Abram's Journey of Faith Through Fear

1. Genesis Chapter 15 & 16

2. Abram’s Trial • Abram’s Obey God Call to leave everything and to follow Him. • Hindered by His Father – God renew the call • Famine fear for his life • Egypt – Deception and lying Lost Sari and his Alter • Return to Canaan and Lot’s quarrel over the Land –Been Humble and left God to choose for him • Saving Lot –Faith working through love • Refusing the king of Sodom offering been content

3. The Priest hood of Melkisadek • Priest and King • Righteous and peace • Bread and wine. • Blesses Abram and receive the tenth. • His Sacrifice greater than Aaron • He is symbol of Christ.

4. “Do not be afraid” • It is mentioned 365 times in the Bible. • Why Abram was Afraid? • Fear of the future and of the reward • “I am your shield” • Acts 18:9-11 • 9 Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, "Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; 10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city." 11 And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

5. 2 Kings 6:16-18 • 16 So he answered,"Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." 17 And Elisha prayed, and said, "LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 18 So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, and said, "Strike this people, I pray, with blindness." And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

6. The Earthly and the Heavenly • God’s renew his promise. • Compare Gen 15:5 with Gen13:16 • Ishmael represent the dust of the earth. • Isaac Represent the heavenly.

7. Abram’s Vision • Abram Asks for a sign. • St. Augustine • He did not mean to imply that he does not believe that • he would inherit it; but said “How shall I know ? “, namely, He asks for a sign to know the • way by which, what he believed to gain would be realized. In this He is like the Virgin St. Mary, • who asked, not in disbelief, “How can this be, since I do not know a man ? “ (Luke 1: 34). • She was asking about the way by which what is to occur, would be realized;

8. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.“ • Refers to the redeeming work of the Lord • Christ; When sun went down, at the fulfillment of time, deep sleep fell upon the Lord, as He • yielded up His Spirit on the cross, proclaiming the bitterness of sin, that brought us down to hell, and delivered us to servitude for some time

9. Abram’s Vision • Gen 15:12 • 12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him • Gen 15:17 • 17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark

10. St. John Chrysostom says: • [Isaac was born, not according to the law of nature, nor through legal marriage or body strength; and yet, he is truly his son. He came from two bodies that were dead; came from a dead womb; his birth was not according to flesh, nor he was naturally conceived, as the womb was dead because of old age and barrenness, but the Word of God (the divine promise) formed him (through union of Abram and Sarai as a fruit of the promise, so he is their son and of their seed). • It was not the same with the son of the bondwoman, as he came according to the law of nature. • However, the one, not according to the flesh, was more dignified than him, who was born according to the flesh].

11. pere' (peh'-reh); or pereh (Jer 2:24) (peh'-reh); from OT:6500 in the secondary sense of running wild; the onager: • KJV - wild (ass). • Be'er la-Chay Ro'iy — • Beer-lahai-roi = "well of the Living One seeing me" • a well west of Kadesh, south of Israel

12. Gen 15:12 • 12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. • Matt 27:45-46 • Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" • NKJV

13. Gen 15:16-17 • 17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. • Rev 9:1-2 • 2 And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. • NKJV

14. Gen 16:1-3 • 1. It is the policy of Satan to tempt us by our nearest and dearest relations, or those friends that we have an opinion of and an affection for. • The temptation is most dangerous when it is sent by a hand that is least suspected: • it is our wisdom therefore to consider, not so much who speaks as what is spoken.

15. Gen 16:1-3 • 2. She owned God's providence in this affliction: The Lord hath restrained me from bearing. Note, • As, where children are, it is God that gives them (Gen 33:5), so where they are wanted it is he that withholds them, Gen 30:2. This evil is of the Lord.

16. Gen 29:31 • When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. • Gen 30:1-2 • Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I die!" • 2 And Jacob's anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said,"Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" • Gen 30:22-23 • 22 Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. 23 And she conceived and bore a son, and said, "God has taken away my reproach."

17. Gen 16:4-6 • Those who would keep up peace and love must return soft answers to hard accusations. Husbands and wives particularly should agree, and endeavour not to be both angry together. Yielding pacifies great offenses.

18. Abram = "exalted father" • Sarai = "princess" • Hagar (haw-gawr'); foreign, Alien • Ishmael. • Yishma` e'l (yish-maw-ale'); from OT:8085 and OT:410; God will hear;

19. Gen 16:10-14 • He gives a character of the child she should bear, which, however it may seem to us, perhaps was not very disagreeable to her (v. 12): • He will be a wild man; a wild ass of a man (so the word is), rude, and bold, and fearing no man-untamed, intractable living at large, and impatient of service and restraint.

20. Gen 16:10-14 • (1.) That he should live in strife, and in a state of war: His hand against every man - this is his sin; and every man's hand against him - this is his punishment. • He that has his hand and tongue against every man shall have every man's hand and tongue against him, and he has no reason to complain of it.

21. Gen 16:10-14 • (2.) That he should live in safety, and hold his own against all the world: He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren; though threatened and insulted by all his neighbours, yet he shall keep his ground,

22. Gen 16:7-9 • Those that have gone away from their place and duty, when they are convinced of their error, must hasten their return and reformation, how mortifying so ever it may be.

23. Abram = "exalted father" • Abaham = "father of a multitude" or "chief of multitude" • Sarai = "princess" • Sarah = "noblewoman"

24. Circumcision Greek=peritomh, which is translated by the Latin circumcisio, i. e. “a cutting around”, a custom among many Eastern nations of cutting off part of the prepuce, as a religious ceremony. The Jews, through Abraham, received the rite from Jehovah; Moses established it as a national ordinance; and Joshua carried it into effect before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan Males only were subjected to the operation, and it was to be performed on the eighth day of the child's life; foreign slaves also were forced to submit to it on entering an Israelite's family

25. CIRCUMCISION • The penalty of death for a neglect of this ordinance appears in the case of Moses to have actually been demanded of the father, when the Lord "sought to kill him" because his son was uncircumcised (Ex 4:24-26). • During the passage through the wilderness the practice fell into disuse, so that of those who entered Canaan none had been circumcised. • As this was fatal to their title under the covenant to take possession of the land, Joshua, in obedience to God's command, caused all the males to be circumcised (Josh 5:2-9).

26. When first appointed by God, circumcision was expressly set forth as a token of the covenant which God had made with Abraham; and the apostle tells us that Abraham received "the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of that faith which he had, being yet uncircumcised" (Rom 4:11); So that to Abraham it was not only a sign or token of God's covenant, but also an obsignation or certificate that he was in a state of acceptance before he was circumcised

27. CIRCUMCISION • In consequence of this, it became the medium of access to the privileges of the covenant, and entailed on all who received it an obligation to fulfill the duties which the covenant imposed (Rom 2:25; 3:1; Gal 5:3). • In a word, it was the token which assured to Abraham and his descendants the promise of the Messiah (Gen 17).

28. Circumcision • Our Lord himself was circumcised, because it became him who was of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh to fulfill all righteousness, and because he was "a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers" (Rom 15:8); • and Paul caused Timothy to be circumcised to avoid offense to the Jews, his mother being a Jewess; but the spirit of Christianity was averse from such institutions (Acts 15:1-11; Gal 2:3, etc.) -- for the outward carnal circumcision it sought to substitute that of the heart (Rom 2:28,29), • "the circumcision not made with hands in putting off the sins of the flesh, even the circumcision of Christ" (Col 2:11)

29. Gal 6:15 • 15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. • Col 3:11 • 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

30. Rom 2:28-29 • 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

31. Col 2:11-14 • 11 Not Legalism but Christ • In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

32. CIRCUMCISIONBaptism • 5. The early ecclesiastical writers universally held thee views here given. Their doctrine, made dependent on John 3:5, that ptisma, baptism of water and the Spirit, was equivalent to , regeneration by water and the Spirit, caused them to speak of baptism as (GREEK( peritomh\ pneumatikh), spiritual circumcision, because the Spirit was always joined with the water in the baptism of an infant, or a converted, believing adult.

33. In Justin Martyr baptism is very frequently alluded to as the "true circumcision," of which the ancient rite was a type. "God commands you to be washed with this purification, and to be circumcised with the true circumcision" He says that Christians "had not received the fleshly circumcision, but the spiritual one, which Enoch and those like him made use of; and we received it through baptism, " The ordinance of baptism was to Justin "the water of life"

34. Cyprian and his council, held in the baptism of infants that the analogy then followed of ancient circumcision should not be binding

35. CIRCUMCISION • Its significance is, the cutting the outside flesh of the organ of generation denotes corruption as inherent in us from birth, and transmitted by our parents, and symbolizes our severance from nature's defilement to a state of consecrated fellowship with God. • Jehovah consecrated the nation to Himself; and whatsoever male was not circumcised on the eighth day was liable to be "cut off.

36. "Uncircumcised" is used of the lips (Ex 6:12,20), the ears (Jer 4:4; 6:10), the heart (Lev 26:41; Deut 10:16; Acts 7:51), • Acts 7:51-53 • "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers,

37. Rom 5:12 • Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned John 3:3-7 • 3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." • 4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" • 5 Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

38. 1 Cor 15:47-49 • 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. • 51 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption.