Black History Unmasked: Ep. 2: Get Out: Abraham’s Call to Leave Ur and Follow God

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Welcome to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast. I'm your host,

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Connie Morris, and this is Faith on the Go, where you take the word with you

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on your drive to work, while you're getting ready in the morning,

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or even in those quiet moments before prayer.

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Real life, real word, and real growth, all while you are on the go.

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Before we get into today's word, let's take a moment to center ourselves with a familiar prayer.

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The prayer of Jabez.

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Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory.

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Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.

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Father God, we come before you this day asking that you would indeed bless us,

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not just with what we have, but in who we are becoming.

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Enlarge our territory, Lord. Expand our capacity, our mindset,

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and our ability to receive what you have for us.

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Let your hand be upon us, guiding us, covering us, and leading us in every decision we make.

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And Father, keep us from harm, physically, emotionally, and spiritually,

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that we may walk in peace and not in pain.

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And Lord, just as you heard Jabez when he cried out to you, hear us now.

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Your word says that you granted his request, and we believe that you are the same God today.

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So we come boldly before you, knowing that you hear us, knowing that you see

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us, and knowing that you respond to the prayers of your people.

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Have your way in this moment as we sit, listen, and receive your word.

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In Jesus' name, amen.

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Hello and welcome back to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast.

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I'm your host Connie Morris and we're continuing with our Black History Unmasked.

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But this episode and several more episodes are going to cover the story of Abraham.

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And there's different Bible characters that we love and adore.

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But then there's Abraham, which we know his story that he was old and he had a child.

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Well, what happened before that? You ever wonder, what was the story before

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that? Well, the Bible tells us this story.

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And so I want to take our time to walk through the story of Abraham,

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because as we get to know Abraham and his story, we'll get to understand who

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we are and what God has called us to do.

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Today is episode two. It's from Shem to Abram, where Abraham's family originated.

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We're going to start with our opening scripture found in Genesis 10, verses 21 through 32.

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Like I said, I'm your host, Connie Morris, and I want to welcome you all to

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the Diary of a Black Woman podcast. It's been a good summer.

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How about you? Yes, God is doing great and mighty things.

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Now, this scripture should come familiar to you, or maybe not, but let's read it.

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Genesis 10, verses 21 through 32, it says, Unto Shem also the father of all

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the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth, the elder, even to him, were children born.

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The children of Shem, Elam, and Ashur, Arafaxid, and Lut, and Aram.

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So we see these are the children of Eber.

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And the children of Aram, Huz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash.

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Verse 24, Arafat begat Salah, and Salah begat Eber. And unto Eber were born two sons.

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The name of one was Peleg, for in his day was the earth divided,

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and his brother's name was Joktan.

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And Joktan begat Almedad, and Shalif, and Hazar, Maveth,

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and Jareth, verse 27, and Hedorah, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Obol,

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and Abiel, and Sheba, verse 29, and Ophar, and Havilah, and Joab.

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And these were the sons of Joktan. And their dwelling was from Mesha,

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as thou goeth into Sapphar, the mouth of the east.

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Verse 31, these are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongue,

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in their lands, and after their nations.

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Verse 32, these are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations,

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in their nations, and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

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So we know the beginning of the story. We covered that in the beginning of the

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other episodes regarding the story of Noah, the flood, and he had the children and what happened.

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These are the children of the children. So the generation that is populating

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the land is the children.

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Of the children of Noah. And so we see here that Genesis 10 begins to show us

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what happened after the flood.

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Noah's sons had children, their children had children, and families became clans.

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Clans became people, people spread into different lands.

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In the middle of all these names, Genesis began to draw our attention towards

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one particular family line.

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In Genesis 21, it tells us, unto Shem also the father of all the children of

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Eber. Now the name Eber matters.

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Eber was a descendant of Shem, Noah's son, and an ancestor of Abraham.

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So that's how Abraham comes into the story because the Bible is beginning to narrow this story.

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We started with Noah and the whole human family, but now the scripture begins

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to follow one branch of Shem, then in Eber.

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I want Now, you understand, you know, we discussed this before about reading

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the genealogy of the Bible. We skip over that.

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And when we skip over that, we miss a lot of information because now we know

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where Abraham came from.

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Abraham didn't just pop on the scene as we are in church and we read about Abraham.

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They skipped a part of his history. And like I said, as a retired police officer,

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I'm more of an investigator of the Bible. Because when I started my Christianity,

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I wanted to find out if the Bible was true.

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What's the story of these characters? How did they originate?

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You know, and so you take your skill set that God's given you and you use it

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to understand the Bible.

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And so that's been interesting for me because now we understand that Abraham

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did just appear on a scene, that he had a purpose in the story.

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Right. And so now we know that Abraham is in the lineage of Shem.

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Now we understand that Shem was not white. So we're in Bible history on math.

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So, you know, I'm gonna throw that out there anyway.

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All right, let's continue. It says, Shem, then in Eber.

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And eventually that line is going to bring us to a man named Abram.

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At this point, Abram, Abram, remember it started out Abram, then God made him Abraham.

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So Abram has not entered the story, but his story is already being prepared.

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That is one of the things I love about scripture. Sometimes God is working on

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your story before you even know there is a story. Come on now.

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God is working behind the scenes to get you in the forefront,

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to get you walking and what he needs you to do.

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But you don't know that. You know that you are just living your life,

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your everyday life. You're living your everyday life.

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But you don't know, but now you know that God is working out things for you.

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I also know that generations are always moving. People are always being born.

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Families are relocating.

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Nations are being developed.

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And somewhere inside all that

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movement, God is preparing a line that will eventually lead to Abraham.

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So when we read these genealogies, we should not just see names.

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We should see movement. We should see history unfolding.

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And we should see God quietly moving his plan forward. What is the benefit of prayer and fasting?

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What's the benefit of reading your Bible?

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You get to see how God is moving in the people he calls.

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You know, we as humans, we don't just show up on the scene. God is working behind

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the scenes on something big.

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And then we show up, we have already been in preparation for that thing.

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But we didn't know it. All the training, all the struggling,

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all the issues, all the drama, all the trauma was preparing you for such a time.

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As this. Let's go to Genesis 11. I'm sorry. Yeah. Genesis 11 verses 10 through 26.

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And this is some more lineage. I know genealogy, we don't really like it.

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Read it, but we have to read it. And I might mess up these names,

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but that's okay. I want you to listen to the names that sound familiar to you.

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So verse 10 to verse 26, I didn't read it in the introduction because I was

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saving it for today. So here we go.

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It says, These are the generations of Shem.

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Shem was a hundred years old and begat Arafaxe two years after the flood.

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And Shem lived after he begat Arafaxe five hundred years and begat sons and daughters.

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And Arafaxe lived five and thirty years and begat Selah.

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And Arafaxe lived after he begat Selah four hundred and three years and begat sons and daughters.

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And Salah lived 30 years and begat Eber.

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And Salah lived after she begat Eber 403 years and begat sons and daughters.

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And Eber, that sounds familiar right, lived 4 and 30 years and begat Peleg.

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And Eber lived after he begat Peleg 430 years and begat sons and daughters.

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And Peleg lived 30 years and begat Ro.

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And Peleg lived after he begat Ro 209 years and begat sons and daughters.

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And Ro lived 2 and 30 years and begat Sarag.

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And Ro lived after he begat Sarag 207 years and begat sons and daughters.

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And Sarag lived 30 years and begat Nahor. and Sarah Nahor is who is Abraham's father.

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And Sarug lived after he begat Nahor 200 years and begat sons and daughters.

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Nahor lived 9 and 20 years and begat Terah.

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And Nahor lived after he begat Terah 119 years and begat sons and daughters.

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And Terah lived 70 years. Oops, I about to say father.

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That was somebody in the lineage.

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And Terah lived 70 years and begat Abraham, Nahor, and Haran.

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So there was two Nahors. He was named after his uncle, great uncle.

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So we see here that Terah lived 70 years and beget Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

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So Abram has some brothers. Think about that.

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And now these are the generations of Terah. Terah beget Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

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And Haran beget Lot.

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Now we see where Lot shows up.

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In the picture. I'm going a little bit further. And Haran died before his father

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Terah in the land of his nativity in the Ur of Chaldees.

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Verse 29, And Abram and Nahor took them wives, and the name of Abraham's wife

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was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran,

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and the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

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But Sarah was barren, and she had no children.

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So think about that. Now we see where Lot originated and we see where Abraham originated.

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And now we see why Nahor sounds familiar because Nahor called none of his kids

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after himself. Isn't that powerful?

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And so we see Genesis 11 takes us even deeper. Now the scripture begins tracing

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the generation of Shem more specifically.

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We move from Shem to Erephxed to Salah to Eber to Peleg, to Ru,

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to Saru, to Nahor, to Terah.

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And then Genesis 11, 26 says, And Terah lived 70 years and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haram.

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So there he is, Abram, the man who will later become Abraham,

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the man whose name will become connected with covenant, faith,

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promise, land, descendants, and blessings.

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But right now, he is not Abraham, the patriarch.

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He is Abram, the son of Terah. He has brothers. He has a father.

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He belongs to a household. He has a place of origin.

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And before we can understand where God has taken him, we must understand where he came from.

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Let's go to Genesis 11, verse 27 through 30.

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Which I read already, but we're going to read it again. Now,

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these are the generations of Terah. Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

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And Haran begat Lot. And Haran died

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before his father Terah in the land of Nativity in the earth's Shardis.

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So now you see why Abraham was still feeling that he was responsible for Lot

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because Lot was his brother's son.

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You see that connection? Lot wasn't just a tagline. He was part of the family.

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Let's continue. And Haran died. We read that Haran died before his father,

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Teron, in the land of Nativity in the earth of Chaldees.

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And Abraham and Nahor took them wives, and the name of Abraham's wife was Sarai.

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And the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran,

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the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

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But Sarai was barren, and she had no children.

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And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son,

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and Sarai his daughter-in-law, and his son Abram's wife.

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And they went forth with them from the Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan.

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And they came unto Haran and dwelt there.

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That's so good. So let's continue. We see these generations and we see how they all flow together.

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And it might sound repetitive to you, but repetition is always good for your learning.

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And so these names sound familiar. They will sound familiar when you hear them

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preach. They'll sound familiar when you read your Bible.

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They will just become part of who you are. And so we see here that the generations

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of Terah, Terah beget Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Now we know, we know for sure

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that he had two brothers.

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Now the genealogy becomes personal.

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These are no longer just names on a page. This is the family.

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Terah had three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

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Haran has a son named Lot, and that makes Lot Abraham's nephew.

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Then something painful happens. In verse 28, it says, Haran died before his

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father Terah in the land of his nativity in Ur of Shaldees. We see here that Haran died.

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Imagine what that means inside a household.

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A father buries his son.

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Abraham loses a brother, Lot loses his father, and suddenly the name Lot carries

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more meaning than we see, right?

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We see that he had a family. When we see why he was traveling with his uncle,

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he is simply not a random relative tagging along.

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He is Abraham's nephew whose father has died.

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Now the family has history. It has grief, it has relationship, it has responsibility.

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And the scripture tells us where all this happened. It happened in the Ur of Shaldees.

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Now we hear these names. I think it's a cool name though. The Ur of Shaldees

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sound like a fancy place, right?

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And I was like, I want to know what is happening in the Ur of Shaldees that

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Abraham, where God says, Abraham, it's time for you to go. What was happening there?

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And I was very curious. So I brought my curiosity and I'm going to share it with you.

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We see here that the Ur-Shaldees is where Abraham's world began.

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Ur was in many ways a very good place to live materially.

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This is what makes Abraham's departure so powerful.

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God was not necessarily calling him out of a miserable, primitive place.

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He was calling him away from a prosperous, established world that was also deeply shaded by adultery.

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So Abraham wasn't leaving poor, right?

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He was leaving a place that was causing him distraction and God needed to talk to him.

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And many times God calls us out of play. We might not know that there's a lot

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of adultery or idolatry going on in our world because we're focused on Jesus, right?

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But that idolatry can be influential in things, in the food,

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in the music that you hear over the radio, what you watch on TV, it has some meaning.

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And as we noticed today, I want you to pay attention to, I don't watch a lot of TV, but.

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But when I kind of watch these news threads that come through,

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life is not good out there. It is wild. It is crazy.

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And people are worshiping and doing some strange things for some change.

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I just like to say that. I don't want to go into so much detail on my holy, holy place, you know.

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But let's continue. The biblical Ur of Shaldees is commonly identified with

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the ancient Ur in the southern Mesopotamia in the modern day Iraq. what?

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What? Think about it. What's on the news all day? Iran and Iraq.

00:18:41.554 --> 00:18:49.500
We had a war in Iraq. So this brings it more personal. So Abraham came from that place called Iraq.

00:18:49.912 --> 00:18:53.888
So we know he wasn't black, wasn't white, and he wasn't really that black.

00:18:54.179 --> 00:18:55.485
He looks more like maybe a,

00:18:56.175 --> 00:19:01.394
you know, like a light brown. Although the exact identification has been debated.

00:19:01.841 --> 00:19:07.646
Ancient earth was a major commercial and political center with extensive trade

00:19:07.646 --> 00:19:10.247
connections and considerable wealth.

00:19:10.386 --> 00:19:17.979
Archaeology has revealed substantial houses, markets, and a highly developed urban culture.

00:19:18.205 --> 00:19:23.929
So come on now. Abraham wasn't coming from the wilderness into the land of Canaan,

00:19:24.225 --> 00:19:30.076
he was coming from a nice place. You understand what Iraq and Iran are known

00:19:30.076 --> 00:19:31.377
for? They're known for oil.

00:19:31.621 --> 00:19:35.644
And so they were living pretty good, but they worship idols.

00:19:35.771 --> 00:19:41.325
Even today in that land, there is still idol worship. Let's continue.

00:19:41.743 --> 00:19:47.846
Ur was also a major religious center. The great ziggurat was associated with

00:19:47.846 --> 00:19:53.081
the worship of the moon god, Nana, later called sin.

00:19:53.295 --> 00:19:57.794
Religion was woven deeply into the city's public and cultural life.

00:19:58.113 --> 00:20:04.566
That's what I said. We think that we're not living in a world that is full of

00:20:04.566 --> 00:20:11.517
sin, but then we look at what just, in Nebraska, they just passed a law to legalize medical marijuana.

00:20:11.848 --> 00:20:16.370
I mean, that's not a big deal anywhere else, but here in Nebraska,

00:20:16.660 --> 00:20:20.346
you know, probably where they grow it the most. I I don't know. I don't know.

00:20:20.666 --> 00:20:24.741
And we know in the end times, people are going to be high on pharmaceuticals.

00:20:24.991 --> 00:20:30.436
And so we're thinking, instead of seeking God for healing, you're seeking marijuana

00:20:30.436 --> 00:20:34.302
for healing. You're seeking drugs for healing. I'm just talking.

00:20:34.627 --> 00:20:38.481
So we can understand where this world is going. But you can see,

00:20:38.811 --> 00:20:43.646
when you have a high religion center and you have religion woven into your public

00:20:43.646 --> 00:20:47.617
and cultural life, what does that mean? Let's continue.

00:20:48.057 --> 00:20:54.212
This also connects us with the Bible to Joshua 24.2 says about Abraham's ancestors.

00:20:54.519 --> 00:21:00.707
It says, your father, your father's dwell on the other side of the flood in old time.

00:21:00.910 --> 00:21:07.521
Even Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nekor, and they serve other gods.

00:21:07.818 --> 00:21:12.103
I want to put my eye on that in the Bible. And it says in verse two, I want to read verse one.

00:21:12.410 --> 00:21:17.315
And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders

00:21:17.315 --> 00:21:22.134
of Israel and for their heads and for their judges and for their officers.

00:21:22.411 --> 00:21:26.875
And they were presented themselves before God. And Joshua said unto all the

00:21:26.875 --> 00:21:31.335
people, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Your father dwelt,

00:21:32.395 --> 00:21:38.008
on the other side of the flood in old times, even Terah the father of Abraham

00:21:38.258 --> 00:21:42.559
and the father of Nekor, and they served other God.

00:21:46.176 --> 00:21:52.245
And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood and led him

00:21:52.245 --> 00:21:58.175
through all the land of Canaan and multiplied his seed and gave him Isaac.

00:21:58.175 --> 00:22:01.042
Wow. God is trying to deliver you.

00:22:01.257 --> 00:22:05.715
He's trying to deliver us. But look who God told the secret to.

00:22:05.715 --> 00:22:07.108
Joshua knew his history.

00:22:07.445 --> 00:22:11.654
He said, you came from the other side of the flood. That's history.

00:22:12.008 --> 00:22:13.215
That said there was a flood.

00:22:13.626 --> 00:22:17.171
Wasn't something that made up, that was made up, right? But he said,

00:22:17.171 --> 00:22:21.544
I took you out of that land because I know the history of your father.

00:22:21.806 --> 00:22:25.311
Many times we don't leave our family because we are, we want to stay with our

00:22:25.311 --> 00:22:27.738
father. We want to stay with our mother. That's fine.

00:22:28.104 --> 00:22:33.271
But if God tells you to go, you need to go. So when God caught Abraham,

00:22:33.271 --> 00:22:35.417
there was really two worlds involved.

00:22:35.754 --> 00:22:40.259
There was a material world of Ur, civilization, family security,

00:22:40.543 --> 00:22:45.222
commerce, familiarity, and probably a relatively comfortable life.

00:22:45.576 --> 00:22:50.351
Then there was a spiritual world. Abraham came from a family and culture surrounded

00:22:50.351 --> 00:22:52.710
by the worship of other gods.

00:22:52.873 --> 00:22:58.086
I mean, I will not describe Ur as a bad place, but it was...

00:22:58.831 --> 00:23:01.867
Good place with a bad spirit, right?

00:23:02.082 --> 00:23:05.981
So you can live like the lifestyle of the rich and famous and go straight to

00:23:05.981 --> 00:23:09.681
hell, or you can be obedient to God and God pulled you out.

00:23:09.983 --> 00:23:14.491
God will pull you out. So earth may have been a place worth staying and you

00:23:14.491 --> 00:23:15.654
might like where you live.

00:23:15.910 --> 00:23:19.050
God might be trying to pull you out, but he's like, no, no.

00:23:19.259 --> 00:23:23.261
You know, there's supposed to be a major, major earthquake in California.

00:23:23.261 --> 00:23:27.537
It's going to knock off pretty much a quarter of that earth.

00:23:27.874 --> 00:23:31.763
And people know that. The earth is shaking over there every single day.

00:23:32.018 --> 00:23:33.945
It's like the little warnings that you get.

00:23:34.333 --> 00:23:40.446
But yet, because they have established themselves in that land, people refuse to leave.

00:23:40.742 --> 00:23:45.531
They refuse to move. Not saying you have to run in fear, but there's a guy who

00:23:45.531 --> 00:23:49.511
likes to give us a heads up and we have to pay attention. I don't know why I

00:23:49.511 --> 00:23:54.935
shared that, but hey, pay attention because California is one of our top listeners for this podcast.

00:23:55.289 --> 00:23:58.981
In California, we love you, But we need you to pay attention to what God is

00:23:58.981 --> 00:24:02.023
saying to you in the warnings. Let's continue.

00:24:02.250 --> 00:24:05.210
Imagine telling the story this way.

00:24:05.350 --> 00:24:09.070
Abraham was not sitting in poverty waiting for someone to rescue him.

00:24:09.378 --> 00:24:10.940
He came from a great city.

00:24:11.288 --> 00:24:14.434
There was homes. There were merchants. There were trades.

00:24:16.390 --> 00:24:21.208
Excuse me, there was wealth, there was culture, there were temples towering above the city.

00:24:21.520 --> 00:24:25.138
People had built a functioning society from the outside.

00:24:25.585 --> 00:24:28.203
Earth could look like a place where a person could settle down,

00:24:28.441 --> 00:24:32.223
raise a family, conduct business, and live out their entire life.

00:24:32.786 --> 00:24:38.470
So why leave? Because something can be comfortable without being God's destination for you.

00:24:38.854 --> 00:24:43.201
God might have called you to be there for a season, but then he said, I want to move you.

00:24:43.636 --> 00:24:47.789
He might call you to say, hey, I thought you moved me here, you know,

00:24:47.789 --> 00:24:53.028
four years I've been here. And now God is telling me, I've been here long enough. It's time to go.

00:24:53.343 --> 00:24:59.588
And I'm like, oh my gosh, I like where I live, but there's something that He sees that I can't see.

00:24:59.873 --> 00:25:05.236
Understand that there's something that God sees. And so God is very seasonal.

00:25:05.399 --> 00:25:10.757
You know, He's a long time God. Remember, He sees the future beginning and the end.

00:25:10.984 --> 00:25:15.064
And so when God sees you and you're brave enough to make that first move,

00:25:15.366 --> 00:25:18.559
I'm quite sure you can be brave enough to make that second or third move.

00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:21.171
Sometimes God moves us just to see if we will move.

00:25:21.502 --> 00:25:24.590
Sometimes he just tests us and see how much do we trust him.

00:25:25.073 --> 00:25:28.959
So you come to a new town and you get established. And then God says it's time

00:25:28.959 --> 00:25:33.000
for you to go. And so what I learned from that is that never get too comfortable.

00:25:33.320 --> 00:25:36.699
Don't buy a whole lot of stupid stuff because you might have to go.

00:25:36.699 --> 00:25:38.881
Oh, I'm laughing at myself. Let's continue.

00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:44.308
And some things can be prosperous while being spiritually wrong for where God is taking you.

00:25:44.815 --> 00:25:50.283
That's where we talk about Joshua 24, because Terah and the ancestors of Abraham,

00:25:50.469 --> 00:25:56.842
they served other gods. So Abraham was growing up in a world where idolatry was normal.

00:25:57.168 --> 00:26:02.642
The enormous religion structure around him would have communicated something

00:26:02.868 --> 00:26:07.680
very clearly. Come on now, these are the gods of our people.

00:26:07.976 --> 00:26:09.706
This is how our society works.

00:26:10.066 --> 00:26:15.418
This is what our family believes. This is what everybody around us accepts.

00:26:15.569 --> 00:26:20.097
And then the God of glory appears to Abraham. Let's see what happens in Acts.

00:26:20.451 --> 00:26:24.335
Sometimes we believe that that's our final destination. I told you when I moved

00:26:24.335 --> 00:26:25.769
to Nebraska, I knew I was staying.

00:26:26.169 --> 00:26:32.530
So I bought a house. I settled down. God gave me a house. And in my mind, I'm settling down.

00:26:32.815 --> 00:26:36.176
I figured like, okay, I'll be here. Do I like it here? It's okay.

00:26:36.536 --> 00:26:41.185
I like my church. But when I moved, yeah, I was moving. But it caught me by

00:26:41.185 --> 00:26:46.474
surprise, and it wasn't in my direction to say I was moving.

00:26:47.049 --> 00:26:52.581
But guess what? God's getting ready to move me again. Are you ready for that if God moves you again?

00:26:52.697 --> 00:26:56.499
Now I know by stuff that's fold up and get ready to roll. Don't get too comfortable

00:26:56.842 --> 00:27:00.777
because God is on the move. Are you with him or are you not?

00:27:01.033 --> 00:27:03.808
Let's continue here. In Acts 7, 2, it says here.

00:27:04.318 --> 00:27:08.494
It says, And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken.

00:27:08.834 --> 00:27:16.132
The God of glory appears unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia

00:27:16.277 --> 00:27:18.285
before he dwelt in Sharon.

00:27:18.634 --> 00:27:25.385
Think about that. He's in Genesis, and yet the story of Abraham reached the book of Acts.

00:27:25.501 --> 00:27:27.514
It also reached the books of Hebrew.

00:27:27.723 --> 00:27:31.769
It also talks about him all throughout the New Testament.

00:27:31.984 --> 00:27:38.265
Just because he was obedient to move, God used him as an example.

00:27:38.636 --> 00:27:43.484
Think about that. The God of glory appeared unto Father Abraham when he was

00:27:43.484 --> 00:27:47.768
in Mesopotamia before he dwelled in Sharon. Think about that.

00:27:48.035 --> 00:27:51.616
Now imagine that moment. Abraham lived in a world filled with God.

00:27:51.959 --> 00:27:57.659
And then the true God speaks to him. Suddenly the issue is no longer whether Ur is comfortable.

00:27:57.944 --> 00:28:01.311
The issue is whose voice will Abraham follow?

00:28:01.717 --> 00:28:05.212
That gives us a powerful piece of commentary here.

00:28:05.490 --> 00:28:10.192
It says, Abraham was not necessarily being called out of Ur.

00:28:10.459 --> 00:28:16.003
Come on now, because it had nothing to offer him. There's a lot of things to offer me in Nebraska.

00:28:16.264 --> 00:28:22.992
It really is. Ur may have been plenty to offer, and that may have been the part of the difficulty.

00:28:23.335 --> 00:28:26.909
God was calling Abraham away from a world that was established,

00:28:27.142 --> 00:28:31.254
comfortable, familiar, and spiritually rooted in other gods.

00:28:31.254 --> 00:28:34.630
Abraham could see Ur. He could see his family.

00:28:34.903 --> 00:28:38.724
He could see the houses. He could see the temples. He could see everything he

00:28:38.724 --> 00:28:39.994
was being asked to leave.

00:28:40.197 --> 00:28:46.919
But when God said, unto a land I will show you, Abraham could not see what was ahead.

00:28:47.227 --> 00:28:52.492
He had to choose between what he could see and what he heard God tell him.

00:28:52.788 --> 00:28:55.876
How many people in that space? God says, I want you to go.

00:28:56.404 --> 00:28:59.620
And I'm thinking like, where, Lord? To a place I will show you.

00:28:59.887 --> 00:29:02.175
Wow. Okay. You show me the place.

00:29:02.494 --> 00:29:04.787
What I'm going to do in that place, where I'm going to live in that place,

00:29:05.147 --> 00:29:08.775
I don't know yet. Would you still go is the question.

00:29:09.164 --> 00:29:13.848
Would you still move when you don't know all the pieces that God has for you?

00:29:13.994 --> 00:29:17.163
Let's go to Genesis 12, 4.

00:29:17.616 --> 00:29:21.912
Because Genesis 12, 4 sets it up. He said, I want you to go to a place I will show you.

00:29:22.159 --> 00:29:26.513
Understand. He said, I'm at a place. Can you show me something here? No, he didn't say that.

00:29:27.134 --> 00:29:31.771
He did not say that. Let's continue with Genesis 12, 4. It tells us here,

00:29:31.771 --> 00:29:37.682
it says, so Abraham departed as the Lord has spoken unto him and Lot went with him.

00:29:37.914 --> 00:29:43.742
Abraham was 75 years old when he departed out of Haran. Now think about that, folks.

00:29:44.032 --> 00:29:49.581
You're 75 years old and God is telling you, I'm going to show you a place.

00:29:49.581 --> 00:29:54.111
I want you to go. I'm going to show you a place. At 75 years old,

00:29:54.111 --> 00:29:55.735
how many of you know you settled in?

00:29:56.037 --> 00:29:59.821
You done got roots. You're not trying to go nowhere. In your mind,

00:29:59.821 --> 00:30:01.708
you're saying, Lord, where are you taking me?

00:30:01.935 --> 00:30:06.171
I'm too old to be moving around like this. We start talking ourselves out of

00:30:06.171 --> 00:30:07.531
what God has promised us.

00:30:07.780 --> 00:30:12.911
But what did Abraham do when God told him to go? So Abraham departed as the

00:30:12.911 --> 00:30:14.439
Lord has spoken unto him.

00:30:14.752 --> 00:30:19.271
Abraham had a heart for God, not a heart for the stuff, not a heart for his

00:30:19.271 --> 00:30:23.093
comfort, not a heart for his family, not a heart for...

00:30:23.714 --> 00:30:29.490
Familiarity, not a heart for anything except for God, because he departed.

00:30:29.710 --> 00:30:36.104
And as we follow Abraham, we can see an example of him always being obedient,

00:30:36.104 --> 00:30:42.023
except he messed up one time, but then he was obedient. He gets back in line with God.

00:30:42.220 --> 00:30:47.857
Similar story with David, you know? So Abraham departed as the Lord has spoken to him.

00:30:48.170 --> 00:30:55.212
He left something real for something promised. You left what was visible for what was not visible.

00:30:55.444 --> 00:31:01.114
He left the religion of his father to begin walking with God who had personally

00:31:01.114 --> 00:31:02.718
revealed himself to him.

00:31:03.008 --> 00:31:07.617
Come on now. Ur was not evil, but God made Abraham leave.

00:31:07.913 --> 00:31:14.287
Where you at is really not evil, but it might be saying that you have been at this mount long enough.

00:31:14.566 --> 00:31:19.644
You say, well, I'm too old to be moving. Abraham was 75. So what's your excuse?

00:31:19.853 --> 00:31:22.517
Moses was 80. What's your excuse?

00:31:22.784 --> 00:31:25.066
Caleb was 80. Joshua was 80.

00:31:26.244 --> 00:31:30.704
God waits until we get to the point where we just need to trust on him for everything.

00:31:30.704 --> 00:31:33.129
Because at 75, that's a lot of move, right?

00:31:33.616 --> 00:31:39.085
Just keep going. Joshua does not tell us God moved. We moved Abraham because I was wicked.

00:31:39.352 --> 00:31:46.648
It tells us that God called Abraham, that his ancestors served other gods and that Abraham obeyed.

00:31:46.985 --> 00:31:51.908
Think about that. The historical background helped us see that the cost of obedience

00:31:52.082 --> 00:31:53.887
may have been substantial.

00:31:54.149 --> 00:31:56.941
And there we have to apply that to our life.

00:31:57.330 --> 00:32:02.004
How do we apply that to our life? Sometimes the hardest places to leave is not

00:32:02.004 --> 00:32:05.265
the place where everything is going wrong.

00:32:05.468 --> 00:32:08.911
It's a place where everything happens to be going well.

00:32:09.265 --> 00:32:13.560
But God said, this is not where your story ends.

00:32:14.396 --> 00:32:19.387
Aren't that powerful? God is writing our story and he needs us to be part of

00:32:19.387 --> 00:32:21.901
it or he's going to write you out of it, right?

00:32:22.052 --> 00:32:25.874
So God needs to move, to be part of his story.

00:32:26.315 --> 00:32:29.707
I don't know why this lines up with my life. Oh my gosh, this is so interesting.

00:32:29.707 --> 00:32:34.477
Let's go to Genesis 11, 31. And like this, remember, and Abraham departed.

00:32:34.477 --> 00:32:36.015
This is another part of the parson.

00:32:36.300 --> 00:32:40.293
And Terah took Abram, his son, and the Lot, the son of Haran,

00:32:40.618 --> 00:32:46.507
and his son's sons, and Sarai, his daughter, and daughter-in-law and his sons,

00:32:46.507 --> 00:32:50.452
Abram's wife, and they went forth with them from the Ur

00:32:50.858 --> 00:32:53.157
of the Chaldees to go

00:32:53.597 --> 00:32:55.502
to the land of Canaan.

00:32:55.810 --> 00:32:58.527
And they came unto Haran and dwelt there.

00:32:59.014 --> 00:33:02.288
They took a little shortcut. They stopped. How powerful is that?

00:33:02.497 --> 00:33:08.662
Sometimes the hardest place to leave is not a place where everything is going wrong. How easy is that?

00:33:08.935 --> 00:33:11.861
It's a place where everything appeared to be going well.

00:33:12.221 --> 00:33:15.110
But God has said, this is not where your story ends.

00:33:15.528 --> 00:33:21.571
But if we're disobedient, California, our story will end where God wants us to move.

00:33:21.856 --> 00:33:24.596
God wants us to move, but we're staying stuck.

00:33:25.002 --> 00:33:28.729
We're staying still because we're comfortable. We're familiar.

00:33:29.042 --> 00:33:33.054
We don't think it takes all that. We'll see if it takes all that with Abraham

00:33:33.448 --> 00:33:37.808
because Abraham took a mighty move and he packed all this stuff.

00:33:38.116 --> 00:33:40.368
It's easy for you to pack you and your stuff up.

00:33:40.687 --> 00:33:44.647
Think about packing your wife's stuff up, your husband's stuff up.

00:33:44.647 --> 00:33:48.337
I'm a female, so my husband's stuff up, all his stuff. You know,

00:33:48.337 --> 00:33:53.058
then I'm taking, we adopted his brother's son, you know, taking all his stuff.

00:33:53.296 --> 00:33:57.539
And then all the stuff, we're 75 years old. So we got a lot of stuff because

00:33:57.858 --> 00:33:59.913
we've been collecting stuff, right?

00:34:00.053 --> 00:34:02.897
We collect stuff. So maybe we have to fill some things out.

00:34:03.251 --> 00:34:06.377
But let's continue with this story. So the family moves.

00:34:06.977 --> 00:34:12.257
1131, I just read that, that he took his son, Abraham. Sarah took Abraham,

00:34:12.257 --> 00:34:16.455
his son, and a lot of the son of Haran, his son's son.

00:34:17.066 --> 00:34:23.335
So he took Abram, the dad took Abram, he took Lot, and he took Sarai, his daughter-in-law.

00:34:23.562 --> 00:34:25.343
Sounds like a Noah trip.

00:34:25.656 --> 00:34:28.691
And then they went forward. Notice it was traveling together,

00:34:28.691 --> 00:34:33.099
Terah, Abram, Sarai, and Lot. This was a family in motion.

00:34:33.506 --> 00:34:38.510
They're leaving their homeland, leaving what they know, leaving the place where Haran had died.

00:34:38.777 --> 00:34:43.495
And scripture tells us their intended destination was Canaan,

00:34:43.839 --> 00:34:45.743
but they did not make it there.

00:34:45.945 --> 00:34:48.680
And they came to Haran and dwelt there.

00:34:49.017 --> 00:34:52.993
They stopped in Haran and they stayed. Now, let's stop right here.

00:34:53.208 --> 00:34:55.245
What was the goal to get to Canaan?

00:34:55.465 --> 00:35:00.441
Why did we stop in here? Why? Then they left Ur and they went to Haran.

00:35:00.441 --> 00:35:02.560
And then eventually Abraham went to Canaan.

00:35:03.010 --> 00:35:06.744
Think about what that means. They packed their lives. They left home. They traveled.

00:35:07.155 --> 00:35:12.582
They reached another city, and then they settled. Aaron became normal. Aaron became familiar.

00:35:12.930 --> 00:35:16.710
Aaron became home. But that's not what God told him to do.

00:35:17.034 --> 00:35:21.658
Because scripture is about to show us that all through the family stops,

00:35:21.658 --> 00:35:25.440
God called on Abraham had not stopped.

00:35:25.772 --> 00:35:28.262
So sometimes we think we can just move a little bit.

00:35:28.628 --> 00:35:31.964
I'm on my way there, Lord. I'll get there when I get there.

00:35:32.157 --> 00:35:36.754
It's different when you stop You're on a long travel And you stop at a hotel

00:35:36.957 --> 00:35:41.268
And you're taking a break from driving And then you continue your journey But

00:35:41.268 --> 00:35:43.818
what happens if you stop at the hotel And you say, you know what?

00:35:43.818 --> 00:35:48.338
I'm going to live here for a couple years And I'll get to Canaan when I get

00:35:48.338 --> 00:35:52.823
there God never stops talking to us when he calls us You ever have that feeling?

00:35:53.211 --> 00:35:56.518
You think you're doing something? He might be quiet for a minute But then he's

00:35:56.518 --> 00:35:58.128
going to ask you Why are you here?

00:35:58.435 --> 00:36:02.963
We still I got things for you to do and you're holding things up.

00:36:03.253 --> 00:36:04.548
I need you to get to Canaan.

00:36:04.857 --> 00:36:08.888
So if you have paused on the journey that God has for you, he wants you to get

00:36:08.888 --> 00:36:10.793
up and he wants you to keep it moving.

00:36:10.932 --> 00:36:16.075
We see here in Joshua 24, 2, we covered this already, but just a reminder, just a refresher.

00:36:16.383 --> 00:36:20.824
It says in 24, 2, he says, your father dwelt on the other side of the flood

00:36:21.120 --> 00:36:25.619
in old times, even Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nucor,

00:36:25.799 --> 00:36:27.604
because they served other gods.

00:36:27.912 --> 00:36:31.789
So we understand that they serve another God.

00:36:32.056 --> 00:36:36.938
And so look at this. They're on a journey to Canaan. They stop in here and God's

00:36:36.938 --> 00:36:40.921
still talking and he is talking to Joshua.

00:36:41.223 --> 00:36:46.824
So we know there was a little delay, but Abram has to remember where he is going.

00:36:47.109 --> 00:36:48.601
And sometimes it's hard to.

00:36:49.443 --> 00:36:52.952
Do everything at once, right? Maybe they took a break. But God says,

00:36:52.952 --> 00:36:55.034
no, I need you to keep going.

00:36:55.277 --> 00:36:59.335
He is calling him away from an inherited spiritual environment,

00:36:59.660 --> 00:37:05.355
away from all loyalties, away from familiar beliefs, away from what this family had known.

00:37:05.866 --> 00:37:11.321
And in Joshua 24, 3, it says, and I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood.

00:37:11.617 --> 00:37:17.532
I love that language because I took your father Abraham, even though he didn't want to go.

00:37:18.003 --> 00:37:22.972
Because it sounds like He departed, but his heart wasn't all the way there, right?

00:37:23.245 --> 00:37:27.342
So what happened, his heart wasn't all the way there. So Abraham did not begin

00:37:27.342 --> 00:37:30.396
as a man standing fully formed in covenant faith.

00:37:30.716 --> 00:37:33.461
He started on the journey, but he stopped.

00:37:34.082 --> 00:37:36.862
Before he got there. How many of us has been there?

00:37:37.525 --> 00:37:40.805
So then it was a point where he had to take your father Abraham.

00:37:40.805 --> 00:37:48.217
Now, God is not going to grab you up, but he'll put it on you so strong that you will have to move.

00:37:48.501 --> 00:37:53.528
Things won't be prosperous where you're at if you stay stuck where God told you to keep it moving.

00:37:53.755 --> 00:37:58.608
So God reached into Abraham's world and pulled him into another future.

00:37:58.799 --> 00:38:02.787
Abraham did not begin as a man standing fully formed in covenant faith,

00:38:03.240 --> 00:38:08.495
because sometimes we think that that adultery or that idolatry doesn't affect

00:38:08.495 --> 00:38:10.658
us, but it does affect us.

00:38:10.843 --> 00:38:15.360
It can affect us and it will affect us if we're not paying attention.

00:38:15.661 --> 00:38:21.821
It affects us and it stops us from moving because we become so comfortable in that arena.

00:38:22.098 --> 00:38:25.333
So God called him, God led him and God revealed himself to him.

00:38:25.733 --> 00:38:29.418
Abram had to learn how to walk with this guy.

00:38:29.756 --> 00:38:35.990
Think about that. So guess what happened again? Acts 7.24, God appeared before Haran.

00:38:37.284 --> 00:38:40.848
The story of Acts 7.24, Acts gives us another piece of the story.

00:38:41.273 --> 00:38:48.605
The God of glory appeared before our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia

00:38:48.918 --> 00:38:50.606
before he dwelled in Sharon.

00:38:50.956 --> 00:38:57.868
Now that's important. God appeared to Abraham before Haran, before the family settled there.

00:38:58.491 --> 00:39:02.989
Before Genesis 12, the call had already begun, and God had said,

00:39:02.989 --> 00:39:08.084
Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into a land where I will show thee.

00:39:08.409 --> 00:39:14.667
So now we can see that Abraham's journey was not simply Tara deciding one day to move the family.

00:39:14.980 --> 00:39:17.430
God was already at work in Abraham's life.

00:39:17.778 --> 00:39:21.314
He had appeared to him. He had spoke to him. He had called him out,

00:39:21.656 --> 00:39:24.026
but the family journey stopped in hearing.

00:39:24.338 --> 00:39:29.109
That raised an interesting question. How many times does God begin moving us

00:39:29.109 --> 00:39:35.466
towards something, but we stop somewhere along the way? Not necessarily because the stop was evil.

00:39:35.733 --> 00:39:40.813
Heron was part of the journey. He was on the way there. But Heron was not the final destination.

00:39:41.172 --> 00:39:48.852
There are places that can be part of your story without being the place God intended you to remain.

00:39:49.085 --> 00:39:54.536
So here we see, now we're going to Genesis 11, 32. And look what happened.

00:39:54.745 --> 00:40:02.423
Genesis 11 ends with these words, the days of Terah was 205 years old, and Terah died in Haran.

00:40:02.719 --> 00:40:06.406
And just like that, one chapter closes, Terah dies.

00:40:06.806 --> 00:40:08.499
Abraham has already lost a

00:40:08.499 --> 00:40:13.539
brother. He lost his father. His family left earth, together is changing.

00:40:14.718 --> 00:40:18.137
Relationship around Aaron and Abram are changing.

00:40:18.399 --> 00:40:23.130
The old world is slowly falling apart. And then Genesis 12 is open.

00:40:23.455 --> 00:40:27.373
This is why I do not want us to rush straight in to get thee out.

00:40:27.669 --> 00:40:32.290
Because when God speaks those words, Abraham has a history behind him.

00:40:32.638 --> 00:40:36.759
He has a homeland behind him. He has family behind him. He has grief behind him.

00:40:37.139 --> 00:40:40.365
He has inherited spiritual environment behind him.

00:40:40.719 --> 00:40:44.556
And now God's asking him to move forward. When you think about that.

00:40:45.579 --> 00:40:46.919
Abraham lost his brother.

00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:50.465
He lost his father. So now he has his wife.

00:40:50.773 --> 00:40:55.609
He has Lot. And God is still telling him to get thee out.

00:40:55.934 --> 00:41:00.762
He's still telling him to keep on moving. And many times after a death,

00:41:01.111 --> 00:41:04.804
we want to settle there. We want to kind of enjoy that moment.

00:41:04.804 --> 00:41:08.332
Not really enjoy it, but just kind of have a remembrance time.

00:41:08.483 --> 00:41:12.523
But God knew the story that his father was going to die in terror.

00:41:12.848 --> 00:41:16.215
You know, why? Because Abraham got things to do.

00:41:16.447 --> 00:41:23.269
And he died at 205 years old. I just wonder if he would just continue to walk, would he still be alive?

00:41:23.849 --> 00:41:27.324
A lot of times our family holds us up. I know God doesn't kill,

00:41:27.324 --> 00:41:30.525
steal, or destroy, but sometimes our family holds us up.

00:41:30.862 --> 00:41:37.148
It says, you're going to leave me here by myself? I'm not your responsibility. I'm not your guy.

00:41:37.665 --> 00:41:44.044
I am your daughter. Please let me go. People don't like to see you move.

00:41:44.044 --> 00:41:45.484
They like to see you stay.

00:41:45.786 --> 00:41:49.368
And you stay in a place and you're miserable that's even at a job.

00:41:49.670 --> 00:41:55.051
And yet because you can go, but you decide to do what? Stay because of memories.

00:41:55.225 --> 00:41:56.996
And God is telling you to move.

00:41:57.373 --> 00:42:02.033
Let's go to Genesis 12. I'm in all kinds of stuff. I got to listen to this again so I can hear it.

00:42:02.702 --> 00:42:07.061
12, it says, now the Lord has said unto Abraham, get thee out of thy country

00:42:07.334 --> 00:42:13.029
and from thy kindred and from thy family house into a land where I will show you. God says that.

00:42:13.371 --> 00:42:16.819
Let's kind of break this down a little bit. It says, get thee out of thy country.

00:42:17.185 --> 00:42:20.552
That mean you're moving to a new land. Get away from your kindred.

00:42:20.662 --> 00:42:22.897
That mean don't bring none of your family with you.

00:42:23.170 --> 00:42:27.030
Out of your father's house. That mean your daddy can't go either.

00:42:27.338 --> 00:42:32.092
Wow, this is not a relocation. This is a separation. This is identity.

00:42:32.452 --> 00:42:37.864
And this is trust. God is asking Abraham to walk away from everything that has

00:42:37.864 --> 00:42:43.164
given his life structure and move towards something God was not fully prepared

00:42:43.164 --> 00:42:45.194
to show, was not fully has shown him yet.

00:42:45.357 --> 00:42:48.614
So God's telling you to leave, but you don't know where you're going.

00:42:48.614 --> 00:42:52.104
You can't tell your friends and your family to meet you there because you don't

00:42:52.104 --> 00:42:54.772
know where there there is, right?

00:42:55.034 --> 00:42:59.711
And so that's how God moves. God doesn't give Abraham a map.

00:42:59.851 --> 00:43:03.014
He gives him a word. Until then, I will show thee.

00:43:03.299 --> 00:43:08.012
In other words, follow me first, and I will show you the rest as you go.

00:43:08.326 --> 00:43:13.637
This is what Abraham's family, Abraham's faith is so powerful. He did stop in hearing.

00:43:13.916 --> 00:43:17.254
Maybe his father was sick because he didn't stay there long because his father

00:43:17.254 --> 00:43:20.267
died and then he moved on. He did not know everything.

00:43:21.132 --> 00:43:26.466
Remember our little must-receive faith. When God tells us to do something and we do it, guess what?

00:43:26.780 --> 00:43:32.236
He'll keep growing that faith. So Abraham's first faith was to move from everything,

00:43:32.550 --> 00:43:35.911
you know, even when he didn't understand it, even when he didn't have an answer.

00:43:36.294 --> 00:43:40.317
But the only thing he had was that voice that he heard from the Lord.

00:43:40.555 --> 00:43:44.195
Let's go to Genesis 12, verses 2 and 3.

00:43:44.479 --> 00:43:48.241
It says, Because I will make thee a great nation, and I will bless thee,

00:43:48.444 --> 00:43:52.240
and I will make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.

00:43:52.531 --> 00:43:56.413
And I will bless them that bless thee, and I will curse them that curse thee.

00:43:57.232 --> 00:44:01.574
And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

00:44:01.841 --> 00:44:04.952
Then God began to tell Abraham what he intended to do.

00:44:05.242 --> 00:44:08.476
He said, I will make thee a great nation. I will bless thee,

00:44:08.778 --> 00:44:10.275
and I will make thy name great.

00:44:10.606 --> 00:44:14.850
Now think about this. Abraham was being asked to leave his family structure,

00:44:15.227 --> 00:44:18.106
but God says, I'm going to make a nation from you.

00:44:18.414 --> 00:44:22.251
He's being asked to leave what gave him identity, but God says,

00:44:22.524 --> 00:44:24.027
I'm going to make your name great.

00:44:24.376 --> 00:44:29.200
He is being asked to walk into uncertainty, but God says, I will bless you.

00:44:29.374 --> 00:44:31.051
Abraham cannot see it yet.

00:44:31.353 --> 00:44:33.315
There is a nation standing around him.

00:44:33.646 --> 00:44:37.123
There is no nation standing around him. There is no countless descendants.

00:44:37.431 --> 00:44:40.641
There is no land in his possession. There's only this promise,

00:44:40.891 --> 00:44:44.786
this one promise. Sometimes that is all faith has to work with.

00:44:45.053 --> 00:44:48.501
A word from God and a future you cannot see.

00:44:48.815 --> 00:44:52.382
What was Abraham's response? Let's go to Genesis 12, 4.

00:44:52.709 --> 00:44:57.162
So Abraham departed as the Lord has spoken unto him and Lot went with him.

00:44:57.162 --> 00:45:02.502
And Abraham was seventy and five years old. He departed out of here. So he departed.

00:45:02.849 --> 00:45:07.564
Guess what? He left. He left. He moved. He obeyed. He went forward.

00:45:07.905 --> 00:45:12.868
And that one act of obedience changed history. Before he became Abraham,

00:45:13.164 --> 00:45:16.926
before Isaac, before Jacob, before Israel, before Moses, before David,

00:45:17.293 --> 00:45:22.709
before the generation that followed, there was a man that heard God say, go, and he went.

00:45:23.101 --> 00:45:27.013
This is why Abraham's origin matters, because this story is not the story of

00:45:27.013 --> 00:45:30.375
a perfect man who always knew exactly what God was doing.

00:45:30.787 --> 00:45:34.979
It is the story of a man being called out of one world into another,

00:45:35.193 --> 00:45:40.447
out of an inherited religion, out of familiar surroundings, out of family dependence,

00:45:40.720 --> 00:45:43.512
out of what he knew, into relationship with God.

00:45:43.761 --> 00:45:46.090
And sometimes that is exactly how God works.

00:45:46.594 --> 00:45:49.903
He begins calling you before you understand the destination.

00:45:50.256 --> 00:45:52.630
He disturbs what has become comfortable.

00:45:53.008 --> 00:45:57.333
He begins separating you from old patterns, old friends. And sometimes he asks

00:45:57.333 --> 00:46:02.208
you to move before he explains everything that lies ahead. Abraham's past was real.

00:46:02.500 --> 00:46:04.374
Earl was real. Aaron was real.

00:46:04.751 --> 00:46:09.403
His family history was real. His losses were real. But none of these things

00:46:09.403 --> 00:46:12.327
had the final word over his future. Only God did.

00:46:12.594 --> 00:46:18.870
And maybe in this lesson, we need to carry this part of Abraham's story forward in our lives.

00:46:19.340 --> 00:46:24.122
You can honor where you came from without being required to stay there.

00:46:24.465 --> 00:46:28.673
Because when God calls you forward, sometimes the next chapter of your life

00:46:28.673 --> 00:46:31.883
begins with two words, get out.

00:46:31.883 --> 00:46:36.593
And that's, remind me right now of that two words, get out, is the same two

00:46:36.593 --> 00:46:41.787
words that God told Lot when it was time for him to go, get out.

00:46:42.211 --> 00:46:44.086
So those words are not rude.

00:46:44.550 --> 00:46:48.410
They're just God with an urgency to tell you to move.

00:46:48.653 --> 00:46:53.893
Not because he's trying to take something away from you, but because he may

00:46:53.893 --> 00:46:57.970
be praying to show you something you can never see from where you are standing.

00:46:58.290 --> 00:47:04.023
Wow. So let's talk about that, that you can honor where you came from without

00:47:04.023 --> 00:47:08.727
going backwards. Abraham obeyed immediately, but another group of people did not.

00:47:09.034 --> 00:47:15.659
You know, they stayed. So let's continue. A call to action. Where do you stand?

00:47:16.280 --> 00:47:20.895
So as we close, I want to leave you with a question. Where do you stand when God tells you to move?

00:47:21.150 --> 00:47:28.290
Abraham heard God in Genesis 12, verse 4 says, so Abraham departed as the Lord has spoken to him.

00:47:28.610 --> 00:47:33.430
He did not have the whole plan, didn't have every detail, did not see the entire

00:47:33.430 --> 00:47:37.271
future, but he heard the voice of God and he moved.

00:47:37.590 --> 00:47:41.210
Now I want you to compare this to the children of Israel. They have seen the

00:47:41.210 --> 00:47:44.144
Red Sea open. They have seen God provide manna.

00:47:44.457 --> 00:47:48.148
They had seen water come from rock. They had his presence with them.

00:47:48.456 --> 00:47:54.380
1321 says, And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead

00:47:54.380 --> 00:47:59.119
them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire. God's presence was right there.

00:47:59.421 --> 00:48:02.376
They could see the cloud. They could even feel the fire.

00:48:02.713 --> 00:48:06.560
They had evidence that God was with them. And yet when it was time to enter

00:48:06.560 --> 00:48:10.300
the land, God has promised them.

00:48:10.555 --> 00:48:12.587
Fear and unbelief took over.

00:48:12.871 --> 00:48:18.502
Hebrews 3.19 says, So we see that they cannot enter because of unbelief.

00:48:18.856 --> 00:48:23.796
Think about that. They had a promise. They had presence. They had seen the miracle.

00:48:24.261 --> 00:48:25.886
But unbelief kept them from entering.

00:48:26.460 --> 00:48:30.361
Abraham, on the other hand, had a word from God and enough faith to move.

00:48:30.622 --> 00:48:34.291
So I ask you again, where do you stand? Are you waiting for God to show you

00:48:34.291 --> 00:48:35.859
every detail before you obey?

00:48:36.160 --> 00:48:39.214
Are you asking for a sign after sign after sign?

00:48:39.557 --> 00:48:43.492
Or are you willing to move when God gives you enough light for the next step?

00:48:43.805 --> 00:48:49.033
Hebrews 11a says, By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place

00:48:49.464 --> 00:48:54.050
which he should, after receiving for an inheritance, he obeyed.

00:48:54.322 --> 00:48:55.970
He obeyed before he possessed it.

00:48:56.261 --> 00:48:59.850
He moved before he saw it. He trusted before he understood it.

00:49:00.110 --> 00:49:02.710
And maybe that is where some of us are right now.

00:49:02.978 --> 00:49:05.265
You have been asking God about your future.

00:49:05.568 --> 00:49:08.260
You have been asking, where am I going? What is next?

00:49:08.684 --> 00:49:13.370
What do you want me to do? And I believe there's nothing wrong with asking God these questions.

00:49:13.763 --> 00:49:18.589
However, in Genesis, Jeremiah 33 says, Call unto me, and I will answer thee,

00:49:18.850 --> 00:49:21.966
and show thee great and mighty things thou knowest not.

00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:26.820
God may not show you everything at once. He can show you, he may show you in part.

00:49:27.144 --> 00:49:32.468
He may give you a dream. He may just give you a little step by step as you move.

00:49:32.722 --> 00:49:37.030
He can give you scripture. He can place something on your heart. He can give you wisdom.

00:49:37.350 --> 00:49:42.225
He can confirm direction. And yes, through scripture, God sometimes uses dreams

00:49:42.488 --> 00:49:45.289
to speak and reveal what was ahead.

00:49:45.544 --> 00:49:49.898
For God speaketh once, yet twice, yet man perceiveth it not.

00:49:50.014 --> 00:49:52.695
In a dream, in a vision of the night.

00:49:53.102 --> 00:49:57.084
So even when God tells you in a dream, some people don't move.

00:49:57.368 --> 00:50:01.026
They know it's time to go, but they don't move. So here's your assignment.

00:50:01.391 --> 00:50:05.368
Before you go to bed, I want you to ask God, Lord, what are you showing me about

00:50:05.368 --> 00:50:08.497
my future? Ask him, is there something you're calling me out of?

00:50:08.862 --> 00:50:12.949
Is there somewhere you're calling me toward? What is my next step?

00:50:13.315 --> 00:50:16.560
And then wait. He will speak to you in a vision, in a dream.

00:50:16.867 --> 00:50:19.143
He'll speak to you in a word, by direction.

00:50:19.468 --> 00:50:23.808
He'll confirm his word with signs, miracles, and wonders. Why?

00:50:23.808 --> 00:50:26.666
Because he wants you to move. He wants you to obey.

00:50:26.997 --> 00:50:31.028
Then ask him to make the direction clear. So whatever he chooses,

00:50:31.028 --> 00:50:34.462
he might not tell you everything, but if he tells you to go,

00:50:34.811 --> 00:50:39.629
he can choose through Scripture, wisdom, conviction, circumstances,

00:50:39.820 --> 00:50:41.613
even a dream if he desires.

00:50:41.973 --> 00:50:46.483
But do not stop asking. Pay attention. Write it down, what you sense.

00:50:46.640 --> 00:50:47.813
Test it against Scripture.

00:50:48.132 --> 00:50:52.509
Pray over it. then God makes the next step clear and obey.

00:50:52.863 --> 00:50:56.298
Because the difference between Abraham and that generation of Israel was not

00:50:56.298 --> 00:51:00.560
that one group had more evidence. Israel had extraordinary evidence.

00:51:00.862 --> 00:51:06.319
The difference was that what they did with that evidence, some did nothing and some did something.

00:51:06.528 --> 00:51:09.668
So you have dreams, vision, confirmation, scripture and everything.

00:51:10.008 --> 00:51:13.871
And yet you don't move. Think about that. So today I'm asking you,

00:51:14.045 --> 00:51:18.468
ask yourself this. Am I standing at the edge of something God has promised but

00:51:18.468 --> 00:51:21.719
following fear and unbelief that's keeping me from entering?

00:51:22.004 --> 00:51:23.391
Or would I be like Abraham?

00:51:23.687 --> 00:51:25.377
God spoke, Abraham moved.

00:51:25.713 --> 00:51:31.164
And his obedience became the beginning of a story far greater than what he had seen at the time.

00:51:31.414 --> 00:51:35.988
So pray before you sleep, ask God about your future, ask him to show you what

00:51:35.988 --> 00:51:39.592
you need to know for the next step. And then when he speaks.

00:51:40.074 --> 00:51:46.151
Do not let your unbelief keep you standing in a place God has already told you to leave.

00:51:46.302 --> 00:51:50.573
And that's been the Tyree of a Black Woman podcast. I'm your host,

00:51:50.573 --> 00:51:53.093
Connie Morris, and I know that was good.

00:51:53.413 --> 00:51:58.673
That was really good. And so pay attention because in this time, God is talking to us.

00:51:58.922 --> 00:52:03.137
He needs his children, his people to be in certain locations at a certain time

00:52:03.421 --> 00:52:08.135
so that When he blows a trumpet, the people who you're going to speak to,

00:52:08.408 --> 00:52:12.143
they've had a chance to hear the gospel, be prayed for.

00:52:12.143 --> 00:52:15.729
You might be that opening to heaven for them. You do not know.

00:52:16.077 --> 00:52:22.660
So don't allow comfort, familiarity, family to keep you back on what God is calling you to.

00:52:22.910 --> 00:52:27.182
In Jesus' name, amen. And I'll see you on the next episode.

00:52:27.565 --> 00:52:31.309
Before we close today, I don't want to take for granted that everyone listening

00:52:31.576 --> 00:52:32.999
knows Jesus personally.

00:52:33.388 --> 00:52:37.803
If you have listened to this episode or any other episodes and felt something

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stirring in your heart, maybe you know about God, but you're not sure you truly know Him.

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Maybe you grew up in church, walked away, got hurt, became tired,

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and never fully surrendered your life to Jesus.

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I want you to know this. God loves you.

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He has not forgotten you. He is not waiting to shame you. He is calling you home.

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The Bible says in Romans 10, 9, if you declare with your mouth,

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Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

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Salvation is not about being perfect.

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It's about surrendering to the one who is perfect.

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Jesus died for your sins, rose again, and made a way for you to be forgiven, restored, and made new.

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So right where you are, you can pray this prayer with me.

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Lord Jesus, I come to you today with an open heart. I believe you are the Son of God.

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I believe you died on the cross for my sins, and I believe that God raised you from the dead.

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Today, I confess that I need you. I repent of my sins.

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I ask you to forgive me, cleanse me, and make me brand new. Jesus, come into my heart.

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Be my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer, and my King.

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I surrender my life to you. I give you my past, my present, and my future.

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Teach me how to walk with you. Fill me with your Holy Spirit.

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Lead me in truth, healing, obedience, and love.

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From this day forward, I belong to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

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If you pray that prayer from your heart, I want you to know that heaven has

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heard you. This is not the end.

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This is only the beginning of your walk with Jesus. Find a Bible-believing church.

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Begin reading the Word of God.

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Pray daily. and ask the Holy Spirit to help you grow.

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God is not looking for perfection from you. He is inviting you into relationship,

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transformation, and eternal life through Jesus Christ. And remember,

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you are loved, you are not forgotten, and God still has a purpose for your life.

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Thank you for listening to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast.

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Until next time, keep walking in truth, faith, and freedom.

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Family, thank you for spending time with me today.

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To every woman listening who has ever felt hidden, overlooked,

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or pushed aside, hear me clearly.

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God has not forgotten you, and neither have I.

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Now let's go before the Lord and close this out with a word from God,

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because someone out there needs this reminder today.

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Jeremiah 29, 11, verses 11 through 14.

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For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you

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and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

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Then when you call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you,

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you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

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I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and bring you back from captivity.

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Father God, we thank you for your word, that it is true, that it is living, that it is for us.

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You said you know the plans you have for us, plans to prosper us and not to

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harm us, plans to give us hope and a future.

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So today we receive that, not just in our minds, but in our hearts.

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When we feel overlooked, remind us you still see us.

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When we feel forgotten, remind us you still have a plan. And when we feel hidden,

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remind us you are still working.

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Your word says that when we call on you, you will listen.

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So we call on you now. Hear us. Strengthen us.

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Guide us. Help us to seek you with our whole heart, not halfway,

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not sometimes, but fully.

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And as we seek you, let us find you in every season, in every place.

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Even the hidden mind. Restore what was lost, renew what feels broken,

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and remind us that nothing in our lives is wasted in your hand.

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Lord, we trust you, we believe you, and we stand on your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

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This is Diary of a Black Woman podcast, and I'm your host, Connie Morris,

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and I'll see you on the next episode.