Genesis 11
RileyGenesis 11:1-9
THE DAWN OF HISTORYGen_1:1 to Genesis 11:9.IN beginning this “Bible of the Expositor and Evangelist”, I am keenly sensible of the seriousness of my task. The book to be treated is the Book of Books, the one and only volume that has both survived and increasingly conquered the centuries, and that now, in a hoary old age, shows no sign of weakness, holds no hint of decay or even decrepitude; in fact, the Book is more robust at this moment than at any time since it came to completion, and it gives promise of dominating the future in a measure far surpassing its influence upon the past.The method of studying the Bible, to be illustrated in these pages, is, we are convinced, a sane and safe one, if not the most efficient one. Years since, certain statements from the pen of Dr. James M. Gray, superintendent of the Moody Bible Institute, fell under our eyes, and those statements have profoundly influenced our methods of study.Five simple rules he suggested for mastering the English Bible:First, Read the Book.Second: Read it consecutively.Third: Read it repeatedly.Fourth: Read it independently.Fifth: Read it prayerfully.Applying these suggestions to each volume in turn, if one’s life be long continued, he may not hope to master his English Bible, but he will certainly discover its riches increasingly, and possess himself more and more of its marvelous treasures,It was on the first Sunday of July, 1922, that I placed before myself and my people the program of study that produced these volumes. To be sure, much of the work had been done back of that date, but the determination to utilize it in this exact manner was fully adopted there and then.
It was and is my thought that the greatest single weakness of the present-day pulpit exists in the circumstance that we have departed from the custom of our best fathers in the ministry, namely, Scriptural exposition. If, therefore, these volumes shall lead a large number of my brethren in the ministry, particularly the young men among them, to become expository preachers, and yet to combine exposition with evangelism, my reward will be my eternal riches.Stimulated by that high hope, I turn your attention to the study itself, and begin where the Book begins and where all true students should begin, with Genesis 1:1, but in thought, an eternity beyond the hour of its phrasing, for by the opening sentence we are pushed back to God. “In the beginningGOD.”That is the starting point of all true studies.
The scientist is compelled to start there, or else he never understands where he is, nor yet with what he deals. God, the One of infinite wisdom, infinite power, infinite justice and of infinite goodness—“In the beginning God”.Having heard that name and having understood the One to whom it is applied, we are prepared for what follows,—“created the heavens and the earth” —marvelous first verse of the Bible!All in this first chapter is wrapped up in that first sentence; that is the explanation of all things; what follows is simply the setting forth of details.I agree with Joseph Parker that the explanation is “simple”. No attempt at learned analysis; that the explanation is “sublime” because it sweeps in all of time, all of material suggestions, all of power and illustrates all of wisdom—“the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork; day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge”, and it is a sufficient explanation, the only one that satisfies the mind of man.Infidel evolutionists cannot account for the beginnings. The geologist who does not believe, digs down to a point where he says, “Who started all of this?” and waits in sadness while the dumb rocks are silent; but for the Christian student no such mystery makes his work an enigma.Everywhere he sees the touch of God; in the plants, the animals, the birds and in man,—“God”. Where the unbeliever wonders and questions to get no reply, the believer admires, saying, “This is my Father’s hand, the work of my Father’s word”. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:3), and he joins with the Psalmist, “Let all nations praise the name of the Lord for He commanded and they were created” (Psalms 108:5).Competent scholars have called attention to the careful use of words in the Bible, a use so painstaking and perfect as to give a scientific demonstration of the verbal inspiration theory. When it is said that “God created the heavens and the earth”, the Hebrew verb “bara” is employed, and it means “to create something from nothing”, so that God gave the death blow to the evolution theory some thousands of years before that unprovable hypothesis was born!
The same word “bara” is also used in the 21st verse (Genesis 1:21) concerning the creation of mammals, and three times in the 27th verse (Genesis 1:27) concerning the creation of man, while a kindred word “asah” (neither of which convey any such thought as growth or evolution) is employed concerning His making man in His own image in Genesis 1:26.God, then, is not a mechanic; He is a Creator. He did not come upon the scenes of the universe to fashion what existed independent and apart from Him, but to create and complete according to His own pleasure.In later chapters we shall show how these creative acts are confirmed by science itself, and argue the utter folly of trying to find incompatibility between God’s Work and God’s Word.So for the present we may pass from God the Creator, as revealed in the first chapter, toADAM THE MANof the second chapter. “An infinite decline”, somebody says.
But let us be reminded that it is not so great as appears at this present hour. The only man God ever made outright was not what you and I see now. The man He made was “in His own image, after His own likeness”, only as far below Him as the finite is below the infinite; as the best creation is below the best Creator.The man God made “was good”. The man God made was great. The man God made was wise. The man God made was holy. The men we see now are not His children, but the children of the fallen Adam instead, for Eve, fallen, brought forth after her kind; and what a fall was that!When man disobeyed, he brought on himself and all succeeding ages sin, and its wretched results. There are those who blame God for the fall of man and say, “He had no business to make him so he could fall”.
But everything that is upright can fall, and the difference between a man who could not fall and a man who could fall is simply the difference between a machine and a sentient, intelligent, upright, capable being.There was but a single point at which this man could oppose Providence. Situated and environed as Adam was, the great social sins that have crushed the race could make no appeal to him. It is commonly conceded that the Decalogue sweeps the gamut of social, ethical and even religious conduct. Adam had no occasion to bow down before another God, for Jehovah, his Creator, was his counsellor and friend, and of other gods he knew nothing nor had he need of such. There was no provocation that could tempt him to take the name of that God in vain. There was no Sabbath day, for all days were holy, and the condemnation to labor was not yet passed.
There was no father and mother to be honored. To have committed murder was unthinkable; first because there was no provocation, and second, such an act would have left him in the world alone, his heart craving, unsatisfied, and his very kind to perish.
The seventh commandment meant nothing to the man whose wife was “in the image of God”, and the only woman known. Theft was impossible, since all things belonged to him. False witness and covetousness against a neighbor—he had no neighbor.But when God selected for Himself a single tree, leaving the rest of the earth to Adam, and he proved himself unwilling to let the least of earthly possessions be wholly the Lord’s, he gave an illustration to the unborn millenniums that man, in his almost infinite greatness, would not abide content that God Himself should be over and above him; and from that moment until this, that very thing has been the crux of every contention between the Divine and the human. If we may believe the Prophets, it was that very temptation that caused Lucifer’s fall and gave us the devil and hell!All talk of shallow minds “that God condemned the race because one man happened to bite into an apple”, is utterly wide of the mark. Condemnation rests upon the race because every man born of the flesh has revealed the same spirit of rebellion shown by our first parents—we will not have God rule over us even to the extent of keeping anything from us. The wealth of His gifts should shame and restrain against His few prohibitions.But, alas for man’s guilt and godlessness!
Equally wide of the mark is that other superficial reasoning that it is unjust of God to condemn me because some one of my forefathers misbehaved! Why charge God with injustice concerning something He has never done and will never do?
Why not let Him speak for Himself in such matters, and listen when he declares, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20).If, therefore, Adam with a body, mind and spirit unsullied, never having been weakened by an evil act or habit, did not stand, what hope for any man in his own merit. “Are we better than they? No, in no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that we are all under sin”. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way. They are altogether become unprofitable” (Romans 3:9-12).You say that the temptation was a subtle one.
I answer, Yes, that is Satan’s way to this hour. You say, The desire was for wisdom. I answer, Yes, that is still Satan’s appeal; you need to see and to know more than you do, hence you had better try this sin.Over one of the most palatial but wicked doorways of all Paris there used to be an inscription, “Come in; nothing to pay”, and so far as mere entrance to that place was concerned, that was true. But those who entered found when they had come out that they had visited the place at the cost of character, not to speak of that meaner thing— money.In passing, we call your attention to the justice of God’s judgment upon this sin. Its heaviest sentence fell upon the serpent, Satan’s direct agent; that wisest of all beasts of the field. He was accursed above all cattle, and brought down from his upright, manly-appearing position to go upon his belly and to eat dust all his days, and to be hated and killed by the seed of the woman with whom he had had such influence.The second sentence in weight fell upon the woman who listened to this deception and led the way in disobedience.
The man did not escape. The associate in sin never does.
His love for the principal may in some measure mitigate God’s judgment, but the justice of God would be called in question, and even His goodness, if He permitted any sin to be unpunished.EVE, THE PERSONin this third chapter must have been in her unfallen state Adam’s equal, mentally and morally. We have had great women, beautiful women, women worthy the admiration of the world, but I have an idea that the world’s greatest woman was not Cleopatra, the beautiful but selfish; nor Paula, that firmest of all friends; nor Heloise, the very embodiment of affection; nor Joan or Arc, heroism incarnate; nor Elizabeth, the wonderful queen; nor Madam De Stael of letters; nor Hannah Moore of education; but Eve, our first mother.When I think on her and look at the frail, feeble, sickly, sinful sister of the streets, I feel like weeping over the fact that our first mother fell; and today among her daughters are those so far removed from God’s ideal.THE FAMILYof the fourth chapter had its beginning in sin, and it is a dreadfully dark picture that is here presented. Envy, murder and lust appear at once. Abel is murdered, Cain made a criminal, polygamy introduced and all social vices which curse the sons of God. The picture would incite despair, but for the circumstance that in the third chapter God had made a promise which put Grace instead of Law.There was need, for unless the woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head, that serpent’s venom will not only strike the heel of every son, but send its poison coursing to his heart and head; without God, without hope—dead indeed!Truly, as one writer has said, “We lose our life when we lose our innocence; we are dead when we are guilty; we are in hell when we are in shame”.Death does not take a long time to come upon us; it comes on the very day of our sin. “In the day when thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. Before that sentence there is no hope, except in these words spoken of the seed of woman against that old serpent, Satan; “It shall bruise thy head” —the first prophecy of the wonderful gift of God’s Son.OfCAIN AND ABELwe appreciate the contrast!
The self-righteousness on the part of one; self-abasement on the part of the other. Cain’s saying, “The fruit of mine own hands shall suffice for my justification before God”; Abel saying, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission”, and that spirit of Cain dominates the early society, as we have already seen; for while the population grew rapidly, sin kept pace, and even seemed swifter still.
From self-righteousness they rushed to envy, to murder, and to lust.The Pharisee may thank God that he is not as other men are, but history is likely to demonstrate the want of occasion for his boasting, for “pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”.The most dangerous man is the man who recognizes no dependence upon another than himself; and the man most likely to be an extortioner, to be unjust, the man most apt to be an adulterer, yea, even a murderer, is this same Cain who says, “See the fruit of my hands”. The youthful Chicago murderers thought their fine family connections and their university educations would save them from suspicion and condemnation! I tell you, it is the humble man who is justified in God’s sight!The man who cries, “God be merciful to me a sinner”—rather than the man who wipes his lips and says, “I am clean”, and is offended when you talk to him of the necessity of purifying Blood in which to baptize his soul—he is the man who is justified in God’s sight.THE FIFTH CHAPTERcovers a period of about 1,500 years, and contains but one great name, not introduced in the other chapters, and this is the name of Enoch. Note that his greatness consisted in the single fact that “he walked with God”.Dr. Dixon said, “He did not try to induce God to walk with him. He simply fell in with God’s ways and work”.Some one asked Abraham Lincoln to appoint a day of fasting and prayer that God might be on the side of the Northern Army.
To this that noble President replied, “Don’t bother about what side God is on. He is on the right side.
You simply get with Him”.Enoch was an every-day hero! Walking patiently, persistently, continuously is harder than flying. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint”. Like Enoch of old, they shall not see death, for God shall take them, and before their translation they shall have this testimony that “they please God”.We have said that this fifth chapter covers 1,500 years. I call you to note the fact that it contains a multitude of names; names that even the best of Bible students do not, and cannot call. Nobody has ever committed them to memory; nobody cares to. They are not worth it.
They were given to no noble deeds; they lived and died. The only wonder we have about them is that God let some of them live so long, unless it be that we also wonder how they managed to live so long and accomplish so little.
Yet these nonentities have a part in God’s plan. They were bringing forth children; grandchildren came, and great grandchildren, and the children of great-grandchildren until Enoch was born, and by and by Noah; then the whole line was noble from Seth, Adam’s better of the living sons, down to these great names. It is worth while for a family to be continued for a thousand years, if, at the end of that time, one son can be born into the house who shall bring things to pass; one Enoch who shall walk with God; one Noah who shall save the race! There are people who are greatly distressed because their parents were neither lords, dukes nor even millionaires. They seem to think that the child who is to come to much must descend from a father of superior reputation at least. History testifies to the contrary, and shows us that the noblest are often born into unknown houses.
The most gifted sons, the most wonderful daughters have been bred by parents of whom the great world never heard until these children, by their fame, called attention to their humble fathers.The multiplied concessions that advocates of the evolution theory are obliged to make by facts they face at every turn, excite almost tender pity for them. Professor Conklin, in his volume “The Direction of Human Evolution” puts forth an endeavor in splendid defense of this hypothesis worthy of a better cause, and yet again and again he is compelled to say the things that disprove his main proposition.
Consider these words. “Think of the great men of unknown lineage, and the unknown men of great lineage; think of the close relationship of all persons of the same race; of the wide distribution of good and bad traits in the whole population; of incompetence and even feeble-mindedness in great families, and of genius and greatness in unknown families, and say whether natural inheritance supports the claims of aristocracy or of democracy.When we remember that most of the great leaders of mankind came of humble parents; that many of the greatest geniuses had the most lowly origin; that Shakespeare was the son of a bankrupt butcher and an ignorant woman who could not write her name, that as a youth he is said to have been known more for poaching than for scholarship, and that his acquaintance with the London theatres began by his holding horses for their patrons; that Beethoven’s mother was a consumptive, the daughter of a cook, and his father a confirmed drunkard; that Schuberts father was a peasant by birth and his mother a domestic servant; that Faraday, perhaps the greatest scientific discoverer of any age, was born over a stable, his father a poor sick black-smither, his mother an ignorant drudge, and his only education obtained in selling newspapers on the streets of London and later in working as apprentice to a book-binder; that the great Pasteur was the son of a tanner; that Lincoln’s parents were accounted “poor white trash” and his early surroundings and education most unpromising; and so on through the long list of names in which democracy glories— when we remember these we may well ask whether aristocracy can show a better record. The law of entail is aristocratic, but the law of Mendel is democratic”.Quaint old Thomas Fuller wrote many years ago in his “Scripture Observations”,‘I find, Lord, the genealogy of my Saviour strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations:—1. Roboam begat Abia, that is a bad father and a bad son.2. Abia begat Asa, that is a bad father a good son.3. Asa begat Josaphat, that is a good father a good son.4. Josaphat begat Joram, that is a good father a bad son.I can see, Lord, from hence that my father’s piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me.
But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son’”.It is not so much a question as to your birth, or to the line in which you are, as to the nobleness of the family tree, as it is what sort of a branch you are; what sort of a branch you may become.The Duke of Modena flung a taunt at a Cardinal in a controversy, reminding him that his father was only a swineherd of the Duke’s father. The Cardinal calmly replied, “If your father had been my father’s swineherd, you would have been a swineherd still”.In the race of life it does not make so much difference where we start as how we end.I do not mean to despise the laws of heredity.
They are somewhat fixed, wise and wonderful. The child of a good father has the better chance in this world, beyond doubt. But our plea is that no matter who the fathers are, we may so live that our offspring shall be named by all succeeding generations. I call attention to Enoch in illustration.AboutNOAHfour chapters or more enwrap themselves. God’s man has a large place in history. It is hard enough for Him to find one who is faithful, but when found He always has an important commission for him.The most important commission ever given to any man was given to this man; namely, that of saving the race.
Noah did his best, but when he saw that he was not succeeding with the outside world, he turned his hope to himself as the last resort; to his family as his possible associates. That is always the last resort.
Man must save himself, or he can save no one else. The man who saves himself by letting God save him, stands a good chance of being accepted by his own family, and his faith will doubtless find its answer in their salvation as well. Even if it fail with the outside world, that world will be compelled to remember, when God’s judgment comes, that this commissioned one did what he could for them.In Hebrews we read, “By faith Noah moved with fear prepared an ark to the saving of his house”. “The fear of man bringeth a snare”. The fear of God effects salvation. The fear of man makes a coward; the fear of God incites courage. The fear of man means defeat; the fear of God accomplishes success. Be careful whom you fear! I like the man who can tremble before the Father of all.
I pity the man who trembles before the face of every earthly foe.The story is told that two men were commissioned by Wellington to go on a dangerous errand. As they galloped along, one looked at the other, saying, “You are scared”. “Yes”, replied his comrade, “I am, but I am still more afraid not to do what the commander said”. The first turned his horse and galloped back to the General’s tent and said, “Sir, you have sent me with a coward. When I looked at him last his face was livid with fear and his form trembled like a leaf”. “Well”, said Wellington, “you had better hurry back to him, or he will have the mission performed before you get there to aid”. As the man started back he met his comrade, who said, “You need not go. I have performed the mission already”.It was through Noah that the Lord gave to humanity a fresh start.
God is always doing that. It is the meaning of every revolution—God overrules it for a fresh start.
That is the meaning of wars— they may be Satanic in origin, but God steps in often and uses for a fresh start. That is the meaning of the wiping out of nations—a fresh start, and man is always doing what he did at the first—falling again.Noah was a righteous man; with his family he made up the whole company of those who had been loyal to God, and one might vainly imagine that from such a family only deeds of honor, of valor, acts of righteousness would be known to earth. Alas for our hope in the best of men!He has scarcely set foot upon dry ground when we read, (Genesis 9:20-21), “Noah began to be a husbandman and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine, and was drunken, and he was uncovered in his tent”, and down the race went again! Man has fallen, and his nakedness is uncovered before God, and the shame of it is seen by his own blood and bone. Truly, by the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified in His sight, because our deeds are not worthy of it. Faith becomes the only foundation of righteousness.
That is what the eleventh chapter of Hebrews was written to teach us. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”, and when once a man has fixed his faith in the living God, and keeps it there, the God in whom he trusts keeps him, and that is his only hope. “For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).NIMRODthe principal personage in the tenth chapter has his offices given. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord, and he was a king.
The beginning of his kingdom by Babel and Erich, and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.Our attention has been called to the fact that before this chapter, nations are unknown, but now established government appears. Chapter 9:6 is the basis of it, and in Romans 13:2-4 we see that God set the seal of His approval upon it. Nimrod comes forth as the first autocrat and conqueror. One can almost hear the marches to and fro of the people in this chapter; cities are going up and civilization doubtless thought it was making advance, but how far it advances we shall speedily see.The things in its favor were dexterously employed. Some wise men suddenly remembered that they all had one speech and said, “We ought to make the most of it”. True, as Joseph Parker says, “Wise men are always getting up schemes that God has to bring to naught.
Worldly wise men have been responsible for the most of the confusion our civilization has seen”. Men who get together in the places of Shinar and embark in real estate, and lay out great projects and pull in unsuspecting associates, and start up tremendous enterprises, and say, under their breath, in their secret meetings, “We will get unto ourselves a great name.
We will exalt ourselves to heaven”, and after the world has done obeisance to us, we will walk among the angels and witness them bow down”; but God still lives and reigns. The men who count themselves greatest are, in His judgment, the least; and those that reckon themselves most farseeing, He reckons the most foolish; and those who propose to get into Heaven by ways of their own appointment, He shuts out altogether and drives them from His presence, and they become wandering stars, reserved for the blackness of darkness; for we must learn that self-exaltation brings God’s abasement. “He that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted”. God is willing that man shall come to Heaven but, as some one has said, “If we ever get to Heaven at all, it will not be by the dark and rickety staircases of our own invention, but on the ladder of God’s love in Christ Jesus”.God is willing that we should have a mansion, but the mansion of His desire is not the wooden or brick structure that would totter and fall, but the building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. God is willing that we should dwell in towers, but not the towers of pride and pomp, but those of righteousness wrought out for us in Christ Jesus.
Genesis 11:10-32
ABRAHAM—THE FRIEND OF GODGen_11:10 to Genesis 25:10.ONE week ago we gave this hour to a study in Genesis, our subject being, “The Beginnings”. The bird’s-eye view of ten chapters and ten verses brought us to Babel, and impressed upon us the many profitable lessons that come between the record of creation and the report of confusion.Beginning with the 10th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis (Genesis 11:10), and concluding with the 10th verse of the 25th chapter (Genesis 25:10), we have the whole history of Abraham, the friend of God; and while other important persons, such as Sarai, Hagar, Lot, Pharaoh, Abimelech, Isaac, Rebecca and even Melchisedec appear in these chapters, Abraham plays altogether the prominent part, and aside from Melchisedec, the High Priest, is easily the most important person, and the most interesting subject presented in this inspired panorama. It may be of interest to say that Abraham lived midway between Adam and Jesus, and such was his greatness that the Chaldeans, East Indians, Sabeans and Mohammedans all join with the Jew in claiming to be the offspring of Abraham; while it is the Christian’s proud boast that he is Abraham’s spiritual descendant.It is little wonder that all these contend for a kinship with him whom God deigns to call His “friend”. The man who is a friend of God is entitled to a large place in history. Fourteen chapters are none too many for his record; and hours spent in analyzing his character and searching for the secrets of his success are hours so employed as to meet the Divine approval.The problem is how to so set Abraham’s history before you as to make it at once easy of comprehension, and yet thoroughly impress its lessons. In trying to solve that question it has seemed best to call attention toTHE CALL AND THE .“Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).Did you ever stop to think of the separations involved in this call?It meant a separation from home. “From thy father’s house”.
How painful that call is, those of us who have passed through it perfectly understand; and yet many of us have gone so short a distance from home, or else have made the greater journey with such extended stops, that we know but little how to sympathize with Abraham’s more effective separation from that dear spot. To go from Chaldea to Canaan in that day, from a country with which he was familiar to one he had never seen; and from a people who were his own, to sojourn among strangers, was every whit equal to William Carey’s departure from England for India.
But as plants and flowers have to be taken from the hot-bed into the broad garden that they may best bring forth, so God lifts the subject of His affection from the warm atmosphere of home-life and sets him down in the far field that he may bring forth fruit unto Him; hence, as is written in Hebrews, Abraham had to go out, “not knowing whither he went”.This call also involves separation from kindred. “And from thy kindred”. In Chaldea, Abram had a multitude of relatives, as the 11th chapter fully shows. Upon all of these, save the members of his own house, and Lot, his brother’s son, Abram must turn his back. In the process of time the irreligion of Lot will necessitate also a separation from him. In this respect, Abraham’s call is in no whit different from that which God is giving the men and women today. You cannot respond to the call of God without separating yourself from all kin who worship at false shrines; and you cannot make the progress you ought and live in intimate relation with so worldly a professor of religion as was Lot.We may have marvelled at times that Abraham so soon separated himself from Lot, but the real wonder is that the man of God so long retained his hold upon him.
No more difficult task was ever undertaken than that of keeping in the line of service a man who, in the lust of his eyes and the purpose of his heart, has “pitched his tent toward Sodom”. It is worthy of note that so soon as Abraham was separated from Lot, the Lord said unto him,“Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place that thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever” (Genesis 13:14-15).The men of the broadest view in spiritual things, the men upon whom God has put His choicest blessing, have been from time immemorial men who have separated themselves from idolaters and pretenders that they might be the more free to respond to the call of God, and upon such, God has rested His richest favors.This call also involves separation from the Gentiles.
The Gentiles of Chaldea and the Gentiles of Canaan; from the first he was separated by distance and from the second by circumcision. God’s appeal has been and is for a peculiar people, not that they might be queer, but that He might keep them separated—unspotted from the world. God knows, O so well, how few souls there are that can mingle with the unregenerate crowd without losing their testimony and learning to speak the shibboleth of sinners. Peter was a good man; in some respects greater than Abraham; but Peter in that porch-company was a poor witness for Jesus Christ, while his profanity proved the baneful effect of fellowship with God’s enemies. The call to separation, therefore, is none other than the call to salvation, for “if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world”.But God’s calls are always attended byGOD’S .As this call required three separations with their sacrifices, so its attendant covenant contained three promised blessings. God never empties the heart without filling it again, and with better things.
God never detaches the affections from lower objects without at once attaching them to subjects that are higher; consequently call and covenant must go together.“I will make of thee a great nation”. That was the first article in His covenant.
To the Jew, that was one of the most precious promises. This ancient people delighted in progeny. The Psalmist wrote, “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate”. If our Puritan fathers, few in number and feeble as they were, could have imagined the might and multitude of their offspring, they would have found in the prospect an unspeakable pride, and a source of mighty pleasure.
It was because those fathers did, in some measure, imagine the America to come, that they were willing to endure the privations and dangers of their day; but the honor of being fathers of a nation, shared in by a half hundred of them, was an honor on which Abraham had a close corporation, for to him God said,“I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall also thy seed be numbered”.If the heart, parting from parents and home, is empty, the arms into which children have been placed are full; and homesickness, the pain of separation, is overcome when, through the grace of God, one sits down in the midst of his own.This covenant contained a further promise. “I will . . . make thy name great”. We may believe that the word “great” here refers not so much to empty honors as to merited praise.
The Jewish conception of such a promise was expressed by Solomon when he said, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches”. And, notwithstanding the fact that our age is guilty of over-estimating the value of riches, men find it difficult to underrate the value of a good name.Years ago, Jonas Chickering decided to make a better piano than had ever appeared on the market. He spared neither time nor labor in this attempt. His endeavor was rewarded in purity and truthfulness of tone as well as in simplicity of plan, and there came to him the ever-attendant result of success. His name on a piano was that instrument’s best salesman.A Massachusetts man, seeing this, went to the Massachusetts legislature and succeeded in getting them to change his name to Chickering, that he might put it upon his own instruments.As Marden said when referring to this incident, “Character has a commercial value”.And, when God promised Abraham to make his name great, He bestowed the very honor which men most covet to this hour.But the climax of His covenant is contained in this last sentence, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blest”. That is the honor of honors!
That is the success of all successes! That is the privilege of all privileges!When Mr.
Moody died some man said, “Every one of us has lost a friend”, and that speaker was right, for there is not a man in America who has not enjoyed at least an opportunity to be better because Moody lived. No matter whether the individual had ever seen him or no; had ever read one of his sermons or no; yet the tidal waves of Moody’s work have rolled over the entire land, over many lands for that matter, and even the most ignorant and debased have breathed the better atmosphere on account of him. George Davis claims that Moody traveled a million miles, and addressed a hundred million people, and dealt personally with 750,000 individuals! I think Davis’ claim is an overstatement, and yet these whom he touched personally are only a tithe of the multitudes blessed indirectly by that evangelism for which Moody stood for forty years. If today I could be privileged to make my choice of the articles of this covenant, rather than be the father of a great nation, rather than enjoy the power of a great name, I would say, “Give me the covenant that through me all the nations of the earth should be blessed”. Such would indeed be the crowning glory of a life, and such ought to be the crowning joy of a true man’s heart.In the next place, I call your attention toABRAHAM’S AND .His obedience was prompt No sooner are the call and covenant spoken than we read,“So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him” (Genesis 12:4).In that his conduct favorably contrasted with the behavior of some other of the Old Testament’s most prominent men.
Moses was in many respects a model, but he gave himself to an eloquent endeavor to show God that He was making a mistake in appointing him Israel’s deliverer. Elijah at times indulged in the same unprofitable controversy, and the story of Jonah’s criticism of the Divine appointment will be among our later studies.
I am confident that Abraham brings before every generation a much needed example in this matter. In these days, men are tempted to live too much in mathematics and to regard too lightly God’s revelations of duty. That is one of the reasons why many pulpits are empty. That is one of the reasons why many a Sunday School class is without a teacher. That is the only reason why any man in this country can say with any show of truthfulness, “No man careth for my soul”. If the congregations assembled in God’s sanctuary should go out of them, as Abram departed from his home in Haran, to fulfil all that the Lord had spoken unto them, the world would be turned upside down in a fortnight, and Christ would quickly come.In his obedience Abraham was steadfast also.
There are many men who respond to the calls of God; there are only a few who remain faithful to those calls through a long and busy life. There were battles ahead for Abram.
There were blunders in store for Abram. There were bereavements and disappointments to come. But, in spite of them all, he marched on until God gathered him to his people. I thank God that such stedfastness is not wholly strange at the present time. When we see professors of religion proving themselves shallow and playing truant before the smaller trials, and we are thereby tempted to join in Solomon’s dyspeptic lament, “All is vanity and vexation of spirit”, it heartens one to remember the history that some have made and others are making. Think of Carey and Judson, Jewett and Livingstone, Goddard and Morrison, Clough and Ashmore—men who, through long years, deprivations and persecutions, proved as faithful as was ever Abraham; and so, long as the world shall stand, stedfastness in obedience to the commands of God will be regarded highly in Heaven.
Why is it that we so much admire the company of the apostles, and why is it that we sing the praises of martyrs? “They withstood in the evil day, and having done all, stood”.Again, Abram’s obedience was inspired by faith.When he went out from Chaldea to come into Canaan, he was not yielding to reason but walking according to revelation. His action was explained in the sentence, “He believed in the Lord”.
Joseph Parker commenting on the world “believed” as here employed says, “This is the first time the word ‘believed’ occurs in the Bible. * * * * What history opens in this one word. Abram nourished and nurtured himself in God. * * * * He took the promise as a fulfilment. The word was to him a fact. The stars had new meanings to him, as, long before, the rainbow had to Noah. Abram drew himself upward by the stars. Every night they spoke to him of his posterity and of his greatness.
They were henceforward not stars only but promises and oaths and blessings”.One great need of the present-day church is a truer trust in God. Oh, for men who like Columbus can let the craft of life float out on the seas of thought and action, and look to the starry heavens for the guidance that shall land them upon newer and richer shores!
Oh, for men that will turn their ears heavenward to hear what God will say, and even though His commissions contain sacrifice will go about exercising it! Such men are never forgotten by the Father. We are not surprised to hear Him break forth in praise of Abraham, saying,“Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, m blessing 1 will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gates of the enemy, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice”.No sacrifice made in faith is ever forgotten, and when God’s rewards for service are spoken, good men always regard them more than sufficient. If you could call up today the souls of Carey, Judson, Livingstone and Morrison, and assemble Clough, Ashmore, Taylor, Powell, Clark, Richards and a hundred others worthy to stand with them, and ask them the question “Has God failed in any particular to keep with you any article of His covenant?” they would answer in a chorus, “No”. “And has God more than met the expectations of your faith?” they would reply without dissent, “Yes”. As He was faithful to our father Abraham, so He is faithful to the present-day servant.And yet Abraham, the obedient, wasGUILTY OF .Twice he lied, and the third time he approached the utmost limits of truth. He told Sarai to say she was his sister.
She was his half-sister, and so he thought to excuse himself by dissembling and keeping back a part. But a lie is not a question of words and phrases!
It may be acted as easily as spoken! When God comes to make a report upon your conduct and mine, dissembling will be labeled “falsehood”, for God does not cover up the sins of men. Somebody has asked, “Do you suppose, if the Bible had been written by some learned Doctor, revised by a committee of some eminent scholars, and published by some great ecclesiastical society, we would ever have heard of Noah’s drunkenness, of Abram’s deception, of Lot’s disgrace, of Jacob’s rascality, of the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas, or of Peter’s conduct on the porch? Not at all. But when the Almighty writes a man’s life, He tells the truth about him”.I heard a colored preacher at Cincinnati say, “The most of us would not care for a biography of ourselves, if God was to be the Author of it”. Yet the work of the Recording Angel goes on, and as surely as we read today the report of Abram’s blunders, we will be compelled to confront our own.
Let us cease, therefore, from sin.But Abram’s few blunders cannot blacken his beautiful record. The luster of his life is too positive to be easily dimmed; and like the sun, will continue to shine despite the spots.
Run through these chapters, and in every one of the fourteen you will find some touch of his true life. It was Abraham whose heart beat in sweetest sympathy with the sufferings of Hagar. It was Abraham who showed the most unselfish spirit in separating from Lot and dividing the estate. It was Abraham who opened his door to strangers in a hospitality of which this age knows all too little. It was Abram who overcame the forces of the combined kings and snatched Lot out of their hands. It was Abraham whose prayers prevailed with God in saving this same weakkneed professor out of Sodom. It was Abraham who trusted God for a child when Nature said the faith was foolish. It was Abraham who offered that same child in sacrifice at the word, not halting because of his own heart-sufferings.
It was Abraham who mourned Sarah’s death as deeply as ever any bereft bride felt her loss.The more I search these chapters, the more I feel that she was right who wrote, “A holy life has a voice. It speaks when the tongue is silent and is either a constant attraction or a continued reproof”. Put your ear close to these pages of Genesis, and if Abraham does not whisper good to your heart, then be sure that your soul is dead and you are yet in your sins.There remains time for but a brief review of these fourteen chapters in search ofTHEIR TYPES AND SYMBOLSAbram’s call is a type of the Church of Christ. The Greek word for Church means “the called-out”. Separation from the Chaldeans was essential to Abram’s access to the Father, and separation from the world is essential to the Church’s access to God and also essential to its exertion of an influence for righteousness. I believe Dr.
Gordon was right when, in “The Two-Fold Life” he said, “The truest remedy for the present-day naturalized Christianity and worldly consecration is to be found in a strenuous and stubborn non-conformity to the world on the part of Christians. With the most unshaken conviction, we believe that the Church can only make headway, in this world, by being loyal to her heavenly calling.
Towards Ritualism her cry must be ‘not a rag of popery’; towards Rationalism, ‘not a vestige of whatsoever is not of faith’; and towardsSecularism, ‘not a shred of the garment spotted by the flesh’. The Bride of Christ can only give a true and powerful testimony in this world as she is found clothed with her own proper vesture even the ‘fine linen clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints’”.Isaac’s offering is a type of God’s gift of Jesus. He was an only son and Abraham laid him upon the altar of sacrifice. And, if one say that he fails as a type because he passed not through the experience of death, let us remember what is written into Hebrews 11:17 following,“By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, *** accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him, in a figure”.It might be written in Scripture, “Abraham so believed God that he gave his only begotten son, for God’s sake”. It is written in Scripture, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.Melchisedec is a type of our High Priest, Jesus Christ. His record in Genesis 14:18-20 is brief, but the interpretation of his character in Hebrews 7 presents him as either identical with the Lord Himself, or else as one whose priesthood is the most perfect type of that which Jesus Christ has performed, and performs today for the sons of men.In Sodom, we find the type of the days of the Son of Man.
Of it the Lord said,“Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto Me”.Jesus Christ referred to that city and likened its condition to that which should obtain upon the earth at the coming of the Son of Man, saying, “As it was in the days of Lot, they did eat; they drank; they bought; they sold; they planted; they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed”.The newspapers some time ago reported great religious excitement in a Southern city through the work of two evangelists. Doctors said, “We will prescribe no more liquor for patients”, druggists said, “We will sell no more liquor as a beverage”; gamblers gave up their gambling; those called the “toughs of the town” turned to the Lord; the people of means put off their jewels, changed their frivolous clothes to plainer style; and wherever one went he heard either the singing of hymns or the utterance of prayers, and a great newspaper said this had all come about because the people in that little college town expected the speedy return of Christ.
You may call it fanaticism, if you will, and doubtless there would be some occasion, and yet call it what you may, this sentence will remain in the Scriptures, “Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh”.