Abraham went up out of Egypt
The believer learning from his great enemy
It is an old saying that “It is lawful to learn from an enemy.
” The patriarch had sojourned in the world’s kingdom, and had learned those solemn lessons which, as it too often happens, only a bitter experience can teach. He returned a sadder, but a wiser man. The believer who has fallen into the world’s snares, or comes dangerously near to them, learns--
I. THAT IT IS NOT SAFE TO LEAVE THE PATHS MARKED OUT BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE.
1. While we are in the path of Providence, we may expect Divine direction.
2. When we leave the paths of Providence, we are thrown upon the resources of our own wisdom and strength, and can only expect failure.
3. Every step we take from the paths of Providence only increases the difficulty of returning.
II. THAT THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD INVOLVES DEEP SPIRITUAL LOSS. In Abraham’s ease--
1. The delicacy of the moral principle was injured.
2. There was actual spiritual loss.
III. THAT THE SOUL’S SAFETY IS BEST SECURED BY REVISITING, IN LOVING MEMORY, THE SCENES WHERE GOD WAS FIRST FELT AND KNOWN.
1. He is aided by remembering the strength and fervour of his early faith and love.
2. Memory may become a means of grace. It is well for us to look backwards, as well as forwards by the anticipations of hope. What God has done for us in the past is a pledge of what He will do in the future, if we continue faithful to His grace. We may use memory to encourage hope.
IV. THERE MUST BE A FRESH CONSECRATION TO GOD. Abram went at once to Bethel, where at the beginning he had pitched his tent, and built an altar to God. There he “called on the name of the Lord.” This implies a fresh consecration of himself, and points out the method by which we may recover our spiritual loss. Such a fresh consecration is necessary, for there are no other channels of spiritual blessing, but those by which it first flowed to us. There is no new way of restoration. We must come back to Him who first gave us our faith and made reconciliation. This renewed consecration of ourselves to God involves--
1. The acknowledgment of our sin. It was sin that made, at first, our reconciliation with God necessary, and fresh sin renews the obligation to seek His face.
2. The conviction that propitiation is necessary to obtain the favour of God.
3. The open profession of our faith. (T. H. Leale.)
Abram’s return, etc
I. THE RETURN OF ABRAM.
1. Forgiven.
2. Favoured.
II. THE REQUEST OF ABRAM.
1. Forbearing.
2. Foregoing.
III. THE REWARD OF ABRAM.
1. Forgetting the earthly inheritance.
2. Foreshadowing the heavenly inheritance. (W. Adamson.)
Abraham and Lot
I. THE PERFECTNESS OF GOD’S RESTORING GRACE.
1. God brought him back to Bethel.
2. The effect on Abraham. We find him no longer self-seeking and self-dependent. He asks counsel of God; he defers to others; is meek under provocation; and leaves himself wholly to God.
II. A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE OF A PIOUS RICH MAN. You will observe two things about Abraham as a rich man.
1. His conduct in relation to God.
2. His conduct toward Lot.
1. In regard to God, he worshipped Him in every place (Genesis 13:4; Genesis 18:1-33). This involves more than at first sight appears. Abraham was living in the midst of idolaters. To worship God was a bold act. It was also a public act. It was one which involved much expense.
2. In regard to Lot. His conduct displays disinterestedness, love to his nephew, and firm faith in God. From this narrative we may learn two subordinate truths--
1. The children of God may come to acquire much worldly property.
2. The saints of God may possess property.
III. THE FOLLY OF SELF-SEEKING. We see this in the case of Lot. (T. G.Horton.)
Lessons
1. God’s saints delay not to follow God’s Providence, opening a way to them from the place of trial.
2. God knoweth how to deliver His fully, that nothing of theirs shall be wanting (Genesis 13:2).
3. Weight of riches in the world is sometimes God’s portion given to His.
4. Not possession of wealth, but inordinate affection and abuse of it, is the sin (Genesis 13:2).
5. Riches cannot hinder believers from going after God where He calleth them.
6. Saints breathe after their first communion with God, after distractions from it (Genesis 13:3).
7. No place contents a gracious heart but where God may be enjoyed.
8. The name of the Lord is that which draweth the hearts of saints from all enjoyments, to delight in it, publish it, and call upon it (Genesis 13:4). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Practical repentance
By retracing his steps and returning to the altar at Bethel, he seems to acknowledge that he should have remained there through the famine in dependence on God. Whoever has attempted a similar practical repentance, visible to his own household and affecting their place of abode or daily occupations, will know how to estimate the candour and courage of Abram. To own that some distinctly marked portion of our life, upon which we entered with great confidence in our own wisdom and capacity, has come to nothing and has betrayed us into reprehensible conduct, is mortifying indeed, To admit that we have erred and to repair our error by returning to our old way and practice, is what few of us have the courage to do. If we have entered on some branch of business or gone into some attractive speculation, or if we have altered our demeanour towards some friend, and if we are finding that we are thereby tempted to doubleness, to equivocation, to injustice, our only hope lies in a candid and straightforward repentance, in a manly and open return to the state of things that existed in happier days and which we should never have abandoned. Sometimes we are aware that a blight began to fall on our spiritual life from a particular date, and we can easily and distinctly trace an unhealthy habit of spirit to a well-marked passage in our outward career; but we shrink from the sacrifice and shame involved in a thoroughgoing restoration of the old state of things. We are always so ready to fancy we have done enough, if we get one heartfelt word of confession uttered; so ready, if we merely turn our faces towards God, to think our restoration complete. Let us make a point of getting through mere beginnings of repentance, mere intention to recover God’s favour and a sound condition of life, and let us return and return till we bow at God’s very altar again, and know that His hand is laid upon us in blessing as at the first. (M. Dods, D. D.)