[AI translation] Everything in the Bible passage we are about to read is centered around this powerful statement, "I am God Almighty." God says this to Abraham. It almost sounds like an introduction. Yet Abraham had known the Lord before, and yet God seems to have felt it necessary to reintroduce himself. Yes, it is the grace of God that always reminds the believer of things he already knows but does not take seriously enough. We too know that God is an omnipotent God, we say it in prayer many times, but that is the problem, that we only say it, but we do not think about the possibilities and obligations that this would mean for us, even if we really believed. Well, that is what we should be doing right now. Think about what it means that God declares himself to us as God Almighty!Abraham had to be able to come to the realisation, not just with his ears, but really with his heart, that God is an omnipotent God, and to rejoice in that realisation. Just the last time we saw that he himself wanted to realise in his own strength what he should have accepted in faith as a gift from God: the gift of a child. In other words, he did not really believe that God was omnipotent and could fulfil the promise he had made to him about the unborn child, even at such a late age. In his impatience, he rushed what he should have waited for in faith. We have seen the family complications that resulted. But it was not family strife that became the main consequence of this unbelief or little faith, but something else.
The last verse of the preceding chapter ends, "And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram." (Genesis 16:16) The present chapter begins, "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram." (Genesis 17:1a) That is, thirteen years elapsed between the birth of Ishmael and his reappearance to God! So after that fateful act of Abraham, which he did not do at God's command, but in spite of it, there followed thirteen years of silence. For thirteen years the Lord did not speak to him! How rich in the experience of fellowship with God was that period of Abraham's life before his disobedience to Hagar! How many times the Lord appeared to him in vision, how many times He confirmed him by His word, His promise, His revelation. And how dreary and empty were these thirteen years! Not a single event worthy of record. God was silent. The God who had called Abraham, who had guided him, who had counseled him, who had made a covenant with him, was utterly silent.
Do you know the state of God's silence?! How terrible for a believer! For a soul who has been in touch with the Lord, who has heard His voice, and now does not hear it. It is as if the Lord has shut Himself off. He says the prayer in vain, but feels that there is no contact. It is like talking into a telephone receiver that has been disconnected. There is no answer. You read your Bible and get no message from it. You listen to the sermon, but the Lord doesn't speak to you through it! The heavens close, and all the knocking, the banging, the pounding is in vain. You know that state? It lasted thirteen years with Abraham. A terribly long time for such an old man. And why? Oh, not because God was offended, and now he won't speak to his disobedient servant. No! There is a great, great grace in this thirteen years of silence, God sometimes brings up His child in this way, He brings up His child in this way. If he does not listen to his word, will he notice his silence?! Well, he spoke to Abraham in vain, though he spoke plainly enough. Abraham did not do what he should have done, but went after his own head. He ruined his life, badly. Now let him suffer the consequences of his own messed-up life. Because as long as Abraham, the believer, thinks he can solve the big problem of his life, God can't do anything about it, he can't really rely on God. As long as he himself has his own individual plans, he cannot accept God's plans, cannot fit into God's plans. As long as he himself is strong, he does not need God's strength!
Jesus says to Paul: "My strength is made perfect through weakness." (2 Cor 12:9) The word of God, as gospel, as a message of joy, as a divine word that embraces our whole being, is always addressed to the weary, the sick, the thirsty, the bankrupt. And if anyone does not want to come to the word of God, Jesus said as a prerequisite for following him, "If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself..." (Mt 16:24), then the Lord will help him by making him see the bitter consequences of his stubbornness, the misery of his misguided life. So he is speaking by his silence, saying. Do you want this, do you realize that you have made a mistake, and that without me you can do nothing but always spoil things? That's what the Lord teaches you by silence.
Has he already made you achieve this goal? For when a man has so truly realized how he is nothing and nobody, then he can receive with grateful joy what God can now say to him, "I am God Almighty!" It is as if he were saying this to Abraham: See from your ruined life, from the consequence of your disobedience, that you are a man incapable of all things, incapable of all that is good, righteous, pleasing to me! But know at the same time that I am God Almighty! So, through many failures, disappointments, defeats, disillusionments, a believing soul must come to the great, liberating realization that the God in whom he believes is God Almighty! "Almighty God" - how easily we say it, and how hard we find it to understand! The original Hebrew word has in it the meaning of being all-sufficient, all-sufficient, all-capable, able to do anything. It's like saying that to Abraham: "Look, I am enough for you, it is enough for you that I am you, that I protect you, that I carry you, that you need not look for help elsewhere than to me! Why am I not enough for you? I am not bound by the laws you have learned from nature! Do not measure me by your own measure.
Look, Jesus, in his whole life, from his birth, death, resurrection and ascension, has declared to you a higher divine law, a law that is beyond all human comprehension and explanation, a law that is above all: if you believe in me, count me all-powerful! How many times is it that a mother wants to help her little child, yes, but often she does not even know what is wrong with her child, and in her great effort she may be doing the opposite of what she should be doing. Well, such a thing cannot happen with God. Because He is all-powerful! He is not helpless in the face of our lives, but has all the means and possibilities to help where people stand helpless, with their hands hanging down. That's why He sometimes lets His wayward children go astray until they finally get tired and come to Him, because they see that they can't do without Him! So, Abraham, do not think that you are at the mercy of the forces of nature, and that only what you feel able to do, what you feel empowered to do, can happen, for I am God Almighty! Oh, that all believers would realize that they have an omnipotent God!
Moreover, God goes further in this realization, saying, "And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy desolation, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and they shall have God." (verse 8) Even more unmistakably the same is expressed in verse 7, thus: "And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee, and between thee and thy seed after thee, according to their generations, for an everlasting covenant, that I may be thy God, and thy seed after thee." For it is not another covenant, not a new covenant, but a reminder of the old. As if the Lord were saying.
This old covenant was renewed by God through the death of Jesus Christ. That's why Jesus says at the Last Supper, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you." (Lk 22,20) The Old Testament also had blood as its sign: the blood of circumcision; the New Testament also has blood as its sign: the blood of Jesus Christ. That's how bloodily serious God is about his covenant with us. God has made a blood covenant with us, blood had to flow in order for a covenant relationship to be established between God Almighty and man who is incapable of anything! The most holy blood, the blood of the Son of God, was shed for him on the cross! This covenant, therefore, is not to be made now for you or for me, we are not to enter into this covenant now, but God says: "I will establish my covenant between me and you" - that is, the covenant already made, renewed by the blood of Christ, we must and must at last acknowledge and accept. Let us at last reckon with, root ourselves in, take hold of the fact that God has brought us into covenant with himself through Christ! He has connected us to Himself, He has embraced our lives in His grace! He is so all-powerful that He can even do that! He is able and willing to enter into covenant with man!
What does this mean on His part towards us? So He says to Abraham: "And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and between thee and thy seed after thee, according to thy seed's generations, for an everlasting covenant, that I may be thy God, and thy seed after thee." (Genesis 17:7) So the essence of the covenant on God's part is that I will be your God "and your seed after you." So, whatever ups and downs your life may have in the times ahead, whatever your life may be, I, says God, for better or for worse, for joy or for sorrow, am your God in every situation! You will never be forsaken on My part, only if you on your part break covenant loyalty and seek support and help outside of Me!
Is not the greatest thing for a believer to have God truly God in his life! If God can truly be there with His divine comfort in the darkness and storms of your life, His purposeful guidance in your earthly turmoil, His all-sufficient strength in your temptations, your human helplessness, His victorious future in all your defeats! So, if God is truly your God, your provider - He can be a God of help, redemption, salvation, guidance, blessing in your life. And God commits himself to this in the covenant: "And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and between you and your seed after you, according to your generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be your God, and your seed after you." (Genesis 17:7)
(Genesis 17:1b) And you can do this precisely because and by being a covenant-maker, a blood covenant-maker, of Almighty God! "Walk before me" - this means never forgetting for a moment that God is God Almighty! It is in His presence, before His eyes, under His protection, by the life-giving power of His grace that you live, move, speak, act, think - do not turn away from Him, you yourself must want to remain before Him! Let the Almighty God be truly God, the Almighty Lord in your life! Even change your name to Abraham! Before it was Abram to him, now from now on he will be called Abraham. So, without going into the explanation of the word, let us just note that Abraham's life ends a phase, a phase of uncertainty, of vacillation, of limping in two directions, and begins a new phase: a phase of total dependence on God.
Is this not what the Lord is calling you to? To end a phase of your faithful life that has been full of disobedience, stubbornness, self-will, self-design, divided heart - and to begin at last a new phase, with more devotion, with real dedication, with greater humility, with total dependence, with a more intentional and conscious walk before Almighty God!
As we ask in our beautiful song:
Wonderful Majesty, Let me praise Thee:
Let my soul serve Thee!
Standing like angels before Your face
I wish I could always see your face!
Give me in all things
To please thee, my God, my King!
(Canto 165, verse 3)
Amen
Date: 28 September 1952.
Lesson
1Móz 17