Blessed Assurance Series

The other day I watched a video of these Christians who lived in a remote village… The Kimyal People of Indonesia, and there were missionaries delivering New Testaments to them. Prior to that, all they had was bits and pieces of it, but now they were getting the entire NT. And these people began to cheer, and celebrate and dance and sing. They were shouting and crying with joy. Contrast that with America. 92% of all homes in the U.S. have at least one Bible, but only 35% of American’s read their Bible at least once a week. Only 37% of American’s can correctly name all four Gospels. And 12% of American’s believe that Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. I mean… I have to laugh at that or else I’ll cry. 1 out of 3 professing Christians attend church faithfully. “Walk before Me and be blameless.” Live a life that lines up with your profession.

Verse 3 – Abram falls on his face. That’s a sign of fear and respect. Abram realizes that he hasn’t been living as he should, and now he’s faced with a holy and righteous Almighty God, and he’s undone.

Now look what God says to him; verses 4 – 8 (Read). Abram gets his name changed, and God repeats and elaborates on His promises to Abraham.

Now I began this sermon by talking about how sometimes we need a spiritual recharge… how we need personal revival in our lives. And this is what God’s doing with Abraham. He’s repeating the promises that He’s already given him, but now God’s actually getting more specific. I don’t know about you all, but I can read a verse of Scripture or a passage of Scripture and then come back to it in a few weeks or months and see things in it that I had never seen before. God reveals Himself to us through His Word, and when you are a faithful student of His Word, He has a tendency to reveal more and more of Himself. Another way to say it would be to say, as you draw closer to Him, you can see Him more clearly.

In verse 6 Abraham is told that nations and even kings would come from him and that he would be exceedingly fruitful. That means God is going to do something beyond the scope of Abraham’s imagination. And the reason God is telling him this again is because… well you know… Abraham is thinking or hoping that Ishmael would be accepted by God as the fulfillment of the promise. But God doesn’t work that way. God is not going to share His glory with Abraham. Ishmael was bought about by the works and will of man. The fulfillment of God’s promise can only be brought about by God Himself. It’s going to take a miracle and it’s going to be something that only God could do. Abraham won’t be able to boast, or claim responsibility for it

Then in verse 7 God says that He’s going to establish His covenant with Abraham; in-other-words, God is saying that He’s about to get to work on this, He’s going to bring it about now.