Hello and welcome to another broadcast. We call it plain and simple. We're looking in Genesis chapter 15. Have your Bible ready if you possibly can. Well, here in Genesis chapter 15 we read, And after these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Very interesting portion of scripture here. It says, After these things. After what things? Well, first of all, after a very unpleasant war, and there's no such thing as a pleasant war, However, we have an unpleasant war, but we also have an uncompromising victory. Sometimes we can face a war and get a victory, and we have to compromise to get it. That's not what the Bible teaches. Back here in verse number 23, we saw that Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I'm not taking any of your stuff. He said, here, you take these rewards. This is a spoil. You get it all. Abraham said, I will not take from a thread, even a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou should say, I have made Abraham rich. And so we got a tremendous lesson here that we can learn. And that lesson, of course, is that we get the victories, but we get these victories in the way that God says to get them. Well, in verse number one, we read here that the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, in a vision. Now, there was no Finnish scriptures at that time. They didn't even have all the Old Testament, nor did they have, of course, the New Testament. And in a vision was how God made himself known and how God made his will known to the people. We aren't going to be having any visions today that are from God. We may get some from the devil, but we're not getting any visions from God. This is how he made himself, and this is how he made his will known, and that's what Proverbs 29 and 18 is actually talking about. When it says where there is no vision, the people perish. Well, he says here in verse number 1 of chapter 15, he said, fear not Abraham. You have that term, fear not, seven times in the book of Genesis. It's interesting in Genesis chapter 15 and verse number 1, he says, fear not Abraham. Back in 21 and verse 17, He says to Hagar, fear not. And then in chapter 26 and 24, he says to Isaac, fear not. Chapter 35 and 17, the Lord says to Rachel, fear not. And then in chapter 43 and verse 23, Joseph said to his brothers, fear not. In 46 and three, Jacob was told not to fear. And then in chapter 50 and verse number 19, once again, we see that Joseph told his brothers to fear not. And so in Genesis 15, verse number one, the Lord says to Abraham, fear not. And he says two things. This is why you don't need to fear. Number one, I am thy shield. I am thy shield. Now the devil's got no armor-piercing ammunition that's going to bust through that shield. You can be sure of that. God said, I am thy shield. Fear not, Abraham. Then he said also, Abraham, I am thy exceeding great reward. Nobody is going to out-give God. He is going to reward us for what we do for Him. We read in Mark chapter 10 and verse 29 that Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, there is no man that has left houses, or brethren, or sister, or mother, or children, or lands, that he said he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time and in the world to come. That's an interesting verse. First of all, it says here that Jesus said it. Not only did he say it, but then he goes on to say, Verily I say unto you, Verily is important word. He said this important. I say he said that second time He said that Jesus said it then he said I say it unto you It's very personal that no man that includes you has left house brother sisters mother children lands not you know You're not giving up anything for God that he isn't going to reward you for it If you're doing it for the right reason he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time And Jesus went on to say, and in the world to come. Well, in verse number two, Abraham says to the Lord, I want to kind of remind you about your promise. He said here, Abraham said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus, and Abraham said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is mine heir. He said, I'm supposed to have a son. I remember that promise. And I'm just checking in on that. He said, is Eliezer of Damascus going to get this? And the word of the Lord in verse 4 came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels, shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward the heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And the Bible says here in verse 6, He believed the Lord, and he countered it to him for righteousness. Well, he goes on with this vision with Abraham, and he shows him how he will be the father of the nation of Israel. And then in verse number 12, we see that a great horror of great darkness fell upon him. And as you read that down through there, you will see that he is referring there to that 400 years when the nation of Israel will be in bondage in Egypt. well then in verse number 18 we read in the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river of Euphrates and the chapter concludes with more details about the fact that Abraham is going to have this inheritance well chapter 16 begins with the phrase now Sarah in Genesis 3-1 we have the phrase now the serpent And then in Genesis 12 and 1, now the Lord, and here we have Genesis 16 verse number 1, now Sarah. The life of Abraham and Sarah, interesting life of the faith that they had and however they lived in the flesh. The Bible tells us both sides of that story. If you look in the New Testament concerning the faith of Abraham, there's ten verses in the New Testament referring to Abraham's faith. That is, ten verses where you have the word faith and Abraham in the same verse. When you get into Hebrews chapter 11, there's about a dozen verses referring to the faith of Abraham and Sarah. They lived by faith. But as you go down through Romans chapter 4 it asks the question as it begins in verse 1 concerning Abraham as pertaining to the flesh and it gives the entire chapter over to answering that question. Now the Bible says they that sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. You remember back in Genesis chapter 12 and they went down into Egypt and and Abraham was sowing under the flesh down there. He made some bad mistakes. And of the flesh reaps corruption. Read the chapter, you can see it for yourself. Now we get into chapter 16 here, and we read once again that they are sowing some corruption. They who sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. So let's read a little bit of it. It says, Now Sarah, Abraham's wife, bearing no children, and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said unto Abraham, Behold, now the Lord has restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abraham hearkened unto the voice of Sarah. And Sarah, Abraham's wife, took Hagar, her handmaid, the Egyptian, after Abraham had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. and gave her to her husband, Abraham, to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarah said unto Abraham, My wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid unto thy bosom. And when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between me and thee. But Abraham said unto Sarah, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand. Do to her as it pleases thee. And when Sarah dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to shore. And he said, Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence camest thou, and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarah. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, art with child, and shall bear son, and shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he shall be a wild man, his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand will be against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Well, here once again, like in chapter 12, we find that Abraham and Sarah here are sowing to the flesh, and they shall, of the flesh, reap corruption. It's interesting that immediately following the tremendous blessings of the previous chapter that we have this situation, and that happens a lot, you'll find it in the scriptures, that after a great victory, you're going to find a great battle, because the devil is not going to take it sitting down. Well, what is going on here? What is the problem with Sarah? Well, first of all, I think she has a desire to be accepted by her peers. She has no children. That is mentioned several times here. And, of course, in that age, to have no children, that was actually to be ridiculed and to be mocked. And she wants to be accepted by her peers. This is not how she wants to have it. She wants to have children. Not just for the sake of having a child, which I'm sure was important to her, but also to be accepted by her peers. At that particular time in the world, multiple marriages were very acceptable. They had concubines. They had all kinds of situations. And so they look into the world, and they're just saying, well, if this is what we have to do to be acceptable, then let's do it. A lot of that nonsense is going on, and under the banner of Christianity, and even under the banner of fundamentalism today, we need to be accepted by the world. Well, that's not what the Bible teaches. Well, another obvious problem here is that they are doubting the promises of God. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 6, verse number 18, that it is impossible for God to lie. Romans 4.21 says what He has promised, He is able to perform, and He is. We need to understand that delays are not denials. God will do what He's going to do. He'll do it in His own good time, and He doesn't need our help to get it done. We just need to trust the Lord to do what He says He's going to do. Well, we see in verse number two, Sarah's reasoning. She says here in verse number two, Sarah said unto Abraham, Behold, now the Lord has restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abraham hearkened unto the voice of Sarah. Now notice here, her reasoning, very self-centered. The Lord hath restrained me, poor me. Go into my maid. I pray thee, go into my maid. It's all about me. That's Sarah's problem here. She's not concerned about the reputation of the Lord. She's going to get involved in this immorality. Because she can have a baby that way. Oh yeah, that's her reasoning. Well, it goes on to say here that Abraham hearkened. Abraham hearkened to the voice of Sarah. He hearkened. Now, we read in the Bible, in the first place, where you have this word hearkened is in Genesis 3, 17, where Adam hearkened unto the voice of his wife. Here, in this chapter, 16, in verse number 2, Abraham hearkened unto the voice of his wife. Well, someone has said, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. There's absolutely no doubt whatsoever that a woman has a tremendous influence. And we need to be sure, ladies, you need to be sure that you're influencing for the cause of Jesus Christ and not for your own cause. Very, very, very important lesson here. Well, we're out of time. We'll have to get back to this in our next broadcast. Be sure to tune in. We'll try to make it plain and we will try to make it simple. you you