The scripture reading for today is Genesis chapter
13.
So if you have your Bibles with you,
turn with me to Genesis chapter 13.
I want to read the entire chapter.
You remember the context.
Abram has been given his great promises after
the vision in Ur of the Chaldees.
He has finally reached the land, entered into
the land, found a famine in the land,
left the land evidently without asking the Lord
concerning the divine directions, went down into Egypt,
there was humiliated because of the deception that
he sought to practice against Pharaoh in connection
with Sarah, his wife.
And now being forced out of the land
of Egypt, sent home by the heathen Pharaoh,
Abram retraces his way back to the land,
back to the beginning of the deepest relationship
that he had enjoyed with the Lord.
So we begin reading at verse 1.
So Abram went up from Egypt to the
Negev, he and his wife and all that
belonged to him and lot with him.
Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in
silver and in gold.
Completely prepared for inflation.
Lots of gold, silver.
And he went on his journeys from the
Negev as far as Bethel to the place
where his tent had been at the beginning
between Bethel and Ai.
Now if you'll look over on the other
page, Genesis chapter 12 verse 8, there you
read, then he proceeded from there to the
mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched
his tent with Bethel on the west and
Ai on the east.
And there he built an altar to the
Lord and called upon the name of the
Lord.
So Moses refers to this.
Abram has made his way back now to
the place where he had been in his
first penetration of the land.
Verse 4.
To the place of the altar which he
had made there formerly and there Abram called
on the name of the Lord.
Now lot who went with Abram also had
flocks and herds and tents and the land
could not sustain them while dwelling together for
their possessions were so great that they were
not able to remain together.
And there was strife between the herdsmen of
Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.
Trouble down on the ranch and the difficulty
was pasturage for the livestock.
Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling
then in the land.
Then Abram said to Lot, Please let there
be no strife between you and me nor
between my herdsmen and your herdsmen for we
are brothers.
Is not the whole land before you?
Please separate from me.
If to the left then I will go
to the right or if to the right
then I will go to the left.
And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw
all the valley of the Jordan that it
was well watered everywhere.
This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Like the garden of the Lord, like the
land of Egypt as you go to Zohar.
So Lot chose for himself all the valley
of the Jordan and Lot journeyed eastward.
Thus they separated from each other.
Abram settled in the land of Canaan while
Lot settled in the cities of the valley
and moved his tents as far as Sodom.
Now the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly
and sinners against the Lord and it's obvious
that Moses makes a great deal over that.
He singles that out for special attention in
order to draw our attention to the implications
of the choice of Lot.
And the Lord said to Abram after Lot
had separated from him, Now lift up your
eyes and look from the place where you
are northward and southward and eastward and westward
for all the land which you see.
I will give it to you and to
your descendants forever.
And I will make your descendants as the
dust of the earth so that if anyone
can number the dust of the earth, then
your descendants can be numbered.
We often make these comments because it's often
misunderstood that when we speak in the Bible
of the grace of God and the grace
of God in his choice of us, there
are many who do not understand this.
I was sitting at table after the first
message this morning just a few moments ago
in which a lady who's been attending the
chapel for a number of years now commented
upon the fact that she had grown up
in an evangelical church and did not know
anything about the doctrines of election and how
much it had come to mean to her.
But often when doctrines such as this are
mentioned, the doctrine of the grace of God,
his sovereign grace in his work in our
hearts, and that he passes by others, ones
are inclined to be very critical and say,
Well, evidently the kind of God that is
proclaimed there is a kind of God who
has just a few little groups of people
clustered together in heaven, in all the vastness
of heaven, not realizing that there are many
other people up there beside them.
You've heard the stories.
But you see that the biblical account is
quite contrary to that.
The biblical account proclaims the doctrine of the
sovereign grace of God in his activity in
the hearts of the saints, but at the
same time lets us know that the numbers
in heaven are going to be so great
that they cannot be numbered.
We read here they are to be Abram's
descendants as the dust of the earth.
And so if you can number the dust
of the earth, then you can number the
number of the saints of God who shall
be in heaven throughout all eternity.
We do not proclaim a God who saves
a few, but he saves such vast numbers
of people, not all, but such vast numbers
of people that they cannot be numbered.
They come from every tribe, kindred, tongue, and
nation.
We read in the last book of the
Bible.
So when we talk about the grace of
God, it is wonderful grace not only in
its special salvation of us, but also in
the breadth and amplitude of its effects.
Now we read, The Lord said to Abram,
Arise, walk about the land through its length
and breadth, for I will give it to
you.
Put your feet on it, Abram.
Tangible.
Then Abram moved his tent, and came and
dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are
in Hebron.
And there he built an altar to the
Lord.
May God bless this reading of his word.
Our subject for this morning in the exposition
of the book of Genesis is the lure
of the invisible and Abram's wise choice.
In our last study of the book of
Genesis, in the latter part of Genesis chapter
12, we saw that Abram went down into
Egypt and there, having deceived Pharaoh, he was
humiliated when the deception was discovered, and then
he was sent out.
It was a shameful way for the great
example of faith, that which Abraham is, to
live, and consequently it is obvious that Abram
did not appear to great advantage in the
latter part of that chapter.
But nevertheless, in spite of that, it became
a singular instance of sovereign mercy to the
undeserving, because by the sovereign providence of God,
Abram and Sarah and Lot and their family
were sent out of Egypt back into the
land.
Abram's experience is referred to in passages in
the Old Testament, and one of them is
Psalm 105 verses 14 and 15, a text
that I referred to last Sunday morning.
He, that is God, permitted no man to
oppress them, and he reproved kings for their
sakes.
Do not touch my anointed ones, and do
my prophets no harm, the psalmist wrote.
And then he also wrote in Psalm 103
and verse 10 in a text that we
sometimes quote, he has not dealt with us
according to our sins, nor rewarded us according
to our iniquities.
We generally speaking have applied that to the
fact that he has justified us in spite
of our sinning, in spite of the guilt
and condemnation of our sins, and of course
that is true.
But it is also true that in the
Christian life we find great manifestations of the
mercy of God in his providence toward us
when we have failed him.
And that appears to be the case in
Abram's descent into Egypt when the famine came
in the land.
It's interesting to me too that Pharaoh was
so anxious to get Sarah and Abram out
of Egypt that he did not even bother
to retrieve from them the dowry that he
had given to Abram for his marriage to
Sarah.
Such is the delivering power of God.
But this property that Abram acquired in the
land of Egypt would contribute to the new
problem that he faced.
For when he came back into the land,
a dispute arose over the question of the
properties that he and Lot possessed.
And when the difficulties arose between the two
groups of herdsmen or the two groups of
shepherds, there arose the temptation to Abraham to
self-assertion.
And it is that that we shall look
at particularly when we look at this event,
because Abram then was faced with the decision,
shall I do what I wish to do,
or shall I permit Lot to have first
choice of the territory?
I think that we have here an illustration
of the truth that is expressed in one
of Paul's statements which means a lot to
me.
I think as a matter of fact that
this statement that the Apostle makes in 2
Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 17 and 18
is, contains the principle by which Abram was
to live his life, the principle by which
we are to live our lives too.
But that text says, For momentary light affliction
is producing for us an eternal weight of
glory far beyond all comparison, while we look
not at the things which are seen, but
at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are
eternal.
Might have seemed to Abraham that this whole
enterprise of leaving Ur of the Chaldees, of
then proceeding north to Haran, finally coming into
the land, and then finding in the land
famine, and now further difficulties between the herdsmen
of Lot and Abram.
It might have seemed to Abram that everything
was going wrong and perhaps it would have
been well if he had not come back,
come into the land at all.
Perhaps he should have stayed right there in
Ur of the Chaldees.
Well, we shall see that the experiences of
Abram, of course, lead him to different convictions
later, but I can imagine that he might
have thought at this time that everything might
well have been a mistake.
When we turn now to the 13th chapter
and we read of the account of Abram's
return, of the difficulties that faced him there
and of the decision that was made.
Let me say just a word about Lot.
Lot is a rather significant character, and I
think that occasionally Lot's…
the influence of Lot and the place of
Lot is not fully understood.
Now, Lot has sometimes been likened to Plaubal.
Plaubal, remember, was one of those that, with
Christian, began to make their way toward the
Celestial City.
Remember right in the beginning, it was Obstinate
and Plaubal.
And as Christian, with the book in his
hand, made his way to the Celestial City,
talking about the glories of the Celestial City,
Obstinate, as his name suggests, did not respond.
But Plaubal was the kind of person who
did respond.
Now, you'll never find Plaubal praying.
As a matter of fact, when Plaubal is
presented in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, he's presented without
any burden on his back at all.
Plaubal is the kind of person who is
attracted by the good things that he was
hearing from Christian, as the Word of God
was referred to.
And so consequently, in the midst of their
acquaintance, Plaubal finally makes the comment that he
intends, or that he's very much attracted to
going to the land.
And then he says he intends to go.
And he goes largely because of the things
that he hears about the Celestial City, the
glories and the beauties of heaven.
A Plaubal, it seems to me, is the
kind of person who does not really have
an understanding of spiritual things at all, but
nevertheless he's a hanger-on.
And because of the strength of testimony of
some much stronger character, he's carried along.
There are lots of Plaubals among our young
people.
There are lots of Plaubals among husbands.
And there are lots of Plaubals among wives.
They really don't have any great conviction concerning
spiritual things at all, but they're attracted by
the glories of heaven and the joys of
the redeemed.
But as far as an understanding of their
own need and of the cross of Christ
and of the experience of having the burden
of sin roll off of their back, they
don't know anything about that.
But they tag along.
Our evangelical churches eventually have numbers of them.
And as the years go by, more and
more, mother had a great testimony and so
the children follow along, but no real experience
of the fundamental despair and then redemption that
mother had.
Or father, who's had the great experience with
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And because of the strength of the testimony
of father, this young Plaubal follows along, entranced
by the joys of heaven and the joys
of knowing the Lord, but not really having
entered into it personally.
Well, there are many ways in which Lot
was like that, but there was one way
in which he was different.
Lot, the New Testament tells us, was a
righteous man.
The New Testament tells us that he vexed
his righteous soul because of the things that
happened in the gate of Sodom.
He lived in the midst of these men
who were wicked sinners, exceedingly wicked sinners, and
he was unhappy over it because he really
truly had put his trust in the Lord
God Jehovah.
But at the same time, he was really
moved by the material things, as we shall
see.
Mr. Meyer says that he was simply an
echo, a dim afterglow, a chip on the
bosom of a mighty current.
And because of the great things that were
happening in the heroic faith of Abram, he
was fascinated and followed along largely in the
trail and tracts of Abram.
Well, there was some reality in Lot's life,
but we shall see that there was an
awful lot of unreality.
Now Abram's restoration to divine fellowship is set
forth for us in the first four verses
of this thirteenth chapter.
We've said that Abram's life represents a long
series of events in which he's challenged to
live up to the vision that was given
him by God in the beginning.
Now when the famine came, after he came
into the land, he was defeated by the
famine and failed and went down to Egypt.
Sovereign mercy delivered him, however, because God has
certain purposes in mind for Abram.
But now he faces a new difficulty.
But before he faces his difficulty, he makes
a pilgrimage.
Now remember, a pilgrimage is a journey to
a holy place.
That's the way we would define it in
our dictionary.
And so Abram is making his journey back
to the holy land, and we are told
here that he went back as far as
Bethel to the place where his tent had
been at the beginning between Bethel and Ai.
In other words, he retraced his steps, having
left the land when the famine came, having
disobeyed the Lord, having gone into the land
of Egypt without a word of inquiry as
to whether it was the Lord's will.
Having been humiliated, he now makes his way
back and makes his way back right to
the place where he had been, even to
the very altar that he had made there
formerly, and there he calls on the name
of the Lord.
I think it's rather interesting that he went
back to that place and not to Shechem,
where he had received the vision of the
Lord and the additional promises.
And perhaps the reason why he did not
go back to Shechem was because, guided by
the providence of God, there needed to be
prominent in his life a recognition of his
sin and of his disobedience.
And so when he came back to the
place where he had been at the beginning,
when things were right, when he was really
enjoying the life with the Lord, it was
a reminder to him of the need of
repentance and confession.
And there around the altar, he made his
repentance and confession and began to call on
the name of the Lord.
It's not an accident that Bible teachers have
often used the expression about saints who have
wandered from the path of fellowship with the
Lord back to Bethel, because that is a
beautiful geographical picture of what is necessary in
the spiritual realm.
In our own Christian lives, when we have
been disobedient, when we have wandered from the
will of God, when we have turned from
the vision that was given us when we
became Christians, it is necessary that we reflect
upon our situation, come to repentance over our
sin and disobedience, confess our sin before the
Lord and receive the forgiveness and begin our
life from that spiritual place.
So the geographical, the topographical is an illustration
of the spiritual experience necessary for the saints,
and so it is back to Bethel, back
to the place of fellowship, back to the
place of communion after repentance and confession.
So Abram is there and now he has
resumed his worship.
Tremendous theological truths expressed by altar, we've already
referred to those, I just mention them again
only briefly.
Remember, the altar which looms so large in
Abram's life is a recognition of sin.
The very fact that someone needed to bring
an animal and sacrifice the animal upon the
altar suggested the sin of the individual who
brought the animal.
So consequently, the altar suggests sin.
It suggests, incidentally, a sin so heinous that
it demands death for the animal must die.
And I don't think we're stretching it at
all when we talk about sin in the
sense of total depravity or total inability, by
which we mean, of course, that sin has
touched all aspects of our being.
Not every aspect as much as it may
test, affect every aspect of our being, but
it has touched every aspect of our being.
Our inability is total.
We cannot come to the knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ apart from divine enablement.
No man can come to me except the
Father which hath sent me draw him.
No man can, Jesus said, sin.
It also, of course, suggests sacrifice for altars
are places where sacrifices were made.
It suggests then death, an animal dying, and
there is no forgiveness of sins apart from
sacrifice.
They were taught right from the beginning that.
And we are taught that in the New
Testament in the fullest sense when the Lord
Jesus Christ is offered as the Lamb of
God that takes away the sin of the
world.
It was also a substitution because there on
the altar an animal was offered in order
that fellowship might be obtained between the offerer
and the Lord God.
And so the animal dies in the place
of the offerer.
The animal is a substitute, and it is
a valid substitution.
Not a possible substitution, but a valid substitution
that is effective, effective in the right removal
of sins so that when the Lord Jesus
dies as the substitutionary sacrifice, he truly substitutes
for those for whom he dies.
The substitution is effective.
If it's not effective, it's not a substitution.
No need to talk about substitutionary sacrifice if
the Lord Jesus Christ's substitution is not effective
for those for whom he dies.
So it is substitution.
And, of course, it is penal substitution because
the animal dies representative of the fact that
the Lord Jesus died under the judgment of
God for our sins.
He was the just, but he died for
the unjust.
When he cried out, My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?
He was.
Being, having been made sin for us, he
was making it possible for us to become
the righteousness of God in him.
It was, therefore, a satisfaction of the claims
of a holy God against men when Jesus
died.
All of this represented by that little statement,
he came back to the place of the
altar, the place that reminds us of our
sin, the place that reminds us of sacrifice
as the way to approach God, a substitutionary
sacrifice, a penal sacrifice that satisfies the holiness
and righteousness of God, so that when we
rely upon what Christ has done, we can
know the forgiveness of sins.
Objectively, apart from us, Christ has died for
us.
And consequently, our future is secure.
We don't look within ourselves for our hope.
We look out of ourselves to the cross
of Christ, and there know that through him
we have the forgiveness of sins.
Isn't that great?
Isn't it tremendous to know that we have
the forgiveness of sins that satisfies God?
He's pleased with what the Son has done
for us.
Now of course it was the place of
worship, because it is only at the place
of the altar that our worship is acceptable
to God.
We have no right to come to God
apart from the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
And every time we get down upon our
knees and pray in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ, we are saying, we do
not come to God except through the sacrifice
that he offered.
Prayers addressed to God which are not addressed
to God through Christ, through the sacrifice, are
prayers that are unacceptable to the triune God
in heaven.
They are in actuality insults.
If the individual knows about the cross of
Christ and rejects it, it is just as
if you were saying, I do not find
Jesus Christ necessary, the one in whom the
Father is well pleased.
I want to come on the basis of
my own merits.
Well, Abram, while he may not have known
all of the theology that you and I
know, he knew enough to know that he
was not to come to God except through
the sacrifice that rested upon the altar.
And there he called on the name of
the Lord.
Well, when a person comes back to the
relationship with the Lord that he once enjoyed
after repentance and confession, will everything be wonderful
thereafter?
Well, no.
Of course not.
After renewals come the tests again.
You can see this in our Lord's life.
After the great experience of the baptism and
the Holy Spirit coming upon him, preparing him
for his messianic ministry, marking him out as
the king who is going to suffer, the
next thing that we read in the life
of our Lord Jesus is that the Holy
Spirit came, drove him out into the wilderness
in order that there he might be tested
by the devil.
So after the renewals come the tests.
After Elijah entered into the presence of Ahab
and announced the great message that God had
given him to Ahab, then he was told
to go out and sit by a brook
to be fed by unclean birds that didn't
even feed their own young, much less a
human being.
After renewals, after great victories in the spiritual
life, there always come the tests.
And here is the test.
And this time it's right within his own
family.
And Abram will learn that if one is
to walk with God, it's not enough to
leave Ur of the Chaldees, it's not enough
to leave Haran, an incomplete disobedience, if that
is what Haran represents, and it's not enough
to leave Egypt, the land of the world,
for the land of promise, it's also necessary
upon occasion to leave members of one's own
family if there is incomplete separation in them.
And so Lot, the whirling, represents a principal
alien to the fullness of spiritual life.
And sooner or later the world and the
spirit will conflict.
And the world will not let a spiritual
Christian be a spiritual Christian, nor will God
allow a spiritual Christian to be a spiritual
Christian in fellowship with the world.
Neither one will be happy over such an
association.
As David sang, but know that the Lord
has set apart the godly man for himself.
F.
B.
Meyer said it's not easy.
Or the manufacture of saints is not child's
play.
How true that is.
God's experiences through which he puts us are
sometimes very severe.
And Abram now must learn from a simple
little incident some things, and so must Lot.
We read in the seventh verse, and there
was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock
and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.
I have a good friend who is a
Baptist minister.
He says, there is the beginning of the
Baptist church, and there was strife.
Well, I'd like to say, in case you
think that's a partisan remark, that that's the
beginning of the church.
Whether Baptist or Presbyterian or Methodist or Independent,
if you are talking about strife, because strife
exists constantly among human beings.
Strife.
Now the strife was very simple.
It was strife over the land.
And evidently, since Abram had large numbers of
livestock and properties, and Lot did too, the
shepherds of the respective flocks began to debate
with one another over the use of the
property.
Now Abram's response to this is really a
model of selfless magnanimity, a very practical kind
of response.
If Abram failed in connection with the famine,
he certainly succeeded in connection with the strife.
But I think that one of the reasons
that Abram was successful here is obviously to
be traced to his faith.
Because after all, he had already renounced everything.
When he came out of the War of
the Chaldees, ideally he had renounced everything and
came into this land not really knowing where
he was going to finally settle down.
So if you have already renounced everything, well
then of course when a strife comes that
involves just a few little things, you can
see how it was possible for him to
meet it.
Not in the lust of the flesh or
the lust of the eyes or the pride
of life.
Now Abram saw that this would cause continual
difficulty between himself and Lot and between the
whole of the family.
And so he wanted to settle it permanently
and radically.
And his suggestion is a most magnanimous one.
In fact, H.
C.
Leupold has said that one might entitle a
sermon on this section, The Magnanimity of Faith.
And Abram certainly had magnanimous faith here.
For we read, when the strife came, he
said, Please, let there be no strife between
you and me, nor between my herdsmen and
your herdsmen, for we are brothers.
Isn't the whole land before you?
Please, separate from me.
If I go to the left, if to
the left, then I will go to the
right.
Or if to the right, then I will
go to the left.
Now there is a very important principle here,
and it has to do with incompatibility in
the church.
I want to say something about this by
way of application.
What's to be done when people simply cannot
get along with one another in the church
of Jesus Christ because of basic differences of
opinion, honestly held, but which cannot at the
moment be reconciled?
What shall we do?
Now you must remember this, and I'm sure
you know all of this, that when people
hold different opinions, when they hold different ideas,
when they hold different doctrines, they react to
circumstances in different ways.
It is obvious that if a person believes
something, and in a particular situation the application
of that belief demands a particular type of
action, and someone else believes something that is
contrary, when that particular action, when that particular
event takes place, they will react differently.
Our ideas have certain consequences.
And so here is a case in which
there are two men, they are believing men
so far as we can tell, but strife
has come.
Now it is obvious, as the account will
demonstrate in a moment, that Lot's conception of
things is different from Abram's.
Ambrose once said, it is said, divide in
order that friendship may abide, a procedure which
Dalich called a wretched and practicable rule.
Well, it's more practicable than we realize.
And I think that what is set forth
here is of some significance for us.
When the time comes when two brothers cannot
agree upon a principle, and they honestly hold
their differences, and they have discussed these differences,
then the time has come to part in
Christian love.
And that is the action that Abram took.
He said, Lot, the whole land is before
us.
Take your choice.
If you go to the right, I'll go
to the left.
If you want the left, I'll go to
the right.
But it's obvious that we're not going to
be able to get along.
Now there is a great deal of wisdom
in this.
And I think also as long as we
remember that discussion should be undertaken, and even
after separation the possibility of reconciliation is entertained,
that this is the biblical principle that we
are to follow.
Now in this case, they parted.
Know there are some texts the Lord Jesus
uses that are rather interesting.
Let me cite them.
They are texts that look very much alike,
but they teach different things.
The Lord Jesus once said, He who is
not with me is against me.
Now what he meant by that was simply
this, that the person who does not agree
concerning the nature of the being of the
Lord Jesus, he who is not with me,
that person is against him.
In other words, if we do not recognize
that our Lord Jesus Christ is the God
-man, the second person of the blessed Trinity
who has offered the once and for all
sacrifice for sins, if we cannot agree on
that point, we are not with Christ.
He who is not with me in my
person, he is really against me.
It is not possible to be with him,
or it is not possible to be near
neutral.
You are either with him or you are
against him, so far as his person is
concerned.
If you do not really hold that he
is what the scriptures say he is, you
are against him.
You are not neutral.
But now there is another statement the Lord
made, which in the outward might sound as
much the same thing.
He also said, He who is not against
us is for us.
Now that is an interesting statement, isn't it?
He who is not against us is for
us.
The disciples had questioned whether individuals who were
doing the work of the Lord but were
not doing it in their way were really
following the Lord.
And the Lord Jesus said, He who is
not against us is for us.
In other words, there are different ways of
doing the Lord's work, ways that might not
be totally satisfactory to some Christians, but if
they are not against the testimony to our
Lord in Scripture, then they are for us.
So he who is not against us is
for us.
I think in this case we have something
that really bears on that particular point.
In the case of Lot and Abram, both
were believers, but their viewpoints were quite different,
and the time had come for them to
separate.
Now the choice that follows is very interesting.
Abram's words, I say, are a model illustration
of the works that faith produces, because his
words are very selfless and magnanimous.
They are wise and they are courteous.
And remember, too, that Abraham had the right
to choose, because he was the chief of
the clan.
He was the one to whom the promises
had been given, but he renounces the right
of choice, first choice, which belonged to him,
and suggested that Lot take the first choice.
Now what did Lot do?
Well, he looked out into the distance, into
the vicinity of Jericho, the northern end of
the Dead Sea, and there he saw land
that reminded him of what his ancestors had
said about the Garden of Eden.
Furthermore, it also reminded him of the land
in Egypt, the fertile alluvial plains of Egypt.
And seeing the rich luxuriance of all of
that land, he made his choice.
Now I think it would be unfair to
accuse Lot of total moral degeneracy, which some
of the commentators seem anxious to do.
But you'll notice this, he did not ask
for direction from the Lord.
So far as we know, he did not
say, he did not call upon the name
of the Lord, he did not lift his
eyes toward heaven and ask the Lord for
wisdom and guidance, but he looked out and
saw that beautifully fertile land and said, that's
what I would like to have.
He never thought of the influence that that
decision might have upon his family and upon
his children.
And the result was, of course, as we
shall read later on in the book of
Genesis, that by dwelling in the gate of
Sodom, while he became a prominent man in
the city, the result was catastrophic for the
children of Lot.
There is a great deal of important practical
advice for Christian believers in this decision that
Lot made.
He made a choice that was determined by
the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life.
The men of Sodom, the text says, were
sinners before the Lord exceedingly.
Now the application of this to modern Christian
life and its choices, I'm sure, is almost
self-evident to you.
How many modern believers choose to live in
areas of great pleasantness but of barren opportunities
for Christian fellowship and Christian service?
This often happens, incidentally, to people who are
getting ready to retire.
It's very salient.
They will often pick a place that is
lovely, pleasant, the kind of place that you
would think, what a beautiful place to retire.
And you've often said, is there a Christian
church nearby?
Well, that's one of the difficulties.
No, unfortunately, there's no real Christian church there.
But I can live by tapes, perhaps.
Is there opportunity for Christian witness, fellowship?
No.
I'm sure that if you will think about
your own friends, the experiences that you yourself
have had, the temptations that you have had,
I'm sure you can think of many who
have apparently made decisions that were governed by
the same principle that governed Lot's decision.
How many believers rush into high society, the
highest society to which they're able in order
to make a good match for their daughters?
Or in order to enable their son to
make a faster buck than they might have
if they stuck with the Christians that they
know?
How many remain in an unbelieving church with
the claim that they shall be able to
have a witness there?
After all, should not salt be scattered among
the putrefaction?
Should not the light shine in darkness?
Didn't Daniel—this is the scriptural answer—did not Daniel
find himself in Babylon?
Yes, Daniel found himself in Babylon, but he
was Daniel.
And he was also there by the will
of God.
And there are very few Daniels that stay
in unbelieving churches in order to have a
witness there.
History indicates that the influence is almost always
the other way.
How many are there who, in their business,
operate their business on worldly principles, willing to
take in partners in order to have an
infusion of capital into their business?
And thus, looking upon things from the standpoint
of the eyes of the flesh, fall into
the trap of Lot.
In religious movements, there are always hangers-on,
worldly people, Lots.
And then, of course, there are those that
are the mixed multitude.
There is a great lesson in Lot's choice.
Now, I want you to notice Abram's choice.
Now, Abram's consolation comes from the Lord.
He has, in magnanimity, said, Lot, you take
what you like.
Now, we read in verse 14.
We had already read that Lot lifted up
his eyes in verse 10.
Now, in Abram's case, the Lord said to
Abram after Lot had separated from him, now,
Abram, you lift up your eyes.
And in the one case, Lot lifted up
his eyes.
In the other case, having given Lot the
first choice, now God says to Abram, Abram,
lift up your eyes and look from the
place where you are, north, south, east, and
west.
I'm going to give the whole thing to
you.
Included in it was Lot's land, incidentally, which
is what happens when we leave the choice
to the Lord.
So the choice was left with the Lord,
and as a result, the covenantal promises are
beautifully expanded.
There is a text in Matthew that reads,
Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or
sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or
farms, for my name's sake, shall receive many
times as much, and shall inherit eternal life.
And Abram is the inheritor of wide lands
because of the sovereign grace of God, and
humanly speaking, because of the way in which
he looked upon the things of this life.
These promises, I suggest to you, if you
have an opportunity, read the bulletin, because I've
tried to expand just a little bit, pointed
out that they expanded geographically in verse 14
and 15, then numerically in verse 16.
And finally, experientially, Abram is asked to arise
and walk through the land in its length
and its breadth, for it's to be given
to him.
And the chapter concludes on the note of
Abram moving around the land, but eventually coming
to Hebron, which he made the center of
his movements, and the chapter concludes with the
words, And there he built an altar to
the Lord.
Now notice again, characteristic of the life of
Abram is the tent.
He knows that in this life here there
is no certain dwelling place for the believer.
He looks toward the celestial city.
There is the altar, prominent in his life
is the ministry of atonement and reconciliation, and
all of those great truths by which he
is related to the Lord, and then the
promises, the word of God.
So the tent, the altar, the promises, characteristic
of this great man of faith.
One cannot reflect upon this account of the
experiences of the patriarch without noticing that the
secret of his triumph over the strife with
Lot lay in Abram's ability, a God-given
ability to apply faith in the circumstances of
life.
You know, it is very important that we
know the theology of the word of God.
It was necessary for Abram to have those
promises from the Lord.
It was necessary for him to realize that
fundamentally before him true spiritual life exists in
following the vision that had been given to
him.
But we must remember that in the daily
affairs of life, it is the application of
these principles to the experiences of life that
make for the life that pleases God.
And so consequently, Abram applied faith to the
circumstances of life.
He really came to, by the grace of
God, realize that the things that are eternal
are those invisible things, and consequently those invisible
things determined his actions, even in just such
a case as a strife between the shepherds
of the two flocks.
In other words, the lure of the invisible
was upon him, and he must bow to
it and decide in the experiences of life
based upon that.
Occasionally we find it very difficult to realize
that faith is the way by which we
are to live.
One of the reasons why faith is the
way by which we are to live is
because it is only through faith that we
come into touch with reality.
Or we think, well, the real thing is
the visible thing.
The real thing is the material thing.
Well, that of course is real, material, visible.
But let me assure you that reality is
not simply the visible and the material.
To come to touch or to come into
grips with the reality of things, the spiritual,
invisible realities—after all, God is real, but invisible—to
come into touch with them, we can only
do it through faith.
Faith becomes the means of knowledge, which is
found in the revelation, in the Word of
God.
And so Abram, in faith, finding true knowledge
in the revelation given to him, acts realistically.
Lot doesn't.
He doesn't act realistically.
He acts unrealistically, short-sightedly, near-sightedly.
Thus, the worldly man's actions.
Finally, if we may discern clearly the working
of sovereign grace in Abram's deliverance from his
sinful journey to Egypt, we surely see his
majestic hand again in his triumph over the
problem of strife amid this company of his
followers.
And these great and new mercies that God
has manifested to him leave him in the
end of his experience building an altar to
the Lord and calling upon the name of
the Lord.
May God help us in the experiences of
life that come to us as Christians, enable
us to face them in the light of
the promises that have been given to us.
May God enable us to apply the things
that we know from the Word of God
to the daily experiences of life.
If you're here today and you do not
know the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, your
first responsibility is to recognize that he has
offered a sacrifice for sinners, to flee to
the cross of Christ receiving the forgiveness of
sins that he offers to sinners, and the
new life rejoicing in the forgiveness of sins,
justification, sonship, and the other blessings that belong
to those who know the Lord.
May God help you to come.
If you do not know him, let's stand
for the benediction.
Father, we are grateful to thee for these
lessons from the life of Abraham.
For so often our own decisions are made
in the light of worldly principles.
We know how often it is that we
are influenced by the visible and the material.
Enable us, O God, to see things realistically.
Enable us to realize that it is the
things that are not seen that are the
eternal things.
Enable us in the faith of our great
example, Abraham, to walk with thee.
If there should be some here who do
not know the Lord Jesus, we ask, Lord,
that thou give them no rest until they
rest in Christ.
Give them the sense of their own sin
and also a knowledge of the saving work
of the Lord Jesus, and bring them to
him.
May grace, mercy, and peace from God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit go with us for Jesus' sake.
Amen.