After Abram and his family left Egypt, they wandered around, looking to find their home. This devotional reading looks at the group finding its way back to God.
Nuggets
- Abram wandered around heading back to Canaan from Egypt.
- God made Abraham prosper.
- When we sin, God calls us back to where we were with Him.
- Lot didn’t find his way back to God because he hadn’t been with God previously.
We’ve talked about Abram’s Sanctification Road being built on bricks formed by separations.
- Left his country and kin (Gen. 11: 31).
- Father died (Gen. 11: 32).
- Left Haran (Gen. 12: 1)
- Left Canaan for Egypt (Gen. 12: 10).
- Left Egypt (Gen. 12: 20).
- Separated from Lot (Gen. 13: 13).
- Separated from Ishmael (Gen. 21: 14).
- Almost separated from Isaac (Gen. 22: 10).
- Separated from Sarah (Gen. 23: 1-2).
- Separated from worldly possessions (Gen. 25: 5).
- Separated from life (Gen. 25: 7-8).
Genesis 13 lists Abram’s next bout of separation.
Let's Put It into Context
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Devotions in the Abraham the Emigrant series
Coming Home
“So Abram left Egypt and traveled north into the Negev, along with his wife and Lot and all that they owned. (Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold.) From the Negev, they continued traveling by stages toward Bethel, and they pitched their tents between Bethel and Ai, where they had camped before. This was the same place where Abram had built the altar, and there he worshiped the Lord again” (Gen. 13: 1-4 NLT).
Left Egypt
Abram wandered around heading back to Canaan from Egypt.
When we left Abram, Sarai, and Lot at the end of Genesis 12, they were being escorted out of Egypt. “Pharaoh ordered some of his men to escort them, and he sent Abram out of the country, along with his wife and all his possessions” (Gen. 12: 20 NLT).
Moses took up the story where Abram was heading home Not just heading home, but Abram was heading home forgiven and favored.
True, Abram was returning home after a failure. As Dods said, at this point, he probably wished he had never gone in the first place.
Abram couldn’t have lived in Canaan more than a couple of years before he headed for Egypt. Was he returning because of his love for the land?
Was Abram going back just because it was promised to him? I think it was more than that.
Yeah, the drought probably made things very real to Abram. Just because it was promised by God doesn’t mean it would be a snap.
I don’t think God was upset that Abram was heading there “… by stages …” (Gen. 13: 3 NLT). Our sanctification happens in stages. It is a process that occurs from conversion to the last breath of our lives.
Dods made a good observation. These stages were retracing the steps Abram took to get to Egypt. He was wiping the slate clean.
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What Abram was showing through his camel steps was showing Sarai, Lot, and anyone in the caravan what true repentance was. Yes, they were along with him for the journey because where he lived, they lived – at least for now.
How many times do we want to crawl under a rock when we have sinned? We don’t want anyone – especially those closest to us – to know anything about it.
We hate saying we were wrong or did the exact opposite of what God wanted us to do.
But Abram had it right. He turned away from his lie and deception and went back to God. He was in a better place spiritually.
Very Rich
God made Abraham prosper.
No, that didn’t make it a prosperity gospel. It made it an obedience gospel. The blessings are in the obedience, as Pastor Steve always says.
Same Place Abram Had Built the Altar
When we sin, God calls us back to where we were with Him.
Abram knew a response that God wanted was worship. He was constantly building altars. He was heading back to the altar he built.
Correction. Abram was heading back to God.
Leale said this altar was important because it was the pace where God had first appeared to him. Yeah, sometimes we have to go all the way back to the beginning.
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Horton reminded us that Abram was no longer self-seeking and self-dependent. His testing/trial in Egypt got him to where God wanted him to be.
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Abram possibly hadn’t learned an important principle yet. We have to take God and our relationship with us wherever we go.
Lot
“Lot, who was traveling with Abram, had also become very wealthy with flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, and many tents” (Gen. 13: 5 NLT)
Lot
Lot didn’t find his way back to God because he hadn’t been with God previously.
We know that Lot was the son of Haran, who had died back in Ur (Gen. 11: 27-28). He went with Terah when he left Ur. “One day Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai (his son Abram’s wife) and his grandson Lot (his son Haran’s child) and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans …” (Gen. 11: 31 NLT).
Really, we have just heard Lot’s name mentioned a couple of times in conjunction with the trip to Canaan.
Moses didn’t give us any clue as to how old Lot was. At first glance, we may say Terah had been raising Lot after Haran died. But Moses said Terah took Abram and Sarai, who were 70 and 60 respectively, in the same breath as he said Terah took Lot.
Still, we get some clues.
- “That evening the two angels came to the entrance of the city of Sodom. Lot was sitting there, and when he saw them, he stood up to meet them …” (Gen. 19: 1 NLT).
- “Look, I have two virgin daughters …” (Gen. 19: 8 NLT).
- “… ‘Do you have any other relatives here in the city?’ They asked. ‘Get them out of this place — your sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else’ …” (Gen. 19: 12 NLT).
- “So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés …” (Gen, 19: 14 NLT).
We know Lot had two daughters who were betrothed. They had fiancés but not husbands yet. That would put them around 13 probably.
It is easy to think that these two girls are Lot and Mrs. Lot’s only children. However, I don’t see the angels asking about other sons and daughters if they knew he didn’t have any. If they didn’t know beforehand, I am sure God would have given them a manifest when He gave them this assignment. “Go get these specific people out.”
Wait a second. Doesn’t that mean Mrs. Lot had to come from Ur with them????
The timeline from biblestudy.org that I am using thinks so. “Abraham’s father Terah decides to move out of Ur (Genesis 11:28). Those leaving with him include Abraham (Abram), Sarah (Sarai), Abraham’s brother Nahor and his wife, as well as Lot and his wife (Genesis 11:29 – 31).”
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So, why isn’t Mrs. Lot on the manifest? She does play a very brief but significant role in the future.
Let’s go at this another way. The verses we used above from Genesis 19 is when God saved Lot and family from being destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah.
When God warned Abraham that he was going to destroy the cities. He also gave him a promise.” Then one of them said, “I will return to you about this time next year, and your wife, Sarah, will have a son!’” (Gen. 18: 10 NLT).
“Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born” (Gen. 21: 5 NLT). That would have made Abram 99 and Sarai 89 when this conversation was taking place. That would make the year 1861 BC.
If even the oldest daughter was 13, that would mean she was born in 1874ish. They moved out of Ur in 1890 BC. She was born post-emigration.
Very Wealthy
Lot had become very wealthy himself.
God told Abram that He will bless those who bless Him. “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt” (Gen. 12: 3 NLT). Lot may have been blessed with prosperity because of his faith or because he was associated with Abraham.
Lot had become a wealthy man in his own right. His problem, as we will see, is that he was self-seeking.
Hughes told us what that meant. He wrote the problem was “Not possession of wealth, but inordinate affection and abuse of it, is the sin.”
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What Abraham didn’t have to do was give Lot the first choice on the land. He was the elder, not Lot.
Abraham may have believed that God would bless him either way he went. So, he let Lot choose because, to him, it didn’t matter.
Horton said it was more that Abram loved his nephew and showed his disinterestedness. Remember, disinterested means a willingness to give up something for a greater good.
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Jesus gave us the greatest example of disinterestedness. “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross” (Phil. 2: 6-8 NLT).
Jesus gave up Heaven for us. He gave up His life so that we may live.
It is interesting that this translates as rich for Abram but wealthy for Lot. Where Lot probably focused on the money, Abram focused on Who the money came from — natural resources.
Making the Connections #1
God never said that having of money was bad. He wouldn’t have made Abram a rich man if it was.
What God said was money couldn’t become our master. “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money” (Mt. 6: 24 NLT).
Serve sounds like a safe word. Enslaved is more what Jesus was talking about.
Paul addressed being what it meant to be enslaved by something. “Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living” (Rom. 6: 16 NLT).
Here, money is just an example. It could be alcohol. It could be desiring a relationship with others.
In essence, it is putting focus on something other than God. That is something we shouldn’t do.
God doesn’t call us to be prosperous. He calls us to be godly – holy as He is (I Pet. 1: 16).
The practical application of this is that we cannot put something about God’s call for our lives. We have to be obedient to Him.
Making the Connections #2
We know God did a do-over in Noah’s time. Sometimes, we just need a do-over – an individual do-over.
Once we have sinned – especially a big-time sin – God gives us a chance for do-over We have to repent.
That means we ask for forgiveness of our sin – and turn away from it so we can do what God asks of us.
That is our do-over. God wants us to move on from our failures of testings and move toward Him.
Making the Connections #3
We have to think about God giving Abram the land. Look what Gray said. He wrote, “He took possession of the land, not by issuing a decree, etc., but by thus acknowledging God.”
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Well……
God gave Abram the promise of the land. Stephen, when he was before the Sanhedrin, explained this. “So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live. But God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land. God did promise, however, that eventually the whole land would belong to Abraham and his descendants — even though he had no children yet” (Ac. 7: 4-5 NLT emphasis added).
The only land Abram owned was the cave in which he buried Sarah (Gen. 23: 17-20) – and where he, Jacob, and Leah were buried.
Making the Connections #4
Gray made another great observation. He compared altars to our sanctuaries of today.
- Both were meeting places to come into God’s presence.
- Both were designed as a place for us to worship God.
- Both fostered fellowship among God’s disciples.
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That is a good way to look at it. We are living sacrifices. We have to come to the altar in God’s house and commune with Him.
But I have to try to hook this to what God has been giving me this week.
We had Music Day at church Sunday morning. It is a time to sing favorite hymns. They gave me a list of their favorite hymns, I compiled them, and then on a 5th Sunday of the month, I pick the top ten of what we have done so far.
One song we sang this week was Are You Washed in the Blood. The third verse has a line, “Will your soul be ready for the mansions bright.”
Right after we sang it, God put on my heart was that “In my Father’s house are many mansions …” (Jn. 14: 2 KJV) is translated wrong.
“There is more than enough room in my Father’s home …” (Jn. 14: 2 NLT) probably does a better job at translating it. The emphasis is on My Father’s house — a house of prayer (Mt. 21: 13).
God’s house — His temple — is the place we worship Him, not some mansion we think is our reward for good service.
When we were doing Revelation last year, we talked about the wall around New Jerusalem. We said we are to be living stones that builds on the foundation given through the Apostles and prophets. We are being built into a spiritual house, a dwelling place for God.
Some of the sermons I read last year made it sound like we disciples are going to be the wall. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that — and I don’t think that is quite right.
It may be right, though. I remembered last night about Rahab’s house. “Then, since Rahab’s house was built into the town wall, she let them down by a rope through the window” (Josh. 2: 15 NLT).
Well, we are living stones. I just think the structure is off a little.
“And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God” (II Pet. 2:5 NLT).
Then tonight I thought about the Tabernacle being in the middle of the Wilderness Wanderers when they camped. The divisions formed a wall around the Tabernacle.
That’s probably the closest we are going to figure it out here in this life.
How Do We Apply This?
- Be more concerned what God thinks of us than what others think of us.
- Be poor in the spirit.
- Come back to God after we have sinned with a humble and repentant attitude.
- Align ourselves with godly disciples.
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Father God. We thank You for leading us out of trials and back to You. We thank You for the gift of family. Help us to rely solely on You. Amen.
What do you think?
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