Honey From The Rock

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Honey From The Rock
Psalm 81:16

"Sweet Stuff From God's Word"

A daily Bible study with Victor Knowles
Copyright 2007

TRAIL OF ALTARS, Part 6

This entry was posted on 10-19-2009 and is filed under ALTARS.

When Abram and Lot returned to Canaan after sojourning in Egypt for awhile, strife arose between the herdsmen of Lot and Abram. The land simply was not large enough to graze both men's vast herds of cattle. Abram, peacemaker that he was, offered a compromise. Lot, seeing that the entire Jordan Valley was well-water, opted for the area near Sodom. Abram, wisely, lived in the Land of Canaan. It is interesting to note that after Lot had separated from Abram, God said to Abram, "Look from the place where you are. Look north and south, east and west, for I will give you and your offspring forever all the land that you see. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted. Get up and walk from one end of the land to the other, for I will give it to you. So Abram moved his tent and went to live beside the oaks of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD" (Gen. 13:14-18 NKJV).

Take a moment to study the Scriptures (Gen. 15:18; 17:7,8) and you will see the dimensions of the land that God promised to Abram and his descendants. The geographical boundaries are the Sinai Desert in the south to the Euphrates River in the north and east. If you would lay this grid over a map of the Middle East it would include all of present-day Israel, the West Bank of Jordan, Lebanon, and substantial portions of Syria, Iraq, Saudia Arabia and Egypt - a huge portion of land. At the zenith of Israel's power they occupied 30,000 square miles but God's promise to Abram was over 300,000 square miles of land. To my knowledge Israel has never occupied all the land that was promised to them by God. When Joshua began the "Conquest of Canaan" God told him that every place the sole of his foot trod would be given to Israel. "Your territory will be from the wilderness and Lebanon to the great Euphrates River - all the land of the Hittites - and west to the Mediterranean Sea" (Josh. 1:4 NKJV). Again, to my knowledge, this vast land mass has not yet been occupied by Israel.

The point I am making is this: after the separation between Lot and Abram, God appeared to Abram and made this promise. In response to this amazing promise, Abram moved his tent and lived beside the oaks of Mamre at Hebron, and there he built his third altar. We are tracing the travels of this great man and discovering the altars he built. Mamre means "richness" and Hebron means "communion." J. Vernon McGee says, "In our day we can be fairly certain that we have located the tree where Abram was, and the well that is there - I have been there. It is quite an interesting spot between Mamre and Hebron . . . a good place to be: in the place of richness and of communion with God. This seems to have been Abram's home, and this is where he is buried." Let us seek that place of wonderful richness and full communion with God!