The story of Abraham leaving Babylon reveals the great mercy of Elohim in one man’s life. Romans 12:2 talks about finding the good, better and perfect will of Elohim for our lives. As much as we may respect and even venerate Abraham as the father of the faithful, it appears that he didn’t follow Elohim’s instructions perfectly at first. It wasn’t that Abraham was out of the will of Elohim, but that he may not have been in the perfect will of Elohim. Despite human weakness and reluctance to immediately follow the Creator’s instructions, YHVH was still merciful and gracious with the spiritual father of our faith.
Genesis 12:1, Get thee out of thy country. Did Abram immediately leave his father’s house and go directly to the country that YHVH would show him, or did he fulfill YHVH’s will for his life in incremental steps? (Compare Gen 11:31 with 12:1.) Did Abram leave his father’s house completely, or take part of his father’s house with him including his father and nephew? Haran is located in northern Mesopotamia and is nowhere near Canaan. When Abram finally made his way to Canaan minus his father, did he still have part of his kindred with him, something YHVH instructed him to leave behind (Gen 12:1)? Did his nephew Lot prove to be a help or a hindrance to Abram in fulfilling YHVH’s mission for his life in a new land?
What lessons can we learn from this account? First, YHVH is gracious to us even when we don’t obey him completely and immediately. Scripture still refers to Abraham as the father of the faithful or faithfulness (Rom 4:12, 16). Second, Abram was a man of prominence in Babylon (or Chaldea), was recognized as a mighty prince (Gen 23:6), and was 75 years old when YHVH asked him to leave the comforts of life in Babylon to trek across the desert to the backwoods region of Canaan. No doubt, this was not an easy move for Abram for the reasons stated above.
What did Yeshua tell his disciples about the sacrifices that would need to be made to be a follower of YHVH? (Matt 10:35–39). What did Yeshua say would be the eternal rewards of those, who like our father Abraham, set out in faith for a new spiritual destiny? (Matt 19:29) What physical obstacles stand in your way of fulfilling YHVH’s spiritual calling, mission and destiny for your life?
Presently, YHVH is calling his people out of the spiritual Babylon (Rev 18:4) of man-made religious systems that, to one degree or another, have supplanted the simple truths of YHVH’s word with doctrines and traditions of men. Anything that takes precedence in the hearts and minds of men that is contrary to the Bible is, by biblical definition, an idol. End times spiritual Babylon is full of idolatry. It is a confused mixture of truth and lies. YHVH called Abram out of Babylon, and he’s calling his people out of Babylon today to worship and obey him in Spirit and truth. His end time saints will be those who follow Yeshua the Messiah unconditionally wherever he goes (Rev 14:4–6). Their chief identification mark is that they follow the Torah-commandments of Elohim and have the faith of Yeshua—their lives have been transformed by the message of the gospel (Rev 14:17; 12:14).
I have pondered this before. Abraham and Father were pretty close :<) and I would think that if He was angry about Abraham not following His exact directions that we would have record of Him chastising him. I have wondered…even though there was no written Torah then, I think Father's commands had been passed down orally so that Abraham knew for ex, to honor his elderly father by caring for him and perhaps adopting his nephew after the death of his brother so that to Abraham, he might have thought he was obeying a "weightier measure" of Torah so-to-speak by honoring his commitments. I wonder if Abraham understood differently than we assume to be the intention or if some direction of Father's might have somehow been left our of mistranslated? My point I suppose, is that I decided not to "judge" Abraham for his action in this instance because I didn't see anywhere where Father had done so, and I considered that MAYbe there was something Abraham knew that I didn't!! Have a good week Natan!
Dear drbetsill
Your comment is quite profound & worthy to be explored very much…… in that it is so often missed that obedience is not necessarily blind letter/ flesh missions and that to love is the goal in refining and testing us.
Loving in action does not have to impede our success in mission.
Messiah stopped on his way into a town to raise the widow’s son from the dead….who knows how many people listened & repented by watching that miracle…
Channun grace is showing the compassion that was shown to us when we were unworthy & the expectation from God is to pass it on unless specifically told not to…eg kill the men women children and animals in war tomorrow.
Ruth was a case of ‘not to allow her as a Moabitess to truly be grafted into Israel according to the letter’ but the field changed to the spirit interpretation on the way because of her expression and God’s response to channun toward her mother in law and God which became the substance of aligning with God’s will to find admittance into the Kingdom.
Transformative stuff!
Be blessed. FJ
Of course I don’t know what I don’t know (!) but I consider the many times that servants of Father DID specifically go against what he said and he chastised them big time and it is recorded, so I wonder why He would NOT have chastised Abraham for disobeying if that is what he did? Just enough there to make me wonder if there’s info about Father and His discussions with Abraham that we don’t know about!! Regardless…my point remains ONLY that I am not going to condemn (criticize) Abraham for disobedience when Father didn’t…it’s His place not mine anyway!
There are two points to this discussion that I haven’t brought up yet that are worth considering.
First, YHVH did, in a sense, chastise Abraham in that he suffered the consequences of not heeding Elohim’s instructions to immediately leave Ur and to leave his family behind. Had he left Lot, his headaches in Canaan would have been fewer. Lot proved to be a thorn in Abraham’s side. First, Lot greedily took the best pastures for his flocks away from Abraham, even though YHVH had promised the whole land to Abraham. Second, Abraham had to imperil himself and his men in rescuing Lot from the Babylonians. Third, Lot’s offspring, Moab and Ammon, would prove to be a continual thorn in the side of the Israelites for hundreds of years afterwards—another consequence of Abraham not following Elohim’s instructions perfectly. Chastisement? You bet you!
Second, Romans 12:2 talks about the fact that each saint has to prove what is the good, better and best will of Elohim for their lives. When Abraham left Ur and partially followed Elohim’s instructions, he was in the good or better will of Elohim, but not his perfect will. Abraham’s heart was still in the right place and he was headed in the right direction. Elohim still counted that act of faith toward his righteousness. But, as noted above, Abraham suffered the consequences of his not walking in Elohim’s perfect will.
Nonetheless, YHVH is gracious to those who have a heart to follow him, though it may only be his good and better will. The point is this: To the degree that we obey Elohim, we will be blessed, and to the degree that we don’t, we won’t. There are degrees and stages to obedience and judgment. When we don’t, the consequences of our actions we suffer help to bring us into Elohim’s perfect will.
I hope this makes sense. There are many nuances to this discussion because we’re talking about the mind and heart of Elohim and that of man as well.
You may be correct. I don’t know. All I am doing is looking at the hard facts: What YHVH specifically commanded Abraham to do, and what Abraham actually did as recorded in Scripture. I can’t second guess the facts. They are what they are whether we’re comfortable with them or not. For example, the Bible calls Lot a righteous man, and YHVH saved him, even though he was willing to throw his virgin daughters to the homo dogs, didn’t have his family in order spiritually, and was a drunkard and had incest with his daughters. Or how about Judah having sex with a prostitute that was actually his daughter-in-law who gave birth to a son who was the ancestor of the Messiah? Or Esther who was a sex slave to a heathen, polygamous king who Scripture lauds for saving the Jewish people? No indication of chastisement from Elohim in any of these cases. These type of things trouble our western, Christian sensitivities. What are we to do with them? Don’t know. All I can point to is the merciful grace of Elohim toward those whose hearts are inclined toward him, even though they have great human foibles, weaknesses and sins. What else can one logically deduct? If I’missing something to this picture, I’d like to know what it is. I need to know from the facts and truth of Scripture—not conjecture.
Ah yes. Grace:<)
If you want to walk on water, you gotta get out of the boat! We don’t even like our boats rocked much less get out of our comfort zones which can also be ruts! When we tried to tell the church the “good news” we learned in the Hebrew roots movement, we were rocking their boat, so we left because their boat was sinking though they didn’t know it. I have marveled that Abraham was told to leave it all behind then we see he really didn’t but look where YHVH led him! When He leads and you follow He even changes your name as we will get new names when we follow Him, wow! He calls things that are not as though they were because His word will not return void!
Good morning! I agree with what you have said Natan…I think I am making a distinction between what might be considered natural consequences as opposed to absolute spoken direct statement by Father that the person did wrong….I was only suggesting that sometimes Father clearly pronounces that the person did wrong and there is a specific proclamation by Him of what was going to happen to that person as a result. This is missing in the story of Abraham so I merely ponder that there is something different about that situation in my mind…perhaps something we just don’t know about because it wasn’t recorded….? As usual, the more I know, the less I know:<)