Genesis 12 Called, Blessed, Tested

The Generations of Terah and the Family Line from Ur

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for another opportunity to open your word and now how we're continuing in the book of Genesis. Picking up from Sunday mornings, Lord, we pray blessing on this Bible study, Lord, that your word would be open to us, that you would open our hearts to learn and to truly grow by devoting this time to your word, in Jesus' name, amen.

When we left the Sunday morning preaching, we had seen, starting at Genesis 1 through Genesis 11, I'm not gonna do each verse, but we did have the flood, and coming out of the flood, we had Noah. And so we're all related to Noah and his offspring.

And the disobedience of the people, not dispersing, wanting to be made a name for themselves. This is actually an important concept here as part of today's study, wanting to make a name for themselves.

And God saw that and was motivated into getting the people to disperse, and he did that by confounding their languages. And so we've seen the various families. Jeff did leave us the end of chapter 11 to discuss that.

That will actually introduce us into this one. We're talking about the generations of terror. And so we're going to start out with that. What you have in front of you are my notes, two-sided, and you have two sides of a map.

And so we will be able to refer to those as we go on. Sandy, I'm gonna ask if you would take, in Genesis 11, to give us 27 to 32. This closes off Jeff's Sunday morning series.

Now, these are the records of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father, Terah, in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram's wife was Sarah, Sarah. And the name of Nahor's wife was Malchah. The daughter of Haran, the father of Malchah and Ishchah. Sarah was barren.

She had no child. Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Abram. His grandson and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan.

And they went as far as Haran and settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

Now, what's important for us to take this little section as we introduce, we're talking now the Abram of Ur. And we probably are more familiar with Abram, Ur of the Chaldeans, and that's who he was. But what's gonna end up happening in here, we see a little bit of the lineage completion coming from Terah.

We see some of the travels of the family. Now, first of all, of importance and of significance, we have Terah, who would be the patriarch of this group. And we're gonna see Abram, we're gonna see Sarai, and we're gonna see Haran, and we're gonna see Lot.

Now, obviously, Lot, Abram, and Sarai, they're gonna have a big part of the story as the book of Genesis continues on. So you can do the genealogy tree with that. What's interesting is to know that the family, the patriarch Terah, they lived in Ur of the Chaldeans.

What do we know about that family group? Barb, you're gonna get Joshua 24, verses one to three. What do we know about Terah and his family? Thank you. Again, this is gonna be a significant part. So that family, actually, the family unit, the aunts and uncles and whoever else, they were in Ur.

Now, if you take a look at your map, the one that shows Abram's trials, Ur is way down to the east of what's on this chart, Arabia. And for some reason, Terah decides it's appropriate for him to take Abram and Lot and Haran and Sarai, Abram's wife, and to leave Ur and to go towards Canaan.

That was something that I hadn't noticed before, was there was a desire that Terah had to actually leave Ur and go to Canaan. But they only got so far as Haran, which is at the top of that journey in Padamaram.

I love that name, Padamaram. I could do a song off of that one. All right, but let me just.

I'll beatbox for you.

Yay!

I've heard you do that.

Happy to.

Barbara, do you have that message, please?

Joshua 24.

Two and three.

Two and three.

One, two.

Joshua sent in all the tribes of Israel at Shackle. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges, officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. Joshua said to all the people, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.

Long ago, your forefathers, including Terah, the father of Israel, lived. I took your father, Abraham, from the land beyond the river and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau.

I assigned the hill country.

Okay, that's probably enough there.

Okay.

Do you realize that the first motion to leave Ur, that was not even given to Abraham. It was given to Terah. Boy, is your God sovereign God, and is he able to work things out in ways that we wouldn't understand?

Because there is no evidence in scripture that Terah was ever anything but an idol worshiper. Now, we do see Abram, and we see change in Abram, but anyway, this family unit is now going to move from Canaan, and they're gonna stop to Haran.

I, by the way, if you didn't notice, one of the individuals listed in the genealogy is Haran, and the land that they stopped is Haran. It's actually, in the original Hebrew, the jots and tittles don't show up.

They're the little marks above or below. Those are the jots and tittles, but all that they really had were consonants. They didn't have vowels. It's exactly the same in the original Hebrew, the Haran and Haran.

There's a tittle that's a jot difference, and so I think on one case we're talking about a person's name, and the other case we're talking about a city. Don't take any rationale that says that the descendant of Abraham is Haran, and so Haran and Padam Haram is named after Haran.

It's not.

That's purely coincidental. That being said, the family is now in Haram, and they are going to be there for some time, which takes us now into chapter 12, verses one to three. Carol, if you would read that, please.

Then the Lord told Abram.

Stop. I do this.

I love to do this.

I know.

This is my best Geno Jennings interpretation. Abram, at this point in time, is not at all in relationship with Yahweh. It clearly said, in what Barbara read, that they worshiped other gods. So at this point in time, although God has worked perhaps in Abram's father's, to Terah's heart, to start moving in this direction, there's no indication that there is a reality, a reasoned consideration of Yahweh.

There's a lot of generations between Babel and Terah. There's a lot of generations between Noah and Babel and Terah. There's no reason to believe that Terah and his family had any acknowledgement or any worship or any relationship with Yahweh.

So what happens? Yahweh is the one who speaks to Abram. This is initiated by God. This is such an important point. What's happening here in chapter 12, and as we go beyond now, is God's establishment of a relationship with his chosen people, and how they have succeeded or failed, how they have grown, and eventually, how they end up down in Egypt.

But it is God calling his chosen people. That is such an important point. We get into the New Testament, and how Jesus said, thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. That was the profession, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

Jesus builds his church. He initiates it. It's all by his grace he initiates it. But right at the beginning of this next, you call it massive pericope from 12 to 15, it really starts with God initiating.

It says that now the Lord, Yahweh, says to Abram. I'm sorry, continue reading. One of the things I want you to notice, and a good technique when you're reading a passage of scripture, is that there is a repetitive phrase.

There's significance to the fact that there is a repetitive phrase. How many times did Carol read, I will, I will, I will? Follow the pronouns. This is Yahweh saying, I will. So the things he's going to do for Abram is he's going to make him a great nation.

And then he is going to bless Abram. Here is Abram, who is part of Tara's family, living, they've left her, they're up in Herod, in the land of Badaam Haram. And they are growing and they are, and then eventually his father does die.

And God says, I am going to make you a great nation. I will bless you, make your name great. These are promises, these are the I wills. And then this becomes so much more powerful because he says, you will be a blessing to others.

This individual, Abram, at this point in time, has been called out by God to have a unique ministry to the rest of the world. He said, I am going to make you a blessing to others. And then we kind of get into some stuff that I have a real, I don't have an answer to this next phrase.

Maybe you do. I will bless those who bless you and those who curse you will be cursed. Other than the fact that God has chosen in his sovereign design to make this family his chosen people. And that he's very protective of these, are his chosen people.

And to the extent that he is going to protect his chosen people. So those who bless him, he is going to have blessings on them. Those who curse them, he will. He will eventually, in his time, cast judgment down on them.

Do you have anything deeper than that?

Well, I think when the United States of America blesses Israel, there's a blessing attached with that. And if any country curses Israel, so Abraham here is the head of the nation.

So you say that within the United States right now, there are those who will be cursed by God.

Yeah, I think if the nation as such turns against Israel, that will go very badly for this nation.

That's an aside. That's not the main theme of this passage, although it's an important theme. What gets very important here is in the Hebrew and then eventually in the Greek, there is a turn of a phrase.

So I'm gonna ask you to read verse three again, if you would please.

I will bless those who bless you.

And curse those who curse you.

Okay, now that phrase. All of the families of the earth shall be blessed through you. Does anybody have a version of the scripture that says something significantly different than that? The King James, the, hi.

The King James, the ESV, the NASV, the NIV, they will all say something very similar to that. And then that in you, all the families of earth shall be blessed. Here's the rub. This turn of a phrase can actually become a kernel for false religion.

What do I mean by that? The RSV, anybody got a smartphone that you can read the RSV of Genesis? If you don't, I'll quote what it says. And the RSV, which by the way, is the version of the Bible that is used by the Roman Catholic Church.

It says, and in you, all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves. Do you see the difference? In you, all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves. Now, this is the difference between religion and Christianity.

Slay the lamb.

What we have in religion.

What do they need?

I'm gonna get to that, I'm gonna get to that. That's the question. That is the question. What we have in religion is rules, regulations, traditions, approaches, so that I as a person can find the way that I can reach to where God will accept me.

Okay, that's religion. In you, all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves. Christianity emphasizes the fact that you were dead in your trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2, but God, Ephesians 2 .4, God reaching down and saying, in you, all the nations of the world shall be blessed.

It's God who does it. Now, here's the road. If you were to take a look at the Hebrew, I have that listed down there, and Nebah, Nebah is how it's pronounced. If you look at the V in the middle on the left side, that's Hebrew script.

By the way, you read Hebrew script from the right to the left, as opposed to from the left to the right. In the middle of this is Bach, and that means bless in the Hebrew. In front of it is this little tiny, almost like a, it's bent.

That is the prefix, and the prefix tells you how you use this verb. What does it mean to parse a verb, Rick? To give the, correct, to give the tense, and first person, second person, singular, plural.

That's parsing a verb. That little thing that is bent like this, the Hebrew letter is none, and if you put that in front of the verb, it turns it into what's called the nifl, and if you look at the rules of parsing a verb in Hebrew, the nifl can be either passive or reflexive.

It can be either, which is to say that if I just look at that word, in you all the nations will be blessed, that's passive. In you all the nations of the world will bless themselves, that's reflexive, so if you just take the Hebrew, it can be either one, and so the Roman Catholic Church, wanting the religion, chose the reflexive.

In you all the nations of the world will bless themselves, and that's what the Catholic Church wants. They have the rules, do this, do this, don't do that, don't do that, go to confession, put money in the, they want you to bless yourselves by doing what needs to be done so that God will accept you.

Christianity says no, no, no. In you all the nations of the world will be blessed. Now here's the rub, it's used three times in the book of Genesis, Genesis 12 .3, Genesis 18 .18, and Genesis 26 .4. The same word is there, nifl is there in each of the cases, and in the RSV, in each case it says, in you all the nations will bless themselves.

Every time, it says that. But the Christian Bibles will all say, in you all the nations of the world will be blessed, pass it. Here's where it gets, you cannot avoid this. Candy, I'm gonna ask you to get Galatians 3 .8.

The Greek is a little more specific than the Hebrew when you parse a verb. It gets more understandable without any chance for misinterpretation. And Paul is going to quote the Old Testament where the word nifl is there.

Which one is it, which one is it? And the word in there, this is phonetically written down, enulogaio. Phonetically, that's how you would pronounce the Greek word. Do you have 3 .8?

Yes.

In you all the nations be blessed.

Guess what? That says that in the RSV. So, the RSV, which chooses to make religion the path to God, every time in the Old Testament when Nebach shows up, because of that little thing in the beginning, the little nun at the beginning where it parsed in the knife, they will say, you will be blessing yourself through them.

That's what they're gonna say every time. They can't get away from it when they get in the Greek. Because the enulogaio, it can only be, it can only be passage.

That's good.

We know, we know for a fact, because scripture on scripture cannot contradict itself, that the true message of this covenant promise that God gives to Abraham is that God, through Abraham, blesses the nations.

He reaches down, he initiates. There is no emphasis, there is no position, there's no possibility that man can reach up and be blessed because of the good works that they do. That's Genesis one to three.

Genesis 22, 18.

18, 18.

No, but Genesis 22, 18. Through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed.

And that is, in which version are you reading? Probably either NASV, ESV, NIV, one of those. You are not reading the RSV. It's in the RSV that it changes. Because they choose to take the knifle and make it reflexive.

Let's move on now. Here we have now Abram who has, he and his family have left Ur of the Chaldees, they're in Aaron, and God gives this call and he tells him, I'm gonna make you a great nation, but here's what I want.

I want you to leave your family, I want you to leave the land, and I'm gonna take you to a land that I will show you the call and the promise given to Abram. Who's next? I guess, Judy, you are. If you would give me Genesis 12, four through nine, please.

Abram's Obedience, Altars, and the Land Promise

So Abraham went and the Lord had told him.

By the way, I can't help myself. I love it. Who is this that just spoke to me? I don't know this God. I've never worshiped this God. And I love the immediate obedience, the power of God speaking to this man Abram, convincing him that this is the way it must be.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Shall I continue?

Yes.

And Lot went with him. Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.

Okay, let's stop there for a second. So let's set the scene right now. We're up in Haran on the top of the map, and God has spoken to Abram, and he has obeyed, and they're gonna go down. Now, Abram, by the way, is 75 years old.

How old is Sarah? Does anybody know? 65. Thank you, 65 years old. There are other texts that give us this 10-year offset behind him. But Sarah, at this point in time, she's 65 years old. And I love the obedience of Sarah and Lot and everything else.

By the way, it's not recorded that God gave the same message to Sarai. It's not recorded that God gave the same message to Lot. But the message given to Abram and that he communicates, there is an acceptance of this.

And so it says that Abram went, and with him Lot, he was 70, and he took Sarai and Lot, his brother's son, everything that they had, all that they had acquired, and so they go into the land of Shechem.

So you can go to the back of the map now. And if you look at the back of the map, at the top of it is Damascus. If you were to look at the front of the map, you can see that there's a long way to go from Herom to Damascus.

And eventually, now, they go from Damascus, and they continue into the land. They've been journeying quite a while. They get into the land, and the first place recorded here is in the land of Shechem, which is halfway between the Salt Sea, the Dead Sea, and the Sea of Canasteroth and the Sea of Galilee.

So they're in this area, and they go to the land of Shechem, to the Oak of Morah, and at that time, the land was clean, and there was nobody in their way. Come on, guys, you gotta say, that's not what it says.

Canaanites are in the land. What has God just told him he was going to do for them? He was going to give them a land. Let's hold on to this truth, especially how relevant it is today. So not only was there a promise of possession, but there was going to be a promise of the extent of the land.

This also does become important today, and at that time, the Canaanites were in the land. Continue on at verse seven, please.

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your descendants, I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.

Okay, Israel does have a legitimate claim to the land of Israel. There is no, you cannot question that unless you question the existence of God. You cannot question the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to this land unless you say that there is no God and God cannot make a claim because he doesn't exist.

How often did you bring that concept up in your teaching of the first 11 chapters? Yahweh is Yahweh. Abram was an idol worshiper until Yahweh, in time, according to his providence, stepped down and spoke to Abram.

He says, go from your country, I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna make you a great, I'm going to give you, I will, I will, I will, and this is God. This was not a land grab by a family who decided to go to a land and throw everybody else out.

This was God-ordained and God-given. He appeared to your offspring, I will give this land. And so Abram, at this point in time, how many children does Abram have at this time? None, in fact, it says that Sarai was barren and Abram is going, what offspring, Lord?

Okay, this is a God promise, this is a God blessing of things to come. Start from verse eight. Okay, so stop right there. More important, so if you look at the map with the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, et cetera, you see Shechem slightly north of the Jabbok River, so he's gonna be moving down somewhere around 25 miles, hill country, not an easy journey, but they move down between Bethel and Ai.

And note something that he has done twice now, he builds an altar to the Lord. What I see here is Abram has been imbued has been motivated by this Yahweh, who's not a God that he's ever worshiped before, to recognize this is, I no longer need to worship idols.

And so what he does at the time is he builds altars and then it says at the end of verse eight, and call on the name. God is preparing a people for himself and he's showing them the land and he's told them that all of this land, I'm gonna give it to you and for your offspring, that includes today.

And Abram's response to what God is doing for him is to build an altar. That was an act of worship and then to call on the name of the Lord. Give me the last verse nine, please.

And Abram had journeyed on still going toward the Negev.

The Negev is a region. In Hebrew, the word Negev just means south. And so there's not a city of Negev, it's really the southern region, Negev South. So here's the point there. God is showing Abram the extent of the land that is to be theirs.

So if you look at the map today, 1947 was it or 48 when Israel was?

May 14th, 1948.

1948. They were given land and an amazing miracle. God, you can only explain that because God, but what Israel has today, even if disputed, is not the extent of what God said that Abram and his offsprings would get.

Forget the West Bank. That's Israel's land. Just go into the book of Joshua. That's Israel's land.

From the river to the sea, Israel will always be.

I love that.

Amir Safari says that.

I love that. So basically, Yahweh is going to take Abram now and he's gonna walk him through the land and Abram's gonna respond by building altars and calling on the name of the Lord. Do you see this bond being established between God and his chosen people?

I think it's interesting, too. It's calling upon the name of the Lord. It's not in the form of an idol of any kind. I was in conversations with him. Thank you. I was gonna go there. I wasn't gonna go there.

I was, I was, and now I will. As time progresses, the Jewish people cannot even say the name of the Lord. Too holy for them. No indication of Abram being afraid to call. I go back, I go back to a certain extent to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve walked in the cool of the day with the Lord communing with him without sin in the way and without guilt in the way, without embarrassment in the way, just pure fellowship until that horrible day when they were embarrassed to face the name of the Lord because they knew they had sinned.

Abram has this relationship with Yahweh at this point in time that he can call on the name of the Lord. The Jewish people lose that somewhere. Somewhere they lose that to where they know, I can only say they know because of sin and the name of the Lord is too holy that they can't even call on the name of the Lord.

But that's our Abram at this point in time.

John, you're on fire today. Keep it going, bro.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, now let's, okay, rabbit trails. I love rabbit trails. Anybody in my studies before, you know I love rabbit trails.

Yes.

Yes, Canaanites now are in that land that was given to them prior to, yeah.

There is a phrase.

People in the way.

There's a phrase that's used terribly. Anybody know what that means? Holy war. When we get into the book of Joshua, God has proclaimed judgment against a bunch of items and he tells Joshua and the rest of the Jewish people they need to be eliminated, taken out of the land.

Did you notice that here in Genesis here, Abram isn't told, herald. He is not told to get the ites out. That's just an observation. I observe that's what Abram asked you to do. He's not told. They were left in the land.

Yeah, he's not told to get rid of them. Now, there are a couple of rationales which I'll get to in a second. Second observation, in the book of Joshua, from the river to the sea, what did you say?

Israel will always be.

Israel will always be. If you go into the book of Joshua, there are two and a half tribes that settle east of the river. That tribe of Manassas, and I don't remember what the other two. You remember as they came through, they thought that that land east was really good.

We'll go in and fight the war, but then we're gonna go back. So there are actually two and a half tribes that go out here. That wasn't given to them by God. That's just another. They claimed they were going to be around long.

Yes, they did. They claimed, that's just another observation. Okay, when Abram is coming into the land, he's really a small plan. He doesn't even have any children yet. It's Abram, it's Sarai, it's Lot, and the people that are with him, I read that to be those who are associated with him, perhaps those who served him, their possessions, their cattle or whatever.

The land needed protection from being overrun by wildness. So God at that point in time isn't looking to cleanse the land of the Canaanites. But by the time we get to the book of Joshua, the Jewish people are in the millions and the Iths have gone so far against God that God now proclaims Kerem against those people.

That doesn't happen here in Genesis 12.

Now, yeah.

There were god worshipers back then, too.

We don't know where the Canaanites, because remember, Canaanites, they are descendants. They are descendants of Noah, just like Terah was. We don't know how wicked or evil the Canaanites are. I'm talking about Melchizedek.

There were worshipers.

Yes, there were.

Thank you.

And the thing is, what I find fascinating about this is that this is coming off the separation of the nations.

Yes, it is.

So God, even in Deuteronomy, it was written that in chapter 32, when the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, he separated the sons of men. He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the numbers of the sons of Israel.

For the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the allotment of his inheritance. So I see these, I was looking at religions outside of what we know. And you look at some of the Far East religions and you have to ask yourself, where did they get this knowledge of the gods?

I believe this was legend.

Oh, sure.

From the pre-flood.

Oh, sure.

That's what men took. And that's why Nimrod built this tower and tried to reach the heavens. God separated them because he, like you said here, he's calling the people now to, he's calling them for ministry.

Through them, the nations will be blessed. But Melchizedek existed in the land, which means, you know, even Jethro was a worshiper.

There are definitely examples in scripture of individuals that are not part of the chosen people who are definitely God followers. You are absolutely right. Let's finish this chapter. So right now what we've had is we have had a call that God gave, one, two, and three.

And then we have an example of the blessings that he would have with a response by Abram to worship Yahweh and even call upon his name. And he starts to see the extent and the immensity of the blessing that God is gonna give to him.

Abram's Famine Test, Fear, and Failure in Egypt

Okay, Abraham, I think you're all that. Let's see how you handle this one.

Hmm.

Who's next to read? Please, give me 10 to 20.

Now, there was a famine in the land, so Abraham and Elijah.

Okay, let's just stop right there. Again, you're gonna get used to me doing this. Where did God tell Abram to go? Canaan. Go to the land that I show you, Canaan. We get the first time of stress. There's famine in the land.

What does Abram do? I'm outta here. I'm gonna go find somewhere where there's food. Maybe I'm reading into it, but I don't see Abram, God, what should I do now? Go to Egypt. I don't see that in here. Test number one.

Go ahead.

And he was about to enter Egypt. He said to Sarai.

What's Abram's problem at this point? He married a babe. Sarai is more than 65 years old at this point in time, because they traveled and been in the land for some point in time, but he's afraid of man.

He's afraid of man. Genesis 20, it's worth reading. Bob, if you would get Genesis 20, verses 10 through 11. This is the second time that Abram gets this kind of, he gets this trial twice. He doesn't learn real well.

We get a little bit more into the mindset of Abram in Genesis 20, verses 10 to 11.

And Abimelech asked Abraham, what was your reason for doing this? Abraham replied, I said to myself, there is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.

There is no fear of God in this place. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Is God God or is God not God? Is God everywhere or is he not everywhere? Can God protect you only when you're here, not here? Not only is he afraid, but he's got a, he actually has very little God right now.

I mean, justifies it by saying she's really his sister.

Well, that's gonna be the next test. Give me verse 13, please. Isn't a half a truth enough of a truth? See, what he did is he actually told half a truth, thinking that, well, God's not gonna judge me because it's partly true.

Pretty weak.

Go ahead.

And here's the third test, all right? Abram, you've set yourself up for some pretty bad stuff. First of all, you never asked God, should I go down there? And now you're basically lying, all this other kind of stuff.

And now I'm actually gonna have Pharaoh take your wife. Are you gonna stand up like a man and say no? And he does. He lets Pharaoh take. Continue on, please, 16.

And for her sake.

And here's the fourth test. Are you going to be satisfied with riches instead of honor?

So here's a bunch of donkeys.

That's all I'm worth, a bunch of donkeys.

A bunch of donkeys, yeah.

He took wealth and riches instead of honor. And he basically surrendered to the gifts that he could get instead of standing up for honesty and truth. 17 to 20.

For his house was great. So Pharaoh called him. So that I took her for my wife.

Now then.

That passage starts out with some of the most beautiful words in all of scripture but the Lord. There are things that Abram has failed in his test but the Lord. And so he is not going to abandon, he is going to come, he is gonna come to the rescue.