Abraham
Genesis 15:12-18
Today I am starting a new series of sermons on Our Family Tree… not MY family tree but OUR family tree. Yes, we do have the same family tree. And I do not mean through Adam and Eve.
I am going to be going back and tracing our FAITH family tree.
My purpose in this study is to show how “the apple does not fall far from the tree.”
We are going to look at our spiritual forefathers and see spiritual lessons we can learn. We will look at spiritual DNA that they passed on to us.
Hopefully, we will see why we are like we are and what we can do to overcome our heredity.
To go back to the root, the seed of our faith family tree… we go back to a man named Abram. (Perhaps you know him better by his second name… Abraham)
In 15:6 we find this truth: “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness"
That is the first time scripture actually states that someone believed God.
Obviously, people before this time believed God… Noah believed God and built the ark.
But this is the first time that faith is connected to righteousness… not salvation… but righteousness.
((Abraham was not saved by his faith in God or by his good works that issued from his faith)) LATER.
Now look at two earlier verses (12:1-2) The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing”’
To whom was Abraham a blessing? His family? The Jews? Yes but that is not all.
Verse 3… And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
When you put these verses together, you get a very important truth: Abraham was a blessing to all people because he was the father, the first, of those who, through faith, were saved.
Abraham was the seed, from which all believers come. He is our Spiritual Fore-Father
It is only right that we begin this study of the family tree with Abraham.
So let’s look at Abram
For Abraham, the starting point came four thousand years ago (c. 2100 BL.) in a burgeoning metropolis near the Persian Gulf. At the time, he was wealthy successful, and prosperous… and becoming more-so every day
The last thing he intended to do was to abandon everything and go to some unknown far-away place.
And what does God tell him to do?
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”
God asked Abraham to leave everything that was dear to him to go to the land He would show him. Abraham had no idea where that land was. He only knew that God had
promised to bless him and to make him into a great nation.
Let’s put this into perspective by making it modern and applying it to YOU
Let’s say you live in the same town with your family and the relationship is great… visiting back and forth house to house. And your family has a lot of land… and you have five hundred or so acres. And you have worked hard and turned that five hundred acres into prosperous farm land and pasture. You have cattle and vineyards and large corn and wheat fields. This year you made 15% more than last year and with modern equipment and processes, next year figures to be even that much better.
Then along comes God… through some spiritual experience… and says I want you to pack up your family and some of your stuff and leave your land and family. I will show you where I want you to go and what I want you to do.
Remember: No promise of more land… no promise of profit
Now I want you to be honest… putting yourself in Abram’s placed, not knowing what you and I know about what would happen to Abram… how many of you would start packing?
How many would start making excuses?
How can you not have a greater appreciation for Abraham?
He was the first to have such faith.
When was it that scripture says, “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness"
Was it when he was still in Horan? NO
Was it when he packed his bags… or 30 days from home? NO
It was when Abram had traveled far from home and wandered around for 10 years. When he had no land, no people, no place to lay his head, and he is still childless and getting older and losing hope.
Into that hopeless and desperate situation God comes and says, Abram, look up at the sky. Can you count the stars?
The answer was NO
God said, that is how many offspring you will have.
Homeless, old and worn out, married to a seventy-five year old woman, ready to settle for a slave to be his heir… yet what is his response to God’s promise?
FAITH
Abraham believed God… not believed IN God… he TRUSTED God to keep His word, an impossible promise in impossible circumstances and somehow… ABRAM BELIEVED!!!!
Man, that is FAITH!!!
Unbelievable, un-natural, FAITH!!!
God was so pleased that He related to Abram AS IF… AS IF… Abram was sinless, perfect and it opened a whole new level of blessings.
Now this is where it gets deep, hard to understand
Sin ALWAYS slams shut the windows of heaven… cuts us off from the blessings God has for us.
In the Old Testament, sin was NEVER erased, never removed, never atoned for.
Thus, man was never in right standing with God and was always separated from God … and would have to go to hell.
Nothing man could do would make him righteous, so they all died and went to hell.
EVEN ABRAM
This verse says, because of Abram’s incredible faith, God did something for him that he had never done for anyone since the fall of Adam and Eve… He treated him as if he had not sinned, as if he was perfect, and God was with him and blessed him as if he had never sinned.
How did he treat the righteous? They did not go to the burning fires of hell.
So God treated Abram as if he were righteous… he did not go to the fire of hell
But he did go to hell… but God provided a special section of hell (Paradise) where those like Abram, who had faith, could be treated as if they were righteous
AS IF… not truly… but AS IF
Abram was not righteous… he was a sinner by nature and by choice. He was unrighteous.
But God found a loophole in the law, if you will, that allowed Him to treat Abram like a perfect, righteous person.
HE DID NOT SAVE ABRAM! That is not what the verse means.
Abram’s faith was sufficient grounds for God to treat Abram very special…. But IT DID NOT provide the grounds for salvation.
As much as God loved Abram and as much as Abram pleased him… there was only one way to salvation… then and now… through the shed blood of the perfect sacrificial lamb… Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God on the cross of Calvary.
But Abram was not saved from his sin… made TRULY righteous until Jesus died on the cross, descended to hell (Paradise) and preached the gospel to the souls in torment… those in Paradise.
THEN… they could accept Jesus as their Savior… and be made TRULY righteous because their sin was washed away.
Then they went to heaven.
So, as we start this study of our FAITH family tree, we see that the first step in becoming a member of the family of Abram… the family of God is….. BELIEVE GOD.
For Abram it was believing God could take a homeless wonderer and give him the promised land.
That God could take a 99 year old man and a 90 year old woman and make them the parents of a child and the faith parents of many nations
For us it is believing that God can take a person like you, a weak and miserable sinner… by nature and by choice, and wash them in the precious blood of Jesus, the only righteous one who ever lived, and make you clean, righteous.
That He would make you… AS IF you had never sinned.
There is one more point I want to make today. Perhaps you have never really heard this part of the story.
They had a unique way of making guarantees in Abram’s day; they cut a covenant with each other.
Perhaps you have heard the phrase… to CUT a deal. Where does that phrase come from?
Not from cards.
A covenant was an agreement. But “cutting” it was sealing it.
They actually took animals and cut them in half. Then they laid the halves several feet across from each other, forming an aisle. Next, the two people making the covenant joined hands and walked together between the divided pieces.
Literally they were agreeing, “I’ll keep my half of the bargain, if you’ll keep your half."
Half of an animal isn’t worth anything by itself. You can’t get milk out of half a cow… especially if you have the wrong half!
Genesis 15:12—18 tells us that God came down to cut a covenant with Abram… but GOD did something very different.
He did not take Abram’s hand and walk with him through the pieces.
That would be a CONDITIONAL covenant… depending on each to keep their half. If one failed… the covenant would be NULL AND VOID
God did not have Abraham walk with Him through the pieces. In fact, Abram was in a trance (“deep sleep”) the whole time.
This was not a conditional covenant.
It was not an agreement that depended on both sides keeping their half of the bargain in order for it to work.
This was a UNI-LATERAL… UNVIOLABLE… covenant that was not based on the faithfulness of two parties.
God promised He would do it, and He did it—by Himself
“On that day" the Bible says, “the LORD made a covenant with Abram"_ (Genesis 15:18).
Unconditional covenants are like marriage commitments. The vow is for life and the bride receives a ring to symbolize the groom’s commitment to her. She does not keep the ring only if she meets certain conditions. It was given to her unconditionally. That’s what God did with Abram. He made him an unconditional promise, an everlasting covenant.
Now listen to this and I will close with it.
Flip back to Genesis 3:14-15
14 The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
He said to Satan (Pendleton version)
OK old son, you may have won round one, but the battle is not over. As a punishment for what you have done I will punish the serpent, whose form you took, and it will go on its belly. And as for you, there will be an ongoing battle between you and mankind. And one day, I will raise up one of mankind’s offspring, and HE will deal decisively with you. Oh, you will inflict a minor wound on him... but he will CRUSH you forever! And while you messed up this relationship with Adam and Eve because it was dependent on their faithfulness… you can do nothing to mess up my plan to deliver man and crush you because it will not be dependent on man who is a weak sinner. It is an everlasting covenant. I am the only party. I, ME… GOD Almighty will cause this thing to happen because I will do it myself.
And He did… God (the Son) took the form of a man and HE lived a perfect life and died a sacrificial death. Then God (the Father) raised him from the dead and opened the door to heaven.
Then Jesus descended to hell, preached to the souls in Paradise and saved them. THEN they went to heaven.
So, you see… Abraham is the seed, the first in the line of our faith family. He believed God… trusted Him… took Him at His word.
We have to do the same thing today and we become a member of the faith family.
