We often hear a very popular phrase in the biblical texts “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…” when referring to God himself. But who is Abraham? Abraham started his life by the name of Abram, tenth generation or so from Noah, living in what is estimated to be about 2100 BC. We can actually pick up on Abram’s story in Genesis 11:26-32, which talks about Abram, his father Terah, his wife Sarai, and his brothers Nahor and Haran. We establish very early that Sarai is barren, totally unable to have children. We are also introduced to Haran’s son Lot. Important to note, before anything else really gets going, Terah and Haran died. Its in chapter 12 where things start picking up for Abram when the Lord comes to him and says “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12: 1-3)
They find themselves in a land called Canaan, inhabited appropriately by a people called the Canaanites. Here the Lord talks to Abram again, saying “To your offspring, I will give this land.” Abram built an altar to the Lord on the spot. This gets to be kind of Abram’s signature move, as he is known throughout his story building altars to the Lord everywhere.
Now to say that Abram has a long and healthy life is to put it mildly. His story is loaded with travel, danger, mistakes, and momentous occasions. I greatly encourage you to read up on his life on your own because we simply do not have the time in this Bible study to cover all of his major events. That said, there are some key points that you should know about Abram. To start off, there is the covenant God makes with Abram. God does not enter into covenants lightly, and he always delivers on his end. What seems to confuse Abram, and most of us when we are talking to God, is that things will happen when God says everything is in place for them, not when we think they should happen. God has promised that Abram’s descendants will be like the stars in the sky, like sand on the beach, just too many to accurately count. The problem Abram has with this promise is that his wife, Sarai, is barren. We established that very early on. So Sarai and Abram concoct a plan to make God’s promise happen in their time.
Sarai had an Egyptian maid servant named Hagar, and they decide that if Sarai can’t bear children, Hagar can serve as her surrogate. Hagar and Abram conceive a child together, but soon enough Sarai gets jealous of this situation and begins to mistreat and despise Hagar. Hagar, understandably, takes to the hills. Here, the angel of the Lord finds her and discusses the matter with her. The angel tells Hagar to go back not to worry about it, that she will have a son, and will call him Ishmael (remember this name).
When Abram hit ninety nine years old, the Lord appeared to him, again reaffirming the promise. He renames Abram into Abraham, and renames Sarai into Sarah. Despite Abraham’s disbelief God promises him that even in their advanced age, Sarah being ninety at this point, they will have a son and he will be named Isaac.
Among the many interesting points of this story, told in it’s fullness in Genesis 17, is the renaming of Sarai and Abram. We see this happen from time to time, in the biblical texts, with specific points of Simon into Peter and Saul into Paul in the New Testament. What this signifies is that the men these people used to be are gone, not dead, but gone, completely wiped from existence. They received their new names from God himself, in the later cases from God the Son, Jesus Christ. This denotes these men and women have a very specific assignment, that who they were in the world of men is over and that from here on out they are serving under God’s direct command. They aren’t just getting a new moniker, but rather their new name is etched on their soul by God himself.
Sure enough, Sarah bears Isaac into the world. When Isaac gets to a certain age, early childhood from what we can establish in chapter 22 of Genesis, God commands Abraham to take Isaac up to a mountain and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. Never were there more conflicted feelings. Here Abraham is with the son he was promised by God, and now told to sacrifice him. In the previous chapter, Abraham had to send Hagar and Ishmael away to keep peace in his home (see chapter 21: 8-20), and now he was about to loose his son by his wife. What this turns out to be is a true test of faith. As Abraham is about to slay the boy, the angel of the Lord appears again and calls him to stop. Relief washed through Abraham and the Lord provides a ram for the sacrifice.
Abraham leads his people across the land and they spread out, making war and peace with various nations and becoming a nation unto themselves. This is the birth and growth of the Hebrew nation. Now as you’ll recall, God spoke to Abraham about how his nation would be virtually uncountable. The Hebrew nation, or Judaism today, claims between 12 and 18 million members world wide, Christianity claims 2.14 billion world wide, and the nation of Islam holds an estimated membership of 1.57 billion people world wide. Now you may be wondering what the nation of Islam has to do with Abraham. Their belief is that their primary prophet, Mohammed, is a direct descendant of Ishmael, and thus Abraham himself. This gives Abraham’s descendants, both biologically and spiritually an estimated number of 3.728 billion. When you consider that conservative estimates on the population of the earth range somewhere near 6 billion, that’s not too shabby.
But that isn’t one of the most important things we learn from Abraham. Abraham shows us, once again, that God promises and provides, but we should be patient. Any time we try to force God’s hand leads us to trouble and more than that it places ourselves above God, and that is doomed to failure from the beginning. No, it is better to trust in God that in his time he will guide us down the paths he wants for us.
Let us close in prayer:
Father God, thank you for your infinite guidance in our lives. We ask that you provide us with wisdom to let you work your will, and the patience to let it happen in your time, not ours. Help us learn from the lesson of Abraham and Sarah, and help us to establish better relations with our own brothers and sisters in Christ. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Some quick announcements before I sign off here. October 31st, 2010 at Fishers of Family Lutheran Church we will be having our second Mobile Ministry Sunday and we’d love everyone to come out and join us. More announcements and details will be made on our Facebook page. For all of Abraham’s story, check out Genesis 11:26-23:20.
Have a great week and walk with light,
Michael Bauch
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