God’s Timeline – Part 20
The
Call of Abram
Pastor Bruce A. Shields
House
of Faith Church | www.PS127.org | www.TruthDigest.org
Online Audio Files | HOF Church Facebook | Truth Digest
Facebook
This Document is a Sermon Outline, you may hear the full audio of the
actual sermon by following the link Online
Audio Files located above for this, and other Full Sermon Audios. For a complete list of Sermon Outlines, visit
TruthDigest.org or Truth Digest on facebook; for our Official Church website,
visit PS127.org, or find us on Facebook
at House of Faith Church
SERMON INTRODUCTION
-
Creation Week
o Adam, Eve, and the Fall
-
Cain and Abel
o Evil Fills the World
-
Noah Did All God
Commanded Him
o The Flood
o God’s Covenant with Noah
-
Noah’s Sons and Ham’s Sin
-
Nations of Noah’s Sons
-
Tower of Babel
-
God calls Abram
So, we have looked at the
Creation week (4,000 B.C.), to the Flood (approximately 1,600 years later 2,400-2,300
B.C.) and an unspecified time later, the Tower of Babel.
What we do know from
scripture is the covenant God makes with Abram takes place around 2090 B.C.
That means the Tower of
Babel took place between 2,400 – 2090 B.C., my guess would be during that 300+
year stretch it took place closer to Abram than the flood because we know that
it would take some time for Noah’s sons to have all the children and
grandchildren listed in scripture.
We know Abram was born in
2165 (Genesis
11:26), so he was 75 when he
was called by the Lord in 2090 B.C.
SCRIPTURE READING
Genesis 12:1-6
“The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your
people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless
you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a
blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses
you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed
through you.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with
him. 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.”
I.
THE LORD
CALLS ABRAM
a. “Go where I will show you.”
b. The Lord is our Shepherd, leading us.
c. We are His sheep and should follow in faith and
trust.
II.
THE
COVENANT
a. God initiates the covenant, not man
b. The promises to Abram
i.
I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you.
ii.
I will make your name great (unlike Tower of Babel)
iii.
And you will “be a blessing”
iv.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse
v.
And all peoples on
earth will be blessed through you
(Jesus the Messiah)
c.
So, Abram
went as the Lord told him & Lot went with him
i.
Abram was 75 when he
set out from Harran (located inside modern day Turkey)
III.
ABRAM
TRAVELS
a. Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot
i.
Women are not
mentioned very often in scripture, so when they are mentioned it is double important!
ii.
They took all their
possessions they had accumulated and people they had acquired in Harran and set
out for the Land of Canaan.
b. SLAVES in the Bible should NOT be interpreted by
the lens of American History
i.
There are three types
of slaves in the bible.
1. Temporary slaves
2. Permanent slaves
3. Actual Slaves
ii.
Temporary
slaves were people who owed a debt
(like modern indentured servants who signed contracts promising to work for a
certain number of years to pay off their debt they incurred for transportation
to Virginia, as well as a supply of food, clothing and shelter). Once their
debt was paid, they were free to leave the servitude.
iii.
Permanent
slaves were people who chose to be
a servant for the rest of their lives.
Why? For the benefits of being a servant to a great leader, such as
Abram.
1.
It allowed you things
you may not be able to get yourself, such as land, livestock, food, shelter,
protection of a large clan, etc.
2. Servants (permanent slaves) were to be treated very
well by those they serve.
iv.
Look at
this as modern day “employment”
1. You serve your employer
2. You receive compensation for your service
3. You get benefits for serving your employer whether
financial, medical, insurance, vacation pay, etc.
c. How did Abram treat his servants?
i.
Look at the way he
lived his life, and the fact that God chose him to be the father of many
nations representing the Lord and God’s Kingdom.
ii.
In the bible we read
about;
1. Abram’s servants were willing to go to war for him
2. They were allowed to keep their fair share of the
bounty
3. The fact he trained them for war shows he respected
and trusted them (they outnumbered him and could have destroyed him)
4. They in turn respected and followed Abram
iii.
Abrams slaves
(servants) were allowed to have their own households
iv.
Their own means of
income
v.
They were paid for
their services
vi.
They were allowed to
keep the spoils of war
vii.
Slaves in bible times
should be referred to as servants
CONCLUSION –
What would happen if you
mistreated a servant today? They would
probably leave and sue you!
The bible speaks about
this matter, and even calls kidnapping a death penalty offense.
How did America’s 17th-19th
century slave trade take place? Beginning with kidnapping!
The biblical slave (with
the exception of actual slaves such as the case with the Israelites in Egypt,
for example) is NOT the same as the colonial European slave trade we all know
from high school history class.
Bible slaves (temporary
and permanent) should be referred to as servants.
The bible lists limits as
well as defines how they are to be treated, and the punishments for
mistreatments as well.
Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15
Next week we will read about Abram and Lot parting ways (Genesis 13)
This, and other
Sermon Audios can be found for FREE at
https://www.ps127.org/online-audio-files
Want to learn more
about Salvation and Getting Saved?
Want to hear the audio to this sermon?
No comments:
Post a Comment