1443 - "The Story begins to build with intensity" Genesis 12-13

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

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Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1443. Today we are leaving the primeval period, Genesis 1 through 11, and we're beginning an entire new section in the Word of God. Genesis 12 is a tidal shift in Biblical Revelation. Because for the first 11 chapters, we have covered a long, long period of time from the creation of everything to the call of Abraham. It is an incredible amount of time, and during that time the word and concept of sacrifice and an altar being built of worship is really only specifically explicitly named twice. First in Genesis chapter four verses three through five, and that is the story of Abel and Cain. And we talked about that in yesterday's podcast. And then Noah in chapter eight and verse twenty, Noah built an altar to God as the first act of worship after he departed from the ark and got all of the animals and his family out. The first order was worship, and that always includes sacrifice. And the only other time that it is mentioned is in the book of Genesis, where you have God clothing the parents of the entire human race in animal skins, which implies, as I spoke yesterday to you, that there was sacrifice. So I want to go to chapter twelve. Now before we get into the details of this, I just want you to understand that in all of the chapters you have this explicitly talked about, that is this altar and sacrifice only twice in the first eleven chapters. In chapter twelve and thirteen, just two chapters, you have twice that amount mentioned. Four times an altar of sacrifice is mentioned. In Genesis chapter twelve and in verse seven, it is mentioned that when Abraham came into the land of Canaan, I believe he would have come down the eastern side of the Jordan. He would have come down and crossed the Jordan probably at the Jabuk crossing. The Jabuk River forms a huge canyon. It is a divide in the ancient land of Gilead. That's what it would have been during the days of the United Monarchy and a little before and after. It was known as Gilead. Before that it was one of the sons of Lot, Ammon, and so it was the place of the Ammonites. It's right near where Amon Jordan is today. And I believe he would have come down that natural crossing and would have crossed over at Wadifarar and gone right into Shekim, Shechem. The Bible says that he built an altar there and he worshiped the Lord. And it was in Genesis chapter twelve and verse seven that the promise while Abraham was on the land on the very soil that God told him he would show him a land that he would give unto him. That was the promise that was made in Ur of the Chaldees. And so he says in Genesis chapter twelve, then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants, I will give this land. And there he built an altar to Yahweh, to the Lord, who had appeared to him. And that is the first instance when God said, Abraham, I'm going to give you this. His name, of course, was Abram then. He said, I'm going to give you this land that I just brought you into. And Abram was so trusting in God that there he offered sacrifice, and the blood began to run again. The crimson flow began to be evidenced. And then as soon as you read the next verse, he moves from Shkem and he moved to the mountain east of Bethel. And he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and high, literally hae on the east. Now we call that Ai, but in the Hebrew text it has a breather, a he. For those of you who know Hebrew, it is hay, then you have a vowel pointing, a comets, and then you have an ayon with a yod, and you have a patak underneath the ion, and so you would pronounce that he. It's got a little break in between. It's not a I, but that's okay to pronounce it like that because that's how it's spelled, and that's just the way we do it. We would come closer if we just say I, uh, because all you have is a breather, a hay on the front, ha I, or something along those lines, because there is uh H sound uh on it. And so I'm just telling you that as we see these things and as we go through these scriptures, I'm going to just point out some of these things because I know we've got a lot of Bible teachers that listen to this all over the world. We've just had more cities come on in South Korea, several in uh Southeast Asia, and I know they're coming on so they can learn and grow. And many are Bible teachers and small group leaders and pastors. And so I try to from time to time help them, especially in pronunciation and so forth, and it would be different in different languages, but the Hebrew is the primary language of the Old Testament, and that is how it is spelled, is what I did for you earlier. And he built an altar there, it says, to Yahweh, and called on the name of Yahweh, so Abraham journeyed going on still toward the south. Now, this is within just the early verses of chapter twelve, we have already two mentions of sacrifice and an altar, and we haven't even gotten ten verses when it was eleven chapters that we just had two mentions before. Now, what am I saying? With Abraham, everything is more intense. Why? Because God is dealing with a particular individual, and that individual is going to represent the father of those who would be known as people of faith, of trust. Why would God so emphasize that all the way through the scripture? Because the book of Hebrews says in chapter 11, verse 6, without trust it is impossible to please God. You see, we don't gain favor with God by doing good things. We don't gain favor with God because of our DNA. We gain favor with God through his grace and through trusting his promises and his word. And that's what Abraham did. He trusted God and left his family, he left his home, he left his comfort zone, he left everything behind and followed God to a land, to a place he didn't even know where he was going. And God liked that. And then when God said, I'm gonna give you the land, Abraham questioned him. It's okay to question God. The Lord Jesus, the perfect son of God, questioned his father on more than one occasion. And it wasn't just on the cross when he said why, but it was other places. And the father understands that. When our children question us, and legitimately, I'm not talking about being smart, Alex, but I'm talking about when they genuinely question something about what our desire is for them. Don't we want to tell them we don't fuss at them for asking something? Well, if we do that, as carnal as we are, a perfect heavenly father would do that. He didn't uh get on to Abram for asking him that. Abraham questioned him about his son uh that he did not have and so forth, but he didn't stagger at his promises. You say, How do you know that? Because that's what the inspired word of God says in the book of Hebrews. And Paul said that in Romans chapter four, that we'll see when we get to chapter 15, that it was through that covenant that he trusted God. He trusted God, and God declared him righteous. He accounted it to him for righteous, he put it on his account as righteousness. And that is the grace of God that's revealed all the way through the scriptures. But without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. And so this happens here in chapter 14. If you continue to read through chapter 12, you'll see that Abram goes down into Egypt. He messes up down there. That's not the land God said he would give to him. And so when he comes back into the land, he comes back to Bethel, back to the place where he met God that he called Bethel, Bait L, the house of God. B-E-T-H is the word for it's the way we transliterate the word house, bait or beth. B-E-T-H, it's pronounced bait, as in B-A-I-T, is the way most would transliterate that. Bait L, that's the name of God. That's what I would call the generic name of God. Elohim, the short of Elohim, is L. And so anytime you see a name with E-L on the end, like Daniel, that means God is my judge. Dan is the word for judge. The I is the personal pronoun my, and then L on the end, God is my judge. And so that's Daniel, Ezekiel, all the way through. Elijah is my God, Eli, E-L-I, and then Yah is Yahweh. And so when you see a A-H on the end of anything, that's the name of God. The book of Psalms, chapter 68, and verse 4 says, extol him who rides on the clouds by his name, Yah, Y-A-H. So that's the shortened form of Yahweh. So Isaiah, Jeremiah, all of those are the personal name of God attached, Mika, Micah, we call it, all of these names that N N A H, that's the name of God as well. So Bethel means house of God. And so he came back and he rebuilt the altar that he had left there, and he sacrificed again. When he found the place where he would ultimately live, and ultimately where he would be buried at the oaks of Mamre, which was named Hebron. And it was Kiriat Arba, you remember, as well, was the name of it. That's for another day when we get there. But these are the places in the these two chapters where altars were built. Altars were for sacrifice, and all I'm wanting you to see is in this podcast is that the intensity of sacrifice picks up as the line of faith Abram is chosen, and God begins to build the dynasty that would one day not just produce the great kings of Israel and the great priest of Israel, and the great deliverers and rescuers and saviors of Israel, but it would produce this line, the Lord Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem by a virgin and lived a perfect life and died as a substitute for our sins, not his sins, but for ours. And so as we go through these stories together, may God grant us insight that we not just know more about him, but know him better as we walk on the way. This is Tony Crisp.

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Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.