(Genesis) Genesis 13:14-18

Now, verse 14, And the LORD said unto Abram, After that lot was separated from him. Now, here is the third appearance of God to this man. Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward.

This is the land. God's going to give it. Now, as God continues to appear to him and later on to the other patriarchs, God put sideboards around that land.

In other words, he put a border to it and told them exactly the land. He was very specific about it. And by the way, may I just interject this, that ought to get rid of that song, Beautiful Isle of Somewhere.

If there ever was a song that needed not to be sung at a funeral, that's the one, Beautiful Isle of Somewhere. Can you imagine Abraham now looking northward, eastward, southward, and westward, and singing Beautiful Isle of Somewhere when he was standing right in the middle of it? May I say to you, friends, heaven is a real place, not a beautiful isle of somewhere. A very definite place.

The Word of God is quite specific. And those of you that were with us through the book of Revelation know that actually God made it so specific, he put the boundary right around it and we can know something about it. God does not deal with that which is theoretical, but that which is actual and real.

Now God says, And I'll make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Now you notice what God does for this man. He now labels the land, tells him he's in it.

He also confirms again the fact that he's going to have a tremendous offspring, which he has had. Now he says in verse 17, Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for I'll give it unto thee. And the very interesting thing is that this scroll, Dead Sea Scroll, they called it the book of Lamech and it wasn't that at all.

And actually it describes this particular section of Genesis. And here it says Abraham was to walk through the land in the length and in the breadth thereof. And the scroll gives a first-person account by Abraham of the land, just what it was.

It was a wonderful land in that day. Now verse 18, Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord. And here he goes again.

He's quite an altar builder. You could always tell where Abraham had been. He left a testimony.

They've left a footprint on the moon. They've left a flag up there and a little motto, We've Come in Peace. But they didn't leave the Bible, the Word of God.

Well, it wasn't done any good anyway, but it reveals the difference in the age and the thinking of the period in which we live today. The important thing to Abraham was an altar to the Lord. And that's exactly what he built.

And Mamre means richness and Hebron means communion. That's a marvelous place to dwell. I think that you can locate that tree where Abraham was, by the way, and the well that's there.

I've been there. It's quite an interesting spot between Hebron and Mamre. And that is where Abraham dwelt.

And it's a good place to be in the place of richness and then a place of communion with God. And this seems to have been his home. That's where he's buried today.

This is the place that he wanted to go.