And our fathers who received it brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations God drove out before them. It remained until the time of David, Sermons
I. THE SACRED PLACES OF ISRAEL. 1. The tabernacle. It was the tent of witness or of attestation; otherwise the "tabernacle of the assembly," or of the congregation. It was the visible center of Israel's natural and spiritual life, the hearth and home of the people and the altar of God. He met with them to declare his will, to make known his laws, and they with one another as a community having a common weal. Religion is the true foundation of society. She is the" oldest and holiest tradition of the earth." When a house of God is erected in the wilds of Australia or of America, a center of civilization is fixed. It is the earthly representation of a heavenly reality. Moses made the tabernacle after a Divine archetype or model given to him. So worship on earth must ever aspire to and reflect the "life above," the risen life, the life of spiritual freedom and victory. God is ever saying to new societies, as to the new society in the desert, "Make me a house after the pattern you have seen;" that is, have a place and a recognition in your life for the holiest ideals, the most sacred purposes of life. 2. The temple. Both the tabernacle and the temple were designed and constructed after the analogy of human dwellings; the tabernacle was but a more richly furnished tent. As the wealth and power of the nation increased, it was fitting that this should be reflected in the greater magnificence of the house of God; and as they became settled in the Holy Land, that the tent of the nomad should give way to the palace of a King. The temple of Solomon represented in its magnificence the greatness of the victorious kingdom of David. The outward institutions of religion in a people should keep pace with its growth in material prosperity. It is miserable that the church should be worse furnished than the ordinary dwellings of the worshippers, or that the minister of religion should fare in poverty while he supplies their spiritual wants. A rich man can surely afford to contribute as much to the pastor's necessities as he pays in stipend to his cook. But there are higher truths. The tabernacle passed away; the temple, as Stephen had predicted, was to pass away; the spiritual verities eternally remain. II. THE TRUE SACRED PLACE IS EVER THE SOUL OF MAN. 1. The dwelling of God in visible temples is a symbolic thought, the reality to which it points is his intercourse with the soul of man. This was the great truth of prophetic teaching. The prophets were themselves living illustrations of it. God dwelt in them, spake through them, breathed upon them, turned their hearts unto his shrine, communed with them face to face, as a man with his friend. "The true Shechinah is man," said a great Father of the Church. 2. It is the spiritual indwelling which is at the heart of all true religion. When it is once grasped, great consequences follow. The priest and the ritual and the fixed place are no longer necessary. Every one who has a truth from God, and feels that it must be spoken, is a prophet. New oracles may be opened at any moment, new witnesses may arise, the truth find a fresh utterance from unexpected lips. If this truth be not recognized, the sacred building becomes an empty shell, the priests mere mummers, the ritual a pantomime. To believe that God can care for splendid temples and ritual, for themselves, is imbecile superstition. To believe that he values all the expressions of living and loyal hearts is a part of rational piety. But at the highest point of religious intelligence it may be well asked, "What need of temple, when the walls of the world are that?" 3. The denial of the spiritual truth is the source of error, superstition, and crime. The earlier Jews killed the prophets, leaving posterity to find out their value and raise their monuments. Posterity did the like. The very men who waved the torch of truth more brightly in darkened ages, and those who had the best news to toll their times, were silenced and suppressed. The culmination of all was the betrayal and murder of Jesus. Such a story of miserable persecution and suicidal hatred of the good carries its deep and permanent warnings. How dishonest if we take occasion from this passage to form an idle opinion of the peculiar bigotry of the Jews! Was ever a corporation, a body with vested interests, or a Church, known to act otherwise towards the new truth and the new teacher? Has any great teacher in the Christian Church been received at first with welcome and owned as "sent from God"? Grudging toleration is the most he can expect. Only those who know that religion is an affair of the individual soul, not of the Church or the formal confession, will welcome him in whom religion now embodies itself, and through whom, in the decay of systems, God speaks with freshness and power to the world. - J.
When his father was dead He removed him into this land. Terah died at Haran at the age of two hundred and five (Genesis 11:32.). From Genesis 11:26 it has been inferred that Terah was not more than seventy at the birth of Abraham; and as Abraham left Haran at seventy-five (Genesis 12:4) it would follow that Terah outlived his departure sixty years. But it is nowhere stated that Abraham was Terah's eldest son, and the Rabbins reckoned him the youngest. Abraham's prominence in history as the father of the faithful and the friend of God accounts for his name being placed before that of Haran in Genesis 11:26. In like manner the name of Shem, the youngest, stands first among the sons of Noah (Genesis 9:18; Genesis 10:21); Isaac's name takes precedence of Ishmael's (1 Chronicles 1:28); Judah is placed at the head of the list of the sons of Jacob (1 Chronicles 4:1; 1 Chronicles 5:1-2), and Moses is mentioned before his elder brother Aaron.(Bp. Jacobsen.) And He gave him none inheritance in it... yet He promised, that He would give it to him for a possession Of this we have three illustrations in the verses before us, which are all the more impressive because of their unlikelihood. We have God's fidelity —I. To His PROMISES (ver. 5). Abraham, without a foot of land, and, being childless and nomadic, not likely to trouble himself about any, was promised that his seed should possess the entire country. We know that this came to pass, and through what a wonderful series of unlikely events it came to pass. This, therefore, is a good sample of all God's promises — e.g., 1. Of temporal good. Who that has trusted God's word in this particular ever knew it to fail? There is no promise of affluence, but there are abundant promises of sufficiency. Some of the richest pages in Christian biography are records of the extraordinary way in which God works the deliverance of His people in poverty, affliction, danger, etc. 2. Of salvation "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Who ever knew that to fail? It has been proved over and over again in the most hopeless cases. The infidel, men and women to whom abnormal vice has become a second nature, criminals on the verge of execution, have found it true, and in a manner in which the most sanguine could never have expected. 3. Of grace. The Christian is sometimes placed in circumstances of extraordinary trial. Extreme adversity and extreme prosperity, circumstances which have been gradually accumulating until they reach a climax, and circumstances which seem to gather like a thunderous cloud in a moment, expose the Christian to extreme peril. Satan seems to occupy an unshakeable vantage ground, and the good man seems to be helplessly entangled in his toils. Not so. Strangely is there opened "a way of escape," which would all along have been seen to be open but for temporary blindness of faith. 4. Of glory — the best illustration perhaps of the promise before us. Then there will be given to us what we most seem to want here, but which we have least ground to expect. The poor will have riches, the weary rest, the afflicted blessedness, and, most wonderful of all, the humble Christian worker the glad "well done" and the crown of life. II. To His PROPHECIES (ver. 6). That this prophecy would be fulfilled was most improbable, a general characteristic of most of the Divine predictions. Men make shrewd guesses based upon wide experience and a careful induction of facts, and men marvel when what, to the clear sighted, seemed almost inevitable takes place. Much more should they marvel when God's Word — based upon what to the most sagacious human reason would pronounce to be no ground at all — comes true; only the wonder should be mixed with adoration. Here, e.g., is the prediction that a childless old man without a foot of territory should have a seed large enough to occupy the land; that a race that did not exist should pass through vicissitudes which are Sufficiently specified for a given number of years. Of alike character are the prophecies concerning Christ and His Church. This being the case with regard to fulfilled prophecies, surely there is good room for faith in those which have not yet come to pass. Having regard to the past who can cease to have hope for the Church or for the world. The Church has not yet come fully into its inheritance — but it is better off than Abraham, who had not a foot of his. III. To His THREATENINGS (ver. 7). The power here threatened was now, and at the time of the fulfilment of the threatening, the mightiest in the world. Yet Egypt was judged. The great world powers afterwards threatened — Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, were in their turn colossal in their strength, yet where are they to-day? And why? Let modern potentates heed the lesson — because they opposed the cause of God; a course as likely to succeed as the effort to keep back the sea with a broom. Conclusion: 1. A sacramental guarantee was given for all this. God entered into solemn covenant with Abraham that promise, prediction, threatening — for all hung together — should be fulfilled, and sealed the covenant by the ordinance of circumcision. And what is a Christian's baptism but a seal of a covenant of promise involving everything else for this life and the life to come; and what is the Lord's supper but a memorial to all generations of the present support and ultimate triumph of the Church of Christ? 2. Lessons:(1) God takes time for the evolution of His purposes. Four hundred years was not too long for the working out of His purposes concerning Israel; four thousand years are not too long for Him to whom one thousand years is as one day.(2) Man must therefore wait. Patience is the grace supremely needed in this relation. Let us not, like faithless Israel, forget or despair. (J. W. Burn.) And God spoke in this wise, that I. The SOJOURNERS — Abraham's seed the spiritual progenitors of believers. "They that are of faith are the seed of Abraham." The Jews were —1. A chosen people; so Christians are a chosen generation. 2. A separated people. In whatever circumstances we find them they will not mix. They would not in Egypt; they will not to-day. So a distinguishing mark of Christians is separation from the world — "What concord hath Christ with Belial." 3. A people owned of God — "I will be their God; they shall be My people." His own inheritance, portion, "special treasure." Observe also, that this people owned their God. In their feasts, sacrifices, offerings, first-born. God was to be owned as their God in all. They were not to take a journey nor engage in battle without first asking God. Another and a double mark of Christian character. 4. A blessed people. "Blessed art thou in Israel," etc., and all who are of the faith are recipients of "the blessing of Abraham." The covenant treasures laid up in Christ Jesus, the righteousness which is by faith. II. THE SOJOURNING. We should never consider the world through which we are passing as any other than a strange land. Do not think of building your nests as if you were to be always at home here. Leave the worldling to his toys, and let us contemplate the fact that we are only strangers and sojourners as all our fathers were. 1. Abraham's seed are considered strange beings in this world — so strange, that they are held "an abomination," and positively offensive (Genesis 43:32). The case is not altered in the present day. "The world knoweth us not, because it knows Him not." "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God," etc. He who is "born after the flesh" is still as bent upon persecuting him who is "born after the Spirit" as in Paul's days. Nor can the servants of Satan, the soldiers of Sihon and Og, allow the Israel of God to pass through their territories unmolested. And yet I am anxious that all the seed of Abraham should be able so to live, that their very enemies may come to the same conclusion that the enemies of Daniel did (Daniel 6:5). 2. They are annoyed with strange things as they pass through this strange land with its — (1) (2) (3) 3. Though grievously annoyed, yet they advance continually in the face of every obstacle and foe. Nothing stops them; on they must go. But how was it that no powers could arrest, no floods or plains intimidate, or armies vanquish Abraham's seed? Just because God went before them as their guide, a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. And is it not the same now? The Lord is a wall of fire round about them that fear Him. The real advancement of the seed of Abraham will always include these two things; an advancement in the knowledge of ourselves that shall lay us low; and in the knowledge of Jesus that shall elevate and cheer us. III. THE KINGDOM BEYOND. It was Jehovah's good pleasure to give His people Canaan, and they got it not with sword or bow. They did not deserve it, for they were a stiff-necked and perverse generation, but it was Jehovah's good pleasure to give it to them, just as "it is our Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom." Many things might be said about this kingdom; but note these: We shall then be so situated as to be above all annoyances, in a kingdom where there is not an unwholesome law; where there is not a dissenting voice from the will of the Monarch; where there is no infirmity, and nothing but joy, and peace, and righteousness. (J. Irons.) (Bp. Jacobson.) 7259 promised land, later history The Young Saul and the Aged Paul [Footnote: to the Young. ] The Death of the Master and the Death of the Servant The Prayer of Stephen. Our Lord Appears after his Ascension. Letter iv. You Reply to the Conclusion of My Letter: "What have we to do with Routiniers?... St. Stephen's Day and Stephen, Full of Faith and Power, did Great Wonders and Miracles among the People. . . . Then they Stirred up the People. . . . And Caught Him, and Set up False Witnesses against Him. The Death of Stephen. Acts 7:54-60 Whether in Christ There was the Gift of Prophecy? Whether those who are not Practiced in Keeping the Commandments Should Enter Religion? Whether the Old Law was Given through the Angels? Whether Christ's Birth Should have Been Manifested by Means of the Angels and the Star? Whether it is Fitting that Christ Should Sit at the Right Hand of God the Father? Whether Judgment is Rendered Perverse by Being Usurped? In Process of Tithe, that is to Say, in the Tenth Generation after the Flood... And Jacob, when He Went into Mesopotamia, Saw Him in a Dream... The Law Given, not to Retain a People for Itself, but to Keep Alive the Hope of Salvation in Christ Until his Advent. Wisdom and Revelation. As God in his Word Enjoins Common Prayer, So Public Temples are the Places Destined... A Glorious vision. It Follows in the Creed, "And in the Holy Ghost. ... The Secret of Its Greatness From Egypt to Sinai. The Son of Man |