In my last post, we looked at Genesis 15 and Abram’s encounter with God. Nothing in Abram’s circumstances would have led him to believe he was going to be the father of nations and that the entire world would be blessed through him. Why? He was old and childless and so was his wife, Sarai. But God is never limited by what’s happening in the past or what’s happening now. And because He is faithful to His promises and already sees the future, we can be confident in Him.

In verse 6, we see…

And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. (Genesis 15:6)

After Abram believes…

Then the Lord told him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.” (Genesis 15:7)

What happens next is fascinating…

But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it? (Genesis 15:8)

Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever sensed God answering your prayer or leading you to a promise in His word, but then almost immediately you start to doubt or wonder if it’ll really happen? One minute you’re fully confident God will come through, but in the next moment, like Abram, you’re asking, “Lord, how can I be sure?”

God made a promise to Abram, but the circumstances were stacked against him. He believed…but…but how could he really be sure?

The Hebrew word for “sure” in verse 8 is the word “yada”. It means “to know, to learn to know, to perceive, to know by experience…” In Genesis 4:1, “Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife…”, the word for sexual relations is “yada.”

So how does God respond to Abram’s question?

The Lord told him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side; he did not, however, cut the birds in half. ¹¹ Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. ¹⁵ (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) ¹⁶ After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”

¹⁷ After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. ¹⁸ So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt^” to the great Euphrates River…

God responds by entering into a covenant with Abram. The smoking firepot and flaming torch represented God as He passed between the animals that had been slaughtered and laid out as sacrifices by Abram. This was how a covenant was confirmed. In essence, the two parties to a covenant would pass between the dead animals and say something like, “May this be done to me if I break this covenant.”

What’s significant is that only God passes between the slain animals. Only God obligates Himself to fulfill the covenant.

God says to Abram in verse 13, “You can be sure…” Abram asked how he could know or be sure (yada) God would come through. We can’t see it in our English translation, but in Hebrew God says to Abram “yada yada.” In God’s reply, the word appears not just once, but twice. It’s like saying, “You can certainly be sure.” Abram wanted to be yada. And God said you can be yada yada.

God doesn’t lie. He doesn’t go back on His promises. He’s faithful and He’s able to come through for you. When God says it, you can be sure. You can be certainly sure. You can be yada yada.