March 1932 where recovery was impossible unless God should step in. Idolatry is not that which is in the dark, struggling upward toward the light, but it is that which has been in the light and, turning its back upon the light, goes groping ever farther and far ther into the darkness. Many professors of comparative religions are telling us that the religions of paganism are in reality efforts to find the true God. They say that their devotees are lifting sightless eyes and groping hands toward the light and are ever approaching nearer and nearer the light. But the reverse is true, as this record makes manifest. The worship of the pagans is the worship of demons (cf. 1 Cor. 10:20). But God has purposes of blessing which include the whole human race, and those purposes are not to be set aside by the deflection of the race or any part of it. With the call of Abram, God begins to make possible the fulfillment of His purposes. First of all, He must have upon the earth some repository for His truth, and He chose Abram and his descendants for this purpose. We are told that unto Israel were committed the oracles of God (Rom. 3 :1, 2). Not only did God need such a re pository for His truth upon earth, but He also needed a channel through which He could bring into the world the promised seed of the woman, and this channel He found in Israel as descended from Abram (Rom. 9:5). Finally, after the race was divided (Gen., 11), God needed a witness to the nations. The nation, Israel, was to be the witness. Thus far in history, she has not fulfilled this portion of the pur pose of God concerning her. She now waits until her Messiah returns to earth again when, being brought into her own land and exalted above all the nations, she will bear her witness to those nations concerning the things of God. It has been seen, therefore, that the pur pose in the call of Abram was threefold: to find a respository of God's truth upon earth, to form a channel thr6ugh which Jesus Christ should come into the world, and to give God’s witness to other nations. The latter part of this purpose awaits its fulfillment at the return of Christ. The testimony of the church has nothing to do with the nations of the earth as such, but with individuals among all the nations, Is rael included. The church has nothing to say to the governments of earth; hers is a message to the individuals in the nations. Consequently, the idea of any union be tween church and state is erroneous. The nation of Israel is God’s only messenger to the nations as such; the church has a message only to individuals among the na tions. III. T he M ethod of the C all (1). Abram’s call demonstrated sovereign grace. All were sinners; all had departed from the living Go.d. Abram himself was involved in idolatry, as were others, and the nation which should spring from him was no better than any other nation. Indeed, as far as the other nations were concerned, Israel appeared to be worse than any, according to her later history. We are told that the message to- Israel was, “The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath he had sworn unto your fathers” (Deut. 7 :7,8). It was sovereign grace which gave Israel her preferred position among
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Approach : God planted a garden for Adam and Eve. In it, He made to grow “every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food,” and the tree of the knowl
What would you say is the nature of sin? What is the remedy for it (Acts 16:31)? _Vs. 7, 8. Name three results of man’s sin. What were the consequences of sin upon Adam ? upon Eve ? upon the serpent ? upon the world? Golden Text Illustration Harry Phillips tells of being in a hos pital where an old man was dying from an injury. He was -evidently a man of „cul ture, and had been reared a gentleman; but in his delirium, with a look'of unutterable anguish on his face, he would cry out: “I am going down to hell, and I can’t find the brake.” With this cry, his right foot would move restlessly under the bed clothes, trying to find the pedal of a brake. “Has it been drink? Mostly that. What an awful waste my life has been! Well born, public school boy, Rugby-Oxford honors! Magnificent fortune at twenty- one—all gone—dying alone, uncared for, in a London hospital at sixty! Do you know what ruined me? Driving four-in-hand. I tried to drive drink, gambling, extrava gance, and idleness. Costs a lot to keep up that team; and then they bolted one day, and the brake broke, and I couldn’t hold them. You have seen at the top of some hills: ‘Cyclists, beware 1 This hill is dan gerous.’ That notice should be placed over every gin palace and every gambling club ■—over strong drink altogether.” Then the delirium returned, and the look of agony in the eyes, and the restless mov ing of the right foot, and the cry: “I can’t find the brake! Some one hold the leaders!” The Garden God Planted Genesis 2:8-10, 15-17; 3:6-8 Memory Verse: “We must obey God” (Acts 5:29). , Golden Text : “Thou shalt be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2). Ur of the Chaldees O NE of the most romantic pieces of excavation going on at the present time is that at Ur of the Chaldees. sity of Pennsylvania. If one wishes to read a very complete ac count of the work done there, he can find it in the January, 1930, number of the National Geographic Magazine. One is struck with the high civilization of the city in ancient times. There was a great amount of commerce carried on. Ac count books were kept, in which the record of receipts and expenditures was accurate ly recorded. Records of the work of em ployees in factories and mills were kept. The houses were very well built, bricks being employed as the chief medium of construction. The greatest building in the city was the Ziggurat, or tower. It was a marvel of architectural skill. Provision was made for weather and storms, so that the structure would last for centuries. The fact that it is still standing is ample proof of the architectural skill of its builders.
edge of good and evil was in the garden, too. Then God told Adam to take care of the garden. He and Eve could do anything that they wanted' in this garden but just one thing, and that was this: They were not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Lesson Story. There was plenty of other fruit to eat, and Adam and Eve didn’t think anything about this forbidden fruit, until one day the serpent came and asked Eve if it was true that God had for bidden her to eat of this fruit. Then Eve looked at the fruit, and it did look so good! The serpent told her it wouldn’t hurt to eat it. And she did so want to try it, that she decided to taste it. She gave some to Adam, too. And that is the way that sin came into the world. After they had eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were afraid. They knew that they had sinned; and because they had sinned, they knew that they must be pun ished. Perhaps they were not surprised, then, when God told them that they must leave this beautiful garden. Out into the world, they had to go. Adam had to till the ground to make things grow for Eve and for him to eat, and Eve had to help him. For when sin came into the world, sorrow came in, too, and death. But with this punishment, God gave a promise—- a promise of a child who should be born and who would bring back life, and who would wipe away all sorrow and sin. The author of the article in the Na tional Geographic tells of an astounding discovery which was made just last year. They had sunk a shaft in a certain place to explore the lower layers of the ruined city. In doing so, they came upon a “clean, water-laid bank of clay eight feet deep, and beneath it again the remains of the most primitive civilization of Ur.” The archaeologists concluded that this could have been caused only by the great flood of the time of Noah. Thus again, the spade of the archaeologist had confirmed the Bible record. Outline and Exposition I. T he C haracter of the C all (1). Abram’s call was from and to —from the familiar and the known' to the unfa miliar and the unknown. At this point in the Scripture record, there is a transition from God’s dealing with the whole human race to His dealing with individual mem bers of that race. But we must not over look the fact that Abram, and those who were descended from him, were members of the common race. The line runs, from Adam to Shem, in Genesis 5, and from Shem to Abram, in Genesis 11. II. T he P urpose of the C all (1). The race had gone into idolatry (Josh. 24:2), and hence had reached the place
APRIL 17, 1932 THE CALL OF ABRAM G enesis f2":l-9" '
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