[AI translation] Last Sunday we saw how the paths of Abraham and Lot were parted by a minor event, the shepherds' contest over the pasture. This event was an excuse for Lot to go back into the world, from which he had come out with Abraham, and to turn away from the path of faith, but the same event led Abraham further in the experience of grace, helping him to advance on the path of faith. It would be very instructive to follow Lot further, to see what happens to a man who returns to the world, how he becomes embroiled in the struggles of worldly powers, how he becomes a suffering participant in the struggle of conflicting worldly interests - but let us now turn our attention to Abraham, the believer who takes his part in all things in a way worthy of a true believer.In the Bible, especially in the New Testament, we find repeated statements that "But the righteous man lives by faith." (Rom 1:17) Or, "But the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Gal 2,20) And when we hear this, we usually think of some kind of devout, prayerful attitude, the silence of an inner room, a detached turning to God, some kind of attitude that the world considers clumsy, half-hearted, impractical. Well, here Abraham shows us what it means to live by faith, to live by faith, to walk by faith. We see precisely how the man who walks by faith, the man who raises an altar to God, is not only skilled in the things of the hereafter, but how he is prepared for the problems of this worldly life, how he takes them on and solves them, precisely by faith!
This is first seen in his attitude towards Lot. We know what happened to Lot. Living in Sodom, he became a partaker of the fate of the Sodomites. They lost the battle, they were taken away from everything, they were taken captive. Lot was with them. Behold, this was the result of Lot's greedy decision. He himself had chosen Sodom as his dwelling place, and now his destiny was fulfilled. It is his way, anyone would say. But not the believer! Behold, we read, "When Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed three hundred and eighteen of his tried men, who had grown up in his house, and pursued them as far as Dan." (Genesis 14:14) That is, Abraham did not abandon his brother, despite the fact that he had brought the disaster upon himself. He did not say, as one so easily thinks in such cases, "It is right that it happened, why were you so selfish, now help yourself as best you can! A child of God never speaks like that. If he had any reason to gloat, if he saw God's just judgment fulfilled in the misery and misfortune of any man, he himself could not break the rod over him, could not sit in the judgment seat with God and judge him, for that is not his business, but God's! The man of God can only do one thing in such a situation: he must do all he can to help his brother. God will not abandon us, but we must bear the consequences of our wrong choices. Abraham did to Lot what God did to him when he made a mistake. Humanly speaking, he would have had every reason not to interfere in Lot's fate, for they had parted ways and it was risky to interfere. Yet Abraham has only one thing to do now: help Lot. "When Abram heard...", we read. And that means that he did not delay, did not ponder, did not hesitate, did not weigh things up - to go or not to go - but set off at once!
That is true faith: to go as soon as you know you can help somewhere. He does not justify why he is not helping in a given situation, how he is right when he does not rush to help someone here or there, but simply goes and helps! And he does not pray when the other person is in trouble, but goes after him, and does not preach to him when he finds him, does not say to him: you see, what harmful consequences have resulted from your straying from the path of faith, but fights for him, for his family and for his cattle and rescues them from danger. Yes, that is what a believer does. This is the faith that Paul says in Galatians is "faith at work through love." (Gal 5,6) And only such faith is true, that is, faith that works by love! Faith involves the work of charity, like light and warmth in a fire. You cannot separate fire and warmth! A fire that does not warm you is not a real fire, but a nightmare. A faith that does not radiate the warmth of love, that makes excuses, that gives fine reasons why it is not obliged to help here or there: such a faith is as ghostly untruth as a nightmare. And is not our faith often such? Is not this why the world hated believers?
Someone said just a few days ago: 'I don't like so-called believers because they are unloving! Well, such unloving people are really only so-called believers, that is, not true believers! "Show me your faith by your deeds", says the Lord in the letter of James (James 2,18). That is all people understand of faith today: only what believers show them. Abraham here has now shown his faith in the act of coming to the aid of his brother who was in trouble because of his own folly. But there are plenty of opportunities in this world for us to show Abraham our faith by our actions! Oh, that we might be stirred up by the Holy Spirit of God, so that he would not wait in vain!
Abraham's faith in Lot was manifested in his work of helping love. And the same faith in the face of the enemy king and his troops was manifested in heroic courage. "And he and his servants divided into troops against them by night, and smote them, and drove them all as far as Job, which is on the left side of Damascus. And he brought back all the cattle; and he brought back Lot his brother with his cattle, and the women, and the people." (Genesis 14:15-16) What Abraham does can only be done by faith, that is, by faith that God is with him, helping him. By human reckoning, what he does is foolhardy, for what does his 318 tried and tested bachelors have against the victorious king and his troops? Well, but that is the very essence of faith, to make decisions, to take steps and to undertake actions that he can hardly account for himself and that are far beyond the limits of his own strength. To act by faith is to be seized, impelled and compelled by a higher power, to act as it were by the power of that higher power, to do what one could not do without it. The kind of thing Abraham did here by faith, which we read about in Hebrews 11, the chapter on faith: "Those who by faith conquered kingdoms, did righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. They have quenched the power of fire, they have escaped the edge of the sword, they have recovered from sickness, they have become strong in war, they have subdued the camps of foreigners." (Heb 11:33-34) So true faith is nothing other than the divine power embodied in man, by which the impossible becomes possible. Faith in the human impossibility is the grasping and realization of divine possibility. That is why a man of true faith can never be a coward, faith makes a man strong and courageous: "...we are not men of retreat to perish, but of faith to gain life." (Heb 10:39)
Faith is not a hiding place where the cowardly man can hide from the struggles of life, where he can hide quietly and unnoticed while the world is raging outside, but faith is, in biblical terms, a shield with which to quench every fiery arrow of the evil one (Eph 6,16). And there is plenty of fighting in this life on earth. Whether we think of the inner struggles, the struggles in the heart, the constant battles with our own desires, the passions of our body, the old evils of our nature, or the outer struggles, the many problems of everyday life, the tasks to be solved, the obstacles that come before us, the struggles with people, in which our strength is exhausted, our nervous system is overworked, our life is weary. Well, this daily struggle of life, which is renewed day by day, is what the believer must and can fight in faith: that is, to take up this struggle, to fight and to give all my strength, in the faith that I am not alone, that I am not alone, that I have the strength to do it. So David went against Goliath, when he said to him, "You come against me with sword and spear and shield, but I will come against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have reviled." (1 Sam 17:45) The apostle Paul experienced this many times and testified, "I have power in Christ who strengthens me." (Phil 4,13) And so Abraham also dared to take up the fight against the overwhelming odds, and that is why he was able to achieve complete victory.
Does it mean for you to believe, to be strengthened, to be prepared for every difficulty, to take on and bear every burden with divine power, to overcome every task? Does it also mean for you to believe, to fight with Christ and to overcome?! Is it not true that perhaps nothing is more lacking in our faith than this strength?! But then do we believe at all? Is there neither love radiating from it, nor strength coming from it? Is faith then what we call it? Should we not examine our faith very deeply, at the very beginning? Do we believe in Jesus Christ, who has brought the very love of God and the power of God to us on earth in his person?
And here let me highlight one more moment from the life of Abraham, based on this story. When he returns from the victorious battle, he is confronted by two quite opposite figures: the king of Sodom and Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God. Both bring him something, offer him something: one, the king of Sodom, brings him the spoils of war, the other the blessing of God. Abraham rejects one and accepts the other. He rejects all the good, wealth, treasure, spoils that are not from God, and accepts the blessing that the priest of the Most High God gives him. Thus we read, "And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought bread and wine... and blessed him." (Genesis 14:18-19) Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God, offers Abraham, exhausted after the battle, relief, pours new strength into him: he gives him bread and wine and blesses him. Who would not think of this bread and wine, the bread and wine which that other Melchizedek, not only the priest of God Most High, but also His Son, gives and shares with us at His table. It was not only bodily nourishment for Abraham, but a strengthening from above, a renewing grace and a communication of life in the form of bread and wine. Is this not how we also receive, today, in the visible form of bread and wine, the invisible grace, the power from above, the life, the life of our Lord, Himself, to help us on our way of life?
We are exhausted by the struggle, we need a constant renewal of the fountain of life, strength, joy, and behold, this is what we receive from above, from our great Melchizedek, when He distributes Himself among us at His Supper. The love that ought to flow from us in faith in Christ, the power that manifests itself in faith in Christ, is not love and power in itself, but a by-product of something, a consequence of something: an inner communion of life with Jesus Christ. It is not love you need, but Christ; it is not power you need, but Jesus Christ, Himself, His person! It is Him that our unloving and powerless hearts need. To believe in Him is to receive Him into myself.
We asked before: do we even believe in Him? Well, you can revise your whole faith: He invites us all to Him for dinner next Sunday. If only we could say it from the heart now in the words of the hymn:
Rejoice, my heart, rejoice, my soul, Faith has become your jewel;
To supper, go to Jesus, Formal are you here.
This supper in heavenly fashion shall unite me to thee,
Abide in me, in thee, let me be, that I may bless thee.
(Canto 436, verses 1 and 5)
Amen
24 August 1952.