Gen. 12 to 36:GEN 12GEN 13GEN 14GEN 15GEN 16GEN 17GEN 18GEN 19GEN 20GEN 21GEN 22GEN 23GEN 24GEN 25GEN 26GEN 27GEN 28GEN 29GEN 30GEN 31GEN 32GEN 33GEN 34GEN 35GEN 36

This, however, was not allowed. Another judgment comes upon them. They are scattered, and the whole human social order is awfully broken up. But Abram is called out to find his fellowship with God and apart from the world. His family dwelt in Mesopotamia beyond the Euphrates. He came from the stock of Shem, but was a worshipper of idols as all the nations were. But sovereign grace distinguishes him, and the God of glory calls him forth from kindred, from home and from country.
It is a call that does not interfere with the order of the earth or government among the nations. He is called to be a stranger, and not a rival of "the powers," or a new model governor of any people. He walks with God as the God of glory—a higher character than that of the one by whom "the powers that be are ordained." He is a pilgrim and stranger on earth, and walks as a heavenly man. He has the promise that his seed and inheritance in the earth shall become linked together by and by. He and Isaac and Jacob dwell in tents all their days, however, and a tent-life is that of a stranger here, of one that is not at home and at rest.
Here, then, we have a heavenly people again—heavenly in the character of their walk, and heavenly like Enoch or Lamech in their intelligence about the earth's future history, and the promise to their seed of inheritance in it in due season. But we have still deeper and fuller mysteries in the history of him who comes after them.