Sheryl Brady - You Can't Lose Your Altar

Genesis chapter 12 is a very familiar passage of Scripture. If you have been saved for any amount of time, you have probably heard about the man we are going to talk about today. His name is Abram. In particular, God came to Abram in this verse right here. I think most of us have read it at least once or twice—or maybe 20, 30, or even 40 times. In verse 1, it says, «Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Get out of your country, away from your kindred, and away from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.'»

Now let me tell you something: it’s one thing to get away from your country and pick up and move to start all over; if you’re young, you know that when you’re young, you don’t think twice, and you just go for it. How do I know that? I’ve been there, done that. But I want you to understand that Abram was approximately 75 years old when God said, «I’m ordering a change for your life.» You might think, «God, why didn’t you do this in my 30s? It would have been a lot easier!» Not only that, but his wife Sarah was about 65 years old at that time. Here comes God, just when you least expect Him, to change your world or to rock your world. He tells you to get away from your country, your family, your father’s house, and go to a land that I will show you. That always gets me right there because He didn’t even give Him a specific place to go; He just said, «I’m gonna show you.»

In other words, if you’re going to find out where I want you to go, you have to start moving by faith. Look at somebody and tell them, «You’ve got to move by faith.» So the Bible says in verse 4 that Abraham departed as the Lord spoke to him. In verse 7, it says, «And then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, 'To your descendants, I will give this land.'» And there, at that moment, he built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.

Moving on to verse 10, the Bible says, «Now there was a famine in the land,» and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land. It came to pass that when he was close to entering Egypt, he said to Sarah, «I want you to listen to this smooth operator right here.» He said to Sarah, his wife, «Look, indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance. Therefore, it will happen that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife, ' and they will kill me, but they will let you live. Please say that you are my sister so that it can be well with me for your sake; oh my God, he is such a talker, that I may live because of you.»

So it was when Abram came into Egypt that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful. The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. The woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house. He treated Abraham well for her sake. Thank you, sir! He had sheep and oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels. In other words, this man just loaded Abraham up because of Sarah. But the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. It didn’t say «Abraham’s sister»; he said, «because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.»

Pharaoh then called Abram and said, «What is this that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that this was your wife? Why did you say that she was your sister? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way.» Because there is trouble, that’ll make the devil let you go: when God gets on your side and He starts fighting for you, when it comes to that kind of fight, you are no match for God.

So now, here, take your wife and go away. Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away, his wife, and all that he had. What I think is cool right there is that in spite of his mess-ups, Pharaoh did not take back the things he had given him. He let him go with all of the blessings he had given him. That’s something right there to me!

Then go to 13:1, where Abram went up from Egypt. What I want you to notice is in verse 10 of chapter 12, the Bible said he went down into Egypt, but now he’s on his way up. Now go to verse 3, where he went on his journey from the south 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 made there at first. There, Abram called on the name of the Lord.

We are talking about guardrails today, and I don’t know of any other guardrail in your life that is more powerful than your prayer life. Your altar is a major guardrail in your life. Look at your neighbor on the right and say, «Neighbor, whatever you do, you can’t lose your altar.»