the light of his ways as recorded in the previous chapterhis taking of matters into his own hands instead of leaving them with God; his resorting to fleshly expediences instead of patiently waiting for Him to act. And now that Jehovah condescends to reveal Himself again to Abram, he is overwhelmed at such grace. Thus we regard Abram's falling on his face not so much due to confusion as to wonderment at the divine favor shown him notwithstanding his unbelief. We cannot now comment upon the remaining verses of the chapter, but in closing would call attention to one other feature. It is to be noted that in connection with the revelation of Himself as the "Almighty" the Lord God made Abram a composite promise in which seven times He said "I will"-"And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God....And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed: and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.... But My covenant will I establish with Isaac" (vs. 6, 7, 8, 19, 21). The relationship between this compound promise and the title of Deity used on the occasion of its utterance is the pledge of its fulfilment. It is because all power is at His disposal, it is because He is sufficient in Himself, that the performing of all He has said is sure. What God says He will do. So sure is the fulfilment that in verse 5 the Lord says, "for a father of many nations have I made thee" (not "will I make thee"), just as in Romans 8:30 it is "whom He justified them He also glorified," and yet in experience the glorification is yet future.

With the above seven "I wills" of God should be compared the seven "I wills" of Exodus 6: 6-8, "Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: and I will take you to be a people, and I will be to you a God:

and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did sware to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; and I will give it you for a heritage I am the Lord." Our purpose in calling attention to this latter passage is that in Genesis 16 the Lord revealed Himself to Abram as the Almighty and followed the revelation with a sevenfold promise, and here in Exodus 6 He reveals Himself as Jehovah (v. 3) and follows this revelation with another sevenfold promise. Perfect are the ways and perfect is the Word of Him with whom we have to do.

23. ABRAHAM AT GERAR

GENESIS 20

In our last chapter we considered at some length the revelation which God made of Himself to Abraham as the Almighty, together with the sevenfold promise which accompanied this revelation, including, as it did, that Abraham and Sarah should be given Isaac in their old age. In Genesis 18 we behold the Lord in full fellowship with the one He thrice terms His "friend," eating at his table, and making known his purpose concerning Sodom; while at the close of the chapter Abraham is seen as an intercessor before God. And now, in Genesis 20, we are to witness a sad and dramatic change. There is a return to the miserable policy which he followed down in Egypt. Afraid that his life may be taken from him on account of his wife, he causes her to pose as his sister, and only through a direct interposition by God is she delivered from the effects of his sin.

“And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech, King of Gerar, sent and took Sarah” (Gen. 20: 1, 2). The contents of Genesis 20 furnish a striking proof of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. No fictitious historian would have recorded this dark blot on the life of such an illustrious personage as Abraham. The tendency of the human heart is ever toward hero worship, and the common custom of biographers is to conceal the defects and blemishes in the careers of the characters which they delineate, and this, had it been followed, would naturally forbid the mention of such a sad fall in the life of one of the most venerated names on the scroll of history. Ah! but herein the Bible differs from all other books. The Holy Spirit has painted the portraits of Scripture characters in the colors of nature and truth. He has given a faithful picture of the human heart such as is common to all mankind.

At first sight it seems incredible that Abraham should have acted as recorded here in Genesis 20, but further reflection will convince any honest Christian that the picture

here drawn is only too true to life: "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man" (Prov. 27: 19). The remaining of the old nature in the believer, the occasional manifestations of it in God-dishonoring activities, the awful backslidings which God's children have been subject to in all ages, and the reviewing of our own sad departures from the path of faith and righteousness, are quite enough to explain the deplorable and seemingly unaccountable conduct of the father of all who believe. And if the reader knows nothing of such departures and backslidings let him not boast of his faithfulness and superior piety, rather let him ascribe all glory to the matchless grace of Him that is able to keep us from falling.

Sad indeed, inexpressibly sad, was Abraham's conduct. It was not the fall of a young and inexperienced disciple, but the lapse of one who had long walked the path of faith that here shows himself ready to sacrifice the honor of his wife, and what is worse, give up the one who was the depositary of all the promises. "What then is man, and what hope for him except in God None, surely. And it is to ground us well in this that we are given to see the sad and terrible failures of these honored servants of God. Not to discourage but to lead us to the Source of all comfort and strength. Only in realized weakness do we find this. Only when unable to do without God for a moment do we find what He is for us moment by moment" (F. W. Grant).

What made the matter so much worse in Abraham's case was that it was not a question of being surprised into a sudden fault. It was the recurrence of an old sin. Long ago he had followed the same wicked course in Egypt, where his duplicity had been discovered and from whence he was banished in disgrace. But the experience profited him not. Some twenty or twenty-five years had passed since then, and in the interval he had built an altar unto the Lord, had vanquished Chedorlaomer, had been blessed by Melchizedek the priest of the Most High God, had repulsed the offer of the King of Sodom to be enriched at his hands, and had received wondrous revelations and promises from God; yet now we see him leaving God out of his reckoning, and ensnared by the fear of man, resorting to the most shameful deception. How then shall we account for this? The explanation is obvious: until the time referred to in Gen

esis 20 Abraham had not been in circumstances to call into exercise the evil that was in his heart.

"The evil was not fully brought out—not confessed, not got rid of—and the proof of this is, that the moment he again finds himself in circumstances which could act upon his weak point, it is at once made manifest that the weak point is there. The temptation through which he passed in the matter of the King of Sodom was not by any means calculated to touch this peculiar point; nor was anything that occurred to him from the time that he came up out of Egypt until he went down to Gerar calculated to touch it, for had it been touched it would no doubt have exhibited itself.

"We can never know what is in our hearts until circumstances arise to draw it out. Peter did not imagine he could deny his Lord, but when he got into circumstances which were calculated to act upon his peculiar weakness, he showed that his weakness was there.

"It required the protracted period of forty years in the wilderness to teach the children of Israel 'what was in their hearts' (Deut. 8:2); and it is one of the grand results of the course of discipline through which each child of God passes, to lead him into a more profound knowledge of his own weakness and nothingness. 'We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God which raiseth the dead' (2 Cor. 1:9). The more we are growing in the sense of our infirmities, the more shall we see our need of clinging more closely to Christ-drawing more largely upon His grace, and entering more fully into the cleansing virtue and value of His atoning blood. The Christian, at the opening of his course never knows his own heart; indeed, he could not bear the full knowledge of it; he would be overwhelmed thereby. 'The Lord leads us not by the way of the Philistines lest we should see war,' and so be plunged into despair. But He graciously leads us by a circuitous route, in order that our apprehension of His grace may keep pace with our growing self-knowledge" (C. H. M.).

As we have seen, it was stress of circumstances which revealed the state of Abraham's heart, as it is of ours. Though the wording of it might be improved, we thoroughly agree with the sentiment of a preacher who long ago said, "We possess no more religion than what we have in the time