Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country
Abraham’s action
His obeying the call and command of God, wherein four circumstances are very remarkable.
1. The time when it was when God called.
2. The place from whence God called him.
3. The country whither he was called.
4. The reason or end why he was thus said unto by the great God.
I. First of the first, to wit, THE TIME WHEN ABRAHAM WAS CALLED. It was while he lived in Ur of the Chaldees; for Abraham lived with his father Terah in that place, and in Haran, or Charan, a city of Mesopotamia, till he was seventy-five years old (Gen_12:4, and Act_7:2-4). There and then did the God of glory appear to Abraham (Gen_11:28). This that blessed pro-martyr Stephen (being filled with the Holy Ghost) intimateth, to convince those superstitious and bloodthirsty Jews (who conceited that religion was confined to Canaan or Jerusalem) that Abraham had the true religion even in Chaldea and in Charan, before ever he saw Canaan or received circumcision, or before any ceremonies were appointed by the ministry of Moses, and before there was either tabernacle or temple. When Abraham dwelt with his father on the other side of Euphrates, and served idols (Jos_24:2), even then did God call him out of his country, making him to follow His call to obedience, not knowing whither he went (Heb_11:8), no, nor much caring, so long as he had God by the Hand, or might follow Him as his Guide step by step. By faith Abraham when called obeyed (Heb_11:8). The Greek word imports reverence and obedience. He did not stop his ear to this great Charmer (Psa_58:4-5), but he listened and hearkened to God’s call with an awful respect. Thus Abraham did not dispute, but dispatch God’s command; but immediately departed without solicitation or carnal reasonings against it (Gen_12:4). His inner and outer man were relatives; so it should be with us.
II. The second circumstance is THE PLACE FROM WHENCE, which is two fold.
1. Ur.
2. Haran.
(1) Parents ought not to hinder their children from good and from obedience to God. Here Terah, the old father, did not rebuke Abraham his son for being too full of fancy, nor charged him (upon his blessing) to abide in his native country, and not to be so fantastical as to follow so fond a call that told him not of the place whither he was to go; he did not say to his son, Wilt thou leave a certainty for an uncertainty, or wilt thou be wiser than all thy forefathers? etc. Let parents learn from hence to further, and not to hinder, their children in the good ways of God; honour is the reward of the former, but dishonour (if no more) of the latter.
(2) Man’s heart needeth many pulls from God’s hand before man can complete his obedience to God. Here God gives Abraham two calls or pulls before he pulled him to the Land of Promise. The first pull bringeth him only from Ur to Haran; there he settleth, and gathereth much goods Gen_12:5).
(3) All carnal respects must be subject to the spiritual, and all carnal relations must be bewailed (Deu_21:11-12), yes, and relinquished (Psa_45:10).
(4) Divine vocation and adoption floweth wholly and solely from free grace. Nimrod’s Church (as one saith) had almost swallowed up Abraham, while he was young, serving other gods as well as Nabor and Terah, who (as some Rabbins say) got his living by making and selling of images. Yet out of this root so idolatrous, both on father and mother’s side, the whole stock of Israel sprang, to be an adopted people to God. Even Abraham, as well as the rest, until God called him to His foot (Isa_41:2) from the feet of idols, and from this bell of Babel, were he born at that time. This doth most highly advance the greatness of the free grace of God, thus to call whom He will (Mar_3:13), and to have mercy on whom He will Rom_9:15-16). God found even Abraham himself ungodly Rom_4:2; Rom_4:5); but He did not leave him so. God must make us good, or He will never find us so.
III. THE PLACE WHITHER ABRAHAM WAS CALLED. This was not named. God did not tell it him in his ear, yet showed it him to his eye (Gen_12:7; Gen_13:14).
1. Wherever Abraham was, his chief care was to be going on still toward the south (Gen_12:9), as towards the sun. So should all the children of Abraham travel towards the Sun of Righteousness (Mal_4:2), setting forth early as morning seekers (Pro_8:17), and making progress in grace (2Pe_3:18), as from glory to glory (2Co_3:18).
2. His first care in all places where he came was to build an altar to his God; and so it should be ours. We are a kingdom of priests (1Pe Rev_1:6), and we have an altar (Heb_13:10), which is Christ, who sanctifies the sacrifice (Mat_23:19); we should build this altar in our hearts Eze_36:26).
3. Abraham built his altars, although the Canaanites were then n the land; and it is a wonder they did not stone him for so doing, which certainly they would have done had not God restrained them. Thus ought all the spiritual seed of Abraham to shine as lamps in the midst of a crooked and cursed generation (Php_2:15; Mat_5:16; 1Pe_2:12), holding forth the word of life. We should set up our altars in sight and despite of idolaters, as Abraham, and call them Jehovah nissi, the Lord is my banner, as Moses did (Exo_17:15).
4. Abraham was the first man who had God most familiarly appearing to him; and the sight of the Canaanite did not so much discourage him as the sight of his God did encourage him (1Sa_30:6).
5. We should look upon our all with a pilgrim’s eye, and use our all with a pilgrim’s mind. It was a mighty work of Abraham’s faith to behave himself as a stranger on earth, because he knew himself a citizen of heaven Heb_11:9-10, etc.); so we (Eph_2:19-20).
IV. THE END WHY GOD CALLED ABRAHAM. It was only to take possession of Canaan, not to enjoy it as a present inheritance; for we find that he was famished twice out of this good Land of Promise. First into Egypt Gen_12:10); and, secondly, into Gerar, the Philistine’s country Gen_20:1). Yet did he ever make Canaan his retreating place, sojourning in it for a hundred years--the remnant of his life. From which learn--
1. The most fruitful land may be made barren for the wickedness of those that dwell in it (Psalm evil. 34). God can famish our Canaan to us Zep_2:11).
2. Suppose we be forced into Egypt or Philistia, to seek for that we cannot find in a famished land of promise; yet this is our best retreating place when God heals our backslidings (Hos_14:4). Alas! we are over-apt to slip out of the land of promise, as Adam was out of paradise, and Abraham out of Canaan; but the Lord keeps the feet of His saints (1Sa_2:9). Obj. Though Heb_11:8 saith, God called Abraham to Canaan to receive an inheritance there; and Act_7:5 saith, Yet God gave him no inheritance in it, not so much as to set his foot on.
These two seeming contradictory places are thus reconciled:
1. Abraham did inherit Canaan mystically, as that land was a type of heaven. God may deny literally, yet grant mystically or spiritually.
2. He did inherit it in his posterity (though not in his person) 430 years after the promise (Gal_3:17). Thus God kept His promise with him; and so He doth with us, though we see not the performance thereof.
This was Abraham’s ease; yet took he possession of the land because of his title to it, which was threefold.
1. By way of promise. God made Canaan to belong unto Abraham by making a promise of it to him no less than four times (Gen_12:7; Gen_13:15; Gen_15:7; Gen_17:8). This promise of God (being a four-fold cord) Abraham accounts his best freehold. Thus it is with all the faithful, as it was with the father of the faithful: such have the spirit of truth to assure them of their interest in Divine promises (2Co_1:22; 2Co_5:5; Eph_1:14). It is an earnest. This makes them exceeding rich, though they see not the actual performance of them in their day. Wealth lieth in good bills and bonds, under God’s own hand and seal, all signed in His word, and sealed by His spirit. He therefore accounts heavenly promises far better than earthly performances. As Abraham did only take possession of Canaan, which afterwards he was to inherit, so a Christian takes possession of heaven, with his name written in it (Luk_10:20), and with his heart panting towards it (2Pe_3:12).
2. By way of conquest. Canaan belonged to Abraham in his conquering Chedarlaomer, etc. (Gen_14:4; Gen_15:17). This great king was the son of Elam, the son of Shem (Gen_10:22), and, according to Noah’s prophecy--Canaan shall be Shem’s servant (Gen_9:26)--this Chedarlaomer was lord over the Canaanites and over those chief cities which stood in the plains of Jordan. Abraham conquers him in battle; so Canaan became the conqueror’s by conquest; he became the heir of Canaan. The history holds forth this mystery: that all Christians, the children of Abraham, are by their new birth born heirs of heaven, the celestial Canaan; they should therefore be valiant for it (Jer_9:3).
3. By way of purchase Canaan was Abraham’s. Though all the land was his by promise, yet he procures only a burying place by purchase (Gen_23:16, etc.), not having a foot of it for his own present possession. This purchased burying place was an earnest for all the rest; hence all the patriarchs dying after desired to be buried in it (Gen_47:30; Gen_50:25). A sepulchre of one’s own was a sign of firm possession (Isa_22:16).All his children must write after his copy of obedience, which, in its transcendency, hath a threefold excellency. It was an obedience so transcendant as to be--
1. Without hesitation.
2. Without reservation.
3. Without limitation. Of these in order--
1. It was obedience without hesitation. He used no disputation in the case; he falls not upon arguing with God in any carnal reasonings against his call and command, saying, I cannot apprehend any urgent occasion why I should forsake my own native country; and may not I justly suspect it no better than a piece of sublime folly to go I know not whither, and to leave a certainty for an uncertainty? Is not one bird in the hand (as saith the proverb) better than two in the bush? He doth not allege, Lord, first satisfy my scruples, and convince my judgment that it is my duty, and then will I follow and obey Thee. No, he doth not dispute, but despatch; he cloth not say (as those recusants in the gospel said), Suffer me first to go and bury my father (Mat_8:21); or, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go to prove it, etc. (Luk_14:18-20). Neither did Abraham dare to do as better men than those aforesaid, even as Moses (Exo_3:11; Exo_4:1-31; Exo_10:1-29; Exo_11:1-10; Exo_12:1-51; Exo_13:1-22), or as Jeremy (Jer_1:6), who both do bring in theircarnal reasonings strongly to confute God and His call. It is not a good angel, but the evil one that opens our mouths to make replies upon such a sovereign Master. Our Lord is wiser for us than we can be for ourselves; our fleshly wisdom is enmity against God (Rom_8:7).
2. As Abraham’s obedience was without hesitation, or any contrary disputes against God’s call, so it was without reservation he resigns up himself to the command of God, not by halves, but wholly, without any “ifs” or “ands,” as we say. What we do herein must be done with our whole heart, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. God gives a whole Christ to us, and shall not we give a whole heart to Him?
3. As Abraham’s obedience was without hesitation and reservation, so it was without limitation. It is too, too common with us, as it was with Israel, to limit the Holy One of Israel (Psa_78:41), especially in four respects:
1. In respect of time.
2. Of place.
3. Of means.
4. Of manner.
Nay, even professors themselves will not own God, unless He appear to them in their own manner; whereas God showeth Himself in divers manners (Heb_1:1). Hence have we many famous remarks, as--
1. That though blind obedience as to man is abominable, yet as to God it is highly commendable; such as this of Abraham’s was.
2. Though this obedience of Abraham was a blind obedience as to his own will, yet was it not so as to God’s will; for God’s will was the rule of Abraham’s obedience.
3. Though Abraham knew not whither he went (Heb_11:8), yet he knew well with whom he went, even One with whom he was sure he could not possibly miscarry.
4. Abraham knew not, yet followed, not knowing whither. But we know (from the sure word of prophecy) whither our way leadeth--to wit, to heaven. It is a shame for us not to follow. Abraham’s following God blindfold brought him to the earthly Canaan; but our following God with our eyes opened will bring us to the heavenly country. (C. Ness.)
Abraham: the emigrant
The call and migration of the patriarch suggest two thoughts.
I. THE RISE OF PERSONAL RELIGION. Piety may vary in its form in different persons and times, but in its spirit it is unchanging.
1. It takes its rise in God. Abram “was called.” “Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country,” etc. It was not poverty that drove Abram from his native country; it was not persecution; it was not that love of a migratory life which is natural to an Oriental: his journey to Canaan was wholly due to a spiritual inspiration. “God chose Abram” (Neh_9:7) to be a child of grace--a justified sinner (Gal_3:8). It was God who gave this son of idolaters all his grandeur of soul and his marvellous appreciation of the true and the eternal. The conversion of every believer is similar. Personal religion always takes its rise in God--in His sovereign choice (2Ti_1:9), in His Divine power (JohnPhp 1:6), and in His wonderful love (Eph_2:4-5). No sinner has ever of his own accord quitted his native land of spiritual darkness and death.
2. It is the fruit of a Divine revelation. Jehovah revealed himself to Abram as the one living and true God, and in summoning him to emigrate to Canaan, made him a magnificent promise. The God of Shem is now the God of Abram. We are not to understand, indeed, that the patriarch’s religious knowledge was at first either extensive or minute. But as each successive revelation was made to him, he learned more of the nature of God, and of the sublimity of his own destiny, until at length he was able to rejoice in the anticipation of the coming of Christ (Joh_8:56) and in the hope of a glorious immortality (Heb_11:10; Heb_11:13-16). Had the God of Glory not appeared to him, the patriarch would in all likelihood have died a pagan in the land of his fathers. Religion cannot be generated in any heart apart from a Divine revelation of some sort. There must be some knowledge of the truth.
3. It is the product of an earnest faith. “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed.” The truth that was made known to him would have had no influence upon him had he not believed it. Not reason alone is the basis of personal religion, for reason alone would lead to rationalism. Neither is it feeling alone, for that would develop into mysticism. The man of God is a man of faith.
II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL RELIGION. Piety has its fundamental and formative principles, but it has also its developments of these. It has fruits as well as roots. Abram’s piety developed in a complete renunciation of his old life; and the new life which he henceforth followed had at least three strongly marked characteristics. It was--
1. A life of implicit trust in God. Abram’s first act of faith was followed by a confirmed habit of trustfulness. He struck the roots of his soul deep down into the invisible.
2. A life of conscious strangeness on the earth. Abram was content to be “a stranger and a sojourner” in the holy land.
3. A life which shall merge into a blessed immortality. Abram longed for a fatherland, but not for the land of his earthly forefathers. He might have re-crossed the Euphrates, but he never did so. The home that he learned with increasing eagerness to desire was the dwelling place of his Father in heaven (Heb_11:10; Heb_11:14-16). How large the personal interest which the believer has in heaven! He shall yet dwell in it as his fatherland. (Charles Jerdan, M. A. , LL. B.)
The call of Abram
I. In the call of Abram we see AN OUTLINE OF THE GREAT PROVIDENTIAL SYSTEM UNDER WHICH WE LIVE. II. GREAT LIVES ARE TRAINED BY GREAT PROMISES. The promise to Abram--
1. Throws light on the compensations of life.
2. It shows the oneness of God with His people.
3. It shows the influence of the present over the future.
III. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE CENTRAL FIGURES IN SOCIETY, men of commanding life, around whom other persons settle into secondary positions. This one man, Abram, holds the promise; all the other persons in the company hold it secondarily.
IV. ABRAM SET UP HIS ALTAR ALONG THE LINE OF HIS MARCH.
V. The incident in Gen_12:10-12 shows WHAT THE BEST OF MEN ARE WIZEN THEY BETAKE THEMSELVES TO THEIR OWN DEVICES. As the minister of God, Abram is great and noble; as the architect of his own fortune, he is cowardly, selfish, and false.
VI. NATURAL NOBLENESS OUGHT NEVER TO BE UNDERRATED (Gen_12:18-20). In this matter Pharaoh was a greater, a nobler man than Abram.
VII. The whole incident shows THAT GOD CALLS MEN TO SPECIAL DESTINIES, and that life is true and excellent in itself and in its influences only in so far as it is Divinely inspired and ruled. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Abram’s training
I. ALL THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM WAS A SPECIAL TRAINING FOR A SPECIAL END. Chosen, as are all God’s instruments, because he was capable of being made that which the Lord purposed to make him, there was that in him which the good Spirit of the Lord formed, through the incidents of his life of wandering, into a character of eminent and single-hearted faithfulness.
II. THIS WORK WAS DONE NOT FOR HIS OWN SAKE EXCLUSIVELY. He was to be “a father of many generations.” The seed of Abraham was to be kept separate from the heathen world around it, even until from it was produced the “Desire of all nations”; and this character of Abraham was stamped thus deeply upon him, that it might be handed on through him to his children and his children’s children after him.
III. And so to A WONDERFUL DEGREE IT was; marking that Jewish people, amongst all their sins and rebellions, with such a peculiar strength and nobleness of character; and out in all its glory, in successive generations, in judge and seer and prophet and king, as they at all realized the pattern of their great progenitor, and walked the earth as strangers and pilgrims, but walked it with God, the God of Abraham and their God. (Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.)
A call from God
I. AT SOME TIME IN OUR LIVES A CALL FROM GOD SENDS ITS TRUMPET TONE THROUGH EACH OF OUR SOULS, as it did when Abraham heard it, and he went forth with the future stretching broad and far before him
II. GOD’S CALL TO ABRAHAM WAS:
1. A call to closer communion with Himself.
2. A call which led him to break with his past.
3. A call into loneliness.
III. The reason why so many of us, who are good and honourable men, never become men of great use and example and higher thought and true devotion, IS THAT WE DARE NOT BE SINGULAR. We dare not leave our kindred or our set. We will not leave our traditional views and sentiments, and we cannot leave our secret sins. God speaks, and we close our eyes and turn away our heads, and our hearts answer, “I will not come.” How long will all this last? Will it last until another solemn voice shall speak to us, and at the call of death we say, “I come”? (W. Page-Roberts, M. A.)
Lessons from the life of Abraham
I. Notice FIRST THE CALL OF ABRAHAM.
1. The call was addressed to him suddenly.
2. It required him to forsake his country and his kindred, while giving him no hope of return.
3. It sent him on a long and difficult journey, to a country lying more than three hundred miles away. Yet Abraham obeyed in willing submission to the command of God.
II. Notice ABRAHAM’S CONQUEST OVER THE KINGS. This is the first battle recorded in the Word of God. It was after his rescue of Lot that Abraham was met by the mysterious Melchizedek. An awful shade of supernaturalism still rests upon this man, to whom some of the attributes of the Godhead seem to be ascribed, and who is always named with God and with God’s Son. There are two lessons deducible from Abraham’s conquests.
1. That military skill and experience are often easily vanquished by untaught valour, when that is at once inspired by impulse, guided by wisdom, and connected with a good cause.
2. That Christian duty varies at different times and in different circumstances.
III. Notice THE COVENANTS WHICH WERE ESTABLISHED BETWEEN ABRAHAM AND GOD. From them we learn--
1. God’s infinite condescension.
2. Our duty of entering into covenant with God in Christ. From the history of Abraham we see that God’s intention was:
(1) To secure to Himself one great accession from the idolatrous camp.
(2) To send Abraham as a forerunner and a first step into the land which God had selected as His peculiar prosperity.
(3) To create a family link of connection between God and a distinct race of people for long ages. (G. Gilfillan.)
The call of Abram
The life of Abram approaches completeness. In the Scriptures more space is devoted to him than to all that went before him put together. In the narrative before us we have the starting point of all that was illustrious and good in his life, and, we might almost say, of all God’s gracious interpositions for the race. It is also full of valuable instruction, certain interesting points of which it is our present purpose to notice.
1. It reminds us of God’s patient concern for the ways and welfare of men. The call of Abram was a summons to leave the land of his birth and early associations, and to go forth, under Divine leadership, to another of which he should be told. The purpose of the call was that, in him, the race might religiously start anew.
2. The narrative reminds us of the discrimination with which God selects and trains the instruments of His merciful purposes. His elections and selections are unexplained and often great mysteries. But never are they without reason. Divine sovereignty does not disregard the fitness of things, nor willingly suffer powers to go to waste. The choice fell upon Abram because he was the right man. He had natural gifts of no common order. That he was able to break away from the powerful force of custom and surrounding opinion, even at the Divine command, evinced independence and strength. The ready respect paid him by small and great was a testimony to his commanding powers. Upon the single occasion when valour for the right moved him to go out to battle against certain marauding kings, he displayed military genius which in other times might have made him a great general. It was not, however, for his natural gifts, but for his moral qualities chiefly, that he was selected. He was a man of large faith and prompt obedience.
3. Again, we have here a reminder of the fidelity with which God sustains and cheers those who promptly obey. With a view to such cheer and support it may have been that Abram’s first stopping place was in “the delicious plan of Moreh,” the “place of Sichem,” of the luxuriant verdure of which travellers speak in the most enthusiastic terms. Says Professor Robinson, “We saw nothing to compare with it in all Palestine.” To new converts God often grants special foretastes of their final reward, visions of light and cheer. But delightful as was this sight and rest, it was not all. To Abram, at Sichem, was granted a vision of God Himself.
4. Note, again, the outward expression here shown to be natural to a vigorous faith. Without any distinct command, so far as appears, at Sichem, his first halting place in Canaan, Abram makes haste to build an altar unto the Lord. This he does again at Bethel. Yet again we find him doing the same at Beersheba and at Hebron. These altars were intended to be channels of worship and memorials of Divine mercies. By means of them he publicly professed his own faith in a strange land, and consecrated his promised possession to the Lord. By such means he also the more effectually guarded his children and household against the ensnaring influence of idolatrous and worldly neighbours. And all this he did with cost. Not only did it consume time and labour, it required courage. Abram was a wanderer among peoples proud, fierce, and vindictive; whose worship was idolatry; and among whom his singularity and the rebuke of his example would both provoke derision and excite hostility. Yet never does he withhold or conceal the expression of his reverent faith.
5. Last of all, we have here a hint of the kind of greatness most gratefully and lastingly remembered. It is four thousand years since Abram lived, and yet his memory not only survives, it is green. By multitudes it is cherished with homage and affection. In a recent public address, the missionary Dr. Jessup told this story of his sainted father. In the latter years of his life he was afflicted with a peculiar kind of paralysis. His memory was cleft in twain. That of secular things was gone. His legal knowledge, his great law library, his court house, his old associates on the bench of Pennsylvania, and even the names of his own children, were forgotten. But the Bible, the family altar, the church, the missionary work, and his Saviour Jesus Christ, were all fresh in his memory as ever. The worldly had faded; the spiritual was green. So it may be with all the good in the world to come. So it measurably is now. They see worth and beauty only in that which allies to God. In good men’s hearts only the good will have everlasting remembrance. It was his simple trust and prompt, steadfast obedience, the “entire self-abnegation with which he surrendered everything to the Divine call,” which made him for all after-ages, and in the memories of the good, the hero that he was. By like childlike confidence and cheerful self-surrender we may win like approval with God, if not equal greatness in human sight. (H. M. Grout, D. D.)
A call to emigrate
Abram’s emigration teaches by example precisely the same profound and universal lesson of spiritual life which Jesus taught in words: “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple.” St. Francis of Assisi, and many like him, have read this evangelical call to renounce the world too literally. Nevertheless, if we would choose and pursue the heavenly country to which God is calling us, there must be in the heart of each of us a virtual leaving of father and mother, a forsaking of all that we have, in order to be Christ’s followers. Of this we have the first great type in the emigration of Abram. Besides, God cut him off from kindred that He might draw him closer to Himself. If renunciation for God’s sake be the condition of strong piety, solitary converse with God is its nurse. Emigration often does a great deal for a man. By throwing him back for aid upon his own resources, it teaches him to help himself, and develops the manhood that is in him. The emigration of a godly man at God’s call does still more for him. It forces him to lean much on God, Who becomes his only constant comrade and unfailing helper. It throws him back at each emergency upon the spiritual resources of faith, and trains into full maturity the graces of his religious nature. Inwardly, Abram could hardly have become the spiritual hero he was in later life, if he had not been forced to walk through the long trials of his exile with nothing but the unseen eternal God for his “shield,” and compelled to brood through homeless years over the mighty thoughts which God had uttered to his faith. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)
The call to religion
The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself. Religion is relative to the individual. (H. W. Beecher.)
The Divine summons
I. THIS CALL INVOLVED HARDSHIP. Each step of real advance in the Divine life will involve an altar on which some dear fragment of the self life has been offered; or a cairn beneath which some cherished idol has been buried.
II. BUT THIS CALL WAS EMINENTLY WISE.
1. Wise for Abraham himself. Nothing strengthens us so much as isolation. So long as we are quietly at rest amid favourable and undisturbed surroundings, faith sleeps as an undeveloped sinew within us; a thread, a germ, an idea. But when we are pushed out from all these surroundings, with nothing but God to look to, then faith grows suddenly into a cable, a monarch oak, a master principle of life.
2. Wise for the world’s sake. It is impossible to move our times, so long as we live beneath their spell; but when once we have risen up, and gone, at the call of God, outside their pale, we are able to react on them with an irresistible power. Archimedes vaunted that he could lift the world, if only he could obtain, outside of it, a pivot on which to rest his lever. Do not be surprised then, if God calls you out to be a people to Himself, that by you He may react with blessed power on the great world of men.
III. THIS CALL WAS ACCOMPANIED BY PROMISE. As a shell encloses a kernel, so do the Divine commands hide promises in their heart. If this is the command: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”; this is the promise: “And thou shalt be saved.” If this is the command: “Sell that thou hast and give to the poor”; this is the promise: “Thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” If this is the command: “Leave father and mother, houses and lands”; this is the promise: “Thou shalt have a hundred fold here, and everlasting life beyond.”
IV. THIS CALL TEACHES US THE MEANING OF ELECTION. It was not so much with a view to their personal salvation, though that was included; but that they might pass on the holy teachings and oracles with which they were entrusted.
V. THIS CALL GIVES THE KEY TO ABRAHAM’S LIFE.
1. He was from first to last a separated man.
2. But it was the separation of faith. Abraham’s separation is not like that of those who wish to be saved; but rather that of those who are saved. Not towards the cross, but from it. Not to merit anything, but, because the heart has seen the vision of God, and cannot now content itself with the things that once fascinated and entranced it; so that leaving them behind, it reaches out its hands in eager longing for eternal realities, and thus is led gradually and insensibly out and away from the seen to the unseen, and from the temporal to the eternal. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
A call to emigrate
1. In the selection of men to be the organs or channels of His grace, God’s freedom of choice never excludes some natural fitness in the person chosen. When Abram, escorted by sorrowing relatives to the brink of the great “flood,” did finally set his whole encampment across the Euphrates and turn his face to the dreaded desert, which stretched, wide and inhospitable, between him and the nearest seats of men, he gave his first evidence of that trust in the unseen Eternal One, leading to unquestioning, heroic obedience, which must even then have formed the basis of his character, and of which his later life was to furnish so many illustrious examples.
2. The emigration of Abram, however, had other ends to serve besides testing his personal fitness to become the father of trustful and loyal souls.
(1) For one thing, it was advisable to make a clean break in the continuity of his family history. Only in this way could he become really a fresh point of departure for the human race. Had he remained in Padan-Aram. Abram would have been simply one among his brethren, a sheikh of influence among neighbour sheikhs, a continuator of the Terah name, not the originator of a new epoch.
(2) It was of still greater consequence to break him off from contact with the unwholesome influences which were already at work within his own family. To withdraw into a strange land, meant the abandonment of himself to the guidance of God alone. True piety, in its more masculine and self-conscious stages, always involves some such renunciation of natural supports. It does not always require a literal separation from home or friends, but it does require the withdrawal of the heart’s deepest dependence from earthly props or ministers, in order to rest in a self-contained and unaided trust Upon the Unseen Arm. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)
Abram the pilgrim
I. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE LIFE OF FAITH.
1. Natural ties.
2. A desire to be satisfied with the present and visible.
3. Imperfect knowledge of the future.
II. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LIFE OF FAITH.
1. A firm belief in the testimony of God.
2. A proper estimate of the visible.
3. A worshipping life.
4. To be undismayed at improbabilities.
III. THE BLESSINGS OF SUCH A LIFE.
1. More than compensation for every natural loss.
2. Inward happiness in being the means of doing good to others.
3. It leads to a life of spiritual and eternal sight. (Homilist.)
The call of Abraham
1. God’s patience with sinful men is one of His most wonderful attributes. God makes a third trial in the call of Abram. So it often is with individual men. He makes and renews His gracious offers.
2. When the hour comes for some great work of God, He always has the man ready at His call.
3. When God commands, man has nothing to do but to obey. Obedience is the highest test of piety (Joh_14:21; Joh_14:23).
4. Genuine obedience is founded in faith.
5. The highest attainment of a Christian is a consecrated will. Learn this under the olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane.
6. Every Christian is called of God to go out from the world and be separate. This sometimes involves painful and reluctant sacrifices. Old habits, old appetites, old friends, old associations, old modes of thought and action, may have to be abandoned, and the struggle may be severe. But, “He that loveth father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me” Mat_10:37-38).
7. Goodness is the only true greatness. No king, or noble, or hero of the earth bears such an honourable name as his who is known in the Book of books as “The friend of God!” (E. P. Rogers, D. D.)
The Divine call
I. A SUMMONS WAS GIVEN TO ABRAHAM FROM THE LORD.
1. It was explicit.
2. Unmistakable.
3. Repeated.
4. Contrary to the carnal inclinations.
II. THE CALL WAS SUSTAINED BY A PROMISE--the promise of guidance. The first call was to an indefinite land, the second to the land. This explains why there was a temporary residence in Haran. God did not tell him He would give him the land, but only that He would guide him to it. God does not reveal all the riches of His grace at once; that might overpower the soul. (F. Hastings.)
Abraham’s call
I. ABRAHAM THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL.
1. A preeminent pattern or type of faith.
2. The first in whom the doctrine of justification by faith was clearly and openly displayed.
3. The federal head of all believers, Jewish or Gentile, receiving promises and commands which related less to himself than to his spiritual seed in every age.
II. ABRAHAM SETTING OUT ON HIS APPOINTED PILGRIMAGE.
1. His early life.
2. His call.
3. His destination.
4. His obedience.
III. OUR SETTING OUT FOR THE BETTER COUNTRY.
1. God speaks to us--by His Word; by His Spirit.
2. His call opens with a warning and reproof, and closes with a blessing.
3. The promise is indefinite.
4. Our walk is to be one of faith; purely so.
Conclusion:
1. Let us address the pilgrims.
2. Let us address those who stay among the idolaters. (T. G.Horton.)
The call of Abraham
I. GOD’S CALL.
1. The call was from the Lord. He put into Abram’s mind “good desires,” and helped him to bring them to “good effect.”
2. The call was a distinct command. Abram was told to do something which was not easy; to give up much that was dear to him.
3. The call was accompanied by many gracious promises.
(1) God promised to guide him.
(2) God promised him posterity.
(3) God promised him renown.
(4) Chiefly, God promised to make him a blessing.
Thus the call to renounce is accompanied by an assurance that the believer shall receive at God’s hands great things.
II. ABRAHAM’S FAITH.
1. Abraham did what God told him.
2. Abraham went where God led him.
3. Abraham remembered God at every stage of his journey. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
A new dispensation
1. The election and selection of what became the people of God. Step by step we see in the history of the patriarchs this electing and separating process on the part of God. Both are marked by this two-fold characteristic: that all is accomplished, not in the ordinary and natural manner, but, as it were, supernaturally; and that all is of grace.
2. We mark a difference in the mode of Divine revelation in the patriarchal as compared with the previous period. Formerly, God had spoken to man, either on earth or from heaven, while now he actually appeared to them, and that specially, as the Angel of Jehovah, or the Angel of the Covenant.
3. The one grand characteristic of the patriarchs was their faith. The lives of the patriarchs prefigure the whole history of Israel and their Divine selection. (Dr. Edersheim.)
Separated from the world
It is a remarkable fact, that while the baser metals are diffused through the body of the rocks, gold and silver usually lie in veins; collected together in distinct metallic masses. They are in the rocks but not of them . . . And as by some power in nature God has separated them from the base and common earths, even so by the power of His grace will He separate His chosen from a reprobate and rejected world. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Deaf to God’s call
Some of us are as dead to the perception of God’s gracious call, just because it has been sounding on uninterruptedly, as are the dwellers by a waterfall to its unremitting voice. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Individual selection
The principle of individual selection in the matter of all great ministries is in keeping with the principle which embodies in a single germ the greatest forests. It is enough that God give the one acorn; man must plant it and develop its productiveness. It is enough that God give the one idea; man must receive it into the good soil of his love and hope, and encourage it to tell all the mystery of its purpose. So God calls to Himself, in holy solitude, one man, and puts into the heart of that man His own gracious purpose, and commissions him to expound this purpose to his fellow men. God never works from the many to the one; He works from one to the many. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Abraham--his call, justification, faith, and infirmity
I. HE IS CALLED BY THE LORD; by the immediate interposition of Jehovah. “The God of glory,” as Stephen testifies, “appears to him”;--there is a visible manifestation of the Divine glory; and the Divine voice is heard. The call is very peremptory--authoritative and commanding; and it is also very painful--hard for flesh and blood to obey. But along with the call, there is a very precious promise, a promise of blessings manifold and marvellous.
II. ABRAHAM COMMENCES HIS PILGRIMAGE AMID MANY TRIALS.
1. Sarai is barren.
2. He knows not whither he is going.
3. He breaks many ties of nature, the closest and the dearest.
4. His father is removed by death.
5. On reaching Canaan nothing is as yet given; he is a stranger and a pilgrim, wandering from place to place, from Sichem to Moreh, from Moreh to Bethel, pitching his tent at successive stations, as God, for reasons unknown, appoints his temporary abode (Gen_12:6-9).
6. And wherever he goes he finds the Canaanites; not congenial society and fellowship, but troops of idolaters; for “the Canaanites were then in the land.”
7. As if all this were not enough to try him, even daily bread begins to fail him. “There is a famine in the land” (Gen_12:10); and what now is Abram to do? He has hitherto been steadfast; he has “builded an altar” wherever he has dwelt, and has “called on the name of the Lord” (Gen_12:7-8). He has at all hazards avowed his faith, and sought to glorify his God; but it seems as if, from very necessity, he must at last abandon the fruitless undertaking. He is literally starved out of the land. Why, then, should he not go back to his ancient dwelling place, and try what good he can do, remaining quietly at home? What wonder can it be, if, in such circumstances, his high principle should seem for once to give way, through Satan’s subtlety, and his own evil heart of unbelief?
III. In Egypt, accordingly, for a brief space, the picture is reversed, and THE FAIR SCENE IS OVERCLOUDED. This man of God, being a man still, appears in a new light, or rather in the old light, the light of his old nature. He is tempted, and he falls; consulting his own wisdom, instead of simply relying on his God. He falls through unbelief; and his fall is recorded for our learning, that we may take heed lest we fall. In this incident, the temptation, the sin, the danger, and the deliverance, are all such as, in Abram’s circumstances, might have befallen us. (H. S. Candlish, D. D.)
The call of Abraham
I. IT WAS MANIFESTLY DIVINE. This call could not have been an illusion, for--
1. To obey it, he gave up all that was dear and precious to him in the world. He could not have made such a sacrifice without a sufficient reason.
2. The course of conduct he followed could not have been of human suggestion. Abraham was not driven from his country by adverse circumstances, or attracted by the premise of plenty elsewhere. But he left a condition which would then be considered as prosperous, and cheerfully accepted whatever trials might await him.
3. The history of the Church confirms the fact that the call was Divine. The Christian Church was but a continuation of the Jewish, with added light, and fresh blessings. That Church must have had an origin in the dim past, sufficient to account for the fact of its existence.
II. IT DEMANDED GREAT SACRIFICES. Upon the Divine call, Abraham was not immediately rewarded with temporal blessings. Appearances were altogether against his deriving any advantages from obedience.
III. IT WAS AN EXAMPLE OF FAITH. The promise was made in general terms, and the good things to come, as far as Abraham was personally concerned, placed at an inaccessible distance.
1. Faith is required to brave the terrors of the unknown.
2. Faith trusts in God.
3. In religious faith there is an element of reason. Faith is not contrary to, only beyond, reason. To follow the promptings of faith is the noblest act of human reason.
IV. IT WAS ACCOMPANIED BY PROMISE. The promises made to Abraham may be considered in a two-fold light.
1. As they concerned himself, personally, He would have compensation for all the worldly loss he would have to endure.
(1) For the loss of country, God promised that He would make him a great nation.
(2) For the loss of his place of birth, God promised to bless him with a higher prosperity.
(3) For the loss of family distinction God promised to make his name great. Abraham had to leave his “father’s house,” but he was destined in the Providence of God to build up a more famous and lasting house. These promises may be considered--
2. In his relation to humanity. God said, “Thou shalt be a blessing.” This promise implied something grander and nobler than any personal benefits which Abraham could inherit. It was the higher blessing-the larger benefit. Religion means something more than the selfish enjoyment of spiritual good, and he who only considers the interests of his own soul has failed to catch the true spirit of it. Man approaches the nature of God when he becomes a source of blessing to others. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Abraham was to be a blessing to mankind in the highest sense. As a further expansion of this blessing promised to Abraham--(1) His cause was henceforth to be identified with the cause of God. “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee” (Gen_12:3). “God promised further, so to take sides with Abraham in the world, as to make common cause with him--share his friendships, and treat his enemies as His own. This is the highest possible pledge. This threatening against hostile people was signally fulfilled in the case of the Egyptians, Edomites, Amalekites, Moabites, Ammonites, and the greater nations--Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian, Greek, and Roman, which have fallen under the curse of God as here denounced against the enemies of the Church and kingdom of Christ. The Church is God’s. Her enemies are His. Her friends are His also, and no weapon that is formed against her shall prosper, for He who has all power given unto Him shall be with her faithful servants, even to the end of the world.”
3. He was to be the source of the highest blessing to mankind. “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (T. H. Leale.)
The call of Abram
I. ABRAM’S GENEALOGICAL CONNECTION.
1. He was of Shemitic stock.
2. The Shemitic stock was the theocratic line.
II. ABRAM’S CALL.
1. This call was peremptory.
2. This call was gracious.
III. ABRAM’S OBEDIENCE.
1. Prompt.
(1) Hesitation destroys the virtue of obedience.
(2) Promptness is the glory of true obedience.
2. Thorough.
3. Courageous.
IV. ABRAM’S RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES AND CHARACTERISTICS.
1. He was honoured with personal visitations from Jehovah.
2. His faith in the Divine promise was reassured.
3. His piety was real, habitual, and practical.
Lessons:
1. The characteristic of God as exemplified in the call of Abraham. Graciousness.
2. The essential condition of realizing the fulness of Divine blessing. Obedience.
3. The universal characteristic of true believers. Worship. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
The call of Abram
1. The grace of it. There appears no reason to conclude that he was better than his neighbours. He did not choose the Lord, but the Lord him, and brought him out from amongst the idolaters.
2. Its peremptory tone:--“get thee out.” The language very much resembles that of Lot to his sons-in-law, and indicates the great danger of his present situation, and the immediate necessity of escaping, as it were, for his life. Such is the condition of every unconverted sinner, and such the necessity of fleeing from the wrath to come, to the hope set before us in the Gospel.
3. The self-denial required by it.
4. The implicit faith which a compliance with it would call for. Abram was to leave all, and to go--he knew not whither--“unto a land that God would show him.” If he had been told it was a land flowing with milk and honey, and that he should be put in possession of it, there had been some food for sense to feed upon: but to go out, “not knowing whither he went,” must have been not a little trying to flesh and blood. Nor was this all; that which was promised was not only in general terms, but very distant. God did not tell him He would give him the land, but merely show him it. Nor did he in his lifetime obtain the possession of it: he was only a sojourner in it, without so much as a place to set his foot upon. (A. Fuller.)
Call and promise
In all God’s teachings the near and the sensible come before the far and the conceivable, the present and the earthly before the eternal and the heavenly. Thus Abram’s immediate acts of self-denial are leaving his country, his birthplace, his home. The promise to him is to be made a great nation, be blessed, and have a great name in the new land which the Lord would show him. This is unspeakably enhanced by his being made a blessing to all nations. God pursues this mode of teaching for several important reasons.
1. The sensible and the present are intelligible to those who are taught. The great Teacher begins with the known and leads the mind forward to the unknown. If He had begun with things too high, too deep, or too fax for the range of Abram’s mental vision, He would not have come into relation with Abram’s mind. It is superfluous to say that He might have enlarged Abram’s view in proportion to the grandeur of the conceptions to be revealed. On the same principle He might have made Abram cognisant of all present and all developed truth. On the same principle He might have developed all things in an instant of time, and so have had done with creation and providence at once.
2. The present and the sensible are the types of the future and the conceivable. The land is the type of the better land; the nation of the spiritual nation; the temporal blessing of the eternal blessing; the earthly greatness of name of the heavenly. And let us not suppose that we are arrived at the end of all knowledge. We pique ourselves on our advance in spiritual knowledge beyond the age of Abram. But even we may be in the very infancy of mental development. There may be a land, a nation, a blessing, a great name, of which our present realizations or conceptions are but the types. Any other supposition would be a large abatement from the sweetness of hope’s overflowing cup.
3. These things which God now promises are the immediate form of His bounty, the very gifts He begins at the moment to bestow. God has His gift to Abram ready in His hand in a tangible form. He points to it and says, This is what thou presently needest; this I give thee with My blessing and favour.
4. But these are the earnest and the germ of all temporal and eternal blessing. Man is a growing thing, whether as an individual or a race. God graduates His benefits according to the condition and capacity of the recipients. In the first boon of His goodwill is the earnest of what He will continue to bestow on those who continue to walk in His ways. And as the present is the womb of the future, so is the external the symbol of the internal, the material the shadow of the spiritual in the order of the Divine blessing. (Prof. J. G. Murphy.)
The advantage of change
As Gotthold was examining with delight some double pinks, which at the time were in full blossom, he was told by the gardener that the same plants had in former years borne only single flowers, but that they had been improved and beautified by repeated transplantations, and that in the same manner a change of soil increases the growth, and accelerates the bearing of a young tree. This reminded Gotthold that the same happens to men. Many a man who at home would scarcely have borne even single flowers, when transplanted by Divine Providence abroad, bears double ones; another, who, if rooted in his native soil, would never have been more than a puny twig, is removed to a foreign clime, and there spreads far and wide and bears fruit to the delight of all.
Leaving all to follow God
“I have been in Africa for seventeen years, and I never met a man yet who would kill me if I folded my hands. What has been wanted, and what I have been endeavouring to ask for the poor Africans, has been the good offices of Christians--ever since Livingstone taught me, during those four months that I was with him. In 1871, I went to him as prejudiced as the biggest atheist in London. To a reporter and correspondent, such as I, who had only to deal with wars, mass meetings, and political gatherings, sentimental matters were entirely out of my province. But there came for me a long time for reflection. I was out there away from a worldly world. I saw this solitary old man there, and asked myself, “How on earth does he stop here--is he cracked, or what? What is it that inspires him? ‘For months after we met I simply found myself listening to him, wondering at the old man carrying out all that was said in the Bible--Leave all things and follow Me.’ But little by little his sympathy for others became contagious; my sympathy was aroused; seeing his piety, his gentleness, his zeal, his earnestness, and how he went quietly about his business, I was converted by him, although he had not tried to do it. How sad that the good old man should have died so soon! How joyful he would have been if he could have seen what has since happened there!” (H. M. Stanley.)
A great promise
Great lives are trained by great promises. God never calls men for the purpose of making them less than they are, except when they have been dishonouring themselves by sin. His calls are upward; towards fuller life, purer light, sweeter joy.
1. Look at this promise as throwing light upon the compensations of life. Abram is called to leave his Country, his kindred, and his father’s house, and, so far, there is nothing but loss. Had the call ended here, the lot of
Abram might have been considered hard; but when did God take anything from a man, without giving him manifold more in return? Suppose that the return has not been made immediately manifest, what then? Is today the limit of God’s working time? Has He no provinces beyond this little world? Does the door of the grave open upon nothing but infinite darkness and eternal silence? Yet, even confining the judgment within the hour of this life, it is true that God never touches the heart with a trial without intending to bring in upon it some grander gift, some tenderer benediction.
2. Look at this promise as showing the oneness of God with His people: “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee.” The good man is not alone. Touch him, and you touch God. Help him, and your help is taken as if it were rendered to God Himself. This may give us an idea of the sublime life to which we are called--we live, and move, and have our being in God; we are temples; our life is an expression of Divine influence; in our voice there is an undertone of Divinity.
3. Look at this promise as showing the influence of the present over the future: “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” This is a principle, rather than an exception of true life. Every man should look upon himself as an instrument of possible blessing to the whole world. One family should be a blessing to all families within its influence. We should not be looking for the least, but for the greatest interpretations of life--not to make our life as little and ineffective as possible, but to give it fulness, breadth, strength: to which the weary and sorrowful may look with confidence and thankfulness. Christianity never reduces life to a minimum: it develops it, strengthens it in the direction of Jesus Christ’s infinite perfectness and beauty. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God’s promises
God’s promises are the comfort of my life. Without them I could not stand for an hour in the whirl and eddy of things, in the sweep and surge of the nations; but I cannot tell how He will fulfil them, any more than I can tell from just what quarter the first flock of blue birds will come in the spring. Yet I am sure that the spring will come upon the wings of ten thousand birds. (H. W. Beecher.)
God’s promises mysteriously dated
God’s promises are dated, but with a mysterious character; and, for want of skill in God’s chronology, we are prone to think God forgets us, when, indeed, we forget ourselves in being so bold to set God a time of our own, and in being angry that He comes not just then to us. (W. Gurnall.)
God’s promises present though not always seen
“When the traveller starts by the railway, on a bright summer day,” writes Champneys, “his attention is drawn to the friends who stand to bid him good-bye; and as the train moves on more and more rapidly, the mile and half and quarter mile posts seem racing past him, and the objects in the far distance appear rapidly to change their places, and to move off the scene almost as soon as they have been observed upon it. Now the long train, like some vast serpent, hissing as it moves swiftly along, plunges underground. The bright sun is suddenly lost, but the traveller’s eye observes, for the first time perhaps, the railway carriage lamp; and though it was there all the while, yet because the sun made its light needless, it was not observed. God’s promises are like that railway light. The Christian traveller has them with him always, though when the sun is shining, and prosperity beaming upon him, he does not remark them. But let trouble come, let his course lie through the darkness of sorrow or trial, and the blessed promise shines out, like the railway lamp, to cheer him, and shed its gentle and welcome light most brightly when the gloom is thickest, and the sunshine most entirely left behind.”
On promptitude in obeying the Divine call
There is an hour in all, ay, even in heathen and sensual minds, when the cry is heard, “Come away hither, seek the far country; strike out on the spiritual and everlasting deep, looking not behind thee, cutting every tie that binds thee to this world, and be led to this, less by the hope of what is before, than by the horror of what is around, and by a simple-minded reliance upon the promise of thy God.” In various manners and at divers times does this cry come, and in divers manners is it treated. Some obey, like Abraham, at once, and set out in search of the land before the voice has ceased to vibrate in their ears. Others delay for a while, and say, like Felix, “Go thy way for this time, and when I have a more convenient season I will give thee an answer”--a season which never comes. Others begin the journey with considerable promptitude and with great alacrity, but speedily become offended, turn round, and walk no more with Jesus; like Pliable, the first fit disenchants them in their childish anticipations, and they retrace their steps. Others are slow but sure in obeying the call of God; they perhaps hang off for a time, they count the cost, they consult, with the town clerk of Ephesus, and do nothing rashly, till the alarm of their hearts and the tumult of their doors become intolerable, and perhaps, as with Faithful, the man Moses steps in and tells them, that if they do not begone, he will burn their house over their heads, and then they address themselves to their journey. And others do not even enter into momentary parley; do not even at the knock condescend to look over the window, but abruptly, fiercely, and forever, refuse. The conduct of this last class is simply insane; it is that of a dying patient who excludes the physician, or of a man whose house is burning and will not permit the engines to play around it. The conduct of those who delay indefinitely the journey is only one shade less absurd, since the Paul once gone seldom returns; and though he were returning, there might be no inclination to hear him. The conduct of those who go forward a little way, and turn back at the first difficulty, is more contemptible still; it is cowardice coupled with folly; it is mean madness. He that deliberates, acts somewhat more wisely; but he too loses time; whereas, since we live in a world where death delays not, where judgment does not linger, nor damnation slumber, the loss of an hour may be the loss of a
