Abraham - Humanity, Emotions and Faith - Part 2

When you're afraid, God says, "I am." When you're impatient, God says, "I will." And when you get uncertain, God says, "I have." It's already done. Just trust Me; My covenant will never fail. 

Genesis 15 focuses on the emotions of Abraham, the man of faith. In Genesis 15:1 we have fear, and he was afraid for himself. Nothing wrong with that; it's possible that those four kings might come back with a bigger army, and then where would Abraham be? Well, God said, "Abraham, don't be afraid. I'm working out a plan in your life, and you're going to be what I want you to be and do what I want you to do, and I'm going to bless you and make you a blessing." 

The answer to fear is the presence of God. God said, "I am." I am your shield, I am your exceedingly great reward. I am your protection, I am your provision, so stop being afraid. Then in Genesis 15:2-6, we have the feeling of impatience. He said, "When is this child going to come? Should I ask Eliezer, my steward, to take care of the matter for me?" And God says, "No, it's going to be done through your own body." Abraham believed God according to Genesis 15:6: "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." 

Here's Abraham out staring up at the stars. I wonder if anybody else in the camp was watching him. I wonder if Sarah was saying, "What's wrong with my husband?" There's this man, probably 85 years old now, standing gazing up into heaven, counting the stars—you can't do that. The scientists estimate that there are over 100 billion of them. And God said, "So shall your descendants be." And Genesis 15:6 reads: "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." That is the John 3:16 of the Old Testament. It tells us how people are saved. In fact, this verse is quoted three times in the New Testament. You might want to look at these references. 

Galatians 3:6: "Just as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed.' So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham." In Galatians 3, Paul emphasizes the word believed: "And he believed in the Lord." He's saying in Galatians 3 the only way to get saved is by faith; it's by believing in the Lord. 

Now Paul also quotes this verse in Romans 4; Romans 4:1 is where we need to begin: "What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something of which to boast, but not before God." Nobody can boast before God. "For what does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.' Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt." And here's one of the greatest verses in Scripture, Romans 4:5: "But to him who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." 

He tells us in Romans 4 that his emphasis is on the word accounted. He believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him. He put it on his account as righteousness. You see, God keeps a record. Before I was saved, my account book didn't look so good; I was in debt, I was bankrupt. Then I trusted Jesus Christ, and all of His righteousness was put on my account. That's justification. Justification means that God declares the believing sinner righteous. Now the courts of law justify those who are good, and they condemn those who are bad. God justifies the ungodly. How? By faith. Abraham believed; that's Galatians 3:6. Abraham believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him. You see, we're saved by faith, not by works, and we're saved by grace, not by merit. 

Then in James 2:23, we have the third quotation in the New Testament. James 2:23: "And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.' And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only." That seems to contradict Paul, but it doesn't. You see, the emphasis in Galatians was on believed; the emphasis in Romans was on counted; and the emphasis in James is on the word righteousness. How did Abraham prove that he had received the righteousness of God, been declared righteous before God? By the life that he lived. He obeyed God. His faith was proved by his works. We are not saved by faith plus works; we are saved by a faith that leads to works. And if someone says, "Well, I'm saved," but there are no works that prove that, well, we have a question whether or not that person is saved according to James. We are justified before God by faith; we are justified before man by works, and therefore we ought to walk so as to please God. Abraham believed in the Lord. That means he leaned on the Lord; he said "Amen" to the Lord. He leaned himself on the promise of God. 

Now this leads to Genesis 15:7-21, the feeling of uncertainty. We've talked about the feeling of fear—God said "I am." The feeling of impatience—God said "I will, believe Me." And now the feeling of uncertainty—and God says "I have. I have already done it. Now stop being so uncertain." 

Genesis 15:7: "Then He, the Lord, said to him, 'I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.'" You see, the first problem was with Abraham—God said "I'll protect you." The second problem had to do with his descendants—He said "I'll take care of that." Now the land comes into the picture. He said, "Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?" This was not a statement of unbelief. He was not saying, "Well, I don't think You can do it." He had already believed God. Rather, he wanted that assurance. He wanted to have that assurance in his life that he would inherit the land. 

Now this is like Mary. Mary did not say, "Well, how can this be?" She said, "How shall this be?" He's saying, "Lord, how will I know that I will inherit it?" And God tells him to do an interesting thing. Back in Abraham's day, when two men were going to form a covenant, they would get a hold of some animals, kill the animals, cut them in half, and put them on the ground. And then the two men would walk between the dead animals that had been cut in two, and this would be the sealing of a covenant. It's called cutting a covenant. 

You say it's a very strange thing to do. Well, when you stop to think about it, first of all, they were saying, "May this happen to me if I don't keep my promise. We are making promises to each other; we are establishing an agreement. Now here are these dead animals on the ground, and as we walk between the parts of the dead animals, we are saying, 'May this happen to me if I don't keep my promise.'" 

Well, Abraham did what he was told. God said, "Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." And he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in two. That follows a Levitical pattern as found in Leviticus 1. And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. You see, you make a sacrifice to the Lord, the devil's going to come and try to steal it away. So often this happens. Someone says, "Dear Lord, I'm giving my life to You as a sacrifice; I want to go to the mission field." They never get there. You know why? The vultures came along and stole the sacrifice. Abraham stayed awake now, and he's fighting off the vultures that want to steal the sacrifice. Satan is a thief; the Lord Jesus said that. He said the thief does not come but to steal and to kill and to destroy. Abraham is now obeying God. You start obeying God and offering your best to God, and the devil's going to come and try to steal it from you. Just as the birds come down and try to steal the seed of the word, so the vultures came down and tried to steal the sacrifice. 

Now it's going to get dark. "Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram." This is the same word that's used for Adam's sleep back in Genesis 2:21. Undoubtedly it was God who put Abram to sleep. Now why did He put Abram to sleep? For the simple reason that He wanted to make a covenant with Abram, and Abram was going to do nothing.

Now this is very important. Abraham was going to do nothing. This was going to be a covenant on one side. Abraham was not going to walk with God between the parts of the sacrifice. Abraham was not making a covenant with God; God was making a covenant with Abraham. And so He put Abraham to sleep. You see, our problem is too often we try to do this and do that, run here and run there. God said, "Abraham, you go to sleep; I'll give you all the assurance that you need." 

"A deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him." Now what kind of an experience is that? Here it is at night. He's been out looking at the stars, and God has given to him His promise that the descendants would be like the stars of the heavens. He's brought his sacrifice, he's laid the sacrifice on the ground, he has done everything God has told him to do, and now he's going through a horror of a great darkness. 

You say, "What kind of a God would do that to Abram?" Let's stop to realize that if you're going to be a person of faith, you're going to have to go through experiences of darkness. There are days of darkness. In one of our hymns, we sing, "Days of darkness still come o'er me, sorrow's path I often tread." That verse is not often found in our hymnbooks; we don't like to sing that. But you'll find that Abraham had his experiences of darkness. So did Moses. So did Elijah. So did David. When you read the Psalms, you find him crying out for light in a dark cave. The Lord Jesus Christ tells us, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." That's not the point here. Abraham believed God; Abraham was walking in the light, but he was going through a deep emotional experience of horror and great darkness. 

And we better be prepared for that. Oh, there are those who teach that if you follow the Lord and you're obedient to Him, you'll never have experiences like this. Well, my Bible says Abraham is the pattern for those who want to live by faith, and Abraham went through darkness. You may be going through darkness right now. Remember: Abraham was in the will of God, Abraham was listening to the word of God, Abraham believed the promise of God, Abraham had given his sacrifices to God, Abraham was not backslidden, but Abraham was experiencing a time of darkness. The "dark night of the soul" is what the old saints used to call this. 

Now when the darkness come, God speaks. Notice that in Genesis 15:13: "Then He said to Abram: 'Know certainly...'" Ah, here is the assurance. "...'that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs...'" This would be in Egypt. "...'and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge.'" I hope that when the Jews were in Egypt, they remembered that—that God would bring about judgment upon Egypt. "'Afterward they shall come out with great possessions.'" 

Now all of this happened, didn't it? He's talking about the nation in verses 13 and 14. This nation that's going to come from Abram's descendants. Abram would beget Isaac, and then Isaac would beget Jacob, and Jacob the twelve tribes of Israel, and the twelve tribes of Israel would multiply, they'd go down to Egypt, they would be under tribulation and trial for those four generations, and then God would deliver them. 

Now isn't this interesting? God is performing His will, and yet He's allowing His nation to go through suffering. This is something that some of the saints never seem to learn. Oh, how we need to get a hold of this. When God wants to do something great, He puts you through the furnace of suffering. You—some people would like God to have said, "Now Abram, I'm going to turn the lights on, there'll be no more darkness, your descendants are going to have a happy easy life, they will multiply, and then we're going to accomplish My purposes." It doesn't say that at all. If ever a nation has suffered, the Jewish nation has suffered. And this apparently is a part of the plan of God. 

So in verses 13 and 14, He assures him that He has everything under control as far as the nation is concerned. In fact, it was Egypt that made the nation of Israel. The more Pharaoh and his people oppressed the Jews, the more God blessed them. Persecution has always been one of God's methods for blessing, purifying, and multiplying His people. But then God delivered them as He promised, and they came out with great possessions. 

Now in verse 15, He talks about Abraham. "It's wonderful to know what your descendants are going to do, but what's going to happen to me?" "Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace." That's the statement that is used in the Old Testament for death—to go to your fathers, die and join your ancestors in death. "And you shall be buried at a good old age." And that was true; he died at the age of 175. He was probably 85 years old now, and so he had 90 more years. Abram, don't be afraid; you're going to die in a good old age, you're going to die in peace. And he did. 

Now He's going to talk about the land. You see, Abraham was concerned about the land as well. "How do I know I'm going to inherit this land?" And so in Genesis 15:16: "But in the fourth generation," which is the equivalent roughly of the 400 years of verse 13, "they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." Now we have to pause there and ask: what do the Amorites have to do with this? Well, He's telling us why this delay. Why not give Abram the land right now? Why not multiply his seed right now? No, God takes His time in doing things. Think of the thousands of years of preparation for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of thirty years of preparation for three years of ministry. God is not in a hurry. We are, but God isn't. 

Now God was waiting for two reasons. Number one, He had to build the nation. That was His first purpose. He had to build the nation; He wanted the nation to be a certain way before He started working with them. Secondly, He was being patient with the sinners in the land. Sometimes people say, "Well, why did God have the Jews slaughter all those people in the land of Canaan?" God gave those people hundreds of years of opportunity to repent, and they would not do it. So God was being patient. God is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish. 

"And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there was a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces." It's a picture of the Lord Himself. God comes between the pieces of the sacrifice. He's saying, "Abraham, I'm not asking you to sign a contract. I'm making a covenant with you, and whether you believe or not, this covenant is going to be fulfilled. This is My promise to you." And God is symbolized here as an oven. These ovens, they used to put hot coals in them, and then they would put the bread on the outside and bake the bread outside the oven. And sometimes the fire would come out the top of this oven like a torch. Here is God, a consuming fire. Here is God going through these pieces in the darkness. What a scene that was. And He's saying to Abraham, "I am the holy God. I know what you are planning, and I know what you are doing. I am going to fulfill My covenant with you." 

Genesis 15:18: "On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'To your descendants I have given'—not I will give—'I have given this land.'" And He describes who is there in the land. When you're afraid, God says, "I am." When you're impatient, God says, "I will." And when you get uncertain, God says, "I have." It's already done. Just trust Me; My covenant will never fail.

[Interview]

Now let's join Back to the Bible CEO, Arnie Cole, in the studio with Warren Wiersbe. 

"In your study of Abraham, you described faith as a journey. And a good part of that journey is about waiting and being patient. Why is patience such an important lesson for us?"

"Well, the Bible tells us that faith and patience go together. There are a number of references in the Word of God. Hebrews tells us faith and patience enables us to receive the promises. If you don't learn patience, you won't learn anything. Those of us who have raised children—children by nature are impatient. 'Let's go, let's go. Are we there yet?' I can still hear our youngest when we were out on trips on the car going to see Grandma. You stop for a stoplight—'Are we there yet?' But Christians are that way. 'Lord, I want this to happen now.' But you know, I have looked back over my own life—I know you've done this too—God was never too early and He was never late. Never. We thought we had to do this right now. No, He didn't want it right now; He had it planned for later. So when it comes to praying and serving God, don't look at the calendar too much, don't look at the watch too much. 'They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.' That's a great verse to quote, but oh, is it hard to practice."