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Old Testament 11 Patriarchal Stage 1 Liberty Home Bible Institute HL Willmington
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In this lecture, the speaker discusses the patriarchal stage in the Bible, which focuses on the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Job. The speaker explains that this stage marks a shift from God's general dealings with mankind to a more focused approach on the redemption of man through Jesus Christ. The speaker also mentions important events and figures in this stage, such as the destruction of Sodom, the deceit of Jacob, and the first biblical covenants. The lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Job are summarized, highlighting key aspects of their stories. The speaker emphasizes the significance of Abraham and his role in the Bible. The lecture concludes with a discussion of Abraham's early life and the importance of someone leading him to Christ. This is the 11th in a series of 80 Old Testament lectures. Today we begin a study of the patriarchal stage, and this is the second of 12 stages in the Bible, in our textbook, Basic Stages in the Book of Ages. It's called patriarchal stage because of the early Bible fathers that are recorded. There are five of them at least. One is Abraham, and then his son Isaac, and then Isaac's son Jacob, and one of Jacob's sons whose name was Joseph, and then a man called Job. Now as far as we know, Job was in no way related to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph. The reason that he's placed in this time period, the patriarchal stage, is because many believe that Job lived during this time. Perhaps he was a contemporary of Abraham or maybe of Jacob. But at any rate, these five men will now be studied during the patriarchal stage. This would include in our scriptural account Genesis chapters 12 through 50 and the book of Job. By way of introducing the patriarchal stage, I want you to consider the following facts. The important men during this stage, as we've already mentioned, are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Job. Abraham is considered to be second of the seven greatest men who ever lived by many Bible students. These men would be Adam and Abraham, Moses, David, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul. So in any list, Abraham would certainly be in the top ten. In the creation stage, God dealt with the entire earth in general. He will now employ the rifle instead of the shotgun approach. The floodlight will give way to the spotlight. Our attention is now drawn from the world to a nation, Israel, and then a tribe in that nation by the name of Judah, and then to a family within that tribe, Jesse, and finally to an individual with that family, Jesus Christ. So from this point on, what we're trying to say, although all this is not found obviously in the book of Genesis, is that God does not use the floodlight and simply deals with mankind in general as he did the first 11 chapters, but now he starts zeroing in on the true purpose of the writing the Bible in the first place, and that was for the redemption of man and the glory of God through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This stage, Genesis 12-50, spans a period of about three and a half centuries, 350 years. Here a city is destroyed on the plains, Sodom, and a boy is spared on a mountain. His name is Isaac. Here a son by the name of Jacob deceives his father, Isaac, and is later himself deceived by his sons, who are the brothers of Joseph. And here we read in this stage of the first barren mother, whose name is Sarah, and the first dying mother, whose name is Rachel. And we read of several cities that will become very famous later on in Bible history. One is Jerusalem, and another is Bethel, and another is Bethlehem. And here we first learn of a king called Melchizedek, and this king is later mentioned in the book of Psalms and then in the book of Hebrews. And here we learn for the first time of an important cave named Machpelah. And in this book, or in this stage, we have the first of three great biblical covenants. We have the Abrahamic covenant, which promises Abraham a goodly land in Genesis 15. And later, during the United Kingdom stage, we'll have the Davidic covenant, which promises a glorious king that will someday rule over that land, that God will give Abraham. And then finally, the third great immutable covenant in the Bible, called the New Covenant. In the book of Jeremiah chapter 31, this will promise a people with new hearts. So you have the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant, these three important covenants. And the creation, or the patriarchal stage, called to attention, the first of these three stages. I'm sorry, the first of these three covenants. Now, very briefly, let me go through, by way of alliteration, the life of Abraham. We'll come back and then we'll discuss each of these individually. We're going to talk about his conversion. Are you all set for these C's now? This is going to be sort of like the New Deal here, the CCC camps. His conversion, his calling, his commission, his caution, his tenon, his carnality, his condensation, his courage, his communion, his covenant, his compromise, his circumcision, his compassion, his corrupted kin, his celebration, his calvary, his cave, his command, his Keturah, and his city. That's all the C's I could pack into that paragraph. And then Abraham's son Isaac. There are five things we will consider in his life. On a Jerusalem mountain, there he was the submissive son. And then later by a Hebron field, where he becomes the gentle groom. And then in a Philistine home, the copycat. Here he commits a sin that his father once committed. And then alongside some desert wells, the willing worker. And then finally at a supper table in his own home, the frustrated father. So we'll summarize the life of Isaac in these five categories. The submissive son, the gentle groom, the copycat, the willing worker, and the frustrated father. Then the life of Isaac's very famous son Jacob. We'll summarize his life in the following ways. The devising brother, the deceitful son, the dreaming pilgrim, the frustrated family man, the enterprising employee, the determined wrestler, the enraged father, the obedient patriarch, the sorrowing saint. Then Jacob's son, whose name was Joseph, of course. He had twelve, and Joseph was his favorite of the twelve. The favored son, the faithful steward, the forgotten servant, the famed statesman, the forgiving saint, the fruitful shade tree, and then the foreshadow of the Savior. These various areas in the life of Joseph. And then finally, that suffering patriarch, Job. We'll look at his terrible trials, his whimpering wife, his fickle friends, his glorious God, and his bountiful blessing. So in the next few lectures, and there will be quite a few in this patriarchal stage because there is so much material to cover, then we'll be going through these various things that we brought to your attention. We want to begin by reading the first few verses of Genesis, chapter 12. 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 to him, and Lot went with him, and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. Abram was born around 2166 B.C. We know nothing of his early life or how he was led to God. Somebody led him to Christ. I made a statement some time ago that I think God only told one person on this earth how to be saved, and I believe that was Adam. The only reason God told Adam how to be saved is that no one else could tell him, because he was the first man. God now expects for fathers to tell sons, and for mothers to tell daughters, and for Christians to tell unsaved how to be saved. The Apostle Paul will say later on the book of Romans, How shall they hear without a preacher? So I believe it can be safely concluded that someone led Abraham to the Lord. It's been speculated that perhaps Shem might have done it. Shem, remember, would have been Abraham's great, great, great, about ten great grandfather. We're not sure whether Shem was even alive at this time. Some have suggested that perhaps this very mysterious character in Genesis 14, named Melchizedek, might have led him to the Lord, or that perhaps even the patriarch Job led him to Christ. I don't think there's any evidence whatsoever that would indicate any of these would be the case, and yet somehow, some way, a person who knew the plan of salvation, who knew the true God, got to Abraham and led him to Christ. The importance of Abraham's life cannot be underestimated. He is mentioned 308 times in the Bible, 234 times in the Old Testament, and 74 times in the New Testament. These quotes come from 27 books, 16 in the Old Testament and 11 in the New Testament. In fact, Abraham was the reason the southern kingdom, and I refer to the southern kingdom here later on during the divided kingdom stage. We'll see where that Israel was involved in the tragic civil war, and you have the northern kingdom seceding with ten tribes from the southern kingdom that had two tribes. But the northern kingdom would later go into captivity, and the southern kingdom would be spared an additional 110 or 115 years, and it was spared as long as it was, according to 2 Kings 13, because of Abraham. God spared that southern kingdom. It's been pointed out, and this is very interesting, that the book of Genesis spans a period of 2,350 years. The first 11 chapters which describe the creation of the universe, the fall, the flood and the Tower of Babel cover a period of 2,000 years. The last 39 chapters concern themselves with Abraham and his seed covering some 350 years. I don't know whether that makes any sense to you or not, but in other words, in God's sight Abraham is far more important than the universe, because God takes far more chapters to describe a period of 350 years than he has used to describe a period of 2,000 years. God loved Abraham. Abraham was born and raised in the city of Ur, the Chaldees. Ur was a seaport on the Persian Gulf at the mouth of the Euphrates River, some 12 miles from the traditional site of the Garden of Eden. And preceding the time of Abraham, Ur must have been one of the most magnificent cities in all the world. We know now it was a city of manufacturing, of farming and shipping, in a land of fabulous fertility and wealth, with caravans going in every direction to distant lands, and ships sailing from the docks of Ur down the Persian Gulf with cargoes of copper and hard stone. For years the skeptic ridiculed the actual existence of Ur, because in the Sumerian culture and Mesopotamia history, we find at least for a while they found no mention of Ur, and the skeptic said, we'll hear just another indication of the inaccuracies, historically speaking, in the Bible. But in 1922, there was an archaeologist by the name of C.T. Wooley of the British Museum, went over there and began to dig, and he thoroughly explored the secrets of these ruins. And today, one of the most excavated cities of the ancient Middle East is the city of Ur. And the most conspicuous building of the city, probably in Abraham's day, was the Temple Tower, and this was in a sort of a zigzag, or as we would call it, the ziggurat form, and this was probably patterned after the Tower of Babel. They've dug up some of these towers, probably not the original Tower of Babel, but built like the Tower of Babel, and these towers, they're square, they're terraced, and built of solid brick. And each successive terrace was planted with trees and shrubbery. This city, the city of Ur, had two main temples. One was dedicated to Nannar, the moon god, and the other to his wife, Ningal. And so here for years, probably, Abraham would kneel in pagan worship along with his neighbors and friends to Nannar and Ningal. And then in some mysterious and wonderful way, the god of glory, according to Stephen in the New Testament, appears to Abraham, and Abraham becomes a child of God. So much now for his conversion. In fact, when chapter 12 opens up, we find he's already saved, and God has spoken to him and called him and commissioned him. And notice the calling of Abraham. He was to leave Ur, this city in Mesopotamia, right off the Euphrates River, and he was to leave his father's house for a land that God would show him. And he is given a sevenfold commission. God said, I want you to leave your father's land and your father's house, but I'll make it up to you and I'll give you this sevenfold promise. Number one, let's notice them. You find them in Genesis 12, verses 2 and 3. Number one, God says, I will make of thee a great nation. God certainly did make a great nation of Israel. And even today, Israel, tiny as it might be, is the hot spot, the most important single nation, perhaps at least small nation, in the world. Israel is still a great nation. Some 40 centuries later, God fulfilled that first promise. I will make of thee a great nation. And then he says, I will bless thee. The word bless in the Hebrew is barak, and it means blessing, but it sometimes refers to a pool of water. And to the Oriental, Midwestern, or Mideastern traveler, a pool of water could literally mean the difference between life and death in the desert. And God says, I will make thee as a pool of water. I will bless thee. And then the third, I will make thy name great. Do you know that I was told some time ago by an associate who worked in the university, the library, I should say the Chicago library, that gigantic library in the Loop, that there were more books written in that library on the life of Abraham than on any other man, including the Lord Jesus Christ? The reason being, in the Chicago area, and I would assume that this is true all through many of the big city areas, that Abraham is the hero of three great faiths, of the Islamic faith, of the Jewish faith, and of the Christian faith. He's the hero, and so these three faiths would have authors that would write about Abraham the patriarch. God has certainly kept his promise here, I will make thy name great. And then number four, thou shalt be a blessing. You see, God, first of all, had promised to bless him to make him a pool of water, so to speak, and then thou shalt become a pool of water. I will make you a blessing. And then number five, I will bless them that bless thee. I think in part, one of the secrets of America's greatness is that we have never officially embraced any anti-Semitic philosophy or allowed any anti-Semitic legislation to come out of our Congress. I will bless them that bless thee. And the sixth blessing here, I promise, I will curse him that curseth thee. And tonight, if we could, this afternoon rather, if we could raise up Adolf Schecklgruber Hitler from the dead and bring him before this microphone, he would certainly say in his German brogue, you better believe it, too. Because God sent him on his way out into a Christless eternity because he attempted to curse and to destroy the nation Israel. And then finally, the seventh promise, in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Of course, we know that here is a reference to the seed of Abraham, which was the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Matthew chapter 1 and verse 2, we read of Jesus Christ, the son of Abraham and the son of David. So much for his commission now. Let us notice his caution. Now here we need to go back to chapter 11, verses 31 and 32. It's rather difficult to piece all this together. But apparently what happened is this. God had told Abraham to leave his father's house and to proceed to Canaan. But Abraham was disobedient concerning both matters, at least for a while, because he takes his father with him. God says, leave your father and your father's house, but he takes his father with him and he allows himself to get bogged down in a place called Haran. We read about that in chapter 11. Now Haran was the last great green outpost of civilization before one entered the vast desert of Arabia. And this city was about 700 miles northwest of Vern, about 60 miles from the Euphrates River. It was located on a main caravan road connecting the cities of the east with Damascus and Egypt. And this was considered a strategic location. By the way, the city of Haran, even though it was 700 miles northwest of Vern, also worshiped the moon god and goddess as did Ur of the Chaldees. So apparently what he does is this. In partial obedience, he leaves the land of Ur of the Chaldees, but instead of going across the desert and making his way into Palestine, where God wanted him to go, he goes northwest and he follows the Euphrates River, clear on up to Haran, probably goes past where the Tower of Babel was built in Genesis chapter 11. And then at Haran, he apparently just settles down, and I suppose he would have still been there, had it not been that God stepped in and takes Terah his father. And then Abraham moves on. You know, the name Terah is very special here because that's his father's name, of course, and it means delay. It means to tarry. Now, we don't know why Terah was called this. Perhaps as a child he was always late, and so they just named him Delay, Terah. Or perhaps Terah came into this world a few weeks after he was expected. And if that's the case, he may have been. But there was some significance why he was named Terah. Whatever that significance might be, there's a real spiritual application to be seen in the name here, because Abraham now gets bogged down in Haran because of his Terah, something that caused him to delay. In this case, it was his father. And do you know, only eternity students will record and reveal how many believers that have been saved and that have heard the call of God have left Ur the Chaldee and Ur the Chaldees to go to the promised land where God would have them to go, and then they get bogged down somewhere in Haran because of a Terah in their lives. And I think in my own experience, and I often tell my students here at the Institute, it was a Terah that I carried around in my pocket. I remember I used to sing in church services that beautiful song, My Jesus, I love thee. Now, let me just say, as a pastor of some 18 years before I came to Thomas Road, I had much rather have a church filled with cigarette smokers than gossipers, because cigarette smokers never have broken up a local church, and gossipers have. So I'm not just picking on cigarettes, I'm simply saying that as a child of God, God had called me into the ministry, and for several years I did not enjoy the full blessings of the Lord because of this Terah in my life. One of my students rather facetiously asked me, he says, Dr. Wilmington, was this thing in your life, Terah, was it a Terah-ton? Well, I flunked him for saying that, of course. But at any rate, finally I got victory over this, and in 1952 I enrolled in the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. And I don't want to get bogged down here too much with my own life story, but I thank God for Moody, because one of the reasons I went to Moody is that I knew I'd have to give up cigarette smoking, and I knew that I'd have to sign a paper saying I'd not smoke. And I had an appointment with the Dean of Men at the Moody Bible Institute on a hot June morning in 1952 at 10 o'clock in the morning, and I threw away my last cigarette, and I don't remember whether it was a Terah-ton or a Lucky Strike or a Chesterfield, but I remember throwing it away at 930, some 30 minutes before I entered Moody. And I stopped by a drug store on the way to 820 North LaSalle in Chicago, Illinois, where I had the appointment with the Dean, and I bought some Sen-Sen to take away the smell of tobacco, and then I bought some Wrigley's chewing gum to take away the smell of Sen-Sen. And I walked in there, and I just quit cold turkey. And oh, it was hard, but I signed the paper, and God gave me the grace to forever give up that habit of smoking. But I know by experience, and I'm sure you do too, and perhaps I'm talking to a pastor now or a housewife or a student or a doctor, and my God has sent us people from all walks of life, and there's something in your life. Well, let me beg you. I don't want to preach here because I'm a teacher, but we're going to appeal to your heart throughout these tapes as well as your head, students, so I just want you to just settle that already. We're going to every now and then do a little preaching as well as teaching. For 18 years I was in the pastorate, and I was known as a teaching preacher, and down here I suppose I'm now known as a preaching teacher. But at any rate, what is the tarot in your life? So finally, after God removes Tara, then Abram moves across the desert, and he makes his way into Canaan. So we've seen his conversion, his calling, his commission, his caution, and now his Canaan. He enters the promised land, and he pitches camp near Shechem, which is some 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Now, I want you to notice verse 7. We're told after he enters the land, the Bible says, And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there built he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. I think that's significant because in Genesis 12, verse 1, God says, I'll show you this land. But in Genesis 12, verse 7, God says, I'll give you this land. In other words, God doesn't always reveal his secrets to those until they obey him completely. Now, he enters the land, and he builds his first recorded altar here. Then he moves on, the next few verses, to a place called Bethel, which literally means the house of God. And this would later become a very sacred place in Canaan. Years later, Abraham's grandson, whose name is Jacob, will go to sleep one night, and he'll see a vision at Bethel. He'll see a ladder. So this becomes a very important place. At Bethel, Abraham builds his second recorded altar to the Lord. Then we find the next point in the outline, his carnality. In chapter 12, verse 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. Now, after a short while, the land was hit by a famine, and thus far, Abram had obeyed God in the promised land, but now comes the temptation from Satan. There was a famine in the land. Believe me, when you take a stand for the Lord, there's going to be a famine in your life. That is to say that Satan is going to arraign some type of opposition. Martin Luther once said, The best way, the most effective way that I can know that I'm going the opposite way the devil is going is when I meet him. And sometimes when a Christian sort of walks with him, and doesn't take a real stand, then Satan doesn't give him too much opposition. As long as Abram was content to dwell in Haran or even Ur of the Chaldees, it was all right. But now he's in the promised land, and Satan is going to tempt him. So, the Bible says that he leaves Palestine and he goes to Egypt. Now, this is the first mention of Egypt in the Bible. And Egypt in the scriptures is pictured as a symbol or as a type of the world, or of depending upon some human source or help apart from God. It never pays to go to Egypt for help. Later on in the book of Isaiah, God will say these words, Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and trust in chariots and in horsemen, but look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord. Now, the Christian therefore goes to Egypt, spiritually speaking, when he depends upon something or someone else for guidance instead of God. In Proverbs 3, we're told to trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path. And oh, how different the story would have been had Abraham, could Abraham have learned the precious truth that Jesus would repeat in Matthew 6, verses 31 to 33, when he said, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things, now that means food and water and clothing and security, all these things will be added unto you. So here they go now to Egypt. Notice in verse 11 they have a problem that they discuss, Abraham and Sarah, even before they get there, and it came to pass when he was come near to enter into Egypt that he said unto Sarah his wife, Behold now I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon. Now imagine Sarah said, uh-oh, now he's complimenting me, he wants a favor, I wonder what he's up to. He says, but your beauty is going to cause me a problem. 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 thee alive. So here now you have his plan, you see a carnal man is often a clever man, and he's out of the will of God and now he's got to come up with some gimmick in order to keep things straight. So here's his plan. He said, I want you to say, I pray thee, that thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee. Now this was a half-truth, because Abraham and Sarah were half-brothers and sisters. We read about this in Genesis chapter 20. We're told that Abraham and Sarah had the same father, but they had different mothers. It was a half-truth, but it was 50% lie also. And verse 14, Sarah goes along with this, and it came to pass that when Abraham was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld a woman that she was very fair. And sure enough, just as Abraham had feared, the princess also of Pharaoh saw her and commended her before Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And he entreated Abram well for her sake, and had sheep and oxen, and he gave him much wealth in order to be able to apparently later marry Sarah. But in verse 17, the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why sayest thou she is my sister? So I might have taken her to meet a wife. Now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had. Now, notice the seven tragic results of Abram's disobedience. Some of these have far-reaching effects that are still going on today, some 40 centuries later. And dear student, don't you ever say, as a child of God, it's none of anybody else's business, it's nobody else's business what I do. What I do is between God and myself. That's not so. We do not come into this world without affecting the schedule of someone else. We do not leave this world. Our sin always affects others. Notice what happened here, the tragic results of his disobedience. Number one, he grieves God. Our sin always grieves God. Secondly, he weakened his own faith. Later on, in Genesis 20, Abraham will lie about his wife again. This time it will be before a Philistine king. He will go west during the time of the famine instead of east or south. But he commits the same sin. Apparently, you see, once you commit a sin, it's a little easier to commit it the second time. So he not only grieves God, but he weakens his own faith. And then thirdly, he weakens the faith of Sarah. Later on, God will tell Abraham and Sarah that Sarah is going to bear a child in her old age. And we're told in Genesis 18 that she laughs. She snorted in unbelief. She said, that will never happen. You see, because apparently she felt she couldn't depend upon God, because after all, didn't her husband feel he couldn't depend upon God? He took her to Egypt and lied about her during a famine. So I think he weakens the faith of his own wife. The fourth thing, he becomes a poor testimony to his nephew Lot. You see, before this time, Lot was sort of a farm boy. He was a shepherd. He never experienced the big life of a city and the exciting, thrilling life. And like the old song, how are you going to keep them down on a farm, you know, after they've seen gay Paris. So here he's seen the big cities of Egypt, and when Lot goes back to Palestine, he later then will leave Abraham and he'll move into another big city, the city of Sodom. So he became a poor testimony to his nephew Lot because of his sin. And then the fifth thing that Abraham's sin did, he caused the Pharaoh to be afflicted. In chapter 12, verse 17. You know, sometimes the children of the world suffer for the sins of Christians. Now often, I've heard preachers and I've done the same for the pastors that are listening. Brethren, I've done this myself, as perhaps you have. I've pounded the pulpit and said, you know, the time will come when believers will suffer at the hands of the world. But do you know, that's true, we may have to someday give our lives for our faith. But often, often the world suffers because of the sins of believers instead of the other way around. And you know, I think the problem in this world today, in America today, is not this notorious woman atheist from Maryland that I might mention, and it's not the Supreme Court, and it's not the easy abortion laws and the free love advocates, and it's not the hippies and yippies. I mean, these certainly do not help our civilization. But I think the real problem in America today is that fundamentalists and men and women of God that know and believe in the book and the blood and the blessed hope, they won't stand up, they won't be counted, they leave the promised land in time of trouble and travail, and they go to Egypt, they go to the world. And as a result, the pharaohs of this nation, the worldly people, are afflicted because of the sin of believers. So the fifth thing that happened here, he caused the pharaoh to be afflicted. And the sixth thing that happens, he picks up Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid. Now, Hagar would later become Abram's mistress, and then she would give birth to Ishmael, and he would become the father of the modern Arabs, and then Abram, of course, would father a child through Sarah, and Sarah then would call this child Isaac, and he would become the father of the modern Jewish people. And here we have, some 40 centuries later in the Middle East, the descendants of Ishmael killing and murdering the descendants of Isaac, and the children of Isaac killing and murdering the descendants of Ishmael, some 40 centuries later. And then the seventh thing that took place when Abram got out of the will of God, he provided a bad example for his son Isaac. Now, even though Isaac was unborn at this time, in fact, would not be born until at least another 20-25 years, if our chronology be correct, yet Isaac, in Genesis chapter 26, as a young man, does the same thing, commits the same sin that his daddy commits here. Now, I don't know, but I suspect that after Isaac was born, perhaps he heard about this story, all children say to people who knew their dad before they were born, hey, tell me some of the things that dad used to do. And maybe one of these servants says, you know, your dad was a real character. Let me tell you one time what he did, and he went to Egypt, and perhaps Isaac heard about that. But at any rate, Isaac does the same thing concerning his wife, Rebecca, as Abraham does here concerning his wife, Sarah. Again, our statement, lest we forget, our sins always affect others. Now, we have the next point, his condensation. We've discussed his conversion, his calling, his commission, his caution, his Canaan, his carnality, and now his condensation in Genesis 13, verses 1-18. Upon returning to Palestine, and Abraham goes back, he once again worships the Lord at Bethel, right where he had left him by going to Egypt. Someone has said, if you're not as close to God as you used to be, it doesn't take any brilliant thinking to determine which of the two of you moved, for God never changes or moves. So he found God right where he left him, at Bethel. During this time, the servants of Abraham and his nephew Lot begin arguing over grazing rights. Abraham is concerned about this, and so he graciously allows the younger man to pick his choice of land. This is why we have entitled this his condensation. He graciously allows Lot to do this. Lot foolishly selects that area near Sodom, and he leaves the promised land, as far as we know, never to return and live there again. Then God appears to Abraham for the third time and reassures him of a mighty posterity and of their eventual right to Palestine. We read this in chapter 13, and here the Bible says in verse 14, And the Lord said unto Abraham after that Lot was separated from him, he said, Abram, lift up thine eyes now, and look from the place whereout thou northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, God says, walk through the land in the length of it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee. Then Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord. This is the third recorded altar that he built, or the fourth recorded altar, I should say, that he's built. And Abram now will spend most of his time here in Hebron, and he will die and be buried in a cave of Machpelah near Hebron. And now, Father, we ask your blessing upon this, our first lecture on the life of Abram. For Jesus' sake, amen. Amen.
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