Abraham

Abraham, Friend of God

Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Galatians 3 : 6

Tonight I was going to take a fresh look at Joseph and as I thought about it, I realised that I couldn’t do that without going back to his father Jacob and then to his father Isaac and then to his father Abraham and God’s call.

So we will start with God’s call to Abram,who became Abraham, God’s Friend, but we won’t get as far as Joseph; we won’t even get as far as Jacob.

Abraham is referred to as God’s friend in:

2 Ch 20:7

O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?

Is 41:8

“But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend,

Jas 2: 23

And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.

Of no one else in the bible is it recorded that he was God’s Friend. Not Adam, not Noah, not Moses or David or Elijah or Isaiah or any of the prophets or Peter or John or Paul.

Perhaps Adam could have been if he had not made that disastrous wrong decision in Genesis 3. Here we see the creator God who has come down to walk with Adam in the garden in the cool of the day, but Adam hid from God.

Perhaps Abel could have been had he not been struck down by Cain, or Noah who certainly did everything just as God commanded him and God did make a covenant with him never again to destroy the earth with a flood. This was an altogether different covenant from that God was to establish with Abram.

With Abram, God was setting about re-establishing that personal relationship with man that had been broken by Adam in the Garden of Eden.

The first Jew was a Gentile, the first Hebrew was a heathen. Abram, a worshipper of many Gods in that great city of Ur of the Chaldees, heard and responded to God’s call to go to a new land.

Here was the call to a son, who went to his father Terah and said: “We must leave all that you have known and set out for a new land.” Now you might expect this elderly man, who was 70 years old when Abram was born, to tell his son not to be so stupid. But what was Terah’s response? Probably something like: “Yes, my son Abram and my daughter-in-law Sarai, yes. Let us set out at once for the land of Canaan.”

In Gen 11.31 we read that

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.

Too old to serve God in new ways? Terah is a wonderful example to men and women, who, although advancing in years, are still open to divine revelations and divine calling, ready for new duties. Outwardly they may be failing in strength, but inwardly they are renewed day by day by God’s Spirit. What an honourable place they should have among the congregation; spirit-filled people who have walked with the Lord many days or many years.

Paul writes to the Corinthians:

2 Cor 4 ; 16 - 18 Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

What greater encouragemnet could there be to new younger leaders of the church than to have the prayers and support of older folk who are on hand for advice and wisdom, not to hold them back, but to go with them where God leads.

“Leave your country and go to the land that I will show you.”

We can speculate as to why they stopped for so many years in Haran. Perhaps the aged Terah was too frail to travel further. Perhaps Terah couldn’t make the decisive break away from the Gods he used to worship and Haran was another centre of worship for them. What we do know is that Abram stayed in Haran with his father and his family until Terah died at the age of 205.

While he had his father with him and beside him, faith and love and hope and obedience were all too easy for Abram. Now Abram had to decide to take the next step.

Terah died in Haran and it was then that God’s words that he had heard all those years ago back in Ur came back to him.

Gen 12:1 The Lord had said ...

You know, sometimes we hear God’s voice and don’t act on it. Sometimes we start out and only get part way. It’s so easy to let things get in the way, or circumstances dictate what we do or don’t do. We don’t have God’s permission to stop doing good works. It may be different from what we have done in the past, but we are in it for the long haul and God is with us.

Eph 2 : 10 We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

Gen 12: 1-3 “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Abram, now aged 75, obeyed and set out once more and, in time, reached this new land. If you think that Abram’s journey with God was one of continuous progression towards perfection, you would be far from the mark. Abram wasn’t ready yet to be the father of a great nation. He had many things both to undergo and to perform before he was ready.

No sooner had Abram settled in the land, where he had built altars in thankfulness to God, than his whole world fell apart. There was famine in the land and he was forced to go to Egypt, which, because of the Nile, was largely untouched by the famine. Where was his faith in God now? Gone, it seemed. Sarai, his wife, was beautiful and would surely be noticed. She would be taken from him and he would be killed. To save his own life he asked Sarai to say that she was his sister. The end of that sad episode was that the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai. Pharaoh was not to blame, but he graciously sent Abram on his way along with his wife and all his possessions.

By now he was very rich.

Gen13 : 2 Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

We find Abram back in Canaan with all the possessions he could possibly want, but now, following his experience in Egypt, Abram is a very different man. A more humble Abram; a more thoughtbul Abram. Why do I say that? The clue is when Abram and Lot separate. Abram, the elder statesman has first rights on the land, yet he offers the choice to Lot, his nephew.

Gen 13 : 8,9. So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

That reminds me of the words of Jesus in Matt 6: 21 and 6: 33

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Abram may be rich, but in this patriarchal culture he regards himself as being poor. He is childless and upset that a servant will be his heir. Does he have doubts about God’s promises? Yes he does and, unlike us, he had no scriptures to refer to; no written word of God to encourage him. We, on the other hand, have the wealth of the Bible - 66 books - reminding us time and again of God’s promises and God’s faithfulness.

God says to us, just as he said to Abram:

“Lift up your eyes” Gen 13 : 14;

“Do not be afraid” Gen 15 : 1

And what faith Abram displayed when God showed him the heavens and the stars.

Gen 15 : 5. He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Gen 15 :6. Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Time does not permit tonight to explore the whole of Abram’s journey - how he was 75 when he left Haran, how he learned that his descendants would be slaves for 400 years in a country not their own, but that God would deliver them; how Abram raised the first army to rescue his nephew Lot; the birth of Ishmael when Abram was 86, and the trouble that that caused in the family; how Abraham pleaded on behalf of any righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah.

At the age of 99 God said:

Gen 17; 1 - 5. “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” ... “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.

Astonishing! “I have made you a father of many nations.”

And before he was even born God promised to establish his covenant with Isaac.

Gen 17 : 19. “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

Isaac is born, At last God has fulfilled his promise. But we know that that’s not the end of the story.

We have to skip to the ultimate test of obedience:

Gen 22 : 2

“Take your son,

your only son,

Isaac,

whom you love,

and. Sacrifice him,

Can you imagine what is in the heart of God as He speaks these words? He knows that he himself would give up his only son as a sacrifice for the sins of the world

Gen 22: 7. Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Gen 22:8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb.

Can you imagine what is in the heart of Abraham as he prepares to give up his only son as a sacrifice to God?

We know now, but Abraham did not at the time, that Isaac was not sacrificed. What we witness was Abraham’s faith and action working together:

James 2:22. You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

Gen 22:12. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Note that God says: “You have not withheld from me your son”. Not something like : You were ready to..

And so the covenant was confirmed.

Gen 22 : 17,18. I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

God was pointing to the time when His only Son would give His life.

John 3 : 16.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 8 : 32.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all

Abraham, the friend of God. There is no one else in the Bible who merits such a description.

Jesus said: John 15 ; 13.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

And he goes on to say;

John15 :14.

You are my friends if you do what I command.

Abraham believed and laid down his life and the life of Isaac at the call of God. And Jesus Christ laid down his life at the same call.

Our call is to take him as our friend who has laid down his life for ours.

Abraham, the Friend of God, but through his seed, through Jesus, that offer of friendship is there for us. “You are my friends if you do what I command.”

Would that Jesus could say of all of us:

John 15 : 15, “I have called you friends.”

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Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”

So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”

The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.

What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

Abraham Part 2

Some time ago I spoke on the subject Abraham, the Friend of God. My original thought had been to take a fresh look at Joseph, but as you know, I couldn’t do that without going back to his father Jacob and then to his father Isaac and then to his father Abraham. God’s promise to us started with Abraham and it is through Abraham that we are blessed.

all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

It was Abraham’s faith that was key to the unlocking of God’s promise. And God continued to fulfil his promise through his descendants.

In Hebrews we read:

By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

and of his descendants the writer says this:

Heb 11:13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.

Heb 11:16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

And so we continue to read:

Heb 11:17 By faith Abraham,

Heb 11:20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.

Heb 11:21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

Heb 11:22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.

In this story of Abraham we rightly concentrate on him and how God tested him and how he came through that test. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

But we cannot go on to the stories of Isaac and of Jacob and of Joseph without first taking a closer look at the stories of Sarah and of Hagar, her Egyptian maidservant.

Now why is it important to do that? Paul the apostle felt the need to refer to the story whe he was writing to the church in Galatia. In this church there were people who were insisting that all the old Jewish Institutions and laws be adhered to such as circumcision, observing strictly the laws concerning the Sabbath and othe feast days. In short they were arguing against the notion that it is by faith alone that we are justified before God. They were presenting a gospel that, according to Paul was no gospel at all. Once you begin to add and insist on certain rites and festivals and rules as being essential you are destroying the truth of the gospel that it is by faith we are saved, not by works and it is the free gift of God. It is not earned or bought.

Paul argued that it is by grace through faith alone that we are justified and that it is by faith alone that we are to live out our new life in the freedom of the spirit.

Paul says that if you belong to Christ then you are Abraham‘s seed and heirs according to the promise.

Now this is the key word - the promise and in the latter part of chapter 4 Paul uses the story of Sarah and Hagar to illustrate the point.

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman.

His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.

These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar.

Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.

But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.

For it is written: “Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.

At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.

But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”

Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

When we study the story of Abraham, we talk of God’s promise to him. we concentrate on him as he was to be the Father of a nation, but we often forget about Sarah. We talk about Abraham’s faith but we ponder less on Sarah’s. We must not pass over the story of Sarah and Hagar too quickly for God may have a lot to teach us.

So let us go there

One of the first things we find out about Sarah or Sarai as she was then is that she could not have children.

Gen 11 v 30 Sarai was barren; she had no children

This was when Abraham was 75 and Sarai 65 before God called Abraham and they left Haran to travel to Canaan.

You can be sure that Sarah would have been fully aware of God’s promise to Abraham and believed that God would give her a son. Or did she? Her faith was tested as much as Abraham’s as she waited and waited year after year.

As time went on and as the hope of any possibility of her ever becoming a mother died out of Sarah’s heart she became absolutely desperate. We feel for Sarah, now aged about 75 as she believes that she has become an embarrassment to her husband in that society where to have children was to be rich and to have none was to be poor.

And even Abraham was impatient

Gen 15:2 But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”

Gen 15:3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

Gen 15:4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.”

And so we come to that occasion where, on the face of it, Sarah appears to display self-sacrificing humility, but in reality turns out to be wounded pride. Outwardly the act is a heroic one, but inwardly her motives are nowhere near as pure.

Rather than continue to trust God and his promises, she now blames God.

Gen 16:2 “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

We cannot know what was going through the mind of Abraham when he agreed. God had told him that a son coming from his own body would be his heir, but God had not yet said that Sarah would be that mother.

What follows is a wretched episode where tensions are running high in the household. The servant girl is pregnant and now despises her mistress. Sarah blames Abraham for her suffering and even brings God into the argument

May the LORD judge between you and me.”

Abraham walks away from the situation

“Do with her whatever you think best.”

And Sarah mistreats Hagar so harshly that she, in distress and pregnant runs away.

If Sarah’s humility and desire for Abraham to have a son by her maidservant been genuine, she would have opened her heart to all of Hagar’s contempt and borne it without complaining.

No Sarah. You can’t have it your way and pretend it was God’s will. God has made a promise and he will keep it in his own time and in his own way. And we too must learn not to confuse our will with God’s will. We must learn to trust.

No Abraham. You too must learn to discern God’s will. You cannot just walk away and pretend it never happened. Your actions are your responsibility and will certainly have their consequences.

And what of Hagar the maidservant. She had not come from Ur or Haran, where Abraham’s clan had come from. She was Egyptian, who probably travelled with them to Canaan after their stay in Egypt. Was she right to despise her mistress? Of course not.

In Proverbs ch 30 we read this:

“Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up:

Pro 30:22 a servant who becomes king, a fool who is full of food,

Pro 30:23 an unloved woman who is married, and a maidservant who displaces her mistress

And now she has run away and finds herself in the desert. She has no one to turn to. She has no relatives in Haran. She is far from her Egyptian home and family and she is alone. As she rests by a well she has time to reflect. She is Abraham’s second wife and her status has changed, yet she, too has done wrong. She has despised her mistress and as a result has caused Sarah, however unjustly, to mistreat her

But God is merciful and is watching over her. The angel found her and Hagar has this wonderful experience of an encounter with God.

She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

First the angel reminds her that she, Hagar, is Sarah’s servant and that she should go back and submit to her. No mention of her being Abraham’s wife

Romans 12:3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

But gently the angel reminds Hagar that the Lord has heard of her misery and tells her that the son to be born to her is to be called Ishmael and that her descendants will be too numerous to count.

You may ask why God had allowed her to run off to the desert at all knowing that it was a dangerous place to be for anyone, let alone a pregnant woman.

Deu 8:15 speaks of “the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions.”

Our wisdom suggests that God should have dealt with her at home with Abraham and Sarah. But God isn’t a God who patches things up. he is a God who restores.

There’s a verse in Hosea which says:

Hos 2:14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.

and in the Prophet Isaiah God says:

Isa 57:18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him.

It cannot have been easy for Hagar to go back, but return she did, lifted up and encouraged by the angel of God. Whatever was to happen in that household, Hagar had met with God and knew that he would be with her the rest of her days. The woman at the well, which she named Beer-Lahai-roi, “I have seen the one who sees me.”

Doesn’t that remind you of that other woman at the well, the Samaritan woman whom Jesus met? What a life changing experience she had.

“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

If you doubt that God cares for you, just consider those two women. Hagar in distress and helpless; the Samaritan woman alone at the well, shunned by her neighbours because of the mistakes in her life. Yet God met with them to speak gently with them and to restore them and give them new hope.

We do know that Hagar responded to the angel’s advice and went back. Ishmael was born when abraham was 86 years old.

The bible tells us little about the household as Ishmael was growing up, but we are given a clue to his character when the angel had said to Hagar:

He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.

We pick up the story again 13 long years later when abraham is 99. This time God specifically refers to Sarah.

Abraham still has his doubts:

And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

But God is true to his promise:

Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

What joy and delight. They can hardly believe it. And we have that wonderful assurance:

Gen 18:14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.”

And Sarah does have that son she has been longing for. Isaac, the name meaning laughter. But it isn’t long before all the hurt and envy that she has been nursing all these years as she watched Ishmael grow up comes exploding to the surface.It is sparked by Ishmael mocking her and she cries out:

“Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

More tragedy for Hagar as she is cast out and you can read the story in Genesis 21.

But God continues to watch over Hagar and encourages her;

Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.

Little is told of Hagar and Sarah after that. We do know that Sarah lived to the age of 127 and that Abraham mourned her and bought a burial plot for her. we are not told anything of Hagar’s last years except that she got a wife for Ismael from her own people, the Egyptians.

Abraham’s was a household in which essentially there were two strands living side by side. There was first the family that was born in the natural way - Abraham and Hagar and their son Ismael

And secondly the family that was born as the result of God’s promise - Abraham and Sarah and Isaac

This was the theme that Paul uses in his letter to the Church in Galatia

In referring to the stories if Hagar and Sarah, while historically true they are also a sort of allegory or symbolic.

1. The two women represent two covenants (24b-26)

a. Hagar represents the covenant from Mount Sinai (the Law), physical Jerusalem, and the bondage shared with her children

b. Sarah represents a new covenant from Jerusalem above (spiritual Jerusalem), which offers freedom to all

Those under the new covenant are like Isaac, children of promise (28)

Those born of the Spirit can expect animosity from those born of the flesh (29)

But the Scripture says that the children of the free woman (Sarah, the Jerusalem above) will be the heir (30)

We are not children of the bondwoman but of the free (31)

In the stories we’ve been looking at, nowhere do we see a physical separation of the two families. On the contrary, we find them living in the same country, but this is said about Ishmael:

Gen 16 : 12 and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.

And of his descendants it says this:

Gen 25 : 18 And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.

As Christians we are heirs to the promise that God has given us, but we live in a world which is hostile to the true gospel message.

That’s why Paul urges us to stand firm. In the very next chapter in Galatians he writes:

Gal_5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

And in Ephesians

Eph_6:14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place.

The stories of Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph will have to wait, but you can read them all for yourselves in God’s word in Genesis.