“LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM—THE PLACE OF THE ALTAR”
GENESIS 13:1-4
INTRO: Abraham, upon leaving Ur of the Chaldees by the command of God,
and after the death of Terah in Haran, departed for the land of
Canaan. When they arrived in the land of Canaan, the first thing
Abraham did was to erect an altar to the Lord. Genesis 12:7 says,
“And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will
I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto LORD, who
appeared unto him.” And there builded he an altar. This altar was a
token of gratitude. As soon as God appeared to him he raised an altar:
to what end? That he might call upon the name of the Lord. We see,
therefore, that he was intent upon giving of thanks; and that an altar
was built by him in memory of kindness received (Calvin’s
Commentaries: Genesis). Verse 8 tells us that Abraham journeyed on
And built a second altar. Genesis 12:8 tells us, “And he removed
from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent,
having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east; and there he builded
an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.” Abram
moves on, going westward, and pitches his tent with Bethel to the west
of him and Ai to the east. Ai means "ruins." The man of faith realizes
that what he has left behind is of no real value, just as Paul writes in
counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I count all things loss for the
excellency of Philippians 3:7-8: "But what things were gain to me,
these I have the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may
gain Christ." Paul had before greatly prided himself on his outstanding
advantages and accomplishments, but when the glory of the Lord
Jesus burst on his vision, those things became totally worthless to
him.
Therefore, Abram had his back toward Ai and his face toward Bethel,
which means "the house of God." He had left his father's house, to find
infinitely greater value in God's house. The most important feature of
the house of God is that God dwells there, yet God's house involves all
of God's interests. Here Abram builds his second altar, which we may
well designate as the altar of decision. All true decision for God is
based upon the value of the person of Christ (the altar itself) and His
great work of atonement, His sacrifice (L. M. Grant Commentary on
Genesis). The altar to Abraham was the most important place in all
the world. Without the altar, Bethel and Canaan, with all their glory,
would have meant nothing.
We commonly think of an altar as a wooden or stone structure. We
used to call them “The mourner’s bench.” While I do not object to
the “structure” we know. The real meaning of the altar goes much
deeper than that. It means a place where one has an encounter with
God. It is, as some say, being in touch with God. Whenever one meets
God; that is his or her altar: Moses met God on the backside of the
desert. Exodus 3:1-2 says, “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his
father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside
of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the
angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst
of a bushL and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and
the bush was not consumed.” Jacob met God in the valley of Jabbock
(Genesis 32:23-30). All of us need a place where we can meet with
God! I want you to consider “The Place of the Altar” this morning.
Where is your altar? Where do you meet with God? Note with me:
(1) WE NEED SOME ALTARS TODAY
GENESIS 13:3-4—“And he went on his journeys from the south
even unto Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been
at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai; Unto the place of
the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there
Abram called on the name of the LORD.”
A. THE REMOVAL FROM THE ALTAR. It was when Abraham left the
altar that we see that his problems began. Genesis 12:10 says, “And
there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to
sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.” His first mistake
was to go down into Egypt. Egypt in the Scripture is a type of the world.
Egypt is not where Abraham was to be. He was to be in Canaan. But
when our faith fails and we walk by sight rather than by faith, we
seldom stay in our Canaans (1). In Egypt there was no altar, no
calling upon God and we see the results of it. Abraham was fearful,
selfish, deceitful, and injurious. All because he had forsaken the altar.
B. THE RETURNING TO THE ALTAR. Genesis 13:1a tells us, “And
Abram went up out of Egypt…” Going to Canaan from Egypt is always
“up” geographically, but here it is also “up” spiritually. The “up” here
symbolizes the direction of Abraham’s spirituality as a result of his
coming “out” of Egypt. Canaan for Abraham represents God’s place,
God’s precepts, and God’s plans. Egypt represents the world with all
its vices. The evidence that Abraham was going “up” spiritually instead
of down as he did in Egypt is in the fact that when Abraham got back
to Canaan, he got back to the altar and called upon the name of the
Lord (2). Genesis 13:3-4 tells us, “And he went on his journeys from
the south even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the
beginning, between Beth-el and Hai; Unto the place of the altar, which he
made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.”
Abraham returned to the worship, back to the altar. Back to God.
Friend, there are some altars we need to return to:
1. We need to return to the family altar. A little saying goes, “The
old family altar would alter many family problems.” Families need
to pray together. Families need to worship God in Church together.
G. Aiken Taylor said, “In a Christian family, God’s name is taken
frequently in reverence at the family altar. God’s Book is a familiar
text to all. God’s day is respected, both at Church and at home.
Such a home is the hope of the world, the pattern of the Church
itself and a foretaste of heaven” (3). Jonathan Edwards said, “Every
Christian family ought to be, as it were, a little church, consecrated
to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by His rules. And
family education and order are some of the chief means of grace. If
these fail, all other means are like to prove ineffectual” (4). It is
surely true that “the family that prays together stays together.”
2. We need to return to the Church altar. There is a coldness and
indifference creeping over our Churches today and sapping the life
out of us. We desperately need a fresh and new encounter with
God. The great missionary, James Hudson Taylor said, “God’s work
done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply” (5). The reason for
floundering of many Churches today is that they have forsaken the
altar. As you read through the book of Acts, you will see that one of
the things that made the early Church so great was that they were a
praying church. They relied on God and His power to accomplish
their mission.
ILLUS: Far away from the Bible's example are most people when
they pray! Prayer with earnestness and urgency is genuine
"prayer" in God's account. Alas, the greatest number of
people are not conscious at all of the duty of prayer. And as
for those who are, it is to be feared that many of them are
very great strangers to sincere, sensible, and affectionate-
emotional-pouring out of their hearts or souls to God. Too
many content themselves with a little lip-service and bodily
exercise, mumbling over a few imaginary prayers. When the
emotions are involved in such urgency that the soul will
waste itself rather than go without the good desired, there is
communion and solace with Christ. And hence it is that the
saints have spent their strength, and lost their lives, rather
than go without the blessings God intended for them. -John
Bunyan in Pilgrim's Prayer Book, edited by Louis Gifford
Parkhurst, Jr. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 13.
ILLUS: Back in 1828, in Orange County, New York, a certain
church experienced a revival. In three months, fifty people
were saved and baptized. The whole community was
shaken. Homes were put back together, lives were changed
and churches were filled to overflow crowds. It all started
when two members of a certain church agreed to meet each
day, after work, and pray until God did something.
Are we meeting with God or just meeting? Our churches need to get
back to the altar. We need a fresh encounter with God!
ILLUS: As the church today gets more and more hip--more and more
need-oriented, responding to the buttons that people push in
their pews--I find myself longing for more of a historical faith.
I find myself not wanting to have everything explained to me
in simple terms. I'm not even sure I want all my needs met
as much as I want to meet God, and sometimes I wonder if
he's really interested in the noise of our contemporary
clamoring. Like my dog who can't seem to get anywhere
because he keeps having to stop and scratch his fleas, I
wonder if we are so busy scratching where everybody itches
that we aren't taking anybody anywhere significant. -- John
Fischer in "Longing for Something Old" (Covenant
Companion, Oct. 1992). Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 5.
3. We need to return to and restore the altar in our nation. Psalm
33:12 say, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the
people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” America has
surely drifted from its spiritual moorings. We have deified self and
dethroned God in the process. Someone has noted, “We live in a
‘fast food’ culture. We are overfed and undernourished on almost
every level of existence: physical, emotional, intellectual, and
spiritual.” (6) Carl F. H. Henry said, “In the United States,
separation of church and state has become the framework for
militating against reflections of the Christian world-view in the
public schoolroom, for sanctioning abortion on demand, and for
increasingly tolerating religion only as an inner private concern that
is without public importance.” (7) The only hope America has is to
return to and restore the altar. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “If my
people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and
pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I
hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
ILLUS: Any revitalization of faith in this country will have to start
with prayer, in which we gain a sense of the living presence
of God. -- George H. Gallup, Jr. Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 4.
4. We need to return to the altar in our schools. There is a big
debate that has been raging about the propriety of prayer in schools
but what has been the result of prayer being removed from our
schools. Test scores have plummeted, teenage pregnancy has
skyrocketed, and tragedies in our schools are happening as never
before. We must return to the altar in our schools.
5. We need to return to the altar in everyday life. You and I,
individually, may not be able to get others to establish their altars,
but we can have our own personal relationship with God. We can
have an encounter with God and meet with Him daily. We must
come to a point where we no longer worry about what others think
or say or do, and realize that we are responsible to God for our-
selves. We must make a conscious decision to spend time with
God. We must lead our family in prayer, praise and the worship of
God. As Joshua 24:15b tells us, “As for me and my house, we will
serve the LORD.”
We must return to the altar in our homes, our churches, our nation, our schools, and our everyday lives. For it is at the altar that we meet with God and are revived, renewed, and readied to serve the Lord in this world.
(2) WHEN WE LEAVE THE ALTAR WE GET INTO SERIOUS TROUBLE
GENESIS 12:9-20
*Abraham got in serious trouble when he went down to Egypt and
forsook the altar. There was no altar in Egypt. What troubles do we
encounter when we leave the altar? Notice when we leave the altar:
A. THE PAIN WE ENDURE. I am not speaking of physical pain, although
that might surely be there also, but I am talking about spiritual and