Part One: The Reaching Begins · Week 5 of 13
Week 5 · The God Who Keeps His Word
This week God reaches by swearing the covenant to himself and keeping his word for four generations, through every failure of the heirs.
Genesis 15-50
This is the hinge. By the end of Genesis 11 the human race is scattered at Babel, every family going its own way, and then God calls one man out of Ur and ties the blessing of every family on earth to him.
Read the call in chapter 12 as it stands: a command to leave, and a run of promises with no condition on them but to go. Then watch him keep his word for four generations, through a barren wife, a knife raised over the promised son, a stolen blessing, and a pit in Egypt.
Abram believes God in chapter 15, and God counts it to him for righteousness, and Paul will build the whole doctrine of justification on that one sentence. The covenant is cut in chapter 15 with God passing between the pieces alone, so that when the heirs fail, and they fail in nearly every chapter, the promise still stands on the oath of the one who swore it.
The narrowing to the one man was always aimed outward. The one was always for the many. By Friday you will have followed the seed from Abraham's tent toward a cross, and you will have said Abraham's own answer back to God.
THE BOOKENDS
The two verses this whole story runs between.
Genesis 3:9 (KJV)
And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
AND
Revelation 22:17 (KJV)
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
The first thing God asks, and the last thing he offers. Everything between is him coming.
1Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
2And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
4So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
5And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
6And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
7And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.
8And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.
9And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.
Day 1 · COME · ~15 min
So Abram departed
Read: Genesis 12:1-9
Read Genesis 12:1-9 whole, about four minutes, no notes yet. The call of Genesis 12 is the hinge of the whole Bible: a command to leave, and a string of promises with no condition on them but to go.
1. From last week's teaching (Chapter Four, Genesis 1 to 11): in which verse is grace first named in the whole Bible, and whose seed did the teaching say would bruise the serpent's head?
2. Read Genesis 12:1-3. What three things does God tell Abram to leave in verse 1? Then copy the last promise in verse 3, from "and in thee."
3. Genesis 12:4, "So Abram departed." Name one thing you believe God has told you to do that you have not yet done. Write it in a line, and write the day this week you will take the first step.
What did you see?
Go deeper: read this passage in the WSB Bible with commentary
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