The Old Man Must Die

NOW take notice of how God deals with the problem of the flesh in the life of Abram. Abram had trusted God and had gone out of Ur, but in disobedience to God’s clear instructions, he had taken his father and Lot along. “Get out . . . from your family And from your father’s house,” had been the word of the Almighty. Terah, Abram’s father, represents the old man of the flesh. “Terah” means delay. “Haran” means fruitless. Six years Abram lived with Terah in Haran, delayed in a fruitless land; six years of no progress, no growth, no joy or victory. Then we read:

“So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.” – Genesis 11:32.

Terah died in Haran. Thank God, the old man died. I know that sounds cold and heartless! However, Abram must sever the tender ties of the flesh before he can proceed to the place of victory and promise. There is to be a burial in Haran, a blessed funeral. Terah died, and was buried in Haran, the place of fruitlessness. It must have been hard for Abram, but it must be, before he can go on. How much easier it would have been for Abram to have left his father behind in Ur of the Chaldees than to bury him here in a strange land. How much better to obey God willingly and immediately, by separating one’s self from the world and the flesh, rather than to disobey and thus bring God’s judgment into our lives, a punishment more painful and lasting than the momentary soreness caused by separation from the world and the flesh.

Now, having been compelled to obey, Abram finally departs from Haran. He has renounced the flesh and is now ready to go forward. This time he and his family reach their goal and their destination. In Genesis we read this:

“Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.” – Genesis 12:5 (emphasis mine).

Once before they had started for Canaan, the land of fruitfulness and victory, but only made it as far as Haran, the land of wilderness and dryness. The old man must first be buried there, and then, significantly, they were able to come into the land of Canaan. Stephen also, in the book of Acts, when speaking of Abraham, said this about that experience:

“Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell.” – Acts 7:4 (emphasis mine).

After all those centuries had passed, and into the time of Stephen and the disciples, and now, once again, centuries later, the truth of the matter is that the flesh still has to die for us to move forward in the Lord.

Adapted and modified excerpts from Studies in the Life of Abraham by M. R. De Haan (1891-1964)
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.