Intro: Have you ever wondered what to do when you have failed God?
- What is an alter?
I. Return to your alter (v.1-4)
- Failure means we have left true worship
- 12:10-20
- The first thing to go is our trust in God (12:13)
- So we handle things without God
- The next thing to go is our peace (12:13)
- Abraham was fearful
- The result is a loss of blessing and the acquiring of judgment (12:17)
II. Separate from the world (v. 5-12)
- You can’t lift a barrel while you’re standing in it
- Jas 4:1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
- Jas 4:2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
- Jas 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
- Jas 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
- Nowhere does scripture point to the alter of lot
- Abraham separated himself physically (v.9)
- Abraham separated himself spiritually (v. 9)
- Abraham separated himself from the enemy of God (James 4:4)
- Even though Lot claimed to be a believer
- Can an Christian be an enemy of God
- Mar_8:33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."
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III. Never leave your alter behind (v.14-18)
- God uses people who live at their alter
- Abraham said I will give (v. 9)
- Lot said I will take (v. 11)
- Abraham said “Let’s make peace”
- Lot had no concern for peace
- A man without an alter is a man full of sensuality and the world
- Lift up your eyes and look is followed by lift up your feet and walk (v.14;17)
Conclusion: "When we don't let God rule, He overrules and accomplishes His purposes; but we pay dearly for our disobedience."~ Warren Wiersbe
