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Abraham, Part 2 - From Ur to Haran to Canaan

Genesis 11v27 - 12v5

19th September 2010

As Stephen was about to be stoned to death, he made a speech. We can read it in Acts Chapter 7. It begins:

Acts 7:2b-4
..."Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 'Leave your country and your people,' God said, 'and go to the land I will show you.' "So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.

The account of this in Genesis says:

Genesis 11:27-32
This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.

But the key passage is the next three verses:

Genesis 12:1
The LORD had said to Abram, "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."

Abraham grew up in Ur, a town not far from present-day Basra in southern Iraq. It was an important city in what we call Mesopotamia, the area around the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. He grew up in an idolatrous culture, and Terah himself (Abraham's father) was an idolator.

Joshua 24:2
Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshipped other gods.

We don't know much about Abraham's relationship with God, but we do know that he had one. Even before we give our lives to God through Jesus Christ, we find Him filling our minds with ideas and desires we haven't had before. God calls us out of what we know, into something far better.

Abraham must have wondered about the promises we just read. Could he be sure it was God talking to him? How could such promises come true? If God said something much less significant to us, we might struggle to believe Him, but Abraham had no Christian or Israelite heritage; he lived before Israel or the church came into being.

God told Abraham to leave his people and his father's household and travel to wherever God showed him. Abraham was to leave behind everything he knew and go off without knowing where he was going. That was asking a lot and Abraham didn't fully obey God. He chose to let his father lead himself and Lot out of Ur. For the sake of a loved one (in this case, his father) Abraham, that pivotal historical character, chosen by God to be the father or all who believe, compromised what God had told him.

They moved to Haran, which lies on the river Balikh, a tributary of the Euphrates, and is now in South-Eastern Turkey. They'd moved from the south of Mesopotamia to the north. In the journey from Ur to Canaan, which we now call Israel or Palestine, Haran was about half way. There they stopped.

We don't know if staying in Haran was Abraham's idea or Terah's, or if it was a joint decision. It seems likely that Terah would be more comfortable staying in a Mesopotamian culture and continuing in his idolatry. Perhaps Abraham wanted to honour his father's wishes. But we have no right to disobey God to please our family.

God has called many people to leave behind what they know and find a whole new life where he would lead them. Consider Moses, the shepherd of Midian, whom God met at the burning bush and told him to go back to Egypt and confront Pharaoh. Or the Israelite slaves in Egypt, whom God let out through the Red Sea and into the Sinai desert and, eventually, into the promised land. Or Paul, who had to relinquish his status as a leader of the Pharisees, and his legalistic beliefs, in order to follow Christ around Europe, preaching the gospel. Most of all, there's Jesus, who left His home in Heaven to come to Earth, born in a stable, killed on a cross. And Jesus said to the disciples "follow me". They left their jobs and their families and followed Him. We read in Mark 1:19-20 that James and John were fishing when Jesus called them. They left their father in the boat and followed Jesus straight away. And just before His ascension, Jesus told them:

Matthew 28:19-20
...go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you...

And there's you and me. Jesus has called us to leave behind a life of sin and selfishness and control of our own lives, He's said "follow me" to us, too. And He's said "go into all the world". Have we heard God's voice, do we know he's calling us? Will we follow Him? Will we leave behind our old lives and go wherever He leads us?

An old Celtic poem says:

God is our captain and our pilot,
So take in the oars and set the sail,
Letting him blow us where he wills.
O Christ, will you help me on the wild waves?

We have this promise from Jesus:

Luke 18:29-30
"I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no-one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life."

Do we believe that?

Paul wrote:

Ephesians 3:20-21
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Paul understood that God's plans for us are far greater than our plans for ourselves. Do we believe that?

We should yield to God everything in our old life, because what God wants to give us, where God wants to take us, what God wants to show is, in infinitely better.

Some never hear His voice. Some ignore it. Some count the cost and refuse Him. Some compromise, as Abraham did, and wasted years vegetating in Haran when he should have been in Canaan. And some yield everything to God, leave their old life, their old ways, and their old beliefs.

Eventually, Abraham's father died. Then, at last, he left Haran.

Genesis 12:4-5
So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

How many years have I wasted by compromising, watering down, what God has shown me? How far am I from where I should be? But it's not too late to move on, to become whole-hearted in my faith, to trust God that where he wants to take me is better than where I am, to give up all my old life and fully embrace the new life he has for me. The only thing that matters about your age is that THIS can be the age at which you decided to stop compromising and trust God fully. We need to identify what it is that's holding us back, and move on. It might be a loved one, like Terah was for Abraham, or it might be money, or hobbies, or career, or laziness or other sin. It might me low self-esteem, but our faith is in God, not in ourselves. Abraham didn't know where he was heading, but God showed him the way.