GOING WITHOUT KNOWING Hebrews 11:8; Acts 7:2-3; Genesis 11:27-32 INTRODUCTION A. The concept of faith is central to our well, it is central to our faith. Belief in what we cannot see with our eyes and trust in God when we are uncertain of our future are pivotal concepts in our relationship with the God of heaven. GE 15:6; GA 3:6; JA 2:23. B. Much has been written, both in Scripture and beyond, about faith and what it is. Here are some contemporary attempts to get a handle on its meaning. 1. "Faith grows only in the dark," writes Lyell Rader. "You've got to trust Him when you can't trace Him. That's faith." 2. Philip Yancey defines faith as: "Believing in advance in something that will only seem logical when seen in reverse." 3. "Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark," wrote Sir Rabindranath Tagore (1861 1941). 4. In a more humorous vain, J.G. Stipe wrote, "Faith is like a toothbrush. Every man should have one and use it regularly, but he shouldn't try to use someone else's." Lloyd Cory, ed., Quotable Quotations, p. 130. 5. Another writer said, "Faith is daring the soul to go farther than it can see." 6. The very best definition comes from Scripture - Hebrews 11:1. 7. If I were asked to describe the life of the Bible character, Abraham, in one word, that word would be "faith." In fact, that is exactly how Paul described him in Galatians 3:9. 8. The Hebrew writer spoke of Abraham s faith in Hebrews 11:8. 9. Abraham showed his faith in the early biblical descriptions of his life by obeying God s order to go when he had no idea where he was supposed to be going. According to the Hebrew writer, his faith amounted to going without knowing. 10. Do you know the story of Abraham s call? Do you know about his faith - his "going without knowing"? That is what I want to spend our time on today in this series we have begun on Abraham s life. We will begin in Genesis 12. C. Many people who read Genesis come to what I believe is a mistaken conclusion that Abraham s call begins in the first few verses of Genesis 12. Let us take a look at it. 1. Read Genesis 12:1-4 - This is God s call to Abraham, but notice there in verse 4 that it is a call out of Haran. "Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran." 2. If you know the Scriptures well, immediately you may spot a problem. Elsewhere there are passages that say Abram was called out of Ur of the Chaldees, a city 600 miles from Haran. 3. In Nehemiah 9:7, we read, "Thou art the LORD God, Who chose Abram And brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees, And gave him the name Abraham." 4. Further, Stephen, in his sermon to the Sanhedrin council in Acts 7:2-3 says, " The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him,' Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you. 5. Those skeptics who wish to discredit the God s word immediately slam their Bibles shut at this point and shout, "Contradiction!" But like so many of the so called "contradictions" of the Bible, a little bit of familiarity and study of the Scriptures will resolve the issue. 6. Consider the possibility that there may have been two calls of Abraham. One call came while he was in his home city of Ur of the Chaldees and the other came later, after he had left Ur and settled in Haran. After all, we ve already seen that Abraham wasn t given
the exact destination when he left Ur, so it s reasonable that there may have been several progressive "guidance" or "reassurance" calls to move him along the track of God s will. A close look at the Bible record indicates that God communicated with Abraham this way at least six times throughout his life, not just at the beginning, so the idea of multiple communications is reasonable. In Ur of the Chaldeas (Acts 7:2), in Haran (Genesis 12:1-3), at Moreh in Canaan (12:7), at Oaks of Mamre near Hebron (ch. 15), again at Mamre (17:1-21), and at Moriah (22:15-18). There may have been others. 7. The call of Genesis 12:1 is, I believe, a second call from God and not a contradiction of those other passages of the Bible. This is the call that we will discuss. D. So where is the initial call before Genesis 12? We see evidence of it in the closing verses of Genesis 11. Read Genesis 11:27-32, especially verse 31 - Something caused Abraham to leave Ur with his father and head toward Canaan. Yet there is no call recorded in this passage. E. So how do we know there was a call out of Ur? Interestingly, God has placed the answer to that in the words of a young preacher who was about to become the first martyr of the church. Read Acts 7:2-4. F. Here then, is Abraham s first call and here also is the reasonable explanation for the alleged contradiction which, as you can see, is not a contradiction at all. 1. May I say by way of exhortation that you should always read and study all the Bible says about a subject before you conclude that it has contradictions? Further, you should always consider the context of a passage, to whom a passage is addressed, what covenant was in effect when it was written, and a few other common sense things. 2. Understanding God s word takes careful study. It also takes a mind that is humbled enough and opened long enough for that study to take place. G. Now that we know what the text of the first call was, and that it took place in Ur of the Chaldees just as the rest of the Bible says, let us look at it more closely to see what we can learn about Abraham s faith. As we do, I encourage you to compare the substance of your own faith with what we learn. 1. We have already seen from Hebrews 11:8 that Abraham s faith was shown because, in obedience, he "went out, not knowing where he was going." 2. In Stephen s description of Abraham s call, we see that clearly. "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, 'Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.'" 3. God did not initially show Abraham where He wanted him to go. The order from God to disembark came with very little explanation. I think we can say then, in looking at the nature of Abraham s faith, that: DISCUSSION I. THE CALL OF FAITH INVOLVES UNCERTAINTY. A. As a preacher, I have never been a person who liked to move on a whim. In fact, I hate to uproot from one area and move to another at all. If I am going to move, I am very diligent to check out the place where we are going so I can carefully weigh the pros and cons before making the final decision. I will cautiously evaluate what we are leaving and compare it to what we will gain by the move. B. There was no opportunity for Abraham to consider the place God was sending him because God did not tell him where it was. When God told him to move, He could not pick up the phone and have a Canaanite newspaper sent to him. He could not contact the local Canaan Chamber of Commerce to consider his business prospects in this land God wanted him to go. There was no Internet where he could check out the price of
housing. God did not tell him where he was going! All he had to go on was a command to leave his home from a God he did not really know and the promise that he would be shown more about it in the future. C. Setting aside the obvious issue that God never has spoken to everyone directly in any period of Bible history, consider how much information Abraham was given before he obeyed and left Ur. If Stephen s record of the call is complete there in Acts 7, he had exactly one sentence. One verse! "Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you." That is not very much information. Beyond that, the only answer implied was "trust Me." D. Compared to Abraham, how much information do you and I have about God s will today? We have 66 books! 1189 chapters! These writings contain story after story and promise after promise of God s faithfulness fully enough to give us the confidence we need to produce faith. E. Why then are we not more certain? Why are we not more faithful than Abraham is? 1. I think one reason is that, though we have so much, many of us spend very little time learning what is there. 2. There is probably more widespread ignorance of the Bible today than at any other time in our nation s history. I am not just referring to the ignorance among those who do not even try to follow God. I am referring to those within churches. I 3. If you are going to have faith, you need to understand just what it is you are to have faith in, lest your faith be misplaced. F. But even with a good knowledge of the Bible giving us a maximum faith potential, faith is still a challenge because it usually involves some level of uncertainty an element of "going without knowing" in the words of the Hebrew writer. G. Listen, obeying God when there does not appear to be any tangible assurance of the outcome other than a promise, takes determination and commitment. It always has been tough and it will continue to be tough until we reach heaven. H. We also learn from Abraham s initial call that: II. THE CALL OF FAITH IS NOT ALWAYS CONVENIENT. Genesis 12:4. A. Think for a few moments about all the things that little six-letter command, "depart," meant to Abraham. He had to uproot in whatever business he was. He had to uproot his family. He probably had to sell those holdings that could not be taken with him from Ur. He had to endure all of the questions of well-meaning friends and family. Can you imagine what it must have been like? B. "Abram, why would you leave all you have here to follow a God you cannot even see? We have never seen this God of yours. You and your relatives have lived here for many years. Do you mean to tell us that you are going to liquidate all you have here and move without even knowing where you are going?" C. The risk for Abraham was very real. He had to go to a place where there were strange people. Who could know what kind of danger he would come across? Would there be highway robbers lying in wait along whatever route God chose? To add to this, those who went with him also had to endure all the inconvenience and risk. After all, the "God of Glory" had not appeared to Terah or Sarai or Lot. They knew very little of the compulsion that drove Abram. Surely there must have been some searching questions. D. What does that mean to you and me? Simply that we should expect faith to be difficult at times. Faith has never been easy! We should expect challenges to our status-quo. There will be times when following God in obedience will mean inconvenience. We will
III. be misunderstood. People at times may think we are crazy. They surely must have thought Abraham had some screws loose! E. Listen to how the Apostle Peter put it in 1 Peter 4:12: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you " F. Faith can sometimes be a "fiery ordeal," and to a generation that sometimes considers it an ordeal to just get out of bed to come to church on Sunday, that is a real eye-opener! The call of faith may involve uncertainty. It may involve inconvenience. G. Thirdly, we learn from Abraham s call that: THE CALL OF FAITH IS STRONGER THAN FAMILY TIES. A. "Get thee out of they country, and from thy kindred [relatives] " is what God said to Abraham in Acts 7:3. Abraham was to leave his relatives behind in Ur. My guess as to the reason for that is that they were probably all idol worshippers. B. The ruins of Ur that have been excavated show that the city was full of idol worship especially worship of the so-called god of the Moon the patron god of Ur. Even Terah, Abraham s father, according to Joshua 24:2, was an idol worshipper at least for a while. C. That brings up an interesting point. If Abraham was supposed to depart from his relatives, why did he take his father Terah, his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot with him? And why does it appear in Genesis 11:31 that Terah took Abram and not that Abram took Terah? (Read Genesis 11:31) 1. Probably the reason it appears that Terah took Abram and not that Abram took Terah is that the writer of Genesis is reporting on the "records of the generations of Terah" (see verse 27) in these verses and not the records of Abraham. Thus he tells it from Terah s perspective. 2. As for why Abraham took his father, wife, and nephew, some say Abraham took them with him because, though he did obey by getting out of his country, his faith was not yet strong enough to fully obey God s command. In other words, he obeyed, but only partially. 3. While what I just said could have been the case, before we reach that conclusion, we need to take another look at what Stephen said (and did not say) when he told of the original call. He said, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Notice that there is no mention specifically of leaving his father in the original call. "But wouldn t his father be included in that word relatives?" Not necessarily. If we look at Abraham s second call, the one out of Haran in Genesis 12:1, we find a specific mention of his father in addition to the mention of his relatives. 4. If the word "relatives" included his father, then why make the additional mention of his father? I conclude therefore, that the word "relatives" in the original call may not have included a prohibition on taking his father along. It may have meant what we would call today his "extended family." Though life spans steadily diminished after the flood, people were still living a lot longer in those days than we live today. Terah lived 205 years. Abraham lived to 175. You end up having a lot of "extended family" with a long life like that. D. But back to our earlier statement that the call of faith is stronger than family ties 1. Jesus clearly taught us that the call of faith is stronger than our family allegiances. In Matthew 10:37 He said.
2. Does that mean that Jesus is anti-family? Not at all! Some of the strongest teaching about family loyalty anywhere is found in the Bible. For instance, Paul said in 1 Timothy 5:8. 3. Being a Christian will make any man a better husband, son, father, or grandfather. Being a Christian will make any woman a better wife, daughter, mother, or grandmother. It is just that when compared to our dedication to Him, our faith must be stronger than our family ties. If it all ever comes down to a choice between God s will and my family s will, faith means I will choose God. Here are a couple of scenarios where this principle might play out: 4. People raised in a certain religion may learn from the Bible that the religion of their parents is deficient or wrong. At that point, if the relatives cannot or will not change, they must decide whether they will stay in falsehood with their relatives or follow the call of God into the truth. 5. Many of the early Christians had to make this decision about their Jewish roots when they accepted Jesus as Messiah and their families did not. We cannot be people of faith and cling to falsehood because of family loyalty. 6. As another possible example of God over family, sometimes people who have been in the church for years may tend to give special preference to their family members, making exception to clearly taught truth in regard to them. I have seen situations in the church where leaders are intensely diligent about doing right and making sure others do the same. They are "death" on those who disregard God s commandments until it comes to members of their own family. At that point they develop a sudden case of blindness. The Bible speaks clearly too church leaders in 1 Timothy 5:21. The call to faith must be stronger than family ties. CONCLUSION A. How could a person possibly "sell" Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the statue of Lord Nelson in London's Trafalgar Square? For the answer to that you need only consider a certain Scotsman named Arthur Ferguson, who in the 1920s did just that to unsuspecting buyers! Ferguson used his amazing sales ability to extract $30,000 from a well-todo American for Nelson's statue, and got $5,000 from another American for Big Ben. By the time the law caught up with Ferguson and he was sent to prison, he had not only sold the landmarks I just mentioned, but had taken $10,000 as a down payment on Buckingham Palace! B. Tell me what was wrong with Ferguson's "transactions?" The same thing that is wrong with the "faith" that many people have today. He was dealing in things he never possessed. Anybody can claim faith, but the true test is not words. It is the life that stands up to the challenges that faith brings. C. Faith is going without knowing. It is sometimes takes us into uncertain areas. It is often inconvenient. And it is stronger than any earthly tie we may have here. D. What is the state of your faith?