Genesis 14.17 – 15.6
A sermon preached at Lockridge Anglican Church 26 April 2026
Today’s reading speaks of war and fear and faith. Before we dive into Abraham’s story, On this ANZAC weekend it is important that we reflect on the business of war and peace.
There can be no peace without the threat and sometimes the reality of war, for the simple reason that evil and ambitious men will again and again try to take control of lands that are not their own. If there is no resistance the whole world would fall into slavery under one tyrant after another. In this fallen world, pacifism is a dream, admittedly drawn from Jesus’ missionary teaching, but it was not intended for governments and nations. It is an error to think that not resisting an aggressor will change his mind. Even Japan has now realized pacifism in a divided world is unhelpful. It is necessary then that any country which wishes to be itself should maintain an efficient army, navy, and airforce. As we drove into Switzerland, we were discussing whether the Swiss had an airforce. Looking at the steep mountains either side, and the huge rockface in front we thought it would not be much use. Three jets screamed over us heading for the cliff-face; at the last moment they banked, almost vertically, and disappeared from view. Someone interrupted my sermon to tell me they also have a navy. One of most the peace-loving nations of the world, but every man does military service—also the women, someone chipped in—and they take their service rifle home! A Swiss person I spoke with recently added that they also have a sealed baked-bean-like tin of ammunition. Woe betide anyone who opens it, except at call up time.
Abraham’s story is about him and God, but at one point it involves war; it is a fortunate person who can get through the whole of life without encountering it. It is good that we remember our fallen—also the many who still live among us whom war has damaged in some way. Sadly, in many of our ANZAC celebrations God has become like the ghost at the feast, an unwelcome reminder of something in our past. We no longer sing “O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.” The tunes are heard, but no longer the words. “God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line beneath whose aweful hand we hold dominion over palm and pine; Lord God of Hosts be with us yet, “Lest we forget, lest we forget.” But we have forgotten—forgotten God—and all that remains of what was a fixture in the ANZAC ceremonies of my youth is the refrain, reapplied to our fallen. When Israel forget God—they often did—disaster generally followed.
Significantly, it is in our armed forces, those who must needs face death, that one is most likely to come upon men of faith. Thankfully, we still have military chaplains. I recall going with the chaplain and a group of my students to the police headquarters in Orlando in Soweto. I addressed the plain clothes police upstairs; others were meeting with the uniformed men below. The commander said, “Pastor, do not speak of politics. These men go out every morning, not knowing if they will come home. Please give us the word of God.” When war is a reality, it so with our servicemen and women.
War has been a constant factor in the story of humankind. Struggles for land, and resources, conflicts of belief systems, leadership struggles. How thankful we should be that we have not experienced war on our own soil, and for federation, that we are one nation, without borders to fight over, that we have truly representative governments, and institutions and courts dedicated to the service of all. But whom do we thank, when we have forgotten God?
We continue our exploration of Abraham’s adventures, focusing on his faith. But first, let’s fill in what has happened since last week when we left him building yet another altar in the far south of the land of Palestine. During the week I checked on the name, “Palestine.” It is Hebrew for the Philistines who once occupied the land around Gaza. After the second great war between the Jews and the Romans in 132 AD, the Romans banished Jews from the province of Judaea and renamed it, “Syria Palaestina.”
Drought forced Abraham and his clan down into Egypt for a time, but they returned and now Abraham has settled near the Oaks of Mamre, near modern day Hebron. Like a dog marking its territory, he builds another altar.
Trouble erupts between Abraham’s men and Lot’s over grazing lands, and, rather than fight, they separate. Lot settles in Sodom, down in the Rift Valley, but war erupts there, and his family are taken captive by the kings from the east. Wars in those days were often small-scale raids on neighbouring countries to capture slaves and loot. Abraham organizes his men, 318 of them— we realize that by this stage he is a clan leader. He also has allies, Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner. Together they set out in pursuit. It would not have been difficult to follow the trail of a raiding party encumbered by the considerable amount of slaves and booty they have captured. Abraham’s force attacks them by night and drives them north of Damascus; they bring back the prisoners and booty.
.At this point in the story we learn something very important about Abraham.
After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. Genesis 14.17–20
Note that these old names are no longer known to us. Who was Chedorlaomer, and where was the Valley of Shaveh; the account is so old, not even the archaeologists can tell us. But Salem was the old name of Jerusalem, and when Abraham lived, about 2000 BC, it was ruled by a priest-king. Melchizedek means “king of righteousness.” Genesis tells us he was priest of El Elyon, God Most High, the owner of heaven and earth. Abraham acknowledges the God he serves, receives Melchizedek’s blessing, and pays him tribute.
When evolution was all the rage, they said religion also evolved. It began with spirit-worship, then developed into totem worship, then tribal gods, and finally, in the 8th century BC, to the worship of one God. What we see from this story is the opposite. The Creator God was worshipped even before the Canaanites worshiped their idol-gods. This is what you would expect, since this is not solong after Adam and Noah. When the Israelites returned 400 years later, everything had descended into polytheism.
In Canaan, Melchizedek is the last surviving witness to the true Creator God. The natural tendency of human cultures is to drift away from God, as we see in our own society. We should not be surprised when we find ourselves as lone witnesses to the truth of God in our runaway world. We should remind ourselves that the prosperous, successful culture of Canaan vanished, while the people of Abraham remain.
The king of Sodom also came out to greet the returning party. Abraham knows about the evils of Sodom. The king tells him to keep the booty, but he refuses:
“I have lifted my hand to Yahweh, the LORD, El Elyon, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Genesis 14.22–24
So now he is exposed and afraid, but God reassures him.
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
When you decide to be a Christian, you may have to part company with the people around you. You no longer think like they do, you no longer behave like they do. Perhaps you are not welcome in their company. You become an outsider, and that can be uncomfortable, and sometimes dangerous. You can no longer assume that they will stand beside you. But this is where you find that God himself becomes your protector—“I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.”
Jesus said to his disciples:
“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. Luke 12.4–7
God promises Abraham a great reward, but this only opens a deep trouble in his mind. God has promised him descendants, but every day he faces the fact that he is childless, and his wife is well past the age. He will have to adopt one of his servants as his heir. But, no, says God: “a son, coming from your own body will be your heir.”
And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15.5–6)
Such a promise, to a man and a woman who for many years have grieved over their inability to have a child! You may have been there yourself.
When I was in Zimbabwe last month I visited a couple who studied at George Whitefield College. They married 10 years ago and have prayed for a child ever. How do you feel? Do you give up hoping? Do you stop praying? Then 3 months ago along came baby Nyasha. What a wonderful thing to see that one month old child in her mother’s arms. Her name means Grace.
But thus far all Abraham has is a promise. But he believes in God, impossible though the promise seems, and Genesis tells us God counted (reckoned) it for righteousness. We need to think about this, because the New Testament makes so much of it, and it touches us directly.
Was Abraham a righteous person? The word sounds old-fashioned. We are tempted to look at his obedience to God’s original command, and to the other good things he did, and say, that of course he was a good man. But Genesis says his faith was counted for righteousness. This suggests he may not have been righteous in himself, if he needed to be counted as righteous. If we think of the wrong things he did, this makes sense. Because if they were counted, he would not be said to be righteous.
This is the point that Paul makes so insistently in his letter to the Romans, when he deals with the question, on what basis does God accept us.
What does it mean to be righteous? Surely it means to be someone who always does the right thing—to be good! But no one is good, says Jesus. Judged by God’s law, or by any other law under which people live, everyone is a law-breaker. How can you say such a person is righteous? Unless there is some way in which our sins can be not counted against us? This is indeed the situation: God has made it possible for sins not to be counted. How? By giving his Son to take them upon himself. Now we, who are unrighteous, are counted (reckoned) righteous, and being righteous are accepted into relationship with God.
Abraham knew nothing of this, but God knew what he planned to do, and it was effective in his ignorance. It was as though God said to him, “I know you are not a good person. You have broken my law and I know you will break it over and over. But I want you to be my friend, so, because you have trusted me in what I have promised, I am going to count you as righteous. How I will do that without becoming unrighteous myself you will have to wait and see.”
What Genesis introduces to us here is fundamental. You are not accepted by God because you are good; none of us is. God reckons you as qualified when you begin to trust him—and this means trusting in his promises. Acceptance is by faith, faith in God to keep his promises.
This is how Paul explains what happened to Abraham. What he is making clear, is, of course, what Jesus made clear when he accepted tax-collectors and sinners into his kingdom. These were notorious law-breakers. On the other hand, people who insisted they were good, found no place in his kingdom—Jesus told a parable about two men who went to the temple to pray. One thanked God he was not like the bad people, and he rehearsed all his good works. The other beat his chest and cried out to God to have mercy on him; he knew he wasn’t good. This was the man who went home justified, Jesus said. That word means he was counted righteous. He was now a friend of God.
It is easy to make a mistake here, and imagine that faith is an especially good thing, so it kind of balances out the bad things we do. Faith is good, but to imagine it is like doing a very good thing which makes up for all the rest is a mistake. The very good thing which makes up for the bad we have done is Jesus dying for us on the cross. Faith is just hanging on to that—maybe by our fingertips.
Think of it this way. Imagine there is a big ledger—“reckoned” is an accounting term. In the first column are all the good things you have done, in the other, the bad things. This is what Muslims believe; at the end of your life the columns are balanced and you are either for heaven or hell. The trouble is, if you know yourself, you will know that the first column is much shorter than the second; we are in trouble. But then let’s write down our faith in the first column. Wont that balance things? Show the ledger to a good accountant, and he will laugh: “You have got to be joking, this doesn’t balance.” But then God makes another entry which replaces everything in the first column, even the weakness of our faith, and blots out everything in the second. Where did that come from? “My Son atoned for all that guilt by dying in his place! That is why I count him (or her) as righteous, and my friend, and acceptable in my kingdom.”
Abraham is the father of the faithful. That doesn’t mean anyone who believes anything. Nor does it mean everyone who thinks God is real, or has warm feelings about God. It means those who take God at his word, who believe in him when he makes them promises. God told Abraham he would have descendants like the stars in the heavens, and he believed in him. The rest of his life was spent with God, believing that promise and never giving up on God to make it happen, though it never did in his lifetime. Read the rest of the story yourself and you will see that sometimes he came close to despairing, but always his faith was renewed—his faith in the God who was making the promise.
What about us? Has God made us a promise! Yes, he has. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life,”[1] the Bible says. Jesus said, “Whoever listens to my word and believes in God who sent me has eternal life; they do not come into judgement, but have passed from death to life.”[2] It is a promise that we will live forever, though the rest of the world will pass away. It is a promise made possible by the giving of his Son. Abraham was not to know this, but we do. It is a promise which is ours if we believe: trust the God who makes the promise, and carry that promise on your heart for the rest of your life. You will be pushed to give up on God, to doubt the promise, but don’t. God can be trusted.
[1] John 3.16.
[2] John 5.24.