Hello and welcome to our broadcast. We're in Genesis chapter 12. Have your Bible ready if you can. Well today in the broadcast we're going to do a little more looking here in Genesis chapter 12. This is such an important pivotal point in the book of Genesis. We want to expand on it just a little bit more. I'm going to read it here again from verse 1 down through verse 8. It says, Now the Lord had said, notice that past tense, the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country. and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." So God is speaking to Abraham. Now he's called Abram here, his name will be later changed to Abraham. So we read in verse 4, so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. Now can you imagine that he went to his wife, Sarai, whose name will later be changed to Sarah. He goes to her and says, I was talking to the Lord, we have to leave. They lived in a beautiful home, Ur of the Chaldees was a very populated area. They had a lot of things going for them. They weren't living in some little shack. He was very wealthy. So, how would you feel about that, ladies, if your husband said, I was talking to the Lord, we have to leave. Where are we going to live? I don't know, but we will live in a tent. Well, we read in verse 4, so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. And Lot went with him, and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. Now notice, it says here he was that old not when he left Ur of the Chaldees, when he left Haran. That's important. And Abram took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran. Haran. And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, which is where he was told to go in the first place. And into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the plain of Morach. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said unto thy seed, will I give this land? and there he builded an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east. And there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord." And then we read, "...and Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south." Now the first lesson we need to learn here is that in verse number one it says, now the Lord said, and in verse number four it says, so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. There you go. Let the Lord be in charge of your life and everything will turn out right. Take control of your own life, you're going to have some problems. Every once in a while we'll find that no matter who God used, whether it was Noah, or whether it was Abraham, or whoever, every once in a while they decided to take control of their own life, and we'll see that in the life of Abraham. And when they did that, things didn't work out too good for them. Good lesson here. Now, the Bible tells us plainly in Hebrews chapter 11 that Abraham did what he did by faith. By faith. Now, there's no faith without obedience, and there's no obedience without faith. But what is faith? It's a really interesting subject, and I think one of the most misunderstood subjects in the Bible. The word faith is found 247 times in the Bible. It is only found twice in all of the Old Testament, and God, referring to his people in Deuteronomy 32.10, said they had no faith. They had no faith. Not a little faith, no faith. Then in Habakkuk chapter 2 and verse 4 it says the just shall live by his faith. Now you find the phrase your faith 24 times in the Bible. Now it's very interesting that as I said only twice in the Old Testament. In the New Testament when you find the word faith there are two Greek words used. One of those words means to trust And one of those words means what you believe, you know, keep the faith, what you believe. It's referring to doctrine. Now, the word trust is only used five times in all of the New Testament. The word that is translated faith means what you believe 242 times in the New Testament. That's important. So when we talk about Abraham's faith in Romans 4 and 16, it talks about the faith of Abraham. What is it talking about? It's not talking about the fact that, OK, Lord, I just trust you. I don't know anything about anything, but I just trust you. That's not what it's saying. What it's saying here is he knows what he believes. Now, if you really believe what God says, you're obviously going to trust him. I would hope. I think you believe something and then not trust it? That's not very smart. Well, we're talking here, when we talk about Abraham's faith, we're talking about what he believed. And so when you get into the New Testament four times, in four verses in Romans it talks about Abraham's faith, in four verses in the book of Galatians it talks about Abraham's faith, in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 17 it says by faith When he was called to go out, he obeyed and he went out. Now look at verse 1 of chapter 12 in the book of Genesis. Now the Lord has said unto Abraham, or Abram, get thee out. Get out. You've got to get out of here. You've got to get out of Ur of the Chaldees. You've got to get out of this area. By faith, when he was called to go out, he obeyed and he went out, it says in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse number 17. by faith. Now again, that word means by what he believed. In other words, Abraham had faith. Faith, the Bible says, faith in Romans 10 and 17, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Faith is not just some warm fuzzy feeling, oh I trust the Lord, let's go. Faith has to do with what Abraham knew about God and about God's plan. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It's kind of like David when he sat out there on the backside of the desert with a few sheep and he was learning some things. One of the things he learned was how to use a slingshot and take care of those sheep. But another thing that he learned in all that time that he had on his hands was what God was doing. And he goes down there and he faces that giant and he says to those cowardly people hiding in a cave, is there not a cause? Yes, of course there's a cause. There's something going on. He had faith. He had an understanding. He knew what God was going to do. Now, Hebrews 11, 17 says, by faith, When Abraham was called to go out, he obeyed, and he went out. Again, no faith without obedience, no obedience without faith. He didn't just trust, he understood that God was doing something, and that's why the Bible says, study to show yourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the work, why? So that we'll understand, we will know when God speaks to us It isn't just some, oh, well, I feel warm and fuzzy and I think God's leading me here. No! Faith is based on the Word of God. You can get some charismatic fellow saying, well, the Holy Spirit's leading me to speak in tongues. That's not based on the Word of God. And so we can't do that. We need to base what we base on the Word, on the doctrine, on the faith once delivered unto the saints. And so that is why we read in the book of James several times over that faith without works is dead. Faith is what you believe. What you believe without works is dead. If it's dead, it's lifeless. Now what do we have in Habakkuk 2 and 4, the only one of two times we have the word faith? The just shall live by his faith. James said faith without works is dead. Habakkuk 2.4 says they just shall live by his faith. And so of all the people in the world that God could have used, why did God use Abraham? Well the answer is very simple, because of his beliefs. God could trust Abraham to live by what he believed. And so, in Genesis chapter 12 and verse number 1, the Lord had said to Abraham, get thee out, and we read again in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 17, by faith when he was called to go out, he obeyed and he went out. And so, in Genesis chapter 12 and verse number 4 we read, so Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. He departed. Well, first of all, he departed from the region, that is Ur of the Chaldees. It was wicked, it was a place of idolatry, and God is saying to Abraham, you've got to get out of this region. Not only that, you've got to get away from this religion, which we've seen in other broadcasts, even Abraham's father and his brother were wrapped up in wicked idolatry of the religious system of that day. So you need to get away from the region, you need to get away from the religion, and you need to get away from those relatives. Well, we find out that Abraham departed from the place, and he departed from the paganism, But unfortunately, he also departed from God's plan, the details of that plan. Now, departing from the faith and departing from the paganism, that has to do with faith and that has to do with something that is spiritual. But departing from the plan, now we've got something different going on here. If you go back to Genesis chapter 11 and verse number 27, It says, now these are the generations of Terah. Terah begat Abraham, Nahor, and Haran, three boys. And then Haran begat Luh. We read that he was told, remember in Genesis chapter 1, chapter 12, I'm sorry, and verse 1 it says, Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country. He had said this, and so it's recorded back in chapter 11. But how did this happen? He said, get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred, and from thy father's house. Well, look at verse 31 of chapter 11 and we read in Terah, that's Abraham's father, who was an idolater, 8. Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth with them from Ur the Chaldees to go unto the land of Canaan, and they came to Haran and dwelt there. Now, he had been told, get away from your father, get away from your family, this is my plan, you've got to leave the region, you've got to leave the religion, you've got to leave the relatives, you've got to go away from this place, you've got to go away from this paganism, and he departed on those, but he did not depart from his family. And so we find here that not only did he not depart, but in verse number one we find that his father was in charge of this trip. His father was an idolater. Joshua chapter 24 and verse number two says that his father and his brother served other gods. Well, Abraham departing from the place and departing from the paganism was a spiritual decision, but departing from God's plan, that was an emotional decision. Well, in verse number 4, we read, so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. Remember verse 1 of chapter 12? Now, the Lord had said that he didn't follow the plan. He just said, okay, I'll get away from this religion and I'll get away from that region, but I'm taking my family. No, the Bible says, he that loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. Abraham should have listened. As a result of this, it cost him five years of his life. It cost him more than five years of his life. It cost him the presence of God. It cost him the purpose of God in his life all that time. There was a compromise, there was a cost, but thank God there was a correction. And we read in verse 5, they went forth. Now finally, we're on to the detailed plan that God had given them in the first place. And so once again, we're out of time. Seems that 15 minutes goes by in a hurry. Tune in again tomorrow. We'll continue from here. We'll try to make it plain, and we will try to make it simple. you