(8) By 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. (9) By 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: (10) For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (11) Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. (12) Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
How equally plain and blessed is the same doctrine concerning the sovereignty of grace, in the instance of the great father of the faithful, Abraham? For what was Abraham, when the Lord first called him? Surely, an idolater. And what prompted the Lord to call Abraham, but his own free, sovereign, and unmerited grace. Is not everything the Lord said to this man to the same amount as to Noah? He found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Fear not, Abraham; I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward, Genesis 15:1. So everlastingly true is that blessed scripture by John. If we hope, it is because he first loved us, 1 John 4:19. And all the blessed consequences resulting, in the lives and conduct of Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, were the fruits and effects; and not in the smallest degree causes, or ministering to the first great and only disposing cause, God's purpose, grace, and favor, leading on to the accomplishment of the end intended. Reader! it is blessed to behold the lives of the faithful, bearing testimony to God's covenant truth and faithfulness. But it is doubly blessed, to keep always in view the Lord disposing all. While the eye of the Prophet was fixed in contemplation at beholding the whirlwind from the north, and the complicated machine, wheel within wheel, moving on in endless revolvings; the whole was too deep, and too much encompassed in perplexity for his mind to understand. But, when the Lord opened to his astonished view, One, like the Son of Man above, guiding all, the Lord's glory became manifested, Ezekiel 1:4-26
It is blessed, yea, very blessed, to behold the children of God, in every age of the Church, all marked with one and the same family feature. They may be said, all of them, to sojourn by faith in the land of promise; for all the promises are theirs in Christ, by right of inheritance, 2 Corinthians 1:20, and yet, every country here below is to them a strange country, Micah 2:10. They dwell in the midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord, Micah 5:7, and yet they dwell alone, and are not reckoned among the nations, Numbers 23:9. They sojourn in tabernacles which are moveable, liable, and expecting every moment to be taken down, Hebrews 13:14, and yet the eternal God is their refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, Deuteronomy 33:27.