In a day of such widely extended profession as the present, it is specially important that Christians should be deeply impressed with the necessity of realizing _personally the call of God_, without which there can be no permanency or steadiness in the Christian course.
It is a comparatively easy thing to make a profession at a time when profession prevails; but it is never easy to walk by faith--it is never easy to give up present things, in the hope of "good things to come." Nothing but that mighty principle which the apostle denominates "_the substance_ of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. xi. 1), can ever enable a man to persevere in a course which in a world where all is wrong--all out of order, must be thorny and difficult. We must feel "_persuaded_" of something yet to come--something worth waiting for--something that will reward all the toil of a pilgrim's protracted course, ere we rise up out of the circumstances of nature and the world, to "run with patience the race that is set before us." (Heb. xii. 1.)
All this is fully exemplified in Abraham, and the exemplification receives additional force from the contrast exhibited in the character of Lot and others who are introduced in the course of the narrative.
In the seventh of Acts, we have the following words which bear directly upon the subject before us. "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land that _I shall show thee_." (Vers. 1, 2.) Here then we are presented with the first dawning of that light which attracted Abraham out of the darkness of "Ur, of the Chaldees," and which shining in upon his wearisome path, from time to time, gave fresh vigor to his soul, as he journeyed in quest of "that city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." "The God of glory" caused Abraham to see, in the light of His character, the true condition of things in Ur, and further, to believe, as some one has observed, _a report concerning future glory and inheritance_, and he therefore hesitates not, but instantly girds himself up for the journey.
However, upon a close comparison of the opening of the seventh of Acts, with the first verse of this twelfth chapter of Genesis, we get an important principle. From the time that God appeared unto Abraham, until he finally gets up into the land of Canaan, an event occurs involving much deep instruction to us. I allude to the death of Abraham's father, as we read in Acts vii. "From thence, _when his father_ was dead, He removed him into this land wherein ye now dwell." (Ver. 4.) This will enable us to understand the force of the expression in Gen. xii., "The Lord _had_ said unto Abram," etc. (Ver. 1.) From both these passages, it would plainly appear the movement made by Terah and his family, recorded in Gen. x. 31, was the result of a revelation made by "the God of glory" to Abram, but it would not appear that _Terah_ had received any such revelation from God. He is presented to us rather as a hindrance to Abram than any thing else, for until he died, Abram did not come into the land of Canaan--his divinely appointed destination.
Now, this circumstance, trivial as it may seem to a cursory reader, confirms in the strongest manner the statement already advanced, namely, that unless the call of God--the revelation from "the God of glory" be _personally realized_, there can be no permanency or steadiness in the Christian course. Had Terah realized that call, he would neither have been a clog to Abram in his path of faith, nor yet would he have dropped off, like a mere child of nature, ere reaching the future land of promise. We get the same principle illustrated in Laban afterward in Gen. xxiv. Laban, as some one has well observed, was fully alive to the value of the gold and silver jewels which the servant of Abraham had brought with him, but he had no heart to value _the report_ concerning future things, which dropped from his lips. In other words, he did not receive a revelation from "the God of glory," and as a consequence, he remained, as the same writer has observed, "_a thorough man of the world_."