Unto The Place of the Alter

I am reading my Bible, actually, looking for a starting place for a continuation from yesterday's article. As I begin reading from the point of the flood onward, I come across the start of a verse, and thought: "That sounds like a good title." I tried to keep reading, but my eye's kept going back to those words. After the third time, I said, "ok. your saying something with this.

I have got my continuation from the previous blog started. It is in draft, but I have come to learn, that when things like this happens, and I try to complete what I am working on, before moving on to the new idea, it doesn't work out. So, I will not fight it this time. I'll just end loose anyway.

 

Here is the whole verse:

          "Unto the place of the alter, which he 

            had made there at the first: and there

            Abram called on the name of the 

            LORD."

                                                Genesis  13:4

 Good title, but on it's own, the verse makes no sense. If that is what your thinking, I would agree with you. If in your bible reading, certain verses just stay with you; you may not right them down, or highlight them, they just stick with you to connect later verses. That's what happened to me. 

I am reading about Noah, post flood, and all of the "begets". I must admit, that is some pretty boring reading. So repetitive. And it is, until you slow down and begin to Notice things. 

Did you ever notice that Abram's generation doesn't start with him? It starts with his dad.

          "Now these are the generations of

           Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor,

           and Haran; and Haran begat Lot."

                                          Genesis 11:27

The interesting thing about this verse is it tells us that "Haran begat Lot", but the next verse says that

"Haren died before his father v.28"

The next verse let's us know that Abram and Nahor took them wives, and I must say that the verse is hard to keep up with. And the verse after that inserts a very strange verse. I mean, do we really need to know that

"But Sarai was barren; she had no child. v30"

That's  it, that is what the verse consist of.

I suppose to tell us that Lot will not be the start of this great nation. However, we will see this referred to again in 

Genesis 16:1; and 18:11-12.

As the story moves forward,  Terah takes his family and all they had to head for the land of Canaan, but settled in Haran, which is where Terah died.

 It is after this, we see this story take a turn.

         "Now the LORD said unto Abram, get

          thee out of thy country, and 

          from thy kindred, and from thy father's 

          house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

                                                      Genesis 12:1

First, Let point out that this wasn't perfect obedience. I underlined where it wasn't perfect. He did depart the land they was in, taking his wife and all that the had accumulated,  "And Lot went with him. v.4".

Can you see it? part of what God said was get away from your kindred. He didn't add a exception clause for Lot.

I'm not going just to copy bible verse from the Bible, I'll leave the rest of the reading to you, reading from you own bible. But, notice the punctuation at the end of verse 1. God is not finished speaking with Abram, it continues in v.2-3. V.4 is Abram departing the land, V.5 is everything he took with him, including Lot. They headed for Canaan, and then: "into the land of Canaan they came."

V.6 tells us what all Abram passed through, and that the Canaanite were there."

           "⁷And the LORD appeared unto Abram

             and said, unto thy seed I will give

             this land: and there builded he an

             alter unto the LORD, who appeared 

             unto him.

          ⁸ And he removed from thence unto

            a mountain on the East of Beth-el,

            and pitched his tent, having Beth-el

            on the West, and Hai on the East: and

            there he builded an alter 

            unto the LORD, and called upon the 

            name of the LORD.

                                             Genesis 12:7-8"

Let's discuss the two verses above. The first thing. Did Abram build 1 or 2 alters? Is verse 7 telling us that Abram would be building a alter, or that he has built an alter? The wording here is very specific, which leads me to conclude that he builds two alters unto the LORD.

In verse 7, we see that this is where the LORD appeared to Abram. Up until now, the LORD spoke to Abram, with no indication that he appeared to him. It is also in this verse that the LORD says to Abram, "unto thy seed I will give this land."  But wait! how is that going to happen? Abram and Sarai both are advanced in year, and Sarai is barren. Remember, We had a verse dedicated to telling us that.

So, he builds this alter, and leave to pitch his tent somewhere else, and builds another alter unto the LORD. But notice, it is upon building this alter that Abram called on the name of the LORD. Abram leaves, let again and goes down into Egypt, because there's a famine in the land, and after everything happens that happened in Egypt, Pharoah tells him to take his wife and all that he had, and leave his land. So they depart the land, and this next verse tells us of all that he had:

         "¹ And Abram went up out of Egypt, he 

             and his wife, and all that he had, and

             Lot with him, into the south.

          ² And Abram was very rich in cattle,

             an silver, and in gold.

          ³ And he went on his journeys from the

             South even to Beth-al, unto the place

             where his tent had been at the

             beginning, between Beth-al and Hai;"

And then we get to the verse that got this blog kicked off:

           " Unto the place of the alter, which he 

              had made there at the first: And there

              Abram called on the name of the 

              LORD.

                                                Genesis 13:1-4"

What's  the summary and application from this story?

First thing, it is a beautiful redemption story. But, in order for this to be a redemption story, it requires being obedient to that voice inside of you. We see that in Genesis 12:1. We can ask, if Abram went into Canaan because that's where his father really wanted to go, or is that where the LORD really led him? In either case, we see here a grief stricken son who lost his father, and a nephew for a son, because his wife was barren, and could bare him no children,  and now that they are up in years, and his wife is past the time of conceiving, baring and raising children. That hope is all but gone. Abram was stuck! But, against all hope, he follows that voice anyway. It leads him to Canaan. He might have thought something like: Ok LORD, you did what you said you would. I guess the rest is up to me now.

Abrams way was to continue south right into a famine. What does he do? He lies to the Pharoah,  which brings a plague upon his house, and gets kicked out of the land.

With nowhere else to go, Abram returns to the place where the LORD first appeared to him. Where he called upon the name of the LORD.

The first thing I see here is, regardless of how far you get from GOD, when you come back to Him, He's still there where you left Him, waiting to welcome you back.

The second thing I see is, regardless of what this life throws at you. No matter how many storms you go through, don't loose sight of God. He's there, and will get you through it, if you will listen to Him.

I hope you have been blessed by this study. I know I have. When I started this, I had a couple of things that I wanted to point out, but have gotten so much more then I imagined.

Leave a comment below.