While God was saying all this to the sleeping Abram, the Amorite tribes of Canaan were honest farmers, just beginning to enter demon worship, apparently. God knew, however, that after four hundred years passed, the Amorites would be deeply involved in temple prostitution and human sacrifice.

We see from this how God moves in terms of His foreknowledge.

Let me emphasize once again that this is the manner in which God works with those who are to be fruitful in His Kingdom. It is not a case of some Christian becoming a great apostle, "God's man of faith and power." Rather it is a dreadful darkness in which human anguish is involved. It runs deep until the foundations of the earth are laid bare.

Abram was becoming acquainted with the heavy darkness that surrounds all God does, in preparation for the day in which he would be asked to present his only son as a burnt offering. Heavy fruitfulness requires heavy pruning.

Never ask God to make you some great one in His Kingdom unless you are prepared to walk in dreadful darkness, to suffer much. We relate to God by fire, by His sword that pierces the soul. God is much more than a teacher and philosopher under whom we can study and then skip forth to amaze mankind with our theological knowledge. Jesus Christ is the Furnace of Israel, and whoever would walk with Him must learn to dwell in the Divine Fire.

Why do we need such heaviness, darkness, and fire? Because we are as filled with guile as the ocean is with water. God has to grind, grind, grind us in His mortar in order to pound the guile out of us. We cannot see God until our heart is that of a child.

Yet we are not to be a child in understanding but a true son of our Father. And He creates the storm as well as the sunshine; the alligator as well as the minnow; the panther as well as the kitten; the eagle as well as the sparrow.

The beautiful and the ugly, the productive as well as the destructive—all come from our Father through His Christ. The bat is from Him as well as the butterfly. After we have been a Christian for a while He may decide to teach us more about Himself that we may bear much fruit, becoming a true witness of God.

You do not have to worry about all of this. When your time comes, you will know it. And do not expect anyone else to understand what is happening to you—no, not your closest friend.

But know for a certainty that God who called you in Christ Jesus will never forsake you. If you do not quit but remain faithful to God, He will see you through every storm, every danger, and you will come forth from the fire safe and sound, not having lost a thing but that with which you had been bound.

To be continued.