The Beginning of Israel

Listen Online:

Transcript:

Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12. I’ve talked about this passage not too long ago when I did the series on Abraham.

And so, unless you’ve just completely blocked that out of your mind, you’ll be familiar with the story. But as we’re continuing on with the series about biblical events that have shaped our world today, And certainly there are more than 12, but I had about 12 weeks, and really, most of the time 12 is more than I would do for a series. I think the only time I’ve done a longer series was on prayer, and that was 20 weeks.

So we’re going to keep talking about prayer until we get it right. 12 events from the Bible was sort of where I cut it off. Events that had such a big impact on the world that they continue to affect the world today.

This is one of them. What we’re looking at tonight is where God called Abraham, and that was really the start not only of Abraham’s walk with God, but that was the start of the nation of Israel in its existence, and that was the start of its walk with God as well, which is something that we still see in front of us today, something that the world is still dealing with, is Israel and its relationship to God. So we’re going to look at chapter 12 starting in verse 1.

It says, Now the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee. And before this happened, Abram’s father, Terah, had already moved his family several hundred miles from what’s now southern Iraq, where they started out, to what’s now southern Turkey. And they had already moved this distance to the land of Haran.

And so they were in a relatively new place, but Abraham was still, he’d still been there a few years. He’d still, he’d put down some roots. His family was there.

His father’s house was there, meaning his father’s family, not necessarily a house like we would think of, because I think they lived in tents quite a lot of the time. And so when it says his father’s house, it’s talking about where his people are from. You don’t really hear it so much anymore, but there was a day and age where you would say, well, who are your people?

You know, where do you fit? Or even today, we sometimes hear it, so-and-so’s last name. Oh, are they from the so-and-so family that lived down the road?

Yes, they’re part of that. Who are your people? I hear people tell me, oh, I’m Chalk-Taw, too.

A question I ask is, who are your people? What family are you from? because there are a number of well-known families that came on the Trail of Tears.

I’ll ask, who are your people? And my answer for that is LeFleur. Obviously, that’s not my last name, but those are my people going back all those generations ago.

And that’s where I connect. That’s where I fit in. So for Abraham, who are your people?

Where do you fit? Where do you belong? It was here with his father’s house, his father’s family in the land of Terah.

I’m sorry, in the land of Haran. His father’s name was Terah. Those are his people.

That’s where he belongs. That’s where he came from. That’s where he connects to everything else.

And so God spoke to him and said, Get up out of thy country. Get up and go from the land you’ve grown familiar with. And from thy kindred and from thy father’s house.

Leave your home behind and leave your people behind. Leave all the places and people where you fit. The places where you belong.

To borrow a line from the theme song of Cheers, the place where everybody knows your name. We all want that place where we fit, where we belong. And God says you’ve got that, but I want you to leave all of that behind and go to a strange land and a strange people.

And by the way, I’m not even going to tell you which strange land and which strange people you’re going to. Just get up and go, and I’ll tell you when you get there. So God tells Abram this, Get up and go to a land that I will show thee.

Leave everything you are connected to. Leave all the places and the people where you fit, and go embark on this frightening journey. And I’ve told you before when I taught on this a few months ago, the most shocking thing about this to me is not that God would ask something like that or command something like that.

The shocking part of this for me is that Abram did it. We see other places in the scripture where God told Abram something, or Abraham, depending on what his name was at the time, where God would tell Abraham something, and Abraham would say, what about this? And he’d try to negotiate with God, or he’d argue.

So I think, and it’s just my opinion, but I think that if he had argued with God, it probably would have been recorded here, because it is other places. But we see no evidence that he argued, no evidence that he hesitated. He just got up and went.

It says God made these promises, and it says in verse 4, so Abram departed. Now, what are the promises that God made? He said, get up and go to a land that I will show you.

And so he’s called him to leave his comfortable existence with his father’s family, called him to leave and follow him without knowing where he’s going, and he’s made these promises. Number one, he’s promised to bring him to a land of his own. And it says 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 them that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So there are a number of promises just in this passage, and there are other places where God later on will elaborate. He’ll expand on these and make more promises to Abraham.

But he promised him a land of his own, first of all. Second of all, promised to make him a great nation. What that means is he would have lots of descendants.

He promised to bless him. And that really meant something in their day and age. We use the word today, oh, bless you.

I had a sneezing fit right during Brother Ken’s song and had to step out so I didn’t scare everybody. And people say, oh, bless you. It doesn’t really mean anything.

It’s just a polite thing to say. Or God bless you, we’ll end a conversation or a letter with that. And I don’t think we really know what it means.

You look at one of Abraham’s descendants, Esau, he gave up his blessing. It was stolen from him by his younger brother Jacob. And the blessing that went to Jacob was that he would prosper and that his brother would serve him.

And it was a blessing from his father speaking good things into his life. And I’m not a name it, claim it person, but I do believe there’s some power in the words that we speak over other people. Not, hey, I want a million dollars, so I’m going to speak it into existence.

But if I keep telling my son as I try to do on a regular basis and tell my daughter as I try to do on a regular basis, you are a good boy or a good girl, and God has big plans for you. I try to speak that into their lives so it will affect the way they think about themselves and about the world that they live in. This was such an important thing in their culture, this idea of blessing, Yet when Esau realized that his blessing had been given away, he was distraught.

He was in despair and he went to his father and said, Do you not have a blessing left for me? Because this idea of blessing meant something. It meant to speak good things into somebody’s life.

It meant to set them on the right course. and coming from God, it wasn’t just, you know, may these things happen to you. It was a promise.

When God says, I will bless you, you better fasten your seatbelt because God can bless in ways that you never expect. God often does bless in ways that we never expect. And it turns out a lot of times that when we have a plan of how we want life to go, and God has a plan of how he wants life to go.

And we say, but God, I’m having to give this up for your plan. It turns out that even though it’s not what we thought we wanted, God’s plan turns out better for us. In many cases, not all cases.

Even in cases where it leads to suffering, there’s still the blessing of a relationship with God. And so everything works out. But for God to say, I will bless you, The point I’m trying to get across to you, and maybe not doing the best job, is that for God to say this, I’ll bless you, it’s not just empty words.

It meant something. I am going to have an impact in your life for good, God says. I am going to change your life for the better.

So he promised to bless him. He promised to make a great name for him. That means to have a great reputation.

I realize we live in a day and age today where people don’t really care what anybody thinks about them. That’s seen as something we want to encourage in our children. Don’t care what anybody thinks about you, sweetie.

No, I want my children to care. I mean, not in the sense it prevents them from doing the right thing, but I want my children to care about what people think about them. I care what people think about me.

Now, at the point where God says do this, we need to do it whether somebody’s going to think badly of us or not. But you know what? I’ve made a lot of right choices in my life and avoided a lot of wrong ones because I thought, what’s so-and-so going to think about me?

You know, there’s something to be said for what is your name and what is your reputation? I used to tell my sister when we were in high school. She’s married now, so it doesn’t apply.

She’s a camel. But I used to tell her when we were in high school, or I say we were in high school, She started high school the year I left. It’s like people up there know me.

They know who I am. You are a Byrns. Act like it.

And people at church, I tell her, you are a Byrns. Act like it. Because how you act reflects on me.

Tell the same thing to my children. They will get tired of hearing that. By the time they’re growing, you are a Byrns.

Act like it. Our name should mean something. And I’m not saying I’m better than anybody else.

I’m just saying I’ve tried hard to live a right life. I think I have, among most people, I have a good reputation, or try to anyway. Don’t you mess that up.

My name means something. We should all look at it that way. That our name means something.

And for God to tell Abraham, I’m going to make a name for you. I’m going to make your name great. folks that’s better than me producing a good reputation for myself that’s God saying I’m going to make your name great people are going to know who you are and they’re going to know what God you serve and they’re going to look at you with respect they’re going to look at you with admiration they’re going to look at you with fear But does the Bible not tell us that a good name is to be preferred over great riches?

It’s better to have a good name and a good reputation than to be rich. That’s great if you can do both. But if you have to choose one over the other, pick the good name.

Pick the reputation. And so God promises him a great name. God promises to make him a blessing.

Now this is the flip side of God blessing him. He says, I’m going to make you a blessing to others. and Abraham was able to be a blessing to others.

He was able to be a blessing to Lot. When God had prospered him to the point that when Lot went and got himself in trouble that he’s over there by Sodom and a war breaks out and some pagan kings capture him, Abraham had his own private army. He was able to go rescue him.

I’d say that was a pretty big blessing that Abraham was able to launch a military operation to rescue the guy. It’s a pretty big blessing. not to mention the wealth that Abraham had to pass on to his children and the heritage that Abraham had to pass on to his children.

There’s a college professor I know over in Chickasha who’s running for a Senate seat, and he was talking a few weeks ago about money and the lust for money in our culture. And he said that, you know, there are some things more important to pass on to our children than just money. He said there’s liberty, there’s honor, there’s integrity, just to name a few.

and even if Abraham didn’t have anything to pass down to his children. And I joke all the time that all my children will get when I die is my salsa recipe and the turtles because I’m sure they’ll still be alive. That may be all the inheritance they get.

But you know what? Even if I can’t leave them a dime, I hope to leave them a godly legacy. And that’s what we should all desire for our kids and grandkids and really for all those who’ve been around us.

A godly legacy. Look at when we had Bill’s funeral. And the stories that we told not only in front of the congregation, but afterwards and at the graveside, and while people were sitting around visiting, and we talked about how much Bill loved the Lord. Now, I don’t know what he was like in his younger years.

He’s told me some stories. It may not have always been that way. But we talked about the godly legacy that he left there at the end, and how much he loved the Lord.

That should be what we all strive for. And he said, I’m going to make you a blessing to others. in terms of what he was able to do with his wealth and his power, but even more so in terms of what he was able to do with the legacy that he left behind.

God said to Abraham, I’m going to make you a great blessing to others. That he would bless those who bless him. You know what, Abraham, those who treat you right are going to get good things.

You know what, coming from God, that’s a pretty good agreement to have. Because that’s a great incentive for people around you to do the right thing by you and to bless you and to be a blessing in your life. To realize that, hey, if I treat Abraham right, God’s going to bless me.

And then the opposite of that, to curse those who curse him. Those who do you harm Abraham are going to pay for it. That’s a great deal from God if you can get it.

And Abraham had it. Hey, those who do right by you are going to be blessed. And those who treat you wrong are going to have to pay for it.

And that was a promise. Folks, that wasn’t just a promise of a friend. That was a promise from the God who made the entire universe, who spoke everything into existence.

He can do anything and everything. To curse those who cursed him, and then finally to make him a blessing to the nations of the world. Abraham, you’re not just going to be a blessing to those around you.

You’re not just going to be a blessing to those who know you. You’re going to be a blessing to all of the nations of the world. It says, and these shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

And I would say to you, and I’ll talk about this a little bit more in a minute, that all the nations of the world are still blessed by what God did in Abraham’s life. So God made these promises, and then we see starting in verse 4 that Abraham gets up and leaves. God said, walk away from everyone you know.

Walk away from the place where you belong and where you fit. And get up and go to this mysterious place that I’ll tell you on the way. I’ll tell you when you get there.

And by the way, I’m going to do these things for you. And he got up and went. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him.

And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. 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 Haran. And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan.

And into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land into the place of Sikkim and to the plain of Morah, and the Canaanite was then in the land. So they left Haran, and they traveled, and they went sort of southwest. And when they got to Canaan, God appeared to Abraham.

In verse 7, the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. So when they got to Canaan, and it says, and by the way, the Canaanites were in the land.

Did God steal the land from the Canaanites? No. God already owned the land.

God made the land. He got there first. He owned it. He could give it to whoever he wanted.

It says the Canaanites were in the land, but God said in the very next thought, I’m going to give you and your children this land. And so there Abraham built an altar to the Lord. Now, I don’t look at this like he landed in this new land and placed his flag and said, I claim this in the name of the king of Spain.

No, it was, he was there to worship. That altar wasn’t a territorial claim. That altar was a place for him to give thanks to God and to worship him for the way that he had blessed him.

And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and high on the east. And there he built an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed going on still toward the south. So Abraham continued to travel throughout the land that God had given him.

But the first thing he did when he arrived in Canaan was he stopped to worship God. And he built at least one altar. And depending on how you read this, he may have built multiple altars at this time.

So God promised him, hey, go where I send you, even though you don’t know where it is, and I’m going to do all these incredible things in your life. And so Abraham did it. Now, what makes this so, again, so historically significant, is that it changed the world in the sense that this is where God’s special covenant relationship with the Jews started.

This is where God’s covenant relationship with the nation of Israel started. And, you know, it’s interesting. You read through the pages of the Bible in the Old Testament.

You read through Genesis, you read through some of the other earlier books, and there are mentions of other countries and other people groups who have long since died off. This is one of the few groups of people that are talked about and prophesied about in the Scriptures who 6,000, well I guess 4,000 years later, are still in the headlines of the news today. That there are things going on in our world that shape policy, that shape the globe, that shape the way things are done, that all have their root back here at this very moment where Abraham just simply said yes to God.

That’s where the nation of Israel started. That’s incidentally where people first got it twisted and thought, well, we can hate Israel and we can curse Israel and we’ll be alright. And it’s still going on today.

How this affects our world today is that Israel still exists as a country. The fact that the Jews are still around is a miracle. Think about that.

What group of people throughout the history of the world has been more hated and more maligned than the Jews? I can’t think of one. And there have been some people groups that have been incredibly mistreated.

Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. There’s been a lot of injustice and a lot of suffering in the world. And the Israelites, the Jews, have been attacked and maligned.

Just about any negative thing you can think, it’s been done to them for 4,000 years. And they’re still here. the nation of Israel is still there today in spite of insurmountable odds.

They are surrounded by many times their number of neighbors who hate them. You look at the way they’ve survived over the millennia. The way Jewish people have been run out of cities and entire countries in the Middle Ages.

You come to the 1930s and 40s and what happened in Europe the Holocaust. And it would be natural to say, well, where was God? Where did he have his hand protection on the Jewish people there when six million plus were killed in the gas chambers? When you look at what Hitler wanted to do, and honestly, the other side and that wasn’t much better because Stalin persecuted the Jews as well.

The communists persecuted the Jews as well. When you look at what Hitler wanted to accomplish, folks, I believe God intervened and brought the Third Reich to its knees, otherwise Hitler would have exterminated every last Jew he could have gotten his hands on. So where was God?

God intervened and saved the Jewish people. You look at the fact that the nation of Israel was founded in 1948 and was immediately attacked. it was immediately attacked by a coalition of its neighbors and at its most narrow point I think I read somewhere that at that point the state of Israel was only about six miles across at its most narrow point I may have that figure wrong but it was just an incredibly small piece of land that they could overrun very easily and they were attacked by all their neighbors the day they declared independence and they fought them back and they took more land And they were attacked again in 1967.

They were attacked again in the 50s. They were attacked again in 1967. They were attacked in 1973.

All throughout there have been times of terrorist attacks where they’ve been more frequent with the intifadas. They’ve been attacked constantly. They’re under such attack now that Israeli military personnel, even when they’re off duty, have to carry their weapons with them.

You go to the mall, you carry your weapon with you. I’ve seen pictures of people at the beach in Tel Aviv with an AK-47 strapped across their back. They’re under constant attack.

How are they still a country? How have the Jews survived all this time? Because God made promises.

God made promises to Abraham. And God keeps His promises. this event where God made this promise and 4,000 years later we still see that Abraham’s descendants are alive and thriving today reminds us that God is a God who is faithful to keep his promises and we can look at the world around us and see that so much seems to be spinning out of control and wonder and we talked about that just a little bit in discipleship training tonight where is God Where was God in 9-11?

Where is God in this? Every time something bad happens, somebody wants to say, well, where was God? Like they’re blaming Him for it.

We’ve got to be careful not to think that way because we have evidence we can look at right in front of us. That God is present and God still keeps His promises. And there’s not an expiration date on His promises.

God promised 4,000 years ago that He would make Abraham a great nation and by golly, He’s done it. And they’re still there today. God is faithful we can learn from this story God is faithful to keep his promises even when it seems impossible for him to do so well there’s no way that this promise can come to pass God deals in the impossible God does seemingly impossible things and we can see that God is faithful to keep his promises even when we don’t deserve it Abraham was not perfect he was a good man but he wasn’t perfect He was a good man by human standards, we’ll put it that way.

And yet God kept his promises even when Abraham messed up. You look at his descendants. You look in the book of Judges and how they just couldn’t go a few years without falling into such sin that God said, I’m going to send another country in there to invade you people just so you’ll remember how much you need me.

They couldn’t even go a few years without that happening. And yet God kept his promises to them even then. Look at the time from when they started the monarchy.

Israel was just a disaster. You had a few good, and the country even split apart over kings, and idolatry started. And you had a few good kings here and there in Judah, in the southern kingdom.

The northern kingdom, you just never had anybody who really loved God. And the country was constantly being pulled this direction and that after this false god or that statue. And it was just a disaster.

and yet God has been faithful to keep His promises even when they didn’t deserve it. Folks, we can learn from this today that God keeps His promises and is faithful to keep His promises whether or not we deserve it and whether or not we think it’s possible. Guys, it also demonstrates God’s desire to work in and through us.

God can take anybody. We look at this and who was Abraham? He was just, I mean, we think of him now, that’s Abraham.

Then he was just some guy living with his family in the Middle East. And God looked at him and said, I pick him, I’m going to use him. God can use anybody. God can use me.

God can use you. And God has a desire to use us. God has a desire to work in and through the lives of people who will completely trust him.

Not just trust Him, but hear me on this, completely trust Him. God, whatever you want to do, I trust you. Not only am I not, God is not my co-pilot.

I’m not even going to get in the passenger seat. I’m going to let God have the keys and let God have the wheel and I’m going to go lock myself in the trunk and wherever He wants to take me, that’s where I go. God wants that kind of trust. And God wants to work in and through the lives of people who will trust him that way.

That’s the only explanation I have for why Abraham would get up and do what God told him to when it seemed so crazy. Abraham trusted God. And God desires to work in and through the lives of people who will trust him completely and who demonstrate that trust. Demonstrate that trust by following his commands, even when it’s hard.

It’s one thing to say, I trust God. It’s another thing to prove it through obedience. So how do we respond?

Knowing what God has done with this being where Israel started, this being where God’s relationship with Abraham and his descendants started. How do we respond to this? How do we change our lives to bring it in line with what God wants?

First of all, when we find ourselves in a situation where it seems too hard to trust God, and there are some of those. I’m the preacher. I should be able to trust God about everything, right?

I should be super spiritual. well, Charla, how many times since we, just a ballpark figure, how many times since we moved here have I gotten a phone call where I just went all to pieces because of the news that was on the other end? And you had to calm me down and console me. Any idea?

Three? Four? A few though, right?

I think I’m supposed to, well you’re supposed to have this great faith. I have to be talked down sometimes too and be reminded God is in control of this. I don’t see how He is.

What I’m telling you in that is we all have moments where we think, no, this is too big for God. Even if we would never say that to ourselves, the way we respond to it, we clearly believe this is too big for God. You know what?

When you get in those moments, when I get in those moments, we can look at the evidence around us and one of those evidences is Israel. One of those evidences is Abraham and his descendants to remind ourselves that there is nothing too hard for God and that there’s nothing that’s beyond His control and there’s no place where we cannot trust Him. There’s no place that we cannot trust Him to keep His promises.

When life seems too hard for God to handle, we need to look at His track record of faithfulness and we need to reassure ourselves that if God can sustain Israel and if God can keep the promises that he made that there’s nothing in our little lives that’s too big for God to handle and beyond that how do we respond to God based on what we learn from how he’s dealt with Israel from how he’s dealt with Abraham’s descendants I wrote this down because I wanted to say it just exactly this way trust complete trust undiluted trust us something. Trust that endures through sacrifice. Trust that proves its own existence through obedience.

That’s how we respond to God. If you want to put it another way, in the wording that we hear that we hear in courtroom TV dramas, trust, whole trust and nothing but trust. That’s what Abraham showed. God whatever you want to do and I personally think that’s the lesson we take from this story trust God trust Him with everything and when it seems too hard look back at the lives of other people who’ve trusted Him look at God, look at His track record and see and know that He’s faithful