Family character

FAMILY CHARACTER AND FAMILY RELIGION.
FAMILY CHARACTER.
(Gen. 11: 28)
THERE was, as we know, a day of visitation of the house of Terah. The family of Shem had become very corrupt, and in the days of Terah, the sixth or seventh from Shem, they were serving false gods. But the power of the Spirit and the call of the God of glory visited the ear and the heart of Abram, the son of Terah, and separated him from that corruption.
We also know that a godly influence extended itself from this in the family. Terah the father, Sarah the wife, and Lot the nephew join Abram in this, and they all leave the land of Mesopotamia together.
Nahor, however, another of Terah's sons, did not come within this influence. He was comfortably settled at home with his wife, and at home they remained, when Terah, Abram, Sarah, and Lot took their departure from the land of their fathers. (Chap. 11)
This is to be much observed, for the like of it we may witness every day. One of the family becomes the first subject of divine power, and then family religion, or the knowledge of the Lord Jesus in the household. spreads itself, but some remain uninfluenced.
Of course we know that each quickened soul must be equally the object of the hidden effectual drawings and teachings of the Father. (See John 6: 44, 45.) But I speak of the history or manifested character of the scene. And, as we have seen in the history of this household, Nahor remains unmoved in this day of visitation. He and his wife continue in Mesopotamia, and they thrive there. Children are born to them; goods and property increase. They pursue an easy and respectable journey across the world; but they do not grow in the knowledge of God, and bear no testimony, or at least small and indistinct testimony to His name.
The character of Nahor's family was thus formed. They were not in gross darkness like the people of Canaan, descendants of Ham, among whom Abram had now gone to sojourn. They had a measure of light derived from their connection with Terah and Abram, and as descendants of Shem; but all that was sadly dimmed by the cherished principles, of the world from which they had refused to separate themselves. And a family character and standing were thus formed.
This is serious — and all the principle of this is of daily occurrence among us, and of constant application to our consciences.
We lose sight of this family for a time altogether, for of course they are not the direct object of the Spirit's notice, but being connected with Abram may naturally come within view; and accordingly, in process of time, tidings about them do reach Abram in the distant place of his pilgrimage. (Gen. 22)
Bethuel was the son of Nahor — one of his many sons rather, and the one most brought into view. He had flourished in the world, and though perhaps a man of little energy or character himself, had a son named Laban, who most evidently knew how to manage his affairs exceedingly well, and to advance himself and all who belonged to him very advantageously in life. He seems, as we say, to have known the value of Money; for the sight of gold could open his mouth with a very hearty and religious welcome even to a stranger. (Gen. 24) Here, however, we reach a period in the history of this family which is chiefly to be considered.
A fresh energy of the Spirit is about to visit it. As I have already observed, this family is not in the gross darkness of the Canaanites, nor in the simple idolatrous condition of Terah's house (see Joshua 24), we may assume, when the God of glory called Abram. They had been brought into a certain measure of light, and within a certain standing by profession as Abram's act and word seemed to allow. (Gen. 24: 4) But this being so, this being a professing household in some sense apart from the dark state of the men of the world, it becomes serious to notice the nature of that visitation which the Spirit makes to it, for it will be found to be a separating power or visitation. As the call of the God of glory had before disturbed the state of things in Terah's house, so now the mission of Eliezer disturbed the state of things in Bethuel's house: Abram had then been separated from home and kindred, and so is Rebecca now to be, all this leaving behind it this serious impression, that a respectable professing family may need to be visited by the very same energy of the Spirit as a more worldly or idolatrous family.
This is a serious thought. It is a disturbing or separating power of God which now comes into this family, and not simply a comforting or edifying power. This has meaning, I believe. The ministry of Eliezer, God's servant as well as Abram's, came to Bethuel's house to draw Rebecca out of it, and to lead on that very journey which, two  generations before, the call of the God of glory had borne Abram. I do indeed judge that there is a lesson in this which is much to be pondered. A professing decent family have to be aroused, and a fresh act of separation produced in the midst of it.
But there is another lesson in the history still.
Rebecca, we know, comes forth at this call. But her character has been already formed, as it is with us all, more or less, before we are converted. The moment of quickening arrives. The separating call and power of the Lord is answered. But it finds us of a certain character, a certain shape and complexion of mind. It finds us, it may be Cretians (Titus 1), or brothers and sisters of Laban, or the like, and the "Cretians are always liars." Character and mind derived from nature, from education, or from family habits, we shall take with us, after we have been born of the Spirit, and carry it in us across the desert from Mesopotamia to the house of Abram.
This too is serious. It is serious, as I observed before, that a respectable professing family is visited by a separating, and not merely by an edifying, energy of the Spirit; and it is serious, as I now have been tracing that, with the quickening or converting power of the Spirit, nature, or the force of early habits and education, or of family character, will cling still. And these serious lessons the story of Rebecca reads to us.
For I need only briefly speak of what her way was in the further stages of it. It is a well-known story among us, and well known too as very sadly betraying what we may call the family character. Laban, her brother with whom she had grown up and who was evidently the active stirring one in his father's house, was a subtle, knowing, worldly man. And the only great action in which Rebecca was called to take part gives occasion to her exercising the same principles. In the procuring of. the blessing for her son Jacob we see this Laban — leaven working mightily. The family character sadly breaks out then. The readiness of nature to act and take its way shows itself very busily. A mind she had too little accustomed to repose in the sufficiency of God, and too much addicted to calculate and to lean its hopes on its own inventions.
What have we to do then but to watch against the peculiar tendency and habit of our own mind — to rebuke nature sharply, that we may be sound or morally healthful in the faith (Titus 1: 3); not to excuse it because it is nature, but rather the more to suspect it therefore, and to mortify it for His sake who has given us another nature.
These lessons we get from the story of this distinguished woman. Beyond this her way is not much tracked by the Spirit. Was it that He was grieved with her and leaves her unnoticed? At any rate she reaps nothing but disappointment from the seed she had sown. No good comes of her schemes and contrivances, but the reverse. She loses her favourite, Jacob, and never sees him after the long exile to which her own schemes and contrivances had ended in sending him.
But there is this further to tell: Jacob got his mind formed by the same earliest influence. He was all his days a slow-hearted, calculating man. His plan in getting the birthright first and then the blessing; his confidence in his own arrangements, rather than in the Lord's promise, when he met his brother Esau; and his lingering at Shechem, and settling there instead of pursuing a pilgrim's life through the land like his fathers: all this betrays nature and the working of the old family character.
What need have we to watch the early seed sown in the heart — yea, and to watch the early or late seed which we are helping to sow in others' hearts! For the fuller details of this history warn us of such things still.
The birth of Esau and Jacob is given us at the close of Genesis 25, and as they grow up to be boys, occasion arises to let us look in at the family scene; but it is, as we shall find, truly humbling.
This was one of the families of God then on the earth, nay, by far the most distinguished, where lay the hopes of all blessing to the whole earth, and where the Lord, eminently above all, had recorded His name.
But what do we see? Isaac the father had dropped into the stream of hu