THE WANDERER RETURNS
“Then Abram went up from Egypt, he
and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South. 2 Abram was
very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. 3 And he went on his journey from the South as far as
Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel
and Ai, 4 to the place of the altar
which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the Lord.”
Genesis 13:1-4
Introduction
Abram already has undergone
a real test of faith. God had led Abram to a land which He had promised to give
it to Abram’s descendants. But it turned out that there was a severe famine in
the Promised Land. What was Abram supposed to do? Instead of trusting in the
LORD to provide, Abram planned a holiday in Egypt to get away from it all! We
looked at some “snap-shots” of Abram and Sarai’s vacation in Egypt! We looked
at Abram’s holiday plan. We looked at the place where he stayed. And like all
the well laid plans of mice and men there was a plague on Abram’s holiday. Or
rather the plagues were on those with whom Abram and Sarai were staying!
In the following we pick up
the story where we left off. Pharaoh, the owner of the “Holiday Resort” was
only too happy to see the backs of Abram and Sarai. He was so anxious to see
them leave that he “waved their tab” – as they say in Canada. Abram and Sarai
had made a killing in Egypt, and Pharaoh had sent them home, letting them keep
all their “Casino” winnings.
Now we pick up the “holiday
party” as they journey home. They are heading back to the place where they were
before they went, which was between Bethel and Ai. They were struggling home
with bags full of silver and gold. With the holiday behind them they were keen
to get back home and get back into the routine. In the following we’ll have a
look at three areas, viz., the Trip, the Trinkets and the Trust. The general gist of what we’ll be
looking at is as follows: “If we are
faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy
2:13).
The Trip
“Then
Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him,
to the South” Genesis 13:1. Abram had gone
down to Egypt now he’s ascending the hill to the Promised Land. So the “trip”
we’re talking about is the trip home and not so much the trip to Egypt. Like
the Israelites ascending the steps of the Temple, Abram was returning to the
place of worship. Whether he was singing like Moses and Miriam after being delivered
out of the hand of Pharaoh we can only guess. But as they made their trip back
home they had much to praise God about.
Like any of us on the trip
back home from an exciting holiday Abram would have been running everything
that happened through his mind. He would be thinking, “I did a lot of stupid
things! In fact, the whole idea was stupid! I should have stayed where I was,
famine or no famine! Why did I have to run off to Egypt? Why did I put my
wife’s honor in jeopardy? Why didn’t I just trust in the LORD to provide and be
done with it?”
And isn’t that the way of it
for us today? Whenever a Christian backslides he may spend the rest of his life
casting it up to himself. He’s never short of help in casting it up his
backsliding to himself. The devil and his demons are only too glad to help you
do penance for the rest of your life! The “Accuser of the Brethren” is only too
happy to hand you a cudgel with which to beat yourself black and blue for your
failings. But not the LORD, not our LORD. When we are faithless He remains
faithful. Who do you think it is who is leading Abram back to the place he was
before? The Good Shepherd, the LORD rescued Abram from his folly. The LORD
delivered him.
Do you read here that the
LORD starting calling Abram names, casting things up to him? Did the LORD say to Abram, “You stupid idiot!
Why didn’t you listen to Me?” No, that’s not the LORD who’s accusing you of
your past backsliding. It was Pharaoh and his house who were plagued by God,
not Abram and his house.
Oh yeah, it’s wrong to backslide.
What Abram did was wrong, but the LORD went down into Egypt to rescue Abram
from his backsliding, not to destroy him. Abram had turned his back on his sin
and he was back on the wagon. After this brief interlude he was wanting to get
back to the LORD. So you do likewise. Turn your back on your backsliding and
seek the LORD. He’s not going to clobber you. He’s going to bless you. However,
this is not to say that there will be no consequences for your past
indiscretions. The repentant drunkard might have done irreparable damage to his
liver. The repentant promiscuous homosexual might yet develop AIDS after
rejecting that lifestyle.
One of the slaves Abram
picked up in Egypt was a woman by the name of Hagar. Hagar and her descendants
were to become the bane of Israel’s life. The cattle Abram picked up from Egypt
were about to cause friction between he and his nephew Lot. If you belong to
the LORD and you wander away from Him He will bring you back. But chances are
that you won’t be rescued unscathed. However, put it behind you and get on with
serving the LORD. For if you are truly repentant then the LORD has fully
forgiven you.
To those who truly belong to
the LORD, as does Abram, “There is therefore
now no condemnation” Romans 8:1. The LORD has His everlasting arms
around even the most “Kamikaze” of Christians. The LORD won’t allow you to jump
out of the frying pan and into the fire. He has you by the scruff of your neck
with a love that will not let you go. The Psalmist says, “My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for He shall
pluck my feet out of the net” Psalm 25:15. Whether the LORD’s got you by
the scruff of the neck or by the ankles the point is that He’s got you. Always
remember that it’s the “fatted calf” our Father wants to kill when the wanderer
returns and not the wanderer.
Abram may have deserted the
LORD by going down to Egypt, but the LORD hadn’t deserted Abram. So then Abram
and his family were making the trip home to where they had been before.
The Trinkets
The LORD didn’t meet Abram
like a Customs Officer at the border of the Promised Land and ask “Anything to
declare?” We’re told in Genesis 13:2 that “Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.” Abram
got to take all his winnings, all his holiday trinkets with him into the
Promised Land.
Now, then, what does this
picture say to those who say, “You can’t take your riches with you when you
die”? Here’s God letting Abram into the Promised Land with all his earthly
belongings. Abram was a very rich man! The LORD says elsewhere, “How HARD it is for those who have riches to
enter the kingdom of God! For it easier for a camel to go through a needle’s
eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” Luke 18:24-25. Yet
the Customs Officers didn’t confiscate everything Abram had. He got to keep everything
he had won at Pharaoh’s Casino. Jesus
says it is HARD for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God but not
impossible! He says, “The things that
are impossible with men are possible with God” Luke 18:27.
Why is it that our picture
of a missionary is some white bloke sitting in a mud hut overseas? If I was to
ask to be sent to Beverley Hills why would no one take me seriously? Poor
people may be more open to a Saviour but don’t the rich need a Saviour too? Is
it more “righteous” to be poor and less “righteous” to be rich? Both the rich
man Abram and the poor man Lazarus died and went to heaven! Whether you’re rich
or poor is neither here nor there. The kingdom of God is not about food or
drink. It’s got nothing to do with how rich or how poor you are. And yet we
have this mind-set that sees poverty almost as a sign of righteousness or
piety. Jesus stopped the rich young ruler at the border of the kingdom of
heaven. He wouldn’t let him into His kingdom, the Promised Land with all his
riches, Why not? It wasn’t because the LORD had anything against riches. It was
because the rich young ruler had put his trust in all his riches, in trinkets!
However, for some reason nowadays Christians in general seem to be ashamed of
riches! But think of the work that could be done if the church was full of rich
Christians. Think of the work the church could do if we had one millionaire in
the congregation who tithed! It’s the love of money that is the root of all
evil not money itself!
I was a member of a congregation
that donated a small sum to a financially struggling congregation out west in a
small town somewhere. Well, it turned out that one of the members of that congregation
upon realizing the church’s financial struggle followed our example and
anonymously donated $10,000! The church I was attending had in this set a good
example for others to follow. And, praise be to God that there are still some
around today who follow a GOOD example.
The Church is supposed to be
the light on the hill with words and with deeds. The Roman Church is the
richest in the world yet her people are some of the poorest! There’s nothing
wrong in having a nice church building to worship in, even a beautiful one! One
has only to look at the temple Solomon built. Its designer was God! But to bleed
your people dry to build and maintain beautiful cathedrals while your people go
hungry spiritually and physically is criminal. But it’s just as criminal to
hold back whatever wealth you have from the work of the LORD. For everything we
own belongs to the LORD. It is given us by the LORD. It is His! The LORD can
just as easily take all our trinkets, all our riches back again.
Listen to what the LORD says
in the first chapter of Haggai, i.e., Haggai 1:7ff, “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains
and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be
glorified,’ says the LORD. You looked for much, but indeed it came to little;
and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the LORD of hosts.
‘Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house.
Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its
fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain
and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and
livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
So the moral of the tale is
this: Use whatever wealth you have for the building of the LORD’s Church throughout
the earth. We’re not necessarily talking about buildings. We all know that Christians
can worship anywhere. But let me just pause here and pose a question: When you
drive through center of any western city, when you look at the sky-line, are you able to pick out church buildings
from the others? Are you able to tell the difference between a church
building and a bank building, for instance? The church is the one with the
steeple, the arched windows, isn’t it? Well, I put it to you that as the church
become more and more like the world, so do our buildings! And how many church
buildings have you driven by only to find that it’s been converted into a
theatre or something? The world wants to change our church buildings into
theatres. A theatre is a place of entertainment! At the theatre you’re
entertained by people acting as if they are something when they’re not! You
could be excused nowadays for thinking you were walking into a church when you
were actually walking into an entertainment theatre!
So the world wants to change
our churches into entertainment centers! And I’m sure you are aware that many
churches are quite happy about this. If they’re not happy then why is there so
much puppets, mime and drama in the churches nowadays? And by the same token, why
is it that some congregations go to great lengths nowadays to build buildings
that look more like pan-cake houses than churches? We were in an old Methodist
Church building in Brisbane City which is now a pan-cake house! Inside they now
hand you a menu instead of a hymn book and a Bible! There were photos on the
walls from its glory days when it was packed with people feeding on something
more substantial than flap-jacks!
The Christian Church today
has adopted a strange philosophy, the belief that the church must become like
the world in order to attract the world. But you as a Christian should stick
out like a sore thumb. Therefore the building you worship in should stick out
like a sore thumb. What’s wrong with a majestic steeple pointing heavenward?
However, nowadays you’re never sure whether you’re going to get served pancake
or the Word of God! But more often than not you’ll be served something other
than God’s Word. Don’t be deceived:
some of the churches in this town are really pan-cake houses! The world
and the things of the world have infiltrated the churches. And the churches
reflect the world and the things of the world. And now instead of building
church buildings we build multipurpose buildings. Apparently it increases the
resale value of the building for the future.
The Church today needs to
learn anew what the LORD was teaching Abraham And here it is: All the riches of
the world, all their buildings and all their cities belong to God. And if it
pleases God to give us silver and gold then He gives us them. If it pleases God
to give us a whole cities then He gives us whole cities. If it pleases God to
give us the whole earth then he gives us the whole earth. But you and I won’t
see a brass razoo of it unless we trust in the LORD. Unless we trust in the
LORD with all our heart, soul, strength, might, and mind the little you have
will be taken from you and given to those who do trust the LORD. That’s what
the LORD is teaching Abram, i.e., to trust in Him and Him alone, and not to
trust in the world or the things of the world, the things of Egypt.
Like Abram, we need to take
our eyes of the things of the world and trust in the things of God.
The Trust
If this were a game of
monopoly Abram is no longer in jail. However, he’s back at the beginning
collecting more than 200. He landed on Chance and bankrupted himself. He had to
pay the owner of the Promised Land everything he had in a famine. He went down
to Egypt to try to bale himself out of his debt. But actually Egypt turned out
to be the jail, i.e., the place where people go when they cannot pay their
debts. But Abraham had a Community Chest card up his sleeve. He had a “Get Out
Of Jail Free Card”, didn’t he? So here we are seeing him use that card. “Abram called on the name of the LORD.”
Abraham went back to that
little sanctuary he had built. He returned from his spin around the Monopoly
Board and landed on Church Street. Did all the buildings look the same on
Church Street? Let’s see, there are the Amorites with their Baals and
Ashteroths. There they are over here cutting themselves and calling on Baal. There’s
another lot over there throwing their children into the fiery belly of their
god Moloch. All these establishments of the Canaanites dotted the skyline of
the Promised Land. BUT THAT WHICH ABRAM HAD BUILT WAS DIFFERENT! Abram had
built an altar there, an altar to the LORD who had appeared to him. Right there
smack-dab right in the center of pagansville he had built a church building,
building different to all the rest. He had built an altar, not to an unknown
God, but the LORD who had appeared to him, the LORD who had promised to bless
him, the LORD who had promised to make him a great nation, the LORD who had
promised to bless those who blessed Abram and curse him who cursed him. So,
when it says that Abram called on the name of the LORD, it means that Abram began
to worship God once more.
The prodigal has returned,
this prodigal has much more than smelly clothes on his back. This is the wild
rover has come home with gold in great store! The wanderer returns! Think about
it, Abram had already lost whatever he had in a famine the LORD sent. But now
he’s returning with gold in great store and a heart that is ready and willing
to use his riches to the glory of God! He knew that everything he had belonged
to the LORD. Like Paul he had learned that “in whatever state, to be content; [to] know how to be abased, and... how
to live in prosperity... [Like Paul Abram] learned both to be full and to be
hungry, both to abound and to suffer need” Philippians 4:11-12.
Abram could say along with
Job, “Naked I came from my mother’s
womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;
blessed be the name of the LORD” Job 1:21. The LORD took Abram’s riches
away in a famine. But now he has blessed him with even greater riches. Like Job
whom God blessed him with more at the end than he ever had at the beginning Job
42:12. In fact Abram is the richest man there is apart from Christ! For Paul to
the Romans in 4:13 tells us that Abram is the heir of the whole world!
So, who says you don’t get to
take your riches with you? Abraham and all the meek along with him shall
inherit the earth Matthew 5:5. Therefore, all the silver and gold and livestock
that Abram had when he left Egypt is just a small token of what’s in store for
him. In fact, Abram coming out of Egypt, the world with all his riches as he
entered the Promised Land is a great biblical motif. It is a picture of the
wonderful provision of God for His people. He brings us up out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage and He bestows great blessings upon us.
When we set our hearts to
worship Him in spirit and in truth He sets His heart to bless us. It is the
LORD who brought Abram up out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage.
It is the LORD who brings us out of that land of bondage too. It was the LORD
who brought Israel out of captivity in Egypt, the LORD who says to Israel in
Deut. 6:10ff., “And it shall be, when
the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers,
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you
did not build, houses full of good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out
wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant –
when you have eaten and are full – then beware, lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of
the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” Deuteronomy 6:10-12.
The LORD had given His
Church all the great cities of the Western Civilization. They were ours and all
the steeples on every skyline were testimony to this fact. However, the Western
skyline is rapidly changing. It’s beginning to look more and more like Egypt! Instead
of steeples we see Moslem onions, domes dot the horizon! The Church has forgotten
the LORD who brought them out of Egypt. It’s time we made the trip back to that
place we were before. It’s time we gathered our trinkets together in our swag
and headed back to the Promised Land. It’s time we began to trust in God, to
really call on the name of the LORD. It’s
time for the wanderer, all the wanderers to return and call on the name of the
LORD!
If you’re still stuck down
in Egypt, if you have been faithless, then follow father Abraham up the hill
back to the Promised Land. You might have been faithless up till now but God hasn’t.
The Lord is faithful and he will forgive the wanderer. Even if you’ve been the
WILDEST wild-rover return to the LORD. If you belong to Him He will not deny
you because He cannot and will not deny Himself.
Come, come back to Abraham’s
family altar and once more call on the name of the LORD. Make the trip. Bring your trinkets. BUT trust
in the LORD!
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