Genesis 11:27-32
The Need for Christ

10 generations from Adam to Noah, followed by 3 sons - Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Which one will be the godly line? Through which one will God bring that promised seed, the child of the woman, who would crush the serpent?

Now 10 generations more have elapsed from Noah to Terah, followed by 3 sons - Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Again we ask the same questions.

The problem has become worse. Noah was righteous; Terah, we shall see, is not. Noah raised his sons to fear the Lord; Terah raised his sons in the fear of false gods. Noah lived as one whose home was not in this world; Terah got comfortable here.

Meanwhile people are dying at earlier and earlier ages. The stakes have gotten nail-bitingly high. When will the Seed come? When will the curse be reversed? When will the new creation and the true city be established? Will the ungodly rule the earth as they did in the days of Noah? Who will stop them this time?

I want you to see in this passage: 1) The necessity of Jesus Christ, 2) The inability of man to produce him, 3) The inability of man to return to Paradise, which leads back to point 1) The necessity of Jesus Christ.

It is my purpose in this sermon to cause you to rejoice in the greatness of your Savior, to stand in awe of the providence of God in your salvation, to know your own weakness and frailty, to examine your own hearts for that self-deceiving love of this world. Thus you will learn to rely entirely upon Christ to bring you to God and will cry out to him that your hearts may be turned from the love of this world to desire that which he is bringing.

1. The Royal Family
   1. The Death of Haran
      1. The curse becomes even worse
         1. We have seen already the gradually shortening lives of the successive generations.
         2. Shem died at 600, an age when Noah was getting on the ark and looking forward to another 350 years of life.
         3. Yet Shem was old compared to his descendants.
         4. Terah's father Nahor lived a mere 148 years.
         5. But now something even more unnatural and horrifying occurs: the father outlives the son.
         6. As frightening as the curse of death is, we've learned to live with a son burying his father when the father dies at an old age.
         7. But for a father to outlive his son just throws the curse in our face.
      2. The situation is getting desperate.
      3. When will Adam's faith be vindicated? When will Eve become the mother of all the living?
      4. Haran dies in Ur of the Chaldeans
         1. It is "his native land" or, literally, "the land of his kindred (i.e. his relatives)"
         2. So this is where Terah and his offspring were living at the time (v. 31 confirms this.)
      5. Several problems with this location
         1. Ur is in modern day Southern Iraq - it is far east, southeast of Bagdad
         2. It is the center of the cult of the moon god
         3. It is a large and powerful city.
      6. It is far east
         1. That is, far from the presence of the Lord
         2. Adam and Eve are driven eastward from the garden to dwell in Eden
         3. Cain is driven eastward from Eden
         4. The whole world migrates east to Babylon to buil the tower of Babel.
         5. Ur is even farther east than that.
         6. East, east, east. It is the sign of leaving the presence of God.
         7. This location signifies how far these descendants of Shem are from the worship of the true God.
      7. It is the center of the cult of the moon god
         1. The chief deity is Nanna, the Sumerian moon-god
            1. For him and his significant other Nin-gal several temples and a great Ziggurat (a pyramid, a tower) were built.
            2. Does this sound familiar?
            3. They have built a tower with its top in the heavens
            4. They have made a name for themselves on the face of the earth.
            5. They no longer need God.
         2. Terah has made his home here, comfortable in the worship of Nanna the moon god.
         3. We might give him the benefit of the doubt, saying he was in the city but not of the city
         4. But God resolves all doubt. Speaking through Joshua about 700 years later, he says, "Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods."
         5. Even Abraham is implicated.
         6. He is not at this point in the story a godly figure, but a moon god worshiper. He is despearately in eed of God calling him.
      8. It is a large and powerful city
         1. Remember the theme of the city
            1. Cain builds a city
            2. The Babylonians build a city
            3. By this they confess that their home is on this earth and they do not hope in the coming of Christ.
         2. What they failed to do in babel, they succeed in doing here
            1. They built a tower
            2. They made a name for themselves.
      9. The situation is quite desperate
         1. none of these men is in a position to be or produce the godly seed
         2. They're a bunch of pagans deserving only the wrath of God.
   2. Abram's Election
   3. The Promise of Blessing
2. The Impediments
   1. The Cost of Faith
   2. The Improbability of Fulfilment

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