Abraham

We're going to be looking at Abraham, who's called, really, on Father's Day. I think it's great, because he's the father of faith. Genesis 15, 1 through 21. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord God, what shall you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. And Abram said, behold, you've given me no offspring, and a member of my own household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward the heavens and number the stars, if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? He said to him, bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. And then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there. And they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nations that they serve. And afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet completed. When the sun had gone down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, to your offspring, I give you this land from the river of Egypt, the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, and Kenizzites, and Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. So this is the story of us. God has made now a choice. This is Genesis chapter 12 on as a story of Abraham in the book of Genesis. And God has now chosen one man and one woman, Abram and Sarah. And the question is, why? Why did God choose Abram and Sarah? I mean, there's been a great debate within Judaism, within Christianity some, and even within Islam that all three Abrahamic faiths look back to Abram for various reasons and give various reasons why God chose Abraham. But I'll tell you, when you read the text in Genesis, there ain't a reason. None. Actually, there might be some good reasons not to have called Abram and Sarah. First of all, their age. He was 75 when he was first called, and childless. And she was past her prime, I would say, in terms of bearing children at that time. And then later on, Abram himself, let's say he wasn't chivalrous. Chivalry was in a bad way with him, because he gives away his wife twice. Here, take my wife, because of fear over being hurt by Pharaoh or by King Abimelech, all this stuff. It's like, whoa, what's going on? I thought, no, he's not the hero of this story. No. So you could say, hmm, why would God choose Abram and Sarah? And the answer is going to be sheer grace, that he would choose anyone, and that he chose them. You can add into even another ugly story. And I've just recently learned, kind of appreciated just how horrible it is. I read it as Hagar is being used. But then, I mean, this is called total exploitation of someone. This is not consent by any means. We will not use all the words you could use about that story. And yet, that's what Abram and Sarah decide to do, to try to have a child. All of these things, this is, but yet God chooses them. So what we're going to look at here in Genesis 15 are these three, the questions and doubts that Abraham has, the assurances and answers that God gives, and finally, the differences this all makes. So this is a story, and it is probably something that you kind of go like, what is all going on? But it's a story of the omnipotent, transcendent, beyond all, the God of gods, above everything, beyond the universe, not just within the universe, who comes to a certain person in a finite, tangible, physical way so that Abram sees and hears and knows and communicates with God. You might go like, well, that happens all the time, by the way. Right now, it's happening. And you go like, what? Yeah, because you see, if you're hearing the word of God, if you read the word of God, it's tangible. They're words, ri...