Hello and welcome to our broadcast. We're looking in Genesis chapter 13. We will begin reading at verse number 5. In our last broadcast we see that Abraham went up out of Egypt, him and his wife, and in verse number five it says, and Lot also which went with Abraham had land and and the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together, for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abraham's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle, and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt then in the land. And Abraham said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me, if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if thou depart to the right, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zor. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east, and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plains, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. And the Lord said unto Abraham after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever." And so we have here this problem that is here because, first of all, Abraham shouldn't have brought Lot with him in the first place. He was told not to do that. But we read in verse number five these two words, and lot. In verse 5, we read he was with Abraham. In verse 6, they could not dwell together. Verse 7, there was a strife between them. And verse 7 says the enemies of God were watching. Interesting that it says that back in chapter 12 and verse 6, too. These fellows fighting together, they're no different than us. What a sad testimony. Well, we have Abraham's response in verses 8 through 9 and Lot's responses in verses 10 and 11. One thing I found out over the years is that pressure reveals reality. When the pressure gets on, then we can see where we really are spiritually and in every other manner as far as our character is concerned. And we have the problem here, and that problems are often coming into our lives by money and materialism and the things of this world. That is exactly what's happening here. So we have from Abraham a plea for peace. He says here in verse number 7, the enemies, the Christ rejecters, are watching. We should not be fighting. He says in verse 8, we are brethren. Now, the reason for the problem? Stuff. The stuff. They're arguing about, you know, how can I take care of all my stuff? The result of the problem was a strife. Isn't it a fact that so many times in life our strife comes because of our stuff? Well, we have the reason for the problem, we have the result for the problem, but the resolve of the problem is a surrender of rights. Here's Abraham, he's got the right, he's the older one, but he takes the high road here, and he says to Lot, you go left and I'll go right, or you want to go right, I'll go left, you choose. And he surrenders his rights. We have such a hard time in life because we're always battling, I want my rights, I want my rights. I was preaching in a church in Pennsylvania one time, it was a very large church. probably a thousand people, and I was sitting on the platform waiting to be introduced, and a young couple came to the door at the back, and they stood in the door, and they looked at each other in disgust, and they walked away. And so I asked the pastor there, I said, what's wrong with that couple? I don't usually scare people off when I start preaching. They just looked and laughed. And he said, oh, no, it wasn't you. He said, they've done that before. Somebody was sitting in their seat, And so, you know, there was all kinds of empty seats there, but, oh, somebody's sitting in my seat. I'm going home. What makes you think you have a right to any seat? What if you came to church and there was no seats? Week after week, you came and you had to stand. After all, the pastor has to stand. What if you just had to stand and you knew you didn't deserve a seat? What makes you think you deserve a seat? Well, in any event, what if you came and then one week, look, they've got seats here for us. My, how you would appreciate those things. But as long as you think you have a right to have a seat, you're not going to appreciate anything. Well, that's exactly what's going on in this story. The reason for the problem? The stuff. The result of the problem? Strife. The result of the problem? Surrendering the rights. to God. Give your rights unto the Lord. You don't have any rights anyway. Well, Lot here, he's living by sight. Abraham's living by faith. Lot, he's living for self. He has no concern whether Abraham's cattle all die because there's not enough water on that other side or whatever. He is just concerned about himself. Well, we have living by sight and living for self. How did that end up? Living in Sodom, where he completely lost his testimony and he lost his family. So let's get honest for a minute here. How about stuff? How important is the stuff of this world to you? Things are temporal and some things are eternal. The stuff we have is temporal. The lives of our family and our lives and the lives of the people around us are eternal. Let's be honest. What's important to us? Stuff? Well, we see in this story the stuff led to a strife. A strife. Now, most of our strife comes from the fact that we have an authority problem. We don't want to listen to what our authorities tell us to do. Let's be honest about that. Is that part of our problem? Not only the stuff that led to a strife, but what about self? Are other people more important than you are? Or are you the one that has to have everything his own way? And then, what about our sight? We see that that Lot was living by the eyes, by what he could see, by what looked like a good thing to him. How was Abraham living? He was living by faith. And now again, as we've mentioned before, when the Bible talks about faith, most of the time it's not talking about what we would think of. Well, I'll just trust God and go. It involves that. But when it's talking about faith, it's talking about the faith, the Word of God. It's talking about what the Bible teaches. Keep the faith, once delivered unto the saints, the Bible says. It's talking about the Word of God. And so we have Lot living by sight, and we have Abraham living by the Word of God, and we can see how that turned out for both those men. Well, reading again in chapter 13, verse number 14, things change now, and it says, The Lord said unto Abraham, after that lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it. and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee.' Then Abraham removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord." Now we have Abraham getting directions from God once again here in verse number 14, and it says, After that lot was separated from him, We read, now, now, he said, lift up thine eyes and I am going to show you what I have for you. So we have two men, and quite frankly, both men making mistakes. One repenting over his mistakes, the other one doing nothing like that. We have two completely different focuses. It says Lot lifted up his eyes, verse 10, Lot chose, verse 11. Lot journeyed, verse 11. Lot dwelled, verse 12. And then, as we said before, by the time we get to chapter 9 and verse number 30, we see Lot dwelled again, but not so well this time. He's living in the cave. The other man, Abraham, it says he lifted up his eyes, in verse 14, and he had a life of blessings from Almighty God. And so we have the promises of God after he separated from Lot as he was commanded to do. He has got the promised land and all the stuff that goes with it, and he's got a promised life that has to do with his family. So he says here, Arise and walk, verse 17. Arise and walk. There's the key. It says in Micah 6 and 8, He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. Arise and walk. So we see in verse 17, he walked, and it says he went. Where did he go? He went to Mamre, and he went to Hebron. Interesting, those words. Mamre means fatness and Hebron means fellowship. There he is getting everything he needs from God. He is having great fellowship with God. And we read he built an altar. So he walked, he went, and he worshipped. And so these things are written for our admonition, the Bible says. So let's talk about it. How is our walk? Think about it. How is your walk with the Lord? And where are you going? It says he went, he went on and he went in God's direction. Are you going God's direction? And then he said he worshipped. He worshipped. I don't think we even know what that means anymore. As we said in a previous broadcast, we don't seem to worship God anymore. I'm not too sure we even know what that means. I know one thing it means is basically it comes down, will I have my will or will I have God's will? And how much, how important is God's will and how important is God to me? And so we see our life consists basically of our walk, our worship. our will or God's will, but then we get into chapter 14 and it speaks about a warfare, a warfare. Now, what had happened here, if you read down through this chapter, you'll see the word king, king, king, every king, all the kings are getting upset with each other. Everybody's having a battle. And in verses 1 through 12, they came down and they attacked Sodom and they invaded it. And of course, Lot was taken away, it says, and he was taken captive. Well, in verse number 12 we read they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom and his goods, and departed. And verse 13 says there came one that had escaped and he told Abraham. Well, verse 14 says when Abraham heard that, His brother was taken captive. He armed his trained servants, born in his own house, 318, and pursued them unto Dan." Now this is very interesting. It's the only time that you will find that Abraham is armed for warfare. Why? Well, because they are coming after his family and he is going to protect his family. What an important lesson there is here for us. The world is after your family. We need to protect our family, and we need to know how to protect our family, and we need to be armed to protect our family. Now, he's not one, as I said, who went out and did a lot of fighting, but he was ready when he had to fight, and so we see here that he's going to protect those that are part of his family. We have two families in this world. If you're a Christian, you have your family at home and you have your church family, and we ought to have the same principle there. We need to be armed for the battle if we need to battle. Well, we read in verse 14 that he heard, he had his trained servants, and he pursued. And we read the story of Paul the Apostle when he got to the end of his life. He said, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith." Now, it's very interesting to know Paul's fight is always fighting for his family, that is, his Christian family. He said in 2 Corinthians 12 and verse number 15, I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, be spent for you. Over and over again, and we'll look at that in our next broadcast, Paul the Apostle was saying, I am doing everything that I am doing for you. And children in a home need to realize that's what parents are doing if they're trying to live for the Lord, they're doing it for their children. And the same thing is true your pastor. He is doing what he does for you if he's standing true to the Word of God. He is doing it for you. Keep that in mind. It is very important. Well, we're out of time again. Hear that music in the background tells us we gotta go. Tune in again tomorrow. We'll try to make it plain and we will try to make it simple.