Abram was called by God to be the common ancestor or a great nation. But unfortunately, the poor dude’s wife is unable to have children. So uh…

 

How does that work out?

 

Well, apparently God knows more that Abram and he’s just going to have to trust Him.

 

Sometime after Abram had defeated 4 kingdoms worth of warriors with a little over 300 people (his servants nonetheless), God spoke to him in a vision.

 

“Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.”

 

I wonder what is going through Abram’s mind right there. I think I know what I’d be thinking. “Dude! My wife can’t have babies! How am I supposed to create a nation without being able to actually create something?”

 

Oh hey, that’s actually not to far off from what Abram’s thinking. Shocker! But he does reply much more humbly:

 

“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.”

 

Wait… who?

 

Well, back in the old school days the custom was that if you didn’t or couldn’t have any children then your heir would be your most trusted (and possibly the oldest) servant. This would make the servant be like Abram’s adopted son in a sense. Still, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that God would bring a great nation out of Abram, but not by his own blood.

 

“No, your servant won’t be your heir,” God said. “You will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” God took Abram outside to take a look at the skies. “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”

 

This verse is kind of like Genesis 13:6 when God told Abram that he would give Abram “so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted!”

 

Whether dust, or stars, or star dust; the idea is that Abram is going to have quite a few kiddies. Perhaps you’ve heard the song Father Abraham? This is who they were talking about, not Lincoln as I tried to figure out as a little kid.

 

I still think that I would be a little confused as to how these babies were supposed to come about, but Abram is a strong man in faith and he believed God. And because of that God counted him as righteous. That’s some serious faith and patience.

 

God reminded Abram, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur the Chaldeans (his hometown if you don’t remember) to give you this land as your possession.”

 

And here we have another issue of faith and patience. Not only is the man supposed to have children when his wife is barren, but he is supposed to possess all of the land that is already possessed by other people. And you thought you had faith? Try finding the brain power to wrap your head around everything that Abram is supposed to get!

 

And Abram wonders about this idea of gaining this land. “O Sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?”

 

And God brings him what seems like a rather peculiar answer:

 

“Bring me a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram (rams are male), a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 

 

And here we have a sacrifice given to God. Another test of faith. This really helps turn a relationship with God into a love relationship if you think about it. There is something physical that God would like for Abram to bring to Him. Something that God finds to have a pleasing aroma (Lev. 1:14). So Abram shows God how much he loves Him by doing so. Abram killed them, cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side (but he didn’t cut the birds in half). Some vultures tried to swoop up the dead carcasses but Abram chased them away.

 

As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep and it’s written that a terrifying darkness came over him. And now God foreshadows the story of Moses to Abram. 

 

God speaks to him, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years.” 

 

Okay, so not very comforting.

 

“But, I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.”

 

Oh, that’s better!

 

“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.”

 

Ah… So Abram will not be around to see this even take place, but he will give be the reason that the event CAN take place. That’s really a pretty important position when you think about it. Even if he ends up missing out on the exciting part of the journey, he has been called by God because he was righteous enough for God to use in this way. He was righteous enough for God to bring a righteous family out of him. And now we know that He can’t use Abram to gain the land at the current time, because the people living in it aren’t quite evil enough to have reason to destroy them. But God apparently knows the future having given Abram this vision and He knows that the Amorites are headed down the right path to gain reason to be destroyed.

 

When the sun was gone and darkness came, something rather strange happened. Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. Probably quite a site to see. Then again, Abram’s probably getting used to seeing some crazy things. But God made a covenant with Abram after this had happened:

 

“I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River— the land now occupied by the Kenites Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites,Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

 

The land of ten other tribes, eh? I’d say that that is quite a bit of space to live in.

 

And here we see that Abram’s faith brings him quite a reward. That’s where we’ll off for now—that’s where we’ll continue when we come back.

 

 

Genesis 15