ABRAHAM.

MR. MOODY commenced his word-picture of the Patriarch Abra ham with these words:

E find that the Lord had called Abraham out of

W

Ur of the Chaldees, to leave all his idols and his kindred, and to go to the land of Canaan; and in the ninth chapter of Genesis we are told that he went forth to go into the land of Canaan, but when he had got about half way he stopped at Haran; and it seems that he stayed there about five years.

That is just the way with a great many people. They are called of God to go out of their sins and go into the Promised Land. They make a start, and get about half way, and there they stop. O how many people there are who are dwelling at Haran instead of pushing on to Canaan !

Now, how did God get Abraham out of Haran? If you will turn to the thirty-second verse of the eleventh chapter of Genesis you will find out. "And the days of Terah [Abraham's father] were two hundred and five years and Terah died in Haran." That is just the way God has to do with a great many other people besides Abraham. They are settled in the wrong place; they are doing the wrong work; they are not pushing on to the land the Lord has said he will give them for an inheritance, and, in order to start them on the way to Canaan, God is obliged to send them some affliction

The very thing we think is the greatest calamity is just what God uses to awaken us and send us forward on the way of our duty.

about this city of

I have been thinking this morning Chicago for the past sixteen years. We were getting rich and looking for great things, and the war came on. That woke up the Church a good deal, but after it was over they settled down at Haran again. Then came the Chicago fire; and I said to myself, Surely this will bring the Church out of Haran-but it didn't. We were crying unto God for awhile, but presently the city was as much given up to money-making as ever. It kept on getting worse and worse; opened the theaters on Sunday, and then along came the panic, and it isn't over yet.

There are a great many men and women out of work these hard times, and people say, "What is to become of these gamblers, and rumsellers, and fallen women, who come to Christ and give up their old ways of life?" Some of them say, "If I could only see how to live, I would forsake my sins and turn to God." Why, my friends, it don't take any faith at all if we can see how the thing is coming out. You must be willing to leave every thing to God and follow him where you can't see, and he will deliver you soul and body. But he will not have a man whom he can't try, or one that will not walk by faith.

Abraham found Canaan full of kings and cities, and he didn't know how he was ever to get possession of the land; but he took it by faith. He was seventy-five years old when he got there, and God kept him there twentyfive years more before he gave him the promised son.

Yet he staggered not through unbelief; he believed the promise of God, who had told him he would make his seed as the stars of heaven for multitude, and as the sand which is on the sea-shore. Stars stand for heavenly people-sands for earthly people; so the promise included both this world and the next.

We do not find that Abraham had any altar in Haran, but when he got to Bethel he built an altar the very first thing. You remember that when Lot and some other Sodomites were taken captive Abraham sent out a little army of his servants and retook them, and also the spoil which they had carried off, and brought them and it back to the king of Sodom, who said to him, "Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself." But Abraham had made the acquaintance of Melchizedek, the king of Salem, and priest of the most high God. And now we hear him saying, "I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet... lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abraham rich."

Ah, he had gotten the world under his feet. He had met the King of Peace, and with his blessing he was rich enough and strong enough, without any help from Sodom.

The very next thing, we find God saying to him: "Fear not, Abraham: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." And Abraham said, "What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?" Then God renewed the covenant with him, and he believed God, and we are told it was counted unto him for righteousness. As Paul has it in the Corinthians, in that little parenthesis-" for we walk by faith, not by sight,"—that is the way Abraham walked, and that is the way for us to walk. Let

us not be troubled about how he is going to take care of us.

Some of these fallen women say: "Just give us a place where we can get our living first, and then we will come to Christ." I wouldn't turn my hand over to get a thousand of them that way; they would all go back again. Let them first get out of Haran; out of Babylon; out of Sodom; let them seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and then all other things will be added unto them.

There was a young man here some years ago whom I was trying to lead to Christ. He was out of work, and I had found a situation for him, though I didn't let him know it, for he was saying to me: "Just let me get a place to work, and then I'll attend to religion." "No," said I, "that is the wrong place to begin. Seek the kingdom of God first, and get the work afterward,” and I held him to it, and didn't let him know I had a place for him till after he had given his heart to Christ.

But let us get back to Abraham. He is an old man now, and the Lord is going to put his faith to one last trial.

And the Lord said, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."

That must have been a terrible time for Abraham. Probably he lay awake most of the night, thinking of this strange command of God; but I am sure he didn't tell his wife any thing about it for fear she would try to make him disobey. God had given him a son in his old age, and

now it seems as if he were going to take him away again. But then Abraham knew that God was wiser than he, and if he took away his son he was just as able to give him another. So he does not delay, but rises up early in the morning, and saddles his ass, and takes two young men with him, and Isaac his son, and some wood for a burnt-offering, and starts on his journey.

He tells

His wife wants to know where he is going. her he is going away to a mountain to offer up sacrifice to God, but he doesn't tell her that he is going to offer up Isaac as that sacrifice.

I can see them going along together-the old man and his son. They are very silent, and Isaac imagines there is something weighing heavy on his father's mind. They travel all that day, and lie down to sleep at night, but I fancy Abraham doesn't sleep much. He thinks of his son who was given him in his old age, and of the strange journey he is making to offer up this sacrifice. We don't hear that he prayed to the Lord to spare Isaac. Probably he left that all with the Lord.

On the third day Abraham lifts up his eyes and sees the place afar off, and when they come near, he says to the servants, "Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." So Abraham takes the wood and puts it on the back of his son, and takes the fire and the knife, and they go up the mountain together.

The young man doesn't know what to make of it. Here are all the preparations for a burnt-offering except the offering itself. "Where is the lamb?" says Isaac; and Abraham answers, "My son, God will provide him