Genesis 15 1 Some time later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.”
But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.”
4 Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”
And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.
7 Then the Lord told him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.”
8 But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?”
9 The Lord told him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
10 So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side; he did not, however, cut the birds in half. Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away. As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him.
13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”
After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt[a] to the great Euphrates River— the land now occupied by the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
..
sometimes God promises ..
Abram believed what God said
God considers that to be proof of Abram's allegiance
Abram asks God for assurance
God asks Abram for sacrifice
Abram prepares the sacrifice
vultures congregate to degrade it
Abram protects the sacrifice until God is ready ..
even though God calls for the sacrifice and
Abram obeys, God is not ready
Abram gets tired waiting on God and sleeps
(recall the disciples in Gethsemane)
darkness and terror nightmare
perhaps Abram doubts God now
(he believed at the first.. perhaps God is now
testing his belief that he asked God to confirm)
perhaps he thinks God has left him alone
the threat from without - vultures
the threat from within - terrifying darkness
God shows up in person
with a smoking firepot and a burning torch
to consume the sacrifice
to consummate the agreement God made
with Godself through Abraham
for humanity ..
God makes a covenant and assumes full
responsibility for both parties
so we would know with absolute
assurance that the Blessing is for us ..
God signed the contract as Party 1 and Party 2
..
thought ..
when God promises me something
and i accept that as a promise from God
then there will be external attacks (vultures)
and attacks from within (nightmares)
waiting is challenging ..
we must protect the promise from vultures
and we must be careful to trust when we get tired
we persevere
because God is faithful
God will show up
and vindicate the promise
i can trust God
lean on that ..
amen
