Pitching tents and Building altars

Genesis chapter 11, and we'll just read a few verses from the beginning of the chapter. Reading from verse 1, And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto the heaven.

And let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built it. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do.

And now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build a city.

Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth. And from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. A very dark scene.

Turn over to the beginning of chapter 12, and we'll find that things become a little bit brighter. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee. And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. And Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him.

And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran. And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came.

And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the mount of Moriah. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land.

And there built he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from fence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Haii on the east. And there he built an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.

And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. And we know that God will bless his word to us. My exercise this morning, still morning, is to just speak a word to you on the pitching of tents, and on the building of altars.

We've read of the moment in scripture where this man Abram appears on the scene. And of course, we know the story that lies ahead. We know that this is the man who will one day, in response to the command of God to take his son, his only Isaac, whom he loves, that one day he will make his way up Mount Moriah.

And why, in what is perhaps the greatest act of worship recorded for us in Old Testament scripture, he will bind his only son, that one in whom all the promises of God as far as he was concerned were centered, and lay him upon the altar, and raise a knife in devotion, in obedience, and in worship to God. And we think of that occasion, and we think of worship like that, and we think of obedience like that. And I think we would ask ourselves the question, well, where does that come from? I think it would be very clear to us that this wasn't something that just appeared out of nowhere.

That there had to be a backstory, that there had to be experiences with God that would account for a man being willing to do something like that. And so there were. And we have read really just the very beginning of Abram's walk with God.

And what I want us to see, what I want us to understand this morning, is that right there at the very beginning of Abram's walk with God, there were priorities that were established. There were priorities that were expressed. And from this beginning that we've read, from this beginning moment where Abram pitches a tent and where he built an altar, we see the very beginning of what would blossom, and what would flower, and what would be seen in its fullness on the slope of Mount Moriah.

When we read that account of Abraham and Isaac, and we think of their walking together, I'm sure we would all aspire, we would love, we would long to think that one day we would be capable of an action like that. We have to confess, I think, certainly I do, that we're not yet where Abraham was. And there are things far less precious to us than Isaac was to Abraham.

And despite the blood that has been placed on the thumb of our right hands, we just grasp onto it and we're not willing to let go. But we would like to think, wouldn't we, that we would arrive at that point where Abram was, where he would not withhold his only son from God. Well, can I encourage you, brethren and sisters, and especially those who are younger in our meeting this morning, that this is where it starts.

It starts simple, and it starts small, but it starts when clear priorities are established. And what were those priorities? Well, you see, I think it's lovely to think of the pitching and the building. It says, first of all, that Abram pitched a tent.

Here's a man, and he's become a pilgrim. God has called him. And in obedience to God's call, he has gone out.

And Abram has recognized that, in the words of Hebrews, that he has no continuing city. And he has realized that his relationship to the world has been changed in such a way that when it comes to his place in the world, and when it comes for a place for him to dwell, he can't build himself a house. Nothing as permanent, nothing as durable as that, he has to pitch a tent.

But mind you, when it comes to what's for God, and when it comes to worship, and when it comes to the altar, that has to be something that will endure. That has to be something that will last. And the man who pitches the tent is the man who builds the altar.

I think it's very interesting that when we come to Hebrews chapter 11, and we find Abram there in his rightful place in the record of the heroes of faith, and we read things about him, and of course, Hebrews chapter 11 is full of tremendous acts of faith. It's full of great deeds of faith. But there's something that's said about Abraham, and it seems to hardly fit in.

It seems to be in Congress, and it says this, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the promise. You say, really? In a chapter that includes acts like willingness to sacrifice his son, in a chapter that talks, for example, about Noah building an ark, in a chapter that talks about Moses and the miraculous deliverance that God wrought for his people, in that chapter of the mighty acts of faith, this is worthy of being recorded, that he lived in a tent. I've never lived in a tent.

I stayed in a tent once. It wasn't particularly pleasant, but it wasn't that difficult. But you see, that was an expression of Abraham's faith.

And his faith in God meant that he was just going to be a pilgrim all his days. And in this way, it was as great an expression of faith as it was, as was that day when in obedience to God's word, he took Isaac to Mount Moriah, knowing that God was able to raise him again from the dead. You know, I want to encourage us all.

We live in a world that would encourage us to build what is for ourselves. Maybe it's to build a business, or to build a legacy, or to build a name. I would like to encourage us to get in our lives, and particularly right at the beginning of our Christian walk, to get this built into the fabric of our lives, that we are going to be those, and we will pitch our tent, but we'll build the altar.

It is made very clear for us, and that's the reason that I read in chapter 11, it is made very clear to us that this, Abraham and these actions, is in total contrast to the society round about him. You will notice that Genesis chapter 11 doesn't necessarily come in chronological order just immediately before Genesis chapter 12, because if you go back to the beginning of chapter 10, we read in verse 5, by these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, everyone after his tongue, after their families, and after their nations. And yet the spirit of God doesn't explain how that division happened until we get into chapter 11.

And you say, well, why is that? Well, I want to suggest to you that it's just that we might grasp the contrast. And here's humanity in their pride, and in their presumption, and they say, go to, let us do this. Go to, let us do that.

And you know, I do love the divine irony in the passage. Here's men, and they say, we're going to build a tower. It's going to go all the way up to heaven.

What does God say? Go to, let us go down and see what they're doing. He didn't need to come down, but the little temple that they were able to erect on the face of the globe, it's just so insignificant that he says, let's go down and see what they're doing. They thought they were building something great, but that's the heart of man, isn't it? And that's the world that we live in.

Let's build something to make us a name, build something in defiance to God and in defiance to his word. And you know, something began at Babel, and it's been going on ever since. And the world that we live in, in its attitudes, in its values, in its institutions, it's just the direct descendant of what we have in Genesis chapter 11.

And its priorities are very different to the priorities of the man that God has called. Very different to the priorities of the man who went out not knowing where he went. And it says of him that he pitched a tent and he built it an altar.

I wonder what about us? Where are our energies invested? What building are we doing? Is our focus on building for ourselves and establishing and ensuring and securing our comfort? Or are we happy just with a tent? Appropriate to those who are pilgrims and strangers who do not belong and who are going home? And is it our desire and our exercise that what will be produced in our life that will be of lasting value will be an altar, will be that which is for God and that which expresses worship to him? And why was it? Why was it that Abraham adopted these priorities? If it was the case, as we've seen, that they're so different from the values that prevailed in the world round about, what made the difference? You see, we do need to ask that question. Because you know as well as I do that the world presses in upon us. Isn't that the language of Paul in the epistle to the Romans? The world would like to conform us, to squeeze us into its mold.

And that can happen in many different ways, but perhaps most crucially it happens in our thinking and it happens in our mind. And the values that our classmates, that our colleagues have, just almost by a process of osmosis can bleed into our minds. And they become our values too.

But Abraham wasn't like that. Something had happened to Abraham and it had just completely reorganized his priorities. It had completely rearranged his values and it made him different from all those who were round about.

That's what we need you know. We need the same experience that Abraham had to detach us from this world and to shake us from it. To make us tent-pitching pilgrims.

It's quite hard to say. I wouldn't want to say it more quickly than that. To make us tent-pitching pilgrims and to make us altar-building worshippers.

And of course we know what happened, don't we? Here in Genesis we have the account of how God spoke. God had said unto Abraham. But of course we remember from the book of the Acts that it was not just that God had spoken, but that the God of glory appeared unto Abraham.

Why was Abraham a worshipper? I hope we all know. There are different characteristics associated with the patriarchs. Now when you're thinking of Isaac, you're thinking of the wells.

Very precious to study the wells of Isaac's life. But when you're thinking of Abraham, you're thinking of the altars. This isn't of course the first altar that he built.

Earlier he built an altar unto the Lord who appeared to him in verse 7. But there was going to be a string of altars. Everywhere that Abraham moved he left an altar behind. There was a mark of his worship to God.

And what made him a worshipper? Well it was this, I suggest to you, that the God of glory appeared unto Abraham. What makes us worship? It's not the pressure of expectations of the brethren, I hope. It's not custom and practice because we do it every Sunday, I hope.

What is it that rings from the heart of the believer? Worship to God. It's just an appreciation of how great he is. And here at the very beginning of his experience with God, there was a moment when Abraham realized the greatness of God.

I hope, by the way, that there's nobody in the gathering who hasn't yet come to know God. Remember this, that there will be nothing in your life that will bring pleasure to God until you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. But you know, those of us who are saved, we need to get to know God.

And we need to grasp something of the glory of God. And we need to grasp something of the greatness of God. And to understand something of the wisdom of God displayed in his great program.

Here Abraham, he got a grasp of all these things. And brethren and sisters, is it any wonder that this was a man who was marked by the building of altars? I love the words of the hymn, What has stripped the seeming beauty from the idols of the earth? Not a sense of right or duty, but the sight of peerless worth. And I hope, over the course of this weekend, we have seen something of the peerless worth of our Savior.

I hope we've had something of a revelation of the glory of God. We were thinking of it in the Bible reading yesterday, that glory of God that was revealed. And the people shouted with joy, and they shouted in worship and acclamation.

And here's Abraham, and he's a worshiper because he knows he has seen God. He got a view of what God was like. And that, of course, is really what our Christian experience is all about.

This is life eternal. Now they might know what the preachers think on a range of subjects. No.

It's not even this is life eternal that they might know the Bible from cover to cover, though we'd all like and we'd all benefit from knowing it better than we do. This is life eternal that they may know thee, the one true God. And Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Are we people who know our God? That's a source of strength, isn't it? The people who know their God shall be strong, if we know him. If we really know him, we can hardly help but be worshipers of him. See, those, well, they weren't Babylites at the time, but those men, those men who gathered there on the plain of Shiner, they had another goal.

They were worshiping themselves and their brilliance and their ingenuity and their ability. But Abraham's not like that. And you don't need me to tell you that our society just is filled with the worship of man in a whole variety of different forms.

We don't need to spend time on it this afternoon. But people who've got a sight of the glory of God, we can't go back to the worship of man that marks this world. And we have to go on, surely, and be builders of altars.

So the God of glory appeared unto Abram. And Abram got a view of God in his greatness and in his glory. But Abram also got a grasp of what God was going to do.

And we've been thinking a little yesterday of the promises of the covenants of God. And again, for younger believers, I would commend to you a study of the covenants of Scripture. It'll stretch you.

It'll be a demanding study, but it'll be a tremendous help to you in your understanding of this book as a coherent and a cohesive volume. And God speaks to Abraham, and God makes promises to Abraham. I do love the fact, of course, the writer to the Hebrews reminds us that he went out not knowing whether he went.

And I do love the way that God works with Abraham here. You know, occasionally at lunchtime, I like to get out of my office and have a little wander around. And when I do that, one of the places I wander, because to be frank, takes me somewhere that they do nice coffee, I pass a travel agent.

And you see, the windows are full of posters. And they advertise lovely holidays. Seven week cruises, or seven day cruises.

I don't know what you do on a boat for seven days, let alone seven weeks. And sun and sea and sand in these lovely places. And I have noticed one thing about them.

And that'll be the attractive picture. And there'll be the description, all that's involved and all that's on offer. And everything that's included.

And then right at the bottom, not written too big. This is the point where I lose interest usually. It tells you how much it's going to cost.

You notice that God works in exactly the reverse order with Abraham. He starts out and he lays it on the line. He says, I'm going to tell you, Abraham, what this is going to cost.

He says, I want you to get out of your country. And I want you to get out from your kindred. And I want you to get out from your father's house.

And he says, this is what it's going to cost you. But then he says, everything that you're going to give, I'm going to recompense and I'm going to pay back. A land that I will show thee, I will make of thee a great nation for the man who left his country.

And I will bless thee and make thy name great for the man who had left his kindred. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed for the man who had left his father's house. And you see, on that day, now it was going to be filled in.

It was going to be elaborated. And detail was going to be added to the promises that God made from Abraham. But on that day, Abraham got a grasp of what God was going to do.

And if his sight of what God was caused him to build an altar. And I want to suggest to you this morning that his grasp of what God was going to do caused him to pitch a tent. Because he understood this is not what it's all about.

He understood that the way things are at the moment is not the way that things are going to be. He understood that God has a purpose and a program that is far greater and grander than anything that the men that gather there in the plain of Shiner ever could have imagined. And his grasp of what God was going to do, it shook him free from the confines of earthly society.

And it reorganized his priorities. And the man who builds the altar becomes the man who pitches a tent. Paul writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. And he says these words, I'll turn to them just to make sure that I am quoting them correctly.

1 Corinthians chapter 7 is a chapter that deals with quite a number of things. But in verse 31 of the chapter, he's speaking of something of what we ought to be. And he says, they that use this world as not abusing it.

And then he says a very interesting thing. For the fashion of this world passeth away. It's an appropriate expression for the venue that we find ourselves in today.

Because that idea of passing away has the idea of the changing of the scenery. I have, I want to make this absolutely clear, almost no experience of attending theatrical productions. But when I was in school, when I was in school, we put plays on occasionally.

And I was, I hope Brother Mark won't mind me saying this, I was the nerdy one who sat and did the sound. But they're very important. But that little experience is enough to tell me that when the stage is set, whether it's a street in Verona or whether it's a castle in Elsinore or wherever it might be, when the scenery's all up and the stage is set and the house lights are down and you sit looking at the stage, it looks so real.

And it looks so substantial. And it looks like a real castle or it looks like a real street. It looks so solid.

But then you have a closer look. Sneak up onto the stage when there's no one around and you make your way through to the back and you discover that what looked so solid and what looked so enduring and what looked like it was going to last and last and last, it's only that thick. And it's only made of cloud.

This world that we're in, not the physical world, but this world system that we're in, it seems to be so enduring, it seems to be so lasting. It's all we've known and it's all we've seen and it's almost all that we can imagine. Listen, brethren and sisters, we need to live our lives as those who understand that the scenery is going to be changed.

And what seems so durable and so lasting, it's all going to be taken down. And it's all just going to be, not carefully put away as the scenery on a stage might be, it's going to be swept away. And we should be like Abraham, looking for a city that had foundations, whose builder and whose maker was God.

And if we grasp that, brethren and sisters, we'd be like the people, again it's an interesting expression that the apostle uses there in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, we would use the world. And we'd not abuse it. The word abuse really means use it to the full.

I wonder if this is the lesson that we learn from Gideon's men. Remember God is whittling down the army. And they're led down to the river.

And there's some people and they get right down into it. And they can't see anymore. And they're not alert to danger anymore.

And they're not qualified to be soldiers because they're abusing it, they're using it to the full. And there was other men and they just took what they needed. They used it.

They didn't abuse it. And without compromising their watchfulness, without letting their defenses down, without be disqualifying themselves as soldiers, they were able to take enough for their needs. That's what Abraham was like.

Pitching a tent. He had understood something of what God is going to do. And he realized that the scene through which he passed was of no lasting importance.

And it was of no enduring value. And he lived. It's the expression that we, a time-honored expression has it.

He lived with the light of eternity's values in view. We could just say he lived with eternity's values in view, but I do like saying with the light of eternity's values because they cast a light upon his pathway. And that was what made him a man.

In defiance of all who are round about, he pitched a tent and he built an altar. Now what about us, brothers and sisters? This is not the sort of thinking that the world will inculcate. And your education and your training will all be to build for this world and to build for time and to build for self.

It would be a great thing if at the beginning of our Christian life we could establish this great priority. When it comes to me, when it comes to my needs, I'm going to be happy to pitch a tent. But when it comes to what's for God, it'll have to be something more durable, more lasting than that.

I'm going to have to build an altar. And so Abraham does that. And as I've said already, it's lovely the expression that we have there just at the end of the verse.

And Abraham journeyed, going on still towards the south and he was carrying on. He was moving on and he was moving into experiences where he would learn more of God. And his capacity to worship God would be deepened and it would be increased.

And he would learn yet more of God and yet more of God until the moment came when he arrived at that point where you and I would love to be. And when God's command came, he didn't think twice. But he took his only son, his Isaac whom he loved, and he laid him on the altar for God.

But that could not have happened. It could not have happened without the beginning. He had to start somewhere.

And here's where he started, pitching a tent and building an altar. There's another man that we read of the same thing, not exactly the same. It's very precious and very challenging.

And I need to speak carefully here because my own boy is only young. But Isaac, there came a time when it said of him in Genesis chapter 25 that he built an altar and he pitched a tent. Just in a little while, just if we'd read on in Genesis chapter 12, we would have read about Abraham going down to Egypt.

And we've often been reminded of the example that he set in that negative sense of going down to Egypt and how Isaac was going to later follow in his father's footsteps. And it is sad if we leave for a generation that follows on an example of failure, an example of departure, and an example of an excessive familiarity with the world that they can imitate. But while we often wrap Abraham across his proverbial knuckles for doing that and for the bad example that he set, I wonder if we give him enough credit for this.

That when Isaac came along, it doesn't say that he pitched a tent and that he built an altar. It says that he built an altar and he pitched a tent. Where did he learn that? What example was it that had molded the mind, that had molded the priorities of young Isaac so that he would, in a sense, go beyond what his father did here and he'd build the altar first and then he'd pitch his tent.

Well, you know, it was just what he had learned from his father. And Abraham did leave a legacy. You see, he was a pilgrim and he left behind him no impressive mansion.

And Abraham, you know, he could have had a very impressive mansion. He didn't even leave behind him a grandiose tomb, though it's interesting that the only piece of ground that Abraham owned was that cave, the field with the cave in which Sarah was buried. He left no dwelling to Isaac.

He left no tomb by which he could be remembered. And I think by the standards of this world, that makes him a bit of a failure, not by God's standards. He left an example to a man who carried on and continued to dwell in tents and the structures that he left just marking out the path where he had gone.

Not dwellings for his ease, not dwellings for his comfort, but enduring monuments to a man who was devoted to the worship of his God. Now, brethren and sisters, where are we in relation to this? I say again, that the world will seek to just force us into its mold and we need to be not conformed, but transformed. How? By the renewing of our minds and by the adjustment of our thinking so that it no longer accords with what the world thinks, but that it accords with what heaven thinks.

We thought yesterday, didn't we, of that turban that was wrapped around, that constrained and contained the head of the high priest and we thought of the blue lace that was tied around it and we thought of a blessed man whose every thought was controlled by holiness and whose every thought was in tune with heaven. That's what we need to aspire to. To be transformed by the renewing of our minds and to demonstrate priorities that are absolutely foreign to this world in which we live, but that are essential for God.

You know, I suppose Abraham had very at all that God would ask such a great thing of him. No thought that he would achieve, that he would accomplish such a great thing. No thought that a sacrifice that he was about to offer would be recorded for us in the pages of scripture and would speak so beautifully of the sacrifice of Christ.

Understood probably none of that, but he grasped enough of who God is and he grasped enough of what God is about and on the basis of that, he pitched a tent and he built an altar. Brethren and sisters, let's remember, we're pilgrims and we're strangers. Let's keep building the altars.

Give God what is his due and for ourselves, let's just be happy to pitch the tent. Trust that God will bless us.