Abraham, Part 9 - God Works in Our Experiences
Genesis 15v13-21
8th November 2010
Whe God promised Abraham both descendants and land, Abraham asked for a demonstration that God would do as he said. God agreed, and asked Abraham for a sacrifice. Abraham made the sacrifice, and then he drove away the birds that tried to destroy it. He then fell into a deep and dreadful sleep. We read about that last time. When he woke up, God spoke to him afresh:
Genesis 15:13-16
Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their
own, and they will be enslaved and ill-treated four hundred years.
But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great possessions.
You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.
In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet
reached its full measure."
After the dark times, we always find God again. When the time is right, He visits us, and speaks to us.
For Abraham, God re-iterated His promises, giving some more detail. He prophesied that the Israelites would be slaves in Egypt, and that after four hundred years they would excape. God also explained why they would have to wait: they were to take the country of Canaan, but only what the original inhabitants of the land had become so sinful that the time for judgement would come upon them.
It can be hard to accept that our blessing may have to wait for God's judgement, or blessing, for others. We like to think that God can treat us as if we are the only people on the planet, but our lives and the lives of others, even those of different ethnic groups, and bound up together. And God will always do what's right. And sometimes that means we miss out because of God's dealing with others. That's how it must always be. As John Donne said, "no man is an island".
Genesis 15:17
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking brazier with a blazing torch appeared and
passed between the pieces.
As well as speaking to Abraham, God gave him a vision. This vision of fire and smoke is a picture of God Himself. We see something similar in Exodus 19v18, just before the giving of the Ten Commandments:
Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire...
and in other places, like:
2 Samuel 2:29
Smoke rose from his [The Lord's] nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of
it.
Isaiah 4v5
Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day
and a glow of flaming fire by night; over all the glory will be a canopy.
God was assuring Abraham that He Himself was with him.
Genesis 15:19-21
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the
river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates -
the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,
Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."
God had put Abraham through a range of experiences: sacrifice, labour, darkness, dread, hearing God's voice and seeing God in a vision. God used all this - the exciting moments and the lonely ones - to grow faith (and faithfulness) in Abraham's heart. God was pursuading Abraham that His promises would come true, and the Abraham should continue to believe and wait patiently.
And God will put you and me through a number of experiences, to grow our faith, and our faithfulness.
He knows what He's doing. And His word over you will come to pass.