Genesis 15 I Used to have a well you should have a stack of VHS tapes as you probably did and I had several of them were classic sermons or lectures by R.C. Sproul and one of them was entitled eternal security and the text was Genesis 15. And of course I haven't had that VHS tape for a long time. I actually found it as you typically can do on, you guessed it, YouTube. And so I watched it again today. It was just as much a blessing as it was when I watched it the other 50 times 25 years ago. I believe it's in the 80s. You know, you can tell when he's how old he is. It looks like the probably late, late 80s, possibly early 90s. I had it in the mid 90s. But he said in the beginning of that sermon that if he was incarcerated in a prison cell and could only have one book of the Bible, it would be the book of Hebrews. And then he anticipated somebody saying, well, Dr. Sproul, you are always preaching and teaching from the book of Romans. He says, yeah, I pretty much have that one locked in my head, but I need the text of the book of Hebrews. But he said, if somebody were to ask me what one chapter of the Bible you would have, if you could only have one chapter of one book of the Bible while in prison, he said it would be Genesis 15. And I think if you don't know already, and I don't mean to embarrass you because the Bible is a big book. If you don't know readily at this point what's in chapter 15, I thank you at the end of our time. will, if not agree, at least understand why it was that he said what he did. It is a tremendous and very beautiful passage. Now it has two parts, and we're gonna look at it under these heads, God's promise and then his covenant. Promise and covenant. And promise is verses one to six, covenant seven to 21. And so I'll read those in turn. So we'll just read the first one to begin. God's promise, verse one. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. But Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus? Then Abram said, look, you have given me no offspring. Indeed, one born in my house is my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, this one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. Then he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven and count the stars if you're able to number them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. And he believed in the Lord and he, that is God, accounted it to him, that's Abram, for righteousness. Now, there's many first things in this book, in this chapter. It's the first time in the Bible that we actually have the phrase believed in the Lord. It's the first time that we have God described as a shield. It's the first time we find the phrase, and the word of the Lord came, and several other things. But as we're going to see, the backbone of the chapter is this oath-bound promise called a covenant. oath-bound promise called a covenant. But before we get to that covenant in the proper sense, we start with his promise. Notice two things about it. God re-gives a promise, and second, Abram believes the promise. God re-gives it. Now I'm using this term re-gives because this isn't the first time that this promise is given. In fact, according to verse one, it appears Abram was fearful that the previous promises would not come to pass. God had already promised him that he would be the father of a great nation, and from that nation would come one descendant who would be the means of blessing the world. That's Jesus. And Abraham believed that already. And yet he's fearful because now he's grown older, spent some time since those promises were made, and he's beginning to wonder whether or not they're truthful. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, do not be afraid. The assumption being, he was afraid. And if you remember last week, we saw that military campaign or conflict that he was victorious in. He wasn't afraid of a lot of things. He was rather bold in that previous in the previous chapter. and brave even, perhaps we can say. But he's afraid of something, and he's afraid that God's promises will not come to pass. That's the cause of this fear, and thus God remedies it by saying, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. Now the ESV has it, your reward will be great. But either way, the essence of this is saying his reward ultimately is heaven with God. It's an eternity with God and the land. So if the land is his reward, or if God is his reward, it makes no difference. God is his shield. And by the way, there's a strong Christological sound to verse one, isn't it? The word of the Lord, that's the second person of the Godhead, because it says that the word came speaking to him. The word of the Lord, the second person of the Godhead, Godhead came and said to Abram, I am your shield, I am your reward. While God had promised Abram a vast seed, which included the Messiah, at present, the dilemma was, he had not one child. And so without an heir, all that he possessed would be given to Eleazar of Damascus, who was his head servant. Thus, it's at this point that God re-gives the promise with greater clarity. Again, re-gives implies that he's previously given it, and he gave it back in chapter 12. Verse four, this one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. He's reiterating the same promise, but he is speaking with greater clarity. He's giving more particulars, perhaps, and speaking even more directly, but brethren, he's restating the same promise. There's gonna come from you, Abraham, a vast seed, a vast nation, and one of those physical descendants will be the means of blessing all the families in the world. Now, it has to be underscored here at the end of verse five, so shall your descendants be, that Abraham understood that promise to include the promise of the Messiah. And I know that from verse six. But look at verse five, then he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven and count the stars if you're able to number them. And he said to him, you shall, so shall your descendants be. Some of you know that our family just spent a few days down south in Kentucky in the country, Mom or Ange got us a nice house in between the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. So Monday we went to the one, Tuesday the other. But being out in the country like this, I think it was maybe Sunday night or maybe it was Monday night, it was very clear outside and we went out and we saw an amazing scene. There were so many stars. We saw the Milky Way so clearly. It was quite amazing. And then that must have been Sunday night because the next day we went to the Creation Museum and the Planetarium. And then if you've ever been there to see some of the videos they have at the Planetarium, that's tremendous as well. But you know what? The site we saw in the Planetarium for I think 20 bucks each, we saw it for free the night before. I should've just said, look, you're not gonna go to the planetarium tomorrow, we'll just save some money. Because that was God's planetarium. We saw all those stars. And so what he's saying is the same thing he said before. Remember, before he used the imagery of grains of sand on the seashore. Now he's saying the same thing, he's just saying that as many stars as there are in the heavens. Brother, nobody knows how many stars there are in the heavens. But this is how many Christians there's gonna be. because this is ultimately what he's talking about. Again, not to negate the fact that he was gonna have a vast physical seed, but he's talking about something bigger than that, and Abraham knows it. And that's why it says in verse six, and he believed in the Lord, and he accounted it to him for righteousness' sake. This brings me to the fact that Abraham believes the promises. God re-gives them, and Abraham believes them. Now keep in mind, as I've already asserted, that this isn't the first time God gave this promise. Because I'm gonna argue here in a second, it's not the first time that Abram has believed it. Now this has proved a difficulty for some commentators, because Paul quotes verse six three times in the New Testament, in Romans, Galatians, and James, to speak of his justification. And yet we read elsewhere in the New Testament, for example, Hebrews 11, that it was by faith Abram, or Abraham, obeyed God and left his native country. And we've been seeing all along that he's been acting as a believer, because he is. He's been worshiping God. He's been, everywhere he goes, he makes a sacrifice. And even in verse one, God comes to him and says, don't be afraid, I am your shield. Not going to be in six verses. I am your shield, I am your, no, he's already justified. But the dilemma then is, why is it that the New Testament quotes this verse and seems to indicate that his justification begins in Genesis 15 and not 12? Well, the answers, or the possible answers are a couple. One, as again, not to beat up on the new guys, but the newer commentators, they either don't say anything about it, they just skip over it, or else they say he wasn't a believer previously. But brethren, it's impossible to come to that conviction. Because again, if you go to verse eight in Hebrews 11, by faith Abraham left the land of Ur, and he obeyed God. and he came into the land that he knew nothing of. A thousand mile trip, if you remember. Oh no, he was a believer at this point. Then the question becomes, why is it or how is it that Paul seems to point his justification here and not in chapter 12? Well, the ones who deal with it most thoroughly are Calvin and Pink. Of course, Calvin previous to Pink. I think Pink was obviously reading Calvin and makes it a little more clearer. So I wanna quote Pink here in a second. But both of them have basically suggested this. God now speaks of his justification because God here fully reveals the nature of his covenant. And as we're going to see, Abram's justification, as found in verse six, is tied to Christ, who's all in this covenant. Again, as we'll see in a minute. And so, while he's already justified, it's here where his faith is, in a particular and unique way, connected with the promised Messiah. And you have the formal cutting the covenant. The covenant was already given to Abram back in 12, but it's here now formalized. The promise was already given to Abram in 12, but it's here now given more particulars. His faith was already there in verse in chapter 12. It's just now given more clarity. The object of it is more readily identified, and thus the justifying nature of it is spelled out for us. Listen to Mr. Pink. He said, it's true that in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit informs us that Abram was a believer when he left his native land, but his faith is not here mentioned in connection with his justification, that is in chapter 12. Instead, in the epistles to the Romans Galatians, the incident which the Holy Spirit singles out as the occasion when Abram's faith was counted for righteousness is here in Genesis 15. And why? Because in Genesis 15, Abram's faith is directly connected with God's promise respecting his seed, which seed is Christ. The faith which was counted for righteousness was the faith which believed what God had said concerning his promisee. It was this instance of Abraham's faith which the Spirit was pleased to select as the model for believing on the justification. This is why the New Testament uses this as the model for our justification and not his departure from his homeland in Genesis 12. Therefore, we say it was not that Abraham here believed God for the first time, but that here God was pleased to openly attest his righteousness for the first time. The faith which justifies has to do directly with the personal work of Christ. This was the character of Abraham's faith in Genesis 15. He believed the promise of God which pointed to Christ. Hence it is in Genesis 15 and not Genesis 12 that we read, he counted it unto him for righteousness. I don't intend to say anything more about verse six, but it is, again, a most beautiful statement about justification. Notice faith is put in contrast to works, so much so that it's as if our faith is what is righteous, is what forms our righteousness. But brethren, we're not justified by faith in the sense that our faith is our righteousness, but it's in contrast to our works, and so God puts it as if it was. Faith is the empty hands that lay hold of Christ in whom we have righteousness, and thus we're justified through the instrumentality, not on the basis of, not because of faith, but through or by faith. Faith is the hands that lays hold of Christ in whom we have righteousness. Faith is the instrumentality of our justification. Jesus and his righteousness, the basis. But how do you get it? Faith. And so again, he contrasts it with works. He counted his faith as righteousness, i.e. not as works. Because his faith is that which laid hold of his righteousness. And you do have the phrase that Paul uses, he accounted it. That's imputation language. The righteousness of Christ to come was imputed, reckoned, or accounted to Abraham's account. All by faith. And that, again, if you go read it in those three passages I made reference to, you'll see Paul's elaboration of it. Justification by faith alone in Jesus isn't a Pauline doctrine. It's a Mosaic doctrine. It's a biblical doctrine. Everybody who has ever saved was justified by faith in the promised Messiah Abraham saw Jesus day and was glad and he saw that day Yes in Genesis 12 more clearly in Genesis 15 a little more clear in Genesis 17 and exceedingly so in Genesis 22, but nevertheless he saw it already He's been he's already been justified, but now because of all these particulars it's spelled out All right notice secondly is covenant verse 7 Then he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it? Brother, we're gonna see here in a second that there's no way to get around this question other than to say that Abraham was not perfect. because he's already, he was just told, Abraham, go outside and look at the stars. As many as stars will be your physical seed, one of which will be the Messiah to bless the world. And he was justified, and now he's already questioning it. And he's gonna have more reasons to be confident here in a second, and then we're gonna see next week in chapter 16, verse one, what? He falters again. And him and his wife, Sarai, they come up with this plan to basically take things into their own hands and to have a baby by her handmaiden named Hagar. And Abram goes along with it. It's really quite amazing. So he said to him, bring me a three-year-old heifer, verse nine, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. Then he brought all these to him and cut them in two down the middle and placed each piece opposite the other. But he did not cut the birds in two. And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. Now just go back for a second. The previous was in a vision. The previous verses was in a vision, verse one. Verse seven, there's no vision. He literally cuts the animals in half. Now, verse 12, he falls under a trance of sorts, in a deep sleep, and he's gonna get another vision by way of a dream. And behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then he said to Abram, know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in the land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them 400 years. and also the nation whom they serve, I will judge, afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried at a good old age, but in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. Now that was all given to him as he was in that trance of sorts, under that deep sleep. Now, it's difficult to know at verse 17 if this is a continuation of another dream, or I think more preferably, it's a return to reality. Remember, he actually cut the animals in half, and I think this is not a vision, but this is reality. This is an actual event that occurred, verse 17. And it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. By the way, I mentioned that R.C. Sproul said this is the one chapter he would have if he could only have one chapter in prison. He narrowed that down later in the sermon and said if he could have but one verse from one chapter from one book in the Bible to meditate on while in prison, he said it would be Genesis 15, 17. On the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram. Okay, so if you go back to verse 12, now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep comes on him. Verse 17, now it's gone down. So I think it's just later in that same evening that this event happens, verse 17. And so in verse 18, on the same day, later in that evening, the same day, The Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your descendants, I've given this land from the river of Egypt, that is the Nile, to the great river, the river Euphrates. Now he's gonna list a bunch of people that were at present in the land. the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Achaemenites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rathium, the Amorites, the Canites, the Gershicites, and the Jebusites. Those, again, were all nations that usually fall under the broader canopy of Canaanites because they dwelt presently in the land of Canaan, and God was going to take them out. He's gonna remove them and make way for his physical seed, which of course would take place partially under Joshua and fully for its short season under Solomon. It wouldn't be until Solomon's reign when this would be fully fulfilled. Now again, having believed the promise, verse six, Abram again expresses a measure of doubt and asks another question in verse eight. He's basically asking for something to help him to have more confidence. Because it's difficult to believe a promise when you don't see any evidence for its fulfillment. Abraham, you're gonna be a father of a great nation. I don't even have one child yet. How am I supposed to be a father of a great nation? You say my children are gonna be as many as the sand on the seashore and stars in the heavens? I don't have one. And so Abraham asked for more evidence, something that would, he's actually, this is actually what he's asking for, something that's more tangible. Brethren, if you stop and think about it, the condensation of God in his patience toward him is amazing. I mentioned Sunday, in the Sunday school, that we have to be patient toward each other. Well, here's one reason why. God is exceedingly patient with Abraham. I mean, when I read it, I'm like, really, Abraham? And he's the father of the faithful. Remember in the New Testament, there's rarely or never mention of his weaknesses. It's always from a positive perspective. I think it portrays him having been cleansed in the blood of the Lamb. But here you get him warts and all, as we've been seeing, haven't we? Now, again, there has been some difficulty over this. How can he have just believed and now doubted? But I believe the simple answer is he needed something more tangible in order to strengthen his faith. John Trapp, the old Puritan commentator, said, he desires a sign. Not that he believed not before, but that he might better believe. How great is God's love in giving us sacrifice and therein to make himself to us visible as well as audible. He just heard him tell him, and we hear God tell us promises, but he's given us something tangible. He hasn't given us this reality or vision of the animals cut in half and then the smoke and the fire moving through the cut pieces. but he has given us something tangible, and John Trapp is right. It's called the bread and the wine and baptism. So he promises us verbally, audibly, and he also buttresses that with visual, tangible promises called sacraments. Thus, in coming to verses nine to 21, we come to what's commonly referred to as a theophany. Theophany, God, appearance. A physical appearance of God. Other theophanies in the Old Testament, similar to this one, in fact, would be the burning bush, would be the pillar of cloud and fire, right? Those are actually very similar to this. In fact, that's why I do believe it's an actual event, not a vision, but it makes no difference. because he sees, according to verse 17, a smoking oven and a burning torch. That is a torch that's producing light. There's fire. So there's smoke and fire. Just, again, go back to those illustrations of the burning bush and then the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Same thing. So this is some tangible, physical manifestation that allows us to understand something about God himself. God isn't a bush, he isn't a cloud, he isn't these things. But he's using these things to teach us something about who he is. Remember how we read it in the New Testament, God is a, Consuming fire doesn't mean he's literally a fire. It means there's similarities between them Now I want to do three things with this theophany It's historical details just move through it very quickly. I It's theological particulars. I want to suggest a couple reasons behind it. Why is this here? And then it's New Testament interpretation. And there we want to turn to the inspired interpretation of this narrative in a book that you have to wait until we get there, I'll identify. But there is a commentary on this in the New Testament. All right, so notice it's details very quickly. It's basically and largely straightforward. God tells Abram to bring him a three year heifer, goat and ram, which are to be cut in half. The turtle dove and young pigeons are to be killed, but not cut in half. So you have five animals. He then tells them to take them and place the halves opposite the other. So you cut the heifer in half, you put one half here, one half here, same with the goat and the ram, and then a turtle dove and a young pigeon. In verse 12, he falls asleep, a deep sleep, which results in horror and great darkness. I think the reason why there's horror and great darkness is because of what he then tells him in the next verses, wherein he describes the fact that while his descendants will get the land ere long, they're gonna get it through suffering. And in fact, 400 years of servitude to the Egyptians. Look at verse 13. Then he said to Abram, know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in the land that's not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them 400 years. I think this is in part why there was this horror and darkness that fell upon them. This is judgment. And also the nation whom they serve, I will judge. Afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. I'm gonna send them Moses eventually, and through Moses, I'm gonna liberate them, and they're gonna leave with the spoils of their enemies. But in the fourth generation, a generation in this time was 100 years. So this is another way of saying 400 years. But in the fourth generation, they shall return where? Here. Return here. Because remember, they were already there before they left. Then he says this, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. Again, Amorites, I think, is put as a part of all the Canaanites, the Canaanites, because you have them listed there with the other nine. I think there's 10 of them down there in verse 19, 20, and 21. So he's saying, one reason why I'm gonna delay your people in having the land, in possessing the land, is because I'm gonna allow these wicked people to fill up their iniquities. Brother, there's no way to interpret that passage other than to say God was giving them more time to cause their judgment to be more severe. He was giving them a longer rope to hang themselves. Now, we know the scriptures teach that God is patient to our people, desiring that they repent, cover themselves for sure. But here, I think it's just a judgment to leave them. You know, is there's one place worse than hell? There is. There's a place worse than hell, and that's for you to be left by God on Earth, storing up more wrath for the day. It'd been better for you to die. early and go to hell. I mentioned already R.C. Sproul, his mentor, John Gerstner, once said, or maybe it was R.C. Sproul, but I think it was John Gerstner, maybe both of them said it, probably, that those in hell would do anything to come back to earth and erase one sin. You see, brethren, judgment will fall upon the wicked in hell based upon their sins. Not all punishment, not all degrees of hell are the same. I mean, that's common sense. A man that that steals from his neighbor isn't going to get the same sentence as the one who kills his neighbor. And you remember how Paul put it in Romans chapter two, that God's patience ought to be a means to bring about repentance. But instead he said, tragically, you're just storing up more wrath for the day of wrath. And that's what we have here with reference to the Canaanites. Again, take the Amorites to be in part of the whole. Listen to Mr. Poole. Matthew 4, the iniquity of the Amorites. The Amorites are put for one of all the nations, then living in the land of Canaan. All men's sins are kept by God as in a book of remembrance. Not one of them is lost, and as God exactly observes the number and measure of men's sins, so he determines within himself how far and how long he will bear with sinful men or nations, and what shall be the period of his patience. He's already determined he's gonna wait so long. And if they don't repent and find forgiveness, the longer he waits, the more tragic it will be. He goes on to say, and when that comes, their measure will be full and the destruction shall infallibly come. That's what the text says. for the iniquity, your people are gonna be away for 400 years, for the iniquity of the Amorites isn't yet filled up. Their judgment isn't yet filled up. Brother, that is an absolutely frightful thought, to think that maybe God is just allowing our nation to fill up its iniquity. Oh, it's keeping us from, he's keeping us from being as wretched as we otherwise could be. Believe it or not, brother, what you've seen is nothing in comparison to what we're capable of. And what if God is saying, I'm just gonna leave them like they are and not let them destroy themselves because I'm letting them to fill up the cup of their iniquity so that my wrath will be complete in another hundred years. Absolutely a frightful thought, isn't it? Beginning with verse 17, Moses recounts what actually took place, I think, and no longer describes the dream that's recounted in verses 12 to 16. Either way, it makes no difference. Abram saw in the darkness what appeared to be a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between the pieces. Now I have a number of texts, I'm not gonna look up any of them, but they basically just are verses, especially in the book of Exodus, where fire, darkness, and smoke are used to describe God's just character. You'll find it all over the place. Verse 18, on the same day, I take that to mean the same evening that darkness came, This is darkness in the evening. The Lord made a covenant with Abram saying. Now I've already said that here we find for the first time the term covenant with reference to Abraham. We find it earlier, don't we, with reference to Noah. Which is simply an oath-bound promise. Brethren, you can find literally books where people are trying to articulate the meaning of a covenant and I think sometimes if you multiply too many words it gets less clear with more chapters. Oath-bound promise, period. So a covenant is a promise, but it's more than a promise. It's not less. It's a promise with an oath. And we find the oath here in reference to God. He, thus, he describes the nation, the nature of the promise to your descendants. I've given this land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates. He's just basically here specifying the boundaries of the land promised to Abram. Now, go back in your mind again. We've seen this on a number of occasions. He promises him a vast seed. The end of verse five. And here the land, verse 18. These were literally given to him and they typify the church and the new heavens and earth. And Abram knew that. Because brethren, he's not being justified by faith, just believing some temporal promises. You can only be justified by faith by believing in the Messiah. That's the only way. And that's kind of the point, isn't it? Now he understood that there was one particular descendant who would be the means of blessing the world, and he would give us an inheritance better than Cain. All that Abram knew, and we find that in the New Testament, don't we? All right, some quick theological particulars. Here I wanna give you a couple facts about this unique covenant, or more particularly, the ceremony wherein we find the covenant. cutting the animals, and the smoking pot, and the inflamed torch, burning torch passing through. Number one, God's covenant underscores his promise. Here I'm simply pointing out that God's promise and oath are the same things. They concern the same things. So the promise given to him in the first six verses and the oath made to him in the remaining verses aren't two different things. Again, they have a natural and a supernatural aspect, a physical and a temporal and a spiritual and eternal aspect to them, but they're the same things. He doesn't promise them something in the first half of the chapter, and then when it comes to making an oath, he comes up with something else. Again, it goes back to what I've already said. A covenant is nothing less or more than an oath-bound promise. It's a promise accompanied with an oath. All right? Secondly, God's covenant is rooted in sacrificial blood. This is seen in that God, through the smoking oven and burning torch, walked through a bloody path. Now, some have suggested that he consumed the sacrifices going through them. We're not told that. Either way, it makes no difference. They were bloody. There has to be blood spilled for the covenant to be ratified. You say, but the covenant that God made, that we call the covenant of grace, given in Genesis 3 and 15, there's no blood there. Well, there was typical blood afterwards, if you remember. God killed the innocent animal. But remember that the covenant of grace, so-called, is nothing but the promised new covenant. And brother, there's blood in that one. I'm not ready to say that there has to be blood and otherwise there's no covenant. But brethren, blood and covenant do go close hand in hand in the Bible. The old covenant had blood, the new covenant has blood. This covenant has blood. This is a bloody covenant. There's blood that God walks through. And keep in mind that these five animals would, under Moses, comprise those animals that would be sacrificed. What animals were sacrificed under the old covenant? These five. Heifers, rams, sheep, goats, rams, and these two birds. Nothing else in terms of livestock or living animals. What was sacrificed under the Old Covenant? These five things. That's why I've already suggested, and I think it's right, to see a very close connection, if not equality, between this covenant and the Old Covenant with Moses. Same things are going on. What's happening here is going to be reiterated under Moses in the labyrinth. Thirdly, God's covenant is unconditional and absolute. And this is seen in that only one being walks between the pieces. It's been suggested that there's evidence in olden days where people did make covenants between two people, and they did similar things as this, and they both walked between the pieces to reiterate the fact that if either one of them renege or fail to follow through on their promise, they deserve to be cut like the animals. They're destroyed to have their blood shed like these animals. We're walking through the animals with the understanding that if one of us do not fulfill their end, we deserve the same end as them. Brother, if you stop and think about it, I advocate that we do this at weddings. It's a suggestion. Because you have a bunch of a bloody mess. So it may not be as practical. Not sure that she'd want many pictures. But stop and think of it. Both of them are swearing before God. If either one of us break our vows, we deserve this. Maybe there'll be less marriages. Let's put it that way. Less weddings. God is the only one that walks down it. And the reason he walks down it alone is because he's basically saying, if I lie, Abraham, if I don't come through with my promise, I deserve to die. Brother, stop and think about it. The self-existent eternal God is saying, if I, Abraham, you want further evidence of the truth? You want further evidence that what I'm telling you is of certainty to happen? Here, caught the animals. I'm gonna walk through them. And as I do, keep in mind, if I fail to keep my word, if I fail to keep my promise, I deserve to happen to me what's happened to them. Brethren, that's an amazing thought. And furthermore, it is Christocentric in that Christ was the one who did shed his blood to ratify the covenant. The covenant that God is making with Abraham is the covenant with Abraham. But remember, within that covenant, there's this gracious covenant that we call the covenant of grace. And so brother, if you think about it, Christ is all through this chapter, from the beginning to the end, because the first verse, and the word of the Lord came speaking to Abram. And now you have the sacrificial system set out before us in all of this bloody beauty, if I can put those terms together. Listen to Mr. Sproul. In the ancient world, when truth was at stake and when a promise was to be made that was to be absolutely binding, that promise was made and sealed in the form of a covenant. And in those days, you did not write a covenant as much as cut a covenant. Because when the covenant was made and promises given, those promises were not absolutely binding until ratified by a cutting right, R-I-T-E, or ceremony. In short, God is saying to Abram, in making this promise, I'm swearing by myself that if I ever fail in this promise, I, the eternal and all-sufficient God, will be cut into two and cease to exist. Now, we know that's true, not just because of Mr. Sproul, but because of, lastly, his New Testament interpretation. So in closing, turn with me to Hebrews 6. Verse nine, but beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation. though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward his name, in that you have ministered to the saints and to minister. And we desire that each one of you to show the same diligence, the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, surely blessing, I will bless you. Multiplying, I will multiply you. And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it, that is the promise, by an oath, that by two immutable things, the promise and the oath, that's Genesis 15, in which it's impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence beyond the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus. having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. It's interesting, isn't it, how he places Melchizedek here because he was just in the previous chapter back in Genesis 14. Oh, he's definitely thinking about chapter 15. He's also thinking about chapter 22, 17 and 22 to come. But it's here where he makes a covenant formally with Abraham. and attaches it to his promise. And again, they're the same things. All right, notice two things in passage, that all of this is not just for Abraham's sake, but for ours. This is what the passage says. Genesis 15 is for you, if I can just paraphrase the author very simply. Genesis 15 was put in your Bible for you. That's what he says. Brethren, believe what the New Testament authors say, and not somebody else. Okay, when the New Testament interprets the old, it's the proper interpretation of the old. I think that's a pretty safe bet. And here the apostle is saying that God did this gracious event in chapter 15 for Abram, not just for Abram's good, but for us and for our consolation, that's what it says, for our compassion. that we can go back, and brother, that's quite frankly why R.C. Sproul wasn't wrong in what he said. He's using, you know, preaching rhetoric to make it, you know, whatever, whatever. I believe he believed it. Well, of course, he's in heaven now, so he doesn't need Genesis 15. But I think he believed it, and I think he's right in saying that Genesis 15 is the reason why we can be sure of our salvation. Because brethren, promises are only as good as the character of the promisor. And lastly, notice the character of the promisor. By two immutable, verse 18, things, in which it's impossible for God to lie. It's impossible for God to lie. And he's given us a promise, and that should be enough, but he knows our weakness. So he's, with the promise given us, an oath, a covenant. And that covenant is shadowed in Genesis 15, and it's realized in the New Testament. And it's not made of the blood of heifers, goats, or sheep, or birds, but the blood of the Son of God. And that's why he ends, doesn't he, in verse 19 and 20, in speaking about Jesus, who's the fulfillment of Genesis 15, and who's the fulfillment of all of the historical covenants of the promise. And thus, dear Mr. Sproul, if you can hear us in heaven, which I'm not sure that he can, you're right to tell us that Genesis 15 is one of the most instructive and encouraging passages in the whole of scripture. Because there we learn about God's promise and his oath. And these two combined to give us, according to this text, strong consolation. Well, let us close with that and we'll transition into our prayer time with standing and reciting the Lord's prayer.