| We can learn much from the life of Abraham. One event in his life that instructs us is his search for a wife for his son Isaac (Genesis 24). After the death of his wife Sarah, Abraham called his chief servant and charged him with finding Isaac a wife. Abraham makes his servant promise that he will not take a wife for Isaac from among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land in which Abraham was now living. The servant was charged with seeking a wife from Abraham’s relatives living in his homeland of Mesopotamia. The servant then asked, “Suppose the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land; should I take your son back to the land from where you came” (v. 5)?
Abraham answered with an emphatic no. Abraham did not want his son returning to his homeland to live for one simple reason. It would have represented retreat from God’s instructions to Abraham. God had called Abraham out of Mesopotamia many years before (Genesis 12) and promised to give him the land of Canaan. There he would bless Abraham by multiplying his descendants and making him a great nation. If Isaac were to return to Mesopotamia it would signify a rejection of God’s promised new life in Canaan and a desire to return to an old life from which God had called him.
We must be careful that we do not return to our old life as Abraham’s servant suggested. Paul tells us in Romans 6:6 that at baptism our old man of sin is put to death and we are raised a new person, enjoying a “new life.” Yet, many times we relapse into our old sinful habits. We, in essence, went back to “Mesopotamia” when God has called us to live in a new land. If Abraham had allowed Isaac to return to his homeland, he would have forfeited all the blessings God had promised him. When we return to our sinful past, we forfeit all the blessings God has promised us as his children (i.e. forgiveness of sins, Heaven, physical blessing). Let us all strive to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4) and not let our old man of sin “rise from the dead.”
By Will Hanstein |
