To Abraham there came a divine call to leave his country for the land that would be shown him. Why could he not have done God’s work just as well at home? The answer to that takes us into the heart of God’s method for the education of the world. God teaches His deepest lessons to men by election. Of course, what is meant is not election to special and unshared privilege, but selection for work, for service.
In the same way, God prepares and develops nations for His purposes. He takes Israel and isolates it; then He causes it to reject surrounding idolatries; then He deepens its hold on Him; and so He fits it for the supreme vocation of teaching and revealing His message to the world. This is the true election. The soldier is elected, not to wear a special uniform but to serve his country. The scholar is elected, not to monopolize his learning but to break its bread to others. So it was with Abraham. It was not God’s purpose to be Abraham’s private God but that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
One thing was indispensable: the separation of the elected people. Here, precisely, the significance of Abraham’s call appears. In it, God isolates Israel for His higher purposes. He summons the people to come to school with Him. So, further, the bondage in Egypt was God’s cementing of the nation into one; for nothing unites like a common experience of trial. And the wandering in the wilderness was God’s leading of the nation to lean only on Him; for in a wilderness there is neither art nor culture to divert the homage men must render to Jehovah. The divine education of Israel began with Abraham’s call: “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.”
At the capture of a famous city, the heights were scaled first by one courageous man. Then, reaching down his bayonet, he pulled up a comrade; and he, in turn, pulled up the next, until the whole battalion stood on the crest, and the city was triumphantly won.
So Abraham pioneered the soldiery of Faith. Long before Muller, Carey, Luther, Paul, the son of Terah–father of the faithful–leads the van. What is this faith, of whose peerage Abraham stands as head? It is deliberate preference of the Unseen, an utter loyalty to the will of God. The farmer sows his seed, trusting in a harvest as yet unseen. We step into a plane, trusting in pilots and mechanics by us unseen. Our entire life pivots on faith. Why not lift that faith to its highest object–God? So many so-called “securities” turn out insecure, so many planes are wrecked, so many people whom we consider incorruptible snap like brittle reeds. God is the one Trustee who cannot fail. Though He bid you jump through a stone wall, you must obey. The jumping is your part, but the getting you through is God’s part.
O heart that shrinketh back appalled,
So fearful Duty’s way and steep,
Know that whoe’er God’s voice hath called,
His hand will keep.
“I know whom I have believed,” writes Paul from Nero’s dungeon, his worn fingers trembling, and a tear falling on the page, “and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).
The Old Testament is sometimes spoken of as though it manifested God’s severity and sternness unrelieved. But a deep current of divine gentleness flows through it too. That appears early in one of the familiar designations of Abraham–“The Friend of God.” What a tender word is friend! Acquaintance? No; you only recognise him on the street. Companion? No; you only eat bread with him. That is what the word “companion” literally means. But friend! That involves such a union of souls that Aristotle’s definition of friendship becomes literally true: “One soul inhabiting two bodies.” No discords or misunderstandings; but hearts, affections, sympathies all throbbing as one! What a gift of God is such a friend! Nobody has rightly reckoned up his riches till he has counted in such friends. “What is the secret of your life?” asked Mrs. Browning of Charles Kingsley: “Tell me, that I may make mine beautiful too.” Kingsley simply said: “I had a friend.”
Friendship has its duties also. “Your sincere friend,” said Wordsworth in a letter to Sir Walter Scott, “for such I sign myself, though slow to use a word of such solemn meaning to anyone.” One harsh word from a friend may give greater pain than a torrent of abuse from an enemy. And so God, through His very love towards us, is wounded by our sins. For the sake of the friendship we claim with God, let us cast away our sins. Noblesse Oblige!
A general appealed to his men in vain. They defied his order to advance. They faced round to retreat. The road lay between huge rocks on one side and a roaring river on the other; the footway was only broad enough for a single soldier to pass at once. The general lay down, himself, across the path, crying to his men: “If you will retreat, you shall cross my body, trampling me to death.” Not a foot would stir. They could not do it towards one who had heartened them so long.
Jesus Christ lays Himself before us on the narrow way and cries: “If by one sin, you will be disloyal to the divine Friendship, you must trample over Me!” Although it is written in a very different context, could not the following verse stand as a sentinel to warn us of the danger of disregarding such a friendship as our Lord’s? “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy, of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God?”