Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2523
“I will bless you, and you shall be a blessing.” Genesis 12:2.
THIS was to be the double result of Abraham’s coming out from his own country and his father’s house. Those Orientals clung with great tenacity to their native homes. We, in these latter ages, are not so restful—we think nothing of crossing the Atlantic and many think little of going to the other side of the globe—but those Easterns trembled, even, to cross the Euphrates or the Tigris! They spoke of the land beyond those rivers as “across the flood,” and a journey of two or three hundred miles seemed to them to be an event only second to death, itself. Yet when the Lord said to Abraham, “Get you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father’s house, unto a land that I will show you,” he, “departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him.” His obedience was an act of heroic faith!
Now, Brothers and Sisters, in consequence of this obedience, Abraham obtained the double blessing of which our text speaks. He is called the Father of the Faithful, that is, the father of all such as believe in God, so that, if we truly believe in God, we shall do what Abraham as a Believer did. Children are like their father. Believers are like the father of all Believers, so that there will be a going out for them as there was for him. We may not be called to actually leave our homes and our native land, but we shall have a great deal more troublesome task than that, for we are to be separated from the people among whom we dwell—to dwell among them, yet not to be of them—in the world, but not of the world! This is not an easy thing. It is far easier to become a monk, or a nun, and shut yourself up alone, than it is to live in the midst of ungodly people and yet to be, yourself, godly—to trade with the usual followers of commerce and not to fall into their business customs—to mix with the usual host of thinkers, yet not to think as they think, but to endeavor to think the thoughts of God and to obey the will of the Most High.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was the most perfect Man among men. In no respect, in dress or in anything else, did He separate Himself from the rest of mankind by anything merely external. He ate and drank just as they did. He sat at their tables, slept in their houses and talked with them by the way—yet was He always “holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners.” All Believers are called thus to live in the world a separated life, in obedience to the Divine command, “Come out from among them, and be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.” There is no necessity for us to wear either the broad-brimmed hat or the collarless coat, or anything whatever by which we shall be marked off from the rest of men. We are to be separated in realityrather than merely in appearance, to be separated by a higher tone of morals, to be separated by a truer life—a life with God, a life in God—to be separated by faith in the unseen, to be separated by an enthusiasm to which the rest of mankind will not pretend, which, indeed, they will even despise! This is the high, hard, holy, heavenly task to which Believers in Christ are called. Oh, for Grace to accomplish it!
In proportion as we accomplish it, the words of my text will come true to us—“I will bless you, and you shall be a blessing.” As far as Abraham did not live the life of separation, so far he missed the blessing. You remember that he went down into Egypt and you know what trouble he got into there—and he brought more trouble away with him. As I said, this morning, (see exposition at end of sermon), very likely Hagar was one of the slaves given to him by Pharaoh when he dismissed him and Sarah—and you know what trouble Hagar brought into the family. (Sermon #1869, Volume 31— Hagar at the Fountain). If Abraham had lived the separated life and had not fallen into the customs of those round about him, he would not have had that sin and sorrow concerning Hagar.
Nor would he have had that righteous rebuke from Abimelech, the king of Gerar, when again he had acted deceitfully with regard to his wife.
Whenever you see Abraham living alone before the Lord, you see a man of God, blessed of God, even as the Lord said, “I called him alone, and blessed him.” But when he goes and links himself with others, he loses the fullness of the blessing and gets into serious trouble. And you, Christian men and women, will find that as long as you keep close to your Lord and Master, you will enjoy His blessing. You may have cares and trials, but they shall be blessed cares and blessed trials! But if you go into the world and act as men of the world act—if you sow your wild oats, you will have to reap them! Depend upon it, the child of God will feel the weight of his Father’s rod if he begins to play with the boys of the street. If he is not careful of his company, keeping with his Father’s children—and careful of his life and conversation, doing and saying what his Father would have him do and say—he will find the rod fall heavily upon his shoulders, even as the Lord said of old to the children of Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”