Chapter III: Abram

Although the New Testament does not, and I can not, tell you definitely how much is liberal in the sight of God, we can get some light on the question by studying what God has required of his people in other dispensations. In the 14th chapter of Genesis there is an account of four kings who went to war against five other kings. The four kings won the war and among the captives was Lot, the kinsman of Abram. “And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.” With this small band of men he won a great victory over the four kings and their powerful armies and rescued Lot and his goods and his people. After his return from this battle Abram met Melchizedek, priest of God, and gave him tithes (a tenth) of all. God wants you and me to know that Abram gave a tenth.

The book of Genesis is very brief. In a very few pages, less than the number I hold in my hand, God has given us the history of the world for a period of several thousand years. It is very brief. If man had written such a history, the volumes would have filled a shelf all the way around this room. Men have written many volumes of history concerning the United States which has been a nation for less than two hundred years. But God has condensed the history of the world, for a period of thousands of years, within these few pages. Yet, he took enough of that precious space to tell us that Abram gave a tenth. If man had written an account of this war, he would have told the names of the captains in each army, how many men were killed, how many were wounded, how much the war cost, and so forth. God omitted all those things of interest, but he did take the space to tell us that Abram gave a tenth and that he prospered. He even repeated this information in the New Testament, where he says, “Now consider how great this man [Melchizedek] was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils” (Heb. 7:4). He had some reason for wanting us to know this, for He has a reason for everything He does and says. He took the space to tell us twice that Abram gave a tenth, and Abram prospered. You may draw your own conclusion from these scriptural and vital facts.