back in Abraham's own life. Abraham was
Israel's link with the idolatrous heathen, as well as the beginning of the
new life away from idolatry. He grew up among an idolatrous people, yet in
his heart there was a yearning for the true God. Back in his old home
there came to him one day the definite inner voice to cut loose from these
people, his own dear kinsfolk, and go out to a strange unknown land, with
what seemed an indefinite goal, and there would come to him a vision of
the true God.

It was a radical step for a man of seventy-five years to take. He was
living among his own kinsfolk. His nest was feathered. It meant leaving a
certainty for an uncertainty. It meant breaking his habit of life, a very
hard thing to do, and starting out on a wandering roaming life. Not
unlikely his neighbors thought it a queer thing, a wild goose chase, this
going off to a strange land in response to a call of God that he might see
a vision of the true God. Decidedly visionary. But the old man was clear
about the voice. The fire burned within to know God, the real true God.
All else counted as nothing against that. He would _see God_. And a
warming glow filled his heart and shone in his eyes and kept him steady
during the break, the good-byes, the start away, the journeying among
strangers. Into the strange land he came, and pitched his tent. And--one
night--in his tent--among these strange Canaanites, there came the
promised vision. "Jehovah appeared unto Abraham," and tied up there anew
with him the promise made back in his native land. This seems to be the
simple explanation of these words about Abraham. "He exulted that he might
see my day. He _saw_ ... and was glad."

With a contemptuous curl of the lip instantly they come back with: "Thou
art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" More quietly
than ever, with the calmness of conscious truth, come those tremendous
words, emphasized with the strongest phrase He ever used, "Verily, verily,
I say unto you, before Abraham was born, I am." The common version omits
"born," and so the sharp contrast is not made clear. Abraham was _born_.
He came into existence. Jesus says "I _am_." That "I am" is meant to mean
absolute existence. An eternal now without beginning or ending. Their
Jewish ears are instantly caught by that short sentence. Jesus was
identifying Himself with the One who uttered that sentence out of the
burning bush! Again stones for speech. Again the invisible