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Genesis 15
“The Hound of heaven”
– that’s how preachers of another generation described Jesus Christ. He
is the Hound of Heaven who searches out and pursues us and doesn’t stop
until He has us. Jesus said ‘I
have come to seek and to save what is lost.’ He’s the doctor who searches out sick people. He’s the Good Shepherd who searches
out lost sheep. And when He finds
them He hoists them on His shoulders and carries them home. He’s the mother Hen who longs to
gather her chicks to Him. He
repeatedly says ‘All day long I hold out my arms to a disobedient and
obstinate people.’ He’s always
wanting to gather us. He’s
the Loving and Jealous Husband who goes after His Bride even when she’s
left Him, even when she’s turned away to other men, even when she’s
become a prostitute. You can read
about this in Hosea. He’s the
Husband who pursues His wife even to the brothel and He even pays the
prostitute price to buy His wife back again.
He’s the Hound of
Heaven – He comes after us. And
that’s not just what He does.
It’s more than that – it’s who He is – He’s a Lover, a Pursuer, a
Rescuer, a Saviour. Verse 7 – He
is the LORD who brings us out.
That’s not just what He does, it’s who He is. He is the LORD who comes into
our situation and brings us out of it.
The Hound of Heaven.
And in Genesis 15 He
comes after Abram in a powerful way. He’s been working in Abram’s life
for some time now, ever since He brought him out of Ur of the
Chaldeans. But now in this
chapter He comes to Abram three times with gargantuan promises. He meets Abram in the midst of Abram’s
fears and seeks to drown those fears in gospel assurance. There’s like three rounds to this
battle and in each round Abram’s fear is met by the promise of
Christ. It goes – Fear – Promise;
Fear – Promise; Fear – Promise.
Round one begins in
v1: Apparently Abram is afraid after the battles he’s just fought in
chapter 14. Perhaps he’s worried
about reprisals but into this fear comes the Word of the LORD who says:
“Do not be afraid Abram. I am
your shield, your very great reward.”
This is round one: Fear met by Promise. But then in verses 2 and 3, Abram’s not sure how the
reward’s going to happen so v4: “The Word of the LORD came to him” and
makes another cosmic promise.
That’s round two: Fear met by Promise. And in the midst of round two we get verse 6: “Abram
believes”. And it’s a magic
moment in the Bible, fireworks are going off everywhere. But then, within two verses, another
fear creeps in for Abram ‘How can I know?’. How can I know it’s going to happen? And v9 to the end is round three – the
LORD meets Him again and makes a very strange but very wonderful promise
which we’ll examine later.
But that’s the pattern
– fear met by the LORD’s promise.
And the LORD keeps coming at Abram with promises so weighty, in
the end Abram is overwhelmed. And
that’s the point of them. The Hound
of Heaven wants Abram swept off his feet. Because when Abram simply rests in these promises of
Christ, when he steps back and simply allows these truths to be true –
that is FAITH. And the
whole purpose of Genesis 15 is to show us what FAITH really is.
Genesis 15 is the
Bible’s primer on faith. The
Bible keeps pointing us back to this chapter when it describes the faith
that God requires. Galatians 3
and Romans 4 both hold up Abram as the man of faith, the
model believer. And in particular
this chapter is our prime example of faith because right here,
verse 6: ‘Abram believed the LORD.’ And he believed the way that
you and I are meant to believe.
He believed the way you and I must believe or else we
aren’t really God’s people.
But what’s cool about
Genesis 15 is that actually the hero of the chapter is not trusting
Abram. The hero of the chapter is
the LORD who keeps coming after an Abram who for the most part is fearful
and uncertain. Abram keeps
swooning around in this chapter, “I’m afraid”, “How can this be?” “What
will you give me?” “How can I know?”
But still the chapter is teaching us about faith because faith is
not about us working up a believing response to God. Faith IS being swept off our feet by
the LORD. Faith is being knocked out
by the promise. Faith is being
conquered by the gospel. I pray
that this evening we will be people of faith, not because we’ve worked up
feelings of trust in our hearts, but because the LORD has pursued us in
His Word.
Let’s look at this
pursuing LORD – v1. Round
one. Here comes the main
character of the chapter – not Abram but the Word of the LORD. This Word of the LORD is a visible
Word of the LORD – do you see in v1 Abram sees the Word of the LORD in
his vision. Later in v4, (look
down) He comes in Person to Abram.
Then v5, He takes Abram outside, you can almost imagine His arm
around Abram as He shows him the stars.
Who is this walking, talking, appearing Word of the LORD? Well as the song goes: He’s the Word
of God the Father from before the world began. It’s Jesus before His incarnation.
Jesus Christ was not
sitting on the bench throughout the Old Testament waiting to get a run on
in the second half. He has always
been the appearing LORD, the Visible Image of the Invisible God. And when He finally came as the
Offspring of Abram, when He was born of a woman on Christmas morning, He
claimed to have met Abram. Shall
we have a look at that in John chapter 8.
Look at v56: Jesus says: ‘Your father Abraham
rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad.’
Those who heard Jesus said v57:
‘You’re not yet 50 years old and you’ve seen Abraham??’ The Jews understood Jesus correctly,
He was claiming to have met Abraham.
He was claiming to be at least 2000 years old. The Jews think that’s ridiculous, but
Jesus doesn’t back down from His claim, He raises the stakes even higher
and says, v58: ‘Before Abraham was born, I AM.’ Jesus isn’t just 2000 years old, He is the great I AM – the
one who has always been and always will be.
Keep your finger in
John 8, we’ll come back here in a second, but as we turn back to Genesis
15 we are privileged to witness one of these meetings between Abram and
Christ. On this occasion Christ
goes by the Name ‘the Word of the LORD.’
Listen to His comfort
for Abram in v1: “Don’t be afraid Abram. I am your shield, your very
great reward.” Brilliant promise
– it’s as if Christ could think of no greater gift He could possible
bestow on Abram, so He gives Abram Himself. That’s Round one –
Abram’s fear is met by the LORD’s promise. But then, round two: v2-3 – Abram brings up another
fear. He’s childless.
And this is a big
problem. How can Christ be given
to Abram because ever since Genesis chapter 3, it’s been clear that
Christ would come as the Offspring of a woman. Christ was meant to come to us by incarnation. It’s Christ as the Offspring
who would be born of a woman, defeat Satan and save the world. And in Genesis 12 Abram is told that
this promised Offspring would come through his line. But by Genesis 15, Abram and Sarai are
still childless. So how is Christ
going to be born?? These guys are
old. He’s pushing a hundred,
she’s pushing 90. That’s
old. So the promise of the
Offspring is looking pretty shaky in earthly terms. And Abram says – ‘What’s the point,
LORD. Everything sucks – the
whole Offspring thing has come to nothing.’ He literally uses that word in v3 – ‘You have given me no offspring’. Whatever else Abram gets is nothing if
he doesn’t get Offspring. How
else could Christ come and save the world? That was Abram’s fear.
And it’s a big fear. But,
again, the Word of the LORD meets it with a promise. V4:
Then
the word of the LORD came to him (before it was a vision, now the Word of
the LORD comes in Person. He
says): "This man [Eliezer – Eliezer was probably a servant] will not
be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your
heir." 5 He (The Word of the LORD) took Abram outside and
said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can
count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring
be."
The Word of the LORD
takes Abram star-gazing and says ‘Are you worried about Offspring? Don’t be. You’re going to have countless offspring.’ Don’t worry about the Offspring, the
Offspring will come alright and in Him will be a countless
multitude. The Gospel promise
will not fail. The Saviour will
come, and in Him a people – children of Abraham – who no-one can number.
That’s a wonderful
promise, but it’s tough to believe.
Abram’s a hundred years old with an infertile wife. As Romans 4 puts it, Abram’s as good
as dead and Sarai’s womb is barren.
But here comes the promise – offspring like the stars. That is not an earthly
possibility. There’s nothing
believable about the promise. But
there’s everything believable about the One who promises it. The Word of the LORD has promised
this. He’s the One who can give
life to the dead, so Abram believes this LORD, v6.
Abram believed the LORD
So here is the faith
of Abraham in action. And notice
that it’s the Word of the LORD who’s been leading the discussion and its
been the Offspring that they’re discussing. Not only has Christ been leading the discussion, the
subject has been the Messianic line.
We must be clear that Abrahamic faith is faith in Christ.
Why is that so
important? Well there are
multitudes today who claim to be children of Abraham, (Jews and Muslims)
who claim to love God and yet they don’t trust in Christ at all. The question is: Can they claim
Abraham to be their father? They
claim they can. They claim that
they’re doing just what Abraham did – they’re trusting in the one god of
monotheism. But are they
following Abraham? Did Abraham
just trust in God? Answer: no!
Certainly Jesus didn’t think so.
Flick back to John chapter 8:
Look at verse 39. Here comes the claim from people who
were genetically descended from Abraham.
“Abraham is our father” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children” said Jesus “then you would
do the things Abraham did.” Well
what were the things Abraham did, according to Jesus? Again look at v56: “Your (genetic)
father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day, he saw it and
was glad.”
That’s the thing
Abraham did, that’s what Jesus wants us to copy. A true Abrahamite is someone who
rejoices in Christ, because that’s what Abraham did. Genetic descent does not make you a
true child of Abraham, some kind of love for the one God does not make
you a true child of Abraham, faith in Christ makes you a true child of
Abraham.
So Genesis 15 does not
show us a vague belief in God. It
is Christian faith, Messianically focussed faith, Jesus-loving
faith.
But what does it mean
to have faith. What does that
word ‘believe’ really mean?
Well literally the
word for ‘believe’ in v6 is the word ‘Amen’. The word ‘Amen’, which we say at the end of prayers, comes
to us directly from the Hebrew language.
And it means you put your approval to what’s just been said. You say ‘Amen – I agree, that’s right,
I affirm that.’ And Abram ‘Amens’
what the Word of the LORD has said.
He listens and says ‘Amen, may it be so.’
There’s so many false
views of faith going around.
People think of faith as like this magical elixir that courses
through the veins of a few chosen people. In many people’s minds it becomes the special power that
certain people have. But the
Bible never sees it that way.
Faith is putting your Amen to the Word of God. “Amen Lord, let it be so – I have no
idea how that’s even possible, but you’ve said it so it must be true,
Amen Lord.” That’s faith. And when Abram exercises this
faith in this LORD something extraordinary happens. Abram is
credited with righteousness.
The stamp from on High
has come down on Abraham – BANG – righteous! Immovably, unalterably that
is the verdict on Abraham’s life. He trusts Christ and zap! Righteousness is credited to Him.
Well why is
righteousness so important? Have a look at some of these verses:
Proverbs
11:4 Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers
from death.
There’s a day of wrath, a
day of judgement. You’re going to
want to have some righteousness then – you can’t bribe your way into
God’s presence, only righteousness can save you. Ok, well, you think, I’ll just be
righteous then. That’ll save me,
Right? Wrong.
Psalm 143:2 “No one living is righteous before
You.”
And you think, well maybe
they’re just not trying hard enough.
Maybe if you get busy with a lot of righteous acts, then you’ll
build up enough righteousness to deliver you from death. Right? Wrong again.
Isaiah 64:6
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts
are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind
our sins sweep us away.
We are unrighteous before
God and even our righteous acts, are filthy before Him. So how on earth do we get
righteous? Abram shows us. Trust in Christ and immediately a
righteousness from beyond you is credited to your account. And the Father Almighty treats you as
righteous, upright, good. You
say, how does that work?
Imagine you’re in debt
up to your eye-balls. You’ve mortgaged and re-mortgaged your home. The
debt collectors are pounding on your door, credit card companies leaving
message after message. There is no way out. And then, you meet Mr Right,
Miss Right. They are amazing – funny, sophisticated, good looking – and
LOADED. And amazingly they want to marry you. Even with such debt. And so
on your wedding day you say to each other those vows – “All that I have I
give to you, All that I am I share with you.” And your friends in the
congregation are sniggering cos they know you’ve got nothing to
give. But then your spouse says
that line to you. “All that I have I give to you, all that I am I share
with you.” Ch-ching.
Jackpot. The minute you’re
married, your spouse takes your debt. You get their riches. In a second
all their wealth is credited to you. You haven’t earned that – yet it is
yours, really yours – because you have become united to a person whose
resources can cover your debt.
Abraham found that in
Genesis 15:6. He united himself to the LORD in loving trust and found all
his debt gone and all the LORD’s wealth credited to him.
Do you want that to
happen to you? The Apostle Paul, writing two millennia later says this:
"I want to be found in Christ not having a righteousness of
my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in
Christ- the righteousness that comes FROM God and is BY faith."
(Phil 3:7f)
Well Abraham has just
this kind of faith and God stamps him indellibly: RIGHTEOUS.
And when Abram dies
something is said about him that is pretty amazing. Turn with me to Genesis 26:5. Abraham is dead, Isaac is having the
promises repeated to him, we won’t go through that now. But just notice
how Abraham is described in Genesis 26:5:
Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my
decrees and my laws.
Now what’s amazing
about that? God hasn’t given any
requirements, commands, decrees or laws.
All these are technical terms for what will come 400 years later with
the ten commandments and Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. This is four centuries before the ten
commandments. There are no
laws, not a single commandment.
But the LORD credits Abraham with perfect legal obedience. Trust Christ and God will say of you
‘That person obeyed perfectly. They fulfilled requirements they weren’t
even aware of.’ Trust Christ and
you will be spotless, faultless, blameless before the Holy Throne of God
Almighty.
And you say, how can
that be? Well let’s turn back to
Genesis 15 and we’ll see round three.
In round three Abram has another minor wobble in v8:
"O
Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I shall gain possession of [the
land]?"
So here’s fear number
three and here’s promise number three from the LORD and it’s an elaborate
one.
Let me summarize it
for you. Abram has to go and cut
in half sacrificial animals and lay the halves of their carcasses out so
there’s a coridoor down the middle.
And in the midst of their broken bodies the LORD (signified, v17,
by a smoking brazier and a blazing torch) passes through and He
pronounces a covenant promise.
That’s the word in v18 – it’s a covenant that the LORD is making.
What’s a
covenant? A covenant is a binding
promise that’s motivated by unconditional love. Marriage is a covenant – you say ‘I will love you.’ And not just ‘If you do X, Y, and Z, I
will be contractually obliged to love you between the hours of 5 and 7 on
a Thursday evening.’ That would
be a contract. A covenant says ‘I
will – for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in
health – I will.’ And the LORD
makes a covenant with us. The
most basic form of the LORD’s covenant throughout the Bible is this: “I will
be your God, and you will be my people.”
And you say, that’s
sweet, but why all the dead bodies around? Last wedding I was at, the decorations were a little more
tasteful. Well, in the Bible, the
dead bodies were a way of making an oath. You would pass between the
pieces of these animals and you would be saying ‘So let it be done to me
if I fail to deliver on my promise.’
There’s an example of
this in Jeremiah 34, we don’t have time to look at it now, but basically,
if you walk through these pieces you’re saying “You can treat me like
these butchered animals if I don’t keep up my side of the deal.” We have a silly version of this in the
school-yard rhyme: ‘Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my
eye.’ We’re saying, if I’m lying
you can cut me up. Now we don’t
mean it when we say stuff like that – in the Bible, they meant it. “Tear me apart if I don’t come through
for you.” That’s a serious
promise, that’s a covenant promise.
But I want you to see
what’s happening here. The LORD
doesn’t make Abram walk through the pieces. Verse 12, Abram’s out of it – he’s enveloped in a thick and
dreadful darkness. He’s not
contributing to this. We don’t
make the covenant with the LORD, He makes the covenant with us. Abram is not pledging to keep up his
end, the LORD is pledging to keep up both ends of the
covenant. The LORD says to us “If I don’t keep up my end of
the bargain you can kill me. And
if you don’t keep up your end you
can kill me.” I’ll take
responsibility for my failure and I’ll take responsibility for your failure. That is unconditional, unearned, unprecedented,
committed, blood-earnest, covenant love.
God’s saying, “If I
fail, I’ll die. And if you fail,
I’ll die. But come what may,
through bloody sacrifice, through suffering, pain and tears: I will be
your God and you will be my people.
I’d rather die than lose you.
I will die to hold onto you. Our marriage cannot fail. It’s written in my blood – I will uphold my end, I will
uphold your end if it costs me everything.”
And of course we
didn’t hold up our end, we were never going to hold up our end. And it did cost Him everything. You see there was another day of thick
and dreadful darkness. There was
one Friday when the LORD Himself was torn apart and His blood shed. He was as good as His word. He would rather die than lose us, and
He laid down His life to keep us.
This evening we’re going to receive a token of His covenant love.
At communion we
remember the blood of the covenant.
That blood that was shed on the cross. Jesus says, handing out the wine “This is my blood of the
covenant.” (Mark 14:24) This is
my body broken. Here is the
covenant being offered to us again. And it’s being dramatised for us,
just like it was with Abram. The
covenant is offered in the midst of a broken body and blood poured
out. But again, it’s not our body
broken, it’s not our blood shed.
We don’t offer a drop,
He doesn’t spare a drop.
We’re the ones who
break the covenant. His is the
body that’s broken.
We are the ones
deserving blood shed. His is the
blood that is spilt.
And what are we asked
to do? Don’t get up and try to
offer Him anything. Sit down.
Take. Eat. Take. Drink. You have
nothing to offer, all you’ve contributed are the sins for which Christ
dies. Just be swept off your feet
this evening. Be Abram,
overwhelmed by the marital, covenant love of the LORD Jesus Christ. He says to you “All that I am I share
with you. All that I have, I give
to you. For better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. I will be your God and you will be my people – I’ve
guaranteed it.”
All you can do is sit
down, take, eat, receive, drink, consume, be nourished, be fed, take
advantage, say Amen to the offer of Jesus. Chew down on this offer of
forgiveness. Gulp down the
covenant love of Christ. If
you’ve never taken it before, take it, Say Amen, receive the covenant
love of Christ. If you’ve been a
Christian for 50 years, take it again with fresh gratitude. Say Amen, receive the covenant love of
Christ.
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