When God told Abraham: “I have made you the father of many nations”, Abraham believed Him, even though he was old and childless at the time; and so his faith was credited to him as righteousness (uprightness, spiritual integrity). Abraham saw in his mind’s eye the ultimate outcome of God’s promise to him, which was that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.
But the immediate challenges to his faith were the condition of his wife Sarah, who was well past childbearing age, and the condition of his own body, which was “as good as dead” as far as reproduction was concerned. Yet from the time Abraham received the promise at age 75 until Sarah conceived 24 years later, he never stopped believing, even while his and Sarah’s increasing years turned what had seemed impossible into what was definitely impossible.
However, when all hope was gone, Abraham continued to believe that God would keep His promise, regardless of the passing of time and the adverse circumstances. In so doing he became proof to us that we can hope for the birth of the promise God put in our hearts many years ago – however impossible the birth of that promise might appear. God renamed Abram (“exalted father’) Abraham (“The father of many nations”).
In so doing, God, who “calls the things that be not as though they were” made him a nominal father, but 25 years later Abraham’s faith made him a phenomenal father! By faith, Abraham had become what God had called him!
Abraham did not have to focus on the “many nations” promise but on the one son that God had promised. That son, Isaac, would grow up to have two sons, one of which, Jacob, would have twelve sons, who would in time become the twelve tribes of Israel…and so on.
The challenge to Abraham’s faith was not the numerous descendants that God had promised him, but the ‘impossible’ birth of the one son God had promised him. The vision of the ultimate was one thing, but faith for the immediate was another, because the reproductive clocks of Abraham and Sarah had both stopped. How could the promise of a son be possible when time had run out?
In the lead-up to Abraham’s story, a list of the seventy family-nations that descended from Noah are listed in Genesis, chapter 10. Their desire to prevent themselves from being scattered is found in chapter 11. They decided to create a city and a high tower to preserve their identity. God saw their imagination as having unlimited potential! (Genesis 11:6) After scattering them and dividing their single language into many, God chose one man, Abram, and brought him to the place where His promise would be fulfilled. Imagination was no longer the guiding factor; instead, revelation would guide Abraham’s descendants to the promises.
Abraham was told to “Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land.” He dwelled in and enjoyed the Promised Land hundreds of years before his offspring entered it and possessed it. He got to know its mountains, valleys, rivers and plains. Abraham was not a man before his time: he was a man before their time. “By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as [though he was] in a strange country…” (Hebrews 11:9)
The Bible traces the ancestry of mankind all the way back to Adam, but the Apostle Paul traces the faith of Christians back to Abraham by calling him “the father of all who believe” (Galatians 3:29). Our faith is the faith of Abraham. Was Abraham perfect? No, he wasn’t. Pressured by his wife Sarah, he fathered a son by her maid Hagar – right father, wrong mother. He told an Egyptian king that his wife Sarah was his sister, which was a half-truth – she was his stepsister.
So, what was it that kept the very human Abraham so strong for so long? After all, the elderly Sarah’s conception of Isaac took place after a 24-year-long physical relationship with her older husband beyond the time God promised them a son. What was Abraham’s secret? Whatever it was, it renewed his vigour to the degree that, years after the death of his beloved Sarah, he remarried. And in the last years of a long life (he lived until 175 years of age) he fathered six sons through his new wife! (Genesis 25:1)
The answer is found in Romans 4:19-21. “And being not weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, now dead [as to fathering a child], when he was about a hundred years old, neither the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.”
Abraham was “not weak” in faith but “strong in faith” – the Greek word for “strong” can also be translated “invigorated”! What invigorated him? His faith did! Faith invigorated his body so that he was able to continue his relationship with his wife.
Abraham knew that the performance of the miracle was up to God, not up to him. Yet, undeniably, the birth of Isaac resulted from an aged couple continuing their sexual relationship, against all odds.
The promised son was fathered by a “dead” Abraham and conceived by a post-menopausal Sarah who “received strength to conceive” (Hebrews 11:11, 12). If Abraham had been weak in faith, he would have considered his 99-year-old body and given up trying – but because he was invigorated in faith, he kept trying until Sarah conceived Isaac.
Where does faith originate? In Mark 11:22, Jesus says, “Have the faith of God.” Modern versions read, “Have faith in God” – but they err in attributing faith to the believer. Real faith has its origin in God. We consume faith but we do not generate it. “Have the faith of God” means, “Have the faith that is from God.” We may think we have enough faith to cover most things, but we don’t. Jeremiah rebuked his people for committing two sins.
The first sin was that they had “forsaken [God], the fountain of living waters” – they had stopped drawing their life from God Himself; and the second sin was they had dug out [rock] cisterns for themselves that leaked (Jeremiah 2:13). This is a picture of organized religion if ever there was one! They thought it better to store up a supply for whenever they might need it rather than depend on God’s faithfulness for a never-ending supply.
We can do the same with faith. We think we can store it up, but we cannot. Faith “comes” to us as needed. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) But since “word” in this verse is “rhema” a better translation would be: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by a word from God.” (A word that God is speaking, present tense.) A simplified translation is: “Faith comes by hearing what God is saying in real time.” The words God’s Spirit speaks to your heart have in them the faith you need to do what He wants.
As you pray and study the Bible, the Spirit of God speaks fresh words into your spirit. Every word from God has within it the power of its own fulfilment (Luke 1:37). In other words, all the faith you need is in the words you receive. The storehouse of past experience will not produce the faith you need: you must receive new faith for the task at hand.
I know that what God has done he can do again, but He never does it the same way! Why not? Because if He did, we would rely on the stored knowledge of what He did in the past rather than a fresh revelation of what He has planned for the present.
It’s this simple: If we stop hearing God, we don’t know what He is saying, and we don’t receive faith. We have stored faith that leaks, but we don’t have a supply of fresh faith for the job at hand. Fresh faith brings new life! I would not go as far as to say the only faith we have is what we possess for a particular purpose. I do believe, however, that current, active faith refreshes however much residual faith we have from past experience.
One thing that Abraham’s story tells us is that he never stopped moving. In response to the call of God he “went out, not knowing where he was going.” He lived in the Promised Land hundreds of years before his offspring entered it and possessed it. A person whose faith is fresh will always be out in front.
Hebrews 11:13-15 tells us three things about those who have the faith of Abraham. It tells us they say, “Hello!” to the future. (They “embrace it/salute it/greet it.) It tells us they say to the present, “Just passing through!” (They are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.) And it tells us they say “Goodbye!” to the past. (If they don’t continue to do so, verse 15 says they will return to it.)
You will have noticed that in the Roll Call of the Heroes of the Faith listed in chapter 11 of Hebrews, each name is mentioned just once – “By faith, Abel” and so on, whereas “By faith Abraham…” appears three times. The life of Abraham is “FAITH 101” for all believers!
After all, if we are “the children of Abraham”, then we ought to know our faith-father better. Abraham’s Secret was that his faith invigorated him physically, as well as spiritually, and we could all do that!