faith to teach him the relative importance of the earthly and the
heavenly, the present and the future? Notice that the whole promise
appeals to unselfish desires. It is always, in some measure,
elevating to live for a future, rather than a present, good; but if
it be only the same kind of good as the present would yield, it is a
poor affair. The only really ennobling faith is one which sets
before itself a future full of divine blessing, and of diffusion of
that blessing through us, and which therefore scorns delights, and
for such gifts is content to be solitary and a wanderer.

2. The obedience of faith.--We have here a wonderful example of
prompt, unquestioning obedience to a bare word. We do not know how
the divine command was conveyed to Abram. We simply read, 'The Lord
said'; and if we contrast this with verse 7, 'The Lord appeared ...
and said,' it will seem probable that there was no outward sign of
the divine will. The patriarch knew that he was following a divine
command, and not his own purpose; but there seems to have been no
appeal to sense to authenticate the inward voice. He stands, then,
on a high level, setting the example of faith as unconditional
acceptance of, and obedience to, God's bare word.

Observe that faith, which is the reliance on a person, and therefore
trust in his word, passes into both forms of confidence in that word
as promise, and obedience to that word as command. We cannot cut
faith in halves, and exercise the one aspect without the other. Some
people's faith says that it delights in God's promises, but it does
not delight in His commandments. That is no faith at all. Whoever
takes God at His word, will take all His words. There is no faith
without obedience; there is no obedience without faith.