Genesis 13:9 - Homilies By J.f. Montgomery

The magnanimity of Abram.

I. WHEN IT WAS EVOKED .

1. On returning to the land of Canaan . Departing into Egypt, the better nature of the patriarch became obscured and enfeebled, and he himself became the subject of timorous emotions, the deviser of guileful machinations, and the perpetrator of unworthy actions; retracing his erring footsteps to the holy soil, he seems as it were immediately to have recovered the nobility and grandeur of soul which he had lost in the land of Ham. When saints wander into sinful ways they inflict a hurt upon their spirits from which they cannot recover till they seek the good old paths. Sublime deeds of spiritual heroism are not to be expected at the hands of believers who con form to the world. The true champions of the faith, who by their personal behavior can illustrate its godlike character, are only to be found among those who walk as strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and do not stray from God's commandments.

2. After having committed a great sin . The recoil which Abram's spirit must have experienced when, in the light of God's merciful interposition, he came to perceive the heinous nature of the transgression into which his fears had betrayed him in Egypt, had doubtless something to do with the lofty elevation of soul to which he soon afterwards climbed upon the heights of Bethel. So oftentimes a saint, through grace, is profited by his backslidings. The memory of the matter of Uriah had its influence in ripening the piety of David, and the recollection of the judgment-hall of Pilate assisted Peter to a height of spiritual fortitude he might not otherwise have attained.

3. After an experience of rich mercy . After all, God's kindnesses to Abram and Sarai were the principal instrumentalities that quickened the better nature of the patriarch; and so it is generally in proportion as we meditate upon and partake of Divine mercy that our hearts are ennobled and enabled. It is the love of God in Christ that constrains a saint to holy and unselfish deeds.

II. HOW IT WAS OCCASIONED .

1. By the danger of collision between himself and Lot . The strife which had arisen between his nephew's herdsmen and his own was liable, unless promptly extinguished, to communicate its bad contagion to himself and Lot. But the patriarch, with that insight which belongs to simple minds, discerned a method of avoiding so unseemly a calamity, and, with that self-forgetful heroism which ever characterizes noble souls, had the fortitude and magnanimity to put it into execution. It indicates an advanced stage of Christian maturity when what might prove temptations to sin are, by spiritual discernment and unshrinking self-sacrifice, transformed into occasions for holy acting and suffering.

2. By the necessity of separation which had come on him and Lot, which necessity was owing

III. BY WHAT IT WAS PRECEDED .

1. By a solemn act of devotion . Suitable at all seasons, prayer is specially needful and becoming in times of danger and trial like those in which the patriarch was situated. Nothing is better calculated to soothe the troubled heart, to allay irritation, to prevent strife, to enable the assaulted spirit to resist temptation, to grace the soul for arduous duty and magnanimous self-renunciation, than communion with God. Had Abram's discernment of the growing danger to which he and Lot were exposed, and Abram's contemplation of the necessity of yielding Lot the choice of the land their influence in taking him back to Bethel with its altar?

2. By an earnest deprecation of the rising strife . If the Spirit's fruits will not flourish in the stagnant marsh of a dead soul, neither will they in the breast of an angry Christian. A peaceful mind and a quiet heart are indispensable pre-requisites to grace's motions. Heavenly virtue cannot prosper in an atmosphere of wrath and contention. But where saints cultivate a gentle and forgiving spirit it is not uncommon to find them strengthened to perform deeds of holy valor. The conciliatory disposition of the elder of the two travelers was an admirable preparation for, almost a foreshadowing of, the magnanimous act that followed; as the perpetuation of the strife or the indulgence of anger on the part of Abram would have rendered it impossible.

IV. IN WHAT IT WAS DISPLAYED .

1. A sublime act of self-renunciation .

2. A signal illustration of self-resignation, in which, when he beheld the meanness of Lot, and saw the best portion of the soil abstracted from him, there was neither a display of feeling towards his nephew nor the uprising of a pang of discontentment and regret at the result, but the most humble and self-satisfied acquiescence in what he knew to be the allotment of Heaven.

Learn—

1. That soul-wealth is greater than material prosperity.

2. That a man becomes spiritually rich in proportion as he practices self-renunciation.

3. That the higher one rises in true spiritual greatness, the less is he affected by the loss of earth's goods.