When I was living in Mississippi, I came back to Pickens for a few days to help bury a dear friend.
I know he was a friend of many of you as well.
Oliver Neely was a strong example in this community and changed a lot of people's lives due to his influence for the gospel.
And one day I went on a ride to go to Old Stomping Ground, a little ride of nostalgia,
because my grandfather built a cabin a long time ago on the banks of the South Saluda River.
And when I was growing up, we used to go to that cabin in the back of that wagon on the other side of that cabin.
Much has changed since that place was sold after his death, but I was pleased to see the cabin was still standing.
That chimney is still there, and the rafters that he put, they've improved the home.
Quite a bit has changed now.
For one, they have indoor plumbing now.
That's it from another angle now.
When I was growing up and we went up there, we were kind of highfalutin.
We had a two-seater.
And you can always go to the bathroom with a friend, I guess.
But anyway, and I know what it is to sweep before you go, if you know what I mean.
If you don't know what I mean, good for you.
But even with all that, if you look behind that, you'll see the devastation that a tornado, I believe, in April 2020 caused in that area.
It was still pretty special.
I go back there sometimes and reflect upon what God gave us so many years ago.
Now, whether it's a literal spot or just a spot in your mind, we all need to go back like that spiritually
and reflect on the times God did a work in us or when we had a special time with the Lord.
Abraham did that.
And I want you to see what we need to do based on his example and some other biblical examples in the midst of our journey.
Genesis chapter 12, beginning in verse 4, it says,
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.
Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.
And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son and all their possessions they had gathered
and the people they had acquired in Haran.
And they set out to go to the land of Canaan.
When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to a place at Shechem,
to the oak of Moreh.
At that time, the Canaanites were in the land.
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said,
To your offspring, I'll give this land.
So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.
From there he moved to the hill country of the east of Bethel
and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east.
And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negev.
God told Abram to go.
And when he did go, God would show him where he was to go, what he was to do, and would work through him.
And we talked about in detail last week how he took a pit stop for too long in Haran.
But then he set out with his family, and verse 5 tells us,
the people that they had acquired in Haran.
In other words, those that he had led out of moon god worship
and into the worship of the Heavenly Father.
He stopped at the Oak of Moreh.
That's a popular spot in that day.
It is known particularly for the Canaanite shrines
and the lessons of the false religions that were taught in that area.
Abram stopped there, shared some of what God was showing him
and where God was taking him,
and then after sharing that with them,
brought those people along with him.
along on his journey.
God's not only giving him the land,
but he is making him a blessing as he goes,
just as God promised that he would do.
And Abram is changing the land in which he journeys through.
Due to the promises of God, Abram hung around,
but the Canaanites had the good land in that area.
Therefore, he moved on and journeyed through the Negev.
The Negev is a barren desert land.
It is hard traveling.
But I want you to notice what Abram learned in Haran,
the land of plenty,
at least in worldly thought.
But in reality, just like the meaning of the word,
it was a spiritually parched area.
He learned there that the promises of this world is not worth the focus.
Don't focus on what this world has.
Focus instead upon what God has.
And when he realized what God had for him,
his obedience went from a partial obedience
of staying in some places too long
and taking too many people with him
to a partial obedience,
to a full obedience,
or just pure obedience.
Not only is Abram now on the move,
but God was also on the move.
And notice what we do,
just like he did,
when God is on the move.
When God moves in your life,
first we need to recognize.
We need to recognize the movement of God.
Sometimes we miss the movement of God
because we just don't recognize it.
We're not spiritually alert to know what's going on.
We're not receptive to it.
We're not obedient to it.
The best way to recognize those things
is to get in on it.
Take God at his word.
Listen to what the spirit of God speaks to you
about the personal application
of God's word in your life.
Respond to it in obedience.
Respond when he speaks.
And we have a lot of hindrances along the way
because we sometimes don't recognize
when God speaks to us
and what he would have for us.
We see what others need to have in their life.
We see what changes need to take place
in other people's lives,
but we fail to acknowledge our own spiritual woes.
We fail to acknowledge what God wants to say to us
and we don't listen
when his leading invades our life.
Or we go to Heron and stop.
We go halfway.
We start on a trek,
but we just half obey.
Old boy told me not long ago,
you know, I believe in God and all that,
but I don't think we need to get so wound up about it.
Well, I think we need to get wound up about it.
I do.
I think he's worthy of us getting a little wound up.
He got wound up enough,
thank God, to go to the cross for us.
Amen?
And so we ought to get wound up for him.
It could be because God seems to be speaking
sometimes too much to us.
What God says sometimes,
he digs into the closets of our lives.
He deals with stuff in our lives
that we don't want to touch
and we don't want to deal with.
Abram was in the land of the Canaanites,
in a place of the shrines,
in the place of pagan worship,
and God says,
your children and your children's children
will inherit this land.
Abram could have easily said,
how in the world is that going to happen?
I mean, do you see who's here?
And they're pretty mighty.
I mean, how's that going to take place?
There's strong people here.
Or he could have said,
what do you mean my children
and my children's children?
What about me?
What's in it for me?
Because I want you to notice
that God was saying,
not saying that Abram would get the land.
He said his offspring would get the land.
Recognize that God speaks
and pay attention to what he says
because when God's on the move,
there's something else we need to do.
We need to recognize it,
but that's not it.
We also need to remember.
We need to remember it.
When God speaks truth to us,
I'm talking about personalized,
customized truth to us
by the Holy Spirit of God.
It is special,
and you need to archive it.
You need to hold on to it.
Notice what happens
as Abram is on the way
to the Lord's promises, okay?
He's on his way
to where God would tell him to go,
and the Lord speaks to him,
and he recognizes the presence of God,
and when he recognizes the presence of God,
he builds an altar there
as a testimony
to what God said
when he claimed that land.
Now, he left that land,
but he didn't take that altar with him.
He left that altar there.
He left it behind,
and when he moved again,
and he called on the Lord again,
he had a powerful time with the Lord.
He built another altar.
He didn't take that altar with him either.
He left it behind.
So I want you to think about this,
what happens.
After Abram's gone from the area,
and people come back to that,
when those Canaanites come back
to the Oak of Moreh
to worship their foreign gods,
they just see an altar there
to Abraham's God.
They see an altar there,
recognizing that he left his testimony there.
This is where God spoke to me.
He left a witness there.
He does the same thing
when he goes to Bethel,
and Beth in Hebrew is house,
and El is short for God.
House of God's what it means.
Abraham had a good day
in the house of God,
and he didn't forget it.
He left his testimony behind
along with that altar.
He remembered what God did for him.
That reminds me of a passage
in 1 Chronicles 21
when David was tempted
to get prideful about all he had.
God had blessed him mightily,
and so he started counting.
He wanted to see how much he had,
so he took a census.
Scripture says he was tempted
by Satan to take that census,
and so he took an inventory.
And when he tried to count up
all his strength,
he got filled up with pride
of his accomplishments,
and the cost of that sin
came upon his people,
and his guilt overwhelmed him
because of the cost
his people had to pay
because of his sin,
and so he looked for a flat,
clear place to build an altar.
There's no better flat,
clear place in that day
to build an altar
than the threshing floor.
He found a threshing floor.
The threshing floor
is a crucial part
of the harvest of wheat.
It was a raised area
that was floored with rock
or a hard surface,
hard-packed dirt surface.
It was on a threshing floor
where they would pound out the wheat,
and they would loosen it up
and separate the chaff
or the holes from the good wheat.
And in the same way,
David cleaned out that spot
on that threshing floor,
and it was on that threshing floor
that David built an altar,
and he laid it out
before the Lord.
It's appropriate
that it was on a threshing floor
because there he threshed it out.
He shook out the worthless
in his life,
and he let the good in his life
shine through right there
before the Lord.
It was there that God came to him.
It was there that the fire
fell upon him,
and it was there
in that very spot
that God told him
the promised temple of the Lord
was to be built.
And when they went back to build it,
he bought the land
to put it right where God spoke.
He found out that day
that he laid it out before the Lord,
and he realized
how desperate he was
and how much he needed God.
He recognized
that God had spoken,
and he remembered
that God had moved.
After Moses died,
Joshua was to be
the one to finally bring
the people to the promised land.
All that time in that desert,
and Moses was not the one
to carry him over.
And when they got to the Jordan
and they stepped into the river,
the water stopped flowing
and were cut off from the area,
and they all passed on dry land,
even though it was flood season,
and the river would be swelling.
And after they got through that river,
Joshua instructed them,
as God had told him,
to take a stone,
one representing each of the 12 tribes,
which made up all of the people
that came across,
and exactly where the Ark of the Covenant,
which represented the presence of God,
had crossed,
they were to set up 12 stones
of remembrance
on the banks of that river.
And Scripture says that
when you bring your children
back through here,
and tell them about
how we crossed over the Jordan,
and they see those
rough-hewn stones
erect out of the ground,
and they ask you,
what do these stones mean?
You tell them.
Tell them how God parted the waters.
Tell them how He moved you
to the other side.
Tell them how He paved the way
to claim your promises.
Parents, listen to me today.
Tell them how He brought you through.
I had a memory pop up.
It's on my phone.
It's in my calendar.
I know when it is.
I had a memory pop up this week
from eight years ago.
And I want you to see a video
for just a moment.
Just entertain me.
I opened it up.
It was addressing me.
I opened it up.
And it said,
I know I'm a sinner.
And I know that Jesus died
for my sins.
I know that He rose again.
I know that He's coming back.
And I want Him to save me.
Can we pray now?
She went to sleep
before she could give it to me
last night.
So when she woke up,
me and her had talked.
And then we got the family
in the room together.
And she prayed that
Jesus in her life.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'm going to tell you,
can you sleep last night?
I'm going to tell you
hearing her comments
this morning,
having given her heart
and life to the Lord
Jesus Christ,
knowing what she did.
As a matter of fact,
when I let Abby read
the letter,
I said,
well,
you can't put in much
wine in her mouth.
It's true.
She wants to join our church
on that profession
and my baptism.
If you're happy,
she's coming.
Say amen.
Amen.
That is a precious,
memorial stone
in my life.
I've marked it down.
When Samuel was leading Israel,
the Philistines were bearing down
upon him.
And the people
grew very afraid.
They knew the ruthlessness
of the Philistines.
They were intense battlers.
And they called out to the Lord
and they fasted and prayed
and called out to the Lord.
And in 1 Samuel,
chapter 7,
verse 10,
it says,
the Lord
thundered
with a mighty sound
that day
against the Philistines
and threw them
into confusion
and they were defeated
before Israel.
And when they won
that battle,
Samuel took a stone.
He called it
an Ebenezer,
which is Hebrew
for a stone
of help.
And he said,
till now,
the Lord
has helped us.
In other words,
when I look back
at how we got
where we are,
the Lord
has guided us.
He's helped us.
He recognized
that God
had done the work
and then he
remembered it
and laid it down.
And I'm telling you,
when God moves,
mark it down.
And then in the days
afterwards,
after the move
of God,
we reflect.
He said to Abram,
to your offspring,
I will give
this land.
Abram was trusting God.
He was following God.
He was obeying God
for bigger reasons
than himself.
We're going to talk
about the steps
of faith along the way
as we carve
through his life,
but this may be
why he is remembered
in Scripture the most.
because he was not
doing this
for himself.
Abram was not
going to get the land.
He was going to start
on a road
to better influence
later generations.
And it is my burden,
folks,
to instill
within my children
not only a love
for the Lord
so that I can rest
in that,
but also
that they can share
with their children
and that they can share
with their grandchildren.
Abraham died
in a cave
and he was buried,
Abraham died
and with only the cave
he was buried in,
but what he left
was so much more.
And it's ironic
that some folks
work so hard
to have so much here
to leave
to the next generation
generation
that they get
so busy
to actually
leave
what actually
counts
for all eternity.
Hebrews 11,
9 and 10
says this,
by faith he went
to live
in the land
of promise
as in a foreign land
living in the tents
with Isaac and Jacob,
heirs with him
of the same promise
for thank God
he was looking forward
to the city
that has foundations
whose designer
and builder
is God.
He had a bigger plan.
Abraham left a legacy
because he wasn't
concerned about himself.
He was concerned
about obeying God,
honoring God,
preparing the next generation.
And I want to be
very clear church,
we need to be concerned
about the very same thing,
preparing the next generation.
How do we do that?
Not by building cabins
on the river.
I mean I wish
I could have kept it.
When I went back,
that day when I went
and visited that cabin,
that man wasn't there,
I knocked on his door.
I took some family back
at spring break
in March of that year
and we knocked on the door
and he answered.
And he said,
come in,
I want to show you.
And when I looked up
and looked at the ceiling
in that house,
those rafters
that were up there
were the same rafters
my grandpa had put up there.
A lot of other things
wasn't recognizable.
Didn't have to prime
that pump
to get that kitchen sink
going anymore.
but I saw
what he had done
and that's special
but that's not
what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about
leaving some smoking altars
and leaving some standing stones.
I'm talking about
speaking of how God moved,
laying down a spiritual marker
and then going back
and reflecting on that.
Not only will that strengthen you
in the times of trouble
that's coming
because we all got more coming
but it'll also strengthen
those before you.
my grandfather,
the one that built that cabin
often shared with me
the stories of the blessings
of the Lord.
I remember the exuberance
that he shared
when he shared Christ
with somebody.
He sold tools
for somebody else
at Anderson Jockey Lot.
Anytime we went
to Anderson Jockey Lot
and saw him
he'd always be
with a hammer in hand
or a screwdriver in hand
he'd be sharing his faith
with somebody
who was walking
through that area.
He shared stories
of the blessings of God
and how the Lord
had watched over him
and I don't remember
those stories.
Man, I wish I did.
Wish I could hear his voice.
We were in the military
and moved around
and so some of the communication
that family had
was reel to reel
audio
and they'd mail
and you could hear
each other talk
and I asked mom
what happened to that?
They're gone.
I don't remember
those stories.
I wish I did
but you know
what I remember?
I remember that man
giving God praise.
I remember the times
and the places
that I saw him
praise the Lord.
I remember him
testifying to God's goodness.
I remember him
leaving spiritual markers
for me to go back to.
What gives me hope
for tomorrow?
What gives me hope
for tomorrow
is the same God
that brought me
through the dilemmas
of yesterday.
The same God
that's guiding me
through the obstacles
of today
is the same God
that's already
in my tomorrows.
He's the same God
that's already laid
my path.
He's the same God
that's already
straightened my path
and leveled my path
and lit the path
I walked.
And I'm going
to make a point
for the rest
of my days
to tell the younger
generations
about the God
that came to me
and that changed me
and that meets me
every morning
and is already
in my tomorrows.
and church
I'm just asking you
will you make
the greatest investment
that you could ever
make
in anything
will you just join me
because I think
there need to be
some altars
that are left smoking
and some stones
that are left set
for us all
to be encouraged
and for the next
generations
to be encouraged
by how God
has walked before us
and taken care
of us.
We serve a great
God don't we?
Let's don't keep
it to ourselves.
Let's share it
with others.
With every head bow
and every eye closed
what are you doing
with what God's
given you?
For one
he's given you
an opportunity
today
to surrender
your life
to the Lord
Jesus Christ
and if you've
never done that
I want you to know
the greatest decision
you'll ever make
in your life
is to give your
heart and life
to the Lord
Jesus Christ.
You just need
to confess
your need of him
the sin
that so separates
you from him
and ask him
to cleanse you
and to change you
and I thank God
he'll save you
today.
Today's the day
of salvation.
He's the same
yesterday,
today and forever.
You can rest in that.
You come down
this aisle
and we begin to sing
and I promise you
we'll lead you
in how to have
a relationship
with Christ.
Maybe you have
done that
but your life
your life's not
marked by the
right stones.
There's things
in your life
that are missing.
First step
of obedience
after giving your
heart and life
to the Lord Jesus
is to follow him
through public
confession
by baptism.
There may be
folks here today
who've never
done that.
There's a hindrance
in your life
spiritually
because you've
not followed
through with that
as God's
instructed
and I want
to encourage
you to just
be obedient
to that.
Follow him
in that.
Trust him.
Maybe God's
leading you
to be a part
of this church.
God's blessed
us.
2022 was a
wonderful year
in the life
of this church
and God's
blessed us
in many ways
and I'm
thankful for that
and I know
that God's
speaking and
leading others
as well
and so if
God's leading
you I encourage
you to come
just be obedient
to follow God.
We'd love to
have you
and explain
whatever we
need to explain
to you
and help you
along the way.
First step
is just to let
us know.
But most
particularly
today
Christian
what are you
doing
to mark
your path
for the Lord
Jesus Christ?
How are you
doing that?
For yourself
and for others
as well.
let's leave
some altar
smoking
because we
we made a
point to talk
about what
God did
in our
presence.
Let's leave
some memorial
markers in
our lives
so folks
know
so we can
be reminded
because we
need that
reminder
what God's
done in our
lives.
I don't know
how God's
speaking to you
today but I
encourage you
to commit your
life to him
completely
wholeheartedly
trust him
he's worthy
of it.
Lord Jesus
I love you
and thank you
dear God
for the
opportunity
you give us
today.
Lead us
right now
I pray
in Jesus
name.
Amen.