Episode Transcript
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Let's turn our attention to Genesis,
Chapter Sixteen. Let us hear God's word.
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Now. Sarah, I, Abram's
wife, had borne him no children.
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She had a female Egyptian servant whose
name was Hagar. And Sir,
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I said to Abram, behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing
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children. Go In to my servant. It may be that I shall obtain
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children by her. And Abram listened
to the Voice of Sarah. So,
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after Abram had lived ten years in
the land of Canaan, Sara I took
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Abram's Sarah, Abram's wife, took
her Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant,
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and gave her to Abram, her
husband, as a wife. And
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he went into Hagar and she conceived, and when she saw that she had
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conceived, she looked with contempt upon
her mistress. And Sarah I said to
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Abram, may the wrong done to
me be on you. I gave my
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servant to your embrace and when she
saw that she had conceived, she looked
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on me with contempt. May The
Lord judge between you and me. But
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Abram said to Sarah, I behold, your servant is in your power.
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Due to her as you please.
Then Sarah. I dealt harshly with her
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and she fled from her. The
Angel of the Lord found her by a
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Spring of water in the Wilderness,
the spring on the way to sure and
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he said, Hagi, Servant of
Sarah, where have you come from and
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where are you going? She said, I am fleeing from my mistress,
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Sarah. The Angel of the Lord
said to her, return to your mistress
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and submit to her. The Angel
of the Lord also said to her,
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I will surely multiply your offspring so
that they cannot be numbered for multitude.
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And the angel of the Lord said
to her, behold, you are pregnant
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and shall bear a son. Shall
call his name Ishmael, because the Lord
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has listened, been and he and
he shall be a s he shall be
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a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against
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him, and he shall dwell over
against all his kinsmen. So she called
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the name of the Lord who spoke
to her. You are a god of
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seeing, for she said, truly, here I have seen him who looks
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after me. Therefore, the well
was called Beer Lehigh Roy. It lies
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between Kadesh and bread and Hag our
Bor Abram, a son and Abram called
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the name of his son, whom
Hag our boor Ishmael. Abram was eighty
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six years old than hag our Boor
Ishmail to Abram. One of the patterns
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that we've been paying attention to as
we've been hearing the history of God's dealings
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with Abram and Sarah and others in
the world at this time is are the
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many ups and downs that come in
this relationship of in covenant with God.
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Remember that it was just a chapter
ago that we had this amazing vision and
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which God put Abraham to sleep and
promised him and reaffirmed his promises to him
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through this very amazing sign, the
cut animals and and all of that.
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God has just, in this wonderful
a powerful visual way, demonstrated that Abraham
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can have certainty about the things that
have been promised. So, for example,
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in verse thirteen of the previous chapter
we have then the Lord said the
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Abraham know for certain that your offspring
will be so journerous in a land that
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is not yours and will be servants
there and they will be afflicted for four
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hundred years, but I will bring
judgment on the nation that they serve and
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afterward they will come out with great
possessions. As for you, you shall
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go to your father's in peace,
you shall be buried in a good old
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age, and they shall come back
here in the fourth generation. For the
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igniquity of the AM rights is not
yet complete. God had promised that all
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was in his sovereign plan. Even
Abraham and his children's affliction would be under
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his sovereign control and out of it
God would bring his people. These promises
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of course, involved Sarah I as
well. But Sarah I is frustrated,
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as we all get from time to
time when we see God's promises delayed,
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and they have been delayed for some
time, as this chapter tells us,
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they had been in Canaan for ten
years. Ten years. Try to think
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in your life something that has gone
on for ten years, maybe a job,
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maybe a relationship. Imagine a ten
year period of living in the land
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of Canaan without the fulfillment of this
child. Ten years ago, God had
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promised to Abram and to Sarah I. He said, come out of earth,
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Kelde's, I will give to you
a son, give to you offspring,
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and this offspring will create many nations, you'll many children, you will
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be a blessed father and mother as
well. Makes Sense, perhaps. Why
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Genesis, at least from a human
perspective? Why, in Genesis Fifteen,
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Abraham saying, where's The Sun?
How about this son? How about Eliazar,
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my my servant from Damascus? He
maybe I he is going to be
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the heir of my house. You
have given me no offspring. He suggests
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a possibility and God tells him,
no, it will be from your yourself.
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will be your own child. Well, Sarah I finds herself frustrated.
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Abram's wife. The word wife is
mentioned many times in this passage. Sarah,
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Abram's wife, had borne him no
children. That's how this chapter begins.
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She had a female servant, however, a female Egyptian servant whose name
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was Hagar. Possibly Hagar came with
those that many possessions and people that Abraham
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left Egypt with. And Sarah I
can Cox a plan. Sarah I says,
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how about you? Abraham Takes Sarah, my servant as a wife and
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let her bear, for bear us
this child. Abraham passively goes okay,
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and he goes into her and she
conceives. And then what happens? Well,
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unsurprisingly, the servant turns on her
mistress. She we read in verse
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four that when she saw that she
had conceived, she looked with contempt upon
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her mistress. If we have any
experience in the world, this doesn't surprise
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you. And we find on proverbs
in God's word pointing to the kind of
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frustrations that happen in a household when
there is when things are falling apart in
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these ways. What Sarah's reaction?
Sarah I just gets really, really mad.
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Sarah I goes to Abraham and points
the finger at him and says,
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Look what you've done to me.
I gave my servant to your embrace and
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when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on contempt with me.
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May God judge between me and you. She Calls Down God's judgment on on
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Abram, accuses him of faithlessness.
Abram and a another kind of passive move,
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says she's in your power, do
with her as you please. This
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isn't my fault, I have nothing
to do with this. What do we
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see in all these things? One
of the main things that we see is
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sin and a fall. It is
very similar to that of Adam and eves.
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We have a situation in which the
people of the Lord have decided to
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take things into their own hands,
even though God has explicitly told them how
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the child is to be born.
He would give the child it would be
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of Abram and Sarah's own offspring.
They don't understand. They're frustrated. They
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don't know why they have to wait. It's been a long time. He's
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eighty six years old. Sarah I
might be around seventy five here. Surely
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God will not fulfill his promises,
they think so. It's time to act,
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it's time to do things in our
own way. You can almost hear
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Satan in the background saying has God
really said? Interestingly, there's a lot
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of language here that similar and parallel
to that of Adam and Eve. For
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example, when Sarah deals with HAG
are, the same verbs are used as
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eve when she takes the fruit and
gives it to Adam. We have here
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that HAG are the Egyptian, or
sorry, Sarah, Abram's wife. This
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is in verse three. Took how
are, the Egyptian, her servant,
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and gave her to Abram, her
husband as a wife. Notice all that
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language her husband as a wife.
It's emphasizing that this is not how things
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should be and yet this is what's
happening and, like Adam, Abram takes
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what has been given to him,
when he should have refused, when he
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should have reminded his wife and said
no, these is not what the Lord
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has said. The Lord has made
these promises to us. Stand firm,
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stand fast. Instead, instead,
he gives over and in to sin,
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and the fallout from this is very
similar to that that happens with Adam and
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eve. We have blame shifting.
It's your fault, it's your fault.
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We have the dissolution of the family, husband and against wife, servants against
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masters. The household is falling apart. There is argument, there's affliction.
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We read in Verse Six that Sarah
I dealt harshly with her and she fled
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from her. This is the same
word that is used of the Israelites when
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they are in Egypt, and they
were afflicted, dealt harshly with. Here,
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with the Egyptian Servant, God's people
are dealing too harshly with her,
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so much so that she flees and
receives a very, very special visit by
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the angel of the Lord. And
here's where we begin to see some striking
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differences between these two things, between
the the fall in early part of Genesis,
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and now this falling apart of this
family. We remember that with Adam
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and Eve a covenant was given.
It was a covenant of Works and which,
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if fail, if obedience was not
given on life would not be given.
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In fact, they would receive death, and that is what they received.
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A curse was brought upon the world. But now, within the Covenant
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of Grace Having been established after the
fall and more firmly with Abraham, notice
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what happens. The Lord, through
the Angel of the Lord, comes to
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Sarah I, who's on her way
to sure probably a reference to Egypt,
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on our way back home, trying
to get out of this mess that she's
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found herself in, and he says
to Hag, Our Servant of Sarah,
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I where have you come from and
where are you going? I am fleeing
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from my mistress, Sarah. I
to return to her, your mistress,
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and submit to her. The Angel
of the Lord also said to her,
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I will surely multiply your offspring so
that they cannot be numbered. A multitude
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promises that are very similar to that
which are given to Abraham. And here
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we are reminded of God's deep care
for the world, even those who are
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not on his elect people. We
see that God is sovereign over not just
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a individual person or a family,
but of her all things, and in
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his sovereignty overhaul things he extends great, great grace. His common grace here
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is expressed not only in his care
for Hag are, but in the promise
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that she will bear fourth a great
multitude through this son. So wondrous this
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is that she says in verse thirteen, you are a god of seeing.
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One commentator said this is the only
place in scripture where someone gives a name
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to God in this way. The
amazing thing that she says you are a
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god of seeing. Truly, here
I have seen him who looks after me,
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a confession of faith, of truth
that surely ought to be our own
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as well. In all of this, in both Gods Continuing Care for Sarah
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and Abraham, despite their sin,
despite their falling apart, despite their taking
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all of these things into their own
hands. And it's not going to be
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until several chapters later that the sun
is finally born. What we are reminded
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of is God's continuing promises, his
continuing care. God is faithful. He's
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faithful to Abram and Sarah I.
He is faithful to Hagar, he is
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faithful to her son. When we
find ourselves in the afflictions of this world
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and we find ourselves looking around for
a way out, something to do,
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something to change, sometimes there's not
a way. It depends on what we're
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asking for. If we're asking for
the Glorious Kingdom of God to be brought
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here and now, there's not another
way, there's not a short cut,
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there's not a do these five things
or read this book or execute this plan,
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or be a little faster, be
a little smarter, and you can
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achieve it. The Kingdom of God
is something that is received, and this
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is one of the things that God
emphasizes in his faithfulness. He says,
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I will be faithful, but you
must wait, because what would happen if
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God simply let us go about and
have our plans? Would we give him
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the glory? Would we give him
honor and praise when we say, oh
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good, I was smarter and faster
and I accomplished it, and surely God
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has done this thing? Probably not. Instead, what we see over and
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over and over and over again in
scripture is God calling us to set aside
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the things of this world, set
aside the particular things of this world when
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it comes to the bringing into being
the Kingdom of God and to simply receive
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it. To simply receive it.
That is hard to do, and sometimes
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God even puts us purposefully in places
where we find that we cannot do anything.
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Sarah and Abram find themselves barren,
old, unable to do the things
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that to bring about the promise of
that God had promised to them. My
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exhortation to you, beloved, is
that sometimes we simply must wait, to
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be still and know that he is
our God, and we can do that
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because we know that he has not
abandoned us, he is not left us,
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and though we are called to wait
from time to time, he remains
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with us and he is strong and
he is sure. We know this because
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a son was in fact born and
through that son, many sons were born,
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and eventually the son was born both
from man and from God, who
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is our Savior, and he brings
about all of these things and he accomplishes
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them perfectly. When Jesus Christ comes
into the world as the son of Abraham
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to fulfill all of these things,
when he dies on that cross, when
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he rises from the dead, when
he sits at the right hand of God.
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Well, Father Almighty, we can
know for certain that we can rest
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in him, that we don't need
to Cajole and contrive our our own ways,
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we don't need to manipulate people or
God into the things that he has
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promised to give us. All we
need to do is trust him and he
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will fulfill everything. And so that's
my admonition and exhortation to you this evening.
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Trust in the Lord, trust in
his faithfulness. Look around you,
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look in history, look in the
pages of God's Word and see his faithfulness
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proven over and over and over again. You can set your life in him
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and depend on him. Praise God. Let's pray.
