The Call of Abram.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume XVII, Issue 1, 1 July 1926, Page 2

The Call of Abram.

(By the Rev. C. B. Mortlock, M.A., Hon. C.F.).

"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. ' ' '— Genesis xii. 1.

In the preceding chapters we read how the families of mankind had been commanded by God to go. forth and colonise the world. But they refused. They said: Let us build a city, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. It was then to Abram, a Babylonian, that the call of God came: called to be the friend of God, the father of the Church of God through whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed ; whose daughter down the long ages was to be the Mother of God, A high destiny, indeed !

But Abram knew nothing of this. He knew no reason for his going, beyond the command of God — a God Whose Name he did not even know. He did not know where he was to go or what he was to do. But, this is the important point, he went. From the land where he had become wealthy, and where he was living at peace among his family, he went with his wife and brother "to go unto the land of Canaan, and unto the land of: Canaan they came. ' '

I. The remarkable feature of this story is not so much that God should have called Abram out of an idolatrous land, since He has m his inscrutable wisdom elected to work out His eternal purpose by the hands of men, but rather the willingness with which Aibram responds. As the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says : "By faith he sojourned m the land of promise as m a strange country. ' '

He need not have gone. He could, if- he had pleased, have refused to hear. He was not forced to go. He had a perfectly free will and could have chosen to stay with his own kinsfolk. But he recognised the Divine command, and, more than that, acted upon it. He was obedient to the Will of Gtod.

■ I think we are often m danger of forgetting that the patriarchs . and prophets of old were, all of them, free ageats. They were as free as we are

to-day to advance or rp^d-ijthe work of God's Holy Spirit.. /.Xt /.'is a great mystery, but there' it is. 'God- has, by His gift of fr.ee. .will, given :to;us men the power of- thwarting Him m His eternal purpose.." And we Have to choose, each one of us,; on which side we will be. You cannot' be neutral — there is no such thing as neutrality m religion. Every' inonieftt of -!our lives we are influencing: r sonjej^ody. We cannot help doing~so. 'itnS our influence must be either for good or ill. There is nothing m between. "He that is not with Me is against Me," said our Blessed Lord. It as an awful thought, but it is true. If a man believes m his religion) he is bound by every instinct of his being to labor that the Lord shall prevail. Either our religion is true or it is hot. If it is not true, let us have an end of it; but if it is true, we cannot keep it to ourselves : we are not the sole proprietors. We are trustees, stewards of the manifold grace of God, whose business is to hand it on to all the children of God. Jesus Christ did not die upon the Cross for you and me only. He died for the redemption of the whole world ; and a Church that comprises anything less than that can never satisfy God and should never satisfy us. Familiarity with facts sometimes blinds us to their reality. We talk of England as a Christian country. Why? Because Christianity is recognised as having played a very important part m moulding the character of the nation. Our civilisation is largely built /upon Christian principle; human life is counted sacred; the sick and crippled are cared for, often with grave disadvantage to the welfare of the race; the maintenance of the poor and needy is recognised as a public duty and a civic responsibility. These are all the characteristics of a Christian community. There is, too, the liberty we enjoy: the very fact that a man is able to stand m the street and vilify all we hold sacred is only possible because Christian forbearance has beon reduced to a generally recognised public attitude m this respect. Consider also the persecuted Jew fleeing to this country m order that he may take advantage of Christian hospitality.

These are, all of them, the marks of a Christian state, directly due to the influence of Christianity, whether those who hold them are Christians or no. But if by a "Christian country" we mean a nation permeated by the Spirit of Christ and dominated by Faith, then ours is certainly not a Christian land. We call it Christian because the vast majority of religious people m England confess the faith of Christ.

But what of the British Empire? The #mg rul^s .pyer^iojre .Mo^n**

Diedans.. than does, the Sultan of key; .M f ty , millions of our f elipwsubjects m India live m the joyless shadow of Islam. ;: Over two hundred millions are steeped m polytheism. Many millions more know nothing .of religion : except m the guise : of .- devil worship. And whajt is perhaps as sad afact/ as- any— in Ceylon to-day there are fewer. Christians than when, the island became a British possession m 1798. 111. , The cali'bf God to us m these days is no less definite and no less imperative than it. was of old, "Go ye, and teach all nations, baptising" them m the Name of tjie Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and 10, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Was it for nothing, think you, that God raised us m our tiny .island to be the first of the nations of the modern world? Do you really suppose that it is for our own glory, our own pride, our own material wealth that the government of India is ours? God forbid that we should glory save m the Cross of Christ. Not until the Cross of Christ is raised side by side with the emblem of Government can we claim to be a Christian Empire. But our responsibility m this respect, tremendous as it is, does not end here. We are also "fellow-citi-zens with the saints, .' ' we are co-heirs with Christ, for 'each of us m his baptism was made an inheritor of the Kingdom of God.', Is this heritage so small arid inconsequent a thing that we can afford to let it lie idle? Suppose, instead, it were an earthly fortune or estate. How we should labor to. improve it; what earnest care and thought we should bestow upon it! Nearly two thousand years have passed since God Almighty, the Creator arid Buler of the universe, took upon Himself, human form and lived the life of a man as it had never been lived, before or since, and for the sins of ihe.wjiole world, for every human soul whose every name is known to Him, .died. ..upon the Cross, suffered th^v.ii^st'*de^a^\ni|e'ted''6ut only to; the basest crijriitiais, that we might be sayed .and blessed! .And then after His glpfibus' Res^uri'ectioh He taught that, little !.band of eleven simple riien concerairig |he|Kingabrii^ Of all that Hfe^ saicl, or .did during '; .thdse; forty djiys jonjy .one great command is .re-corded—-nb times. Np^tmngielsfe^of"©^''^^''^ ministry is spJrecordeclV: lii St.! Matthew it is, ' '* Go ye,' jbiiere'fpre, ;inake disciples of '"' all ristip^iba^ti^irig ■ them m the Name of the^'Fatlie^ and of the Son •tttSP of "the^Hply Spirits" . The same command, m slightly different 1 words, • meets us m each of the other Gospels.

Last of all, m the Acts of the Apostles, we" read, "You 1 shall "receive power after that the Holy. Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be fitnesses of Me ... unto the uttermost parts of the earth;; And when He had spoken these things^ while they beheld, He was takeri up. " " The uttermost parts of the earth!"— the last recorded words of our Blessed Lord, spoken to His Church two thousand years ago— yet half the world has never 1 heard them.

Here m England we live within the sound of a church bell, and are ministered to by many thousands of priests. We rejoice m our splendid cathedrals and churches with their beautiful music and stately ceremonial. All this is as it should be.. "My house shall be exceeding magnified!." But it is not as it should be if we are content with that : if we are satisfied to enjoy ihese priceless privileges of dignity of worship and spiritual ministrations , TyMlfi half the world has not heard ' the Gbspel !

Selfishness is at all times a deadly thing, but there, is i nothing more deadening to the soul than selfishness m religion. We sometimes hear people try to excuse themselves for ; their lack of interest m the great work of the Church by saying, "Well, after all; 'charity begins at home.' We've plenty of heathen m our own country. " To them T would say, ' ' What <lo you suppose would have become of us if the Apostles and early Christians had acted upon that principle and said, 'We must Christianise Pak estirie first; we must convert our own people, God's chosen people, the Jews, first'?" Palestine is not yet a Christian country, the Jews are not yet evangelised. There never was such a strong case for home missions as that of the early Church. .But they knew their first business was to carry the Light of the World into the world. What right, then, have we to a monopoly of that which belongs no less to India and Africa arid China than to ourselves "I What should we say of a man who inherited his father's property while his brother was abroad, and although it was bequeathed to them both equally, the one at home kept the other m ignorance and kept the fortune to himself? We should . say that such a man was a thjef. How much better are we who say \ "We must first have a thoroughly Christian England?"

To the • uttermost parts of the earth, then, must the Gospel message be carried. But it must be carried by men and women. Money is no good unless there are the men to send— faithful servants of the Lord, •who are willing to give up much that they hold dear m order that they may do. the will of God; ready to answer the summons whenever and however

it .may, cpme..,, Ta in&st of ns_it f will come m tlie light of^ knowledge' lCnSw. le,dge, that is., oftlie . £acts anjf^-^tfie ri£ed; '.. To ; very ' few is the open' vision vou6h^afecir :(r „ .-. ..... : ' Dives, whe ! ii he', 'y r o jn^a^ejT anxl sa\v Lazarus lying m Abr^hatii^s bosom, ;i>ra^ed' i 'tliat;|Warjis f: n^igl(t : fee sent to., tesiii^y . to hi^bj-ethrienr^ Bj|t Abrahani s^dd^. . /' They have\/!^pjies arid the prpphietb, J : let .. t&ejtii hjekjr them. ' ' Dives criie^ : ;' ; lNf(y,y'^atfier. Abraham, b.ut ; if One went liritio ; ih:sm from tlie d&id tliey will r<epen|;." Buj; he safd, ( - If they hear hot Mose^ aM the propliets, ; neither will they be'persuaded though one rose froni the deacj..^ So to us, inth^e > days, . tl^ call of. God comes itHrbugli the v.oJAe of Holy Chiirc^i to obeiy the' V£r&i^ command of our Heavenly Ki^gj /. ' Qb ye into. all tfee world,'' "(Jo'ye".— not "Let somebody else' go," in^te'ad. HI. Of every one m this ; cliureit. J ask, "Are; ypii ".certain in7The boltohi of your heart that you are d6ing.the work ,iri the 7 ; worl^; that God inteiicjs you tP dp?" If yp^ can honestly answer, "Yes," there is still, spraethihg more that you can do. When, spnie years ago the day of. intercession, for foreign missions was instituted, there followed a remarkable impetus; tP tlie wPrk of tlie Church abroad that seemed a direct answer to the prayers of* the faithful. It is within the mean's of all.tp pray. ; It is very hard —few things are harder than earnest prayer and communion with' ; God. And a praying people" is the greatest need of the. world to-day. More things are /wrought by prayer , than this world dreams of. But if we are to pray intelligently, we must know something of what we are praying about. We must know what has been done, what is being done, and what the need is. Get some sound book about the missions of the Church generally. The facts and the need have been set out m the four reports from the mission field presented to the Church last week. Take one of these reports and read it. _If you begin, you will be bound" to go on. You will probably find your interest centring m one particular part of the mission field. That will lead you to follow its work m the magazine of the mission, and your prayers will be stronger and more real, because you know- that without prayer the work must fail. :

Just think what couJd be iWs : *s' there were every day aad night great volume of prayer rising lip like incense before the throne fpf God from all His faithful people; prating, as He taught us, to the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth laborers into his .harvest. Truly;

the harvest is great, but' the laborers are few; And it will not end with praying. No man or "woman or child can pray earnestly about anything without wanting to do something; and if you cannot go out into the mission field yourself, you may help provide the means for those who' can by taking a missionary box or subscribing to the funds of a mission. "Freely ye have received, freely give." What a, lesson we have to learn from the example of poor- heathen converts ! Do not you feel ashamed —I do—when you hear of Chinese schoolboys denying themselves their Sunday dinner m order to save a few coppers for. mission work? Or, again, the .converts from cannibalism m the New .Hebrides giving their crop of arrowtroot for the publication of the New Testament? Korean Christians contributed m a single year out of their poverty £25,000, which m the terms of wages of the West would equal about £175,000. Oh, the patience of God! His Sacred Heart yearning for the world, and we puny creatures dare, by the extent of our missionary effort, to say what shall be the limits of His Holy Spirit. Are you not thrilled when you think of this world of ours, quivering with electric nerves that flash through, all its length and breadth the doings of the world: pulsating and throbbing through all its arteries that are the highways of the world? Closer and closer grow the continents of the earth : but there, is but one bond that can unite all the families of the earth, drawing them all into the fold of the Catholic Churdh. "One Body and bne Spirit, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and m all." The world j$ waiting; the harvest isi ripe.: Who will go?. Is there none to answer: "Here am I, send me?"