An Unusual Time

An unusual time.  God is making promises to Abraham and Abraham is responding by faith.  Abraham asks how he will know that God is going to give him a land to possess (Genesis 15:8).  God responds by instructing Abraham to bring a “three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon” (v.9).  Abraham does as the Lord asks and cuts them in half and lays them out before the Lord.  Abrham waits, and while he waits, birds of prey try to come eat these sacrifices that he laid out before the Lord, driving the birds of prey away.  Then we read, “As the sun was setting, a deep sleep came over Abram, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him" (v.12).  The does not appear to be an ordinary sleep of tiredness or neglect.  And in this act of obedience and waiting upon the Lord, what Abraham experiences is great terror and darkness that descends on him.  Matthew Henry commentates, “The children of light do not always walk in the light, but sometimes clouds and darkness are round about them. This great darkness, which brought horror with it, was designed: to strike an awe upon the spirit of Abraham, to be a specimen of the methods of God’s dealings with his seed, and to be an indication of the nature of that covenant of peculiarity which God was now about to make with Abraham”.  There are great lessons here of waiting upon the Lord and being satisfied with the presence of the Lord, regardless of the experience or circumstances.