01.12. TENT AND ALTAR.
Chapter 12
TENT AND ALTAR " Abram pitched his tent, . . . and there he builded an altar.’’
Entering the land of Canaan from the north, as an emigrant from Harran would do, Abram and his company passed southwards, through the possessions of a civilized and settled race, till they reached the fertile country round Shechem, and there, in a place the luxuriant beauty of which would excite the wanderer’s desire to call it his, as much as the tokens on every side of an established order would shake his confidence in his power to win it, the Divine promise was renewed. God chooses the right scenes and times for His appearances, and the very fact that Abram again received the promise of the land at the " terebinth of Moreh" implies that he then specially needed it. The reason for the gracious repetition is told us : " And the Canaanite was then in the land." Abram was brought into contact with the fierce strength which had to be met and crushed before the land could be his, and no doubt he quailed at the prospect. Therefore "the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said. Unto thy seed will I give the land." The reiterated assurance and the distant date assigned for its fulfillment would strengthen his faith and lessen his fears. Therefore with lightened heart, absolved from conflict with the Canaanites by the terms of the promise designating future generations as the conquerors, he reared an altar beside the sacred tree, to " Jehovah who appeared unto him." Quickened faith thankfully commemorates God’s tender fostering of tremulous faith. But Shechem was not to be his goal. In this first journey Abram seems to intend a survey of the whole territory, and therefore he passed on still southwards towards what was afterwards to be called Bethel, and to bear a name sacred and dear in all centuries and countries. On the stony hillside to the east of Bethel, a stern contrast to the smiling fertility of Shechem, he stayed for a time, a temporary encampment there being probably less likely to be disputed than in the better place, and there once more he pitched his tent, and once more built an altar - whether for sacrifice, or like that at his previous station, simply as a memorial and declaration of his faith, does not appear. It is sufficient for our purpose to note the combination of these two acts, by which Abram inaugurated his first halting place for any lengthened stay, and as it were took possession of the land for himself and for Jehovah. The combination may suggest some useful lessons.
I
All life should blend the earthly and the heavenly. As soon as the tent is pitched, and the necessities of bodily life in some measure satisfied, the next thing is the altar of God.
Religion is meant to run through the whole of common life, not to be crowded and clotted in corners, leaving the rest of our days empty and unblessed by it. It is all very well to pray and praise and preach on Sundays; what about Saturday and Monday? It is all very well to call ourselves Christians, and to profess to belong to some ecclesiastical body or other ; what about the daily life ? Is my prayer only a matter of fixed times and perhaps formal words, or are all my days devotion ? Abram twined these two aspects of life in most intimate union, not only in this instance but habitually ; and therein is an example for us, who are so far in advance of him as regards the objects of our religion. He did not know nearly as much about God as we do ; he was not as favored with teaching of the lofty and spiritual side of religion as we are. His faith was very imperfect as far as its contents are concerned, but it had a penetrative and diffusive power in it ; perhaps to some extent owing to its less transcendent and lofty character, which may well shame us, who, with a fuller knowledge, and the material for a loftier and more all pervasive faith, manage to make such ghastly separation between the two halves of the devout life, and keep the heavenly and its principles so widely apart from the earthly and its practices. There is no sanity, nor sweetness, nor nobleness in earthly life, unless through and through, as light is flashed into some dull, dense, watery cloud, it be shot and interpenetrated with the light of the mighty and ennobling principles that flow from the gospel ; and no religion is worth being called so, nor has it any pith of reality in it, unless it has force to press into the most close grained solids and most minute trifles, and into them to infuse its hallowing and ennobling spirit, working like lifting leaven on lumpish dough. By the side of every tent in which we dwell we should raise an altar to God.
Today, millenniums after this man lived, and amongst people who do not share either his faith or ours, namely, the Mohammedan populations of the East, the name for Abraham is "the Friend" - the Friend of God, that is. The expression is borrowed from Scripture. Whatever besides that name may express, this at all events is distinctly set forth by it, that the salient characteristics of the patriarch’s life was close and habitual intimacy with God. That communion did not interfere with the whole hearted discharge of common duties, the simple enjoyment of common blessings, or the heroic readiness to rise to difficult heights of uncommon sacrifice or effort. Like all the Old Testament ’’saints," he came " eating and drinking," marrying and giving in marriage, buying and selling and getting gain, and practicing in all a wholesome religion which sought for no solitary, supercilious, or selfish separateness, but "Traveled on life’s common way In cheerful godliness," filling all occupations and circumstances with a new spirit, and so finding in things of smallest worth materials for a sacrifice more costly than much fine gold. The fact that he and all these Old Testament " saints " were " men of affairs," and not recluses, and that their religion did not impel them to a new mode of life, but to a new way of doing the old things, may well teach us how close the blending of our religious and our common life should be. But not only do Abraham and the men of faith, who lived by faith before it had a historical Christ to grasp, read us this lesson. The worshipers of less pure gods do so too. It is not often that one finds a Christian as little ashamed of practicing his religion and presenting his worship before unsympathizing onlookers as Turks or idolaters are. True, the very fact that to them religion is so much a matter of external observance makes it easier for them to practice the external observances in any circumstances. But, making all allowance for that, I venture to say that there is not a false faith on the face of the earth which does not preach a lesson and administer a rebuke to us Christian people in regard of this one matter, the way in which religion and life - a very poor religion, no doubt, and a very imperfect life - touch each other at all points ; and because they thus touch, are really one. Does our better religion so interpenetrate our lives? Have we this same experience of making every act worship, and of carrying the motives and strengths drawn from our gospel into every corner of our daily life. Go back in thought over today. Can you lay your finger upon a single act that you have done today which would have been done differently if you had not believed that Jesus Christ loved you ? Can you lay your finger upon any inclination that you have abstained from gratifying because you knew that loyalty to Him forbade your yielding ? I hope the answer is not in the negative universally; but oh, how faint, how few, scattered through our lives like points, or as stars thinly sown in the vacant regions of the sky, are the moments and the acts in which we have lived like Christians, and carried our religion into our shops and commerce, and our studies and our daily duties !
Let us take the pattern from Abram, who " pitched his tent, and builded an altar."
II Another lesson may be suggested. The family should be a Church. In the old patriarchal times, before priesthood had attained to any development, the head of the family or clan, the patriarch, was priest. Abram built the altar, and Abram offered the sacrifice. In the New Testament we find a number - relatively a large number, and absolutely a considerable number, of households - all the members of which were Christians. We read, too, of more than one instance in the house of some Christian, which expression must at least include the idea of domestic worship and household religion, whether other Christians than those of the family belonged to that " Church " or no. In days not beyond the memories - the thankful memories - of some of us, it was understood that a Christian household was one in which the father and mother taught their children. It was considered, too, that it meant a household in which there was family worship.
Now although I do not know, and therefore will not take upon me to affirm, I do shrewdly suspect and therefore venture to ask, whether these things are so now as generally as they once were. I wonder how many households in our class of Christian society there are, in which father and mother think that they have done their duty to their children when they have sent them to the Sunday school, while they are idle at home ; and I wonder how many there are who never open their lips in their houses, as leading the devotions of their family. Suffer the word of exhortation. I believe that one reason why some aspects of religious life are dark and unpromising at this time is the decay of family religion as expressed in family worship and family instruction in the households of professing Christians. " Abram pitched his tent, and builded an altar."
III Further, let me ask you to note here the illustration of another thought. God should get our best. A black camel’s hair tent, with a couple of sticks at either end of it to hold up the roof, and a peg or two in the ground to fasten the ropes to, was neither expensive nor difficult to set up. Ten minutes would do that. That was quite enough for Abram. But he gathered the great stones of the place together, and built the altar. As for the tent, it is sufficient that it be pitched anywhere, with little expenditure of time and trouble. It is to come down tomorrow, and while it stands its purpose is only the shelter of myself. But as for the altar, with toil and strain of muscle, and many a deep breath and drop of sweat from the brow, roll the great stones together, and lay them true, without trace of tool on them, but majestic in simplicity, to witness to the massive solidity of the faith which reared them, and the unadorned, uncontaminated purity of the revelation of the God for whose worship they were laid.
" Lo ! I dwell within cedar, and the ark of the Lord dwells within curtains," said David. Whose fault was that, David ? Did you not build the house of cedar before you thought about a house for God ? We do the opposite of what Abram did. Most of us build our own houses, and, if there are any stones left over, are good enough to spare them for building some altar to God. We give Him the superfluities. We allow Him the second place, thinking about self first ; and so losing all the blessings of thorough consecration and noble surrender, and of yielding up what is highest to Him who is the Highest. Give God the best - that is the minimum of duty ; for unless we do, we give Him nothing.
" Give all thou canst !
High Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more." Do not think that anything of your own is worthy of as sedulous care, as generous bestowment, as intense effort, as thorough devotion, as is the service of the Lord. I do not mean in material things only, because the true wealth of a man is not the abundance of the things that he possesses, and that best which we are to give to God is not merely the best portion of the things that belong to us, but the best devotion of our hearts - their best affections ; the strongest resolve of obedient wills, the intensest desire of aspiring spirits, the fullest consecration of surrendered lives, the firmest confidence of reliant, and therefore loving and obedient hearts. Give God the superiorities of your nature, whatever you keep for yourselves ; and try so to blend the motive of devotion to Him with all action of heart and mind, as that there shall be nothing retained from Him to whom the best is consciously given.
IV Lastly, this incident may suggest to us how building for God lasts, while building for ourselves perishes. The tent has disappeared ; the altar remains. I dare say these stones halfway between Bethel and Ai are there still, standing where and as Abram piled them, though hard to find, and impossible to identify amid the rocks and ruins that strew the face of the land around. What has become of his tent? It was pitched for a little while. In his nomad life it was struck soon, and no trace remained but a little heap of rubbish, and a circle of charred ashes where the fire had glinted cheerily for a day or two. All was gone but the altar. In the great cities of antiquity which the spade is now laying bare for us, what has become of the houses which the people built for themselves? Gone - where the snow and the rain of the years when they were built have gone. It is the temples that are left, in the marsh which is now where Ephesus once was; in the desolation which is now where Babylon once was ; beneath the mounds which are now where Heliopolis once was. The houses of the people are gone ; the temples of the gods remain. Which things are an allegory. " He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap," and of selfish lives there will be nothing left but a foul flavor and a bad memory. "The world passeth away, and the fashion thereof: he that doeth the will of God shall abide for ever." It was Abraham’s religion that made him dwell in tents. He came from a settled civilization, where there were cities, as we can see in the narratives. He came into a settled civilization, where there was city life, and plenty of stone houses if he had chosen to go into them. " He dwelt in tabernacles ; for he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God." If we in like manner have come to fix and anchor our lives on the only permanent, and to feel ourselves parts of that great order which lives beyond the grave and above the stars, we shall be penetrated with a sense of the transiency of all things here below, and so be well contented to pitch but a moving tent for ourselves, if we can, by God’s grace, lay were it even one stone in the temple which, through all the ages, is rising, on the one Foundation, unto Him.