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Genesis 15:1-8

What overwhelms you?  Either for good or ill – what knocks you off your feet?

According to the Bible, either life overwhelms you and we call that fear.  Or God overwhelms you and we call that faith.  In the end only faith is the answer to fear.

But it’s an answer we desperately need.  The most common command in all of Scripture is this one: “Fear not.”  It’s been needed from the beginning.  The very first emotion recorded in the Bible is fear.  Adam said to the LORD,

I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.  (Genesis 3:10)

Here is the primal fear that lurks beneath all our lives.  And if we want an answer to it, we’re going to need faith.

So who better to teach us than Abraham.  He is repeatedly held up in the Bible as a man of faith.  But what does that mean?  Does that mean Abraham possessed a special ‘believing capacity’ that was out of the ordinary?  Was ‘faith’ some substance like ‘the force’ from Star Wars? Did it run through Abraham’s veins like midichlorians in Jedi blood?

No, faith is not something within us.  Faith comes from outside.  Faith is being overwhelmed by God.  And in Genesis 15, Abraham has his great fears overwhelmed by an even greater God.

His first fear is understandable enough.  In Genesis 14 Abraham had gone to war to rescue his nephew, Lot.  He was successful in battle but refused to take any plunder.  Now that the adrenaline has soured, Abraham fears reprisals and fears he’s lost out on the spoils of war.

How does the LORD seek to address these fears?  A little pep talk?  “Pull yourself together man!”

No, Christ, the Word of the LORD, comes to Abraham in a vision to take his eyes off his fears and put them where they need to be:

“I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward”

“Do you fear reprisals?  I am your protection.  Do you fear losing out?  I am your reward.”

Fear is met by a more overwhelming reality – Christ Himself is given to us.  Why should we fear?

Well, actually, that’s precisely Abraham’s worry.  Is Christ going to be given?  Really given as the Serpent-crushing Seed?  (Genesis 3:15)

You see it’s fine to have an appearance of the Word of the LORD, but what the human race really needs is for the Word of the LORD to be born into our race.  What we really need is for the Word to become flesh (John 1:14).  That’s our hope for true deliverance and reward.  But here is the problem: even though the Seed has been promised to come through Abraham, he and his wife remain childless.

So Abraham says:

Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless… Behold, to me thou hast given no seed.  (Genesis 15:2-3)

Do you hear the fear?

Here comes the overwhelming answer:

And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him… And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.  (Genesis 15:4-5)

“You want seed, Abraham?  You’ll have seed alright.  Not just the Messiah but a whole galaxy of spiritual descendants in Him.”

Abraham is knocked off his feet by the promise and so…

he believed in the LORD; and [the LORD] counted it to him for righteousness.  (Genesis 15:6)

Here is one of the most crucial verses in all the Bible.  Because here is how our ultimate fear is allayed.  Here is how we can be counted as righteous in God’s sight.   Not by doing righteous deeds, but by trusting in Christ.  This righteousness is what fearful people desperately need.

Adam was afraid to be exposed in the LORD’s presence.  And, ever since, humanity has feared and hidden from the God who made us.  But here is how we can appear righteous in God’s eyes: Trust in Christ and – instantly, perfectly and eternally – righteousness is counted / gifted / accredited to our account.

For the one who trusts in Christ they have an answer to that primal fear – fear of divine judgement.  If the Judge Himself has given us His own perfect righteousness, “of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)

In this way, Abraham finds the ultimate covering.  He is arrayed in a robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). His fears are overwhelmed by a gracious God.

But he has one more fearful question to ask, and it’s an important one:

“How shall I know?”  (Genesis 15:8)

How can anyone know that these promises hold true?

The LORD’s answer will truly sweep Abraham off his feet.  As we’ll see tomorrow…

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Genesis 12:1-9

The LORD seems to have a similar sense of humour.  In Genesis 17:5, childless Abram is re-named “Abraham” which means “father of a multitude.”  But the Word of the LORD doesn’t only name things.  When He bestows a name, He brings the thing into being.  Abraham would indeed become father of a multitude.  Great and miraculous “seed” was promised to Abraham – “seed” to bless the whole world.

In Genesis 12:7 the LORD appears to Abram and says: “unto thy seed I give this land.”  With Genesis 3:15 still ringing in our ears, the promise inspires great hope!  The Seed will come.  He has not been forgotten and He will come through Abraham.

This original promise explains why all the other incredible promises are given to Abraham:

I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:  And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.  (Genesis 12:2-3)

Abraham will be a conduit for all of heaven’s blessings.  From God to the world, all divine promises and benefits will come through Abraham’s seed.

No wonder so many people around the world call Abraham “father.”  Jews and Muslims as well as Christians look back to Abraham as a forefather in the faith.  Billions seek to justify a connection to Abraham – we want to be Abraham’s children.  And no wonder – because these verses speak of Abraham’s seed as mediating all of God’s grace to humankind!

So who is the seed of Abraham?

Well, such exalted terms can only refer to the Divine Mediator Himself.  Only Christ can live up to the title Seed of Abraham.  Only He can bless the world.

That’s what the Apostle Paul concludes in Galatians 3:16:

To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. God saith not, “And to seeds,” as of many; but as of one, “And to thy seed,” which is Christ.

Christ is the true Seed of Abraham.  He is the only One who can make good all the promises entrusted to Abraham’s offspring.

But there’s good news for us.  Any who trust Christ can come in on the promises.  The blessings are poured onto His Head, but they flow down to the body.

Paul continues:

And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.  (Galatians 3:29)

Who is the seed of Abraham?  Christ is.  But so are you, if you are in Him!

Genesis 11:1-9

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When I was 11 years old I invented a religion.  Except that there was nothing new about it.  I imagined a god who demanded moral goodness and punished shortfalls.  And with a combination of carrots and sticks my god would prod me towards some kind of “better place.”  I wasn’t the first to consider religion in this way.

The story of Babel is a gigantic enactment of our universal religious impulse:

In Genesis 11 the men of Shinar say:

“Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top (head) may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”  (Genesis 11:4)

Here are all the ingredients for a religion.  You’ve got a community (a city), you’ve got a sense of “in” and “out” (gathering not scattering), you’ve got a grand enterprise (building the tower) and you’ve got a goal (to make a ‘name’ or reputation).

But the whole trajectory of this religious project is opposed to the way of the LORD.

His way is summed up brilliantly in the following verse:

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower.  (Genesis 11:5)

The LORD comes down.  That is the way of the gospel.  He doesn’t wait for us to ascend to Him and so make our name.  He is the one to make a name for Himself.  And His kind of name (or reputation) is very different.  His name is an anti-Babel name.  It’s the name of One who stoops to create a different kind of community.

The LORD opposes the Babel enterprise.  He demolishes the tower, scatters the people and confounds their languages (v9).

But the LORD is not against community.  And He’s not against uniting earth and heaven.  But He’s got another way to do it.  In the fullness of time He will bring about a remarkable event of gathering to answer the scattering of Babel.

First, at Easter, the LORD Jesus stooped all the way down to the cross for us.  Then He rose and ascended all the way to the throne of God.  He is the Way between man and God.  He is the Head who rests in heaven.

And fifty days after Easter came the day of Pentecost.  On that day, the Apostle Peter stood up and declared this good news to a very multi-lingual crowd.  Anyone and everyone can be joined to Christ the way a body is joined to its head.  We can all have our Head in the clouds!  Not through our works but through His.

When that good news was declared, all the language-barriers came down.  They all understood the good news in their own languages (Acts 2:6).  And a new kind of community was gathered (Acts 2:41-47).

There are two approaches to getting to heaven.  Babel says, You must ascend.  The gospel says, Christ has descended to bring us up.

There are two approaches to a name.  Babel says, Make a self-exalting reputation for yourself.  The gospel says, Christ has made a self-abasing reputation for Himself.

There are two approaches to community.  Babel says, Unite in your own name-making enterprise.  The gospel says, Unite as you make His name known.  Which is it to be?

Genesis 9:1-17

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Not a rain-arc.  Not a rain-wheel.  Not a rain-dome.  A rain-bow.  Why rain bow?

Here’s what God says after the flood-waters abate:

“This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”  (Genesis 9:12-16)

Later we’ll discuss the meaning of “covenant”.  For now let’s just call it a promise – a promise grounded in committed, faithful love.

So God promises never to flood the whole world again.  And to this promise He attaches a sign (He likes doing this).  The sign will be a bow in the clouds.

Notice two things about this.

First notice who the bow is reminding.  It’s reminding us, yes.  But explicitly God says He sets it in the cloud “that I may remember.”

When we remember God’s promise of life, that’s reassuring.  But to know that God remembers His covenant – that is true assurance.

Secondly, let’s think about this sign.  A bow.

This is not a bow to put in your hair.  It’s not a bow you tie around a present.  This is a war-bow.  This is a “bow and arrow” bow.  This bow is death-dealing.

You might think – that’s a funny sign to attach to a promise of life!  Well it would be if the bow was pointed at us.  If the bow was pointed at us it would be a divine threat.  But it’s not.  It’s pointed at heaven.

You see, the world is no better since the flood.  Human hearts are still bent on evil.  The earth is still filled with violence.  And God is still angry with sin.  He will let fly with an arrow of judgement.  Evil matters to the good God.  But His arrow won’t pierce our hearts.  It’s aimed at the Man of Heaven.

This is the way God upholds His promise of life.  He doesn’t put away the bow.  He doesn’t smile at wickedness and pretend it’s nothing.  He is still at war with sin.  But He won’t fire the judgement at us.  On the cross, Christ will absorb heaven’s blow for us.

Next time you see a rainbow, don’t just admire the colours.  Be astonished at the love.

Genesis 8:1-22

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A previously hostile nation offering terms of peace.  A business competitor bringing a promising deal.  A chastened husband presenting a bunch of flowers.  Any of these cases might be called “bearing an olive branch.”

There are different views about how the olive branch became associated with peace.  But its importance in the flood story should be instructive.

“And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:  And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.  Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;  But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.  And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;  And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”  (Genesis 8:6-11)

Both the dove and the olive (with its oil) are associated with the Holy Spirit.  And bringing us to new creation is especially the work of the Spirit.  So here is a double sign from the Spirit that there is life beyond judgement.  The dove has gone to the new land and taken of the oil-filled tree.  He has brought back this firstfruits of new life to all who are gathered to the safe place (the ark).  He has taken from the life-giving tree and brought back an earnest (a guarantee) of new creation life.

When the people receive this token they know that the wrath of God is past and a new world beckons.  True peace can now be experienced – not just peace between people but the ultimate peace, that between man and God.

This peace is for us today.  The Spirit brings to us the new life of Christ – the Spirit-filled Man.  He assures us of peace with God and life beyond sin, death and judgement.

God has given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.  (2 Corinthians 1:22)

Genesis 7:1-24

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In the “film” 40 days and 40 nights Josh Hartnett has to endure this “unbearable” trial period without sex.  It’s a time of dreadful testing and I’m sure hilarity ensures.  I wouldn’t know, I couldn’t be forced to watch it – even for research purposes.

But we seem to have a cultural memory that “40 days and 40 nights” is a trying time.

Lent of course is 40 days (actually the whole time is 46 days but not even monks fast on Sundays so you get those off).

There are seven prominent periods of 40 days in the Bible.

The first “40 days” was the time of the flood-waters that fell in judgement on the earth.  (Genesis 7:4)

Moses fasted 40 days on the mountaintop before entering God’s presence.

Israel sent 12 men to spy out the land of Canaan.  They spent 40 days doing reconnaissance of the promised land.

Goliath taunted Israel for 40 days before David stepped forward to bring victory.

Jonah came to Nineveh with a message – in 40 days the city would be destroyed.  But, because they repented, God visited not with judgement but with salvation.

For 40 days Jesus entered the desert (a place of trials and temptations) and emerged victorious.

Finally, there were 40 days between Jesus’ resurrection and the time of His ascension to heaven.  It was a time when He proved Himself to His followers, showing them tokens of the resurrection life He promises to all.

40 days seems to be a time of testing and transition.  For those who pass the test there is a new world to enjoy:

A world washed clean.

Face to face with the LORD.

A land of milk and honey.

Victory over the enemy.

Salvation.

The defeat of the devil.

The new creation.

But the flood story tells us this – we can’t endure the test by ourselves.  The salvation beyond judgement is for one person only.  It is the ultimate Noah, the ultimate Moses, the ultimate David – Christ – who endures on our behalf.   Those who trust Him are hidden with Him, the way the Ark’s passengers were hidden with Noah.  But, on the other side, we benefit from His victory.

None of us can pass the ultimate test.  We cannot transition to the ultimate destination.  But Jesus Christ has.  He has crushed the devil and defeated sin and death.  He has made it to the throne of heaven and offers us new life if we simply hide ourselves in Him.  For now there is testing: “Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering” (1 Peter 4;12).  But beyond these “40 days” our Saviour will bring us to rest.

Genesis 6:1-22

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It’s the name of countless nurseries and toddler groups.  We instantly think of a cramped menagerie and a cartoon boat – usually absent Noah and the family.  Also absent is any hint that this is a cataclysmic scene of judgement.

The context is Genesis 6.  Apparently the “sons of God” were uniting with the daughters of men (“sons of God” is most commonly a reference to angels in the Bible).  It was one more illicit alliance between earth and heaven.

From the beginning, there has been only one legitimate alliance of heaven and earth.  As Genesis 3:15 promises – the Man of Heaven will become the Man of dust.  Notice the trajectory.  The Man of Heaven will come down.  Only in covenant relationship with the God-Man will we have the union we seek.  But we’re always seeking illegitimate alliances.

In Genesis 3 Satan offered the original anti-God union of angels and men.  And this kind of coup – evident in Genesis 6 – would be repeated in Genesis 11 when earth would again seek union with heaven – under its own steam and on its own terms.

But the LORD is implacably opposed to all these attempts for they all pervert a world that was made by Christ and for Christ.

The fruit of this adultery is terrible.  In Genesis 6:5 we read the LORD’s assessment of a world corrupted through spiritual infidelity:

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  (Genesis 6:5)

Not just the thoughts of the heart – the imagination of the thoughts of the heart.  Every one of them.  Not just occasionally evil, continually evil.  Not partially evil, only evil.

It’s a problem that begins with spiritual adultery.  It infects the heart then spreads out.  Later in the chapter the LORD looks and sees “the earth is filled with violence” (v11 and 13).  From the wicked heart to the clenched first the world becomes “corrupt” (v11,12) – that is, perverted, twisted, polluted, marred.

Spiritually-adulterous, black-hearted and violent.  We read these assessments as though of course God’s going to have it in for us.  Of course He’ll be negative.  And of course He’s over-reacting.  We think like the angsty teenager complaining about their history teacher “He hates me.”

But the LORD is not like that.  He loves His world.  He made us for Christ, for eternal friendship in bonds of covenant love.  He’s no kill-joy or pessimist.  That’s what makes this assessment so sobering.  The LORD is angry – furiously angry – with a world He loves.

In fact He’s sorry He made it:

It repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.  (Genesis 6:6-7)

God is sorry He made us!  And in His wrath He will destroy the earth.  We are a long way from the cartoon images here.  Starting with man at the head, there will be a cosmic judgement.

This sounds like He’s going back on everything He ever began.  It sounds like the whole creation project is going in the bin.  But then there’s our phrase: “two by two.”

There will be a place of saftey – the ark.  And the people who hide with Noah will survive.  This will amount to his wife and his three sons with their wives (two by two if you like).  And the animals who hide with Noah will survive.  And not just survive.  They also are coupled up.  Male and female – to start again.

Noah doesn’t just preserve specimens on the ark, he hides couples with him.  They come “two by two” (Genesis 7:9,15).  Because judgement is not the end.  It’s the beginning of new life beyond judgement.  There will be a whole new world after the end of the world.

Repeatedly the Bible points to the flood as a pattern for this world’s judgement at the end.  And here’s what we learn: the key is not to avoid judgement.  The world will be washed clean.  The key is to be hidden with the one called Rest.  And when you come to Him there will be a fruitful future beyond death and wrath.

Genesis 5:28-32

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When you think of rest, what springs to mind?  If you’re like me you’ll be thinking about an absence of stresses and suffering.

The name “Noah” means rest.  But the one called Rest does not come in the context of peace and safety.  It was in the midst of death and curse that the promised child was born.

“Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: ²⁹ And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.”  (Genesis 5:28-29)

Lamech was very aware that the whole creation is groaning under divine judgement.  The world is “rigged for frustration” as one writer has put it.

And it’s still rigged for frustration.  The curse is all around us in broken lives, broken relationships.  A broken world.

What do we do about that?  We might pretend that the curse is not really so bad.  We might whistle through the grave-yard to keep up our spirits.  We might despair and settle down in the rubble to await the inevitable.  We might trust to our wealth and resourcefulness to side-step the curse.

But Lamech does something different.  He doesn’t minimize the awfulness of a broken world – he acknowledges the work and toil, the death and curse.  He doesn’t pretend to master the situation out of his own resources.  And he doesn’t resign himself to the chaos.

Instead Lamech looks the darkness in the eye, but with a defiant ‘nevertheless’ he believes in rest and peace.  And so he names his boy “Rest.”

Lamech, like Adam and Eve before him, looked expectantly to his offspring in the light of that original promise of Christ (Genesis 3:15).  Christ would be the ultimate answer to the darkness, and so His people anticipated His coming eagerly.

Eve wanted her first offspring to be the One.  But she gave birth to an anti-christ figure in Cain – a perverse firstborn who kills and so furthers the curse.

Lamech’s offspring is different, but will point to the Messiah in his own way.  Noah is not the Christ but he is a christ-figure.  This one called “Rest” would save the world through judgement.  And all who would seek peace on the far side of judgement would seek refuge in him.

Here we see the way that true rest comes.  Not apart from the curse but through it, in fact through cosmic judgement.  Salvation means finding safety.  It means looking to the Peacemaker and being hidden with Him.

In this way we will find rest.  Not by making peace with this broken world.  Not by diminishing our hopes for wholeness and life.  But by looking through the toil and death around us.  In fact looking through the coming judgement which will cleanse the world.  We look to true and eternal rest on the other side of judgement because we look to Christ and hide in Him.

Genesis 5:18-27

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If someone calls you ‘Methuselah’ it’s probably not a compliment.  He was 969 years old when he died – the oldest man in the Bible.

In the midst of the avalanche of deaths in Genesis 5, Methuselah weathers the storm better than most.  But actually someone else in the family tree does better than Methuselah – his dad in fact.  When Methuselah was a spritely 300 years old, this happened:

Enoch was not; for God took him. (Genesis 5:24)

And the explanation?

Enoch walked with God.

Methuselah’s grandson is described similarly – Noah too “walked with God.”  And both Enoch in Genesis 5 and Noah in Genesis 6 escaped the death sentence that swept the others away.  They walked with God and found grace and salvation.  They found an answer to death.

Most people today, if they want to escape the ravages of age, do so through diet and exercise.  Some go to more drastic lengths.  Perhaps surgery and injections.  Some even want their corpses frozen to be defrosted when we’ve found death’s cure.  And transhumanism hopes to eliminate ageing and death altogether.

The Bible gives us an answer to death that is older than Methuselah.  Walk with God – the same God who walked with Adam and Eve in the garden.  The same God who walked among us as Man and defeated death on our behalf.  Walk with Christ and He will walk you through death.

The grave is too powerful for us.  It will swallow us.  But Christ is more powerful still.  He swallows up death:

Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.   (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)