'And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live
before Thee!
GENESIS xvii. 18.
These words sound very devout, and they have often been used by
Christian parents yearning for the best interests of their children,
and sometimes of their wayward and prodigal children. But consecrated
as they are by that usage, I am afraid that their meaning, as they were
uttered, was nothing so devout and good as that which is often attached
to them.
1. Note the temper in which Abraham speaks here. The very existence of
Ishmael was a memorial of Abraham's failure in faith and patience. For
he thought that the promised heir was long in coming, and so he thought
that he would help God. For thirteen years the child had been living
beside him, winding a son's way into a father's heart, with much in his
character, as was afterwards seen, that would make a frank, daring boy
his old father's darling. Then all at once comes the divine message,
'This is not the son of the Covenant; this is not the heir of the
Promise. Sarah shall have a child, and from him shall come the
blessings that have been foretold.' And what does Abraham do? Fall down
in thankfulness before God? leap up in heart at the conviction that now
at last the long-looked-for fulfilment of the oath of God was
impending? Not he. 'O that _Ishmael_ might live before Thee. Why cannot
_he_ do? Why may he not be the chosen child, the heir of the Promise?
Take him, O God!'
That is to say, he thinks he knows better than God. He is petulant, he
resists his blessing, he fancies that his own plan is quite as good as
the divine plan. He does not want to draw away his heart from the child
that it has twined round. So he loses the blessing of the revelation
that is being made to him; because he does not bow his will, and accept
God's way instead of his own. Now, do you not think that that is what
we do? When God sends us Isaac, do we not often say, 'Take Ishmael; he
is my own making. I have set all my hopes on him. Why should I have to
wrench them all away?' In our individual lives we want to prescribe to
God, far too often, not only the _ends_, but the _way_ in which we
shall get to the ends; and we think to ourselves, 'That road of my own
engineering that I have got all staked out, that is the true way for
God's providence to take.' And when His path does not coincide with
ours, then we are discontented, and instead of submitting we go with
our pet schemes to Him; and if not in so many words, at least in spirit
and temper, we try to force our way upon God, and when He is speaking
about Isaac insist on pressing Ishmael on His notice.
It is often so in regard to our individual lives; and it is so in
regard to the united action of Christian people very often. A great
deal of what calls itself earnest contending for 'the faith once
delivered to the saints' is nothing more nor less than insisting that
methods of men's devising shall be continued, when God seems to be
substituting for them methods of His own sending; and so fighting about
externals and church polity, and determining that the world has got to
be saved in my own special fashion, and in no other, though God Himself
seems to be suggesting the new thing to me. That is a very frequent
phenomenon in the experience of Christian communities and churches.
Ishmael is so very dear. He is not the child of promise, but he is the
child that we have thought it advisable to help God with. It is hard
for us to part with him.
Dear brethren, sometimes, too, God comes to us in various providences,
and not only reduces into chaos and a heap of confusion our nicely
built-up little houses, but He sometimes comes to us, and lifts us out
of some lower kind of good, which is perfectly satisfactory to us, or
all but perfectly satisfactory, in order to give to us something nobler
and higher. And we resist that too; and do not see why Ishmael should
not serve God's turn as he has served ours; or think that there is no
need at all for Isaac to come into our lives. God never takes away from
us a lower, unless for the purpose of bestowing upon us a higher
blessing. Therefore not to submit is the foolishest thing that men can
do.
But if that be anything like an account of the temper expressed by this
saying, is it not strange that murmuring against God takes the shape of
praying? Ah! there is a great deal of 'prayer' as it calls itself,
which is just moulded upon this petulant word of Abraham's momentarily
failing faith and submission. How many people think that to pray means
to bring their wishes to God, and try to coax Him to make them His
wishes! Why, half the shallow sceptical talk of this generation about
the worthlessness of prayer goes upon that fundamental fallacy that the
notion of prayer is to dictate terms to God; and that unless a man gets
his wishes answered he has no right to suppose that his prayers are
answered. But it is not so. Prayer is not after the type of 'O that
Ishmael might live before Thee!' That is a poor kind of prayer of which
the inmost spirit is resistance to a clear dictate of the divine will;
but the true prayer is, 'O that I may be willing to take what Thou art
willing, in Thy mercy and love, to send!'
I believe in importunate prayer, but I believe also that a great deal
of what calls itself importunate prayer is nothing more than an
obstinate determination not to be satisfied with what satisfies God. If
a man has been bringing his wishes--and he cannot but have
such--continuously to God, with regard to any outward things, and these
have not been answered, he needs to look very carefully into his own
temper and heart in order to make sure that what seems to be waiting
upon God in importunate petition is not pestering Him with refused
desires. To make a prayer out of my rebellion against His will is
surely the greatest abuse of prayer that can be conceived. And when
Abraham said, 'O that Ishmael might live before Thee!' if he said it in
the spirit in which I think he did, he was not praying, but he was
grumbling.
2. And then notice, still further, how such a temper and such a prayer
have the effect of hiding joy and blessing from us.
This was the crisis of Abraham's whole life. It was the moment at which
his hundred years nearly of patient waiting were about to be rewarded.
The message which he had just received was the most lovely and gracious
word that ever had come to him from the heavens, although many such
words had come. And what does he do with it? Instead of falling down
before God, and letting his whole heart go out in jubilant gratitude,
he has nothing to say but 'I would rather that Thou didst it in another
way. It is all very well to speak about sending this heir of promise. I
have no pleasure in that, because it means that my Ishmael is to be
passed by and shelved.' So the proffered joy is turned to ashes, and
Abraham gets no good, for the moment, out of God's greatest blessing to
him; but all the sky is darkened by mists that come up from his own
heart.
Brethren, if you want to be miserable, perk up your own will against
God's. If you want to be blessed, acquiesce in all that He does send,
in all that He has sent, and, by anticipation, in all that He will
send. For, depend upon it, the secret of finding sunbeams in everything
is simply letting God have His own way, and making your will the
sounding-board and echo of His. If Abraham had done as he ought to have
done, that would have been the gladdest moment of his life. You and I
can make out of our deepest sorrows the occasions of pure, though it is
quiet, gladness, if only we have learned to say, 'Not my will, but Thy
will be done.' That is the talisman that turns everything into gold,
and makes sorrow forget its nature, and almost approximate to solemn
joy.
3. My last word is this: God loves us all too well to listen to such a
prayer.
Abraham's passionate cry was so much empty wind, and was like a straw
laid across the course of an express train, in so far as its power to
modify the gracious purpose of God already declared was concerned. And
would it not be a miserable thing if we could deflect the solemn,
loving march of the divine Providence by these hot, foolish, purblind
wishes of ours, that see only the nearer end of things, and have no
notion of where their further end may go, or what it may be?
Is it not better that we should fall back upon this thought, though, at
first sight, it seems so to limit the power of petition, 'We know that
if we ask anything according to His will He heareth us'? There is
nothing that would more wreck our lives than if what some people want
were to be the case--that God should let us have our own way, and give
us serpents because we asked for them and fancied they were eggs; or
let us break our teeth upon bestowed stones because, like whimpering
children crying for the moon, we had asked for them under the delusion
that they were bread.
Leave all that in His hands; and be sure of this, that the true way to
peace, to rest, to gladness, and to wringing the last drop of possible
sweetness out of gifts and losses, disappointments and fruitions, is to
have no will but God's will enthroned above and in our own wills. If
Abraham had acquiesced and submitted, Ishmael and Isaac would have been
a pair to bless his life, as they stood together over his grave. And if
you and I will leave God to order all our ways, and not try to
interfere with His purposes by our short-sighted dictation, 'all things
will work together for good to us, because we love God,' and lovingly
accept His will and His law.
'BECAUSE OF HIS IMPORTUNITY'
'And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward
Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the
way. And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that
thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become
a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the
earth shall be blessed in him! For I know him, that he
will command his children and his household after him,
and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice
and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that
which He hath spoken of him. And 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; and if not, I will know.
And the men turned their faces from thence, and went
toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the Lord.
And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt Thou also destroy
the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be
fifty righteous within the city: wilt Thou also destroy
and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that
are therein? That be far from Thee to do after this
manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that
the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from
Thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous
within the city, then I will spare all the place for
their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold now,
I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am
but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five
of the fifty righteous: wilt Thou destroy all the city
for lack of five? And He said, If I find there forty
and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto Him
yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty
found there. And He said, I will not do it for forty's
sake. And he said unto Him, Oh let not the Lord be angry,
and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be
found there. And He said, I will not do it, if I find
thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon
me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be
twenty found there. And He said, I will not destroy it
for twenty's sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be
angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure
ten shall be found there. And He said, I will not destroy
it for ten's sake. And the Lord went His way, as soon as
He had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned
unto his place.'--GENESIS xviii. 16-33.
I
The first verse of this chapter says that 'the Lord appeared' unto
Abraham, and then proceeds to tell that 'three men stood over against
him,' thus indicating that these were, collectively, the manifestation
of Jehovah. Two of the three subsequently 'went toward Sodom,' and are
called 'angels' in chapter xix. 1. One remained with Abraham, and is
addressed by him as 'Lord,' but the three are similarly addressed in
verse 3. The inference is that Jehovah appeared, not only in the one
'man' who spake with Abraham, but also in the two who went to Sodom.
In this incident we have, first, God's communication of His purpose to
Abraham. He was called the friend of God, and friends confide in each
other. 'The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,' and it is
ever true that they who live in amity and communion with God thereby
acquire insight into His purposes. Even in regard to public or
so-called 'political' events, a man who believes in God and His moral
government will often be endowed with a 'terrible sagacity,' which
forecasts consequences more surely than do godless politicians. In
regard to one's own history, it is still more evidently true that the
one way to apprehend God's purposes in it is to keep in close
friendship with Him. Then we shall see the meaning of the else
bewildering whirl of events, and be able to say, 'He that hath wrought
us for the selfsame thing is God.' But the reason assigned for
intrusting Abraham with the knowledge of God's purpose is to be noted.
It was because of his place as the medium of blessing to the nations,
and as the lawgiver to his descendants. God had 'known him,'--that is,
had lovingly brought him into close relations with Himself, not for his
own sake only, but, much more, that he might be a channel of grace to
Israel and the world. His 'commandment' to his descendants was to lead
to their worship of Jehovah and their upright living, and these again
to their possession of the blessings promised to Abraham. That purpose
would be aided by the knowledge of the judgment on Sodom, its source,
and its cause, and therefore Abraham was admitted into the
council-chamber of Jehovah. The insight given to God's friends is given
that they may more fully benefit men by leading them into paths of
righteousness, on which alone they can be met by God's blessings.
The strongly figurative representation in verses 20, 21, according to
which Jehovah goes down to ascertain whether the facts of Sodom's sin
correspond to the report of it, belongs to the early stage of
revelation, and need not surprise us, but should impress on us the
gradual character of the divine Revelation, which would have been
useless unless it had been accommodated to the mental and spiritual
stature of its recipients. Nor should it hide from us the lofty
conception of God's long-suffering justice, which is presented in so
childlike a form. He does 'not judge after ... the hearing of His
ears,' nor smite without full knowledge of the sin. A later stage of
revelation puts the same thought in language less strange to us, when
it teaches that 'the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are
weighed,' and in His balances many a false estimate, both of virtuous
and vicious acts, is corrected, and retribution is always exactly
adjusted to the deed.
But the main importance of the incident is in the wonderful picture of
Abraham's intercession, which, in like manner, veils, under a strangely
sensuous representation, lofty truths for all ages. It is to be noted
that the divine purpose expressed in 'I will go down now, and see,' is
fulfilled in the going of the two (men or angels) towards Sodom;
therefore Jehovah was in them. But He was also in the One before whom
Abraham stood. The first great truth enshrined in this part of the
story is that the friend of God is compassionate even of the sinful and
degraded. Abraham did not intercede for Lot, but for the sinners in
Sodom. He had perilled his life in warfare for them; he now pleads with
God for them. Where had he learned this brave pity? Where but from the
God with whom he lived by faith? How much more surely will real
communion with Jesus lead _us_ to look on all men, and especially on
the vicious and outcast, with His eyes who saw the multitudes as sheep
without a shepherd, torn, panting, scattered, and lying exhausted and
defenceless! Indifference to the miseries and impending dangers of
Christless men is impossible for any whom He calls 'not servants, but
friends.'
Again, we are taught the boldness of pleading which is permitted to the
friend of God, and is compatible with deepest reverence. Abraham is
keenly conscious of his audacity, and yet, though he knows himself to
be but dust and ashes, that does not stifle his petitions. His was the
holy 'importunity' which Jesus sent forth for our imitation. The word
so rendered in Luke xi. 8, which is found in the New Testament there
only, literally means 'shamelessness,' and is exactly the disposition
which Abraham showed here. Not only was he persistent, but he increased
his expectations with each partial granting of his prayer. The more God
gives, the more does the true suppliant expect and crave; and rightly
so, for the gift to be given is infinite, and each degree of possession
enlarges capacity so as to fit to receive more, and widens desire. What
contented us to-day should not content us to-morrow.
Again, Abraham is bold in appealing to a law to which God is bound to
conform. 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' is often
quoted with an application foreign to its true meaning. Abraham was not
preaching to men trust that the most perplexing acts of God would be
capable of full vindication if we knew all, but he was pleading with
God that His acts should be plainly accordant with the idea of justice
planted by Him in us. The phrase is often used to strengthen the
struggling faith that
'All is right which seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will.'
But it means not 'Such and such a thing must be right because God has
done it,' but 'Such and such a thing is right, therefore God must do
it.' Of course, our conceptions of right are not the absolute measure
of the divine acts, and the very fact which Abraham thought contrary to
justice is continually exemplified in Providence, that 'the righteous
should be as the wicked' in regard to earthly calamities affecting
communities. So far Abraham was wrong, but the spirit of his
remonstrance was wholly right.
Again, we learn the precious lesson that prayer for others is a real
power, and does bring down blessings and avert evils. Abraham did not
here pray for Lot, but yet 'God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of
the midst of the overthrow'(chap. xix. 29), so that there had been
unrecorded intercession for him too. The unselfish desires for others,
that exhale from human hearts under the influence of the love which
Christ plants in us, do come down in blessings on others, as the
moisture drawn up by the sun may descend in fructifying rain on far-off
pastures of the wilderness. We help one another when we pray for one
another.
The last lesson taught is that 'righteous' men are indeed the 'salt of
the earth' not only preserving cities and nations from further
corruption, but procuring for them further existence and probation. God
holds back His judgments so long as hope of amendment survives, and
'will not destroy for the ten's sake.'