A Great Name: Part 3

 Genesis 12: 4-9

“4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.”

 

Abram left Haran as God asked him to do and traveled to the land of Canaan, pausing at the oak of Moreh.  

Tradition has it that this was a Canaanite sacred place.  Abraham not only camped there but he erected an altar to the one true God.

God appeared to Abram at this place where Canaanite worship had taken place.  God promised to give this land over to Abram’s offspring.

In a foreign land, in a place of idol worship, in a place of danger and insecurity, Abram remembered God.

And he built, not a tower to himself, 

but an altar to God.

May the love of Christ be with you,

Rev. Eric Lanier (Retired)