Episode Transcript
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Genesis Twenty one eight. Yes,
through twenty one, as it is written.
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Let's hear God's word. And the
child grew and was weaned, and
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Abraham made a great feast on the
day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah
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saw the son of Hagar, the
Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham,
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laughing. So she said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with
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her son, for the son of
this slave woman shall not be heir with
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my son Isaac. And the thing
was very displeasing to Abraham on account of
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his son. The God said to
Abraham, be not displeased because of the
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boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah tells you to do,
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or whatever Sarah says to you,
do as she tells you, for through
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Isaac shall your offspring be named,
and I will make a nation of the
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sleigh of the son of the slave
woman, also because he is your offspring.
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So Abraham rose early in the morning
and took bread and a skin of
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water and gave it to Hagar,
putting it on her shoulder along with the
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child, and sent her away.
And she departed and wandered in the wilderness
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of Beersheba. When the water in
the skin was gone. She put the
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child under one of the bushes.
Then she went and sat down opposite I'm
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a good way off about the distance
of a Bowshof bow shot, for she
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said, let me not look on
the death of the child. And as
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she sat opposite him, she lifted
up her voice and wept. And God
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heard the voice of the boy and
the Angel of God, called the Hag
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are from heaven and said to her, what troubles you hag are fear not,
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for God has heard the voice of
the boy. where he is up.
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Lift up the boy and hold him
fast with your hand, for I
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will make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes and saw
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a and she saw a well of
water, and she went and filled the
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skin with water and gave the boy
a drink. And God was with the
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boy and he grew up. He
lived in the Wilderness and became an expert
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with the bow. He lived in
the Wilderness of Peran and his mother took
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a wife for him from the land
of Egypt. The God bless his word
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to us. What we have in
this story is bulloth, tragedy and provision,
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the tragic consequences of sin. A
family in disorder, the consequences of
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decisions made in the past, coming
to coming to certain natural conclusions, and
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it's a difficult situation, very difficult, and the Lord Intervenes and he provides
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and in his doing that we come
to know something more about our God and
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even about our place in him.
So I'd like to walk through this story
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with you tonight and consider what God
has a for us here. The story
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begins with Isaac, the child grew
and was weaned. This is referring to
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Isaac and we read that Abraham made
a great feast on the day that Isaac
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was weaned. But something was happening. At this moment of celebration. Is
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His child, this promised child who, you remember, was given supernaturally to
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Abraham and Sarah, something that they
couldn't have produced on their own. God
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produced after a long time of waiting. But in the all of this celebration
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over Isaac, Sarah sees something that
disturbs her greatly. Sarah sees the son
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of HAG are. This is Ishmael, who's interestingly not named in this chapter.
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Various possible reasons for that I won't
get into here, but this is
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Ishmael. Sarah sees the son of
Hag are, the Egyptian whom she,
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that is Hagar, had born to
Abraham, and then it says laughing,
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laughing. Well, this laughing is
not any kind of ordinary laughing. It's
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mocking. It's even described in Galatians
as persecution. When Sarah Sees Ishmael laughing
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over her child, he's not just
goofing around or playing or even teasing in
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a mean way. Sarah senses a
threat. She names the thread, in
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particular that Ishmael would become the air, or at least share as an air
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with Isaac. But that was not
the Lord's plan. Was Not what the
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Lord had promised. Sarah Senses this
threat and we know that her perception about
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this threat is correct and she's not
just jealous or something like that, although
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that would be understandable. I'm going
to lower this just a little bit.
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Sorry about that. Sarah's perceives this
threat right and she perceives it correctly.
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How do we know? There's a
several reasons I want to give because I
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think without this this story is difficult
to understand what's going on and feels very
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cruel. But if we understand it
rightly, we begin to see what's actually
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going on here. First of all, Ishmael's not like five years old or
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four years old. This is not
just two little boys teasing each other.
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Ishmael's probably about sixteen years old.
We know this because we know this because
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of the dates that are given to
us or the ages. In Genesis Sixteen,
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Sixteen, we read that when Abraham
was about eighty six hag our bore
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him Ishmael. Then in genesis twenty
five, it says that when Abraham was
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a hundred years old, Isaac was
born. So right there we have fourteen
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years. After that, of course
we have the child in which Isaac nursed
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and then was weaned. This period
of time isn't given specifically, but it
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was probably somewhere around two to three
years based on other examples in scripture and
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extra biblical sources, and it's not
an uncommon amount of time for a child
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to nurse. And so what we
have here is Ishmael being somewhere between fifteen
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at a bare minimum, to probably
sixteen or even seventeen years old. This
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means the Ishmael was known old enough
to know that he should not treat Isaac
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in this way. He was old
enough to have demonstrated certain patterns in his
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life and he was old enough to
be a very serious and real threat to
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this little boy. Also, when
we pay attention to the details in the
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text, it's not necessary to imagine
that Abraham is placing Ishmael on Sarah's shoulder
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and then she later places him under
like a like Moses in a basket or
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something like that, under this Bush. And there's a couple reasons for that.
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A one is that the text doesn't
say necessarily that he was placed on
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her shoulder. I'm she's not necessarily
carrying this sixteen year old boy. Right.
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So we read in Verse Fourteen,
Abraham Rose early in the morning and
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took bread and a skin of water
and gave it to Haggart, putting it
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on her shoulder along with the child, and sent her away. Now,
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in course, in English that could
mean that he put the skin of water
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on her and he put the child
and then she went. But it all,
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it could also mean that he put
the skin of water on her hoot
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and the child who was with her
and then sent her away. On one
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Old Testament. Scholar translates this with
a more wooden translation and more direct translation,
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which makes it awkward but helps you
to see how this could be in
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English. He gave unto Hagar,
he said, upon her shoulder and together
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with the boy, or and the
boy, and he sent her away.
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So I'll read that again without the
parenthetical comment. He gave unto Hagar,
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he set upon her shoulder and together
with the boy and sent her away.
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You can see why we don't translate
it that in her English bibles it's wooden
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and choppy, but essentially that's what's
going on. Second, just because she
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puts him under this Bush doesn't mean
that he was incapable of walking. Right,
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let me just ask you. Have
you ever been left somewhere and yet
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been capable of walking? Of course
happens all the time. We people leave
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us and will leave us in a
place. Also, this word put could
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be translated abandoned. So the idea
here is that she and Ishmael walk out.
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Things are getting very desperate, they're
out of water and she leaves him
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and walks away. Right. Maybe
she talks to him, maybe she tells
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him to stay. It doesn't say, but she leaves him so that she
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doesn't have to feel the anguish of
his death. So all that to say
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we have a genealogy, or they
are not a genealogy, but these on
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ages of Abraham that tell us how
old he is. It works with the
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passage. And then also, as
I mentioned, and in Galacians four hundred
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and twenty nine, Paul characterizes it
this way. He says he who was
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born according to the flesh persecuted him
who was born according to the spirit.
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So That's how Paul interprets this passage. Isaac or Ishmael's not just joking around.
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He is persecuting Isaac again. Mama
bear here senses a threat to her
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son, and not just any son, but the son of promise, the
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son that they had been waiting for, the Sun on which the Abrahamic Covenant
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had been made. This word persecute
can mean when the way Paul uses it,
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is a word that means to pursue
intently, intently and usually with some
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kind of malevolent, evil intention.
Two more reasons and then we'll be done
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with this. Ishmael's reaction matches his
mother's reaction. Remember back in Genesis Sixteen
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four, when she saw that she
conceived, she looked with contempt upon her
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mistress. The scriptures say Ishmael is
following in his mother's steps. And then
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finally, the Lord himself vindicates her
actions by telling Abraham to follow a Sarah's
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instructions and to send them away.
So these are reasons why we can see
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that Sarah is right in her assessment
of the situation and right in this command.
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And so Abraham, acting on his
wife's instructions and the Lords of vindication
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of them, is not doing wrong. He is protecting the promised seed and
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he's doing so by faith, because
this hurts. This is not easy for
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Abraham. He decides to choose what
God wants over what he feels, and
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Sarah, perhaps is doing the same. Abraham, we read, was vexed.
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He was troubled when he went,
he went to the Lord Verse Eleven.
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This thing very displeased him. On
account of his son, on account
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of Ishmael, sixteen years, but
this Sun sixteen years of being with him.
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Who knows what all, the kind
of relationships they had, the actions
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they have, but he's a father
right. Family life is difficult and messy.
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It doesn't always work like we want
it to, and that's why it's
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important to remember what is going on
in the background here. Remember how where
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Ishmael came from. He's the product
of Abraham and Sarah and ag are all
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conniving against the what the Lord's will
was? They, this family, had
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set up a situation where now they're
reaping what they had sown, and it
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was going to hurt. But we
will, as well see in a minute,
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seek God's grace and all of this. This was not easy. This
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was emotionally hard to remember. Even
back in genesis seventeen, eighteen, when
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the Lord promised again to Abraham to
give them a sun, he says,
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Oh, that Ishmael, oh the
Ishmael might live, for you know,
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God says it shall be Isaac,
and Abraham Acts on faith here and always
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God provides. So let's notice two
things now about the work of the Lord
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in all of this. First of
all, God is here to remind us
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that the salvation of the world through
this offspring of Abraham will not depend on
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human cunning. It will not depend
on humans deciding this thing or that thing
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or manipulating the situation and trying to
work all these things out by natural means.
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It will happen according to his supernatural
will. The promise of the Sun
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and all of these things will fall
out according to his plan and not to
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man's, and that's important for all
kinds of reasons. One It humbles US
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and reminds us to trust him,
to it reminds us that we can trust
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him, that we can wait on
him, we can rely on him,
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and we see that not only in
his fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and
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Isaac, but even in His grace
given to Ishmael. Here. Isn't this
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amazing? Though Ishmael has, though
God has said no to Ishmael and that
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he will not be a part of
the covenant, nevertheless he enjoys all kinds
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of benefits in his attachment to Abraham. God's love for Abraham extends even to
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Abraham's children, who were not a
part of the promise. Back in genesis
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seventeen six, when the covenant was
made, God says to Abraham, I
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will make you exceedingly fruitful and I
way you will make you into nations and
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kings shall come from you. And
this is promised also to hag our.
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The Angel of the Lord says to
her, I will surely multiply your offspring
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so they cannot be numbered for a
multitude. And then here again, that
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promise is repeated. He says to
Hag are in and thirteen, I will
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make a nation of the son of
the slave woman, also because he is
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your offspring. Here is God being, as he always is, gracious and
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bountiful in his ways, even to
people who do not deserve it. Despite
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our manipulating, despite our contriving and
all of these things that we do seeking
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to be God, God still looks
on us and he pities us in our
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messages that we make, and he
gives us much grace. What a wonderful
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thing. We ought to praise him
for that. The last thing I want
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to note as we close is as
hard as it is for Abraham here to
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rely on the word of the Lord
and to do with the Lords of the
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Lord says, and to let go
of his son Ishmael, it will be
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even harder when the Lord tells him
to sacrifice Isaac in even the very next
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chapter. What is God doing?
Can We? Can I, Abraham says
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to himself? Can I depend on
the Lord this much to sacrifice the son
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that he promised to give me?
And even that, even that kind of
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faith doesn't compare to the trust that
Jesus himself put in the father, perfectly
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united in will when he went to
the cross to give up his own life
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as the offspring of Abraham. If
Abraham I'm loved his son Ishmael and loved
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Isaac, how much do you think
the Father God, the father, loves
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God, the Son? Unfathomable.
And yet, in love for us,
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he gives up his son to rescue
us from our desperate situations, the messes
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that we make, the sins that
we bring upon ourselves, the rebellion,
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the ways that we rebel against God. This is how much God loves us.
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This is how gracious he is to
us. In this sad story about
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this family being torn apart, about
Ishmael's persecution against Isaac and the tension between
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Hag are and Sarah and Abraham's heartbreaking. In the midst of all, God
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is present, God is steady,
God's love is steadfast and he takes care
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of it all. Abraham story is, of course, the story about faith,
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and that's what God calls us to
as well. Trust the word of
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the Lord, trust the promises of
the Lord. Trust the Lord and you
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will be saved. That's his promise
to you. Let's hold fast to it.
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