Our Old Testament lesson this morning has taken from Genesis chapter 15, beginning at verse 1. Here now the word of the Lord. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, do not be afraid Abram, I am your shield, you are a seedingly great reward. But Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the air of my house is aliezer of Damascus? Then Abram said, look, you have given me no offspring, indeed one born in my house is my air. And behold the word of the Lord came to him saying, this one shall not be your air, but one who will come from your own body shall be your air. Then he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. The word of the Lord, let us pray together, O God, our Heavenly Father, this morning as we come, we celebrate the joining together of word and spirit. We ask that this word which you have previously given, through inspiration, that you have given and preserved and maintained in tact, O God, we ask that this authoritative word would be celebrated amongst us this morning. And we pray that your spirit would come, and that he would be joined to this word, and that he would use the words spoken today, the words heard today, and that he would do great and marvelous things as a result of that. And so Father, we come, knowing that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. And so we ask that you would bless unto that end through Jesus, our Lord, and then please be seated. Do you remember Elijah? Elijah went into a depression almost immediately following a great spiritual victory over the gods of Bale. And so now, too, our hero, Abram, is on the verge of going into some form of doubt or depression or turmoil over what he has just done and what the implications might be for his life and for the future of Israel. It is very common that following a great spiritual victory, those engaged in it, go into some form of doubt. And so it is this morning with Abram. Immediately following the passage that was studied last week where Abram has come back after a great victory where he has defeated the four kings. He has returned lot and all the spoils of war. He has once again done that which was right before God. And yet in the midst of that, given just a bit of time to reflect and think, Abram begins to doubt. He has a measure of uncertainty. And I do the right thing must have been the thought in his mind. Those four kings that I defeated in the stealth of night in Gideon-like fashion, those kings have been here before they have ruled this area and what if they come back? Will I be able to defeat them if they come back with a whole army rather than the smallest part of an army that they had garrisoned here? I'm sure there were thoughts that maybe went through his mind. Did I do the right thing? I just gave away all the spoils of war. But there were other doubts. The passage suggests that Abram was in doubt about who the heir to his house would be. He is now about 86 years old. He believes he has passed the age of fathering a child. He looks in his house and he has no son. He has a laser of Damascus, a man who assisted him, probably as a manager and taking care of the household goods. But that certainly was not the son of promise. And Abram begins to doubt and ask God one more time, God, where is this son? You made a promise to me. But the historical situation doesn't look as though your providence will fulfill your promises. And so Abram begins this tension. The tension that exists in him through believers in all ages, and I would suggest that it must exist in your life. I know it exists in mind. The difference between the promises of God and the historical context in which we find ourselves, the providence of God, because there is always a tension between the two. And Abram is beginning to ask the question, will your promise come true? I am 86 years old. I don't believe I can father a child. And what will happen to the whole future of Israel, given my childlessness? And so what we see developing here is yet one more example of that tension which we face between the promise of God and the historical context, the providence in which we find ourselves. God has pledged this, Abraham is experiencing this, and they have not yet come together. And Abram is asking the question, will they ever come together? And so with Abram, God seeks to resolve this tension. The word of the Lord comes to Abram in a vision. Now we can't imagine what that would be like. The word of the Lord was it audible? Was it something that came in and through his conscience? Was it purely cognitive? How was the word of the Lord given to him in this instance? We're not sure, but it came with a measure of great certainty. And it began to resolve the doubt that Abram had. God showed up manifested himself in the form of a vision. What would that have been like? We don't know. But we know that combined with the word of the Lord, that added even doubly the assurance that Abraham is going to sense. God will prove himself trustworthy. God goes on to add additional promises. He knows the theorist fear in Abram's mind, perhaps about the four kings or other enemies or other physical uncertainties in his life. And God says, Abraham, I will be a shield to you. I will put up a defensive head around you. No one will get to you unless I permit it. And so this promise of a shield gives Abram great confidence in the continuing work of God in his life. But God goes on. God reiterates a promise that had been made several chapters ago. God had said to him earlier, Abram, I will give you descendants as numerous as the sand on the seashore. Now living in Florida, we have a distinct advantage over other people. Some places in the north, there is no sand. There's dirt, but no sand. Here we have no dirt. All we have is sand. Every time you turn around, great, big, handfuls of sand. But a marvelous advantage we have, we who live where there is only sand. Now his pledge to Abram and to his descendants that no matter how many handfuls of sand there be, that will be the number of Abram's spiritual descendants. And so having earlier promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the sand along the seashore, he now says to him, Abram, we are not. Aren't those marvelous words, aren't those the words of the angels at the incarnation, aren't those the words of Jesus himself repeatedly, fear not, but more than just saying fear not. God clarifies the earlier promise and says, Abram, the one that I have promised will not just come from your house. He will come from your loins. He will come from you. You will yet father a child, and he will truly be your own. And this time instead of saying that the descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the seashore, he says, Abram, step outside, it's night. Look up into the stellar heavens, Abram, it's a starry, starry night. Look out there as deeply as you can into the cosmos. If we're every star that you can't even number, you will have a progeny. There will be descendants that will come, that will issue forth from your loins, that will outnumber the starry, starry night. Now, it is not ruined the plot of a good story. To go on and say that Abram did have a son, even though Abram had to take many more years. Isaac was born. He miraculously so when Sarah and Abram are in the neighborhood of a hundred years old. And so this tension which existed for many more years in Abram's life was partially resolved between that of the promise and the providence, the historical situation in which he found himself. Because in fact, a son was born. Now I'm sure Abram was saying, God, you said descendents, plural. I have one son that doesn't seem like many, but Lord, you gave me one son at least. How often partial results don't satisfy. Look at this past week, with 32 out of 67 precincts reporting, partial results. With all the precincts reporting but absentee ballots, the result is. With all reporting but overseas international ballots, the result is. There is an unresolved tension that we as a people and we as a nation are faced with even in this week, which gives us in the political realm, in a cultural and social arena, a measure of the anticipation and the sense of tension that we must all feel in the spiritual realm. Partial results are good. We agonize for the full, for the complete. And who among us has any knowledge or any hope or any certainty that the outcome of elections will go as you may desire until it is fulfilled completely. Where is this tension? And Abraham, even though he had one son, and the promise was fulfilled partially, you can just imagine, Abraham is saying, but all the votes aren't in. It is descendent singular and God you promised in the plural, you promised in the proportion of a starry night. And so for the next 1800 years, the tension between God's promise and providence continues and remained unresolved. Look at the nation of Israel which was brought into being. Yes, the numbers began to go into the plural, into the hundreds and the thousands and perhaps even into the millions, and yet Israel was always smaller than all the other nations. The promise was for spiritual descendants, not just physical descendants, and certainly not all who were born Israel, were of the true Israel. And so the number of descendants shrinks when you add the caveat by faith. The concept of the remnant used by God throughout the scriptures begins to take a scriptural prominence, as God begins to give to his people a way of identifying who they are and what their role will be in the earth. Yes, you will be plural, but yes, you will be small. You will be the rag, tag, and you will be that little portion which granted it will affect the whole. But when you start to think about God, I want numbers, I want multitudes, I want millions upon millions, as you promised. God says my answer to you historically has been remnant, think remnant. And even at times in Israel's history, the remnant seemed precariously close to extinction, or for the whole of the Old Testament that situation prevailed. And then comes the time of Jesus, but Jesus only seemed to make matters worse. Even with the whole new work of God and the expansion of the kingdom of God, the inauguration of the kingdom of God that Jesus brought, Jesus seemed to heighten the tension between promise and providence. Listen to these signature verses from Jesus himself. In Luke 13, 23 and 24, Lord, are there just a few who will be saved? And Jesus said, strive to enter by the narrow door. For many I tell you, we will seek to enter and will not be able. Matthew 22 verse 14, for many are called but you are chosen. Matthew 7, 13, and 14, enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And many are those who enter by it, for the gate is small. And the way is narrow that leads to life and few there be who find it. Just at the time when you might think that the work of God in the world is going to take an exponential increase, we have Jesus using all the vocabulary of few and narrow. And on the final analysis it may be said that Christ's teaching in these passages has far more to do with the ethics of the kingdom, a narrow gate and a narrow path than it does mean the number of people who will enter in. Narrow paths can still allow multitudes to pass by. And so Jesus may actually be talking more about the ethics of the kingdom. And he may be giving us an opportunity to make our calling and election sure by examining ourselves to see if we are on that way which leads through the narrow gate. But nonetheless the words echo in our mind few and narrow. But more than that, while Jesus' words may add to us some measure of depth as to how many in this age. Nonetheless, we do have to say that it is the teaching of Christ through his prophetic ministry that the Gentiles were included into the kingdom. And there was a sense of resolve that Jesus brought to the tension between promise and providence because of this massive increase in the number of people who entered the kingdom because of his instituting the church and his inaugurating the kingdom and his proclamation of the word in descending out of the apostles. And so there was in a sense this growth in the number through the life and ministry of Christ. And yet it was still not fully resolved. Don't we all continue to struggle with this unresolved tension in our lives? Don't we all ask God where are the multitudes? Where are the numbers of people who are coming to faith that are suggested by grains of sand in the state of Florida? Where are the numbers of people who are flocking into the church who are coming to faith? Who are in any way proportionate to a starry, starry night? Don't those metaphors, don't those illustrations seem just a bit too grandiose even in our day. I imagine you have the same tension that I do. But you feel that if there were about 10,000 more believers in Orlando, a million more in Florida, a hundred million more in the United States, billions more in this world that this would be a far far different place. Don't you long for the tension to be resolved where God's promise of multitudes actually is something that we see and apprehend with our eyes and experience with our lives? I expect you to imagine that your life would be different if God would give to us multitudes of descendants even now, that your family's life would be different. If your family was populated with many, many more believers than there are now, can't you just imagine what our culture and society would be like? If there were untold numbers of additional spiritual descendants of Abraham, out there doing their work in ministry in the world, this past week I was speaking with John Maynard. John told me that he was driving down the street and he was passing by an abortion clinic. They saw a young woman being gently helped out of the clinic and into a car. And the woman was sobbing. She was physically hurting, but emotionally he said I knew that she was just absolutely torn apart on the inside and he said I had to pull my car over and stop and as she drove away said I just sat there and prayed for that woman because I knew what was going through her conscience and she was overcome with grief and guilt. And I know in John Maynard's life on that occasion he felt like if there had been more Christians in this society maybe someone would not have gotten pregnant in the first place out of wedlock. And maybe those people would not have made that choice and maybe there would have been more people to front and to care for such a person who has such a difficult choice to make. If there were more Christians I am sure that there would be fewer abortions and the list could go on. There would be fewer murders, there would be less crime and somehow I think that the results even of this past week would have been different. Had there been more believers it's something that I very, very much struggle with. I have not come to terms fully with it in my own life. It comes from living in the world and I would suggest that it's probably true in your life as well. And we all like to have more believers with each church full, absolutely standing room only, no pews empty for another person, where the churches would be bursting with believers, where new life is being generated by evangelism and missions at all points and in all places and that the church would be unbelievably present and visible within our culture. Do we love to have each ministry fully staff, fully prepared, fully trained to do the work that we long to do but may well be short of people to work the harvest? Don't we all have loved ones within our families and circle of friends that we long to have come to faith? Oh, God, if you would give us ten million more, maybe my brother or my sister, my father or my child would be one of them. I say this a lot every Monday morning, we get all of the pink slip prayer requests typed up for us as pastors and elders and there are certain families who as faithfully and as religiously as anybody does anything, list on their family members that we might pray on behalf of loved ones, not just friends but loved ones and so every Monday morning you look and you see something from the Timbermans and the James and the Kings and they read very much the same because these people have a desire and a hope that it would be multitude upon multitude and that members of their family still unregenerate would be a part of that growing number. Don't we sometimes raise questions about the power of the gospel and the ability of the gospel to change lives and to save? Don't we wish that God would not work only in remnants but in multitudes? Question always seems to run through my mind, why do we always end up being the minority? Why do we always lose out? Why do we always have to be playing the role of the Remnant? God, when will it be the multitude? Can you imagine what difference it would make in your relationships if there were myriads upon myriads of additional believers? Can you imagine the difference that it would make in your ability to trust one another, to care and be cared for, to pray with and to encourage? Well, folks, there is some wonderful news for all of us struggling with this tension. That tension which exists between God's promises and the historical circumstances, the providences of our lives. You know and I don't have to tell you this good news because you know it. The gospel is being heralded. That is bringing people to faith in unprecedented numbers worldwide. The church is growing. And let me say that believers from any other period of human history would rejoice to live and see our day. They would look at our situation and they would not mistake it for heaven but they would say we must be near the suburbs of that place because of the unprecedented numbers of believers that God has called. And this gospel confidence is bred by the doctrine of election. God has ordained certain individuals who will most certainly come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Each and every person so elected will be saved. Not one will be overlooked, omitted or left behind. So we may be the remnant but the doctrine of election assures us we are precisely the number of believers that God wants in this sanctuary on this morning, at this time in St. Paul's history, and extrapolate that all over the life of the world, the remnant and the doctrine of election assures us that we are exactly the number of people that God wants. Yes, the tension remains but God has not done wrong. God is wise and he has determined that this situation in which we find ourselves is precisely where he would have us be. If we had time, we would look in Revelation and we would see the passages there to talk about the myriads upon myriads, the untold numbers of people who will surround the throne of the Lamb, who will bring great exaltation to God the Father, to God the Son, and to God the Holy Spirit. The book of Revelation gives us the end of the story. For you see in heaven the tension between God's promises and his providences will be fully and beautifully resolved. But until then be assured that through the witness of history, the vitality of the gospel in our day. The authority of Scripture in matters of doctrine like election and the remnant. Your own conversion should bring you tremendous gladness and hope for what God can and will do in other people's lives. And the fulfillment of many other promises already complete gives us this deep and abiding hope that there will come a day when God will close that gap. And so this morning I would encourage you, you can only be optimistic about God's work in the world. We can only be positive about the number of believers who currently are called to be the remnant. We must be confident that God's work in God's time precisely along the lines of his ordination, proceeding exactly as he promised that it would. That resolved the tension you see for Abram by providing miraculously a son in an age when Abram believed he could no longer father a son. And since that time God has continued to encourage his people with the nation of Israel coming into existence, with the birth of Jesus, with the conversion of sinners, the inclusion of the Gentiles into the kingdom, and the establishment of the church for the proclamation of the gospel throughout the whole world. While the church is not yet that spotless bride of Christ, nonetheless she is being adorned. Christ is making her ready for that great marriage feast of the land. And even though she exists in this age as a remnant, somewhat patterned and torn, nonetheless this church is bringing glory to God. And this church is also fulfilling God's hopes and promises in the world. And so I would encourage you with the same promise that was given to Abraham. You may be in turmoil and flux. You may be agonizing over certain things in your life and the culture and this world. You may be longing with all the depths of your being for a change and for myriads upon myriads to join you right now in the work of the ministry. Whether they come or not is in the hands of God as to how much revival he brings and when. But the hope of the gospel is that one day there will be myriads upon myriads. A vast unnumbered host will rival the number of stars in the night sky. And so in the midst of a time when we all long, desperately long for our situation to be different within our own life or our family or our culture, where we wish that we were not the remnant of the few. Nonetheless I would encourage you this morning, take heart. God is on His throne. Take heart. God is on His throne. And the doctrine of election is a great comfort to us. And so by daylight consider the sand along the seashore, pick it up in great big handfuls and allow it to cascade down through your fingers and say, so shall God's descendants be. And when you can no longer see by daylight go out into the evening and look up into the heavens into the depths of the cosmos, into the starry starry night and say, whether by day and sand or by night and the starry starry heavens, God has promised to me that He will resolve this tension that I feel in my inmost being. And God promises our sure and I long for that day. Let us pray together.
Oh God, our heavenly Father, we come and we ask that you would give us comfort in these days. And we ask that you would continue by your word and spirit to reassure us that these promises are true. They cannot fail because you, oh God, are faithful. Bless us with that assurance and confidence we pray in Christ's name, amen.