Clean Slate Podcast

Genesis 13-19 Recap | OT Ep 2

• Austin and Ashley • Episode 2

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This conversation delves into the themes of faith, covenant, and divine promise as illustrated through the lives of Abram, Lot, and the mysterious figure of Melchizedek. It explores the significance of choices made by these biblical figures, the consequences of those choices, and the overarching narrative of God's faithfulness and grace. The discussion also highlights the importance of intercession and the transformative power of God's promises, culminating in the assurance of His presence and guidance in the lives of His people.

Reading Plan - Old Testament in One Year
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Hey everyone, my name is Austin. And my name is Ashley. Welcome to the Clean Slate Podcast. Where we're finding Jesus in the Old Testament.

Welcome to episode two. We're so glad to have you with us. Today we're going to be covering the recap for Genesis chapters 13 through 19. So picking up where we left off last week in Genesis chapter 12, we see Abram and Sarai had gone into Egypt to sojourn for a while because there was a famine in the land. So this was not just passing through. They were going to be here for a while in Egypt. And Abram tells Sarai,

Look, you are very beautiful. They're going to kill me on account of you because you're my wife. People are going to notice you. So if they ask, you're my sister. they get into Egypt, Pharaoh and his company recognize how beautiful she is. And they tell them that Sarai is his sister.

So she's brought into Pharaoh's house and the Lord sends plagues upon Egypt for this.

Spoiler alert. This is not the only time we are going to see plagues being brought upon Egypt. It's also not the only time that we're going to see a husband trying to save his skin, trying to tell his wife is his sister.

Just a feather for your cap there.

That's right.

Something that the rabbis used to say is that "the actions of the fathers are a sign to the sons." We see that kind of play out over and over throughout the Old Testament, in particular in Genesis where fathers do something and the sons kind of follow suit even if it's generations later.

So we see at the end of chapter 12, after the plagues have happened, Pharaoh kind of tells Abram and his company to leave town, right? So they do. They go back to Canaan. And we see that not only Abram, but also Lot, his nephew who's been on this journey with him, were made very wealthy while they're in Egypt. And we know that their wealth was predominantly in cattle. They have so much cattle they have to separate. The herdsman between Lot and Abram are quarreling with one another because there's not enough grass, there's not enough water. So Abram gives Lot the choice of what land in Canaan he would like to sojourn in.

Lot chose to go towards Sodom and Gomorrah because it was well watered, as he said. It's a river valley, lot of water there. Now obviously, if you've

been keeping up with the reading plan, you know that there are some consequences befall a lot because of this decision. let's be careful not to over-spiritualize the decision that he made, because I think we've all done this. There were red flags. Sodom and Gomorrah were already not a good place, but he went there anyway and probably ignored some things that he knew to be true.

If we're being honest, we've all ignored those red flags because it's something else we wanted.

So a lot goes down into the in the last five verses of chapter 13 we see God tell Abraham to look northward and eastward and westward and to walk the length and breadth of land that I will give you. This is actually an carried out by kings or anyone establishing their right of territory. It's something that God tells the Israelites to do later in Deuteronomy 11, reaffirming God's promise to give Abraham and his children the land that Abraham is now walking in. Something I thought was really interesting and just kind of studying for this is that Jesus in his ministry, he did the same thing, didn't he?

He didn't stay in one place. He moved about the whole land of Israel. It would have made sense for him to camp in Jerusalem where the temple was, but he didn't do that. He went out and saw his people and walked among them. God came down to his people and then he sent out his ambassadors to make disciples of all nations. I'm referencing there Matthew 28, where he's given the Great Commission, and them do that by teaching and baptizing. Still today when us that are called ambassadors in the New Testament, believers, set our feet in a location to preach the gospel and the kingdom of God, those feet are called beautiful in Isaiah 52-7 because we're bringing the good news that God is sovereign and reigns supreme offered us peace.

We get into chapter 14 and we see that there are some kings that rebel against a very powerful king called Kederleomer. Kederleomer sends his army into the region to basically put them back in place, to bring them back in line. And Kederleomer wins a seemingly pretty overwhelming victory against the kings of the valley. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah being some of those kings. So Lot was swept up into this. Now whether Lot was

Kederleomer or he was just taken captive really don't know. Fortunately for Lot, his uncle Abram gets word of this happening. Abram and his 300 trained men go to rescue Lot. Now even in this, something miraculous is happening because we don't know how big Kederleomer's army is but it's big enough that he beat four kings.

Abram's forces catch up with them and they're actually able to free the prisoners, get back all the stuff that had been stolen the prisoners and stuff Abram's nephew Lot was rescued. So Abram wins this miraculous victory.

He's coming back home and we meet a very mysterious and important figure.

We do, we meet a very important figure. His name is Melchizedek. This is a cool cat.

He is only mentioned in Scripture three different places here, obviously, in Genesis chapter 14, in Psalm 110, and Hebrews 5 through 7. So let's break his name down for just a minute. Melchizedek literally means King of Righteousness.

Then it goes on to say that he's the king of Salem. And Salem comes from the same root word, shalom, meaning peace. So we have the king of righteousness, the king of Salem. It also calls him priest of the most high God.

Now this is the first mention of a priest in scripture. So that's super cool.

Now do keep in mind that this is prior to the Levitical priesthood. So he's not a priest how we would think of going about the temple, right? That Levitical priesthood is established hundreds of years later. So that leaves some mystery there. How did he become a priest? What did that look like? I don't know. Scripture doesn't tell us, but the other things that it does tell us

is he brought out bread and wine.

He blesses Abraham and Abraham tithes to him. Now that passage

in Hebrews says that the superior blesses the inferior and Abram recognizes his position in all of this by tithing to him. So clearly this is not just a normal person.

You know this is something different.

Psalm 110 for says, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek talking about Jesus.

An author that Austin and I like to listen to his name is Chad Bird and He sums it up so well It says "This ancient priest king resembles the son of God, who is our peace, our righteousness, our king, and our priest. He doesn't get his office by descent from Aaron, but by the power of an indestructible life. As Melchizedek once blessed Abram, so Christ blesses us, Abraham's sons and daughters, and bids us feast on bread and wine from his altar of life."

What a comfort it is to know that we have King Jesus. We have the King of righteousness, the King of peace, the priest of the most high God that intercedes for us on our behalf to the Father.

That's really good stuff, Ash. Melchizedek is definitely one of my favorite characters.

You brought up that He's mentioned in Psalm 110. It's been said that Psalm 110 is God's favorite passage. It's actually the most quoted passage in the New Testament, Psalm 110. So, just a little food for thought there.

So moving into Chapter 15, it looks like the events between Chapter 14 and 15 are actually pretty close together.

God comes to Abram in a dream and he tells him that he is Abram's shield and his reward shall be very great. I think he's saying that in response to Abram not taking basically a payment, if you will, by the king of Sodom in chapter 14. Abram responds by asking

what God would give him since he doesn't have an heir. And God tells him that he would have his very own son and that son be his heir.

God took Abram outside and showed him the stars and told Abram that he would have as many offsprings as there are stars in the sky.

I don't know if you guys have ever been away from a light polluted area. If you have, you know that you can see stars you can't even tell it exists when you're in town.

To kind of highlight what I'm talking about, there's actually a really neat story. You can look it up online.

In 1994, there was an earthquake that knocked out power to LA.

If you go look that up, what you'll notice is that people were actually kind of panicking. They're looking up in the sky and they're seeing a cloud that's got lights in it and they don't know what to do with this. And so one news article says that they called 911. says that they called, an observatory

that people are calling asking what is this cloud and what was happening was there was no light pollution for a large swath of land and they could see the Milky Way. If you've ever been somewhere there's not a lot of light, you know that you've seen that too. Understand that that is what Abram was looking at.

He's looking at the Milky Way galaxy itself when God's showing him this and there are stars upon stars upon stars and God's saying that is how many offspring you will have.

This is a magnificent promise Abraham recognizes that. In verse 6, one of the most important verses in all of Old Testament says, he, talking about Abram, believed the Lord and he, God, counted to him as righteousness.

In Romans 4, we see that Paul actually kind of unpacks what we're discussing here about Abram believing and being counted to him as righteousness. Romans 4, 1 says,

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by words, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness." So what Paul is doubling down on there is that it wasn't what Abraham did. Remember, two chapters ago, Abraham pawned his wife off as his sister. He's just like us. He makes bonehead decisions.

all the time. What Paul is saying here is that what counted him as righteousness was his faith that he believed God and what God was going to do.

A.W. Tozer says that what we think about God is the most important thing about us. And how true is that? Our beliefs tend to drive our actions, don't they? So in this situation,

Abraham has made a decision that he believes God and that drove the course of his life from here on out.

In response to this in verse 7, God says, am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeas to give you this land to possess. notice this kind of verbiage actually pops up over and over throughout Genesis and the Old Testament where God will say, in this case, I am the Lord who brought you up out of Ur of the Chaldeas.

later we'll see God say, I'm the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. this is called a suzerain treaty, and it was actually common in the Near East, where a king would introduce himself by saying something like, I'm the king, and I'm the one who's protected your grain and given you a place to live, So what the king is doing, in this case, God, the king is saying, hey,

this is who I am, remember what I've done for you, want you to base your trust and what I'm about to tell you off of what I've done for you in the past.

God tells Abram that, I'm about to give you this land to possess. Then Abram, in verse 8 says, Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? We do need to stop and chuckle at this for a minute. Don't we do that? We read a promise in the Bible that God's going to be faithful to us despite our shortcomings. We look at that and we go, yeah, but what if he's not for me?

And man, I'm so glad that our Father is eternally patient because he could have gotten frustrated with Abraham right here or Abram right here, but he doesn't. If you could not at me, that would be great. Yeah, well, it at's me every time I read it. So God does something seemingly a little unusual. It's almost like he gives Abram a grocery list. He brings me a half or three years old.

a female goat three years old. a ram three years old. A turtle dove and a young pigeon. And in verse 10, we see that Abram cut all of these in half and separates them. Now, if you're not familiar with what's going on here, this seems absurd. okay, what does God telling Abram and cut some animals in half have to do with some sort of promise?

When God makes a covenant, He cuts a covenant. He doesn't make a deal. if you don't know, a covenant and a contract are not the same things. Covenants are for good, Contracts can be broken. Covenants can be broken, but there's always sanctions attached to breaking a covenant. when God makes a covenant, it's in blood. And I don't mean it to sound weird. I mean it to sound... It's very serious to Him.

This thing that's happening here was actually a custom in the Near East. Abram would have known what God was telling him to do.

This was a thing that people did when they got married or when they were taking business deal, so to speak. They would cut these animals in half and pull them apart and they would walk through them together.

And they would say, the Lord do this to me and more also if I break my covenant with you. So Abraham sees where this is headed. God and I are about to make this covenant and it's sealed in this blood right here on the ground.

some time goes by, enough to where we see Abram having to chase off the buzzards off of the carcasses of the dead animals. And it says that it got dark. We get to verse 12, it's getting dark. And a deep sleep fell on Abram. And then the next part of verse 12 says, behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

So this really is similar to where so many places in the Old Testament, when God comes near, oftentimes the thing that follows is a very intense sense of dread. And that's not because God is bad. That's because He is so, so very good. And when He comes near, our sins are laid bare for us. We see ourselves for who we really are. And it's terrifying to see that, right?

But again, stick with the story because it doesn't end there. this intense sense of dread comes upon Abram.

And this is not a bad response to being in front of God. This is what we would all feel without the saving grace of Jesus. Okay?

God tells Abram, alright, this is how you're going to know for certain that what I'm telling you is true. And then he seals this covenant in verse 17, "'When the sun had gone down, it was dark. Behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.'" Okay, so the smoking fire pot and flaming torch

Those are what you call a theophany. That's just a really fancy term for when God shows up and you see Him visibly.

So God shows up in a theophany. He walks between the pieces.

Remember, what Abram thought was going to happen here is that he and God would walk between the pieces. But God doesn't allow Abram to do that because what God is telling Abram here is that I have no one greater that I can swear on than myself. And I'm not going to let you come in here to this covenant and curse yourself by doing so because we know Abram would fail just like we fail. Right?

So, God goes through the covenant ritual himself, walking between the pieces, swearing upon himself because he knows that he is able to keep the covenant completely and perfectly. And Abram's not.

He never fails us. He wins every time when He sets out to do something. This is so emblematic of the covenant of grace that we have with Jesus. Jesus came to save us and He put the full weight on His own shoulders because He knew that He alone could bear the weight.

And that's why our salvation does not rest on what we do. It rests on what He did for us. It rests on the finished work of the cross that He did pay the full price. He put the full weight of the covenant upon Himself and He completed it for us. He fulfilled the law on our behalf. This is the epitome of a gospel glimpse. I can think of one other place in all of Genesis that is this clear.

And we'll be there actually in the next episode. But this is so clear to me, once you learn it this way, it's such a beautiful representation of that.

So in verse 18, it reads, on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your offspring I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. And he kind of goes on listing out the peoples that would ultimately be pushed out of the land in the end because this covenant was made.

All right, so Abram wakes up from his holy anesthesia and I'm sure goes home and shares with Sarai the eye-opening experience he had. So we get into chapter 16 and Sarai is already frustrated that God is apparently not doing what he said he was gonna do. So she takes matters into her own hands and says, frustratedly,

since God has prevented me from bearing children, here's my servant Hagar. Have children through her. So, Sarai's being a bit dramatic, but let's face it, we're all Sarai, right? We have all tried to take matters into our own hands to make something happen. So, we'll cut her a little bit of slack.

So Abram says, and Hagar gets pregnant. Then Sarah gets mad that her plan worked. she starts treating Hagar very poorly and Hagar flees into the wilderness where the angel of the Lord visits her and says, return and submit to your mistress.

you have conceived a son and will name him Ishmael, meaning God hears.

but he will live a life of hostility towards others. So basically, he's gonna fight with everyone and everyone's gonna fight with him.

And something super interesting happens there. Hagar.

actually names God, El-Roi, the God who sees. And so we have this angel of the Lord telling Hagar to name her son Ishmael, meaning God hears. And she hears this and names God El-Roi, the God who sees. it's just evidence that

Her poor treatment by Sarai has not gone unnoticed by God. And how blessed are we that we have a gracious God who cares for us in our distress.

I want to make sure that it's very clear that while Ishmael is Abram's son, he is not the promised child in chapter 15 that we've talked about.

Ishmael is a man-made result from a man-made circumstance. And yet with Isaac, we'll see you have a miraculous result from a God-made circumstance.

it's important to know that distinction there between Ishmael and Isaac.

So Hagar returns home as the angel of the Lord told her to do and that concludes chapter

Going into chapter 17, we see that some time has passed between the last chapter and this chapter. It starts out by telling us that Abram is now 99 years old. And God appears to him and tells him that I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly.

Abraham fell on his face and God said to him, Behold my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall you be called Abraham, but your name should be called Abraham." Guys, we made it. We can say Abraham now.

Okay, so like for me, that's huge. I just can't tell you how big that is.

so Abraham is experiencing a name change. This is all verses one through nine. So it goes from Abram, meaning exalted father, to Abraham,

meaning father of many nations. So this is harkening back to the promise made to him in Genesis 15. And then in verses 15 and 16 we say that Sarah is given your name. She's named Sarah. Oh, thank goodness. And so her name went from meaning loosely princess to like princesses God says that many kings will come from her.

A new name is like a new creation. It's like God saying, were one way and now you're a different way.

In 2 Corinthians 5 17, Paul, the apostle, the writer of the book says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away and behold, the new has come. If you lived a life where you really never doubted, you never

not in a serious way or wonder if Jesus was your only way to salvation, if God was your only hope, if you kind of grew up that way, that's a marvelous blessing. If you came to the Lord later in life, be it 15 or 55, then you know that you are not now who you were in the moment before you came to Him.

You know, to that point, talking about having your name changed, you hear people say, Know your identity in Christ. Your identity is staked in Him. I heard that, but I didn't ever really know what that meant.

To find our identity in Christ, you have to understand what your identity is without Him. your sin tries to make that very personal. You're the adulterer. You're the liar. You're the murderer. You're name your sin here. And truly without Christ, that's true. But in Christ, we get a new name. We get to be called sons and daughters of the Most High King. We're called redeemed.

chosen, we have a new name as a Christian because our identity is now in Christ and not outside of Him.

Look at you hijack in chapter 17. That's really good, So, we get down to and Sarah's son is promised in a very clear way, just in case Sarah, you know, maybe didn't believe it the first time or maybe she missed it.

God's telling them, you're going to have a son, Sarah's going to be a mom, and all these things are going to happen. In verse 18, remember, this is us, guys, but shocker, Abraham doesn't buy it completely. Abraham falls on his face and says to God, that Ishmael may live before you. And in verse 19, God says, no, but Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant.

with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.

So God goes on to say that he'll take care of Ishmael, but that Ishmael is not the child of the promise in Genesis 15. That will be Isaac.

So you ask yourself, why is Ishmael not the child of the promise? And the answer to that is because God wants it to happen in way that only He can get glory for. It needs to be a miracle baby.

Bareness is something that happens with the matriarchs throughout the Old Testament.

all the way up which would be the mother of John the Baptist, which is Jesus' cousin. In every instance of barrenness, it is always

wild how it resolves itself and God gets credit and glory for it. But because God thinks so far ahead, you know, it's like He planned the whole thing.

He does something even crazier with Mary. So in of barrenness, is someone trying to have a child for long time and not being able to, or someone being really, really old. Like in the case of Abraham, he's almost 100 years old. But God flips the script to show that, this one is something even more special. the Son of God will be born through a virgin.

So all these times of barrenness are pointing toward that one time when it's the opposite

So sticking with our theme of God doing things that doesn't make sense, In chapter 18, the Lord kind of just shows up on Abraham and Sarah's doorstep. And this kind of happens when someone shows up at your doorstep,

You scramble and you're like, get out the bread and the tea, we got company. You're trying to put it together and be a decent host, except for this just happens to be the crater of all things. No big deal.

And in verse 9, there's actually three men there, also chew on that for a little bit. They said to him, where is Sarah your wife? And he said, she's in the tent. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son. the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old.

advanced in years and the way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself saying, after I am worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? Talking about having a child. And the Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh Is anything too hard for the Lord?

But Sarah denied it saying I did not laugh for she was afraid. He said no, but you did laugh And listen, there's all different kinds of ways that people Read that like Lord. I know you did laugh, you know, but I kind of feel like it's like no you laughed But you did you know because he knows that in the natural this is crazy, right?

is actually a little comical if it weren't seriously gonna happen,

So verse 16, they all set out from there, Abraham included.

And so God decides, I'm going to let Abraham in on what's about to happen.

So God's telling him that he's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sin. This sin, guys, was very heinous. People were being hurt and defiled. It was happening on regular basis. God was not going to tolerate it any longer. Here is another little wink at how Abraham is a Christ-like figure. Abraham begins to intercede for Sodom.

In Hebrews 725, it tells us that Christ ever lives to intercede for us. So forever, He is praying for us on our behalf.

Abraham boldly goes and

he's pleading with God, if we find hundred people that are righteous, will you spare the city? And God says, absolutely, spare the city. And Abraham kind of keeps Jewing him down all the way down to ten. And I love middle of

answered and said, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. I who am but dust and ashes. He's telling God, I understand I shouldn't be doing this, but I'm pleading for these people. And again, our gracious and kind God every time. Yeah, yeah, all the way down to 10. If you can find 10 righteous people, I will spare the entire city.

The difference between Abraham and Jesus is that Abraham is powerless to change hearts. And even though he asked God, to spare a city, if he could find a few righteous people, there ultimately was only one family, and that was Lot's family.

We end chapter 18 with Abraham interceding for the people. And immediately in chapter 19, the two angels that had been with Abraham and the Lord get to Sodom. And Lot was sitting in the gate and he sees them and he rose to meet them and he bowed and he tells them, basically, please come to my house. And then I'm going to wash your feet, we're going to set you up in the hear and get out of here in the morning. Lot's trying to tell them this is not a safe place.

And the two men say, no, we'll spend the night at the town square, which that may sound odd to you, but that actually was custom in the ancient world. People would sleep in the town square. There was usually a well or some water. And that actually was a safe place for most people in that time.

But Sodom and Gomorrah were such that it was not a safe place. And so, in verse 3, he he pressed them strongly. turned aside and went to his house.

I'm going to summarize the story from here on out, for time's sake and for gravity's sake. But if you've not ever read the story, you should go read it. There's a lot of bad things that happen. It's terrible.

the men in the city come out to try to assault the men who are staying with Lot. And Lot makes this heartbreakingly terrible decision to even offer his daughter up, to try to keep them away from the men, which fortunately doesn't go that way. And men that are with Lot, which we know are angels, are able to strike

the crowd with deafness and blindness and kind of disperse of his credit goes to his future sons-in-law. And he pleads with them, like, listen, the Lord is going to destroy this place. Please come with me. they don't. They stay. And it's that way we share the gospel sometimes, too. We're trying to plead with people, trying to warn them. But people don't always listen.

You'll remember in the first episode that I said that there's going to be really tough sections that we get into in this study. That there's going to be times where you're going to ask, like, hey, where's the hope in this? Where can I find Jesus in this? And I'll be honest with you, sometimes all we have look at that go, hey, we really do need a Savior. We are very broken people.

And something I actually keep trying to harmonize with you is that we truly aren't a lot better than these people.

So the story continues, God Lot and his family out of the city. And he does indeed destroy the city. And it actually destroys the cities of the valley. There's actually several cities that he destroys. And again, this is judgment on this really heinous sin that was happening.

if you know the story

Lot's wife unfortunately turns back, which is something the angels told her not to do, and it cost her her life. So, who actually ends up surviving this whole ordeal is Lot and his two daughters. Again, there's some more tragic mistakes that happen there. But the thing that I do want to leave us with in this chapter 19, and I really want us to hold on to this because, again, this is a really terrible story, is that God always rescues those who call on his name.

That's right, God is the one who seeks after us. And if you are bought and paid for by the blood of Christ, then that means that you are adopted into the family of God. And he's too good of a father to forget one of his children. So even though prayers don't go our way sometimes, you can rest assured that he is still El Roi Like we read earlier, he sees you.

no matter our circumstance, that will always remain true.

Alright y'all, we're gonna end that on that high note with Ashley's beautiful statement closing out chapter 19. In the next episode, we'll cover chapters 20 through 27. May His grace abound to you and me as we study to find Jesus in the Old Testament.


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