Abraham is asked to become a separated man in a peculiar sense, separate outwardly, separate in his worship of the true God, and separate in living a _faith_ life. It was to be a life dependent wholly on God regardless of outer circumstance or difficulty. There was a training time of twenty-five years before Abraham was ready for the next step,--the bringing of the next in line of this new faith stock. Separation, then still further separation, an open stand for God in the land of strangers, then a series of close personal tests, each entering into the marrow of his life,--this was the training to get the man ready to be a _faith_ father to his son, the next in line of a faith people. And the hardest test of all came after the child of faith had grown to manhood. Then he became a child of faith in his own experience, as well as in his father's. Following meant separation. It meant believing God against the unlikeliest circumstances, against nature itself, hoping in the midst of hopelessness. Everything spelled out "hopelessness." God alone spelled out "hope." He took God against everything else. It meant going to school to God, until he could be used as God planned. And Abraham consented. He followed. He helped God in His need. He befriended God; he became His friend in His need. But _every_ generation needs men. Each new step in the plan needs a new man. In a sore crisis of that plan, long after, another man's name, _Moses_, is known to us, _only_ because he singled himself out as being willing to let God use him. In his unconscious training, the training of circumstances into which it was natural to fit, he was peculiarly prepared for the future task. Bred in Egypt as the son of the ruler's household, he received the best school training of his day, with all the peculiar advantages of his position in the royal family. Following meant more to Moses, in what he gave up of worldly advantage, than to any other named in the Bible record. Egypt was the world empire of that day. Moses was in the innermost imperial circles, and could easily have become the dominant spirit of the court, if not the successor to the Pharaoh's throne. But he heard the call. His mother helped train his ears. He answered "Yes" to God, without knowing how much was involved. Following meant giving up, then a long course of training in the university of the desert, with the sheep and the stars and--God. It meant a repeated risking of his life not only in his bold dealings with Pharaoh, but afterward with the nation-mob, mob-nation, whose leader, and father and school-teacher, and everything else, he had to be for forty years. And it meant much on the other side, too.