Hymns 851

Scripture Reading:

Gen. 12:7-8     And Jehovah appeared to Abram and said, To your seed I will give this land. And there he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him. And he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent.

The life of a Christian is the life of the altar and the tent. The altar is toward God while the tent is toward the world. In His presence, God requires that His children have an altar and on the earth that they have a tent. An altar calls for a tent, and a tent in turn demands an altar….The altar and the tent are interrelated; they cannot be separated.

THE LIFE OF THE ALTAR—IN GOD’S PRESENCE

Genesis 12:7 says, “And Jehovah appeared to Abram and said, To your seed I will give this land. And there he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him.” In this verse we see that the altar is based on God’s appearance. Where there is no divine appearance, there is no altar. Consecration is not the result of man’s exhortation or persuasion but of God’s revelation….We need to realize that the power to offer oneself to God comes through His appearance; it comes from His revelation…. Only those who have seen God are consecrated persons. God appeared to Abraham, and the immediate issue was that Abraham built an altar to God. The Lord Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, and Paul immediately asked, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10). A turning point in our spiritual life….comes when we see Him. When we meet God, a radical change takes place in our life. We can no longer do what we did in the past.

God appeared to Abraham, and Abraham built an altar. This altar was not for a sin offering but for a burnt offering. A sin offering is for redemption, while a burnt offering is an offering of ourselves to God…. For what purpose was the burnt offering placed on the altar? It was to be wholly burned. Many of us think that we offer ourselves to God to do this or that for Him, whereas what He wants of us is a burning…. God is not after our work, but ourselves. He wants us to offer ourselves to Him and be burned for Him. The altar does not signify doing something for God but living for God. The altar does not mean having busy activities but having a living for God….Unlike the sacrifice of the Old Testament, which was utterly burned in one act, the sacrifice of the New Testament, as depicted in Romans 12, is the presenting of our bodies as a living sacrifice. Daily we are consumed on the altar, yet daily we are living; we are ever living, yet ever consumed.

THE LIFE OF THE TENT—IN THE WORLD

The altar has its issue in the tent. Genesis 12:8 says, “And he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent” From then on, Abraham lived in God’s house—Bethel. From then on, he lived in a tent.

A tent is something movable; it does not take root anywhere. Through the altar God deals with us; through the tent God deals with our possessions….Here we see a principle. Everything we have should be placed on the altar. But there is still something left. These are the things that are for our own use. However, they are not ours, they are to be left in the tent.

Abraham’s life was a life of the altar. A day came when even his only begotten son was offered upon it. But what did God do with Isaac? He did not take him away. What you place on the altar, God accepts. He cannot allow you to live for yourself, for your own pleasure, or by your own strength. The altar claims your all, yet not everything that is on the altar is burned. Many things that are placed on the altar are like Isaac; God gives them back to you. Yet these things in your hand can no longer be regarded as your own; they can only be kept in the tent.

We need to remember that we have two lives. We have a life to live before God, and we also have a life to live in the world. In our life before God everything must truly be on the altar, but for our life in the world we still have need of many material things. We may use them, but we must not be touched by them. We can have them or let them go; they can be given, and they can be taken away. This is the life of the tent.

THE SECOND ALTAR

Genesis 12:8 says, “And he proceeded from there to the mountain on 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 Jehovah.” This is Abraham’s second altar. The altar led to the tent, and then the tent led again to the altar. With the altar, nothing is ours any longer, and whatever is left from the altar is placed in the tent. Nothing can occupy our heart anymore; our conscience is at peace before God, and we can boldly say to Him, “I have not held back one thing from You.” In this way, the tent leads us back to the altar. If our possessions have taken root and we cannot drop them or move them anymore, we become bound by these things, and there can never be a second altar.

When we offer ourselves upon the altar and consecrate our all to God, He leaves certain things for our use; but we have no choice as to what we can keep in the tent and what we have to take out of the tent back to the altar. Everything must first pass the altar. Whatever God leaves for our use, we can put in the tent. But we must still inquire of God concerning all the objects in the tent; we can only keep those that God allows us to keep. We cannot decide to keep anything for ourselves. Everything has to pass the altar first; we must first check with God about every one of them before we can put them into the tent. What has been placed in the tent may go to the altar again at any time. If at any time God says, “You do not need this thing,” we should relinquish it immediately. If we cling to it and say, “This is mine,” then in our heart we have forsaken the altar and are no longer consecrated. We cannot return to the second altar and say to God that our life is being lived for Him.

God demands that everything we have be placed on the altar and that we have placed what He has left for us in the tent. We can only have the second altar when everything is in the tent. The most precious experience is the experience of the second altar. It is easy for us to be stirred up, to become zealous, and to consecrate ourselves. But three or five years after this, we collect many things from the world again, and we cannot go back to the altar anymore. But it is very precious if we can always be tent dwellers and build a second altar.

THE RECOVERY OF THE ALTAR AND THE TENT

Abraham had his failures. In his history there was a forsaking of the altar and the tent; he went down to Egypt. But there was recovery…Genesis 13:3-4 says, “And he continued on his journey from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar, which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of Jehovah.” Recovery is a matter of returning to the altar and the tent. Have any of you failed? Have any of you slipped or betrayed your cause? Have any of you gone down into Egypt, so that now you have your own demands, your own hopes, your own interests, and your own aspirations? If you are seeking the way of recovery, you have to come back to the altar and the tent….What happened to Abraham after his recovery? Genesis 13:18 says, “And Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to Jehovah.” Hebron is the place of fellowship with God; it is the place of eternal and continuous fellowship. Abraham dwelt in Hebron, and in Hebron he built another altar for God. If we want to be in fellowship with God, we can never forsake the altar. May He be gracious to us and cause us to see the importance of consecration so that we may live a life of the altar and the tent! (CWWN, vol. 37, pp. 89-95)

Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 37, ch. 16