Abraham's Faith

[B-A-C]

A verse you hear quoted a lot is from Rom 4:9; usually you only hear the second half of this verse...
"Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness". ( Also Rom 4:3; )

But what does that mean? Abraham simply believed in God?

Abraham had four encounters with God. Let's take a look at them.
Before Abraham was Abraham... his name was Abram....
There's a reason for the name change. It seems God gave many people in the Bible new names.
Jacob was changed to Israel... Simon was changed to Peter... Saul was changed to Paul, etc...
There is a lot that could be said about that... but that's another subject.

In Gen 12; God says to Abram "Go forth from your own country, and away from your relatives, and away
from your father's house, to a land which I will show you."

In other words.. leave everything you know.. your land... your family... even your father.
And go some place... I'm not going to tell you where yet.

I wonder how many of us could do this today. Leave our jobs, our family, even our parents, all of our
friends, and go to a new land, a new country where we don't know anyone.
It takes faith to do this. Abram must have had a lot of faith in God in order to do this.

** Part of faith requires obedience. **

Not only did Abram have to believe God was going to take care of him. He had to actually get up
and leave everything. He had to go to a new place. God didn't even tell him "where" yet.

Another interesting thing, is the timing of this. Abram was already 75 years old when this happened ( Gen 12:4; )

So in Gen 12:5; it says Abram gathered up all his stuff and took his wife Sarai with him and they headed off to Canaan. (As we saw in a previous thread, Canaan was the grandson of Noah).

This was God's first encounter with Abraham (Abram).

It is talked about in Heb 11:8-9;
Heb 11:8; By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.
Heb 11:9; 9 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;

He "obeyed" God. Not even knowing where he was going... and he still obeyed. He did this by faith.
Not just the kind of faith that says "I believe in God".... but the kind of faith that says "I believe God
enough to obey him, even when it doesn't make sense, or it is difficult".

... next, God's second encounter with Abraham.

 

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A lot happens between Gen 12:1; and Gen 12:7;
But when we get to Gen 12:7; God tells Abram ... "I'm going to give all this land to your descendants".

Descendants? Hmmm... I'm at least 75 years old (we don't know how long it took for him to get there).
I don't have any children at all... and you're telling me that you're going to give this land full of evil
Canaanites to my descendants? There is a lot of those Canaanites.
But OK... God... if you say so... I will trust you.

Again... we see this is faith. In fact we see that Abram built an altar to God here ( Gen 12:7; )

In Gen 13; Abram and his brother Lot are in a place called Bethel...
but their servants and families aren't getting along together very well... so Abram decides to split up
from Lot and his people. He gives Lot the first choice of the land.
Lot choose the valley of the Jordan ( Gen 13:10; ) so Abram settled in the land of Canaan... ( Gen 13:12; )
It took a whole chapter for Abram to finally find out where he was supposed to settle.

In Gen 13:14; God comes to Abram the second time...
He tell Abram to look all around him... to the north, south, east and west... He tells Abram...
all the land for as far as you can see... I'm going to give it to your descendants. (forever) (verse 15)
In verse 17... God tells Abram to walk around the land... "For I will give it to you".

In verse 16... God makes another promise to Abram that was hinted at back in Gen 12; "I will make your
descendants as the dust of the earth, if anyone can count the number of of the grains of the dust, then
they will be able to count your descendants". ( verse 16 )

Remember... Abraham is past 75 now.. he still doesn't have any children.
But he takes God at his word... he builds a second altar here ( Gen 13:18; )

In the beginning of Gen 14; there is a war... it doesn't really involve Abram... but one of his relatives is taken
captive in this war. Abram sets out with 318 men to the land of Dan ( Gen 14:13; ) and defeats these people.
He rescues his relative and all his possessions and his family.

After Abram defeated these people... the kings of the people he defeated all get together and try to make a deal
with Abram, ( Gen 14:21; ) They say he can keep all the possessions for himself.. but they want him to give the
people that they had captured back to them.
Yet Abram doesn't really fall for this... he tells them, I don't want to take any of the possessions.
For fear you would say "I have made Abram rich" ( Gen 14:23; )

It seems like many people would have been willing to compromise here and make a deal with the enemy,
but Abram is faithful and stays obedient to God here. He doesn't take the stuff the kings offer him.
Again we see he trusted God to take care of him... He trusted God enough to be obedient.

** Faith requires obedience **

... next, another encounter.

 

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Now of course Abraham wasn't perfect...he made his mistakes.. as we all do.
There was that thing with Hagar... the consequences of that are still going on today with the whole
Arab-Israeli conflict.

In Gen 15:8; Abram asks God... "How do I know that I will really possess this land?"
So God tells Abram to bring a three year old female cow, a three year old female goat, a three year old ram, a tutrledove
and a pigeon... (Gen 15:9; )

Then he takes the large animals and cuts them in half... he lies to halves of the large animals across from each
other, with some space between them.

This is significant because back in those times... there were no lawyers to speak of. Most people didn't know
how to read. It may be difficult to believe, but there wasn't even any internet back then!
So covenants and legal agreements were made orally... a verbal promise and a handshake were legally binding.

One of the ways covenants were done, was to cut large animals in half. (This is still done even today in some
cultures). Then both parties of the agreement would walk together between the halves of the animals...

In effect what they were promising each other was something like.. "If I break my part of the agreement, then I hope
that what happened to this animal happens to me". If I break the covenant, I hope to die.
When I was a kid... we would sometimes promise to each other... "cross my heart and hope to die". Many of those
promises were broken... hopefully God will give us mercy on those promises we made as children.
(There is a lot that could be said about making promises to God, as immature "children" ( Christians that are new
in the Lord ) but we will save that for another time.

It says some vultures tried to come down and eat the animals.. but Abram drove them away. ( Gen 15:11; )

Now God causes Abram to fall asleep... It seems that Abram has a dream here.
God tells Abram... "this is how you will know for certain that I will give the land to your descendants" ( Gen 15:13; )
God also tells Abram that his descendants will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years before they get the land ( Gen 15:13; )

We know this happened between the time of Joseph... and the time of Moses. (approx 400 years)
and finally Moses leads the Israelites back out of slavery in Egypt to the promised land (Canaan).
God tells Abram... that he will live until an old age ( Gen 15:15; ) there is also mention of the sins of the
Amorites (it is not yet complete)... a lot could be said about that also.. but I need to stay on track here.

Anyway... back to the covenant dream...
In verse 17 it says... a smoking oven and a flaming torch appeared... this oven and torch were passing between the pieces
of the animals that were cut in half. ( Gen 15:17; )
Gen 15:18; On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying "To your descendants I have given this land..... "

Wow!! What great passage... we see several things going on here.
God din't let Abram walk between the animal halves with Him. He did it alone. What God was doing here was...
saying you don't have to do anything for this covenant. I am taking responsibility for both sides of the agreement.

Some people take this to mean that we don't have to do anything in order for God to keep his agreement
with us. Some people take this to include salvation, but yet in 3 out of 4 of the encounters... Abraham had
to be obedient. This was the only one where God took responsibility for both sides.

In fact in Hebrews 6:13-19; it says....

Heb 6:13; For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,
Heb 6:14; saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.”
Heb 6:15; And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.
Heb 6:16; For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.
Heb 6:17; In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,
Heb 6:18; so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.
Heb 6:19; This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil,

God made a promise with Abraham... He looked around and couldn't find anything or anyone greater than Himself..
so He just swore on Himself. ( verse 13 ) we are supposed to swear on things greater than ourselves, but nothing
is greater than God ( verse 16 )

God showed the heirs (that is us who have an inheritance in Christ) the unchangeableness (permanence, unalterable)
purpose. He even made an oath to it!! For those of us who have refuge in God. Those who have put their hope and faith in Him.
( verse 18 )
This hope is the anchor for our soul!!! Christ is our anchor!!!

Now of course some people put their faith and trust in other "anchors". Their bank account, their family,
their friends, alcohol, or whatever it might be. But any anchor other than Jesus is a false anchor.
This is the promise that God will uphold his part.

God knew that Abraham wouldn't have been able to keep his side of the agreement 100%. He knew that
Abraham would fail sometimes ( like with Hagar, and the time he lied about Sarah being his sister, etc... )
So God promised... I will take care of my side.. even if you don't take care of your side.

It's still that way today. God knows we aren't perfect. He knows we fail sometimes.
But He still keeps His side of the covenant.

... next, ... another encounter.

 

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In Genesis 17; God changes Abram's name to Abraham. The reason for this is given in Gen 17:5;

Not only does God change Abram's name.. but he also changes Sarai's name to Sarah ( Gen 17:15; )

A lot of time has gone by since God first made His first promise to Abram... we saw in post #1, that
Abram was 75 years old. Now 24 years later... God is moving again. Abraham never lost his trust in God
during this time. Abraham is 99 years old now ( Gen 17:1; )

God establishes yet another covenant between Him and Abraham ( Gen 17; )
Part of this particular covenant required circumcision. ( Gen 17:10-11; )
Again... it required obedience... There was something a person had to do in order to be under the covenant.
(They had to be circumcised). Even non-Jews (Gentiles) had to be circumcised ( Gen 17:12-14; )

We are starting to see that Abraham had a lot of faith in God.
He left all his family, relatives, his land and everything to go to a place... ( he didn't even know here)
but He was obedient to God and went. It wasn't just having faith in God. It was having enough faith in God
to be obedient to Him.

Now God tells Abraham that all of his descendants have to be circumcised. Even his non-Jewish servants
and slaves have to be circumcised. I can't imagine many thing being more painful than this.
They didn't have anesthesia back then. No pills or drugs to take away the pain. Not even really skilled
doctors with multiple degrees and computer controlled lasers to do this quickly and painlessly.

Yet in all of this Abraham continued to be obedient.
Are we willing to trust God that much? Are we willing to be obedient to Him. Even when it's difficult.
Even when it doesn't make sense? Even when it could be painful?

No wonder Abraham's faith was counted a righteousness.

... next... the final encounter.

 

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At least 25 years have gone by now. Abraham is 100 years old. Sarah is at least 90.
They still have no children... but yet somehow... someway.. they still have faith that God
is going to give them descendants.

I wonder how many of us could keep our faith in God that long. Could we keep believing in something
that was promised to us 25 years ago? Even after we are physically too old for that promise to come true.

In Gen 18; we see that three angels appear before Abraham.
They ask him about his wife Sarah ( verse 9 )

In Gen 18:9-15; we see what Sarah thought about having a child. Yet she is told, within the next year
she will have a child.

(in the meantime... most likely while she is pregnant... we see the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This is off topic... so I won't really go there right now.

I said earlier Abraham wasn't perfect. We know he got into trouble by having
a son from Hagar. Another place Abraham wasn't entirely honest was when we was
traveling through Gerar. He lied to king Abimelech about Sarah being his sister.

But finally in Genesis 21... Abraham finally has a son. he names him Isaac.
It's been over 25 years (Abraham was 75 back then, now he is over 100 ) since God promised him
descendants way back in Genesis 12. Nine chapters later it finally happens. God finally gives
Abraham a son.

Now of course Abraham already had a son from Hagar... and that's another story. But Isaac was
the son of Abraham and Sarah. He was the promised son. (In fact all through the Bible, we see
the promise of a son from God... that would be a great study in itself).

Now after Abraham has gone through all of this... (and a lot more we skipped over)
You would think he and God would be done with each other. But yet God still has something for Abraham to do.

In Genesis 22.... God asks Abraham to take his promised son.. his "only" son (Gen 22:2; ) and sacrifice him.
Offer him up as a burnt offering to God.

Now a lot of people get hung up on this... how could a loving God ask someone to kill their only child.
They even question why Abraham would go along with it.

And that's the problem... we start to question God when it's difficult or doesn't make sense.
We fail to recognize God as God. If He is truly our Lord, truly our King... we need to obey Him.
No matter what. If we say he is our Lord, our King... then we need to obey him. ( Luke 6:46; )

We could even wonder why a loving God would have his own son sacrificed.

Yet even in this... Abraham is faithful and obedient. After over 25 years of waiting for a son.
Of waiting for a way to have descendants... God tells him to kill his only son. It would take an amazing
amount of faith for me to do this. I honestly don't know if I could. I would like to think I could be that
obedient to God. But I guess none of us know for sure until we are put into that circumstance.
Fortunately, I doubt God will ask any of us to do that.

In Gen 22:10; it says Abraham took the sacrifice knife and stretched forth his hand to slay his son.

Abraham was willing to do this... simply because God told him to.

Finally in the last second... God tells Abraham not to do it. He tested Abraham to see if he would really do it.
He saw that Abraham was willing to be obedient yet again after all these years.

In verse 12 God tells Abraham... "now I know that you fear God. You didn't even withhold your only son from me".

Yet again.. Abraham obeys God.

They find a ram stuck in a bush and sacrifice the ram to God.
Abraham names that place "The Lord will provide". ( Gen 22:14; )
There is a whole sermon that could be taught... on how we experience God sometimes, and how He provides for us in some circumstances.

But the point here... back to where we started.
Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness.
The faith that Abraham had.. wasn't only that there was a God.
The faith that Abraham had... was trust in God to the point of obeying him... even when it was difficult or didn't make sense.

Abraham's faith was tested. It passed the test ( Heb 11:17; )

No wonder his faith was counted a righteousness. ( James 2:21-23; )

 

[amadeus2]

In Genesis 22.... God asks Abraham to take his promised son.. his "only" son (Gen 22:2; ) and sacrifice him.
Offer him up as a burnt offering to God.

Now a lot of people get hung up on this... how could a loving God ask someone to kill their only child.
They even question why Abraham would go along with it.

And that's the problem... we start to question God when it's difficult or doesn't make sense.
We fail to recognize God as God. If He is truly our Lord, truly our King... we need to obey Him.
No matter what. If we say he is our Lord, our King... then we need to obey him. ( Luke 6:46; )

Yes, God is always God even when we don't understand why He is doing something or saying something. We need to love the Truth of God even when we cannot completely see it or understand it. To do otherwise may well cause ourselves to be deluded:

"And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:" II Thess 2:10-11