Abram Builds an Altar at Mamre
Study Scripture: Genesis 13: 8 – 18
Background Scripture: Genesis 11 &12
Lesson 1 August 31, 2024
Key Verse
Then Abram moved his tent and came and lived by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord”
Genesis 13: 18
INTRODUCTION
The Context of our Study Scripture really establishes what we need to know about the essence of life.
The writer of the Book of James summarizes this principle of life in Chapter 1:1-10,
“Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you”.
If you do not submit and exalt yourself, and not let God exalt you, you will enter the frightening alternative of conflict, discord, and destruction. This is what the world wants you to do. It wants you to align yourself with its purposes.
Jesus repeats a challenge found in Matthew 7:13-14
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it”.
The Study Scripture and the Background Scripture tells us what to do when we get into sin and how to regain the balance of the Christian life.
The only way to survive the morally rotten life of the world which is well hidden under an attractive prosperity with its get rich schemes, vast commercial enterprises and blind materialism is to “live in a tent and build an altar”.
That means we are not to run away and be aloof and turned off by the evils of society but as we live in it, as people loving and sensitive to the needs of its people, we are not to put down roots and thus identify with them and their lifestyles.
In their midst we are to be engaged in continually building altars and worship so that God will bless and guide us and our age.
So like Abram, when we sin by going into Egypt with no record of a tent and no making proclamation of the name of the Lord, becoming entangled with the lifestyle of the Egyptians and their way of thinking so that we too have to lie and deceive, and living in despair, we must go back to God and make proclamation on how we now live, quietly obeying the Father, and sharing with those we encounter the blessings have in Christ.
The battleground is not something in which only Christiana live. It arises from the nature of the universe, the origin of life, the pre-existence of the Creator, and His deep concern when man chose not to live with eternal priorities. God therefore had to act to promise to redeem so that the depths of our sin and separation from God would be annulled.
The rebellious enemy of God and man named Satan, would have to have his head crushed and his work of deception overcome.
The life of the people of God would therefore have to be on a tightrope, balancing between conflicting temptations and pressures, being in the world but nor of the world, with all the responsibilities to refuse to be of the world, and not whitewashing the faith by accepting the thinking and goals of the world and integrating these in the faith in the different ways we see.
We must now learn how to set up a course in life. We must learn how to “live in a tent” and “to continually build an altar”.
When we look at Genesis 1 through 11 we read of the dismal story of human history from Adam to Abram, with its Fall recorded in Chapter 3, the murder of Abel, the wickedness which led to the Flood, Noah’s nakedness and the cursing of Canaan, and the disaster at Babel and the scattering of the people.
In every act of divine judgment God acted graciously but then in Chapter 11 God’s approach shifted, and the descendants of Noah, Shem, Ham. and Japheth are brought into focus along with the very significant establishment of the Table of Nations. Now the descendants of Shem and Terah, Abram’s father are highlighted.
The dismal history now begins a brighter future for God’s promises and blessings are declared to people who continue in sin.
The topography of the world had been changed. God spoke to a man named Abram who lived in Ur, a city in southern Mesopotamia. This was in an area bounded by the Euphrates River on the south and the Tigris river on the north. This was in a significant part of modern Iraq in the south and Syria in the north. Scholars remind us that Ur was located on the Euphrates Rive about 150 miles (250 km) northwest of the Persian Gulf and it was a major city-state with an advanced culture. Ur, given its location, was an important metropolis, and when Abram lived there it was at its height of prosperity because of its industry and its Babylonian religious worship. Many gods were worshipped but the main and supreme god in this theocratic ruled area was Sin, the moon deity.
Its prosperity was destroyed in 1900 B. C. and the city was buried and forgotten until archeologists excavated it.
God called Abram from this highly polluted and pagan theocratic city, and told him to leave the place he had called home and his father’s house for 75 years and go to an unnamed destination, without giving him any kind of a roadmap.
This would be a leap of faith, an incredible leap, for in that kind of patriarchal culture there the welfare system, your security, and safety net was your family who would help when you needed help and would take care of you when disaster struck in that harsh world.
Abram had to trust God to provide for the future. This was a leap into darkness. But Abram, depending only on God to save him from debilitating anxiety, with neither people or a land, went as Chapter 12:2 tells us on God’s first promise of a solitary promise having to do with Abram alone.
So, Abram went.
We will now see how character determines choices. This willingness to rely on divine, supernatural direction or not to rely on this direction, resulting in painful and shameful disaster, manifests itself in the choices Abram made and Lot his nephew made.
Abram finally came to a land which he could not claim for it belonged to the Canaanites (12:6). God promised however that He would give the land to Abram, but though he would own it and live all his life in it only his offspring would possess it.
Abram came to Shechem and stopped at the oak of Moreh (!2:6.7). Abram built an altar, an act of worship, and offered sacrifices. This was worship, bowing down in gratitude. Everywhere Abram travelled he built an altar and called upon the name of the Lord, thus acknowledging his encounter with God, and seeing the extent of the land promises as he went all through the land.
God had called him to cut off his ties to the past. He would inherit the land.
The importance and significant of altars is clear from the 378 mentions of altars in both the Old and the New Testament. The Old Testament stresses the altars were a place of worship and sacrifice where communication with God took place in the remembrance of the covenant.
His making of the many altars showed Abram’s devotion to God and it therefore is an example for us today for we need to communicate with God.
At the end of the Flood, in Genesis 8:20 we read that Noah came out of the Ark and built an altar and made sacrifices of every clean animal to God. This act brought a great reaction from God:
“And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma.
Then the Lord said in His heart. “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done
While the earth remains
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Winter and summer,
And day and night
Shall not cease”.
It should be clear to us that the building of the altar and the sacrifices offered mean much to God. Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel understood this and so both brought sacrifices to God, with Cain’s offering rejected, but that of Abel accepted by his ‘faith’. Romans 12:2.
It is conjectured that the first human beings would build their altar and offer sacrifices at the very gate of Eden the entrance of which was closed to them.
In the New Testament the ‘altar’ symbolized the sacrifice of Christ. It is a metaphor of Christ’s body on the Cross in the ultimate sacrifice for human sins,
This is therefore a spiritual ‘altar’ which connects God and His people in their covenant relationship. As persons in the family of God we approach the throne of God boldly. We worship at His altar.
It is important for us to note the warning in this Study Lesson that we often have to make very important choices when we have little experience on how to deal with the issues facing us. Accordingly, we often hear the lament, “If only I had known”, or “If I had to do it all over again I would not do what I did”.
We therefore hope you will learn the Lesson many of us including myself have learnt. This lesson is in Proverbs 3:5-6:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own insight.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct your path”.
Do not take this Lesson about the altar and the tent of Abram as one of little importance. Rely on God even if your faith is not as strong as you like.
Call on God often.
Opportunities that present themselves to you that tell you you will benefit from them are to be treated with caution.
Make sure by prayer and fasting that it is God presenting you with any opportunities placed before you.
Do not try to do things on your own or depend on what you may think are the signals that come to you in your life.
Your ‘altar’ is the Lord Jesus Christ. You do not now need to create any ‘altar’ or go up to any man-made ‘altar’ for anything.
If you made a mistake, cry out to God. Then you will have to rebalance your life and like the Prodigal Son go back to the Father. He will welcome you.
THE TEXT
Abram obeyed God. He went to fulfill the commission God had given him and he began to go all over the land. “And Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh”.
One writer tells us of what Abram faced when he entered the land at this site in Shechem.
“This was a soothsaying oak. The word “Moreh” means teacher. This oak was an ancient Canaanite site where a soothsayer sat, one who was involved with all these Canaanite practices. The Scriptures underscores this in a number of ways. It says this was a site of Shechem. The word “site” means a shrine, a Canaanite sanctuary devoted to Baal or Asherah or Astarte, or one of the gods or goddesses that they worshiped right by the oak Moreh”
We know therefore as Abram did, that the Canaanites were in the land. So, Abram faced trouble he could hardly imagine for the Canaanites were worst than the pagan Moon God Sin worshippers.
God had appeared to Abram with great promises. But there was a famine in the land.
Sound like your experience?
And Abram decided to go Egypt So there he and the beautiful Sarai had to practise some deception in the Egyptian style. Pharaoh took Sarai into his harem and God had to send great plagues to shake up Pharaoh. He then accused Abram of lying and bringing the plague, and he threw Abram and his entourage, including Sarai and his nephew Lot, out in disgrace (12:17-20).
Note Abram did not pitch his tent in Egypt and only did that when he was kicked out and came back to Canaan.
Psalms 105:14-15 refers to Abram’s experience
“When they went from one nation to another,
from one kingdom to another people,
He permitted (that is God) no one to do them harm
Yes, He rebuked kings for their sakes,
Saying, “Do not touch My anointed ones,
And do my prophets no harm”.
Only then did Abram resume his journey from the Negev as far as Bethel between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been at the beginning.
It is noteworthy Abram does not go back to Shechem which would remind him of the need for confession and repentance.
So Abram goes back to Bethel where he would have had fellowship and communion.
He was out of his entanglements and so could live in a tent (not living in the city as he did in Egypt) and build an altar.
Note that by moving around literally by “his stages” (verse 3) he was trying to recapture something he had lost. When he went back to the place he began then he recaptured the foundation truth of his life.
For Abram, and for us especially, our point of beginning is to call on the name of the Lord. You might have destroyed something in your relationship but you count on the fact that there is power in the name of Jesus. So, you remember Jeremiah’s call out to Israel and to us:
“It is of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning”.
Abram and his family are back in the Land. Lot, Abram’s nephew had left Ur with his uncle, responding to the call of God to his uncle. gone into Canaan with him, gone into Egypt with him and had been expelled from there with him. His whole life could be summed up by, ‘He went with Abram’. One writer has this opinion of Lot and gives us this warning:
“Lot seems to be a picture of those Christians who depend upon others for faith and inspiration to act. There are many Lots around. They never seem to learn to walk alone with God, but lean on another’s faith for strength. As long as they have a strong church to lean on, or a close friend who is a faithful Christian, or they can listen to a gospel radio station all day long, or have a Christian magazine coming regularly, then all goes well.
But if the prop is weak, they are weak also.
When Abram’s faith failed, Lot’s faith failed. Lot just leans on Abram all the way. He is clearly a second-hand Christian.
Although his own faith is genuine (and the New Testament makes it clear that Lot was indeed a righteous man), nevertheless, he depends wholly upon Abram for the effectiveness of his service.
This works well as long as the pressure is on. As long as things are a bit tough, Lot will stay with Abram for he senses his need for the strength of the man of faith. Lot feels his weakness to act upon his own faith.
There are so many like this. As long as things are a bit difficult, they lean hard upon their Abram, whoever or whatever it may be.
But there is one kind of test that this kind of Christian cannot stand—the test of prosperity, when all goes well. Material prosperity, especially, will always show up the Lots in our midst.
So, we read here that when their possessions were so great they could no longer dwell together, strife came between them. Today, we would call this a conflict of interests. There are many parallels to this in modern life”.
The danger for us in church is two-fold. We must develop brethren of personal strength who know how to call on God and lean only on God.
The other problem is relating to children. Mother and father have a great testimony but their children do not know the dangers around them and their personal need for redemption. The children follow along attracted by their parents’ joy of knowing the Lord, and their expectations of experiencing the joys of heaven.
But they have not personally experienced salvation and redemption. Our Lesson Study indicates that is a danger we must deal with urgently.
Verse 8. Quarrel arise between brethren over the herdsmen not sharing grazing lands. The Canaanites and the Perizzites are in the land (verse 7), and undoubtedly they are watching the strife among believers in Yahweh. These people of the land represent the deeds of the flesh, jealousy, envy, resentment, which should never be found among believers or Christians.
So Abram acts before really serious matters arose. His reasoning, “Let there be no strife, for we are kinsmen i.e. brethren”.
So, Abram does as God would want him do, he gave up his own right without a murmur so that the matter would be settled. In fact, being older Abram could have reminded Lot he was the superior, and had the right to the first choice which he would give up.
God’s grace was clearly working on Abram and so for him now rights did not matter.
Verse 9. Abram acted with kindness and showed he was not selfish. Abram had learned how to deal with prosperity and he therefore gave Lot the right to choose what he thought was best. The entire land was before them and Lot should go where he chose so that Abram could go into another direction to avoid any potential conflict in future.
Verse 10. Lot now face his personal test of faith and understanding what God had covenanted with Abram and his family. At that time,the topography of Israel was different for there was no Dead Sea, the river Jordan flowed to the Red Sea, the area around Sodom had not been yet destroyed, and this well irrigated fertile plain made it like the fertile are of Egypt.
Lot lifted up his eyes but what he saw was not the reality, for this place was not the beautiful fertile land of Eden where he would get rich quickly, but instead was the place of death.
But this was a wrong choice for another reason. Soon several Mesopotamian kings would get tired of the rebellious Sodomites, invade the area, and take Lot, his family, and his possessions away captive.
Lot did not know, or want to know, that these men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against his God. Note Moses focuses our attention on the implication of Lot’s choice.
So what is your consideration when you make the choices of life?
One writer states, Lot saw the beauty. “Lot saw the prosperity and the beauty, but he did not see that this was a place marked out for judgment: it was all to be swept away forever.
You may say there was no way for Lot to know these things. This is true. Neither Lot nor Abram could foresee the death, the rottenness, the judgment that life in Sodom would bring.
But the whole point of the story lies right here. Lot, presuming to run his own life, “chose for himself”, and, deceived by what he saw, stumbled blindly into heartache and judgment.
Abram, on the other hand, was content to let God choose for him, though it meant apparent second-best. And long before the true nature of Sodom became apparent to Lot, Abram saw it in its true light”.
And so the right spiritual conclusion follows:
“When will we learn that the inner nature of things as they really are is only revealed to the man with the tent and the altar?
It is only as we take the pilgrim character and remember we are not to have our final dwelling place on this earth, and we hold lightly the things of earth, that the Word of God begins to unfold to us and we see something of the judgment, the moral corruptness, the deadly character of what otherwise looks so attractive and is highly regarded on every side”.
So, Lot chose for himself. Will your choice bring you prosperity, status, and position?
Verse 11. Lot therefore journeyed east and went into the plains of Jordan.
Verse 12. The old man of God, the man of faith, Abram, now lives in a tent in the land of Canaan.
Note Lot moved his tent outside of Sodom at first, but then slowly moved into the city of Sodom itself. He loved living in a house of worth.
He did not feel as he should have at first that the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord.
Verses 13-17. Abram resumed his worship and built his altar. He knew the altar meant he had to bring and sacrifice an animal upon the altar. This altar spoke of sin and the inability of man to bear the penalty of sin.
Sin spoke of sacrifice and altars are made for sacrifice.
God now appears to Abram and told him the land was his. He should walk through all of it for it all, everywhere, would be given to his descendants. The descendants would grow and become as many as there were dusts on the earth.
That was God’s choice.
Verse 18. Abram in obedience to God’s order, obeyed and moved his tent.
He went to Mamre and built his new altar, and lived in his tent.
CONCLUSION
You will inherit all the earth and the universe if you are a child of God. If you are in the family of God you will let God choose for you. God wants to do this for you, and if you will let Him choose then He will give you the best.
Do not ever think you can trust your evaluation and judgments, feeling that you know what ought to be done and how to do it.
Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, says James. He will then exalt you.
Think about your decisions and the effect it will have on your children and your family. Lot never thought of this and he stayed and even became a prominent man in Sodom.
Clearly, it is nothing new for believers to rush to get into high society and make a good match for their sons and daughters to get into wealth.
After Lot left him God had Abram experience what it is like to inherit the east, the west, the north, and the south. He should walk through it.
Abram’s consolation was from the Lord.
We are reminded in Matthew 19:28 that everyone who has left houses and lands and family for His name’s sake will inherit much, much more, and in addition will have eternal life.
Abraham knew his life was a life where he had no certain dwelling place. Believers know the same. So, they all look forward to being with the Lord Jesus Christ where there are pleasures forevermore.
Abram in faith found true knowledge and acted realistically. Lot did not. He thought differently from Abram. The lust of the eyes, and the delights of the flesh made him like many of us ignore or abandon the opportunities for Christian service.
This Study gives us a clue for situations when brethren cannot dwell together because of disagreement. When two brothers cannot agree on an honestly held principle and these differences are carefully thrashed out, the time could very well have come for them to part in Christian love. One writer says it is a difficult matter but one may “divide in order that friendship may abide”.
One theologian calls this “a wretched and practicable upper rule”.
Jesus made some interesting but difficult to understand statements on this matter. He once said, “he it is who is not with me is against me”.
But He in another place told His disciples complaining whether individuals not doing the work of the Lord in the way they were doing it, “he who is not against us is for us”.
So, we must recognize that persons can be believers like Abram and Lot were with different viewpoints, and the time might come for them to separate. The most important consideration is for us all to take our problems and differences to the Lord. Do not develop markers that will make you do Not develop markers or rules that will make you do one thing or another. Be patient. Ask God what you should do and Let God decide.