Themes From Genesis with R. C. Sproul, “God’s Commitment to Abraham,” 8

I've said on several occasions that if I were put in prison, solitary confinement, and was allowed to have one book at my disposal, the book that I would want would be what book?

The Bible, the Word of God.

I wouldn't be looking for entertainment. I would be looking for truth, for something that would sustain me in that kind of a deprived human situation. I've also said that if I were in solitary confinement in a prison and could only have one book of the book, one book of the Bible, the book that I would want to have would be the book of Hebrews, the reason being that Hebrews recapitulates the whole of the Old Testament and brings it home into the central focus of Christ.

It has such a magnificent Christology there so that all of the substance of the Old Testament and of the New Testament is woven together into that book of Hebrews, so that if I had one book of the Bible, that's the book I would want.

But if somebody would say to me, okay, if you could only have one chapter of the Bible, what chapter would you want to have with you in solitary confinement? And my answer has always been if I had to choose one chapter of all of the Bible, the chapter I would choose is chapter 15 of Genesis, which is the chapter we're going to be looking.

At today.

So I preface my exposition of this text with that statement of my own favoritism toward.

It.

Let's listen to what the Bible says in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis. After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceedingly great reward.

Imagine being in solitary confinement. Imagine the fear, and you're there and all of a sudden God comes to you and says, Don't be afraid, Mike or George or, you know, John. Don't be afraid, for I am with you, and I will be your shield, and I will protect you, and I will be your exceedingly great reward.

Well Abraham wasn't in solitary confinement, but he may as well have been. He had been removed from everything that was precious to him. He had to get up out of the land of his father's. All of those things that represented human security were thrown away by Abraham as he left his home, his family, his friends, his possessions, and went out not knowing where he was going.

And there was a sense in which he was experiencing solitude, aloneness, and God appears to him and says, Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, for I will be your shield, and I will be your exceedingly great reward.

Now Abraham, in a sense, challenges this. He's human like we are, huh? He says, and Abraham said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

There is such a thing in the Christian world as false comfort. You know, Job's friends, Job is in abject misery, and his friends come along and want to give him a theology lesson on the relationship between sin and suffering, small comfort they are to Job.

And you've had that experience where people want to minimize your pain, guys that are in prison. It's just like James says, this guy says to a hungry man, Be filled, but doesn't give him any food. A lot of good that does.

Well, this is the way Abraham's responding to God. He said, Wait a minute. You're telling me you're going to be my exceedingly great reward? What can you possibly give me that will make up for what I've lost?

I saw a man on television, 60 Minutes or one of those programs last week, who had been falsely convicted of a crime. And he was put into prison, I forget how long, five or seven years out of his life, until finally they caught a man, a rapist, who was guilty of multiple offenses and confessed to the crimes that this man was sent to prison for.

And so everybody comes to the man, and they say, What? I'm sorry, and maybe we give you some compensation. We'll give you some money. And he says, That's great, but who's going to give me back seven years of my life?

This is what Abraham's saying. Great reward, God. Don't you know that the only thing I've ever wanted out of this life with any passion is a son, an heir, somebody to carry on the family name, somebody that would handle my home, my property, my possessions, my cattle.

You're going to give me a great reward? What are you going to give me, seeing that I go childless? Do you get the drift here? He said, What can you possibly reward me with that will compensate for the loss of that?

He said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is my heir. That is, this servant, Eliezer, from Damascus. He's going to inherit everything. He's not bone of my bone and blood of my blood.

He's a guy I went out and hired. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This, that is, this servant from Damascus shall not be your heir, but he that comes forth out of your own bowels shall be your heir.

And then he brought him forth abroad, and he said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if you're able to number them. And he said unto them, unto him, So shall thy seed be. He says, Abraham, come here.

Takes him outside on a starry night, and he said, Do you see the stars up there?

Count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, count them.

Now, you're not just going to have one child, one descendant, but your descendants will be as the stars of the sky. Verse 6, we read Abraham's response. Now let me back up a second. Abraham had complained that the thing he wanted most he wasn't going to get.

God comes to him now and says, You're going to get what you want the most, and you're going to get it in spades. One coming out of your own bowels will be your heir. You're going to have a son, Abraham.

No, no, you're going to have a son, but you're going to have descendants that you will never.

Be able to number.

How do you like that?

Now, is that kind of difficult to believe? God's talking to this old man who's gone all his time, no kids, and now God's telling him he's going to be the father of a great nation. What does the next verse say?

And Abraham believed God, and it was counted or reckoned to him for righteousness. There's the gospel in the Old Testament. In fact, it's the line that Paul goes back to in the book of Romans when he is trying to explain to the Roman Christians what justification by faith is all about.

He said, well, I'll tell you what it's about. What does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to be redeemed? What does it mean to be saved by faith? I'll tell you what it means. It's Abraham, who believed God, and I want to write that down.

It's not that he believed in God.

He believed God.

That's what faith is all about. That's what saving faith is. I mean, I talk to people in college, I mean, we'd ask them, and I'd say, Do you believe in Jesus? They'd say, Yeah.

Sure.

Do you believe there's a God?

Yeah.

Big deal. The devil knows that, James tells us. It's one thing to believe intellectually that there is a God, and all that qualifies you to be is a demon, James tells us. It's another thing to believe God, that is, to put your trust in what God says.

That's what justifying faith is all about, and it comes to believing in the promise. God promises Abraham something that's staggering, and Abraham says, Hey, I believe You, God. If You say I'm going to be the father of a great nation, if You say I'm going to have a son, I'm going to have a son.

I believe You, and I'm going to live on the basis of that trust. And the next part of the verse, And God counted it to Abraham as righteousness. Abraham wasn't righteous, but he had faith in the promise that God made.

One of those descendants was the bright and morning star. One of those that would come from that line of Abraham was Jesus. And we are told in the New Testament, if we believe in Jesus in the sense in trusting Him, it is also counted to us for righteousness.

That's how we enter the kingdom of God. That's what it means to be a Christian, to believe Christ, to put your trust in Christ. And then God said to him, I am the Lord that brought you out of the Ur of the Chaldees to give you this land to inherit it.

And now Abraham says, Lord God, how shall I know that I'll inherit it? I believe, it's like Peter, huh? I believe, what? Help thou mine unbelief. I believe when I hear you say it, God, but five minutes later I stumble, I struggle.

I'm not sure because I'm assaulted by all kinds of doubts that come in. I look around, and when you're here telling me that I'm going to have a son and I'm going to inherit this land, that's incredible.

I believe you.

But then as soon as I take my eyes off you and I look out here and I see all of that.

Land and all the obstacles, there's no way I can believe it.

How am I going to know for sure? Is there any way I can be absolutely certain that what you've said will come to pass? Now remember that. That's the question that Genesis 15 is concerned to answer. How can I know for sure?

How would your life change? How would your life be changed right now if you knew for sure that everything Jesus says in the New Testament is true? How would your life change if you knew for sure that you were going to live forever and that death was merely a transition from this realm to the kingdom of heaven?

I mean, would that make a difference in your life if there were absolutely no doubts? I don't think when somebody jumped out at you from a corner in the darkness and said,.

Boo!

I don't think you'd even jump anymore. I wouldn't. But see, our faith is always mixed with unbelief, a lack of trust, a lack of certainty about what God has promised. And Abraham's no different. He said, How can I know for sure?

And God said, Okay, you want to know for sure? Now here's my favorite part of this chapter. He said, Take me a heifer of three years old, a she-goat of three years old, a ram of three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.

Sounds like a witch doctor making up some kind of magic potent, you know, with lizards and trails, you know, and the eye of a fly or something like that, and mix them all up, and I'm going to mix you a brew that will convince you forever.

He said, Now here's what you want. You want to know? Okay, Abraham, I want you to go shopping. Get me a heifer, three years old, not four years old, not two years old, not two-and-a-half years old, three-year-old heifer, okay?

Abraham said, Okay, check, three-year-old heifer. She-goat, not a he-goat, a she-goat, three years old, a ram of three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And everyone says, If that's what you want, I'll go get it.

And so, lo, Abraham took him all these things and divided them in the midst, and he laid each piece one against the other, but the birds divided he not. Abraham goes out, and he gets the heifer, he gets the she-goat, he gets the ram, he gets these things, and he brings them back, and what does he do?

He chops them in half. This is a bloody mess.

It's like a butcher shop.

He drops them, cuts them in half, and then he sticks them like end-to-end over against.

Each other.

It now really is starting to look like some kind of totemic rite in a primitive tribe,.

Isn't it?

And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. He's got this bloody mess, and what does it do? Instead of bringing the angels from heaven, it brings the buzzards, right? The buzzards come down and start pecking away at his cow.

So Abraham is there shooing away these birds so that he can keep everything to do exactly what God told him to do. Abraham says, all right, did that. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him.

And then God said unto Abraham, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them and shall afflict them four hundred years.

What's this?

Abraham says, how can I know that I'm going to be the father of a great nation and have all these descendants? And God says, you want them to be certain. I'll tell you what you can be sure of. This horrible darkness comes upon you, and I'll tell you what you can know for sure,.

Abraham.

First of all, here's what you can know for sure. First you can know for sure that you and your seed or your seed will be a stranger in a land that is not theirs. They're going to be exiles, okay? And you will be servants and slaves in that land, and your people that you're going to be the father of shall be afflicted for four hundred years.

What do you expect Abraham to say? Well, in that case, I don't want any kids. Isn't that what you would say? God says, you want to be sure? Here's what you can be sure of. You follow Me. You trust Me.

You believe Me. I'm going to give you descendants, and they're going to suffer for four hundred years. That nation whom they shall serve will I judge.

Wait till you see it, Abraham.

When you see the mightiest army in all the world come against your people who are going to be helpless, and I'm going to drown the whole army of them in the Red Sea, that nation that they're going to be serving I will judge, and afterwards your people will come out with great substance.

Did that happen, by the way? Did it happen? Did God fulfill His promise? You bet your neck He did. And you will go to your fathers in peace, and you shall be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

Now, if I am in the jail cell, solitary confinement, in the hole, and I can only have one verse, not just the book, not just the book of the book, not just chapter, one verse, here's the verse I want to hold in my hand, Genesis 15, 17.

Now listen to this, the most exciting verse in all of the Bible. You know it by heart. You don't even have to look at it, don't you? Can you recite it without looking at it?

No, but I'm going to learn it.

You're going to learn it today.

Okay. All right, listen to this, and it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the pieces.

There it is, guys. There it is.

Huh?

You get discouraged the next time you're back there, and you don't know whether to trust God or not. You pick it up, that book, and you read the 15th chapter of Genesis, verse 17, and it'll make you jump up in the air and click your heels, and you'll start running around your solitary confinement cell until the guards come saying, that guy has lost his cookie.

He's gone crazy because you're going to have Genesis 15, 17. It came to pass, you know, the guard was going to come to you and say, what are you so excited about? He said, listen to this, hey, the sun went down, it was dark, and behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those people, and he's going to look at you and say, what?

Have you freaked out?

So what?

Huh?

What's the big deal? Here's the big deal. The next verse tips it off. In that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. Do you know how much of your life revolves around covenants? Every time you buy something where you sign a contract, you're entering into a covenant.

When you have a contract for your job, you're entering into a covenant. When you get married, okay, you enter into a holy, sacred, formal, official covenant. And what is a covenant? It's an agreement based upon promises.

And the covenants in the Old Testament, we call the Bible the Old Covenant or the New Covenant. In the ancient world, a covenant, the word for covenant in Hebrew is the word berit, which means literally a cutting.

They didn't do it by signing documents on a piece of paper. They didn't sign a covenant. They didn't write a covenant. They didn't dictate a covenant.

They cut a covenant.

The word covenant, berit, means, as I said, a cutting. And so in the ancient world, when two people entered into a very solemn and serious covenantal agreement, they signed it and sealed it with a right of cutting.

What do you think circumcision is? It's the sign of the covenant. And what does it symbolize? It has a double symbolism. Circumcision has a double symbolism. The cutting of the foreskin of the flesh says, I am taking you and cutting you apart from the rest of mankind and making you, I'm cutting you out of the herd, if you will, my special people so that through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.

It's a mark of sanctification, of being set apart and consecrated for a holy task. That's the positive side. But there's also a negative side to the cutting, and it is this. The Jew is saying, O God, if I don't keep the terms of this covenant, if I don't keep Your law, may I be cut off from You and from Your benefits just as I have cut off the foreskin.

Of my flesh.

That's what the rite is all about. And so when the covenant is made, God says to Abraham, go get those animals and cut them up because we're going to cut ourselves a covenant. Now what happens after these animals are spread out there on the ground and they're all cut.

Up?

I said, let's go back to my favorite verse. It came to pass when the sun went down, it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between these people, these pieces. What is the smoking furnace and the burning lamp?

It's God.

The favorite theophany, which is a visible expression of the invisible God in the Old Testament is that God manifests Himself to the naked eye how? Pillar of cloud, pillar of fire, burning bush, moving torch.

Abraham is seeing God move between the pieces. And what is God saying with this rite? God is saying by this dramatic action of moving through the pieces, Abraham, you want to know for sure if I'm going to keep my promise?

You want to know if I'm going to keep this covenant that I have made with you? I'll pass myself through those pieces because in doing that, here's what I'm saying, that Abraham, if I don't keep my promise, may I be cut in sunder just like these animals are ripped apart.

Now let me ask you this. Is it possible for God to be cut in half? God is indivisible. God is immutable. God is eternal. The power of being resides within Himself. He is indestructible. And yet here, God says, if I break my promise, let me be destroyed.

You ever make a promise to somebody and say, well, I know you're going to keep your promise. You say, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, or let's shake on.

It or put it in writing.

The author of Hebrews looks back at this and says, because God could swear by no greater, He swore by Himself. You know, when I swear, I say, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and that the truth so help you, God, I swear by God, or, you know, in the Old Testament they swore by the heavens, or they swore by this, or I swore by my mother's grave, or I swear by Frank O 'Harris or whatever.

We swear by things that we consider significant, sacred, but God can't swear by the mountain or swear by the earth or swear by crossing my heart and hope to die. He swears by Himself. So what's the point?

The point, dear friends, is this, that God has staked His being on this promise.

His deity is on the line.

The very essence of His makeup as God is put on the line to Abraham saying, God, Abraham, if I don't keep my word to you, I cease being God.

So what?

Does that just apply to Abraham? The whole relationship by which we are related to God today is by covenant, that same oath that God swears to Abraham He has sworn to you. And so when your faith fails and you're alone and you wonder whether it's worth it hanging in there, remember the God that you serve and the radical degree to which He has gone to take an oath for His promise.

That's what it comes down to in life, who you believe. Are you going to trust God with your life? What Joshua said, choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord because He has promised, and I'm going to trust that promise forever.