Waiting for the promised son and the promised land.
God has been at work in Abram's life but, as we saw in the previous post, even though Abram experienced great success in life it wasn't enough to keep him from fear and discouragement. Abram needed to put his focus back on the promises so God came to remind him that he is Abram's shield and reward.
It was naturally easy for Abram to doubt, so far God seems to be doing nothing to come through on his promises for land or for a son, Abram is in a rush to get to the fulfillment of the promise.
God knows that Abram, just like all of us, one of the reasons we get discouraged so easily is because we live by the clock and we try to get God to do the same. The world makes promises to us and they make good on the promises the same day or within a minute but God doesn't usually work that way, he doesn't care about same day delivery or minute rice.
The Promised Son Is Delayed
God assures Abram that the promise for a son is still good but the doubts keep growing as the biological clock keeps ticking. Maybe God isn't paying attention to the details, he might not realize that Sarah is already infertile, God needs to do something before Abram is also unable to reproduce.
Soon the anxious couple will decide to give God some help to make God's plans come to pass. (Genesis 16:1-2) They had a promise from God but they still felt the desperation and disappointment that most childless couples feel. They couldn't see that God was waiting until there was no way that they could produce a child on their own so that he would get the glory for a miracle baby.
The Promised Land Is Delayed
If Abram thought he had to wait too long for the promised son to become a reality that was nothing compared to the amount of time that would pass before the promised land would become a reality. There are so many things that must happen before God allows Abram's descendants to take the land so God gave Abram a glimpse of the long range plan so that he could have peace despite the fact that he couldn't see an progress being made.
God uses a dramatic ceremony that was common in that time to help ease Abram's doubts. Typically, both covenant partners would walk between the pieces of the sacrificed animal but this time God was obligating himself to fulfill his promise without any requirements from Abram.
Genesis 17:6,18-19 I will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them!The delay continued and God would come to assure Abram that his promise was still good. (Genesis 17:1-22) Abram didn't know that we don't graduate from the school of faith until God takes us home and he didn't have any idea that he would be in a best selling book as an example for us.
18 So Abraham said to God, “May Ishmael live under your special blessing!” 19 But God replied, “No—Sarah, your wife, will give birth to a son for you. You will name him Isaac, and I will confirm my covenant with him and his descendants as an everlasting covenant.
Abram's journey of faith shows me that it is okay to have doubts and questions when it looks like God isn't doing anything that he promised. We need to realize that most of God's people didn't get to see a lot of progress in the fulfillment of God's promises.
Abram's journey of faith shows me that God's promises are received by grace without works. I am saved not by making promises to God but by the promises of God that he made to me. God didn't accept the son born to Abram through works, the son that God accepted was the promised son that came through a miracle pregnancy, the impossible son that would later become the sacrificed son. (Genesis 22:1-19)
God's people didn't realize that the promised son and the promised land was a preview of something much bigger and better. God only partially fulfilled his promises through the Jewish people, they didn't know about the new promise that would come, they didn't realize the promises would be expanded to every nation, tribe and tongue from around the world.
Philippians 3:20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.God's people are still waiting for the ultimate fulfillment of the promised son and the promised land. The promised son came once to pay the penalty for our sin so that when he returns we will be able to enjoy the promised land with him for eternity.
The world will make promises to you and a lot of the time they will come through on those promises right away but we need to be patient enough to wait for the best promises. We need to be careful to not be content with these temporary promises and miss the eternal joy that God's promises bring.
