6So be truly
glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials
for a little while. 7These trials will show that your faith is
genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your
faith is far more precious than mere gold.[i] (1 Peter 1:6-7, NLT)
The Lord
told Abram to leave his native country, relatives and his father’s family
and go to a land that the Lord would show him. (Genesis 12:1) Abram
demonstrated his faith by doing just as the Lord asked. He left not knowing where he was going.
(Hebrews 11:8)
Abram
arrived in the land and set up camp beside the oak of Moreh in Shechem.
(Genesis 12:6) In this place the Lord appeared to him and said, “I will give
this land to your descendants.” (Genesis 12:7, NLT)
Abram
demonstrated his faith by obedience and God rewarded that faith by appearing to
Abram and confirming that Abram was in the right place. This was a spiritual
high place, a mountain top experience.
Immediately
following this mountain top experience, Abram’s faith is tested. It happened to
Jesus as well. Jesus was baptized by
John in the Jordan. The Spirit descended
as a dove and landed on Jesus. A voice from heaven said, “You are my
dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” (Luke 3:21-22, NLT) Then Jesus was
immediately led by the Spirit into the wilderness where He was tempted by the
devil for forty days. (Luke 4:1-13)
Abram’s test
comes in the form of a severe famine.
In
response, Abram leaves the land that God has promised him and goes to Egypt. He
feels compelled to lie to the Egyptians to protect his own life. His wife Sarai is a beautiful woman and he
fears they will kill him in order to take her.
So, his solution is to lie and tell the Egyptians that Sarai is his
sister.
Earlier the
Biblical account tells us that there were Canaanites living in the land when Abram
camped in Shechem, but Abram did not feel compelled to lie to the Canaanites. I
assume this is because he was integrating more with the society of the
Egyptians.
Abram
builds no altar in Egypt. God is
silent. Abram’s wife is
taken by Pharaoh to be Pharaoh’s wife. Pharaoh gives
many gifts to Abram in exchange for Sarai, who Pharaoh believes is Abram’s sister.
As Abram remains silent, God intervenes, causing a plague on Pharaoh’s whole
household. Pharaoh realizes what is
going on and kicks Abram out of the country, having him escorted out.
In all this,
Sarai is silent. Abram gained riches by
her, but at what cost? Can she trust him? Has he protected her honor? God rescued her, and Pharaoh showed more
respect than Abram did.
From this
debacle, Abram moves into another.
Lot traveled to Egypt with Abram, but is not mentioned in the texts concerning
Abram’s time in
Egypt. He reappears in the story as
Abram travels back to Shechem where God had appeared to him. Abram returns to the altar that he had built
there and worships God.
However,
there is a problem. Abram is very rich
in livestock, silver and gold. How much of it was from selling his wife to
Pharaoh? Whatever the case, the riches become a problem in the family. Lot is also rich and the land cannot support
both of them. Lot and Abram do not
quarrel but the herdsmen do. What a
mess!
The
Canaanites are still living in the land, and there seems to be enough room for
them and Abram and/or Lot. The text
tells us there was conflict and that the land could not support them living close
together. In the time of Jacob, his sons
traveled all over the land grazing his flocks.
Why could not Abram’s and Lot’s herdsmen do the same thing? There is a conflict in Abram’s family
that centers on possessions and livestock, but I believe it is deeper.
The
resolution of the conflict is found in them separating. The same kind of thing happens with Paul and
Barnabas in Acts. Two righteous men cannot agree on a traveling companion so
they part ways. (Acts 15:36-40) The Bible does not tell us who was right and
who was wrong in the case of Barnabas and Paul, nor does it tells us in the
case of Lot and Abram.
When it
comes to the point of having to separate, Abram offers the choice to Lot. I am
not critical of Lot’s choice. The text
tells us that at the time the Jordan valley was like the Garden of Eden and was
well watered everywhere. This is certainly not the case now, but this was
before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot chooses a favorable location,
but we must remember that the Scriptures describe the land of Canaan as a land
flowing with milk and honey. It seems there is no unfavorable choice. However,
Lot leaves the Promised Land to Abram.
This brings
me to a key point.
Lot was the
son of Abram’s brother Haran. Haran
died way back when the family was still in Ur. Abram had no children of his own
so Lot was like his son. Lot was a potential heir to all of Abram’s possessions
and promises.
In Genesis
12 verse 7 God says to Abram, “I will give this land to your descendants.” This
promise is clear. The word “descendants” is the
word “seed.” For Abram the implication is clear. The land is to be given to his physical
descendants, not an adopted or substitute heir.
When Lot
moves east, he removes himself from the Promised Land.
This must
have been tough for Abram. Lot has been
with him since Ur. He has been attached
to Abram through all of his travels this far.
These two
incidents, the time in Egypt and the separation with Lot, are trials for Abram’s faith.
Both require Abram to trust God.
When Abram
had his experience with God, his faith was tested by a drought. He immediately
fled. Although he did not go home, he
did leave the land that God said, “I will give this land to your
descendants.” From our perspective
4,000 years later, it is easy to say he should have stayed in Canaan, but we do
not know what it was like for Abram. The
Bible just tells us there was a severe famine.
Rather than
trying to solve Abram’s problem, we can consider our own. Has God given us a clear vision of what He
wants us to do? Have we abandoned the vision because of difficulties?
Jonah was
given instructions to go to Nineveh. He
fled, was swallowed by a fish and spit back out in the right direction. Abram was promised the land. He fled, and was spit back out in the right
direction. The first lesson that comes from the testing of faith is
perseverance. The testing has to come so
that we become convinced that the promise is from God. Romans 5:3 and James 1:3
both teach us that the testing of our faith produces endurance or perseverance.
This is
deeper than stick-to-itiveness. This is conviction that leads us to hold on to
the promises of God. This is refusing to
let go of the vision.
Each one
should look at where he or she is. He or
she is there either because of the promise or because he or she has fled from
difficulty and needs to get back to the promise.
This leads
us to the second trial of the faith of Abram, the separation from Lot.
Abram was
expelled from Egypt. His faith took him
back to where God had appeared to him.
However, his obedience or surrender or faith was not complete. He was still holding onto something as a crutch
or maybe as a backup plan: Lot.
Romans 5:4
tells us endurance develops strength of character, and James 1:3 tells us
endurance makes us perfect and complete.
Both of these are referring to maturity. The first trial of our faith is
to develop endurance, through which we mature.
The Lord uses
conflict to accomplish his purposes. He did this in the case of Paul and
Barnabas, by causing the dynamic duo to split up and thus accomplish more.
By allowing
Lot to separate himself, Abram trusts God’s promise in relation to his descendants.
At this point, he does not have any descendants. Since the promise to give the
land to his descendants is clear, the giving of descendants is implied.
Trusting God without the safety net of Lot shows Abram’s maturing
faith.
At the time
of Abram, nations were being established. Only a couple of hundred years
earlier, mankind had moved as a unit to the place from which Abram moved. There they had started to build a tower to
make a name for themselves. After the
tower of Babel, men built cities and nations to make a name for
themselves. Egypt is a good example of a
successful nation building effort.
In this
environment, leaving an heir and establishing a name is very important to
Abram. It is everything. However, God has promised to do it for Abram.
In Genesis 12:2 God says, “I will make you famous.” Separating from Lot means Abram
has to trust God to provide descendants.
A maturing
faith takes God at His word. Endurance
holds on to the promises. Maturing faith
relies wholly on those promises.
God calls
each person to leave everything and follow Him. For Peter, James and John it
meant that they gave up fishing and left their families behind. For Paul it meant giving up all his political
and religious ambitions.
Today, some
may be uncertain of what the vision is. They
may be at the stage that would be equivalent to Abram leaving Ur of the
Chaldeans. The challenge for these
people is taking the first step of trusting God. It might be as simple as saying, “Okay, God I
am not even sure You are there, but I am willing to be shown.” God sent
Jesus to make a way to Him. So start by asking Jesus to show Himself to you.
Others may
have taken the first steps, but they are wondering what God’s purpose
for their life is. Trust God to make it clear. In other words, like Abram, step out in faith
not knowing where you are going. God is
able to make the way clear. Just take the next step. Are you in school? Complete your
studies. As long as you ask God to guide
you and are seeking Him, you can trust that He will guide you.
Finally, if
you know you are where God wants you to be, but you are still holding onto a
backup plan in case God does not come through, give it up. A person cannot skydive without jumping out
of the plane. Jesus said you can’t serve God
and money. We cannot hold onto God and
the world at the same time. We must
choose. We must either let go of
everything and trust only God, or choose to hold on to other things and let go
of God’s promises.
Abram did,
and the text says he was living by the oak at Mamre in Hebron. Hebron means fellowship, and Mamre means
fatness, the implication being that Abram moved into a place of peace.
[i] Scripture
quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible: New Living Translation.
Copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House foundation. Used by permission of
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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