This transcript was auto-generated.

29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. 30 Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

(Gen 11: 29-30 & 12: 1)

I think it was Anton Chekhov that said, when he was talking about the stage setting for a play.“If there was a rifle hanging on the wall, it will be used long before, the second act, or it shouldn’t be hanging there, at all”. There is going to be some stage setting going on in the passage were going to look at over these next few days.

Part of the reason that the Biblical we will be told that Abram’s wife is barren is because it’s a real catastrophe for Abraham, and for Sarai, particularly in the light of the promise God has given them. It’s showing the trouble they are going to have right at the beginning Abraham’s in at the beginning of the story.

There is a very simple message contained in this passage, and it’s this. God wants to bless you, in fact, God elects, God chooses to bless his anyone who in turns to him in repentance and faith. 

Abraham and Sarah receive a promise, one were he is blessed and has a long and fruitful family line through which he will be recognised as a father of the nations. So, what is the inheritance that we are promised by God, and what must we do to be blessed? 

When you start reading the Bible you very soon discover that God has chosen to bless his people. It started with the story of Noah and how God blessed him and his family by removing them from the judgement. I believe if we understood these early bible stories then hopefully, we see that again and again that God wants to bless those who follow Him. Bless those who step out on a journey of faith and obedience with him. 

What we're going to do is take in the next section of the book of Genesis and see how God blessed this man called Abram who was obedient to Him. For that we need to return to a text which covers the end of Chapter 11 and the first 8 verses of chapter 12.

Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. 30 Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.

(Gen 11: 29-30)

The chapter 11 verses give us an overview, a background of Abram and his family line. Then chapter 12 will tell us about how God called Abram and then how he confirms that call. We're told at the end of chapter 11 that Abram was originally based in Ur of the Chaldees. It is confirmed later in the bible {The Book of Joshua] that Ur of the Chaldees was filled with pagan idols. Ur was in fact a regional centre of religious idolatry. So, we start out by seeing that Terra [Abram’s father] is not someone who worships the Lord, he is a moon worshipper and a worshiper of Idols. The end of chapter 11 also tells us about Terra [Abrams father]. It tells us he had 3 sons one of which is Abram and one of Abrams brothers who is the father of Lot who is initially seen to accompany Abraham to the land of Canaan. They get as far as Harran and there they stop. They stayed there for a while and then they leave and made their way down to what we call today Palestine. Terra didn't make it all the way he gets as far as Haran and then he dies. This brief section precedes chapter 12 to demonstrate to us that Abraham came from a pagan idolatrous background. The reason for telling us this fact is simple. I think it was to demonstrate that there is nothing about Abraham that would particularly mark him out as the important figure he will become. There's nothing about him that warrants God special called upon his life. So that's his background. We will pick up the story at this point in the next episode because things get very important here at what bible experts refer to as the call of Abraham