The command before the Tower of Babel was built was to spread out over the earth, and the people came to Shinar and found it pleasant and disobeyed the Lord and settled there, became the city of Babylon from this place. I recently had some days with God in a beautiful place this last August, and to my surprise the whole week was taken up with the events from the Tower and Babel and what happened to the family of Terah that made them go out of Ur, the capital city of the Akkadian empire. The Lord wanted to extend my view of the Bible and what the trends happening there and how they are relevant today.
The dealings of God did not start as expected
We mostly teach concerning the journey of Abraham to the Promised Land, yet we miss out details for which I have come to understand are partially due to tradition and the way we read Scripture. The Lord started to deal with Terah. This is Abraham’s father. The Book of Jasher has much to say about this man. He was a man of many idols, but there came a time that as he was making idols and selling them, there came an experience of Yahweh to him and he folded up his business and with his family, and nephew Lot, of his brother Haran who died suddenly, journeyed to Haran. There is no doubt in trying to uncover a very unclear period of history we come to investigate contemporary history. In my increasing quest to study the Word I have come to understand there are extra biblical texts and historians, and there are companion Hebrew scriptures which we have no access to. There is also some historical and acheological issues which arise which give us the background to what is unclear in our Scriptures. In this pursuit I came to ascertain some things which surprised me greatly. These things have enlarged my understanding that God’s dealings with us are woven into the circumstances which would have gone unnoticed and undervalued. They are relevant to our lives today because the things that are going on today are very very similar. The first thing is that Abraham’s call came not in isolation, and it was originally Terah’s call. Terah’s business was closed down, and he made a journey with this family with changing the fortunes of their lives. However, it seems that Terah is cut short in Haran which means “arid”. It seems that in reading between the lines, Terah did not follow deeply into the things of God. Haran was a cross roads between Asia and Asia Minor. And also a cross roads to roads leading through Canaan and Egypt. What stopped Terah brought him to death, to which a specific Call came to Abraham. So this purpose was not started with Abraham but his father. So this fact astounded me as we always teach about Abraham receiving the call, and yet Terah is disregarded. I sensed with this surprising fact is that God is about to raise up people with a new understanding of His Word and that forgotten but crucial details will come forth to enlarge understanding and bring a new depth of discernment in the Holy Spirit to which will guide them through to our destination through unstable times.
The time of Terah and Abraham were times of great upheavals
It was only by chance, but providential that I saw a documentary put together by historians and archeologists who verify the disappearence of the Akkadian empire, which was very strong, and it is rumoured that Sargon of Akkad is a type of Nimrod figure. This strong empire that extended around Haran to down to the future Babylon, within at least a year disappeared from existence and great people groups migrated. It is then against this context of migration that maybe we can see God migrate the Terah family. It is thought that asteroid or great storms in the northern part of of the Akkadian empire destroyed its mainstay as it was a great agricultural power in the region. The disaster of fires and storms decimated the arable land. This meant that starvation was coming to the people. In examining the soils of the region they found evidence of lightning within great sandstorms coming off the mountains. This turned the soil incapable to give fruit. Could it be that God moved the family to avoid the disaster that was coming on the people? It seems so. There is a tablet that talks about the disaster of the Akkadian empire, and for it to be translated from the ancient cuneiform writing it took extensive work over 10 years. This tablet relates the disappearence of the empire and describes it as a societal disaster. This disaster extended to the whole of the middle Asian area. This may seem small to many, but we begin if we are open to be part of God’s process to open up the context of why and how and in what context Terah, and Abraham left Ur, with the family. Disaster was coming. Historians pinpoint the time period to be around 1895BC, which roughly seems to be in Abraham’s life period.
We begin to ascertain that God is trying to warn us of something. If God is moving us, or moving godly people groups then He is protecting in His foreknowledge of huge disasters that would be coming. What I see and try to discern in all this, is evidence of His ways and what He could be saying to us today.
What I begin to see is that God is moving His people to unlikely and safe havens in the midst of great changes. Our human nature begins to get comfortable and we draw on our locality divine purposes, but when God begins to move His people, subtle and usually unseen or indiscernible signs start to be transmitted by God. Only once we are finely tuned we pick them up.
Just as God changed the trajectory of Terah, an idol maker, an idol worshipper, God is about to wake up the most unlikely people to make journeys and changes in their families that will come to be a new start and a new protection.
I have experienced in my life occasions where I did not detect the signs that He was moving me, and yet continued to believe that the locality I was in was the source of Divine Purposes to be worked out, yet there comes a time He moves us on. We do not like changes and moves. We collect so much to make us attached to geographical locations. Yet Revelation seems to indicate that God’s people will have to be migratory again for the reason of upheavals and disasters, and God in His foreknowledge must protect His people. The purpose of God whilst Babylon would be a natural world centre, would be eventually the false Bride of Revelation, Jezebel and all that is false. Yet God had plans for a city called Jerusalem, which would transition to be a celestial and eternal city, and Terah would need to steer the family in that direction. Yet the Old Testament charts several empires that would rise and fall, and the signs of the modern lifestyle in collapse are there plain to see. God needs to protect His own people from the fall out from the fall and collapse of lifestyle and all that entails will do in the people who put their security in work, a home, finances, hobbies, pastimes. All these will be suddenly interrupted by disaster and upheavals. God is saying that He is moving His people spiritually and physically because of the changes that are currently taking place. It means discerning the words of the Spirit in our inner man and not building our security in the temporal things we see but build in the eternal things that are not seen. They are discerned. God is giving His people this ability.
Haran: a spiritual crossroad
What Genesis is explicit is the fact that Terah stayed in Haran. As I have explained it is a major crossroads of trade routes at that time. I sense also that it is a spiritual crossroads. The word is “arid” that Haran means, and we can sometimes come to the crossroads of our spiritual walk, because this arid aspect causes us to seek God with determination to understand why the flow of what was normal until we reach Haran spiritually .
I sense we are coming to a “Haran” moment. Haran is not a stopping place. It is a decisive crossroad. We need to change direction. It is here we must be certain that we know our destination. Terah it seems lost direction and death followed. God in His Goodness renewed the call to Abraham and he immediately got away from Haran in obedience. God has brought us to Haran because He is changing the way we live and the way we walk. He is causing us to possess spiritual territory for Him, and whilst the enemy has still his dominion God has a process in place to install in every dimension His Kingdom. From that place eternal purposes are released, but like Abraham we must hear the call, and obey immediately.
Final words
The operative word here is “change is here” and we must discern it, embrace it, and walk in it. It is a different way we shall live because we are no longer living for the priority that the world has mapped for us. Kingdoms and nations shall fall, but God’s eternal city is being built for it to descend on the right day. May we leave both Ur, and Haran to embrace His promises.
Maranatha.
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