Sermon Tone Analysis

Old Testament Encounters with Christ

Part 8: When You Wonder What to Do

Genesis 17:1-16

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Grayson Baptist Church - Jan. 12, 2012

INTRODUCTION:

*Did you ever say the wrong thing to your boss, and then wonder, “What should I do?”

-Did you ever say the wrong thing to your wife and wonder what to do?

-Did you ever wonder about the best thing to do for your children?

-How about the best thing to do for your parents?

*In any relationship sometimes you are going to wonder what to do.

-This is true even in our relationship with God.

-Some days you will find yourself asking, “What does God want me to do?”

*Abram’s meeting here with the Lord can help, because it shows us what to do in 3 situations we are going to face.

1. First: What does God want me to do when He is silent?

-- The answer is: Learn to wait on the Lord.

When God is silent, we have to learn to wait on the Lord.

*Vs. 1 tells us that “When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.”

-God spoke to Abram in vs. 1, but by the time God spoke here, He had been silent for a long time.

The Lord was teaching Abram and us that we have to learn to wait on the Lord.

*Last week we saw the terrible trouble that can come when we refuse to wait on the Lord.

God had promised a son to Abram and Sarai, but they got tired of waiting and decided to rush things up by having Abram also marry Sarai’s servant Hagar.

The troubles we see in Genesis 16 have been causing pain in the world ever since.

*John Phillips explained that: “Abram’s trouble was that he could not wait.

God had promised him a son and a seed.

But in his anxiety to see that promise fulfilled, Abram decided to help God out and hurry things up by marrying Hagar.”

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*Have you ever tried to “help God out?” Have you ever tried to get ahead of God? -- It is always a mistake to try to rush the work of God.

*Phillips points out that the Lord has His own reasons for His delays.

But Abram could not wait.

“As a result of his impatience there followed a solemn silence in which, for 13 long years, he received no further word from God.” (1)

*John Hamby says: “Thirteen years earlier Abram had taken a wrong turn and for thirteen years there has been silence from Heaven.

We have reason to suspect that these were years of unhappiness and unrest in the household of Abram.

*God used these thirteen years to teach Abram the cost of acting on his own.

For 13 years he has lived with the fruits of his impatience.

-Many believers have had a similar experience: A time when God allowed us to go our own way with painful results. .

.” (2)

*It may even seem like God has left the scene and given up on us.

But what does God want me to do when He is silent?

-- Learn to wait on the Lord.

2. And what does God want me to do when He speaks?

[1] Abram shows us, and the first thing to do is bow.

*Bow down before the Lord in worship.

Abram shows this to us in vs. 1-3:

1.

When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.

2. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly."

3. Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him. . .

*Abram fell on his face in worship to God.

And we need to recognize more and more that the Lord is worthy of our worship.

It helps to look at the 3 names God uses for Himself in these verses: “Jehovah,” “El Shaddai” and “Elohim.”

*In the first part of vs. 1: “When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to Abram.”

The LORD -- that’s Jehovah.

*“Jehovah” is the name God uses most often for Himself in the Bible.

It is used more than 6,800 times.

It simply means “to be.”

In Exodus 3, Moses asked the Lord what he should tell the people, if they asked who sent him.

And in Exodus 3:14, the Lord replied, “Tell them ‘I AM’ sent you.”

That is the essence of the name Jehovah: God self-existing in the past, present and future, depending on no one, or no thing outside Himself.

*In vs. 1 there is also the name “El Shaddai.”

“When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.”

*“Almighty God” -- that’s “El Shaddai.”

This name occurs 48 times in the Old Testament, and is always translated, “Almighty”

*John Gill explained that Jesus Christ is Almighty:

-As the Word of God.

-By His creation of all things.

-By His sustaining all things.

-By His redemption of His people.

-And by the everlasting preservation of His people.

(3)

*In Rev 1:8, Jesus said: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,'' says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

-He is worthy of our worship!

*The third name God uses for Himself here was “Elohim” and we see it in vs. 3: “Then Abram fell on his face, and ‘God’ talked with him.”

That word “God” is “Elohim.”

This name is used in the Bible over 2,700 times.

Elohim is a plural word, and so points us to the Trinity.

It means “one who is great, mighty and dreadful.”

*These names all remind us that the Lord is worthy of our worship!

-When God speaks, we should bow down before Him in worship.

[2] But we should also believe.

*We should believe the things that the Lord tells us.

We should believe the wonderful promises that He makes to us.

The Lord made some amazing promises to Abram in these verses.

For example:

2. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.

6.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.

7.

And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.

*John Phillips summed up the importance of these promises with these words:

-“When God did speak at last it was to gather up the various threads of promise He had already made and to weave them into one great, comprehensive covenant.

It is known as the Abrahamic Covenant, and it is one of the most important utterances in human language.

It left its mark on all of subsequent history.

-It rules the future with an iron hand.

And it is the basis for all the blessings God has for mankind.”

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*What great promises we see here.

And we can always lean on the promises of God! Take for example God’s promise in vs. 8: “Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession. .

.”

*This verse highlights the greatest geo-political issue facing the world today.

-What about the Jews?

-Where do they belong?

-Does the Land of Israel belong to the Jews?

*The answer is absolutely, yes!

The title-deed of their ownership is up in Heaven.

That’s why anybody working against the Jews is working against God! That’s also why the Jews are a miracle people.

*The temple of Jesus’ day was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70.

Perhaps over a million Jews were killed and over the next years the rest were scattered all over the world.