Do You Trust the Lord's Promises? - Genesis 15 - 18

I am often concerned about the depth of my thinking and reasoning ability. You will never find my name listed along with Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle; however I surely hope it will never be compared to the fictional character of Forest Gump. Even in his life there was a positive side; I wish I could run and physically endure as he could. Once in a rare occasion I do have a thought that seems to run deep and when this happens, I enjoy sharing it with others. Allow me to ask you a question regarding the title of this lesson which regards the depth of your trust and the heights of your expectations. Oh, it is a very simple question; almost as innocent as one that Forest might have asked his girl friend. Do you trust in your mustard seed faith? Or, had you rather place your trust in your mountain high doubts? Your answer determines how secure you feel in your salvation.

Now, please don’t tell me that your never have doubts that trouble you, because that would cause me to think that I have not reached a level of Christian living that is out there and available to me. If you are an unbeliever, I realize that you may view God’s promises as fiction; and you may tend to believe that those of us who believe God’s word to be truth are ignorant, superstitious or unsophisticated. I know that professing Christians generally profess to believe all of God’s promises as they are revealed in the Bible. I also realize that when particular promises are not fulfilled in the exact way or at the precise time as they are expected, even BELIEVERS [because of their doubtful minds] begin to question the very God they love and serve. Christians definitely reach a time when they must face the choice of whether they should live by their mustard seed faith or by their troubling mountain of doubts. Isn’t it ironical that Jesus told us that if our faith was the size of a grain of mustard seed—we could humble ourselves, seek his face and pray and he would remove our mountain?

This ‘doubting experience’ will come into your life at sometime [and it may happen often] and the important thing is the way you choose to respond. One thing is not questionable, Jesus expects you to trust him to keep his promises and take him at his word. When you do not do this, he has every right to feel offended; he can then say, “I made you a promise with a condition which you did not keep, therefore I am not obligated to its fulfillment.” I do not know about you, but as for me and my house: “We prefer to trust the Lord’s promises rather than to expect our doubts to lead us in this Christian walk. We are not the only ones because Abram and Sarai in their old age trusted god to keep promises that defied nature itself, they too had doubts, but their faith prevailed. Through their son Isaac God blessed them and their inheritance was great.

There are two characters on stage in this story regarding the faith of Abram and Sarai that play roles in order to prove their faith. They are Melchizedek and Ishmael, and I will attempt to zero in on their part in this story. When younger, at home on the farm when the weather was too bad to work in the field, one of my favorite pastimes was to take a good mystery book and go to the hay-loft, listen to the patter of the rain on the tin roof and read. No author ever invented a mystery more intriguing than the writer of Genesis when he introduced Melchizedek. Who was this guy?

Read carefully not only the lines written, but also between the lines and you will find that one of the most mysterious people in the Bible is the king of peace, Melchizedek. Evidently this man had no earthly parents and therefore no genealogy. He appeared one day in the life of Abram and was never heard from again with one exception. The happenings of the day that Abram met him on his way home from a successful battle has been remembered throughout history and eventually became a subject of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews.

These two men were strangers, both lived in foreign countries from each other but both served the same God, the God that made heaven and earth—and this was unusual in that day and time when many gods were served in different countries. The day they met was a moment of triumph for Abram for he had just won a battle that freed a great number of captives and he had also captured a great amount of wealth and was on the road home at the time of their meeting. If there was ever any doubt as to who actually won the battle, Melchizedek set it straight when he greeted Abram and said “Blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.”

Melchizedek represents the Gentiles, as he is one of the very few men mentioned in the OT that was not a Jew. This is the first indication that to be a follower of God is not genetic, but instead it depends on recognizing God’s greatness and fully obeying his teachings. Melchizedek is the first priest/king mentioned in the scriptures. Even though he is in the OT time, he reminds us of Jesus. He was a ruler in Salem the site of the future city of Jerusalem. There is no doubt that Abram thought him to be his superior, because he had just won a war, and was returning home with much wealth and many captives. When he saw Melchizedek, Abram bowed to him, and paid him tribute that amounted to a tithe, or 10% of all he had gained. There are three scripture references to this man: Gen. 14: 17-20; Psalm 110: 4; and Hebrews 5—7.

The second character that is important to this lesson was Ishmael, Abram’s first son, whose mother was a maid in the home of Abram and Sarai [later known as Abraham and Sarah]. We never know what effect it will have on a child to be born out of wedlock; or to be adopted by others. Ishmael may have been one that felt that he was born into the wrong family, since there were problems between his mother and Sarai [two very jealous women] and at one time he and his mother were driven from the home. Men are usually the problem in family affairs, but in this case Sarai was the one that became impatient with God and his plan for them to have a son. She had no faith, and felt that she should take the problem into her own hands, and she was the one that had suggested that Abram commit adultery with the maid, so she would bear him a son.

This problem continued between Hagar [the maid] and Sarai for thirteen years, when Isaac was born to Sarai and Abram in their old age. This simply increased the problems. The parents and Ishmael had thought that he was the child through whom the world would be blessed; but now it is plain that Isaac is the blessed one, and there is a terrible jealousy arising in the heart of Ishmael. Ishmael was not at fault and could not alter the circumstances surrounding his birth, but his latter actions contributed to the problems that arose in the family.

We are being asked to answer one question in the study of these three chapters in Genesis that evolves around a man a woman who are approaching one hundred years of age and have been promised by God, personally, your descendents will be so many that they will equal the number of stars in heaven…they will be as numerous as the grains of sand in the sea…which simply means that you will not be able to count them. This promise was made after they were past the normal age of giving birth…and before they had a child of their own. The question for us today is: “DO YOU TRUST THE LORD’S PROMISES?”

Here in lies a point that we all should grasp and always remember. Abram’s faith was greater than Sari’s faith because she is the one that insisted that they needed to help God work his plan. Abram’s faith was not complete, because he did not refuse to go along with Sari’s plan. Both had mustard-seed faith, because they stuck with God’s plan to work the will of God in the lives all people born thereafter. Another result of this encounter between these people and the Lord is that in the end God counted Abram’s faith as righteousness. By his faith he won God’s favor and because of his faith we now have a Savior who was born the Son of Abram, Isaac through the Israelite heritage including David, as was later promised by all the prophets and priest. We must have faith to believe that God can take our mistakes and work them into his positive plan for his people. In this case he used the mistake regarding the birth of Ishmael to find a father for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Abram was eighty six years old when his first son, Ishmael was born. He was ninety-nine years old when God appeared to him the second time to tell him that he and his wife Sarai would bear a son whose name was to be Isaac and through him you will be the father of many nations. God changed his name from Abram to Abraham. And this is the day and time when God gave the land of Canaan to Abraham and assured him that it would forever be the land of his people;

This is the place and time that God commanded that Abraham keep the covenant he was making and one part of that was that every male was to be circumcised immediately, and then all future generations were to circumcise their sons on their eighth day. And on this occasion, God told Abraham that he must change his wife’s name to Sarah. You will note in 17:22 that this was a personal conversation between God and Abraham. Abraham may not have been looking into God’s eyes, they may not have shook hands to seal the agreement, but when they finished their conversation, “God went up from him.”

On that very day Abraham took his thirteen-year-old son, Ishmael, and all other males in his house and they were circumcised. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised. This is one of the ordinances established under the law that continued through the old dispensation. Under the new dispensation of Grace there are two ordinances that are required to be kept by the Christian. They are the Lord’s Supper which is to come often enough that we do not forget the importance, but as often as we observe the Lord’s Supper, we are to do it in remembrance of our Lord and Savior. The second ordinance is that of Baptism. In order to be scripturally baptized one must go down into the water, and come up out of the water in order to symbolize the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The total picture of baptism shows that we are all sinners until we accept Christ as our Savior. When we go down into the water it shows that our old life is dead and buried; when we come up out of the water it is the picture of the arising of a new Christian filled life; When Christ was baptized to give us a model to go by, God spoke and his voice was heard to say…”This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” I personally believe that he thinks this same thought every time one of his little ones is baptized and arises to walk in a new life…a new relationship with Him.

God promised Abraham that if he would obey him he would be the father of nations. And he did. God has promised us that if we will accept his Only Son as our Savior we can and will become the sons of God, members of his family, with a home in heaven with him. Do you trust him to keep that promise? Think about it! If you can’t truly trust Jesus Christ—who can you trust?