Genesis 12:1-9

Rick Evans

Genesis • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Promises to Abram

Faithlife Study Bible Genesis 12:1–9

12:1–9 The narratives of chs. 12–50 tell the story of Israel’s patriarchs: Abram (later called Abraham) and the three generations after him. In vv. 1–3, Yahweh calls Abram to leave his home and set out for an unknown land. By following Yahweh’s call, Abram demonstrates his trust in Yahweh’s promise to bless him and make him a great nation. The patriarchal narratives center on Yahweh promises to Abram in vv. 1–3 for offspring, land, and blessing.

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.

This is known as the call of Abraham and it actually occurred when he was living in Ur by the Euphrates River and so goes back to that time. We know this because Stephen confirms it in Acts chapter 7. From Acts 7 we read –

“Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ 4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. Acts 7:2-4

In this call, Abraham or Abram, is asked to cut three specific ties. The first is to his country.

The second tie he’s asked to cut is his place of family. This certainly means more than just the people in his house. It includes all of the people of his culture.

The third tie he is called to cut is his father’s house. This really is his home and family. This included his cousins and those he grew up with.

God direct Abram to go to the covenant land He will give him. The sign of the covenant will come later, but God now speaks and His word is a covenant in and of itself… and here is the promise –

2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.

Abram’s gonna be rewarded and receive restoration for everything he’s giving up. He was told to leave his country and in place of it he will be made into a great nation. He was told to leave his family and in place of this he is promised to be blessed. And he was told to leave his father’s house and in place of it he’s promised that his name will be made great.

If you look at what Abram gave up and what he received, the difference is immense. He gave up a land of idolatry to inherit the covenant land of God. He left his family and he would become the father of many nations. And he left his father’s house and he became the man of faith, renown throughout history.

This is the way God works in the life of those who are obedient to Him. What we give up for the sake of Christ is to be counted as rubbish in comparison to the glories which He will bestow upon us by simply calling out to Him in faith. Nothing which is left behind can compare to the beauty of what lies ahead.

3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you;

God has spoken and made a promise to Abram. The only thing that we could call a condition on this promise is that he leaves his country, family, and father’s house and go to the land he’d be shown. If he does this, then the promise stands and it must be otherwise unconditional because nothing else is added.

This is especially important because this promise of a blessing is passed from Abram to his son Isaac and then from Isaac to Jacob who is Israel. The promise to Isaac is in Genesis chapter 26 –

And from Isaac, the promise was passed down to his second son, Jacob, who is Israel, in Genesis chapter 28 –

The reason why I’m giving these verses is because Paul brings them up in Romans chapter 9 through 11 and says they still and always will apply to the people of Israel. In chapter 11 he says –

Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

What is Paul saying here? Well, who is he speaking about? He is speaking about unbelieving Jewish people – in general, the nation of Israel. And what does he say? They are enemies of the church because of the gospel. That’s pretty clear.

An unbelieving Jew is no different than any other unbeliever. If they don’t hold to the gospel, they are the gospel’s enemies and are thus enemies of those who hold to the gospel. One plus one is two. But Paul didn’t stop there like so many scholars seem to believe.

Replacement theology says that the church replaced Israel; that Israelis out and so for them it’s end of story baby. But how someone can come to that conclusion when reading Romans is more than mystifying. What else does Paul say? “Concerning election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.”

Who are the fathers? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 sons of Israel and even David is called a patriarch in the book of Acts. Israelis beloved because of the promises made to these people. They are the elect of God. If they are elect, then they cannot be cast off as a corporate body, only individually when they reject Christ.

And so God still must, and does, have a plan and a purpose for them. Why? Again, just as before, Paul explains it in the same verse. It’s because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Anybody who has read and studied chapters 9 through 11 in Romans and cannot see this clearly has been blinded. Either they were blinded by God, during Israel’s time of punishment, or they are blinded by one of two other things.

The first possibility is a hatred of the Jewish people – anti-Semitism.

The second would be an unwillingness to open their eyes to what God has done because they would rather hold to what they have been taught rather than what God has revealed.

The only time that a covenant like this can be broken is when it is conditional, and this covenant, with Abram’s ain’t conditional.

But people insert the church into the picture where it doesn’t belong and they remove Israel from where it does belong.

3(con’t) And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

This half of verse three is fulfilled in two ways - first, through the line of Abram which became the Jewish people. Through this line have come the very oracles of God, the Holy Bible. With only a few exceptions, every book in the Bible came from and was saved for posterity by Jewish hands.

And also from the Jewish people have come wonderful blessings which have graced all the people of the world. Although they are only 2% of 1% of the population of the world, they have made up about 20% of the Nobel laureates in the past century.

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.

So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him. He is being obedient to the word which he was given. It’s probably good to note that the word of the LORD to Abram is the same as the word of the LORD today.

The only difference is that instead of it coming in dreams, visions, or prophetic utterances, it now comes in the page of the Bible – and I personally believe only in this way.

Do you know that the Bible has rules about the conduct of a church? For example, in the book of 1 Corinthians there are specific rules about speaking in tongues in a church. And do you know that they are almost never obeyed?

If the Bible has been breathed out by the Holy Spirit as the Bible states, and the Holy Spirit gives the guidance for speaking in tongues, then you can know – 100% you can be certain – that if a church which isn’t obeying the rules given about tongues, then the tongues have not come from the Holy Spirit.

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.

Abram is now the leader of the family. He leads the way in this new adventure. Their father Terah died, O so close to the Promised Land, but he never entered it. And how many people start their journey of faith, but never finish it.

They study about Jesus, hear what they need to do, and they never make the final leap of faith into His protective care. And so they remain forever outside of the grace of God.

But Abram and his wife, and Lot and everything they had, including human servants, picked up and departed to Canaan – the land of servants. And the Bible says they safely arrived too.

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.

After entering Canaan, Abram went as far as Shechem. This location is key to the Bible in both testaments. It’s between Mount Gerizzim and Mount Ebal. Here, God will meet with Abram. It is the spot where Israel’s daughter Dinah will be raped and Israel’s sons Simeon and Levi kill all the men of the town.

It’s the spot where Joseph’s bones would be buried after Israel returns from Egypt and it became a town which belonged to the Levites. After the Israel divided and became two countries, it would become the capital of the northern 10 tribes of Israel.

It is also the same town known in the New Testament as Sychar where Jesus spoke to the woman at the well in John 4. The history of the place is rich and goes back through the ages to Abram and the place where God first met him in the Promised Land.

There in Shechem, Abram stopped at Alon Moreh, or the terebinth of Moreh. Some translators say “oak” and some say “plain of Moreh.” The word Moreh means “teacher” and in a moment we will see where the name came from and who the Teacher is.

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.

The Lord “appeared to Abram” What does this exactly mean? It is the first time this phrase occurs in the Bible and I believe that this is a divine visitation by the Master of time and space, Jesus.

Here at the Terebinth of the Teacher, Abram met the great Teacher who would be recognized as such over 40 times in the New Testament gospels.

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;

After leaving the shade of the Terebinth of the Teacher, Abram moved to a mountain east of Bethel and west of Ai. Bethel means “House of God” and it will become a very important place throughout the Bible. It is where Jacob saw the ladder reaching to heaven which Jesus claimed in the book of John was Him.

Ai means “heap of ruins.” The spot where he is now is a picture of life on earth. The house of God, Bethel, is a picture of heaven and the heap of ruins, Ai, is a picture of hell. Abram is between them – having “pitched his tent.” Pitching one’s tent means you are a temporary pilgrim on your way to somewhere else.

Abram then is a picture of us. We are pilgrims in the land of servants and we are between heaven and hell. Will we be a servant of the Lord and take the ladder, which is Jesus, to heaven, or will we be a servant of sin and be destroyed in the heap of ruins?

8 (con’t) there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.

Abram knew that the only house where divine protection can be realized is the house where the proper worship of God is established – a lesson for each of us – particularly when children are involved. And so Abram built an altar and called on, or invoked, the name of the Lord.

By invoking the name of the Lord, he is acknowledging that the Lord is the Mediator between him and God. This is why the Lord appeared to him at the Terebinth of the Teacher. Jesus is our one and only Mediator and somehow, Abram knew this too.

9 So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

We finish up today with this verse. Abram was a pilgrim in the land of servants and after meeting with the great Teacher, he heads toward the South.

I hope you’ve seen how rich and deep these passages about Abram are and the beautiful pictures and symbols they contain. They all point to Jesus Christ and His work in time and history as He carefully works out the great plan of redemption for mankind.