THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS
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Abram heard "that his brother was taken captive, he led forth his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dap. (15) And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto • Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. (16). And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. was many months before he came back and in the mean time he was out of fellowship, not only with his pastor, hut with God, Himself. One Sunday evening he came into the church again and at the* close of the service, with tears in his eyes, asked his pastor to forgive him and told him what a miser able time he had been having. The pastor, remembering all the circum stances, said “ My brother how good the Lord is to you. There is another colored man. Get down beside him and lead him to Christ.” And this time the man did it. The very prosperity with which God had blessed Abram and Lot led to trou ble between their respective herdsmen. How often prosperity has separated good friends. The shame of it seems to have appealed to Abram, that there should be such quarrelling between two God-fearing men in the presence of the heathen of the land. God was working through the trou ble, however. He had got Abram sep arated, from Terah, but he had not yet got Abram separated from Lot. He was going to bring this about through the strife of the herdsmen. Had Abram obeyed God in the beginning and left Lot in Ur of the Chaldees, there would have been no quarrel now. While I have no Biblical authority for it, I can not help thinking sometimes that if it had not been for Mr. Worldly Wiseman Lot, Abram might not have gone down into Egypt, at all. At any rate, Abram could never get' into the place of fel lowship with God, to which God had called him, until he had parted com-
w ilt take the left hand, then I w ill g o to the right; or if thou depart to right hand, then I w ill go to the left. (10) And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, be fore the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the'garden of the ; LORD, like the land of Egypt, as 'th ou comest unto Zoar. (11) Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jor dan; and Lot journeyed east: and thev separated jthemsdlves the one from the other. (14:14) And when I. By Giving Lot His Choice of The Land. 1. Why This Was. Necessary. Between last Sunday’s lesson and this, the record tells us that because of a famine in the land of Canaan, Abram and his family LESSON and Lot went down EXPOSITION into Egypt. There is no record of Abram building an altar in Egypt, hut it is recorded that he lied about his wife. He not only lied himself, hut he made Sarah lie. God had given them no com mand to go into Egypt, but Abram’s faith had failed him for the moment. It is interesting to note as we study Abram, the growth of his" faith, for he did not become the father of the faith ful at one bound. While down in Egypt, Abram and Lot were blessed with tem poral prosperity, but it was a pity that a man of God should be driven out of Egypt for deception by a heathen king. It was from near Bethel where his sec ond altar was, that Abram went down into Egypt, and it is to Bethel that he has to come back to get right with God. That is always the way with the back slider. He must get on the track again at the place that he got off it. In an inquiry meeting one night, a gentle man came to his pastor and said he would like to become a soul-winner. A number of men and women had come to the front and the pastor pointed the gentleman to an old colored man and told him to take his Bible and lead him to Christ. The gentleman, how ever, did not fancy the job and marched out of the church in high dudgeon. It
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