Dr. Dean Alley PhD: All right, Chaplain Dean Alley here. I had a moment. So I was going through my notes here and notice that I kind of inverted a couple things and I wasn't doing a good job. I lost track a little bit. I had posted a thing on Facebook this morning about Abraham and I was ahead of myself because this is the chapter I was going to talk about. But I found myself studying chapter 13. So I have to digress, come back, and start in verse 12 of 13. take your Bible and follow along line by line, precept by precept. And ask God to illuminate to you what it is that you see. And I'm just going to exegete, pull it out, and use some Bible principles to talk about how we did we dis we dis decipher this or how do we exegete it and then just provide a A review of it. So let's let's talk about chapter twelve, God's covenant with Adam. This is big. So now the Lord, let me see if I have So now the Lord has said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country and thy kindred, leave your families, what he's saying. Get out, get out. This is a command. So he says, from the kindred, comma, and from your father's house, comma. Time to grow up, get out, go, and unto the land that I will show thee. So he's gonna show him some of this land and We'll talk about that and I'll show you where we're going with this. And verse 2 says, And I will make thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And verse 3 says, And I will bless thee, bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. and then he goes on to say, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So let me stop here for just a quick moment. So blessing Israel is blessing Israel from chapter 12, where God says, I will bless them that bless Israel. Now, nowhere did it say, I will bless thee if you bless Netanyahu or his army or his politics. I will bless you if you bless his his views on other kind It doesn't. It doesn't. Just talking about Israel in in as a whole. It's not talking about all the things that are going on politically, these things in their economies and stuff. It's talking about nations blessing Israel. Don't you know how many enemies are does Israel have? Well, they have a lot because they want to wipe them out. They don't they don't want They want to kill And that's been going on since chapter long before this, but chapter twelve is where we're starting to see where God says to bless. And if you think about it, United States is one of the most blessed countries in the world, right? Respected. it has been extremely successful with commerce, growth, just a tremendous amount of success. So if you attribute to that, even way back before the country started, you know, They believed in God and then if they read their Bible, which they did, they had, I believe, the Geneva Bible, and they read this verse, they know that bless Israel. Now they may not know all the things about Israel at the time, but well, there's a lot of things we don't know. But when it says bless then you'll be blessed, it's kind of giving us a pretty clear picture of a command. And we shouldn't go against that. Now, I'm not telling you we have to accept the politics of what's going on in the countries and All the alliances and all that stuff, it doesn't say that. Just says bless them. That's it. So Abraham he departs as God had spoken unto him and Lot. So Lot went with him, and when they departed, excuse me, and with him. And Abram at this time, remember it's not Abraham yet, it's Abram, because he's not been he is not made righteous yet. We find later, he departs. He takes his son or his his nephew, he takes Lot with him. And Abram was seventy five years old when he departed. And he departed. basically it's talking about he departed, where's that? He left Haran. So let's look at that real fast. Because I want you to get a sense a sense of where we are in these conversations. Okay, I hope you could see that. So, number one, right here, err, this is where he was. let me just give you an idea where you're at. This is the Euphrates, the Tigris River. This was a main corridor that came down from the Mediterranean. And they brought goods and services both up and down this corridor. And obviously they went east to west. But this was another corridor where they came down from Heron. So this is where he was when he was told to get up and get out of Heron. And I believe his dad stayed, or he was still alive at the time. but notice where he's gone he's sending him. Wasn't the promised land yet. Aram was was Syria. His his who was yeah, Abraham was Syrian, by the way. He was Syrian. And Canaan, this is the land of the promise they're gonna work they're gonna go to. But here's Shechem. So I'm hoping I'm giving you a good ind indication here where verses one through six is talking about Shechem. And to go forth, let's see, and then he says. he departed Haran and Abraham took his wife and Lot his his brother's son, I believe his his brother was killed, and all their substance, what's their substance, everything they they have, they earned, or whatever they had. And then it said, and they gathered and the souls, so they had people that were probably working with them, slaves or people that were getting paid. I don't know. when I think of when I think of the souls part here, See if I can find yeah. souls that had gotten in Haran and went forth to go out of the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. So now they're in there. They have their possessions, they have their their people with them. Abram passed through the land unto the place they that's called Shechem. And Shechem unto the plain of Moriah Okay, so Abraham, okay, so and Lord appeared unto Abram and said unto thy seed, Will I give this land? And there buildeth an altar of the Lord who appeared to him. So he's telling Abraham to build an altar. This was custom, Mary, in that time frame. They built they they they sacrificed, they had altars and they had things that they would do and they and they get complicated in some cases. The problem is it turned pagan. It turned it turned into a pagan ritual and they weren't really giving anything to God, the real true God. So he tells them to build this. And the Lord appeared to Abraham in verse seven and said unto thy seed, I will give this land and build thee an offer unto them to the Lord who appeared. So this is the first mention of what? The actual appearance of God. This is the first appearance of God to men. That is a theophany. People say, well, Chaplain Dean, what do you talk about? Theophany is more of a an imagery or I don't want to say a ghost or anything, but it's a it's a definition of who God was, and it was used to say this is this is the Lord. So he sees him. And that is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. Preincarnate means he's not a man, but He is seen by man. So it's an appearance pre-incarnance of Christ. So note that God promises to give Abraham the land of Canaan was unconditional. Do you notice that? Verse 7 had an unconditional giving to Abraham, and Abraham it's unconditional. So we here and we're you know, you there's gonna be There's fights going back and forth all the time about this land. And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Bethel, okay? And then it says on the on the side of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on his west and Haron Haron on the east, side. And the Lord and and he built an offer altar unto the Lord and he called the place upon the Lord. And Abraham journeyed going on still south, and there was a great famine in the land And Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn. Sojourn is to live for a certain amount of time. I want you to note what I just said about he's heading to Egypt because there's a great famine going on. Yeah, it's take note of that because the very next chapter they'll show you how we he comes back. But I'll point that out when we get there. But then he basically so he's going down to Egypt and he's taking his wife with him. He says, Behold, he says, Look, now I know that thou art a fair woman to look to look at. In other words, she was really good to look at. Therefore, it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see thee, and that they shall say, This is his wife, and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. So basically saying, you know, Egyptians are just going to kill me and they're going to take you. And maybe that was something that was common in practice. the papyrus document from ancient Egypt does indeed tell of Pharaoh who had a beautiful woman brought to his court after murdering her husband, which would not indicate that Abram's concern was realistic. So there was proprietary, papyrus documentation, Egypt, old Egypt. information that shows that he that the Pharaoh did that, but it didn't happen to Abraham, but it just reinforces what he's saying here in the Bible for credibility. people will disagree with me. it's a fairy tale. It's not. again. So and then the very next verse he says, say I pray thee. So he says, say this, okay. Pray thee are that you're my sister, thou art my sister, that if it may be well With me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee. And it shall come to pass that when Abram was come unto Egypt, the Egyptians beheld or they saw the woman, like he said they would, and she was very fair. So there a beautiful indication there. And when he said his sister Sarai, he wasn't really lying because Sarai was a half-sister of Abraham. and you see this, you won't see it till verse. chapter 20, verse 12, where he calls that out. We learn that as we go through. But so this was not an outright lie. There was some truth to it. So Abraham's half sister was his wife. A lot of that went on early on. You talked about replenishing the earth. We talked about what what God had told Adam and Eve. And then what he told Noah. So then he goes on to say, he should have stayed in Canaan in spite of the famine. so Abraham's faith was still weak. So he you because he tells him that he's worried that God's gonna, you know, so he should have stayed in Canaan in spite of the famine, right? But having gone into Egypt, he should have been open to consistent in his set, he should have been open and consistent, knowing that God's gonna take care of him in his testimony, and so Sarah. Instead they compromised the following human reason instead of God's word. God protected them in spite of it, but they lost their testimony with the Egyptians, whom they might have otherwise led back to God. So being a half-truth is a good example for us not to give the little lie. You ever heard the saying, Don't lie, little lie? God's he say he sh you know when they went to Egypt, because they were looking for food. They should have been open about it, knowing God would protect them. Instead, they they said a little lie, half truth, half half-lie, that she was his sister. so when we look at therefore, and it shall come to pass the Egyptians shall see thee, they shall say, Okay, you let me go past that. And it came to pass, so after this, and it came to pass she was very fair, and the princes also of Pharaoh. saw her and commended her before Pharaoh And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house and he entreated. So he's entreating her, he had sheep, he had oxen, he had asses, men servants, maid servants, and she asses and camels. And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house. So after he lost his sister, the Lord put this plague on Pharaoh, because of Sarai being his wife. the she asses and camels, contrary to opinion from many people, of the of many cultures and evolutionists, the modern research has shown that all these animals. Have been domesticated and used before the time of Adam Abraham. So all the people that want to tell me it's a fair Pharisee or a fairy tale, this has all been researched and shown to be actual in its truth. So Pharaoh called Abraham after he got this plague put on him. And he said, what have what had thou hast done to me? Why didst Thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why did you lie to me, saying? Why didn't you tell me she was your sister or your wife? Why why setteth thou that thou sister, so I might have taken her to be my wife? Now therefore, behold, now look, thy wife. Here she is. Basically, take her and go thy way. And the Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him that they sent him away and his wife, and they had said, Or that had been said. So basically when we look at what he's saying, he's saying, you know, go that way, get outta here. I don't I'm not I want nothing to do with this situation. And So he's basically telling leave, get out of here, what are you doing? All right. So let me go back here. So let's pick it back up. So here we go. So God calls Abram and he blesses him with the promise of Christ. He departs with Lot, right? He leaves Haran or Charan and comes to I think the the Hebrew Torah says Charon, uses the C. He departs Charan and he comes to Canaan. He journeys through Canaan, which is promised to him in a vision, which is w and then he is driven from a famine into Egypt. So the there was no food. He had to do something. So what does he do? We're gonna learn later on. This happens again and it happens with Joseph, but he has to go where the food is. And at that point, the food is in in Egypt. So we learn in verse 4, he fears our main makes a fame to his wife about his sister. So he lies a little bit. And then Pharaoh, having taken him for his wife, the plagues compelled her, and he reproves him or or corrects him or chastises Abraham and he when he dismisses him. Canaan was as we talked about was the son of Ham or from Noah's son Ham, the cursed one. And it lies between the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the wilderness of Parham, Idi Meom, Mia, and Egypt to the south of those mountains, and of Abram to the east, Abra Arabia to the east, and the mountains of Lebanon and Phoenicia are to the north. And its length to Dan in Bersheba, it's about 200 miles. again, not a fairy tale, not made up. These are actual historical geographical sites that are are not made up. These are in the Bible and they're historic and they're geographically sound and have been verified. And in the breadth from the Mediterranean to the eastern border, which was about 90 miles. So let's take a peek at princesses, you know, Pharaoh's co Pharaoh is a common name in Egypt. So if you were a leader of Egypt Egyptians, you were called Pharaoh, an Egyptian king, king, which was a signifying that they are a ruler and the father of his country. And That's basically chapter th twelve. What more can I say? So there he goes down, he's told, he's reproved. you know, when we start thinking about, you know, what God does for us, this is how he is bringing which he will be the father of many nations, as we learn in these next chapters. We'll talk about them. So, with that said, Chaplain Dean Alley, I had a moment. Take care. Bye-bye.