Hebrews 11:8-10 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out… I. THE RESULT OF ABRAHAM'S FAITH, which we are now called upon to consider. There are three distinct points before us: — 1. The first part of what is mentioned as the work of Abraham's faith, showing the Christian what he should give up. 2. What he should bear. 3. What he should live for. What had Abraham to give up?" Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house." What a command! Consider what he had to forsake. And in the eyes of his family how absurd and fanciful must his scheme have been! But Abraham was supported by a certain hope. "He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."Thus, then — 1. Abraham gave up the world and endured hardships. 2. Lived on the hope of a future blessing, which he did receive. 3. And all this he did by faith. II. AND NOW LET US APPLY ABRAHAM'S CASE AND CONDUCT TO OUR OWN. First, then, what is the world you have to give up? It is the world, the objects to which we are drawn, the objects around us, which draw forth our sinful inclinations, which we are now to consider. 1. It depends upon different dispositions what becomes our world. To one man nature is his world: he has a mind to enjoy extremely the beauties and the works of nature. The feelings produced by a rich sunset or a beautiful view are his very religion; he gazes at the beauty of a flower till he thinks he worships the God who made it; he forgets the Creator in the creature, and mistakes the one for the other. Poetry is his religion, or sentiment, or some such natural feeling. Now suppose such a man called by duty, i.e. by God, to live in a place where he is cut off from all such objects of admiration, to live quietly and without excitement amid what are to him the dull realities of life, obliged to give up all his taste and refinement, and put up with quiet, dull, sober, everyday work — at least what is so to him naturally; and suppose this man refuses to do it, or lingers in doing it: he thinks if he gives up nature and his admiration that all his religion will go too. All his religion depended on a place, and nature is that man's world. It is what Abraham's family and home were to him, and if he refuse to desert it at the call of duty, he is not living above the world. 2. Again: in another man applause and praise is his world; he lives for this, and has lived for it all his life; every act of his life is governed by what men think of it. Now suppose such a man withdrawn from the sphere in which he had been admired, courted and flattered; suppose him called by duty to work in a sphere where his brightest acts would be unknown, and there would be none to admire even his most creditable denials; and suppose he hesitated to do this — then that man's world would be human applause. 3. Or again; to some men mere worldly success is their world, what they call getting on in life; they live for this; their whole views of right and wrong are almost bounded by their chance of success in their profession, their trade, their farm, their place. 4. But to some, like Abraham himself, their family is their world. If your family interfere with any single duty to God, that family is your world. 5. To others — in the common use of the word — pleasure is their world; society, whose only object it; is to gratify the sense or entertain the imagination. Good-natured society; dissipated society; intellectual society; idle society, whose object it is to pass away the dull hours of life by the empty reading of novels, or by lounging in listless carelessness through the precious fleeting hours of time. Ambitious society, whose great object it is to surpass each other in display of wealth. 6. To some, activity is a kind of world. 7. To some a particular set of circumstances connected with religion is their world, a particular minister, whom they almost worship, particular religious friends, whose word, with them, would almost surmount the authority of Scripture. This, then, is what he must do and give up for Christ's sake and the gospel's. The believer must show forth his faith, like Abraham, by forsaking and coming out from the world. III. AND UNDER THIS WHAT IS THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE? IV. BUT ALL THIS IS THE RESULT OF FAITH. By faith Abraham gave up the world and rested on future promises. And by faith you must give up the world and rest on future promises. For example — 1. If your world is the admiration of nature, of trees and hills, and the objects of the earth around you; then, if called by duty to cease to spend days in contemplating these, to work in a line which to you is dull and uninteresting, faith helps you by opening your eyes to see a world where are objects like those you yield, which you shall enjoy freely hereafter; where are hills without their toil, suns without their burning, trees without their dying, flowers without their fading, nature unstained by sin, unvisited by death, in the very presence of death for ever. 2. If your world is the praise of man, you are called to give it up; faith offers you the praise of God instead, the approval of your Saviour. 3. If your world is success m your earthly calling, and you are called by conscience to resign hopes of high success here, faith points through the veil of humiliation to the everlasting hills, where you shall reign as kings and priests for ever. 4. If your world is your family, whose affections God calls you willingly and cheerfully to resign, faith points to a re-union in heaven. 5. If your world is society, with its vain, empty, delusive, dissipating pleasure, faith points you to a society whose whole object is God, whose whole religion is praise, and whose whole will is obedience; a society of angels and saints, gathered from the earliest ages, and purified by the influence of the Spirit. 6. If your world is activity, and passive suffering to the call of God, faith offers a field of active service before God for ever. 7. If your world is a particular sphere of religious circumstances, faith points you to God, and bids you trust in Him, not in man. (E. Monro.) Parallel Verses KJV: By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. |
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