The God of Abraham is the God of Shield and Great Reward, the God of Faithfulness, and the God of Silence
Is the God of Abraham YOUR God? Do you experience God in all the aspects that Abraham did? The reason God calls Himself, the God of Abraham, is because He was enjoyed and experienced by Abraham in many ways and for many years, and therefore He could work Himself into Abraham to become subjective to him.
To Abraham God was the God of glory, appearing to him again and again, calling him out and attracting him away from anything and anyone else unto the land that He promised him. Is God the God of glory to us, appearing to us daily and calling us away from anything in this world unto Himself as our only enjoyment?
Is God the One who is the source of blessing to us, the only blessing we want and we have? Is God writing His history in our history, whether we are up or down? Do we experience God as the God who secretly cares for us in order to work Himself into us for the fulfillment of His purpose?
Do we experience God as the God of comfort and encouragement? Are we clear concerning the fact that God WILL work Christ into us to bring forth Christ for His glory? Do we enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit as our allotted portion of the good land?
Is God to us the Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth, our only source for our daily necessities? Who is God to us? What is our experience of God like? Does Abraham’s experience of God match our experience of God? Is God personal to us, real and subjective, always working Himself into us?
We need to know and experience God as the God of Abraham in many aspects, and Abraham’s experience of God needs to become our experience of God in our Christian life and church life.
Today we want to see how the God of Abraham is the God of shield and great reward, the God of faithfulness, and the God of silence. May we be full of prayer before the Lord, opening to Him as we enjoy all these aspects of Abraham’s experience of God, and allowing Him to work in us so that, in His time, we would also experience God as such a One.
The God of Abraham is the God of Shield and Great Reward
After Abraham fought for his brother and released him from captivity, God spoke to him in a vision saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram; I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward.” (Gen. 15:1) Abraham might have been afraid of the kings’ avenging, so God promised him that He is his shield to protect him.
“I am your shield and exceedingly great reward” (Gen. 13:16)
Because Abraham fought for his brother, one of God’s people, God became Abraham’s great reward. God is very fine in taking care of His people, and He doesn’t abandon His chosen ones when they fail.
Later in Gen. 15:1-6 God strengthened His promise to Abraham for a seed, and He specifically promised that his seed will be like the stars in heaven – heavenly in nature, not being touched by anything of the earth, shining, and without number.
Abraham believed Jehovah, and He reckoned this believing to him for righteousness. God justified Abraham out of faith: He was happy with Abraham, in complete harmony with him, counting Abraham as being altogether acceptable to Him, without any problem in between.
Abraham experienced God as the God of shield and great reward, and he knew God as the Justifying One, the Justifier, the One who justified Abraham out of faith. All this happened in his third stage of experiencing God, after learning to live by faith and trusting in God for his living.
The God of Abraham is the God of Faithfulness
In Gen. 15:12-21 we see that Abraham experienced God as the God of faithfulness. God foretold Abraham that his earthly seed (the ones who are as “the dust of the earth”, Gen. 13:16) will be sojourners in a foreign land (the land of Egypt), serve other people and be afflicted by them for four hundred years, and in their fourth generations they will return to Canaan.
Because of Abraham’s failure in going to Egypt to get food when there was a famine in the land, his earthly seed – the people of Israel – were in Egypt for 400 years. But God is faithful in His promise of giving the land to Abraham and to his seed by bringing them back to the land of Canaan!
Even more, because Abraham wasn’t able to believe God concerning the land, God made a covenant with him to assure him of His faithfulness in His promise.
Abraham believed God concerning the promise of a seed (and God counted it to him as righteousness), but he wasn’t able to believe God concerning the land. But God is faithful, and He made a covenant with Abraham to strengthen His promise to him in Gen. 12:7 and 13:14-17 – He will give to Abraham and to his seed all the land from the river of Egypt (the Nile) to the Great River (the Euphrates).
Our God is faithful! He may allow us to fail, but He will bring us back into the enjoyment of Christ as the good land! And if it is hard for us to believe that the all-inclusive Christ is our allotted portion of the good land, God entered into a new covenant with us, the continuation of Abraham’s covenant, through which He makes sure we enter into the full enjoyment of the good land in our spirit!
The God of Abraham is the God of Silence
Abraham experienced God as the God of silence. Even though God promised Abraham that He will give him a seed, and in spite of the fact that he believed God, he still listened to his wife’s advice to take Hagar and have a son with her (Gen. 16:1-3).
Abraham exercised his flesh and had a son with Hagar, the maidservant; because of this, God was offended and He didn’t speak with him or appear to him for thirteen years. Because Abraham exercised his flesh to produce Ishmael with Hagar (and not with Sarah, the free woman) at 86 years old, God became silent to him for 13 years – up until Abraham became 99 years old (see Gen. 17:1).
God being silent to us is part of our experience of God. God not speaking to us is still part of God’s speaking. When God keeps silent, something is going on. It is meaningful when God speaks to us, and it is also meaningful when God doesn’t say anything. God’s speaking is as important as His not speaking.
Sometimes God doesn’t speak to us for a period of time because we exercise our flesh to produce something for God. Sometimes our God is silent; this is our God.
But when He appeared to Abraham again, God requested that he would be circumcised – remove the flesh (see Gen. 17:1-21). When God appears to us again after a period of time of silence, He will bring us into the real experience of circumcision through the experience of the crucifixion of Christ.
In order for God to bring forth Christ, our flesh need to be dealt with by the cross of Christ (Col. 2:11; Gal. 5:24). Christ is brought forth by grace and not by the exercise of the flesh; our flesh needs to be cut off, terminated, and crucified by the experience of the cross of Christ in the Spirit, so that Christ may live in us and be manifested in us.
Lord, Your are our shield and our exceedingly great reward. We put our trust in You and Your protection, and we want no other reward than God Himself. You are the Faithful One, the God who is faithful in keeping His promise of bringing forth Christ in us. Praise You for the new covenant You made with us so that You make sure that the all-inclusive Christ is enjoyed and experienced by us as our good land! Lord, keep working Yourself into us as we experience You even as the God of silence, the God who would not speak to us because of the exercise of our flesh. Gain what You are after in us. Cause us to experience You as the God of Abraham!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The History of God in His Union with Man (ch. 7), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (2), week 8 / msg 8, The God of Abraham seen in His dealings with Abraham.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Jesus, Sun and Shield art Thou, / Sun and Shield forever. / Never canst Thou cease to shine, / Cease to guard us, never. / Cheer our steps as on we go, / Come between us and the foe. (Hymns #512)
# O Father God, how faithful You / Are through eternity; / For Your eternal purpose You / Are faithful now in me…. / Your faithfulness has led us in / To Your economy, / Where Christ we all enjoy that You / In us may increased be. (Song on God’s Faithfulness)
# One step I see before me, / ’Tis all I need to see, / The light of heaven more brightly shines / When earth’s illusions flee; / And sweetly through the silence comes, / His loving, “Trust in Me!” (Hymns #711)
# Thus we die, and dying live / In the heavenlies with the Lord; / Thus we serve, and pray, and give, / Christ Himself our great Reward. (Hymns #907 by M. E. Barber)
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