Page 49 - The Divine Unfolding of God's Plan of Redemption

matters, see the exhaustive treatise by Hislop, The Two Babylons.

Again the sovereign Creator intervened to thwart the blasphemous and rebellious

purpose intended in the erection of the tower of Babel, when He brought the confusion
of tongues. Among the nations thus scattered abroad and speaking various languages it
became necessary for Him to select one nation as the depository of His earthly
testimony and from which, according to the flesh, would come the special seed. “Now

the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred and
from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee.”

Here as always the divine purpose in the preservation of His testimony is

withdrawal and separation, and the division cuts very close. It is not merely from his
country, but from his kindred, and nearer still from his father‟s house, the members of
his own immediate family. Said the Savior, “Think not that I am come to send peace
on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance

against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law, and a man‟s foes shall be they of his own household.”

The seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman do not follow family lines but

the warfare invades even the loving relations of those bound together by ties of the
closest kinship and natural affection.

Abram was not only called out but unto. God not only calls His testimony out of

relationship with the world but unto a place specific relationship with Himself.
Canaan is the earthly type of this heavenly fellowship, and Egypt is invariably the
type of the mass of the unregenerate world and the stronghold of the seed of the
serpent. The Lord, then, has not only a purpose for His people but a place of

occupancy in which this purpose may be accomplished.

Blessing always results when God‟s people are in the place of blessing, both for
themselves and for others, but let them be lured by the attractions of Egypt or let them

be hustled there by considerations of temporal expediency as in the case of Abram,
and the blessing to and through is immediately suspended. “Unto thy seed will I give
this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord… and he removed from thence

unto a mountain on the east of Bethel… and there builded he an altar unto the Lord,
and called upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 12:7-8).

Such is Canaan fellowship and communion. But whether brought on by the
serpent or by God Himself there came a time of physical testing in the shape of a

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