Sermon Tone Analysis

1. Who is Abraham?

Abraham is the great patriarch of the nation of Israel.

His name was originally Abram until the Lord changed it to reflect the promise to him as the father of many nations.

He is the son of Terah, the brother of Nahor and Haran, the uncle of Lot, the husband of Sarah () and Keturah (), the father of Ishmael, Isaac, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah ().

He is the grandfather of Esau and Jacob and on Jacob's side the great-grandfather of the 12 patriarchs of the nation of Israel.

He was called out of his land by God.

There is no record of any particular thing he did that made the Lord to call him just the pure joy and choice of God brought about his calling.

When God called him, he made some promises to him, he told him at the first encounter that

>"I will make of you a great nation

>I will bless you

>make your name great, so that you will be a blessing

>I will bless those who bless you

>him who dishonors you I will curse

>in you all the families of the earth will be blessed

>or by you all the families for the earth shall bless themselves."

At the second meeting () the Lord told him

> “To your offspring I will give this land.”

Then after he left Egypt, the Lord established again his purpose and plan when he told him to

> “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.

I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.

Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” ()

The after he intervened and rescued his nephew from the people who captured him, the priest of the Lord the king of Salem, Melchizedek blessed him saying

> “Blessed be Abram by God Most High,

>Possessor of heaven and earth;

>and blessed be God Most High,

>who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

()

And in response to the blessing, Abraham gave him a tenth of the spoil he got from the war.

Then shortly after these events, the Lord came to him in a vision telling him

> “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

()

In response to what the Lord just told him, Abraham responds to God after what he just heard

>“O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”

> and

> “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”

()

And the Lord countered what he requested that

> “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.”

> “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.”

Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

().

This brought about the defining response that is associated with Abraham because the text records

"And Abram **believed the Lord** and he counted it to him **as righteousness**" -

This is the one thing that Abraham did, he believed God.

He is a man who spoke with the Lord in appearance, as the angel of the Lord and in visions.

He interceded for the righteous people in Sodom when the sin coming from the place promised a certain destruction.

The after all these things, 24 years after he had left his land and his people in obedience to the word of God, the Lord appeared to him and said

> “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”

> “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.

No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.

And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

> “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.

**This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.

You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised.

Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised.

So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.

Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”**

He is a man whom though he fathered a lot of children as previously reported, it is the one child that was birthed by his original wife "when she was past the way of women" that the promise and blessing God made fell upon.

2. What is it about his blessings?

This blessing of Abraham is based on the word of God.

The details or specifics of the blessings are not always reported but through the study of the text and other text we will see what the blessings mean and what it is made up of.

In vs 2 and 3 of chapter 12, the Lord said I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.

In this language we can begin to see the type of promise God made to him.

The first item is that he will make of him, a great nation.

That could be seen as bringing out from him a nation that would be great.

Then in I will bless you we see a word that could speak of praise and of blessing.

>Blessing has been most frequently understood in terms of benefits conveyed—prosperity, power, and especially fertility.

This focus on the content of the benefit is now being viewed as secondary.

The primary factor of blessing is the statement of relationship between parties.

When the Hebrew bible was translated to Greek, the word used to translate the meaning of Hebrew *brk* is the Greek *eulogeo* which means to speak well.

With this thinking in mind, it is easier to read the whole of verse 3 where the implication of dishonouring Abram is cursing and in him all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Abraham was indeed blessed in the material sense as we see after they left Egypt and moved on across the land.

The "I will bless you was not alone, it has "and will make your name great".

The bible did not record the totality of the wealth of Abraham, it mentions a few of them like in things he received from Pharaoh which looks like a precursor to the Israelites leaving Egypt very rich after God opened the heart of the Egyptians.

Then when he went out of Egypt in , we read that "he was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold" We were told in that God blessed Abraham in all things.

The key thing about Abraham's blessing is that it is something that would happen after him.

He would receive receive some blessing in his life as we just saw but every other thing about the promise & covenant was concerning events that will happen long after him.

We see these events listed as follows

a.

In the 1st encounter, it was a great nation, then name in which the families of the earth will be blessed or bless themselves by.

(check )

b. His offspring which he does not have yet will the Lord give the Land.

c.

An expansion of the land scope and definition of the offspring scope, which would be as countable as the dust of the earth.

d.

An expansion of the offspring scope compared to the stars of the heavens.

e.

The difficulties the offspring will encounter and how he will not partake of that difficulty.

f.

The specifics of the land that will be given in the future. .

The relationship was about the future promise.

It was about what was to come.

The bulk of the promise were future events that Abraham himself would not partake of though he would start to see them come to light

3. How did he acquire the blessings?

All Abraham had was given to him by God.

It has been written about Jewish teachers who have tried to look for the special thing in Abraham that "qualified him for the blessing that God put on him and they have proposed different things.

Examples of what they have prosed include the following

>For ancient Bible readers, Abram’s backstory from wasn’t enough.

Yes, God called him to be a “great nation”—but why?

Was there something special about Abram that led God to choose him instead of someone else?