This morning, as I said when we began the life of Abraham, I promise you this is my third message, and I promise you this morning we’re going to get him into the promised land. We haven’t quite got there yet.
Let us read a Scripture from Acts 7:2-4. This is Stephen speaking:
Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken.
The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,
And 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 in Haran: and from thence, when his father was dead, He removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.
We have been sharing on the life of Abraham, and it is going to take a little while because there is so much that the Lord has to share with us out of the life of this brother, Abraham.
The last time I shared, I emphasized that Abraham’s calling, when the God of glory appeared to Abraham, was a calling. Whenever the Lord appears to you or speaks to you, it is a calling. There is something about when we see the Lord: it becomes a calling in our life. It becomes the ministry of our life. It becomes the purpose of our life.
That calling, as we saw last time, was by the grace of God—unmerited favor. From Joshua 24:2, we learn that Abraham was in Ur of the Chaldees, a land of idols; and tradition has it that his father was a maker of idols. Most likely, Abraham and his father worshipped these idols.
There was no merit that we can discover from the Word of God, no reason why God should choose Abraham. He chose him by grace—unmerited favor. There is not a person in this room who knows the Lord Jesus Christ who was not saved by the unmerited favor of God. It was grace.
There was nothing within us for which God could look and say, “Yes, that is the one I need. He has the character that I need. He has the abilities that I need, and I choose him.” No, God chooses us at a zero level of life, you might say, even at a minus level. He has to redeem us and bring us to the place where we can serve His purpose. It is by the grace of God that we are called.
Secondly, it was the God of glory who appeared to Abraham. How important it is that we touch the God of glory, that we see something of the God of glory.
Abraham received revelation, not information about God, but revelation. So many people today will say, “Yes, well, I believe God,” but there is no revelation there. It is only information that has convinced them that there may be a God, but they have no personal relationship. That is how important it is that we touch this God of glory. And He is the God of glory.
This calling of Abraham was not based on Abraham’s ability or character, but it was based on the glory of God—the God of glory. In other words, God calls according to glory. He calls you according to glory.
What does that mean? He calls you based on what He is satisfied with. He has a purpose for your life, and when that purpose is met, He will be satisfied. He will bring you to glory, and we know that the glory to which we are coming is to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. That is the glory.
That is your calling according to glory—not according to your merits, but according to the glory of God. He is going to transform you into the image of His only Son, Jesus Christ. In being transformed, He will build you into the body of Christ, into the church, into that living building: living stones built together.
He will build you in to become, in a corporate sense, the bride of Christ, His helpmate forever and ever. What a glorious calling. We have heard it quite a bit over the years, but I am not sure the impact of the glory of that calling has truly struck our hearts.
Just think about one day being fully transformed into the image of Christ, brothers and sisters—to be part of the helpmate of Christ for eternity upon eternity upon eternity.
I do not think we will be sitting on clouds playing harps. I think God has much in store. Our imagination cannot even begin to think of all the glory that God has intended in the future. But it is coming. It is coming.
He calls us according to glory, and that calling is a calling of His purpose. It is not our purpose, but His.
In view of the great calling in Romans 8:28, Paul reminds us of this great calling and says we have been called according to purpose. He goes on and ends that summary by saying, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” In other words, in view of this great calling, God is for us. Nothing really can be against us, though we have many things against us. So great is His calling. It shows us how much God is for us, and we should remember that.
Our being saved is not God’s end. It is not God’s purpose. It is God’s beginning in your life, though. It is the beginning, not the end, of what God wants in your life.
Just to be saved brings no glory to God. Well, I should not say that. It pleases God when we accept His salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ. But, brothers and sisters, if we do not continue on to develop into that vessel that God so greatly desires, how much pleasure will we bring Him? Probably very little.
So, our being saved is just the beginning. We should not rest just on our salvation, but we are to be conformed into the image of His Son and built into this body of Jesus Christ as a habitation for God.
Let us read Genesis 12:1. Keep your Bibles open to that, because we are going to be reading portions of it as we go on this morning.
Now the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee.
When the Lord of glory appeared to Abraham, this was the first thing the Lord said to him. He said, “You need to leave this country. You need to leave your kindred. You need to leave your father’s house, and you need to go. I am not exactly going to tell you where you are going right now, but you need to go out.”
In other words, when the God of glory appeared to Abraham, He gave some requirements to Abraham. Those requirements were basically to leave his old environment, to leave his old relationships, to leave the land, to leave his old house, and go to a new place.
In other words, he was to leave his old life behind and begin a new life. When the God of glory met him, something tremendous happened to Abraham. His whole life was to change. God said, “There are some requirements here. You have to leave the old because I am calling you to a new way of life, a new relationship, a new environment, a new place.”
Abraham was not going to be able to live the life he used to live. Things were going to change, and Abraham needed to respond to that. He was calling Abraham, basically, out of himself unto God.
Brothers and sisters, the promised land is not heaven. I know there are many songs that talk about getting to that promised land, and everybody thinks of it in terms of heaven. There is a sense in which that is correct.
The promised land is Christ. That is your promised land. That is your place of rest. That is where God wants you to dwell: in Christ. He is your promised land.
Now, that is heaven in that sense. But as far as a heavenly home, a physical place, that is not what the promised land stands for. It is Christ. He is your portion. He is your resting place. He calls Abraham to go out and possess that land, and that is our calling: to possess Jesus Christ.
When God called you, brothers and sisters, whether you realize it or not, He placed requirements on our lives. Those requirements include leaving the old life behind and going into this new life of faith with Him—to go out not knowing. You just take God at His Word, believe Him, and have faith. But you have to leave the old. There are no exceptions.
If you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, He has called you. His calling is upon you, and there are these requirements to leave the old behind and go into the new.
From the very beginning, the Holy Spirit in our life with the Lord begins to touch this thing and that thing—things we are going to have to leave behind. He touches our friendships. Abraham was asked to leave his kindred and friends.
He touches those things, brothers and sisters. He touches the habits that we have, good and bad. He touches the activities in which we are engaged. He touches the pleasures which we enjoy. He touches relationships, even those most honored ones with our family.
We are being called to a new way of life, and the Holy Spirit in us will direct us in this way.
Our brother used a term in his past message: the Holy Spirit was referred to as “the resident boss”—the resident boss in your life. This resident boss is saying, “You have to do away with the old, and you have to live in the new. I am going to show you. I am going to point my finger. I am going to let you know. And not only that, I am the power of God to obey.”
The resident boss will direct your life. He corrects your life. He adjusts your life, and He is the power in your life. We have been called to this new life in Christ.
Did Abraham obey? Did Abraham obey God? If you read Hebrews 11:8, it says:
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
Praise the Lord. Abraham did respond by faith. He did go out. He did leave his country. He left his friends. He left some of his kindred.
But let us read Genesis 12:2-5:
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing:
And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
So Abram went, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
We can see from verse 5 that Abraham finally made it into the land. But as you read those Scriptures, you discover something: he went out from Haran. We know his journey began in Ur of the Chaldees. Haran is halfway between Ur of the Chaldees and Canaan. It is halfway there.
Something had happened in this journey of his obedience of faith. He had left, but he only got halfway to the promised land. We see that he actually settled down there.
Let me put it this way: his obedience was not complete. It was partial. He did go out, but he stopped short of full obedience.
Why did Abraham stop short of fully obeying the Lord? Let us look at Genesis 11:31-32, and we will begin to see a fuller picture of what happened.
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldeans, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
We see something that happened. Why was there not full obedience on Abraham’s part? Even though Abraham went out, the Lord was not leading Abraham. Terah, his father, was leading Abraham.
In other words, the old man was in charge. The flesh was in charge. Man was in charge, not the Lord.
When they got halfway, they decided to take a little rest. That rest turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years. Terah, his father, was completely satisfied there.
They began to make their dwelling there. They began to farm the land, take care of the cattle, increase, and have children there. Terah decided that Haran was good enough, and Abraham went along with him.
Just think about this. Terah went out with his son, but he was leading. When he got to this place, it was apparently a good place to be. He was satisfied there. They became prosperous there, and it appeared that the Lord’s blessing was upon them there.
The families were increasing. The cattle were increasing. Apparently, the crops were coming in well. It was a comfortable life. There was nobody in conflict with them. Things were very comfortable, and they settled into this way of life in Haran, halfway between Ur of the Chaldees and the promised land.
It was a good life. It was a satisfying life. But it did not satisfy God. That is the point.
We can become satisfied, cannot we, with our Christian life? But God is not yet satisfied until we achieve His full purpose.
Abraham had been asked to leave his old way of life, his kindred, and his father’s house. Brothers and sisters, we have close relationships in this life, but we cannot let those relationships, no matter how close, overrule God’s will for our lives.
He knew Abraham would not stand up under Terah, his father, and He asked him to leave. That is why He had to ask him to actually cut it off. But Abraham just could not do it, so he partially obeyed.
Obviously, when he went to his father Terah and said, “Terah, the God of glory has appeared to me,” Terah probably said, “Uh-huh.” Like many fathers would probably say, “Son, what has happened? What is wrong with you? What is this, the God of glory appearing to you?”
Terah loved his son, obviously. But God had not appeared to Terah, so he had no direct revelation that God had appeared to his son. I think he probably believed that a god had appeared to his son, but you have to remember, they were used to worshipping all kinds of gods.
Adding one more god was not a big deal for Terah, because he did not see the God of glory. To him, when his son came and talked about this God, he probably said, “Oh, okay. Maybe there is another god that we have not worshipped yet. We can add Him to the list.”
“Son, you seem so convincing. You are so sure, and you have to go. I will go with you. Maybe this God that you have talked to has a better place for us.” And he did go with him.
But he did not just go with him, did he? He led his son out. He said, “If we are going, we need to do this, son. You need to get your family ready, and we are going to go out.” They did, but when they got to Haran, they settled down.
The best I can say is that Terah, at best, became convinced. But he did not have revelation. That is the key, I think, to the Christian life: revelation. That is when you come in touch with the living God.
All of you here who have accepted Jesus have had that. There have probably been times in your life when the Lord has really met you in a very personal way once again. He does that many times in our lives to draw us to Himself. It is real. It is reality.
But to Terah, it was not reality. It was his son’s experience that he was going on. Have you ever tried to live in another Christian’s experience?
For younger ones, your father and mother may love the Lord, and they want to go on with the Lord, but somehow you have not yet touched for yourself the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is real, but it takes the revelation of God.
But what of Abraham? This is the key for Abraham, or the key for his lack of full obedience: he honored his father more than he honored God.
I am not trying to be harsh at all, because we are all guilty of honoring things more than we do God. It does not necessarily have to be a family relationship. Sometimes we can honor other things in our lives more than God.
But that was the reason for Abraham’s lack of full obedience. He honored his father more than God. So, when his father led him out, as he had been used to doing all his life, Abraham submitted to his father instead of to God. He stopped short.
Not only did Terah stop short, but Abraham stopped short.
Brothers and sisters, when the God of glory calls you with this great calling of being transformed into the image of Christ and being built into His house as a living habitation for Him, there are some things that have to happen.
One of the things is that He begins to deal with your old life and your old way of life. One of those dealings invariably will be your relationships: your relationship to your friends, to your parents, and to the one you love most dearly. Often, that is the most challenging.
The Lord wants to be in control of your life. He does not want others in control of your life.
Now, that does not mean we have to literally leave our parents or somebody we are close to. However, sometimes a cutting off is required. It might not be a physical cutting off, but in the Lord’s way we may have to say, “No, this is the way I have to go. This is what the Lord has shown me. I have to obey Him. I cannot obey you.”
The Lord deals with us. Often our deepest dealings have to do with our family life. Nothing in your life should be controlling your life except the Lord. That does not mean other things do not affect your life, but the ultimate control has to be God’s.
Secondly, Terah was his old man. Spiritually, Terah represents the flesh. The spiritual analogy is that Terah represents the old man, the flesh.
When your flesh is in control of your life, I can guarantee you that you will stop short. You too will stop halfway. You will not go all the way. Once you become satisfied, you will stop. That is the way of the flesh.
The flesh in your life—that me, that I—once the conscience gets appeased, says, “I have gotten halfway there. I feel good about that. I think I have appeased the Lord. I can settle down now.”
You can settle down into what, brothers and sisters, I guarantee you will become a religious life—just a religious life. Not a living relationship with the Lord, but just a religious life, going through the motions.
Why? Because you have gone halfway. Why? Because the flesh, not the Lord, is in control of your life.
Thirdly, we must have revelation. We must have vision. We must have that real, living relationship with the Lord, and it must be maintained in a fresh manner.
As soon as that relationship wanes in your life, you will slow down. In fact, you will stop short of what God wants you to do. You will stop short of God’s eternal purpose: to be transformed into the image of Christ.
At some point, you will just say, “It is enough. It is okay.” You will not say, “I am there.” We have enough reasoning power to realize that we are not all God wants us to be, but we say, “This is enough. I am just going to settle in right here.” I do not know that we say that to ourselves, but that is what actually happens.
The remnant that was called back out of captivity to build the house of God—the fifty thousand who left—eventually stopped. That great calling they had to build the house of God stopped. The building work stopped.
They got tired. They got worn out. They got oppressed. They were beat up. Everybody was against them, and they finally gave up. The work on the house of God stopped for many years.
Finally, the Lord through the prophet had to say, “Look. Look what you are doing. Now you are concentrating on your own house. You are building your own house.” He says, “Your ceiled houses,” which means they were not merely building a simple house to meet their needs. They were really going all out for their own houses. And He says, “My house lieth waste.”
That is what happens, brothers and sisters, when ultimately we let the flesh control.
We do not know how long this condition lasted—how long Abraham was actually in Haran—but we know a few facts from the Scriptures. Abraham was seventy-five years old when he left.
I thought about this. David was called at a very young age, probably fifteen or sixteen years old. Daniel, when he was taken off into captivity and made a real stand for God, was probably around twenty years old.
If Abram was twenty years old when he left, he would have been in Haran for fifty-five years. Maybe he was more like Moses. Moses first realized his calling when he was forty. If Abraham was forty years old, he would have spent thirty-five years in Haran.
We do not know. I do not know how long he was there. But it does say that they multiplied. They had children there. They were obviously really dwelling there with no intention of leaving. I think that is the point.
Let us put it another way. Abraham, by not being able to come through in the Lord concerning his relationship with his father, fell short. There was a lack of full obedience, and he got into a situation he just could not deal with. He could not handle it.
Eventually, I think he just gave up the thought of getting into the promised land. He said, “What can I do? I love my father. He loves me. We are here in Haran. Everything is going well. We are being blessed here. Maybe Dad was right.”
He just gave up on God’s purpose. He settled into what I would call a respectable Christian life—just there, enjoying the land where he was.
Brothers and sisters, have you ever gotten in that place? Have you gotten in situations you just could not handle? I have been there. If you have lived very long, you have probably been there too.
There is something you probably could have done, but you just could not. You could not deal with it. It affected your Christian life. You are not growing in Christ as you should. You are not going on to be transformed into the image of Christ. You are not truly being built into the house of God.
You say, “I do not know what I can do about it. I guess it is okay. I just give up on that thought.”
Circumstances, offenses—a lot of things can come into our lives to stop us, brothers and sisters. We finally get tired, quit wrestling with it, and give up. We become discouraged.
We get halfway there and drop out. We drop out of the race. Hebrews talks about running the race, and we all think in terms of making it to the end. But Abraham was halfway, and he dropped out of the race—this great man of faith.
No longer growing in Christ, no longer denying himself and taking up the cross.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know where we are. We are all at different places in the Lord. But may He wake us up this morning. May we not be settled down halfway in what God’s purpose is for our lives.
His calling is great, but sometimes we lose sight of that. Our eyes get on all the problems, circumstances, issues, and offenses that may have occurred, and we just cannot go. But may we wake up.
May we repent and say, “Lord, I am in the wrong place. Take me on, Lord. I am not satisfied.” We get satisfied in our dissatisfaction.
The Bible has another word for it. The Lord calls the hungry and thirsty, brothers and sisters. Only the hungry and thirsty go on. Once we become satisfied, we stop.
Abraham was in a real fix. We have no record of any communication from the Lord with Abraham during those years. He had started out in this glorious calling, gotten halfway, and stopped. It is as if all the communication was cut off.
He was hopeless. There was nothing he could do. He had faltered in his commitment to God, but God had not faltered in His commitment to Abraham.
God sovereignly moved in Abraham’s life to get him out of that situation. He took Abraham’s father, Terah. Terah died. You notice that upon his death, it says they left—but not until Terah had died.
God basically removed that tremendous hindrance in his life sovereignly. How much God loves Abraham. How much He loves you and me.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know if this has ever happened in your life, but perhaps there was something blocking your way, something that caused you to drop from the race, and you could not seem to do anything about it. Then God moved, and you found yourself once again able to go.
Praise the Lord, brothers and sisters. God made a way for Abraham, and He can make a way for us. He does not want us to stop halfway short of His purpose.
Let us read Genesis 12:4-5 again:
So Abram went, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
I want to read that again: “They went forth into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.”
I looked at that and said, “Lord, I will not be absolute about this, but it really seems to me that God is so thrilled, that the Holy Spirit is so thrilled, that He puts a double emphasis on Abraham getting into the land—back into the purpose to which He called him.”
“He went forth into the land of Canaan,” and then He emphasizes it: “Into the land of Canaan they came.” Finally, hallelujah. It is almost as if the Holy Spirit is saying, “Thank God. Abraham did respond.”
God got him out of his situation, and he responded. He came on, and he was now back in God’s purpose. He was back to what God had brought him and purchased him for in the first place.
God has your life. He is in control. He is Lord of your life. Sometimes we do get out of the way. We stop, we are not in the race, and He moves and finally gets us to respond. It is almost like He says, “Hallelujah, you are back in My purpose.”
There is a lot of joy there, I think. Is that not true of your own children, brothers and sisters? You see them taking a certain stand or going a certain way, and as parents you learn that you cannot talk to them, so you pray for them—which is the best thing you can do.
Then one day, something happens. You see their path change. They turn back to the Lord’s way. What rejoicing is in your heart.
Do you not think that God rejoices for those who respond, who have stopped halfway, and He is able to do something and once again get them back on the path? It is like, “Hallelujah, and into the land of Canaan they came.”
They are back in the business of possessing Christ, being transformed into His image, and being built into the house of God.
When Terah died, when somebody close to us dies, we always reflect. We reflect on our lives, the life of the one who has passed away, and our relationship to them. We should, I think, rightfully so.
But I think in Abraham’s reflecting, the Holy Spirit probably pricked his conscience—or maybe God reappeared to him. It does not say He did. But however God did it, He brought him to remembrance of his calling: what he had been called to do, to go into the promised land.
He caused him, probably, to think about God’s calling and God’s promise. Remember, He promised him, “Get into the land, and I will make of thee a great nation and a great name. All the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Brothers and sisters, think about what would have happened if Abraham had just decided to stay in Haran. It was through his seed that all the families of the earth would be blessed. Eventually Christ would be born of that seed, and that is our blessing.
I am sure God would have made another way, but just think of the impact of Abraham’s life on your life and my life. We are all joined together. We really are.
During this time of reflection, as the Lord began to prick his heart, I think something happened: faith. As he remembered God’s promise, I believe faith began to rise in his heart once again.
Faith is kind of like a boat. Once you put a hole in it, it might sink slowly, but it will eventually sink, because the faith in it eventually leaks out. Sometimes we have a leaky boat, and the faith has leaked out.
But I believe faith arose in his heart. He was able to rise up in faith and go into the promised land. We think of our father Abraham, the father of faith. Brothers and sisters, he did not have perfect, impeachable faith. Sometimes he faltered.
But God is the Author and Finisher of our faith. He finished with Abraham’s faith. We see him being able to offer up his own son on Mount Moriah. What faith he had.
God understands us. God is able to lead us in this pathway of faith. Abraham got his eyes back on the Lord. He got his eyes back on the Lord’s purpose, and he realized, “I have settled short of what God wanted. There is more.”
Brothers and sisters, there is more. If you choose to remain where you are in your Christian life, you will miss the more. The more is always important, and there always should be more.
I hope saying all these “mores” does not confuse everybody. More is important. He saw that there was more, and he was not going to be able to have that more unless he went on in the Lord.
Let us read Genesis 12:6-7:
And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.
The Holy Spirit puts these little zingers in there. Abraham finally makes it to the promised land, and God is rejoicing. He is back in His purpose. Then all of a sudden, he gets there and what is he facing? The Canaanites are there. The giants—the Canaanites were giants.
How discouraging that must have been. He was finally back in God’s will, back in God’s purpose. He was moving on with the Lord, and all of a sudden, when he gets to the promised land, he is faced with these giants. It is already occupied.
I have a feeling Abraham was probably thinking, “When I get there, that land of milk and honey, I will just be able to enjoy the land and rest and till the land, and it will be marvelous.” Poor Abraham got an awakening at that point.
It could have been so discouraging. Abraham was expecting blessing, probably an easy way. He was back in God’s purpose.
I have a feeling the Holy Spirit put that in there to let us know that something happened in Abraham’s life that he was not expecting. He was probably pretty discouraged at that point.
But God once again moved. In verse 7, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” There Abraham built an altar to the Lord, who appeared to him.
Amazing. The Lord realized Abraham’s heart. He realized that his faith could be wounded once again, that he could just sink down and give up. So He appeared to him again.
He said, “You are in the land. You are in the way. You are back in the race. I know these are giants, but look: this is My promise. Your children will inherit this land. It is yours.”
Abraham could only take that by faith, because he certainly did not have any children yet, and the land was not his yet. But in faith, the land was his. Do you see?
Faith is able to apprehend what we cannot physically see or understand. By faith, the land was his. The land was his children’s. Brothers and sisters, how critical faith is. But it does take the Lord in our lives, in freshness, for that faith to be there.
Two very telling things are that Shechem, where they were, means shoulder, and Moreh means teacher. That is where Abraham stopped, and that is where he built this altar.
To me, that is saying a couple of things. First, Shechem being the shoulder, the Lord was saying, “Abraham, you need to learn to lean on Me. Lean on My shoulder. I am going to take care of you.”
“Do not fret over these giants. Do not fret over the circumstances. It looks like it is so against you. Do not fret because something unexpected has happened. Just lean on Me. Do not lean to your own understanding. Just trust Me, Abraham. That is what I want you to do.”
Secondly, “I am your teacher. I will teach you how to possess this land. I will teach you all you need to know in this life of faith and how to live it.” What encouragement, brothers and sisters, when the Lord touches our lives and we are on the way again.
We need to know that sometimes the Lord uses the enemy to train us and develop us spiritually. Sometimes He uses difficult circumstances to bring us in the way.
Then Abraham built the altar, and he worshipped the Lord. He saw the Lord; he worshipped. That was his response.
Setting up that altar—the altar in the Old Testament is the same as the cross in the New Testament—was Abraham saying, “Lord, it is all Your work.” That is what he was really saying.
“I am here because of You, and I am going to go on because of You, Lord. You are Lord of my life.” That is what the altar meant. It is all Your work, Lord, and I am at Your feet.
When we get back right with the Lord, we think everything is going to go great. But the Lord has not promised you a rose garden. We know that song so well, and it is a good one to use.
He said, “In the world ye have tribulation.” In 1 Peter, it says:
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you.
You are going to have trials, but do not think it strange. Do not think that something is wrong, because the Lord is working in your life. He is trying you, and He is developing you. The Lord does use even the enemy to help us.
Let us read Genesis 12:8:
And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Ai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.
Once again, we see Abraham communing with the Lord. He is in a different place now, and it says he was between Bethel and Ai.
Bethel is God’s purpose. Bethel means house of God, and that is God’s purpose. All the glory of His Son is going to be revealed in this house. It is the house of God, and it is His purpose.
Ai means a heap of stones, or rubble. It is not too hard to figure out what the Lord is trying to show Abraham.
“Abraham, you need to stay in My purpose. This house that I am building is very important, and you need to stay in the way of My purpose. If you do not, the alternative is Ai—a place of rubble.”
You know what rubble is. At least in those days, it was just a pile of stones. Something had been there, but it collapsed. Just a pile of stones.
Brothers and sisters, that is what happens when we stop short of the Lord’s purpose. We just become a pile of stones—rubble—not in the purpose of God, not in the house of God.
I think the Lord is showing Abraham how important it is for him to stay in God’s purpose. Brothers and sisters, we cannot afford to stop short.
Often, we have this independent nature, and we say, “Well, I do not really need my brother or sister. I have the Lord. I can just go to the Lord. I have great communion with the Lord.”
“I do not need to assemble with the saints.” Even though the Scripture says, “Not forsaking our own assembling together,” we say, “It is okay.”
You know what that is like—being independent like that? It is like a stone in the field. It might be a beautiful stone, one that you would want in your front yard, but is it serving God’s purpose?
What if I get a whole bunch of stones like that and just pile them together? Is that serving God’s purpose? No. They actually have to be built together.
Brothers and sisters, that is difficult. That is not easy. That is the way in which the Lord often transforms us into the image of Christ, because there is a lot of conflict. There is a lot of chiseling going on, so to speak, to get those stones ready. That is the way of the Lord.
Ai and Bethel: being in God’s purpose. May we not stop short, and if we have, may the Lord encourage us to go on.
Lord, we just come to Thee this morning. Lord, I pray that You would cause us all to reflect this morning and consider our lives before You—what we are about and what we are doing.
Lord, have we just gotten discouraged or offended? Have we just gotten satisfied and are living a religious life? Lord, all these things can cause us to drop out of the race.
I pray that You would awaken us all, Lord, that we would get up and get back in the race. Lord Jesus, we would not let the giants stop us.
Lord, we would learn to lean on You. Lord Jesus, we could allow You to continue to show us Your ways and lead us on, that Your purpose might be fulfilled.
Lord, we just look to Thee. Oh Lord, how we can so easily drift, so easily find ourselves sitting by the wayside.
We pray, Lord, that You will use what we have said today to encourage us, to wake us up, and to bring us on. I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.