Genesis Lesson 9
COUNT THE STARS
Genesis 14:1-15:21
Key Verse 15:5
What was the political situation between kingdoms at that time (1-11)? What had happened to Lot in the conflict between the two allied groups (12)? How did Abram get involve in this war (13-16)? How did God help him (20a)?
Who was Melchizedek (18; Heb 7:1-4)? What did he do upon meeting Abram (17-20a)? What did Melchizedek teach Abram about God, and about his victory? How did Abram respond to Melchizedek’s blessing (20b)? What was the significance of this?
Why did Abram refuse to accept anything from the king of Sodom (21-24)? In whom did Abram put his trust?
How was Abram’s spiritual condition after this? How did God plan to help Abram (1)? Think about God who was his shield and very great reward (Ps 46:1-3; Heb 11:6).
What did Abram complain about (2,3)? How did God’s plan and Abram’s plan differ regarding Abram’s heir (4)? What vision did God give Abram (5)? What was Abram’s response to this (6a)? What did God credit to Abram (6b)? Think about the historical significance of Abram’s faith (Ro 4:11-12)?
With what promise did God bless Abram’s faith (7)? What covenant did God make regarding the land (8-11)? At sunset, what did God prophesy regarding Abram’s descendants (12-17)? What was the layout of the land his descendents would inherit (18-21)?
Genesis Lesson 9
COUNT THE STARS
Genesis 14:1-15:21
Key Verse 15:5,6
“He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens
and count the stars--if indeed you can count them.’ Then he
said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Abram believed
the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”
Today’s passage is about the essence of faith. It is very important to learn faith because faith is the way for man to establish a right relationship with God the Creator. Faith is the source of man’s ability to be victorious in his practical life (1Jn 5:4,5). Abram continually grew in faith after he was called by God. Eventually he became a great man of faith. We can think about the growth of Abram’s faith in five steps. The first step was when he was called by God and embarked on his life of faith (chapters 12-14). The second step was when Abram’s faith was credited as righteousness (Chapter 15). The third step was when he became the father of many nations (chapters 16,17). The fourth step was when he grew to be God’s friend, who could offer intercessory prayer (chapters 18,19). The fifth step, after he passed the final test, was when he was confirmed as a source of blessing.
Today’s passage shows how God planted faith in the heart of Abram when he was in deep despair and how his faith was credited as righteousness. This was a turning point in his life. There are many people who live based on their own righteousness, although they claim to live by faith. In the first step, Abram’s faith was like theirs. He was called by God and worked hard to live by faith, but he did not know the secret of faith. As long as he did not know it, he had to groan inwardly while he lived in the visible world. But once, by God’s help, he had learned the secret of faith, then he could enter into God’s glorious world. May God help us open our spiritual eyes and see his glorious world and learn the secret of faith.
The Lord gave Abram Victory (14:1-24)
The political situation described in chapter 14 shows how unstable the environment was in Abram’s time. There was no central government in the land of Canaan. There were only kings who ruled over minor kingdoms, cities like Sodom and Gomorrah. Those kings united with each other and rebelled against each other according to their interests. Archaeology has shown that invasion and destruction were common in the Middle East in those days. People fought fiercely for land and other resources. The world was like a jungle, where only the strongest survived, at the expense of the weak. In Abram’s time, Kedorlaomer, king of Elam, was the ruler, and other kings paid tribute to him. At that time, strong countries ruled over weaker countries and took advantage of them. Then, one day, five kings, including the king of Sodom, rebelled against Kedorlaomer, king of Elam. Kedorlaomer came and fought the five kings and defeated them all. Then he took away all of their food and valuables as his plunder.
During this war, Lot became a prisoner of war and lost all his wealth because he was living in Sodom. Lot lost everything and became a slave in one day. A man who escaped reported this to Abram. What did Abram do when he heard the news? He came up with a plan to rescue Lot. When we think about Abram we may imagine that he is old and weak. We do not see him as a strong man. We may think that he had decided to live by faith because he was not a strong man. Yet here we see that Abram was completely different than we might imagine; he was so competent that he could triumph over powerful armies of kings such as Kedorlaomer, the king of Elam. When Abram heard the news, he could have thought that Lot deserved such a painful trial because he was selfish and ungrateful. Abram also might have thought about the risk he would be taking if he tried to rescue Lot. But he thought neither thing. Rather, he took three hundred eighteen trained men from his household all the way to Dan to rescue Lot. Then, by means of a surprise night attack, he defeated the powerful armies of Kedorlaomer, king of Elam, and his allies. He took back all of the plunder, including captives, of which Lot was one. General Montgomery defeated the army of Rommel during World War II. In his book, “History of War,” he said that the essence of strategy in war comes from “surprise attack, concentration of ability, cooperation of all armies, leadership, simplicity, swift action, and taking the initiative.” When we think about Abram’s surprise attack, it was a combination of all the strategic elements mentioned above. Three hundred eighteen men were nothing compared to the huge numbers of Kedorlaomer and his allies’ armies. But Abram could defeat him when the Lord was with him. It was like Gideon’s battle, when, with his 300 men, he defeated Midianites’ 135,000 soldiers (Jdg 7:7-25). Think about Abram: he was old, but led his troops with his grey hair blowing. His image is not that of an old, weak man but of a mighty general leading millions of soldiers. Furthermore, his image is that of a good shepherd who risks his own life in order to rescue one sheep from the lion’s paw. Indeed, we can see in Abram the image of a good shepherd.
Lot was a challenging sheep because he was selfish and had strong worldly desires. However, Abram loved him unconditionally. So when Lot was in danger, Abram risked his life to rescue him. For Lot, Abram did not spare his life, money, time or energy. He gave his heart and found wisdom from God. If Abram had thought even somewhat practically he could not have rescued Lot. But Abram was full of compassion. The Lord blessed his compassionate heart and gave him the wisdom, strength and courage to defeat mighty enemies. The Lord gave the enemy of Abram into his hands. Abram’s shepherd’s heart made an impossible task possible.
By virtue of winning this war, Abram had the opportunity to take power and authority over the whole land of Canaan. He could have ruled over the land like a god because he had defeated such a mighty army as that of Kedorlaomer. He could have become proud, self-sufficient and useless. The greatest enemy of our spiritual life is pride. When we become proud we become a servant of Satan and the enemy of God. Therefore, at that time, God sent Melchizedek to help Abram.
One of the most mysterious stories in the Bible tells how Abram met Melchizedek. 900 years later, Melchizedek was mentioned by King David, in Psalm 110:4. The author of Hebrews mentions him 1,000 years later (Heb 5:6,10; 6:20; 7:1-21). Melchizedek was the king of Salem. The word “Salem” means “Jerusalem”, and it means “peace.” To have such a name in the land of Canaan, where wickedness and evil spirits were overpowering, is mysterious. When Abram came back victorious, the king of Sodom and Melchizedek greeted him. Melchizedek was a priest of God Most High, and he greeted Abram with bread and wine. He said, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand." Melchizedek praised God, saying “God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.” The phrase “Creator of heaven and earth” means that God not only created the heavens and the earth but also maintains, preserves and controls them. The phrase “Most High” means that he cannot be compared to anyone; he is the supreme, absolute, highest God, the only true God, deserving all of men’s praise and honor and glory. The expression “Most High” was used to reveal the superiority of the only true God over all other male and female gods worshipped in the land of Canaan. The phrase “Creator of heaven and earth” shows that he is different from all man-made gods. Melchizedek taught Abram that he should honor God on his day of victory by reminding him that the Lord had given him that victory. Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything. Abram acknowledged that the victory had come from God, and rendered glory to him.
Melchizedek was a king of righteousness and peace, and the priest of the Most High. He blessed Abram and Abram gave him a tenth. This shows that he was higher than Abram. His priesthood was like the priesthood of Christ. The author of Hebrews says, “Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever” (Heb 7:3). Melchizedek refers to Jesus Christ, who would come later.
What is the meaning of Abram’s victory? Its meaning is that we can have victory in life when we live by faith in God. We may think that we lose because we live by faith. This is because we live in a world of survival of the fittest. Yet, through Abram’s victory, we learn that we can have true victory when we live by faith in the Lord. That is because the Lord will be with us. 1 John 5:4-5 reads, “For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
Abram honored Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High, very much, but he had a clear attitude toward the king of Sodom. Abram could have compensated his loss by taking plunder from war. But he refused to take plunder from the war because he believed in God’s blessings. He was not bound by material things because he believed the Lord who controls all material. By depending on the Most High, the Creator of heaven and earth, Abram could live a victorious life.
The Lord Planted Faith in Abram’s Heart (15:1-21)
In Chapter 14, Abram was victorious, but in Chapter 15 we see Abram weak and full of fear, doubt and a sense of loss. Abram was suffering the negative effects of having fought a war. He was exhausted to his core, like a man who has spent all of his strength. In addition, he was afraid that the allies of Kedorlaomer might take revenge. On top of that, there are always people who envy those who are successful. There must have been some local kings who envied Abram and hated him. When Abram looked at the world he may have been afraid. When he thought about himself he realized that he had nothing left. He suffered in that he had no heir. He suffered from a sense of loss when he realized that he had not gained anything during the course of an entire life of faith. When he looked at his reality, he fell into a deep despair, fear and doubt. Although Abram did his best to live by faith, he had reached his limit. So he lay down in his tent, overcome with sorrow and loneliness.
Sometimes we reach our limit while living by faith. At such time we groan inwardly, although the degree may differ from person to person. However, those challenges and difficult times are good opportunities to learn faith in God, because man’s limitation is God’s beginning. When Abram lay down in his tent, the word of the Lord came to him in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward" (Ge 15:1). The word of God started with “I am.” It is like the expression of Jesus, in the New Testament, when he said, “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:35), “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8:12), “I am the good shepherd” (Jn 10:11), “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11:25), “I am the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6), “I am Alpha and Omega” (Re 22:13), “I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star" (Rev 22:16). By revealing who he is, the Lord wants Abram to look at him and depend on him instead of on the world. Now who is this Lord on whom Abram should rely?
First of all, the Lord is our shield. To be Abram’s shield means to protect Abram from all kinds of dangers and troubles and enemies. The Lord who is Abram’s shield is the Lord Almighty and Creator of heaven and earth. The Lord is a true refuge and a fortified city for Abram. David praised God in this way: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Ps 18:2). “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (Ps 46:1-3). Nothing and no one in the world can be our true shield; only the Lord is our shield. We are most safe when we trust in the Lord.
Secondly, the Lord is our great reward. Reward is very important in our life of faith. No one wants loss. We receive something from the Lord when we live by faith in him. We desire money, a good marriage partner, children, faithful sheep and other things. We want the Lord to solve our life problems. But when we are not successful in what we do and when we do not get what we want, we suffer from a sense of loss. Sometimes we try to make our own plans to save ourselves. But the Lord is our great reward (Heb 11:6). The Lord provides for our needs and he guarantees our provision. The Lord is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us (Eph 3:20). Apostle Paul said, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Ro 8:32) The Lord himself is our great reward. “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Ro 11:36). The Lord wanted to give himself to Abram.
"Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward" (Ge 15:1). What a wonderful promise of God! God said that he would become Abram’s shield and protect him from all kinds of harm and danger. Furthermore, he would become Abram’s very great reward and supply whatever he needed without fail. This promise must have been a great comfort to Abram because the almighty Creator God would become his protector, his provision and his reward. The Lord wanted Abram to rely on him and be satisfied with him alone. However, Abram could not accept God’s promise. He began to talk back to God. “O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me, since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? . . . You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir" (Ge 15:2,3). Abram began to complain to God because he had reached his limit.
How did the Lord help him? Look at verse 4: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." God promised Abram an heir through his own body. Then the Lord took him outside. It was dark and there was a cool breeze. The Lord helped Abram to look into the sky and count the stars. He said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars - if indeed you can count them." The Lord broadened Abram’s narrow heart and gave him a vision. The Lord helped Abram to look at God’s vast and boundless world rather than himself and his problems. Abram was clinging to his own life problems, trying to solve them, but God was more interested in giving him a great vision in his heart than in solving his immediate problems. Through the vision, God wanted Abram to leave his own world and enter into God’s world. God wanted Abram to know who God was and to have faith in him. The reason why Abram was suffering from his fear, doubt and sense of loss was because he did not know who God was and he did not have faith in God. The Lord wanted to lead Abram to God’s deep and wonderful spiritual world.
"Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." There are many stars in the heavens. Our Milky Way, which includes the sun and earth, is composed of about 200 billion stars. The length of the Milky Way is 100,000 light years. This means that light has to travel 100,000 years to reach the other side of the Milky Way, although light travels 186,000 miles per second. And in the universe there are more than 10,000 constellations like the Milky Way. The world God created is beyond our imagination. The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of God’s hands (Ps 19:1-3). When Abram looked at the stars in the heavens he might have felt that he was listening to a heavenly chorus, and was being led into the mysterious world of God.
Although Abram was immersed in his problems, he began to count the stars in obedience to God. “One star, one son; two stars, two sons; three stars, three sons…” While he was counting the stars his heart became widened, he entered into God’s vast and boundless world and he must have been amazed by God, who had created all those stars. Then the Lord said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram did not even have one child, but God said his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. What an unbelievable promise of God this was! The Lord said to Abram, “I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted” (Ge 13:16). God also told Abraham, “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore” (Ge 22:17). The expressions “dust of the ground” and “as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore” are used to describe numbers that man cannot count, so God’s promise to give Abram such a vast number of descendants seems to be a joke. But God never makes fun of people. Here, God’s promise did not mean physical descendants but spiritual descendants. It does not refer to Abram’s descendants in his own generation but in the countless generations after him. Only through faith can we accept God’s promise. And the Lord wanted Abram to know the secret of faith.
How did Abram respond to the promise? See verse 6: “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” Amazingly, Abram believed the Lord. Here, the word “believe” means “trust” and “rely on.” Abram trusted the Lord and relied on him. In his deep despair he looked up into the stars in the heavens. It was then that he could feel one ray of light entering his heart. The light was the light of life, the light of hope and love. In this light he could realize the Lord’s almighty power and love that filled the whole universe. Then he could trust the Lord and his promise. He had learned the secret of faith. The Spirit of wisdom and revelation was given to him from above, and Abram came to know God (Eph 1:17). When he believed in God, all of his fear, sense of loss, and despair disappeared. Although nothing had changed in his reality, there was an amazing change in his heart when he believed the Lord.
Then God credited his faith to him as righteousness. The Lord acknowledged Abram’s faith and gave him an A+. There is only one way to be recognized by God, and it is through faith (Heb 11:6). Based on this faith, God established Abram as the father of the faith. Indeed, what God really wanted to give to Abram was the faith itself. In life, Abram had not performed any great work for God or achieved anything great. He had had no bible students except his nephew Lot, and he had even failed to raise Lot as a disciple. Neither had he been a morally righteous man; he had lied many times. He had many weaknesses and had made many mistakes. Like most of us, he suffered from fear, despair, and a sense of loss. He did not have anything to boast of before God as far as deeds went. But he was a man of faith. By faith he established a right relationship with God, and through the same faith he was united with God. By faith he pleased the Lord. What is faith? Faith is to have a correct relationship with God. Faith is to trust God and rely on him fully. It is like a baby who trusts his mother absolutely and relies on her. Faith is to believe in hope against all hope (Ro 4:17,18). Faith is to believe that I cannot do it but God can. With man it is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God (Mk 10:27). Most of all, faith is to look up to God, simply.
It was December 6th of the year 1850, a Sunday. The city of Colchester in England had much snow; the roads were blocked with snow. One boy could not get to his own church because of the snow and attended a nearby church instead. The pastor of that church had not been able to get there, so a layman delivered the message instead. Before a very few congregation members, he murmured a message based on Isaiah 45:22: “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” He was not fluent in his message, but the boy silently asked himself, “Do I turn to the Lord? Do I have confidence in my salvation?” The boy groaned inwardly. The preacher saw the boy’s agonized expression and said, “Young man, you look tired. Then look at Jesus all the more!” This simple sentence struck him to the heart. He was born again through the word and became a prominent preacher. His name was Charles Spurgeon. Faith is not complicated theory. Faith is looking at the Lord simply. Faith is looking at the bronze snake when we are bitten by poisonous snakes (Nu 21:1-9). Faith is looking at Jesus, who was hung on the cross, when we are in sin (Jn 3:14,15). When Abram looked at God in despair he learned the secret of faith. Indeed the time of our trouble and despair is our best chance to learn the secret of faith and experience the power of the living God.
Abram became a good example of how one can receive righteousness from God by faith (Ro 1:17, 4:3, 4:17-22). Galatians 3:6-9 explains it very well: “Consider Abraham: ‘He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” Ephesians 2:8 reads, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God –“ So our most troubled time is the best time for us to learn the secret of faith and experience God personally.
The Lord did not finish his work by planting faith in Abram, but he revealed his amazing historical plan for Abram and his descendants. In verse 7, the Lord tells Abram that he had brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give him the land to take possession of it. When Abram asked for proof, the Lord made a contract with Abram about the land. The contract appears in verses 9 and 10, which show how contracts were made in ancient times, and shows that violators of a contract were cut in half. Animal sacrifice shows that the way of God’s salvation is free to men but costly to God. In other words, the curse of sin can only be solved through the shedding of the blood of sacrifice.
But the Lord taught Abram a history lesson in the course of making a contract with him about the land (12-16). Abram prepared everything for the contract, but only in the dark, after sunset, did the Lord make the contract. This shows that the Lord’s covenant is a sure thing, but takes a long time to be fulfilled. It would take several hundred years for Abraham’s descendants to take possession of the land, and it would take several thousand years for all peoples on earth to be blessed through the offspring of Abraham. Abram was very afraid, but then he fell into a deep sleep because a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. It was then that the Lord revealed what would happen to Abram’s descendents. Abram’s descendants would be strangers in the country; they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years, and then they would emerge as a nation. The Lord would lead them to the Promised Land of Canaan. Why did God want to wait 600 years to give the Promised Land? It was because the sin of the Amorites had not reached its full measure (16). “The Amorites” refers to all people living in the land of Canaan. They provoked the Lord by their idol worship and homosexuality, and even had sex with animals. But at the time of Abram, their sin had not yet reached its full measure, and the Lord would not judge them yet. The Lord is full of grace and mercy and he is patient. But if people do not repent in the end, he judges them. The Lord wanted to judge the Amorites through the descendants of Abram; thus he gave the land of Canaan to Abram’s descendants. Verses 17-22 show the territory of the land that the Lord was going to give to the descendants of Abram.
More than anything else, the Lord wants us to learn faith. We pray that we may become men of faith, which is more precious than gold. Once we have become men of faith, we can please God with whatever we do. Even in times of trouble we can please God all the more and live a victorious life. The Lord wants to lead us to his vast and boundless world through faith, so he said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars!”