home. The glitter of the gold and the silver--the offerings of a land
that lay beyond where the God of glory had called him--adorn and set off
his return. All this is so indeed. But what say we to all this? again I
ask. Is the bleating and the lowing of such flocks and herds in our ears
like the soft music of an approving conscience? or this glittering
wealth like the brightness of the divine presence which was now lost to
Abraham? I am bold to answer for Abraham, though I may not for myself,
that his spirit knew the difference. The wearied heart was but feebly
relieved by all that he brought with him from the land of Egypt, or out
of the house of Pharaoh. Sure I am of this. It could not but be so with
such a man. "He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul," must
have been his experience; and his action in the scene which immediately
succeeds, as I judge, tells us something of this.
Lot, his younger brother, or his brother's son, who had come with him
out of Ur into Canaan, now becomes the occasion of trial to Abraham, as
the famine had lately been. But faith in Abraham triumphs, I may say, to
admiration. The very style in which he gives this trial its answer seems
to say, that he will return fourfold to the life of faith for that which
nature had so lately, as it were, taken away from it. The herdmen of the
two brothers, the elder and the younger, cannot feed their flocks
together. They must separate. This was the occasion of trial which had
now arisen. But "let Lot choose," is Abraham's language. In a fine
sense, he will act on the divine oracle, "the elder shall serve the
younger." Lot may choose, and leave Abraham what portion he please. The
well-watered plains may be his; Abraham can trust the Lord of the
country, though he lose them. He may have to _dig_ wells instead of
_finding_ them; but it is better to dig for them in the strength of God,
than to find them in the way of covetousness; better, as it were, to
wait for them in Canaan, than to go after them again down to Egypt.
xiii.
This is beautiful recovery. And in this way will faith, at times,
exercise judgment on unbelief, and clear itself again. And now the Lord
visits him, as He had not, as He could not, have done in Egypt. The God
of glory, who had called Abraham into Canaan, could not go with him into
Egypt: but to the man who was surrendering the best of the land to his
younger brother, in the joy of restored confidence in God, He will
delight to show Himself.
Where, then, are we, beloved? I will ask. Where is our spirit? On which
road with Abraham are we, as at this moment, travelling? Are we knowing
Egypt in the bitterness of self-reproach, or a regained Canaan in the
joy of God's countenance? Is it a walk with God we are taking every day?
The life of faith knows the difference between the checks of the worldly
mind and the enlargements of the believing mind. Abraham knew these
things. He knew, in spirit, what Egypt was--the place of gold and of
silver, and of rebuke and death; he knew what it was to regain Ai
without an altar on the road; and he knew what it was to rest again,
with altar and tent, in the plains of Mamre.
Thus the chequered life of faith begins. But there is vastly more in it
than this. And in this variety of action in the life of faith, we notice
its _intelligence_, the exercise of the mind of Christ, or of the
spiritual sense, which discerns things that differ, which has capacity
to know times and seasons according to God. This fine endowment of the
saint we find in Abraham, in the next passage of his history.
The battle of the kings is recorded in chap. xiv. While that was a mere
contest between such, Abraham has nothing to say to it. Let the
potsherds strive with the potsherds. But as soon as he hears that his
kinsman Lot is involved in that struggle, he stirs himself.
Everything, as we read, is beautiful in its season. There is a time to
build, and a time to pull down. There was a time for Abraham to be
still, and a time for Abraham to be active; a time to be silent, and a
time to break silence. And he understood the time. Like the men of
Issachar afterwards, he knew the time, and what Israel ought to do.
God's principles were Abraham's rules. Lot was taken prisoner, and the
kinsman's part was now Abraham's duty. The battle-field in the vale of
Siddim shall be his now, as the tent had been his till now in the plains
of Mamre. The mind of God had another lesson for him than that which he
learnt while the potsherds of the earth were alone in the conflict; and
a time to break silence calls him out at the head of his trained
servants.
Excellent and beautiful indeed in a saint is this intelligence of the
mind of Christ, and beautiful is everything in its season. Out of season
the very same action is defiled and disfigured. For the _material_ of an
action is not enough to determine the _character_ of an action. It must
be _seasonable_ likewise. Elijah, from his elevation, may call down fire
from heaven on the captains and their fifties; and so, the two
witnesses, in the day of Rev. xi. But it will not do for the companions
of the lowly, rejected Jesus to act thus on the Samaritan villagers.
Luke ix. It is only in its season that anything is really right. How was
the garden of Gethsemane (made sacred as it was by the sorrows of the
Lord Jesus) disfigured by the blood which Peter's sword drew there! What
a stain on that soil, though the power of Christ was present to remove
it! But another sword was doing right service when it hewed Agag in
pieces. For when vengeance is demanded, when the trumpet of the
sanctuary sounds an alarm for war, vengeance or war will be as perfect
as grace and suffering. It is for God to determine the dispensational
way, and to make known the dispensational truth. That being done, all
life of faith is just that manner or order or character of life that is
according to it. "The duties and services of faith flow from truths
entrusted. If the truths be neglected, the duties or services cannot be
fulfilled." And the good pleasure of God, or His revealed and dispensed
wisdom, varies in changing and advancing ages. Noah, in a few
generations before Abraham, would have avenged the blood of one made in
the likeness or image of God, in the same spirit of faith, as Abraham
allowed one army of confederate kings to slay another. It is neither the
"sword" nor the "garment," as the Lord speaks in Luke xxii., that must
needs be the due instrument of service, or symbol of faith; but either
of them, according as it severally expresses the dispensational good
pleasure of God at the time.
This is much to be observed; for the distinguishing of things that
differ, and the rightly dividing of the word of God or of truth, is
expected, among other virtues, in the life of faith. Abraham was endowed
with this fine faculty. He walked in the light of that day, as God was
in the light. He knew the voice of the silver trumpet; when, as it were,
to gather to the tabernacle, and when to go forth to the battle.
But there is more than this in our patriarch at this time. Two victories
distinguish him--one over the armies of the kings, and one over the
offers of the king of Sodom.
The first of these Abraham gained, because he struck the blow exactly in
God's time. He went out to the battle neither sooner nor later than God
would have had him. He waited, as it were, till "he heard the going in
the mulberry trees." Victory was therefore sure; for the battle was the
Lord's, not his. His arm was braced by the Lord; and this victory of
Abraham's was that of an earlier sling and stone, or of the jaw-bone of
an ass, or of a Jonathan and his armour-bearer against a Philistine
host; for Abraham's was but a _band of trained servants against the
armies of four confederated kings_.
The second, still brighter than the first, was achieved in virtue of
fellowship with the very springs of divine strength. The _spirit_ of the
patriarch was in victory here, as his _arm_ had been before. He had so
drunk in the communication of the King of Salem--had so fed on the bread
and wine of that royal, priestly stranger--that the king of Sodom spread
out his feast in vain. The soul of Abraham _had been in heaven_, and he
could not return to the world.
That was his blessed experience in the valley of Shaveh. Happy soul
indeed! Oh for something more than to trace the image of it in the book!
Zaccheus, in his day, was a son of Abraham in this generation, or
according to this life and power. Zaccheus so drank in the joy and
strength that are to be known in the presence of Christ, that the world
became a dead thing to him. He had sat at table with the true
Melchizedek, and had eaten of His bread and drunk of His wine. Jesus had
spread a feast for His host at Jericho as He had in other days for
Abraham in the valley of Shaveh; and, strengthened and refreshed, this
son of Abraham, like his father of old, was able to surrender the world.
Behold, Lord, says he, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I
have wronged any man of anything by false accusation, I restore him
fourfold. He could give Abraham's answer to the king of Sodom, for he
had had Abraham's refreshment from the King of Salem.
Surely, beloved, this is the way of victory in all the saints. The
springs of strength and joy are found in Jesus. May you and I be able to
look at Him and say, "All my fresh springs are in thee." "This is the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." And what are all
conquests in God's account but such?--
"'Tis within
The fervent spirit labours. There he gains
Fresh conquests o'er himself, compared with which
The laurels that a Caesar wears are weeds."
Such, then, are the victories of faith.
But we have more still; and in the next scene, in chapter xv. we see
faith's _boldness_.
And let me ask, for our common comfort, what more precious with God
Himself than this? The intelligence of faith is bright, and its
victories glorious; but in the accounting of the God of all grace, its
boldness surpasses all.
After Abraham's victory over the world, or over the offers of the king
of Sodom, the Lord comes to him with some great pledges and promises.
After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision,
saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great
reward. xv. 1. After the heat of the preceding day, it was meet, in the
ways of grace, that Abraham should be owned again, and encouraged again.
But faith is bold, very bold, apparently aiming higher than the purposes
and undertakings of grace. And this is a wonderful moment to
contemplate. Abraham seems to throw back the words of the Lord. "I am
thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward," says the Lord. "What wilt
thou give me?" Abraham replies--"What wilt thou give me, seeing I go
childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?"
This was bold; but, blessed to say it, not too bold for the ear of the
Lord who finds His richest joy in the language of faith like this.
Good it is to have a _portion_; but Abraham sought an _object_, an
object for the heart; something far more important to us. Adam found it
so. Eden was not to him what Eve was. The garden with all its tributes
did not do for him what the helpmeet did. Eve opened his mouth; she
alone did that, because she alone had filled his heart. Christ finds it
so. The Church is more to Him than all the glory of the kingdom--as the
pearl and the treasure were more to the men who found them, than all
their possessions, for they sold all to get them. The strayed sheep, the
lost piece of silver, the prodigal son, are more to heaven--to the
Father, to the Shepherd, to the Spirit, and to angels--as occasions of
joy, than all else; just because the heart has got its object--love has
found its answer. _This_ is the mind of Christ. Affection puts the heart
on a journey; and it cannot rest, in the midst of all beside, without
its object; and it says even to the Lord and His pledges, "What wilt
thou give me, seeing I go childless?"
But bold faith this was indeed, appearing thus to throw back the words
of God. But it was precious to Him. Yea, it was precious to Him on the
highest kind of title; for faith, acting thus and craving after this
manner, spoke the way and the taste of the divine mind itself. For God
Himself looks for children, as Abraham did. It is not the spirit of
bondage that is to fill His house, but that of adoption; it is not
servants but children He will have round Him. He has "predestinated us
unto the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ, _to Himself_." He has
found in His children an object for _Himself_; and Abraham was,
therefore, but telling out the _common_ secret of his own heart, and of
the bosom of God. And at once his desire is answered; and the sight of
the starry heavens is made to pledge to the patriarch something better
than all portions and all conditions; for the Lord says to him, "So
shall thy _seed_ be."
How truly may we say, never does faith aim more justly than when it aims
high, and draws with a bold hand. Never is the mark it sets before it
more God's own purpose. "Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God," says the
prophet to the king, "ask it either in the depth, or in the height
above;" range through the divine resources, and use them. What king Ahaz
would not do, wearying the Lord by his reserve, and unbelief, and
slowness of heart, Abraham does and continues to do. His soul continues
in the same power of faith to the end of this action. He holds on in the
same track. "I'll give thee this land to inherit it," says the Lord to
him shortly afterwards. "Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?"
is his reply to the Lord. This is of the same fine character; and being
so--bespeaking the boldness of faith--it is still infinitely acceptable
with the Lord. Abraham seeks something beyond a promise. Not that he
doubted the promise. He was sure of it. It could never fail. Heaven and
earth would pass away, ere it could pass away. But "oath and blood" to
seal it were desired by Abraham. He loved _covenant_ title, and his
faith sought it; but sought no more than grace and purpose and sovereign
good-pleasure had already designed to give him.
And there lies the richest, fullest consolation. _Faith is never too
bold to please the Lord._ In the days of His flesh, He often rebuked the
reserves and suspicions of little faith, but never the strength and
decision of a faith that aimed as at everything, and would not go
without a blessing. So, the very style in which, in this fine chapter
(xv.), He answers the faith of His servant, tells us of the delight with
which He had entertained His servant's boldness. The very _style_ of the
answer speaks this in our ears; as afterwards in the case of the palsied
man in Luke v.; for there the words, "Man, thy sins be forgiven thee,"
tell how the heart of the same Lord, the God of Abraham, had been
refreshed by the faith which broke up the roof of the house without
apology, in order to reach Him. And it is the same here. When a fine,
bold, unquestioning faith sought for a child, the Lord God took Abraham
forth that very night, and, showing him the starry heavens, said to him,
"So shall thy seed be." When like faith would have the land secured by
something more than a word of promise, the same Lord pledges the
covenant by the passage of a burning lamp between the pieces of the
sacrifice.
This _style_, as I said, is full of meaning. It eloquently (may I say?)
bespeaks the divine mind. The Lord does not content Himself by merely
promising a child, as by word of mouth, or by merely giving some other
assurances to Abraham that the land shall be the inheritance of his
seed; but, in each case, He enters on certain actions, and conducts them
with such august and striking solemnities, as lets us know
instinctively, the delight with which He had listened to these demands
of faith.
Would that we knew our God as He is to be known, for His praise and our
comfort! Love delights to be used. Love is wearied with ceremoniousness.
It is, in its way, a trespasser on love's very nature, and on its
essential mode of acting. Family affection, for instance, puts ceremony
aside all the day long. Intimacy is there, and not form. Form would be
too cumbrous for it, as Saul's armour was for David. It has not proved
it, and cannot therefore wear it. Love is doing the business of the
house in one and another, and the common confidence of all allows it to
be done in love's way. So will the Lord have it with Himself. The
intimacy of faith is according to His grace, and ceremony is but a
weariness to Him.
Grace, as we sing at times, is "a sea without a shore," and we are
encouraged to launch forth with full-spread sails. The pot of oil would
have been without a bottom, had the woman's faith _still_ drawn from it;
and the king of Israel's victories would have been in quick succession,
till not a Syrian had been left to tell the tale, had his faith trod the
field of battle as one who knew it only as a field of conquest. 2 Kings
iv. and xiii. But we are straitened. The boldness of faith is too fine
an element for the niggard heart of man that cannot trust the Lord:
though, blessed to tell it, it is that which _answers_, as well as
_uses_, the boundless grace of God.
The believing mind is the happy mind; and it is the obedient mind also,
the God-glorifying mind. It is the thankful and the worshipping mind;
the mind too that keeps the saint the most in readiness for service, and
in separation from pollutions. We may be watchful, and it is right; we
may be self-judging, and it is right; we may be careful to observe the
rule of righteousness in all that we do, and it is right: but withal, to
hold the heart up in the light of the favour of God, by the exercise of
a simple, child-like, believing mind, this is what glorifies Him, this
is what answers His grace, this is what above all proves itself grateful
to Him with whom we have to do. "We have access by faith into this grace
wherein we stand." It is not attainment, it is not watchfulness, it is
not services or duties, which entitle us to take that journey, that
gives the soul entrance into that wealthy place of the divine
favour--_by faith_ we have access into this grace wherein we stand.
But we go onward still in this history, and find it rich in other
instructions and illustrations of the life of faith.
Sarah now comes forth for the first time in independent action. Chapters
xvi. xvii.
The famine had already, as we saw, tempted Abraham to seek the _land_ of
Egypt, and he got the resources of that land, with shame and sorrow, and
a wearisome journey back again to Canaan. Sarah now tempts him to seek
the _bondmaid_ of Egypt.
We know what this Egyptian bondmaid is, from the divine teaching of the
epistle to the Galatians. She is the covenant from mount Sinai, the law,
the religion of ordinances; and Sarah, in her suggestions to Abraham,
that he should take this Egyptian, represents _nature_, which always
finds its relief and its resources in flesh and blood, finds its
_religion_ there also, as well as everything else.
The Spirit had not as yet dealt with Sarah's soul. At least, we have had
no manifestation of this. She was an elect one surely; but our election
goes long before we become the subject of divine workmanship; and, as
yet, spiritual life, the life of faith, the operation of the truth on
Sarah through the Holy Ghost, had not been witnessed. She had not as yet
been spoken of by the Lord. She had not been the companion of her
husband in the exercise of his spirit before God, nor his
fellow-disciple in God's school. She was not called out with Abraham to
number the stars, or to watch the sacrifice. She was still, I may say,
in the place of _nature_; and accordingly she invites her husband to
give her seed by her Egyptian handmaid.
That is her place in this action; and Abraham becomes the saint
_betrayed by nature_, led in nature's path, surprised by a temptation
from that quarter now, as he had been before by the pressure of famine.
But all this is unbelief and departure from God. It is the way of man,
the way of nature; not of faith or of the Spirit. We naturally resort to
the law, the bondwoman, the religion of ordinances, when the _soul_
feels its need; as we naturally go down to Egypt, or seek the world,
when our _circumstances_ are needy. It is unbelief and departure from
God, as is seen even in Abraham; but to leave God and the restorings of
His grace, when the soul has need, is a more grievous offence and wrong
against Him, than to seek help as from Egypt, when our circumstances
have need. My poverty may tempt me to use shifts and contrivances, which
is bad enough; but if my conscience want healing, if breaches within
need repairing, that I may walk again in the enjoyed light of His
countenance, and I go to mere religion, or to ordinances, or to anything
but the provisions of His own sanctuary, this is still worse.
The Hagars and the Pharaohs, the bondmaids and the wealth of Egypt, are
poor resorts for the Abrahams of God. But so it has been, and so it is,
through the working of nature. But Abraham (we will now see for our
comfort) is under God's eye, though led by Sarah's suggestions. God has
His place in him as well as nature; and He will assert it for his
restoring. He rises on his soul in a fresh revelation of Himself,
demanding of His saint the fresh obedience of faith. "I am the almighty
God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." For Abraham's soul had lost
this truth, the almightiness or the all-sufficiency of God. He had gone
in to Hagar; he had taken up confidence in the flesh; he had left the
ground he had stood upon in chap. xv.; but the Lord will not and cannot
allow this; and therefore rises, in a renewed revelation of Himself, on
the spirit of His saint; and it is a rising "with healing in its wings;"
for Abraham falls on his face, convicted and abashed, and the soul is
led again in paths of righteousness.
Surely there are to this hour such moments in the history of "them that
believe," as well as of their "father Abraham." Abraham had not fallen
on his face, when the Lord appeared to him and spoke to him in chap. xv.
There he stood, conscious that he was in the light with the Lord. But
darkness had now come over his soul, and he is not ready for the Lord.
He is on his face, silent and amazed. He is not standing, urging the
suits of faith, as there; but on his face, silent and confounded. The
change in his experience is great; but there is no change in the Lord;
for it is the same love, whether He rebuke or comfort. If we walk in the
light, we have fellowship with Him; if we confess our sins, we have
forgiveness with Him; if we be able to stand before Him, He will feed
and strengthen us; if we must needs fall convicted in His presence, He
will raise us up again.
This is a fine, earnest path of the spirit of a saint. There is a deep
reality here. Departure from God proves itself to be bitterness; but God
proves Himself to the soul to be restoration and peace; and under His
gracious hand faith is afresh emboldened, and Abraham plies his suit, as
one that was again in the vigour of chap. xv., and seeks of God that
Ishmael might live before Him.
How one longs to have one's own soul formed by these blessed revelations
of grace, and the inwrought work of faith which answers them. The scene
changes; but God and the soul are together still. There is
reality--reality in the sadness and in the joy, in the light of the
divine countenance and in the hiding of our own face as in the dust.
All this may be said of the life of faith, as seen in chapters xvi.
xvii. But on entering upon the next scene of action, in chapters xviii.
xix., I would observe, that in the life of Abraham we get something
beside these exercises and illustrations of faith. _We get exhibitions
of certain divine mysteries also._
All the facts in this history are simple truths. They happened just as
recorded. But there is this twofold design in them: either to give
samples of the life of faith in a saint, or to give illustrations of
some great ways and purposes of God.
And such illustrations of the divine counsels and mysteries is the
common way of divine wisdom throughout Scripture. What was the
tabernacle or the temple but a place for the constant rehearsal of
mysteries, such as atonement and intercession, and the varied order of
God in the worship and services of His house, or in the ministry of
grace? For such were the sacrifices and the services there, the feasts,
and the holy days, and the jubilees. What, in like manner, were the
exodus, and the journey through the wilderness, and the entrance into
Canaan, the wars there, and then the throne of the peaceful one? Were
not all these, whether institutes of the sanctuary, or facts in the
history, exhibitions of the hidden, eternal counsels of the divine
bosom?