tells you the bad along with the good and it never apologizes. So that, when you read it and when I read it, we can think, "I can relate to this guy. This guy blew it just like I blow it, and God still loved him and accepted him and changed him." And we find that all throughout the gospel narrative.

We begin this morning a new series on examples of men and women of faith. And I just decided that we would begin in Genesis with Abraham and march through, discovering different people's walks with God. I don't know what we'll title the series, maybe "Lifestyles of the Meek and Humble," or something. But we want to look at role models, examples of faith. And there's no better way to start than just jumping in and grabbing some personality and examining how they walked with God. And there is a need today for us to have role models in the church. Role models in the Bible, examples. US News and World Report not long ago ran a survey, and they wrote an article entitled, The Heroes are Back. I have a small copy of it at home. The Heroes are Back. And it talked about how young people pattern their lives, especially in the media. And the number one role model for young men, 30% pattern their life after Clint Eastwood. 24% of these little guys pattern their lives after Eddie Murphy, if you can believe it. There is a need for heroes to come back, and so we examine the life of men and women through the Scripture.

We're introduced today to Abraham. A man who is the example of faith throughout the whole Bible. He's used in the New Testament so many times as the example of a man who has changed and had faith. He's called the friend of God three times in the Bible. What a great title. "Oh what do you do for a living?" "I'm the friend of God." The Bible speaks about God as the God of Abraham many times. But I want to warn you. Do not look at Abraham through stain-glass windows as we often do. This old guy in a robe with a nice beard and a halo walking around with a staff. Abraham had warts in his personality like everybody else. Flaws. And we're going to see some of them today. But we're introduced to him in the very beginning. And as we go back, we jump into Chapter eleven, verse twenty-seven, which actually takes us back not only 4000 years, but takes us back to a genealogy. In fact, we begin a few verses before that, where it says, oh verse twenty-two:
Serug lived thirty years, and begot Nahor. After he begot Nahor, Serug lived two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and begot Terah. After he begot Terah, Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters. Now Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. This is the genealogy of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans."

Now, we've begun in a genealogy. And I often watch the expressions of people when we start reading genealogies. And usually it's a boring expression. We look at a genealogy and we think, "Why did God bother sticking these things in?" And there's a lot of genealogies throughout Genesis. And we often come to them and we think, "Look, this is just a genealogy, let's just skip over it, it's not a big deal, it's just a list of hard-to-pronounce names of people who have been dead thousands of years. Keep something in mind. The Bible says in Romans Chapter 15 that, "These things were written before all of them for our learning. And all Scripture is inspired by God." And often times we find that in these seemingly insignificant, boring parts of Scripture, some of the greatest truths emerged. And so it is with this genealogy. And beginning in verse twenty-seven through thirty-two is an overview; a short genealogy, an overview of Abram's life with his father and his family. And we can find out a few things about Abram growing up just in these verses. First of all, we found out where he comes from. It says in verse twenty-eight that, uh, Haran died before his father Terah, who is also Abram's dad, in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans. Now that is Abram's home. By the way, notice that I'm saying Abram, and that Scripture calls him Abram here, not Abraham. Abram is his given name. Later on, God changes his name to Abraham, but now his name is Abram, which means "Exalted Father." You'll find out in a minute why that was a funny kind of a name for him, and his name Abraham is actually a funnier name than his first name. But it was a name of faith.

Abram lived in Ur of the Chaldeans and, as I have read different depictions of ancient life 4,000 years ago, often times Abram is depicted as a barbarian, ignorant person in a barbarian civilization- a po-dunk desert town in the middle of nowhere, groping after God. There's nothing that can be further than the truth than that. Ur of the Chaldeans was one of the most important cities in the ancient world. It was a town of about only four square miles, but had 300,000 packed within its walls. Outside the cities were rich farmlands. It lay at the mouth of the Euphrates river, by the Persian Gulf, and people were settling there and they had farmlands and rich pasture lands. It was also a city of high learning and education; a university was there, a great library was there. They made advancements in mathematics and astronomy. It was also a place of polytheism- that is, they worshipped many gods. In the center of town, if you can picture a four square mile town, packed with 300,000 people, right in the very center of the city was a worship tower called a Ziggurat. And the best way I can get you to find out what that looked like is just take a look sometime at the Holiday Inn Pyramid. That is shaped after an ancient Aztec Ziggurat which was shaped after a Babylonian Ziggurat. It was a tiered structure where people would go to worship, and the Babylonians and the people in the Ur of the Chaldeans worshipped the gods of nature- the sun, the moon and so forth. The principle god that was worshipped in Abraham's town, his hometown, was the moon god called Nana. Funny name, I can't resist, "Nana, nana, nana." But nonetheless, Abraham's father worshipped the moon god. We know that from other Scriptures, that Abraham was born in a pagan worshipping family and that his father was a pagan worshipper. So he lived in Ur of the Chaldeans.

Abram was one of three children. Notice in verse twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, it names the kids- three children. He was one of three boys. Now I can relate to that because I grew up, and I was one of four boys. Abram, however, was the oldest son, because he is names first. Now we can't be sure, but if Abram was a typically first-born personality. You see first-borns typically are independent and very secure. Not always, this is across the board just typically. And perhaps, that's Abram. Perhaps he was independent and very secure because you who have more than one child understand that anytime you have a first-born, you spend a lot of time and attention on them. Most pictures are taken of the first born. Everything the first-born kid does is important. You write it down. "He burped today." "Write that down in the book." "He crawled, he said a word, he said 'dad'." And we write those things down. See, I know these things because I was the last born out of four boys. And if you'd look at the family pictures, you would see a progressive, downward amount of photography. First-born has lots of pictures, Rick has some, but not much, Bob has even less and I have, well you'll find one or two. Now I'm not offended by that, that's just the way it is. So first-borns are sometimes pampered and thus very secure because of their environment. They are also typically perfectionists and they are typically organized, goal-oriented. But there's a lot of pressure on the first-born because he's the role model. Everyone looks up to that oldest kid, patterns their life after that oldest kid. Perhaps that was Abram's personality. Oldest of three sons, sort of the role model of the rest of the kids. However, as Abram was growing up, sometime, we don't know when, his youngest brother died while he was at home. And we're told about that in verse twenty-eight, "Haran died before his father Terah in his native land in Ur of the Chaldeans." While he was at home, we don't know how, we don't know why, we don't know when, his youngest brother died, which means that Abram's life, probably from an early age, was marked with tragedy. It was a balance of good and bad. You know, that's again something I can relate to, because I had my brother died several years ago.

As we go on, we find out that Abram, as typically happens, took a wife, got married and we're told about that in verse twenty-nine, "Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife Sarai. The name of Nahor's wife was Milka, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milka and the father of Iska." Sarai, and again her name is Sarai now, not Sarah. Her name will be changed later, but for now, it's Sarai. Sarai was a gorgeous woman. Beautiful girl. How do we know that? Because later on, twice, Abram lies saying, "She's not my wife, she's my sister," because she was so gorgeous that when they were in Egypt, he didn't want the king to kill him to get his wife. So he just said, "Oh, she's my sister." Get him off the hook. Even when she was ninety years old, he was afraid that because she was so beautiful, people would kill him for her. She was a gorgeous chick. Her name, Sarai¸ by the way, means, "dominating" or "a head." Now, probably that wasn't her personality because they named children when they were born with that name. Probably she was the first-born, the head of the rest of the family as far as the lineage was concerned. Well, they got married, and it seemed that Abram and Sarai were having the normal, average, Ur of the Chaldeans kind of a life. Three-bedroom tent, two camel garage- stuff everybody has. There was one glitch, however, and that's spoken about in the next verse, verse thirty, "But Sarai was barren." The Hebrew word is that she was sterile. She had no child. Um, a lot of us can't relate to that. Some of us can. For most of us, when we get married we don't have kids right away. It's not a big deal to not have children right away. In fact, a lot of us wait several years before we feel we're ready for children. And I believe that's because we are less emotionally mature to handle commitments in this day and age then people were in that day and age. We grow up not wanting commitment and it takes us forty years before we can handle some of these commitments. They learned at an early age to handle commitment; in fact, to have children was seen as the direct blessing from God upon your life. The more children you have, the more blessed you were. So if you want to be really blessed, according to the Scripture, have five, six, seven, eight children. In fact it says in the book of Psalms that children are a heritage from the Lord and happy is the man whose quiver is full of them. So, want to be blessed? According to these guys, have lots of kids. Of course, when you have a quiver full of them, you tend to quiver because of them sometimes. However, to be childless was considered a curse from God. And it was akin to extinction. In fact, when Jacob married Rachael and Rachel could have no children, she said, "Give me children lest I die." It was just like being dead as far as they were concerned. Well, they couldn't have children. Her womb was closed. For some reason, they just couldn't do it. Now, here's the point. Abram's life was the normal, average life mingled with good and bad. The first blow was his brother died. The second blow was he could have no children. He was a disgrace to his community in that sense. Yet his name was Abram, "exalted father." I bet he was made fun of a lot, don't you think, in his neighborhood? "Hey, Exalted Father, you don’t even have any kids. How are you doing today? I've got five." That was a blow to Abraham, I'm certain. And yet, what's so beautiful is that this tragedy was the ground by which God could work in his life. It was a perfect opportunity out of an impossible situation to bless him with Isaac (this happened later on). And that place of cursing became his greatest blessing later on. Chuck Colson, time and time again in his book, says that it was because he went to prison, since he was in the Watergate Scandal with President Nixon, that that prison became the source of greatest blessing in his life later on. The things that God showed him and taught him throughout that time. And then, we're told as we go on, that they took a little adventure trip west. Verse thirty-one, "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. So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran." Um, Haran is about 100 miles west from home, from Ur of the Chaldeans. They decided to take a trip and Terah no doubt was over 100 years old when they took this trip. It's time for a change, you know, you've lived 100 years in one place. That place gets old. Any place after 100 years gets old. They decide to go to Haran. Then, it seems then, that God speaks to Abram in verse one of Chapter 12, "Now the Lord had said to Abram: 'Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you." Um, look at verse four, "So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. So if you look at Abram's life from the beginning: grew up in a home, had brothers, one of them died but he got married, but couldn't have children, God speaks to him, he decides to go. God speaks to Abram an unconditional covenant. We’re not going to really get into it this week, but just read it with me and we'll save it for next week. Verse two, "I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. 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." Question: of all of the people of the world, why did God pick Abram? Answer: I have no idea. I'll tell you what I do know. It was not because Abram was some outstanding individual. It's not as though God saw Abram and said, "Now there's a guy who really has faith. I'm going to choose you." As you go through the Scripture, God never picks people like that. In fact, it seems that from the beginning, he goes out of his way to pick the weirdest, strangest, most unlikely to succeed people to prove His grace. I'm sure God saw Abram and said, "I'm going to save that dude. I can make something out of him." In fact, God chose Abram because Abram was probably the greatest example of His unmerited favor. For God chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. I don't know why God picked him, God just picked him and sovereignly spoke an unconditional covenant called the Abrahamic Covenant that proved to be one of the greatest blessings. But we know that God spoke to him. Now, however God decided to spoke to him- speak to him. I'm glad God spoke to him because I can't this morning. However God decided to convey the message to Abram, it must have been incredibly convincing. Because, if you think about it, to leave your family, your home, your security and go to a place where you have no idea of- Canaan. He's never been there before. He really didn't even know where he was going exactly. To leave all that and go to an unknown destination- you have to be convinced that you're doing the right thing. Because you're not going to leave otherwise. And he did.

Okay, we've gone through the story. And on the surface, it seems like Abram, once he heard God's call, simply just went out and obeyed. He grew up, got married, God spoke to him, he said, "Yes, Lord," in verse four, Chapter twelve. He departed and did what God told him to do. It seems like he went without any struggle, without any lapse in his faith; total obedience. However, if you'd had looked at the story a little bit closer, you see a little different picture. In fact, Abram did not obey right away. There was a period of disobedience, and then got obeyed. There's a secret here, and we're going to look at another verse in a minute but, verses twenty-seven through thirty-two and then Chapter twelve is not in chronological order, okay? Chapter 11, those verses that we read, is an overview of Abram from his birth till his father's death. Chapter 12, verses one through three when God speaks to him, occurs sometime during verses 27-32 of Chapter eleven. In other words, God did not speak to Abraham to leave and go to Canaan while he was in Haran like you might suspect if you would look at this simply in chronological order. But He told Abram to leave and go to Canaan while he was still back in Ur of the Chaldeans. "How do you know that?" Turn to the New Testament book of Acts for just a moment, Chapter 7. Acts Chapter 7. Listen to another Hebrew tell the story, putting all of the facts together, so that we don’t have to go through a chronological time tables and all, we'll just look at another verse. Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin, who were Jewish scholars of his day, and recounts to him something they already knew. Verse 2, he said, "Men and brethren and fathers listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran and said to him, 'get out of your country from your relatives and come to a land that I will show you.' Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran and from there, when his father was dead, and he moved him to this land in which you now dwell." Okay now go back to Chapter 12 of Genesis. Look at verse one. It says, "Now the Lord had said to Abram." It's not, "Then the Lord said to Abram." "Now the Lord had said to Abram get out of your father's house, your country, your family and go to this land." It's something that God had spoken to Abram years before and he had made it clear that he had to leave his kindred, or his family, his father's house and his country. But he didn't do it, totally. He didn't completely obey. In fact, he left home, with his dad, and Lot, his relatives, and he moves 100 miles west to a place called Haran. And we pick it up in verse 31 of Chapter 11, "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," notice, "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." I hope you're following. God called him to leave, but instead he went to Haran, he didn't go all the way to Canaan. He went halfway, or part of the way there. And he dwelt there and most scholars believed he stayed there for not a week, not a month, not even a year but for fifteen years, and that God finally called Abraham when he was sixty. He went to Haran and spent fifteen years there, and then it says down in verse four, when he was seventy-four he departed from Haran. Now there is a clue to why Abram disobeyed God, and that's also in verse thirty-one. Notice it says that Terah took Abram. Terah took Abram. Now we have no record that God ever spoke a message to his father, Terah, to go to Canaan. But God spoke to Abram. And yet we see Terah in the driver's seat, taking his son, staying at Haran, where they should've gone to Canaan. I have a book in my library on this subject by, uh, a Doctor Getz, out of Texas, Gene Getz. And he, uh, he writes a supposed dialogue between Abram and his father that perhaps could've gone like this:
Dad, you're not going to believe this. You better sit down.
Oh really, son, what happened?
Well, are you sure you can handle this dad?
Well handle what? Make sense son, what's on your mind?
(You can just hear the conversation, what's on your mind?)
Well, dad, you know that I've been telling you that worshipping idols is a waste of time. It's, well, it's primitive. Remember I told you that there just has to be someone, someone greater than all the gods that we worshipped in Ur? Well, now I know it's true.
You what?
I know that there's a God greater than all gods. I've seen him. He talked to me.
Abram, I told you to stay away from the wine cellar.
Yeah, dad, but I haven't been drinking. It's true. I've seen Him and I've heard Him.
You're really serious about this aren't you. You say you've seen Him and heard Him?
Yes, dad. I saw Him in a glorious manifestation. I could just make an outline of a person, but I heard His voice clearly, just as clearly as I'm hearing yours right now.
Well what in the world did he say?
Well, it might sound strange, but he told me to pack up and leave Ur.
To what?
To leave Ur and the whole family and to leave you too, dad. To leave you, my brothers, cousins…
Nonsense, you've been drinking.
No, dad, it's true and it's real. It was no dream. I've got to go.
Go where?
Well, I've got to go to a land he's going to show me.
To a land he's going to show you? You mean he didn't tell you exactly where this place is? Oh, Abram if you aren't drunk, you're sick.
No, I'm not sick, dad, and I'm not drunk.
Well, confounded, didn’t he give you any clue where in the world he wanted you to go?
Well, it's a land called Canaan, somewhere in the west and what's more, God promised that he would make me a great nation and eventually through me all the families of the earth would be blessed.

Some days later, Terah says, "Son, you're not going alone. This God you speak of must have something very special for you and I'm not going to miss it. I've always wanted to do something other than be a shepherd. I'm going with you. And we're taking Lot with us too. After all, I promised your brother that before he died, I would take good care of his son."

Well, as it happened, in verse 32, his dad eventually died. Verse four says, "Then they left for Haran." It could be that God had to remove his father before there was a complete obedience on Abram's part. We don't know, but that could be. Certainly he stayed there until his father died. And his father left and he went to Haran. Now I can't resist this, before I go on. This is an important principle in any relationship, especially a marriage relationship. For parents and for children, remember the Scripture that says, "For this reason, a man shall leave father and mother, join his wife and the two shall become one flesh." That is a principle that at every single wedding ceremony I try to zero in on for a tiny period of time. Cut the cord of dependence from your mother and father if you're married. Just cut it. You've depended on them for all sorts of financial help, all sorts of advice and you can still call them up and get advice, but cut the cord. You now depend upon your spouse. And I've seen marriages ripped apart because mom and dad won't let go. They want to control. Mom and dad, if you're having any kids getting married, the best present you can give them for a wedding present is to let them go. Cut the cord. Say, "You're on your own." Cut the cord of dependence and let husband and wife cleave to one another.

Well, Abram finally leaves, has complete obedience and gets to the land of Canaan and verse five, "
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 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. 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. 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; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

Now that's the story of Abram. Called of God who did not completely obey, but finally he went, and now we see him worshipping God. He's on his way now, it's a change, it's a walk of faith. He's become a worshiper of the Lord. God interrupted his life, or should we say intercepted his life, and now he's following the Lord in his tent wherever God wants him to go, out there in the land of Canaan.

Before we completely close our Bibles, there are five lessons briefly that spring up from what we just read. And I want you to mark them and if you have a pen, I'd like you to write them down and take them home and meditate on them. The first is that following God involves a break, a separation, from the past. There were three things that God told Abram to leave in chapter twelve. Get out of your country, from your family and from your family's house. Now why did God require him to make this separation? Was it because God was harsh and demanding? No. It was for Abram's spiritual growth. Those relationships as you can see held him back from a complete obedience to the Lord. He didn't completely obey God. He didn't make a complete break. Those things held him back, they influenced him. God in his love was simply trying to take Abram from the enemy's turf, get him out by himself to depend totally upon him and Abram didn't do it. Now, that same requirement comes to us who hear the Gospel today. We must make a break with our past life, our past affections, even people that can influence us. "Blessed is the man," David said, "who does not walk in the council of the ungodly." Jesus said, "If any man come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow after me and whoever will lose his life for My sake and the gospel's, will find it." We need to make a break. There are a lot of voices out there, folks, in this world, telling you to conform to its standard. Yelling at you to be like them. All sorts of messages we hear every single day. We need to make a break and God simply wants us to be removed from Satan's turf. Man, there's a lot of Christians out there who sail so close to the Lake of Fire, their sails get singed every time. They don't make a complete break, they want the best of both worlds. They don’t make that separation, hence they never get to the land of Canaan. It's not a complete obedience. I will never forget, I was saved for two weeks. I left San Francisco area on my motorcycle, came back down to Southern California, all of the zeal, I'm a two-week old baby Christian. And I don't know zip from zip. And I came up to my parents and I started witnessing to them and I said, "I'm a Christian now." And they said, "You've always been a Christian, don't give us this stuff." And as I moved back home there was all this pressure in my family to not be this zealous, born-again Christian. To not go to that church. To not go to those Bible studies. Plus, I was still involved in all sorts of rebellious acts. I hadn't made a complete break with sin. I was still taking drugs, smoking marijuana. Now, at that point, I was this little ignorant Christian thinking all I need to do to be saved is just raise my hand and say a prayer. I'll never forget one night, I was sitting in my bedroom, very discouraged, wondering why nothing's happening right, it seems, now that I've gotten back home. And I'm reading this little Good News for Modern Man and I came to one of the beatitudes that was paraphrased and said, "Blessed is he whose greatest desire is to do what God requires." And the Holy Spirit went (slap sound) to my heart with that Scripture. And I thought, "That's really not me. My greatest desire isn't to do what God requires." At that moment I made a second decision: "I am forsaking everything and every relationship, if need be, to follow you, Jesus Christ, right now. Please take over." And God was saying, "You need to make a complete break." Following God involves a break.

There's another lesson. Following God halfway ain't enough- pardon the English. "They went from Ur to Haran," halfway there, but it's not enough. Now, I think Abram left Ur because God told him to and he was on his way to Canaan. But it seems that his dad, Terah, left Ur just to get away from it. Not to go into Canaan. He was tagging along. What a picture of so many people who are tagging along with other people in the Christian walk. They think, "Well, I'll just leave Ur. I'll just not do those things that hold me back. I won't smoke anymore, I won't drink anymore, or I won't do the nasty things that people are doing at the office." But they only settle right there. They never go on in a real relationship with Jesus Christ. They just go halfway. And those people are dangerous cause they hold back other people who are trying to follow the Lord.

There's another lesson. Ha, it's pretty obvious, this one. God lets us pay for our choices. We make stupid choices and often times God will just say, "You're going to pay for it. You have a free choice. I will let you go that far, and you will pay for choice, that will be the consequence." You see, they went to Haran and they stayed there, and for fifteen years, God never interrupted them. God never said, "Abram, you know what I told you last year." He never interrupted them. He let him disobey for fifteen years. But he paid the consequence. Wasted years. Fifteen wasted years of his life he wasted. I want you to look up at verse seven. Notice something. "Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, 'To your descendants I will give this land." That is the first account, my friends, the very first account, that we read of God ever speaking to Abram since fifteen years before when He told him to leave Ur of the Chaldeans. If this is indeed accurate that God hadn't spoken to him for fifteen years, that's the price he paid- silence from God. What a price to pay. It was as if God said, "I told you what to do, and I have nothing more to say to you until you obey me." That is an incredible price to pay to not hear from God and some people, some of us are wondering, "How come God seems so distant? How come God's way out there? He seems so remote, I'm not hearing from him." Perhaps God says, "It's your move, pal. You know what I've told you do. You know what's right and you're disobeying me. And I have nothing more to say to you until you start making that move." Now we have a will, folks. We can resist God. We can say, "I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that." And God will not rearrange the stars one evening to say, "Stop." He won't hang speakers from the moon that says, "Hey, you, do what I told you to do." He'll let you go and pay the consequence. Why? Well, that's the next point.

God is patient. God was patient with this guy for fifteen years. You and I, if we were bosses, if we were the boss, and Abram was our employee, we would've written him off and said, "You're canned, pal. I'm going to find somebody else who will do the job right." But God was patient with Abram and didn't go a choose somebody else who was more obedient. He just was patient with Abram. In his patience, He let him go. Even though God knew what was best. God was patient. Because God is as interested in the person doing the work as He is in the work that He wants to be done. He wants to work in you as well as through your life. And He's so patient with us. And He waited fifteen long years. Which brings us to the last point I wanted to leave with you. And that is, past failures of obedience don't mean the game is over. Three strikes and you're not out in God's ball game. God gives people a second chance. Abram failed in his obedience, but verse 4 of chapter 12 said when he was seventy-five years old, then he went to the land of Canaan. That's a long time to wait, but past failures do not exclude you. It's never too late to be obedient. I have watched a great number people who are Christian people make an absolute mess out of their life. They are left in a dump of disaster because of their choices that they made. But, if even from there, no matter how messed up we become, if we decide, "Okay I've had enough. From this point I'm going to decide to obey God no matter what happens," God will not turn a deaf ear to that cry. And there's a principle throughout the Scripture that is the same, that God seeks to bring you to the highest possible level. You can make a choice and settle for second, third, fourth, fifth, twenty-first best, but God has the highest for you. And God will always seek to bring you to the highest level, and he will always do the best for you at the level you allow Him to do it. He won't turn a deaf ear to your cry.

There is one thing you will notice in the next several weeks as we go through these men and women of the Bible that sort of ties them all together- they have something in common. Number one, their obedience. God requires obedience of them. obedience. "Obey me. Do what I told you to do." And secondly, all of them are the happiest when they're obedient. It's not always the easiest but they're the happiest when they obey God. Their life is fulfilled when they're doing what God wants them to do. I found a story I'd like to share with you about a little boy who thought obedience was the biggest drag and bummer in the world:
It was the summer holiday and a city boy went for the first time to a farm in the country. He found a lot of things to interest him. In particular, he always liked to watch the farm servants going to the well for water at the bottom of the field. They put on a kind of wooden yoke which fit on their shoulders so that two large buckets could be hooked on each end. The weight rested on the yoke and the servants just had to steady the buckets with their hands. One evening he asked if he could put on the yoke and try it once. He tried to carry them when full, but he had to give it up. But he still felt proud of himself having worn the yoke and even for a little while because it made him feel grown up.
This boy, like a lot of others, found it very hard to obey. He was always happy when the holidays came because now he could be his own boss for a while. But he found that even in the country where there was no homework and no teachers, he still had to do what other people told him to do. That night, when he came back from the well, he wanted to stay up, but he was told that it was past his bedtime and he had to go upstairs. So he went, grumbling to himself, "I'm always being bossed around. Wait 'til I grow up. I'll do what I want to do. I'll be my own boss and nobody will tell me what to do." (I've heard a lot of Christians say that).

But the next morning, to his surprise, he seemed to be back in the city again. As he dressed, he went to put on his jacket, but was amazed to find that it had a wooden yoke in the shoulders that he couldn't take off. Just then, the maid walked by and she, too, had a yoke of wood on her shoulders. He went down to breakfast, and his mother had one, also; it was more ornamental, carved into a pretty pattern. And when Dad came downstairs, sure enough, he had the heaviest yoke of all. The world seemed very strange that morning. Before school, the boy sat down with a picture book that was very fond to him, but, somehow, the pictures looked different. Everyone was wearing a yoke: soldiers, sailors, drivers, shoppers, policemen. Even the king and queen had one on their shoulders. Then a thought struck him. I guess even grown-ups have to obey, too. Even kings and queens. That's why they have a yoke on their shoulders like the rest. The next picture that the boy looked at represented the Lord, standing with a multitude of sick folks. On Jesus' shoulders there was also something. At first glance it looked very heavy- it was a yoke. But it looked sort of like wings that were folded. Perplexed, the boy muttered to himself, "A yoke—wings? Wings- a yoke?" Slowly, a thought dawned on him. "Hmm. I wonder if a yoke doesn’t get to be like wings? I wonder if when we serve and obey we are happier and do our work more easily like the little birds?" It was now time for school. As he walked down the street, looking at the people, he noticed another strange thing. There were some people who didn't have a yoke on their shoulders. "Aha!" he cried. "There are those who don't need to obey!" But, as he looked again, he saw that none of those people could move freely because they were dragging a very heavy weight after them, fastened to their ankles. It was much worse to bear than any yoke. They had escaped the yoke, but they were prisoners. At last, it all became quite clear to him. "I see!" he cried. "People who will not obey and do not serve they have a weight to drag because they are so idle, and they have chains to carry because they are so selfish." In his excitement, he turned to hurry home and in a moment he awoke. It was only a dream. He was lying in his farmhouse bedroom. There was no wooden yoke on his jacket, but he woke up a little wiser and began to understand that even the greatest and bravest people had to obey so that they might serve others and serve God and that they were both greater and nobler because they did obey.

And as he prayed that morning, he said, "Oh, Lord Jesus, help me to be quick to obey and glad to serve and someday let my yoke be turned into wings, Amen."

With that, let's pray:

Lord, turn our yoke into wings. Make us glad to obey and servants of You as our King. Father, we commit our lives to You and pray that it will not take fifteen years for us to obey You. We pray that we will not waste any more time. That we will be quick to obey, glad to serve. And Father, I pray for those who are oppressed with their own failure of obedience- that they'll see that it's never too late. Even though it took time, Abram obeyed when he was seventy-five years old. And now it the time to start obeying. In Jesus name, and everyone who agreed said, " Amen.

Additional Messages in this Series

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1/15/1989
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Have I Got Plans for You
Genesis 12:1-3
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1/22/1989
completed
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Steps of Unfaith
Genesis 12:10-20
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1/29/1989
completed
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A Tale of Two Friends
Genesis 13-14
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2/12/1989
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God Helps Those Who Help Themselves?
Genesis 16:1-6
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2/19/1989
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Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
Genesis 18:1-15
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2/26/1989
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God…Can We Talk?
Genesis 18:16-33
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3/5/1989
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God's Perfect Will in an Imperfect World
Genesis 21:1-21
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3/12/1989
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The Suffering of Sacrifice
Genesis 22
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3/19/1989
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Death at the Doorstep
Genesis 23
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There are 9 additional messages in this series.
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