Warren W. Wiersbe - Be Obedient (Genesis 12-24): Learning the Secret of Living by Faith

BE OBEDIENT

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All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version

of the Bible. (Public Domain.) Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New

American Standard Bible , Copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by

permission; NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version . NIV . Copyright

1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All

rights reserved; PH are taken from J. B. Phillips: The New Testament in Modern English, revised

editions J. B. Phillips, 1958, 1960, 1972, permission of Macmillan Publishing Co. and

Collins Publishers; NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by

Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved; WUEST are taken from The New

Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest. 1961 by the Wm. B. Eerdmans

Publishing Company. Used by permission; and ASV are taken from the American Standard

Version. (Public Domain.) The author has added italics to Scripture quotations for emphasis.

LCCN 2009934568

ISBN 978-1-4347-6632-8

eISBN 978-1-4347-0092-6

1991 Warren W. Wiersbe

First edition of Be Obedient by Warren W. Wiersbe published by Victor Books

in 1991 Warren W. Wiersbe, ISBN 0-89693-875-1

The Team: Karen Lee-Thorp, Amy Kiechlin, Sarah Schultz, Jack Campbell, and Karen Athen

Series Cover Design: John Hamilton Design

Cover Photo: Veer Inc.

Second Edition 2010

Dedicated with affection and appreciation to

Gordon and Gail MacDonald

who walk by faith,

serve in love,

and bring hope to many who are struggling on the path of faith.

We thank God for your friendship and your ministry.

Contents

The Big Idea: An Introduction to Be Obedient by Ken Baugh

A Word from the Author

1. A New Beginning (Genesis 11:2712:9)

2. Famines, Flocks, and Fights (Genesis 12:1013:18)

3. Faith Is the Victory (Genesis 14)

4. The Dark Night of the Soul (Genesis 15)

5. Beware of Detours! (Genesis 16)

6. Whats in a Name? (Genesis 17)

7. So As by Fire (Genesis 1819)

8. Abraham the Neighbor (Genesis 20; 21:2234)

9. A Time to Weep, a Time to Laugh (Genesis 21:121; Galatians 4:2131)

10. The Greatest Test of All (Genesis 22)

11. Here Comes the Bride! (Genesis 24)

12. A Time to Die (Genesis 23; 25:111)

The Big Idea

An Introduction to Be Obedient
by Ken Baugh

There are ironies within the different stages of life. When youre a child, you want to be an adult. As an adult, you wish you had the carefree life of a child. When youre a child, you want to stay up as late as possible. When youre an adult, you increasingly want to go to bed as early as possible. Children want to grow up fast so that they can enjoy the freedom and privileges of adults. But the problem is (and here again is the irony) that children want adult privileges without adult responsibility. As teenagers all we could think about was turning sixteen so that we could drive, but we didnt want to make our own car payments, and we certainly didnt want to pay for insurance, maintenance, tires, and gasyet these are the grown-up responsibilities that come with driving a car. Once we could drive, we wanted the freedom to be on our own, to live in our own place, to cast off the parental ball and chain. But we certainly didnt want the responsibility of paying rent, cleaning house, buying groceries, or doing our own laundry. The youthful side of life desires privilege without the corresponding responsibility. But one of the things you learn as an adult is that there is a price to pay for privileges. There is no free lunch. Someone has to pay the tab.

I think there is a parallel in our spiritual journey. I hear all the time how people want intimacy with God. They want to hear Gods voice; they want to know God and become more like Jesus Christ. They want lots of privilege with God, but so many are just not willing to pay the price. It takes work to have a great relationship with God. It doesnt just happen by accident. If you want deep intimacy with God you have to pray, study the Bible, engage in spiritual disciplines, be obedient to Gods will, and live by faith.

I find most sincere followers of Christ dont have a problem with prayer, Bible study, or spiritual disciplines. But those last two itemsliving a lifestyle of faithful obedienceare the tough ones. Yet the greater my faith, the easier it is to obey Gods will. This is what we discover in the life of Abraham in Genesis 1224: Abraham was a man of faithful obedience. And as we track his life, we discover three stages of faith that enabled Abraham to obey God.

Stage 1: Young Faith. Young faith is where we start taking baby steps on our spiritual journey with God. God doesnt ask a lot of us at this stage of faith. We dont need to move mountains or part large bodies of water. Instead, Gods main concern at this stage is that we get to know Him, that we begin to trust His character and are willing to follow Him even though we dont know where were going or how its all going to end.

Young faith is the beginning of our relationship with God, and this is where we find Abram/Abraham in Genesis 12:1 ( NIV ): The L ORD had said to Abram, Leave your country, your people and your fathers household and go to the land I will show you. God wasnt asking much of Abrams faith at this point, except to step completely out of his comfort zone. Now that wasnt easyyoung faith never isbut it is the first step in the journey of developing obedient faith. Think of young faith as birth through the teenage years. God cant stretch us too much because we will snap, but He does begin to stretch us, moving us ever so slowly to the second stage of faith.

Stage 2: Maturing Faith. Think of maturing faith as the adult season of life. During this time, God moves from stretching our faith to tempering it through trials. These trials become progressively more intense. The apostle Peter tells us that these trials have come so that your faithof greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by firemay be proved genuine (1 Peter 1:7 NIV ). During this stage God tests our faith. We pass some tests and we fail others.

For example, God promised Abraham and his wife, Sarah, that they would have a son, and through this son God would fulfill His covenant promises (Gen. 12:12). The problem, at least for Abraham and Sarah, was that God was taking His sweet time and they were not getting any younger. So Sarah suggested that Abraham sleep with her maidservant Hagar to have a surrogate son. I guess they thought they needed to help God out. Abraham complied (like a dummy), and Hagar gave birth to a son named Ishmael.

The problem now was that Ishmael was not the son of promise. He became the son of taking matters into ones own hands, which is a key lesson that God wants us to learn not to do during this stage of faith. Instead, God wants us to trust and obey. Abraham didnt trust God for a son and failed the test of waiting on the Lord. Yet even in the midst of Abrahams failure, God showed unconditional love in that, not long after Ishmael was born, Sarah became pregnant with the son of promise. They named him Isaac. God continued to be faithful to strengthen Abrahams faith through other tests, some of which he responded to better than others. God was intentionally strengthening Abrahams faith, preparing him for stage 3.