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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/gordon-armstrong/abrams-call-course-compromise/
I would like to read in Genesis chapter 12. And we've been there already, and when William started to read in Genesis chapter 11 this morning, I thought it was great. It's going to tie in really well.
And then he kept going and I was like, oh, no. But I feel there's a lot of stuff that we can look at. And there's some other thoughts that I was thinking of focusing on. So I know there will be some overlap, but I believe the Lord has laid it on my heart to share also.
Genesis chapter 12 and verse number one. 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 show 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. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee. And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him and Lot went with him.
And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And then down to verse number 10. And there was a famine in the land and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there for the famine was grievous in the land.
And it came to pass when he was come near and to Egypt that he said unto Sarah, his wife, behold, now I know that there are a fair woman to look upon. Therefore, it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see thee that they shall say this is his wife and they will kill me, but they will save the alive.
Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake and my soul shall live because of thee. And then we'll jump to verse number 20. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him and they sent him away and his wife and all that he had.
And Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had and lot with him into the south. And we look to God to help us as we look again at this section. The book of Genesis, as we heard already, is often referred to as the seed plot of Scripture.
And that is really because there is so much foundational truth that is presented to us. And we can see prior to the section that we read, we have four major events, creation, the fall, the flood and the Tower of Babel.
And then we have the four great men that we heard of, Abram, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. And Abraham is held up as a tremendous example in many ways. He is held up in Romans chapter four as an example of faith.
And Paul calls on Abraham to illustrate the truth of justification by faith. And how he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. And in Hebrews chapter 11, we see again, it was by faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for inheritance, obeyed.
And he went out not knowing whether he went. So we see that Abraham was a man who is given to us as an example of being saved by faith. He was a man that lived by faith and he walked by faith. And his actions were an evidence of his faith.
So we see that when Paul brings in Abraham as an example, he's saying that here was a man that was marked by works. He was a man that was marked by these evidences of his faith, but it was not those evidences that saved him.
But those evidences were proof of something that had taken place in his life. And so it is today. We believe God. We trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is nothing of works that can save us. But our life, our fruit, is an evidence of the transformation that took place upon believing.
So Abraham was a man marked by faith, but he was also a man associated with friendship. Several times he's referred to as the friend of God. My friend, thy friend. He was a man that was a friend of God.
And I know that we can't always take the Old Testament scenarios and just transplant them into our current day. But we can learn the type of individuals that God associates with. The type of people that God is prepared to call friend.
There's three major moments of faith in Abraham's life. He was a man that was marked by faith, but I would say there was three particular occasions where we see really his faith so clearly displayed. Genesis chapter 12 and the call of God, he didn't know where God was leading.
Genesis chapter 17, the promise of a son. He didn't know how God could provide. And in Genesis chapter 2 concerning the sacrifice of Isaac, he didn't know why God required that. And as we've been hearing this afternoon of our song and our need to have a joyful Christian life, I'm sure there's some of us that are facing discouragement and disappointment, and we feel that the tests in our Christian life fall into one of those three categories.
We don't know where our life is going. We don't know how this will play out. Or we don't know why God is allowing this to happen. And Abraham was marked by faith. The section in chapter number 12, we see from verses 1 to 3, the call that Abraham obeyed.
From verses 4 to 9, we see the course that he took, and then from 10 to 20, we see the compromise that he experienced. First of all, the call he obeyed. There's three aspects I want to think of that call under.
I want to think of the revelation, the response that required faith and the results that were provided by God. It was God who called him. Stephen in Acts chapter 7 tells us it was the God of glory. And this is the first public call that we read of.
And we are learning that although God is a God of the whole world, he's a God of the individual, and he's going to call Abraham and he's going to call him to separation. We know from Acts that it was the God of glory that appeared to him.
But if we had just read this example and this story, we would never have read of the appearance of the God of glory. What does Abraham move on? It's not the appearance. It's the word of God. And so it is for us today.
The Lord spoke, the Lord spoke, and Abraham acted in accordance with the word of God. So what does someone that is marked by faith live like in obedience to the word of God? I'm sure as we've been challenged in the ministry today, we can think of areas in our life where we don't measure up to the standard of the word of God.
And we know that God expects us to be saved and to be baptized and to be joined to a local company of believers. When Paul was saved, it said he was with them and they're going in and they're coming out.
He was part and parcel of the experience of that local assembly. So are we obeying the word of God? You know, quite often in conversations that I have with different people, the will of God is a prominent feature.
And quite often it's a question of how do I know what God wants me to do or where he wants me to be? Or more often than not, who he wants me to marry. But the question is often to do with those things that are hard to maybe discern or know.
But what about the stuff that is just plain and clear? How are we getting on with the clear things of scripture? Are we prepared to obey the word of God? Are we prepared to respond in faith? Because God appeared to Abraham and the word of God came to Abraham.
And we see in Hebrews 11 that God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. That is a humbling thing that the God of the universe is not ashamed to be our God. But when we think of the fact that God is not ashamed to be called our God, are the times when we are ashamed of him.
Because when you think of the holiness and the righteousness and the perfection of a God who is holy, holy, holy, that he would associate with sinful, wretched, failing people like me. And then the opportunity comes to share the gospel and I let it pass by.
Or there's a table next to us pretty close in the restaurant and... Are we ashamed of being associated with God? Because we see Abraham was called and his call involved two things. It involved separation and it involved sacrifice.
As we've heard already, it's possible this is the original call and we see that Ur was a place of idol worship and God wanted Abraham to be apart from it. There had been an initial moving, but it wasn't obedience.
It wasn't a separation. And it was after that Terah, his father, had died that he could move on. And God, he moves deeper and closer in the test and in the sacrifice. He says, I want you to leave your country.
I want you to leave your kindred. I want you to leave your father's house. And it seems that in those three aspects of his call, he's becoming closer to the thing that is holding him back. What is it in your life or in my life that we know that God is calling us to separate from?
Because God, we can read in 2 Corinthians, what agreement is the temple of God with idols? And then further down, come out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you.
God is calling Abraham out and it is a picture of what he desires for every saint of God. And it is separation. You know, separation is not isolation. The Lord Jesus was the one that was completely perfect, holy, sinless.
And yet he associated with sinners for their blessing. Are we morally separate from the world? Are we separate from the thinking and the worldview and the value system that is all around us in this world?
You know, we don't have to go out our way to be weirdos. You know, it's not that we have to make things as difficult as possible and try and be as awkward and difficult as we can be. We see that Abraham, he dealt with people and he interacted and he was involved in trade and there was relationships that were made.
But his associations, his friendships, the call of God involved him being separate from idolatry. And the world is full of idolatry and so often our hearts are full of idolatry. But God calls us to be separate from them.
Abraham was not going to be shortchanged by obeying God. Abraham was not going to come out losing as a result of trusting and responding in faith to the word of God. And what God is going to show him and we see the results of the obedience that would follow and over again we read, I will, I will, I will, I will.
Because these promises that were going to be given to Abraham, they were promises based upon the character of God. This is one of the many Bible sevens, the seven promises, the seven things that are going to take place.
One, I will make of thee a great nation. Two, I will bless thee. Three, make thy name great. Four, thou shalt be a blessing. Five, I will bless them that bless thee. Six, curse them that curse thee. And seven, in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
God was going to fulfill his promise based upon his character. But Abraham was required to respond in faith. Chapter 11, it was filled by let us, let us, let us. It was all of man and trying to build.
And God is going to show you here is a man that perhaps naturally and perhaps to the eye of the world, he's insignificant, he's unknown. And I am going to do it through him. And he's going to show the world and he's going to show the nations and he's going to show history, history.
That's all of God. And the thing that is let us and the efforts of man is going to come to nothing. So Abraham responds to the will of God, and he didn't know where he was going. It was a land that I will show thee.
And God was not revealing every single step in the moment. The journey required faith. Darby and the revised version says unto the land that I will show thee. Which shows us that ever in the mind of God.
It was a predetermined place, a predetermined location ever in the heart and mind of God. But God's desire was that all the nations would be blessed. God was choosing one man through whom others would come in to blessing.
And God always had the Gentiles in mind. So we see the call of God. The word of God. Came to Abraham, but from verses six to nine, we see the course that he took, the obedience is verse number four. So Abraham went forth as the Lord had spoken to him.
He heard the word and he obeyed. You know, Abraham could have made excuses, but he went out. What if caused them to move in faith was a response to the word of God and faith and the character of God. Last week, a couple of us were away for a few days.
And one of the boys had been listening to the conversion and call of Sidney Maxwell. I want to try and listen to it before I told the story because I might butcher it. But the gist of it is that he was being called to Canada and he went out and he was really, it seemed like it was not going to open up.
It seemed like he was going to be denied and he was not going to be allowed to emigrate. But he was reading in a very obscure verse in Ezekiel and he felt the Lord spoke to him and he went out and he decided that he was going to sell all of his furniture and that was it.
And his wife said to him, are you going to go on that? Are you going to go on that? And he did. And he sold all his furniture. And a few weeks later, the paperwork came through and he was able to go. But what are we prepared to go on when it comes to the word of God?
You know, perhaps if we were in Abraham's shoes, we would be like, well, I want the exact roadmap. I want the exact soil conditions. I want the exact path. I want every single detail laid out, neatly packaged.
And before I take a step away from where I am, I need to know exactly what the plan is, exactly where I'm going, exactly what it's going to look like. And if I don't have that, it's not too bad here. But he moved.
And you know, throughout the scriptures, we see people that are in the will of God as they're moving. It's not a case of sitting, waiting on the will of God as much as God is guiding as we move and take steps before him.
You know, maybe there was people around that looked at Abraham's life and thought, how irresponsible. He's going to do that. He's going to move there and he's going to make those decisions. You know, we sometimes hear, I'm not into sports.
You don't need to look at me too long to figure that out. But your armchair quarterback syndrome, you know, the people that sit in their lazy boy and could figure out the whole thing of exactly every pass, every move, every kick, exactly how it should have been.
And if only they had been playing, the game would have been a lot better and their team would have won. You know, that's what it can be like for us in the Christian life. We can sit in our lazy boy and we can tell everyone else of what they should be doing and what that assembly should be doing and where those meetings should be taking place.
But we are not responding to the word of God that's coming to us. Abraham heard and obeyed. Psalm 119, verse 105 said, Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And that idea of the lamp, it's not that we're getting the whole thing.
It's as we're moving, he's revealing step by step. The steps that we should take. I think it might have been Corrie ten Boom that said, never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. We see Abraham obeyed and we see that Abraham had others that went with them and we see that he offered a sacrifice.
The Lord spoke to him and he told them of how his descendants would inherit the land and he built an altar. And we can think of Abraham and the altars as we were hearing that were associated with his life and the wells associated with Isaac and the four pillars associated with Jacob.
And the four changes of Raymond associated with Joseph. And we can almost see right at the start, worship. And then in the wells we can see water and that's often a picture of the word of God. And then we can see in Joseph the character and the changes of Raymond.
We can see the witness to others around. So are we people that are marked by the altar? Are we people that are marked by worship? Because in Haran we don't read of an altar, in Egypt we don't read of an altar.
But Abraham, when God spoke to him, he built an altar. And secondly, he pitched a tent. You know what this tells us about Abraham right at the outset of his life? That he was marked by worship and he was marked by pilgrim character.
And you know what? As I've listened to the ministry today and felt the challenge of the word of God, what comes to me often is that idea of the pilgrim character. Because our lives are so focused on here.
So focused on this world. And 1 Peter chapter 2, Peter says, Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. So he was a man of the altar.
He was a man that was marked by pilgrim character. And we see that in the tent. But you know, those two things were together. He wasn't one thing in the tent and another thing when he went to the altar.
You know, are we people? We've heard today of how it can be hard to pray. But you know, is it possible there's men here and I speak to myself, and the first time that you've prayed that day is publicly.
The first time you've opened the word of God is in the gospel hall or a building like this. And we are able to be at a place as it were at the altar, but in our tent. We're completely different. We know what it is to be marked by failure.
We know what it is to be imperfect. But let us strive. To be like Abraham, marked by worship and marked by pilgrim character. And as it were, set our tent towards Bethel, the house of God. Because we see the order.
He was moving westward towards Bethel. Bethel, the house of God, we'll see in Genesis chapter 28, a further revelation of that. But you can see Abraham. And to the north is Ur and to the south is Egypt and Ai to the east, a heap of ruins.
And all around them is issues. Whether it's idolatry or worldliness or ruin, and he has to pitch his tent towards the house of God. Where is my tent facing? What is the direction of my life? Because we see that that was how he began.
But from verses 10 to chapter or to the end of the chapter, we see the compromise. It starts with the direction that he took, the deceit that he brings in and the disaster that follows. In verse 5, when he's responding to the word of God, it is that he went forth.
But when we begin this section, it's he went down. And often when we read of going down physically, it's a spiritual going down. He was a man of faith. But he was a man of failure. You know, we ought to be aware of our failure.
But we ought to rejoice that God records the tenor of a man's life. Not the incidence of failure, because we don't read of any of these in Hebrews. We see that God called him friend and God said, here is an example of a man of faith.
And what drove him to this decision to go down was famine. You know, we can look at the whole picture and we can look at the Bible and we can say, wow, I can't believe he would do that. But, you know, when we've got gas in our car and a roof over our head and food on our table, it's easy to think that way.
But here was a man and there's famine in the land and he's trying to think of a solution. And maybe the pragmatism is what overtook him. And is there famine in your life, famine in my life? Perhaps you can think of conditions that are arid and barren in your own soul or in your assembly.
And there's a lack of food, a lack of spiritual food. And perhaps you can look back to times and you can see there's famine in the land. Perhaps the last 30 minutes would be an example of that. But you can look back to times where there's no food, there's nothing.
And then the steps of planning and scheming, of how to get around it and how to take it as it were out of the hands of God and into our own hands. They begin to overcome us. And those thoughts are the thoughts that begin to mark us.
And God promised to be with him and he moved in faith. But there's a hurdle and he falls down. He was able to trust God with the far off. But he wasn't able to trust God with the here and now. Is that not like us?
We're able to trust Christ for eternity and we trust our souls to God for eternity. But when it comes to day by day living. We're lacking in faith. Are we marked by faith? Are we marked by dependence upon God?
Abraham, when faced with the test, he responds by thinking of the world. Egypt speaks of the world in scripture. We think of how God wanted them to be out of Egypt and there was to be that three day separation.
And we can read of that in the book of Exodus. But he takes a step. And he goes in to the world and not long after he crosses into Egypt and he is aware is in the world very quickly. The world is in him.
And he begins to think and to plot and to scheme and come up with solutions that are just like those of the world. And he knows that Sarah is attractive and vulnerable and he's concerned for the safety of Sarah in Egypt.
But he had led her there. He had brought her there in the first place and now he's concerned of how he can try and, you know, sweep up something of the situation that is before him. And you know, there when Sarah is in danger, he's collecting material goods.
And, you know, that's a challenge, certainly to my heart. Are we more focused on the things of this world, the material things and perhaps spiritually? Our wives, our children, our assemblies. The souls that are not saved that we know.
We're putting them in danger. And we're just focused on collecting goods. You know, it's a serious subject and I tell this story lately, but it kind of illustrates in a small way the point we can do this all the time.
Try and take things and spin things and make things sound better than they are. A few months ago, we have a very small house and, you know, we're chatting about how we can try and be more hospitable. And I said to my wife, I said, you know, I think a boat would be a good idea.
You know, if we're kind of struggling for space, the weather is usually good. You could easily take 10, 12 people out and we could spend a Saturday being hospitable on a pontoon boat. She didn't really buy it, but the point is that we can we can spin things.
That's maybe a silly example, but we can try and make something sound better than it might be. And try and, not that there's anything wrong with that in itself, but use those things and the thinking and the scheming and the, you know, getting an angle can be the things that mark us so often.
And then there was that disaster that came upon Pharaoh because God intervened. God was not going to allow a pagan king to compromise his plan and his seed. And we don't know exactly how or what it came about, but, you know, it must have been a humbling experience for Abraham to be convicted by a pagan king.
You know, I am sure that some of us can think of occasions where people have said things along the line of, I thought you were a Christian. Or you've left somewhere and you've thought, I didn't handle that.
In a very Christlike way and were rebuked. Because we went in and acted just like Egypt, like the people of the world, because we had become part of it and it has become a part of us. So Abraham, he compromised.
But, you know, the great thing about the grace of God is verse number one of chapter 13. And maybe we'll look at this on another occasion, God willing. And Abraham went up. He had went down. But he was able to get up.
And I encourage all of us today, if you are in sin or in the world and you feel the failure in your own life and in your own soul, there's a way out and there's a way up. And just like Abraham went down, God was gracious and Abraham come back up.
But the challenge to my heart and to yours is this, as you think of your Christian life, you think of Abraham, the call that he obeyed, the course that he took, the compromise that he experienced, to think of those two journeys and how he went, I want to leave you with this question.
If this was your experience, if this was your journey, would they say that Gordon is going up? Or he's going down? Because none of us are staying put. We're either becoming closer to the world or closer to the place of the altar and the house of God.
Are you going up or are you going down? May the Lord bless his word.