The Call of Abraham

Spurgeon traces Abraham's call — what he left (family, homeland, settled comfort, known pastures), where he went (an unknown land with nothing but a promise), and how he went (immediately, cheerfully, without hesitation or conditions) — and holds him up as the model of a faith that acts before it understands, trusting the Guide rather than needing to know the road. He then applies this pattern to four situations his congregation would recognize: the new convert who must leave an ungodly family; the believer whose views on doctrine or baptism change and who must bear the cost of following conviction even among friends; the wealthy or well-connected person who must choose Christ over respectability; and anyone whose circumstances are suddenly overturned by providence and who must go forward into uncertainty. He closes with a personal application to his own congregation — then facing the loss of their meeting place at the Surrey Music Hall — urging them not to be distressed, since the God who gathered them will keep them together wherever he leads, and finally extending the image to death itself, that last journey taken without a map, where the only certainty the believer carries is that God goes with them.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on July 10th, 1859.