And I will be one and I'll look forth first I keep my victory 1 may I reach Him still be my vision old ruler of all and with that, let's have a word of prayer to Heavenly Father. We are grateful that you become our all in all as we begin to follow you. And the Lord said always before us, becoming our vision or guide through the word of God and the blessings that are ours and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the ceiling of the Holy Spirit. For these things, we're most grateful, dear Heavenly Father, and grateful for a day to come together into this place and to worship you and honor you and just pray that today the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart might be acceptable unto the O God, our rock and our Redeemer. I pray it in Jesus name. Amen. V seated musicians, you may as well thanks each one of you for being here today. And here I was out last Sunday. Thanks for allowing me to be in Wall Lake, Iowa. I didn't hear like but I had a good time last week in Wall Lake, Iowa. We had a good conference there and saw a lot of our extended family, extended Taoist First Baptist family that watches this online and lives closer to Wall Lake, Iowa, than Towers, New Mexico. So they joined us there and we had a good time in a Bible conference there. And I appreciate Pastor Jeff filling in for me last weekend and Dr. Payne doing the singing last weekend. Thank you for that. And now here we are back at it together again. And this is the second time today I got here without my paperwork. You got a bulletin on you there? No. Somebody bring the pastor a bulletin. Justin, I think I know everything. Thank you. I think I know what I need to know here. But here's what you need to know. Wednesday night we are having barbecue baked chicken. I didn't just want to say barbecue chicken because it's not going to be on a fire. It's going to be in an oven with barbecue sauce. So what do you call that? We're calling it baked barbecue chicken. That's what it is. Wednesday night. And so 05:00, you can bring anything you would like to go along with that. We'll have good supper and then the book of hosea. We will be back in this Wednesday night. Just started session one last week. They hadn't missed much. And we'll be in session two. Looking forward to that fun time. Men's breakfast will be this week, our Missionaries of the Month. Same missionaries. The Elrods. We pray for them and their newest little baby Elliot and the good work they are doing in India. All of the is this Science Club week? Madison, where'd you go? This is Science Club week. Just like it says. They're in the bulletin. Okay, good. Science Club is like first and third Tuesday. And that confuses me. I never know which one it is, but I'm glad this is the week. As long as those other kids activities and mark the date for Sunday, November 13. That's when we're going to have our potluck Thanksgiving lunch here. We'll do some turkey and ham and make all the details to that. But I'll get some sign up sheets out, all that. So we'll have a good Thanksgiving lunch and the Lord Supper on that Sunday as well as we take a little time to say thanks for all of our blessings, which are many. Amen. And with that, we always love to have guests with us. And did we give out a gift last week? Did we have guests give a gift? We did not. Okay, I just want to make sure I wasn't giving the same thing here. Let's go. All of our guests look smart today, so let's give out dispensationalism for Dummies. How's that sound? This is basically three basic principles for biblical interpretation. You want to open the Bible and interpret it correctly. There you go. Little booklet that I have written. And that's what we'd like to give as a gift today. But you have to earn it. You have to stand and tell who you are and where you're from and that we would be happy to. And we have a pin over here for each of the families to put in our map back there so that we can rejoice and saying that, hey, we had people from Atlanta and from Denver and from Connecticut sort of. Why don't we start with Connecticut? Because you were here last week, too, weren't you? Did they make you introduce yourself last week? I am going to have to talk to those that fill in for me and say we can't have a Sunday without embarrassing guests. Not Alex. Andrew. Okay. I had the right letter, didn't I? Andrew, glad you're back with us. Sorry I wasn't here last week. Stand and introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, where you're from. My name is Andrew. I am from Connecticut initially, and I've been here for about six months and I just recently stopped working at the book service. Buddy here and I now work at the CTA. Excellent. Very nice, Andrew. We're so glad you're here. I'll give you a dispensationalism for Smarties. Glad you're here. And right in front of front of ender here is family. I assume. All family. I don't even know that from Atlanta. What have you. Stand and introduce the family there. My name is David. Excellent. Glad you're here next week. Yeah, well, we're glad you're here this week. Come have some barbecue baked chicken with us if you'd like. Thanks for coming from Atlanta. God bless you. Good to meet each one of you. And how about from Denver, Colorado? Which one gets the pleasure of introducing the family or all of you together? We're from Denver, Colorado. Just on the way. Excellent. And we have Devon and John. John, Jolene and Callie are with us. Excellent. So glad you are here. And Devon, that's quite the radio voice there. You should consider perhaps doing something as a career with your voice. Very good. And confident, too. Are you homeschooled or no, we just have a week off of school. Okay. The only reason I ask if you were homeschooled is because you were confident and you well spoken and that often goes with homeschooling. But good for you. And I think the rest of us are home folk here. Good to see everybody. Why don't you stand and shake someone's hand here? I'll give out a few booklets and we'll get started here. Back to worship in just a moment. Thank you. Oh, my God. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let's gather back together and do a little singing here. Hello. Hello, everybody. Good to see everybody today, especially the sound man. Good to see the sound man. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let's turn to him number I think I lost him. Number 295 is what we're at today. 295. We're going to sing two hail songs all Hail King Jesus. Followed by all hail the power of Jesus name. And let's sing him 295. All hail King Jesus. We'll sing it twice. Let's just stand together and sing this beautiful chorus here. And throughout eternity housing is great. And throughout eternity and throughout eternity using his race and our brain followed by I'll hail the power of Jesus name hymn 340. Bring forth and proud him Lord of all of the second he chose grace and ground in Lord of all the last oh, that witch under sacred from he had his feet before will join me ever last he saw and found him lot of will join the ever last will be a wonderful day, won't it? When he comes and we are able to crown him Lord of all. In the meantime, we'll try to live every day for him and honor Him in every way that we can. Let's have a word of prayer before we come into our offering. Time heaven with otter. We just pray that you would guide this service as we come into the word of God and learn of Abraham and Lot and the character of each of those and the wonderful promise then that you have made in scripture as well concerning land. And we just pray that our missionaries, the Elrods today would feel far away in India. Feel a sense of closeness with family and friends like us who support them and encourage them. Thank you for the new little baby boy and the blessing that that is to their life and the two girls that they've already had. And just pray that our giving in our prayer this month encourages them in every way we ask. In Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Musicians as well. And as we take our offering, we won't pass the plate today, but there is an offering box in the back if you'd like to use that now or any time. And we will be prayerful, of course, for the Lrods here and in just a moment come into our time of preaching now, if you would take your Bible and go to the 13th chapter of Genesis where we will be as we started three sessions ago. How's that? We've had a few interruptions on this series, but three sessions ago we started looking at the life and times of Abraham and Nathan. Can you swap those for me? I gave him the wrong PowerPoint. So he's going to do a little switcheroo there while you all take a look. It was texted here just a little bit ago, but that's okay. We can go to the 13th chapter of Genesis and begin there. I guess he has to come up here to do it. Okay. I'm sure he's thrilled with me for having him do that, but Genesis the 13th chapter. Now last time you may remember, we had in session one, we met Abraham's family, beginning with his father Terra, you remember? And then we were all struck, were we not? Awestruck that beginning in chapter eleven, verse what was it, 28 or so where Terra was introduced, we were all struck that it was not more about Terra rather than Abram. And the reason is because there was this pattern in the book of Genesis that says, now these are the generations of and then it would introduce us to this very important person. And all that section until the next time you see that little marker, these are the generations of would be about that person. Here's the biggest section in the book of Genesis, and it's introduced as these are the generations of Terra. But we don't know anything about Terra. Who's that guy? All we know is about his son Abram, right? So we looked a little bit at Terra and perhaps the possibility that God even wanted to work through Terra, maybe loved him for his family nature, we won't go into all the reasons why, but loved his family values and said, that's a guy I'd like to work with. But along the way, Terra began to make the, as we call them today, Terra theme, the idols and worshiping other gods. So we're putting a few things that aren't actually in the text here, but we're speculating maybe God shifted gears and didn't go with Terra because of his idol making business and ended up going with Abram, who later will be called Abraham. And you'll apologize, you'll forgive me if I inadvertently call him Abraham when he's only Abram, but here we go. So then we saw Abram, who left the land of Haran with Terra. They had left earthes. Now I left Haran, we should say, and came into the land of Canaan. And in chapter twelve, before we pick up with verse 13, chapter 13. Excuse me. Let's go ahead and back up just a little bit to chapter twelve. And we notice in verse verse four there it is, chapter twelve, verse four, it says, so Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed. Okay, that interesting little insertion there. And Lot went with him. Okay. So far we're thinking, well, that's fine, you know, he took his nephew. I don't know why he took his nephew, but in fact, it really kind of reads there, lot went with him like his nephew says, I'd like to go. I want to be a part of that journey. And then in verse five, Genesis twelve five, it says, Abram took Sarah, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their substance and all that they had gathered. Okay. His wife and his nephew Abraham took his nephew. Can I do a little more speculation? The speculating part you don't have to buy into, okay, the part in the scripture, buy into that. But could it be that when Uncle Abram says, hey, this whole Terraffine business is a little too much and God has another work, god's calling us down to the land of Canaan, I'm going. Could it be that Lot says, hey, I'd like to go now, we could add a thousand reasons why he would like to go. We would make up all of them, but we could make up some fun stuff, couldn't we? Why Lot wants to go. But let's just assume Lot wants to go. We have no understanding of his motive at this point. Maybe he doesn't like Grandpa Terra. Maybe he doesn't like his uncle. Nahor, maybe Abraham's the favorite uncle. Maybe he's just young and wants to get away from home. Who knows what it is he says, I'll go. And in the next verse, it's almost like Abram says, okay, you can go with me. Come on along. Now. I suspect I don't really know this to be gospel truth, so to speak, but I suspect that leaving home at that point to go with Abram really kind of meant I'm not going to see you all anymore. I'm starting a new life. This is going to be completely different. We're traveling far away from here and we just won't be coming back every year for the family reunion. So I'm getting a new family. I'm going with Abram. And so there is a sense in which now Abram is responsible for Lot. There's a sense in which Abram is almost adopting Lot. We can read that into certainly we can't necessarily read it out of and get it there, but it's certainly a possibility here. Here I have given you, because you are in towson, you need a little artwork. I have given you a picture from Sandro Bouricelle, 1883 to 86 is when he painted this. This was a young man being introduced to the seven liberal arts. Does anybody know what the seven liberal arts are? Well, pretty sure my wife does. I was hoping somebody would say him so that I didn't have to remember all seven. But the young man, by the way, you can't see the young man in the picture here. We'll get back to the sermon in a moment. You can't see the young man in the picture. He's over here. He's just actually, young man would be quite a stretch. He's probably about a six year old boy. Okay. And so a young child, they are being introduced to these seven liberal arts. This right over here, this is the mother standing over here. And then there are seven ladies here. And those ladies represent what I think is the very good ancient really I suppose it comes from ancient Greece, ancient Greek form of learning the arts that set you free, liberate you. That's why they're called liberal. Not in terms of liberal and conservative today, but they are liberating arts. In fact, still today, from this, you would go to the college of Liberal Arts, perhaps, and you would meet these ladies here. I don't know which is which, but I know that we have, let's say, grammar, followed by logic, followed by rhetoric, followed by arithmetic, followed by geometry, followed by an. Arithmetic is adding subtracting, multiplication, division. Geometry is figuring out spatial issues, followed by music, followed by astronomy. There I got all seven of them. And the Greeks had a pretty good idea. If you know those seven things, you can go out and get a job, you can go out and be free. You can make good decisions. Actually, what they said, the ancient Greeks, and then it went into the Romans and it came into the Jews. The Jews had a little bit different idea, but nonetheless, it was all kind of the same idea that they believed. If you come to a certain point of education, then you can sit in the city square and take part in civic discourse. You can add something to it. You can be a part of the full of philosophy. Now, what in the world does that have to do with Lot? Somebody is saying, right, right. That's what I thought you were saying. What in the world does that have to do with lot? Well, the reason we are studying Lot today is because it's not so much to meet Lot and to get to know lot, because we're doing a study on Abraham. In one sense, what do we care about lot? But in another sense, I'm convinced we can't know Abraham and the Abrahamic story without knowing Lot. So if you think of these seven liberal arts here, and let's just assume this first one right here is grammar. How how good of a speech here Devon, who's going to make his living with his voice. How good of a rhetorical speech will he be able to give if he ain't gotten a grammar, right? You got to know the grammar and then you got to have some logic. And then you got to put words and logic together in a rhetorical sense so that you can wow the masses. I just gave you a lesson on how to get rich in life there, Devin. And then, by the way, you'll be much better at wowing the masses if you know a little arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, and then you can wow the masses. Okay? Now all of that to say studying lot is a grammar lesson in the life of Abraham. It is a foundational lesson. It's down at the bottom. And I think if we were to skip the lot portion and just say, no, we're just focused on Abraham and that's all, I think we would misunderstand the situation and even misunderstand the great promises that God is giving here through all of this. And you may have noticed, if you remember, which you may not, because it has been a couple of weeks here, but last time we finished in chapter twelve, I believe it was verse nine or ten. Yeah, we went through nine and he went down towards the south, he went down into Egypt. And then I have skipped verses ten through 20 of chapter twelve, his time down in Egypt. And the reason is twofold, one, I think that that little section down in Egypt is a bit incidental. By incidental, I mean, that fills in a gap of time that we would ask questions about if we didn't know it. And so we need it, but it's not necessarily pivotal. But I am going to come back to it. I'm just going to come back to it later, later in the story that's going to sort of come back, come back to haunt him a little bit. And so we'll put it all at the same time when we get there. But then we come to chapter 13 and a lot shows up again. Now, again we looked at chapter twelve, verses four and five. That's the last time we saw lot. We didn't see Lot when Abram was going through the land. And remember, he stopped at check him and he built an altar and he stopped at Bethel and he built an altar and he went to AI and all those kinds of places that we went through in the last sermon, went through those journeys. A lot was in the background, in the foreshadows. Where's a lot I don't know. But when you get to chapter 13, lot all of a sudden pops up again. And then later in chapter 13, there's something actually very important that takes place in the Abrahamic story, but it's sandwiched between stories about lot. Why is it sandwiched between stories about lot? What's up there? So today we're going to learn a lot. That was really bad, wasn't it? Okay. And we're also going to learn some about the land as we go through here. But let's pick up in chapter 13, verses one through five. I'll give you another picture here. Here is the picture of Abraham and Lot who are separating. And that is what we're going to read about in just a moment. This was done in the 17th century and etching. Of Abraham and Lot as they are separating. Let's look at chapter 13, beginning in verse one. And the scripture says Abram went out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had and Lot with him into the south. I better stop right there. Went out of Egypt into the south. Now we're expecting that Abraham is going to what later would become known as the promised land. It's not going to be promised until this chapter is out, but we'll go ahead and call it the promise land if you know anything about your geography. The promised land is which direction? Cardinal direction from Egypt? North, kind of to the northeast a little bit. So this might confuse us. He went up out of Egypt with his wife, all that he had in a lot into the south. Now read that correctly, it's into the south of the promised land. He went up into the south. Think Florida, floridians, when they go to the deep south, go to Atlanta, north of Florida, right. Do we even consider Florida to be the south? You're southerners. Is Florida southern state or are they just kind of a problem when it says he went into the south, that is, he went into the southern part of the promised land. We would think of it today down in that Sinai area probably, or perhaps the Gaza Strip or the modern Gaza Strip, where you would go from Egypt across the little land bar there into what is today considered the promised land. So they went up into the south. Verse two. And Abram was very rich in cattle and silver and in gold. Now this is kind of interesting because we've never really had any instruction that Abraham was very rich. We don't really know exactly where this came about. Was Abram a rich man when he left his father, Terra? Maybe he was or did after he left, did God just bless him to give him what that Midas touch, so to speak? Everything you touch turn to gold. And here he is even kind of disobedient in chapter 13 and lying about who his wife is and everything else, but he's getting rich. And so during the intervening time that we've got between chapter twelve and chapter 13, perhaps there's time when he's getting suddenly rich. He has come into some money, maybe, maybe not. If that's the case, let's just assume we've probably honestly got a period of about five years here that's taking place between the beginning of chapter twelve and the beginning of chapter 13. A little hard to judge, but let's call it five years. And let's assume that in these five years, Abram, between being blessed with God and knowing the seven liberal arts and being a smart man and making some good decision, he becomes a rich man. And maybe Lott saw this in his uncle ahead of time, said, you know, I think I'll stick with Uncle Abe. He kind of knows what's going on there. Maybe verse three goes on to say, and he went on his journeys from the south, even to Bethel, as we would pronounce it. Hebrew would be Bethel, the house of God, or literally beaten the house of God. So he came unto Bethel on to the place where the tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and AI. Now, maybe you remember that from the previous sermon. He's kind of backtracking, going back up Bethel. AI working his way there. In verse four it says it goes unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first, and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. I would like to know the contents of that conversation, wouldn't you, Lord? I lied down there in Egypt in order to save my skin. I lied down there in Egypt, but you blessed us. I don't know why you were so gracious, but here I am, back again at the house of God, betel and I'm back to the altar, back to the place I should have never left in the first place. If you go back to sermon two on that, perhaps that will give a little more insight. And so here he comes. He called on the name of the Lord, whatever it was. He said, I don't know when he called on the name of the Lord because the scripture doesn't give us verse five. And Lot also, which went with Abraham, had flocks and herds and tents. Okay, looks like Lot made a good choice going with Uncle Abraham. Things are good here. And Lot went with him. And if we think about this just a little bit, we've got Abraham. Remember how old he is at this point? 80 if we had the five years. Yeah. So he's somewhere over 75 anyway, because we had that in chapter twelve. And so here's 75, 80 year old Abraham. Now, granted, they're living a little longer in those days, but nonetheless, 75, 80 certainly is beyond your childbearing years or getting nigh unto, right? And so here he is, he's becoming an older man. And there is that little bit of a promise that we looked at in Genesis, chapter twelve. Through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. And we don't really have a promise here, a direct promise towards descendants. But even if it's for the money only and not even for the spiritual aspects, we're thinking somebody's going to inherit a pretty nice little nest egg here, aren't they? Who is it going to be? Well, the only person that we could at this point, the only person we could choose would be it's going to go to Lot. Lots, his nephew Lots stuck with him. Good for you lot. Now, maybe and again, at this point, it's really unfair to say so, but maybe Lot is kind of a scoundrel to begin with. And he says, Abraham's rich and getting richer. Abraham doesn't have any kids. Abraham and Sarah doesn't have, oh, Uncle Abraham, you're my favorite. Maybe. I know it doesn't ever happen in the modern world, but maybe there's some of this going on, and we'll see if law has this kind of character or not. But Lot also is getting rich here. Now, again, I think that Lot would have more claim on the inheritance than would anybody else. Now, for how many of you? Is this the first time you've ever heard about Abraham? Okay, good. I thought so. You and I know the rest of the story. We know that he's going to be promised children, a bunch of descendants, that they are going to be the children of promise, if you will. They're going to inherit. And that the biggest part of that. Not only land we're going to look at in a bit today, but the biggest part of that is a spiritual inheritance that's going to go onto those children. So God chooses Abraham for whatever reasons he chose him. And we looked at that again in a previous sermon, yet now we don't really have anyone to pass it onto except for Lot. Okay, maybe he's a good one. But you and I know the rest of the story about Lot, too, don't we? And we say, this doesn't look like a good situation. Abraham's got lots of stuff. He's got a sort of conniving little nephew that seems to always be set for himself rather than set for the things of God. And even if we knew nothing else at this point, we would say, I'm suspicious about this. I think Abraham ought to get himself a good attorney, maybe set up a trust fund or something here, because this is not going to end well. Let's continue on and see how this does end. And we continue then in Genesis, chapter 13, we went to verse five. Let's go on to verse six and get to what is on our picture here. It says, and the land was not able to bear them. Now, let's stop right there. I didn't get very far, did I? Abraham's rich. He's got lots of sheep, goats, cows and slot. Has a lot of sheep mentioned there. And the land was not able to what's the word there again in verse six? Bear them. The land was not able to bear them. Let's just think about this for a moment. How many sheep? Just want to check here. Okay. Mentions cattle in verse two for abram, and it mentions flocks and herds. Reverse. Let's just say animals. How many animals do you have to have so that let's say modern Israel cannot. Support it. That's a few cows. That's an awful lot of cows. Wow, that's a whole bunch of cows. That the land cannot support it. I am one who just takes the scripture at face value. But even in a little booklet I handed out today on Dispensationalism for Dummies, it says in there that we take the Bible literally. And when the Bible is speaking figuratively, we take that literal as well. Literally. Figurative. So I always want to ask some questions of the text. The land couldn't support them. Now, maybe it was a drought and there's just not enough there, but it looks like the drought's over, so the land couldn't support them. I'm thinking he must be unbelievably rich and have all how do you even take care of all that? That the land will not support you? Or is it trying to say there ain't room here for both of us? This place ain't big enough for both me and for you? Could that be? I stopped in the middle of verse six. Let's keep going. It says, and the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together. Ah, so maybe the problem wasn't there's not enough grass, there's not enough pasture land. But there is a rift between Lot and Abrams that's going on here. And figuratively, it's just kind of saying this place is not big enough for both of us here. Now, again, I know I'm reading an awful lot into this and I'm one who says, don't read into scripture. And here I keep reading all these things into it, but the only reason I'm reading into it is because I read the rest of the story. I kind of know what kind of fellow we're dealing with here in a lot. But I don't know. Let's just take it again. Let's keep going with it and see if we can put it together with the speculation. The land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together, for their substance was grave, so that they could not dwell together. Has money ever caused a rift? Now that we've got too much money, there's no way we're going to live together. Before, when we didn't have anything, it was I don't know, shelley and I are wedding. We had this little song. Song love will be our home Remember that? Just check it. Love will be our home. And I went away thinking it better be because we don't have any other home. Love will be our home. That's all we got. Well, some families then they do very well when all we got over our roof is a little bit of love. But then they get a bunch of money in and all of a sudden, boy, it is pretty difficult to get along with one another, to live with one another. Maybe that's going on here, especially on lots part, but let's see. Let's just keep going and give the benefit of the doubt. Verse seven, it says, there was strife between the herdsman of Abrams cattle and the herdsman of Lots cattle, and the canaanite and the parasite then dwelled in the land. I'll stop right there as well. Strife between the herdsman. It very well could be that Abram and Lot were just close as they could be to one another, and it just so happened that the herdsman had strife among them. But my suspicion is, in your experience, if there is strife, let's say, I don't know, in a business, if there's strife in a business, a lot of times it's because this manager wants to go this way and that manager wants to go that way, and people, the herdsmen kind of take their cues from one or the other, and the strife comes up in the herdsman. What about a nation? Could it be that one political party wants to go one way, another political party wants to go another way? The heads of those political parties sort of set their agenda, and they become strife among us herdsmen, right? And that can happen in families, it can happen in classrooms, it can happen on sports teams, wherever you go. A lot of times I'm just kind of suspicious about herdsman having strife with one another. Maybe it did just naturally come up from the bottom there, but I don't know. The herdsman I've met just kind of want to sit there and let the cows eat, get the cows to the water, all that kind of stuff. But again, who knows? But could it be that that strife is being planted in there? Just little comments here and there puts it in strife between Abraham's cattle and the herdsman of Lots cattle. By the way, in verse seven, the canaanite and the parasite dwells then in the land. By the time we get to chapter 15, the last three verses of chapter 15, I won't read them all to you, but there is a bunch of ice. There the Kinites and the Amorites and the Hittites and the Canaanites and the parasites and the termites. I mean, there's a bunch of them all in there, which tells me one of two things. One, it just didn't mention them here. They were all there then, too, but it just wasn't mentioned in chapter twelve. But it wasn't chapter 15. Probably not. It kind of tells me that this land really, all of a sudden, with Abraham's presence, this land is really being blessed. What happens to blessed land? People move in and between chapter twelve and chapter 15. You get a lot more people living there. And in chapter 15, the interesting thing is nothing seems to be said about the land can't support us. I'm kind of suspicious. Could the land not support you? Or was the land just not big enough for your two agendas on the land? Is that the issue going on? Okay, we pick up in verse eight, and Abram said to lot let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, between my herdsman and thy herdsman, for we be brethren. Okay, that tells me a little bit if any of my speculation is right, and I've got a lot of it, granted. But if any of my speculation is right, that says Abram doesn't really want the battle. Abram let there be no division. We're brothers, we're family, we're kin. We can walk together. We can figure this out. And really, as we're going to see in a moment, abram basically says, hey, Lot, what does it take to make you happy? I want you to live in the family, to be, you know, let's get back to the old family reunions we used to have here. We want everything to be wonderful again. So let there be no stripe. Verse eight and verse nine. He says, is not the whole land before thee. Okay, I'll stop right there, too. Not getting very far, am I? There's not the whole land before thee. The wording of that seems to be saying there's a lot of territory out there, which, again, feeds into my suspicion. What do you mean the land won't take care of you? So here it is. The whole land is right there. It's before thee. And he goes on in verse nine, he says, separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand, I'll go to the right. If thou depart to the right hand, I'll go to the left. Now, Abram does seem to be being gracious here. Whatever you want, you go for it. And Abram is the guy that could say, go back to Uncle Nahor, get back to Grandpa. Or he could say, look, you got all this because of me anyway, they're all mine. Or this section, I'm taking it. You get the 40 acres in the back out there. But Abrams being very gracious here to his nephew again, I think it kind of shows his what? We saw a lot of hints earlier of the family nature of the man and the desire of the man. So, okay, you go whichever. You go right, I'll go left, you go left, I'll go right. Verse ten. Then we pick up and it says, and Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest into Zoar. Okay, stop right there. The whole land. What do you want? Look over there at the Jordan Plain. Now, that is some good land over there. It's green, it's lush, everything's wonderful. Reminds me of the Garden of Eden, you know, kind of like the mesa out here. Okay, maybe not. Kind of like someplace around you. Oh, wow. That's the garden. He mentions the Garden of Eden. And like the land of egypt as thou comest unto Zoar. I've never been to Egypt and I've never been to Zoar, but if it's that lush, I'd like to go there. I mean, that'll be a great recreation place, a great vacation place, a great beauty place. So here you go and you say, now that that's about as good as you can possibly get right there. You know what would be fun? We won't take the time to do it. That would be fun to say. In your opinion, what is the best land you could get anywhere in the United States? Atlanta, maybe? No, those from Atlanta just nixed that idea. If it was me, I would choose the green, lush grasslands right at the bottom of the Teton Mountains. You get beauty up there. You get grass, kneehigh it'll, bury a little calf in the grass right there. That's where I'm going to take so that's how I'm picturing this. Although I've been to Israel and it doesn't look anything like that. But nonetheless, he says, that's the land I want. That's prime real estate right there. I am going to take this. It's interesting here that it's in verse ten. You know, this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, that's the first time we ever hear about Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's kind of this oh, Sodom and Gomorrah hadn't happened yet. That's an understanding, I think, from the writer here that I know. You know the rest of the story, and I want you to keep the chronology right here. Sodom and Gomorrah hasn't happened because some good Bible student is saying, oh, the plane of the Jordan. This is where Sodom and Gomorrah is, right? But this is before Sodom and before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. That might be another way of saying, Sodom is down there, gomorrah is down there. This is beautiful, lush land, like the garden of the Lord. And so then in verse eleven, it says, then Lot chose him. All the plain of the Jordan and Lot journeyed east and they separated themselves, the one from the other. OK, so I tell you what we know about that separation. Let's jump down just real quickly to verse 13. They separated in verse eleven. Verse 13. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. Okay. Hadn't been destroyed yet. But the men of Sodom were already wicked the men of Sodom were already sinners before the Lord exceedingly. It's a pretty good phrase right there, isn't it? Next time one of your children does wrong, you can say thou art a sinner before the Lord exceedingly. Not Devon. I'm sure he never does that. But anyway, next time you learn not to sit right front center. So here they are, sinners before the Lord exceedingly. But Lot doesn't care what does tell us about Lot again, we already knew the rest of the story. We knew that Lot isn't such a fine fella from some of the other stories that we've already read, but here we come and we sort of back up in the story, or come to the beginning of the story, and we begin to speculate. I don't know what's up with this Lot guy. He just seems to seems like he's up to something. Any of you women ever say that? I don't trust him. Do any of your wives ever say that? My wife, she's the one I am the one who trusts absolutely everyone and thinks absolutely everyone is just wonderful, a God given gift to our life. Shelley is the one that says, I don't know. Then she'll say, I have the gift of discernment. And I'll say, you're just suspicious, that's all. You're just suspicious. But I suspect a lot of our wives are like that, that they sort of I don't know, they sort of sense something, to feel something a lot more quickly than some of us men do. But here in this story, you kind of say, lot, I don't know, something's up. Why is he here? Why is he coming with us? What's up with this? And we begin to get suspicions. And the farther we go, the more our suspicions are kind of proven. They bear themselves out. And here, now, Lot says, OK, I'm going to go there. Sodom and gomorrah down there and maybe just imagine that Abram I don't know that this could place, but just imagine, maybe Abram is there with his nephew, and he says, I'll take this. And Abram says, oh, it is good land, you're right there. But man, the neighbors, this is not a place where you want to raise your children. That's not a place you want to get your daughters near. I wouldn't go there. It's okay, Uncle Abe, I'm not worried about that. And all the various excuses and Abraham Jones, you can do what you want. I'm just warning you. I'm just trying to tell you, you'll get burned down there, that's a danger. Maybe all that's happening behind the scenes, again, we don't completely know, but it kind of tells us a little bit about the character of this man. Lost here is Abraham, the forever family man, the forever gracious man, the one who's just saying, hey, let's just keep the family together. That's a lot more important than how many cattle we got and all this kind of stuff. Let's keep the peace. Let's get together. Let's live happily ever after. And Lot seems to be kind of a selfserving scheming little guy, doesn't he? Trying to get rich, get more what's the old saying? Get all you can. Can all you get, and sit on the can, right? I think that's in hezekiah book of Hezekiah now with that here, Lot and Abram separate. And that's when we get into chapter 13, verses 14 through 18. And I've had this picture before, but I have discovered that we need some more Christian artists because you come to look for Abram, receiving his promise before God. And this is the only picture under God's green earth. It is at least on the Internet. So here is a picture of the vision of the Lord directing Abram to count the stars. Comes from an 1860 it's called Bible in Pictures. If you ever find an original copy on ebay for less than $20, get it for me. But the Bible in pictures, an old what do you call that woodcut. There's abram. There's God up there. You see them? That's where we pick up in verse 14. No, let's back up. We didn't get down to twelve. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan. Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent towards Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked sinners before the Lord exceedingly. Now we pick up in verse 14. And the Lord said to Abram after that Lot was separated from him. Can we stop right there? The Lord said to Abram after Lot was separated from him. I knew he was a bad guy. If you go back and you look at it, the Lord hasn't spoken since Bethel. And all of this time, again, let's just speculate five years maybe off on it, but let's speculate five years. All this time God called, said, come down to Canaan and spoke to him when he was built an altar, hear all the things that were taking place. And then Abram goes down south to Egypt, he gets rich, he comes back, they have this little skirmish that's going on and where is God? He's not in those verses, he's not speaking up. But now God comes. The Lord spoken to Abram. Now, if it skipped that little clause in verse 15 and just said the Lord said to Abram, lift up now thine eyes. I would say, okay, just a new subject matter. We're done with Lot, he's off. And now we've got something new. But the Holy Ghost inspired Moses to write after that Lot was separated from him. As if that's a little clue to say we wanted a Lot out of the picture before we went to the next part, because we wanted everyone to know that Lot was not going to be a part of what is about to happen. He's gone. So we pick up again verse 14. And the Lord says, lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward and southward, and eastward and westward for all the land which thou seest, to thee I will give it ah, and to thy seed forever I will give it. And to thy seed let's just take seed as offspring here. But we know that he doesn't have any offspring, and so who is he going to give it to? Well, it looked like Lot was the guy, but now Lots out of the picture, lot moved off, Lots gone. I mean, Lots got his own stuff. Lot doesn't need that. So it's saying, hey, to thy seed, to your progeny, to the ones that you will bring forth. I'm going to give it. I wanted there to be absolutely no question that Lot was part of this promise. He's not part of this promise. He's gone it's to you and to thy seed forever. Verse 16 then I will 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. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and the breadth of it, for I will give it to thee. Then Abram removed his tent and came and dwelled in the plain of Mammary, which is in Hebron, and he built there an altar of the Lord. Now, that last verse we'll get to in just a moment. But what a magnificent promise that now is given. And of course, this is the promise that we kind of know if we've studied the Bible some at all, we know that there is in the Bible this thing called a promised land, right? I have noticed, even using Microsoft Word, that when you write promised land, it goes back and capitalizes it says, no, it's not lowercase p, lower case L, like some promised land somewhere. It is a definite what do you call a definite noun? Is that the word? It should go back to grammar school. It's a real place, the Promised land that comes right from here, the promised land. So I want you, Abram, I want you to look, I want you to walk the breadth of it. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to your seed. So here is a land that is a specific portion of land. By the way, that specific portion of land is going to be here. He says, walk it. That's a sense probably of take possession of it, if you will, market, put a fence around it, if you will. Later on the land is going to be expanded and the boundaries are going to be shown in the Book of Genesis, and we'll see that later. And God says, okay, here's the land which is for the children of Abraham. I'm giving them that land. Now, often, of course, we in the church have sort of allegorized that land, or spiritualized that land. Like sometimes we'll sing about heaven and we might sing On Jordan's stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful eye to Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie I'm bound for the promised land I'm bound for the promised land oh, who will come and go with me? I'm bound for the promised land it's not a bad song, as long as you recognize, well, I'm not really on Jordan stormy banks and I'm not really casting a wishful eye over into Canaan's fair and happy land and it's not really my land. We make that to talk about heaven and there is a sense in which that is given in scripture. But it's such a minor sense that if we were to take the promised Land as heaven all through, we would just be in other confusion by the time we got to the end. There really is a Promised Land that Abraham was promised to him and to his children. We know and will see part of the rest of the story in Abraham's life. We won't even see the rest of the story. It's not until 430 years later that they leave the land of Exodus and they come in as a nation then and they begin to have the conquest of the land and they begin to take the land. But we should say here that this particular promise of the land in Genesis chapter 13 it's only from here onward we even have a promised land. Land hadn't been promised to them till this point and from Genesis 13 and onward. Now wouldn't you also say that this particular promise of the land to abram seed that that has become such a major emphasis and focus on our world today that to borrow from something I said a little earlier and change it a little bit. You can't really even come in and be a part of the civic discussion if you don't know this basic Bible story because how in the world could you talk about. Let's say. Modern history. The history in our lives? Okay, so that's getting a little beyond modern but some ancient in our lifetime. I want to give a history of the world. Could you imagine writing a history of the world in our life? I was born in 1965. A history of the world since 1965 and not saying anything about Israel or the Middle East. Well, you wouldn't really have a good history of the world, would you? I mean, you're leaving out a pretty big chunk of it even today. In fact, I'll just put money on it even as a Baptist preacher you can't get this week if you watch the news, israel and the Middle East will be in the news this week because they are every week it says something going on. It'll have something to do with oil or something to do with the Palestinians or something, you know, whatever. So this promise really comes back to the beginning of it all of this issue about that particular real estate right there in the land of Egypt. And so our worldview comes and is focused on here. But why didn't God just give us that little bit of information? I think there's a sense in which we could say hey, if I just had Genesis chapter 13, verses 14 through 18 where you got the promise, that would have been enough. I mean, I can write my history book with that. Why is Lot the introduction to the story? And why, when we get into chapter 14 probably next week when we get into chapter 14, guess who's going to be the major part of the story? Lot. Here comes Lot again. As a matter of fact, I think the last verse of 16, which is excuse me, the last verse of chapter 13, which is verse 18, I think kind of introduces 14. Did I mess up all the numbers? There so much to confuse you, but the bookends of this story that we got on the picture here that literally changes the course of history for most people's life down through world history, this story has two bookings. Lot, why? Maybe it is to say, I want you to realize that this promise is not going to a nephew. There are going to be children of promise. And to read the Bible correctly, you're going to have to figure out who is Abraham's scene, where is this promise that it's going to what if we just said, oh, it goes to Abraham's family. Okay. Lot is Abraham's family, right? And so there it is. We'll learn more about Lot as we go along and how they are cousins. Usually we would call them to Abraham's seed. And then later on it's even going to get narrowed because we're going to have Ishmael, and we're going to have Isaac. And maybe the beginning of this process is this highlighting of this horse thief in the family as a means of saying, I want you to make note not him. Not him. You know that I happen to be a dispensationalist, right? I remind you every 30 minutes. Maybe the Bible is just kind of shouting out, you really got to watch your characters in the Bible and figure out which side they're on and whether or not God is working through this line or that line and what's up? And follow the right thread through the Scriptures so that then they'll begin to make sense and you'll begin to understand. Now, with that, let me close with one thing in verse. As I said a moment ago, verse 18, as Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plane of Mammary, as far as we know, Mammary is a guy that owned the plane. We don't know anything about him, named after him, the plane of Mammary, which is in Hebron. Well, Hebron's still in the news today that gets every now and then hebron gets there southeast of Jerusalem. So he moved down to Hebron and he built an altar of the Lord. That's sort of random, too. Why does he move? Could it be the reason I'm saying this is I read ahead. Could it be that Abram really is a good family man? He really does love his nephew a lot, even though probably a lot of times he's shaking his head and saying, oh, my goodness. And Sarah, she's always saying, I told you so, I told you so. He is no good from the beginning. And Abrams, oh, yeah, but he's a good boy. I mean, his heart is right. Let's give him another chance. And maybe he moves to Hebron, because from the best we can tell, hebron is a good place to kind of keep an eye on your nephew lot up there and say, oh, yeah, he's down there. He's okay. So far today, he's okay. And maybe Abram can kind of keep his ear to the ground and his eye to the plane in Hebron and find out when five kings come along and kidnap your nephew and you got to come rescue him. But out of the kindness of your heart, you're going to go rescue that scoundrel. And this is where the commercial comes in, and it says, stay tuned for next week because that's where we'll pick up on next week. Now let me say one further thing, and we'll close and have a word of prayer. Obviously, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not here in this passage. We've not talked about Jesus's death as burial. His resurrection is coming again, his ascension to heaven and is coming again. Talked nothing about that. We've talked nothing about the gift that God is offering to men, women, boys and girls of the world today. This is a long time before that. This is the grammar that will build all the way up to the end when we know all of it. But there is a sense in which here you see a promised people and a promised land later that will flesh itself out in a promised coming king for that land. And eventually we'll follow things through to where that king, ah, guess what? He's born in Bethlehem, of the house of David, house and lineage of David. And here he comes. And that's the one that lives the sinless life, who dies then on the cross, taking our sins, as we understand through the teaching of scripture, taking our sins upon himself, and was buried and rose again. Now, having been died, crucified, buried, risen again. Now he stands as Lord both of the dead and of the living. Romans 14 Nine says, lord of the dead and the living. As Lord of the dead and living, he can out of grace, offer us eternal life if he wants to, and that's what he does. He says, okay, here it is, eternal life. All you got to do is place your faith in my work, in what I did, rather than what you're trying to do now. You just place your faith in me. And that's a wonderful grace gospel, isn't it? But we see a little bit of that grace in Abraham, and we see a little bit of that love and compassion and second chances and all that in Abraham. And so I think the old preachers used to call it a scarlet thread of redemption. We see redemption out here, but, oh, look, there's this scarlet thread running all the way through, and we kind of see. We sense it coming as we're looking there. And so as we close this sermon on Abraham, I think it would be good of us to rejoice in the grace gift, the gospel that is given to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. With that, let me lead this in the word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the word of God. We're grateful for all the intricacies in the word of God and the way it just has all these little phrases and different individuals and characters that come as part of the plot line. And here we've got just a short chapter out of hundreds of chapters that pulled the whole story together, and yet we're intrigued with it. It's better than a Hollywood movie, dear Heavenly Father, to think of all that is going on, or could have been going on, and yet in the end, it is showing us that God is at work and God has got a plan, and God is carrying out that plan. And for this, we're most grateful, dear Heavenly Father, in Jesus name, amen. And with that, we close out sermon number what are we, three? On the life of Abraham. We'll pick up there next week in Genesis, chapter 14. And we'll have what appears to be the first World War in Genesis, chapter 14. That'll be interesting. Wednesday night BBQ chicken made in an oven. And we'll have a little Bible study on hosea. Thanks for being here and I appreciate it. And I'll play a little music on the way up. Thanks, guests. God bless you for being here. You're dismissed.