Preparing the Promise
Genesis 11
Gen 11:10 This is the
account of Shem…26 After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of
Abram, Nahor and Haran…29 The name of Abram's wife was Sarai…31 Terah took his
son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the
wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go
to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
ONE of the Bible’s “famous” stories in
Genesis 11 is the tower of Babel. In the story we learn about the sin of pride and
the need to be humble as God acts at Babel. People cannot go to God on their own.
That
lesson happens in the other story of Genesis 11. As the scripture focuses on the
generations of Noah’s son Shem, you see how it ultimately points to Abram and Sarai.
They will become Abraham and Sarah, the people God will call to begin building
the nation Israel to be a blessing to the world.
As
we read this deliberate description of the generations, we see how God acts to
form a man and a woman for his great work. Does it not make us humble? As the people
of Babel, we can become very proud thinking we can work our own way to God.
But
the sovereign God could not allow us to decide on our own, “I’ll go to God.” We
are unworthy, too dirty in sin, to go our own way to God. He would show to his creation,
instead, how he would make a way for us to be clean in Christ because he is the
God who saves.
Thus
he saved Shem. Shem had sons and they had sons and on it went to Abram. In his
love, God is preparing to make his next promise to save the world through Abram.
LIFE Link: For it
is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians
2:8-9)
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