Providence of Restoration - Abraham's Family

Abraham is the most important and significant person in the whole of human history. He changed history more than any other individual up until today, about 4,000 years ago. The things he discovered and the way he came to understand and make sense of the world are the foundations upon which Jews, Christians, and Muslims build their understanding of the world today. His basic insights into the nature of reality, the Oneness of God, and the origin of people inform Judaism and Christianity even now. More than half the world's population today are either Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, meaning they are spiritual and physical descendants of Abraham. This is why we call Abraham the father of faith; he is the father of our faith. Therefore, we need to examine his life, character, and teachings in detail, as they are incredibly significant. Some people skim through his story, thinking it was just 4,000 years ago and that he made mistakes, but he was a novel person.

Looking at Abraham's family, we see that 400 years and ten generations after Noah, Abraham came along, also having two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. The pattern here is that what Abraham and his family were trying to restore is what Noah and his family were trying to restore, which in turn is what Adam and Eve and Adam's family were unable to achieve. Many things went wrong in Adam's family, and each of these issues needs to be restored and reversed. Noah attempted to do this but was unable to succeed, and this responsibility then passed on to Abraham. The world of Noah was described as a state of nature, which political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes characterised as nasty, brutish, and short. Without government and laws, life was unpleasant, filled with feuding and violence.

Abraham's world, however, was quite different. He came from a city ruled by Nimrod, a dictator with a huge personality who believed he should be worshipped. Nimrod's actions were reminiscent of modern-day dictators who demand adoration. He revolted against the idea of a higher being, believing himself to be the ultimate authority. To challenge God, he built the Tower of Babel, persuading people to come together and create a planned society. The biblical text notes that the whole earth had one language and the same words, indicating that Nimrod united his empire by forcing everyone to speak the same language, depriving them of their historical identity. This is a common tactic in history, where empires seek to impose their language on conquered peoples.

Abraham's father, Terach, was an idol maker, and idol worship is a significant theme in the biblical tradition. One of the key points in the biblical narrative is the rejection of idols. Judaism and Islam particularly emphasise this rejection, often mocking idol worship. The prophet Isaiah criticises idol worshippers, highlighting the absurdity of worshipping something made by human hands. This critique is relevant today, as people still worship various idols, whether they be material possessions, political figures, or even nations. The danger lies in elevating these figures to a status that ignores their flaws, which is a temptation faced by all religions.

God's choice of Abraham is intriguing, given his lineage as the son of an idol maker. This raises questions about how Abraham could change his lineage. In our previous discussions, we noted how Satan influenced individuals, leading them to make mistakes. Abraham, as the third son of Terach, was initially part of this lineage of idol worshippers. However, God was able to claim him. The question arises: can God simply intervene in someone's life? Ultimately, it is the individual who must undergo a transformation. Abraham had to experience a life-changing event to shift his identity from an idol worshipper to a servant of God. This transformation involved a profound change in consciousness and self-identity.

Unlike Noah, who responded to God's commands, Abraham actively sought a relationship with God. This was a different kind of faith; Abraham took the initiative to find God. As a child, Abraham was curious and persistent, asking questions incessantly, much like young children do. This relentless questioning led him to discover God on his own, setting him apart from others in his lineage. His journey illustrates the importance of personal initiative in faith and the quest for understanding.

Abraham was the kind of person who was never satisfied with the answers he was given. He drove his parents around the bend with his constant questioning. He always wanted to understand and make sense of the world in which he lived, much like a philosopher. One day, he thought to himself, 'Where do I come from?' He realised he hadn't always existed, so he asked his parents, 'Where do I come from?' They replied, 'You came out of your mother's womb because of love, and you were created.' This led Abraham to start bowing down and worshipping his parents, thinking, 'Wow, you've created me; you're my God.' However, this phase lasted only about a week before he began to question them further.

Abraham asked, 'Where do you come from, Mum and Dad? Did you make yourselves?' They responded, 'No, we have parents too—Grandma and Grandpa.' This revelation caused him to stop worshipping his parents and instead bow down to his grandparents. He noticed his grandmother's many wrinkles and asked, 'Have you always been alive? You look so old.' She explained that she also had parents, and when Abraham inquired about them, he was told they had died and were buried in the graveyard outside the town. Intrigued, Abraham set off to find their graves, eventually tracing his family tree and worshipping all his ancestors.

One day, while watching grave diggers at work, Abraham was shocked to see bones unearthed from an old grave. He pondered what had happened to that person, realising that if all that remained were bones, then everything must return to dust. This led him to worship Mother Earth. Later, during a cloudy period when the sun did not shine for several days, Abraham felt lifeless. However, when the sun finally emerged, he felt invigorated and recognised that without the sun, there would be no life. He began to worship the sun, but soon realised that everything in the world changes. Behind all this change, he concluded there must be an unchanging reality, a first cause that created the heavens and the Earth.

Through logical and philosophical reasoning, Abraham came to the firm conclusion that God must exist, and that there is only one God—the first cause. He was likely the first person to arrive at this understanding. His father, however, was an idol maker. One day, his father asked Abraham to take the idols to the marketplace while he went to the palace to show Nimrod his new statues. Abraham set up the idols in the market and waited for customers. An old lady approached him, wanting to buy one of his gods. When he asked why she needed a new god, she explained that burglars had stolen her previous ones. Abraham pointed out that if her old gods were powerful, they would not have been stolen.

The old lady insisted that Abraham's gods were more powerful because he was a handsome young man. Abraham, being polite, asked her age, and upon learning she was 85, he questioned why she would want to worship a one-month-old idol. Instead, he suggested she should be worshipped for her age. She agreed, and Abraham told her he worshipped the invisible God who created the heavens and the Earth. This encounter made her his first disciple. As the day went on, Abraham returned home to his father, who was disappointed to hear that he had not sold any idols. Tara, his father, blamed Abraham for poor sales and decided he would go to the market alone next time.

The following month, Tara instructed Abraham to stay home and look after the idols. Abraham took the largest idol and asked it for a message to share with the world. When the idol did not respond, Abraham realised it had no power. He then smashed all the smaller idols with a sledgehammer and placed the hammer in the hands of the largest idol. When Tara returned from the market, he was shocked to find the temple in ruins. Abraham explained that he had tried to communicate with the idols, but they were powerless. Tara was furious and took Abraham to see Nimrod, the ruler of the city.

In front of Nimrod, Tara bowed down, but Abraham refused, stating that he only worshipped the invisible God who created the heavens and the Earth. Nimrod threatened to kill him if he did not bow down, but Abraham stood firm, declaring that God was more real to him than Nimrod. Furious, Nimrod had Abraham thrown into a fiery furnace, but angels intervened, preventing his death. This incident made Tara reconsider their living situation, and he decided to move his family away to a safer place.

Abraham was a person of total commitment to the truth, much like a dissident in a repressive society. He would not live a lie, even if it meant facing severe consequences. There is another story about Abraham that illustrates how faith came into existence. One day, while travelling, he saw a palace in flames and wondered if it had ever had an owner. The owner of the palace appeared and claimed to be in charge. Abraham then questioned whether the world lacked a ruler, to which God replied that He was the Sovereign of the universe.

This moment marked the beginning of biblical faith. Abraham was overwhelmed by the beauty of the world—the flowers, trees, mountains, rivers, and stars—but he also saw the bloodshed and injustice that plagued it. He wondered what had happened to the Creator of this beautiful universe and why God allowed such destruction. This led him to question the existence of God in a world filled with disorder and evil. He realised that no one builds a building and then abandons it; therefore, the world must have an owner who is responsible for its state. Abraham's quest for understanding began with these profound questions about the nature of God and the existence of evil.

Many people in our spiritual community believe that if you ask the right questions and make a few critical comments, everything will turn out fine. However, many refuse to live in denial. They argue that if you could see things from God's or the Father's point of view, you would understand that everything is as it should be. Yet, how can one claim that evil is merely an illusion? Some suggest that evil does not exist, and therefore, one should not fight it. Augustine, for example, stated that evil is simply the absence of good, but there is more complexity to it than that.

Abraham had a profound understanding of the existence of both God and evil. He could not deny God's reality, nor could he ignore the evil and suffering present in the world. This led him to question God, asking, 'Where are you?' God replied, 'I am here; where are you?' People often ask where God was during events like the Holocaust, but the more pertinent question is why human beings allowed such atrocities to occur. It is not God who is responsible for these horrors, but rather humanity's failure to act against them.

When people suffer, they may believe they are being punished for wrongdoing or that their suffering serves a purpose, such as teaching them compassion. This idea suggests that whatever happens is meant to happen, reflecting a predestinarian view of the world. However, the narrative of Abraham's family is far more intricate than any soap opera. He had three sons: Nahor, Abram, and Haran. Haran had a son named Lot, and after Haran's death, Abraham took Lot with him to Canaan. Lot's daughters became the ancestors of the Moabites, while Nahor married Haran's daughter Milcah, and they had a son named Bethuel.

Abraham married his half-sister Sarah, who was the daughter of Terah but from a different mother. This complex family tree continues with Isaac, who married his cousin Rebekah. They had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Jacob married his cousins Leah and Rachel, while Esau married Ishmael, a descendant of Abraham through his concubine Hagar. This lineage is significant as it leads to the Israelites, showcasing the intricate connections within Abraham's family.

The Bible presents a revolutionary concept of time as a journey with a beginning, middle, and end. In Judaism, time is viewed as linear, allowing for progress and change, in contrast to the ancient cyclical view of time, which suggested no progress. This linear perspective is crucial for understanding the Biblical narrative and the rejection of determinism. God instructed Abraham to leave his homeland, indicating that one's future is not determined by their past or circumstances of birth, but rather by the choices they make.

God's promise to Abraham was profound: He would make him a great nation and bless him, ensuring that through Abraham, all families of the Earth would be blessed. This calling, issued 4,000 years ago, highlights the significance of Abraham's journey. When Abraham arrived in Canaan, he faced a famine and went down to Egypt as an immigrant. He feared for his life due to Sarah's beauty and asked her to claim she was his sister to protect him. This led to a series of events where Pharaoh took Sarah into his household, unaware of her true identity.

Pharaoh, captivated by Sarah's beauty, offered her a life of luxury, presenting her with a choice between marrying the most powerful man in the world or remaining faithful to Abraham. God intervened by sending an angel to protect Sarah, who faced a similar temptation to that of Eve with Lucifer. Instead of succumbing to temptation, Sarah remained faithful to Abraham, thereby restoring the mistake made by Eve and purifying herself. This act of faith had implications for the lineage of their children, ensuring they would be born with less fallen nature than she had. This process of purification continues through each generation, ultimately leading to the lineage of Jesus.

Abraham's life was marked by significant events, including the Battle of the Five Kings. Four kings had engaged in battle against five, resulting in the capture of Lot, Abraham's nephew. Upon hearing of Lot's captivity, Abraham took action, demonstrating his commitment to his family and his faith.

He led forth his trained men, all in his house, 318 of them, and they went in pursuit of these kings and defeated them. Here you've got this interesting little neighbourhood that had already separated from a lot of the stage. Abraham was in the hills, and Lot was down in the valley, and they had gotten on very well with each other. But when he heard that his nephew had been captured, he didn't think, 'Oh well, that's a shame; he should have stuck with me.' He felt responsible for his nephew's well-being, so he took the men who were living with him and went to fight against these other armies and kings to save Lot. He had 318 men living in his household, who were his disciples and the children of his assignment.

After they won this battle, Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most High. Melchizedek, as a king of Salem, which is Jerusalem, was significant even in those days as a place for the worship of God. The name 'Salem' means peace, so Melchizedek was a king of that place, which is now called Jerusalem. He brought out bread and wine, which is very symbolic. He blessed Abraham and said, 'Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' Abram gave him a tenth of everything, instituting the practice of tithing. This became the foundation of Abraham's life of faith, which we looked at before. The central figure of Abraham's conditional object was his tithing, and that was something he did regularly, which restored his foundation of faith.

Long after this, God said to Abraham, 'Look towards heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them.' Then He said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.' Abraham believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness. This illustrates how many stars there are; one million, two hundred and thirty-two thousand, five hundred and twenty-four. No, I've lost count; it's countless. Nobody knows how many stars there are; they are billions. Even when it's completely dark, you can't see them from London. When you go to a place where it's total darkness, the sky is just numberless. You can't count the stars around in the sky. Yet, Abraham, though he had no son or children, believed God. His faith was based upon reason and experience. He knew God as a reality; he had proof and a personal relationship with God. He knew God loved him and cared about him, and that God was trustworthy and good. Therefore, if God said something, he believed it would come true, and God counted that as righteousness.

The next thing God said to him was, 'I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.' But Abraham responded, 'O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?' This response is different from his previous belief. Instead of believing God, he questioned how he could be sure. What do you think about that? Does it show a lack of faith? He wanted evidence. It's interesting because he wasn't the only person to ask for evidence. If you remember the story of Gideon, he was told by God to gather an army to defeat the Midianites. Gideon woke up and thought it was just a dream, so he asked God for evidence. He put out a wool fleece and asked for it to be wet while the ground was dry. The next morning, it was exactly as he asked, but he wanted to try it the other way around to be sure. This shows that asking questions or seeking evidence is not uncommon.

Abraham's response was different, and it's difficult to judge whether he should have asked questions. Perhaps his faith wavered as he looked around at all the people in the cities and thought it was impossible. He had to restore the foundation of faith. He was already living a life of faith, but now he had to make an offering to restore that foundation. Up until this time, Abraham's position was unformed, and he needed to restore the foundation of faith. God asked him to restore not just himself but also three generations: Adam, Noah, and himself. The offering he made was significant, representing different stages of growth. There are various interpretations of this, but the idea was to indemnify vertically and horizontally through these three generations.

Abraham brought God all of these offerings, cutting them in half and laying each half against the other, but he did not cut the birds in half. This idea of cutting sacrifices in half was a normal practice in the ancient world when people made contracts or agreements. They would cut an animal in half to signify the agreement, and this was a way to ensure that both parties kept their end of the deal. In modern times, people might cut a contract in half to prove it was the same piece of paper. This was how agreements were established in the ancient world. When birds of prey came down on the offerings, Abraham drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and dreadful darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abraham, 'Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be servants there and will be afflicted for four hundred years.'

This relates back to the question of how God would give Abraham and his descendants the land to possess. If Abraham had made the offering successfully, then he and his descendants would have lived in Canaan for four hundred years. However, because he didn't fulfil that correctly, his descendants would have to pay by living in a foreign land for four hundred years. This mistake was significant because it repeated the failure of Noah's time. The issue was that he didn't separate the offering correctly, which was the norm in the ancient world. The punishment seems harsh, especially since it was the descendants who suffered for the mistakes made by Abraham. This is the reality of how the world works; decisions made by ancestors can have lasting consequences for their descendants. I remember when I was living in Russia, I met an elderly lady who had a similar story. She was an American whose parents moved to Russia during the Revolution, believing in a socialist utopia. Things didn't work out well for them, and her life was affected by their decisions. She had great potential but was limited by circumstances beyond her control, illustrating how the choices of one generation can impact the next.

You know how come we have any descendants? God said our descendants will number the stars of heaven, but we don't have any children. So I said I can't have children anymore, and Sarah thought, well, okay, I have a maid. She sent her around and said, why don't you sleep with my maid? If you sleep with my maid, then we can have a son through her. The way it was in those days, if a slave had a child, that child belonged to the slave owner. So Hagar was acting like a surrogate mother, having a child on behalf of Sarah. Abraham slept with Hagar, and then Hagar became pregnant. It wasn't that Abraham fell; he didn't think, well, I can't have a child with Sarah, so I'm going to go and sleep with a pretty young maid. It was actually Sarah who took the initiative and offered Hagar to Abraham. That wasn't a straightforward situation.

When Hagar became pregnant, she spoke with a lot of contempt for Sarah. She looked down on Sarah and thought, I can give Abraham a son; you cannot. She started to think in her mind that she could replace Sarah as Abraham's favourite wife, and Sarah could be her servant. This created a very difficult situation, with two women fighting over the love of one man. Sarah was really hurt that Hagar started to treat her in this way, so she began to treat Hagar very harshly, and Hagar ran away into the desert. While she was in the desert, an angel appeared to her and said, look, you're going to have a son, and you're going to name him Ishmael. Lots of good things will come from him.

Later, after Ishmael was born and also after Isaac was born, I can understand the situation. You have two women fighting over the love of a man, and that can lead to all kinds of jealousies. The jealousies between women can be incredibly intense. Girls are much more likely to use verbal and psychological tools such as name-calling, isolation, and excluding others. When girls' relationships go wrong, they often do so in a spectacular fashion, with jealousy becoming really intense. This was a typical female tactic: spreading gossip, rumours, backstabbing, and giving dirty looks. So that's what was going on here; it's much more complicated than a relationship between two boys.

Then God spoke to Abraham when Ishmael was 13 years old and said, I bless Sarah, and I will give you a son by her. She shall be the mother of nations; kings of people shall come from her. At this stage, Abraham was 99 years old, and Sarah was 90 years old. Sarah gave birth to Isaac, and one day, she saw Ishmael playing with Isaac. It looked to Sarah as if Ishmael was mistreating Isaac, and she said to Abraham, cast out the slave woman with her son. The son of this slave woman shall not be the heir with my son Isaac. Sarah was worried that Ishmael might kill Isaac and take all the inheritance for himself, realising that Abraham was very old and might die soon.

Abraham was not pleased with this and argued with God about it because he didn't want to do this. God said to him, do not be so distressed about the boy or the slave woman; listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring shall be reckoned. So God tells Abraham to listen to his wife. Abraham then sent Hagar and Ishmael away. God said to Abraham, I will bless Ishmael and make him fruitful; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac. The Bible states that God's blessing will also come to Ishmael and his descendants, and from that line comes the Arab people and Muhammad.

There is an understanding that if Abraham had restored the foundation of faith with the offerings, it would have been possible for Isaac and Ishmael to restore the foundation of substance. There might have been some spiritual protection or possibility for that to happen. However, because they didn't establish the foundation of faith, it is understood that there wasn't a spiritual foundation that would have enabled Ishmael to make the foundation of substance, so they were sent away. This unresolved issue continues today between Jews and Arabs. Hagar and Ishmael went into the desert, and later, after the binding of Isaac and after Sarah died, Abraham wondered what happened to Hagar and Ishmael. He got on a camel and went to visit them.

He found Ishmael, and when he arrived, Ishmael was not there. A woman came out and said he wasn't there. Abraham left but came back later and found Ishmael, who had a new wife by this stage. He was much more polite and offered Abraham tea and coffee. The Quran states that later, Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba, the first house for the worship of God, in the centre of Mecca. Abraham raised the foundation of the shrine together with Ishmael, praying, our Lord, accept this from us; you are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. When you read the Quran, you find little bits of the story that you don't find in the Bible. There is also a general understanding that after Sarah died, when Abraham remarried, he had more children, and he sent them away to the east. There is a tradition that these sons became the founders of the Far Eastern religions. This is a possibility, and it is also a way through which God was able to bring blessings to the rest of the world.