Blessed Assurance (Genesis part 29)
Text: Genesis 17:1 – 8
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
Thirteen years have passed in the life of Abraham since the last time we looked at him. Ishmael is a teenager now, and Abram has pretty much resigned himself to be content with Ishmael as his son. We know that because of what he says in verse 18, and we’ll look at it a little closer in a few minutes, but again… here we have this guy Abram, whose going to be called Abraham, and who Paul says is the father of our faith… and he’s believed God in the past, but now… he’s struggling.
And what this chapter of Genesis is about; is the personal, spiritual renewal of Abraham. You know… sometimes we need to be recharged. We need a boost to our spirits, so to speak. The cares of the world tend to pull at us, and drag us down, and our eyes have a tendency to drift away from Jesus and instead focus on the pain and suffering and problems of the world, or worse, they sometimes just focus on ourselves and all that seems to be going wrong in our lives. And we get caught up in the day to day grind and the mundane things of life. And if we’re in spiritual decline for too long, then we find ourselves in trouble. It makes it easier for sin to get a foothold in our lives. And if our eyes aren’t focused on Jesus then the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of the world can easily choke out the Word and make it unfruitful in our lives. And that’s kind of where we find Abram in our text today. He’s almost to that point where he’s ceasing to look for God’s fulfillment of His promise.
So first of all, let’s look at verses 1 – 3 again (Read). Here we see the appearance of God to Abram, and we see that the way that God revives our faith, is by revealing Himself to us in His Word. The Book of Romans tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Now keep in mind that Abram didn’t have a Bible that he could open up and study. God’s Word came to him from direct revelation from God Himself. And we might have a tendency to think, “Man! That would be ideal!” But it’s been over 13 years since God last spoke to Abram. Whereas you and I can go to God’s Word any time we like to find comfort and strength. And not only that… he’s 99 years old. So for close to 70 years or so, he had to carry that name Abram, which means “exalted father” in the Hebrew and yet he didn’t have a son, or any child. And when he did have a son at the age of 86, God tells him, “No… that’s not what I had planned.” So God comes to Abram, and He again speaks this great, sweeping promise to him, and reminds him of the covenant, but even after God says all of these things, in verse 18, Abram says, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you.”
Abram had gotten to the point, where he was growing content with the things of this world… he was almost to the point where he was ceasing to look for the promise. And that brings me back to what I was originally saying. He was tired. In other words, Abram needed a personal revival. He needed to be renewed in his “inner man.” Now God knew that, and that’s why the Lord appears to Abram here. And that’s why we see in verse 1, when the Lord appears to Abram, God says, “I AM, Almighty God…”
You remember last time, we saw that God was revealed as El Roi, ‘the God who sees,’ and it had to do with His omnipresence. Now God is revealing Himself as El Shaddai, the God who is Almighty, and it has to do with His omnipotence. He is all powerful!
That’s what He’s saying to Abram. “Abram, there is nothing too hard for me!” But then the very next thing God says to Abram is, “walk before me and be blameless.” Now that’s not God telling Abram that he’s going to merit the promise. We’ve already talked about how God is faithful, even when we are faithless. What this is… is a call to live a life that was fitting for someone who was in covenant with God. He was to live his life “coram deo,” before the face of God. Basically God is saying, “Abram, I’m Almighty God, I can do all things, and I’ve already entered into covenant with you… remember how I passed between the animals? And so Abram; you need to live your life in light of these truths!” Now that’s easy to see how that could apply to us today.
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.
And here’s the part I love. It’s going to be an EVERLASTING COVENANT!
And in verse 8 we again see that God promises to give Abraham and his descendants the land, as an everlasting possession. And finally God says, “I will be their God.” This is the greatest gift that could possibly be given. See; God’s not only giving gifts to Abraham here… He’s not only giving children and land to Abraham. He’s giving Himself! And that’s the ultimate reality of the covenant! It was the ultimate reality then, and it’s the ultimate reality today.
I want you all to turn with me to the New Testament, because the Apostle Paul talked about what we’re looking at today. But remember; Paul was looking back at these promises, whereas Abraham was waiting for them. Now there were two views concerning these promises in Paul’s day. One was the view of the Pharisees and Sadducees and it basically went like this – These promises that God made to Abraham, refer to Abraham and to all of his physical descendants who come from the line of Isaac. In-other-words; these are promises from God and they are given directly to the Jewish people. To national and physical Israel. Then there was Paul’s view. So turn with me to Galatians 3 and we’re first going to look at verse 16 (Read Gal. 3:16). Do you realize what Paul’s saying here? He’s saying that all the promises that God made to Abraham and to his seed are found and summed up, and possessed by and fulfilled in Jesus Christ! He is the inheritor of the promises given to Abraham. Now go on down to verse 26 (Read Gal. 3:26 – 29), if you are in Christ, then you are an heir of these promises. Now turn with me to Romans 4:13 – 18 (Read). Now you notice in verse 13 Paul says that Abram was going to inherit the world… That’s not the phrasing that’s used in our text from Genesis, so how did Paul sum up the promise to Abraham by saying he would be “heir of the world”? Well if you go back to our text in Genesis 17:8 God tells Abraham that the land would be an everlasting possession for Abraham and his descendants. That’s referring to the resurrection. We know that for two reasons: 1st God never breaks His promises, and 2nd because in his life, the only land that Abraham owned was his burial plot. If you look at the verse before that; Gen. 17:7 God said to Abraham that He would establish His covenant between Himself and Abraham and Abraham’s descendants, throughout their generations for an EVERLASTING COVENANT, and that He would be Abraham’s God. In Matthew 22:32 Jesus said that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Again; that’s referring to the resurrection from the dead at Christ’s return. That’s why Abraham can be an heir of the world. Thirdly; turn with me really quickly to Genesis 22:17 (Read). Now when God says, “Your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies…” Now that sounds an awful lot like what Jesus said about Him setting up His kingdom, and about how the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. What it literally means is that all enemies will be subdued. That doesn’t fully take place until the 2nd Coming and the resurrection of the dead. All of God’s promises are “Yes and Amen” in Christ! And if you are in Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, and heirs to the promise. Joint heirs with Jesus! That’s why Jesus said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Why? Because they are in Christ, Abraham’s seed, and God the Father has made a covenant promise, and that promise will be fulfilled.
Now if you’re still struggling to wrap your mind around this, then I encourage you to sometime during the week read Romans chapters 9 – 11, and it will clear a lot up for you.
We’re out of time for today, so let’s go to the Lord in prayer
PRAYER
