Genesis 15. You know, we've been
studying Abram, whose name will later be changed by the Lord
to Abraham, father of many. And the reason the Lord spends so
much time on Abram is because Abram is called the father of
the faithful. God's people are called the children
of Abraham. Not that we come from him physically,
but Abram is a type of everyone whom the Lord chooses. The Lord
chose Abraham, didn't He? He was one of His elect. Abram
didn't choose the Lord. The Lord chose him. And the Lord
called him out from his father's house, from his country, from
his kindred, and revealed himself to him, led him all the way,
taught him, bought him, brought him. Abram is a picture of all
of God's people. He's the father. He's the first
the Lord uses as a picture of his people. And the Lord spoke
to Abraham on several occasions. We're going to look at that here.
And the Lord speaks to us. He said, My sheep hear my voice.
He does. He speaks. Verse 1, After these
things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision. The word
of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. After these things. Abram was 84 years old right
now. He lived to be 175, but 84 was
still old at this time. He's an older man and he'd been
We've known the Lord now for about ten years, and He's already
been through several trials and much tribulation, as our Lord
said would happen to every one of His people. Already after
these things, you remember the next time it says after these
things? Genesis 22. After these things, the Lord
did test Abraham to take his son, his only son, up the hill.
After these things, Abram had been through many trials already,
tribulation. He lost his father. He lost his
uncle whom he loved and took his son Lot with him to raise
him, which was a trial. He left his home, left his family.
After 75 years, he left his home and family. There are other people
who have done that. And his friends. He journeyed
and lived in tents with his wife. That was a A trial. He went through a famine. There
was a famine where he was at and he had to flee to Egypt. He had to leave that place and
go to a strange country and strange people. That was a trial. He
went through great troubles in Egypt. You remember fears? That's when he denied his wife
the first time. Oh, that must have... Oh, you know how he felt
about that. A guilty sinner. He almost loses
Lot in Egypt because Lot is now caught up in Egypt, the world. Lot, shortly after, left him,
took advantage of him, took the best land, remember, and gave
him what was left over. Then a powerful king, Cheduleomer,
came in with four or three other men and just ransacked that whole
region and took Lot, took Lot, his son. And that worried Abraham
greatly, so he said, I'm going after him. And you remember that
story. And then he went after Lot and got him
back. And now he goes back to Hebron where he thinks he'll
settle down a little bit now and be free from some trouble.
And I believe he started thinking about what troubles he expected
to have. Those enemy kings that he defeated,
they're going to build themselves back up. And he's worried about
their reprisal and their revenge, surely. Abram wasn't a man of
war. He's worried about that. So after
these things, so many things happened to him. And after these
things, it says, the Word of the Lord, look at it, verse 1,
the Word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision. Well, you
can't see the Word in a vision. Don't you hear the Word in a
voice? No, it says he saw the Word in
a vision. What's that? The Word of the
Lord came to him in a vision. He saw the Word of the Lord.
What's that? Who's that? That's the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the beginning was the Word.
The Word was with God. The Word was God. And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us. That was Christ. Christ the
Word. I believe every single appearance
of the Lord to every one of the Lord's people in the Old Testament
was Jesus Christ. I'm certain of that. In Him dwelt
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Christ is the image of
God, the only image of God. So the Lord Jesus Christ came
to Abram and to speak to him. Abram sure needed the Lord to
speak to him at this time. The Lord loved Abram. The Lord
chose Abram. The Lord was keeping Abram. Now
Abraham is troubled. Abraham is worried. Abram is
full of doubts and fears. Abram is alone. He feels alone.
And knowing his frame, knowing his weakness, knowing he needs
a word of comfort and encouragement and hope, the Lord Jesus Christ
came to Abram and appeared to him and spoke to him. And look
at what he said. The first thing out of the Lord's mouth was,
Fear not, Abram. Fear not, Abram. Now, Abram hadn't
said anything yet, had he? The Lord spoke to him first.
I thought of Isaiah 65, 24. It says, Before they call, I'll
answer. Before they call on me, I'll
answer them. I'll answer all their fears, all their doubts,
all their troubles. I'll speak to them. I'll come
to them when they need me. And I'll speak to them. Before
they call, I'll answer. And while they're speaking, I'll
hear them. Fear not, Abram. This is the same Lord who appeared
to so many in the Old and New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the first words out of His mouth to so many were, fear not. Hagar, not too long after this,
Hagar. You remember Sarah's handmaiden, Hagar, that
the Lord said, she's got to go. Remember that? And she thought
she was cast out forever. No, the Lord came to her and
said, fear not, take her. I've heard you. And the Lord
brought her back, brought her back. Isaac, the Lord came to
Isaac, fear not Isaac. Jacob, fear not. Joshua, fear
not. Zacharias, John's father, fear
not. Mary, fear not. Mary. Simon, fear not. All the disciples together in
a boat one time during a major storm, the Lord said, Fear not,
it is I. It is I. Knowing Abram's thoughts,
his doubts, his troubles, his fears. Now, Abram is thinking
back on what the Lord promised him. The Lord said, I will make
of thy seed. Be a great nation. I'll bless
thee, and you'll be a great nation. This has been several years since
the Lord said that, and many things have happened, and he's
still without a child, and he thinks, why? I know the Lord
said this, but why? Why? Has all these things happened
to me? And how long is it going to be
before he fulfills that word to me? How long? How long? See,
Abram is just a man like us and he has trouble waiting on the
Lord. Even if the Lord promises him again in a chapter or two,
Abram's going to still take matters into his own hands, he and Sarah.
Because the hardest thing in the world for us to do is wait
on the Lord. We're creatures of time. It's
not. I owe nothing to God or all His
works from the beginning of the world. He declares the end from
the beginning. Well, we're creatures of time.
We're creatures of the moment. We have trouble waiting on the
next five minutes. I was doing something the other
day that was very strenuous, and I had my watch in front of
me. And, buddy, when something's hard and difficult, time seems
to go by so slow, doesn't it? Well, Abram was waiting on the
Lord to fulfill his word, and so the Lord comes to him to ease
his fear. Fear not, Abram. And he promises
him four things. Four things. See, we're kept
by the Word of God. We're kept by his promises. He's
given us exceeding great and precious promises. Exceeding. Far exceeding. Our troubles,
he's promising. Our worries, he's promising.
He gives him four things, and look at it with me. He says,
Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what
wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? The steward of my
house is this Eleazar of Damascus. He is going to be my heir. And
Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed. Just one
born in my house is my heir, a servant. The Lord said, Behold,
the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be
thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowel
shall be thine heir." The seed, that is. He brought him forth
abroad and said, Look now toward heaven. Tell the stars. Number
the stars if you can, if you are able to number them. He said
unto him, So shall thy seed be. Then Abram believed in the Lord,
and the Lord counted or imputed it to him for righteousness. The Lord promised him four things.
The Lord said, I am your shield, I am your reward, you're going
to see a seed that you can't number, and you're righteous
for just believing on me. He says, I am your shield. Fear
not, Abram. And to all of God's people, I
am thy shield. As I said, Abram has got to be
worried about those enemies that he slew, that they're going to
get back together and come after him. He's not a man of war. He's a peaceful man. He's a roaming
pilgrim. We have enemies, don't we? David,
throughout the Psalms, He talks about his enemies over and over
again. He says, there are many. My enemies are many. David was
set behind and before by enemies, surrounded by enemies all the
time. And he cried to the Lord constantly
about his enemies. He said, there are many. He said,
they're lively and they're strong. David felt himself weak. David
said, I'm just one man. I have so many enemies. And they're
powerful. Satan is our archenemy, isn't
he? He's not a fictitious character. He's a true, a real person whom
our Lord spoke of. The Lord warned about Satan. Peter warned about Satan because
Peter faced him. Satan sifted Peter, didn't he?
So he knew. He knew. Job knew. Satan is a
real formidable foe that we're no match for. And our Lord says
to all His people who are assaulted by that archenemy, fear not,
I am your shield. If He's not, if He's not, we're
no match for our enemy. Sin. Sin threatens me constantly. Temptations. Temptations are
so much stronger than that. We cannot resist one temptation. I remind you of Adam and Eve. She was faced with one temptation,
and the Lord left her alone to one temptation. She had everything
that a human being could have for happiness, and one temptation
came, and she fell. And so will we. So the Lord says,
for our comfort, I am your shield. That is, a shield is something
that protects you. A shield is something that covers
you. The Lord is our shield. Just
like he said of Job, Job is hedged about, so are his people. The
old man threatens me. That old man, surely he's going
to have the dominion over me. Surely, someday. No, our Lord
said he won't. I'm your shield. The world tempts
me. Things of the world, people of
this world. Go to Psalm 91. Psalm 91. I looked at this with different
eyes this time. Somebody taught me this. An older
preacher I heard recently. Brother Terry Worden is who it
was. If he hears this, he taught me this through preaching this
word that I've looked at so many times in Psalm 91. And you remember David, remember
what he said in Psalm 56, when I'm afraid? What times I'm afraid,
I'll trust in the Lord. He had many enemies and there
were arrows. The weapon used most back then
was the bow and arrow. They didn't have guns. They had
bow and arrow. And there were men back then,
David's men said they could shoot with the right hand or the left
hand. They could shoot from a running horse. And they were good, Brother
Stephen, they were good. You read about David's mighty
men. Well, so was the enemy. I mean, they could shoot a bow
and arrow. And that was the weapon. And bow and arrows were flying
all the time. Arrows were flying all the time.
Snipers, and whenever there was a battle, And you know, we've
never been shot at. Brother Henry has in a foxhole. Maybe somebody else in here,
I don't know. But an arrow, you can't see it, you can't hear
it until you're struck. Right? And our enemies shoot
arrows at us. The devil. It's true. Shooting arrows at us. And at
any given moment, there's a thousand, maybe ten thousand arrows flying
through the air. And that's why David wrote this
psalm. Look at it in Psalm 91. It says, He that dwelleth in
the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty. That's Jesus' cry. I'll say of
the Lord, he's my refuge, my fortress, my God, and him will
I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee
from the snare of the fowler." That's Satan and his nets and
his traps and his pits. Oh, you might get caught in it,
but the Lord's going to come for you. He said so. From the
noisome pestilence, all you hear, all the trouble you hear around,
he shall cover thee with his feathers. Under his wings shalt
thou trust, his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou
shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that
flyeth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor
the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand arrows shall
fall at thy sight, ten thousand arrows at your right hand, and
not one will touch you unless Unless the Lord allows it, unless
the Lord aims it for your good, for His glory. Not one error. Do you know that our enemies
surround us like that servant of Elisha? He went out and looked
and said, Oh, Father, oh, the hills are surrounded with chariots
and enemies. And it's true. And Satan desires
to have every one of God's people. But our Lord said, fear not.
I'm your shield. I'm your shield. So not one of
those arrows of the enemy will touch us unless the Lord directs
it. Unless the Lord allows it. Because God said so. Because
I am said so. He said, I'm your shield. Look
at the next thing he said. I'm your exceeding great reward. Abram left his home and his family. Abram left his friends. Abram left, sacrificed all his
worldly goods to follow the Lord. And there have been many do that
since those days. Many. Up until now. Even now,
there have been many. Some people in this room sacrificed
to come where the gospel is. Or to come to you with the gospel. And the Lord said there's not
one man I just quoted this to someone the other day who has
to make a sacrifice to go somewhere. I said, our Lord said this. He
promised. He said there's not a man, not
anyone, not anyone who has left father, mother, houses or land. Husband, wife, son or daughter,
for my sake and the gospel that I won't reward you, he said,
that you won't receive a hundredfold in this life and life eternal. Not one. Nobody has ever sacrificed
anything to the Lord for the cause of Christ that the Lord
did not repay them a hundredfold. No one's left father or mother
that the Lord didn't give them a hundred fathers and mothers. Houses and land. The Lord said,
I am your exceeding great reward. I am your exceeding, exceeding
anything you'll ever have. Exceeding. Far greater. Great
reward. Far greater than anything you
could ever have. Far exceeding and far greater
reward for all that you've lost, for all you've given up. And you'll find that out. And
you'll realize that you didn't really sacrifice anything. It
was all done compared to me. It's like marriage. What this
is, is marriage. Todd used that as an illustration,
as you might well know. This great mystery of Christ
and His church. See, Christ comes and chooses
His bride. We don't choose Him. We don't
choose him. He chooses that. He chooses a
forlorn woman. Every one of them is a forlorn
woman. He chooses that. And he reveals himself to them.
He makes himself known to them. He loved them first, but they
fall in love with him. We love him because he first
loved us. He set his love upon us, and
he woos us, and we fall in love with him, everything about him,
and we're willing to forsake everything, if necessary, to
follow him. Why? Because what do we need?
Him. You ladies, when you married
that fellow, and I know all of you, most of you anyway, I've
known you for years and you've told me your story, and I know
when you started out that he didn't have much to it. Did he? Did Henry have a mansion and
a vast bank account? Knowing most of you, your husband
didn't have much. But you fell in love with him.
It wasn't what he could give you. It was him. I told you about
us. You had more money than I did.
I was making more money. But until I was married to her,
man, I just spent it. That's why you make money, isn't
it, Mac? Spend it. That's what young men think. And then I met
her, and oh, my. Everything changed. I started
spending on her. Well, come time to get married, I didn't have
much money. She's smarter, wiser. She saved money. Glad she did. We wouldn't have had a washer
and dryer. We wouldn't have had anything. But the fact is, we married out
of love. We didn't need anything. We were
in a little apartment, just happy as hogs in mud. And I'm not so
sure we weren't better off then than we are now. But we didn't
need anything. We had each other. We didn't
care if we had anything. I had an old truck. It was just
a rusted hunk of junk. I didn't care. I couldn't wait
to get home to her. Our Lord said, Abram, you don't
need all this. You have me. I'm your reward. The world gets the world. The
world goes after the world. The Lord gives it to them. The
Lord gives it to them. But you know what they have in
the end? When it's all over? Nothing. Nothing. We come to Christ and we fall
in love with Him. He brings us to Himself. We fall
in love with Him. But oh, the unsearchable riches
of Christ. We love Him. And we have all
we need from Him. He provides everything for us.
But oh, I hadn't seen. You hadn't heard. He said, I
go to prepare a place for you. It ain't a shack in the corner
of glory. But even then, heaven will be for God's people to see
Him, to be with Him who loved us. That's what they'll be seeing. Heaven will be to be with Him.
To be with Him. The Lord said, I am your exceeding
great reward. And the next thing, Abram said,
you give me no seed though. Children. He told me I was going
to have a child. To go childless is a great trial.
And Abram was troubled about it. He's getting old. You know,
if you don't have children, you think, who's going to take care
of me? I'm going to be old and I'm going to be alone when I'm
going to be in a nursing home and nobody's going to be there
to love me or care for me. You reckon somebody thinks that?
Sure they do. Sure everybody does. And our
Lord said, now listen, I want you to listen to me. Alright?
Or listen to the Lord. So He says this for our comfort.
He says in verse 4, He brought him outside. The Lord Jesus Christ
brought him outside and said, You look toward heaven. You see
the stars? Number them. If you can, that's your seed. That's your family. You have
a family so large that you can't number billions of them. I know
the Lord was promising Abram that he would have an actual
family, but the word is spiritual. The word is to all of God's people. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
have a wife on this earth, did he? He didn't have any children. Did he miss out? He didn't have a wife. He didn't
have any children. He sacrificed being married and
having children for the sake of the gospel. Was he alone? We felt like that
at times. He said, all men have forsaken
me. And I don't have anybody who's going to take care of me
in my old age. People, your family, consists of billions of people
who love you, who care for you, a great big happy family. And
I want you to go outside tonight. If it's a clear sky, I want you
to look at the stars. If you can count them, that's
your family. And your Heavenly Father has
taken care of you. You do have a husband, ladies. But Christ's seed, His people,
are more than the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore. And if you just wait a little
while, you'll see, you'll be a part of a great big happy family
such as has never been before. When the Lord gathers us all
together, it's going to be exceedingly great and wonderful. Far exceed. You're going to rejoice with
joy unspeakable, full of glory at the seed of Christ, at the
people of God. Rejoice, O barren, he said. Rejoice. Because the time remaineth,
Paul said this, the time remaineth that those that be married be
as though they be not married. In heaven, this woman is not
going to be my wife. My brother's not going to be
my brother if he's there. I hope he is. Not going to be
those relationships. And so now, married, unmarried. Children, no children. This is
our family. Our Lord Jesus Christ said that.
He said, you nurture this. He said, these are my brother
and my family. This is why this relationship
is so vital. Because this is it. This is our
eternal family right here. And they're more than the stars.
They will not be left alone. Not at all. Verse 6, and the
Lord said, it says, he believed in the Lord. First time I've
ever said that. First time. Believed, and it was counted
to him for righteousness. Abraham believed God, Romans
said, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. First
time that's ever said it was counted to him for righteousness,
for believing. What I believe is, Abram was
worried about what he might do again. He had already failed,
remember? And that the Egypt shouldn't
have. Denied his wife, full of guilt and fear, sin. Denied his wife. He's going to
do it again. You know he's going to do it again. He's going to
deny his wife again. Why? Because he's a sinner, saved
by grace. And he's worried about that.
He's worried about what he might do, what he could do, knowing
what he's capable of. He's worried about that. And
the Lord came to him with his exceeding great precious promises
and his word and comforts him and consoles him, fear not. I
am your shield, I am your reward, the seed, my seed, your family,
as many. And do you believe me? Do you trust me? Do you look
to me? Oh, Lord, I do. I don't look to myself. I don't look to Egypt. I don't
look to anyone. I look to You. You are my only hope. salvation. And the Lord said, righteous,
you're righteous. Thee have I seen righteous before
me in this generation. You are righteous. I don't feel
it, Lord. I said, you are. It's counted, it's imputed to
you. Maybe the Lord at that moment told him about himself, how he
would be made sin for him and that Abram would be made the
righteousness of God in him. And that righteousness imputed
to him. And his sins charged to him.
Maybe the Lord did that. We don't know. He did it. Christ said, Abram rejoiced to
see my day. And he saw it and was glad. The
Lord, his righteousness. So he believed God. It was counted
unto him right now. From then on, you're a righteous
man, Abram. A righteous man. Accepted. Accepted. Okay.