Now, God promised these three things to Abraham.
What did Abram do?
So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken
unto him, and Lot went with him.
Uh-oh, already he's disobeying.
And may I say to you, he took
relatives with him.
He should not have done that.
And he took his papa with him, Papa
Tira.
And God told him not to take them.
Now, why did God want to get him
out of the land, away from his relatives?
Well, it's quite obvious when you go over
to the book of Joshua, and I'll not
turn to it today.
But God said to Joshua, I called your
fathers, Abraham, on the other side of the
flood when they were serving other gods.
Well, Abram was an idolater.
You see, the world was pretty far gone
at this time.
God had to move like this if he's
going to save humanity.
Now, the other alternative is he could have
blotted them all out and started over again.
I'm glad he didn't.
If he hadn't, I wouldn't have been here,
because I arrived here a sinner.
And the fact of the matter is, sinners
would have been blotted out.
But thank God, he's a God of mercy
and grace, and he saves sinners.
Now, what we have here is this man
taking along his nephew, and he took his
father along.
And what happened?
Well, Abram took Sarah, his wife, and that
was all right, of course, and Lot, his
brother's son, and all their substance that they'd
gathered, and the souls that they'd gotten in
Haran.
And they went forth to go into the
land of Canaan, and into the land of
Canaan they came.
Now, we find this man spent in Haran
a nice period of time patting his foot,
marking time, and delayed the blessing of God.
God never appeared to him until he moved
into the land, until he got separated from
at least the closer relatives and he only
brought Lot with him.
Now, will you notice, we have to come
back and say this again in verse 6.
He says at the end of verse 5,
"...and into the land of Canaan they came."
Now, verse 6, "...and Abram passed through the
land, unto the place of Sychim, unto the
plain of Morah, and the Canaanite was then
in the land."
Here is the fact, the Canaanite was then
in the land.
Now, may I add this right at this
point because it's very important.
You know, a great many people are going
to say, well, this was the land of
corn and wine, the land of milk and
honey.
Everything was lovely.
Abraham left a terrible place, Ur of the
Chaldees, and he came to a wonderful place.
Don't you believe a word of it.
That's not what the Bible says.
This man, Abram, left a place we know
today through archaeology, had a high civilization.
I think maybe he might have had a
bath in the house.
He had a very wonderful civilization.
He left that and he came into the
land of Canaan, and the Canaanite was still
in the land.
Now, the Canaanite was not civilized.
He was a barbarian and a heathen, if
there ever was one.
And Abraham did not better his lot by
coming into this land.
That's not the point.
The point is, will he obey God?
Now he has obeyed God, and what happens?
Verse 7, "...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."
And you just have to pay attention to
that.
Abram built an altar unto the Lord, and
God appears to him a second time.
While he was in the land of Haran,
a place of delay, God did not appear.
You see, one of the reasons today many
of us are not blessed in reading the
Bible is because the Bible condemns us because
we're not living up to the light we
have.
If we would obey God, then more blessing
would come.
God does not appear to Abram until Abram's
ready to move out and obey God on
the light he's had.
Now God's ready to appear to him.
He builds an altar, and Abram is a
real altar builder, by the way, everywhere he
goes.
Notice verse 8, "...he removed from fence into
a mountain on the east of Bethel, and
pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west,
and Hai on the east.
And there he built an altar unto the
LORD, and called upon the name of the
LORD."
Two things that he did now.
He got into the land.
He pitched his tent.
He bought him a house in the new
subdivision, and he moved in.
He's going to retire in California, only it's
going to be in the land of Canaan.
He's arrived.
He pitched his tent.
That's what he lived in.
Then he built an altar.
That's his testimony to God.
And everywhere Abram went, he left a testimony
to God.
What kind of testimony do you have?
You don't have to put a track out
in front of your house, and you don't
have to write on the back end of
your car, Jesus saves, and then drive like
a maniac down the freeway, and there's some
that do that.
My friend, that's no testimony at all.
May I say to you, this man quietly
worshiped God, and the Canaanites soon caught on
to that, by the way.
And Abram, we're told, journeyed, going on still
toward the south.
That's a good direction to go.
It's warm there, you see.
Good weather.
And so this man is moving south.
He has itchy feet.
He's a nomad.
That was Abram.