Call of Abraham
105
Who is ready at the call of Providence to renounce cherished plans and
familiar associations? Who will accept new duties and enter untried
fields, doing God’s work with firm and willing heart, for Christ’s sake
counting his losses gain? He who will do this has the faith of Abraham,
and will share with him that “far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory,” with which “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
to be compared.”
2 Corinthians 4:17
;
Romans 8:18
.
The call from heaven first came to Abraham while he dwelt in “Ur
of the Chaldees” and in obedience to it he removed to Haran. Thus
far his father’s family accompanied him, for with their idolatry they
united the worship of the true God. Here Abraham remained till the
death of Terah. But from his father’s grave the divine Voice bade him
go forward. His brother Nahor with his household clung to their home
and their idols. Besides Sarah, the wife of Abraham, only Lot, the son
of Haran long since dead, chose to share the patriarch’s, pilgrim life.
Yet it was a large company that set out from Mesopotamia. Abraham
already possessed extensive flocks and herds, the riches of the East,
and he was surrounded by a numerous body of servants and retainers.
He was departing from the land of his fathers, never to return, and he
took with him all that he had, “their substance that they had gathered,
and the souls that they had gotten in Haran.” Among these were many
led by higher considerations than those of service and self-interest.
During their stay in Haran, both Abraham and Sarah had led others to
the worship and service of the true God. These attached themselves to
the patriarch’s household, and accompanied him to the land of promise.
“And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land
of Canaan they came.”
The place where they first tarried was Shechem. Under the shade
of the oaks of Moreh, in a wide, grassy valley, with its olive groves
and gushing springs, between Mount Ebal on the one side and Mount
[128]
Gerizim on the other, Abraham made his encampment. It was a fair
and goodly country that the patriarch had entered—“a land of brooks
of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a
land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a
land of oil olive, and honey.”
Deuteronomy 8:7, 8
. But to the worshiper
of Jehovah, a heavy shadow rested upon wooded hill and fruitful plain.
“The Canaanite was then in the land.” Abraham had reached the goal
of his hopes to find a country occupied by an alien race and overspread