ABRAM’S VISION
‘The word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision.’
Genesis 15:1
Let us note three lessons in this vision; and
I. Increase of knowledge brings increase of sorrow.—When the sun went down, we read, a horror, even a great darkness, fell on Abraham. When he first started for Canaan, he was very ignorant. He only knew he would possess the land. But now the pathway leading down through Egypt, and all the weariness and the waiting of four hundred years, were revealed to him by the voice of God. It was a sad though it was a glorious revelation. There came a shadow with that deepened knowledge. Abraham was not the first and not the last to learn the noble sorrow of all progress.
II. Note how God’s love allows no hurry—the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Till the day came that their cup was running over, the seed of Israel should not possess the land. Not even for Israel would the Amorites be cut off, till the full hour of their doom had come. No life of any tribe must be abridged, even for the betterment of God’s elect. So do we see the impartiality of God; so do we learn the justice of His mercy: God’s love is so great it allows of no despair, but it is so holy it allows no hurry.
III. Where the furnace smokes there is a lamp that burns: the light of heaven is near us in our trouble. When the pall hangs heavy, and we move among the dead, with little to cheer us in the murky gloom, even then, close to the furnace is the lamp—the presence of the covenant-keeping God.
Illustrations
(1) ‘God is strangely condescending and tender. He makes His covenant with Abram; and a covenant is a promise which is ratified by a sign or token. He supports His words, as men need to support theirs, by a solemn religious sanction. And it is thus that He stoops to tie Himself with me, giving security that His stipulations shall be kept and fulfilled. By the sacrifice of Christ He confirms His greatest and sweetest assurances.
But it may be necessary to wait patiently for God. When Abram had slain the appointed victims, what followed? For a time, only silence and suspense. I may have to pass through Abram’s experience. I must depend on God’s sovereign grace with unreserved submission. I may need to wrestle long before the answer comes. I may have to spend my tears apparently for naught. Yet only apparently.
For at last God’s promises are fulfilled. Perhaps through gloom and sorrow, like that thick darkness which girt Abram round, and which was symbolic of the sufferings awaiting his family. But fulfilled exceedingly above thought and hope.’
(2) ‘God ratified His promise by condescending to the outward habits and customs of the time. The Shekinah lamp passed between the parted pieces of the sacrifice as the contracting party would do. There were to be dark days of sin and defeat, of affliction and bondage, but there was one ray of comfort, on which all after generations based their life, “They shall come hither again.” And when God says it, Pharaoh cannot prevail.’