East Coast Korean Camp Meeting

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Andrews Korean Church

Plenary

Chester Clark

The Need to Know

Giving Up All

Where Are We

Father Abraham

Lamp Feet

Building Altars

This Is Good

Always Giving

Looking To Jesus

Yesterday we were looking at the life of Abraham.

And we saw, well, we saw a number of things about Abraham.

We saw, for example, that he was a stranger and a pilgrim, right?

That he was the father of many nations, but not only the father of many nations, he was the father of all who would believe.

And I believe that means he is the spiritual father of, hopefully, of each 1 of us, and the spiritual father of those who are living in the last days.

We looked at what spiritual ancestry is all about, and we saw how the works of our spiritual father we will do.

You'll remember that when we looked a few nights ago at the passage in Romans chapter 13 verse 5 where it says, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith, prove your own selves.

You are either Jesus Christ or you are a reprobate, as King James says, a depraved, corrupt person.

And really, like Jesus was telling the Jews, we are either the descendants of Father Abraham and a part of the spiritual family of Jesus, or were the spiritual descendants of the first Adam.

And really, ultimately, the works of our Father we will do because he followed Satan, Lucifer, didn't he?

And so Jesus confronts the Jews, even though they're spiritual people, even though they were the Jews that were following him, with the reality that they weren't doing the works of Father Abraham.

They were doing the works of their father.

We sometimes try to think that there is some middle ground or some neutral place where we can be without being hot or cold.

But the reality is it is either 1 way or the other.

And we are influenced by our spiritual ancestry.

So we looked at the father of the end time faith.

We saw how Abraham was a stranger and a pilgrim.

We saw how he had these, we won't go through these verses again, but we saw how he was willing to go into a strange country, not yet having experienced the promises.

He was persuaded of them, embraced them, and finally was willing to be called and considered and considered himself a stranger and a pilgrim.

And this is what I want for my experience.

We're going to look at another characteristic of Abraham today and that's the fact that Abraham built altars, building altars.

I wonder if we couldn't just bow our heads for an additional word of prayer as we open God's Word.

Father, we just thank You that we have this opportunity to study.

Lord, I just pray for myself that the message might be the message that each person here wants to hear, needs to hear, and that we would...that I might not be seen, but that Your truth and that Jesus might be seen.

We're going to start with Genesis chapter 12 and we're going to look at 1 of the characteristics of Abraham that I think is very, very powerful.

Genesis chapter 12 and we're going to be looking at verse 7.

We've already seen verse 1 how God said to Abraham, get out of your country, from your family, from your father's house to a land that I will show you.

Verse 7, it says, the Lord appeared unto Abraham and said, unto your seed will I give this land.

And there he built an altar unto the LORD who appeared unto him." Now it's very interesting that Abraham, you'll find this is a trend, as a consistent pattern in Abraham's life.

Wherever he goes to a new place, There he builds an altar.

Verse 8 says, He removed from there unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, having 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.

We skip down to the next chapter, Genesis 13, and we look at verse 4.

He's very rich in cattle and silver and gold.

And he comes to – verse 3 it says, from the south even to Bethel, where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Hai, unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first.

And there Abram called on the name of the Lord.

Now I don't think that Abraham just had a fascination with altar architecture.

I don't think that Abraham was just into different altar designs and building fascinating altars.

I believe that Abraham was into worshipping God.

And Abraham was interested in wherever he was having a memorial of the worship of the true God and having a place where people gathered to worship the true God.

Those altars were not just a place where Abraham went, you know, for his private devotional time, morning and evening.

Although I think it's perfectly appropriate for us to have a place, a habitual place, where we meet with God.

For me as a young boy, I found it was the closet.

I built my little desk with some bricks and a board and I had my devotions in my closet.

Jesus would go to a certain spot in the Garden of Gethsemane, and that was his place.

It was nothing holy about that place, you understand.

But his mind was accustomed to being free from distractions in that place.

His mind was accustomed to there focusing on his relationship with the Father.

And Abraham would have a place where he went to spend time with God.

And maybe this was part of his personal time.

It was also time that he spent in a place where he spent with his family and with his household.

And it's very interesting that when we look later on in the life of Abraham, we see God speaking to him early 1 morning and telling him to go and to sacrifice his son.

In Ellen White's writings in Patriarchs and Prophets, she comments on this and she says that he was very confused about this.

This was Isaac, his only son whom he loved as God took pains to remind him.

He went out into a place, she says he went to a place where he was accustomed to hearing God's voice speaking to him.

So evidently there was some place, maybe it was 1 of these altars, that he had been accustomed to meeting with God, not just in his family circle, but also in his personal walk.

He looked for more information in that instance and heard nothing else.

The voice was just ringing in his ear, go and offer him as a sacrifice.

So the Bible here records that Abraham, wherever he went, he was building altars.

There were 2 purposes for these altars, or at least 2.

And I believe the first 1 was that of teaching.

Abraham realized that he was sent into this land, this promised land that now in verse 7 had been promised to him.

He was sent not just for his own good to get out of the area of the Chaldees, but he was sent as a missionary.

He was sent to be a light in a dark place.

In fact, 400 years later, when his descendants would actually inherit the promised land, many people question this genocide, as some people have called it, why these tribes were extinguished and decimated and whole people groups would be killed by the Hebrews.

Well, it's quite clear in my understanding at least that Abraham was sent as a missionary to these people groups to shine the light of heaven upon them so that they would have a knowledge of the true God.

And they would be able to have a way that, I mean, 400 years later they didn't have to be annihilated.

They could have been a part of the worship of the true God.

But remember that The system of the patriarchs and prophets was established to try to preserve truth on earth.

Remember that earth became so wicked that God destroyed the whole earth by flood.

Now you might consider that something of a genocide, right?

I'm not trying to get into the ethical dilemmas of why God destroyed the earth with the flood, but I think He did.

And I think it was because He loved humanity, not because He was angry with any people group.

And when the Israelites would return to the promised land, these people groups, instead of appreciating the message of heaven, Melchizedek, the high priest of the most high God had been there among these people groups.

Abraham had been there among these people groups.

They had the opportunity to accept light from heaven.

And by the way, they weren't far removed from Noah.

You know, you might think, well, these are just innocent people.

These people were in rebellion against God.

They knew the story of the Tower of Babel.

And they were in absolute rebellion against God.

And they were determined to go their own way.

And instead of the hearts of waxing and getting softer, they became balls of clay and became harder until they continued doing things like offering their own children as sacrifices to their self-created gods and refusing to worship the true God.

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Series

Plenary

Building Altars

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Man to Man

A Father’s Heart

49m

Abraham: Father of the End-time Faithful

Father Abraham: Stranger and Pilgrim

42m

What Jesus Said

19. Religion and Politics

1h

World’s Richest Beggars

34m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

18 When the Day of Atonement Ends

50m

Dying for Devotions

37m

Fruitometer

51m

Plenary

The Cross Connection: How Love Flowing From the Cross Changes Us and Our Patients

45m

The Commandment of Love - Part 3

43m

If Only You Knew

38m

Beekeeping Track

Basic Beekeeping Part 3

1h 1m

Self Discipline in Science and Scripture

54m

Sound Doctrine