Sermon Tone Analysis

Genesis 15:6 “Abram believed the Lord, and [God] credited [Abram’s belief] to him as righteousness.”

This is the key verse in Abram’s life, the key verse in Genesis, possibly the key verse in the entire OT.

It shows the sufficiency of faith, the centrality of faith; faith justifies, that is righteousness—right standing with God—comes by faith in Him.

Genesis 15:6 “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.”

There was so much in the first 6 verses of Genesis 15 that we took one sermon to discuss it all.

Truth be told, I could preach a dozen sermons on those verses, but we’ve got some ground to cover.

The Bible is so rich.

It’s true, every word.

It’s been preserved for us so that we can know the LORD.

Faith comes through hearing the message about God—God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

As we continue through Genesis 15, we pick up in verse 7. The dialogue between the LORD and Abram continues.

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), turn with me and follow along as we read from God’s Holy Word.

In the first 6 verses of this chapter—what we covered last week—the LORD God provided Abram with something Abram absolutely couldn’t come up with on his own: The LORD credited to Abram righteousness.

Abram’s belief was counted to Abram as righteousness.

This, from the LORD.

Here, after having credited righteousness to him, the LORD gives Abram assurance.

As if righteousness wasn’t enough, verse 7 begins with the phrase: “He also said to him...”

The LORD is providing Abram with something else only He can give.

The LORD Provides Assurance

There’s something significant in what the LORD says here to Abram.

The LORD pronounces His name and His mighty acts, ensuring Abram knows His identity, His proved reliability, and His continuing work in and through His servant.

The LORD’s faithfulness is the rock on which Abram could rely, the rock on which Abram can stand.

The LORD’s faithfulness is the anchor for Abram’s soul.

All Abram had to remember in moments of struggle and doubt were the many times and many ways the LORD had proved His faithfulness.

Same for us.

It’s good and necessary for us to frequently recall the works of the LORD, and, in light of what He has done, move forward in faith—not a blind faith, but a faith in the LORD and His faithfulness.

There’s a deep assurance here, remembering the faithfulness of the LORD.

What’s more, God makes Himself known to Abram by His personal name: “I am the LORD.”

Notice it’s all capital letters.

L-O-R-D.

This is the personal name of God: Yahweh.

Anytime you see the word LORD in all capital letters, it’s Yahweh.

The name connected with the verb “to be” is explained in Exodus 3:14 as ‘I AM’.

The LORD Yahweh is the source of all life, the unchanging one, the controller of man’s destiny, the source of salvation.

This Yahweh is God Most High, the maker of heaven and earth; the Creator and Possessor of all things.

He is the One speaking to Abram.

That’s assurance.

And this is precisely what Abram needs.

Abram asks, not out of doubt, but seeking assurance:

Again with the faithful, reverential start to his question, Abram address God as Adonai Yahweh—Sovereign LORD, LORD God.

And Abram asks Him, “How can I know?”

“Well, because I, the LORD Yahweh, just told you, dummy.”

That’s not at all what the LORD says.

The LORD doesn’t dismiss Abram’s question, doesn’t tell him to buzz off, doesn’t tell him to quit worrying about it.

The LORD doesn’t berate Abram.

The LORD, for the sake of assurance, tells Abram to go grab five animals.

Naturally!

Haddon Robinson once said what we all probably think from time to time: “The Old Testament is a strange place, and strange things happen there.”

We don’t understand what’s going on here exactly (and there’s about 200 scholarly opinions about what this could be).

We don’t understand this entirely, but Abram seems to know exactly what Yahweh is up to.

The LORD Yahweh tells Abram to “bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

And Abram seems to know exactly what to do with them without being told (if he was told, it’s not recorded here for us).

Abram hacks the large animals down the middle but doesn’t cut up the birds.

He doesn’t have to be told what to do with these animals; he knew what they were for—the LORD Yahweh was going to put a covenant in place.

Abram already had promises, but covenant is more.

Dale Ralph Davis writes:

“Covenant is what God does when He gets formal about a promise.

Covenant is the wrapper God puts around His promise to help you believe it.

Imagine going into a grocery store that had no wrappers on its canned goods…at each aisle there is a clerk who knows and will point out to you what it is you want—but the canned vegetables, fruit, soups, etc. are just there in all their silvery and naked tinny glory.

You want Del Monte french cut green beans.

So the clerk points out to you the shelf and the group of cans.

Now, that would work, I suppose, and, incidentally, create jobs.

But you wouldn’t care for it.

And that’s because you feel more sure of what you’re getting if you can see the red, green, and blue label on the can with the proper picture of green beans.

The wrapper really helps.”

“Covenant is the wrapper God puts around His promise to help you believe it.”

The main point here is what this tells us about God.

All for the sake of Abram’s assurance, God goes to the trouble of entering into a covenant.

The LORD is willing to go to great lengths to help His people go on believing His promises.

He “stoops down and puts ‘handles’ on His promises,” so that our shaky hands don’t have to struggle so much to hold on.

The LORD Yahweh will see to Abram’s assurance.

To Abram’s question— “How can I know?” —the LORD says, in essence, “Let’s see if a covenant will help you believe.”

Look back at verse 8, to Abram’s question there:

“How can I know…?”

Now look at verse 13:

Abram’s longing for assurance is met with the faithful LORD Yahweh’s absolute certainty.

“How can I know?”

“Know for certain...” followed by the omniscient, all-knowing God telling Abram what’s going to take place over the next 1,000 years or so.

Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain...”

That line really struck me as I was reading this week.

What assurance there!

The Sovereign LORD of the universe, the Faithful LORD God is telling Abram—and by extension, us—that we can know for certain what He says is not a possibility or something with a strong likelihood of happening, but it is absolutely certain.

Absolute certainty evades most of us.

There’s no ‘absolutely certain’ investment.

There’s no ‘absolute certainty’ in the deer stand, in the classroom, at your job, on the field or the court.

Absolute certainty is rarely found.

On occasion, Meghann will have a moment of extreme doubt.

I can see it on her face before she says anything.

It happens most often when we’re driving away from the house:

“I don’t think I unplugged my hair straightener...”

“Well, do you think you did?”

“I did.

I’m sure I did...”

We had this conversation just a couple days ago:

“I don’t think I unplugged my straightener…no, I did, I did.”

I asked, “You’re sure?”

She replied, “I’m sure I think I did.”

“I’m sure I think I did?! What’s that mean?!”

Needless to say, I turned the car around to go home and check.

There was no absolute about her certainty.