Am I still not on?
There you go. When I hear the echo in my ears, you know, actually, when you’re speaking, it’s a little difficult because you get this echo coming back. You’re hearing yourself, and it’s strange anyway.
Well, this morning, we’re going to be continuing in the study of Abraham. And let’s just begin with a word of prayer this morning.
Lord, we are grateful. Thou indeed art the bread of life. Lord, You are our drink. And Lord Jesus, the bottom line is that You are everything, and that, Lord, there is nothing that can take Your place in heaven or earth.
And Lord, we come to Thee today because, Lord, we always will be a needy and thirsty people before You. And we would ask, Lord, that You would give us the bread of life this morning from Your Word as we consider Your Word together.
Lord, as always, we know that man—I don’t know how You even allow man to share from Your Word—but, Lord, You have. And we know and trust in the anointing of the Holy Spirit this morning as I come to share, Lord, knowing that only You can truly cause us to hear. Only You can truly cause us to see.
And Lord, we are among those who have been blessed with some hearing and some sight. We’ve gotten a glimpse of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and that’s why we’re here this morning: that we might see Him. So grant us our prayer this morning. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, as I said, we’ve been looking at the life of Abraham. Really, the focus that I have in this series, which began actually with Genesis 1, is that we might learn God, that we might see Him and learn His ways.
I think that as we move on in life, particularly in the age in which we live, it’s going to be absolutely critical for Christians to know who He is and to know His ways. Because the enemy is greatly deceitful, and he wants man’s ways to rule our lives. He wants humanism to rule our lives, and he wants other things to rule our lives.
Basically, these other things are our enemy, and he wants to take charge of our lives. He fools us into thinking that we are in charge. And when we think we’re in charge of our lives, we’re really a little bit deceived, because he’s the one really in charge.
We need to learn the Lord and His ways so that, brothers and sisters, we will be responsive to Him and learn how to live in these days that are going to lie ahead.
I’ve been greatly pressed in, I think, in recent days, in seeing the great flood of humanism coming through our president, coming through the administration that we’re now under, our government. Yet I know that God has allowed it. I know that the Lord is still in charge, but it will be a far different world for our children than what we grew up in.
They’re going to have to know the Lord. They’re going to have to really know the Lord and His ways. So may the Lord show us something of Himself as we look into His Word this morning.
One of my concerns is that fundamentally we grow up man-centered. We’re centered on ourselves. We’re centered on what’s good for us, or what we think is good for us. And that kind of thinking has infiltrated the church of God and Christianity.
What we’ve run into so much, and what we see so much of these days, is that instead of actually understanding God and His purpose, we’ve become more concerned about what God can do for us, how God can bless us physically. So actually, we’re those that tend to want to use God rather than being used by Him.
And we’re all guilty. We sit before Him guilty this morning, myself included. So I just want you to know that I don’t think I’m in any way above all of this. I only can share because I’ve been in it myself.
But, you know, brothers and sisters, when the Lord calls us, He calls us with great expectation. He has a different viewpoint. He has a purpose for which He has called you, and He wants us to fulfill that purpose.
The purpose He has made very clear in His Word, and we’ve shared many times that it is His desire to bring many sons to glory. That is His purpose: to have many sons like His Son, Jesus Christ; that those whom He has created would take on His life through Jesus Christ and, actually, in their lives be transformed into the image of His Son, to be conformed to the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And in so doing, He will unify us—put it that way—in such a way, as Christians in life together, that we will be one with Him and actually will become the bride of Christ. And also, amazingly enough, because it’s spiritual in nature, at the same time be the house of God, where God is pleased to dwell in His habitation. This is what God is after.
We tend to be after the things that the Lord can do for us, the things that He gives us, and earthly blessing. Brothers and sisters, the Lord is merciful. I don’t want to discount in any way the earthly blessings that I have received from the Lord, for there have been many, and I thank Him for those.
But often we find earthly blessing can be a real problem to us, particularly if you want to remain a stranger and a pilgrim on this earth as we go through it.
The Lord’s heart is that He might bring us to glory, to bring us to that place where, in our lives, we have the character and nature of Christ, and to bring us to His glory—to what His expectation is—and to have His house and His bride for His Son.
He does the work, basically. He lays the work out; He does it. God made the plan, the Lord Jesus carried out the work, and now we come into the good of it.
What we need to see is this is where God is headed.
You know, we’ve got many who are graduating this year from high school, some graduating from college, and they’re thinking, “Well, school is over.” Well, you know what? For Christians, we’re in the school of Christ, and I don’t know of anyone that’s actually graduated at this point.
We’re still in the school of Christ, and God is at work in your life and in my life to bring about His purpose in our lives.
On our part, in order for God’s purposes to be achieved in your life and my life—to bring us to His glory—there is something required. And it is faith. It is simply to believe Him.
That’s what’s required on our part. And when we believe Him, He sees to it that we come into the good of it. That’s the way God is. That’s the way He operates. That is His way: we believe, and we come into the good of it.
Now, the interesting thing I’ve been considering is that we say, “Well, yeah, I believe in God. I believe in Jesus.” But let me put it this way: real faith, if we have truly believed in the Lord, will result in obedience to the Lord. There will be what I call the action part of faith.
Now, believing in the Lord is faith. But faith is shown to be real in your life when faith brings you to obedience.
Otherwise, my concern is that it might just be a mental belief. You know, we can believe in things mentally, but not actually believe in them.
I wish I could explain it a little more clearly. What I’m saying is that for God to bring about His purposes in your and my life, it’s going to require faith on our part. But faith isn’t just simply saying, “Yes, I believe.” Faith will cause you to follow Him in obedience if it’s real faith.
You will not be a passive Christian if it’s real faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
That having been said, faith is not something that you can work up in yourself. I think somebody said this recently: just because you say, “I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe,” doesn’t make it happen. The Lord is the One who always makes it happen.
But belief—faith—has to rest on something that’s real. Otherwise, it’s superstition.
You know, I grew up with a lot of superstitious sayings and things. You younger kids are not as familiar with it as the older generations, but I did grow up with a lot of these things. Not that I took them up, praise the Lord.
I was of a little older generation, and I lived in the enlightened age, and so superstition didn’t seem to have quite the effect it did on some of my grandparents and those of my parents’ age. But they really did lay hold of some of these superstitions about black cats, looking in the mirror the wrong way, and so on.
Of course, walking under ladders is always unsafe. I want to tell you that. I wouldn’t suggest you do it. But anyway, these were superstitions. They weren’t built on something real.
And faith has to be built on something real. That reality comes to you and me through revelation.
That is one of the significant parts of Abraham’s life: God gave Abraham revelation. In fact, there are three fundamental things that God gave to Abraham on which his faith was able to rest, and through which God caused him to believe.
When you read the history, you don’t catch it. But when you read the New Testament, you see what was going on spiritually in Abraham’s life. In the Old Testament, you see all the physical moving about and the things that happened; but in the New Testament, we see what was spiritually going on.
In Acts 7:2, it says that the God of glory appeared to Abraham. That was the first revelation: the God of glory appeared to Abraham.
Abraham didn’t just believe. In fact, Abraham probably did believe in gods—he was making them. At least tradition says his father was an idol-maker in Ur of the Chaldeans, which was loaded with idols. A lot of people made their living making idols, and so you could say he believed in gods.
But the God of glory appeared to him. Brothers and sisters, has the God of glory appeared to you? Now, I’m not talking about the Lord coming down in some manifestation, by any means. What I mean is, when you see the God of glory.
It’s like Peter when the Lord met him. The Lord said, “Peter, I want you to go out.” They had been fishing all night and had not caught a thing. The Lord said, “Peter, I want you to go out now and drop your nets.”
And Peter and these fishermen were saying, “Look, we’ve fished all our lives. We know about fishing. We’re not going to catch anything.” Now, those words aren’t there, but I know that in Peter’s heart, that’s probably what he was thinking, because mentally he understood about fishing.
And the Lord said, “Well, go on.” So, out of respect to the Lord, he did go out in the boat. We know the story: they caught so many fish that the nets began to break and the boat began to sink.
What was Peter’s reaction?
“Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
— Luke 5:8
He saw the Lord of glory at that point. Now, he had known the Lord Jesus before that, because Andrew, his brother, had introduced him to the Lord. Andrew said, “We have found the Messiah.”
Peter had been following the Lord Jesus because he believed that the Lord was the Messiah, and that belief was true. But even then, instead of fully following the Lord, he had gone back fishing. They had gone back fishing, and I’m sure they would go with the Lord some of the time.
But from that point on, he was committed. He had seen the Lord of glory.
And that’s what I’m saying, brothers and sisters. There comes a point in our lives when we see—when we have a revelation—that this One whom we’ve been talking about, this Jesus that our parents have been telling us about, this Jesus whom we’ve heard about, whom the world scoffs at, is the Son of God.
When that occurs in your life, the God of glory has appeared to you. He’s shown, He’s revealed His glory to you, and you recognize that He is God and you are just a man. Not only that, but you are a sinner far from God, not worthy to be in His presence.
I don’t know if you’ve come to that point in your life, but we could ask the Lord if He would reveal Himself to us. Because, brothers and sisters, it takes revelation in order for us to have true faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then in John 8:56, the Lord Jesus Himself said:
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad.”
— John 8:56
In all of his going through the dealings that the Lord had with Abraham—promising him a promised seed from which all the world would be blessed, and ultimately requiring him to take the son born to him and offer him as a sacrifice on the mountain—Abraham declared that he believed God was going to raise his son from the dead if he did indeed sacrifice him, because God is faithful.
Abraham’s faith was so strong at that point. But he saw Christ’s day. In all of that, he saw Christ. That’s what he had a revelation of: Jesus Christ is the promised Seed. And he saw that. We need that revelation, that Jesus Christ is God’s promise.
The third revelation that we see Abraham had is found in Hebrews 11:8, 10. It says that he was looking for a city which had foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.
Once again, we see this revelation. We thought he was just wandering around there in the land of promise, wandering around in tents, never able to settle down, only ending up with a gravesite there in this promised land.
Yet Abraham, as we know, made it through. He pressed through to the end. And all the while he was looking for this city which had foundations.
You know, I’m not quite sure when he came to this revelation that God was after a city. But I do believe, and I think it’s pretty evident if you read the Scriptures, that we see the city in Revelation 21 coming down out of heaven from God as a bride adorned for her husband.
In other words, Abraham saw not only God; he not only saw Jesus Christ, but he saw God’s purpose. God’s purpose is His Son, but in that purpose for His Son is a desire that His Son have a helpmate, a bride. That bride is described in Revelation as a city. Amazingly, we won’t go into all of that, but it is described as a city.
So this is what God is after, brothers and sisters. Abraham had these revelations—revelations that I think are fundamental for every Christian—that we might have faith and enter into God’s purpose fully.
Abraham believed God, but it was not in the same way that he had believed in the gods he had been making with his hands, or his father had. That was indeed superstition.
How can something be your god that you’ve made with your hands? Only a darkened, depraved mind would think that way. And that’s what Romans says: man had become darkened in his mind.
Well, I say all of that to say this morning that many here have had revelation from God. We need to believe Him and to follow Him. Our purpose is not to please ourselves or just fill our lives with blessings from God, but that we might fulfill His purpose.
Our lives are not so much about blessing as our lives are about being in the school of Christ, learning Christ, learning His ways, and having His life manifested in us. That’s what God’s doing with your life.
Brothers and sisters, that’s why so many strange things happen to you. That’s why life is not a bed of roses: because God has got you in His school.
Now, I’ve said this before, but I think I need to say it again. I was watching a film on the training of Navy SEALs. As you know, there are special forces—there are other special forces as well—but I was watching this particular one.
As I watched the training of a Navy SEAL, I was really impressed with the training. Because what did the training do? Actually, I saw in the training that they tore those men down to the point that they realized they were helpless without something else. They needed something else.
Now, with the SEALs, it was one another. And we do need one another. That’s a great lesson. But we need the Lord.
But you know what? They push these men to their limit, to the point that they don’t think they will make it. But they do.
Now, here’s the point of that: often the Lord Jesus, in your life, seems to be doing strange things. Instead of being blessing, it’s tough. The Lord is pushing you beyond your limit, beyond what you can handle in yourself, because that’s the only way we seem to learn.
Once we get beyond that point where we say, “Lord, I’m helpless. I’m in this situation. I do not know what to do with it,” once we get pushed beyond that point and we cast ourselves upon the Lord, then He can show you His strength in your life. Then He can bring and manifest the Lord’s life in your life.
So do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial that might come your way. That is the Lord’s way.
We see this in Abraham’s life. We’ve already talked about Abraham: when he was called out, he did obey. He went in obedience. When he got that revelation—the God of glory spoke to him—he went out. He obeyed the Lord. He went toward the promised land.
The problem is that his father led him out instead of the Lord. He obeyed the Lord in the sense that he was going out, but instead of continuing to listen to the Lord, he was looking to man.
In our case, that could be ourselves, or it could be our buddies, or whoever else we might be depending on to give us support in life. Abraham began to lean on his father’s wisdom instead of the Lord’s.
And in so doing, he stopped short. He stopped short in Haran. Halfway there, he stopped short, and they settled down.
Now, I’ve looked into this. They could have been there many years. I don’t know. It could have been twenty, thirty, forty years they were there. It only could have been a few years, but they were there a significant amount of time—long enough to greatly increase in cattle and sheep and all kinds of wealth there in Haran.
The point I’m making here is that Abraham stayed there halfway, only following God halfway, not fulfilling God’s purpose. Looking around—particularly his father, who was his greatest influence, I think—I can almost hear his dad saying, “But son, there’s no need to go any farther. This is a great place. Look how our cattle have multiplied; the sheep have multiplied. Surely God is blessing us here.”
I’m not sure if that’s what happened by any means, but I can’t help but wonder, because that’s where Terah, his father, eventually died. He never left there.
But thank the Lord, the Lord moved upon Abraham. When his father died, when that influence was gone, He moved upon Abraham, and Abraham realized that he wasn’t where God wanted him to be.
Yes, he had gained much cattle and much blessing, but those blessings were actually keeping him away from God’s full purpose in his life.
I want to say it once more: I’m not against God’s blessing. I’m really not. We need them. But, brothers and sisters, that cannot be the purpose of the Christian life. Christ Himself has to be the purpose of our lives.
Abraham was not totally faithful to the Lord in his calling, but God took Abraham up. God reminded Abraham, and He encouraged Abraham to go on.
It was because of God’s sovereign intervention in his life that he went on. Otherwise, he may have never gone on. But God sovereignly intervened, and he went on.
He went to the promised land, and it was just full of milk and honey. That’s not true, is it?
No, the story doesn’t end there, happily ever after. Actually, when he gets there, the first thing he sees is that there’s an enemy in the land. There are enemies there.
“This is supposed to be the land of milk and honey, but there are enemies there. Oh, this is not what I expected, Lord. When I went in obedience to You to follow You—and Lord, I know You encouraged me and got me up out of my lethargic state, where I was in a wrong place, and You moved me on—but what is this?”
No milk and honey here, just enemies—and they’re big. Giants.
Well, the Lord met him there and encouraged him. Abraham set up an altar, and the Lord met him and encouraged him. He said, “No, this land is going to be yours. You’ll have many children here.” So he was encouraged. The Lord encouraged him at that point.
Well, he lived happily ever after. No, no, no. The next thing that happens is that there’s a famine in this land of milk and honey. A famine. Can you imagine that? You’re in the Lord’s way, you’ve obeyed the Lord, and now comes a famine in your life.
Unfortunately, Abraham hadn’t fully learned all the ways of the Lord at this point. He said, “Well, I know how to solve this problem. I’ll just go down to Egypt. There’s stuff down there, and I can get some goods down there, and we’ll survive down there in Egypt.”
Egypt always represents the world and the ways of the world. There’s no indication that he really consulted with God at this point. He just leaned to his own understanding, and he went down into the land of Egypt.
If you remember the story, he knew that his wife was beautiful and that the king would probably want to take her into his harem. So he told his wife, “You just tell him I’m your sister.” Well, that was a half-truth, by the way. She was his half-sister.
If you remember the story, the Lord did an interesting thing. He didn’t punish Abraham; He punished the king and his people. They began to come down with some physical ailments, and finally the king was able to discern that Abraham’s God was angry at them because of Sarah.
So he rebuked Abraham and sent him away. He said, “You get out of here.” Actually, he had already given the dowry to Abraham. He had given him cattle and goats, all these things, maids and maidservants. He had given all these to Abraham. That’s the way they did things in those days.
You women didn’t know you were so valuable, did you? Anyway, I don’t know how many cows and sheep he got for Sarah, and all the maids and maidservants, but the king was so disturbed that he just sent Abraham away with everything that he had given Abraham.
Well, it appears that God actually blessed Abraham, doesn’t it? But as I pointed out before, Hagar was one of those maidservants he got, and she was the one through whom they eventually had another child. That was not what the Lord was looking for, and it got them into more trouble.
So these things became a problem to Abraham. As a matter of fact, as we shared last time, all of these cattle that they had gained became a problem because the area they were staying in didn’t have enough pasture land for all the cattle.
Lot, his nephew who had come along with him, had herdsmen, and strife began to arise between Lot’s herdsmen and Abraham’s herdsmen over the lack of pasture land. There was a lot of strife going on.
Abraham went to his nephew and said, “Look, this is not right. We are what we would say today, Christians. We are a testimony in this land, and here we are fighting one another.”
Now, this shows you how Abraham’s faith had increased at this point. Abraham said, “Lot, you just choose wherever you want to go, and I’ll go the other way. I’ll take the other land.”
That tells me that as God had been working in his life through a lot of unfortunate, negative things, Abraham had at least come to the point of seeing that God was going to give him that land. Therefore, his saying, “Okay, Lot, you just take what you want,” didn’t bother Abraham.
He didn’t have to grasp at what God was going to give him, because he knew God was going to give it to him. So he didn’t grasp at it. He just let Lot go.
Lot, as you may realize, represents the worldly Christian, the carnal Christian—one who knows the Lord but is not really following after the Lord, has no interest in the Lord, and just kind of wants to be blessed and have a life of ease.
So what he chose was the best grazing land in the land of Canaan for his own. It happened to be right near the city of Sodom, and we know about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that God eventually judged.
Abraham’s faith had increased and strengthened. He had seen that God was going to give him the land, so he was able to let it go, in a sense, and let God. He knew that God would take care of him.
Lot, being the worldly one and looking for what I call the American dream, looked at Sodom and said, “Wow, what a place that is. It’s all pasture down there. It’ll provide for all my cattle, all my needs. I’ve got my college education lined up for my children. I’ve got it all fixed. My 401(k) is full. I’m doing great.”
Something happened that brings us to the battle of the four kings and the five kings. I’m going to have to read some now for you to get the story.
Let’s start in Genesis 14. We’ll start with Genesis 14:11. What has happened at this point is that four kings, under the head king, Chedorlaomer—I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that exactly right, but that’s the southern pronunciation, Chedorlaomer—came in and wiped out five kings, one of them being the king of Sodom.
“And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way.
And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.”
— Genesis 14:11-12
And go to Genesis 14:14:
“And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued as far as Dan.
And he divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.
And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.”
— Genesis 14:14-16
The king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and of the kings. And Melchizedek also came out to meet him.
“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was priest of God Most High.
And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth:
and blessed be God Most High, who hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand.”
— Genesis 14:18-20
And Abraham gave him tithes of all. Then the king of Sodom said to Abraham, “Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.”
“And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth,
that I will not take a thread nor a shoe-latchet nor aught that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.”
— Genesis 14:22-23
Then go to Genesis 15. After these things, the Word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, saying:
“Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”
— Genesis 15:1
And Abraham said, “Lord, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?”
“And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This man shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and number the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
And he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him for righteousness.”
— Genesis 15:4-6
And He said to him, “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.” Abraham said, “Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?”
Then he goes through this ritual of dividing the animals: a heifer, a she-goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. He took all of these animals, laid each piece against the other, and did not divide the birds. The vultures came, and Abraham was keeping them off.
I’ll skip all that, but I want to go to Genesis 15:17-18:
“And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch that passed between these pieces.
In that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land.”
— Genesis 15:17-18
Okay. So that’s where we are this morning.
Well, as we’ve already said, Lot was a worldly believer. He hadn’t had quite the revelation that Abraham had had. In fact, he hadn’t. He was a follower, hanging on to Abraham.
Being that way, not really following the Lord in his life, he ended up actually in Sodom, a very wicked place. He was enamored with Sodom, let me put it that way, even though the Word says he was grieved at the same time.
But he was in the wrong place because he wasn’t really following the Lord, and that got him into trouble. The trouble was that he was captured by the enemy. Does that sound familiar?
When we get away from the Lord and start going our own way, all of a sudden we find that the enemy has got us, and it almost seems we can’t escape. But the Lord did make a way for Lot.
Word got back to Abraham, and Abraham sent, I think it was, 318 armed servants. These weren’t warriors; they were servants of his.
And you know what? These 318 defeated the armies of these four kings, who had been able to defeat the armies of the five kings. It was an actual miracle victory from the Lord.
I don’t know how many soldiers the four kings had. It doesn’t say how many soldiers they had, but it had to be a considerable number. Yet Abraham was able to defeat them, rescue Lot, and bring him back.
What a victory of faith in Abraham’s life. A tremendous victory had occurred, and he was able to free his brother Lot.
Interestingly enough, I need to say this, I think: after a great spiritual victory like this—and it happens to all of us—it’s a time of great danger. Because we tend to let down our guard, and we tend to begin to think that we’re something, that we’ve done it, that we’re strong now.
The Lord realizes this, so He sends Melchizedek. We won’t go into his priesthood, but we know it says that he was without beginning and end of days, a very special person. I think he was obviously, at a minimum, a type of Jesus Christ as the High Priest.
He comes and reminds Abraham. He says, “Now, this victory was because of the Lord. The Lord has given you this victory. He’s the victor. You’re not the victor. He is the victory.”
Then Melchizedek declares that God is the possessor of heaven and earth. Kind of a strange way to say it, but he says, “The priest of the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth.”
Now why? Because God realized that there is this weakness. It’s in all of us. He’s trying to prepare Abraham for what’s going to come next. So He says, “God, who is the possessor of heaven and earth, is your God, and He brought you this victory.”
So what happens immediately is that the king of Sodom comes and says, “Okay, Abraham, I want you to take all the spoils of the battle. I’d like to have the people back, but you can take all the spoils of the battle for yourself.”
And Abraham said, “No. My God is the possessor of heaven and earth. He has everything, and I have Him.” Do you get the point?
What faith the Lord was working in Abraham’s life. Abraham gave up all the spoils. All the spoils. Praise the Lord.
He refused the offer of the world for fame and fortune. I think often we’re challenged in our lives by the same thing.
Now, to you, is God the possessor of heaven and earth? Is He not the One who really supplies your needs?
Well, Abraham now begins to question the Lord. Let me give you a little more on that.
I believe what was going through Abraham’s mind at this point is that Melchizedek had met him, and he had refused the offer of the king of Sodom. That’s a great victory of faith, a great victory of faith. But he begins to question God. His faith is still shaken.
Even after all this, his faith is still shaken, and he begins to question God. I believe probably—and I don’t know this—but probably he was saying, “You know, I defeated that king. I caught him by surprise. But now he isn’t going to be surprised anymore.”
“What if he decides to take revenge on me? What if he decides to take revenge? What am I going to do? I’ve only got 318 people. They’re not really warriors.”
Then he probably began to think, “You know, I gave up a whole lot of spoils. Did I do the wise thing? I mean, God said He was the possessor of heaven and earth, and I believe that, but I did give up a lot of spoils that could have been mine.”
The Lord comes to him. The Lord Himself comes and says:
“I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”
— Genesis 15:1
Once again, God steps in to encourage his faith. He reminds Abraham, “Abraham, you’re not going to have to fear. You’re not going to have to fear revenge from these kings because I am your shield.”
“I shielded you in that battle. I shielded your men in that battle. I am your shield. There’s no need for fear.”
Do you have fears in your life? The Lord is your shield. Do you believe that?
And not only that, He says, “Abraham, you need to see that I am your exceeding great reward. All the gold and silver in this world is nothing compared to having Me, to possessing Me.”
“I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”
— Genesis 15:1
A lesson that Abraham had to learn in faith.
Well, Abraham is encouraged, but when faith gets wounded, it’s hard to restore. He said, “But Lord, You’ve promised me this land, and to have children and inherit it, but I’m childless.”
“You know, when I was in Egypt, I got this Eliezer, and he has become the head of the house under me. It looks like he’s going to end up getting everything.”
The Lord said, “All right, Abraham, you go out and look at the stars.” So Abraham does. He said, “I want you to try to count them. Look, your children are going to be as the stars of heaven.”
This is interesting: it says that Abraham believed in the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him for righteousness. Wow. He believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him righteous.
Why didn’t God say this earlier? Abraham had faith when he left Ur of the Chaldeans, did he not? Did he not have faith when he gave up all those spoils of battle? Why, at this point, does God declare that Abraham believed Him and God counted it unto him for righteousness?
I think the key is in the fact that instead of once again saying, “Your seed will be as the sand of the sea or the dust of the earth,” representing the physical children he would have—the nation of Israel—He is now talking about the stars of heaven.
Those children will be children of faith: you and me, of Abraham’s lineage through faith. We are the children of faith. God makes it very clear when He points out the stars. He says He counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness.
Now, I don’t know if any of you have ever had to deal with being right before God. I think I do know the answer to that. How can you ever be in right standing with God, who created this whole universe, saw that you were created and born, and watched over your life? How can you ever be righteous before Him?
God makes it very clear: it’s through the simple act of belief. Just believe Him, and He says that is righteous. It’s not doing many mighty acts. It’s not being perfect. It’s believing Him that makes righteousness before God.
Amazing, this little matter of faith that we see growing in Abraham’s life.
Well, Abraham is still a little unsure about this matter of the inheritance, and the Lord said, “Look, I want you to get the pigeons. I want you to get the rams and goats.” He laid them out, the carcasses. He divided them all but the birds.
They went through a ceremony that was apparently typical for their day. When somebody was entering into a covenant contract with somebody else, they would do this. They would sacrifice an animal, lay it open, and then the two parties would walk between the pieces, sealing their words, sealing the covenant they had made with one another, sealing the contract.
Well, up until this point, God had made promises to Abraham. But I want you to know there is a tremendous difference here: God is now entering into an official covenant with Abraham, which He cannot break.
Amazing to me that God would humble Himself so much before a man and say, “Look, I’ve been promising you all along, but now, in order to encourage you and strengthen your faith, I’m going to enter into this covenant, which I cannot break.”
“You will know for sure that I’m in covenant contract with you over this matter of your having children as the stars of the sky, of which we are the fruit.”
What a God we have. A covenant by sacrifice. And He seals it with Abraham.
God is so merciful. He had given Abraham three great revelations. He had given Abraham His promise. And now He enters into a covenant which He cannot break.
I want you to know, this is how serious God is about your and my faith. This is how serious God is, because He knows that if we can just exercise faith, then His purposes will be fulfilled.
In other words, in order to bring many sons to glory, we’re going to have to learn to live by faith. In living by faith, we are matured finally into the bride of Christ, and God’s purpose will be fulfilled.
So God is very serious about this issue of our faith, and He’s committed to you and to me, even when we fail.
You remember Abraham actually settled down and was out of the race for a long time, many years, in Haran. But God sovereignly moved in his life.
This shows, I hope, how faithful God is to you and to me. Do you think He’s going to be any less faithful to you than He was to Abraham? He’s not a partial God.
We see that Abraham’s faith was not perfect. It was incomplete. But that didn’t stop God in Abraham’s life. He kept working with him.
When Abraham failed, God picked him up. When Abraham went the wrong way, God said, “No, that’s not the way I do things, Abraham. You need to learn. But I’ll make you My promise. I’m going to keep My promise to you.”
When those promises didn’t look like they were ever going to be fulfilled in Abraham’s life, He said, “I’m making a covenant with you, Abraham. I can’t break My covenant. I can’t break My covenant.”
Are you a Christian?
There’s a God of glory who called you to be transformed into the image of His Son. That’s His purpose.
Not only that, brothers and sisters, but this is a lifetime school of Christ that you’ve entered into: to be conformed into the image of His Son. He’s also called you to be the house of God—many, many living stones built together for His habitation, a place where He can dwell.
He’s also called us to be the bride of Christ, in union with one another and with Him, the Head. It’s not just an individual calling. It’s a calling to be one to Him together.
Let us not be man-centered any longer, lest we settle down short of God’s purpose. If blessing is what thrills us, then we’ll settle down short. I’m convinced of that. We’ll never fully enter into the promised land.
We need to know Him and learn Him as the possessor of heaven and earth. That means that He will meet all your needs—not all your wants, but He will meet all your needs.
Your needs are mainly spiritual, brothers and sisters. Do you know Him as the possessor of heaven and earth? Everything is in His hands, and you now have Him.
Do you know Him as your shield? I know many times God has protected me and saved me out of trouble.
But do we know Him as our reward? Is He what satisfies us? I think that’s a critical question. Has He yet become your exceeding great reward in life? Are you still after the things of the Lord, or after the Lord Himself?
A critical crossroads in our life occurs when we see that it’s not the things of the Lord that are so marvelous, but the Lord Himself.
Do you believe in His promises? He’s made many promises, brothers and sisters. Even if we falter in our belief, He cannot falter, because He has made a covenant with you and me by sacrifice.
It was the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the covenant that He’s made with you and me. It was His Son who was the covenant sacrifice for you and me, and He’s brought us into covenant with Him, that He will be faithful to you and to me.
Let me end by reading this. I’ll just read it.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ:
even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love:
having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved:
in whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace,
which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him
unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say,
in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.”
— Ephesians 1:3-11
That’s His promise. He’s entered into that by covenant sacrifice with us all. You might want to take a little time and meditate on Ephesians 1. He has covenanted with us through sacrifice.
Lord, we come to Thee today. Lord, we come because we do live in a difficult age. We do live in an age that wants to compromise our life with You, that wants to compromise Your purpose in our life.
Lord, we want to say today, Lord, I am so grateful personally that You’ve made covenant sacrifice, that You will continue to move, You will continue to work, and You will bring many sons to glory.
Lord, You will achieve Your purposes. You will have Your bride for Your Son. Lord, our faith is not in us, but in Your faithfulness.
Lord, cause us to look away from ourselves. Cause us to look upon Thee, we pray, in Jesus’ name.