Genesis 15:1-20

Who can you trust?

That’s the question we are thinking about this morning. Who can you trust?

I love reading the novels of John le Carré. One of the all-time classics was his fourth: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It was recently made into a film, and I’m looking forward to watching it. At the height of the cold war, the British Secret Service have a mole in their midst, someone very senior, who is giving information to the Russians. The head of the service brings a former spy out of retirement in great secrecy. His mission: Find that mole. And whatever he does, he must trust nobody. Especially the people at the top.

For many of us, that’s a picture of our lives. We trust no-one. We never know who might let us down.

The Leveson enquiry seems to have no limit as to how senior are the people they will quiz. The top politicians, the top journalists, the top TV presenters. Who can you trust? Can you trust any of them?

Can I trust anyone apart from myself?

The story of Abraham shows us that God can be trusted. He is the one person we can lean on, and he’ll never let us down.

Genesis chapter 15 is about God reassuring Abraham that he can be trusted. There are 3 ways in this chapter that God shows Abraham how dependable he is.

1. Creator: Made the stars

First, God is the creator. He made the stars. The Creator. The stars.

God promises Abraham a great reward.

But Abraham asks God, ever so respectfully, how this can be so. He has no child. A household servant will inherit all he’s got. With no-one to inherit, how can he have any reward?

So God assures him: That man won’t be his heir. Abraham will have his own son. Abraham’s own son will inherit.

And then God takes him outside at night. He shows him the stars. You can see the stars pretty clearly in Kemsing at night because we’ve got no street lamps. Look carefully you can see Orion, the Pleiades, the Plough. On a good night you can just pick out the Milky Way, but you need very good conditions for that. Have you ever tried to count them? We could have an exercise for the week ahead – a bit of homework – see if any of us can count the stars. I’ll give you a tip. Divide the sky into four quadrants, count one quadrant, then multiply by four.

You’d never get there would you? There are more than anyone can count. And that’s God’s point. God will give Abraham so many descendants that there are more than the stars. Only the person who could count the stars would come close to counting how many there will be.

But God is doing more than that. Just telling Abraham how big his family would get doesn’t reassure him that this will actually happen. When God shows Abraham the stars, he’s not just showing him something that there are lots of; he’s showing him something that he made lots of.

In Genesis chapter 1, where the story of creation is told, there is one of the most wonderful throw-away lines in the Bible. He also made the stars. He also made the stars. Just like that. As easy for God to make a star as it is for you or I to make a cup of tea.

God is saying to Abraham: If I made those stars, can I not make you a family?

That’s God’s first reassurance. We can rely on him. God the creator. He made the stars.

2. Committed to Death: Enacts a Sacrifice

God’s second reassurance is that God is committed to death. He enacts a sacrifice. Committed to death. A sacrifice.

The next thing that happens is that God reminds Abraham of his promise to give him the land.

Again Abraham respectfully asks how this can be.

This time, God asks Abraham to take some animals. Abraham just seems to know what to do. He kills the animals, he cuts the larger ones in two, and he puts the carcases into two piles.

If you thought that was weird, what happens next is even more weird. A flaming torch appears, as if from nowhere, and passes between these two piles of dead animal. Right now, the Olympic flame is on its 8000 mile relay across the UK. It’s a bit like that, only nobody is carrying it. In the Bible, fire usually represents the presence of God himself. God, in all his glory, walks ceremonially between these two piles.

What does that mean? Abraham just seemed to know what to do.

Well, there are two places we can look to make sense of this. One is elsewhere in the Bible. We find reference to a very similar ritual in Jeremiah 34. The other is from other historical documents we’ve unearthed. Take for example an Assyrian text found in Northern Syria, that dates to the eighth century BC. It appears there was a king called Mati’lu, and this text describes a treaty someone made with him.

This head is not the head of a lamb, it is the head of Mati’lu [and lots of other people who are his sons, offspring and people.]. If Mati’lu sins against this treaty, so may, just as the head of this spring lamb is torn off, … the head of Mati’lu be torn off, and his sons.

It seems that Mati’lu killed a spring lamb, and separated the head from the body. He was enacting what should be done to him if he broke his half of the treaty.

It’s a bit like the Mafia, except the other way around. They might send a nasty reminder of what would happen to you if you are disloyal. If you don’t keep your half of the deal, here’s what will be done.

Here, it’s the other way around. If I don’t keep my half of the deal, here’s what should be done to me.

And here, it’s God who walks through the pieces of the cut-up animal. Abraham does not pass between the pieces; God does. God is the one saying that if he breaks his word, he should face a gruesome death.

God is committed to death. He enacts a sacrifice.

Actually, when you think about it, it is we who break our end of the deal. We do so again and again. We let God down. This is where the death of Jesus is truly amazing. God pledges to Abraham that he should suffer a violent death if he breaks his word. And yet when we break it, God is the one to deal with it by suffering a violent death himself.

That’s the second reassurance that we can depend on God totally. God is committed to death. He enacts a sacrifice.

3. Holds the Course of History: Wrote the story

The third reassurance is that God holds the course of history; he wrote the story. The course of history. The story.

Having passed through the animal pieces, God speaks to Abraham again. Know for certain, he says, that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgement on the nation that they serve, and afterwards they shall come out with great possessions.

God spells out the exact order of events. He gives Abraham the timescale on which things will be done. He then gives Abraham the exact borders of the land. God has it all planned out. He is the one who wrote the whole course of human history.

God is showing Abraham that he doesn’t just have an endpoint in view. He hasn’t just planned the endgame. He’s planned every move to get things there.

At one level, playing chess is really easy. All you have to do is capture the opponent’s king. The king is a dull, slow piece. It only moves one square at a time. Take that, and you’ve won. Easy. Except it’s not easy, is it? There’s another player. You can’t anticipate what they’ll do. At least, I can’t anticipate them. It’s not enough to describe the last move of chess. That’s so obvious that nobody ever actually makes it. It’s how you get from the a newly set up board to that that is the challenge.

Things are different with God. Not only has he planned out the last few moves; he’s planned every move to get him there. He wrote the story. So we can be absolutely sure of the ending.

Abraham trusted God

So there’s Abraham reassured. God the creator. He made the stars. God committed to death. He enacted a sacrifice. God who holds the course of history. He wrote the story.

And so, right in the middle of the chapter, between the two promises God makes Abraham, we get Abraham’s response. Verse 6: He believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Abraham believed God. Or perhaps better, Abraham trusted God. He took God at his word. He decided that he could trust him.

This is a verse that the New Testament quotes several times. The writers of the New Testament would draw our attention to two key details.

The first detail is that God counted this as righteousness. Righteousness just means that Abraham is acceptable to God. He’s done what God requires. He’s God’s friend.

We’re going into the A-level and GCSE season. There’s nothing more terrifying than sitting exams. You come out, and you have to wait for months to find out whether what you just wrote was good enough. Have you met the grade?

This verse says that Abraham was good enough. He met the grade. He passed. God looked at him, and saw someone who was totally acceptable to him.

The second detail to notice is that this is before Abraham did anything impressive. Later in Genesis, Abraham will obey God in some very remarkable ways. This came before all of that. God does not accept Abraham because of the things he does. He hasn’t done them yet .God simply counts his trust in him as enough.

That’s how it was for Abraham, and it’s how it always is with God. God has made many promises in the Bible. Hundreds. Even thousands. One of the most wonderful is that the death of Jesus is enough for God to forgive everyone who trusts him.

What the Abraham story shows us is that God does not accept us because we do good things for him. He simply accepts those who turn to him. Who trust him. Who see that God can be trusted, and trust him.

If you’ve never taken the step of trusting God with your life, I’d love to talk more about this.

What Follows: Security and Reward

So: God shows Abraham that he can be trusted. Abraham trusts God. This was a good move for Abraham.

As God says at the beginning of the chapter, he is Abraham’s shield and his reward.

God is our shield. He’s our protector. He looks after us.

God is our reward. God gives many things to Abraham, but the most wonderful thing Abraham has is God himself. He knows God, and God is his God. And that is the most wonderful thing we could have as well.