Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 15, verses 1 through 11. Genesis, the 15th chapter, the first verse, continuing through verse number 11. After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abraham said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? And the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is mine heir. Now the problem was that this man, Abram, was afraid. He just really did not know for sure that God was with him. It was hard for him to go on. God had promised to do great things for him. He had said, I'm going to make of thee a great nation. Through thee, the coming of thy seed, the Messiah, the Savior, through thee, will all of the nations of the earth be blessed. And beside that, I'm going to give thee a great land that will be so great you'll never even be able to walk across all of it. There was a custom in his day that when the heir was approaching the age of death and had no son, no one through whom the lineage could continue and the stewardship of his inheritance be realized, that the oldest, the steward of the home, not related to him, the oldest boy, would become the heir. And he said, Lord, I don't have a son. And you promised me to bless me. You promised a son. You promised a great family. And you promised a great nation. And all I can say is that I'm about ready to die. I don't have any children. This Eliezer is the only one that's around. And it looks like he's going to be the inheritance. He's going to possess the blessings. And he's not even my son. And beside that, I don't own a nickel's worth of real estate. Lord, are you sure you're going to bless me? Do you really mean it? He was afraid. He didn't have the faith to go on. We're that way. We all have that problem. Many times, I think that we just feel like, Lord, if you'd really write it down for me, if I really knew dead sure that you could bless me, that I'd have more money left over I'd tithe. I don't know what some folks want. He's already said that. He's already written it down. But, Lord, if you'd write my name on it, if you'd send me a special delivery letter. Sometimes we think, Lord, this business venture I want to go into, or tomorrow, or the problems that are mine, the future is so bleak. Lord, can I be sure that I can go on? To be afraid of the future is no new problem. And so the Lord begins to answer him, and begins to bless him, and begins to strengthen him, and tell him, Behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This, this boy, shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? He still wanted more proof. And so the Lord did something very strange. He said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she -goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another. But the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. Now I admit that the first time I read that, I said, What in heaven's name am I going to preach to my people from this text of scripture? But then it occurred to me that our God was answering the most common question in the world. What about the future? I am afraid of that I do not know. God had promised him that through his loins he would have a child that would be the savior of the world. And yet as he was approaching death he was an old man. He was so old that when the angel came to his wife Sarah and said thou shall have a child she literally fell down on her face and laughed herself almost to death. He didn't own a nickel's worth of property. The Lord said you'll have a great nation you'll have a son and you'll own land and he was old and ready to die he thought and had none of these things. He was afraid about tomorrow. God had blessed him. God had promised him but the promises of God were not yet fulfilled and Abraham was having some serious doubts in his faith about his relationship to God. And I confess to you that if I did not read this book if I didn't know where God was going if I hadn't turned over to Revelation and read the last chapter that when I see the chaos of this world I too would say what's happening? Where's God? Is the Lord on the throne? Is there any tomorrow? Has the Lord literally died? Is he gone on vacation? Is he asleep? What about tomorrow? Do you know that over half the young couples that I counsel with in sessions, premarital counseling sessions about getting married expressed to me some very serious doubts about bringing children into this kind of a world? Afraid! Where are the promises of God? What about tomorrow? A little boy was standing beneath some clouds holding a kite. A man said son what's on the end of that thing? He said there's a kite up there and he looked up the string and the string disappeared into the cloud and there was no kite to be seen. He said son how do you know there's a kite up there? He said oh mister I know it's there even though I can't see it because I feel it tugging. But you know sometimes we have to do more than feel it tugging. Sometimes we want to see it. Sometimes we want God to reiterate the fact that he is ours and the future is safe. And so he asked of him a sign. He said Lord do something tangible. Prove to me my faith is weak. I'm afraid to go on. Every week I talk to 15 or 20 people about decisions. Decisions to go to seminary, to go to college, about marriage, about the university, about a job, about employment, about a hundred things. And always there is the question, the fear of the future, the uncertainty. But what about tomorrow? I said to the people in prayer meeting the other night an entire study of phobic reactions has been made. They've categorized every kind of fear and they even have a special study for the fear of fear. People who are just afraid they're going to be afraid and they don't know what they're afraid of. In northern Europe they found some hieroglyphics written on the caves of the wall and some experts analyzed them and discovered that the people through the centuries had been writing down all of the emotions that they most universally felt. And the one that they most commonly found was a picture of a man whose throat was being strangled by a wolf. And it was from this expression that the word worgen, the Anglo -Saxon word which has now we call worry, developed. It means to strangle. It means to choke. And when the mind is worried, the body is unable to function and unable to accomplish and to produce and conquer. Because while perfect love casts out fear, perfect doubt is ingratiated deeply into the human personality through fear. And men that are afraid are bound up within themselves and are literally choked and cannot act. And so the word worry means to choke or to strangle. And it was the most common denominator among all of the emotions of the early people. God knows that worry chokes us and fear about tomorrow drives us insane. And this man, Abram, while he was the great man of faith, came to the time when faith would no longer do and he had to have God to do something tangible to prove to him, to show him that tomorrow was not in doubt. I wrote a sign once on a little wall that said, uh, due to lack of interest, tomorrow has been canceled. Well, many Christians could paraphrase this and say that due to lack of confidence, tomorrow ought to be canceled. The faith to go on, the faith to believe, faith in the future. when so many storm clouds of uncertainty beset us today, is the common lot of all of us. Now God does not force men to have faith. He does not belittle us. He does not make us to feel upbraided and silly and ridiculous because we are unconfident and uncertain about tomorrow. He does something about it. He did not upbraid his servant one time. He came to him with what I think is one of the most beautiful pictures of solid solidarity for a man to believe to go on tomorrow when tomorrow is in doubt in all of the Word of God. It is a picture of the Trinity. Now you will recall that back in the very beginning of this chapter, our Lord has said, Fear not, Abraham, I am. And everything else that he says in the chapter is an exposition of those two words. I am. Don't worry, Abraham. I am. I exist. Fear not, Abraham. I am. Don't be worried about tomorrow, Abraham. I am. Don't fear about children and worlds and problems and jobs and business and stewardship and future and college. Don't worry. I am. I am God. I am my existence upon this God basis all of tomorrow. The unchanging, confident, certain reality of the nature and person of God. I am going to suggest to you that here in this passage of Scripture in Genesis we find the first reference to the Trinity. Swing over very quickly just there in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 13. Just turn the pages quickly and look in the 11th verse. Here is one of the grandest concepts of the New Testament picture of the Trinity recorded. 2 Corinthians 13, 11. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect or mature. Be of good comfort. Be of one mind. Live in peace. And the God of love and peace shall be with you. In other words, he's saying, go on, cheer up, everything's all right. Don't be afraid about tomorrow. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints salute you. And here's why he says is the underpegging, the undergirding stability of our faith in tomorrow. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, that is the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen. In other words, when you go, you go with God. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the unchanging stability of the entirety of the Godhead undergird you. Now, yonder in the 9th and 10th verses, our Lord does something which I think demonstrates and illustrates to the best ability of Abraham to comprehend in the Old Testament the concept of the Trinity. Now, we have one God, but our God expresses himself in three forms. And our Lord here is saying, I believe because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are. Don't worry. Because we exist. Because of us. Don't worry. A little girl came home from Sunday school, and she had been taught the 23rd Psalm. And her mother said, honey, what did you learn in Sunday school? And she said, the teacher said, the Lord is my shepherd, I should worry. Well, that's a pretty good paraphrase of what David said. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He could have just as easily said, the Lord is, period. I shall not want. But here God is saying to us, I think, in beautiful form, not only that God is, but the entire Trinity is in existence and reality to beset all of our fears and worries about the future. God is. Don't worry. Now look, verse 9 and verse 10, please. And he said unto him, take me an heifer of three years old, and a she -goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he took him, all of these, and divided them in the midst. Now why did he do that? I don't think the Bible records why he did it, but I think the inference is obvious. And he divided them and laid each piece one against the other. Now let's stop right there. There was a custom in his day that when a man's word was in doubt, that a man would himself take a sacrifice of an animal and divide it into two pieces. And he would lay it on either side of an altar, and the man himself would walk between the divided pieces. And as he did so, he said by his doing so, so let it be unto me if I break my word. That is, that if I, if these, as these pieces are separated in that same way, let me be divided. Let me be torn asunder. Let me be severed. Let me die if my word is not true. The man, you see, he was literally laying himself on the altar and saying, if I do not do as I say I will do, so let it be unto me that I shall cease to exist. And God, I think, although Abram does not record it, although the writer does not say it, told Abraham to divide these pieces at least when God told him to take the three, the three animals. He knew what to do with them that God was saying to him, now when you divide them in that same way, if I, the Lord, do not do what I've said to you that I'm going to do, so let me be destroyed. In other words, God is saying, I and my word stand or fall together. If my word cannot be trusted, I cannot be trusted. You see, when we start to tithe or start to take a new job or move to a new city or make any kind of a decision that requires our stepping out on faith, if we are sure God has said it, God is saying, if I have said it, dear friend, then my very existence is behind it. God and his word cannot be separated. Indeed, when God became a man, when he made himself tangible and physical for 33 years so we could see him and touch him and talk with him and feel with him and eat with him and see him physically and pick him up on our wavelength, he called what he was the word. The tangibilizing of God is the word of God. God and his word are in. And when God destroys, allows to go by as void, makes impotent, one jot or tittle of this Bible will have no God. God will be out of. The whole thing will go up in smoke. There will be no God when his word is not true. The inseparable, inseparableness of God from his word. He is saying to Abraham is the first promise you have for tomorrow. And oh, isn't it hard to step out on his word. A fellow was falling out of an airplane one day and he just happened to catch on to a little twig that was sticking out on the side of a mountain and he was dangling precariously about 3 ,000 feet above death. And oh, he started doing some fancy praying. And he said, Lord, get me down from here. I'll confess all my sin. I'll quit drinking. I'll quit gambling. I'll quit running around. Lord, I'll do anything. The Lord said, anything? He said, anything. Lord, I'll go to church. I'll pay 20%. I'll be in Sunday school. I'll never do anything. I'll quit stealing and getting drunk. I'll do anything. The Lord said, anything? He said, anything. The Lord said, all right. Turn loose of that limb. To say it, to sing it, to preach it is one thing. To experience it is another. That's why God is so honored when men accept him, when they follow him, when they believe him, when they respond to his word because it says, I believe God. I trust God and God is pleased when people believe him. And so our Lord is telling us, don't worry about tomorrow. I'm God. The fact that I am is all you need to know. They tell us that 40 % of the things we worry about never happen. 30 % of the things we worry about are the result of former decisions which can't be altered. 15 % of what we worry about is the, is worrying over criticism of those who are inferior who would bring us down to their level. 10 % of our worries regard our health. And when we worry about our health, it makes it worse. And so we worry more. And probably only 5 % are what could be categorized legitimate. Journalist John Evans Jones, now retired in Utah said his little elderly sweet ad who lived in London during the Blitz was always being told to run for cover and to get in the cellars when the air raid siren started. And she said, no, I'm not worrying about that. She said, I've got faith in God. And she had a little plaque on the wall that said, it may never happen. Montaigne, the French philosopher said, 90 % of my life has been filled with terrible things, most of which never happened. And on this little sign, she said, it may never happen. And one day, in their part of town, was a terrible air raid. Mr. Evans said he went running over there, and his little old maid aunt was under the table, shuddering. And that piece had been blown to bits, cracked right in the middle. It may never happen. And it was laying beside her. He said, what are you going to do now, auntie? And without a worry, without a word, she got up and got a couple little tacks and tacked it together and turned it over and hung it back up on the wall and dusted herself off. And on the other side were the words, I can take it. I can take it. Well, the second thing is in verse 9 and 10, he says, he said unto him, after he had divided these things, indicating that God and his word were in. It was inseparable. But the birds divided he not. Now what were the two birds that were involved? One of them was a turtle dove and one of them was a pigeon. Now a dove in the Bible is always symbolic of whom? The Holy Spirit. The Bible says he descends in the form of a dove. This does not mean that he looks like a dove in his shape but he means he descends as a dove descends. A dove hunter knows that the dove is the only bird in the world that doesn't come in for a landing. It just kind of settles down like a helicopter. And in that very same way the gentle presence of the Spirit of God as descending as a dove, as a dove descends was his second seal of God's presence and the reason for him not to worry about the future. You not only have the all -seeing power of the Father but the ever -present presence of the Holy Spirit. He said now don't you divide this dove. Don't sever the dove. He didn't. He knew not to do it because the presence of the Holy Spirit is never severed from the life of the believer. And then there was the pigeon. Now when I think of a pigeon I think of a homing pigeon. I think of returning home. And he did not destroy the pigeon. He did not sever it because I shall never be severed from my future home in heaven through Jesus Christ. That's shouting ground right there in the Old Testament. There's the entire Trinity symbolized in the reality of God and his word in the constant presence of the Holy Spirit inseparable from us. That's why he said I shall never leave thee. I shall never forsake thee. Lo I am with thee to the very end of the earth. I told the students at Houston Baptist College in chapel last Tuesday. With God you can do anything. There is nothing you cannot do because God is in you. When you set the direction that you want to go and know it to be the will of God, you don't have to turn that three or four thousand pounds of that automobile. You just aim. You just direct. You just point the way you want to go and let the power steering, let the power of those horses do the work. Oh, when you and I have zeroed in on home, when we know what the future is, when we know what the will of God is for our lives, we just commit our life to the Holy Spirit and his power through us begins to do it. No, we do not have the power to solve problems. I can't pay your bills. I can't educate you. I can't take care of your needs. I don't ask you to trust me. I ask you to trust him whose word is irrevocable. Well, the third and final word, of course, is that the Son, Jesus Christ, is here typified. Abraham is one of the grandest types of Christ in all of the Old Testament. Now look, and he says, when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. I remember hearing someone called a fowl. Do you remember who he was? The Bible calls him the serpent, the devil. Psalm 91, he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge. He is my fortress, my God, and in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler. You see, as a fallen angel, Lucifer had wings. That's why he is called a fowl. The Bible calls him a prowler, a wolf, a sower of tares, a liar, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, a thousand things. But seven times the Bible calls Satan, the fallen angel, the enemy of man, a prowler, a fowl, the fowler. And so when the fowler comes down from heaven, when the fowl and fowl comes upon the sacrifice of God, upon God's man and God's child and the way of God's children, Jesus Christ, Abraham in the Old Testament, typified, will fight against him and drive him away. That's why that 91st song can go on to say, Though a thousand fall to my left hand and ten thousand to my right hand, it shall not come nigh unto thee. Jesus is our strength. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, all are garrisoned about the Christian. And he says, because I am, you can walk bravely and boldly and confidently into the future. Oh, what a strength. Yes, what a mighty fortress is our God and his word. Let me read these closing verses of scripture for you. All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me. And him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. For I come down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that hath sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that all of which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will. In whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth and the gospel of your salvation. In whom also after that ye believed you were sealed. Sealed. Kept with an unbreakable seal by the Holy Spirit of promise. For all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Now he would establisheth us with you in Christ, is Christ, and hath anointed us as God, who hath also sealed us and given the earnest and down payment of the Spirit in our hearts. An old country Baptist preacher years ago was in a debate with one of his brethren publicly, as they used to do on Sunday afternoons over the security of the believer. He had preached on this passage of scripture to him, and he took three little buckets and he took an egg and he put it under one of those buckets. And then he put another bucket over that first bucket. And then he put a third bucket over that second bucket. And he said, now if you're going to get to that egg, what do you have to do? Well, you have to take off the first bucket and go through that to get to the second and go through that and get to the third. And then you'll get it. He said, listen, my Bible says that the Christian, first of all, is under the blood of Jesus Christ. Saved, sealed by the blood of Jesus. Secondly, we are in the hand of God and no man, but no man can take them out of my Father's hand. Third, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise until the day of redemption. And no man can break that seal. And for you and I to get out of the Father's hand, for you and I to be lost, for you and I to have reason to fear, for you and I to have reason to fail and to doubt and to be in distraught and dismay about the future, means that first of all, the heavens would have to fall. The word of God become void. The blood of Jesus become evident. The Spirit of God be driven from us. And when God's word shall fall, when our Lord shall fail to tell the truth, when the blood shall become evident, when the Spirit of God shall be driven away, when all the thundering stars of the universe shall fall, then and then alone, you and I as Christians have need to worry about the future. We do not. You can go on in faith. Because the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the cleansing, keeping, protecting power of God in Christ, the seal of the ever -present power of the Spirit of God, and the over -shekinah sovereignty of Almighty God, Himself encased and encompassed us. Is it any wonder that the psalmist said, The Lord is my shepherd. I should worry. He says, Don't worry about the future. Go on. Believe me. Fear not, Abraham. I am.