Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Life of Abraham series

In today.

Met Abram, which was Abraham’s name before God changes it in chapter 17, he wasn’t anything special.

This is important to remember; God didn’t choose him because he was special, he was special because God chose him.

It’s why God changes his name from Abram to Abraham later, signifying

God gives him these massive promises back in

“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.””

(, ESV)

“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.””

Great Land

Great Name (through your many descendants)

Great Blessing to the entire world

This is our introduction to Abraham.

He’s just living his life, blissfully ignorant that God is about to turn it upside down.

God shows up and says, “I’m choosing you.

Here’s the plan, let’s go.”

And Abraham’s obedience, his faith, to GO, is what makes him the example of faith that is looked back upon for the rest of the Bible.

But as we saw last week, this doesn’t mean he was perfect.

As God’s plans don’t unfold as quickly as he’d like, he begins to have doubts.

And these lead him to Egypt, leaving where God told him to be, and he ends up making one of the worst decisions you could make, giving up his wife to another man.

But even through that, God protects Abraham from his own stupidity doesn’t he?

I mean, Abraham has been given these MASSIVE promises, and they all pretty much bank on him having kids with Sarah;

There’s no kids to give the land to without her, there’s no great nation without that, and without that, the whole world isn’t getting blessed.

So Abraham does maybe the worst thing he could do, the thing that on paper looks like it would absolutely sabotage God’s plans for his life.

But you know what?

God remains faithful.

He rescues Abraham from his poor decisions, dusts him off, and says, “you weren’t faithful, but I still will be.

You didn’t obey, but I still love you.

I still chose you.

Let’s get back to the plan.”

What encouragement for us.

To know that NO MATTER what you think you’ve done to mess up God’s plans for your life, he remains faithful.

He remains committed to us.

So finally, at the end of chapter 13, Abraham is back where God wants him.

Now I want to summarize chapter 14 for you, before we jump into 15 where we will spend most of our time today.

Chapter 14

Chapter 14 begins giving us some context for this land that God has called Abraham to go to.

Remember, nobody else was in on this plan yet.

There were already people living there, and we will talk about them when we get into 15 as well.

But chapter 14 shows us that there were 9 kings that ruled over different regions of the land.

Essentially, there were 4 more powerful kings, from the Eastern side of the land, and 5 smaller kings that served underneath them near the Jordan Valley.

eventually, after about a 13 year truce, the 5 Jordanian kings decided they didn’t like that anymore, and rebelled against the 4 Eastern kings.

Turns out there was a reason the 4 Eastern kings were in charge, as they wipe out the 5 Jordanian kings in battle pretty quickly.

Why does all this matter, you ask?

Look at v. 11-12

“So the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way.

They also took Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, who was dwelling in Sodom, and his possessions, and went their way.”

So Lot was living in Sodom, which leads to more problems later, and gets himself kidnapped by these powerful kings.

Despite this sort of being his own fault, family is family, and Abram gathers together his own allies, and goes to rescue him.

He chases them down, defeats them in the middle of the night, and brings back Lot, as well as all of the possessions that were stolen.

This is a pretty big victory for him, and is one of the first examples we see of God “blessing those who bless Abraham, and cursing those who curse him.”

Abraham should most likely NOT have won that battle; but he was able to, not with superior numbers, not with phenomenal strategy, but because God was with him.

After this, Abram gets a visit from a priest/king named Melchizedek, who is the first person Abram meets that is closer to God than he is.

And he’s given this blessing in v. 19-20

(ESV)

(ESV) — 19 And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Some think he was actually a Christophany, meaning it was God the Son appearing in the OT.

i.

Some think this was actually a Christophany, meaning it was God the Son appearing in the OT.

(ESV) — 19 And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, Some think he was actually a Christophany, meaning it was God the Son appearing in the OT.

19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, Some think he was actually a Christophany, meaning it was God the Son appearing in the OT.

Some actually believe this was a Christophany, which is an appearance in the Old Testament of God the Son, before he entered the world as Jesus; we know this happened elsewhere, but there’s debate about if that’s what happened here.

Don’t have time to go into it today, but for more reading on this, check out Hebrews 7

1.

Don’t have time to go into it today, but for more reading, check out

Chapter 15

a.

This bring us to chapter 15.

I want to read the whole thing, then come back and look at a few different things.

1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.”

Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other.

But he did not cut the birds in half.

11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram.

And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.