Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

Well thank you for joining me on this episode where we are going to continue through the book of Genesis. We’re continuing through the story of Abram.

And if you remember from last episode, Abram had gone to battle against a Babylonian king or a Chaldean king from the land of Babylon who had captured his nephew from the king of Sodom. He won the battle, rescued his nephew Lot, and brought him back. And on his way back met Melchizedek, who was the king and priest of Yahweh. He was the king of Salem and the priest of God Most High. And there Abram was blessed by Melchizedek.

So now we continue on with the story. And in Genesis 15, it starts out with a dream. And God appears in a dream to Abram. And he says, “Do not fear, for I am your shield, and your reward shall be great.”

Remember, God comes to Abram in this dream after winning this battle against this high king, this king of kings, so to speak. And so Abram questions God after God tells him this, and God says that his offspring will be as the stars in the heavens. And then we’re told that Abram believed God.

So then we get into a covenant that God makes with Abram, and Abram questions God again. So God tells Abram to bring a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And these five animals represent God’s grace and goodness to people. That number five is representative of God’s grace. This is God’s grace in action. God doesn’t need to do this. Abram doesn’t deserve anything. Abram didn’t do anything to deserve this covenant. God is making this covenant with Abram out of a desire to choose a family among the human race and call them out and claim them as his own. This is all because of God’s grace. So that’s what that number five represents.

So we have five different animals. That’s what those five animals represent. So Abram gathers the animals and he cuts them all in half except for the birds. And then he falls asleep and a dreadful and great darkness comes upon him at which point God provides some new information from the blessing that he has given Abram in the past.

He says that Abram’s offspring will be sojourners and servants in another land. He tells them that they’re going to be afflicted for 400 years, but God is going to judge that nation and bring them back. And the reason is because the sin of the Amorites had not yet reached its fullness. And the Amorites were the people that were living in the land of Canaan at the time that Abram was there. So God is saying that their sin had not yet reached its fullness, was not yet mature. In other words, God wanted to give them time to repent. He wanted to give them time to either repent or fully commit to their sin.

So then, a smoking pot and burning torch pass through the animal pieces. God promises to give Abram the land of 10 different nations and he lists these nations, which are the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites. So these ten nations are all Canaanite nations or Canaanite tribes and God lists ten to say that God has complete authority over these nations. He’s saying that this is not necessarily a comprehensive list of every single Canaanite tribe. What he’s saying is that, “These Canaanite tribes, this land of Canaan is mine to give away and I will give it to whom I please.”

Because remember, if you remember in past episodes, we’ve talked about the number 10. The number 10 refers to God’s complete authority over a thing. So by listing 10 nations, God is saying, “I have complete authority over this land of Canaan. This is mine to give away. And Abram, I’m choosing to give it to you.”

Alright, so let’s break this chapter down a little bit deeper.

So in verse 1, the Lord comes to Abram in a vision or in a dream and he says, “Fear not.”

Of course then, we should ask ourselves the question, why would Abram be afraid? What is he afraid of? What we have to remember is Abram had just defeated four Babylonian kings. These were very powerful kings at the time and so he could potentially fear retaliation from these kings.

So God comes to him and says, “Abram, fear not. I’m gonna be your shield. I’m gonna protect you against these evil kings.”

And he says, “Abram, I’m gonna be your reward.”

Remember in the previous chapter, Abram had given up his reward from the battle. It was the custom of those days that when you went to battle, you would take whatever you wanted from the city or from the army that you defeated. You would take the spoil, you would take the women, you would take the gold, you would take the idols, you would take whatever you wanted as the spoil. That’s your reward. That’s how soldiers got paid in those days, essentially.

And Abram took all those things in battle and took them back with him, but he returned them to the king of Sodom. He said, I don’t want these things. He said to the king of Sodom, I don’t want you to make me rich. And so he gave up his reward from the battle that was rightfully his, at least in the eyes of the people in those days. They would have considered those things rightfully belonging to Abram.

So he gave it up and God said, “I will be your reward.”

So God makes Abram this promise.

And in verse two, Abram questions God.

This promise that God gave to Abram saying, “I’m going to be your shield and your reward,” it brings to mind another promise that God had previously made. And in effect, Abram is saying, “God, you’re saying that you will be my reward, but what is that gonna be? That reward that you promised years ago still hasn’t happened. I still don’t have the child that you promised. The heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.”

He’s a Syrian. He’s not even a Hebrew. He’s not even in Abram’s family. He says, “You have given me no offspring,” in verse three. And he says, “A member of my household will be my heir.”

We would think that Abram is doubting God right now. And in truth, he is. He’s saying, “Lord, you promised to be my reward, but you haven’t given me the reward that you promised years ago.”

But there’s two different kinds of doubt. There is doubt that denies that God made a promise. So Abram here could be saying, “God, I don’t even believe that you even made this promise. Either you are lying or I imagined it.”

But there’s also doubt that creates an increased desire for God’s promise. And that’s what Abram is saying here. He’s saying, “Lord, you promised me this years ago. I know you did. But you still haven’t brought it about. And I don’t know if you’re going to bring it about. I don’t know if you’re going to keep your promise, but I want what you promised me.”

So he’s struggling with his faith right now. He’s struggling with doubt, but that doubt is increasing his desire to receive what God had promised him. By doing so, he’s appealing to God’s character. He’s saying, “God, you are one who keeps your promises, but you haven’t kept your promise. Are you going to keep your promise?”

So then in verse four, God tells Abram, “Don’t worry, this man of your household is not gonna become your heir. You’re gonna have a son that will become your heir.”

And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and the stars. That’s what your offspring will be like. You will be unable to count them.”

So in verse six, it says that Abram believed the Lord. He had overcome that doubt and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness.

So the wording here is very important. First it says he believed the Lord. We talk in our modern society a lot about believing in God.

“Do you believe in God?”

“Yes, I believe in God.”

“Okay, that’s good enough for me.”

You know, I mean, that’s how we talk. That’s how we evaluate people’s relationship with the Lord many times. If somebody says, “I believe in God,” that’s good enough for us.

But the wording here doesn’t say that Abram believed in God. He said Abram believed God. Meaning Abram believed God’s word. He believed his character. He believed his nature. He believed that God is who he says he is and that God will do what he says he will do.

That is very different from believing in God. Believing in God just acknowledges that God is there. And in fact, in James 2:19, he says: You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe – and shudder!

It’s not enough to believe that God exists. It’s not enough to believe that God is God. It’s not enough to believe that God is supreme. Even the demons believe that. In fact, the demons believe it far better than we do. We need to believe God.

So Abram believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. I think it’s interesting here that this word righteousness is used because we just finished up chapter five and we just met Melchizedek who is the king of righteousness who blessed Abram. And at the same time Abram blessed the king of righteousness. Now Abram believed God and was blessed with righteousness. So that interaction with Melchizedek, the king of righteousness and the king of peace, this interaction where Abram and the king blessed each other. Now Abram is being blessed with righteousness.

And in verse seven, God says, “I give you this land to possess,” just like he gave the land to Adam and Eve. It’s the same concept. It’s not the exact same word, but it’s the same concept. The Lord gave Adam and Eve the garden and told them to subdue the land. That’s the same concept as possessing the land. In order to possess it, you have to subdue it. In order to subdue it, you have to go and take possession. So it’s the same concept here. God gave the land to Adam and Eve to possess. And now God is giving Abram the land to possess.

So it’s like a new Eden. That’s the parallel here. He’s saying that, “This promised land, this land that I’m promising to you and your offspring, it’s like a new Eden. This is going to be the place where my presence will dwell. Just like I walked with Adam and Eden, I’m gonna walk with you in this land. Just like I dwelt with people in the garden, I’m gonna dwell with my people in this land.”

And of course, later on after the Exodus, God led the Israelites to this land and he dwelt with them in the form of the cloud and the fire. And then when they reached the land, they built the Ark of the Covenant and his presence, God’s presence, his very presence dwelt on that Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies.

And one day, Jesus is going to come, he’s gonna return, and he’s gonna dwell in Jerusalem. He’s gonna rule the entire earth from Jerusalem in an Eden-like city. So the parallels go all the way from the beginning to the end here. Just from this one phrase, giving Abram the land to possess.

And in verse eight Abram says, “Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

Essentially, he’s saying, “God, give me a sign. How am I supposed to know this? Give me a sign that I can be confident in that I’m going to possess this land.”

And so God responds with making a covenant with Abram. The covenant is more than just a contract, like we would think of a contract. The covenant between two parties is often sealed in blood. Animals were usually cut in half and the two parties would walk through the pieces declaring the terms of the covenant. And so this is saying these are the consequences if one party doesn’t fulfill the terms. If this covenant is broken, this is what’s going to happen to that person.

So it was a very somber, very serious thing to enter into a covenant with a person like this. It wasn’t just like signing a contract and one day you decide, “Ah, I’m gonna back out of this contract and maybe there’ll be a financial penalty,” but you can get out of it. That’s not how it was with a covenant. If you entered into a covenant, you fulfilled that covenant or there could be serious and significant consequences.

So after they would walk through the two pieces, then the animals were roasted and the two parties to the covenant ate the meat. So God, by doing this covenant this way, it shows that he’s very serious. It shows that he is going to fulfill the terms of this covenant. Abram can count on that.

So Abram got the animals, he cut them in half, laid them down.

And in verse 12, it says that a dreadful and great darkness fell upon Abram. Meaning that Abram felt terror at God’s presence. This is the fear of the Lord.

We should take this seriously. That, you know, many times we talk about the fear of the Lord as awe and respect and, you know, just recognizing his sovereignty and this passage shows us that there’s much more to fearing the Lord than this. God is terrifying. Being in the Lord’s presence is a terrifying thing.

There’s many other examples in the Bible of people encountering God’s presence and being absolutely terrified and being driven down to the ground in terror and in fear. So we should remember this as we talk about and think about the fear of the Lord. This is an important aspect.

In verse 13, the Lord says to Abram, he says, “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 400 years.”

This is talking about 400 years from the time that Isaac is weaned to when Israel leaves Egypt. So Isaac will be weaned. He will grow up, have a son named Jacob. Jacob will have 12 sons and then they will go down to Egypt and live there and four hundred years later they will return. So it’s going to be four hundred years from the time Isaac is weaned because only four generations will be away from the land.

That’s important because otherwise the math doesn’t work out, and I haven’t done the math, so it’s possible that the genealogy is also incomplete in the book of Exodus. But it tells us that Levi is the son of Jacob that leaves the land of Canaan, goes down to Egypt with his family. He has a son named Kohath. Kohath has a son named Amram and then Amram has a son named Moses.

And if we take into the account that people were still living quite a bit longer back then than they do now, Abram lived to over 170 years old. Isaac lived quite a long time as well. Jacob lived, I believe, 130, 140 years old somewhere around there. I didn’t look these numbers up, so don’t quote me on that. But those three generations lived quite a long time. And then Moses, of course, lived 80 years before he led Israel out of Egypt.

So if you consider the length of life of Isaac and Jacob before either of them had children, and then the length of time that Moses lived before leading Israel out of Egypt, you take care of half of that 400 years or close to it. But again, it’s entirely possible that the genealogy is incomplete and that there could be more generations that live in Egypt.

And remember that that was common practice for Hebrews to do in those days is to not complete the genealogies, to leave people out for the purposes of making a point. And here that point would be that there’s four generations to give time for the Amorites to either repent or to fully embrace their sin. And the 400 years, of course, is 40 times 10. 40 being a number of testing. We see that many times in the Bible. Israel is in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus is in the wilderness for 40 days. The rains fall for 40 days and 40 nights.

So 40 representing period of testing, and then 10 of course representing God’s authority. So that 40 times 10 represents an extended period of testing to establish God’s authority over the Amorites. So God is giving them 400 years, an extended period of time where they will be tested so that God can show his authority to say it is time for these people to be removed from the land.

Moving on, in verse 16, “They shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

We talked about that fourth generation already. The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. That word iniquity means crookedness or twistedness. If you’ve ever read the Bible and seen the word iniquity, I’ve always wondered what that means. That’s what it means. It means their way is crooked. Their way is twisted.

And so God is saying that sin is going to reach its fullness one day with the Amorites and God is going to wait to deal with it until then. He’s going to give them time and he’s going to wait until it’s reached its fullness before he deals with it.

And we can see this in the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30. Jesus tells this parable saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”

So Jesus is saying in this, and this is a different context, so he’s talking about a different group of people, but the concept is the same in that God will wait to deal with sin until both sin and righteousness has fully matured, because if he deals with sin early, he risks taking out the righteous along with the wicked. So he will allow wickedness to grow so that he can reap his harvest at the same time and not risk damaging or destroying the righteous along with the wicked.

Number 17, there’s a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. The text here doesn’t exactly give us any indication of what those are, but in context of the rest of the Bible, we can figure out that this is actually God’s presence manifested as smoke and fire.

And we see this many, many times throughout the Bible. We see that he’s a pillar of cloud in Exodus 13. He manifested himself as smoke at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 and then in 1 Kings 8 he manifests himself as a cloud of glory in the temple We also see God’s presence being manifested as fire many times I already mentioned in Exodus 13 that he went before them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night He also appeared to Moses as a burning bush in Exodus 3. We also see flame that consumes sacrifices throughout the Bible.

And lastly, have Ezekiel’s vision of the throne of God in chapter one, verses 26 through 27: Above the expanse over their heads, there was a likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him.

This is just a sampling of the examples in scripture of God manifesting himself as cloud and fire. So I believe that’s what this smoking fire pot and flaming torch actually are. I believe this is the manifest presence of God walking through these two pieces.

So it says that they pass between the pieces. Now remember, I mentioned earlier that when two people would make a covenant between them, they would both pass through the pieces. But notice here that is a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passing through the pieces. There are two entities passing through the pieces, but neither one of them is Abram. Abram did not pass through to make this covenant. God made the covenant with himself.

So when Abram asked for a sign that this would happen, that this promise that God was giving him would happen, God made a covenant with Abram, but he didn’t actually make Abram agree to any of the terms of the covenant. God is making this covenant with himself. This is the sign that Abram asked for because God’s word cannot be broken.

Not only that, his word is not dependent on Abram in any way. There is nothing in this covenant that is dependent on Abram fulfilling his end of the covenant. It is completely dependent on God and God’s word cannot be broken.

So in verse 18 it says, the Lord made a covenant with Abram. But really what happened is that the Lord made a covenant with himself and Abram entered into it, which means that God put his own deity on the line if he broke this covenant. If God makes this covenant with Abram and says, “I’m going to do this,” and he doesn’t do it, now God is not who he says he is. He’s putting his own reputation on the line. That’s the guarantee that Abram is receiving here. He can’t get a better guarantee than that.

So he makes the covenant with Abram and he says, “To your offspring I give this land.”

And this is a specific promise. It’s a physical, not a spiritual promise. There’s no way to interpret this spiritually, which is important for us. And the reason is because God says, “I’m going to give you this land, from the river of Egypt,” or the Nile, “to the great river, river Euphrates.”

That’s a very specific promise of specific land that God is giving Abram and his offspring. Israel has only possessed all this territory maybe once or twice and even then if so only briefly. Meaning if God made this covenant with Abram and put his deity on the line by saying I’m going to give you this specific land and to this day in 2023 that promise still hasn’t been fulfilled that either means God is a liar or that Israel will still possess that land one day in the future.

So that, to me, refutes any sort of replacement theology. Meaning, there’s many people, and maybe I have some listeners, that believe that Israel has been replaced by the Church. That the Church now possesses all of the promises that have been made to Israel. Israel has been rejected by God. They are no longer His chosen people and the church is now the new Israel.

But I believe that this verse makes that impossible. This promise has not yet been fulfilled from God, which means there is only two options, as I mentioned. One option is that God is a liar and made a promise he can’t keep, which I refuse to accept. I don’t believe that’s the case at all. I believe God will fulfill this promise. I believe that the continued reminder from the prophets that this promise will be fulfilled is littered all through scripture. And if you haven’t seen that, you will, especially as we get to the prophets one day in many, many years from now, maybe, depending on how long this podcast takes.

But I believe that there’s a future day that Israel will possess this land, that the physical, ethnic nation of Israel will possess this physical boundary from the Nile River to the Euphrates after a time of darkness which we know as the church age. It’s going to be the time either right before or right after Jesus comes back. I don’t know exactly the timing of when they’ll possess this land, but they will possess this land one day.

So how does this all point to Jesus?

We’ve talked about several ways already. I’m not going to reiterate all of those, but I do want to add a few more.

Abram, first Abram believed God and was counted to him as righteousness. And this right here is the gospel of grace. If we believe that Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient, then we receive his righteousness. Just as Abram believed God and received righteousness, we believe Jesus’ and we receive His righteousness. That’s what grace is all about.

And then of course, there is the covenant that was made with blood. God made this covenant with Himself. He did not make Abram walk through those pieces as I talked about. That covenant was not dependent on Abram.

And Jesus made a new covenant with His blood. And that covenant is not dependent on what we do. It’s not dependent on us in any way. But we enter in by faith. Just as Abram entered in by faith, we enter in to the covenant with Jesus.

Alright, so some questions for reflection.

Before I get to these questions, if you’d like to download the study guide for this, so you can write down your answers. I’ve also got additional study questions on there that you can go through that I’m not gonna go through right now. If you’d like to download that, can subscribe on the website for only $6 a month and receive access to all past, present, and future study guides. And then all you have to do is just go to the chapter study guides page on my website, http://www.beyondthebasics.blog., log in and download these study guides right from the website. So go ahead and do that if you want to download the study guide and follow along with the questions.

So the first question is, is it okay to question God regarding his promises?

What is the proper response to doubt?

What can we learn from Abraham as we wait for God’s promises in our own lives? And if you’re not driving, check out Hebrews 6:11-12 when you answer that question.

In what way does God extend grace in His covenant to Abram? How does this relate to the grace He gives in the new covenant?

What does God’s covenant say about His faithfulness? What does it say about the reliability of His Word?

Why does God wait until sin has fully matured on a national level before dealing with it?

And lastly, what then can we infer about God’s promises regarding the borders of Israel? What does this mean for the future of that nation?

These last couple questions, of course, I talked about my thoughts on those a little bit, but go ahead and write your thoughts down. Reflect on that a little bit. Don’t just take my word for it on those topics.

So thank you so much for listening to another episode. I would really appreciate it if you would support the show by clicking follow on whatever podcast app you’re using, subscribe, rate the show, leave a comment. All those things are great ways that you can support the show, help get the word out, tell your friends. My goal here is to hopefully reach people and encourage them and spur them on in their study of the Bible and draw them closer to Jesus. That’s my hope. That’s my goal with this podcast. So tell your friends, if you’re enjoying this, if you’re learning a lot, if you’re finding yourself drawn closer to Jesus, as a result of this podcast, tell somebody else and share with them how to listen so that they can hopefully experience the same thing. So thanks for listening.