Now for you and me, it can be a very difficult step. But we have to understand that we cannot take the old man to the place of promise. It cannot be saved, and it cannot be improved. It has to be left behind.
Although Abram actually began in Ur, his pilgrimage did not actually begin until he left Haran because he was still in his own country. But once it began, it never ended. There were periods of relative stability, but even in those periods, Abraham lived in tents so he was always reminded that he had no settled place. Now please get this because this is very important to our life in these end times. He was always reminded that he had no settled place.
There is a very interesting contrast right from his own family with his brother Nahor. Nahor did not come out with them when they left Haran, but he remained there in the old land. He built a city, he either named it after himself or his children named it after him, and it was to this same area that Abraham later sent his servant to get a wife for Isaac. Two brothers, same family, same father, but entirely lifestyles and destinies. It is interesting to see that the one who appeared to be ruthless and unstable had the greater destiny.
A very interesting contrast. Now we know the physical Israelites were bumped from pillar to post. They were in a very strategic place in the world, settled on a land bridge between Mesopotamia and Egypt, between Greece and Egypt, and it seems as though every conquer that came through made it part of his area of conquest. So, they lived in a very unsettled territory.
A spiritual Israelite, a true son of Abraham will not ever have a simple life. We can see that from the life of Abraham, the life of Isaac, and the life of Jacob. Certainly, there will be periods of stability but not for long. We are on the move and that is a trail that is going to sometimes require very painful sacrifices.
But God established the pattern for the training of His new spiritual race in this life and that pattern is established in the faithful.
Strangers and pilgrims. See others were included in this but Abraham is the main person in mind here because he picks up again with Abraham immediately in verse 17 again. So, movement, instability, and separation from the world are central to God’s purpose for His sons. Modern terminology would have us walking to the beat of a different drummer and many trials fall on us as a result of this. It is from this instability, this movement, that we learn what is in our hearts, and I hope that we never forget what this pilgrim teaches us about our weaknesses.
Abraham went from Ur to Haran to Shechem to Moreh to Bethel to Hebron to Beersheba down to Egypt back to Hebron and on and on it went. It says in verse 8 of chapter 11, “He knew not where he was going.” Somebody else was directing and guiding his steps, and that is the way a life of faith is. It is full of changes and that requires no small sacrifices. It is a life that in some cases, brethren, seems at times virtually unmanageable, out of control. But it is manageable if we allow it by faith to be managed by God. Now even though we may not be literally moving like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did, there are sufficient changes in doctrine, in policy, in personnel, in the movements in the work, to keep us living by faith.
We do it for the same basic reason that Abraham did. Because we see, grasp, understand, comprehend, have vision. We believe and see something others do not see. A city whose builder and maker is God and so we yield accordingly.
Abraham did not just go on the strength of his call. That verse back there in Genesis 12:7 says that God appeared to him in Moreh. And so to us who live by faith God gives special revelation of Himself. I am not talking about visions, but He gives encouragements, guidance. He gives understanding, He gives vision so that we might be empowered to go on.
Now is it not interesting that the Canaanites were still there, and … . . .
The Canaanites were already in the land by the time Abraham got there. I want you to see that God brought His called-out one Abraham from Babylon (a type of the world) and later Abraham's descendants - Israel - from Egypt (a type of sin) to this same land that He was eventually going to give to all His called-out ones as their inheritance - the land of Eden. Do you see how everything eventually comes full circle?
This understanding adds to the evidence that Eden was located in the land of inheritance, but in Abraham's day and for centuries following that land was called Canaan because these descendants of Ham had migrated there from Ararat and from Mesopotamia, and they named it after their ancestor, Canaan.
Now from Genesis 12 on, except for brief prophetic trips into other geographic areas, the entire Bible history focuses on this land, and most specifically on a particular area of this land - Jerusalem - and thus there is no way the Bible can be used to support Mesopotamia as being the starting point and focus of man's history. Rather, the Bible shows God beginning His entire program in one specific location, unfolding the progress of one family - the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - from their physical beginnings through their spiritual conversion.
The story includes the Savior who was born to one of those families - the family of Judah. He is crucified, but is resurrected, and departs to heaven from where? From the Mount of Olives, as it says in Acts 1:9-12. And when He returns to earth, where are His feet going to touch down? Zechariah 14:4 establishes that His feet will touch down on the same Mount of Olives, and from there He will begin His Kingdom, centering on the same location where the entire many millennia-long program began.
So from beginning to end, this one specific location is the center of God's continuing development of the entire creation. We are going to continue to add more and more, because it really becomes impressive.
In Genesis 2:10-13, it speaks about the names of the rivers that flowed out from the river that flowed out of Eden. There is one specific one - the Gihon. Researchers tend to believe that this Gihon is the well-known Nile River because of the mention of Ethiopia. That may be possible, but also remember that the Flood vastly changed some geographical configurations. However, this place-name turns up in an interesting way.
It is no wonder, brethren, that Genesis 13:2 says that Abraham was very rich. In addition, Lot was not all that far away, and there is a possibility that Lot and some of his people were also part of that group. There is also a possibility that there were others besides Abraham and Lot's group who may have been worshipping the Most High God. You will recall in Genesis 12:6 it tells us that when Abraham came into the land, the Canaanites were already there.
The Canaanites were descendants of Ham, Noah's son, and thus it is entirely possible that descendants of Shem, who did worship the Most High God, also settled there rather than in Babylon following the Flood. Remember that these people very likely knew where Eden was located, and this knowledge might have drawn them into that area; thus Abraham, who was called by God from the area of Babylon, was then sent to the land that became the Promised Land to be those people's human leader, and thus the presence of Melchizedek and Abraham's familiarity with Him. There is a lot there for just a couple of lines, but that possibility is strong because of Melchizedek's presence there.
When we left Abraham the last time, he had been called out of his area and he had proceeded from Ur to Haran, left Haran and had gone into the land of Canaan.
We are talking about a large portion of Terah’s family, Lot’s family, all of that group of people, all of their possessions, and the people whom they had acquired. These are not, I get the impression here, those born in his house, the three-hundred and eighteen, but the people he had acquired. Remember that I was on that verse the last week. These could have represented people that he hired to be carriers, scribes, whatever, mule drivers, donkey drivers, you name it, whatever they needed in the way of beasts of burden. They could have been people who were convinced by the teaching of Abraham and decided to attach themselves to him and made the pilgrimage with him down into Canaan and down into Egypt.
Now recall that Abraham had left the land of Ur and that was in Babylonia, so God had actually called him out of Babylon, just like He has called us out of spiritual Babylon. So He called them out of Babylonia and they traveled to a place called Haran and after Abram's father died, God tells him to leave Haran and he is to go where God is going to give to his seed. So where does he go? He goes to Shechem.
Now Shechem was actually located in a narrow sheltered valley between Mount Ebal (also known as the mount of cursing) and Mount Gerizim (also known as the mount of blessing) and at their base they are about 500 yards apart. It was there that Abraham received the first divine promise and he built an altar of stones to the Lord. Now let us move forward a little bit to Joshua 3.
