Genesis 13:1
So Abram went up out of Egypt into the Negev--he and his wife and all his possessions--and Lot was with him.
Sermons
Abraham and LotT. G. Horton.Genesis 13:1-4
Abram's Return, EtcW. Adamson.Genesis 13:1-4
LessonsG. Hughes, B. D.Genesis 13:1-4
Practical RepentanceM. Dods, D. D.Genesis 13:1-4
The Believer Learning from His Great EnemyT. H. Leale.Genesis 13:1-4
The Separation Between Abram and LotR.A. Redford Genesis 13:1-13














Return to Bethel - to the altar. The circumstances of the patriarch were very different. He was very rich. Lot is with him, and the sojourn in Egypt had far more depraving effect upon his weaker character than upon that of his uncle. We should remember when we take the young into temptation that what may be comparatively harmless to us may be ruinous to them. The subsequent misery of Lot's career may be all traced to the sojourn in Egypt.

I. The root of it lay in WORLDLY WEALTH LEADING TO CONTENTION. "They could not dwell together."

II. THE DIVERGENCE OF CHARACTER IS BROUGHT OUT IN THE COMPLICATION OF EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES. Lot is simply selfish, willful, regardless of consequences, utterly worldly. Abram is a lover of peace, a hater of strife, still cherishes the family feeling and reverences the bond of brotherhood, is ready to subordinate his own interests to the preservation of the Divine order, has faith to see that Canaan with the blessing of God is much to be preferred to the plain of Jordan with Divine judgments hanging over those who were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.

III. LESSONS OF PROVIDENCE ARE NOT LOST ON THOSE WHO WAIT UPON GOD, and can be learnt in spite of infirmities and errors. Abram could not forget what Egypt had taught him; rich as he was, he did not put riches first. He had seen that that which seems like a garden of the Lord in external beauty may be a cursed land after all. There are people of God who pitch their tents towards Sodom still, and they will reap evil fruits, as Lot did. It is a most terrible danger to separate ourselves from old religious associations. In doing so we cannot be too careful where we pitch our tent. - R.

Abraham went up out of Egypt.
It is an old saying that "It is lawful to learn from an enemy." The patriarch had sojourned in the world's kingdom, and had learned those solemn lessons which, as it too often happens, only a bitter experience can teach. He returned a sadder, but a wiser man. The believer who has fallen into the world's snares, or comes dangerously near to them, learns —

I. THAT IT IS NOT SAFE TO LEAVE THE PATHS MARKED OUT BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

1. While we are in the path of Providence, we may expect Divine direction.

2. When we leave the paths of Providence, we are thrown upon the resources of our own wisdom and strength, and can only expect failure.

3. Every step we take from the paths of Providence only increases the difficulty of returning.

II. THAT THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD INVOLVES DEEP SPIRITUAL LOSS. In Abraham's ease —

1. The delicacy of the moral principle was injured.

2. There was actual spiritual loss.

III. THAT THE SOUL'S SAFETY IS BEST SECURED BY REVISITING, IN LOVING MEMORY, THE SCENES WHERE GOD WAS FIRST FELT AND KNOWN.

1. He is aided by remembering the strength and fervour of his early faith and love.

2. Memory may become a means of grace. It is well for us to look backwards, as well as forwards by the anticipations of hope. What God has done for us in the past is a pledge of what He will do in the future, if we continue faithful to His grace. We may use memory to encourage hope.

IV. THERE MUST BE A FRESH CONSECRATION TO GOD. Abram went at once to Bethel, where at the beginning he had pitched his tent, and built an altar to God. There he "called on the name of the Lord." This implies a fresh consecration of himself, and points out the method by which we may recover our spiritual loss. Such a fresh consecration is necessary, for there are no other channels of spiritual blessing, but those by which it first flowed to us. There is no new way of restoration. We must come back to Him who first gave us our faith and made reconciliation. This renewed consecration of ourselves to God involves —

1. The acknowledgment of our sin. It was sin that made, at first, our reconciliation with God necessary, and fresh sin renews the obligation to seek His face.

2. The conviction that propitiation is necessary to obtain the favour of God.

3. The open profession of our faith.

(T. H. Leale.)

I. THE RETURN OF ABRAM.

1. Forgiven.

2. Favoured.

II. THE REQUEST OF ABRAM.

1. Forbearing.

2. Foregoing.

III. THE REWARD OF ABRAM.

1. Forgetting the earthly inheritance.

2. Foreshadowing the heavenly inheritance.

(W. Adamson.)

I. THE PERFECTNESS OF GOD'S RESTORING GRACE.

1. God brought him back to Bethel.

2. The effect on Abraham. We find him no longer self-seeking and self-dependent. He asks counsel of God; he defers to others; is meek under provocation; and leaves himself wholly to God.

II. A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE OF A PIOUS RICH MAN. You will observe two things about Abraham as a rich man.

1. His conduct in relation to God.

2. His conduct toward Lot.

1. In regard to God, he worshipped Him in every place (vers. 4 and 18). This involves more than at first sight appears. Abraham was living in the midst of idolaters. To worship God was a bold act. It was also a public act. It was one which involved much expense.

2. In regard to Lot. His conduct displays disinterestedness, love to his nephew, and firm faith in God. From this narrative we may learn two subordinate truths —

1. The children of God may come to acquire much worldly property.

2. The saints of God may possess property.

III. THE FOLLY OF SELF-SEEKING. We see this in the case of Lot.

(T. G. Horton.)

1. God's saints delay not to follow God's Providence, opening a way to them from the place of trial.

2. God knoweth how to deliver His fully, that nothing of theirs shall be wanting (ver. 2).

3. Weight of riches in the world is sometimes God's portion given to His.

4. Not possession of wealth, but inordinate affection and abuse of it, is the sin (ver. 2).

5. Riches cannot hinder believers from going after God where He calleth them.

6. Saints breathe after their first communion with God, after distractions from it (ver. 3).

7. No place contents a gracious heart but where God may be enjoyed.

8. The name of the Lord is that which draweth the hearts of saints from all enjoyments, to delight in it, publish it, and call upon it (ver. 4).

(G. Hughes, B. D.)

By retracing his steps and returning to the altar at Bethel, he seems to acknowledge that he should have remained there through the famine in dependence on God. Whoever has attempted a similar practical repentance, visible to his own household and affecting their place of abode or daily occupations, will know how to estimate the candour and courage of Abram. To own that some distinctly marked portion of our life, upon which we entered with great confidence in our own wisdom and capacity, has come to nothing and has betrayed us into reprehensible conduct, is mortifying indeed, To admit that we have erred and to repair our error by returning to our old way and practice, is what few of us have the courage to do. If we have entered on some branch of business or gone into some attractive speculation, or if we have altered our demeanour towards some friend, and if we are finding that we are thereby tempted to doubleness, to equivocation, to injustice, our only hope lies in a candid and straightforward repentance, in a manly and open return to the state of things that existed in happier days and which we should never have abandoned. Sometimes we are aware that a blight began to fall on our spiritual life from a particular date, and we can easily and distinctly trace an unhealthy habit of spirit to a well-marked passage in our outward career; but we shrink from the sacrifice and shame involved in a thoroughgoing restoration of the old state of things. We are always so ready to fancy we have done enough, if we get one heartfelt word of confession uttered; so ready, if we merely turn our faces towards God, to think our restoration complete. Let us make a point of getting through mere beginnings of repentance, mere intention to recover God's favour and a sound condition of life, and let us return and return till we bow at God's very altar again, and know that His hand is laid upon us in blessing as at the first.

(M. Dods, D. D.)

People
Abram, Canaanites, Lot, Mamre, Perizzites, Zoar
Places
Ai, Bethel, Betonim, Canaan, Egypt, Gomorrah, Hebron, Jordan River, Negeb, Sodom, Zoar
Topics
Abram, Belonged, Egypt, Lot, Negeb, Negev, Returned, South, Towards, Wife
Outline
1. Abram and Lot return with great riches out of Egypt.
6. Strife arises between Abram's herdsmen and those of Lot.
8. Abram allows Lot to choose his part of the country,
10. and Lot goes toward Sodom.
14. God renews his promise to Abram.
18. He moves to Hebron, and there builds an altar.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Genesis 13:1-2

     8811   riches, attitudes to

Genesis 13:1-12

     5076   Abraham, life of

Library
July 21. "Look from the Place Where Thou Art" (Gen. xiii. 14).
"Look from the place where thou art" (Gen. xiii. 14). Let us now see the blessedness of faith. Our own littleness and nothingness sometimes becomes bondage. We are so small in our own eyes we dare not claim God's mighty promises. We say: "If I could be sure I was in God's way I could trust." This is all wrong. Self-consciousness is a great barrier to faith. Get your eyes on Him and Him alone; not on your faith, but on the Author of your faith; not a half look, but a steadfast, prolonged look, with
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

August 11. "All the Land which Thou Seest" (Gen. xiii. 15).
"All the land which thou seest" (Gen. xiii. 15). The actual provisions of His grace come from the inner vision. He who puts the instinct in the bosom of yonder bird to cross the continent in search of summer sunshine in yonder Southern clime is too good to deceive it, and just as surely as He has put the instinct in its breast, so has He also put the balmy breezes and the vernal sunshine yonder to meet it when it arrives. He who gave to Abraham the vision of the Land of Promise, also said in infinite
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

The Importance of a Choice
'And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hal; Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Land of Promise
"All the Land which thou seest, to thee will I give it."--Gen. xiii. 15. Gertrude of Hellfde, 1330. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 It was as if upon His breast He laid His piercèd hand, And said "To thee, beloved and blest, I give this goodly land." O Land of fountains and of deeps, Of God's exhaustless store-- O blessed Land, where he who reaps Shall never hunger more-- O summer Land, for ever fair With God's unfading flowers; O Land, where spices fill the air, And songs the golden towers--
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series)

The Wilderness: Temptation. Matthew 4:1-11. Mark 1:12, 13. Luke 4:1-13.
The University of Arabia: Jesus' naturalness--the Spirit's presence--intensity, Luke 2:45-51.--a true perspective--- the temptation's path--sin's path--John's grouping, 1 John 2:16.--the Spirit's plan--why--the devil's weakness--the Spirit's leading--a wilderness for every God-used man, Moses, Elijah, Paul. Earth's Ugliest, Deepest Scar: Jesus the only one led up to be tempted--the wilderness--its history, Genesis 13:10-13. 18:16-19:38.--Jesus really tempted--no wrong here in inner response--every
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus

Notes on the Third Century
Page 161. Line 1. He must be born again, &c. This is a compound citation from John iii. 3, and Mark x. 15, in the order named. Page 182. Line 17. For all things should work together, &c. See Romans viii. 28. Page 184. Lines 10-11. Being Satan is able, &c. 2 Corinthians xi. 14. Page 184. Last line. Like a sparrow, &c. Psalm cii. Page 187. Line 1. Mechanisms. This word is, in the original MS., mechanicismes.' Page 187. Line 7. Like the King's daughter, &c. Psalm xlv. 14. Page 188. Med. 39. The best
Thomas Traherne—Centuries of Meditations

Discourse on the Good Shepherd.
(Jerusalem, December, a.d. 29.) ^D John X. 1-21. ^d 1 Verily, verily, I say to you [unto the parties whom he was addressing in the last section], He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. [In this section Jesus proceeds to contrast his own care for humanity with that manifested by the Pharisees, who had just cast out the beggar. Old Testament prophecies were full of declarations that false shepherds would arise to
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Old Testament Canon from Its Beginning to Its Close.
The first important part of the Old Testament put together as a whole was the Pentateuch, or rather, the five books of Moses and Joshua. This was preceded by smaller documents, which one or more redactors embodied in it. The earliest things committed to writing were probably the ten words proceeding from Moses himself, afterwards enlarged into the ten commandments which exist at present in two recensions (Exod. xx., Deut. v.) It is true that we have the oldest form of the decalogue from the Jehovist
Samuel Davidson—The Canon of the Bible

Genesis
The Old Testament opens very impressively. In measured and dignified language it introduces the story of Israel's origin and settlement upon the land of Canaan (Gen.--Josh.) by the story of creation, i.-ii. 4a, and thus suggests, at the very beginning, the far-reaching purpose and the world-wide significance of the people and religion of Israel. The narrative has not travelled far till it becomes apparent that its dominant interests are to be religious and moral; for, after a pictorial sketch of
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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