Immense Blessing, Genesis 11-13, Day 9, Jan. 9 | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Genesis 11

¹ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ² As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

³ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

⁵ But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶ The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

⁸ So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why it was called Babel^]—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Wow! Note the economy of this passage. The whole story of Babel told in 9 sentences. Wow.

It’s a moving and scary story. The endeavour of the people of Babel was two-fold, “to make a name for themselves,” and to resist destiny, to resist what God might do, resist “being scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Isn’t that ambition in a nutshell–“to make a name for ourselves?” Hmm. Is it wrong?

Yes, no, or It Depends? I would tend to say Not Always Wrong, partly because all ambition is not yet dead in me, and I have not heard God saying to me what Cardinal Wolsey said to Cromwell in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
O Cromwell, Cromwell!

Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.

It is okay I think to work towards a goal, provided you have had long and serious talks with Christ about it. Is is a good fit with the talents he has given you? Will it bless you, your family and the world? Will you be fully human, fully alive while pursuing this goal? Will you be happy? Is it a healthy, achievable goal?

The people of Babel wanted to be famous, and wanted to resist the will of God. And so he who sat in the heavens laughed them to scorn. The Lord held them in derision.

From Shem to Abram

¹⁰ This is the account of Shem’s family line. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father^[d] of Arphaxad. ¹¹ And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.
¹² When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. ¹³ And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.^[e]
¹⁴ When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber. ¹⁵ And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
¹⁶ When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. ¹⁷ And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.
¹⁸ When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu. ¹⁹ And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.
²⁰ When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. ²¹ And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.
²² When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor. ²³ And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.
²⁴ When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. ²⁵ And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.
²⁶ After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

Abram’s Family

²⁷ This is the account of Terah’s family line.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. ²⁸ While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. ²⁹ Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. ³⁰ Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.

God gives humanity a third chance. People blew it after God inaugurates human history with Adam and begins again with Noah. Now there is yet another opportunity– he enters into a faith-based covenant, with a child born by faith to an old and barren woman.

God’s loving mercy–how he gives us chance, after chance, after chance–is indeed astonishing. We must be careful not to presume upon it.

³¹ 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 Harran, they settled there.

A journey prematurely aborted. They stop, but God’s plans for them do not stop. He calls them again.

³² Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.

Genesis 12

¹ The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

The demand of faith–get up, leave everything familiar, and go into the unknown. “Go to the land I will show you.”

Oh great!! That would have maddened me when I was younger, and really wanted to know my future and destiny desperately.

Now I feel that statement does mirror our lives accurately. We are walking with God to a land he will show us.

We do not know what the year will bring, or the decade, or our lives. We walk on a winding road, and cannot foresee its twists and turns, but we know a good God walks it with us.

And here are God’s seven promises to Abraham. A free gift as we give our children gifts–with no strings attached. Just because!!

² “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;

Surely these are among the sweetest words God can say to an individual, “I will bless you.”

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.

The beautiful contract of faith!! Whereas the people of Babel worked very hard (and futilely) to “make a name for ourselves,” God just gives Abraham this as a free gift, “I will make your name great.”

And what is the purpose of this free blessing: “You will be a blessing.”

³ I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;

Wow, do not ever mess with those whom God is clearly and manifestly blessing, with those on whom his favour rests. For God promises, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse.”

and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”

Wow! What an amazing free gift. Let’s pray together,

Lord, as a child of Abraham, I ask that you bless me and my children,

That if it pleases you, you “make our names great”

and make us a blessing.

Bless those who bless us.

Bind those who curse us from causing us any pain.

And bless all peoples on earth through us.

This is our inheritance, through faith, as children of Abraham.

⁴ So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him.

Wonderful words were spoken over Abraham. However, if Abraham had not taken the risk of faith, none of it would have come true.

Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. ⁵ He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

⁶ Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

Theophanies are memorialized so that they will not be forgotten. It is important for us to do this too, in a journal entry or blog post if nothing else.

⁸ From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.

⁹ Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

Abram in Egypt

¹⁰ Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. ¹¹ As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. ¹² When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. ¹³ Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

And this was a hero of the faith.

And this is part of being a human being.
One day our faith blazes brightly.
The next day, we are cowardly,
We trust in our shifts, schemes and devices rather than in God.

So don’t be too hasty to write off men of faith when they disappoint you.
And don’t be hasty to write yourself off either.
With God there is always a second and third chance.

¹⁴ When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. ¹⁵ And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. ¹⁶ He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

¹⁷ But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. ¹⁸ So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” ²⁰ Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

Very interesting! Here God punished an unwitting sin innocently committed. This is reminiscent of what Jesus said in Luke 12;48. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.

How much more will his judgement fall on deliberate sin.

Genesis 13

¹ So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. ² Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

“Very wealthy in silver and gold.” This is what we would intuitively consider God’s blessing to look like, partly because if we wanted to bless our children or family or friends, we would give them good things.

However, God’s blessing is so much more. It is primarily INTERNAL. Shalom. Peace. Joy. Love. Because what is silver and gold worth without peace, or joy, or love or shalom?

³ From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier ⁴ and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the LORD.
He has sinned, he has been a coward, he has been forgiven, he has been blessed. And now Abraham returns to the great theme of his life. He calls upon the name of the Lord.