ee hundred and eighteen! We are not told that he was a
great astronomer; we are not told that he was a great scientist; we
are not told that he was a great statesman, or anything the world
calls great; but there was one thing he could do--he could live an
unselfish life, and in honor could waive his rights, and in that way
he became the friend of God; in that way he has become immortal.
There is

NO NAME IN HISTORY

so well known as the name of Abram. Even Christ is not more widely
known, for the Mohammedans, the Persians, and the Egyptians make a
great deal of Abram. His name has been for centuries and centuries
favorably known in Damascus. God promised him that great men, and
warriors, and kings, and emperors, should spring from his loins. Was
there ever a nation that has turned out such men? Think of Moses,
and Joseph, and Joshua, and Caleb, and Samuel, and David, and
Solomon, and Elisha. Think of Elijah, and Daniel, and Isaiah, and
all the other wonderful Bible characters that have sprung from this
man! Then think of Peter, of James, and John, and Paul, and John the
Baptist, a mighty army. No man can number the multitude of wonderful
men that have sprung from this one man called out of the land of the
Chaldeans, unknown and an idolater, probably, when God called him;
and yet how literally God has fulfiled His promise that through him
He would bless all the nations of the earth. All because he
surrendered himself fully and wholly to let God bless him.

IV

The last surrender is perhaps the most touching and the hardest of
all to understand. Perhaps he could not have borne it until the
evening of life. God had been taking him along, step by step, until
now he had reached a place where he had learned to obey fully
whatever God told him to do. I believe the world has yet to see what
God will do with the man who is perfectly surrendered. Next to God's
own Son, Abraham was perhaps the man who came nearest to this
standard.

FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

Abraham had been in the Promised Land without the promised heir. God
had promised that He would bless all the nations of the earth
through him, and yet He did not give him a son. Abraham's faith
almost staggered a number of times. Ishmael was born, but God set
aside the son of the bondwoman, for he was not to be the ancestor of
the Son of God. God was setting Abram apart simply that He might
prepare the way for His own Son, and now, at last, a messenger comes
do