Pitch tents. Build altars

by

Do you know the difference between the temporal and the eternal? Are you investing in the right areas of your life so that you are not caught wanting in the end? This week we look at the critical need to know the difference between what are temporal things in life and what have eternal consequences.

We take our cue from the father of faith Abraham.

Genesis 12:8 (NKJV) And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.

He pitched a tent and built and altar.

Tent and altar – know the difference

The tent is a means to an end. Symbolically it speaks of the wilderness life. When one lives in the wilderness you pitch tents. You do not build anything permanent because you are always on the move. The tent represents what is transient.

The altar on the other hand is a permanent thing. It is a symbol of dedication and sacrifice. It is a reminder of the Divine and eternal. For Abraham God was the reason why he was doing what he was doing. He built altars in significant places and times in his life to remind him of why he was doing what he was doing. The altar was the reminder of what was the essence of his life. His motivation, his purpose for living.

Abraham pitched tents and built altars. We need to know the difference. The tent is for the journey. The altar is to remind you why you are on the journey. If you fail to identify what are tents and what is the altar, you will be focusing on the temporal, while trivialising the eternal.

The context of this passage is when Abraham received the covenant blessing from God.

Genesis 12:1-3 (NKJV) Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

The blessing that Abraham received had two parts to it. A blessing that came with a responsibility.

The Covenant Blessings

  • I will make you a great nation

  • I will bless you and make your name great

  • I will bless those who bless you

  • I will curse him who curses you

The Covenant responsibility:

  • You shall be a blessing

  • And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed

The blessing is the tent. The great nation and the great name is temporal. The God who blesses is the altar. Becoming a blessing through God is the eternal. When me and my blessings become the focus, I miss the plot. When the temporal is treated as the eternal, my life is a chaos. You pitch tents and build altars. Get it wrong and live life investing in trivial and temporal things while neglecting the things that are of eternal value. This is the reason why many christians don’t seem to be living the eternal life Christ promised us.

The cost of getting it wrong – The Tower of Babel

The story of the Tower of Babel is a familiar one. If you revisit the passage where the story occurs, it is inserted in a very odd place in the book of Genesis. Chapter ten gives us the genealogy of the sons of Noah and ends with a summary statement that all the nations of the world came out of these generations. Moses then pauses and inserts this story of Babel at the beginning of chapter eleven and then goes on in verse ten to give a detailed genealogy of Shem in order to introduce Abram.

If you leave out the story of Babel you will still see a clear flow of the narrative describing the genealogy of the three sons of Noah and moving on to one of his son’s Shem in order to get to the story of Abram. Why then did Moses insert the story of Babel in such an odd place. He did it to emphasise the contrast between the drivenness of man at the Tower of Babel and the blessedness of Abram in chapter 12.

Genesis 11:4 (NKJV) And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Note the language in Babel – man said “build ourselves, make a name for ourselves”. Contrast that with the blessing Abram received – God said “I will make you”, “I will bless you”.

The final outcome at Babel was catastrophic – confusion and scattering. A life of chaos.

Genesis 11:8-9 (NKJV) So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Pitch tents and build altars. Get it wrong – its confusion, scattering and chaos.

The reward of getting it right – The Upper Room

There was another gathering of people recorded in the Bible. This time in the book of Acts. It was the event that described the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. It occurred after fifty days from Christ’s resurrection. The Bible tells us that Jesus spent time with his disciples after resurrection, teaching them about the Kingdom of God. The disciples had to relearn that the Messiah has come not to make the nation Israel great again. It wasn’t about overthrowing the Roman Empire and reinstating a King and restoring a physical government. Christ came to establish another Kingdom. A Kingdom not made of human hands. God was establishing His Kingdom, His rule. It was the restoration of the promise God made to Abraham – “through you all the families of the earth will be blessed”. The words of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost speaks of that.

Acts 2:38-39 (NKJV) Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

The focus was no longer overthrowing the Roman empire and becoming a great nation again. The focus became blessing all people. Look what happened when they got it right.

Acts 2:42-47 (NKJV) And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

The early church recognised what were tents and what was the altar; What were means to an end and what was of eternal value. They used their resources to invest in people’s lives and the outcome was the Kingdom life manifested among them.

Pitch tents and build altars. Get it right – its gladness, simplicity of heart, praising God and favour with all. Most importantly salvation to many.

Tents and altars – getting it right matters

Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 gives us the importance of getting this right.

The tent is our present life, the altar is our eternal dwelling

2 Corinthians 5:1-4 (NKJV) For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

We live by faith through the Holy Spirit

2 Corinthians 5:5-8 (NKJV) Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Our aim is to please God

2 Corinthians 5:9 (NKJV) Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.

Getting it right has eternal consequences

2 Corinthians 5:10 (NKJV) For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

So let us make sure we discern the temporal and the eternal.

Remember:

You pitch tents and build altars. The tent is for the journey. The altar is to remind you why you are on the journey.

Know the difference. Get it wrong and you will be focusing on the temporal, while trivialising the eternal.

The blessing is the temporal. Becoming a blessing through God is the eternal.

Pitch tents, build altars.