The Lord again reminds Abram of the promises He's made to him. Isn't it wonderful when God reminds us of His promises? He knows we are weak mortal creatures who are prone to doubt and discouragement, so He faithfully reminds us from time to time of His beautiful promises.
There have been times when the Lord repeated a promise to me because I'd begun to doubt whether I'd heard him correctly. When time keeps going on without fulfillment of the promise in sight, it's easy for us to start wondering whether we were mistaken. We can start asking ourselves whether God really told us He was going to do a particular thing or whether we just convinced ourselves He said it because it was what we wanted to hear. God has been very gracious in coming to me with reminders of His promise while I was struggling with a long wait.
There have been other times when I knew for certain what the Lord had said to me, but I just wanted to hear Him say it again. Years ago there was something He promised me that I'd never have to experience again. It was a traumatic thing that had happened to me, and I won't go into detail about it, but for a while I had a form of PTSD from what I'd been through. Not only did I keep reliving this event in my mind, but I'd sometimes be overwhelmed with anxiety that this thing would happen again. The Lord made a clear and awesome promise to me that I didn't ever have to worry about Him letting this thing take place again in my life. He had His purposes for allowing it once, but it wasn't going to happen again. There have been at least a couple of times when I've asked Him to repeat this promise to me. It wasn't really that I doubted what He'd said; I just needed to hear it again. On both those occasions He answered my prayer in an awesome and unmistakable way on the same day I asked! He's been so good to me!
The Lord was good to Abram too. Abram needs to hear God repeat His promise to him. I'm not sure what's going on in Abram's mind as we begin Chapter 15. The Lord just won a great victory through Abram and Abram's men in Chapter 14. The king and priest Melchizedek just bestowed a beautiful blessing on Abram in Chapter 14. But spiritual lows often follow spiritual highs. As we discussed several days ago, right after a spiritual victory is usually when Satan tries to catch us off guard and knock us down. If he can, Satan will instill fear in our hearts. He'll cause us to become anxious and doubtful. I can't help feeling this is what happened to Abram between Chapter 14 and Chapter 15. The Lord repeats His promise to Abram because Abram needs to hear it. "After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: 'Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.'" (Genesis 15:1)
Why does the Lord tell Abram not to be afraid? Because Abram was afraid. I don't think the Lord is wasteful with words or with anything else. There would be no need to tell Abram not to be afraid if no fear was in Abram's heart to begin with. The author of Genesis tells us the Lord said these words to Abram "after this", which means after the defeat of the kings and the rescuing of Lot and all the captives from Sodom. Did Abram fear these kings were plotting to retaliate against him? Perhaps he lay in bed at night, tossing and turning, worrying that the kings were gathering together an even greater army so they could come back and attack his homestead. He may have found it difficult to sleep for fear he wouldn't hear approaching soldiers. He might have thought they'd come and kill him and either kill or take captive his wife and all the servants who depended on him for safety. It must have seemed logical to him that the kings wouldn't take their defeat lying down, and perhaps they wouldn't have if the Lord hadn't placed a protective shield around Abram.
We know the Lord is a protective shield around Abram because He says so in verse one: "I am your shield." Right now Abram needs to remember that it's not himself he should trust to keep everyone safe. He needs to remember it's not his 318 trained soldiers who are keeping him safe. It was the Lord who gave him victory over the kings and it's the Lord who is going to protect him from retaliation from the kings. It's the Lord who is going to protect Abram and his people from anyone else who might want to harm them.
Friends, you and I can take all the precautions we want, but ultimately our lives are in the Lord's hands. There are so many things in this world that are beyond our control that there's no use tossing and turning at night worrying about them. We can't do anything about them. But God can! Trusting only in ourselves or in other people or in other things will bring anxiety and fear into our hearts. But trusting in Almighty God brings peace to our hearts. As the prophet Isaiah said of the Lord: "You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you." (Isaiah 26:3)
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