Abram's Journey: God's Promises and Building Altars

Show Notes

Episode 429:
In this episode, we delved into Genesis chapter 12 and explored the journey of Abram, who would later become Abraham, as he heeded God's call to leave his native country and embark on a journey to the land of Canaan. We discussed how Abram's decision to follow God's command was a pivotal moment in his life, marking the beginning of a significant journey that would ultimately lead to the establishment of the Jewish nation.

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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. Welcome back. We are picking up our in our series, which is Highlights of the Old Testament. Okay, Yes, that flowed really nice, thank you. Yeah, because we've been struggling to name this well, and I feel like you adopted the name I suggest. Yes, yes, I don't like the word highlights. Highlights. You don't like it. It seems so casual to me, So highlights because you're not a casual guy at all. Yeah for me. For me, this feels like the fundamental milestone pillars, building blocks of the Old Testament that flows right off your tongue. That's just that flows so much better than just the highlights. No, no, highlights flows better, which is why I said it. Yeah, but I don't think that it does it justice. Oh, I see you see what I'm saying. Well, keep working on that other one. Maybe maybe come to it to Highlights the Old Well, Hey, we have a very important public service announcement. Do the same thing is funny? Okay, So from the Bible Guys, we have a very important public service announcement by way of the Babylon By has brought us this and here it is doctors remind you to arrive early so you can wait even longer. It's just hilarious and a helpful message regarding your upcoming a doctor's appointment. Your doctor has reminded you to be sure that you arrive early so you can wait even longer. The reminder follows a protocol established by the American Medical Association that urges physicians to stress to their patients the importance of getting to the doctor's office as early as possible so they could sit in the waiting room for a longer period of time. Just quick heads up from your doctor. The voicemail you received begins tomorrow is your scheduled appointment, and we want to remind you to get there early. If you arrive on time, you run the risk of only having to sit in the waiting area for a short amount of time. To avoid the assle, please arrive fifteen minutes before your scheduled appointment time so you can wait even longer. Thank you. When reached for comment, your doctor's receptionists provided further clarification. The patient's appointment will not start at the scheduled time, she said, So if they arrive when they're scheduled to arrive their appointment, they'll be seated in the waiting room area for only fifteen to twenty minutes tops. We want them to spend as much time waiting as possible so a larger chunk of their day can be thrown out a whack. So please arrive early so you can wait at least a half hour or longer. At publishing time, your doctor's office also wanted to advise you to be sure to go online through your patient portal fill out your information online so that you could just fill it out again in person with a pen and paper when you get there. That is true, by the way, isn't it. It makes me so mad? I refuse? Yeah, I tell no, I already filled it out online. Well we need you to fill it out here in person, go on line and print it off. That's say, oh yeah, what makes me mad? Do two things? My time is worth more than your doctor's time, so stop it, right, Yeah, well stop it, just stop it, is it though? Is your time worth more than the doctor's time? Yes, I'm quite certain, yes, very very Your doctor's terrible. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, worthless. Huh No. I love my doctor. My doctor's great. He's a blast, Like we just laughed the whole time. And then I have to tell him what I want him to do, write these prescriptions, do that stuff. And you just sent me to a specialist, because your family doctor mostly sends you to specialist, right. Uh, I would say, yeah, if there's a big problem, right, I mean, as all that looks bad, I don't know what to do, go to this guy. Oh that looks bad. I don't know if you go to that guy, but make sure you're here in our early I'm joking. If he's listening right now, he told him about this podcast. I'm joking, dude, I busted jobs. So my family doctor, my my primary I know him outside of the office. So I did his wedding and he's a good friend. And so I found out it was his birthday, and so I literally went in just Friday today is what Wednesday? So this was a couple of days ago, and I found out it was his birthday. So I was like, oh, So I called the office and I said, hey, I said, what kind of Starbucks does John like? And they said, oh, that's why you're calling. Let me put you on hold. Put me on hold. They're really busy. I get disconnected after like fifteen minutes of waiting, so I was like, oh, I'll Texas wife. So I ended up finding out I go through all this trouble, I bring it in and come to find out I'm his third Starbucks. That said, we brought in this third Starbucks. And by the way, the other two were people working in the office. If it had just taken a second to say that, I would have brought him something else, right, But instead I gave him, you know, the third cup of caffeinated machiato. That's right, So show up earlier so you can wait longer, right, and then make sure you fill out the online form so that you can fill them out again in person when you get there. Yeah, that is pretty irritating. Yeah, the fact that we can laugh at that and all of us roller outd and go, we know that's true. Maybe the general practitioner doctors have an issue that they could collectively address, right, Right, it's not everybody else's perception that's wrong. You know, we're not wrong. Maybe there's an opportunity there for you to set yourself apart from some of the other local doctors. If you do what everybody else does, you're going to give us the same results you give everybody else. It's so good, okay, all right, well that's almost what made Jeff and Chris mad this week moment. Yes, yes, although that's cutting up so everybody double dipped. Yes, they got both a very important public service announcement from the Babylon Beat and what made Chris and Jeff man this week. Man, this is a bonus episode. We should charge twice as much for this one. Wow, don't you think? Wow? That's just yeah, yeah, well it's big value today, big big value. And you know what, not only will we charge twice as much, but whatever your salary is from the Bible, guys, I'm doubling it right now, twice as much of nothing. There's a bunch of zeros. So hey, we are skipping all the way to Genesis chapter twelve because we had just finished talking about the Tower of Babel, and then it's really the scriptures in between that what there's just a bunch of babbel isn't that true? So well, I wouldn't say that about the Bible necessarily. All the words in the Bible matter, but it gives us another list of from Shem all the way to Abram. The family line, which in the Jewish culture, the Hebrew culture, was incredibly important to be able to know where did you come from, who were you related to, you know, for the bloodline, because ultimately it becomes extremely important for us to be able to trace back that Jesus was exactly who the Bible said he would be. Yes, son of David, son of Abraham, Right, sounds like extremely important, babbyl It's yes. Well, I'm sure all those people who got honorable mention in the Bible they feel like Heaven their name. They're like, yes, I got my name in the Bible. And you're like, it's just Babbel. It means nothing to me. You're gonna get to have it, and you have like six hundred You're gonna have like six hundred apologies to make you know that, right. You're like, hey, Aaric fat said, I'm sorry I said that about you. Hey, Lud Aaron right, Bieber Right, there's some funny names in there. Jock ten has our Mabbith. Did you see that one? No, I've never heard that one. Yeah, Obel yeah, Sheba, oh fear Havla. There's a bunch of names, but hey, it's just babbel. When you get to have it, you're gonna to apologize these people. One of the worst is a wife named Gomer Gomer. Oh, it's right here. Descendants of j Fith were Gomer Magog had I, j Van Tubo, and tearsh ashkan As. So there's all kinds of names in there, and it's just babbel to you. They got honorable mentioned the Bible. You did not get. Okay, I want to point out there is no Christ in the Bible, no Christara in the Bible. Joke and hence the word joke. When you get the heaven, so we we find ours. I'll just take you around. I'll take you and say, hey, have you seen airfaxide yet? Because Chris Chris says something he wants to say. No, you know what they're it's not gonna happen. You know why, because the same little prideful meanness that's in you right now want to take me around. It's not going to exist in heaven. Oh it's not prideful meanness. Yeah, it's like it's like, it's not it's my desire to help you be better. It's no, it's it's not gonna exist in heaven. We're gonna get to have it. You're gonna say, I can't believe I said that on the Bible. Guys. I'm so sorry, Chris, okay, apologizing? Oh okay, all right, all right, Hey, this needs to stop being about me. It was all about you. So let's move on. So Genesis chapter twelve, we're to now all through. After we got through Chris's bibble, we now are Abram is being called, who will be caught? Abraham? Well, you just gave away the secret. Everybody knows. Everybody listens, that's right, okay. Genesis chapter twelve is where the call of Abram comes from, and it's says the Lord had said to Abram, leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you'll be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and a lot wet with him. Abram was seventy five years old when he left Horan. He took his wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth, his livestock, and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran and headed for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan, Abram traveled through the land as far as Shechem. There he set up camp beside the Oak of Mora. At that time, the area was inhabited by Canaanites. When the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I will give this land to your descendants. And Abram built an altar there and dedicated to the Lord who had appeared to him. After that, Abram traveled south and set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built another altar and dedicated to the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord. Then Abram continued traveling south by stages toward the Negev Okay, is that what we're done? Well, Yeah, that's where we're supposed to read too. Yeah, And so there's a little note in my life. Application of study Bible, which we love, and it talks about Abraham. Of course he's going to become Abraham, but God promises a nation to Abram. At this point, his name is Abram, and it talks about his strengths and accomplishments, and it says his strengths and accomplishments are his faith pleased God. He became the founder of the Jewish nation. That's what's happening right here. And he was not only a caring father to his own family, but he practiced hospitality to others. He was a successful and wealthy rancher. He usually avoided conflicts, but when they were unavoidable, he allowed his opponent to set the rules for settling the dispute. Yeah, and so we're about to find out some other things. His weaknesses are coming up. His lessons that he learns come from those things. But basically, yeah, he is the father of the Jewish nation. That's what's happening right here. So his father, his name was Tara, right, and Tara had three sons, Abram, Nehor, and Haran. And Haran was the father of Lot right. So we can read all that beforehand. And they were getting ready to head towards Canaan, so you know er and Haran. That area is in what is modern day Iraq, not far from Baghdad. As a matter of fact, I'll be in Iraq again in just a couple of weeks. And so it's between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. It's very fertile area. You know, we have called historians paleontologists would call that area the fertile Crescent. So in all of the Middle East, it was just able to back in those days, the floodplain could create so much food. That and the Nile Delta, right, those would be the two areas that created so much food. And wasn't that near the Garden of Eden perhaps, yeah, yeah, very much could have been the outer edges of the garden. It listed those those rivers the in that expos Yeah, and from a driving standpoint, if you just got in a car and drove, it's maybe only like maybe eight or ten hours from air Rat. You know, the mountains of Ararat, so where the where Noah's boat settled. So you know, they kind of resettle here in the Middle East like this. So now God calls Abram and say, hey, I want you to pick back up. I want to take. I want you to take all ever your wealth, and I want you to go to the land of Canaan. Canaan is modern day Israel now. So he goes up through the Fertile Crescent through what would probably be portions of Syria. Damascus was up in that area, and Ninevo is up in that area, and then down through probably portions of Lebanon and Jordan maybe somewhere in there, and then finally pops into Canaan. And he shows up now to the east of Jerusalem, down in that plain, down near the Jordan River. You've been in like Jericho, I have, yeah, yeah, yeah, So Ai is just outside of Jericho and he's east of Ai. So he's right near the Jordan River, to the north end of what is the Dead Sea. So it's really rugged space, but that area, again floodplain for Jordan, could grow a lot of food. So he goes from you know, the populations in those days didn't get out in the difficult places and try to figure out how to live and staid. They stayed where it was possible to grow food. So this is where he's at. Is he's along the Jordan River, not far from the Jordan River. Bethel and east of Ai is where he's at. Yeah, and it's interesting when you look on this map and it sort of follows his journey to Canaan, Right. Yeah, you would just think to yourself, why don't you just do a straight line straight across, right, because it's brutal, Because right, that's the answer. The answer is they they couldn't do that. They were smart enough to follow where the food was, which is why you mentioned it, right, and go up and all the way down. But holy cow, was because you didn't have refrigeration. Right, It's not like you throw everything in your yetty coolers, right and hop in the back of your toyotas and just shoot across the desert for three days. Right. It would take them months and months and months to go from town to town to town that had food. And they had to follow that fertile crescent that wrapped around to the north and then back down south. I can't even imagine, uh, traveling back then. Everything was You know, you're sort of reminded that it's that way when you know you've been to Africa and you've seen people who they have to walk for miles just to get water. Yeah. Yeah, and so every day. I've done that. Have you ever done one? I've not done an the water walk, it's never done. Brutal, brutal. You get two big five gallon jugs and you walk down and dig a hole in the sand where the river bed would be, wait for the water to bubble up, scoop it out, try to keep the sand out. Fill a five gallon bug. You think, hey, that's great until you put forty pounds because the five gallons forty pounds on your shoulder, and then walk back three miles back to the village. It is so in the heat of the dirty water, it is so hard. Yeah, and that's how a huge portion of our population lives is having to haul water back home every day. Yeah. And by the way, so I went off on a tangent. Now this is a tangent of a tangent. Yes, I remember going to this is a good episode. This is what we said, this is a bonus episode. We're gonna charge twice as much for this one. So I remember going to a village that was you know, we had to park and walk for an hour, and I remember there's you know, a bunch of overweight, out of shape white people who are just sweating to death in one hundred and twenty degree heat, you know, just walking through the bush. And we were like, oh, this is so this is We're just like slugging along and all of a sudden, to our left is a woman who is super thin, and she has a baby on her back, right, and she has a forty pound thing of water on her head with a little like a sort of like a beanie bag separating the two right, and she's like sort of just barely balanced, right, and she goes walks down into a dry river bed, passes us, walks up the drive riverbed, and then just zooms past us and at least triple the speed that we're walking. And I remember and we all just stopped and look at each other and said, okay, now we're the worst. That's right, Like we are not we are so swell. They did that to us when we were doing it. I'm huffing along, I'm sweat and so bad, I can barely do this work. I'm thinking I'm going to find somebody to carry my bucket. Right, and all of a sudden, the ladies start passing me and they start singing. So they're singing, laughing, having a big time. It's a big time. All the ladies are together, and I'm just huffing and puffing, you know, a mile and a half into this hike back to the water place or to the village, and I just remember thinking, man alive. So I look at it as being brutally hard for them. It was a social hour, right right. Yeah, So, anyway back to my first tangent, which was that a lot of the world still lives this way absolutely, where whereas whereas like you and I, we take for granted it's so sometimes hard to relate to the Bible just because of the modern conveniences that we face. And so when Jesus would say like persecution, for instance, the people around the world receive that word differently than we do, right, yeah, and so and when they talk about you know, uh, just just you know, survival of the fittest and and and even even the comparison of shepherds and sheep, all that stuff we have a hard time relating to. Well, here's Abram, and he is he is, you know, taking this journey and literally it's all about survival on his journey. And uh, and so we're talking like months and months, Well, people in the Middle East and people in Africa that they can relate to this anyway. Yeah. Yeah, So Abram grows up and erv the Keld's, which we still refer to the Keldeans, right, that's a whole population group from within Iraq and uh in Er growing up there. He probably grew up fairly educated. It was a very prosperous educated area. And I was talking to a Jewish rabbi one time about this. We were in driving out into the Arabian desert and I asked him, I said, hey, can you tell me what is the tradition why did God choose Abram? And he said, oh, that's a great question, right. So here's a he's a pretty famous rabbi here in the US, and he said, he said, so, there's a lot of speculation on this, but he said, the general consensus for many of the writers the historians from ancient Hebrew tradition is that when the rest of the world in in around Er and then you know, in the Chldean area, they looked at the stars and the earth and the mountains, and they worshiped the gods that they believed came from those things. But he said that the Hebrew tradition is that Abram looked at the stars and said, there must be a god that made those stars. So instead of looking at all the gods, he looked to the God, the creator. And so when he determined in his heart there was a creator, then God reached out to Abram as opposed to all the others. Right, And it's consistent with the Bible when it says, draw near to me, and I'll draw near to you, right. And Roman says that we were without excuse because of the sun and the moon and the stars, creation, right, all those kind of things. So he says that that is the deep Hebrew ancient tradition is that Abram looked to the creator of the universe as opposed to adopting all of the gods, and then God said, hey, you're drawn near to me. I'm gonna I'm gonna make myself known to you, and so chose him, and the said, I'm going to make a great nation from you, and all of the people of the world will be blessed because of you. And that was a hint at Jesus. Right, then Mesiah would come from your family. An interesting note on verse seven that we read when it said that Abram built an altar to the Lord. It says Abram built an altar to the Lord. And altars were used for many religions, but for God's people, al were more than places of sacrifice. They symbolized communion with God, and they commemorated notable encounters with Him. Built of rough stones and earth, altars often remained in place for years as continual reminders of God's protection and promises. He built altars for two reasons. Number one for prayer and worship, but number two, as a reminder of God's promise to bless him. Even couldn't survive spiritually without regularly renewing his love and his loyalty to God, so building altars helped him remember those things. So that's why so many times in the scriptures when we see he built an altar there, and then that place was known as the place where God will provide or you know, which is about to come up, right, Because sometimes they would build altars and they wouldn't just be these little temporary stick altars. They would be made out of stone, and they would take a long time, and it was also sort of like a monument of a reminder of what God did in that place, that encounter or the promise that God gave, and that's really important because that's it's It's sort of like why I said that highlights is sort of like a bougie word, because I like the word milestones or you know, just markers or you know, like you know, pillars moments of time and history that that mark important events that lead up to Jesus through the Old Testament. Because it's sort of that way. You know, there's probably times in your life, I bet where you can look back and you can say that these are the pivotal moments in my life and you may not have built a physical alter there, but they're the milestones in your life experiences. Right. Yeah. For a long time I carried a stone in my pocket that reminded me of a very specific thing. For a long time, I carried a challenge coin in my pocket that every time I see my hammapocket, I feel it reminded me of a thing that's kind of the same idea as they build these altars, so that when they saw them, it reminded them. So hey, maybe that's it. Maybe maybe we need to change the name to mile Markers of the Old Testament. Yeah, maybe so mile markers. Yeah, just just just uh markers along the way that tell you where you're at, where you're going. Significant uh markers that are that are grounded. Uh, you know that gives you direction. This is all those words just make it hard to type it in the line on the right. So maybe my mile markers uh of the in the in the Old Testament, right, yeah, mile markers, Yeah, whatever. I don't know. It's a good one though, I like it. So that's essentially what he's doing is he's building this altar. He makes a sacrifice, but he also builds it so sturdy and substantial that his family, his children can see it. And there's something about that for us as Christians, as parents that you know, it's not just about us and in our individuality, it's about the generations and the people that coming behind us. He's that that altar was pointing others to the fact that there's a man there that worshiped God. Yeah. Yeah, forever, you know, you know, tell your kids about this story, to share with your kids about what the Lord has done here on this mountain, because that's that's really what it is. We should we should have our faith you know, broadcast in our family, that they would know our story, that they would know our faith, that they would know God's faithfulness. And I think that sometimes as parents we forget to be open with our kids because it makes us vulnerable sometimes because a lot of our stories is about or about our failures, or about our doubts, or about what we were rescued from, right our struggles, and and you know, to have our kids reach a certain age, you know, we have to be able to be authentic, genuine, so that God can be glorified in our weakness, even with these kinds of stories with our kids. Yeah, and eventually God actually makes it a law for the Hebrews don't remove the old landmarks, right, And so God wants these things to be retold for us in our families. Maybe it's the family stories. We need to talk about the struggles, sure, but we need to also talk about the high water marks when God blessed, God showed up, We struggled, we prayed, God answered prayer. We need to keep retelling those stories where we came from, and it gives roots, right, we're not removing those old landmarks. A lot of times we forget to put roots down for our kids. And then wonder why they don't have a lot of depth when they get older or whatever. So we have to put those roots down deep, keep retelling the stories. And that's essentially what an altar like this would do for a culture, for a community that's great. All right, Well, that's a good place to end and hopefully we will see you tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,