Our passage today is chapter 15 of the book of Genesis, so please turn with me to Genesis chapter 15, and I will read that for us. Genesis chapter 15. 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 will you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. And Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my 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 heaven 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 birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 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 nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, and 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 complete. 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 this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. Well, this chapter is one of the richest chapters in the entire book of Genesis, and that's saying something. And so I continue to feel that challenge of trying to distill for you the main points of this passage and the relevance to us while still taking an opportunity to explain some of the fascinating details in this text. In fact, proper preaching does these three things. Proper preaching explains the text, interprets the text, and applies the text. And there is a lot of explaining and interpreting to do here, even as we are also able to make some application to ourselves. Now through this message, it may seem as if I'm bouncing around to a lot of different concepts, but more than anything, today I'm really just walking us through this text. So what we have in chapter 15 is two parallel literary sections, verses one to six. and then verses 7 to 21. And in each of these two sections, you see a similar pattern. You see God reveal himself to Abram and make promises. Then Abram responds with a complaint or a question, which is followed by God's revelation and confirmation. It's the same pattern in 7 through 19 as it is in verses 1 through 6. And when it says there at the very beginning, the word of the Lord came to Abram, that's the standard way of describing how the Old Testament prophets of God received divine revelation. The word of the Lord came to them. We saw that in the Jeremiah 34 passage that Jason read for us just a few minutes ago. It's the kind of statement, in addition to the direct statement in Genesis chapter 20, that leads people to say Abraham was a prophet. Last week we saw that he was both a priest and a king as well, in a way, and now immediately after we see that he is a prophet as well. So he is a type of Christ in that he combines the roles of prophet, priest, and king. Okay, we've said this before, so let's move on. What are the first words God speaks here in this vision, this revelation to Abram? Fear not. Fear not. You see this over and over in the Bible. You often see this when God is speaking directly to people or even when he's speaking through his prophets to his people. You see God say this to Hagar in chapter 21, just a few chapters from now. What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not. You see either God or an angel say this to Daniel twice in Daniel chapter 10. And you see angels say this in the New Testament as well. In the first chapters of the Gospel of Luke, an angel appears to Zechariah to announce the forthcoming birth of his son, John the Baptist, and he says, fear not, or do not be afraid, which is just a different way in English of saying the same thing. Then the angel Gabriel appears to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus, and what does he say? Fear not. Fear not. And then in the next chapter, an angel of the Lord appears to the shepherds to tell them to go into Bethlehem and see the newborn Messiah. And how did he begin his message? Fear not. And then of course, later in the gospels, Jesus himself used this very phrase with his apostles, such as when he was walking on the water to them out on the boat during the windstorm. Fear not. Why would this be such standard language from God, either when he speaks directly to his people or through his prophets or angels to his people? Because God knows that those appearances and their language, and often even the message itself, will cause us frail humans to fear. Just look at Abram down in verse 12. Even after he was told not to be afraid, this terrifying, dreadful, horrible darkness fell upon him. Many of the English translations even indicate there, at least, that the darkness was terrifying, if not an actual terror falling on Abram himself. That's what the presence of God does to us in our sinfulness. And so he often prefaces his messages with, fear not. Incidentally, that's one excellent way for us to distinguish between the holy angels of the Bible and other so-called angelic experiences. When the founder of Islam, Muhammad, talked about the first times the so-called angel Gabriel appeared to him, that so-called angel played up on Muhammad's fears. He didn't allay them, he didn't assuage his fears, he encouraged Muhammad to be very much afraid of him. That's one way that you know Muhammad never heard anything from the real Angel Gabriel, but instead had an encounter with a demon. The real Angel Gabriel would have told Muhammad, fear not. You see the same sort of thing when people talk about their experiences with aliens. There is a small percentage of people who talk about UFOs and aliens that have actually experienced something. And that experience, though it should be examined, should not just be summarily dismissed. But what typically occurs, even if this alien is supposedly imparting to them some sort of spiritual knowledge, the person experiences great fear, sometimes even paralyzing fear. That's not godly, that's demonic. The true God and his true angels don't want their people to be afraid of him if he wants them to understand his message. Yes, we need to fear God. We need to fear his judgment against sin. But when he comes to reveal himself and to reveal something to his people and to help his people understand him and to understand his will, he's consistently telling his people, fear not, don't be afraid. So God tells Abram, fear not, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. Now in a chapter like this one that people come back to over and over because it's information about God's covenant with Abraham does provide a significant foundation for most of the main biblical theological systems. Because this chapter is so foundational, we can tend to forget that the chapter comes in the immediate context of the account we just read last week in chapter 14. That's why the very first phrase in verse 1 today is, after these things. It's a standard way of introducing a new section. But even though it introduces a new section, it doesn't mean, forgot about everything we just read. This is still the next event in the sequence of the account. Well, what did we just read in chapter 14 last week? We read last week that Abram took his trained men and he routed those kings that had come back to subjugate the other kings who had rebelled against them. and he went and got his nephew Lot and rescued him. And we also read that afterwards, Abram had refused to keep any of the spoils of war for himself. So those two or three realities provide the immediate context for what's said in the beginning of chapter 15. God's response here, I am your shield, Your reward shall be very great." This is a direct response to those two points of immediate context. Not only does Abram not need to be afraid of God, he also doesn't need to fear that the kings he just routed will come back and attack him again. Because even if they do, God will be his shield. God will be his shield and his defender. How would you like to have God as your shield? Well, here's some good news. If you are a child of God, you do have God as your shield. Proverbs 30 verse five tells us that every word of God is true. He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. If you put your trust in the Lord, if you take refuge in the Lord, He is your shield. And the second statement from God to Abram, your reward shall be very great. This is God's response to the fact that Abram had just willingly given up all those spoils of war. He went to rescue Lot. Some of his servants may even have been injured or lost in the battle, and he has nothing to show for it, other than Lot is back living in Sodom. Look at how Abram responds to God's revelation. Well, if my reward is so great, God, what will you give me, he says. He didn't keep any of the wealth from the conquest of the kings, but look at what Abram is especially focusing on when he says next, for I continue childless. And the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus, who's presumably Abram's chief steward or something like that. And for this statement, we look back a little farther in context, back to chapter 12, because that's where God first promised to give the land to Abram's own offspring, his own seed, And God would make Abram's great name. And Abram knows, he knows he's in the land, but he still has no son. And even though Lot, his nephew, was rescued in chapter 14, Lot's now back in Sodom, and God had told Abram to separate from his kinsmen anyway. So Abram is asking for some kind of reassurance that he's understood God correctly. How can you give this land to my offspring if I don't have any? So God takes him, shows him the stars in the sky and says, the number of your descendants will be so great that if you could count the stars, that's how large the number of your descendants will be. That's God's initial reassurance and confirmation to Abram about his offspring. Now in modern times, that might not seem like very much to us. Because even in locations like North Dakota, it can be difficult to get away from all the artificial light at night to see the stars in all their glory without any light pollution. If you're near a town or a city, you get the lights from the street lamps and the large stores and houses and so forth. And even if you live out of town, you still often have a light on top of the power pole that brings your power from the electric distribution lines. Even here, it takes a ton of effort to get away from the artificial light. And then even when you do, you have to hope it's not going to be cloudy. And you probably also have to hope it's not gonna be 10 below zero or something like that. Most of the time, unless you go to extreme lengths, you can really only see maybe a few dozen stars or maybe a hundred or more stars. And that really doesn't sound like that big of a number, right? How hard is it to count to a hundred? But some of you have experienced this. Some of you may have been outside at night, away from most of the light, on a super clear night, in the middle of the night, and seeing just how filled the sky is with stars. The only time I ever really experienced that was when I lived in Arizona as a teenager in the mid 80s. And at that time, if you drove out on the highway between Phoenix and Tucson, it's about the same distance as between Minot and Bismarck. You could get out into the middle between the two cities and there would be no light anywhere except what was coming from the sky. And I'll never forget how amazing the sky looked. It was just flooded with stars. That's what God was showing Abram. That's how God responded when Abram wondered if he would ever have even one descendant. Abram, one day your descendants will be as numerous as the stars. Unfortunately, these days, that area between Phoenix and Tucson is all lit up along the whole way. There's nowhere to get out on that highway and just see all the blazing stars anymore. It's a shame, because things like that in our society, the inability to see the magnificence of the nighttime sky and all the stars, things like that actually hinder people from understanding God's Word. So then we come to verse six. And verse six, some would say, is perhaps the climax of the entire Abrahamic account. This is the first time we see it explicitly stated that Abraham believed the Lord. He believed the promises. And the language here could indicate that he was continuing to believe the Lord, as he already had been before now, perhaps ever since the beginning of chapter 12. But either way, Abram believed God. And what does it say? God counted it to him as righteousness. But in order to address that statement fully, we need to first look at what happens next. One more time, God reveals himself to Abram. And Abram responds with a question or a complaint, depending on how you want to look at it. I don't really mean complaint in the worst sense of the word. But still, he's telling God he doesn't understand how God's going to do what he promised. And so the Lord responds with further revelation and further confirmation. And this time what we see outlined for us in verses 9 to 21 is the ratification of these promises God has made to Abram. Ratification in a covenant ceremony. We saw some of the similar elements of this type of covenant ceremony in the Jeremiah 34 passage read earlier. In that passage, King Zedekiah of Judah and the people made a covenant with each other to obey the Lord regarding not enslaving fellow Jews, which had been part of God's covenant with the nation of Israel, the Sinaitic covenant, the Mosaic covenant. And for that ceremony, the king and the people, they cut a calf in two and they passed between its parts. And many scholars have said that the symbolic nature of this action is what's called a self-maledictory oath. Basically, the idea of this is what I swear will happen to me if I break this covenant. I'll be chopped in two myself. Essentially, I'm calling down death upon myself if I break this covenant. And some would even say the nature of this ceremony is how the Hebrew phrase to make a covenant came about. Because in its most literal expression, the phrase is to cut a covenant, to cut a covenant. But there are some other interesting things about this particular covenant ceremony in chapter 15. And the first interesting thing is the list of specific animals used. Remember that even though this event takes place long before Israel is a nation and had received the law from Sinai, Moses is likely the compiler and editor of this account. So the people would be familiar, the readers of his account would be familiar with the concept of clean animals. And clean animals, remember also, didn't just have to do with food. We saw that back in the account of Noah and the flood, that the clean animals also had to do with worship, the animals necessary for sacrifices in worship. And in this account of the covenant ceremony in chapter 15, every type of clean sacrificial animal was used. Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham suggests that those clean sacrificial animals represent the nation of Israel. And the birds of prey that come to attack the carcasses represent foreign nations coming to attack Israel. You see that imagery elsewhere in the Bible. Here's just one example in Isaiah 46. God says he's going to use a man from a far country, a man of his counsel, to accomplish his purpose of judging the nation of Israel. And he calls him, in verse 11 of Isaiah 46, a bird of prey from the east. So here in chapter 15, Abram is pictured defending Israel, his future offspring, from foreign attackers. And the three-year-old animals are meant to symbolize the three generations of Abram's descendants, what they will spend in Egypt. Now this topic is brought up in what God says to Abram. God actually prophesies to Abram that his descendants, what we know will be the nation of Israel, they're going to be soldiers in a land that isn't theirs. and they'll be afflicted as servants for 400 years. So God is telling Abram and us that God knows that Abram's offspring, who will come eventually, will be enslaved. And we know later that's in the land of Egypt. And God also tells him he will bring judgment on that nation, which he certainly did. And he will lead them out with great possessions, which is told for us in the early chapters of Exodus. And finally, that the fourth generation will inherit the land. God is the God who can know the future and tell the future because he is the one who decrees all things. That's how you know the true God from the false God. The God who created all things and the God who can tell the future because he knows the end from the beginning. Now, I got to say something here about this time frame. the fourth generation and the 400 years, but I don't want to get too bogged down in the details. Scholars have had a long, difficult time trying to describe exactly when the 400 years God mentions in Genesis 15 is counted from and to. And then try to mesh that with Paul's statement about 430 years in Galatians 3, and Stephen's statement in Acts 7 about 400 years. There are many questions that chronologists have tried to reconcile, and the arguments are just too detailed to go into. But I will say this. When God says to Abram here in Genesis 15 verse 16 that the fourth generation will come back and inherit this land of promise, he's most likely talking about the fourth generation of those who were afflicted. So to be more specific, you've got the generation of Moses' parents, Then the generation including Moses and Aaron, and then the following generation, which is the generation that died in the wilderness wanderings, and finally, the fourth generation. They went into the land and inhabited the promised land with Joshua. Now, we can't let the statement at the end of verse 16 pass without talking about it. This is critical for us to absorb in our current cultural setting. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. Do you realize what's being said there? God actually has an appointed time, an appointed duration, during which he will allow people to reject him and blatantly, openly sin against him. It's not a concept we seem to grasp easily, even though we see it all through the scriptures. In the days of Noah, When God had declared that every intention of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually, He still allowed 120 years to pass by before He sent the flood to destroy everyone besides Noah and his family. God has appointed times for everything. He intended for the harm that Joseph's brothers perpetrated on him would last for a time so that God could use that to bring Joseph into Egypt and bring him to prominence after a certain number of years and to use Joseph to save the world from famine. God even appointed, predetermined, and predestined a time and place for his own son, Jesus, God in the flesh, to be unjustly murdered a brutal crime against the sinless Son of God for the sake of delivering His people from sin. And He even has an appointed time written about in Revelation chapter 20 when the devil and the false prophet and the beast will finally be thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity. God doesn't only allow evil to occur. He has an appointed duration for evil, which is allowed to occur so that his judgment on that evil will be full and complete and accomplish exactly what he wants his judgment to accomplish. I think that's an important lesson for us today. There's no question our society is sprinting away from righteousness and toward ungodliness, no question. And we will honor God by speaking against ungodliness and living against ungodliness and championing God and his righteousness and his gospel of grace. We will honor God by doing that. But we cannot forget that God himself has determined the appointed time when he brings his judgment upon evil and upon the workers of iniquity, God himself has determined that time. That doesn't mean we would honor him by sitting back and doing nothing. No, that's been one of the worst responses of the church during this past century, sitting back and doing nothing and waiting for God to judge evil. No, we still have work to do on our own behalf. But our work doesn't change God's appointed time. And I think we can forget that. The rampant evil we see around us, that's no surprise to God. Not only did he know about it before any of us was ever born, He's already appointed a duration to allow it to continue, to allow the workers of iniquity to fill up the measure of their iniquity, to earn their full judgment, so to speak. And while that's going on, some of us will have to endure some affliction as the generations of Abram's descendants had to endure the affliction of slavery in Egypt. So God made this covenant with Abram. He answered his question, he confirmed his promise, and then God is the one who passed between the pieces of the halved carcasses. Now remember earlier, we said two things about this ceremony. One, as far as we know, usually all the parties to a treaty or a covenant would pass between the halved carcasses. And the purpose, we think, was to declare that self-maladictory oath, to call death down upon oneself, if they broke the covenant. But what do we see here? We see that God, in Abram's vision, God takes the form of that smoking fire pot and that flaming torch, the Holy Spirit wrapped in his glory cloud, as I discussed in my sermon on Christmas, the locus of the dwelling place of God on earth at the time of the Israelite nation, was the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. And the fire and the smoke, you remember, that enveloped Mount Sinai when the Lord came down to them. So God, in the form of this flaming torch and smoking fire pot, God alone passed between the pieces of the carcasses. Now that both answers some questions and it raises some questions at the same time. If these clean sacrificial animals represented Israel, then we see that God was in this instance symbolically coming down to earth and walking among his people. Praise God for that imagery. But God was also the only one to pass through. Abram didn't pass through. Why not? Well, this means that the obligations of this covenant ceremony They fall on God and on God alone. We saw in verse 6 earlier that Abram had already done the brunt of what was required of him. He believed God. He believed God in faith. As Paul wrote in Romans chapter 4 verse 13, for the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. And then down in 18, verse 18, in hope, he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations. As he had been told, so shall your offspring be. And he continues to say in verse 20 through 22, no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. Fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. He was fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised because God, in passing through the halved carcasses, God declared that he alone was responsible for bringing his promise to pass. God would, as Paul wrote back in verse 17 of Romans 4, God would give life to the dead and call into existence the things that do not exist. Abram's body and Sarai's womb, as it says, were as good as dead. But God called into existence from out of nothing the nation of Israel and the spiritual nation of Israel, the church, none of which existed at that time. God is the one whose faithfulness is dependent upon here. God is the one who declares he will bring his promises to pass. And as it says in Hebrews 6, verse 18, regarding God's dealings with Abraham, it's impossible for God to lie. But what kind of maledictory oath can God bring down upon himself by performing this ceremony himself? Admittedly, that's pretty difficult to understand. But surely, surely we see that in ratifying this covenant with Abraham, God is indicating, as one scholar puts it, God, I will pay the price if the covenant is broken, whether because of my unfaithfulness or yours. But we know that God is always faithful, even when we are faithless. So if Abraham or his offspring break the covenant, God will pay the price in blood. And in that act, God pronounced the death sentence on his son, Jesus, because Jesus was God in the flesh. Jesus paid the price for whatever covenant breaking was committed, either by Abraham or by his descendants. Jesus received the death sentence that the nation of Israel and all of us, all of Abraham's offspring by faith, deserved. That's why Paul continues in Romans 4, starting at verse 23, But the words, it was counted to him, were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who is delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. The promise didn't just go to Abraham. The promise is for us as well, that it will be counted to us as righteousness if we believe. If we believe in the one who raised Jesus from the dead, Jesus, God in the flesh, who was delivered up for our trespasses, but not only for that, he was also raised for our justification so that we could be declared righteous by faith, as Abraham was. But we also see in Paul's writings in Galatians chapter 3 that Jesus, Jesus is the ultimate offspring that God was truly referring to in Genesis 15 verse 18. One ultimate offspring, Jesus Christ. Because Paul writes in Galatians 3 verse 16, Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. This is Paul. It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one. And to your offspring, who is Christ. The one offspring in whom all the promises of God are yes and amen. The one offspring in whom all the promises of God are fulfilled. Jesus inherits the promised land. And so we see that the promised land itself is a type, a type of the new creation. Because Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. That's what it says in Colossians 1 verse 16. That doesn't speak of him being born and created. It means he's the heir. who inherits the father's estate, the firstborn. Jesus is the firstborn. Jesus is the heir and the promised land is seen to be expanded to include the entire new creation. Aren't you thankful that the fulfillment of the promises of God don't depend on you? Yes, we're expected to obey, but we fail, we sin. And because of Jesus, we can repent and receive forgiveness, but our justification is not in jeopardy if we have believed in Him and in the One who raised Him from the dead. Our salvation is secure in Him for all those who believe. God is the active agent here. God is the One who makes the promises. God is the One who delivers on His promises. God is the One who guarantees the covenant will be kept, even if we are the ones who break it from time to time. Your works will not save you. Your behavior will not save you. God's action on your behalf is what will save you if you believe in the one who raised Jesus from the dead. So fear not. Do not be afraid. Only believe. And remember that as we strive against the spirit of the age around us, In the sin-cursed world that's calling down upon itself the judgment of God, remember that, yes, we should pray, and we should preach, and we should evangelize, and we should engage in the public square, and in the marketplace, and in the government, but God's appointed time for judging the workers of iniquity has not yet been fulfilled. And God keeps all of His promises, even the promise to judge those who refuse to bow the knee to Him in worship. and He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. When you're hurting, He is your shield if you put your trust in Him. When you're persecuted, He is your shield if you put your trust in Him. When you're grieved over the condition of this world, He is your shield if you put your trust in Him. We cannot look only at the circumstances of the moment, see only all the evil in the world, and believe that God has somehow not lived up to his promises. He will judge the world at the appointed time, and all those who put their trust in him will receive a very great reward in due time if they do not give up and lose heart. Let's pray. Father, we're so, we just humble ourselves before you Because somehow, somehow we have been caught up in this amazing covenant that you made with a man 4,000 years ago. Somehow we have been brought in and adopted into the family of God by faith, the kind of faith that Abraham had. Lord, we know that that faith even comes from you. The ability to repent and believe, that comes from you. So we thank you, Lord. Lord, for anyone here, Lord, who has not received that gift of faith, who hasn't put their trust in you, I pray that you would open their hearts, open their minds, show them that they are under that death sentence, the wrath of God, as it says in John 3, if they don't believe. and cause them to fall on their face before you and say, Lord, what must I do to be saved? So that you can take them from the kingdom of darkness and place them in the kingdom of the Son you love and bring them into the family as co-heirs with Jesus Christ. And Father, encourage your people now Help us to remember every day, in every interaction that we have with this wicked world, that you are our shield. Even when it seems when we're being battered from every side, when it seems like everything is getting worse, you are our shield. And you will judge the world at the appointed time when all of your people have been brought into your kingdom. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, there are ceremonies for a reason. That covenant ceremony had purposes, and they performed it the way they did for a reason. We have a ceremony that we call the Lord's Supper, and Jesus instituted this when he celebrated the last Passover supper with his apostles. And the purpose of this ceremony is for us to remember, for us to remember in obedience what Jesus has done for us, what Jesus has done for the spiritual children of Abraham, for the church, given up his perfect life, lived a perfect, obedient life for our behalf. And so when we celebrate this ceremony in faith, when we obey in faith, that's when we receive the grace of God. So thank you, Lord. And I will say that the way we consider the Lord's Supper here at Grace Baptist is that the Lord's Supper is an ordinance for the church, for those who believe. Ideally, it's for those who have been baptized upon a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.