Prior to this encounter, the Lord had appeared to Abraham on four separate occasions, but this time was different. Clearly this was a powerful encounter for Abraham, as the Lord revealed Himself to Abraham as “Almighty God”. And so, as a result of this encounter, the scripture tells us that Abraham fell on his face before the Lord, which is something that had never happened before. Obviously on this occasion, Abraham was unable to stand in the presence of the Lord because of the manifested power of God. During God’s discourse with Abraham, evidently the Lord had lifted Abraham up so that he could stand before Him, because at the end of the discourse we see that Abraham fell on his face once again. This time however, he fell laughing. And so, unlike the account we quoted earlier, where Abraham bowed himself to the ground before the Lord in reverence, this time Abraham fell on his face simply because he was physically unable to stand in the presence of Almighty God. But I want you to notice an important truth that the scripture reveals to us from this account, i.e. it tells us that Abraham fell to the ground, not that he was thrown to the ground. And so, as we will see consistently in this section, our encounters with the Lord’s power can cause us to fall, purely because physically, we are too weak to stand in His presence, not because His power forces us to the ground against our will.
Michael E.B. Maher
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