WHAT HIS FAITH MEANT by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 14, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 24.

WHAT HIS FAITH MEANT

By Editor

ABRAHAM is often called "the father of the faithful." The apostle Paul calls him "the father of all them that believe."

He is called "father" not in the sense of fleshly descent, but in the sense of character. He is the father of all those who have the same faith that he had. And therefore God's promise "is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all . . . of the faith of Abraham."

Now Abraham's faith consisted in fully persuading him "that what He [God] had promised, He was also able to perform."

Mark the exercise of this faith in almost our first introduction to Abraham. "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."

Now here are God's promises of blessing unrivaled and unnumbered; and here are the conditions:—

1. "Get thee out of thy country." He is henceforth to be a man without a country on earth. The world was to resound, if it did not already, with the glories of Babylonia and Egypt. Abraham was a citizen of neither. He was henceforth to be a foreigner, a pilgrim, a stranger, till the King should give him inheritance in the "better country, that is, an heavenly."

2. "From thy kindred." He is not to clannishly stay with the tribe. He is not to feel that "these my relatives are the best in the earth, and I stay with them. We will build us a city, and make us a name lest we be scattered abroad." Not at all. There is no clannishness in the faith of Abraham. "Get thee out . . . from thy kindred" is the command of God. He is to be a man without earthly kindred only so far as they are bound by the claims of God.

3. "And from thy father's house." It is hard to leave one's country. It is harder still to leave loving kindred. It is hardest of all to leave father's house. But earthly fathers die, and then the house gets too small for too many. Why not leave it to the weak and home-sick and characterless ones; leave it for a greater work, involving strong character building. Leave it, for God calls.

The simple record of the result of God's call is, "So Abraham went as the Lord had spoken unto him." He became a man without a country, without kindred, without a home, a stranger and a pilgrim for Christ's sake: "Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city," a "continuing city."

And God blessed him, and made him a blessing. Every one who harbored the pilgrim was blessed. Every one who blessed him was blessed. Every one to whom he ministered was blessed. And this was all true even in his earth life. See Mark 10: 29, 30. Since then all the families of the earth have felt his blessing through his Seed, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Are you Abraham's child? Have you his faith? Have you even yet gotten out of your country and its politics?