Will you kindly turn in the Word of
Scripture to Genesis chapter 13, and we are
going to be meditating on some of the
main features of this record of Abram's life
to our prophet, I trust, this morning.
We have given the chapter, the title, Back
from Rebellion into Communion.
Abram was called into a life of communion
with God.
That is the link between this subject and
what we are especially praying that we shall
experience today.
Abram was called into a life of walking
with God and talking with God and living
with God, a life of communion.
We ended our last study, however, our last
study of the life of Abram, seeing him
painfully reproved by the pagan pharaoh of Egypt
for his lies, and then officially ejected from
Egypt as a persona non grata, and ultimately
returning to the area in the land that
had been promised to his posterity and making
for a little spot somewhere between Bethel and
Ai, where God had appeared to him as
clearly as he had originally in his homeland,
Ur of the Chaldeans, and where God had
not only appeared to him but spoken to
him, and not only spoken to him but
covenanted to him that that very land would
become the possession of his posterity in days
to come.
Get the picture then in miniature.
Abram is coming back from a season of
rebellion when he went down without command and
without permission.
When he went down into Egypt, because he
was afraid of the famine that God had
permitted to come his way.
But now he is returning from famine and
from rebellion.
He's returning and he is apparently determined that
as he starts life afresh in the land
to which God had called him, he's going
to live in real communion with God.
There are three points or three passages or
three chapters, however you want to look at
them, three portraits that I want to bring
before you.
The first I'm simply going to refer to.
It's that of Abram's return from wandering.
We've already made reference to it, but I
just want us to get this clearly in
our minds.
Let me read verses three and four.
From the Negev he went from place to
place until he came to Bethel.
To the place between Bethel and Ai where
his tent had been earlier and where he
had first built an altar.
There Abram called on the name of the
Lord.
In other words, what we have here is
not simply Abram coming out of Egypt, coming
back home after a kind of a holiday.
Here we have a spiritual retreat, a coming
back into the will of God, a coming
back into his own territory, the territory that
God has given him in title and to
his posterity.
And here making sure that he's getting back
to the place that had been hallowed by
previous associations because God had spoken to him
there.
He had reared an altar to Jehovah there
in the midst of a pagan people.
That is but an eloquent way of saying
that he's coming back from his spiritual meanderings
and wanderings.
Two things are involved in that.
Giving up his own plan, his own self
-willed plan, and then going back to the
divinely willed purpose for his life and the
place where that divine will was to be
outworked.
Enriched in possessions, albeit spiritually impoverished and humbled,
the man whose faith had temporarily lapsed returns
to the spiritual altitude to which God had
originally called him.
Abram had lost height spiritually, lost altitude.
Now by the grace of God and the
providence that sent him hurriedly out of Egypt
and the humiliation that God allowed to come
his way, Abram is seen getting back to
the place of God's choice.
Now my friends, that in miniature may indeed
be the background for many of us coming
to this communion season.
We too may have our Egypt.
We too may have made our excursions out
of the will of God into some place
or other, into some spiritual area or other
that is quite illicit, improper, unacceptable to God.
It is not the place of faith and
it is not the place for faithful men
and women to be.
Fear of storms may have sent us scattering
into a place where we felt that God's
natural laws would look after us.
And this season is a season for the
return of the wayward.
May it be so.
May all our hearts return from their wanderings
this morning to a place where we can
really sing the hymn that we've just sung.
And our sole vision is God in Christ.
His will and His glory and His greatness
and His purpose.
And we find ourselves lost in a sense
of awe of the obedience and the allegiance
to Him.
Now the second thing here.
Abram's resolve as he returned.
Seems to me that this is the main
lesson of chapter 13.
It is the fact that something has come
back into Abram's character.
It was there before of course, before he
set out from Ur of the Chaldees.
It really took some doing to go out
from Ur of the Chaldees not knowing where
he was going to but simply knowing that
the one who had called him was really
God.
The God of glory.
But it took some doing.
It took some resolution.
And then that vanished and he became a
little bit fickle and vacillating and easily persuaded
to go in the wrong direction and he
found himself in Egypt.
And there in Egypt he did so many
things which were outwith the will of God.
But in this chapter we see something of
Abram's resolve to get right back into the
center of God's purposes again.
Can I clear up one thing?
I think it's always necessary to do it
when we speak of Egypt in this way.
The geographical location of Abram with reference to
Egypt must be seen as secondary to his
spiritual condition.
Abram's sin was not so much that he
made a visit to Egypt per se.
Egypt was not outwith the will of God
or the purpose of God as I've heard
some people improperly suggesting.
After all, Mary and Joseph were commanded by
heaven to take the babe Jesus to Egypt
where he was safe when he was not
safe in the land of promise.
Don't let's get this wrongly.
Egypt was not a polluted land to which
no one must go and can't be a
Christian if he goes physically to the land
of Egypt.
That's not the point.
The point is that Abram was running away
from a life of confidence in God to
a place where he hoped that the overflowing
of the Nile would result in sufficient provender
for his cattle that he could fend on
the basis of natural provisions when God had
not told him to go there.
In returning, you see, he is coming away
from the natural provisions of Egypt back into
dependence upon God and that's the big thing.
Underlying the stark simplicity of this narrative lies
the abidingly important principle that God's call is
always first and foremost a call into communion
with himself, into fellowship with himself.
There is no way forward for any of
us in the Christian life.
There is no way forward, save insofar as
we learn to have fellowship with God.
Biblical religion centers in that fact.
That being so, irresolution at this point is
vitally tragic, terribly tragic.
If I am not resolute in making provisions
for my communion with God to continue at
all costs, then sooner or later I shall
be an Abram running down to Egypt and
maybe not coming out of there again.
I want you to look at the resolution
of this man, Abram's resolve as he returned,
because I would like to see this in
my own heart and I would like to
see it in yours this morning.
It would be wonderful if a congregation of
God's people such as this was a congregation
of resolved men and women who are resolved
in their souls by the grace of God
to leave no stone unturned until we know
we are back in the place where God
wants us to be, where he can speak
to us clearly and we can understand him
and we can worship him and we are
in the very center of his purposes.
Heaven would rejoice and hell would quake.
Now Abram's newfound resolution was reflected, first of
all, in his separation from a source of
dispeace and distraction to him.
Let me read verses 5 to 7 in
chapter 13.
Now Lot, and he centers in this, Lot,
who was moving about with Abram, also had
flocks and herds and tents, but the land
could not support them while they stayed together,
for their possessions were so great that they
were not able to stay together.
And quarreling arose among Abram's herdsmen and the
herdsmen of Lot.
The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in
the land at that time.
Now Scripture does not positively condemn Abram for
bringing his nephew Lot with him from Ur
of the Chaldees into this new land.
Scripture doesn't do that, at least as far
as the Genesis record is concerned.
But in Genesis we nevertheless discover that at
every turn Lot is depicted as a very
unworthy character.
Certainly not the kind of person with whom
one would like to live.
His influence is never going to be very
elevating.
Lot is invariably presented in an unfavorable light
in the book of Genesis.
He is shown as a weakling, chapter 19
and verse 6, whose morals ultimately became so
depraved and who became so entrenched in the
life of Sodom that he literally had to
be supernaturally dragged out of it.
Had he been left to himself he would
still be in Sodom, if he were alive.
But supernaturally he had to be excavated morally
and spiritually and physically out of the place.
And even when thus saved from its curse
and its judgment he relapsed again into temporary
drunkenness, if you please, and further disgrace which
I will not mention.
Even so that's not the whole truth.
And you see this is why it's so
important to read the whole Bible and to
know the whole.
Judging from Genesis you would think that Lot
was unmitigatedly evil, unqualified evil.
But when you come to the New Testament
and to the epistle written by Peter you
will find that the New Testament has something
else to say about him.
And there he is referred to as a
righteous man who was distressed by the filthy
lives of lawless men.
And let me continue, tormented in his righteous
soul by the lawless deeds he saw and
heard.
That's 2 Peter 2 verses 7 and 8.
So you see there are two sides to
Lot.
Evidently at one period in his life he
was almost given to sin, given to evil,
given to compromise morally and otherwise until he
became almost as bad as the Sodomites.
Scripture is very fair and very honest.
Scripture says that there was another side to
the man.
He was indeed a man of God.
He was too a man of faith and
Abram could legitimately call him brother as he
does in one place.
Not just kinsman but brother.
At this point in time however, Lot and
his servants were a cause of spiritual distraction
for Abram creating dispeace and confusion so that
Abram's Godward relationship suffered.
We see something of Abram's resolve coming through
however in his willingness at this point to
come to this decision.
If it is necessary then I've got a
part with Lot.
Now there was a lot of sentiment around
Lot.
Lot was the son of his dead brother.
He was his nephew.
Abram had been a father to him and
a mother to him probably.
And so you see there was an awful
lot of sentiment that bound Lot and Abram
together and probably that's why Abram has put
up with a lot of Lot's nonsense up
to this point.
Pardon me putting it like that.
But Lot's influence upon Abram was not for
good and Abram knew it and he knew
that the point had come now where if
he's going on into a deepening communion with
God he's just got to get away from
Lot.
Do you know anything of that circumstance?
It is exceedingly sad to note of course
that the cause of the disagreement between Lot's
servants and Abram's who were quarreling among one
another and adding to the confusion was the
multiplicity of their cattle.
They got so rich.
In other words they were too rich to
be at peace.
You can be too rich to get on
with your neighbor.
A very challenging statement.
You can be too rich to have fellowship
with another weaker brother.
It is doubly sad to note that the
accumulated cattle on both sides however were largely
gotten in Haran where God never meant them
to stay and in Egypt where God never
meant them to go.
God allows men and women sometimes to become
materially rich in their backsliding and the very
riches that they've gotten in their backsliding will
be the clamp of hell upon their future
days.
Be careful.
But the point I want to note at
this stage is that Abram was now determined
even to part with Lot if that isn't
necessary.
Even with Lot.
Abram's resolve in this matter is further revealed
in the voluntary humiliation he accepted in asking
Lot to choose which way he would go.
You might have expected something like this in
Abram.
You might have expected him to be peeved
and cross with Lot.
And say look, look fellow I brought you
away from home.
I brought you a thousand miles up the
Euphrates Valley.
I brought you into the land of Shechem.
Here you are.
You owe everything to me.
Get going where I tell you and don't
come back for me to see you again.
You could have envisaged Abram saying that.
You know that's nothing of the kind that
we have here.
Listen to it.
It's almost idyllic.
So Abram said to Lot the culprit.
Abram said to Lot let's not have any
quarreling between you and me or between your
herdsmen and mine for we are brothers.
Is not the whole land before you.
Now this is exciting.
Let's part company he said.
If you go to the left I'll go
to the right.
And if you go to the right I'll
go to the left.
You see the point.
There's no bitterness here.
There's no carnal enmity here.
There's a determination here to separate from Lot
because Lot is a nuisance spiritually.
And he can't get on whilst Lot is
there.
He's come to that conclusion.
Whether he was right in coming to that
conclusion is beside the point.
But he did thus conclude.
He must get away from Lot.
But having determined that he must get away
from Lot.
You notice he does it with caution.
He does it with a compassion and a
large heartedness that is something singular.
You see Abram's humility here.
At a time in history when age was
the key to honor.
And one of the marks of greatness.
Abram the older man by far.
Voluntarily overlooked his own prerogatives.
And determined the terms of the separation envisaged.
And he did it in this way.
He did not choose for himself but he
said to Lot.
Lot I'm determining that you should choose.
Now that was a total violation of custom.
But such was Abram's determination to safeguard his
relationship with God.
That he virtually makes it impossible for the
younger man to say no.
Along with his humility.
Look at his magnanimity.
The man of faith made this humble choice.
Because he was not only concerned for his
own relationship with God.
But he was also concerned for Lot.
You may well ask as you read this
passage.
Why did Abram do that?
And people will give you different answers.
I want to suggest to you the answer
that I think is natural.
And almost arising out of the passage.
I like to think it is.
Abram was concerned for Lot's spiritual welfare as
he was concerned for his own.
But he couldn't tolerate his influence upon himself.
But he doesn't want to see Lot and
himself separating in such a way.
That they will forevermore be enemies.
So he wants Lot to have a happy
thought.
And to be in a happy frame of
mind when he separates.
And so you see he wants to keep
the lines of communication open with Lot.
Even if Lot is going to leave him.
So that should things go wrong with Lot.
Lot will want to come back to his
uncle.
Rather than want to keep away from him.
And that's exactly what happened when you go
on to chapter 14.
When things went topsy-turvy with Lot.
And he had no one else to turn
to.
As a matter of fact he didn't come
to Abram.
Abram went to him.
But the fact is there.
Abram's large heartedness toward Lot remains here.
It's undergirding everything else.
And so he tells Lot.
Lot you choose.
Have a good look.
And he bids him look all around.
And now he says.
Whichever way you want to go.
I'll go in the opposite way.
And he did so let me repeat.
Because he was determined that he must separate
from this man.
Because of his influence.
But if he must separate.
He will separate.
Not as an enemy separates from an enemy.
But as a friend separates from another.
Along with Abram's new found resolution.
In matters relating to God.
We also notice a revived conviction.
Such as inspired his faith in former days.
You see now.
A sort of revival in miniature.
Spiritually speaking.
You see Abram regaining something that he had.
When he first heard the call of God.
And stepped out from her of the coldies.
First of all.
There is the conviction that.
Fellowship with the deity is more important.
Than friendship with any of his closest.
Even his nearest and dearest.
And it was a decision he had to
make a way back in her of the
coldies.
There were many members of the family that
could never come with him.
They'd never been asked.
But God called him.
Some of them went with him.
Terah his father-in-law for example.
But this man Abram had to make a
decision.
What's the important thing?
Is it the knowledge of the God of
glory.
And going with him and living with him.
And depending upon him.
Or is it maintaining the kinship.
And the family tie.
Oh how the family tie.
Can be a chain upon our neck sometimes.
Many men and women have been chained.
Outside the will of God.
Just because of this.
And it's become an excuse for not doing
things.
And not going places.
And heaven only knows.
How many have suffered in the bargain.
When Abram went out from her of the
coldies.
There was a determination.
There was a determination of faith.
It is more important to be right with
the God of glory.
The real God.
And to live in comfort.
With my own people.
And get on with them.
He didn't minimize the importance of their needs.
But this was the first thing.
Then there is the conviction that the spiritual
is essentially more important than the material.
This is involved in Abram.
Abram's experience in chapter 13.
Abram here is re-emerging as one who
places his spirituality before his material prosperity.
You see.
He gave Lot the opportunity of choosing.
And Lot knew what to choose.
He had cattle.
As Abram had cattle.
And he saw the green pasture lands down
in the south there.
My says Lot.
I don't need to think the second time.
I know the way I'm going.
And dear old Abram had to put up
with what was left.
And remember these were days of famine.
But you see the point is this.
By this time Abram had said to himself
and was resolute in saying it.
Being with God.
Communion with God is more important than multiplying
cattle.
Have you got there?
Are we there this morning?
Do we have communion with God on that
level this morning?
And then this.
The conviction that faith in God is more
important than the fulfillment of his.
For the fulfillment of his promises.
Than the fostering of a human association.
To look after his own interests.
You may wonder what am I getting at?
God had said to Abram that he would
give him seed.
And that his descendants should inhabit that very
land that Abram was then standing on.
But Abram didn't have a child.
Sarah was barren.
What's the use of talking about a promise
for posterity when you haven't got the first
child?
It seemed so dark and dismal and utterly
hopeless humanly speaking.
Ah.
But society had one ingenious suggestion to make
at this point in time.
In a situation like this.
If you had anyone else in the family
such as a nephew.
And especially if his father or his mother
had died.
He was reckoned as the adopted son.
And God might very well fulfill his promise
of posterity.
Through who?
Lot.
And so inevitably the question would come to
a man like Abram.
Well now.
Can I not conclude that the providence that
has shut up Sarah's womb.
And it is impossible for her to have
a child.
Can I not legitimately conclude that the same
providence has brought into our family this boy
Lot.
So that the promises that God has made
may be fulfilled.
There is no other way.
How else can they be fulfilled?
Humanly speaking you see there was no other
way.
But now wait a moment.
Oh this is faith emerging.
It's beautiful.
It makes you worship God that a thing
like this can happen.
Way back thousands of years ago.
In the life of a man that had
no background such as you and I have.
Abram thought about it.
And he says something like this to himself.
No God didn't say to me that the
promise was to be fulfilled in Lot.
My seed.
He's not my seed.
He may be my adopted child.
But he's not my seed.
God said my seed.
So he will part from Lot.
And in a sense the worldly wise would
say to him that in parting from Lot.
He's parting from the other one.
The only one who can be the main
link in the fulfillment of God's promises to
him.
And to his posterity.
But he parted from Lot you see.
Believing in his God.
Faith is renewed.
It lapsed when he went down into Egypt.
And he began to lie and what not.
But now it's renewed again.
Our God who first creates faith is a
God who also renews faith.
Lastly and I must conclude with this very
briefly.
Abram's reward following his resolute stand.
There's no need for God to give us
rewards.
No reason why he should at all.
Because we don't deserve rewards.
Rewards that God gives his people are not
rewards that are earned.
Rather are they what he deems in his
wisdom he wants and desires to give us.
When we don't deserve it in order to
encourage us.
Verses 14 to 18 are very important here.
God now steps into the scene to reassure
Abram of the rightness of his decision.
But also of his own reward.
Now look first of all at this.
God intervened to remove Abram's sense of loss
and loneliness at the departure of Lot.
Just notice these words.
Verse 14.
The Lord said to Abram.
After Lot departed from him.
Lift up your eyes.
And see to the north, to the south,
to the east and to the west.
And never mind what he said for the
moment.
That's not the point.
We may come to that.
But just notice.
Lot is gone.
And all is silent.
The Perizzites and the Canaanites are in the
land.
Who has Abram got to talk to?
Only poor Sarah and his slaves.
Maybe some he got in Haran.
Some he got in Egypt.
But he's all alone.
But listen my friend to what happened.
Don't miss it for your soul's sake.
When Lot the troublemaker is gone.
And all is silent.
God breaks the silence with his own voice.
When Lot moved away.
God moved in.
And I want to say with all solemnity.
That there may be something in your life
this morning.
That has got to go out.
Before God moves in.
In communing grace and mercy.
It is exceedingly sad.
That it should be necessary under any circumstances.
But our fallen world often requires us likewise.
To be alone before we can clearly hear
the voice of God.
Or sense his mighty presence.
As the sound of Lot.
And his servants voices.
Became gradually the more remote.
God's voice became clearer.
And clearer.
And then this.
In so doing.
God also repeated yet again.
His previous promises to Abram.
Doing so in still clearer terms.
Than he done so before.
Verses 14 to 16.
I won't read them.
Now the promise of land had been given
at least twice before.
Land to Abram's posterity.
But now you see God does something again.
God's repetitions are so precious.
He adds something special.
To the promises he has given before.
I have no time to go into that.
But the thing I want you to get
is this.
He turns to Abram and he says.
Abram look north, south, east and west.
Take a whole panoramic view of everything.
And he says.
All that land is yours and your seeds.
But I can hear Abram saying.
But God.
Lot's gone down there to the best of
the land.
And that will belong to him.
No says God.
It's yours.
There's not an inch of the land for
Lot.
It's all yours in the promise.
You who gave it up in obedience.
Will receive it out of the grace of
my heart.
God is no man's debtor.
What faith had just surrendered for God's glory.
Grace now put it back into the same
hands.
Lot will inherit nothing but shame.
And then God clinched all else with a
marvelous reassurance.
Concerning the promised seed.
Lot's departure cannot forfeit that promise.
Nor mildly affect it.
The man of faith.
Now living in communion with God.
Must think big.
Think big.
Says God to him.
You ever try to count the multitude of
the number of little grains of sand or
of soil.
Ever try to count a handful of grain.
See the grain on the sea shores and
on the earth.
That cover the earth.
And try to count them.
Your seed will be as many as that.
Can you see what's happening?
This man wandered.
He went the wrong way.
He was a man of faith.
He traveled far by faith.
He'd been raised high by faith.
By the grace of the God who gave
him that faith.
Then he went back.
Just your experience and mine.
We go up and up by the grace
of God.
And then we slide back.
And he went back.
And that Egyptian visit was a backsliding episode.
Unworthy of him.
As our Egyptian visits are unworthy of us.
But the God who had begun in him
a good work went after him.
And dealt with him again and brought him
out.
And used Pharaoh to humble him.
And to tell him that things like that
are not done in Egypt.
They're not done in pagan lands.
You shouldn't have lied to me about your
wife.
I might have taken her to be my
wife.
And I might have molested her.
And so forth.
Abram says you shouldn't have dealt like that.
Have you ever been humbled by the unbelievers?
Have you ever been humbled by unbelieving men
and women?
You who bear the name of Jesus should
never have been in that place.
Should never have been doing that thing.
And they know.
And they may have told you so.
God bless them.
We need the worldling to speak plainly to
us sometimes.
As the Egyptians did to Abram.
But at last Abram gets back.
And he's determined now.
No playing anymore.
Not trifling anymore.
Mind you he will.
He'll break his word again before the end.
But at this moment in time he's determined.
And he comes back.
And the picture we see of him at
the end of chapter 13 is a magnificent
one.
He's in the right place.
He's in the place of those holy associations
to which we've referred.
And he's rearing yet another altar in that
pagan land to say.
I believe in the God of glory.
And I worship him.
And it's not only one spot of land
in Canaan that belongs to him.
But another spot of land.
And he will be worshipped here as he
is worshipped there.
And if no one else agrees with me.
I'm going on as the worshipper of the
great God of glory.
Isn't it wonderful?
There's a way back to God.
From the dark paths.
There's a door that is open.
And you and I may go in.
There's a fountain filled with blood drawn from
Emmanuel's veins.
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all
their guilty stay.
If we confess our sins.
He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Behold I stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice and open
the door.
I will come in to him and sup
with him.
Commune with him.
And he with me.
Oh may this be a time this morning.
When all wanderers from the path of faith.
Have not only turned around from our Egyptian
residences.
Albeit temporary.
But are on the move.
And have an altar in our lives on
which we daily sacrifice our all.
To the great God of glory.
The God of Calvary.
And to his name be all the praise.
Amen.