How will I know when I get there?

Genesis 15:7-21

How often has it happened, someone shares a promise from God’s word, but my faith is to puny to believe God; it has happened more than I want you to know.  But not Abram, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”  God knows us, and not like your mate knows you, God knows our thoughts and the objective of our hearts, He knows the words that will come from your mouth before you speak.  Often God reminds us of where we came from or what He has just brought us through, that is what He is doing with Abram in verse 7, “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.”

Have you been given directions to a campsite or a place on the lake, and ask your friend, who is going before you, how will I know when I get there?  That is very similar to what Abram is asking God, it’s not that you do not trust your friend, it is more like you need a better understanding or you need a sign that says your are here.  Is that not what Abram is doing in verse 8, “But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall posses it?  Anytime we get a word from the Lord it is a test of faith, will I or will I not believe, but Abram believed God, he just wanted a sign. 

It looks like God is changing the subject, when in their conversation God tells Abram to, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a pigeon.”  After he has prepared the animals he cuts all of them in half, but he does not cut the birds in half, and now the birds of prey came to attack the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.  Next the Bible tells us as the sun was going down a deep sleep fell on Abram, and great darkness fell upon him, and God spoke this 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 four hundred years.  But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.  As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; 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.”

The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris gives this account on page 326, the second paragraph, “The ceremony not only confirmed the promise, but was highly instructive.  The provision of imputed righteousness and full salvation is altogether God’s gift of grace to man, but it would be highly costly to God.  The curse of sin can be removed only by sacrifice, in the shedding of blood.  Abram had known and practiced this, but now God stressed its necessary connection with His promise.  One each of the five acceptable sacrificial animals (cow, sheep, goat, pigeon, dove) was to be slain by Abram and laid on the altar.  The slain animals were placed in two rows, one bird in each, along with a half-portion of each of the other animals.  This arrangement was evidently intended to conform to the custom of the day, when a covenant was made between two parties; each would pass between the two rows, as a sign that he was bound by the terms of the contact.”           

Verse 18 gives us a good understanding of the covenant God made with Abram and his descendents, “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,”

and that covenant still stands to this day, our God is always faithful, always knowing, always loving, and He changes not.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice