FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: Going back to something great
Good week to all. Welcome to the “front porch.”
Looking back again at the ‘family altar’ as we did recently, note the origin of such an altar.
Even though we’ll find that the literal examples of such altars are far different than what we are considering here, they give us a vivid picture to carry in our minds.
Our altars will not be composed of stone and wood, as in those days, for animal sacrifices are no longer necessary (thankfully!). Instead, our altars consist of our families coming together to recognize God’s greatness in our living rooms – no smoke or fire, just the fires of God’s Word and the blessed ‘incense’ of prayer.
Going back, though, one of the early examples of one’s building an altar to the Lord is Abraham – in fact, he was the second person of whom we read this, the first being Noah after he and his family leave the ark (Genesis 8). Abraham builds an altar soon after his earliest encounters with the Lord. The biblical record does not tell us anything about Abram’s relationship with the Lord before the Lord comes to him with this great assignment and promise: Abram, leave your home and go to a land I’m going to show to you – and I’ll make your name great and make you a great blessing.
The Lord clearly gets Abram’s attention, for the great patriarch obeys the Lord promptly, without protest. Once he arrives in the Shechem valley in Canaan, he does the very thing we’re talking about here: He builds an altar.
Note the biblical record: “And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. 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 builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appears unto him” (Genesis 12:6-7).
But Abram doesn’t stop there. He next “removes from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Haion the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south …” (vs. 8-9).
Overwhelmed with the Lord’s grace and mercy, this patriarch seems exceptionally anxious to pause at almost every key spot to glorify this new God he has met, the one true God.
... Going back to something great
But there’s one more point for this week we want to note. Abram leaves Bethel because of a famine, goes down into Egypt for a time, then returns to this Promised Land. When he comes back to that land, he comes back to something else, too. He seems to make a bee-line straight for Shechem, “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 there Abram called upon the Lord” (13:3-4).
Ah, isn’t it powerful that Abram feels that overwhelming need to go back to something this great! And let’s go back, too – go back to building an altar to the Lord, right in our own living rooms. Remember: Not one stone or one piece of wood is needed.
God bless!
Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a full-time writer and preacher of the gospel. In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text 972-824-5197.