Fit For Service (Part 4c -Abraham)

This is week six in our study on being fit for service. Today we will continue looking at the life of Abraham to see what made him fit for service and usable by God.   

You will remember that over the last two weeks we have looked at the life of Abraham and discovered that he had active faith in God, he demonstrated instant obedience, he was unselfish, he lived a life of compassion, he was courageous, and he was hospitable.  In this lesson we will look at the final characteristic that made Abraham usable by God. 

Sixth, Abraham was a builder of altars.  

Abraham built four altars that are recorded in Genesis. Each altar had a different significance in his life.  

Altar one: Consecration/Commemoration  

Webster’s 1828 dictionary gives us the following definitions:   

Consecration: The act or ceremony of separating from a common to a sacred use, or of devoting and dedicating a person or thing to the service and worship of God, by certain rites or solemnities.  

Commemoration: The act of calling to remembrance, by some solemnity; the act of honoring the memory of some person or event, by solemn celebration.  

Genesis 12:6-7, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. (ESV)  

In this verse we read God’s promise to Abraham. He promised to give Abraham’s offspring the land of Cannon. In response to this promise Abraham built an altar to consecrate himself to God and to commemorate the promise he had received from God.  

Altar two: Acknowledgement of dependence upon God. 

Genesis 12:8, From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. (ESV)  

After leaving Moreh, Abraham traveled to Bethel. Here he pitched his tent and built an altar to call upon the name of the Lord.   Jack Hayford writes, “When the Bible says that Abraham called on the Name of the Lord, it was more than prayer. The word “name” contains the concept of character.  

Our perspective of God is on this side of the completion of the Old and New Testaments. But in Abraham’s time, God was just beginning to rework His communication with fallen humanity. Abraham answered a call because he believed in God and sensed Him drawing Abraham’s heart to a promise of something that he could not be or do in himself. 

Abraham believed that there was a true and living God in the midst of the pagan culture around him. Now the Lord says to him, “I want to teach you about Me.” Abraham was coming to know the Lord and he called on the name—and character—of the Lord.” 

Abraham’s altar here represented his dependance upon God.  As an act of worship, Abraham called on the character of God, and put his faith in the God who had promised.  He acknowledged that he could not bring the promise to pass but he knew that God could. 

Altar two revisited: Repentance 

At the end of Genesis 12 we read that when a famine hit the land of Cannan, Abraham took his family and all his possessions to the land of Egypt.  His stay there was not without trial. Abraham became worried that the Egyptians would take Sarah, who was beautiful, away from him and that they would kill him.  He convinced Sarah to lie and say she was his sister. She was indeed his half-sister; however, this lie was intended to deceive the Egyptians and to save himself.   

Sarah was taken into Pharaoh's house and Abraham was blessed with gifts and honor.  However, when God struck Pharaoh's household with great plagues because of Sarah, Pharaoh confronted him, gave him back his wife, and in humiliation sent him back out of Egypt into Cannan. 

In the Believer's Bible Commentary, William MacDonald writes, “Faith, however, has its lapses... This incident reminds us that we should not wage a spiritual warfare with carnal weapons, that the end does not justify the means, and that we can’t sin and get away with it. 

God did not forsake Abram, but He did allow the sin to work itself out. Abram was publicly humbled by the Pharaoh and deported in disgrace.” 

Genesis 13:1-4, So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.  

Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord. (ESV) 

Abraham returned to Bethel in a different position than he had gone to Bethel the first time.  The first time, he went in faith and built an altar to represent his faith in God. This time he approached the altar of Bethel in humble repentance.  You see, when things got tough (famine hit), Abraham’s faith lapsed, and he fled to Egypt, which throughout scripture is a representation of the world.  Instead of trusting God to keep his promises, he looked to the world to meet his needs.  

Altar three: Covenant 

In Genesis 15 we read of the covenant God made with Abraham.   

David Baron explains: “According to the ancient Eastern manner of making a covenant, both the contracting parties passed through the divided pieces of the slain animals, thus symbolically attesting that they pledged their very lives to the fulfillment of the engagement they made (see Jer. 34:18, 19). Now in Genesis 15, God alone, whose presence was symbolized by the smoking furnace and lamp of fire, passed through the midst of the pieces of the slain animals, while Abram was simply a spectator of this wonderful exhibition of God’s free grace.” This signified that it was an unconditional covenant, dependent for fulfillment on God alone.i 

While there was not a physical altar erected during this covenant process, there was a spiritual altar formed in Abraham’s heart. From that day on, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (Romans 4:3). 

Altar four: Sacrifice. 

Genesis 22:1-8, After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”  And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. (ESV) 

Genesis 22:13-14, And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” 

I want to pull out a few things from these passages.   

1. Abraham did not hesitate to take Isaac to the mountain.   

2. Abraham took fire, wood, and his sacrifice, Isaac.  He had no knowledge that God was only testing him and that a ram was going to be sacrificed in Isaac’s place.  He went with the intention of offering this precious son of promise to God. 

3. Abraham told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” Hebrews 11:19, He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. 

4. When questioned by Isaac, Abraham confidently said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”  In the 37 years between God’s promise of a son and His testing of Abraham, it is obvious that Abraham’s faith had grown.  He went from fleeing to Egypt in fear to confidently and willingly offering up his promised son to God on the altar.   

5. Abraham’s faith was rewarded. Genesis 22:12, But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”  

In conclusion, as Christians we need to have spiritual altars in our life.  We need “markers” to remind us of the things God has done in our lives.   

When were you born again?  Do you remember the date, where you were, how you felt?   

Has there ever been a time when you had to acknowledge total dependence upon God?  How did he come through for you?  Do you remember any specifics about that season? 

Have you ever stumbled in your walk with the Lord and had to come back to your first love in humble repentance?  How did God reveal his forgiveness and loving restoration to you? 

Has God ever made you a promise/covenant?  Have you seen it come to pass? Are you still believing for the fulfillment?   

Has God ever asked you to offer to Him something precious to you? Your dreams for your life, an unfulfilled desire, a relationship that was not edifying your soul, etc.   

All these situations leave memories in our heart.  These memories are our spiritual altars.  They are signposts or memorials that we can take out on occasion and use to remind ourselves and our enemy of God’s goodness to us and our commitment to Him!  

Abraham’s life is an example for us today.  He had active faith in God, he demonstrated instant obedience, he was unselfish, he lived a life of compassion, he was courageous, he was hospitable, and he built altars as markers along his faith journey.   

Works Cited:

i Believer's Bible Commentary Copyright © 1989, 1990, 1992, 1995, 2016 by William MacDonald.