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"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" (Gen. 12: 2, 3).
Abraham was to be the father of a "great nation" but, unlike the other great nations of
history, that nation's greatness was not to be used tyrannically, or for personal
gratification. Through that great nation "all families of the earth" were to be blessed.
The Lord said, "I will bless thee"; but also added, "and thou shalt be a blessing".
There are several important things yet to be made known to Abraham, and certain
further conditions to be fulfilled, before these revelations are possible or fitting, but we
have here in this opening of the story three most important features, which it will be
profitable for us all to make our own.
(1) Blessings, to be enjoyed and experienced, necessitate the obedience of faith. "By
faith . . . . . he obeyed."
(2) Blessings are never to be considered in isolation; they are a part of the
outworking of the purpose of God. The nations had failed. God blessed Abraham that he
might be the father of a "great nation" through whom blessing might flow.
(3) Blessings are never to be considered as purely personal or to be used selfishly.
The reception of blessing constitutes the receiver a channel of blessing to some one else.
The failure to see this contributed largely to Israel's fall. They cursed the Gentiles as
dogs, instead of realizing that these nations were yet to be saved and blessed.
#12.
Separation: an essential to realized blessing.
pp. 257 - 260
One contributory feature in the experience of blessing that we did not emphasize in
our last paper is the condition of "separation". We shall find that this thought is
prominent in Abraham's next experience.
We observe in our last paper that there were four periods in Abraham's life specially
associated with blessing, and found that Heb. 11: spoke most pointedly of the first. It is
a confirmation of our investigations that Heb. 11: speaks of the four items in turn. The
special feature of "separation" is noted in Heb. 11: 9:--
"By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in
tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise."
"Sojourning in a tent" seems to mark the next stage, and this is focused in
Gen. 12:-14: in the word "separate". Although Terah was dead, and Ur of the Chaldees
left far behind, Lot still remained with Abraham, and while he did so, complete