Blessing to the Nation
“A Blessing for All Nations,” or “Don’t Ask Questions, Just Drive”, or “Move! At My Age!, or Who Me!”, “Trust and Obey” or “Faith and Obenience.” Sunday, December 4, 2011 Lesson: Genesis 12:1-9; Time of Action: 2090 B.C.; Place of Action: Haran; Canaan Golden Text: “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). I. INTRODUCTION. The nation of Israel is constantly in the news, for it is at the center of the Middle Eastern conflict. Every May 14th is a day of remembrance for when Israel declared its modern nationhood in 1948, after the horrors of the Holocaust wiped out six million European Jews. This week’s lesson reveals the formation of the Abrahamic Covenant and is foundational to understanding the importance of the nation of Israel in God’s plans. It is important to notice that God’s everlasting covenant with Israel did not begin with Abraham’s faith but with God’s call to Abraham, to which he then responded in faith. II. A CALL TO GREATNESS (Genesis 12:1-3) A. God’s command (Genesis 12:1). Our lesson begins with “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee.” God commanded Abram, one of three sons of Terah to leave his country and family and go to a land that He would lead him to. Many scholars believe that Abram received this call while living in Haran (see vs. 4), but this was not Abram’s country. Abram and his family originally lived in the city of Ur in ancient Chaldea (see Genesis 11). Ur was located in the region known as Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers,