This is Connect with Skip Heitzig, and we're so glad you've joined us for today's program. Connect with Skip Heitzig is all about connecting you to the never-changing truth of God's Word through verse-by-verse teaching. That's why we make messages like this one today available to you and others. Before we get started with the program, we want to invite you to check out connectwithskip.com. There, you'll find resources like full message series, the CWS app, and more. While you're at it, be sure to sign up for Skip's weekly devotional emails and receive teaching from God's Word right in your inbox each day. Sign up today at connectwithskip.com.
That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Back in 1994, I had a friend who owned a McDonald's restaurant, and his was the one that was sued because a lady who had coffee spilled the coffee on her leg, and it created a huge fiasco. And the net result of that, besides millions of dollars that was awarded this lady, because though there was a warning label on the cup, I guess it wasn't big enough. Now the warning labels are quite large. If you look at a McDonald's coffee cup, it almost like says, hey, you, that's you reading this right now.
This stuff is really, really hot. I don't think it says exactly that, but the idea is that the label is very pronounced, warning label. Well, I decided to go around and look at some of the things that I had and read the warning labels, because I know that they know that they could be sued and to avert or avoid that, they want to make sure that the label is like over the top obvious.
So I have a little list of some of the things that I found. I got my chainsaw and read the warning label. Do not operate chainsaw while upset.
I guess they saw that old movie, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. My favorite hot sauce comes from Belize. It's called Marie Sharp's hot sauce. The warning label reads, warning, must be strong to handle this sauce. Keep out of the reach of children. Do not play tricks on the weak or elderly with this sauce. That would be really cruel, wouldn't it?
Here comes grandma, quick. On one brand of hair color, do not use this as an ice cream topping. Those sun shades, you know the ones that fold for the car that you put in the window so that the heat in the summer won't tear up your dashboard? Well, the label read on it, remove shade before operating vehicle.
That's the secret. A blow dryer warning label said, do not use while sleeping. An iron, Rowenta Iron had this as a warning label, warning, never iron clothes on the body. Boy, you got to be in a hurry. And a mattress company had this warning label, warning, do not attempt to swallow. What a mattress?
How is that possible? Is this like for whales or something? I think that if Abram could have looked back on the episode that happened in chapter 12 when he ran away down to Egypt, he would write a warning label that would say, warning, doubt can be hazardous to your and everyone else's health spiritually and in all other ways. In fact, maybe Abram himself should have worn a label, a warning label, warning, disobedient patriarch, stay away. Now, in all fairness to old Abe, he was just learning to walk by faith. He was called from a pagan culture. He was just getting his sea legs, so to speak, on the ship of faith. He was a baby believer. He was learning how to walk.
He was learning how to trust. But chapter 12, the last part of it, the second half of it represents an episode of doubt where he leaves the land that God told him to go to because there was a famine in the land of promise and he goes down to Egypt for help. He is called in the New Testament the father of them that believe. And I am just so thrilled, as I mentioned last week, that he has a lapse of belief.
And he could also be called the father of them that be lying because he lied about who his wife was and said it was his sister. Yet, he is given that great light, that redemptive light, that merciful light by the New Testament, the father of them that believe. You and I are also learning how to walk. And though we are people of faith and we trust and we believe in God and we believe in his son Jesus Christ, we also falter and fall and fail. And there is mercy for us.
We're learning. You know, children have a natural, I would even say a supernatural, like built into them by God, desire to believe in God and trust in God. It doesn't take much for a child to trust God and believe in God. But at the same time, because they're children, their doubt is also very accentuated. So when a child, though in the realm of faith, begins to doubt, it can be very, very deep and fearful and severe. They're all over the map. They're not mature yet.
They're not stable yet. I remember when my father was trying to teach me to dive off the diving board at a local swimming pool where I grew up. I just couldn't trust him. He'd never let me down, but he said, son, jump. No, you'll be okay. No, I'll die. No, you won't die. I promise you, you won't die. I promise you, you'll only get wet.
In fact, I promise you that I'll catch you. No. And I'm sure it was an embarrassment as everyone around us that what is wrong with this kid. Sad part of it was I was 35 years old when that happened.
No, I'm just kidding. But eventually I jumped. And eventually Abram comes to, spiritually speaking. And now in chapter 13, he goes back. He returns to the land of promise.
I would think that the one lesson we learn, and I think Abram would agree, in fact, I think he would state this with all of his heart, that it's better to trust God in your life when the cupboards are bare than to be in the land of abundance outside of his will. He has now learned the lesson he's done with Egypt. And so we read in chapter 13, verse 1, then Abram went up from Egypt. He and his wife and all that he had and lot with him to the south. That is the south of the promised land. They're going up from Egypt to the south of the country to the north of them.
They're in the Negev desert. He went up. Before it said he went down. And that was true geographically.
I think it was also true relationally, spiritually. Any movement away from God's will is a step down. It says in the book of Jonah that God told him to go to Nineveh. It says Jonah went down to Joppa and then down into the ship. And eventually he went down into the sea and down into the belly of a whale. He went down, down, down, down. And it was only when he was thrown up by the whale that he decided to live, not the downward life, but the upward life of obedience. And he went to Nineveh.
Abram comes back and he goes up. Abram, it says in verse 1, was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. Now this is the very first time in the Bible, and I like to make mention of that whenever we come to firsts in the Bible. This is the first time in Scripture that riches is mentioned.
And it's mentioned in relation to Abram, the first patriarch. Something we discover in looking at what the Bible says about wealth. The Bible looks at money not as being bad or being good, but being neutral.
It all depends on how a person is affected by it and what a person does with it that is the importance. Now someone will say, oh but Skip, you know the Bible says in the New Testament that money is the root of all evil. No it doesn't say that at all. It never says that money is the root of all evil. It says in 1 Timothy chapter 6, the love of money is a root, that is one of many roots. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
Well that sheds a whole different light on that picture. Because you can be without money but still have a love of money and fall into trouble. Or you can have a lot of money by God's grace, God's blessing, and it doesn't affect you as much as somebody who if they had that, it would destroy them. Read the testimony of those who have become suddenly rich like the lottery winners.
I've seen reports over the years and it's the same report. Most people who get to be lottery winners will say after they get the money, after months go by and after years go by, the worst thing that happened to me is that I won the lottery. I now don't know who my friends are.
I don't know if my family loves me for what I might give them or if they just love me because I'm a part of the family. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, understanding Genesis is critical to understanding the rest of scripture. And in his book, You Can Understand the Book of Genesis, Skip Heitzig helps you discover the meaning and message of this foundational book. Embark on an epic journey to where it all began so you can understand the amazing story of God's love and our redemption in Christ. You Can Understand the Book of Genesis is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Sometimes it is God who blesses and it's a result of the blessing from God. Job was wealthy in livestock and in chapter one of Job it's listed the camels and the cattle that he owned and the sheep that he owned.
He was the greatest man of the east. Now he loses it all but later on it says that God gave him much more at the end than he had at the beginning. So he's blessed and made wealthier by God a blessing from God. Joseph though experienced a difficult time at first became second in command in the world the prime minister of Egypt and became very very wealthy.
So sometimes it's because of a blessing of God. Other people are rich because not God blesses them but they abuse their power or they steal the money or they do it through their own hard work and it becomes a God that they serve. Now Abraham was very rich and the Bible makes clear that at least in part it was the blessing of God. Having said that, riches can also become a problem. Though you have Abram who is rich and consequently you're going to discover Lot who is his nephew also has a lot going on financially that it becomes a problem and a conflict arises over the stuff that they own.
The things that they have will become the center of the conflict in just a little bit. So Abram leaves Egypt and you should know something that Abram left Egypt wealthier than when he went to Egypt. He went to Egypt to escape the famine, he lied about his wife, Pharaoh gave him a whole bunch of stuff because Abram said that's just my sister. So Pharaoh loaded him down with stuff and he's coming back in part with more stuff financially though he's been taken to the woodshed spiritually than he had when he first went down.
Why is that important? Because to me it's a pre-figurement of another group we're going to read about in the book of Exodus. That's the children of Israel. The children of Israel will go down to Egypt because of a famine, they will for 400 years be in that land, they will multiply in terms of population but they will be persecuted by the Egyptians but they will leave after plundering the Egyptians with much more than they came down with.
It's just God's way of adding to that. And he went on his journey from the south as far as Bethel which means the house of God that will be the name given to it in the future by Jacob but it's referred to before Jacob is ever born because the people who would read Genesis would be familiar with that place based upon the new name that they were aware of. As far as Bethel 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 on the name of the Lord. Bethel means house of God, that word Ai or Ai that little town means heap, heap or dump. And so here you have Abram pitching his tent between the house of God and the dump.
He's coming back from Egypt. He's pitched his tent going toward the house of God, toward Bethel. That's where the altar is. That's where he's going to worship. But in the previous verse in verse 3 he's pitched his tent between the dump and the house of God.
Now that's the same position you and I are in. We have been saved out of this world. We are on the way toward heaven. That's our real home, the house of God where God dwells.
And we're sort of in that in between position, between the dump of this world and between the house of God that we're moving toward. But in verse 4 he gets to Bethel and Bethel was an altar that we saw at the beginning in chapter 12 that he made there at first and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. Now he did not call upon the name of the Lord while in Egypt. There is no reference to him either pitching his tent or building an altar.
He was just escaping the famine. Here he goes back to the altar. So he remembers where he had come from, the altar of worship that he was enjoying with the Lord in chapter 12.
He remembers that. He repents from what his unbelief had caused when he went down to Egypt. And then he repeats what he did at the beginning in worshiping God at this altar.
Does that sound familiar? It sounds a lot like what Jesus will tell the church of Ephesus in Revelation. Remember from where you have fallen, repent and do your first works again. Remember, repent, repeat.
That's exactly what Abram does. He remembers the fellowship he had with God and while he was trusting God that was a much better place than Egypt. He repents of the unbelief and he goes back and does again what he did at the beginning.
Boy, what great counsel that is to us. Maybe tonight you have experienced a distance between you and God. And maybe you look back to a time when you had fellowship early in the morning with God. You got up early and read your Bible and you think, oh, it was so good.
It was so sweet. But over time you have distanced yourself from that primary activity. You're not experiencing closeness anymore. Could it be that the Lord is calling some of us back to Bethel, back to the altar, repenting from whatever brought us away from that and caused that distance? It's unfortunate that some of us have to talk about our relationship with God in the past tense, not in the present tense. It's not like, man, is it great with God. I just love the fellowship. I love hanging out with God. God speaks to me. But, oh, I remember at one time way back when, but it's not like that anymore. And so what is the solution? You remember, you repent and you repeat.
You do those first works again. So if you have stumbled like Abram, there's always an altar that is waiting for you to come back to. Verse 5, Lot also who went with Abram had flocks and herds and tents. So he also has a lot of stuff.
He's also very wealthy. Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock and the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelt in the land.
So though there's nothing wrong with wealth inherently in and of itself, though that's okay and sometimes God can even add that and bless you with it, here it becomes the source of the conflict. We have so much stuff. I have so much stuff.
You have so much stuff. We have so many animals and the land that we're trying to share together just can't support it. So we have to split.
Or, you know, my herdsmen are going to hassle and harangue your herdsmen and the bickering is going to go back and forth all over stuff. Stuff is interesting. We all have stuff. Some of us have more stuff than others. And I mean we stuff our stuff in boxes. If you have ever moved, you know this principle.
You have stuff in boxes. You never get it out. You never look at it.
You never care about it. You don't even know you have it until you move and you look in the place you stuffed your stuff and you go, huh, I have stuff. Now if you have a family, a wife, a husband, children, they have their stuff. If you try to do something with their stuff, oh, will you get in trouble. Hey, that's my stuff. Yeah, but you haven't used that for like 10 years, so it's my stuff. To do something with it or not do something with it. Leave my stuff alone. Now the truth is a lot of that stuff you won't see again until you move again. And it can become a source of conflict as it is here.
Something else. They're not alone in the land. It's not just their livestock that has to be supported by the land. It notices also that the Canaanites and the Perizzites, these two other groups, dwelt in the land.
So not only will my family and your family have a tough time being supported by the infrastructure of the land, there's other people around. But I think that the Holy Spirit is informing us of something else. Here there's a conflict between one group of God's people and another group of God's people and the world is watching. The Canaanite and the Perizzite are watching Abram and Lot very, very carefully and hearing the bickering and hearing the arguments. And whenever the dirty laundry of the church gets aired in front of the world, the church is in a real mess. It's dangerous.
It's wrong. We always have to be careful who's watching, who's listening. Canaanites and Perizzites are all around and they are looking and they are listening. I heard about two women who worked in the same office. Both of them were Christians and both of them worked by a window. And one of them said, I want you to keep that window closed. If you open the window, it gets so cold, I'm going to catch pneumonia. And the other lady said, I want you to open that window because if you don't open that window, I get claustrophobic and there's no circulation.
I'm going to die of suffocation. So they argue back and forth and back and forth with their Bibles on their desk, back and forth. One day, a gal from across the hall came over into their space, an unbeliever after hearing this for a long time, said, I got an idea. Let's keep the window open till you die of pneumonia and then we'll close the window so you can die of suffocation.
That'll be the solution. You can feel her pain. What made it worse is both of them claimed to be believers. Now, here is Abram, a man who has a covenant relationship with God and simply by virtue of the relationship of uncle to nephew with Lot. He is also seen as one of God's people.
But from the story, you and I know differently. From the story, you know that Abram, though he's imperfect, is walking with God while Lot doesn't seem to be walking with God at all. He seems to be walking not with God, but with Abram. For back in verse one, it says Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had and Lot went with him. Abram's obeying God. Abram's walking with God. Lot is walking with Abram.
He's tagging along. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will take you back to where it all began so you can understand all of God's Word more clearly.
Pastor Skip's book, You Can Understand the Book of Genesis, is our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copies when you give $50 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.
