The Fires of Strife (and other devotionals)

Exodus 22:6

If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

But what restitution can he make who casts abroad the fire-brands of error, or the coals of lasciviousness, and sets men's souls on a blaze with the fire of hell? The guilt is beyond estimate, and the result is irretrievable. If such an offender be forgiven, what grief it will cause him in the retrospect, since he cannot undo the mischief which he has done! An ill example may kindle a flame which years of amended character cannot quench. To burn the food of man is bad enough, but how much worse to destroy the soul! It may be useful to us to reflect how far we may have been guilty in the past, and to enquire whether, even in the present, there may not be evil in us which has a tendency to bring damage to the souls of our relatives, friends, or neighbours. The fire of strife is a terrible evil when it breaks out in a Christian church. Where converts were multiplied, and God was glorified, jealousy and envy do the devil's work most effectually. Where the golden grain was being housed, to reward the toil of the great Boaz, the fire of enmity comes in and leaves little else but smoke and a heap of blackness. Woe unto those by whom offences come. May they never come through us, for although we cannot make restitution, we shall certainly be the chief sufferers if we are the chief offenders. Those who feed the fire deserve just censure, but he who first kindles it is most to blame. Discord usually takes first hold upon the thorns; it is nurtured among the hypocrites and base professors in the church, and away it goes among the righteous, blown by the winds of hell, and no one knows where it may end. O Thou Lord and giver of peace, make us peacemakers, and never let us aid and abet the men of strife, or even unintentionally cause the least division among Thy people.

~Charles Spurgeon~

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Food and Rest

"I will feed My flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the LORD God"   (Ezekiel 34:15).

Under the divine shepherdry saints are fed to the full. Theirs is not a windy, unsatisfying mess of mere human "thought," but the LORD feeds them upon the solid, substantial truth of divine revelation. There is real nutriment for the soul in Scripture brought home to the heart by the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself is the true life-sustaining Food of believers. Here our Great Shepherd promises that such sacred nourishment shall be given us by His own self. If, on the LORD's Day, our earthly shepherd is empty-handed, the LORD is not. When filled with holy truth the mind rests. Those whom Jehovah feeds are at peace. No dog shall worry them, no wolf shall devour them, no restless propensities shall disturb them. They shall lie down and digest the food which they have enjoyed. The doctrines of grace are not only sustaining but consoling: in them we have the means for building up and lying down. If preachers do not give us rest, let us look to the LORD for it. This day may the LORD cause us to feed in the pastures of the Word and make us to lie down in them. May no folly and no worry but meditation and peace mark this day.

~Charles Spurgeon~

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Song of Solomon 2:3

His fruit was sweet to my taste.

Faith, in the Scripture, is spoken of under the emblem of all the senses. It is sight: "Look unto me and be ye saved." It is hearing: "Hear, and your soul shall live." Faith is smelling: "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia"; "thy name is as ointment poured forth." Faith is spiritual touch. By this faith the woman came behind and touched the hem of Christ's garment, and by this we handle the things of the good word of life. Faith is equally the spirit's taste. "How sweet are Thy words to my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my lips." "Except a man eat my flesh," saith Christ, "and drink my blood, there is no life in him." This "taste" is faith in one of its highest operations. One of the first performances of faith is hearing. We hear the voice of God, not with the outward ear alone, but with the inward ear; we hear it as God's Word, and we believe it to be so; that is the "hearing" of faith. Then our mind looketh upon the truth as it is presented to us; that is to say, we understand it, we perceive its meaning; that is the "seeing" of faith. Next we discover its preciousness; we begin to admire it, and find how fragrant it is; that is faith in its "smell." Then we appropriate the mercies which are prepared for us in Christ; that is faith in its "touch." Hence follow the enjoyments, peace, delight, communion; which are faith in its "taste." Any one of these acts of faith is saving. To hear Christ's voice as the sure voice of God in the soul will save us; but that which gives true enjoyment is the aspect of faith wherein Christ, by holy taste, is received into us, and made, by inward and spiritual apprehension of His sweetness and preciousness, to be the food of our souls. It is then we sit "under His shadow with great delight," and find His fruit sweet to our taste.

~Charles Spurgeon~

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Acts 8:37

If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.

These words may answer your scruples, devout reader, concerning the ordinances. Perhaps you say, "I should be afraid to be baptized; it is such a solemn thing to avow myself to be dead with Christ, and buried with Him. should not feel at liberty to come to the Master's table; I should be afraid of eating and drinking damnation unto myself, not discerning the Lord's body." Ah! poor trembler, Jesus has given you liberty, be not afraid. If a stranger came to your house, he would stand at the door, or wait in the hall; he would not dream of intruding unbidden into your parlour-he is not at home: but your child makes himself very free about the house; and so is it with the child of God. A stranger may not intrude where a child may venture. When the Holy Ghost has given you to feel the spirit of adoption, you may come to Christian ordinances without fear. The same rule holds good of the Christian's inward privileges. You think, poor seeker, that you are not allowed to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; if you are permitted to get inside Christ's door, or sit at the bottom of His table, you will be well content. Ah! but you shall not have less privileges than the very greatest. God makes no difference in His love to His children. A child is a child to Him; He will not make him a hired servant; but he shall feast upon the fatted calf, and shall have the music and the dancing as much as if he had never gone astray. When Jesus comes into the heart, He issues a general licence to be glad in the Lord. No chains are worn in the court of King Jesus. Our admission into full privileges may be gradual, but it is sure. Perhaps our reader is saying, "I wish I could enjoy the promises, and walk at liberty in my Lord's commands." "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." Loose the chains of thy neck, O captive daughter, for Jesus makes thee free.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Gospel According to Paul # 3

In His Letter to the Romans (continued)

The Range of the Term "The Gospel"

Now as to our present method in the pages which follow. I would ask you to follow me carefully, and to grasp what I am trying to say by way of the foundation of this word. We are going to pursue what I am going to call the "resultant" method: that is, to elicit and conclusion of the whole matter, rather than the particular aspect of any one portion of the New Testament.

Let me illustrate. Take, for instance, the Letter to the Romans, which we are going to consider in a moment. We all know that that letter is the grand treatise on justification by faith. But justification by faith is shown to be something infinitely greater than most of us have yet grasped or understood, and justification by faith has a very wide connotation and relationship. All that is contained in this letter to the Romans resolves itself into just one glorious issue, and that is why it begins with the statement that what it contains is "the gospel." "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God ... concerning His Son." Now all that follows is "the gospel" - but what a tremendous gospel is there! And we have somehow to sum it all up in one conclusion. We have to ask ourselves: 'After all, what does result from our reading and our consideration of this wonderful letter?' You see, justification is not the beginning of things, neither is it the end of things. Justification is the meeting point of a vast beginning and a vast end. That is, it is the point at which all the past eternity and all the future eternity are focused. That is what this letter reveals.

The God of Hope

Let us now look at it a little more closely in that particular light. What is the issue, what is the result? That result is gathered up into one word only. It is a great thing when you can get hold of a big document like this and put it into one word. What is the word? Well, you will find it if you turn to the end of the letter. It is significant that it comes at the point where the Apostle is summing up. He has written his letter, and he is now about to close. Here it is:

"Now the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope" (Romans 15:13).

If your margin is a good one, it will give you references to other occurrences of that word in this same letter. You will find it as early as chapter five, verse 4; you find it again in chapter eight, verses twenty-four and twenty-five; again in chapter twelve, verse twelve; and then in the fifteenth chapter - first in verse four, and finally here in our passage, verse thirteen. "The God of hope". That is the word into which the Apostle gathers the whole of this wonderful letter. This, then, is the gospel of the God of hope; more literally, the good news", or the "good tidings", of the God of hope. So that what is really in view in this letter from start to finish is "HOPE".

Now, quite obviously, hope has no meaning and makes no sense except in the light of the contrary - except as the contrary exists. The Divine method in this letter, therefore, in the first instance, is to set the good tidings over against a hopeless situation, in order to give clear relief to this great word - this ultimate issue, this conclusion, this result. A very, very hopeless situation is set forth. Look at the Divine method in this. The situation is set forth in two connections -

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 4 - (a. In the Matter of Heredity)

Do Not Sin Against the Child!

Father and mother, if I am damned--it is by copying the example you placed before me!

(Archibald Brown, "Do Not Sin Against the Child!")

"Do not sin against the child!" Genesis 42:22

One way of sinning against a child is by bad example. The characters of the parents are carefully watched and imitated by their children.

You profess, dear friend, to be a Christian, and your child knows you are a member of this church. He has seen you partake of the Lord's supper--and then, when you have gone home, he has in a moment detected the discrepancy between your behavior at church--and your daily life at home. The angry temper--the selfish spirit--the worldly conversation--all these have been so many sins against the child! By some evil example seen by them in early life, an impression may be made upon their souls, the effects of which will remain to their dying day--and beyond!

Oh, how dreadful the thought, that by our own hypocritical lives we may be sinning against the little darlings we often feel we could die for. God forbid, that at the last great day, any of our children should turn to us with blanched cheek and say, "Father and mother, if I am damned--it is by copying the example you placed before me!"

You may also sin against the child by neglecting the means of its salvation. Do you have to confess before the Lord, that the eternal interests of your children find but a small space in your PRAYERS? O do not sin so against the child--he is worth praying for!

What are you DOING to try and bring them to Jesus? Do you ever, with the tear in your eye, tell them of the love of Jesus? Have you ever tried to show them their need of a Savior, and pointed them to Him who said, "Let the little children to come to Me?"

These are solemn questions, for I say to you dear parents in all love and from the very depths of my heart, "If you neglect the means for bringing your little ones to Christ, you are sinning against the child--and his blood will be required of you!" "If you do not teach them--the devil will."

O friends, it is a crying shame, that in our prayer meetings there are to be found men who pray as if they were dying to see the world converted--and yet never pray for their own children! It is a sad, sad fact that there are many who seem wondrously in earnest about the conversion of strangers--who yet let their own children go to Hell without a warning or entreaty! 

The Gospel According to Paul # 2

In His Letter to the Romans

Galatians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 15:1; Galatians 1:11

"The gospel which I preach". "The gospel which was preached by me."

There are in the New Testament four main designations for the basic matter with which it deals, the vital truth with which it is concerned, and those four designations are The Gospel, The Way, The Faith, and The Testimony. That which has now came to be known as "Christianity" was then expressed by one or other of those designations. Of these four, the one used more than any other is the first - The Gospel. That title for the inclusive message of the New Testament occurs there at least one hundred times - that is, in the noun form, "the Gospel." In the corresponding verb form it occurs many more times, but unrecognized by us, because it is translated by several different English words. The verb form of this very same Greek word appears in our translation as "to declare", "to preach", "to preach the gospel". It would sound very awkward if you were to give a literal translation to this verb form. It would be just this - "to gospel", "to gospel people", "to gospel the kingdom", or, to take the meaning of the word, "to good-news", "to good-tidings", and so on. That sounds very awkward in English, but in Greek that is exactly what was said. When they preached they conceived themselves as "good-newsing" everything and everybody. To preach the gospel was simply to announce good tidings.

It is impressive that this word, this title, for the Christian faith - "the gospel" - abounds in twenty of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. The exceptions are: the Gospel by John, where you will not find it, nor will you find it in the three letters of John. You will not find it in Peter's second letter, nor will you find it in James or Jude. But these writers had their own titles for the same thing. We mentioned amongst the four, "The Testimony": that is John's peculiar title for the Christian faith - often, with him, "The Testimony of Jesus". With James and Jude it is "The Faith". But you see how preponderating is this title of "the good news", "The Gospel."

The Range of The Term "The Gospel"

So we have to take account quite early of a most important fact. It is that this term, the good news, covers the entire range of the New Testament, and embraces the whole of what the New Testament contains. It is not just those certain truths which relate to the beginning of the Christian life. The gospel is not confined to the truths or doctrines connected with conversion and, in that limited sense, salvation - the initial matter of becoming a Christian. The gospel goes far beyond that. I repeat, it embraces all that the New Testament contains. It is as much the gospel in the profound letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians as it is in the letter to the Romans - perhaps no less profound a document, but often regarded as being mainly connected with the beginnings of the Christian life.

No, this term, the "good tidings", covers the whole ground of the Christian life from beginning to end. It has a vast and many-sided content, touching every aspect and every phase of the Christian life, of man's relationship to God and God's relationship to man. It is all included in the good tidings. The unsaved need good news, but the saved equally need good news, and they constantly need good news. The servants of the Lord need good news. They need it as their message, the substance of their message. They need it for their encouragement and support. How much the Lord's servants need good news to encourage them in the work, and support in all the demand and cost of their labors! The Church needs good news for its life, for its growth, for its strength, for its testimony. And so the gospel comes in at every point, touches every phase.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 3)

Panting After Jesus (and other devotionals)

Song of Solomon 5:8

I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

Such is the language of the believer panting after present fellowship with Jesus, he is sick for his Lord. Gracious souls are never perfectly at ease except they are in a state of nearness to Christ; for when they are away from Him they lose their peace. The nearer to Him, the nearer to the perfect calm of heaven; the nearer to Him, the fuller the heart is, not only of peace, but of life, and vigour, and joy, for these all depend on constant intercourse with Jesus. What the sun is to the day, what the moon is to the night, what the dew is to the flower, such is Jesus Christ to us. What bread is to the hungry, clothing to the naked, the shadow of a great rock to the traveller in a weary land, such is Jesus Christ to us; and, therefore, if we are not consciously one with Him, little marvel if our spirit cries in the words of the Song, "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell Him that I am sick of love." This earnest longing after Jesus has a blessing attending it: "Blessed are the y that do hunger and thirst after righteousness"; and therefore, supremely blessed are they who thirst after the Righteous One. Blessed is that hunger, since it comes from God: if I may not have the full-blown blessedness of being filled, I would seek the same blessedness in its sweet bud-pining in emptiness and eagerness till I am filled with Christ. If I may not feed on Jesus, it shall be next door to heaven to hunger and thirst after Him. There is a hallowedness about that hunger, since it sparkles among the beatitudes of our Lord. But the blessing involves a promise. Such hungry ones "shall be filled" with what they are desiring. If Christ thus causes us to long after Himself, He will certainly satisfy those longings; and when He does come to us, as come He will, oh, how sweet it will be!

~Charles Spurgeon~

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Ephesians 3:8

The unsearchable riches of Christ.

My Master has riches beyond the count of arithmetic, the measurement of reason, the dream of imagination, or the eloquence of words. They are unsearchable! You may look, and study, and weigh, but Jesus is a greater Saviour than you think Him to be when your thoughts are at the greatest. My Lord is more ready to pardon than you to sin, more able to forgive than you to transgress. My Master is more willing to supply your wants than you are to confess them. Never tolerate low thoughts of my Lord Jesus. When you put the crown on His head, you will only crown Him with silver when He deserves gold. My Master has riches of happiness to bestow upon you now. He can make you to lie down in green pastures, and lead you beside still waters. There is no music like the music of His pipe, when He is the Shepherd and you are the sheep, and you lie down at His feet. There is no love like His, neither earth nor heaven can match it. To know Christ and to be found in Him-oh! this is life, this is joy, this is marrow and fatness, wine on the lees well refined. My Master does not treat His servants churlishly; He gives to them as a king giveth to a king; He gives them two heavens-a heaven below in serving Him here, and a heaven above in delighting in Him for ever. His unsearchable riches will be best known in eternity. He will give you on the way to heaven all you need; your place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks, your bread shall be given you, and your waters shall be sure; but it is there, THERE, where you shall hear the song of them that triumph, the shout of them that feast, and shall have a face-to-face view of the glorious and beloved One. The unsearchable riches of Christ! This is the tune for the minstrels of earth, and the song for the harpers of heaven. Lord, teach us more and more of Jesus, and we will tell out the good news to others.

~Charles Spurgeon~

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Isaiah 65:19

The voice of weeping shall be no more heard.

The glorified weep no more, for all outward a causes of grief are gone. There are no broken friendships, nor blighted prospects in heaven. Poverty, famine, peril, persecution, and slander, are unknown there. No pain distresses, no thought of death or bereavement saddens. They weep no more, for they are perfectly sanctified. No "evil heart of unbelief" prompts them to depart from the living God; they are without fault before His thrown, and are fully conformed to His image. Well may they cease to mourn who have ceased to sin. They weep no more, because all fear of change is past. They know that they are eternally secure. Sin is shut out, and they are shut in. They dwell within a city which shall never be stormed; they bask in a sun which shall never set; they drink of a river which shall never dry; they pluck fruit from a tree which shall never wither. Countless cycles may revolve, but eternity shall not be exhausted, and while eternity endures, their immortality and blessedness shall co-exist with it. They are for ever with the Lord. They weep no more, because every desire is fulfilled. They cannot wish for anything which they have not in possession. Eye and ear, heart and hand, judgment, imagination, hope, desire, will, all the faculties, are completely satisfied; and imperfect as our present ideas are of the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, yet we know enough, by the revelation of the Spirit, that the saints above are supremely blessed. The joy of Christ, which is an infinite fulness of delight, is in them. They bathe themselves in the bottomless, shoreless sea of infinite beatitude. That same joyful rest remains for us. It may not be far distant. Ere long the weeping willow shall be exchanged for the palm-branch of victory, and sorrow's dewdrops will be transformed into the pearls of everlasting bliss. "Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

~Charles Spurgeon~

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Love and Seek True Wisdom

"I love them that love Me; and those that seek Me early shall find Me" (Proverbs 8:17).

Wisdom loves her lovers and seeks her seekers. He is already wise who seeks to be wise, and he has almost found wisdom who diligently seeks her. What is true of wisdom in general is specially true of wisdom embodied in our LORD Jesus. Him we are to love and to seek, and in return we shall enjoy His love and find Himself. Our business is to seek Jesus early in life. Happy are the young whose morning is spent with Jesus! It is never too soon to seek the LORD Jesus. Early seekers make certain finders. We should seek Him early by diligence. Thriving tradesmen are early risers, and thriving saints seek Jesus eagerly. Those who find Jesus to their enrichment give their hearts to seeking Him. We must seek Him first, and thus earliest. Above all things Jesus. Jesus first and nothing else even as a bad second. The blessing is that He will be found. He reveals Himself more and more clearly to our search.... Happy men who seek One who, when He is found, remains with them forever, a treasure growingly precious to their hearts and understandings. LORD Jesus, l have found Thee; be found of me to an unutterable degree of joyous satisfaction.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Gospel According to Paul # 1

The Gospel According to Paul

Preface

We are living in a time when many great changes of complexion are taking place in every realm. It is certainly no time of stagnation. Not only has the face of things greatly changed in half a life time, but there is in these immediate days of tremendous acceleration in this change, so that we do not know what the world situation may be from one day to another.

What obtains in general is no less true - perhaps even more true - in Christianity. Everything is in a realm of question and uncertainty - that is, so far as the framework, the form, the work, the way and the earthly prospect are concerned. We can go further and say that - most probably in the sovereignty and providence of God - conditions (already so far advanced in the East) are literally compelling Christians to reconsider their foundations, and driving responsible people to face the whole question of demanded reorientation.

If we are nearing the consummation of this age, then this is exactly what we may expect. Only truth in its very essence will stand the test which will be forced upon everything by God Himself, and this "judgment must begin at the house of God". All the accessories, appurtenances, accompaniments, paraphernalia and 'etcetras' of Christianity will be stripped off, and only stark reality remain at the last. There is mentioned in Scripture a "fiery trial which shall come upon all the inhabited earth, to try the dwellers thereon". The tragedy of our time is that so many responsible leaders either are too busy and preoccupied with work or are so superficially optimistic that they are not aware of the real emergency implicit in world developments.

There is a growing need for such a many connections, but not least in the matter of the Gospel itself. Let us hasten to make clear that we are not implying that there is any need whatever for a reconsideration or reorientation of the essence of the Gospel. No, emphatically NO! It, in its essential nature and constituents, remains "The everlasting Gospel". But there is a very real need for a fresh apprehension of what that Gospel really is. The very word or term "Gospel" has come to imply something less than "the whole counsel of God", and to be applied almost exclusively to the beginnings of the Christian life.

When the Apostle who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews had set forth the transcendent greatness of Christ, God's Son, in every realm, whether of Patriarchs, Prophets, Angels, or whom you will, he summed up everything - a vast everything - in one phrase: "so great salvation"; concerning which salvation he declared that even to neglect it - not necessarily to oppose or resist it - would involve in an inescapable doom.

In the pages of this little volume we have sought to serve this need of recovering, or re-presenting, something - only something - of the greatness of the Gospel, and to show that everything for life, service, progress, and victory depends upon our real grasp of its greatness.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 2 - (In His Letter to the Romans)

Why Would God Want to Use Me?

Why Would God Want to Use Me? by James Montgomery Boice

The Man God Started With: Abraham - The Greatest Patriarch  Apart from Jesus Christ, Abraham is probably the most important person in the Bible. Abraham is a giant in Scripture - his stature is far greater than that of Moses, David, or Paul. These latter three were great men, and God used them in great ways, even giving portions of the Scriptures to us through them. But each of them would have agreed without qualification that Abraham was his father in faith. In the early chapters of Genesis, we read of God's promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations (Genesis 17:4). This was fulfilled physically and spiritually. On the physical side, Abraham became the father of the Jewish people, through whom the Messiah was born; he became the father of the many Arab tribes through his son Ishmael. On the spiritual side, Abraham has become the father of a great host of believers whose numbers are now swelled by Christians of countless tongues and nations. No one can understand the Old Testament without understanding Abraham, for in many ways the story of redemption begins with God's call to this patriarch. Abraham was the first man chosen by God for a role in the plan of redemption. The story of Abraham contains the first mention in the Bible of God's righteousness imputed to man as the sole means of salvation (Genesis 15:6). Matthew includes the genealogy of Jesus in his Gospel in order to trace the beginnings of salvation back to Abraham (Matthew 1:1). Luke declares that the birth of Jesus occurred in response to God's promise to Abraham (Luke 1:68-73). Great sections of the New Testament explain the spiritual significance of Abraham. An entire chapter in Romans refers to God's dealings with Abraham to support the doctrine of justification by grace through faith (Romans 4). Two chapters in Galatians refer to the life of Abraham to prove that salvation is apart from works (Romans 3 and Romans 4). One of the longest paragraphs on faith in the Book of Hebrews is devoted to the life of faith lived by this Hebrew patriarch (Hebrews 11:8-19). Faith stands preeminent in the life of Abraham. No Good in Abraham It is impossible to understand Abraham's faith without realizing that there was nothing in Abraham that commended him to God. God does not look down from heaven to find a person who has a bit of divine righteousness or a bit of faith and then say, "Oh, isn't it wonderful! I've found somebody with a bit of faith. I think I'll save him." When God looks down from heaven He sees that all men are without faith, and He passes a universal judgment: "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Romans 3:12). That included Abraham. This truth is reinforced by another. Abraham came from a family of idol worshipers, and was undoubtedly an idol worshiper himself. This truth is clearly stated in at least three places in the Bible. In the last chapter of the Book of Joshua, the aging leader delivers a final spiritual charge to the people of Israel. Joshua begins by reminding them of their pagan past. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the river [the River Euphrates] of old, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods. And I took your father, Abraham, from the other side of the river, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac...Now, therefore, fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river, and in Egypt (Joshua 24:2-14). The passage is a black-and-white statement of the fact that Abraham was chosen by God from the midst of a pagan ancestry and that he and Terah had once worshiped false gods. The same thing is said by Isaiah: "Hearken to Me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord; look unto the rock from which ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which ye are digged. Look unto Abraham, your father, and unto Sarah, who bore you" (Isaiah 5:1-2). The whole thrust of these verses is that there was nothing in the ancestry of the Jewish people that could commend them to God. The third passage that reveals the truth about Abraham's ancestry is a story from the life of Abraham's grandson, Jacob. Jacob was a schemer - even his name means "supplanter" - and his underhandedness made his brother angry enough to want to kill him. Jacob was forced to flee for his life. Where was he to go? Jacob did what many people do when they are cast adrift by life - he went back to his roots. For Jacob, that was in Mesopotamia, the place from which his grandfather Abraham had come. There Jacob associated himself with his uncle Laban. In time, he married both of Laban's daughters, Leah and Rachel, and came to own a large share of the family's sheep and cattle. As time passed, bad feelings arose between Jacob and Laban, Jacob decided to return to the land of Canaan, choosing a moment when Laban was away on business. When Laban returned, his nephew, his daughters, and much of the property were gone. The household gods also were missing. Laban set out in pursuit. When he overtook the band that Jacob was leading, he chided Jacob for this action and accused him of having stolen the idols. A search was made but the idols were not found. Jacob's wife, Rachel, who had stolen them, had hidden them in her camel's saddle. This story in Genesis 31 shows that Abraham's relatives still owned and cherished idols at least three generations after God had called Abraham out of Mesopotamia. God's Choice It was Abraham whom God chose to be the father of many nations. But why did God save Abraham? The answer is simply that this was God's will. In Deuteronomy 7, Moses tells why God chose Israel to be the nation through which He gave the law and would one day send the Saviour. We read, "The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people. But because the Lord loved you..." (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). Why did God love them? Because He loved them. Why did He choose them? Because He chose them. This is not human logic; it is divine logic. It is the logic of grace. This is the way God loved Abraham, and the way God loves us. We are like Abraham. There is nothing in us to commend us to God. And yet God loves us. Just as He sought Abraham, He seeks to draw us into fellowship with Himself. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, the apostle tells how Jesus had come to His own people, the Jews, but they had not received Him. And yet some did - both Jews and Gentiles - and John writes that Christ gave to all who believed authority to become the children of God. As John wrote these words, however, he seemed to know that some would say, "But, you see, God gave them authority to become children of God because they had faith within; it was because they believed." Lest someone retain a false impression, John adds quickly that these "were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). John knew that no Christian ever made the first move toward God; he knew that salvation originates in heaven. This is unpopular teaching, and men and women have always hated it. They hated it when Isaiah reminded them that nothing in their ancestry commended them to God (see Isaiah 51:1-2). They hated it in Christ's day. We are told that from the time Jesus began to teach that "no man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father...many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him" (John 6:65-66). People hate it when this Gospel is preached in our own 20th century. And yet, in spite of the hatred of men, it is true. No man ever seeks God. God's Call Abraham's faith was preceded by God's call. God called him when he was without faith and promised to bless him. As a result of this encounter, Abraham believed God and set out on the journey to Canaan. Actually, the call to Abraham came twice, once when he was in Ur of the Chaldees (Acts 7:2-4), and once, years later, when he was in Haran. The Bible says: 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 show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him (Genesis 12:1-4). Abraham's departure from Ur was the first evidence of his faith in God and in God's promises. What is faith? Faith is simply belief, and all men have the capacity for it. They demonstrate it every day of their lives. Saving, faith is believing God and acting upon that belief. Abraham had saving faith because he believed God when God revealed Himself, and he acted upon his belief by setting out for Canaan immediately. There are many mistaken views of faith. One links faith to credulity. This is the view that faith is belief without evidence. But God provides evidence, and He does so overwhelmingly. In Abraham's case the evidence was an appearance of God so striking that it got the patriarch and all his family and possessions moving out of their homeland into a land which they had never seen. In our case, the evidence is the biblical account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the way that God called Abraham, God calls all who become His children. God comes to us when we are hopelessly lost in sin and without knowledge of Him (Ephesians 2:1-7). This is a universal fact in the spiritual biography of Christians. God's call comes first. And our response is nothing more than belief in God and in His promises. Perhaps someone says, "Well, that may be right theoretically, but I just can't believe." I disagree. You believe men, don't you? Every time you keep an appointment, sign a contract, ride a bus, read the newspaper, or do anything that involves other people, you show faith in some person, sometimes one whom you have not even met. In the same way, you can believe God. He is more trustworthy. The Bible says, "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater" (1 John 5:9). What does God ask us to believe? He asks us to believe that we are lost without Him and that He has done everything through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ to save us both for this life and for the life to come. When Faith Is Weak Someone may say, "Oh, I am able to believe in the sense that you have been explaining, but my faith is weak. I could become a Christian, but I am afraid that if I do - if I start out with God as Abraham did - I'll falter." Of course you will falter. But salvation depends not on the strength of your faith but on God's overwhelming faithfulness to you. Abraham faltered. When he was in Ur of the Chaldees, God called Abraham to go to Canaan. Ur was in the Mesopotamian river valley, east of the great Arabian desert. Canaan was west of the desert and bordered the Mediterranean Sea. To obey God's call, Abraham had to leave Ur, travel north along the great Euphrates River, cross the northern end of the Arabian desert, and pass down along the Lebanese highlands, entering Canaan from the north. Abraham began the 1,000-mile journey in the best of faith. And yet, at the end of Genesis 11, we find that Abraham stopped at Haran, a little town in Syria hundreds of miles from Ur but still several hundred miles from Canaan. Abraham stayed at Haran until his father died. When Abraham started once again for Canaan, he was 75 years old. Was Abraham strong in faith? Not at this point in his life. But God's promises were not withdrawn. From God's point of view, the years in Haran were wasted. Abraham learned no new lessons there. And that happens to us. Times come when we stop and sit down spiritually. We must not sit too long. We must confess the emptiness of such moments, yield to God's repeated calls, and let Him lead us into all the blessings He originally intended. The Second Call God had called Abraham once and he obeyed. Then Abraham disobeyed and stopped at Haran. Years later God came again, calling, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing" (Genesis 12:1-2). God called Abraham a second time, and He calls us a second time also. God always persists in His calling. This truth is found many places in Scripture. It is found in the story of David. God called David to be the political and moral leader of Israel, but David fell into sin. He stayed in Jerusalem instead of participating in a battle. While in Jerusalem he saw Bathsheba, enticed her, and made love to her. When he learned that she had become pregnant, he attempted to cover his sin by having her husband killed. And yet, God did not cast off King David. Instead He came to him through Nathan to expose his sin and lead him to repentance (2 Samuel 12). God came a second time to David. When God first called Jonah, He said, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before Me" (Jonah 1:2). Jonah lived in Galilee near Cana, and the way to Nineveh was east. Did Jonah go east? No, Jonah went west! The Bible tells us that Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish, for which he sailed from the Jewish port of Joppa (Jonah 1:3). At this point in the action, God sent a storm. Jonah ordered himself to be thrown overboard by the sailors. He was swallowed by a great fish and was later vomited out on dry land. He was on the shore, right back where he started from, when God came to him to repeat His original commission, "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time" (Jonah 3:1). These are the most beautiful words in the entire story: ". . . the Lord came unto Jonah the second time." So it will be with us. The word of the Lord comes to us once, twice, and, if need be, a hundred or a thousand times. He calls us to follow Him. We are so prone to stop. We have many Harans, Bathshebas, or ships to Tarshish. And yet, God calls again and again. God's Faithfulness Where do you stand? It may be that you have never responded to God's call the first time. If God is prodding you to believe, if you feel unhappy as you are, if you are looking for something better in life, if you are questioning the truths of Christianity, this is God's working. You must yield to Him. You must trust Him. Perhaps you have stopped at some place in your walk with God. Perhaps God has given you a command to do something and you have put it off, a step to take and you have refused. You prefer to be where you are. The fullness of blessing is never going to come to you until you obey God and do what He has set before you. You will never improve on His instructions. Perhaps you are one to whom the Lord is now coming a second time. Take great joy in that. Respond to Him. And rejoice that you serve a God who will not abandon the work that He has once set out to accomplish (see Philippians 1:6).