Let us, then, seek to pursue a path of holy separation from the world. Let us, while standing outside its entire range, be found cherishing the hope of the Master's return. May its well-watered plains have no charms for our hearts. May its honors, its distinctions, and its riches, be all surveyed by us in the light of the coming glory of Christ. May we be enabled, like the holy patriarch Abraham, to get up into the presence of the Lord, and, from that elevated ground, look forth upon the scene of wide-spread ruin and desolation,—to see it all, by faith's anticipative glance, a smoking ruin. Such it will be. "The earth also, and the things that are therein, shall be burned up." All that about which the children of this world are so intensely anxious—after which they are so eagerly grasping—for which they are so fiercely contending—all—all will be burned up. And who can tell how soon? "Where is Sodom? Where is Gomorrah? Where are the cities of the plain,—those cities which were once all life, and stir, and bustle? Where are they now? All gone! swept away by the judgment of God! Consumed by his fire and brimstone!" Well, his judgments now hang over this guilty world. The day is at hand; and, while judgments impend, the sweet story of grace is being told out to many an ear. Happy they who hear and believe that story! Happy they who flee to the strong mountain of God's salvation! who take refuge behind the cross of the Son of God, and therein find pardon and peace!
God grant that the reader of these lines may know what it is, with a conscience purged from sin, and his heart's affections purged from the defiling influence of the world, to wait for the Son from heaven.
CHAPTER XX.
We have two distinct points in this chapter: first, the moral degradation to which the child of God sometimes subjects himself in the view of the world; and, secondly, the moral dignity which always belongs to him in the view of God. Abraham again exhibits the dread of circumstances which the heart can so easily understand. He sojourns in Gerar, and fears the men of that place. Judging that God was not there, he forgets that he is always with him. He seems to be more occupied with the men of Gerar than with the One who was stronger than they. Forgetting God's ability to protect his wife, he has recourse to the same stratagem which, years before, he had adopted in Egypt. This is very admonitory. The father of the faithful was carried away, by taking his eye off God. He lost for a little his centre in God, and, therefore, gave way. How true it is that we are only strong as we cling to God in the sense of our perfect weakness. So long as we are in the path of his appointment, nothing can harm us. Had Abraham simply leaned on God, the men of Gerar would not have meddled with him; and it was his privilege to have vindicated God's faithfulness in the midst of the most appalling difficulties. Thus, too, he would have maintained his own dignity as a man of faith.
It is often a source of sorrow to the heart to mark how the children of God dishonor him, and, as a consequence, lower themselves before the world by losing the sense of his sufficiency for every emergency. So long as we live in the realization of the truth that all our springs are in God, so long shall we be above the world, in every shape and form. There is nothing so elevating to the whole moral being as faith: it carries one entirely beyond the reach of this world's thoughts; for how can the men of the world, or even worldly-minded Christians, understand the life of faith? Impossible: the springs on which it draws lie far away beyond their comprehension. They live on the surface of present things. So long as they can see what they deem a proper foundation for hope and confidence, so long they are hopeful and confident; but the idea of resting solely on the promise of an unseen God, they understand not. But the man of faith is calm in the midst of scenes in which nature can see nothing. Hence it is that faith ever seems, in the judgment of nature, such a reckless, improvident, visionary thing. None but those who know God, can ever approve the actings of faith, for none but they really understand the solid and truly reasonable ground of such actings.
In this chapter we find the man of God actually exposing himself to the rebuke and reproach of the men of the world, by reason of his actings when under the power of unbelief. Thus it must ever be. Nothing but faith can impart true elevation to a man's course and character. We may, it is true, see some who are naturally upright and honorable in their ways, yet nature's uprightness and honor cannot be trusted: they rest on a bad foundation, and are liable to give way at any moment. It is only faith which can impart a truly elevated moral tone, because it connects the soul in living power with God, the only Source of true morality. And it is a remarkable fact that, in the case of all those whom God has graciously taken up, we see that, when off the path of faith, they sank even lower than other men. This will account for Abraham's conduct in this part of his history.
But there is another point of much interest and value brought out here. We find that Abraham had harbored an evil thing for a number of years: he had, it seems, started upon his course with a certain reserve in his soul, which reserve was the result of his want of full, unqualified confidence in God. Had he been able fully to trust God in reference to Sarah, there would have been no need of any reserve or subterfuge whatever. God would have fenced her round about from every ill; and who can harm those who are the happy subjects of his unslumbering guardianship? However, through mercy, Abraham is enabled to bring out the root of the whole matter,—to confess and judge it thoroughly, and get rid of it. This is the true way to act. There can be no real blessing and power till every particle of leaven is brought forth into the light and there trampled under foot. God's patience is exhaustless. He can wait. He can bear with us; but he never will conduct a soul to the culminating point of blessing and power while leaven remains known and unjudged. Thus much as to Abimelech and Abraham. Let us now look at the moral dignity of the latter, in the view of God.
In the history of God's people, whether we look at them as a whole, or as individuals, we are often struck with the amazing difference between what they are in God's view, and what they are in the view of the world. God sees his people in Christ. He looks at them through Christ; and hence he sees them "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." They are as Christ is before God. They are perfected forever, as to their standing in Christ. "They are not in the flesh but in the Spirit."
But, in themselves, they are poor, feeble, imperfect, stumbling, inconsistent creatures; and, inasmuch as it is what they are in themselves, and that alone, that the world takes knowledge of, therefore it is that the difference seems so great between the divine and the human estimate.