Author: Charlie Garrett

Genesis 21:22-34
The Well of the Seven

Introduction: Today we’re going to learn about the importance of oaths and agreements and see how God watches over them, even thousands of years after they are enacted. Every oath we take and every vow we make is done in the presence of God and therefore they are as binding as if they are made directly with Him.

Today’s verses may not be as deep and exciting as some we’ve traversed, but they are as important as any other. God wants us to learn from them and to then abide by the instructions and the lessons they provide. Let’s do our best to take heed to them as we live in His presence as followers of Jesus Christ.

Text Verse:You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. Deuteronomy 10:20

Some people believe based on Jesus’ words in the gospels that we should make no oaths at all. But this is a misreading of what Jesus was telling us. When we make oaths, however, they are not to be taken lightly and they are only to be made in the Lord’s name. Any vow or oath which is made under any lesser name will ultimately diminish His glory in our perception of Him and is actually an act of idolatry and so… May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Abraham’s Vow

In the coming verse, the first thing we need to do is to try to determine when it actually occurs –

²² And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phichol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do.

There are three possibilities as to when Abimelech came to Abraham. The first is that is was from the passage in Chapter 20 when Sarah was taken into Abimelech’s home. If so, it would skip over both the birth and weaning of Isaac and the story about Ishmael which included his growing up and becoming an archer.

The second possibility is that it was after the birth of Isaac around the time of the feast when he was weaned. The third is that is happened much later, when Ishmael had grown up to become an archer.

The first option is unlikely because there is a progression of events which leads from one thing to another right up until the time of Ishmael and his mother leaving the home. The third option, when Ishmael is grown up, is also unlikely.

That is more of an addendum on the timeline to note that he survived the ordeal of being in the desert and eventually married and became an archer. The most likely time is around the time of Isaac’s weaning when Hagar and Ishmael were sent away.

The reason why this is likely is because by having the record of them being removed from the camp assures that what is coming in today’s account is intended to include the people who descend from Isaac, not Ishmael. If Ishmael were still in the home, there could be a claim by him and his descendants to what is coming.

Now let’s read the verse again to refresh it in our minds – “And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phichol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do.”

The king of Gerar, who had already interacted with Abraham in the matter concerning Sarah his wife, comes along with the commander of his army to make a formal treaty with him. His word to Abraham, “God is with you in all you do” is something God promised Abraham all the way back in chapter 12 –

² “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.”

By this meeting with the king, the Lord has fulfilled the promise to Abraham. It was as obvious to Abimelech as the nose on his face that God was looking out for him. When he took Sarah into his harem, God came to him in a dream, called him a dead man for taking a prophet’s wife, and told him he had better return her.

He also was fully aware of the large size of Abraham’s camp in people, livestock, and wealth. Now, he had heard that a son was born to him and had lived to the age of weaning, meaning he would become the inheritor of Abraham’s camp. And the camp was powerful. Anyone in the area would know that with his fighting men he had overthrown the 4 kings of the east.

God was with Abraham and so Abimelech came to make a treaty with him now before died. Once he was dead, the son would take over and a new regime would be established. It would be easier to work with Abraham now than to do so with his son in the future.

Another question arises though, why did he bring along his army commander? He is mentioned by name and therefore God is telling us that he is important to know. His name means “the mouth of all” or literally “strong.” Bringing him along does a few things.

The first is that it will demonstrate that the pact to be made has the full support of the people. It also acknowledges Abraham’s military superiority over his own kingdom. Abraham’s might was renowned and bringing the commander who was named “Strong” was an implicit acknowledgment that Abraham was stronger.

This is in line with Jesus words in a parable in Luke 14 –

³¹ Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. ³³ So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.

Abimelech may or may not be a believer in the true God, but he is acknowledging that Abraham is superior to him in military power and that his God is more inclined to Abraham than anyone else, including him.

Before we head to the next verse, we should probably evaluate our own lives and see if we’re willing to heed what Jesus is implying in the verse I gave you from Luke. He is the commander of the strongest army there is and so we should be brave enough to stand up for our convictions and let others, not us, sue for peace.

Any Christian who isn’t willing to speak up for his faith and for the truth of the message of Jesus Christ is neither properly executing, nor worthy of, the title of “Christian.”

Whether the people around us acknowledge it or not, the God we follow is the only God and because He is, then nothing can stand against us. So if you’re timid about whatever issue you’re facing, don’t be. He is right there with you as He was with Abraham.

 ²³ Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me, with my offspring, or with my posterity; but that according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the land in which you have dwelt.”

However Abimelech knows… he knows that Abraham isn’t going to just be a powerful leader and then fade away, but that his line will continue forever. Because of this, he asks for him to speak not only for himself, but for his son, and his future descendants too.

What he is asking for is something we would call the Lex Talionis or “an eye for an eye.” What kindness or evil I show you, you will show me. What I think about this account, and several more like it, may not be popular, but I believe it is 100% correct.

The covenant between Abimelech and Abraham is as binding today as it is when it was made. It seems to be written into the Jewish mind and actions even now. I do not care even a little bit what the rest of the world says about the actions of Israel. They never act as the aggressors in their actions against their neighbors.

On August 31, 2004, 16 were killed in two suicide bombings on buses in Beersheba for which Hamas claimed responsibility. On August 28, 2005, another suicide bomber attacked the central bus station, seriously injuring two security guards and 45 bystanders. During Operation Cast Lead, which began on December 27, 2008, Hamas fired multiple Grad rockets from Gaza into Beersheba.

On almost every occasion in their history, Israel responds to attacks on the people they covenanted with, but they do not actively attack them. In the Bible and in modern history, when this isn’t the case, the Lord sees and acts. Let me give you an account from 2 Samuel 21 when Israel violated such a covenant –

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, “It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites.” ² So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; the children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.

People may forget these things over time, but the Lord never does. This covenant with the Gibeonites was about 400 years earlier and yet God held Israel to account for it. His eye is on both sides of these struggles and He attends to violations in man’s word in surprising and fulfilling ways.

This is a lesson we need to remember as individuals and as a nation. When we sign a contract of peace with a group of people, it is binding and is not to be dismissed by us first, only in retaliation for an aggression initiated against us.

²⁴ And Abraham said, “I will swear.”

In Genesis 15, God told Abraham that it would be 400 years before he would take possession of the land and so he has two reasons to agree. The first is that Abimelech came to him on friendly and submissive terms. Second, by such an agreement, in a land which he doesn’t even own, he is receiving a guarantee of safety.

This would be like making an agreement with your landlord. He comes to you with his lawyer and says, “I know that God is with you in all you do and so I want to guarantee that I will prosper through you.

“So, would you be willing to live in this house for free – you and any of your descendants who want to for the next 400 years? If so, I’ll pay all the bills and throw in a security system too.”

And so you agree. Abraham agreed too…

The agreement is made and it will be confirmed in a covenant. Abraham’s word is i’shaba – “I will swear” and is the same root as the number seven – sheba. An oath of this type will be confirmed in a rite involving the number seven.

II. Oh, Well!

Before you sign the lawyer’s papers, you want to clear up a small problem. He came to you and so he’s obviously willing to bargain and wants to see the deal done and so now is the very best time to clear any outstanding matters.

On the back of the property is a big shed that you built. The landlord’s employees have been coming onto the property and filling it with their stuff. Before you sign the papers, you want your shed and you want it left alone.

Abraham has his own terms which he wants settled before he confirms the oath with Abimelech…

²⁵ Then Abraham rebuked Abimelech because of a well of water which Abimelech’s servants had seized.

Water is where it’s at. If you’ve never been to Israel, just go on line and type in “Beersheba,” which is where this story is happening. You’ll see lots of sand, lots of rocks, and you can feel the heat shimmering off the photo.

There are two rain seasons in the land – known as the former and latter rains which come in the fall and the spring. In the off seasons, or in the times when the season doesn’t get rain, a well is the only source of water. It is the only way to irrigate, and the only way for the people and animals to drink.

Abraham is more concerned about this well than any other part of the meeting and it will be a continued source of trouble if it doesn’t get settled. Abimelech’s servants need to leave it alone or the oath will only have hints of unhappiness associated with it.

²⁶ And Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, nor had I heard of it until today.”

This verse shows the gracious nature of Abraham for two reasons. First Abraham agreed to the oath even before the issue of the well was brought up. And secondly, Abimelech was never told in the past about what was going on.

Abraham had the power to take the well back by force and keep it guarded, but instead, he graciously kept the matter concealed. Abimelech is hearing about it for the first time. I like what the Geneva Bible has to say about this verse – “Wicked servants do many evils unknown to their masters.”

You’ll find many times in the Bible that this is so. Poor King David had a very faithful army commander named Joab, but he did all kind of things that he shouldn’t have done. Should you be a boss, you know that even the best of employees make some rather dubious decisions from time to time.

Abimelech is gracious back to Abraham just as Abraham was to him. In the end, the covenant will go forward and it will last as a testament to this congenial meeting between these two men.

²⁷ So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant.

In verse 23, it was Abimelech who asked for the agreement, and in verse 24 Abraham agrees to it. Abraham is the one who offers the animals because he is the one who is granting the request.

He took “sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech.” Abraham provides the animals and Abimelech is the one to kill them and divide them in two. After that, both of them will pass between the pieces and the covenant will be confirmed.

The significance to this ancient rite is that if either party broke the covenant, they would be treated in the same manner as the animals that they passed through. In other words, “What has been done to these animals is what I am binding myself to.”

²⁸ And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.

Some scholars say these seven lambs are the animals that were sacrificed and the other sheep and oxen were gifts to Abimelech. However, this doesn’t make sense and it is exactly the opposite. The terminology, both before and after this verse, indicates that the seven lambs are a witness to the covenant, not the sign of it.

²⁹ Then Abimelech asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves?”

Abimelech is standing there looking at these seven cute, fluffy little lambs and wondering what they mean. The animals for the sacrifice have been slaughtered and divided and all of a sudden Abraham walks up with seven more lambs.

He probably stood scratching his head or maybe pulling his beard and wondered what was going on.

³⁰ And he said, “You will take these seven ewe lambs from my hand, that they may be my witness that I have dug this well.”

I’ve been to this place and looked down this well. Yes, the well is still there, but the lambs aren’t. So where is the proof that Abraham actually gave them to Abimelech and where is the proof that he accepted them? Anyone?

The proof is in the document we’re reading. As the noted legal scholar and principle founder of Harvard Law School, Simon Greenleaf states, “Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise.”

It’s important to remember this because there are copies of the Bible which go well back into antiquity and which predate any other claims on this well or any of the other biblical sites coming into contestation in modern times. This may seem like a side issue, but God has recorded this deed and we need to take heed to it, as well as several others in the Bible.

People argue over Israel’s right to the land. They argue over a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, they argue over Israel’s very right to exist. So, knowing the Bible is the most important tool that we have to refute these baseless claims.

The seven lambs were offered by Abraham as proof that he dug this well. They implicitly state that the land around the well was for his use. If Abimelech accepts the lambs, then what is implicit becomes explicit. Remember, it was Abimelech in the previous chapter who said this to Abraham –

“See, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.” (20:15)

³¹ Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.

“Therefore…” We’re reminded to think on the previous verses of today’s sermon and come to a conclusion or accept one that has been made. So let’s review:

Abimelech and Phichol came to Abraham, acknowledged that God is with him in all he does, and so they ask him to swear by God that he won’t deal falsely with him, his son, or his descendants, and that there will be established an agreement based on the lex talionis – an eye for an eye, if the agreement is broken.

Abraham agrees and after his agreement he brings up the subject of the well. Abimelech say he had no knowledge of the problem and Abraham takes animals for a sacrifice to cut a covenant. He also sets aside seven ewe lambs as a witness that he dug the well. If Abimelech agrees to this, then the covenant will be sealed.

”Therefore…” because of all of these things, the well is called Beersheba. Why is the naming of the place the conclusion of the matter and the reason for our “therefore?” The word in Hebrew for “therefore” is al and can be translated, wherefore, therefore, so, and, etc. But it is used to demonstrate a result.

“Therefore” – the result of all the things we talked about is the name Beersheba. The word be-er means well. The verb sheba means “oath.” So, or therefore, the result is the “Well of the Oath.” But the root of sheba also means “seven.” So, or therefore, the result is the “Well of the Seven.”

The “therefore” is that the well and the surrounding area is called Beersheba, and the name came from this oath. The oath is the grant and the name is the testament to the grant. Who owns this land? The descendants of Abraham through Isaac, not Ishmael, and also not any of the other people in the area… The deed stands.

III. The Lord, The Everlasting God

³² Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba. So Abimelech rose with Phichol, the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines.

Both agreed – Abraham and Abimelech, and so the covenant is confirmed and it’s done as the verse says, “at Beersheba.” The inclusion of the name in this verse is given specifically to demonstrate that it came from this account.

The fact that the name of this place has lasted for 4000 years tells us that God is carefully watching over His land and is demonstrating the significance of these accounts in His word.

As the Palestinians continue their assault against Israel – each time they do, they violate this ancient covenant which came between these two men. You see, the term Palestine comes from the Hebrew word plishtime, which we translate as Philistine.

These people cannot claim the title while rejecting the obligation to it. It either goes all the way or it doesn’t go at all. Hence, the town of Beersheba is in the news and will continue to be in the news as long as these wicked people are hostile to their Jewish brethren.

The history of the place is rich and it will be mentioned many, many more times as the Bible unfolds. It will become synonymous with the very southern spot of the Land of Israel.

This spot is where God meets with Jacob just before he leaves the land of Canaan on his journey to Egypt. From the time he leaves Beersheba, it will be several hundred years before the people return from there.

³³ Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.

Verse 33 introduces a few terms and a pile of debate. Abraham planted, according to the NKJV a “tamarisk tree” and others say an “oak tree.” The KJV says “grove.”

The term is eshel and is used only used two more times in the Bible. Both times, a tree and not a field for plowing, seems likely.

Study your Bibles and make your conclusions. I go with a tree, not a grove because a tree seems to be tied into what Abraham is doing. He is calling on the Lord, the Everlasting God. This is the first time in the Bible this term is used – Yehovah, El Olam.

He is the Eternal One. He is unchangeable and therefore he is sure and able to watch over the covenant made between these two men. Because of this, Abraham plants a tree – a symbol to men of permanence and reliability. As my brother once said to me, “The definition of an optimist is a person who plants a tree.”

A grove gives the thought of neither permanence nor reliability. In fact, it gives just the opposite. A grove is something temporary and which changes with each harvest, but the Bible says otherwise about the tree –

In Isaiah chapter 6, he is told by the Lord to proclaim His word to the stubborn and dull eared people. They are told to keep on hearing, but never listening. They are told to keep on seeing, but never perceiving. Eventually, Isaiah cries out –

“Lord, how long?” And He answered: “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate, ¹² The Lord has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. ¹³ But yet a tenth will be in it, And will return and be for consuming, As a terebinth tree or as an oak, Whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump.”

Despite Israel’s unfaithfulness, their stiff-necks, and their unwillingness to hear, God promises to preserve a teeny remnant of the people and they will be as the stump of the tree which will sprout again at the scent of water.

Abraham has planted a tree acknowledging God’s faithfulness and permanence. It’s as if he sees the future of his people and acknowledges God’s sovereignty over them and His eternal faithfulness to them, even when they nail His Son to another tree.

Concerning this treaty between Abraham and Abimelech and their descendants after them, it is Yehovah, El Olam who will vindicate the just and who will judge the unjust who breaks the agreement. He is Abraham’s infallible Source of rest and peace.

In Ecclesiastes 3, we read this – “I know that whatever God does, It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him.”

The form and appearance of the things around us may change, but what God determines is permanent and everlasting. Nothing that He decides can be frustrated or hindered. Even though the tree Abraham planted is temporary and changing, it is in itself a shadow of something that is eternal and unchanging.

One more little tidbit about this verse for you – at the beginning of this chapter, way back in verse 1 when the Lord visited Sarah and brought about the conception of Isaac, which was two sermons ago, the name of the Lord “Jehovah” was mentioned.

It hasn’t been mentioned again until now 32 verses later. Through Isaac’s weaning, through the sending away of Hagar and Ishmael, and through the entire account with Abimelech, only the term “God” is used. This is because of the relationship between the people in those accounts and God was general and not intimate.

But His relationship with Sarah as the mother of Isaac and His relationship with Abraham, the man of faith, we see a personal and covenant based relationship. And so the chapter begins and ends with the divine name, Jehovah. It is this name which, until the incarnation of Jesus, demonstrates communion with man.

This is how life was intended to be. When man was created, it was the Lord who was with him in the Garden, but since then He only appears at certain times and for specific reasons in human history.

The intimacy between God and man was all but gone and can only be restored when we follow His rules. Once we do though, Paul tells us about the restored relationship –

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” ¹⁶ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, Romans 8:14-16

³⁴ And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days.

This is the last verse of chapter 21 and it is given to show us God’s faithfulness to Abraham. After the treaty, after calling on the name of the Lord as the Everlasting God, we see that this same God was both capable and willing to provide for Abraham, even in the Land of the Philistines.

The verse implies that there were no disputes over the well with Abimelech or with anyone else that would have necessitated him moving on. God remained Abraham’s source and place of rest.

Before we leave today’s passage behind us, we should reflect on this personally. What we’ve learned today is as much about oaths, their establishment and fulfillment, as anything else. Some of us here have taken an oath in marriage.

I will tell you that God looks at that oath in the same light as He looks at the oath between these two men. God is still watching it carefully 4000 years later and He is watching for our faithfulness in the covenant of marriage as well.

He’s also watching our other oaths – things we have sworn to accomplish. This includes loan agreements for a car or a house. It includes testifying in a courtroom or witnessing transactions. God watches over our actions and our oaths, expecting full and complete compliance.

If we are really Abraham’s children, we are children of the Lord, and so we need to be competent and faithful to represent Him in all we do. If you’ve never become a son of God by faith in Jesus, let me tell you how you can,… the most important oath of all.

Next week: Genesis 22:1-8 (By Faith Abraham)

The Well of the Seven

And it came to pass at that time
That Abimelech and Phichol the commander of the army
Spoke to Abraham what was on their mind
God is with you in all you do and we see your life is barmy

Now therefore, swear to me by God
That you will not deal falsely with me or my offspring
And with kindness we will interact while in this life we trod
You will do to me as I to you, please agree to this thing

And Abraham said, “I will swear.”
Then he rebuked Abimelech because of a well of water
His servants had seized it, without any care
It needed to be resolved before the animals they would slaughter

And Abimelech said, I don’t know who has done this thing
You never told me, nor have I heard till today
So Abraham to Abimelech sheep and oxen he did bring
And gave them to him for a covenant display

And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock to the side
And Abimelech asked their meaning, and Abraham replied

You will take these seven lambs from my hand in order to tell
As a witness that it was I who have dug this watery well

Therefore, he called that place Beersheba
Because the two of them swore an oath there
Thus they made a covenant at a place which rhymes with Toshiba
Not much else does and I had to put something there

So Abimelech rose with Phichol the commander of the army
And they returned to the Philistine’s land
They were hoping their life would also be quite barmy
And that God would bless them from His open hand

Then Abraham in Beersheba planted a tamarisk tree
And there called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God
And he stayed in that land many days happy and carefree
Because he was a man of faith and faithfully he trod

Each of us enters into agreements and covenants too
And God expects us to obey them in all that we do

Let us be faithful to the contracts we sign
And to the vows we make as we speak with our lips
God instructs us that this is His design
He is watching that we don’t make any slips

He is faithful to us in each and every way
And so we are to be like Him each and every day

Let us be faithful to our husband or wife
Let us be honorable each day as we work
In every way we need to live an integrity-filled life
Not letting things slip like some kind of a jerk

God promised so very long ago
That He would send His Son to make all things right
Thankfully He didn’t change His mind and decide to say no
Because only through Him can we see heaven’s light

Great and awesome God
Let us in they light trod
Great and marvelous in all your ways
May we return to you all of our praise

Hallelujah and Amen…

Genesis 21:9-21
Cast Out the Bondwoman and Her Son
(A Picture of the Day of Pentecost)

Introduction: Reading the stories in the Old Testament often leaves us wondering about why they’re in the Bible. With each new account, we need to re-ask it again. Why was the story of Cain and Abel there? What about the story of the Tower of Babel? Why is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah given?

Today, we’ll look at the account of Hagar and Ishmael as they leave the home of Abraham and start life apart from them. While we’re looking at the account, we have to remember that it’s a part of what God decided to include in His word and therefore it must be relevant to our understanding of how He interacts with His people.

We looked at the overall purpose of Hagar and Ishmael’s inclusion in the Bible before, and today will be a partial review of that. We’ll include some things that are new too. One of the interesting studies that we’ve looked at, and that we will continue to look at, concerns the people who are somehow later included in the genealogy of Jesus – like Lot’s girls.

Interestingly, though some pretty sketchy people are found in His ancestral records, there is no one from Hagar or Ishmael to be found leading to Jesus. The key to understanding why is in understanding the grace of the Lord in salvation apart from works of the law.

There are no works of the law which will save us, and as we’ll see, Hagar and Ishmael are pictures of the law and therefore they are excluded from Jesus’ genealogy. Such are the dealings of God with man. The Bible is a beautiful story of redemption from sin which comes solely by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text Verse: ²⁹ These are their genealogies: The firstborn of Ishmael was Nebajoth; then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, ³⁰ Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, ³¹ Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These were the sons of Ishmael. 1 Chronicles 1:29-31

Hagar bore Abraham a son named Ishmael. That son then bore 12 sons of his own. But unlike Isaac, who was born of a promise, Ishmael was born in the normal way. Sarah and Isaac are a picture of grace while Hagar and Ishmael are a picture of the law. The law cannot save; only God’s grace through our faith saves and so… May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Cast out the Bondwoman and Her Son

Last week’s sermon gave details about the birth, circumcision, and weaning of Isaac. The last verse we looked at was verse 8 which said, “So the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned.”

The next verse is our first verse today which is verse 9…

⁹ And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing.

The “son of Hagar the Egyptian” is Ishmael, and he’s not mentioned by name, but rather by his mother’s name and nation. This is to show the contrast between Isaac, who was named in the preceding verse and Ishmael. Saying “the son of Hagar the Egyptian”, rather than “Ishmael”, is to remind us that as the Israelites were never to return to Egypt, we as Christians are never to return to the bondage of the Law.

Isaac is now the center of attention, the son of promise, and the inheritor of Abraham’s estate. In contrast, the older son is still just the son of a maid and is excluded from the spiritual and land promises that God has revealed to Abraham.

His scoffing occurred during the feast mentioned in the previous verse. Isaac is now three years old and this is his initiation from being a baby to being a young boy who can feed himself. For whatever reason, Ishmael was scoffing at him.

We can let our imaginations run wild about “why” because nothing else is given. Maybe he was dressed up in a cute little ceremonial outfit. Maybe he was still struggling to feed himself. Maybe he was getting all of daddy Abraham’s attention and this made Ishmael jealous. Ishmael is about 17 at this time and … well, you know how teenagers get.

Whatever the reason, he’s scoffing. This isn’t mere “laughing” though. A different word is used than the word yitsak which is the laughing connected to Isaac’s name. Instead, the word me-se-heq is used.

The meaning can vary in intensity, but a stronger and less happy meaning is certainly intended. This becomes all the more certain when we see what Paul writes about this account in the New Testament. There, in the book of Galatians, he says this –

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. ²⁹ But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Galatians 4:28, 29

Paul calls it outright persecution and therefore Ishmael’s laughing was contemptuous at best and possibly threatening toward his younger half-brother. Sarah saw this and was appalled. A seventeen year old mocking someone’s precious baby in any generation would be enough to upset a mom. How much more when they lived in the same camp!

Because Paul labels it persecution, and because of the timing of what has occurred, this then is the beginning of the fulfillment of a verse we looked at many, many weeks ago in Genesis 15. At the time God declared Abraham righteous and then confirmed His covenant with him, He spoke these words to him –

“Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. Genesis 15:13

This concept of Ishmael persecuting Isaac is critical to understanding the timing of this statement from God to Abraham. From this account today, it will be 400 years before the Israelites will be led out of Egypt and from the hard bondage that they had suffered both there and in their time in Canaan.

This then is about 30 years after the promise to Abraham. Little details like these, in what are otherwise sentences of relative obscurity, become instrumental in understanding God’s promises, and His faithfulness in keeping them.

Talking about faithfulness to His promises… a few weeks ago we looked at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and how it pictures the coming rapture. Do you think that God would put those hints of what He will do into his word from an account over 4000 years ago if he didn’t really intend to follow through with the plan?

I know it seems like our lives are often out of control and that there is nothing firm or stable to hold onto, but that is the farthest thing from the truth. God has a plan which is so detailed, so minute in what it reveals to us, and intends for us, that we have every reason to stand firm in our hope and hold fast to our convictions.

The thing we should take away from these details is that He is a God of details. Every sore back, every lost loved one, every sleepless night… all of it – He has it all under control and He will complete what He has started. If Jesus can overcome the cross, we can overcome through Him. Stand firm on that.

¹⁰ Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.”

Of course, about 50% of the people who read this verse come away with the sense that Sarah, and even Abraham, have committed some type of great offense by both thinking this and eventually following through with it, as we’ll see in a few minutes. But the context of the account, and the rest of the Bible, make it clear that Sarah is both right and just in her words – “Cast out this bondwoman and her son.”

The word she uses for “cast out” is garesh and it is used elsewhere, such as in Leviticus, to indicate an actual divorce. This is probably exactly what Sarah is implying. Even though she calls her a “bondwoman” she is also labeled elsewhere as being Abraham’s wife.

So what Sarah is asking is for something of a legal and formal declaration that Hagar is out…not just as a slave, but also as a wife of Abraham. The second half of the verse assures us that this is so – “for the son of this bond woman shall not be heir with my son.”

Now listen to what Paul says about the rights of the heir in Romans 4, remembering that Ishmael is a picture of the sons of the law and Isaac is a picture of the sons of grace –

“For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴ For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect,”

Before we go on, we’re going to revisit Galatians 4 again, as we have several times already, to understand why this account is in here and what significance it has both to you and to all people who are free from the constraints of law because of the work of Jesus –

²¹ Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? ²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. ²³ But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, ²⁴ which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— ²⁵ for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— ²⁶ but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. ²⁷ For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren, You who do not bear! Break forth and shout, You who are not in labor! For the desolate has many more children Than she who has a husband.” ²⁸ Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. ²⁹ But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. ³⁰ Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” ³¹ So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.

Now that we’ve seen the purpose of the actors in the play, we can look again at Ishmael’s laughing and make more connections. This is exactly what God wants us to do because he specifically notes it in His word.

The first is that Ishmael probably looked at this little boy and couldn’t believe that he would be the father of many nations and the son of promise. He probably wondered how a little boy, so small and helpless, could ever meet the Lord’s purposes.

But Paul, in the New Testament reminds us of how this is so –

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. ²⁷ But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; ²⁸ and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, ²⁹ that no flesh should glory in His presence. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29

This scoffing of Ishmael then is a picture in itself. Just as Hagar and Ishmael point to the law and Sarah and Isaac to grace, Ishmael’s scoffing points to the scoffing of Israel at the coming of the Holy Spirit  –

Explain the lead-up to this part of Acts 2 –

¹² So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”¹³ Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”¹⁴ But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words.

The older brother, Ishmael, is a picture of the people of the older covenant – the bondage of the law and those who held to it. He scoffed at his younger brother, just as those in Jerusalem scoffed at those under the New Covenant grace found in Christ.

Even more amazing is that they both occurred on a feast day. The first was at the weaning of Isaac, when he moved from milk to solid food, and the second was at the weaning of God’s people at Pentecost when they went from spiritual milk to spiritual solid food.

And then we need to look again at that unusual word garesh or “divorce” that was given to Hagar. Why is this so specifically included? We don’t even need to leave the Law of Moses to understand the implications of this. Here is Deuteronomy 24. Listen carefully –

When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, ² when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife, ³ if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, ⁴ then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

There was a marriage contract at the time of the law and we were divorced to that through Christ. The symbolism of Hagar is absolutely clear. We are never to return to the law. Paul explains this marriage concept in Romans 7 to help us understand clearly –

Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. (vs. 4)

Can you see now how important it is to have the foundation of all things as are recorded in the book of Genesis? It is a marvel, a glory, and a testament to the wisdom and the power of God for all who believe.

God included this story of a boy laughing at his younger brother as a type or shadow of those under the law laughing at their younger brother of promise – the church, at its own feast of weaning.

¹¹ And the matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son.

It’s quite evident from the previous accounts in Abraham’s life, that he is a truly honorable, non-confrontational, and family-oriented man. He took Lot along when he travelled to Canaan. He gave him the choice of choosing what portion of the land to take when they needed to separate.

He went after Lot and rescued him when he was taken captive. He pleaded with Lord before the destruction of Sodom for them to be spared if at all possible, certainly because he knew Lot was there.

These things and others we’ve seen all point to Abraham’s character and conduct. So when he heard what Sarah was proposing, it had to be really tough on him. No matter what the situation between him and Hagar was, Ishmael is his son and he’s been raised as such for 17 years.

And now he’s being asked to cut this tie and send his son out into a hostile and unforgiving land. The Jewish writer Pirke Eliezer notes that of all of the evils which came upon Abraham in his long life, this was the hardest and most grievous in his sight.

¹² But God said to Abraham, “Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac your seed shall be called.

Whatever misguided notions people think or teach about what Sarah proposed and Abraham followed through with, God had no problem with it. It’s always best to think tough issues through and try to understand “why” things occur and what they lead to rather than make emotional and knee-jerk assumptions.

Even in America we kick young adults out of our homes when they cause problems. I’m guessing, although I can’t speak for how they’ll respond, that one…. oooor both, of my children will testify to this.

So what is the point of this verse being here? Like the symbolic nature of the entire account as we looked at in Galatians 4, this verse is cited by Paul, in the book of Romans, to remind us about God’s election –

“But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, 7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” Romans 9:6, 7

God spoke to Abraham and told him not to worry. He’d already given a promise about Ishmael several years earlier. “Abraham, don’t you remember? I told you he would become fruitful and multiply and that he would be the father of 12 princes. It’ll all work out as it should.”

¹³ Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the bondwoman, because he is your seed.”

This promise is repeated to Abraham from Genesis 17:20 and it will be confirmed in Genesis 25:16. God told Abraham that Ishmael would have 12 sons and we find out later that he did. And this is the reason for the text verse I gave today from 1 Chronicles. In that genealogy of the people of the world, Ishmael is remembered even there.

Through the sons of Ishmael will come a chain of events which will eventually lead to the deliverance of the Israelites 400 years later. It was his descendants who bought Israel’s son Joseph from his brothers and then sold him to Potiphar the Egyptian.

If this didn’t happen, Joseph would never have ascended to the right hand of Pharaoh. Every detail of history is carefully and minutely woven together to lead to the fulfillment of God’s marvelous plan.

Likewise, through the law, which Ishmael pictures, will come the deliverance of the world when Jesus comes and fulfills that very law on our behalf and then sits down at the right hand of God. The patterns laid down in this simple account about Ishmael are astonishing…

II. Wandering in the Wilderness

¹⁴ So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water; and putting it on her shoulder, he gave it and the boy to Hagar, and sent her away. Then she departed and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.

Again, like other times in the Bible, it is noted as “early morning.” God probably spoke to Abraham in a dream, and like every other time He speaks to him, he immediately obeys. There’s no dallying in the life of Abraham. When God speaks, he listens and acts.

If you read this verse in some versions, like the King James or the ESV, it’s almost confusing what’s going on. Here’s the ESV –

So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

Because of the wording, it almost sounds like Abraham put the bread, the water, and Ishmael on Hagar’s shoulder and sent her out. The implication is that this poor lady with a little boy is being sent out to wander around in the wilderness. This isn’t at all what you should imagine, but because of the confusion, most depictions of Hagar and Ishmael show her with a little boy.

He is, as I said earlier, about 17 years old. Abraham gave the bread and water to her to carry because that’s the job of the women in the Middle East – carry stuff around. This is found throughout the Bible and even to this day if you go over there, you’ll see women… carrying stuff around.

Plus Abraham had a boy to hug and probably cry over. If he’d given the stuff to Ishmael, the bread would get smushed and the water might get spilled. Putting the stuff on Hagar is both expedient and right. The parting had to be a heartbreaker, but obedience is what he’s been called to and he is a man of obedience.

No matter how sorrowful to our human nature, anyone who is fearful and devout will walk in his ways and will, like Abraham, obey immediately, even when it concerns family or loved ones. As the Geneva Bible cites, “True faith renounces all natural affections to obey God’s commandment.”

Remember, this is a picture of the law and grace. We are asked to cut our tie to the law. Not in part, but in its entirety. We are to be obedient to what the Lord has accomplished for us by setting aside the law in exchange for grace, just as Abraham has done with Ishmael.

¹⁵ And the water in the skin was used up, and she placed the boy under one of the shrubs.

Based on Ishmael’s age of 17, this verse might seem a bit improbable. How could a 17 year old be in the condition he’s in before his mom who is much older? The answer is found in our genetic make up.

Men are about 60% water weight and women about 50%. But, men are about 3-5% body fat and women are about 10-16%. The percentage of body fat for women is greater than that for men due to the demands of childbearing and other hormonal functions.

Because of this, men burn off water more quickly and ladies hold it in. Ishmael’s loss of water was enough to make him weary before her, and so she put him under a shrub to get him out of the sun.

¹⁶ Then she went and sat down across from him at a distance of about a bowshot; for she said to herself, “Let me not see the death of the boy.” So she sat opposite him, and lifted her voice and wept.

Bowshot – only time in OT kim-ta-kha-ve. A bowshot is a long way, about a half a mile. Hagar couldn’t bear the thought of being close enough to hear Ishmael dying or even calling out for water and so she went far enough away so that she not only wouldn’t see him, but she wouldn’t hear him as well.

Not only that, she also didn’t want Ishmael to hear her own cries too. The expression to “lift her voice” means that she really sobbed over what was happening and she didn’t want her boy to hear. This is a really, really sad and desperate scene which will be repeated throughout the Bible – people facing death.

In fact, it’s something that simply can’t be missed. Death is something everyone will face – both in others and eventually in them. The wages of sin, after all, is death. And thus we are all destined to die because we are all sinners. We each need a Savior.

The thing that I needed to know was why… why does God include this verse? Why is her immense weeping mentioned? It’s there for a reason and this isn’t arbitrary. On Monday as I was practicing this sermon for the first time, it came to me. It is a picture of the end of the tribulation period when Jesus and His church return to rescue the people of Israel.

According to Daniel 9:24-27, God has reserved 7 more years for Israel after the rapture of the church. This is the final 7 years of the Law of Moses in Israel. At the very end of this period, when Christ returns to His people, we read this in Zechariah 12 –

“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. ¹¹ In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. ¹² And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; ¹³ the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves; ¹⁴ all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.

Hagar is a picture of the law, she is mourning over the coming possible death of her son. The same mourning will be seen in Israel at the death of the law through the death of Christ, when the grace of Christ is bestowed upon them. The proof of this is coming in the verses ahead.

III. God Hears

¹⁷ And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, “What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.

Here we have a play on words – v’yshma or “and heard God” the voice of the lad whose name is Ishmael – God hears. This reminds us of the promise made all the way back in Chapter 16 when God told Hagar to name her child, Ishmael. Why? Because God heard then, God hears now, and God will always be there to hear.

And here He is, “the angel of God” calling out to Hagar – “What ails you, Hagar?” In other words, why are you crying… “Don’t you remember my promises of the past? Here I am ready to fulfill them to you now. Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad…”

God heard their cries then, and God will hear the cries of His people Israel and He will respond. I hope you can see the parallels of what God is doing, and why these verses are here – God is returning to tend to Israel after their time in the wilderness. He is ever faithful to His unfaithful people.

¹⁸ Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.”

Once again, this goes right back to Genesis 16 and the original promise to Hagar before Ishmael was born. “Don’t you remember Hagar? I’m right here tending to every detail.” And so He tells her to walk back the half mile or so she’d wandered away and to hold the boy because what He promised will come about – Ishmael will become a great nation.

¹⁹ Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink.

Hagar trots back and once she gets there, her eyes are opened to see a well of water. There are two possibilities about this. The first is that she missed this well the first time and it’s the entire reason he told her to go back. Where she laid him was right where the water was all along.

The second option is that God just opened up the earth and made water appear as He does elsewhere in the Bible. He did it for the Israelites in the wilderness, He did it for Samson after a battle, and He continues to do it for His people when the need arises. Isaiah almost mirrors the need of Ishmael when he wrote these words in his 41^st chapter –

“The poor and needy seek water, but there is none,
Their tongues fail for thirst.
I, the Lord, will hear them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
¹⁸ I will open rivers in desolate heights,
And fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
And the dry land springs of water. Isaiah 41;17, 18

The answer to the question is that the Water of Life has always been there, but the well was hidden and so Hagar had missed it. God directed her back to her son first and then to the waters which would take care of them and sustain them for the rest of their journey. And this is what will happen for Israel in the years ahead.

The Water of Life, Jesus, has been there all along, but in order for salvation to come to the gentiles as Paul tells us in Romans, their eyes were blinded to it. But God will direct them to it as it said in Zechariah 13 – “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.”

The amazing story of God’s grace reaches to all of the people of the world and God fully intends to fulfill His promises to His beloved people, Israel. And this is how He will do it. But understand, this is really what He does for each person who is saved by Jesus.

He directs us to His Son first and then He gives us the spiritual ability to see that where He is, is also the spot where the Water of Life is. And then, astonishingly, He gives us the choice to drink that water or to reject it. The funny thing is that despite the thirst every human has, not everyone will drink from the Water of life.

²⁰ So God was with the lad; and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.

God has His purposes and He has made His plans. There is no thing which will thwart them, though we think we can. Atheists love to pretend He isn’t there, people work hard to remove His presence from society, and at times, even believers attempt to suppress the knowledge of Him for a spell. But God is there.

He was there at the creation. He was with Noah for the long days of the flood. He was there with Abraham as he waited for a son to be born, and God was with the lad, Ishmael. And because He was, the boy became a man of the wilderness and an archer.

And he certainly taught the skill of archery to his own sons because more than a thousand years later, Isaiah spoke of the clan of Ishmael’s son Kedar, noting their skills as renown archers –

For thus the Lord has said to me: “Within a year, according to the year of a hired man, all the glory of Kedar will fail; ¹⁷ and the remainder of the number of archers, the mighty men of the people of Kedar, will be diminished; for the Lord God of Israel has spoken it.” Isaiah 21:16, 17

A thousand years in time and God was still there watching and guiding the streams of human history. And he is doing it to this day – even in your own life. He is there and He is tending to you…

²¹ He dwelt in the Wilderness of Paran; and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Without a father to set him up with a wife, Hagar stepped in and made the selection. As she was from Egypt, so is her daughter in law, Ishmael’s wife. Both the root and the branch of Ishmael proceed from the same people.

The place where they settled is called the Wilderness of Paran. This place is so absolutely barren and wild that being an archer makes all the sense in the world. You can’t be a very successful farmer in a place like this. It’s around the area of Mount Sinai and is just as unforgiving as any place you’d ever want to visit. (Paran – place of caverns – explain)

Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian said that his 12 sons and their descendants after them came to inhabit all the country from the Euphrates to the Red Sea and called it Nabatene. They are an Arabian nation, and at least until the time of Josephus, they named their tribes from the 12 sons of Ishmael.

In the end, this story of Ishmael is one that ultimately points to the amazingly glorious work of Christ in fulfilling the law that we cannot fulfill. Let me explain to you the significance of this…

NEXT WEEK Genesis 21:22-33 (The Well of the Seven)

God Hears, God Remembers, and God Responds

Sarah saw the son of the Egyptian Hagar
Whom she had borne to Abraham
Scoffing at Isaac, BUT this didn’t go very far
Because she asked her husband to make them scram

Cast out this bondwoman and her son
For her son will not be an heir with Isaac – he’s the only one

And the matter was displeasing in Abraham’s sight
Because of his son, he didn’t think it was right

But God said, “Don’t let this be displeasing in your sight
Because of either the lad or because of your lady servant
Whatever Sarah has said, treat it as right
Listen to her voice, for in Isaac to your seed I will be observant

Yet, I will also make a nation of your son Ishmael
Because He is your seed it will come about
So Abraham rose early in the morning before the breakfast bell
In the word of his God, he never held a doubt

He took bread and a skin of water and put it on her shoulder
And he gave the boy to Hagar and sent her away
Then she departed and wandered through shrub and boulder
In the Wilderness of Beersheba where only the donkeys bray

And when the water in the skin was completely gone
She placed the boy under a shrub she found there
And she went as far as an arrow is shot when drawn
For to see the boy die is something she couldn’t bear

So she sat opposite him and lifted her voice and wept
Into anguish of soul was her whole life swept

And God heard the voice of the lad
Then the angel of God called out of heaven to her
“What ails you, Hagar? Things aren’t all that bad
Fear not for God has heard the cries and will handle this for sure

“Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand
For I will make him a great nation
Then God showed her a well of water in the desert sand
And she was certainly filled with joy and elation

So she went and filled the skin with the water
And gave the lad a refreshingly long drink
It was probably better than eggs and a bagel with butter
Even better than a 7-11 slurpee I would think

So God was there tending to the boy
And he dwelt in the wilderness after he grew
Becoming an archer his arrows he would deploy
The life of a hunter is the life that he knew

He dwelt in the wilderness of Paran
And from Egypt his mother took for him a wife
And in the Arabs today his name lives on
Because God looked after Ishmael’s life

In the same way, God is there with you
And He will always lead if you don’t know what to do

When things seem helpless and out of our control
That is the time on Him all our cares we should roll

God loves His people, the proof is in His Son
Our Lord Jesus, who came to show us His Father’s heart
And through His cross and the empty tomb the battle has been won
It is through calling on Him that our new life can start

Fellowship with our Creator is restored through His life
Yes because of Jesus all things become brand new
Between God and man, there is no longer strife
Because the devil’s work, Jesus did undo

Thank You Lord, let us shout out Your praise
And worship You in holiness for eternal days

Hallelujah and Amen…

Genesis 21:1-8
He Brings Laughter
And Laughter is His Name

Introduction: We finally come to the birth of Isaac today. We’ve seen God’s promise to Abraham about this son given and then given again. We’ve also seen that prior to him, came another son – Ishmael who was a picture of the bondage of the Law. Isaac, on the other hand, is a picture of freedom from that law by faith in Jesus.

Every story, and every detail within each story, is a wonderful testament to the faithful dealings of God with man and a picture of the coming Christ. When we feel like life is overwhelming us and things are spinning out of control, all we need to do is pick up the Bible and read and we can see God’s hand of care and protection for us all throughout its pages.

By faith in Christ Jesus, we are brought near to God and we are adopted as His children. What great love has the Father lavished upon us that we might be called children of God. Hallelujah and amen!

Text Verse: That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. ⁹ For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.” Romans 9:8, 9

God is faithful to keep His promises, and He is abundantly pleased in those who have faith in them and rely on them in their daily walk. In fact, it’s the only thing that we can truly offer Him – faith.

If we love Him, praise Him, or worship Him for who He is, it is because we have faith that He exists and that He has revealed Himself to us. When speaking of God, praise without faith isn’t praise. Worship without faith isn’t worship.

Everything about our relationship with God ultimately comes down to faith; it is based on faith – proper faith. Misdirected faith is, after all, wasted faith and so… May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. The Lord Visits His People

In the Old Testament, there is a word used that we translate as “visit” or “visited.” It often indicates divine intervention on behalf of God’s people or for the fulfillment of His plan. The word is paqad and can mean to “visit graciously.”

Depending on the context, it can mean a host of other things as well, such as someone being an overseer. But even that hints at a watchful eye and careful attention. God has carefully watched over Abraham and Sarah and He has carefully attended to them thus far.

Today, we will see more attention doted upon His cherished creatures.

¹ And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken.

Here is the first use of the word paqad in the Bible. The Lord “visited” Sarah. It is a divine visitation to meet His perfect plan in His perfect timing. And how did He visit her? He “…visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken.”

She’s mentioned twice in a row because it was she who laughed at the promise and then she lied about having laughed. Here is the short account and it explains why Sarah is addressed and why twice in this first verse today –

“¹³ And the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?’ ¹⁴ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁵ But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. And He said, “No, but you did laugh!” Genesis 18:13-15

So what’s happened here is similar to what happens to Peter after he denied Jesus. He denied Him three times and was later asked if he loved Him three times. Sarah laughed and then lied and so today’s first verse is used as restoration for that fault.

Some of us here may have laughed at the promises of God in our own lives. I know firm believers in Christ who laugh at the concept of a rapture. When I met Christ, I smirked at it too. How could millions of people just disappear without it converting the rest of the world into Christians?

But then, after studying the Bible, I realized that the people will be blinded so that they believe the lies of the antichrist. After thinking on human nature and some of the crazy things people believe, I realized this won’t be any problem at all.

People deny the holocaust. I know people who believe we blew up the twin towers all by ourselves…even though we all watched the planes fly into the buildings. People believe Mormonism even though science through DNA, artifacts through archaeology, and the nature of God as the Bible reveals have all shown it to be false.

We will believe anything simply because someone in authority said it. It is as if our minds have a toggle switch which is set to “Don’t believe God” and it has to be manually changed to the proper – “Yes, take God at His word” setting.

This verse is reminding us that Sarah had her toggle switch on the wrong setting. But despite her doubt, the Lord fulfilled His word exactly as He promised. Let us each remember that God’s word is written, it is sealed with His stamp of authenticity, and therefore we have every reason to believe it without any hint of doubt.

As you wind through the Bible, you’ll see God often reminding us of a promise fulfilled, or a petition granted. While in Egypt when Joseph was 110 years old and on his death bed, he called his brothers together and said this to them –

“I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” ²⁵ Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” (Genesis 50:24, 25)

About 200 years later, Moses received his commission from the Lord and came to the people of Israel who were by then reduced to forced labor and hard bondage and showed them the signs the Lord gave him to prove he was chosen to lead them out of the land.

In fulfillment of Joseph’s prophecy, the Bible records, “So the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.” Exodus 4:31

God visited His people in fulfillment of the promise spoken through Joseph. And, many hundreds of years later, in a time of similar hardship and trial, we read another petition in the 106^th Psalm about the joy of forgiveness of Israel’s sins –

Remember me, O Lord, with the favor You have toward Your people. Oh, visit me with Your salvation, (verse 4)

Zahkhreni Yehovah birtzon am-ekha, poqa-deni bi-shua-tekha

After the people had been brought out of captivity in Egypt and through the water of the Red Sea, they had forgotten the mighty deeds of the Lord. Eventually, they went into captivity again because of their faithlessness, but there the psalmist cried out to the Lord for Him to visit – “Oh, visit me with your salvation!”

Yes, Lord – visit me with your salvation. And the word for salvation? Yeshua, the name of our Lord Jesus! And once again, in fulfillment of that petition by the psalmist, we read where this was finally realized in the New Testament –

⁶⁷ Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:

⁶⁸ “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people,
⁶⁹ And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David,
⁷⁰ As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets,
Who have been since the world began,
⁷¹ That we should be saved from our enemies
And from the hand of all who hate us,
⁷² To perform the mercy promised to our fathers
And to remember His holy covenant,
⁷³ The oath which He swore to our father Abraham:
⁷⁴ To grant us that we,
Being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
Might serve Him without fear,
⁷⁵ In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

⁷⁶ “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
⁷⁷ To give knowledge of salvation to His people
By the remission of their sins,
⁷⁸ Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
⁷⁹ To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

It’s important to tie these things together like this. You see, God isn’t doing some arbitrary thing at one time or another, but He is giving His word and then fulfilling it. As He does, He gives us pictures of things to come. Isaac is one of those pictures.

In the entire Old Testament, few were conceived and brought into the land of the living like Isaac was. In this then, he is a picture of Christ – the holy Seed of the woman promised all the way back in Genesis 3.

Just as Isaac was promised before he was born, and then was long anticipated, so was Jesus. But before Isaac came Ishmael and Abraham thought he was the son of promise. In the same way, before Jesus was born, came the Law.

The people thought that was God’s plan of redemption, but Ishmael was replaced by Isaac and the Law was replaced by grace through Jesus. At the set time, just as God promised to return and give a son through Sarah, He also promised to return and give His Son through the woman – a Redeemer for all who would believe.

Paul tells us that “when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” Galatians 4:4, 5

God, promised salvation, and it came at the right time and in the perfect way. Isaac means Laughter and he brought laughter to his parents. How much more did the Son of God bring laughter to the world – laughter mixed with unending joy!

As Matthew Henry says, “When the Sun of comfort is risen upon the soul, it is good to remember how welcome the dawning of the day was.”

What was seemingly impossible to Sarah; what seemed like an impossible hope to the Israelites in Egypt, and what came as a cry for mercy from affliction by the psalmist… God has always been attentive to His promises, even in things which seem impossible, He always delivers.

As we ready for our next verse, let me tell you this…

Back in chapter 17, God finally revealed to Abraham that he would have a son through Sarah. Up until that point, his only son was Ishmael the son of Hagar. It was during this time that God changed Sarah’s name from Sarai to Sarah and showed that she was to be the mother of the child of promise. When He made the promise He spoke these words to Abraham –

“But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.” Genesis 17:21

² For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.

Using the exact same term from chapter 17 – la’moed, the “set time” – we are reminded again of the faithfulness of God

The Promise – “Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year;” The Fulfillment – “Sarah conceived and bore…at the set time…God had spoken.”

Great God, wonderful Lord!

In this verse, it says that she bore Abraham a son “in his old age.” This has the flavor of something like “for his old age.” In other words, the old age of Abraham isn’t a limiting factor that had to be overcome, like it was for Sarah.

Instead it is an affirmation that his old age will be filled with this child. Rather than his old age being “the difficult days” which Ecclesiastes describes will happen to most of us, it will be for him a time of laughing and rejoicing over the son of his old age.

As the days go by, each of us is getting older as well. The pains start coming, the joints begin to ache, and we anticipate difficult times ahead. But in the Lord, even the worst times are really better than the best apart from Him. It’s because we have the sure hope that this life and its hard walk is only temporary.

I simply can’t wait for the coming day when Christ returns to make all things new – a new body, a new direction, an eternity of joy… All of these things really are coming and right now, by faith, we wait for them. Stand fast in these promises and be assured that all things will be far more wonderful than you can possibly imagine.

In the sermon of Genesis 17 where God revealed to Abraham that he would have a son through Sarah, I read this as our Text Verse.

We were like those who dream.
² Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
And our tongue with singing.
Then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
³ The Lord has done great things for us,
And we are glad. Psalm 126:1-3

Yes, the Lord did great things for Israel when He brought them back from the captivity of Babylon. But He has done great things for His people throughout the ages, filling them with abundant joy and laughter…

II. The Lord Brings Laughter to His People

³ And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac.

Again, in fulfillment of the word from the Lord and obedience to it, this verse is given to us. In Genesis 17:19, we read these beautiful words from God to Abraham – “…Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.”

The promised son has come and Abraham names him Yitsak, for Laughter is his name. As a note of vindication of the Lord’s word, the verse notes, “whom Sarah bore to him.” No laughter of doubt, no anxiety over what might or might not happen, no fear of stepping off a cliff and into the void exists with God.

Instead, there is the absolute assurance that what He says will come to pass. Though Satan and all the armies of hell fight to thwart His word, not a letter or the smallest part of a letter will ever fail to be accomplished. When the Lord speaks, it is already done. We merely have to stand back and see the wondrous workings of God.

⁴ Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

This is our fourth verse today and it is the fourth verse which reaches back to a previous part of God’s word.

“This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; ¹¹ and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. ¹² He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant.” 17:10-12

God commanded and Abraham obeyed in detail. Isaac was circumcised on the eighth day. I wonder if this made little Laughter cry? In his normally poetic way of looking at these types of things, we read this from Matthew Henry –

“God had kept time in performing the promise, and therefore Abraham must keep time in obeying the precept.”

⁵ Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Isaac, the child of laughter was born when Abraham was having his centennial celebration. This was a full 25 years after the move from Haran to Canaan and 14 years after the birth of Ishmael. The year of Isaac’s birth is 2109 Anno Mundi.

In just 1895 years, the Son of God would be born about 45 miles to the north of where Abraham is located now. No amount of time or distance is too difficult for God to span in order to fulfill His promises to His people whom He foreknows.

In the next two verses that we look at, Sarah sings out in two exclamations that are almost poetic in nature. The first of these is verse 6 and it actually comprises two sentences in the Hebrew –

⁶ And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.”

Wat-oh-mer Sarah, se-hoq asah li
Elohim kol ha-sho-me-ah yitsak li

Her words turn on the word “laugh.” This however is completely different than the incredulous laugh of chapter 18, where doubt ruled the day. This laugh is laughter of both wonder and delight at what has happened, and she acknowledges God’s sovereign power to overcome even old age and a barren womb.

And in the process as God makes people laugh, and it’s not just the person who is directly involved in the miracle, but those who hear of it as well. “God has made me laugh, and all who hear it will laugh with me.”

This is so similar to what happened to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist when she received the news that her own barren womb would also now bear – “When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her.” (1:58)

Yes, there is joy and rejoicing over these things, but how much more of even greater things. If God can regenerate the barren womb, He can also restore life from the overflowing tomb.

He did it for His own Son, raising Him from the dead by His great power. And He promises to do it for you as well. The earth’s womb which devours our loved ones, and which will eventually devour us, will be emptied of those who have placed their trust in Him. The day is coming and the promise is sure. Eternal laughter will replace our temporary sadness.

⁷ She also said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age.”

The turning note of the previous verse was laughter, but the turning note of this one is the triumph of not only her own previous unbelief, but of anyone else that wouldn’t have believed it. What nobody could ever have expected has come to pass. She has accused herself of past ingratitude and shouts triumph over it –

“For I have borne him a son in his old age.”

And that makes a good point to stop and tell you that even though you may have to wait for the promises of the Bible to come about in your own life, they will all come to pass. The people of God have waited 2000 years to see Jesus come in the clouds for them, but there is no reason to doubt – He will come.

We’re waiting for a time when we don’t lose family members, and it is coming. We’re waiting for a time when Jesus will sit as King over the earth, ruling from Jerusalem, and it is coming. We’re waiting for the world to be renewed like the Garden of Eden, don’t get frustrated, it is coming.

Every promise God has made will come to pass, just as His word records. Be still and wait patiently, it will all come to pass.

III. Great Feasts before the Lord

⁸ So the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned.

In one verse, we’ve just skipped over three years of life. “So the child grew and was weaned.” The Hebrew time until this turn of life is three years. We learn this from two places. First, in the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees we read this –

Leaning over her son, she fooled the cruel tyrant by saying in her native language, “My son, have pity on me. Remember that I carried you in my womb for nine months and nursed you for three years. I have taken care of you and looked after all your needs up to the present day.” 2 Maccabees 7:27

The second is right from the Bible in the book of 2 Chronicles. During the time of King Hezekiah, we see the age of the Israelites who were counted old enough to be considered as viable citizens requiring normal food to eat –

Besides those males from three years old and up who were written in the genealogy, they distributed to everyone who entered the house of the Lord his daily portion for the work of his service, by his division, (31:16)

Once Isaac reached the age of three and was considered fully capable of living on solid food rather than his mother’s milk, Abraham threw a giant party. The reason why he did this is the same reason they do this in parts of the world even today.

It’s because until a child is on solid food, they have a much greater chance of not making it. Once a certain age is met within a society, a party is given as a general indication that the days of uncertainty are past and he is now likely to be around until adulthood.

When the day came, Abraham gave a feast or a misteh in Hebrew. This is the second time such a meal has been mentioned in the Bible. The first was when the two destroying angels appeared at Sodom and Lot invited them to his home.

There in chapter 19 it said, “… he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.”

The first misteh, or feast, in the Bible was the result of the outcry of wickedness against a city and it ended in sadness and the loss of life. The next is misteh is the result of the happy birth and the growth of the son of promise. It will lead to the long and prosperous life of this child of laughter.

There are many other feasts like this mentioned in the Bible – by both pagans and by the faithful, but there is also another kind of feast the Bible speaks of. These feasts are detailed in Leviticus 23 and they are known as the feasts of the Lord. There were eight of them that the people of Israel were obligated to attend to.

I’m not going to go into too much detail about them now, but let me tell you what these feasts are. The Sabbath, the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles.

The reason why I’m bringing them up now is that, even though they are different than the feast Abraham gave when Isaac was weaned, these feasts were also given at specific times and to celebrate certain events.

Next week, we will see how Isaac’s feast of weaning actually prefigures one of these feasts of the Lord. I want you to read Genesis 21:1-13 and think about these feasts and see if you can guess which one is being prefigured in Isaac’s weaning.

The Sabbath was a weekly feast and it was to celebrate God’s rest and redemption. This was fulfilled by Jesus and it is the reason we don’t have a Sabbath in Christianity. Hebrews 4:3 says, “…now we who believe do enter that rest.” Our rest is in Christ and His work – not in a Sabbath Day.

The Passover was fulfilled by Jesus as is recorded in 1 Corinthians 5 where it says, “Christ our Passover Lamb is sacrificed.” His blood is what causes God’s judgment to pass over us. We are now free from the penalty of our sin.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was fulfilled by Jesus as is also recorded in 1 Corinthians 5 where it says that through Christ, “you truly are unleavened.” Because of this Paul says we should “keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

The Feast of Firstfruits was fulfilled in Christ as Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 15 because he says “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Firstfruits was a picture of the resurrection.

The Feast of Weeks was fulfilled in Christ when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the believers in Acts chapter 2. The Feast of Weeks is also known as Pentecost, something we reflect on each year, fifty days after Resurrection Day

The Feast of Trumpets was fulfilled in Christ on the day of His birth as the Bible details. The same day that people were blowing trumpets and rejoicing, they could not have realized that their blasts were actually welcoming in the King of the Universe.

The Day of Atonement was fulfilled in Christ as Paul records in Romans 3 – “being declared righteous freely by His grace through the redemption that [is] in Christ Jesus, whom God did set forth a mercy seat…” The “mercy seat is the place of atonement.

And finally, the eighth feast is the Feast of Tabernacles. This was fulfilled in Christ when He put on a tabernacle of flesh and dwelt among us as John records in his gospel – “And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father, full of grace and truth.”

You see, for the people of God who have called on Jesus, every good thing promised by Him in the Old Testament is realized in Him in the New. He is the Lord of all feasts and He is the One with whom we will dine someday at a great table of abundance. No wonder David wrote these words to us in the 23^rd Psalm –

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. ⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.

In Jesus, there are no guesses. In Jesus there is no speculation as to whether He can fulfill His promises. In Jesus there is no worry if He will turn away from those who call on Him. You see, in Jesus there is only truth and surety. If you’ve never trusted this great King and wonderful Savior, let me explain how you can…

Next Week’s Sermon –Genesis 21:9-21 (Cast Out the Bondwoman and Her Son)

He Brings Laughter and Laughter is His Name

The Lord visited Sarah as He had said
And the Lord did for Sarah as He has spoken
Though it seemed certain that her womb was dead
The word of the Lord came – surety in this token

For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son
It was in his old age that this did occur
At the set time God had spoken so it was done
The child came because the promise was sure

And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac as instructed
He was eight days old when the rite was conducted

This was just as God had commanded in the past
The day came about and he was circumcised at last

Now Abraham was one hundred years old
At the time when Isaac was born to him
Never would someone believe if told
Almost anyone would think the chances were slim

But it happened and Sarah joyfully said
“God has made me laugh, I am filled with joy
And all who hear will laugh with me instead
Of never believing I’d have a bouncing baby boy

She also stated, “Who would have spoken
To Abraham that Sarah would nurse children like this?
For I have born him a son in his old age, no jokin’
This child has brought us an abundance of bliss

So the child grew and was weaned
Because on God’s faithfulness they leaned
And Abraham made a great feast on that same day
When Isaac was weaned, he threw an enormous par-tay

The promises of God for Abraham and Sarah came true
And the promises of God will do likewise for you

We have these promises revealed in a book
The Holy Bible is where we they are to be found
Please open it up and take a good look
The words are true, the instruction is sound

They tell us of Jesus and all that He did
When we were lost in a sea of sin and death
He has saved from hell, and yes God forbid
We fail to accept Him before we take our last breath

Please call today on the Lord
And accept His offer of eternal life
Surety is found in Him and His word
Put away now the body of strife

All glory to Him for our every breath
God has saved us from eternal death

Victory in Jesus is our guarantee
Come to the Lord and this you will see

Hallelujah and Amen…

Genesis 20:1-18
Walking in the Land of the Philistines

Introduction: Today we get to look at an exciting story about Abraham which, on the surface, seems to mirror a previous story when he went down to Egypt. Until I started typing this sermon, I’d never noticed the differences, but there are a lot.

In fact, the entire story – from beginning to end, is different and serves a different purpose in our understanding of why things are the way they are – even in the world today, such as with the modern nation of Israel. I’m glad to have learned this.

Text Verse: Psalm 34:15, 16 – The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry. ¹The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. “Because God’s eyes are on the righteous and because His ears are open to their cry  we should give Him all the glory, honor, and praise He is due and so … May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. That Which Has Been

¹ And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar.

In Chapter 18, Abraham petitioned the Lord for the people living in Sodom. He asked the Him to spare the city if 50 righteous could be found, but he eventually reduced his request to 10. However, as we saw in the next sermon, Sodom was destroyed, but Lot and his family escaped. Right afterwards, we read this in Chapter 19 –

And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. ²⁸ Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace. ²⁹ And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.

This, for all intents and purposes, is where we pick up today in Chapter 20. We know this because our first verse today says, “And Abraham journeyed from there to the South…” In other words, it’s implied that we’re to go back to before the account of Lot in Chapter 19, as it was an interlude in the life of Abraham.

The narrative thus jumps over Lot completely in its terminology.  Let me remind you about the interlude. Lot and his two daughters moved to the mountains where the daughters got him drunk. They became pregnant with sons who would lead to Jesus.

One came through Ruth the Moabitiss and the other through Rehoboam the son of Solomom. His mother was from Ammon. Now the narrative returns to Abraham where we’re told that he journeyed from where he had been staying in Mamre to the South.

God inserted Lot’s account, as He has done several times already in Genesis, for us to look deeper into it and understand that He is the God of the chosen line leading from Seth to Noah to Abraham and later to Isaac, Israel, and the twelve tribes, leading to Jesus.

But He is also the God of those outside this chosen line and He will use people from all groups and nations – not only to lead to Jesus, but to be used in the furtherance of the gospel now – a picture of the Church age. So much for racism! God is no respecter of persons and this is a lesson we’re to see here.

With today’s return to Abraham, we see him move from where he was off toward the South. Several reasons have been suggested for his move. One is that he couldn’t bear to look toward the place where Lot had lived and which is now destroyed.

Another is that the ties he had to Hebron were weakened by the destruction of Sodom. Another is because of the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters would actually weaken his righteous testimony.

These don’t make any sense – especially the last one since we just noted that the story about Lot and his daughters is only an interlude and that the narrative about Abraham actually skips over it. So there are two more possibilities.

The first is that his move will take him to a place of better pastures and living for his tribe, or secondly that Divine Providence is leading him there. Actually, these combined make the most sense. In Genesis 12, Abraham moved toward the South and eventually to Egypt because of a famine.

But famines come by the Divine Hand. This move, like the last, is God directing His chosen servant, Abraham, to teach us more about what He Himself is doing in human history.

I believe this particular move is to set in motion events which will eventually lead to establish fixed markers of Israel’s rights to the land. Remember, it is the son of promise who will inherit the land and through him Israel’s rights to the land will be secured.

God is working through all people to secure rights as sons of Abraham through faith, but He is working through the chosen people to establish land and other rights of the people of Israel. This is why we see both a main story and then interludes as well.

The place where he moved to is called Gerar, and is said to be between Kadesh and Shur. Kadesh was mentioned in Genesis 14:7 and Shur was mentioned in Genesis 16:7. If you look at a map, it’s kind of between Gaza and Beersheba; a rich, well-watered land.

² Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.”

This is the same thing he did in chapter 12 when he was in Egypt and it results in exactly the same thing happening. Pharaoh took Sarah, and now Abimelech the king takes her again.

I’m not going to repeat my thoughts on Abraham’s actions from that sermon, but if you want to watch it, I defend why this wasn’t – as almost all commentators claim, “sinful” and “lacking faith.” The Bible never rebukes Abraham for what he did, in either account, and therefore what God hasn’t called into question, we need to determine why and not call it into question as well.

Here is one commentary which reflects most scholarly sentiment –

“Fear of the people among whom he was, tempted him to equivocate. His conduct was highly culpable. It was deceit, deliberate and premeditated-there was no sudden pressure upon him-it was the second offense of the kind. It was a distrust of God every way surprising, and it was calculated to produce injurious effects on the heathen around. Its mischievous tendency was not long in being developed.” (Jamieson-Fawcett-Brown)

The shallowness of commentaries like this neglects to take into account two things. The first is that Abraham is never noted as anything but a man of faith throughout the entire Bible. Never, in any context, is he noted as lacking faith or being rebuked by God.

Secondly, in chapter 14, he had overthrown the 4 kings of the east. With his military prowess and noted name in the region, it was those around him who would fear, not him.

^{2 (con’t)} And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.

Sarah is now about 89 years old and Isaac is expected to be born within the next year. With her in the king’s household this could be problematic. We have to note here though that it doesn’t say she was beautiful like it did in Genesis 12 at Pharaoh’s house.

Because it doesn’t, the reason for Abimelech taking her is probably to align himself with Abraham, not because he wanted a beautiful wife. He may have even taken her without telling Abraham as the terminology seems to indicate later.

³ But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

It is God, or elohim, the Creator mentioned in Genesis 1:1, who comes to Abimelech, and He does it in a dream. He is expressing himself as the eternal power which is prior to the creation and He who formed man. In this expression of himself and in the next 3 verses, we’ll learn a bit about how God deals with men.

Coming in a dream is something that happens throughout the Bible and when it happens, there is no doubt who controls the dream or who is speaking. When God speaks we should have no doubt who is communicating with us. Remember that as you read your Bible.

⁴ But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also?

This verse and one to come are put here specifically to let us know that the child to be born to Sarah in the future came from Abraham and not from anyone involved in her time away from his camp. He hasn’t come near her since she was brought into his harem.

In his response he says, “Lord” using the term “Adonai.” In other words, he has knowledge of the true God. Not just one of many gods, but rather the One true Creator who is also active in the world since the creation.

“Adonai, will you slay a righteous nation also?” Why would he say this? Anyone? He said this because Sodom had just been destroyed. The sulfur was still stinking in the air and the smoke was still billowing out of the furnace.

He is making a contrast between Sodom and his own city and he is basing it on having an assumption that they had done nothing deserving of God’s wrath like the people of Sodom had, including in this matter as we now see…

⁵ Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”

At some point after his arrival in the area, Abraham must have met with Abimelech and introduced his “sister” to him. It was probably right then – and for the purposes of an alignment with Abraham – that Abimelech decided to take Sarah.

To this point there wasn’t any fault because they both spoke the truth and Abimelech took Sarah, as he says, “In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands.” He tells God that he is guiltless.

II. The Lord’s Eyes are upon the Righteous

⁶ And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

In this verse, God, through the Bible, calls Himself Ha-Elohim, or “the God.” Verse 3 simply said Elohim, verse 4 Abimelech called him Adonai – the word used when speaking to God in a personal manner, and now it says, “And the God said to him in a dream…”

Only after Abimelech calls Him as Adonai does it say, “the God.” This then is noted in distinction to any other false god. There is one God and Abimelech understands this. This verse, like so many others in the Bible says, “So much for all religions being true.”

There is one God and there is one way to acknowledge Him. He isn’t Krishna, He isn’t Buddha, and He isn’t Allah. He is “the God” and He kept Abimelech from sinning against Him by keeping him from touching Sarah.

In other words, God’s plans and God’s purposes are being carried out and nothing can thwart them. When we sin against God, it is because of our free-will choices which He has factored into His plan, but if a sin would interfere with that plan, then He keeps it from happening, either actively or passively, the result is the same.

⁷ Now therefore, restore the man’s wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”

This the first time a person is called a prophet in the Bible, but it’s not the first person in the Bible to be said to hold the gift of prophecy. That would be Abel as Jesus says in Luke 11. In other words, Abimelech would already understand what a prophet is and how he would operate.

God uses a prophet several ways. Two include – 1) He may use a prophet to speak of the future concerning what He intends, or 2) He may use him like a car. The driver of a car is in control of where and how it moves. Ultimately, God is in control of what happens, and Abraham is the vehicle through which He will act.

In this case, the first recorded use of his prophetic office is not going to be of him speaking to men about God, but rather to God for men. He will pray to God for Abimelech. Abraham’s offices of priest and prophet are joined together here – a foreshadowing of the work of the great Priest and Prophet, Jesus.

⁸ So Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all his servants, and told all these things in their hearing; and the men were very much afraid.

Abimelech “rose early in the morning.” I hope you see the destruction of Sodom being referred to here. It was destroyed as the sun rose and Abraham had gone “early in the morning” to watch. It is as if Abimelech knew what was coming if he didn’t do something immediately.

He called them in order to make sure that nobody, and I mean nobody, touched her and probably because some of them told him to take her in the first place. Otherwise, there would be no reason to even consult with them. Let’s go on to verse 9…

⁹ And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I offended you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done.”

Some scholars look at this as a rebuke of Abraham because of the wrong thing he did. But the Bible doesn’t even imply this and after the previous verse, we can see how stupid that would be. God has just threatened them and protected Abraham. Only a fool or a knucklehead would turn around a rebuke Abraham.

The plural “us” is used – “what have you done to us” because, as the Bible shows time and time again, the wicked actions of the king brings wrath and judgment on the whole kingdom. That’s a good lesson to remember in the upcoming elections. If we continue electing the same wicked party that aborts babies and condones the sins of Sodom, we will be asking the same question pretty soon.

This is no rebuke but a plea of innocence done in a very pious way. They’re are terrified and want to know what they’ve done to have Abraham set them up like this. They’re speaking to him in a manner similar to how Jeremiah spoke to the Lord once.

“O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. (20:7)

Jeremiah wasn’t rebuking the Lord and Abimelech wasn’t rebuking Abraham.

¹⁰ Then Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you have in view, that you have done this thing?”

Because of the supposed deception, Abimelech really wants to know why. Just imagine yourself, standing on the precipice of a piece of property that a friend sold you. He never said anything about a cliff that was in the process of collapsing and you wonder what you did to deserve him treating you like this.

Abimelech is standing at his own precipice. He’s seen the giant pit in the ground which was once Sodom and he doesn’t want this to happen to him too. “Abraham, why did you do this thing?”

III. Thus She Was Rebuked

¹¹ And Abraham said, “Because I thought, surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will kill me on account of my wife.

I said earlier that the people of the land would fear Abraham and not the other way around. This seems to make that sound wrong, but if you think it through, there is a difference between raiding someone unexpectedly instead of when they’re prepared for battle.

If they knew Sarah was his wife, they might abduct her or kill him and take her as a symbol of the victory over him, and by doing this his clan would be subject to them. This is going to be proven correct in a few verses.

As far as why he told them she was his sister, Abraham is as direct as an arrow in the heart, “…surely the fear of God is not in this place.” He’s been in Canaan long enough to know that polytheism, and idolatry were the norm. When this is true, there is no fear of the true God because there is a reliance on the false ones. Abraham knew this and spoke accordingly.

¹² But indeed she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.

It is astonishing to see how much confusion and misrepresentation there is on this single verse. Let me read it to you again… This is very clear. Sarah is the daughter of Terah, Abraham’s father, but she had a different mother.

Nothing could be clearer. But in order to try to alleviate a supposed wrongdoing by marrying his sister, Jewish, and later Christian commentators have said that Sarah is actually Abraham’s niece, not sister. This is because the law forbids marrying a sibling.

There are two problems with this – first, this is prior to the Law and so that doesn’t apply. It’s putting the cart in front of the horse. Secondly, it’s not at all what the Bible says. Sarah is Abraham’s sister – the daughter of his father, but of a different mother.

A second major problem that people find here is directly with Abraham. They find both fault and sin in him by only telling that she is his sister and not his wife. This elevates intent above reality and it also requires disclosing something that could cost him his life. Keeping the knowledge hidden is more important.

There are many examples of outright lies being told in the Bible in order to preserve life, but they’re condoned and noted favorably. I’ll give you one of many examples from the book of Joshua –

Then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. ⁵ And it happened as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, that the men went out. Where the men went I do not know; pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them.” ⁶ (But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order on the roof.) (2:4-6)

Despite the lies, the Bible commends her for what she did, just as it does on numerous occasions. “By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.” Hebrews 11:31

There is a priority in everything we do and there is a hierarchy of standards which we must submit to. The saving of life is more important than the telling of a lie in order to save that life. In the case of Abraham, he didn’t even lie; He merely hid something.

There is a good life application here and one that we should stop and note. Faithful people have, in the past, lied and committed acts against oppressive governments and yet they were in the right. Think of those who hid Jews during the Nazi regime. Think of our own founders when they rebelled against the tyranny of England.

We need to contemplate and evaluate these things against the Bible so that we know how to act. If you don’t think we need to know and be ready for these things in our lifetime, you haven’t opened your eyes to where this nation is heading. If the left gets their way in the next four years strong moral choices will have to be made and unless you know the Bible, you won’t know what to do.

¹³ And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said to her, ‘This is your kindness that you should do for me: in every place, wherever we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

I’m going to give you an interesting note about this verse, which you may or may not care diddly about, but which to me is one of the great joys of going through the Bible in detail. This is one of only a handful of times in the entire Bible where the term “elohim” meaning “God” is used in connection with a plural verb.

You see, your translation reads, “…God caused me to wander…” but the Hebrew says, “…the god’s caused me to wander.” It is plural, not singular. There are now two questions – “Why did he say ‘the gods,’ and why did your Bible translator say ‘God?’”

The premise of the Bible, from the first sentence to the last is that there is one God. This is unmistakable. And so either Abraham is speaking about the Trinity, or your Bible translator thought he was, or this verse isn’t speaking about God at all. I prefer the latter.

Abraham, just two verses ago, spoke of God with a singular verb –

“I thought, surely the fear of God is not in this place,” meaning there is one God and He is the true God. And so what he is saying here is that “the gods” meaning “the false gods” of Mesopotamia, caused him to move from his father’s house.

God, the true God, in order to establish Abraham called him away from the false gods. Abraham is the material cause; Abraham’s faith is the formal cause; getting Abraham away from the false gods was the efficient cause; and a relationship with the true God for him and his generations is the final cause.

And so, based on that premise, he explains why he said that Sarah was his sister. The true God has actively called him to wander away from the false gods, but the false gods passively necessitated this. In order to preserve his life, he asks Sarah to say that she is his sister because there are false gods all over Canaan too.

¹⁴ Then Abimelech took sheep, oxen, and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham; and he restored Sarah his wife to him.

Seeing that God, the true God, is on Abraham’s side he gave Abraham these gifts. Exactly the opposite of what happened in Egypt happens here. When the same thing happened there, the gifts came first as a payment for Sarah.

But here, they come afterwards. Why? In order to establish an alliance with him, which is exactly what he thought he would get when he took Sarah into his home in the first place. The proof of these things is found in the next verse…

¹⁵ And Abimelech said, “See, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.”

When Abraham was in Egypt and similar events occurred, Pharaoh sent Abraham away from them – back to Canaan. But here he offers him not only to stay, but to choose any place he wishes.

These two accounts seem the same when you read them, but when you study them closely, they are exactly the opposite from beginning to end.

The contrasts are to show the providential hand of God in his dealing with Abraham and how He is setting up the borders of the land now and establishing a permanent marker in the Land of Israel which exists to this day, 4000 years later.

Just for a moment, I’d like you to consider this. God is using these real events, full of real people, to ensure that His chosen people will rightfully have access to the land of Israel – that He has given it to them. And this didn’t just happen the day they crossed Jordan with Joshua, nor did it just arbitrarily happen again in 1948.

Instead, God has worked, since the first man on earth to secure this line of people and to bring them to this land. If He has done this for people He knew would reject Him, not once, not twice, but continuously for thousands of years, don’t you think His plan for we who have accepted Jesus is just as marvelous and binding?

I know I get long winded in sermons and often I pass on details that some people might find tedious, but in the end, every word which is here is given to us by God to show us how absolutely in control He is of all things. And thus, His promises to you are stronger than if they were set in concrete. Remember this as you struggle through your pains, sorrows, and losses.

In the end, they are a part of what He is doing and are intended, whether you realize it or not, for your good and His glory. Stand fast in this and be secure in your faith in Him and His word.

¹⁶ Then to Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver; indeed this vindicates you before all who are with you and before everybody.”

There are a certain number of words and sentences scattered throughout the Bible which are extremely hard to interpret, much less translate. If you read 10 Bibles, you will get 10 different translations here, unless one copies another. But there are a few things easy to note.

The first is that Abimelech said to Sarah, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver…” He calls him her brother, not her husband. In other words, he is saying that it was incumbent upon her to tell the truth once she was taken by him. Abimelech is placing the blame on her, not on Abraham.

And he gives the money to Abraham, not her. This payment is kesut enayim – a covering of the eyes. It is a way of having everyone involved overlook the entire situation. This is not a vindication of her actions as the Bible translates here. Abimelech is basically saying “The matter is over; let’ forget about it.”

^{16 (con’t)} Thus she was rebuked.

It is Sarah who was rebuked. Abimelech disapproved of what she had done, but in order to get the matter resolved and forgotten, the money was paid. This is certain, because the money is brought in when speaking to Sarah about the situation. Abraham was given sheep, oxen, and male and female servants and his choice of place to live to cover Abimelech’s sin of having Sarah in his harem.

Once she was taken, it was her obligation to tell the truth about Abraham – that he was not only her brother, but also her husband. Instead of her doing it, God intervened. According to the Bible, the wrong appears to fall on Sarah, not on Abraham.

¹⁷ So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; ¹⁸ for the Lord had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

Once again, the term ha-elohim or “the God” is used. Abraham prayed to “the God.” This was his job as “a prophet” mentioned back up in verse 7 – “…he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live.”

This explains what that means. He would die literally, but probably also in the sense that no children would be born to him if he didn’t restore her to Abraham. Once he prayed for them, they were able to bear children and his name would live on.

This means God had taken away the ability for conception to occur, not prevent actual child-birth. When it says the Lord closed up all the wombs, it meant that they couldn’t even conceive. This could have been an affliction in Abimelech, or the women, or both.

For all we know, they may have developed some type of venereal disease, or tumors, or something else that kept them from being able to come together. And this is how God kept him from uniting with Sarah as it said way back up in verse 6. God kept him from touching her because he was physically unable to do so.

Finally today, we have to mention that the very last verse we just read says the Lord, Jehovah, is the one who took this action. For the first time in this chapter, the divine name is brought in to show that He is the God of the work of salvation of humanity.

This malady on the people came about to prevent any hindrance of the plan of salvation by having Isaac come from Abraham through Sarah. It was then healed by Him when it was resolved. Now His plan could go forward with Isaac’s birth from Sarah and Abraham.

Once again, let me give you something to think about with this. God did all of this, even keeping these people from the ability to procreate, to protect His plan to bring Isaac and thus Jesus into the world. Every detail is minutely handled by a loving and observant God so that the Savior of you and me would come – and without whom we would be eternally condemned.

You see, without Jesus, there is no hope – no hope at all. What happened to Sodom and what would have happened to Abimelech and his kingdom, is what would have happened to us as well. But in these two stories is a picture. The first is of the unrepentant life of sin – this is Sodom and its destruction – a picture of hell.

The other is of restoration and alliance with the people of God – this is Abimelech and the mercy he received – a picture of our restoration through Jesus. Let me explain how you too can receive escape from the first and find entrance into the second…

Genesis 21:1-8 – (He Brings Laughter and Laughter is His Name)

Walking in the Land of the Philistines

Abraham journeyed to the South
And dwelt between Kadesh and Shur
There he did speak with his mouth
That Sarah was his sister, so his safety he would procure

And so Abimelech king of Gerar
Came and took Sarah from her tent
But God said to him by night, “A dead man you are”
Because you took her as yours, and this I will prevent

You see she is a man’s wife
And now you’ve jeopardized your own life

But Abimelch hadn’t come near her
And he said, “Adonai will you slay the righteous nation too?
Did he not say, “She is my sister?”
And she “He is my brother,” otherwise, I would’ve said “adieu.”

In the integrity of my heart this has come to be
And in the innocence of my hands this has happened, you see

And God said to him at night in a dream
Yes, I know you did this in integrity of heart
For I have withheld you from sinning, thus I did deem
That you would not touch her, right from the start

Now therefore restore the man’s wife
You see he is a prophet who will pray for you to live
But if you don’t, it will be the end of your life
You and all who are yours, for her your life will give

So Abimelech rose early in the morning
And told all his servants of God’s stern warning

And the men were very much afraid
And they wanted the wrath of God to be stayed

Then Abimelech called Abraham and said right to him
What have you done to us, how have I offended you?
That you brought on me and my kingdom such a great sin
You have done something that you certainly shouldn’t do

What did you have in view that you have done this thing
It is enough to make my head hurt and my ears to ring

Abraham said, “I thought, surely the fear of God isn’t in this place
And they will kill me on account of my wife
But she truly is my sister, it wasn’t a lie from my face
She is the daughter of the father who also gave me life

She isn’t the daughter of my mother though
And she became my wife, yes this is so

And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander
From my father’s house to wherever I would go
That I said to her when we travel here or yonder
That in kindness to me she would say, this is my brother – it’s so

Then Abimelech took sheep, oxen, and servants too
And gave them to Abraham and restored to him his wife
And Abimelech said, “See my land is set before you
Dwell where you find comfort and happiness in your life

Then to Sarah he said, Behold I have given to your brother
A thousand pieces of silver, to him and not another

This is a covering for the eyes
Of all who are with you and before everybody
Because of this unhappy guise
Thus she was rebuked because of deeds kind of gaudy

So Abraham prayed to God and He healed the king
And his wife and female servants could once again bear
For the Lord had closed up all the wombs, yes He did this thing
Because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, in this matter He did care

And so the Lord watches over all His chosen people
His adopted children he cares for so tenderly
We can shout out His praise from every roof and every steeple
Oh Yes! My God cares so much… even for me.

Thank You for Your guiding touch upon my soul
Thank You for Your hand upon my brothers and sisters too
We can see that You are completely in control
And so we shout aloud our praise, O God, praises to You

Hallelujah and Amen…

Genesis 19:27-38
A “Lot” of Mistakes?
Rethinking the Time in the Cave

Introduction: How many of you here today have ever made a mistake? Anyone? Now, how many of you here have made a mistake which involved disobeying God? Anyone? Ok, how many of you have disobeyed God since you became a Christian?

Now let me ask you, despite having made a mistake, and it having involved disobeying God, and it happened after you became a Christian… did anything good come out of what you did?

Maybe you had a child out of wedlock. Well, that was probably a mistake, certainly in disobedience to God, and maybe even since you became a Christian. But did good come out of it? Do you love the child? Has he or she become a Christian? Would you trade that child for anything on earth?

I bet if you think through all of the crummy, disobedient, and evil things you’ve done in your life – even in your life as a Christian, you’ll still be able to find something good that came out most of it. This is how God works.

However, Preacher Charlie is NOT telling you to be disobedient to God so that good may result. Paul warns us of that attitude in Romans 3. What I am saying is that God is aware of our limitations and already knows where we will fall even before we do.

You see, even when we are disobedient, God can and does bring good out of evil. Today, we’ll look over something that almost every Bible scholar in history has found sinful. If that is true, then God made something good come from it.

If, as I believe, that’s not correct, then we have another example of people living by faith in what they believe and which ultimately brings about an amazing sequence of events leading directly to the Messiah.

There are times as you read the Bible you might ask, “Why is this story here at all?” Can someone please explain to me what the relevance of this is? Today may be one of those stories. And because we can’t figure out why it’s there, we find reasons to find the bad in the story, even when good may be hidden deep within it.

If it’s in the Bible, it leads to Jesus… even when it involves incest, drunkenness, and possibly wrong thinking. Let’s review this story which is so covered in these things that we close our eyes and try to hide from them as we read through it…

“Oh God, I would never do that. Thanks for the lesson of how not to act.” But this isn’t at all what we’re to learn from this… as we’ll see in the next hour.

Text Verse: Romans 11:33-36 – Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! ³⁴ “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?” ³⁵ “Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?” ³⁶ For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Yes, all glory to this wise and wonderful Creator! And so… May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. A “Lot” of God’s Mercy

²⁷ And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord.

Just one day earlier, the Lord and the two messengers arrived to announce the coming birth of Isaac. After their meal and assuring Sarah that a child would come through her, the Lord told Abraham of His intent to go to Sodom, determine its state, and destroy it.

Before He left, Abraham received a promise that if 10 righteous people could be found there, He would spare the entire city. It was probably a very sleepless night for Abraham, wondering if Lot had met even the most basic example of being a faithful witness to his wife, children, and six others.

If he simply had 9 converts the destruction would have been averted. But Abraham seemed to know better because he got up early in the morning and went to the exact spot where he had met and talked with the Lord. From that spot, he could overlook the entire region to the south where Lot lived. It seems his fears about Lot were well founded…

²⁸ Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace.

If you go to Israel, this spot overlooks the entire region to the south just as is described. God had chosen a time when Abraham would be living at this particular location to destroy Sodom.

The lesson is one for Abraham and the record is also given as a lesson for us. Sin will be judged and it will come at a time when God’s people can see that judgment first hand. The Bible presents many acts of judgment against both Israel’s enemies as well as against disobedient Israel herself.

September 11 wasn’t done in a corner. It came on one of the nicest days of the year. That wasn’t by chance, but by the hand of God. If you pay attention, things like this seem to always happen on nice clear blue days. As great as God’s love is for His people, so is His hatred of sin and rebellion. It’s a lesson we shouldn’t forget.

Imagine what Abraham thought. Unlike a volcano or an earthquake which is an unplanned event, he was seeing something that he had been foretold would happen. There was no doubt that this was an act of God. We can debate the significance of 911, but there was no doubt in Abraham’s mind about this.

He must have been upset for Lot, thinking he was dead, upset at Lot for not being able to drum up nine righteous people, and sad about Lot because he was his relative and friend. Looking at the smoke must have been a sad, sad moment in this guy’s life.

The term for furnace used here is kibshan and it’s only used four times in the Old Testament. The only other time it’s used in a similar manner is when the Law was received at Mount Sinai –

Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. Exodus 19:18

The New Testament has one such example as well. A time is coming when the judgments of God will come upon the world. In one of them, the very pit of hell will be opened –

Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. ² And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Revelation 9:1, 2 COMMENT

²⁹ And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.

This verse uses the term “God” or “elohim” rather than “Lord” or “Jehovah” to describe the one who administered the judgment, even though when it was actually happening it said that it was the Lord who did it. The difference between the uses of these two terms is who is mentioned in this verse – Abraham.

God is the judge of all the earth, and He is elsewhere described as a consuming fire, but He is also a friend of the righteous. And so God remembered His friend Abraham and rescued Lot in the midst of the overthrow. There is no contradiction because the Lord is God and God is the Lord. The terminology changes for our benefit and understanding of God’s nature.

II. Not a “Lot” of Choices

The narrative now changes focus. Lot is still the center of attention as he was during the preceding verses, but judgment is no longer coming… it has come.

³⁰ Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.

Lot has been reduced from a man with a wife and daughters, a seat among the judges, and a vast amount of wealth and servants, to a man with two daughters and no more than he could carry.

On the night before Sodom’s destruction, he was told to take his family and head for the mountains. Instead of doing this, he asked to be allowed to enter the little town of Zoar. What he should have done in the first place he failed to do. Now that he’s been given refuge in Zoar, he is afraid to dwell there even though the Lord granted him to do so, and so he moves to the mountains.

Both of his choices show an unwillingness to simply take the Lord at His word and to be obedient to that word. And so off he goes to a cave to live with his daughters. It doesn’t say why he was afraid to live in Zoar, but several possibilities come to mind.

First, he may have figured that its destruction was coming sooner or later and they were spared only because he asked for it. He may have thought this was temporary. He also may have been worried about the rising of the waters.

Because the topography changed, the Dead Sea had replaced the fields of the area and the rising waters may have seemed to be a threat. And third, he might have feared because the people of Zoar may have actually thought that the judgment of Sodom would follow Lot to them – as if they thought he were the cause of it.

Whatever the reason, Lot decided to do what he had been told in the first place and move to the mountains.

About this, Adam Clarke says – “Foolish man is ever preferring his own wisdom to that of his Maker…”

³¹ Now the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth.

It’s just Lot and his two daughters in the cave. When the older daughter says “there is no man on the earth to come in to us” there can only be a few options as to why she would think this. The first is that they believed the destruction of Sodom had killed everyone on earth and they are the last two left to carry on the human race.

This is a popular opinion, which covers almost every commentary available, some going back thousands of years. But, it’s not likely because they had lived in Zoar and there were people there when they left. Plus, even an idiot can look in the distance and see the destruction was isolated.

A second option is that because they were the only survivors of an entire group of people who were destroyed by God, no one would want to be associated with them. This is more likely and it reflects the attitudes of people all over the world – “I’m just not good enough. God hates me and everyone else will too.”

A third option – the one that I favor – is that “no man on the earth” has nothing to do with availability but rather accessibility. It is a general term, not a specific one. Lot moved to the mountains which are not a place where people would normally live. These mountains and the surrounding areas are especially inhabitable. Because of this, there are no guys coming by for lunch.

When I drove around the US a couple years ago, I drove past houses that were so remote that I wouldn’t pass another house – going 70mph – for an hour. I’d see children playing in the yard and I thought “how are they ever going to meet someone to marry. Imagine before there were roads and cars!

These two girls are like them. They are so removed from anyone else that they cannot imagine ever meeting a man. And so they devise a plan to have children, even if they can’t have a husband…

³² Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him,

The very fact that they want to get dad drunk first tells us that they know their father wouldn’t agree to this, but it also tells us that there certainly were other men on earth, and they knew it. If not, they would have simply told dad what they wanted and why.

In the previous verse, the daughter said “our father is old.” Not only are there no other men around, but dad may kick off at some point too before he could get married again. If so, then his name will die out. This is surely what she’s thinking because…

^{32 (con’t)} that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”

And here is a second proof that there are men available, but just not accessible. They have a distinct purpose in what they’re doing. It is “to preserve Lot’s lineage,” not the human race and not their own heritage.

Without the ability to trace our lineage, we lose touch with the very marker which God has identified us with. In the Bible, this marker comes through the father. If you heard the sermons on Genesis 10, The Table of Nations, you can understand this.

What’s really important here is that the word for “lineage” is the Hebrew word zara. This means “seed.” These girls want to preserve the seed. Why? Because they believe that what they are doing is saving the line of the Messiah. Think it through…

They are from the line of Shem, Noah’s son in the line of promise. They are from the line of Haran, Abraham’s older brother and they’d have every reason to believe that because he is the oldest brother that he the one in the Messianic line, and Lot is his son.

And now they see that they’ve been miraculously saved from Sodom. Their conclusion is that this was God’s will to keep Lot’s seed alive as it led toward the Promised One the Messiah.

This idea stands even more likely because they were virgins even though they lived in an especially wicked place like Sodom. They had lived pure and upright lives and were saved because of this. This isn’t mere speculation either. We’ll see in a little while that the very names they give to their children bear this out.

What we need to do is look at exactly what the girls said – ūn·ḥa·yeh me-avinu zara (oon ha yeh may-aveenu zara)

This verse has two possible translations –

1. “And we will make the seed of our father alive.”
2. “And we will live from our father’s seed.”

Although most translations use the first, the second, when taken in the overall context of the Bible makes much more sense. The only other time the word nehaya is used in the way the girls are using it is in 1 Kings when speaking of animals that were running out of hay and dying. In order to revive them, they needed to find food.

Although this might all sound tedious, what’s happening with these two girls is as important as any doctrine found in the Bible and it points directly to the work of Jesus. It’s not at all what most people think – that a couple of girls were lonely and wanted children for themselves. Think it through…

The Bible teaches that we are dead in our sins, but that Christ makes us alive. He is the one who revives our dead spirit. And this is what the Bible teaches from the first pages of Genesis all the way to the very last page of Revelation.

The coming Messiah would restore life, eternal life, to fallen man. Eve knew it as we noted in a sermon about Cain and Abel. And so did every faithful person since then. In anticipation of this, the daughters said, “So we may live from our father’s seed.”

This isn’t speaking at all about carrying on their name. It is speaking about being born again through the coming Messiah. In support of this, ancient Jewish writers interpret this to be speaking of the Messiah because they aren’t speaking about a son, but rather the seed, the same seed found back in Genesis 3. And what is this seed? It is the Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

These two girls honestly believed that they were a part of the Messianic line. If you doubt this, hold on for a few more minutes.

And as a side note, there was no law at the time to forbid what they are proposing. Abraham, who is of the chosen line and living at the same time as them married his own sister. This is something the law specifically forbids, but at this time, there was no law. Here is what the law says concerning Abraham’s type of marriage –

The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover. Leviticus 18:9

As Paul says in Romans 4:15, “Where there is no law, there is no transgression.” Therefore, what they have done – these two girls, cannot… cannot be counted as sin just as Abraham marrying his own sister also cannot be counted as sin.

³³ So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

I have to be honest here, if the Bible didn’t say this, I would never believe it. It takes the responsibility entirely off Lot by saying he didn’t know when she lay down or when she arose.

The act is placed completely on the daughter. But if someone is so drunk that that they don’t know what’s going on, they are also usually to drunk to perform any other actions as well. Like I said, if the Bible didn’t say this, I couldn’t believe it.

³⁴ It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, “Indeed I lay with my father last night; let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”

Daughter number one did her thing and so to make sure that dad’s line will continue on, daughter number two does the same thing the next day. Once again, the action is placed solely on the daughters.

³⁵ Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

The only thing that Lot might be blamed for is getting drunk, but even that – when taken in the context of the Bible – is a dubious accusation. In fact, Proverbs says this –

Give strong drink to him who is perishing,
And wine to those who are bitter of heart. (31:6)

Lot is old and perishing and he is also certainly a soul who is bitter in heart. Fault, from a biblical perspective is not to be found where most people try to find it. He is an old man, in a cave with his two virgin daughters, and with no evil intentions toward either of them.

Later in the Bible, Lot is termed “righteous” and so the fault that so many try to find in him and what he’s done is simply not there. What is evident is the foreknowledge and providence of God in the story. This is as clear as any other passage in the Bible.

Both of these girls were virgins, both had sex and became pregnant on the first try to a drunk man, and both of them had males to carry on the name of the family. You will not find a clearer account than this for seeing that what occurred did so in order to meet God’s purposes and plans in the unfolding pages of redemptive history.

We can look back on these verses and see two sides of a coin. The first is that God gives us instructions to do things and He does so for very good reasons. He has our best intent in mind and His direction is exactly right for the situation. Think of Bible directives and how your life has gone just right when you’ve obeyed them.

God placed you in a particular place and time and reminded you of His word to demonstrate to you that following His way is best and that the outcomes will always be successful and happy.

However – and this may sound contradictory at first – when we don’t follow God’s word, we make mistakes which cause us grief, sadness, and loss. But despite this, God knew the choice we would make before we made it and therefore it must fit into His plan – even though it was based on disobedience.

This would be Lot’s life summed up in a nutshell. It would also be most of our lives most of the time – either as individuals or as a nation. We don’t obey God’s word and we have grief, sadness, and loss, but in the end it is worked out for what is ultimately good.

Here is where the other side of the coin is seen. Lot moved to a wicked city – something that if he inquired of the Lord would have been met with a “Don’t do it.” Lot never converted anyone in Sodom, which directly led to Sodom’s overthrow. Something the Lord wouldn’t approve of.

Lot didn’t head straight to the mountains as the Lord had told him to do, but instead he looked for another option. He didn’t follow the Lord’s recommended path. And later he left the city and moved to the mountain, even after the Lord allowed him to live there.

We could probably find 20 more things that Lot did wrong and we can look back on our own lives and find a million things we did wrong as well. And yet, good came out of what was bad.

III. A “Lot” of Joy

So here we have this story that is interesting, it’s dramatic, it’s enticing, and maybe even alluring in some way, but it’s just a story about an old man who has a couple of daughters and off to the mountains they go – to live in a cave and do what is both inappropriate and unjustifiable for reasons that only make sense when we try to force the narrative… right?

Bad mistakes – our lives are filled with bad mistakes and we have to live with the results of those mistakes whether we like it or not. Isn’t that why this story is in here? Two young ladies who will have to spend the rest of their lives regretting their bad choices? Isn’t God mocking them, even today, by letting the whole world see how stupid and naughty they were?

³⁶ Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.

Both girls had sex for the first and maybe only time in their lives – with a drunken man, who is their father. Both of them got pregnant and now have to suffer the shame of it for all of eternity… right? We can laugh at these two and show the world through sermons about how immoral and stupid they were. God must think so… it’s why the story is included here after all. Isn’t it?

³⁷The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day.

Oh! A bouncing baby boy… The older daughter has a son and she calls him Moab. The name comes from two words – mi which means “who” and ab which means “dad.” In modern language we’d call him “Who’s your daddy?” And the answer comes from the story itself and so it has another meaning – “From father.”

This daughter of Lot is letting the world know that the son is the result of inbreeding. This is obviously not something one would want known unless there was a very good reason behind it.

³⁸ And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the people of Ammon to this day.

Oh, another bouncing baby boy – probably born at the same time as Moab, maybe on the same day. Lot’s a busy doctor in his little cave… The younger daughter has a son. His name comes from two words too. Ben simply means “son.” Benjamin, for example, means “Son of my right hand.”

The word am means people. When am is postfixed with the “i,” which is the letter yod, it becomes “my”… “my people.” And so Ben-Ammi means “Son of my people.”

Again, like the older sister’s choice of name, this daughter of Lot is letting the world know that the son is the result of inbreeding. Again, clearly not something one would want known unless there was a very good reason behind it.

But both of these girls are proud of their accomplishment, even if they’re not proud of the deed behind it – getting Lot drunk. They both have a bundle of joy and they both believe that their son may be an ancestor of the Deliverer promised 2108 years earlier when God spoke to Adam, Eve, and the serpent in the Garden.

They have preserved the line, they have baby boys who they wouldn’t trade for all the gold in the world, and there is dad scratching his head and wondering what the end of it all will be.

As I said at the beginning of the sermon, maybe in your life you’ve done something which is clearly wrong. Maybe it’s been since you were a Christian, and maybe it was in direct disobedience to God. Can it still work out for good? The answer is “Yes.”

Let’s not diminish what we’ve done wrong though. Sin is sin and sin has consequences. Sometimes those consequences can affect our health, such as drugs; our relationships, such as adultery; and maybe even cost the life of us or someone else, such as getting shot when we hold up bank. But in any or all of these, God can work through our evil to bring about good.

How do I know? Because the Bible proves it, even in the account of these two daughters. You see, in the book of Matthew in the genealogy of Jesus, we read this in Chapter 1, verse 5 –

Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth… Matthew 1:5

Ruth, if you’ve ever read the story, is from Moab. She was brought into the covenant people and eventually became the great-grandmother of King David and an ancestor of Jesus, the Lord.

And what about the other daughter? What is her mark on history? Two verses down in the same genealogy we read this in verse 7 –

Solomon begot Rehoboam,… so what, right?

Rehoboam, the son of Solomon is in Jesus’ genealogy as well. And guess what we learn about him in the book of 1 Kings…

And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. He reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. 1 Kings 14:21

Naamah the mother of Rehoboam, was from the line of the second daughter of Lot. The Ammonites came from her son Ben-Ammi.

Clans from both of the sons born to Lot through his daughters became great enemies of Israel. In fact, Solomon is rebuked for having married women from these countries because they stole his heart away from the Lord and led him to worship false Gods.

But despite this, women from both tribes, the Moabites and the Ammonites, became ancestors of Jesus. Think about it… The Lord of all creation is descended from a man named Lot and from both of his daughters when each of them was united in incestuous sex.

Mention Haran and Iscah…

And if that isn’t amazing, wait as the Bible unfolds. Jesus descends from another incestuous union, and also from an adulterer and a murderer, and from many other men and women who were filled with flaws and weaknesses. Jesus isn’t calling the perfect to His family – He’s calling you.

You see, He can even take the evil in our lives and turn it out for good. If He can do this in a plan which started 2108 years earlier and took another 1896 more to be realized, He can do it for you too.

No matter how stupid your past mistakes, no matter how terrible your future mistakes, no matter what anyone else on earth thinks about you, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, you are His child and you are forgiven, free, and recorded in the Book of Life.

Yes, mourn over your sins, turn away from them and be obedient to the Lord and I can assure you that your life will be far more rewarding and pleasing to Him. But, stop beating yourself up over past mistakes and know that despite them, God has a plan and a purpose for you which has already figured them into the equation.

Despite your flaws, failings, and fumbles, He has accepted you and He will never forsake you. Through Jesus Christ He has cancelled out the evil and turned it into good. So be of good cheer.

Salvation call…

NEXT – Genesis 20:1-17 (Walking in the Land of the Philistines)

Beauty From Ashes

Abraham got up early in the morning
To the spot he had stood with the Lord
He wondered if Sodom heeded the warning
And had accepted God at His word

He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the plain
He saw smoke like a furnace, God – His wrath did not restrain

He destroyed all of the cities, but He remembered Abraham
And He sent Lot out of the midst of the overflow
When He overthrew the cities with a bang and a bam
God protected His righteous, the one He did know

Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains
And both his daughters were with him too
He was afraid to live in the city by its streets and its fountains
And so off to a cave in a hill he withdrew

Now the firstborn daughter said to the younger one
“Our father is old and there is no man around to marry
Come let us get dad drunk and by him we can have a son
And his seed through them we will be able to carry

So they got their dad drunk with wine that night
And the firstborn went in and lay with her father
Even though she knew what she did wasn’t right
She went through with it, no caring nor bother

The next day she said, “See, last night I laid with dad
Now it’s your turn to do the same as I did
We’ll give him wine to make his heart glad
And so both of us through him will have our own kid

So the younger lay also with her father Lot
And he didn’t know when she lay down or when up she got

So both the daughters by their father were with child
And today we look at this story as if it were wild

The firstborn named her son Moab, meaning “Who is your father”
And the younger named hers Ben-Ammi – “Son of my people”
And though this story many people it does bother
It is something to be taught beneath the church steeple

You see, these three – Lot and his two daughters
Became great peoples like the spreading of waters

And eventually through them came the Savior of the world
Through them came Jesus as God’s great plan has unfurled

Have you done something so wrong in your life?
Maybe been a drug addict or a prostitute
Have you committed adultery on your husband or wife
Is the hurt in your heart painfully acute

Let God use what has happened in the past
To bring Him glory now through an obedient life
The good things that can come will for eternity last
When Jesus as His bride calls us His wife

Great is our God therefore let’s give Him great praise
And let us live our lives for Him, all of our days

Hallelujah and Amen…