(Heb. 11:8-10,17-198By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:8‑10)
17By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: 19Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. (Hebrews 11:17‑19).)
The faith of Abraham, bearing as it does the very same characteristics as our own faith, is a study full of instruction for us; his difficulties, prod need for the most part by his failure, are also such as we often have to encounter, whether in pursuing the path of faith or in our deviations there from.
What then was the object of Abraham's call? It was to be a witness for God against that independence which man had declared in the building of Babel. Noah had been the witness to the time of Abraham; but Abraham's call was altogether of faith, a witness for
God against the evil and in opposition to the evil. The first action of faith was to leave his country and all associations of the flesh. That was his starting point, and next he becomes a stranger in the land of promise, and is there by faith sustained of God.
Thus is it with the believer. He is called from the associations of nature, characterized only by human independence and is introduced into a region where he is as yet only a stranger, and where the most thorough and entire dependence on God is necessary. We have not yet got the inheritance, though the Spirit gives us the earnest of it, as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; but we are still strangers. A man in his own country would not be a stranger there. Abraham was not a stranger in the land of the Chaldees, but in Canaan he was such; and still further, he could only continue there by faith. If he lose his faith, for one moment, he is worse off than if he had never got there at all. So with us; God has done all for us-He has raised us up and seated us in heavenly places with His own Son; but if we do not maintain that position in the power of faith, we shall be worse off, to all intents and purposes, than if we had not known it.
I am not only to leave my own country, but to go to my own place, that place where, so to speak, God has exhausted all the activity of His love. Love is never satisfied until it has done its utmost for its object, and human love knows the pain and distress which the inability to do this causes; but God, infinite in power as well as love, can and does the utmost. He has exhausted all the demands which love made on His heart, and He can do no more for us. He gave Christ; called us into fellowship with Him; raised us up with Him. What more could He do? In Ephesians the apostle does not pray for the saints to know the activities of love; he knew that it was there exhausted, as it were, that is, that it had done all its part, all that it could do for its object; but he prays that the souls of the saints already called up into the heavenlies might rest there, that their eyes being opened practically to realize the position which love had brought them into, as recorded in Eph, they might rest knowing this love. (Chapter 3)
Every Christian knows, more or less, the love that has acted towards him, but it is another thing to know where that love has brought me to; and if I do not know this I shall be floundering. So the apostle prays that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened "to know what is the hope of his calling," &e. And what is this? Not that we shall be, but that we ARE, raised up with Christ. Am I, then, in heaven? Yes. God tells me that is my position. Is glory come? No; I must know very little of the pressure of the world if I think it has; but if not, we have heaven by faith, and if not maintained there practically by faith, I shall be worse off than ever; I shall become a Lot! A miserable spectacle was Abraham when he lost his faith. Seeing a difficulty, he was unprepared to meet it, for never was a person prepared by faith for a difficulty found unable to meet it; and many have to encounter difficulties simply because they do not set themselves to meet them. Abraham's position in the land of Canaan was very different to that of Israel's. Israel was in possession, but Abraham dwelt in the land without possessing so much as a foot in it, and was sustained therein as long as his faith failed not; but whenever it does fail, he either wanders from it, or gets into trouble in it. Once he drops his faith and goes into Egypt, and what is the result? He has to come back, and begin over again: that was one character of failure. If the soul does not draw from the resources of God, it goes down elsewhere for help. Again he deviates from the path of faith, and falls into ordinances, or human arrangements, as in the case of Hagar and Ishmael: that was another order. The soul drops its living link with God; and how much sorrow and trouble did he thereby bring on himself! If a Christian drops from the walk of faith, he either becomes worldly or engaged with his own works. Nature cannot depend on God doing better for us than we can do for ourselves; it will crave after plan and fret itself to accomplish its own way, all the while proving that we have lost our dependence on God. Abraham with shame has to retrace his steps, but God did not give him up, though he disciplined him. If He had, Abraham would have become a Lot, and there would have been no recovery or blessing, for Lot never again takes his place in Canaan.
But it is of Abraham's faith, rather than of his failures, that I desire to speak.
Let us turn and look at the action of faith, and the character of blessing which walking therein gives. Supposing, then, that while firmly treading this blessed path so happy for oneself, and so glorifying to God, I meet a Lot, who is looking about for something for nature, what shall I say to him? " Take what you like best: I want nothing. I can afford to give up all; for I know what I have in God. His love is, as it were, exhausted on me. What more do I need?" But when trouble comes upon Lot, and he is taken prisoner in the meshes he had laid for himself, then is the moment for service, as far as I am concerned. Abraham puts his life in his hand, summoning together all the resources of his house for this one occasion to deliver his brother, just as we, when on firm footing ourselves, can turn round and pull another out of the mire. Could we do so if we were in the mire ourselves? No; but if walking in faith, we can come forth, armed and ready, using all our means to declare all God's goodness, in the power of having experienced it ourselves. And what is our reward? The blessing of Melchizedek.
What a place of service the path of faith puts us in! Lot knew neither the service nor the blessing. Instead of being on the sure ground and the firm position, which would have left him free to help others, he needed help for himself. We cannot wash the feet of another unless the Lord has washed our feet. Neither can we do so rightly unless we follow the manner as well as the act of His service to us. Why is it that, when we wish to correct a fault in another, we only offend him? Because we do it not as the Lord has done it to ourselves; we have not learned His manner: if we had, it would be rehearsing the blessedness of it to our own souls. It was thus with Abraham; and the result is, Melchizedek meets him in the way returning from his honorable service. God reveals His mind to the soul that is walking in faith. If I have not God's mind, it is because I am not walking where God can meet me. Nothing gratifies Him so much as for a soul to depend on Him; for it is to say to Him, " I look to you, because I know you care for me, and I can cast all my care on you."
To continue. God reveals Himself to Abraham in a special way after his rejecting the offers of the King of Sodom. " I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." And Abraham replies, " What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless," &c. He craved the promised seed. " What were all else to me," be says, " if I have no son:" because God had made that the center around which all His promises were to revolve. Position would be nothing to us without the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. All our blessings center in Him. And whatever the scope of our blessing, we never could enjoy it solitarily. Heaven would not be happiness to us without Christ. Why is man alone down here? Because he cannot trust anybody. But we can trust the Lord Jesus entirely, knowing at the same time all the anxious tenderness of His love. He is the only one we can rest in. He is up there as the perpetuity of our blessing; and we are raised up to sit with Him in the heavenly places. Everything really from God to us in this world is through our Lord Jesus Christ. All God's mercies reach us through Him. The mercies or gifts may be removed from us; but He-never I Are we prepared for every mercy we possess to pass into death? Do we only enjoy it as received in a figure from death? This is what faith teaches us, as it taught Abraham-to view everything, though existing, as akin to death. God takes away Jonah's gourd and he is angry; but if I am prepared to let all die, I am walking up to the mark, as Abraham did, when by faith he " offered up his only-begotten son, of whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. Accounting that God was able to raise him up from the dead, from whence also he received hint in a figure." The greater the mercy, the greater the death. What terrible rending of soul there is in the ascent of Mount Moriah! How one shrinks from it, and puts off the evil day; and when it does come, how we fret, like Jonah, that such a thing should come. Yet not so with Abraham, his faith bore him through it; and in the power of the like faith we, too, may ascend, and see Jesus all the way; and if we do, we shall be able to say, " My only son is dead, but I have lost nothing; Jesus is mine, and I shall receive what I have lost in resurrection." What a thing to be able to hold all as liable to death; but to have my own soul at the other side of death in life and joy. All we take up will have to pass through death; yea, even all that God gives us; the more perfect the gift, the more sorrow on account of its not being permanent; for we want permanency with perfection. " I do well to be angry," said Jonah, when he lost his gourd. But what had he to learn? The sympathies of God; His love and tenderness to His creation down here, which he never had, even for himself, an idea of before.
If the Lord brings to an end what we are resting in, He always conducts to a higher scene. Moses on Pisgah had a much brighter view of Canaan than if his thought of entering it had not come to an end; and he stepped from it to the mount of transfiguration. Was there ever so happy a man as Paul We have the practical expression of the place he was in in the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians, the position and the condition; and that was when all that his heart had been set on here had come to an end. God will never keep His mercies back from us; but we know little of the manner of His love with us; and the very gourd that engages our affections may be that which must come down, in order to teach us His love.
To conclude, if we know our position we shall be better prepared for service, and better prepared for glory. If we want to serve the Lots we must walk by faith, holding our position, because then we enjoy the climax of God's love; and if we want glory we must pass on to it through resurrection. For twenty-two years Abraham and Isaac were in the happy enjoyment of one another. God demanded him of Abraham in the full bloom of life, just to teach him the lesson of death and resurrection. Does God thus deprive us of mercies in order that we may feel how dreary is the valley of the shadow of death? Nay, but to make it the brighter. All these terrible breaks are but to show us more of our infinite resources in Jesus. Oh! if our hearts could reckon more on the heart of Christ, and know so well the shelter of His love, that if a storm comes and sweeps away everything that comforts, (as a feather from God's wing,) we may know where to look, seeing Jesus everywhere, restoring it in resurrection, as Lazarus was restored to his sisters. Then the walk of faith is happy dependence on God.