Life of the Promise: What was the Promise?

How reliable is God?

When G. Campbell Morgan was a young man he visited two elderly ladies each week to read the Bible to them. When he read Matthew 28:20, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” He said, “Isn’t that a wonderful promise?” One of the ladies quickly replied, “Young man, that is not a promise. It is a fact!”

All of God’s promises are fact. That is how reliable God is! It would be against His character to break His promises.

Today, we begin a new sermon series on God’s promise, as found in the life of Abraham and traced through sections of the Old Testament, but ultimately fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. In it we discover some wonderful things about God and the faith that He instilled in the man we know as Abraham. First of all...

God calls Abram in the midst of judgment.

It should not be lost in our reading that God’s call upon Abram occurs right after the incident of the Tower of Babel. Here is where man reaches the height of his arrogance and tries to accomplish God. This is found in Genesis 11:4

Genesis 11:4 ESV

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

Their use of technology (for their time), their quest to be mighty and their determination to live without God, marginalized the One who made them and created them for fellowship with Him. And so the Lord confused their language and caused them to scatter over the whole earth. It is where we get the term “babal,” which is based on the Hebrew term which means “to confuse.” As a result of their rebellion, God judges man and scatters them. The inability to communicate and socialize is a huge curse upon the land.

But it is out of this situation that God seeks to reverse the situation caused at the Garden of Eden and the banishment of our first parents. In the aftermath of judgment, God calls Abram to leave his comfortable and familiar surroundings and go to a land that has yet to be revealed. Talk about an adventure. The promise is found in verses one through three:

Genesis 12:1–3(ESV)

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

First, some background and overview is appropriate. Genesis is the book of beginnings. It gives the account of how God made the heavens and the earth. It gives the significance of man, made in God’s image and the unique people of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and finally Joseph.

Arnold and Beyer provide a good overview of Genesis 12-50:

“Genesis 12-50 is the story of Abraham, his family, and their journey of faith. Their story is one of enduring value because they responded to God in faithfulness. The text presents each character honestly, with no attempt to hide shortcomings. But the point of Genesis 12-50 is that these people believed God, and he used their faith as a the solution to the sin problem in the world, or at least as the beginning of the solution.” (Bill T. Arnold and Bryan E. Beyer, Encountering the Old Testament, 39).

God promises to bless Abram, make His name great and make (out of his posterity) a great nation. God, reaches down and essentially rescues Abram in the midst of judgment. And so Abram obeyed God and started his trek. He responds in faith.

And that is what the calling of God is- to trust Him. We are told in Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please him… .” The calling of God upon your life is to trust Him.

Abram’s call came with adversity and responsibility.

Genesis 12:4 states:

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”

Noteworthy are the following points:

Abraham was the son of Terah (Genesis 11:27). And Terah dies. Losing a parent is a significant adversity.

Second, Sarai became Abram’s wife, but she was barren (11:30). In that time and culture, one’s success, even one’s survival, was dependent upon having children.

Thirdly, Abram and his extended family traveled from Ur of the Chaldeans into the land of Canaan. This trek was anywhere from 400 to 1500 miles in length. A person could average 30-40 miles per day. This was a commitment that placed demands physically upon everyone involved. And they were to go into a land where they knew no one. That was dangerous! It would required faith!

This would occur when Abram was 75 years old. Abram could have said: “It’s time to call it a wrap. My life is in its twilight years. I’m too tired for this!” But he did not.

What’s more is that the promise to be formed into a great nation would undoubtedly would require children, but Sarai was in her sixties and barren. How could a great nation come from one who cannot have children!? Nevertheless, God said:

“I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great.” so that you will be a blessing.”

Our own Dr. Drake Williams, in his book Making Sense of the Bible, points out that God’s promise to Abram is three-fold: land, seed and blessing. Drake states:

“At the time that God called him, Abraham has neither land nor children. It seems impossible from a human perspective that Abraham would ever have a child- he was seventy-five years old and his wife was in her late sixties. Nevertheless, God promises Abraham that he will, indeed, have land, children, and a blessing.” (Williams, Making Sense of the Bible, 32).

In 12:7: “The Lord appeared to Abram.” God’s appearing is often associated with the giving of promises.

What is also noteworthy is that the land to which they are going is filled with the Canaanites. This a broad term, including many different types of people. They were wicked in the eyes of the Lord. And God would declare that judge them for their sin.

As one commentator puts it:

“The religious beliefs and deities of Babylonia were superimposed upon those of the primitive Canaanite. The gods and goddesses of Babylonia migrated to Canaan; places received their names from Nebo or Nin-ip; Hadad became Amurrû “the Amorite god”; Istar passed into Ashtōreth, and Asirtu, the female counterpart of Asir, the national god of Assyria, became Ashērah, while her sanctuary, which in Assyria was a temple, was identified in Canaan with the old fetish of an upright stone or log. But human sacrifice, and more esp. the sacrifice of the firstborn son, of which we find few traces in Babylonia, continued to be practised with undiminished frequency until, as we learn from the excavations, the Israelitish conquest brought about its suppression.” (The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Volumes 1–5 (6. Culture))

God called Abram to live exclusively for Him in a very challenging spiritual environment. Abram’s calling was nothing small. The Lord drew Abram out of that which was warm and comfortable, to go into a section of the world and live for Him.

The result of Abram’s call was worship.

Note Genesis 12:7:

So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

Abram built an altar at Shechem, by the oak of Moreh, between Bethel and Ai.

Other altars built are found in

· Genesis 13:18: “So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD.”

· Genesis 22:9: “When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.”

· Genesis 26:23-25: “From there he went up to Beersheba. And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.” So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the LORD and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well.

· Genesis 33:18-20: “And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan-aram, and he camped before the city. And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

· Genesis 35:5-7: “And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother.”

In future chapters, God will prove Himself faithful by showing Abram the land he and his posterity would possess (Genesis 13:14). He would rescue Lot from an awful situation that would cost him his own wife (Genesis 14). God would remind Abram of his promise with a sign of this covenant (circumcision) and impart to him righteousness in Genesis 15:6 “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

Abram’s call is significant because he did not know God before all of this. He was a pagan, raised in a home where their was no recognition of God. You and I would never have come to faith in God unless He revealed Himself to us.

This challenges us because you and I are married to the familiar, the comfortable and that which is habit. God has to break through all of that to get our attention.

Abram’s calling also reminds us that life is not about us. It is about being a blessing to others: serving God and serving others. We are blessed to be a blessing.

· A lesson in comparative religions, ANE style: Arnold and Beyer state:

“The Pentateuch further demonstrates God’s supreme dominion by rehearsing his dealings with individuals such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. Throughout their lives, wherever they traveled across the ancient Near East, God assured them of His presence, protection, and guidance. The Universal scope of his dominion stands in stark contrast to that of other deities of the ancient Near East, whose jurisdiction had definite geographical limits.” (Arnold and Beyer, Encountering the Old Testament, 41)

You might ask: “So what? What difference does this make?” First, observe that God’s call to Abram was to trust him. We are reminded that every time God calls a person, it requires faith. Hebrews tells us: “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” Many times, Jesus is recorded as saying: “Your faith has made you well.” Faith is “The assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen.” Faith requires action: and that action is trust in God no matter what.

Secondly, we see that faith requires us to do thinks that are uncomfortable at times. The Lord does not save us to live a plush life. Rather, it is uncomfortable to “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow,” Jesus.

Thirdly, Abram’s response is worship. He built an altar to the Lord. Do we have an altar to the Lord in our lives? Are we visiting the altar of the Lord to worship Him weekly? Daily? Remember that Jesus said: “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5).

And so Abram needed a redirection of His comfort: not in things or places, but in God Himself. It was the Puritan George Gifford who said: “This is a singular comfort, that all things come to pass not according to wicked men’s counsels, but according to what God determines.” Let us pray.