Come Out of Your Earth

Matthew 4:18-22 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
19 And He said unto them, Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20 And they straightway left their nets, and followed Him.
21 And going on from thence, He saw two other brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them.
22 And they immediately left the boat and their father, and followed Him.

The first two, Simon and Andrew, casting their nets left their occupation and followed Jesus. James and John left their occupation also, an occupation they were involved in with their father. Jesus pulled them right out of their family. They left everything and followed Him. Then Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 4:23). Now, let’s go to Genesis.

Genesis 12:1 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father’s house, unto a land that I will show you.

Get you out of your country…. The literal translation is “come out of your earth.” It uses the word erets which can be translated as land, earth, or country. It has to do with the influencing atmosphere of the spirit realm over that particular country. I am sure you have all experienced the influences of a particular area when you have crossed over its boundary line. This is what we are talking about. Each of us was raised with a certain family in a certain place, not only geographically but where there are certain things of influence over us.

So the Lord spoke to Abram and the first thing He said to him was, “Come out of your earth.” Come out, not only of the things about you but also out of the things that are in you, of your earthen nature. Come out of that because we are all influenced by what we are in our adamic nature, the way you think, the way you feel, etc. I think the most difficult thing for any Christian, once they decide to follow the Lord, is to break away from all the things that make up the characteristics of their human life. That is what I had to come out of. It wasn’t so hard leaving where I lived in South Carolina, but the things that make up DuBose – that was hard. So God says, “Abram, come out of your earth.”

Genesis 12:2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.

God not only blesses you, but He blesses you with the purpose of you blessing others. Actually, the Lord is saying, “Abram, I’m going to make you a channel. I’m going to meet your heart so I can flow through your heart to meet other people. I have chosen you because I need someone to move through. So come out of your earth, out of your land, because I’m going to make you what I need.”

Genesis 12:3 And I will bless them that bless you, and curse them that curses you; and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.

In a mystical way, Abram is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ who has left His country and has come to earth to create His family. That is what we saw in Matthew chapter four.

Abram is also a type of people – I will make of you a great nation. But you have to understand what that means. Out from Abram’s loins came the Hebrew nation of Israel. No, no, no. The Hebrew word for “nation” used here is goy, which means a Gentile nation. It is not the nation of Israel or America; it is the nation of God. “I will make you a nation.”

So Abram departs and some others go along who weren’t invited, but a journey begins for Abram. In this journey of Abram’s you begin seeing how the Lord works in his life to rid him of his many influences. God takes him through many separations. There is something in him that was put there by God because he obeyed the Word of God, a little Christ seed. That seed is going to grow as God cuts away the things of his flesh nature. Bless Abram’s heart, he was just like us. He was many nations to start with, wrong nations, but God separates him from them and creates His own nation in him. Abram will go through many changes.

I bless your hearts to read the life of Abraham and how God deals with him and blesses him. Abraham is not any smarter than we are, but he is walking on with the Lord. It is something that God does. You wonder, “How did I get here?” How did you get where you are today? The Lord led you. “And being in the way, the Lord led you” (Genesis 24:27). You could not have planned this on your own; you could not have done it on your own. Even when you didn’t know the Lord was leading you, He led you.

Think about all the things that you have gone through in your journey with the Lord, how He separated this, cut this out of your life, shaved off a little something else, and left things by the wayside. Some of them were difficult and hard because you didn’t really want to turn them loose. But once they were gone, what a freedom!

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