Let's turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter
21 and I want to read this entire
chapter for our scripture reading.
Genesis chapter 21 and remember that we are
now at the climax of the story of
Abraham's life because in this chapter the promised
seed finally is born.
Genesis chapter 21 and verse 1.
Then the Lord took note of Sarah as
he had said and the Lord did for
Sarah as he had promised.
So Sarah conceived and bore a son to
Abraham in his old age at the appointed
time of which God had spoken to him.
And Abraham called the name of the son
who was born to him whom Sarah bore
to him Isaac.
Isaac means remember he laughs or laughter.
Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he
was eight days old as God had commanded
him.
Now Abraham was 100 years old when his
son Isaac was born to him.
And Sarah said, God has made laughter for
me.
Everyone who hears will laugh with me.
And she said, who would have said to
Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?
Yet I have borne him a son in
his old age.
And the child grew and was weaned and
Abraham made a great feast on the day
that Isaac was weaned.
Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the
Egyptian whom she had borne to Abraham mocking.
Some of the translations have playing but mocking
is much to be preferred.
I'll say something about that later on in
the message.
Therefore she said to Abraham, drive out this
maid and her son for the son of
this maid shall not be an heir with
my son Isaac.
And the matter distressed Abraham greatly because of
his son.
But God said to Abraham, do not be
distressed because of the lad and your maid.
Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her.
For through Isaac your descendants shall be named.
And of the son of the maid I
will make a nation also because he is
your descendant.
So Abraham arose early in the morning and
took bread and a skin of water and
gave them to Hagar, putting them on her
shoulder and gave her the boy and sent
her away.
And she departed and wandered about in the
wilderness of Beersheba.
And the water in the skin was used
up and she left the boy under one
of the bushes.
Then she went and sat down opposite him
about a bull shot away for she said,
do not let me see the boy die.
And she sat opposite him and lifted up
her voice and wept.
And God heard the lad crying and the
angel of God called to Hagar from heaven
and said to her, what is the matter
with you, Hagar?
Do not fear for God has heard the
voice of the lad where he is.
And lift up the lad and hold him
by the hand for I will make a
great nation of him.
Now the, you'll notice when the angel of
the Lord or the angel of God as
it is written in verse 17 says, I
will make a great nation of him.
It becomes evident that this is the same
angel of the Lord who appeared to Hagar
in chapter 16 as a divine theophany.
So here we have another theophany, another appearance
of God to Hagar.
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.
Evidently the well of water was there all
along, but her eyes were unable to see
it.
And so as a good illustration of the
doctrine of illumination, God opened her eyes and
she saw the well that had been there
all along.
God was with the lad and he grew
and he lived in the wilderness and became
an archer.
And he lived in the wilderness of Perun
and his mother took a wife for him
from the land of Egypt.
Will you notice that?
The fact that Hagar took a wife for
Ishmael from the land of Egypt is revealing
in that it indicates the spiritual desires and
motivations and condition of both Hagar and Ishmael.
Egypt is still in them.
Now it came about at that time that
Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army,
spoke to Abraham saying, God is with you
in all that you do.
Now therefore swear to me here by God
that you will not deal falsely with me
or with my offspring or with my posterity.
But according to the kindness that I have
shown to you, you shall show to me
and to the land in which you have
sojourned.
And Abraham said, I swear it.
But Abraham complained to Abimelech because of the
well of water which the servants of Abimelech
had seized.
And Abimelech said, I do not know who
has done this thing, neither did you tell
me nor did I hear of it until
today.
And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave
them to Abimelech and the two of them
made a covenant.
Then Abraham said, seven you lambs of the
flock by themselves.
And Abimelech said to Abraham, what do these
seven you lambs mean which you have said
by themselves?
And he said, you shall take these seven
you lambs from my hand in order that
it may be a witness to me that
I dug this well.
Therefore he called that place Beersheba, which means
either the well of seven or the well
of the oath.
Those two words oath and seven are very
similar in Hebrew and this could mean either
one or the other.
But both would be appropriate.
Because there the two of them took an
oath.
So they made a covenant at Beersheba and
Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army,
arose and returned to the land of the
Philistines.
And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba
and there he called on the name of
the Lord, the everlasting God.
And Abraham sojourned in the land of the
Philistines for many days.
May the Lord bless this reading of his
word.
The subject for this morning is the promise
fulfilled and the weaning of Abraham.
I know that you might think that there
is a mistake in the title, it should
be the weaning of Isaac.
But no, it was done on purpose, the
weaning of Abraham.
Because this is the chapter in which one
of the last of the trusts and hopes
of Abraham is weaned from him.
And we want to look at it in
the light of that.
This chapter is a rather important chapter so
far as scriptural material is concerned.
First of all, from a simple historical standpoint.
Because we've been reading of the promise about
the seed that is to come from Genesis
chapter 12 up to this point.
And now in this chapter, the long deferred
hope of the son of promise is realized
in the birth of Isaac.
It would be nice if we could turn
to Romans chapter 4 and read verses 17
through 25, because there we have a further
exposition of the faith of Abraham.
And it was a magnificent faith in spite
of the many failures along the way.
The chapter is also important from the standpoint
of theology.
We know Paul's magnificent theodicy in Romans 9,
10, and 11, in which after having set
forth the plan of salvation, dealing with justification
and sanctification and glorification, he launches into an
explanation of how it should be that among
this elect company of people who have arisen
through the preaching of the gospel, Israel should
not be found.
And in the midst of chapters 9, 10,
and 11, the apostle explains why Israel is
not among that company of the elect except
in remnant form.
And you know that one of the key
verses that the apostle uses in the ninth
chapter is the little statement from Genesis chapter
21 and verse 12, In Isaac shall thy
seed be called.
It was never intended by God that Israel
as a whole should inherit the promises of
God, all Israelites.
It was his intention that there should be
an election within the election.
In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
That text comes from this chapter.
And then we also know from the New
Testament that the apostle uses this chapter in
order to illustrate the rejection of a legal
method of salvation.
He uses the incident of Sarah sending away
Ishmael as an evidence of the fact that
God rejects that which is the product of
the works of the flesh.
For Ishmael, remember, was the son of Sarah's
scheming.
And consequently Israel, Ishmael was a son born
after the flesh.
And the point the apostle makes of it
is that that which is the product of
the flesh does not inherit the promises of
God.
That which is of the promise, divine promise,
the divine word, that inherits the promise of
God.
And so he uses it to point out
that salvation is not by the works of
human flesh, but rather by the one work
that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished.
For by grace are you saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of
works, not of fleshly works, lest any man
should boast.
And finally, this is the finally of the
introduction, not the conclusion.
And finally, this chapter is very important from
an ethical standpoint.
The weaning of Isaac is really the weaning
of Abraham, fitting him for the great crisis
of Genesis chapter 22, which the Lord willing
we shall deal with next Sunday.
One almost feels the tension as he reads
Genesis chapter 21, as the great divine sanctifier
by discipline prepares Abraham for loftier expressions and
experiences of trust in God.
Now if you've been following carefully the life
of Abraham, you will have noted how God
has been tearing idols away from him.
And in the preceding chapter, he tore one
final idol, or one of the last of
the idols, that was part of the life
of Abraham and Sarah.
For from the time that they were in
Ur of the Chaldees, they had made this
little agreement that whenever they got into difficulty
going into a new place, Abraham would say,
she's my wife, and Sarah would say, he's
my brother.
So that that was not simply one incident
in their life, but evidently something that they
had harbored from the time of the leaving
of Ur of the Chaldees.
And so that secret agreement was an agreement
of the flesh designed to prevent them from
having to suffer because of their connection with
the Lord.
There's one last thing now that must be
dealt with before Abraham is asked to offer
up Isaac, and that is the connection with
Hagar and Ishmael must be dealt with.
Abraham evidently is still clinging to her and
still clinging to her son, Ishmael.
For as a father, he loved Ishmael.
He desired that Ishmael be blessed.
And when Ishmael is finally sent out, the
matter distresses Abraham greatly.
But you can see this would have been
a possible stumbling block for the test of
Genesis chapter 22.
Because if Abraham is able to lean upon
Ishmael, then the test in the offering up
of Isaac would be that much easier.
It's easier to give up Isaac if one
still has Ishmael at home.
And so consequently, God must wean Abraham from
Ishmael.
And Ishmael must be sent off in order
that when the test comes in Genesis chapter
22, it's the kind of test which if
by the grace of God, Abraham manages to
succeed in, then it is true, Abraham is
the friend of God.
So what we're dealing with is a chapter
in which God is tearing and ripping idols
away from the hearts of Abraham and Sarah
to bring them both to a naked, helpless
trust in God, reminding them in a sense
that this world is not their home.
That's a very important principle.
This world is not our home either.
So the pruning of our great husbandman goes
on constantly.
And may I suggest to you in your
own Christian life that part of your growth
in grace is response to the pruning that
God the husbandman does in your life.
Well, let's turn to the passage now, and
I'm, it's a long chapter, and I'm just
going to comment on some of the more
obvious things in the light of the time
and in the light of the conditions.
So first of all, we notice in verses
1 through 7 the fulfillment of the promise
of the promised seed.
And we read of the birth of Isaac
in the first two verses.
And let me read these two verses again,
because there is a point I want to
be sure that we all get.
Then the Lord took note of Sarah as
he had said, and the Lord did for
Sarah as he had promised.
So Sarah conceived and bore a son to
Abraham in his old age, at the appointed
time of which God had spoken to him.
In a sense, these words, particularly the first
two verses, contain the whole autobiography of the
godly ups and downs of the life of
faith.
God fulfills his promises without help from us.
So often we seek to enable him to
fulfill the promises that he has made to
us.
Three times Moses refers to God's faithfulness to
his word.
Notice, then the Lord took note of Sarah
as he had said, first time.
And the Lord did for Sarah as he
had promised, second time.
So Sarah conceived and bore a son to
Abraham in his old age, at the appointed
time of which God had spoken to him.
Three times in the two verses, it is
stated that God is faithful to his word.
In a sense, this is what someone has
called the quiet precision of God's control.
God is always on time.
He is never late.
Oh, we may pray if the Lord tarries,
or we may say if the Lord tarries,
but the Lord Jesus does not tarry.
He comes at the precise time that the
Father desires that he come.
All of God's promises are fulfilled in his
time.
He's always on time.
And the divine veracity, the faithfulness to the
word of God, is the bedrock of the
believer's life.
In the New Testament, we are told many
times, in essence, but several times specifically, God
is faithful.
That means that he performs his promises.
And so the time came, the appointed time,
that God had spoken to Sarah and to
Abraham, and Isaac was born.
Twenty-five years of waiting.
I'm sure that Abraham must have thought God
has been delayed.
But it was not a delay.
And consequently, at the appointed time, Isaac is
born.
And he's given the name of Isaac.
That name is a reminder of the good
fortune that God has manifested to this elderly
couple.
A man a hundred years of age, a
woman ninety years of age.
Incidentally, I doubt that there was any child
that was ever loved more deeply than Isaac.
Now, I know that that is partially true
from the teaching of the word of God,
because God said that he chose Abraham in
order that he may command his children and
his household after him to keep the way
of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.
That is what he said in chapter eighteen.
And so Abraham was a man who was
chosen specifically in the light of the fact
that he would be the kind of father
who would train his children up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord.
And so Abraham took Isaac upon his lap
and trained him in spiritual things.
He was loved and loved deeply.
No child could ever be more blessed than
to have a father and a mother who
love him in the Lord and treat them
as children given by God, instructing them in
the things of the word of God.
So he was loved.
What a tremendous good fortune to be born
into a family of believing Christians who will
have the courage to train their children up
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
I encourage you, particularly you younger couples who
have little children, to remember your responsibility before
the Lord.
And particularly you men, do not think like
the world.
Do not even think like some evangelicals that
it is the mother's duty to raise children.
It is not.
It is the father's duty to train up
the child in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord.
Abraham circumcised Isaac on the eighth day.
He had a faith that worked.
And so he performed the right in accordance
with the word of God, as God had
commanded him, we read.
And he was 100 years old when Isaac
was born to him.
Well, you're not surprised then that Sarah gives
us in verses 6 and 7 the first
cradle hymn of a mother's grateful joy.
God has made laughter for me.
Everyone who hears will laugh with me.
Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah
would nurse children?
Yet I have born him a son in
his old age.
It's rather interesting to know this, and some
of you may not know it, but when
the Virgin Mary sings the Magnificat, there are
expressions from that Magnificat that are taken from
the Greek translation of this chapter right here.
Evidence of the fact that Mary herself had
studied this chapter and had made some of
these things subjects of her own meditation.
And Luke further uses expressions from this chapter
in order to describe our Lord's growing.
When we read the child grew and was
weaned, the precise expression is used with reference
to the Lord Jesus in the Gospel of
Luke.
He grew.
He grew in wisdom and stature before men,
and there is a likeness between the seed
of Abraham, Isaac, and the seed, the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And so Sarah sings a kind of anthem
that's the prelude of the Magnificat of Mary.
And incidentally, you will notice too that she
did conceive, and she actually did nurse.
So it evidently is true that God had
rejuvenated her physically to such an extent that
she was one who could conceive, and she
did nurse her child.
You can see too that her faith is
of a more domestic kind.
And so she sings about how God has
made laughter for her.
When her laughter was the laugh of unbelief,
now she sees that it's really the laughter
of the joy of the fulfillment of the
promises of God.
But her bed is domestic and physical, and
that's natural because she's a woman.
And so she sings this hymn out of
thankfulness for what God has done for her.
I sometimes think the Christian life is like
climbing a mountain.
Texans would not know that too well.
Now I said this morning Texans would not
know this, but a Texan came up and
reminded me that there are 14 peaks that
are a mile or over in height in
the state of Texas.
That's what I was told.
So I believe it.
You know, when you climb a mountain, one
of the things that you notice as you
climb up, often you stop, take a good
look out over the land that you have,
that you're now able to see in order
to get a more beautiful, impressive vista.
And in the Christian life, it's very much
like that.
It's good at times to stop and take
a look over the past and see how
God has led you and directed you.
It's the occasion of praise and thanksgiving to
realize some of the things that the Lord
has done for us and to do it
at various times in your life.
Now then, the next section, verses 8 through
21, is the story of the expulsion of
Isaac for the birth of the expulsion of
Ishmael.
For the birth of Isaac is both a
happy event and for Abraham also a distressing
event.
In the East, incidentally, weaning lasted up to
three to five years of age.
It was the belief of many in the
East that the longer a mother nursed a
child, the stronger that child would be in
maturity.
And so occasionally, or often, children were nursed
until they were as old as five years
of age.
Now we will just assume that Isaac was
about three years of age, and so Ishmael
would be about sixteen at this time.
And we read in the eighth verse that
the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham
made a great feast on the day that
Isaac was weaned.
Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the
Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking
Isaac, whose name means laughter, is now the
subject not of holy laughter, but of, he
is the object of unholy laughter.
And Ishmael incidentally reveals the condition of his
heart, for it is an unbelieving heart, so
far as the promises of God are concerned.
And so the unbelief has led to envy.
Many have wondered what was in Ishmael's mind
when he mocked Isaac.
Some have suggested he looked over at that
little infant or that small child and said,
little helpless Isaac, a father of nations?
Impossible.
And being envious of the fact that he
was to be the heir, and he was
the firstborn, he mocked him.
There have been different Jewish interpretations of this
too.
Some have suggested he quarreled with Isaac about
the inheritance then, because does it not say
in verse ten, after the reference to mocking,
that Sarah said, drive out this maid and
her son, for the son of this maid
shall not be an heir with my son
Isaac.
So they must have been discussing the heirship.
And consequently that was the reason for the
mocking.
There is Jewish tradition to the effect that
this quarrel continued for a while, and that
Ishmael said to Isaac, come on out, let's
go out in the field.
I want to practice some target shooting with
my bows, with my bow and arrow.
And while he was pretending to engage in
target shooting, he shot arrows at Isaac.
That of course is not stated in the
word of God.
Still others have said, well it was just
the case of an older person being unhappy
that a younger person was going to take
his place.
Well we know that that is often the
case.
I read some time ago of the fire
department at Shelter Island, New York, some years
ago.
They had a group of old men who
were a volunteer fire department, but the boys
in the neighborhood also organized their own fire
department.
And so when the signal went out that
there was a fire in the community, both
of these fire departments rushed to the scene.
But the boys always beat the men and
usually had the fire put out by the
time the men got there.
And so the older men were very much
chagrined over the fact that these younger boys
beat them to the fire and put it
out before they got there.
Reminds me of some of the fire departments
I've known in the little towns in the
south.
They always arrive in time to damp down
the ashes.
But at any rate, so the older men
decided that there was a law that required
voluntary firemen to have disability insurance, and since
the kids couldn't have insurance, that put them
out of business.
It is difficult for older people to see
younger people come along and take their place.
Perhaps there was something of that in this.
But at any rate, it's evident that Ishmael
did not have the right attitude toward the
promises of God and so he mocked Isaac.
Now Sarah recognized the situation a great deal
before, a great deal of time before Abraham
did.
Drive out this maid and her son for
the son of this maid shall not be
an heir with my son Isaac.
Now someone has said this is an evidence
of unbelief on Sarah's part because had not
God said to her that Isaac was going
to inherit and consequently why is it necessary
for her to drive out Ishmael?
Well it may have been a measure of
unbelief but it also was an evidence of
some faith on her part because she did
recognize that Isaac was to be the heir.
Now the interesting thing about this ladies is
that Abraham, the great man of faith, fails
to grasp the essence of the situation.
In other words, the human affection that he
had for Ishmael blurs his spiritual instincts and
even his spiritual knowledge and consequently we read
the matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his
son.
So when she told Abraham to drive out
the child, the Lord speaks, don't be distressed
because of the lad and your maid.
Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her.
I must confess it almost sticks in my
throat when I emphasize it because I'm not
sure of the application of this man.
Notice what it says.
Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her.
I know what some of you say, how
can we help but listen to them?
But this means listen in the sense of
obeying this instance.
And so here is one instance in the
Bible when the man is to be in
submission to the woman.
Make whatever application you want to make about
it.
But it is clear that it is Sarah
who has understood the essence of the situation.
Now this of course is something over which
the Apostle Paul makes something in the fourth
chapter of the epistle to the Galatians and
we've already talked about that so I'll pass
that by.
The act of expulsion that follows is an
expression of prompt obedience in a very difficult
task.
And so Abraham, we have to admire his
faithfulness.
It was a faith that worked and so
he rose up early in the morning.
He took bread and a bottle of water.
He gave them to Hagar.
He put them on her shoulder, tenderly did
this, gave her the youth who may have
been a little sick or may have been
something of a weakling because he had to
live in the luxury of Abraham who at
this time was a man of means and
influence as we see in the latter part
of the chapter.
And gave the boy to the woman and
drove them out.
The remainder of that section is the story
of how man's extremity becomes God's opportunity and
God through the angel of the Lord delivers
the mother and child from the thirst that
might mean their death.
Luther contended that when God gives the promise
to Ishmael, I will make a great nation
of him and God was with the lad.
That what was meant by this was that
Ishmael was to be a clever and learned
preacher and that he established a church among
the pagans.
That's highly unlikely.
And furthermore when we read in verse 21
that his mother took a wife for him
from the land of Egypt, we are probably
to understand by that a further manifestation of
the different spirit that animated Hagar and Ishmael
from the spirit in spite of the failures
that manifested, that was, that animated Sarah and
Abraham.
The true nature of Ishmael is not revealed
until after the birth of Isaac.
That often is characteristic of the old nature.
It's when the new nature comes that we
really learn what we truly are of ourselves.
Well the final section of the chapter which
I just will comment upon in only general
terms has as its theme, someone has said,
friendliness with the ungodly.
Perhaps it might illustrate the uncertainties of the
life of a sojourner.
About 25 years ago the Southern Baptists had
their annual convention in Miami, Florida.
By Miami convention standards according to Time Magazine
it was a rather quiet crowd.
In fact the taxi driver grumbled in the
city that business was terrible.
He said, them guys came to town with
a ten dollar bill and the ten commandments
and they ain't busted one of them yet.
That may not be the precise way in
which we are to live among the ungodly,
but it is certainly true that Abraham was
a man who had a tremendous testimony.
And as a result of that Abimelech, the
king of Gerar desired to have a non
-aggression pact with him.
And the last of the chapter is the
recording of that non-aggression pact.
But Abraham complains about a well and later
on in the book of Genesis we'll have
something about that come before us in connection
with Isaac particularly.
The agreement is properly sealed with gifts and
finally at the end of the chapter a
commemoration is recognized and God is referred to
as the Lord, the everlasting God in token
of his faithfulness and his greatness.
Now let me conclude by saying this.
There are some great lessons in this chapter
and I wish it were possible to stress
them in detail.
Some lessons are, for example, the faithfulness of
God to his word.
We talked about that.
The superiority of the promises of God to
the flesh.
The divine electing grace which marks out Isaac
from Ishmael as the promised son.
And there is no reason for this other
than the sovereign good pleasure of God.
The apostle Paul in Romans chapter 9 makes
that point very strongly.
He says that before these, when he's speaking
about the twins that were born in this
same context, he said before they were born,
before they even had done anything good or
bad, that the promise of God according to
election might stand.
He said the older shall serve the younger.
Now in the case of Isaac and Ishmael
it was the same principle.
It was in Isaac shall the seed be
called and it was by the sovereign determination
of God in distinguishing grace.
You see the apostles learned their doctrines of
the grace of God from the study of
the scriptures.
If you were to say to them, well
they learned their doctrines by reasoning or by
a rationalistic approach to the Bible as some
like to say about people who believe in
the sovereign grace of God, you would not
be understanding the scripture correctly.
The apostle was a student of scripture.
He interpreted these passages from the Old Testament
and elicited from them, drew from them the
great doctrines that he proclaimed in chapters like
Romans 9, 10, and 11.
But amid all of these great doctrinal lessons
there stands out one lesson that I think
is even more important and that is the,
in this case, the weaning of Abraham.
One more weight must go from this man
of God.
The natural love must be subordinated to the
love of God in order that he might
be prepared for the great test of chapter
22.
After Hagar and Ishmael are disowned then success
comes for Abraham.
The pruning brings him finally to the kind
of trust in God that enables God to
say truly of him, Abraham is a friend
of God.
What's the purpose of the disciplines of life?
Well they are designed to bring us to
this trust in the sufficiency of the Lord
God.
They are also designed to stress the fact
that this world is not really our home.
That's something that we need to be reminded
about constantly.
In other words, Ishmael must be offered up
before Isaac.
This world is really not our home.
My dear Christian friend, Texas is not our
ultimate destination.
There's a great story which was told me
a number of years ago and I've mentioned
it before in Believer's Chapel.
I hope you won't mind if I repeat
it.
About 15 years ago I was in Pennsylvania
for some meetings at a place called Greenwood
Hills.
And there I had several conversations with a
man who had Scottish ancestors.
His name was John Martin.
And he was a much older man than
I and he told me a number of
interesting experiences among Christians of a generation previous.
And he told me one story that has
stuck with me through the years.
He said that many years ago in London
there was a contest in one of the
London newspapers over the best definition of home.
He said some of the answers that appeared
in the papers were, home is the place
where our stomachs get three square meals a
day and our hearts a thousand.
Not a bad definition or description.
Home is the place where we grumble the
most and are treated the best.
It's not bad either.
Home is where the play, home is the
place where the great are small and the
small are great.
That's good too.
Anybody who's had a home knows exactly what's
meant by that.
G.
Campbell Morgan, one of the greatest of the
Bible teachers of the last generation, in a
large meeting in London shortly after this contest
had appeared in the paper, although there was
no evidence that he had read any of
these definitions or knew anything about the contest,
before a large gathering said, I have the
best definition of home and I'm willing to
compare it with anybody's definition.
He said, home is the only place where
I feel at home.
And then he went on to add, I
frequently travel.
I travel all over the world as a
teacher of the word of God.
I reside in the homes of many Christian
friends.
I'm usually ushered in, I'm taken to my
room and then inevitably they will say to
me, Dr. Morgan, please make yourself at home.
But he said, I can never be at
home.
In the first place, I like to raid
the icebox before breakfast.
And he said, if I were to come
down and raid the icebox before breakfast in
your home, it would violate all the conventions
of your home.
Furthermore, he said, I like to sit before
the fire at night, take off my shoes
with my feet still in my stockings and
wiggle my toes right in front of the
fire.
He said, that would break all of the
habits of your home.
He said, I can never really feel at
home in your home.
And then he went on to say, Paul
was referring to this when he said, to
be absent from the body is to be
at home with the Lord.
Then he hesitated out over this vast audience.
There was a quad that fell.
And then Dr. Morgan said, since I've become
a Christian, this world is not my home.
That's true.
Since I've become a Christian, this world is
not my home.
And one of the things that God does
in the life of the believer is to
bring them to the place where they truly
realize that this world is not really our
home.
We're on the way to our home.
We're sojourners.
We're pilgrims.
This morning when I left and went out
of this door, one of the deacons came
to me.
Yes, it was a deacon.
Mr. Nixon came to me and he said,
did you know, and I didn't, did you
know that Benjamin Disraeli, in his mansion in
Britain, left off a large stone in the
cornerstone of his mansion?
And people ask him, why did you do
that?
And he said, I'm just a pilgrim here.
It just reminded him of the fact that
he was here only for a time.
You see, the experiences of life, my Christian
friend, are designed to prune us, to deliver
us from trust in flesh, trust in man,
trust in our own activities and our own
works of our own capacities, and lead us
to trust in him and in his faithfulness
to the promises of the word of God.
The experiences through which God has passed you
are designed to lead you to that.
This time, this life, is the weaning of
Isaac.
It's the weaning of Abraham.
It's the weaning of Lewis Johnson.
It's the weaning of those of you who
are believers in this audience.
That's what God is doing.
If you're here this morning and you have
never believed in our Lord Jesus Christ, well
then of course you don't really know what
it is to have a Heavenly Father who
cares enough for you to discipline you.
I recommend him and his discipline.
And through the Lord Jesus Christ and the
saving work that he's accomplished, the blood that
was shed, you may have everlasting life.
If God the Holy Spirit has brought to
your heart conviction that you are a sinner
and that you need salvation, deliverance from the
judgment that is to come, it is available
through the blood that was shed.
The forgiveness of sins may be yours this
morning.
And as I've so often said to you,
as an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ,
I appeal to you to turn from trust
in your own works, your own flesh, your
own activities, your church, your church work, your
good deeds, your education, your culture, whatever it
is you may have trust in, and trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ who has offered
the one atoning sacrifice through which you may
have everlasting life.
May God move you to come.
May you come into the family of God
and enjoy the disciplining and the love of
a Father who cares enough for us to
prepare us and fit us for eternity.
Come to Christ.
Trust him.
Receive the forgiveness of sins as a free
gift.
May we stand for them in addiction.
We are thankful to the Lord for the
experiences of life.
And as we have reflected upon the experience
of Abraham and Sarah and Ishmael and Hagar
and Isaac, we see in you the greatness
of the love that thou hast for us.
Oh God, may we be submissive to all
that thou art doing in our lives.
And may the result be glory to thy
name, our great triune God.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we worship thee.
We adore thy name.
And Lord, if there should be some here
who have not yet believed, oh God, move
in their hearts through the Holy Spirit, convicting
of sin, giving repentance and faith, and salvation
through Jesus Christ.
May grace, mercy, and peace go with us.
For his name's sake.
Amen.