Then Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, “I am a foreigner and a visitor among you. Give me property for a burial place among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” (Genesis 23:3)

There are two great people of faith referred to in Genesis 23:3. The first is Abraham, who had just carried out one of the most notable acts of faith in the Bible: the willingness of offer his son Isaac (Genesis 22). The other person of faith is referred to with the words his dead, speaking of Sarah, the deceased wife of Abraham. Sarah was a great woman of faith, who by faith received God’s promise to bear a son long past the normal age to become a mother.

This single verse tells us much about great men and women of faith.

Great men and women of faith endure many hardships. Sarah endured the hardship of death and Abraham the hardship of being left behind. Sometimes we think that people of great faith live in a different world, untouched by the pains and concerns of normal life. That isn’t true. Even Jesus learned obedience by the things that He suffered (Hebrews 5:8).

Great men and women of faith are pilgrims, visitors. When Abraham began to negotiate with the sons of Heth for a place to bury Sarah, he began by saying I am a foreigner and a visitor among you. Though Abraham lived in Canaan for more than 30 years, he still thought of himself as a foreigner and a visitor in that land.

Abraham did not feel this way just because he came another place (Ur of the Chaldeans). It was because he recognized his real home was heaven (Hebrews 11:9-10). Moses knew the same, and he taught Israel this principle (Leviticus 25:23). David also knew this truth (1 Chronicles 29:14-15, Psalm 39:12).

As a man of faith, Abraham lived and built in Canaan and left something for his descendants, but he knew his ultimate home was heaven, and he was only visiting this life. His real home was eternal.

Great men and women of faith can receive the part as the whole. Genesis 23 explains that Abraham bought this property for burial. In his travels around Canaan, Abraham had earlier lived in this area and there built an altar to God (Genesis 13:18). He knew this cave and was willing to pay the full price for it.

God had promised Abraham and his covenant descendants all of Canaan as their inheritance (Genesis 15:18-21). Yet, this was the only piece of land that Abraham ever formally owned and possessed. He received the part, but still believed in God’s promise of the whole.

Dear believing friend, we know only know and experience in part (1 Corinthians 13:12). Yet we can trust God’s promise and receive the part as evidence as the whole. One day, all will be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Click here for David’s commentary on Genesis 23

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And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing. Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.” (Genesis 21:9-10)

God miraculously fulfilled His promise to Abraham and Sarah, and they had a son in their very old age, naming him Isaac. That name means “laughter,” and originally was a rebuke of the laughter of Abraham and Sarah at God’s promise (Genesis 17:17-19 and 18:12-15). God turned that gentle rebuke into an occasion for joy.

As Isaac grew, he experienced rough treatment from his older half-brother Ishmael. Isaac and Ishmael had the same father (Abraham), but Isaac’s mother was Sarah and Ishmael’s mother was Hagar, a servant from Egypt. Ishmael was much older than Isaac – probably about 13 years older – and he mocked his younger half-brother.

Sarah, the mother of Isaac, didn’t like that at all. Defending her son the way one would expect a mother to, Sarah demanded that Abraham send Hagar and her son Ishmael out of their home. What might seem cruel or excessive to someone else made sense from the perspective of a mother protecting her son.

Even more, God had a plan in all this. At the prompting of God (and Sarah), Abraham did send away Hagar and Ishmael. The two sons of Abraham, half-brothers, would not grow up together. Still, God preserved, protected, and even prospered Ishmael and his descendants. God has a purpose for the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael.

This is more than a story of persecution, obedience, and God’s faithfulness. In Galatians 4:22-29, the Apostle Paul used this conflict as an illustration of the conflict between those who are born of the promise and those who are born of the flesh.

In Galatians 4, the Jewish legalists who troubled the Galatian Christians protested they were children of Abraham and therefore blessed. Paul admitted they were children of Abraham, but they were more like Ishmael, not Isaac. The legalists claimed Abraham as their father, but Paul asked who was their mother – Hagar, or Sarah?

Ishmael was born of a slave and was born according by the efforts of the flesh, by man working in his own strength and apart from God’s promise. Isaac was born of a freewoman and was born according to the gracious promise of God.

That was why Paul used the analogy, because the legalists among the Christians in Galatia promoted a relationship with God based in bondage and according to the effort of man and not according to God’s promise. The true gospel of grace offers liberty in Jesus Christ and is a promise that is received by faith.

The lesson of this is not that God hated Ishmael. God blessed him, and Ishmael had an important purpose in God’s unfolding plan. The lesson is that God’s promise is always greater than man’s effort. Live today according to the power of His promise.

Click here for David’s commentary on Genesis 21

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When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” (Genesis 19:15)

God sent two angels to Sodom to inspect the city and to remove Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family before the Lord’s judgment came.

One significant reason the judgment of God was coming against Sodom and Gomorrah was because of their depraved sexual immorality, which included homosexuality (Genesis 19:4-5). In Ezekiel 16, God later condemned and rebuked the great sin of Judah in the latter days of the divided monarchy. God compared Jerusalem to the ancient city of Sodom, saying they were like sisters.

Ezekiel 16:48-50 describes some of those shared sins: pride, idleness, and injustice to the poor. Yet, those were not the only sins of Sodom that made them targets of judgment. Instead, those were the sins of Sodom also shared by her later “sister” Jerusalem. The Genesis text makes it plain that God was also grieved by their sexual violence and immorality, which is included Ezekiel’s list of sins under the words committed abomination(Ezekiel 16:50). In addition, Jude 1:7 clearly states that sexual immorality was one of the sins God noted at Sodom and Gomorrah, connected to going “after strange flesh.” The open and approved practice of homosexuality was one of the many sins of Sodom, Gomorrah, and their neighbor cities.

The morning dawned on the day judgment would come, and the angels had to beg Lot and his family to leave the soon to be destroyed city. The only ones to escape would be Lot, his wife, and his two daughters. Lot’s sons-in-law would be left behind as the angels urged Lot to escape the coming destruction and judgment

In how they urged Lot, these angels may serve as a pattern of evangelism.

The angels went after Lot, going to him and his house. Believers might wish that sinners would come to them, and some will. But Jesus didn’t say, “Sit back in church and let sinners come to you.” Jesus told His disciples to go out to all nations, preaching the gospel and making disciples (Matthew 28:18-20).

The angels warned Lot of what was going to happen, and in plain words. Today, it’s common to mock the “hellfire and damnation preacher,” but there is an appropriate place to warn others of God’s coming wrath (Colossians 3:6). Evangelism can and should include warning.

The angels urged Lot, urging him to flee destruction. The angels didn’t make a lifeless appeal, saying “Come or don’t come, we really don’t care.” With great passion and urgency, they did all they could to persuade Lot and his family. Our evangelism should have a note of urgency and passion, working hard to persuade others for Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:11).

Dear believer, let these three things mark your sharing of the gospel. When you find evangelists who do these things, support and encourage them.

Click here for David’s commentary on Genesis 19

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When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” (Genesis 17:1-2)

Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran (Genesis 12:4), and 86 when the son Ishmael was born of Hagar, the servant (Genesis 16:15-16). He had waited some 25 years for the fulfilment of God’s promise to give a son through Sarai.

Now, when he was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to Abram. This was another appearance of God in the person of Jesus, who took on a temporary human appearance before His incarnation on earth.

God’s first words to Abram made an introduction and declared His being: I am Almighty God. By this name El Shaddai (God Almighty), God revealed His Person and character to Abram.

There is some debate as to what exactly the name El Shaddai means. Derek Kidner claimed it means, “the God who is sufficient.” Adam Clarke said it means, “the God who pours out blessings.” H.C. Leupold thought the sense was, “to display power.” Donald Barnhouse took the approach that the Hebrew word shad means “chest” or “breast.” It may have in mind the strength of a man’s chest (God Almighty) or the comfort and nourishment of a woman’s breast (God of Tender Care). The Septuagint – a translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek before the time of Jesus – translates Almighty with the ancient Greek word pantokrator, meaning the “One who has His hand on everything.”

Whatever the exact meaning of El Shaddai, after the proclamation of that name, God then told Abram what was expected of him: Walk before Me and be blameless. The word blameless literally means “whole.” God wanted all of Abram, a total commitment. The order was first revelation and then expectation. This communicates the principle that the believer can only do what God expects when they first know who He is, and know Him in a full, personal, and real way.

The last time we are told the LORD communicated with Abram directly was some 13 years before (Genesis 16:15-16). Seemingly, Abram had 13 years of “normal” fellowship with God, waiting for the promise all the time. It would be understandable if, at times during those 13 years, Abram felt that God forgot His promise.

But God had not forgotten the covenant. Though it had been some 25 years since the promise was first made, and though it maybe seemed to Abram that God forgot, God remembered His promise.

The years of waiting were not an accident. They served a purpose in Abram’s life with God. Abram was becoming a great man of faith, but great faith isn’t created overnight. It takes years of God’s work, years of ordinary trusting in the LORD, perhaps interrupted with a few special encounters with God.

God worked in Abram’s waiting, and He will work in your waiting.

Click here for David’s commentary on Genesis 17

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And he said, “Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” (Genesis 15:8)

Jesus spoke of faith that could move mountains, but often our doubts seem to create those mountains. Trusting God and His promises is a constant challenge, faced by everyone who has ever tried to chase away doubt.

Sometimes doubt comes from unbelief – an attitude that doubts God will keep His word or can keep His promises. Other times doubt is connected to faith that is growing and maturing; a doubt that recognizes that there is no weakness or wavering in God, but we are weak in our ability to trust. This was the kind of doubt that led a desperate father to say to Jesus, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

God promised Abram a son and he waited ten years. Abram was successful in business and every other enterprise, but he thought “what good is all that without the fulfillment of God’s promise?” This was the ache of Abram’s heart, and it prompted his doubt-filled question to God in Genesis 15:8: How shall I know that I will inherit it?

Abram did what we all should do with our doubts: he brought them to God, and let God speak to his doubts. Again, understand this was not doubt that denied God’s promise, but doubt that desired God’s promise. God is always willing to help that kind of doubt.

God, in effect, answered: “Abram, do you want to be certain? Then let’s make a contract.” In that day, one way to make a contract was to have both parties walk together through the split carcasses of sacrificed animals, while they repeated the terms of the contract. It seems bloody and barbaric to us, but to them it represented two things. First, it showed this was a blood covenant – something serious. Second, it was a dramatic warning: if one failed to live up to the contract, he could expect that his animals, and perhaps himself, would end up cut in two.

God wants to help our doubts with a contract. But our contract is not Abram’s; it is the contract Jesus called the new covenant (Luke 22:20, Hebrews 9:15). The new covenant was also established by sacrifice – by what Jesus did on the cross towards God the Father and for us.

When we want to believe but still seem to doubt, we don’t have to think God is angry and irritated with us. We can even ask God to prove Himself. But when you ask for proof, God will speak to you the same way He did to Abram. God will point you to a covenant made by sacrifice that proves God’s love and concern for you is real and His promises are true. God will point you to the new covenant.

Today, ask God to help you with your doubts, and to remember He proved His love for you by the new covenant and what Jesus did at the cross to establish it.

Click here for David’s commentary on Genesis 15

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