Well, turn with me in the Word of God to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 15. At the Christ URC, we've been going through Paul's letter to the Romans for the past 12 weeks. And so this evening, I'm with you opening up Genesis 15 as part of an assignment and shifting gears a bit. And a wonderful chapter, indeed, this is in God's Word. Genesis 15, let us hear the word of the Lord. After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward. But Abram said, O sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eleazar of Damascus. And Abram said, You have given me no children, so a servant in my household will be my heir. Then the word of the Lord came to him, This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. He took him outside and said, Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be. Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it. But Abram said, O sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it? So the Lord said to him, Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon. Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two, and arranged the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated 400 years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadamites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and Jebusites. Thus far the reading of God's holy and infallible word. May He bless it to our hearts this evening by the power of His Spirit. Well, Genesis 15 is a massive chapter. Not massive in the sense of its length, it's only 21 verses, but massive in the sense of its weight and importance. Of course, all the Bible is important. But there are particular chapters and particular parts of the Bible that are more important than others, especially as it bears on our understanding of the overall story, the unfolding story of the Bible, namely that God redeems a people for Himself through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, Genesis 15 is such a chapter. It's one of those chapters that acts sort of like an anchor as we read all of redemptive history from Genesis to Revelation. And God here makes some very important promises that are important for us to understand. If He had not revealed these things to us in Genesis 15, it would be easy for us to sort of get confused as we were reading the Bible. It would be kind of like popping in on a movie in the middle without seeing the beginning and then trying to figure out the plot. But thankfully, God has given us this text and He's preserved it for us so that we can see these wonderful promises and understand how we as the people of God fit into this story here in Genesis 15. For it's this story, loved ones, and this promise, namely these promises that are given to Abram, these here show us our spiritual heritage. And they show us the inheritance that our covenant God, our faithful God, has promised to us. And as we look at these promises, we'll note that there often is a sense of impossibility of God's promises. They have sort of a look that it looks as if it's just impossible. How could this ever come to pass? And yet it does, because they're the promises of the Lord. And indeed, that gives us great comfort. Well, I'd ask you to think with me as we look at this great chapter in terms of the promises, the fulfillment, and finally, the one who fulfills the promises. So in the first place, let's think about the promises. Notice that God promises Abram two things in this chapter. Two things. He promises him offspring and a land to possess. And the first of these two promises begins in verse 1, where we read God saying in a vision, Fear not, Abram, I am your shield. Your reward will be very great. But Abram hears this and he seems concerned about the promise of reward. There's a problem with it as far as he can tell. And the problem is, of course, that he doesn't have any children. And so he sort of respectfully objects to that. And he says, oh Lord, the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. You've given me no offspring. Abram's thinking, who will inherit this reward that you are promising to me? What will happen to it? What use will it be? In other words, he would need to adopt somebody in his house, particularly a slave, who would be the heir, the one who would inherit these promises. And that was probably a common practice for a childless man in that culture. Well, the Lord responds to Abram's concern in verse 4. And he says, this man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. The Lord reassures Abram by bringing him outside and doing something spectacular. He says, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. So shall your offspring be. Well, of course he can't number the stars. I mean, who can number the stars? Children, have you ever been out and seen the stars on a clear night? Maybe when you're in the mountains or you're in the desert. You can't possibly number them all. Well, God was making a point here to Abram. He's saying, you see how many stars are up in the heaven? That's how many descendants I'm going to give you. You who are childless. And it says that Abram believed the Lord. And he counted it to him as righteousness. And that's amazing because Abram is nearly a hundred years old at this point. He's lived a good long life without any kids. And he and Sarai, his wife, they undoubtedly wanted kids. But they probably just resigned themselves to the fact that they weren't going to have any kids. I mean, they're old enough to be great-grandparents at this point. And I think we could be a little sympathetic with Abram if he had responded to the Lord with a, yeah, right, I'll believe it when I see it. And it almost had a sense of craziness to it. I'm going to have a child. I'm almost 100 years old. But that's not how Abram reacted. Instead, it says he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Yes, it seemed impossible, and on some level, maybe even a little crazy, but it was the promise of the Lord nonetheless, and it was to be believed. And Abram trusted the Lord through faith alone, and was justified. But there was more. There wasn't just that promise of offspring. There was also the promise of a land to possess. And there, too, we see Abram wanting some sort of assurance that this is really going to happen. He says in verse 8, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? And so God seals this promise of the land to Abram through a solemn covenant ritual. He says, you want a guarantee, Abram? You want a guarantee of this promise? Alright, you go get a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. Now, this ritual that we read about here, it wasn't a sacrifice. Rather, this is a blood oath that a person would take in a covenant ceremony. In Abram's day, it was common for two kings or two rulers to come together who were going to make an agreement, which is what a covenant is, a solemn agreement. And they would, in this agreement, explain all the conditions of the covenant, the promises that were in the covenant, if the covenant was kept, the penalties involved if the covenant was broken. And sometimes there would be these blood oaths involved, like the one we read here in Genesis 15, where animals were taken and they'd be cut into two and the pieces would be separated. And then usually the lesser of the two kings would walk through this path of the severed halves of these animals. And the message was, if you did not keep the covenant, you were going to end up like one of those dead, bloodied, severed animals. It was very vivid. You couldn't miss the point. The lesser king probably trembled as he walked through that path of severed animals, thinking, I better keep my promise in this covenant. Well, Abram completely understood this ritual that God does before his eyes because this is how covenants were ratified and made official in his day. They didn't just use attorneys and a stamp and a seal. There were sometimes things like this involved. But what's so amazing about this particular blood oath is that it's not Abram walking between the severed halves. But the Lord Himself walks through the severed halves. These symbols that manifested the Lord's presence, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, they pass through the carcasses. And we can just imagine Abram looking and seeing a cloud of smoke come up from that smoking fire pot and a soaring flame coming up from the torch as they pass through these symbols of cloud and fire, symbols that the Lord would later use during the Exodus in two great pillars as he led his people out of Egypt into the promised land. These symbols that were very evident of God's presence there with him, walking between the two severed halves through this row. And what the Lord did was he invoked this bloodshed upon himself if he didn't keep the promise that he made to Abram. And so, these are the promises that are made. Offspring and a land as an everlasting possession that was sealed with a blood oath. But then how are they fulfilled? How are they fulfilled? Well, as the Bible unfolds, as we continue to read past Genesis 15, and we see how God is redeeming a people for himself, we see that the fulfillment of these promises, People, offspring, and land, they come on two marvelous levels. Now we need to think about this. On the first level, the fulfillment of these promises is in the history of the nation Israel. As we read a few chapters later, we read in Genesis 21 that the Lord finally gave to Abraham, as he changed his name, and Sarah, as he changed her name, a son Isaac. Although the promise seemed impossible, sure enough, we read that the Lord visited Sarah and did just as He said. She conceived and bore a son, Isaac, and Abraham was 100 years old when he came. And then we read that from Isaac came Jacob, and then from Jacob came his 12 sons who fathered the 12 tribes of Israel. And as the story progresses, we learn that these descendants of Abraham, they all end up in Egypt, where they continued to multiply generation after generation until the book of Exodus reports at the beginning that Israel had increased so greatly and grew so exceedingly strong that the king of Egypt was fearful that they would overtake them. The land of Egypt was filled with these people. More than the stars. And they were so great that the king of Egypt made them slaves and began to afflict them. They underwent heavy burdens as the slaves of Egypt, just as God foretold in Genesis 15. And not only that, but they stayed there for 400 years, just as God had said they would. Well, this promise given to Abraham, this promise that seemed like an impossibility, was finally brought to pass. And indeed, those people that were numbered more than the stars, They were led out of Egypt. And Moses even says to them in the book of Deuteronomy that you are as numerous as the stars of heaven. And God brought judgment upon Egypt just as He said He would. And we can think what impact these promises must have had for those Israelite readers as they would read the story of Genesis 15 and see, you know, the Lord brought these things to pass. Abraham didn't have a child. He promised. It seemed crazy, but it happened. And sure enough, we all ended up in Egypt. Sure enough, we became more number than the stars, and we've been let out of Egypt. We were there for 400 years, just as He said. And what comfort they must have had as they read those things, as they knew that the Lord was faithful to His promises. What reason they had to never doubt the Lord as they traveled through the wilderness looking for the land because if God promised an offspring to Abraham and sure enough He brought it, well, surely He was going to lead them into the land. They had no reason to doubt the Lord or complain. Surely they must have just rejoiced the whole 40 years until they entered in, right? Isn't that what happened? No, that's not what happened. Sadly, we know it was the contrary. As they went through the wilderness, all they did was grumble and complain and ask, what will we drink? What will we eat? Even after witnessing time and time again the Lord's faithfulness to them, even after seeing with their own eyes the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire and the Lord separating the Red Sea and bringing them through and doing miracle after miracle, still they complained and they spoke against the Lord. In fact, Psalm 78 tells this tragic story in a song describing how the Lord's anger rose up against Israel because they did not believe in God and did not trust His saving power. It was Israel's lack of faith that kindled God's wrath against them. In fact, the writer of Hebrews says very plainly that those who were not allowed to enter into the promised land were unable to enter because of unbelief. The whole generation that did not believe the Lord's promises died in the wilderness. Sad and tragic story. Only Joshua and Caleb, those two young men that believed in the Lord and trusted in the Lord, along with the young generation that was birthed after that first generation, were able to enter into the inheritance of the promised land. And indeed, they did receive it. For we read in Joshua 21 that after they had conquered all the land there, the Lord gave to Israel all the land that He swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it and they settled there. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. Indeed, the Lord fulfilled His promises. Offspring, as many as the stars, land after 400 years. And they got it. How marvelous is the fulfillment of these promises given in Genesis 15. And what comfort we receive to see God's sovereignty over history. What security there is in the faithfulness of the Lord. And yet there is much more, loved ones. As I said, there's two levels of fulfillment. All that that happened in the history of Israel is simply the first level. It's just a picture of something far greater that these things point towards. And they involve you and me and all the people of God, all of His elect. Turn with me to Galatians chapter 3. Because we'll note that these two promises are fulfilled and explained in the New Testament. And in the book of Galatians, as Paul is making his argument against the Judaizers, he's explaining that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, and not by works of the law. He's careful to show how it is that one is a true descendant of Abraham. Look at verse 7 in Galatians chapter 3. Verse 7. It says, Understand then that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the Gospel in advance to Abraham. All nations will be blessed through you. So, those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Now that's glorious revelation. That's amazing. Justification comes through faith alone to people of every tongue, nation, and tribe, even Gentiles like us. And that promise that was given to Abraham, it goes out to all the earth and it's to be received by faith. And that's so because of what Paul says down here in verse 16. Note here in Galatians 3 verse 16, The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The scripture does not say, and to seeds, meaning many people, but and to your seed, meaning one person who is Christ. You see, Christ is the offspring of Abraham, through whom all the promises come to us. The law that was later given through Moses could not annul that covenant that God made with Abraham back here in Genesis 15. And that promise, it comes directly to you and me. So that the promise is fulfilled in Christ and Paul is able to say down here in verse 29, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Could it be any clearer? Not all of Israel was of true Israel. And Paul presses this point in Galatians and also in the book of Romans, especially in chapters 2, 4, and 9, and 11. Not all of national Israel is of true Israel. Those descendants that God is speaking of back in Genesis 15. You see, there's a greater level of fulfillment. And that greater level of fulfillment is you and me. Anybody who has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our lineage goes back to Genesis 15. That's where our spiritual heritage lies. It's all those that are like him, Abraham, who have faith. Well, that's how the promise of the offspring is fulfilled on a greater level. But what about the promise of land? How is that fulfilled on a greater level? Well, turn with me to the book of Hebrews. And notice that in Hebrews, there we see that there is a greater reality that comes to us of these promises. It's not just a plot of land in Canaan, but there's something far greater. Hebrews chapter 11, note in verse 8. Hebrews 11, verse 8. By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place that he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Now, skip down to verse 13. As you know, Hebrews 11 is not only speaking of Abraham, but also of all those who have exemplified faith. It says, All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. A heavenly one. So there's a greater level of fulfillment. It's not just that plot of real estate over in Canaan. That's just a type. It's just a picture. It's just a shadow. The greater level of fulfillment is the new heavens and the new earth. And that is what God is speaking of back in Genesis 15. Yes, it's fulfilled in Israel, but it's fulfilled far greater in that land that you and I are traveling towards. Even now, every day, we get closer. As we are traveling through this pilgrimage, through this wilderness experience for all of us, we are looking towards that which Abraham looked towards, the new heavens and the new earth. You see, God gave Israel a land, and it was good, especially after 400 years of oppression. But ultimately, that land became corrupt, it became defiled, and it faded away. But the inheritance that you and I have, Peter says, is incorruptible. It's undefiled. It does not fade away. And it's not reserved on earth. Peter says it's reserved in heaven for you. And that's the land that we look towards. Like Abraham, we look forward to it with hope. Well, the promises, the fulfillments. But our consideration of Genesis 15 would be terribly incomplete without meditating upon the one who fulfills these promises for us, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised seed and offspring of Abraham. For it's only through Him and His suffering of the curse pictured here in this blood oath made to Abraham that all these blessings become ours, that we become the descendants of Abraham and that we have a heavenly home to which we look. Christ not only had to walk between these severed animals, but He had to become like one of these severed animals. That was the path He had to walk. That was the way He had to open up for you and me so that we could inherit eternal life and have the righteousness that we stand in need of. That was the path Christ had to walk. You see, this goes back even further in Genesis. Back to the beginning. Back to the fall. Back to that covenant that Adam was in that he broke with God when he and Eve were kicked out of the garden. Do you remember what God did there? How did He protect that garden? How did He protect that holy place from sinful man being able to re-enter into the garden? God set mighty cherubim in front of the garden with a flaming sword that turned in every direction. There was this terrible barrier that was laid between holy God and sinful man. And the only way back in, the only way to the tree of life was through God's just judgment, was through that judgment sword. And that's the way that our Lord Jesus Christ walked. The sword struck him. His flesh was torn open. And he suffered the wrath of God upon the cross. He was not a covenant breaker, but he became such for us. He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. You see, this blood oath in Genesis 15, this blood oath was a commitment to the death of Jesus Christ. And because He fulfilled that for us, we can look with great hope to the future. We can rest in the promises of God. For they always come to pass. Abraham got a son. They ended up in Egypt after they multiplied like the stars. They left after 400 years. They entered into Israel. The Gospel's gone out to the Gentiles. That means that we can trust in the Lord's promise that we will be in heaven. That we will enter into that promised land. That glorious place. That wonderful place wherein only righteousness dwells. Where there is no crying, no sadness or pain. Nothing evil or corrupt will ever enter its gates. Pilgrim people of God, while you travel in this wilderness age, remember that that is your home. And you will be there. God has promised. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what you have revealed and also what you have preserved. And we thank you, O Lord, that these promises come to us through the Lord Jesus Christ and that we are united to him and now have been made the children of Abraham. And Father, we look forward to that heavenly country to which we travel. O Lord, we pray that we would be grateful pilgrims along the way, always trusting in you, always worshiping you, always rejoicing that you have given us such great promises and that you are so faithful to your covenant that you indeed will always keep your promises. Have your way with us, we pray, by the power of your Spirit who uses this word. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.