Genesis 15

CHAPTER 15THEME: God’s revelation of Himself as shield and reward; Abraham’s faith; God’s covenant with Abraham

Genesis 15:1

GOD’S REVELATION OF HIMSELF AS SHIELD AND REWARDWe come to one of the high points of the Bible here in chapter 15. This now is the fourth time that God has appeared to Abram. God is developing this man and bringing him farther along. God does well to appear to him now because Abram has taken a tremendous step of faith in going out and rescuing Lot and in turning down the booty which the king of Sodom offered him. “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield.” My friend, this is lovely; this is wonderful. The record does not tell us this, but let me suggest to you that perhaps during the battle, Abram got in real danger and wondered whether he would come out of it alive. God simply reminds him, “I’m your shield, Abram. I’m your shield.” “And thy exceeding great reward.” In other words, God says, “You did well to turn down the booty. I am your reward; I intend to reward you.” Oh, what God can do with a man today when he is willing just to believe God and look to Him! If you think Abram is one of these pious boys who gets his halo shined every morning, you are wrong. Abram is very practical, and he is going to get right down to the nitty-gritty now. I think that God likes us to do that. I wish that we could get rid of this false piosity and the hypocritical attitude that so many fundamentalists assume today. Notice what this man Abram saysit is quite wonderful:

Genesis 15:2

What Abram is saying to God is this: “I don’t want more riches; I don’t need that. The thing that’s on my heart is that I’m childless and I want a son. You have promised to make me a father of nations and that my offspring will be as numberless as the sand on the seashore. But I don’t even have one child!” According to the law of the day, the Code of Hammurabi, Eliezer, his steward, his head servant, who had an offspring, would in time inherit if Abram did not have a child.

Genesis 15:4

God is very practical when a man will be practical with Him. He says, “I am going to give you a son, Abraham. I am going to give you a son.” Now God took Abram by the hand and brought him forth into the night.

Genesis 15:5

This is remarkable. First God said to him that his offspring would be as numberless as the sand on the seashore, and now He says they will be as numberless as the stars in heaven. Abram could not number the stars. He could see approximately four thousand, but there were probably over fifty thousand in that area where he was looking. Abram couldn’t number his offspring, and you couldn’t do it today. This man Abram actually has two seeds. He has a physical seed, the nation Israel, and he has a spiritual seed, the church. How does the church become Abraham’s spiritual seed? By faith. Paul told the Galatians that they were the sons of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christnot in a natural line, but a spiritual seed (see Gal_3:29). I had the privilege of speaking to a group of very fine young Jewish men many years ago in Nashville, Tennessee. I had known some of them before I was saved and had been a very close friend of theirs. I spoke on the glories of the Mosaic Law and told them that the fulfillment of it was in Christ. I began by telling them I was glad to speak to them because I knew that they were sons of Abraham. But when I told them I was a son of Abraham also, they looked in amazement one to another. And then I told them how I was a son of Abraham. Included in God’s promise were these two seeds of Abraham, and this is a very wonderful truth.

Genesis 15:6

ABRAHAM’S FAITHThis is one of the greatest statements in the Scriptures: “And he believed in the LORD.” What this means is that Abram said amen to God. God has said, “I will do this for you,” and Abram says to God, “I believe You. Amen. I believe it.” And that was counted to him for righteousness. Paul speaks of this in his Epistle to the Romans: “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom_4:1-5). “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found"or, that Abraham has found as pertaining to the flesh. I think that rewording brings out the meaning better. “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it [that is, his faith] was counted unto him for righteousness"for that is what it was not, but that is what God counted it. “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” If you can work for your salvation, then God owes it to you. But, my friend, God never saves by any other means except grace. He has never had any other method of saving, and if you ever get saved, it will be because you believe God, you accept Christ as your Savior, and you believe that God has provided salvation for you. “But to him that worketh not [no works at all], but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly [What kind of folk? Ungodly folk.], his faith is counted for righteousness.” His faith is counted for what it is not, that is, for righteousness. Abraham just believed God. He just accepted what God said, and he believed God. That is the way you get saved: to believe that God has done something for you, that Christ died for you and rose again. God will declare you righteous by simply accepting Christ. In the third chapter of Galatians, we have this same great truth: “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” (Gal_3:6-9). The faith which Abraham had made him faithful to God, but he was not saved by being faithful. He was saved by believing God. This is all-important for us to see.

Genesis 15:7

GOD’S COVENANT WITH ABRAHAMAgain, Abram is a very practical man. He believes in dealing with reality, and I think we need to do that. We need reality today in our Christian lives. If reality is not in your life, there is nothing there. A great many people just play church today. Abram is very practical. He wants to know something, and he would like to have something in writing. Do you know what God is probably going to tell him? God is going to say, “Abram, I’m glad you asked Me, because I am going to meet you down at the courthouse; I will go before a notary public, and I will make real this contract which I am making with you. You are going to have a son. Meet Me down there, and I will sign on the dotted line.” Now, before you write me a letter and protest, let me say that you are right, that the Bible says nothing about God meeting Abram at the courthouse, and it says nothing about going to a notary public, but in the terms of the law of our day, that is exactly what God said to Abram. Here is what God told Abram to do:

Genesis 15:9

God told Abram to prepare a sacrifice. He was to get a heifer, a she goat, and a ram and divide or split them down the middle and put one half on one side and one half on the other. The turtledove and the pigeon he did not divide, but put one over here and one over there. When men made a contract in that day, this is the way they made it. Suppose one man agreed to buy sheep from another one. They would prepare a sacrifice in this manner. The party of the first part joined hands with the party of the second part, they stated their contract, and then they walked through the sacrifice. In that day this corresponded to going down to the courthouse and signing before a notary public in our day. So we see that God is using with Abram the legal procedure of his day. In Jer_34:18 we have a reference to this custom that was prevalent in that land, not just among these people, but among all peoples in the day: “And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof.” The method in that day was to take the sacrifice and divide it, and the men would then make the contract. Notice Abram got everything ready according to God’s instructions.

Genesis 15:11

This is a very human scene. Abram gets everything ready, and while he is waiting for the Lord, the fowls of the air come downthe buzzard and the crow come down upon the carrion. Abram is there shooing them away, for they are ready to swoop down upon the sacrifice. If you had been there and had seen all this display of the sacrifices, knowing the custom of the day, you might have said, “Well, brother Abram, apparently the one you’re making a contract with hasn’t shown up. I guess he’s late!” Abram would have said, “No, I don’t think He’s late. He just told me to get things ready and that He would be here to make the contract.”

Genesis 15:12

Abram is paralyzed in sleep and put aside. It seems very strange that God would paralyze him in sleep when he is supposed to be making a contract, but this is an unusual contract. God is going to go through the sacrifices because God is promising something, but Abram is not going to go through because Abram is not promising to do a thing. Abram just believed Godthat’s all. That is exactly what took place over nineteen hundred years ago when God sent His Son. God the Father so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And the Son agreed to come to the earth and die for the sins of the worldyour sin and minethat whosoever would believe in Him (simply accept His gift) might not perish but have everlasting life (see Joh_3:16). I wasn’t even there nineteen hundred years ago to make a contract, but God the Father and God the Son were there, and the Son went to the Cross, and He died for my sins. I was paralyzed by sin. I could not promise anything, and you couldn’t either. Abram did not promise anything either. Suppose that God had said to Abram, “Abram if you will just promise to say your prayers every night, I am going to do this for you.” And suppose Abram forgot to pray one night. The contract is shotit’s brokenand therefore God does not need to make His part good. But God said that He would do His part, and He is asking man to do just one thing: to say amen to Himthat is, to believe Him. You are to believe God and believe what He has done. My friend, to believe God is salvation. Years ago there was a dear little Scottish mother whose son had gone away to college in Glasgow and had come back an unbeliever. She talked with the boy and told about how wonderful God was and that she was sure of her salvation. The son had become skeptical, and he was a little provoked. Finally he said, “How do you know you’re saved? Your little soul doesn’t amount to anything.” He began to compare her to the vastness of the universe and said that God could forget all about her and she couldn’t be sure of her salvation. She didn’t say anything, but just kept serving the boy’s breakfast.

Finally, when she had finished, she sat down with him and said, “You know, son, I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe my little soul doesn’t amount to much. Maybe in the vastness of God’s universe, He wouldn’t miss me at all. But if He doesn’t save me, He’s going to lose more than I’m going to lose. I would lose only my insignificant little soul, but He would lose His reputation because He promised to save my soul.

He agreed to do it: ’that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’” God is the One who went through; God made the contract.

Genesis 15:13

In the Scriptures it is predicted that the Hebrew people would be put out of the land three times. This is the first time. It is also predicted that they would return back to the land, and they did this time. Later on it was the Babylonian captivity. They were carried into captivity, and they returned. In A.D. 70 Jerusalem was destroyed, and for the third time they were scattered. They have never returned from that. Their current presence in the land is by no means a fulfillment of Scripture. But according to the Word of God, they will come back someday exactly as it predicts.

Genesis 15:14

They did come out of Egypt with great substance, but Abram would not live to see it, of course.

Genesis 15:16

God is saying to Abram, “I cannot put you in this land now because I love Amorites also, and I want to give them a chance to turn to Me.” And God gave the Amorites four hundred yearsthat is a long time, is it not?to see if they would turn to Him. The only one in that land who turned to Him was that Canaanite woman, Rahab the harlot. She turned to God; she believed Him. All God asks you to do is to believe Him. God gave the Amorites this great period of opportunity.

Genesis 15:17

Both of these speak of Christ. The furnace, of course, speaks of judgment. The lamp speaks of Him as the light of the world.

Genesis 15:18

God now marks out the land that He is promising to Abram. By the way, what did Abram promise to do? Nothing. He believed God. And God will save yousave you by graceif you will believe what He has done for you.