And Genesis 13 from verse 1, Genesis 13 from verse 1, and Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and lot with him to the south. Abram was very rich in livestock and silver and gold. 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, to the place of the altar, which he had made there at first, and their Abram called on the name of the Lord. Lot also went with Abram, had flocks and herds in tents. Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together, and there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of lots, livestock, the canonites, and the parasites then dwells in the land. So Abram said to Lot, please, let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, or we are brethren, is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me, if you take the left then I will go to the right, or if you go to the right then I will go to the left, and Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, but it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zohar. That Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, Lot journeyed east, and they separated from each other, and Abram dwells in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent, even as far as Sodom, the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. Let us pray. May we know sweet communion with thee, O God, give us a heart's desire for thee. We need more information only that we might have deeper communion with thee. We have come to recognize with a psalmist, even as we have sung, to live apart from thee as death. We would make our lives, lives of praise and wonderful, authentic fellowship with the living God, as the heart pass after the water brooks. So may we desire thee. Grant us that blessing. We pray in Jesus' name, O man. And this point on in the book of Genesis, there is the recurring theme of endangering the covenant promises by the disobedience of the covenant principles. Abram, at this point, those who are born to him in their own time. And you will see, as you read the record, and as the Lord carries, and we study it on the Sunday evenings that God intervenes to protect his plan and promise. He does it first in the midst of disobedience when the plan and pledge of God are endangered by the disobedience of the principles of the covenant, the main players in the drama if you please. He does it by bringing about renewal. We're looking this night at the place of renewal for Abram. Now God uses Egypt to bring it about. He didn't choose to leave Egypt. They put him out. Thank God. Look at the end of chapter 12, verse 20, so Pharaoh, having been disgusted with Abram and his deceit, Sarah and her stratagem, Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away. They sent him away. And I believe we do not inject too much of our own thinking in the passage when we say that that expulsion from Egypt is used of the spirit of God to wake Abram up to his disobedience. And taking back to the place of Bethel, of renewal, of revival, that his return to Bethel and to the altar that he had built there is a pilgrimage that is not mere geographical description comes across even in English, in the language, in verses 3 and 4 beyond geography and description, I say, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning before the disobedience, to the place of the altar which he made there for sweet and sure communion with the living God. There is, in the life of Abraham, the place of renewal in the plan of God for the pledges and purposes of the covenant established with Abraham. He intervenes all mighty and sovereign God does in this renewal work. Now we are to be reminded and we learn this in the New Testament and we understand it in the fearfulness in a sense of St. Paul the Apostle, but he was worried, concerned that he might be shelved, plus when I have preached to others, I myself should be set aside. There does come a time when if renewal does not occur, God shelves the servant and goes for another, be true of churches. That ought to be a great heart cry of the leadership of Trinity. Your covenant purposes, oh God, will be worked out in this world. And of all people who are secure in their Calvinism, we ought to understand not one soul for whom Christ died will be lost. The issue is who will be used in the gathering of those numbers of the lost. Now in Abraham's situation in this authentic Christian life that we are looking at, we are reminded and in a sense we are encouraged, aren't we, that it's not what our setbacks, his spiritual pilgrimage, even though the New Testament I repeat, does not give us details or remind us of his failures. He has them, but the great strength of the authentic Christian life is when God intervenes in this case historically through Egypt and expulsion from Egypt, he has the good sense to go back to Bethel, place of restoration and renewal. Gilgal functions as something of this for the whole nation in the occupation of the land of promise under Joshua. We remember that Gilgal was the place where they renewed the sacraments as we would call them. Circumcision was renewed there, the place of cutting away the reproach and claiming the bloody sign of God's grace. And there are returns to Gilgal as Abram returns to Bethel. And there's a principle for us to understand, not much practiced in the modern American church. We do as we say commonly mess up in one place and so we just leave it behind and go somewhere else. God calls us to go back to the place of disobedience where we departed and set things right and be renewed and revived and restored. I left a Presbytery in deep division, found myself on the side of the minority. A man who had lived in open sin is the minister of another denomination had been put out by that denomination, had divorced the wife and married the girlfriend, found his way around and came to be restored in our denomination, no good. You go right back to that place where you disgrace the name of the Lord and you make things right. You go back to the altar and let there be sacrifice and restoration. He's a persuasive man, has an accent from another country which is always an extra ten thousand dollars on the salary of a minister in this country. I have no ill will toward him, but I believe with all biblical confidence he does not belong at the sacred desk. He ran. Abram went back to Bethel and that's always the biblical principle. Where is it that you got off the track? Maybe you can't even identify the place and you have to say in a situation, Lord, I don't even know where it all started. Will you raise an altar here that there might be new sacrifice and new communion and restoration? Back to Bethel, the progress is backward, praise God, but not in the American scene. We can always find a new church, a new denomination, a new city, and make a name for ourselves. My great fear in all of that is that last will it be mere wood hay and stubble, the place of renewal. But then at the end of verse four I believe there's an emphasis there when it says Abram called on the name of the Lord that as we consider his return to Bethel as the whole nation would return on occasion to Gilgill, the provision for renewal, the place of it, the provision for it, their Abram called on the name of the Lord. He didn't just get reactivated in the program of the covenant. The people of God, the purpose of God, are founded squarely not on program and activity and belonging. The covenant purposes are founded squarely on personal communion and fellowship. The doctrine of the sacrament I underscore again that I am so grateful that you, at Trinity Church, have maintained what we believe is our biblical heritage in personal communion. It isn't a drama. We're not all doing it somehow at the same moment. We are sitting, kneeling, whatever our practice having personal communion with the Lord. Churches are built on programs, big churches, successful churches, activities, and so you join an organization that offers you a great cafeteria line of possibilities and you pass along and you select this and you get involved in the other. And it's a great humming organization so that some years ago, when we thought we were discerning the mind of the Lord and allowed ourselves to be candidates for a church in another denomination in another part of the country, only to discover in our lengthy visit there that this was just a hub of activity, or they had all the language, the talk, but I wondered does it deepen the communion with the living God? And what Abrams doing at the place of renewal is using the wonderful provisions for renewal, calling on the name of the Lord so that communion, calling on the name of the Lord, is central in the great covenant purposes of God. This is what St. Paul means if you look with me for just a moment in Ephesians 2 at verse 19. I might take a little longer in another setting and show you the larger context, but for now just in Ephesians 2.19 where St. Paul says, now therefore in this conclusion, now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with his saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself, being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a habitation, a place of dwelling in sweet fellowship and communion with the living spirit of the eternal God. That's what it means to be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. It's not just correct theological statement, that's essential. We could build a good theological club and call it a church. Theological statement, essential as it is, is to move us to the life of communion and passion and heart for the Lord Jesus, so that the things that are on his heart are on ours. And as it were, in the place of renewal, the provision of rule of renewal makes our hearts beat together. Is this what this young man met? God had given me a heart to bring the lost to him. Let's have given you a heart for. Bethel, Gilgill, the foundation of the apostles and prophets, that we might be the holy habitation of the living God, the spirit of God, who will take the things of the mind of God and the heart of God and make them in our minds and our hearts, our job, in restoration and renewal, personal, congregational, it's not more program, not more activity, but a heart for it, his heart, my heart, that's the provision. Deybrem called on the name of the Lord. I wonder if he knelt. Holy communion was administered last Sunday evening in the church. We attended a Presbyterian church, and they kneel, oh, I miss it. I miss kneeling in church. I miss that posture, it was all handled quietly, wonderfully, as row by row we went to the altar rail and knelt, and received the elements of this real communion. And from the elder said, this represents the body of Christ for you, I had some spiritual sense that his life was in my life to live for him, and I say to you, that's very likely what's going on here in the life of Abram, the altar at Bethel, and right away, finally, perfectly. I'll be finished in 30 minutes, the proof of renewal. This is the place of renewal, and there's the provision, the altar, in living communion with the living Lord, so that his life is in us, and our minds and our hearts, no mind is so much smaller, and yet, what's on his heart is on mine, that's why I give. I can think of far more things to do with my money than give it away, that's why I go on Sunday night. I want to hear about your great heart, Lord, I want every opportunity to put my thinking under your word, every opportunity, and there comes a proof of renewal, and that's what we have in this division between law and Abram, and the land was not able to support them, they'd come back from Egypt, wealthy, and carnal, and the parasites were there, and the canonites were there, it was crowded, and this separation, and this solution, follow, the provision of the altar. Abram is really anointed here, before the pagan canonites and parasites, there is no severing of relationship, splitting, Abram says, we're brethren, Versailles, and so in generosity with insight, with good sense, he, the older one, who should have been entitled to first choice, gives it a lot, and relieves the tension, and relieves the tension of this moment in such a way that there is not worse tension to follow, haven't you seen solutions like that? We got out of this tension but all my, what we're in now, and here is Abram, disobedient in his scheming, Sarah in her stratagem, expelled from Egypt, coming back, not excusing, unexplaining, not hardened, going back to Bethel, wonderful place of revival and restoration using the provisions of communion with the living God, and right away God brings about the opportunity to demonstrate the proof of it, so the separation, and the passage would have you to understand that Lot chose the more appealing portion, that's why you have this language in verse 10 and following about the plane of Jordan being well-watered, and it was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gamara, it's not all salty and ashy, slush, wonderful, dangerous, Lot chooses that, and maintains before the parasites and the canonites a sense of unity, churches are made up of such a collection of humanity, aren't they? It's easy to talk about that crazy choir member, of that strange deacon, and that kind of talk never counts for Christ, never leads to the conversion of a soul, the sense that there is a fabric in the unity of grace, where brethren, brethren, and the watching pagans must not know we're scrapping, we're having tensions, it is not you see that the Bible says we must not have tensions, that's impossible, but in the household of faith, among the brethren, we find the solutions, and we do it with a spirit that is magnanimous, sensible, has insight and understanding, you know, sometimes we think renewal is all this flaky stuff going on, it is shocking isn't it, where it's happening, what is renewal? Emotional gettingness, self-proclaimed people going in and out, telling you about what they can do and can't do and you should be able to do, what is renewal and revival, how would you recognize it? While I wonder, leaving that for another time, saying this for the moment, that if renewal were to come, corporately, individually in your household, if God would not put before us a difficult, distressable situation to demonstrate that sweet communion, that's what he did here, that's the separation of Lot and Abram. As far as the parasites are concerned as far as we know, they knew nothing of that. Do you need to back up, make wonderful spiritual progress by going back to Bethel, to the altar, I wish we Presbyterians had the good sense to have nailers, our Westland friends, and there are friends, folks. I hear our many unbelievers talk about, as though they're substandard somehow, they are brethren, and I went to Divinity School in Pasadena, California, where the Nazareans are strong, the biggest churches in town, some of them are Nazarene churches, so James Dobson is from the first church of the Nazarene. It's where Pete Marevich was soundly conversed, and from where he went, reigned services, isn't that terrible for a Calvinist, did me good, and I remembered that great busy church of the Nazarene, 15 or 1600 people in the Sunday evening service, so that quiet going to an altar rail. Oh, that can become the turtical and perfunctory, I understand that, but somehow it seemed to be a good move, moved by the word and the power of the Spirit to go quietly, briefly, for a moment, and seal something before the Lord, and before the meeting was over.
I don't want to be a Nazarene, before I really finally decided fully that we are right, I read their classical systematic theology, all the volumes, and cover to cover, and decided they're wrong, but all their heart, I liked it, and I worry in some of our circles, frankly, as a convinced Calvinist and Presbyterian, that we can be hotty, cold, critical. I wish there were an altar. I wish we knew how to kneel back to Bethel.