Alright brethren, if you will,
let's turn back to Genesis 12. I'll have you turn to three scriptures
this morning, I think. So, I ain't going to turn you
too much, just enough to keep us awake. And this text this
morning is for me. It seems as if it's a recording
of just what Abram was traveling and he happened to stop off in
a place. The Lord happened to speak to him. He happened to
build an altar and he kept on going. He had a pit stop. on
his way to Egypt is what it was. And it's so easy for me to read
over those things. But this, as the Lord opened
this up to me and as I dwelled on it, I saw myself in it. And I hope I can just tell you
what the Lord showed me and it will bless you. If it blessed
me, it will bless you too. As we looked at last week, God
called Abram, and it was effectual. He said, you get yourself out
of your father's house. You're grown now. He's 70 years
old. Get out of here. And you're going to go to a place
I'm going to send you. And while his father was with him, he said,
everybody started following Abram. He said, well, I'll lead you,
son. I'll take you. And they got halfway, on a long
way around, and they stopped for five years in Haran. They
didn't go straight to Canaan, that was right across the desert,
that's a hard way. Through southern Iraq to walk, take a long time. They went around, stopped in
Haran, they dwelt five years, and the Lord allowed this to
happen. He allowed Abram to sit on that, on his disobedience,
for a prescribed amount of time. And then the Lord killed his
father, that heathen. He said so. He was an idol worshiper. God said so. And he killed him.
And at that point, now Abram is going to go where God told
him. He says in verse 4, Genesis 12, 4, So Abram departed as the
Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him, his nephew.
And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out
of Habron. He left with his wife, he left
with his nephew, all the servants they had, all the animals they
had gotten while they were in Haran, and they went to Canaan. They began to journey to Canaan,
the Lord led them. God in His infinite grace to
all of those he elected before time was time. In perfect wisdom
and deserving all the honor and praise for it, he blessed every
one of his children in the person of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was Christ who directed
Abram to go to Canaan. He spoke to him and told him.
We read that in Hebrews 11. We looked at it last time in
Hebrews 11. It says, By faith Abraham, when he was called to
go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,
obeyed. And he went out not knowing whether
he went. Did not mention in five years
in Heron, did it? He said, Oh, he obeyed. Doesn't
mention what we're going to look at this morning. What we'll look
at next week when he goes down to Egypt. This great man, such
a great man of faith was a sinner saved by grace, wasn't he? It
says in verse 6, And Abram passed through the land of the place
of Shechem unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was
then in the land. The thoughts of natural man would
say, if you obey Christ, if you're a good little boy and girl, you're
going to have physical riches, you're going to have physical
benefits. That may not be the case. This is true spiritually
for the believer, for the child of God, those that Christ has
come and revealed Himself to. But it might not be physically.
It might not be in this body. It may not be in the bank account.
It may not be in the woes we have in our own living rooms.
But He said in Ephesians 1, 3, Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings, in heavenly places in Christ. Somebody says, well,
I want to be blessed. Well, it ain't going to be here,
and the only place it's going to be is in Christ. Well, I don't
think that's right, Kevin. Well, you ain't disagreeing with
Kevin. I just read you what Paul wrote, Paul told us. That's the
word of the Lord, isn't it? That's where it's going to be.
The blessings of this world may not be there. But we're blessed
forever in Christ. And we have the earnest of that
inheritance. He is our inheritance. That place
is our inheritance, wherever He is. And we have that now.
What's the earnest of it? What's the down payment on that?
We know Him. We know Him. To bow to Him now
in this world is eternal life. Every knee will bow. If it happens
after this life's over and that judgment, that's eternal death.
We have a down payment. We have an earnest on that eternal
inheritance. We know the Son. We kiss the
Son. You know Him. You're going to
kiss Him, ain't you? Go right to His feet and hug Him. Thank
you, Lord. Praise You. We know Him now. We trust Him now. We believe
Him now. And all these days that we live in, what does He say?
We're a few days and full of trouble. These days are short
and ain't nothing but trials one after another. Natural man,
they like to quote, well, you got to walk by faith and not
by sight. That's true. But their minds imagine something
comfortable. It's always something easy, isn't
it? Earthly ease, getting healthy, getting fit, raising successful
children, making connections in the community at your local
church. All kinds of nonsense. It's not walking by faith. The
reality of walking by faith isn't pretty. It's messy. They always
say that old saying, buy low and sell high. That's how you
make money. Everybody agree with that. We can nod heads north
and south and say, oh yeah, you buy low and sell high. Boy, tell
another thing to buy low. Take that stock market from $36,000
down to about $36 and say, buy it up. Oh, I don't know about
that. When the rubber meets the road, it's different, isn't it?
When we walk by faith, it ain't as we imagined. It's ain't a
fairy tale. This idea of carnal prosperity was not the case for
Abram just yet. Look here in verse 6. And Abram
passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the
plain of Moreh, and the Canaanite was then in the land. Abram arrives
in this strange land, a strange people were occupying it. This
is a hostile group. Can you imagine? You walk into
a country, And the only people that have the same mind as you,
that have the same concerns that you do, that have the same God
that you do, is you and yours. And a whole nation. You talk
about missionaries in a rough place. That's what's about to
happen, isn't it? He disobeyed God for five years.
The Lord walked him through the desert. You've got to dwell on
that. That's a long walk from Heron down to Canaan. You've
got to dwell on that a long time. And he walks in. And a desolate
place ain't nothing but the enemy. He says, this is where the Lord's
leading me. He's gonna kill me. Would you be in despair? Would I be
in despair when the Lord said, get up, I'm gonna take you to
a place? You, your family, and y'all arrived in a place that
God sent ya, and it's nothing like you thought. It ain't all
cracked up to be, I guess. There wasn't a welcoming party.
There wasn't signs and balloons, just dirty looks and cursing
and plotting on him, wasn't it? Enemies waiting to sabotage you,
to kill you, to take everything you have. Counting your sheep,
counting your goats. It'll be mine next week. That's
where the Lord brought him. Boy, what despair. If the Lord
brought us to that point and then just walked away, what would
I do? I use the phrase, I speak Southern. I don't speak English, I speak
Southern. Stick to your guns. You know
what that means? When the enemies come, don't throw your gun down
and give up. How quick would I throw my guns
down? Join up with them. Run. But the Lord doesn't leave
his people. He'll bring them to the brink of despair, bring
them to where they can't trust in themselves, they can't trust
in their family, they can't trust in mommy and daddy because he
took them. Bring them to nothing. Surrounded. And then he speaks
to his child. Look here at verse 7. The Lord
appeared unto Abraham and said, Unto thy seed will I give this
land. God appeared unto him. What mercy! In great lowliness, in great
heavy trial and worry, the Lord appeared unto Abram. He came
to him. He gave him a promise. He came
to Abram and gave him his word. You see this land? Your seed
is going to inherit it. That's the Lord. Capital L, capital
O, capital R, capital E. The Lord of hosts. The triune
God. He appeared to Abram. How can
that be? No man seen the Father. Christ
the God-man. That pre-incarnate manifestation. Big fancy words. What's that
mean? He come down and talk to his son. He come down and talk
to Abram. How? He's the I Am. How could
that be? He hasn't come yet. He hasn't
been born of a virgin yet. How could this take place? He
always was. He is and he always shall be.
He said, Lo, I am with you always until the end of the earth. I
don't see you. He says differently. It doesn't
matter if I see him. He's there. Always has been. Always will
be. Have we experienced His promise? Have we been so desolate and
so left alone, though He's always been there with His people? We
forget Him, and we look to ourselves, and we get frightened. And then
we are given His Word. We see His promise, and that
pure mind is stirred up in us. Oh, that's right. Did the enemies
go away? Did the land change? Nothing
changed. Something changed in here, didn't
it? Went from rough seas to calm waters, didn't it? From His Word,
His promise. Peter experienced that in the flesh. Abram experienced
that. The Lord came to him and appeared to him. Peter experienced
that power and promise and strength in the flesh. He walked on the
water. And he looked at those waves, looked at all the trial
around him, and he started sinking. Lord, save me! And that calloused
hand of a carpenter reached out and grabbed him immediately.
And he stopped sinking. He experienced that in the flesh.
We don't have that, do we? We don't have that in our day.
You and I will not physically see Christ walk on this earth
with us while we're here, while this earth still stands, while
we're in this body of death. We're not going to have him,
his flesh reach out and grab a hold of us physically or audibly
speak to us when we cry out. Our comfort and our peace comes
from his word. The word he's given us, the word
he's preserved, his promises that we can look and read. Maurice
Montgomery said, the most valuable thing you have in your home is
this book. You treat it as so? That's it. We have the Word of
God right in front of us. How often do I come into trial and
woe and I turn on TV or I go for a walk or I do this or I
do that instead of looking at the Lord's Word? What's His promise
for today? What will He reveal unto me today? That means we believe Him when
we look to Him. When we hear His Word and it comforts us,
we believe Him. We take Him at His Word. And
that is not why we're in great ease and comfort often, is it?
There's times we're rejoicing. Boy, we truly do, don't we? Here's
what it says. And on that comfort comes, Him
revealing Himself comes while we're just cut out. We feel like we're cut out of
the wheel, while we're just so alone, left to ourselves, desolate.
All around us just appears to be in shambles. That's when he
comes to his child. It says in verse seven, the Lord
appeared unto Abram and said, unto thy seed will I give you
this land. I'll give the land to your seed.
That's easy for us to read, but you put yourself in his shoes.
All this thing, all these things going on, the Lord appeared to
him and he said, your seed, Abram, is gonna populate this whole
area. This is gonna be their land. He didn't have a child
yet. Did you know that? Turn over
to Acts chapter seven. We looked at this last week.
Look at it one more time. Acts seven. Acts 7 verse 2, this is Stephen
preaching to those high priests and religious folks that detained
him. It says in Acts 7 verse 2, and
he said, Men and brethren, and fathers hearken, the God of glory
appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before
he dwelt in Charon, that's Haran. And he said unto him, Get thee
out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land
which I shall show thee. Then came he out of the land
of the Chaldeans and dwelt into Charon. And from thence, when
his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein ye
do now dwell. And he gave him none inheritance
in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. Yet he promised
that he would give it to him for possession and to his seed
after him, when as yet he had no child. He believed God when
everything was impossible. Abraham was in a hard place.
God promised him this land he was standing on. He said, you're
going to keep going. You're not going to inherit it
today, but your children are. He was 75 years old, didn't have
any children. His wife, Sarai, was barren. They'd never had
any children. And the Lord's got to remove all these Canaanites
from this land. There ain't enough of them to
whoop them. And he believed God. To the old man, to this old nature,
we're born of Adam. We come into this world speaking
lies and doubting God and cursing Him. And I don't want to hear
a word he has to say. I don't believe him. This is
all impossible, isn't it? The old fellow is going to have
a baby and then have a great multitude that's going to inherit
a land and populate this whole area. And all these enemies all
around us that's strong are going to be just evaporated. That's
impossible. But God. He gives his promise
so that through the life of Abram, throughout Abram's life, the
last time we looked at it, this time, over, and next time, and
next time, and next time, the Lord's going to prove to Abram
his faithfulness. Not Abram's faithfulness. He's
going to prove to Abram what Abram is. He's going to prove
his faithfulness, the faithfulness of Christ to his child over and
over again. Abram believed God. He said,
my wife's buried, I'm 75, this land's full of rebels, but it's
going to be owned by my children and my grandchildren. He believed
God and what did he do? He worshipped him. He worshipped
him. Now back to our text here in verse 7. Genesis 12, 7. And the Lord appeared unto Abram
and said, unto thy seed will I give this land? Colon. It's
going to list what happens after this information is given. And
there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.
He built an altar unto the Lord. When a believer has heard the
Lord speak to their hearts, when He speaks to them, they believe
Him, they love Him, they trust Him. And so often we disobey,
don't we? I believe you, Lord. And then
I walk out that door. And I go right back to me. Right
back to my way of thinking, my way of doing. They walk contrary
to the Word of God. And then in the Lord's perfect
providence, in all wisdom and in all power, He turns that child
right back to Himself. You see what you did? Come here.
Did you do it your way? Come here. Brings us right back
to Him. Again, another trial comes. And
in mercy, He reveals Himself again. What's the use? The Lord could have just said,
well, there ain't going to be no sin. Y'all just going to go
to heaven right now. There ain't going to be no trials. He don't
have to give us trials, does He? He's powerful enough to do
that. It's on purpose. So we see this flesh, see its
worthlessness, and see His worth. What do we do when that happens?
The trial hadn't gone away, but we see Him. The location and
the people haven't changed. We worship God who revealed Himself
to us. who's promised his son to us. And so Abram built an altar.
He worshiped God. What was this altar he built?
We hear a lot about those things. I really look forward to us going
through the tabernacle and the robe of the priests and all the
garments and everything that symbolizes beautiful. When the
time comes, we'll go through that. But this altar I want to
look at, turn over to Exodus 20. Exodus 20, verse 24. The Lord gives instruction on how
we are to make an altar. We don't do what we want. We
don't go willy-nilly. The Lord is playing. It says
in Exodus 20, verse 24, thou shalt make unto me, and
shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings,
thy sheep, and thine oxen, in all places where I record my
name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. And if
thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it
of hewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast
polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps
unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon." Man
wants to build an altar. I hear a lot about church planting
and all these good deeds man does to honor God. What does
the Lord say? If you're going to honor me,
you're going to do it my way. This altar that's going to honor Him
where He will meet with us, it's going to be of earth. or it's
going to be of stone. If it's earth, you mound it up,
don't touch it. If it's stone, don't chisel it down. You take
what I've given you. I didn't make a rock out there
in that parking lot. Do you know that? I have. I can build a house out
of one. I'm going to have to do something with it. Those aren't
my rocks. That's his rocks. And he said,
you bring me what I've given. That's what I require. And there
won't be any steps to it either. If man does something, if man
puts his hand to it, it's polluted. And don't even make it easy for
yourself to climb up. If there are steps, you can ascend and
descend by yourself, can't you? Christ is our altar. That's not
a thing. That's not a place. That's not a do. Something man
can do. It's something that's been done.
It's a person that completed a work. Christ is our altar.
That's where the Lord will come to us. Where is it in Christ?
In Christ is where He will bless us. Christ, our altar, was made
flesh. He was made to this earth, wasn't
He? came here, made of God, and what the Lord requires, He provides. That physical altar, it couldn't
be shaped or chiseled on, and stones must be just as God made
it. And you bring Him what He's given. Could be any steps. We could ascend by degrees to
the Father, and we might think we're getting just a little bit
better, a little bit closer to God with each step. That's not
the case. What was this for? In Hebrews 13, it says, Be not
carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is
a good thing that the heart be established with grace. Isn't
that great grace? I came to approach a holy God,
I offended. I come into this world cursing
Him. And He said, You're going to
come to me and I'm going to give you the means by which I'll bless you.
That's grace we're sitting on. That's unmerited favor to a people
that do not deserve it. Great grace. He says, Let your
heart be established and great, not with meats which have not
profited them, that they have been corrupted thereon, occupied
therein. We have an altar. This establishment of grace.
We have an altar. and wherever they have no right
to eat, which serve the tabernacle." Those that want a religion, those
that want steps to go up, those that want their hand to hew it
out, and I'm going to, now you're going to bend away, we're going
to gang up on him, we're going to pray our way to getting something
done in this world. We'll stop his wars, we'll stop
his viruses. He said, you ain't worthy to
eat at it. We have an altar. It's done.
God made it. We must come to Christ, God's
way. And we must come to God through
Christ. By His grace alone, believing
Him alone, trusting Him alone. And He's the one who tread the
winepress alone, wasn't He? He's the one that bore our sins
alone in His body on the tree. He's worthy to come to. Now here's
our life in this world, back in Genesis 12. That child that the Lord comes
to in grace, I mean tenderness and loving mercy, and He reveals
Himself to them, and He speaks to them. We're still trapped
in this body of death. There's a new heart the Lord
gives. He gives life into His children. There's a new creation
within them that does not sin, cannot sin, totally just like
Him, because it's His seed that's in them, but it's housed in this
old body. It's housed in this old man that
we walk around in. And that's how we live in this
world. We're not in a world that's our home. We have a promise in
Christ to be made like Him forever. This is where we happen to be
right now. And we're journeying through this barren land. And
enemies are all around us. And they hate us and they hate
the God we worship. It says here in verse 8, Genesis 12a, And
He removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched
his tent, having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east. And there he built an altar unto
the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord." Bethel there
means house of God. That was on his west. Hai on
the east, the place of ruin. What did Abraham do? Did he build
a nice big strong house in the middle? No, he pitched a tent.
It was temporary. It was a temporary dwelling.
He's got the house of God on his right corrupt place of ruin
on his left. And he's up on a mountain. He
can see both places at once. Well, there's the house of God
and there's Rood. How do you know that's it? I can see it.
I can see it. I have eyes to see it, don't
I? Hey, I on the east, Bethel on the west. He's in a heathen
place. And when the sun comes up in the morning, he looks to
ruin. Is that the first thing we see?
Our ruin? That's the first thing we look
at, what a corrupt, horrible, disobedient, unworthy, profitable
servant I am. It's ruined. He sees all them
Canaanites all around him, all around that hill. But as he's
in the presence of the S-U-N longer, as he's in the presence
of the S-O-N longer, as that sun beats on him and the light
hits him longer, he ends up following that sun to the west, doesn't
he? When he sees the house of God, he looks to Bethel. What does he do? In the face
of adversity, in the face of all the impossibilities of his
mind, seeing what ruin he is, seeing how holy and just God
is, what does he do? At the end of verse 8, and there
he built an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the
Lord. Fear didn't work in him, did
it? He was afraid, but it didn't rule him. It didn't have him
by a bitten bridle. Solomon said, The fear of man bringeth a snare,
but whosoever putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. There's
a whole lot of dangers around him. And that altar was built
on a mountain. All the enemies around could
see. All the heathen could see it. It was a lot on a hill. What
did the Abrams diligence? Was the Abrams faithfulness upon
that hill? No, it was that altar. What's that thing he's building?
I don't like it. I can't do nothing to those stones, but I can do
something to Abram. Nothing's changed, has it? Nothing's changed. Christ exalted is what infuriates
people. The old man can't stand it and
the new man enjoys and appreciates the opportunity to bow to it.
to come to Him and worship Him. Note that. It says in verse 8,
He removed from thence to a mountain east of Bethel, and pitched His
tent, having Bethel on the west, and Haiah on the east. We live
in this tent. Children of God live in a tent,
in a temporary tabernacle on this earth. And we can see our
two natures. We see our ruin and our birth
from Adam, our father. But thanks be to God, because
I've crossed our altar. our mediator, our high priest,
our intercessor, we can see the house of God. We can see that. That's not double-minded. When
the scriptures speak of somebody that's double-minded, that means
just hysteria and disorderly and talking out of both sides
of your mouth and a doubled heart. That's not an old man and a new
man. That's that old nature saying, I hate them people and the old
nature speaking, well, I sure do like you. Hello. Don't eat at them people's places.
They might spit in your food. You've got to watch them. That's
not double-minded. Abram's seeing here, that's not
double-minded. That's an old man and a new man.
What's the difference? He knew it. He knew it. Somebody's got two natures, knows
they've got an old one. People fight that and I say,
well, I don't believe in that. Well, you won't until you've got two
of them. What did Paul say? Didn't Paul write that in Romans
7? He was talking about this war going on inside of them.
He said, all the things I want to do I don't and all the things
I do do I wish I didn't. And he said, for I know. He didn't
say I think. He didn't say I read in some
dissertation of a theologian from the 1700s. He said, I know. He's experienced it. I know that
in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. He knew it. Did Abram go up that hill and
build an altar by accident? No. He knew it. He knew what
he was. He knew where he was. He could
see it. God gave my eyes to see. Do you know or think that there's
two natures in you? Do I? Ain't nobody in this room
can brag on me as good as I can. It's true. If y'all thought half
as good as me as I think of myself, I'd be, we'd be getting along
just fine, wouldn't we? When I'm alone in my closet.
And I ain't ashamed to say it. When I'm in front of you, I'm
preaching. I'm getting ready to preach. What a worthless wretch
I am. And my only hope is that Christ
died for me. And I'll worship Him. And I don't
sit around. I spent years doing that. Thirty
years ago, am I one of God's elect? I worship Him. Do you see Him? Do you need Him?
getting all the technical stuff and bow. That's what you need
to do. Who's going to bow to God? His people will. His people
will. Sin is present, but it doesn't
have dominion over crossed sheep. How can I know that? Because
Abram says there, and he built an altar unto the Lord and called
upon the name of the Lord. He didn't call upon the name
of a God or some God or just any old God. He called upon the
name of the Lord. He worshiped the true and living
God. So he bowed to. What a strong man. Oh, come out
of that five years of disobedience. Look at him. And to face all
that adversity. I'm going to climb a mountain.
I'm going to worship God. We don't like you. I don't care.
I'm going to worship Him. Then what happens? Verse 9. And Abram journeyed going on
still toward the south. He's going to go down to him
and Sarai are going to go to Egypt. We'll look at that next
time. He's going to say, you're awful
pretty. He had a beautiful wife. And he said, that king's going
to try to kill me and take you. You tell him you're my sister.
That way I can live. He sold his wife to spare his
own neck, didn't he? Have you ever been on a mountaintop
and it ended up in a valley? Happens over and over. You know
what's going to happen on that mountaintop? You see Christ and Him crucified
and you worship Him and you bow to Him. What happens when you
go down in the valley? You're going to be there a while. You'll tarry.
When you're surrounded and you have no defenses and you have
no hope in yourself and no ability, you're going to see Him. And
you'll be back on the mountain worshiping, ain't you? You'll
be lifted up again.