When I was a boy, we used certain oaths to try to demonstrate our honesty.  To a friend who doubted our word we would exclaim: “Cross my heart.”  If that wasn’t enough we would add, “hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”  And if we were especially serious, we would even volunteer to “boil in oil, stew in lye.” 

       As we grew older and more sophisticated, we changed our oaths to “honest to God!” or “I swear on a stack of Bibles.”  I got in considerable trouble one time when my Mom actually caught me actually swearing on a stack of Bibles.  We sure had a lot of them in our house.

       Oaths have been part of every culture, including the most primitive.  The stability of any society demands that people speak truth in crucial situations and keep their promises.  The oath is an ancient and universal means of reinforcing this obligation.  So oaths help hold a community together. 

       Oaths or vows are very important.  In fact, this very building is a place for making promises.  Here we take vows of marriage, vows of baptism, vows of membership, and vows of ordination.  Our lives are shaped by the promises we make.

       The Bible is filled with examples of oath taking and oath making in God’s name.  The command, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” was directly aimed at keeping promises when God has been called into the picture. If you drag God into the picture, you’d better be prepared to follow through.

       When people take marriage vows today, the only thing that gets cut is a cake.  But back in Abraham’s day, an oath was confirmed by a ceremony in which animals were cut into two parts along the backbone and placed in two rows.  The rows were placed so they faced each other across a space marked off between them.  Then the parties to the oath would walk into the space between the parts and speak their promises.  This oath is especially sacred because of the shed blood.  Violation of it is considered great dishonor.

        So when God makes a promise, He uses the human pattern of oath taking that Abraham knows from his culture and background.  God speaks in a way that Abraham will understand.

        In this case, however, God passes between the pieces all by Himself.  Abraham is not allowed to participate.   It’s a one sided promise.  When God confirms His covenant with Abraham, He confirms it all by Himself.

       The presence of God in this ceremony is signified by two symbols that are meant to tell Abraham, and us, something of who God is.  The first symbol Abraham sees a lamp.  “A burning lamp passed between those pieces.”  God often shows himself to His people as light.  He appeared as light on Sinai, and the glory transmitted itself to the face of Moses.  God appeared in light to Paul on the road to Damascus.  Light spoke of the divine presence as the angels appeared to the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem.

       The second symbol Abraham sees moving between the sacrificed animals is a “smoking furnace.”  Now in our day we have almost lost the significances of this object, but it was well known in ancient times.  A small furnace was used to purify metal.  As ore is heated in the furnace, the dross separates from the metal and rises to the top.  The refiner skims off the dross until the metal appears.  He looks into the smoking furnace until he can see his face reflected in the surface of the molten metal.

       The prophet Malachi wrote that God “Shall sit like a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them like gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.”  Malachi says that God refines his people until He can see His face reflected in them.

       That’s what God wants to do with us.  That’s what God is doing in us.  At times the trial may be painful and we may resent the fire.  But God will purify us until we reflect his image.

       A lamp and a furnace – illumination and expectation.  This is how God appears to Abraham.  God alone moves between the sacrifice and guarantees the promises.  For God’s promise is not only one sided, it is also eternal.   God’s promises are unchangeable.  And God’s eternal commitment is shown by what God does with Abraham later in Chapter 17:9-14 when God institutes the rite of circumcision.

       Now if there is any one outstanding thing that you can say about circumcision, it is that it is permanent.  A baby boy knows nothing of the rite when he is circumcised.  He is not able to say, “I am a Jewish baby, and I elect to be circumcised.”  But the circumcision is done and the results are permanent.  The child may grow up to hate being Jewish.  He may leave his home and change his name from Finklebaum to O’Riley.  But wherever he goes, the mark of his people goes with him.  It is a sign of the fact that God establishes His covenants forever.  “I belong to you and I want you to belong to me.”

       God shows himself to Abram and calls him to a new focus of life.  Whenever you see God in a new way, it always makes a corresponding change in you.  God recognizes this in Chapter 17 by changing Abram’s name.  He says to Abram, “Look, Abram, your name now means ‘exalted father.’ Your trouble all along has been that you have been looking for your own exaltation.  This must now be changed.  You must lose your desire to exalt yourself.  You will stop trying to advance and please yourself.  Your name will now be Abraham, ‘The Father of Multitude.’  Great fruitfulness shall be evident in your life.  Because you have now learned that I am the great God, El Shadai, your name can no longer be ‘exalted.’  It must now be ‘fruitful,’ for you will be the father of a multitude.

       When you became a Christian, when God gave you a new name, you did so by recognizing the right of Jesus Christ to be Lord as well as Savior in your life.  You did not, of course, understand all that this would involve.  But you saw, in one way or another, that God’s willingness to create you and save you involved His right to control you.

       For a time, you still lived much as you did before.  You made decisions on the basis of how you felt and what you wanted to do.  Then the Holy Spirit began to put on the pressure.  He said to you, “stop this,” or “start doing that.”  What He was doing is asserting the lordship of Christ in your life.

       Now in the New Testament we no longer read of circumcision of the flesh, but of the heart.  What was physical and literal to Abraham has spiritual significance for us.  Paul writes that our hearts are to be circumcised.

       The heart is the symbol of the soul, the mind, emotions, and will, the whole personality.  The total personality is to be at Christ’s disposal.  That is the Christian’s circumcised life.

       In the Old Testament, God often spoke to Israel about the coldness of their hearts.  I’m struck by the fact they kept all the law, and then He said to them, “Your problem is that you are not circumcised of heart.”  In Joel 2:13, He says that when you repent, “rend your hearts and not your garments.”  The prophets wrote that the day was coming when the new covenant would be instituted.  God would dwell within us and He would write His laws in our hearts.  We would interact with Him from the inside out.  Then when Jesus Christ met with His disciples in the upper room, He lifted the cup and said these significant words, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you.”  And by baptism we are grafted into the new covenant promise of God.

       We live in a world that is bent on credentials.  Everybody is interested in who you are and what you have: business cards, acclaim, and honors you’ve received.  We sometimes try to serve two masters, to please self and Christ.  We are content to serve Christ, if at the same time we can also serve self.  But God makes His promises.  Then He says to Abram and to us, “This can no longer be permitted.  You have come to the place where dual allegiance can no longer be tolerated.  Walk now before me, and be wholehearted.  I am wholly on your side.  I swear it.  Be wholly on my side.  Be mine!

       We hear a lot about lifestyle.  The L.A. Times has a whole section devoted to lifestyle.  They don’t have a section devoted to heartstyle.  But lifestyle without heartstyle before God is no style at all.

       So as we come to the table we recognize God’s promises.  We recognize God’s claim on our lives and our desire to walk in a way that is worthy of the new name He gives us in Jesus Christ.