July 6: Called Out of Babylon

Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you . . . So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him… Genesis 12:1, 4a

The Bible contains a long history of God calling people out of Babylon. When God called Abram to leave Ur of the Chaldeans (another name for Babylonia), He was saying, in essence, to leave your entire past behind: separate yourself from your heredity, your education, and the influences of the culture you were born into. This encompassed his family, his country, and even much of himself. God’s grace-filled call would show Abram, over time, that the departure from Babylon meant getting rid of every trace of Babylonian conditioning that existed within himself.

The snafus and fiascos in Abraham’s life illustrate that this did not happen all at once. But the mistakes that he made actually serve to highlight the faithfulness and grace of God! As the character trait of faithfulness was being developed in Abraham, the growing relationship with God renders him one of the most oft-mentioned Old Testament figures in the New Testament.

Abraham’s life, to him, must have seemed empty at times—indeed for long stretches of time. By his own obedience to God’s call, he was severed from his past. And the future, which he could not see, was threatened (from his perspective) due to lack of an heir. Yet, he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6). When he was later severely tested by God through the call to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham’s will to obey God was proven beyond all doubt.

Leaving his country behind was not just about traveling to another earthly place that was better than the one abandoned. Neither was it about having lots of children when faced with barrenness. God’s promise to Abraham was (and is!) about the salvation of the world. The continued promise of the coming Messiah is meant to reach the masses of our modern-day worldwide Babylon. God had promised Abram that in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Genesis 12:3b) and we, as Christ’s followers, are the seed of Abraham through which the Good News is to flow into this hurting, fallen world.

And [the angel] cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons” . . . And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.” Revelation 18:2,4

And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:29