This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 21, 1995.

This morning we are reading from Genesis chapter 15. Genesis chapter 15. And I will say something as well about this reading. I am looking at this chapter because of its sixth verse. which bears particularly upon our sermons in Habakkuk. You might recall Habakkuk 2.4, the passage that I quoted this morning as we began our service.

So we are turning to Genesis 15 because of the relationship of this passage to Habakkuk 2.4, even though in the course of the sermon we will not be making direct reference to Habakkuk There is something else I want to say at the beginning. This sermon will move through the entirety of this chapter, and it behooves you to pay attention, because I’m not always going to be mentioning the verse that I’m commenting on. So listen carefully and follow carefully as I read and as I preach.

After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great. And Abram said, O Lord God, what wilt thou give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Since thou hast given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.

Then, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This man will not be your heir, but one who shall come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.” And he took him outside and said, Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And he said to him, So shall your descendants be. Then he believed in the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it. And he said, O Lord God, how may I know that I shall possess it?

So he said to him, bring me a three-year-old heifer and a three-year-old female goat. and a three-year-old ram, and a turtle-dog, and a young pigeon. Then he brought all these to him, and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds. And the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. And God said to Abram, Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.

But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. And as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” And it came about, when the sun had set, that it was very dark. And behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenite, and the Kenozite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizite, and the Rephiene, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Gergesite, and the Jebusite.

Father, train us to prepare our souls for your word, even day by day as we rehearse your word and build upon those things that we have learned in corporate assembly with your people. May we not despise your word by not then giving our full attention to it. But rather, our Father, may you have our full attention as you speak to us. May it please you, our God, to strengthen your own, that your church might be preserved and preserved well as she is nourished by the Word. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

After Abram, we turned to Canaan. Having defeated the five kings from the east at Hobab, and having rescued his captured nephew Lot, having paid his tithe to Melchizedek, the king of Salem, and refused the riches of the king of Sodom, All of this presented to us in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. After Abram returned to Canaan, he dwelt again at Hebron. Abram was a shepherd king.

He owned no land in the territory of Canaan. He was a wanderer, a sojourner, an alien. He was nomadic in his lifestyle. And yet he was a great man in the country. Wealthy. accepted, sometimes grudgingly, honored, powerful, and now, in the aftermath of the events that took place in Chapter 14, feared, because he was fierce in battle. Abram, it seems, should be a settled and a secure man. And possibly, from what his neighbors can tell, he is just that—a settled and secure man, a man at peace, surely with himself and with the world around him.

And that despite the fact that he lacks establishment in the land—he owns no property. Here, then, should be a man untroubled, calm, serene, that he who knows the heart, he who does not look upon the outward appearance only, but sees that which is unseen. He who knows the heart best sees the troubled and trembling soul inside the man. He who knows the heart best feels the aching discontent, unperceived by others.

Abram, bold before men, even now it is proved a brave warrior. This man is shaken in life, and maybe that particularly after his conquest, after his victory. Knowing the elation of triumph, he now realizes that there is that within his soul that tends towards vanity and pride. Being at the height, why not think? it all emanates from within. Or having achieved the height, sensing an emptiness, a hollowness, as if one has not reached the end, the completion, as yet. bold before men, even a brave warrior shaken in and by life, unnerved by its continual questions—questions about meaning and such things as permanence, progeny, and the propriety of claims to righteousness.

And that night, telling us more than the fact that the sun had gone down, in the night the Lord comes. The Lord comes with the stars of heaven. He comes in a vision. And that vision is for the purpose of ministering to this man. The Lord’s word bringing comfort, even good news, to this beloved, chosen, old, but troubled man.

Don’t be afraid, Abram, says the Lord. Don’t be afraid. I am your protection, and I myself am your very great reward. You may have turned your back upon the wealth of Sodom as the king of Sodom offered that to you as your reward. Think nothing of it. In turning your back upon that reward, you have turned your back upon the King of Sodom himself, and even insulted him. Had you taken the reward from his hand, that would have meant that he would have been your protector. Some protector, the King of Sodom. At the same time, it leaves you somewhat unprotected out in the countryside where you live. But the Lord says to Abraham, don’t be afraid, I am your protection, I am your very great reward. In response, Abraham asks for a token of the Lord’s intention toward him.

As of yet, he has no child. He has longed for a child, but there is no child. His servant, Eliezer of Damascus, is the heir in his household. It seems as if the earlier promises made to Abram have fallen to the ground. They remain unfulfilled. The Lord now tells Abram, not a liaison, not your servant, but a child generated from your own body. This one shall be your heir. Then the Lord takes Abram outside. And he tells Abram to look up, to look to the heavens.

Indeed, look to the regions from whence your help will come. From beyond this world your help will come. It will come from a country and a city far better than the ones that you had left behind. It will come from a country, from a city, far better than those that are offered to you presently where you are dwelling. Now look to the heavens, Abram, and count the stars, if you can. Your children will be as many, and as the stars in the heavens, so shall your children be. They shall be heavenly children, supernaturally born, who belong to the heavens.

Undoubtedly, this old man was overwhelmed by what was transpiring, by what he was seeing and by what he was hearing. The vision of God, God’s words, serving as their own seal of all Abram hoped for in his soul. Surely, in that moment, Abram was overcome by things too wonderful for him, far beyond what he could take in, for it was as if eternity itself had overtaken time, and the things that he could not see had overtaken the things that he could, beyond the bewildering beauty of the night sky. Abraham perceived the end of things he saw even more distant than the end of heaven. He was seeing into the regions of God and beyond the ends of this world and the history of this planet. He was looking into a vast eternity, and there beholding a vast people in a heavenly dwelling, assembled by the Word and the power of God, miraculously brought to life in a child of promise. In this circumstance, it was as if the earth itself melted, its elements dissolved, dropped away, and the sky split open like a scroll split.

And Abram’s heart beat with the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. He grasped hold of his great reward, God Himself. Yes, beyond the promise of land, beyond the promise even of earthly children, that which would satisfy his deepest longings, grasping hold of God Himself.

That’s what faith does. But now believing, Abram speaks, and speaks so as to set his seal on what has transpired, what has been revealed to him. But you will note in the text, Genesis 15, 6, that the spoken word of Abram is not obvious. It’s not on the surface of things. The text says that Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

But before the Lord, under the stars of heaven, they all being representative of his children in mass, and before that unique and precious child promise, the seed of promise, Abram breathed out his faith, and that is what is being stated in Genesis 15.6.

The text says that Abram believed God, but you must understand that the Hebrew word behind that word believed is the one from which the word Amen comes. Abram therefore breathed out his faith, he spoke it, he articulated it. By saying amen in solemn confession, a pledge of his own life is very full in absolute trust of the one who had made promise. In this scene, Abram confessed with his mouth. is faith that centers upon ultimate things, the far distant things that God would do, the things which we know are finally mediated unto us through Abram’s promised seed, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Such faith as Abram expressed is the means by which God is pleased to communicate His righteousness.

This righteousness comes from God on the basis of faith, and that as God communicates Himself. If faith is laying hold of God, if it is having God as a possession, than in having God, you have his righteousness. Faith is the means by which God communicates his righteousness. This righteousness comes from God on the basis of faith, as God communicates himself to us. You get God, you get his righteousness. And faith is the only way.

It is as if God had already then taken Abram behind the canvas of the heavens, past the mere physical stars, there to possess God himself. and to see all the host of those who belong to the family of faith made even more real than the stars in the heavens, those who would in fact believe even as Abram believes. You hear the Apostle Paul then in Galatians chapter 3, who states to us emphatically, it is those who are of faith that are the children of Abraham. It is the far reach of faith, then, that Abraham now knows. He had believed before, but now he really believes. It is the far reach of faith that Abram now knows.

He moves past the galaxies, beyond the dimensions of this universe, past what his eyes can take in, his comprehension can understand. By faith he has touched the ends of the earth. By faith he has touched the end of the world, the consummation of the world. By faith he has touched the substance of glory, he has touched the very face of God. What do you do with that prospect, friends? Do you understand that if you are confessing faith, with that faith you are saying that you are touching the face of God, that you have come into possession of Him?

I can tell you that Abram’s troubled and trembling soul was calmed. His discontent quieted. It fell away. Having been justified by faith, he has peace with God, and there is therefore now no condemnation for Abram. He is even by his faith taken beyond the judgment.

But it is precisely in this situation, with Abram grasping hold of eternity, the astronomies and far reaches of the plan and purpose of God, Abram grasping even God’s person in consummate perfection. It is particularly in this situation that the Lord once again addresses this man. For you see, it is as yet a long way to go. Seeing the end, and even touching the end, Abram is not yet at the end.

There will be then of necessity a life for the justified Abram to live. There will be of necessity a testing for Abram and for this faith that has come to him. But you must remember, and this a comfort to the man, that it is faith that is tested. The man is in possession of faith. such faith as we have already seen, that lays hold of glory.

But Abram will not face the not yet of his existence in life without the already of God’s precious and gracious provision, and I might add, neither will any of his children who are of faith. Now, in Abram’s instance here, in the particulars of the situation in which he finds himself, the not yet consists in his not yet possessing the land through and for his posterity, that land which the Lord had promised him. But understand now that the physical land of which the Lord speaks will be the medium through which we see Abram reaching out for that which his faith knows he shall surely possess in glory. Not an earthly land, but a heavenly.

It is in this circumstance that Abram again asks the Lord for a token, a token of his promise, O Lord God, how shall I know that I shall possess the land, or, beyond that land, the glory itself? In the first encounter, Abram pledged himself with his Amen. In the second encounter, the Lord’s pledge will be center stage.

The Lord now calls for beasts and birds to be slain, with the beasts cut in two, and then the animal parts with the birds set over against one another. Listen and understand what’s going on in the text. That first encounter with Abram, when Abram believes It all seems so sublime and simple, but now it seems as if the text is being cluttered up by savage rites, bloodletting. It’s all becoming ugly and nasty. But it is in this sacrificial blood rite that the greatness of God’s own pledge and the costliness to Him of that pledge will be perceived. You must hear. and understand.

We are told that Abram goes out and chases away the birds of prey. These birds elsewhere in Scripture are signs of God’s curse. Remember the number of times that the Scriptures speak about the birds of prey coming to feast upon the bodies of God’s enemies? That image is carried on throughout the entirety of God’s revelation, even into the book of Revelation. These birds, then, are signs of God’s curse that alights upon and devours those who break covenant and fail to keep watch.

This means that Abram’s life during the not-yet-of-his-existence as he moves toward glory, will be one of watchfulness, in which he must be continually on the alert, lest the curse of the covenant overtake him and he be devoured. But the not yet of Abram’s life will also be a time, despite the firm grip that Abram has on the already of his faith, that sees from time to time the daylight dissipate, that sees a death-like sleep threaten and even overtake the people of God, that sees the terrors of darkest affliction fall upon them.

The Lord promises such things. He promises the dissipation of daylight. He promises the death-like sleep. He promises the terrors of deepest affliction. He promises all of these dire realities, and they come to us, and we are intended to meet them with the grace of God’s blessing and the faith that He has given us. If you’ve lost track, I’m up to verse 12.

Such death-like sleep that overtakes Abram, such terrors of darkest affliction, are those now that are most immediately promised by God to Abram in his promised descendants. For these descendants will become enslaved and oppressed according to the word of the Lord, and that for four hundred years, an obvious reference to the bondage in Egypt. But as the chapter ends, you see Those that were asleep and even in the clutches of death are awakened and made alive. They are set at liberty and they triumph, and they triumph for the purpose of inheriting the promise that had been given to them in the inheritance laid out before them by God. They shall inherit what God had promised.

We are here dealing with patterns, you see. It’s not the land that is important, it is the pattern. you are moving from faith through affliction to inheritance. That’s the pattern. That’s the pattern of your life. If you don’t like it, you have no place in the household of faith. If you don’t understand it, you don’t have the faith of Abram, and you are not saved. The promised descendants then will awake, they will come to life from affliction, be brought into newness of life, be set at liberty, they will triumph, and they will inherit the promise. But notice now, in conclusion, that this is not their own doing.

God so pledges Himself to the realization of this goal for Abram and for Abram’s children, that God Himself enters the darkness. By faith, Abram latches hold of God and possesses Him, but God in covenant now latches hold of Abram and all that Abram experiences and knows.

God himself will enter the darkness. How is it plain from the text that God has entered the darkness? I have in mind that enigmatic passage, verse 17 of this fifteenth chapter, and it came about when the sun had set that it was very dark. And behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces, the pieces of the slaughtered animals. Where is God in the text? Where is God in verse 17?

He is the flaming torch passing between the pieces, who is joined now to the smoking oven. What is the smoking oven? It’s the furnace of affliction, a symbol of the experience of the people of God. And God is telling Abram, and all his descendants, that he will be present with them in the furnace of affliction.

The Lord, therefore, by means of this covenant, pledges himself to always be present with He is present in their ordeal, He is present in their trial, such is His love for them. He is present with them every step of their journey as they make their way towards glory and the possession of the great inheritance that is theirs. The one to whom they press is the one by and with whom they press. The one not yet possessed is the one already possessed, and that’s specifically an affliction He of His grace having come to them, to sustain them in their journey, regardless of how arduous, how difficult, how horrifying and terrifying to the soul. But there’s more.

In the 17th verse, so wonderful is God’s grace and love, that he passes through in the image of the flaming torch, he passes through the parted sacrifices, the separated sacrifices, and by that action he states, may I be so slaughtered, may I be so severed and mutilated if I fail to deliver you and to give you the fullness of your inheritance.

But even more, since it is apparent that Abram is a sinner, and all who are the children of faith are sinners, that he and us fail to make perfect our walk and our sojourn in the covenant, this then making us liable to execution And in this covenant arrangement, as there is this passing through the parted animals, the sentence of death comes upon us if we fail to keep our end of the bargain. The partitioning of the animals to which God subjects himself is a partitioning that touches us. For if we fail, we are subjected the same way to the penalties and the sanctions of the covenant. Do you see what has happened? God, rich in love and abundant in mercy, will take the punishment we deserve, the severing, mutilation and death that we deserve. and he himself will satisfy the demands of his covenant in the death of his son.

In him we are preserved in this journey. By him we are awakened. Through him we are set at liberty. We triumph only because of him, and we are brought to our internal inheritance through him, by him, and in him, and that despite every affliction through which we may have to go.

That, my dear friends, is the message of Genesis 15. Your whole life is in this chapter. Read it, and understand. stand amazed, and would with Abram marvel at the greatness of your covenant and the certainty of your promises. We also marvel as to how we can ferret out the gospel and its patterns in a chapter like this one we have read and spoken about.

But Lord, as we by faith have now laid hold of you, may we rejoice that you so love us that you have taken to yourself the very curse of the covenant into which we have entered, that we might be spared and enjoy the prosperity of our God and the blessings of eternity. Forgive our sins and our ingratitude. And Lord, also, as we make our way toward glory, may we not forget that we have in us glory already in that we have you, and that it is by you that we make our progress to the full possession of our inheritance above. May we persevere and endure to the end.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.