Genesis 12:1

THE PILGRIM FATHER

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee.’

Genesis 12:1

Abraham was the father of the faithful, and we have here the first recorded test to which his faith was put. The first and one of the greatest.

I. The Substance of God’s call to Abraham.— (a) He was called from rest to pilgrimage.—From his country and kindred and father’s house, to undertake lifelong journeying. He was at an age at which he would fain rest. His wanderings seemed to be begun at the wrong end of his life. But it was then God said, ‘Get thee out.’ It is as life advances that the idea of journeying, ‘getting out,’ comes home to men. The child rests in his home; but the outside world, with its responsibilities, self-direction and support, begins at last to open to him, and he must ‘get out.’ So with resting among old friends, etc. We must one day ‘get out.’ As years increase, all things seem in constant flow. Then at death. Above all, hear God’s voice telling you to set out on the Christian pilgrimage.

(b) He was called from the familiar to the untried.—The child’s familiarity with his environment is never attained to in after years. ‘New faces, other minds’ meet men’s eyes and souls; and they know, however peaceful their lot may be, that they are not in the old, familiar home. But let us extend our idea of home. The lifelong invalid would feel from home in another room of the same home. Let God be our home, the great house in which we live and move about; then wherever He is, we shall feel at home. Most so when we leave the lower room altogether to be ‘at home with the Lord’ above.

(c) He was called from sight to faith.—From the portion he had in his country and in his father’s house, to wait at all times on the unseen God, and go to the land which He would show him. Let us willingly make this exchange. God is better than country, and kindred, and father’s house.

II. The Characteristics of God’s Call to Abraham.— (a) It laid clearly before him all that he was to surrender.—How full and attractive the picture is made to Abraham’s last sight of it; ‘thy country, kindred,’ etc. So, when from duty and loyalty to Christ, we make sacrifices, etc., the possessions will often seem peculiarly fascinating, just when we are to part with them.

(b) It was uncompromising.—‘Get thee out,’ with no promise or prospect of ever returning. The gifts of God are never repeated in exactly the same form. The pleasures of sin must be left ungrudgingly and for ever.

(c) It was urgent.—‘Get thee out.’ Now. ‘Abraham departed, as the Lord had spoken to him.’ Let us give the same ready, instant obedience.

Illustration

‘Only a few generations after the awful warning of the Flood, the earth had again become corrupt. But it was not corrupt in quite the same sense. Before the Flood it was sensually corrupt; after the Flood it became religiously corrupt; violence was the earlier sin, idolatry the later. So God’s dealings differed. Idolatry put in peril the primary truths of His revelation to men, upon which the moral well-being of the human race rested. God therefore took measures for preserving these imperilled truths; and His plan was, to select a man, whose characteristic quality was “religious faith,” and make him, and his race, treasure-keepers for humanity, until the “fulness of times” should come. God wanted some one to take care of the two truths of His unity, and His spirituality; and our lesson tells us how He called Abram to this work, and how well fitted he was to undertake it. Abram kept these two great truths safe for us.’