ABRAM’S FAMILY AND CALL

Abram was from Ur, then Harran  Genesis 11:27–32

Here begins the story of Abram, whose name is famous in both Testaments. We have a record that Abram’s country was Ur of the Chaldes. This was his native land, an idolatrous country, where even the children of Eber themselves had degenerated. Those who are, through grace, heirs of the land of promise, ought to remember what their native land was like, what their corrupt and sinful state by nature was and the rock out of which they were hewn and give thanks.

A leader should consider whether or not his family and social environment is good for his or her spiritual development. God may require you to leave a beloved circle of people in order to bring you to a new and higher level of maturity, holiness, dedication and influence. Are you willing?

Abram’s relations are mentioned for his sake, and because of their places in the following story. His father was Terah, of whom it is said that he served other gods, on the other side of the flood. So early did idolatry gain footing in the world and so hard is it even for those that have some good principles to swim against the stream! When Terah was seventy years old he begat three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran. This seems to incorrectly hint to us that Abram was the oldest son of Terah, born in his seventieth year (Genesis 11:26). By comparing Genesis 11:32, which tells us that Terah died in his 205th year, with  Acts 7:4, where it is said that Abram left Harren after Terah died, this would have been when Abram was seventy-five when he left Harran (Genesis 12:4) and Abram was born in the 130th year of Terah and was Terah’s youngest son. (Terah was 130 when Abe was born + 75 = 205) With God the last are often first and the first last. Probably his name is mentioned first because he is the most well-known. We can be last in an earthly list, but first on God’s list. David also proves this.

We have some account of his brethren. Nahor, from whose family both Isaac and Jacob obtained wives. The family of Nahor evidently did not travel to Harran. Yet Nahor’s family later provided good girls/wives, for Abraham’s descendants, Rebekah, for Isaac, and Rachel, for Jacob, at Padan Aram. Evidently these descendants of Terah through Nahor were morally superior to the idolatrous residents of Canaan land. 

Haran, the father of Lot, died before his father Terah. Children cannot be sure that they will survive their parents for death does not always go by seniority, taking the eldest first. The shadow of death is without any order. It is likewise said that he died in Ur of the Chaldees, before the family was blessed to leave that idolatrous country. We should quickly leave sinful places lest death surprise us in it. Abram’s wife was Sarai. Abram says that she was the daughter of his father, but not of his mother. I read in Genesis 17:17 that when Abram was 100, Sarai was 90, so that means that she was 10 years younger than Abram.

Abram departed out of Ur of the Chaldees with his father, Terah, his nephew, Lot, and the rest of his family, in obedience to the call of God. This chapter leaves them in Harran, or Charran, a place about mid-way between Ur and Canaan, where they lived until Terah died. It is possible that Terah named the place Harran or Charran, after his dead son. If so, this may indicate that Terah looked back lamenting the death of his older son, Haron, while Abram looked forward to what God had for him in Canaan. We never hear much of Terah, but the whole world knows of Abram. Many reach to Haran/Charran, but never reach Canaan; they are not far from the land of promise, but they just as well be thousands of miles from it because they never make it there. A man or woman of faith and vision will press forward to the land of promise. I hope you are that kind of visionary leader, my friend.

Abram’s Call Genesis 12:1

Here is the record of the call by which Abram was removed further away from the idolatrous land of his birth and out of Harran, halfway to Canaan, into the land of promise. This call tried his faith and obedience and also separated him and set him apart for God, special services and blessings which God had designed for him. We may be somewhat helped in our knowledge of these stages and the circumstances of Abram’s call and travels by the additional light of Stephen’s speech in Acts 7:2. It says, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran. ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’” If the God of glory appeared to him to give him this call we could see a connection between the call and the glory of God, just as also occurred with Moses and Isaiah.  A glimpse of God’s glory can leave us, as it left Abram, no room to doubt the divine authority of the call. God spoke to him afterwards in various ways, but this first time He evidently appeared to him as the God of glory, and spoke to him. Have you, with your spiritual eyes seen the glory of God? Do you believe in the depths of your heart that God is glorious? If not, why do you want to serve Him? How could you or would you serve Him faithfully through the tests and trials you most certainly will experience if you have not seen with your spiritual eyes at least a glimpse of the glory of God? If so, how can you not serve Him?

This call was given to Abram in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Charran/Harran. Therefore we correctly read it that Abram obeyed the call while in Ur and again in Harran. Stephan’s defense before the Sanhedrin continues in Acts 7:4 saying, “So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.”

The Lord had spoken to Abram originally in Ur of the Chaldees; and, in direct obedience to this call, as Stephen further relates the story, Abram departed from Ur.  Then God was kind to give Abram a fresh command the same as before. We often need a little nudging from God. Even the famous man of faith Abram needed it. God did not let him get too comfortable in Harran. God moved him further into the land of Canaan. If God loves us and has mercy on us, He will not allow us to rest anywhere short of Canaan, but will graciously repeat his calls until the good work He began is performed, and our shoulders fit into the light yoke He has planned for us. When God calls us, we have both a command and a promise. The commands of God imply that keeping them is possible. Would He ask anyone of us to do something that was not possible for us to do with His help?

God tested Abram with a command, “Go . . . . to the land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). By this command Abram was tried whether he loved his native soil and dearest friends, and whether he could willingly leave all, to go along with God. His country had become idolatrous, his kindred and his father’s house were a constant influence and temptation to him, and he could not continue with them without danger of being infected by them. Those that are in a sinful place should be concerned to quickly get out of it. Get out for your own good. Those who leave their sins and turn to God will themselves be unspeakable gainers by the change. Proverbs 9:12 says, “If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you.” Natural affection for familiar friends and possessions must surrender to God’s plan.

 Our country is dear to us, our relatives dearer, and our father’s house dearest of all; and yet they must all be hated. That is, we must love them less than we love Christ, hate them in comparison with our love for Him, and, whenever any of these come in competition with Him, they must be rejected as inferior and cast aside for the sake of a greater prize, and the preference given to the will and honor of the Lord Jesus. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). We must willingly part with what is dearest to us, when we cannot keep it without it endangering our commitment to Jesus. The world, and all our enjoyments in it, must be looked on with a holy indifference and relative contempt; we must no longer look on it as our country or home, but rather as our motel and must accordingly live above it and be ready at any time to leave it.

By this command Abram was tried whether he could trust God further than he saw Him; for he must leave his own country, to go to a land that God would show him. He does not say yet that “It is a land that I will give you,” but merely, “a land that I will show you.” Nor does He tell him what land it was, nor what kind of land; but he must follow God with an implicit faith, and take God’s Word for it, in general, even with no particular guarantee given to him that he should be no loser in leaving his country, to follow God. Whoever will deal with God must deal in trust; we must quit the things that are seen for things that are not seen, and submit to the sufferings of this present time in hopes of a glory that is yet to be revealed such as Paul anticipated as described in Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” and that John referred to in 1 John 3:2, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” God called Abram to a land He would show him, and in doing so began to teach him to live in a continual dependence on His direction, and with his eye ever towards his God.

Lord, let us see your glory.  Let us see with the eyes of our faith. Let us learn to act on our beliefs.