Welcome, welcome – whether you are in our live congregation and are tuning in through live streaming or in the archives – thanks for joining with us.
If you haven’t been here before this is Church deconstructed where we endorse a very subjective approach to religion.
So let’s begin with prayer, then we’ll sing the Word of God set to music.
Afterward we sit for a minute in silent reflection and then when we come back we’ll continue in Hebrews 11 beginning at verse 8 and . . . ABRAHAM.
Hebrews 11.9
August 10th 2014
Meat
So let’s talk (in general) about Abram, who was later named Abraham.
He is known as the father of a multitude, (and to us the father of faith). And what wonderful and amazing lessons in faith we can take from Abraham!
In scripture he is listed as the first son of his father Terah (Genesis 11:27) though he had two older brothers (Nahor and Haran) but because He is the father of the Faith and Moses was writing to this end Abram was mentioned first.
In and of itself this is an amazing picture because in God’s eyes the physical is irrelevant – the spiritual, what’s in the heart is what matters.
So even though he was third in line in the family he was first in line relative to God.
Until he was seventy years of age Abram journeyed among his kindred in his native country of Chaldea.
Then, with his father and his family and household, he left the city of Ur where he had been living and went about 300 miles north to Haran where he lived for fifteen years.
Now I don’t know about you but I have always pulled the blinds over my brain when the origins of Abraham are mentioned.
The cities and culture were foreign to me as I wasn’t sure where they were located exactly or what the people were all about (since this was a time after the flood and before the law).
Ur means light and or Moon City and was a city of the Chaldees.
Who are the Chaldees?
Also known as the “Chaldeans,” they were the inhabitants of the country of which Babylon was the capital.
As a people in scripture (2nd Kings 25 and Isaiah 13) they were around until the captivity of the Jews and in the book of Daniel they became associated with a special class of learned men ranked with magicians and astronomers.
According to Daniel they had their own special language and were seen as the learned class – especially relative to astronomy and astrology. The Chaldeans worshipped various astronomical bodies.
Specifically, in Abraham’s day, they Chaldeans worshipped a moon god named Sin.
The city itself was a place of commerce and the center for political power and it was located near the mouth of the Euphrates.
The city was abandoned around 500 BC but became a sacred burial ground.
So that was the City of Ur. Harran, the city that Abraham took his whole family too (including his father Terah) worshipped the same moon god Sin. So the fact that Terah migrated with Abraham from Ur to Harran is not really very extraordinary. If Terah left Ur at all Harran was the most natural place to go.
What is really interesting is that the archeology later proved the biblical account told in Genesis.
And it is said nobody on earth could or would have ever made up such a story (that a Chaldean in Ur would travel 300 miles to Harran) on their own – especially a Jew. There would have been no reason to create such a story. But archeology proves that the two cities were worshipping the exact same moon god and this discovery came well after the biblical account was created.
Why did Terah and Abraham and his family migrate? There is an implied reason in Genesis 12 but it is actually Acts 7:2-4 that gives us the reason. It says:
“And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee.”
Then while they were in Haran, Abram’s father Terah died at the age of 205.
At this point Abram now received a second and more definite call, accompanied by a promise from God.
This is what it said:
Genesis 12:1-2 “Now the LORD had 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 shew thee: 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.”
We learn that Abram took his nephew Lot and departed and according to our text here in Hebrews 11 he did so:
“not knowing whither he went.”
Another great statement of His faith which we will discuss.
Abram now, with a large household of (what some believe) was probably at least a thousand people entered into what we would consider a nomadic or migratory life choosing to dwell in tents.
Yet another testament to his faith – his willingness to live a transitory existence, which presents us with yet another great picture of Abrams faith and willingness to follow God and not the world.
He formed his first encampment at Sichem (Genesis 12:6). It was here he received the great promise from God that said, among other things:
“I will make of thee a great nation.”
With the promise came physical AND spiritual blessings with the implication that he was the chosen ancestor of the great Deliverer whose coming had been long ago predicted.
From this one man we have all that has occurred in the annuls of biblical history and most of world history.
Soon after this, for some reasons not mentioned in the Bible, Abram picked up his tent and moved to the mountain area between Bethel (which was then called Luz,) and Ai, which were establishments about two miles apart.
Here Abram built an altar.
This is what Genesis 12:8 says
“And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel (which by the way, means house of God) and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.”
This passage is difficult because we know in Exodus 6:2-3 it says:
“And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”
To add mystery to this we read in Genesis 15:6-7 (speaking of Abraham)
“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto him, “I am the LORD” that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.”
So did Abraham know the name of the Lord (as Genesis 12 and 15 suggest) or not (as Exodus 6:2-3 suggests)?
Moses, the author of the first five books of the Old Testament uses Jehovah all the way back in Genesis 2 in relation to Eve, so if we are going to take his retroactive use of the tetragrammaton in his narrative literally we have to assume that God’s personal pronoun name was known not only by Eve and Abraham too.
So how do we explain Exodus 6:2-3 where the Lord says to Moses
“And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”
One explanation is that while Moses, who knew the name of God at the time of writing the Pentateuch used it where He was identified in the narrative even though Eve and Abraham did not really know the name at the time the event in the narrative took place.
This is reasonable.
Another option that has been put forth is that Exodus 6:2-3 is written as a rhetorical question.
In Hebrew there are no question marks. And so something could be asked rhetorically and get missed all together.
If this is the case we would read the Exodus passage like this:
“And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them?”
Possible, I suppose.
Another way we could interpret it is to think that while they knew the name the full meaning of His name was not known.
To Moses, the name was coupled with meaning – power, miracles, and radical manifestations. Maybe what is being said by God here is the could use the term but it was not known to mean what it means to you, Moses.
Yet another possibility.
I am not personal convinced that the Lord’s personal pronoun name was known prior to His revealing it to Moses.
If it was it was certainly not a name connected to all that came with it.
Okay, back to Abrams story.
He then moved again into the southern tract of Palestine, called by the Hebrews the Negeb; and on account of a famine, was compelled to go down into Egypt.
This took place during a time of a people called the Hyksos who had the Egyptians in bondage.
It was here that Abram lied about the nature of his relationship with his wife Sarai.
And long story short he left that area richer than when he arrived.
He then moved northward, and returned to their previous post near Bethel where some disputes rose between Lot’s shepherds and Abram’s over water and pasturage.
Abram generously gave Lot his choice of the pasture-ground. Lot chose the water-soaked area where Sodom lay and he and Abram parted ways.
Soon thereafter God reminded Abram of the promises made to him and he moved to a place called Mamre, which is in Hebron.
Now, let me go back for a second. Fourteen years before Abram moved to Hebron, while he was still in Chaldea, Palestine had been invaded by the Kind of Elam whose name was “Chedorlaomer.”
And he put five cities under tribute to him and when Lot separated from Abram he moved to one of these cities that paid tribute to Chedorlaomer.
Because the tax imposed on these cities was heavy the citizens revolted which brought upon their heads the hand of old Chedar.
So in he came ravaging the towns and plundering and taking hostages as slaves – among them Lot.
Well Abram got wind of this, gathered 318 of his own men, joined forces with the Amorite chiefs of Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol, and attacked Chedar.
Abram was victorious and he returned with the spoils of victory – including Lot.
As he traveled back home through Salem (which today is Jerusalem) he was met by the king of Salem, a being named Melchizedek, who came forth to meet Abram and his armies with refreshments.
Here Abram presented a tenth of the spoils he had obtained in recognition of Melchizedek and his character as a priest of the most high God. (Ge 14:18-20).
We’ve discussed this engagement at length in previous gatherings.
When Abram returned to Mamre, the promises already made to him by God were repeated and enlarged (Genesis 13:14). It is here that we read that “The word of the Lord” (the first time this expression is used in scripture) “came to him” (Genesis 15:1) and as a result Abram then better understood the future that lay before the nation that was to spring from him.
Having been promised a child Sarai, who was now 75 years old, grew impatient and persuaded Abram to take her Egyptian handmaiden Hagar as a concubine – apparently believing that whatever child was born to her would have been accounted to her.
Abram complied and Ishmael was born and apparently (from genesis 16:1-16) Ishmael was regarded as the heir of the promises made by God to Abram.
When Ishmael was thirteen years old, God again revealed even more to Abram about his purposes and in a token of the surety of the fulfillment of these promises had Abram change his name to Abraham.
(an odd suffex to a name when we consider the Jews view of pork).
Just seeing if you’re listening.
At the same time as the name change the rite of circumcision was also instituted as a sign of the covenant.
And here God announced that the heir to these covenantal promises would be the son of Sarai, not Hagar, even though Sarai was now ninety years old. And the boys name was also prescribed –
Isaac.
Believing all of this would obviously be a leap of faith
Additionally, at this time Sarai’s name was also changed to Sarah.
On this very day, and in another act of faith, Abraham and all his house (including his son Ishmael) were circumcised. (Ge 17:1-27).
Three months after this, as Abraham sat in his tent door, he saw three men approaching. He extended hospitality to them and they accepted.
They sat under an oak-tree and ate of the food Abraham and Sarah provided them.
One of the three visitors was the Lord, and the other two were angels disguised as men.
Here the Lord renewed his promise of a son by his wife Sarah who was rebuked for her unbelief.
Abraham accompanied the three as they proceeded on their journey with the two angels heading toward Sodom and the Lord handing back and talking with Abraham.
In the discussion the Lord made known to Abraham the destruction that was about to fall on that guilty city. Abraham tried to intercede on behalf of the doomed city but because not even ten righteous people could be found in it destruction fell on Sodom and Gomorrah and in the morning Abraham looked and saw the smoke of the fire that consumed the place.
After fifteen years’ living in Mamre, Abraham moved south and pitched his tent among the Philistines.
It was here that Abraham, due to fear, lead the King Abimelech to believe that Sarah was not his wife but his sister.
As a result, Abimelech takes Sarah into his home and that night we get the great story where God appears to Abimelech in a dream and delivers the line:
Abimelech, thou art a dead man.
Not long after that whole mess was figured out Abraham moved about 25 miles to Beer-sheba and it seems that it was here that Isaac was born (with Abraham being now an hundred years old).
And being a hundred years old he was a perfect age to try and quell the uproar that was about to flare up between Sarah and Hagar.
See, a feeling of jealousy now arose between the two women.
In the end Sarah insisted that both Hagar and her son should be sent away. This was done, although it was a hard for Abraham. (But God took over and cared for Hagar and Ishmael).
At this point there is a blank in the patriarch’s history of around twenty-five years. And it appears that these were years of peace and happiness spent at Beer-sheba.
The next time we see Abraham him his faith is put to a another test – this time the ultimate as he was commanded to go and offer up Isaac, the only heir of all the promises made to Him by God as a sacrifice on one of the mountains of Moriah.
Our text here in Hebrews 11 (verse 17-19) tells us Abraham passed.
We will cover the results and insights of this test but as a result of the event the location where it took place (which is near or actually the same place as where Solomon built his temple) was named Jehovah-jireh which means, “The Lord will provide,” which we see fulfilled in this first instance with the ram caught in the thicket, which we will see with the sacrifices offered in the temple mount for centuries to come, and which would ultimately be fulfilled in His providing the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.
As Abraham descended Mount Moriah with Isaac he once again had the promised God had given him confirmed (this was the last recorded word of God to the patriarch – a picture, in my opinion, that after the sacrifice of a Son what more would God have to say) and then Abraham arrived to his home at Beer-sheba where he lived for some years and then moved northward again to Hebron.
A number of years later Sarah died at Hebron when she was 127 years old.
Abraham purchased a burying-place for her, known as the cave of Machpelah, which he bought from Ephron the Hittite and it was here that he buried Sarah.
Abraham then sought to find a wife for his son Isaac and so he sent his servant Eliezer all the way back to Haran (or Charran), where his brother older brother Nahor and his family lived.
Abrahams brother Nahor had a son named Bethuel and he had a daughter named Rebecca who became Isaac’s wife.
Abraham then took to himself another wife named Keturah, who became the mother of six sons, whose descendants were afterwards not completely agreed upon though many scholars believe that they are later referred to in scripture as the “children of the east” (according to Judges 6:3), and later as “Saracens.”
It is also thought that through the six sons Abraham had through Keturah (and Ishmael through Hagar) that he became the father of many nations (not just the nation of Israel).
At the age of 175 years, 100 years after he had first entered the land of Canaan, Abraham died, and was buried in the old family burying-place at Machpelah which he bought for Sarah.
Almost all Eastern nations hold Abraham up with great respect.
Scripture refers to him specifically as “the friend of God” (James 2:23), “faithful Abraham” (Galatians 3:9), and “the father of us all” (Romans 4:16).
So let’s go to our text here in Hebrews and see what the writer has to say about the tremendous figure. (verse 8)
Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
(Okay, back to verse 8)
8 By faith (the way the writer addresses most examples in this chapter) By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
It is interesting that Abraham must have been so strong in his faith that Genesis 15 choses to say of him (and not even Noah) that “Abraham believed, in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”
Of course Paul later, seeking to explain that humanity is saved by faith and not works, referred to Abraham’s faith in Romans 4 and said:
Romans 4:1 What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?
2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
In the illustrations of the power of faith in this chapter here in Hebrews the writer appeals to two instances which great faith was exhibited by Abraham, “the father of the faithful.”
Each of these required confidence in God of extraordinary strength, and each of them demanded a special and honorable mention.
The first was that when he left his own country to travel to an unknown destination and the other was his willingness to believe God so much that he would sacrifice his only son that had the ability to complete the promised made to him through his wife Sarah.
So to the first example of great faith –
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
Genesis 12:1 says:
“Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.”
The ultimate destination was going to be the land of Canaan (which is also referred to as Palestine, a name used only once in scripture).
In any case, the Lord said:
Get out of thy country
And from thy kindred
And from thy father’s house
And into a land I will show you
(but nevertheless a land of which you are not aware)
And scripture says,
“And he went out not knowing whither he went.”
You know we live in an age where such decisions are kind of mocked, don’t we? Even in the body.
There are all sorts of rationalizations we have in place to justify our mockeries. We talk about the need to be wise and to use wisdom, we talk about needing to plan, and how foolish it is to act without first sitting down and counting the cost (which admittedly is a biblical tenet).
But here Abraham is being included in the Hall of Fame of faith for just believing God.
He will prove to operate by this faith and trust in God time and time again (along with a few failures).
I am amazed when I meet people who take up the Abrahamic method of living and truly do what they are told by God to do.
We meet those who in a modern sense are also told to:
Get out of the country
And away from there family
And out from under their father’s house and hand
And into a land that God will show them
And they do it – to the glory of God and the saving of their household.
Apparently when Abramham acted he took Sarai, and Lot (the son of his brother), and “the souls that they had gotten in Haran” with him. He also took his father Terah, who began the journey with Abraham but died in Haran.
And while the original call was made to Abraham he appears to have induced his father and his nephew and wife to accompany him.
You know, we have a lot of respect for Abraham – which is truly merited – but we have to honor Sarah as well.
It’s not easy having a spouse that walks by faith when you may not be as inclined to believe. And so while Sarah certainly came up with a plan or two that proved a failure, she agreed to enter into a live of transcient, nomadic living where sacrifice is a constant. For this and other reasons I think the author of Hebrews actually included Sarah – which we will study in the next week or two.
(verse 9)
9 By faith he (Abraham) sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
Now, what land was Abraham actually promised?
According to Genesis 15:18 and Joshua 1:4 the land God promised Abraham (which was reiterated to Isaac and then to Jacob renamed Israel) was everything from the Nile River in Egypt to Lebanon (south to north) and everything from the Mediterrainian Sea to the Euphrates river (West to East). In other words, all the land modern Israel currently has hold of, plus all the land in the hands of the Palestinians (the west bank and Gaza) plus some of Egypt and Syria, plus all of Jordan, and some of Saudi Arabia and some of Iraq.
From what I can tell this adequately describes the biblical definition of the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The question over land rights today is an all-together different matter which I am not going to step into but I will say that part of the problem with who owns or controls what lands where is complicated by the fact that there is no genealogies available to say who is who, who is entitled, and whether Jews today are truly Jews or if they are not just Jews by religious tradition.
Again, I am not smart enough to even offer up reasonable commentary.
Another issue is since Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem and the fact that the Bible says that in Christ there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, that all are one in Him.
So the issue is complicated.
In any case, getting back to Abraham to wrap today up, we know that “by faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country.”
So while the land of Canaan had in fact been promised to him and his posterity he traveled and resided therein as a stranger and sojourner.
Apparently in every respect Abraham lived there as if he had no peculiar right in the soil; as if he were in a country wholly owned by others.
The only real land he ever owned was a cave in which to bury his wife.
To all intents and purposes he was a stranger without rights to anything but who appears to have lived in the confident and quiet expectation that that land would, at some period of time, come into the possession of his posterity.
In the meanwhile he was willing to live in temporary dwellings – tents, to be exact – with Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the promise.
An unattached life, nomadic, driven and directed by God without roots in the earth, sojourners, strangers, aliens.
In my opinion this is a tremendous picture for the modern Christian today who too replicate the attitude, yes, maybe even the lifestyle of Father Abraham in that we are ready to move when God directs (even to unknown activities or places), that we realize that this earth is not our final residence but only a temporary piece of ground upon which we now thrive, and that we approach life on this earth not building foundations upon it but erecting tents temporary that have very little attachment to the terra firma of this world but we look toward a better more eternal residence on high.
More about Abraham next week.
Q and A
