The God of Glory Appeared 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."

    Of all the men mentioned in Bible history, other than our Lord himself, none is set before us as a more prominent example of faith than Abraham. Abraham is uniquely described as the friend of God, the father of them that believe, and that man through whom all the nations of the earth are blessed. These things make Abraham a man whose life and experiences in the grace of God are worthy of careful study.

    In fact, the Book of Genesis, from chapter 11 and verse 27 through the rest of the Book, is taken up almost exclusively with Abraham and his seed. However, when we study the lives and experiences of men like Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, men of exemplary faith and faithfulness, we must not look upon them as extraordinary men, but as men who were saved by the grace of the extraordinary God of glory. Abraham’s greatness must be traced back to and attributed to the greatness of God and his grace. Abraham would say, concerning himself what Paul said concerning himself. – “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Indeed, that is the delightful confession of all who know God. Every believer delights to turn attention away from himself to the Lord God alone. It is the joy of every believing heart to sing, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth’s sake.” We recognize that the life we live in this body of flesh, we live by the grace of God. The life of faith is not a life of amazing will power, fortitude, and self-control. Far from it. The life of faith is a life of amazing grace (Eph. 2:8-9).

    Faith in Christ is the gift and operation of God in us. Faith begins with God, not with man. Faith is not the result of man’s will, decision, or choice. Left to ourselves, none of us would or could believe God. If we believe, it is because it is “God who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” We believe “according to the working of his mighty power.” We believe by “the operation of God,” because God has given us faith to believe. This is exemplified in the experience of Abraham.

    Genesis 12:1 "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.”

    Notice that Moses says, “the Lord had said unto Abraham.” We are not told exactly when the Lord first spoke to the man Abram (Abraham) until we hear Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7. There we read “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran” (Acts 7:2). Those words, “the God of Glory,” are used only twice in the entire Bible, in Acts 7:2 and Psalm 29:3. They refer, of course, to our Lord Jesus Christ, “the King of Glory.” It was Christ himself who came to and made himself known to Abram. What does this teach us?

    First, God gives faith to whom he will. Abram was in Ur, dwelling among the Chaldeans, living in the midst of an idolatrous people, when God almighty stepped into his life. Why did the God of Glory appear to this particular man? The only answer that can be given is this: “It pleased the Lord.” God loved Abram. God chose Abram. God was pleased to be gracious to Abram. Abram was one of that great multitude whose names were written in the Lamb’s book of life before the world began, one of those for whom the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world. Every sinner to whom God gives faith is, like Abram, a monument to the sovereign will, purpose, and grace of God (Rom. 9:16).

    Second, faith is wrought in the hearts of chosen, redeemed sinners by the revelation of Christ (Gal. 1:15). No one can or will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ until Christ is revealed to him and in him. That which is essential to faith is the knowledge of God in Christ (John 17:3). You cannot believe until Christ, the God of Glory appears to you (2 Cor. 4:6).

    Four hundred years had passed since the flood. The world was steeped in idolatry, much as it is today. Yet, even in that wicked, perverse, idolatrous generation, God sent someone to Abram who told him the story of grace, redemption, and salvation. When the word was preached, “the God of Glory appeared to Abraham,” and Abraham believed God. That is always how faith comes to chosen sinners (Zech. 12:10; Rom. 10:13-17).

    Third, faith in Christ is the result of the effectual call of God the Holy Spirit in irresistible grace. God “called Abraham alone, and blessed him and increased him” (Isa. 51:2). That fact is revealed by God as an encouragement and reason to “look unto the rock whence we are hewn and to the hole of the pit whence whence we are digged.” Abraham’s call is relevant to us because the grace of God given to him, the call by which he was brought to life and faith in Christ, is the same grace and call by which God saves his elect in all ages.

    Genesis 12:2-3 “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.”

    1. It was a gracious, personal, distinguishing call. God called Abram simply because he was pleased to do so. There was nothing in him which made him the object of God’s grace. By this call, the Lord God distinguished Abram from all those dwelling in Ur of the Chaldees, who were left to themselves. The Lord God called Abram personally, and called Abram alone. As it is written, “The good Shepherd calleth his own sheep by name.”

    2. It was a separating call. The Lord God called Abram to forsake his family and friends and their gods. If we would follow Christ, we must, like him, turn from all the idolatrous gods of darkness and death to the one true and living God (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1; Rev. 18:4). All who are called of God are called to abandon self, to yield up the rule of their lives to Christ the Lord, denying father, mother, brother, sister, and their own lives, for the gospel’s sake (Luke 14:25-33).

    3. It was a call to blessedness. The Lord God made promises of true blessedness to Abram. These are not promises conditioned upon Abram’s obedience, but sure and certain promises. Abram must obey God’s call; but his obedience as well as the blessings following it were secured by God’s purpose of grace.

    The Lord promised to make of him a great nation, which he did both in the physical nation of Israel and in that “holy nation” which is “the Israel of God”. In blessing him, God promised to make Abram’s name great. Blessed indeed is that one whose name is great before God, whose name is written in heaven!

    God promised to make Abram a blessing. Wonderful grace! God takes sinners who are corrupt and corrupting, and makes them a blessing. Those who by nature defile everything and everyone they touch, when called of God and born of his Spirit, become a blessing everywhere they go, to all around them. Indeed, God deals with men and nations, (providentially, in mercy or in judgment), as they deal with his people. He says, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.”

    Then, the Lord God promised Abram that he would be that man through whom Christ, the promised Seed of woman (Gen. 3:15) would come, by whom redemption, salvation and grace would come to God’s elect in all nations (Gal. 3:13-14). The word of promise was, “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

    4. The call of God is an irresistible, effectual call. -- "So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran” (v. 4; Ps. 65:4; 110:3). When God the Holy Spirit comes calling, chosen, redeemed sinners obey his voice.

    Genesis 12:4-5 -- "So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came."

    Faith in Christ is obedient. Faith obeys God. It is not perfectly obedient; but it is obedient. God has ordained that those who are saved by his grace walk before him in obedience (Eph. 2:10). And what God has ordained God always accomplishes. It appears that Abram’s obedience was reluctant. The Lord had plainly told him to leave his kindred and his father’s house and go into the land of Canaan; but Abraham and Terah left Ur together and they dwelt in the land of Haran, until Terah died (Gen. 11:31-32).

    After God took his father Terah, we read, “So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him.” Disobedience is always costly. If we are his, the Lord God will see that we obey him. If necessary, he will take away anything and anyone hindering us, as he took Terah from Abram. Once Terah was dead, Abram went on to Canaan, as the Lord commanded him. God has his ways of making his children willingly obedient to him; and where he gives faith he also gives obedience by the sweet discipline of his grace (Ex. 4:24-27).

    Genesis 12:6-9 "And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south."

    Faith, true faith, worships God. If we believe God, we will worship him as he is, as he makes himself known to us in his Son, in his Word, and in his works. If we believe God, we will worship him at the altar he requires and in the way he prescribes. Christ is our altar of worship (Heb. 13:10). The altar at which Abraham worshipped God typified him. God requires that we worship him on either an altar of earth, or and altar of unhewn stones, without steps (Ex. 20:24-26). We must worship the Lord God on the Altar of his making, without any contribution from us, without any ascending steps. Christ alone is that Altar. We must come to God trusting Christ alone, contributing nothing. If we make any contribution, we pollute the altar (Gal. 5:2, 4). Wee cannot come to God by ascending degrees of works based sanctification, but by faith in Christ alone.

    If we worship God, we will worship him in his house. “Bethel” means the house of God. There Abraham worshipped, and there God’s people still worship. God reveals himself in Bethel, in his house. Bethel is all the more precious, the house of God is all the more precious, because as long as we are in this world the Canaanites surround us.

    In verses 10-20, the Holy Spirit shows us that faith in Christ, even the most exemplary faith, is never perfect faith. Faith must be tried. By the trial of our faith, God proves both the reality of it and the weakness of it. So the Lord sent a famine in the land of Canaan.

    Abram’s faith, like ours, was weak. God plainly told him to go to Canaan and promised to bless him there. But when famine came, Abraham went down to Egypt. In his unbelief and disobedience, he feared for his life and told Sarah to tell the Egyptians that she was his sister instead of his wife. In weakness, fear, and disobedience, Abraham temporarily forsook God for Egypt. But God abides faithful. He would not forsake the object of his grace (2 Tim. 2:13; Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:5).

    How gracious God is! When we would bring ourselves to shame and misery, when we would, if left to our own devices, destroy ourselves and all around us, the Lord our God graciously protects his own. He will not suffer his faithfulness to fail. It is written, “The gifts and callings of God are without repentance.” Abraham was foolish; but God is wise. Abraham was unbelieving; but God abides faithful. When Abraham chose a path of destruction, God plagued the house of Pharaoh, kept the pagan king of Egypt from the lusts of his own heart, and caused that pagan king to become the protector of his erring child (Gen. 12:20).

    Genesis 13:1-4 "And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai; Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the Lord."

    With all our faults, failures, failings, trials, falls, and sins, faith will never die. True faith will persevere. Faith does not persevere because we are faithful, but because God is faithful. Faith does not persevere because we are strong, but because our God is strong. Faith does not persevere because of our hold on the Lord, but because of the Lord’s hold upon us. This is what we see in these four verses.

    God brought Abraham out of Egypt (v. 1). Not only did he force Abraham to leave Egypt (Gen. 12:19), but he graciously enriched him, using even his unbelief, weakness, and disobedience to do so (v. 2). Abraham came out of Egypt a better man. The word “rich” means much more than wealthy. It means “honorable.” Abraham was made a better man by his failure, because God works all things together for the good of his elect, even our failures (Ps. 76:10; Rom. 8:28).

    Abraham pitched his tent between Bethel (the house of God) and Hai (a heap of ruins), and worshipped God “at the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.” I can almost hear the old patriarch, say, as he kneels to worship by the heap of ruins at Bethel, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord…What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord…. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people….O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people, In the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord." Let us, like Abraham, return to the place of the altar, to Christ our Savior, and abide there, as sinners saved by the grace of God alone, through the merits of his blood and righteousness. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him" (Col. 2:6).