The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 410

V_ers_. 2, 3.-Abrahann the heathen. "Your fathers . . . served other gods,'' is an mmdental statement of the utmost value. It throws a light on Abraham's antecedents in which we do not always see them, and enhances the significance of his abandonment of home and country, and his clear faith in a living God, in a degree which nothing else does. Observe first of all- I. THE FACT T~AT ABRAHAM WAS ORIGINALLY A HEATHEN. He was not merely born and bred an idolater, as we might have gathered from the story of Rachel's teraphim, but was a pagan in exactly the same condition of belief as many in India or in China are to-day. Some, in later times especially, and indeed in all times, worshipped the true God, but employed an idol to assist their imagination of Him ; that is, they simply sought ritualistic and sensuous aids to religious thoug-h t and feeling. But Abraham began life far lower dowil in the religious scale. His fathers served other god.~; the deified powers of nature representing little more than the forces and tendencies of life. Primitive traditicm had lost any brightness it ever had. The religious sentiment had lost that reverence and habit of attention which soon begins to perceive God and to feel that the God constantly appealing to it is one and the same. The worship of several deities is always a mark of a super- stitious ingredient blending with faith. Terah's family were in this condition. They were not only idolaters but polytheists-without Bible or sacrament, promise, or law. Abraham was precisely in the same sort of spiritnal circumstances, and had been taught the same sort of religious ideas, and trained in the same super- stitions, as are found in all pagan lands to-day. Yet with advantages so slight, he became the spiritual father of the religious nation of antiquity-type of all saintli- ness, of everything bright in faith and unquestioning in obedience. There is some reason to suppose that a god of vengeance was one of those deities most reverently regarded by his people ; and yet he finds and worships a God of love ! He, like all of us, had Christ, the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He, unlike most of us, followed the Christ-light within him. Following the Di\ine light, it grew ever clearer, and his vision became stronger to perceive and his heart to follow it. Amongst a multitude of silent deities, One spoke to him through his conscience, with more and more of frequency, and, in the degree in which He was obeyed, with more and more of clearness, both in the comforts He whispered and the commands He enjoined, till gradually he felt there was but one g1:eat Goel, who governed all, and should receive the homage of all; who was the friendly refuge as well as the omnipotent Creator of men. Gradually his life began to revolve around this unseen Centre, and the outward aspect and inward purpose of his life stood out in palpable difference from that of his fellows. Doubtless he preachecl his deep conviction, gathered about him some kindred spirits ; perhaps had to endure persecution ; till at last he got a strong impression borne in upon his conscience that his path of duty and of spiritual wisdom was to leave his native land and seek a. new home for what was a new faith amongst men. His coming to ur of the Chaldees, and then to Canaan, may be compared with the expedition of the Pilgrim Fathers. Like them he sought " freedom to worship God,'' and like them founded a great nation in doing so. In any view of his character, his decision, his derntion, the clearness of his faith, the promptness of his obedience, are marvellous. _But they become much more so when we mark the fact that Joshua here bnngs out, that Abraham began his career in heathen darkness-that the father of the faithful began life as a mere pagan. Observe- II. SOME LESSONS OF THIS FACT. For evidently it has many. ,ve can only suggest them. (1) A little grace and a little light go a long way when welt ·used, 1162 THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. [cH. XXIV. 1-28.