Genesis Chapter 15 Verse 1

• There was definitely an element of fear here. Perhaps two…Abram had just gone to war against four kings and had defeated them with only 318 soldiers…and yet he didn’t take their land, their people or their possessions…he just left them beaten…and so it’s really just a matter of time, right? Those earthly kings would be regrouping and coming for their revenge. So that’s one element of fear…
• Also, war, blood-shed, these were new things for Abram…a man that desired peace…so much so that he gave up his land to his nephew to create peace just a few scenes ago. And now he has returned from battle…from leading his men into, well…carnage. Do you think he was trembling inside? Has anything ever happened in your life that’s left you a bit in shock? Two elements of fear…, even add to that…one of the kings he didn’t defeat but he certainly didn’t make a friend out of…the King of Sodom…and so Abram…understandably afraid…
• But I LOVE what God says to Him and to anyone today, no matter what you are facing or coming out of or perhaps emerging from in terms of sin or sacrifice…if you belong to Him, if God is your Father because of your acceptance of His Way, His Truth and His Life…then listen up because He says the same thing to you tonight!!

• Let the dread go…it’s free to go…because I am your Shield! Your exceedingly great Reward! Can you imagine!? Can you walk into that truth for just a mental moment and consider!? God as your Shield!!?? Isaiah 40:12 says that He measured the heavens, our universe, with the span of His hand!!! That is a HUGE shield!!

• That word can also mean armament, or defense or I love this one…your scales! Like chain mail! Trust in the Lord, man and this is yours. Believe God and take His Word and minute to minute install it! Minute to win it, baby! And the outcome, the result, I LOVE THIS, every try at you the enemy attempts, every run at you the flesh and evil-ity (new word) of others and this world takes…EVERYTIME, you will be the ultimate victor because that shield will hold!! God does not fail. God’s Word does not fail!!

• AND, God says, “Your exceedingly great Reward!” Oh this is so good because Abram just gave up, totally rejected an entire earthly kingdom worth of goods for himself! And yet God says, “Don’t sweat it son, I have a reward for you!” Nope. He says something much more power-packed. I am your EXCEEDINGLY GREAT reward!
• That word in the Hebrew is so crazy that is has an @ in it!! I don’t even know what that means! HA! But it literally means “abundantly muchness!” HA! SO good! And this is it man. This is what we find and can only be found in believing God, receiving Him and knowing Him personally…you don’t get warm fuzzies, you don’t get your bills paid, you don’t get understanding of all hidden things…YOU GET ABUNDANDLY MUCHNESS MORE THAN THAT! Words fail to describe knowing God...having forgiveness of sin and the hope of life eternal!

• And so tonight, if you know Him and yet the weight of the world is on your shoulders…or if you know Him and yet the weight of some sin guilt is tearing your heart down…return to worship! Leave that carnage behind…return those good to the king of Sodom…those goods being a downcast spirit and guilt ridden, fear-filled, anxiety eaten heart…and receive the Word of the Father…Fear not, you’re forgiven, your future is in My focus…I am your Shield, and your EXCEEDINGLY GREAT Reward! I just love that!!

Genesis Chapter 15 Verses 2 – 3

• This isn’t a statement of unbelief towards God. And I want you to consider that because it’s entirely meaningful for you and for me. God had already told Abram that He would make from him a great nation and yet here Abram is, probably around 85 or 90 years old and he has no son. And so Abram is asking God…not dis-believing God or His promises but Abram is asking out of confusion. Not what will You do, God…I already believe You…but how will You do it!?

• We know that because Abram was already looking to his chief servant, probably the general of his trained force, his army…Eliezer (God is my Help). God, is this nation to come from him?

• You see Abram has a problem…and care, a concern, a confusion and so He takes it to the Lord…and that’s meaningful for me…because I can read God’s Word and I can know precisely perfectly what God is going to do but man sometimes I just can’t see it!!! HOW on earth is this going to work out…I’m concerned, I’m confused, I’m conflicted…That conversation does not create in God a heart or response of disappointment in my lack of faith…that conversation is between me and my Father whom I trust…make sense?
• Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your burden on the Lord and He shall sustain you!” And 1 Peter 5:6-7 says, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

Genesis Chapter 15 Verses 4 – 6

• Can you imagine the wonder of this scene. Ok, number one, you’re just parlaying with God Almighty…I mean verse 1 says this is a vision but this vision is physically engaging…like a dream within a dream…inception! SO COOL! And God brings him outside and shows him the night sky filled with stars. It’s been estimated that there could be as many as 10 trillion galaxies in the universe and 100 billion stars…and God says, look at that…that will be your decedents…Abram must have thought, “Far outtttt!” HA!
• The grandeur of this promise was absolutely inconceivable given Abram’s current age, his wife’s age, his situation and circumstance of no son currently and yet he gazed at those 100 billion dots of light and simply believed God. Beyond reason, beyond logic, beyond emotion, beyond comprehension…and yet well within the realm of his ability…that is the power of trust…
• If you can trust God, then whatever promise He makes to you, to your heart, to your life…you receive in freedom. Freedom from fear and doubt…not because you can figure it out or understand but because you can figure Him out…you can understand Him…that God loves you and that God is able to do whatever He desires and so trust…supersedes all of everything else…just like a child trusts his mom or his dad…
• And we see the first mention of the word righteousness in the Bible. The same way folks come to faith today…the same way folks are counted for righteous (to be correctly clothed) even today…simply believe God…and I love this, last chapter Abram met the King of Righteousness, right? Impossible to be counted for righteousness if you’ve never met it’s King…

Genesis Chapter 15 Verses 7 – 11

• This sounds odd but this is how lasting life-long covenants were made. You’d take a sacrifice, a picture of life, and you’d divide it among you and the other party…and then you’d walk through and around the divided life in a figure 8 sealing your promise and deal towards one another with life itself…

• And I love this detail, this point that is just thrown in here…and I’ve preached an entire sermon just on verse 11 in the past…because Abram was not commanded to do this…He was commanded to bring the sacrifices…and yet when the vultures came down, the birds of the air, the things of this world swooped in to distract and to defile what was meant for the Lord, Abram did what was not asked…he went to work…he drove them away! To protect what he had for the Lord against the crud of the air…an entire sermon there…

Genesis Chapter 15 Verses 12 – 16

• Moses and Aaron were the fourth generation from Abram and the children of Israel would be in Egypt for 400 years…Now, the Amorites were decedents of Canaan (who was a son of Ham) and they settled in the land of Canaan which includes modern day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel. What God says here actually sets up Joshua hundreds of years later as he is told by God to go into the Promised Land and basically wipe out the Amorites.
• The Amorites are spoken of as an idolatrous people in several places in the Bible but what is meant here by “their iniquity is not yet complete?” There are a couple of thoughts here. One simply is speaking of time. That in Abraham’s day it wasn’t yet time for the Amorite, the sinful nation, to be removed…but it was coming. The other thought is this idea of completeness of iniquity…or maturity of iniquity. When sin settles in, when it lives peacefully in the land without opposition or disturbance, then the time is ripe for God to act. As long as sin is not at peace, there is still a chance for repentance…

Genesis Chapter 15 Verses 17 – 21

• Notice this, don’t miss this. God set up the circumstance for a life lasting covenant with Abram and then when it came time to walk the commitment, Abram slept. Entering into a binding contract, (this is where the term to “cut a deal” came from), the binding covenant between God and man and yet truly it is just as we see here in this scene, God does it all…
• The smoking oven points us to the pillar of cloud by day and the burning torch reminds of the pillar of fire by night…a life lasting all day and all night…through the days of life when things are good…when our performance is good and through the nights of life when things are dark and we fail…God does not (fail) and neither does His covenant with us…His blood covenant…
• The covenant with God through Jesus Christ, you must receive this to fully walk in His grace and His awesome love, that covenant God signed alone. God established, we accept and if that is the case, which it is, the neither Abram nor I can break a contract that I never signed. It’s His blood alone on both signature lines…He’s the Promise Maker…I am to be the promise taker…or…no deal.