Day 6: Abraham Part One

So far, we've considered four critical events from Genesis 1-11: the formation of the universe, the fall of mankind, the great flood during which Noah's household alone was preserved, and the fallout of man's rebellion. What's critical in the rest of Genesis is the formation of the nation of Israel and the Hebrew race through which God would fulfill His promise to bring salvation to all humanity through Jesus Christ. This is God's response to man's rebellion.

A lot of biblical real estate is devoted to Abraham: fourteen chapters in Genesis and four significant sections in the New Testament. God chose a seventy-five-year-old man who had no children and who was married to an apparently infertile woman and said, "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing" (Genesis 12:1-2). And that is exactly how—and through whom—God's plan began to unfold.

God's words to Abraham may strike you as abrupt. He asked Abraham to leave everything he was familiar with and follow Him so that He could immeasurably bless Abraham. Today, God similarly calls us to make the same choice: to make a clean break from our past and start over. Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Matthew 16:24). To the extent that we leave our old life behind is the extent to which we enjoy our new life in Christ. 

Abraham traveled south and arrived in Canaan. "The Lord appeared to Abram and said, 'To your descendants I will give this land'" (Genesis 12:7). But the Promised Land didn't look very promising. The land was parched. A famine settled. Abraham's faith was tested, and he made a lot of mistakes. He escaped the famine by seeking refuge in Egypt, but he lied to Pharaoh and endangered his and his wife's lives (see vv. 10-20). 

When Abraham returned to Canaan, there was strife between him and his nephew, Lot, and Abraham graciously allowed Lot to have his first choice of land. Lot selfishly chose the well-watered plain of Jordan (see Genesis 13:6-11). Circumstances looked grim. But after Lot and Abraham separated, the Lord said to Abraham, "Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever" (vv. 14-15).

God continued making promises to Abraham. In chapter 15, Abraham asked, "Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless…. Look, You have given me no offspring" (vv. 2-3). God replied, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them…. So shall your descendants be" (v. 5). Abraham "believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness" (v. 6). The Hebrew word for believe is aman. 

Abraham said, "Amen" to God's promises. This is one of the pivotal teachings on faith in the entire Bible. Abraham believed God, and from that moment on God declared him righteous because of his faith. God's people—including you—can be made righteous in His sight through faith in Jesus Christ. 

God made a covenant with Abraham, formalizing His promise to him, and six chapters later—twenty-five years after God first spoke to Abraham—his wife conceived and gave birth to their first son, Isaac. "And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him" (Genesis 21:1-2). This was the beginning of the nation of Israel.