From Altar to Altar

What we began to say was that it took this wandering through the land in a walk of obedience... it took periods of famine... it required the moving of his altar from one place to another... in order that Abraham might acquaint himself with God's ways. First he pitches his tent at Shechem; then on to Bethel; then a journey to the South; and then, because of the famine in the land a little excursion into Egypt. Some hard lessons were to be learned there; and though we cannot blame God for our own mistakes as we seek to follow Him, we do have this confidence that if the heart is right God will cause even these to tie in with His purposes. Returning from Egypt he finds himself back in Bethel again, where he had pitched his tent at the beginning.

Then the time came for a separation from Lot, and a walking through the length and breadth of the land of his inheritance. He seemed to be wandering--and many have felt the same way as they look back upon their lives, and wonder why such apparent disorder in all that they did. But Abraham had to go that way. God was leading him; for God had promised He would show him a "land." Now he is at Hebron, certainly the choicest part of the land of Canaan. Why not settle down right here, Abraham, and enjoy the inheritance and the home that God had promised you? Are you going to be a visionary all your life, and at the end discover that you have really gone nowhere? And Hebron did become his home for awhile. Isaac and Jacob also lived there.

And when it became time for Israel to enter into their inheritance some 500 years later, it became the inheritance of Caleb; for God had sworn to give it to him because of his faithfulness. Later on, David reigned as king over Judah in Hebron, And so it must have been a highly desirable prize for anyone to receive.

But Abraham continued to be a stranger and a foreigner in his own inheritance. Because Abraham was a man of the "Way." He could be thankful for it, enjoy it, get his daily sustenance from the fruitfulness of the land; but he must move on. Back to the Negeb. Then dwelling in the midst of the Philistines, and learning some more hard lessons. Finally the true son Isaac is born.

Surely the time is at hand when he can settle down and be content with God's promises, which he has faithfully fulfilled. But God would not let him settle down, because the experiences through which God was leading him were designed to enlarge his vision, so that he might come to know God and yearn for the Holy City. This would become his true inheritance. Once again he must become "unsettled." For God said to him, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell of" (Genesis 22:2). Still a little indefinite... which mountain? But he did not need to know the exact spot... not yet. He would know the second step only after he had taken the first.

This is the principle by which the people of the Way must walk. And it is designed this way that the people of the Way might become the people of the Truth and of the Life. And there on Mount Moriah, having given back to God everything that God had given him, Abraham received the highest prize of all: a revelation of the Day of Christ and of the Lamb that Jehovah-Jireh had provided.