10 LEADERS LOOK AHEAD

God told Abram what His purpose for him and his descendants was. 

God came to him at about the same time of day that later Elijah offered his prayer on Mount Carmel recorded in 1 Kings 18:36: “At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: ‘Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.’” Evidently early in the morning, while the stars were yet to be seen, God had given him orders concerning the sacrifices and now at the end of that day his spiritual and material preparations were complete. We can read these verses in a few minutes, but it was a day-long project for Abraham as he prayed and arranged things. If Abram had not really believed God, he would not have wasted a whole day doing this. Also it was about the time Daniel prayed in the evening recorded in Daniel 9:21 “. . . while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice.”

Adam was in a deep sleep, (not a normal sleep), such as when God took a rib from him and made Eve. Could we express it this way? The conscious senses of the body were locked or disengaged so the soul might be private and able to act the more freely and like itself. Abraham could focus.

In this condition a “thick and dreadful darkness” came over him. He had been comforted, but now was brought through fearful things. The children of light do not always walk in the light, but sometimes are surrounded by clouds and darkness. This great darkness and its horror was obviously intentional on God’s part possibly designed to strike an awe in the spirit of Abram, and to possess him with a holy reverence, that the familiarity to which God had allowed Abram was now also accompanied by awe. Holy fear prepares the soul for holy joy; the spirit of bondage makes way for the spirit of adoption. God wounds first, and then heals; humbles first, and then lifts up. Isaiah had a similar experience when he saw fearful things in God’s temple. Isaiah 6:5 & 6 say, “‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the  Lord Almighty.’ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.”

Also Abram’s descendants will first be in the horror and darkness of Egyptian slavery, and then enter with joy into the good land; and therefore he must have the foretaste of their sufferings, before he had the foresight of their happiness.

A prediction is given.  The suffering state of Abram’s seed for a long time. Genesis 15:13 says, “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.’”  Let not Abram flatter himself with the hopes of nothing but honor and prosperity in his family; no, he must know for sure something he would not like to know: that the promised seed should be a persecuted seed. God sends the worst first; we must first suffer, and then reign. He also lets us know the worst before it comes, that when it comes it may not be a surprise to us just as Jesus did for His disciples when He said the world will hate and persecute us.

Specifically, they will be strangers; so they were, Psalm 105:11&12 “To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.”  When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it, first in Canaan and afterwards in Egypt; before they were lords of their own land they were strangers in a strange land. The inconveniences of an unsettled state separate the ruggedly strong and persevering from the less caring and weaker persons God wants a strong people, strong in faith. This makes the eventual happy settlement the more welcome.

The heirs of heaven are first strangers on earth, a land that is not theirs. They will be servants; so they were to the Egyptians. The Egyptians put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and the Israelites built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. They are made to serve, but with this difference, the Canaanites serve under a curse, the Hebrews under a blessing with a good future. Our faith is future oriented. Psalm 49:14 is wonderful, “They are like sheep and are destined to die; death will be their shepherd (but the upright will prevail over them in the morning). Their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions.” Those that are blessed and beloved of God are often sorely trained by God by being afflicted by wicked men. God foresees, knows and remembers it. Christian leader, you just as well come to terms with the future orientation and the present sufferings.

The training was to continue for four hundred years. This persecution began with mocking as we see in Genesis 21:9, 9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, but it will end in a huge reversal, Galatians 4:28 & 29 say “Now your brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.” It continued in being looked down upon; it was an abomination to the Egyptians to eat bread with the Hebrews. It came at last to murder of their new-born children and continued about 400 years, a long time, but a limited time. So is our training, service and eventual liberation and celebration. We must be future oriented.

The judgment of the enemies of Abram’s seed is recorded and certain: “But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. This points at the plagues of Egypt, by which God not only constrained the Egyptians to release Israel, but punished them for all the hardships they had put on them. Though God may allow persecutors and oppressors to trample on his people a long while, yet he will certainly reckon with them at last. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” To him therefore we must leave it, to be done in his way and time.

The deliverance of Abram’s seed out of Egypt is a great event foretold here. After the Egyptians are judged and plagued, then they may expect deliverance. The Lord made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave the Israelites what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians. God took care they would have, not only a good land to go to, but a good stock to carry with them as they left Egypt.

They will not only come out of Egypt, but they will return here. Separated for a time yet the land still belongs to them. The reason why they must not have the land of promise in possession until the fourth generation was because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. Israel cannot possess Canaan until the Amorites be dispossessed; and they are not yet ready for ruin. The righteous God has determined that they will not be cut off until they have persisted in sin so long, and arrived at such a level of wickedness, that the proportion between their sin and their ruin is obvious. We may dare to conjecture that a merciful God allows sin to mature so that it becomes more obvious, more easily recognized and also more easily confessed? It is a blessing to recognize sin—then we can run from it.

God told Abram he would have a peaceful quiet death and burial, before these things should come to pass. “You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age” (15). As he should not live to see that good land in the possession of his family, but must die, also he will not live to see the troubles that should come on his posterity, much less share in them. Good men die willingly they do not resist or fight death; they are not fetched or forced, but they go; their soul is not required, as the rich fool’s, but cheerfully resigned: they do not want to live always on this earth. Whenever a godly man dies, he dies in peace. If the way be godly, the end is peace. Outward peace, to the last, is promised to Abram, peace and truth is his days, whatever should come afterwards; peace with God, and everlasting peace, are sure to all believers. We are blessed.

Job 5:26, says, “You will come to the grave in full vigor, like sheaves gathered in season.” Abram would die is a good old age. Perhaps mention is made of his burial here, where the land of Canaan is promised him, because a burying place was the first possession he had in it. He will not only die in peace, but die in honor, die, and be buried decently; not only die in peace, but die in season.  Old age is a blessing. It is promised in the fifth commandment; it is pleasing to nature; and it affords a great opportunity for usefulness. Especially, if it be a good old age. Theirs may be called a good old age, who are old and healthful, old and holy and old and useful, old and exemplary for godliness; theirs is indeed a good old age.

The covenant was ratified  and the sign which Abram desired was given, at length, when the sun had gone down, so that it was dark; The sign was a ‘smoking firepot with a blazing torch’ foreshadowing the affliction of his seed in Egypt. Deuteronomy 4:20 says what Moses said, “But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are. ” They were there in the iron furnace says Isaiah 48:10, “See, I have refined you, though not as silver;  I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” And they were refined with its fire. The Israelite slaves were there in the smoke, their eyes darkened, that they could not see to the end of their troubles, and they were at a loss to try to think what God would do with them. Clouds and darkness were round about them.

The “blazing torch” may suggest comfort in this affliction; and God showed this to Abram, at the same time that he showed him the smoking furnace. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. The lamp communicates direction through the smoke. God’s word was their lamp: this word to Abram was so, it was a light shining in a dark place. Perhaps this burning lamp hint of the pillar of cloud and fire, which led them out of Egypt, in which God dwelt. The burning lamp may suggest the destruction of their enemies who kept them so long in the furnace. Zechariah 12:6 says, “On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume all the surrounding peoples right and left, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place.” The same cloud that enlightened the Israelites troubled and burned the Egyptians.

3. The passing of smoking firepot with a blazing torch was the confirmation of the covenant God now made with Abram, that he might have strong belief being fully persuaded that what God promised He would certainly perform. It is probable that the furnace and lamp, which passed between the pieces, burnt and consumed them, and so completed the sacrifice, and testified God’s acceptance of the covenant.

God rehearsed the grant. He had said before, Genesis 12:7, Genesis 13:15 and Genesis 15:18 say God “will give,” “will give” and “gives.” The agreement is sealed and delivered, and cannot be canceled. God’s promises are God’s gifts, and are so to be considered accomplished. The possession is as sure, in due time, as if it were now actually delivered to them. What God has promised is as sure as if it were already done; “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” Believers will as surely go to heaven as if they were there already.

Some details of the land are given to Abram such as is usual in the grants of lands. Genesis 15;18 says, “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—For the greater certainty, God as is usual in such cases, he mentions who will occupy the lands Israel will eventually receive. Ten separate nations, or tribes, are mentioned here that must be cast out, to make room for Abram’s descendants. In David’s time, and Solomon’s, their boundaries fully extended to these limits as recorded in 2 Chronicles 9:26, “He ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. “

It was the Israelites own fault that they were not sooner and longer in possession of all these territories. They forfeited their right by their sins, and by their own lack of faith and courage kept themselves out of possession and lived beneath their privileges. The land granted is described here in its fullest prospect because it was to be a type of the heavenly inheritance, where there is room enough. In our father’s house are many mansions. The present occupants are named, because their number, and strength, and long occupation there, should be no hindrance to the accomplishment of this promise in its season, and to magnify God’s love for Abram and his descendants, in giving to that one nation—Israel—the possessions of ten nations. Verses 19-21 say, “the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.” The rich symbolism of success is matched by eventual actual historic facts. The historical facts support the message in the symbolism. We have a right to be forward looking, future oriented.

Again, leaders must be forward looking. If you are going to lead, you must be able to see into the future and move forward. Christian leaders do not lead from behind. Shepherds lead their flocks. God will help us.