Abram's Journey: God's Promises and Building Altars

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome

to the Bible Guys. Welcome back. We are picking up our in our

series, which is Highlights of the Old Testament. Okay, Yes, that

flowed really nice, thank you. Yeah, because we've been struggling to name

this well, and I feel like you adopted the name I suggest. Yes,

yes, I don't like the word highlights. Highlights. You don't like

it. It seems so casual to me, So highlights because you're not a

casual guy at all. Yeah for me. For me, this feels like

the fundamental milestone pillars, building blocks of the Old Testament that flows right off

your tongue. That's just that flows so much better than just the highlights.

No, no, highlights flows better, which is why I said it.

Yeah, but I don't think that it does it justice. Oh, I

see you see what I'm saying. Well, keep working on that other one.

Maybe maybe come to it to Highlights the Old Well, Hey, we

have a very important public service announcement. Do the same thing is funny?

Okay, So from the Bible Guys, we have a very important public service

announcement by way of the Babylon By has brought us this and here it is

doctors remind you to arrive early so you can wait even longer. It's just

hilarious and a helpful message regarding your upcoming a doctor's appointment. Your doctor has

reminded you to be sure that you arrive early so you can wait even longer.

The reminder follows a protocol established by the American Medical Association that urges physicians

to stress to their patients the importance of getting to the doctor's office as early

as possible so they could sit in the waiting room for a longer period of

time. Just quick heads up from your doctor. The voicemail you received begins

tomorrow is your scheduled appointment, and we want to remind you to get there

early. If you arrive on time, you run the risk of only having

to sit in the waiting area for a short amount of time. To avoid

the assle, please arrive fifteen minutes before your scheduled appointment time so you can

wait even longer. Thank you. When reached for comment, your doctor's receptionists

provided further clarification. The patient's appointment will not start at the scheduled time,

she said, So if they arrive when they're scheduled to arrive their appointment,

they'll be seated in the waiting room area for only fifteen to twenty minutes tops.

We want them to spend as much time waiting as possible so a larger

chunk of their day can be thrown out a whack. So please arrive early

so you can wait at least a half hour or longer. At publishing time,

your doctor's office also wanted to advise you to be sure to go online

through your patient portal fill out your information online so that you could just fill

it out again in person with a pen and paper when you get there.

That is true, by the way, isn't it. It makes me so

mad? I refuse? Yeah, I tell no, I already filled it

out online. Well we need you to fill it out here in person,

go on line and print it off. That's say, oh yeah, what

makes me mad? Do two things? My time is worth more than your

doctor's time, so stop it, right, Yeah, well stop it,

just stop it, is it though? Is your time worth more than the

doctor's time? Yes, I'm quite certain, yes, very very Your doctor's

terrible. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, worthless. Huh No. I

love my doctor. My doctor's great. He's a blast, Like we just

laughed the whole time. And then I have to tell him what I want

him to do, write these prescriptions, do that stuff. And you just

sent me to a specialist, because your family doctor mostly sends you to specialist,

right. Uh, I would say, yeah, if there's a big

problem, right, I mean, as all that looks bad, I don't

know what to do, go to this guy. Oh that looks bad.

I don't know if you go to that guy, but make sure you're here

in our early I'm joking. If he's listening right now, he told him

about this podcast. I'm joking, dude, I busted jobs. So my

family doctor, my my primary I know him outside of the office. So

I did his wedding and he's a good friend. And so I found out

it was his birthday, and so I literally went in just Friday today is

what Wednesday? So this was a couple of days ago, and I found

out it was his birthday. So I was like, oh, So I

called the office and I said, hey, I said, what kind of

Starbucks does John like? And they said, oh, that's why you're calling.

Let me put you on hold. Put me on hold. They're really

busy. I get disconnected after like fifteen minutes of waiting, so I was

like, oh, I'll Texas wife. So I ended up finding out I

go through all this trouble, I bring it in and come to find out

I'm his third Starbucks. That said, we brought in this third Starbucks.

And by the way, the other two were people working in the office.

If it had just taken a second to say that, I would have brought

him something else, right, But instead I gave him, you know,

the third cup of caffeinated machiato. That's right, So show up earlier so

you can wait longer, right, and then make sure you fill out the

online form so that you can fill them out again in person when you get

there. Yeah, that is pretty irritating. Yeah, the fact that we

can laugh at that and all of us roller outd and go, we know

that's true. Maybe the general practitioner doctors have an issue that they could collectively

address, right, Right, it's not everybody else's perception that's wrong. You

know, we're not wrong. Maybe there's an opportunity there for you to set

yourself apart from some of the other local doctors. If you do what everybody

else does, you're going to give us the same results you give everybody else.

It's so good, okay, all right, well that's almost what made

Jeff and Chris mad this week moment. Yes, yes, although that's cutting

up so everybody double dipped. Yes, they got both a very important public

service announcement from the Babylon Beat and what made Chris and Jeff man this week.

Man, this is a bonus episode. We should charge twice as much

for this one. Wow, don't you think? Wow? That's just yeah,

yeah, well it's big value today, big big value. And you

know what, not only will we charge twice as much, but whatever your

salary is from the Bible, guys, I'm doubling it right now, twice

as much of nothing. There's a bunch of zeros. So hey, we

are skipping all the way to Genesis chapter twelve because we had just finished talking

about the Tower of Babel, and then it's really the scriptures in between that

what there's just a bunch of babbel isn't that true? So well, I

wouldn't say that about the Bible necessarily. All the words in the Bible matter,

but it gives us another list of from Shem all the way to Abram.

The family line, which in the Jewish culture, the Hebrew culture,

was incredibly important to be able to know where did you come from, who

were you related to, you know, for the bloodline, because ultimately it

becomes extremely important for us to be able to trace back that Jesus was exactly

who the Bible said he would be. Yes, son of David, son

of Abraham, Right, sounds like extremely important, babbyl It's yes. Well,

I'm sure all those people who got honorable mention in the Bible they feel

like Heaven their name. They're like, yes, I got my name in

the Bible. And you're like, it's just Babbel. It means nothing to

me. You're gonna get to have it, and you have like six hundred

You're gonna have like six hundred apologies to make you know that, right.

You're like, hey, Aaric fat said, I'm sorry I said that about

you. Hey, Lud Aaron right, Bieber Right, there's some funny names

in there. Jock ten has our Mabbith. Did you see that one?

No, I've never heard that one. Yeah, Obel yeah, Sheba,

oh fear Havla. There's a bunch of names, but hey, it's just

babbel. When you get to have it, you're gonna to apologize these people.

One of the worst is a wife named Gomer Gomer. Oh, it's

right here. Descendants of j Fith were Gomer Magog had I, j Van

Tubo, and tearsh ashkan As. So there's all kinds of names in there,

and it's just babbel to you. They got honorable mentioned the Bible.

You did not get. Okay, I want to point out there is no

Christ in the Bible, no Christara in the Bible. Joke and hence the

word joke. When you get the heaven, so we we find ours.

I'll just take you around. I'll take you and say, hey, have

you seen airfaxide yet? Because Chris Chris says something he wants to say.

No, you know what they're it's not gonna happen. You know why,

because the same little prideful meanness that's in you right now want to take me

around. It's not going to exist in heaven. Oh it's not prideful meanness.

Yeah, it's like it's like, it's not it's my desire to help

you be better. It's no, it's it's not gonna exist in heaven.

We're gonna get to have it. You're gonna say, I can't believe I

said that on the Bible. Guys. I'm so sorry, Chris, okay,

apologizing? Oh okay, all right, all right, Hey, this

needs to stop being about me. It was all about you. So let's

move on. So Genesis chapter twelve, we're to now all through. After

we got through Chris's bibble, we now are Abram is being called, who

will be caught? Abraham? Well, you just gave away the secret.

Everybody knows. Everybody listens, that's right, okay. Genesis chapter twelve is

where the call of Abram comes from, and it's says the Lord had said

to Abram, leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family,

and go to the land that I will show you, and I will

make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous,

and you'll be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless

you, and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on

earth will be blessed through you. So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed,

and a lot wet with him. Abram was seventy five years old when

he left Horan. He took his wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, and

all his wealth, his livestock, and all the people he had taken into

his household at Haran and headed for the land of Canaan. When they arrived

in Canaan, Abram traveled through the land as far as Shechem. There he

set up camp beside the Oak of Mora. At that time, the area

was inhabited by Canaanites. When the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I

will give this land to your descendants. And Abram built an altar there and

dedicated to the Lord who had appeared to him. After that, Abram traveled

south and set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west

and Ai to the east. There he built another altar and dedicated to the

Lord, and he worshiped the Lord. Then Abram continued traveling south by stages

toward the Negev Okay, is that what we're done? Well, Yeah,

that's where we're supposed to read too. Yeah, And so there's a little

note in my life. Application of study Bible, which we love, and

it talks about Abraham. Of course he's going to become Abraham, but God

promises a nation to Abram. At this point, his name is Abram,

and it talks about his strengths and accomplishments, and it says his strengths and

accomplishments are his faith pleased God. He became the founder of the Jewish nation.

That's what's happening right here. And he was not only a caring father

to his own family, but he practiced hospitality to others. He was a

successful and wealthy rancher. He usually avoided conflicts, but when they were unavoidable,

he allowed his opponent to set the rules for settling the dispute. Yeah,

and so we're about to find out some other things. His weaknesses are

coming up. His lessons that he learns come from those things. But basically,

yeah, he is the father of the Jewish nation. That's what's happening

right here. So his father, his name was Tara, right, and

Tara had three sons, Abram, Nehor, and Haran. And Haran was

the father of Lot right. So we can read all that beforehand. And

they were getting ready to head towards Canaan, so you know er and Haran.

That area is in what is modern day Iraq, not far from Baghdad.

As a matter of fact, I'll be in Iraq again in just a

couple of weeks. And so it's between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. It's

very fertile area. You know, we have called historians paleontologists would call that

area the fertile Crescent. So in all of the Middle East, it was

just able to back in those days, the floodplain could create so much food.

That and the Nile Delta, right, those would be the two areas

that created so much food. And wasn't that near the Garden of Eden perhaps,

yeah, yeah, very much could have been the outer edges of the

garden. It listed those those rivers the in that expos Yeah, and from

a driving standpoint, if you just got in a car and drove, it's

maybe only like maybe eight or ten hours from air Rat. You know,

the mountains of Ararat, so where the where Noah's boat settled. So you

know, they kind of resettle here in the Middle East like this. So

now God calls Abram and say, hey, I want you to pick back

up. I want to take. I want you to take all ever your

wealth, and I want you to go to the land of Canaan. Canaan

is modern day Israel now. So he goes up through the Fertile Crescent through

what would probably be portions of Syria. Damascus was up in that area,

and Ninevo is up in that area, and then down through probably portions of

Lebanon and Jordan maybe somewhere in there, and then finally pops into Canaan.

And he shows up now to the east of Jerusalem, down in that plain,

down near the Jordan River. You've been in like Jericho, I have,

yeah, yeah, yeah, So Ai is just outside of Jericho and

he's east of Ai. So he's right near the Jordan River, to the

north end of what is the Dead Sea. So it's really rugged space,

but that area, again floodplain for Jordan, could grow a lot of food.

So he goes from you know, the populations in those days didn't get

out in the difficult places and try to figure out how to live and staid.

They stayed where it was possible to grow food. So this is where

he's at. Is he's along the Jordan River, not far from the Jordan

River. Bethel and east of Ai is where he's at. Yeah, and

it's interesting when you look on this map and it sort of follows his journey

to Canaan, Right. Yeah, you would just think to yourself, why

don't you just do a straight line straight across, right, because it's brutal,

Because right, that's the answer. The answer is they they couldn't do

that. They were smart enough to follow where the food was, which is

why you mentioned it, right, and go up and all the way down.

But holy cow, was because you didn't have refrigeration. Right, It's

not like you throw everything in your yetty coolers, right and hop in the

back of your toyotas and just shoot across the desert for three days. Right.

It would take them months and months and months to go from town to

town to town that had food. And they had to follow that fertile crescent

that wrapped around to the north and then back down south. I can't even

imagine, uh, traveling back then. Everything was You know, you're sort

of reminded that it's that way when you know you've been to Africa and you've

seen people who they have to walk for miles just to get water. Yeah.

Yeah, and so every day. I've done that. Have you ever

done one? I've not done an the water walk, it's never done.

Brutal, brutal. You get two big five gallon jugs and you walk down

and dig a hole in the sand where the river bed would be, wait

for the water to bubble up, scoop it out, try to keep the

sand out. Fill a five gallon bug. You think, hey, that's

great until you put forty pounds because the five gallons forty pounds on your shoulder,

and then walk back three miles back to the village. It is so

in the heat of the dirty water, it is so hard. Yeah,

and that's how a huge portion of our population lives is having to haul water

back home every day. Yeah. And by the way, so I went

off on a tangent. Now this is a tangent of a tangent. Yes,

I remember going to this is a good episode. This is what we

said, this is a bonus episode. We're gonna charge twice as much for

this one. So I remember going to a village that was you know,

we had to park and walk for an hour, and I remember there's you

know, a bunch of overweight, out of shape white people who are just

sweating to death in one hundred and twenty degree heat, you know, just

walking through the bush. And we were like, oh, this is so

this is We're just like slugging along and all of a sudden, to our

left is a woman who is super thin, and she has a baby on

her back, right, and she has a forty pound thing of water on

her head with a little like a sort of like a beanie bag separating the

two right, and she's like sort of just barely balanced, right, and

she goes walks down into a dry river bed, passes us, walks up

the drive riverbed, and then just zooms past us and at least triple the

speed that we're walking. And I remember and we all just stopped and look

at each other and said, okay, now we're the worst. That's right,

Like we are not we are so swell. They did that to us

when we were doing it. I'm huffing along, I'm sweat and so bad,

I can barely do this work. I'm thinking I'm going to find somebody

to carry my bucket. Right, and all of a sudden, the ladies

start passing me and they start singing. So they're singing, laughing, having

a big time. It's a big time. All the ladies are together,

and I'm just huffing and puffing, you know, a mile and a half

into this hike back to the water place or to the village, and I

just remember thinking, man alive. So I look at it as being brutally

hard for them. It was a social hour, right right. Yeah,

So, anyway back to my first tangent, which was that a lot of

the world still lives this way absolutely, where whereas whereas like you and I,

we take for granted it's so sometimes hard to relate to the Bible just

because of the modern conveniences that we face. And so when Jesus would say

like persecution, for instance, the people around the world receive that word differently

than we do, right, yeah, and so and when they talk about

you know, uh, just just you know, survival of the fittest and

and and even even the comparison of shepherds and sheep, all that stuff we

have a hard time relating to. Well, here's Abram, and he is

he is, you know, taking this journey and literally it's all about survival

on his journey. And uh, and so we're talking like months and months,

Well, people in the Middle East and people in Africa that they can

relate to this anyway. Yeah. Yeah, So Abram grows up and erv

the Keld's, which we still refer to the Keldeans, right, that's a

whole population group from within Iraq and uh in Er growing up there. He

probably grew up fairly educated. It was a very prosperous educated area. And

I was talking to a Jewish rabbi one time about this. We were in

driving out into the Arabian desert and I asked him, I said, hey,

can you tell me what is the tradition why did God choose Abram?

And he said, oh, that's a great question, right. So here's

a he's a pretty famous rabbi here in the US, and he said,

he said, so, there's a lot of speculation on this, but he

said, the general consensus for many of the writers the historians from ancient Hebrew

tradition is that when the rest of the world in in around Er and then

you know, in the Chldean area, they looked at the stars and the

earth and the mountains, and they worshiped the gods that they believed came from

those things. But he said that the Hebrew tradition is that Abram looked at

the stars and said, there must be a god that made those stars.

So instead of looking at all the gods, he looked to the God,

the creator. And so when he determined in his heart there was a creator,

then God reached out to Abram as opposed to all the others. Right,

And it's consistent with the Bible when it says, draw near to me,

and I'll draw near to you, right. And Roman says that we

were without excuse because of the sun and the moon and the stars, creation,

right, all those kind of things. So he says that that is

the deep Hebrew ancient tradition is that Abram looked to the creator of the universe

as opposed to adopting all of the gods, and then God said, hey,

you're drawn near to me. I'm gonna I'm gonna make myself known to

you, and so chose him, and the said, I'm going to make

a great nation from you, and all of the people of the world will

be blessed because of you. And that was a hint at Jesus. Right,

then Mesiah would come from your family. An interesting note on verse seven

that we read when it said that Abram built an altar to the Lord.

It says Abram built an altar to the Lord. And altars were used for

many religions, but for God's people, al were more than places of sacrifice.

They symbolized communion with God, and they commemorated notable encounters with Him.

Built of rough stones and earth, altars often remained in place for years as

continual reminders of God's protection and promises. He built altars for two reasons.

Number one for prayer and worship, but number two, as a reminder of

God's promise to bless him. Even couldn't survive spiritually without regularly renewing his love

and his loyalty to God, so building altars helped him remember those things.

So that's why so many times in the scriptures when we see he built an

altar there, and then that place was known as the place where God will

provide or you know, which is about to come up, right, Because

sometimes they would build altars and they wouldn't just be these little temporary stick altars.

They would be made out of stone, and they would take a long

time, and it was also sort of like a monument of a reminder of

what God did in that place, that encounter or the promise that God gave,

and that's really important because that's it's It's sort of like why I said

that highlights is sort of like a bougie word, because I like the word

milestones or you know, just markers or you know, like you know,

pillars moments of time and history that that mark important events that lead up to

Jesus through the Old Testament. Because it's sort of that way. You know,

there's probably times in your life, I bet where you can look back

and you can say that these are the pivotal moments in my life and you

may not have built a physical alter there, but they're the milestones in your

life experiences. Right. Yeah. For a long time I carried a stone

in my pocket that reminded me of a very specific thing. For a long

time, I carried a challenge coin in my pocket that every time I see

my hammapocket, I feel it reminded me of a thing that's kind of the

same idea as they build these altars, so that when they saw them,

it reminded them. So hey, maybe that's it. Maybe maybe we need

to change the name to mile Markers of the Old Testament. Yeah, maybe

so mile markers. Yeah, just just just uh markers along the way that

tell you where you're at, where you're going. Significant uh markers that are

that are grounded. Uh, you know that gives you direction. This is

all those words just make it hard to type it in the line on the

right. So maybe my mile markers uh of the in the in the Old

Testament, right, yeah, mile markers, Yeah, whatever. I don't

know. It's a good one though, I like it. So that's essentially

what he's doing is he's building this altar. He makes a sacrifice, but

he also builds it so sturdy and substantial that his family, his children can

see it. And there's something about that for us as Christians, as parents

that you know, it's not just about us and in our individuality, it's

about the generations and the people that coming behind us. He's that that altar

was pointing others to the fact that there's a man there that worshiped God.

Yeah. Yeah, forever, you know, you know, tell your kids

about this story, to share with your kids about what the Lord has done

here on this mountain, because that's that's really what it is. We should

we should have our faith you know, broadcast in our family, that they

would know our story, that they would know our faith, that they would

know God's faithfulness. And I think that sometimes as parents we forget to be

open with our kids because it makes us vulnerable sometimes because a lot of our

stories is about or about our failures, or about our doubts, or about

what we were rescued from, right our struggles, and and you know,

to have our kids reach a certain age, you know, we have to

be able to be authentic, genuine, so that God can be glorified in

our weakness, even with these kinds of stories with our kids. Yeah,

and eventually God actually makes it a law for the Hebrews don't remove the old

landmarks, right, And so God wants these things to be retold for us

in our families. Maybe it's the family stories. We need to talk about

the struggles, sure, but we need to also talk about the high water

marks when God blessed, God showed up, We struggled, we prayed,

God answered prayer. We need to keep retelling those stories where we came from,

and it gives roots, right, we're not removing those old landmarks.

A lot of times we forget to put roots down for our kids. And

then wonder why they don't have a lot of depth when they get older or

whatever. So we have to put those roots down deep, keep retelling the

stories. And that's essentially what an altar like this would do for a culture,

for a community that's great. All right, Well, that's a good

place to end and hopefully we will see you tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,