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-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net
Editor: Elvi Glass

A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

Lesson 9
The Restart (part 2 of 5)
Abraham

By Teresa Seputis

This period of history covers the lives of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. We already covered Noah and now we will look at the life of Abraham.

Abraham and Sarah

Noah and his family were commissioned to be fruitful and multiply and populate the earth. They began to fill that commission. Over time, the earth was populated again. Then God started longing for a special people to be set aside from all of the other people of the earth as His people. He longed for people who will honor and worship Him, ones He could have a personal relationship with.

Terah was Abraham's father. He was a descendent of Shem, Noah's firstborn and oldest son. The bible does not tell us anything about Terah's personal relationship with God. I am guessing that he did not have much (if any) of a relationship with God, because God called Abram out of his father's household to go follow Him. (God did wait until after Terah died before He asked Abram to leave his father's household.)

Abraham must have been very important to God. The history of all that happened before God called Abraham only took 11 chapters of the book of Genesis. But when we get to Abraham, God goes into much more detail and devotes 14 chapters to his life. In other words, God had more to say about Abraham than about everything that happened from creation until the day that God called Abraham to leave his people and follow Him!

Abraham's name was originally Abram, which means "blessed father." That was almost ironic since Abram's only wife (Sarai) was barren. Children were precious and very desired in those days, and Abram probably wanted a son more than anything. It must have been exceptionally frustrating for both Sarai and Abram that they could not have any children.

Abram's story starts in Genesis 12, when Abram was 75 years old. God spoke to him and told him to leave his father's house and go "where I will show you." Along with that, God promised to make him a great nation. Abram already knew his wife was barren, so he did not have a clue how God would do that. But he was obedient. He gathered his wife and his ward (his orphaned nephew Lot) and set out with no idea of where his destination was. He simply followed God.

There was a famine in the land, so Abraham went to Egypt. (Isn't it interesting that many years later, his descendents would also relocate to Egypt to avoid a famine?)

Abram had faith, but he did not have perfect faith. He trusted God enough to leave his household and set out to follow God. But he did not fully trust God to protect him "en route." Abram's wife (called Sarai at that time) was incredibly beautiful. Abram was afraid that the pharaoh would kill him to take his wife into his harem. So Abram told a white lie that Sarai was not his wife. So the pharaoh took Sarai into his harem and paid Abram with all sorts of riches -- cattle, sheep, slaves. But God had every intention of protecting the bloodline of the people He was about to raise up -- so He prevented pharaoh from having any sort of intimate relationship with Sarai. God motivated Pharaoh to return an untouched Sarai to Abram by giving him a serious disease. So Abram kept his newly acquired riches, got his wife back and was "invited" to leave Egypt immediately.

Life went on for Abram. His nephew Lot set out on his own and settled in Sodom. Some raiders came by and carried Lot and his possession off captive. Abram mustered up an army from his trained servants and went to rescue Lot. In the process he also captured a great amount of riches (the spoils of war) that had been carried away captive by the raiders. When Abram rescued Lot, he ended up with all of these spoils. When he returned from the rescue, he ran into Melchizedek king of Salem, who was also a high priest for God. Abraham tithed 10% of his spoils to God by giving them to Melchizedek, God's priest. This is the first recorded tithe.

After some lengthy period of time, God appeared to Abraham again and renewed His covenant with Abram. Abram suggested that his servant Eliezer become his heir since he had no kids. God told him, No, and promised a heir from Abram's own body -- e.g., a literal son.

At this point God had not told Abram who the mother would be. So Sarai decided to help God out by having her slave Hagar mother a child for Abram. Sarai's plan did not go a as well as she originally expected, because Hagar became haughty and contemptuous after she was pregnant, and made Sarai miserable. Of course, Sarai complained to Abram about this. There was quite a bit of household tension over this. Sarai became abusive to Hagar, who ran away. She was about to die in the wilderness when an angel met her and prophesied to her about her son. Hagar went back to Abram's household and had her son, Ishmael.

When Abram was 99 years old, God appeared to him again. He gave him the covenant of circumcision and promised him a son with Sarai as the mother. Abram had a bit of trouble believing God at this point because both he and Sarai were getting pretty old and Sarai had already hit menopause. Childbirth was physically impossible at this stage in their lives. At that time, God changed Abram's name to Abraham, meaning "Father of Many." And God changed Sarai's name to Sarah, meaning "mother of nations." Abraham may have struggled a bit with believing that he and Sarah would have a son -- but he did not struggle with obedience. He was circumcised the same day God told him about circumcision, and so was every male member of his household.

God appeared to Abraham a second time "near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day" (Gen 18:1). This time God was accompanied by two angels. He repeated the promise that Abraham and Sarah would have a son, but he put a time table on it -- about this time next year! Finally Abraham had a date. Apparently, Abraham found it easier to believe God this time. However, his wife Sarah was eavesdropping, and she laughed (in ridicule) at God's promise. God called her on it, asking why she laughed and declaring that nothing was too hard for God. Sarah denied laughing because she was afraid and God said, "Yes, you did laugh."

Immediately after that incident God sent the two angels on to Sodom, which is where Lot lived. He told Abraham that He was about to destroy Sodom and it's sister city -- Gomorrah -- because of their sin. Abraham interceded, asking God to spare the city if a mere 50 righteous could be found in it. God agreed to this. Then Abraham began bartering in intercession with God and God got down to a promise that He would not destroy the city if there where a mere ten righteous people in it. God agreed to that as well. [Perhaps if Abraham kept going, he might have gotten it down to one (Lot) and prevented the destruction of those two cities. But Abraham stopped at ten.]

The angels got to Sodom and could only find one righteous person -- Lot. They told Lot that God was about to destroy the city and sent him away out of it. They instructed him to hurry to the small city of Zoar because they could not begin destroying the cities until Lot was safely there. The angels also instructed them not to look back. Lot's wife disobeyed that instruction and she was instantly killed -- by being turned into a pillar of salt. As soon as Lot and his two daughters reached Zoar, the Lord rained burning sulfur on these cities, totally destroying them and killing all of the inhabitants. Lot became terrified and fled Zoar to go live in the mountain wilderness with his two daughters.

At that time, Abraham also moved on -- to Gedar. This was about the time that Sarah was pregnant but before she looked pregnant. Now the most amazing story happened. The king of Gedar, named Abimelech, wanted Sarah (now almost 90 years old!) for his harem. She must have been a stunning beauty to still look that good at 90. At any rate, Abraham fell back to his old tricks and said that she was his sister. So Abimelech took Sarah for his harem. But before he could touch her, God struck him with a sickness and warned him in a dream that Sarah was a married woman. He returned Sarah to Abraham and Abraham prayed for him and he was healed.

In due time, Sarah had her son. This time she laughed for a different reason: she was full of joy at having had a baby -- something she had desperately wanted to do all her life but was unable to do. So she named the baby Isaac, which means laughter.

Ishmael began making fun of his infant brother, and Sarah became afraid that he might actually try to harm his younger half-brother. So she convinced Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away. He gave them food and water, but it ran out in the desert and they almost died. The boy, Ishmael, cried out to God for help, and God sent an angel to show where some water was. The angel also prophesied over Ishmael that God would make him a great nation. So Ishmael grew up in the desert after that and Abraham never saw him again.

The family traveled some more, and baby Isaac grew into a boy. Then God, who Abraham knew and trusted, made a very uncharacteristic request. He told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering on one of the nearby mountains. Abraham did not argue with God; he instantly set out to obey Him. The very next morning, Abraham saddled his donkey, bringing Isaac and two servants along. It took them three days to reach the base of the mountain. Abraham and Isaac left the servants behind and went up to the mountain to do the sacrifice.

At that point, Isaac had no idea that he was to be the sacrifice. He even asked his father, on the way up, if they'd accidentally forgotten the lamb for the sacrifice. And Abraham replied that God Himself would provide the lamb. Isaac did not know his father was talking about him until Abraham bound him up and laid him on the altar. Abraham fully intended to obey God's request, and was about to slay his son with the knife. Right then an angel called out to him and told him not to do it -- that it was a test. Now that God knew he would not withhold his "only son." So God commended Abraham for his obedience and pronounced many blessings on Abraham and his descendents.

There are a few more stories about Abraham in Genesis, chapters 23 to 25. You might want to read them if you get a chance. Abraham, the great man of faith, died when he was 175 years old.


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-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

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