Let's turn now to Genesis, in Chapter 21.
Genesis, Chapter 21.
In our last study, we considered how this
heathen king Abimelech rebuked Abraham for telling him
a lie, and then we read that Abraham
prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and
his wife and his maid, Chapter 20, Verse
17, so that they bore children.
For the Lord had closed fast all the
wombs of the household of Abimelech because of
Sarah, Abraham's wife.
Then, we need to take notice of this
word, then, whenever it occurs in scripture.
When we read then, that means it was
a particular time.
And it says here, then, Chapter 21, Verse
1, the Lord took note of Sarah as
he had said, and the Lord did for
Sarah as he had promised for 25 years.
Abraham had held on to that promise, and
now it is fulfilled.
But it says then, and we can ask
when.
And the answer is, when Abraham prayed for
other barren women, his own barren wife conceived.
Then, the Lord answered prayer.
It is when we are concerned about the
needs of others, even when a similar need
is in our own home, and God sees
an unselfish concern for the needs of others,
then the Lord meets our needs.
We see that in Job 42, Verse 10
also, that the Lord turned the captivity of
Job when, when he prayed for his friends.
There is a principle here in scripture.
Then, the Lord took note of Sarah when
Abraham had just prayed that other barren women
would have children.
And that's perhaps the reason why many people
do not receive God's best, because they are
so preoccupied with their own needs.
You see the same principle in what Jesus
said in Matthew 6, Verse 33, that if
you seek God's kingdom first, instead of being
anxious about your own needs, you'll find that
your own needs get met automatically.
That is a principle in the kingdom of
God, which is foolishness to the natural man.
Because the natural man says, you've got to
take care of your own needs if you
want them to be met.
God says, no.
God says, you take care of my kingdom,
and I'll take care of your needs.
And this is the mark of faith.
To live by faith is to say, Lord,
I shall not worry about my needs.
I shall only be taken up with the
affairs of your kingdom, and my needs will
just get met automatically.
Whereas, the man of unbelief doesn't say that.
He says, I have to take care of
myself.
And that is how most Christians live, even
most believers.
And that is why you find some believers,
even after so many years, spiritually, they are
still immature.
And there we learn a lesson from Abraham's
life.
And we read in Verse 2, So Sarah
conceived and bore a son to Abraham in
his old age, at the appointed time of
which God had spoken to him.
There is an appointed time for the fulfillment
of God's will.
In doing the will of God, there are
two things we need to know.
One is, what is God's will?
And second, when does He want to do
it, or when does He want us to
do it?
It's as important to know the time as
it is to know what God's will is.
For example, when people speak God's will in
marriage, the person is important, and the time
is important.
Or, concerning any other event, if we can
believe that there is an appointed time for
what God has promised.
And then we read here, At the appointed
time of which God has spoken to him.
And that appointed time was twenty-five years
after God first told him that in his
seed all the families of the earth will
be blessed.
In Hebrews Chapter 6, we are told in
a commentary on this event, Hebrews 6, Verse
12, it says, Don't be lazy or sluggish.
And what is the mark of spiritual laziness?
Laziness in the kingdom of God is not
the same as laziness in the world.
A lot of people who are very active
in distributing tracts and visiting houses, they may
think they are not lazy, but in God's
eyes they may still be lazy, because spiritual
laziness is marked by unbelief and impatience.
And it says here, Don't be lazy, but
imitators of those who through faith and patience.
This is the mark of a person who
is freed from laziness.
He's got faith and patience.
In the New Testament, faith and patience are
the opposite of laziness.
Not just a lot of hard work.
Because it says here, Don't be lazy, but
have faith and patience.
In the world they say, Don't be lazy,
but hard-working.
In the New Testament it says, Don't be
lazy, but have faith and patience to inherit
the promises.
Don't be sluggish.
And then it quotes Abraham, when God made
the promise to Abraham.
It says in verse fifteen, Thus having patiently
waited, he obtained the promise.
And we know that that patient waiting was
for twenty-five years.
And that word of God says that Abraham
patiently waited.
We don't read that in the Old Testament,
but we know from this verse that in
all those years he patiently waited.
He didn't keep pestering God.
He patiently waited.
And he received the promise.
And it says, There is an example for
us to follow, that when you have laid
hold of God for something and you don't
get the answer tomorrow, there's no need to
get discouraged.
We're told to remember Abraham.
When many people seek for victory over sin,
they give up because they didn't get it
within one week.
Or they ask for something else.
They say prayer doesn't work because they expect
everything within two days or three days or
maximum a week or a month.
Abraham waited for twenty-five years.
And it says here, If you are not
willing to wait to receive what God has
promised, you are spiritually sluggish or lazy.
Spiritually lazy to lay hold of God and
wait until He grants the promise to you.
And so there is a fixed and appointed
time for everything that God has promised for
His people.
I believe there are many people who began
to seek for the baptism in the Holy
Spirit and who stopped out for a while
because they didn't receive it.
Spiritually lazy, sluggish.
No, there must be faith and patience to
lay hold of the promises.
At the appointed time when God has spoken,
He fulfilled that promise.
And God has a fixed time for everything.
And Abraham called the name of his son
who was born to him, whom Sarah bore
to him, Isaac, specified that Sarah bore to
him because in Hebrews 11, verse 11, we
read about Sarah's faith.
Hebrews 11, verse 11, By faith even Sarah
herself received ability or power to conceive, supernatural
ability to have a child even beyond the
proper time of life, since she considered him
faithful who had promised.
Now, this is the faith for God changing
a physical function inside the body.
Medical people would have written off Sarah and
said, No hope.
Please discharge her.
This is a condition that cannot be cured.
Her condition was, she wanted to have a
child and the doctor said, Please discharge her.
Hopeless case.
Cannot, impossible.
And then she had faith.
And it says, God, in the margin it
says, she received power for the laying down
of seed in her body.
That means she received a supernatural power by
faith to change a physical function within the
body, which all the doctors said is impossible.
That was because it was God's will.
And she had faith for that.
And we know that her faith was not
all that perfect that she never doubted.
In fact, at one stage, she even laughed
and wondered whether it would happen.
We needn't be discouraged if we have a
few ups and downs like that, provided we
lay hold of God.
We can also receive power from God in
situations where we may, where others may think
it's impossible.
So when we think of the faith of
Sarah and we read in the Old Testament,
we know it was not such a perfect
thing.
It was coupled with some unbelief.
But still she laid hold of God according
to her understanding.
And so there is an example for us.
It was not only Abraham's faith.
It was Sarah's faith too.
The New Testament tells us that.
And that's the wonderful thing, that both Abraham
and Sarah had faith despite their ups and
downs.
They laid hold of God, and therefore at
the appointed time, God could give them what
He had promised.
An example for husbands and wives today, to
trust God together, to lay hold of what
He had promised for them.
Then, verse 4, notice again, then, the word
then.
Abraham circumcised his son when he was eight
days old, as God had commanded him.
He doesn't forget that.
He doesn't get so excited over the birth
of Isaac, get so excited over something that
he'd waited for twenty-five years and he
finally got that he forgets to obey God.
No.
He's excited and thankful that God has done
something for him.
But he's also very exact to know that
his son must be circumcised.
He didn't forget that.
He didn't wake up on the ninth day
and say, oh, I forgot.
I should have done something yesterday.
See, I've come to see something about our
memory.
We tend to remember those things which we
value very much.
And we tend to forget those things on
which we don't place much value.
It's not really a problem with our memory.
It's a problem with the fact that we
don't place value on certain things.
For example, a man may give a promise
to someone.
But he may not take this matter of
giving promises seriously.
And therefore, he may completely forget about it.
It's not his memory.
There's a far more serious problem in his
life that he doesn't take the giving of
a promise seriously.
That's it.
He may blame his memory.
Abraham could have blamed his memory.
He says, I'm a hundred years old.
I forgot that the eighth day I should
have circumcised him.
It's the ninth or tenth day today.
No.
He remembered because that revealed to us that
he had a certain attitude towards obedience where
he knew this is very important.
If God said the eighth day, I can't
do it on the ninth.
I can't wake up on the tenth day.
I have to do it on the eighth
day.
In other words, it was in his mind.
In all the excitement of the childbearing, he
says, the eighth day, I've got to watch
for that.
There was an attitude towards God's commandments which
we see there in Abraham's life, which is
an example for us to follow in all
things, to take God's word very exactly.
And many people say they have a poor
memory.
I believe their memory can improve tremendously if
they only take certain things seriously in life.
For example, if the governor of Karnataka or
the chief minister were to say to any
of us, I want to meet you on
the, say, the thirteenth of this month, I
don't think any of us will forget it.
That's almost impossible.
Because that is a very important thing for
us, the thirteenth.
I'll be looking forward to the thirteenth.
But when it is some other thing which
I don't think is so important, I can
forget it.
And I believe that's a test of whether
we can say we value one another as
brothers and sisters.
But in these matters we know whether we
value one another or not.
If I value a brother and I have
said something, I would certainly try my best
to do what I have said or to
tell him that I am not able to
do it.
So I don't want anybody to get into
condemnation on this, but it's a good idea
to check up whether the problem is really
with our memory or whether that we take
so many things in life so lightly, like
the promises we give or the commandments of
God.
Abraham, on the eighth day, he circumcised exactly
as God had commanded him.
And that circumcision was the cutting off of
the flesh.
I believe it was also a testimony in
that sense that Abraham did not belong to
this world because at that time circumcision was
a covenant, sign of a covenant, which was
later on given to Israel, that you are
my people and not the people of the
world, like all the others in the world.
All the other people in the world were
not circumcised, but you are, because you are
a special people for me.
And that was the meaning.
And that is what we read in Hebrews
11 of the way Abraham lived during his
earthly life.
And that really came home to my heart
when I read it in Hebrews 11 and
verse 13, speaking about Abraham and Sarah, which
says, All these died in faith, without receiving
the promises, but having seen them and having
welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed
that they were strangers and exiles on the
earth, that they belonged to God, that they
were strangers and exiles on the earth.
So those who say such things make it
clear that they are seeking a country of
their own, and that was not Canaan.
Indeed, if they had been seeking, thinking of
that country from which they came out, that
is, Ur of the Chaldees, they would have
had opportunity to return.
If Abraham sat there and began to think
of his relatives and think of all the
other comforts he had given up in Ur
of the Chaldees, now he had to live
in a tent.
In Ur of the Chaldees he did not
live in a tent, he lived in a
mud building.
Or a solid, permanent building.
But he didn't think of all those comforts.
If he had, he would have had opportunity
to return, it says.
Speaking about Abraham.
That if there was some time in his
life Abraham had the attitude that Lot's wife
had, he could have packed up his bags
and gone back.
But he didn't do that.
But as it is, they desire a better
country, and essentially a heavenly one.
Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called
their God.
That is why he called himself the God
of Abraham, because Abraham sought for a country
that was above.
And that's why he called himself the God
of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
And he has prepared a city for them,
and that teaches us how God calls himself
by any believer's name.
When he sees that a certain believer really
does not have his interests on anything on
this earth, but is really seeking treasure in
heaven, God is not ashamed to be called
the God of that believer.
And circumcision was, in one sense, testimony to
that fact, that they were an exclusive people,
separate from the rest of the world.
Genesis 21.5, Abraham was a hundred years
old when 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 have
born 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.
And that must have been a few years.
And then we read that Sarah saw the
son of Hagar, the Egyptian, which is Ishmael,
whom she had born to Abraham, mocking, laughing
at Isaac.
Maybe, you know, Isaac may have been just
a small boy, and Ishmael was at least
thirteen, fourteen years older than Isaac.
Amazing that a boy of eighteen or nineteen
should be teasing his five-year-old younger
brother.
And yet that's what he was doing.
He should have been ashamed of himself, that
he's so old and he's teasing this little
five-year-old boy.
And there is a picture of the conflict
between the flesh and the spirit.
Ishmael mocks Isaac.
That which is born according to the flesh
mocks that which is born according to the
spirit.
And that which is born according to the
flesh is a young, strong, hefty, nineteen-year
-old man.
And that which is born according to the
spirit, according to the eyes of the world,
is a weak, helpless thing.
And yet God is with that little boy,
and not with this mighty, hefty young man.
The conflict between the flesh and the spirit.
And therefore she said to Abraham, Drive out
this maid and her son, for the son
of this woman, of this maid, shall not
be an heir with my son Isaac.
See, there was no conflict until Isaac was
born.
And that is a picture of the fact
that there is no conflict in our life
till we are born again.
It's only after we are born again and
something of God comes into us that this
conflict begins between the flesh and the spirit.
It is also a picture of the Old
Covenant and the New Covenant.
Ishmael is a picture of the Old Covenant,
which came first, but which is abolished, cast
out, as Ishmael was cast out.
And Isaac is a picture of the New
Covenant, which is born not by the strength
of man, but by faith in the supernatural
working of God.
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 will be named,
and of the son of a maid I
will make a nation also, because he is
your descendant.
So Abraham rose early in the morning.
Notice the immediacy of Abraham's obedience, the immediate
obedience that there was in Abraham's life.
God spoke to him at night, and he
got up in the morning and he obeyed.
That seems to be a characteristic of Abraham's
life.
We said before how when God speaks something,
if a person has to think about it
for a week before he obeys, usually it
never goes well with such a believer.
You find that all through his life that
believer will be like that.
He'll take one week or one year to
obey God.
But you see an attitude in Abraham that
when God spoke something at night, early in
the morning, he was immediate to obey.
That's what made Abraham the man of faith
that he became.
He rose early in the morning, took bread
and a skin of water, and this was
painful.
Remember, it's not easy to send away your
firstborn son knowing you'll never see him again
for the rest of your life.
He gave them to Hagar, put them on
her shoulder and gave her the boy and
sent her away.
And she departed and wandered about in the
wilderness of Beersheba.
When you turn to Galatians 4, verses 21
-31, you read there a New Testament commentary
on this Old Testament incident.
Galatians 4, verses 21-31.
He's contrasting the Old Testament with the New
Testament.
And he's not writing to Jews, he's writing
to born-again believers who have received the
baptism in the Holy Spirit, and he's telling
them something.
The letter to Galatians teaches us one thing,
that Spirit-baptized, born-again believers can live
under the Old Covenant.
In fact, the vast majority of Spirit-baptized,
born-again believers today are living under the
Old Covenant.
They haven't understood grace.
They haven't understood the New Covenant.
And here, Paul says, through the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, tell me, he says, you
who want to be under the Old Covenant,
don't you listen to what the Old Covenant
says, or what is written in the Old
Testament.
What is written in the Old Testament?
He says it is written that Abraham had
two sons.
One by the bondwoman, Hagar, and the other
by the free woman, Sarah.
You know that Hagar was a slave, that's
why she's called a bondwoman.
And so he says the Old Covenant is
like that, it always leads to bondage.
When you're married to the law, it's like
Abraham being married to Hagar.
That's a wrong marriage.
But the son by the bondwoman, verse 23,
was born according to the flesh.
According to the flesh means with Abraham's own
strength.
He accomplished something, he produced the Nishmael.
But the son by the free woman was
not born through Abraham's strength, because Sarah could
not have a child.
It was the supernatural working of God.
And if we can understand something here, that
the difference between the Old Covenant and the
New Covenant is this.
The Old Covenant is what we can do
naturally.
Abraham, without any help from God, could produce
a son through Hagar.
The New Covenant is what is done supernaturally.
That is what we cannot do in our
own strength.
God mightily enables us.
Sarah had faith to do something in her
body when everybody had written her off as
a hopeless kid.
That is the New Covenant.
And if in our life we are accomplishing
only what can be done naturally, we have
to check up whether it is the Old
Covenant.
I've heard of Buddha, that there was a
time when somebody came and irritated him and
he told a man something like this, he
said that, You can't make me angry.
If you had come to me ten years
ago, you could have made me angry.
Today you can't make me angry.
Think, that Buddha, you couldn't make Buddha angry.
You couldn't irritate him.
He didn't have the Holy Spirit, he wasn't
a believer, but you couldn't irritate him.
The man had practiced self-control to such
an extent that he managed to overcome anger
and irritation, which you and I know is
so difficult to overcome.
He had no life, but he was wholehearted
about overcoming anger.
I'd say he was more wholehearted than 99
% of believers.
Though he went about it the wrong way,
but that was an ishmael.
It looks like the real thing.
Hinduism has got that.
Yoga has got that.
Counterfeit.
That which by my own strength I have
accomplished.
But what Jesus does in us through the
New Covenant and the Holy Spirit is far
superior, not inferior, superior to what Buddha had.
Not only can you not make me offended
and angry with you, I won't even have
that attitude inside of me.
It's a total death.
Very few are wholehearted enough to enter the
New Covenant.
We speak about wholehearted believers, and when we
think of a whole lot of believers as
wholehearted, it usually indicates the low level of
our own wholeheartedness that we think of so
many believers as wholehearted.
I've heard people say, so-and-so is
a wholehearted person.
Yeah, that's a pretty good indication of that
person's own level of wholeheartedness, that he thinks
somebody else is wholehearted.
Very few are really wholehearted.
A wholehearted person is one who comes to
victory over sin, not one who continues to
be defeated by it.
There's a lack of wholeheartedness when a person
is continually defeated.
It says here, the son by the free
woman is through the promise, and that teaches
us of the New Testament, the New Covenant
that promises us the divine nature, that promises
us that sin will not have dominion over
us.
He says this contains an allegory.
In other words, he's saying that Ishmael and
Isaac are a type.
Hagar and Sarai are a type.
These women, Hagar and Sarai, are two covenants.
One proceeding from Mount Sinai, the Old Covenant,
bearing children like Ishmael, who are to be
slaves.
This is Hagar.
And this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia,
corresponding to the present earthly Jerusalem, which is
venerated by the Jews, and she is in
slavery with her children.
That means all the Jews and all those
who have lived under the Old Covenant are
in slavery.
But the Jerusalem which is above, we know
from Revelation 21 that that is the bride
of Christ.
He says she is our mother, like Sarah
was the mother of Isaac.
She is our mother, for it is written,
this is from Isaiah 54 and verse 1,
Rejoice, barren woman, Sarah, who does not dare.
Break forth and shout, you who are not
in labor, that is Sarah, for more are
the children of the desolate than are the
one who has a husband.
And you, brethren, like Isaac, are children of
the promise.
Not children of the flesh, but children of
the promise.
But as at that time he who was
born according to the flesh persecuted him who
was born according to the spirit, so it
is now also, he says, the Jews will
persecute the Christians, and those who are fleshly
-minded Old Covenant Christians will always persecute and
call as heretics those who proclaim the New
Covenant and who seek to enter into the
New Covenant.
That's not surprising, that Christians who live according
to the flesh will persecute the Christians who
live according to the spirit.
And the Christians who live according to the
flesh are like mighty 19-year-old Ishmael,
and the Christians who live according to the
spirit are like weak 5-year-old Isaac.
It's always like that.
But what does the Scripture say?
The Scripture says, cast out the bondwomen and
her sons.
God doesn't accept them.
Cast out the people who live according to
the Old Covenant.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that it's not just about
living according to the Old Covenant?
For the son of the bondwoman shall not
be an heir.
A Christian who lives according to the Old
Covenant shall not be an heir with Christ,
with the son of the free woman.
So then, brethren, we are not children of
a bondwoman, but of the free woman.
It is for freedom, chapter 5, verse 1,
that Christ set us free.
Therefore, keep standing firm, and do not be
subject again to a yoke of slavery.
Slavery to sin, or slavery to some earthly
so-called Christian tradition, or slavery to anything.
Jesus Christ has come to set us free.
And yet multitudes of Christians are enslaved to
sin, enslaved to traditions, enslaved to fears, enslaved
to superstitions, all types of things.
They don't know what it is to be
free.
And so that's what we learn from Genesis
chapter 21, that God has called us to
freedom.
And it is not surprising if those who
are according to the flesh persecute those who
are according to the Spirit.
God's word calls us to cast out that
Old Covenant, and to open our hearts to
the New Covenant, to live according to God's
promise, and not according to our own strength
after the flesh.
Genesis 21.
We read here about Hagar and Ishmael.
The water in the skin, verse 15, was
used up, and she left the boy under
one of the bushes.
And she went and sat down opposite, saying,
Don't let me see the boy die.
And she sat opposite him and lifted up
her voice and wept a second time.
The first time was earlier in Genesis 16.
And again God heard the lad crying, and
the angel of God appeared 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.
He knows every detail of what is happening
to us.
He hears every crying, even from someone like
Hagar and Ishmael.
Arise, lift up the lad and hold him
by the hands and see the statement God
made to Hagar.
I will make a great nation of him.
Do you know why the Arabs have so
much power and so much oil and so
much money?
It's because God said so.
Otherwise they'd never have it.
It was just because Ishmael happened to be
a child of Abraham.
God said, All right, for Abraham's sake I'll
bless him, not spiritually, materially.
All the holy material blessings that God can
give to descendants, he can't.
Spiritual blessing we have to receive individually.
But material blessing God may give to a
child because the father was God-fearing.
And so Ishmael's seed has become a great
nation just like God said today.
Everything is there in God's word.
Verse 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.
There's a lesson there for us from Hagar.
When Hagar was discouraged, saying, There is no
water, God has forsaken me.
Just nearby was the answer to her prayer.
Think of that.
Very often when you're discouraged, all you need
to ask is God to open your eyes
and the answer to your prayer is very
near.
We need not be like Hagar.
We need not give up hope and get
discouraged.
Ask God to open your eyes.
The answer to your prayer is very near.
She didn't even have to walk.
There where she sat opposite the child, right
there she was discouraged and fed up and
all she needed was, she didn't even have
to walk, she had to just open her
eyes.
She saw a well.
God didn't create that well all of a
sudden.
No.
He doesn't say God created a well there
in the desert all of a sudden.
The well was already there.
God just opened her eyes to say, There's
no need to be discouraged and keep on
asking me.
The answer is right here.
Why are you getting discouraged?
There's a well of water.
You don't have to die.
What a lesson.
How very often when we think God is
not with us and he doesn't care, the
answer is so close at hand.
Verse 20, And God was with the lad,
and he grew, and he lived in the
wilderness, and he became an archer, and he
lived in the wilderness of Theron, and his
mother took a wife for him from the
land of Egypt, because she came from Egypt.
It came about 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.
Before I want to go on to that,
I just want to mention one thing.
You see, I wonder if we were in
God's place, whether we would have blessed Ishmael
and Hagar.
We see something of the tremendous mercy of
God there, that even that child that was
born out of Abraham's failure, God blessed.
God's heart is so much bigger than we
can imagine.
There's a largeness in God's attitude towards people.
We are all so narrow-minded, so narrow
-hearted.
God's heart is large.
He can bless many people.
And He blesses many people today who are
not wholehearted.
Of course, He can't bless them spiritually.
He still blesses them materially.
They're foolish if they think that is everything.
But God is so kind in these earthly
matters towards people whom we wouldn't think should
be shown any kindness.
That which came out of Abraham's failure, God
is merciful.
And Abimelech comes to Abraham in verse 22
and says, God is with you in all
that you do.
How did he know that?
It's a tremendous thing if somebody can come
to us and say, Brother, God is really
with you.
They had seen that this man had trusted
God and changed his name to a father
of a great multitude, and they laughed at
him for a long time, and all of
a sudden they found the possibility of a
great multitude coming up when they saw his
son.
They said, Boy, this man, he really has
received what he confessed to all this time.
That was a tremendous miracle because it was
a well-known fact around there that Sarah
was barren, and he had heard of the
birth of Isaac and recognized that God was
with Abraham.
He says, Now swear to me by God
that you will not deal falsely with me
or with my offspring or with my posterity.
According to the kindness I have shown you,
you shall show to me.
And Abraham said, I swear it.
But Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well
of water which the servants of Abimelech had
seized.
And Abimelech said, I didn't know about this.
Now there's something about this we notice here.
See, Abimelech's servants had obviously seized that well
of water from Abraham's servants quite some time
ago.
They must have come and told Abraham that
Abimelech's servants have seized that well of water
which belongs to us.
And think that Abraham didn't go and kick
up a fight with Abimelech.
He just left it.
He says, If God wants me to have
it, maybe one day I'll meet Abimelech and
I'll be able to talk to him and
I'll get the well of water.
Think of an attitude like that.
And one day, sure enough, Abimelech comes along
and says, God is with you.
And Abraham has the opportunity to tell him,
Yeah, I just thought I'd tell you about
this well of water that some months ago
your servants had taken.
He says, I didn't know about it.
And they made a covenant and Abimelech returned
that well of water.
There's a lesson there for us in situations
where we have a tendency to go and
fight with someone for some right of ours.
Like Abraham, we can trust God and say,
Lord, I don't want to go and kick
up a fight about that earthly thing.
If it's your will, one day I'll get
an opportunity and I'll be able to talk
to that person in a peaceful atmosphere.
If you want me to have that well,
I'll get it.
God's got control over everything.
He can make Abimelech come around to you.
That's easy, easy for God to do that.
And you can find applications for that situation
in different situations in life.
Don't go to kick up a fight.
That's the basic principle.
And then Abraham made a covenant there.
In verse 31, they called that place Beersheba,
because the two of them took an oath
and they made a covenant.
And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree, verse 33,
at Beersheba.
And sure enough, he wants to thank the
Lord.
Lord, thank you that you brought that well
back for me without my having to make
a fight there.
He called on the name of the Lord.
We see from all this that Abraham was
basically a peace-loving man.
He would not fight with people, even if
somebody grabbed his well.
And you know, a well was a very
important thing in those days.
It was a source of supply of water,
which meant so much for families, for hundreds
of servants that he had, for so much
cattle.
A well was a very important thing.
It was not just a luxury.
You could say it was a necessity.
But he would not fight over it.
He just moved away peacefully.
And you read later on that Abraham had
a son called Isaac.
In Genesis 26, you see that Isaac behaves
in exactly the same way.
Where did he learn to behave like that?
From his father.
He saw that his father never fought for
wells.
Isaac grows up and he doesn't fight for
wells.
What an inheritance Abraham gave Isaac.
Chapter 22.
Another phrase.
It came about after these things.
And when you see a statement like then
or after these things, we must ask ourselves,
after which things?
After Abimelech came to Abraham and said, brother,
God is with you.
And Abraham was just about ready to turn
up his collar and to think, yeah, I'm
really the man of God in these parts.
The prophet, even the king recognized that.
God said, okay, we got to give you
a little test now, so that you don't
get any high thoughts about yourself.
God is so faithful.
Have you had that experience?
If God loves you, I'm sure you've had
it.
If you've gone through some situation which has
tended to puff you up, and sure enough
God's lined up something for you soon after
that to deflate you, so that you don't
lose your salvation.
I've found that many times.
I say, thank you, Lord.
You are so good.
So good.
After these things, God tested Abraham.
He says, well, I'm not particularly bothered about
Abimelech's testimony.
I'd like to find out what you're really
like.
And it's interesting that that test comes after
Abimelech's statement that God does not care about
Abimelech's testimony.
Do we know that?
That any man, say some older brother has
come to you and says, brother, God's really
with you.
Like a fool, you took that so much
to heart, that you've thought about it for
years after that.
You need to read this verse.
But we read here that God, Abraham, passed
that test too.
And that's the wonderful thing.
It's not Abimelech's testimony that counts, it's God's
testimony.
And you find in chapter 22, God gave
a testimony about Abraham, and that is the
only thing that matters.
And the contrast you see there, between Abimelech's
testimony and God's testimony, one is worth nothing.
You can throw it in the garbage pit.
God tested him, and Abraham passed the test.
Abraham, he said, here I am.
And he said, now take your son, your
only son, because you've already obeyed me and
sent away your other one, you've got only
one son now, whom you love.
Go to the land of Moriah, and offer
him there as a burnt offering in one
of the mountains of which I'll tell you.
This is more difficult than sending him away.
Sending away Ishmael is one thing, but to
kill your own son with your own hands
is quite another thing.
God leads us on to greater tests than
we have passed in the past.
And in chapter 11, God had to separate
Abraham from his father.
You know, his father died, and then Abraham
moved on.
In chapter 22, God has to separate Abraham
from this inordinate attachment to his son.
And there's a lesson there for us.
We know that God was testing a number
of things here.
He was testing Abraham's faith, his obedience, his
fear of God.
His wholehearted love for God.
Everything was tested in this one act, as
we can see.
Think of one thing, and that is that
he was testing whether God was first in
Abraham's life.
Is there something other than God that you
value?
Maybe your son Isaac.
Do you value him more than me, so
that when I tell you to do something,
you love your son so much that you
can't do it?
That can happen.
God says something, and a person loves his
father and mother so much that he can't
obey God.
Or he loves his brother and sister so
much that he can't obey God.
Or he loves his wife so much that
he can't obey God.
Or she loves her husband so much that
she can't obey God.
Or they love their children so much that
they can't obey God.
We can say that Isaac was Abraham's favorite
son.
He had only one son, and that is
the darling of his heart.
And we are tested concerning the darlings of
our heart.
If you have children, and one of them
is the darling of your heart, be honest.
Many parents are foolish in this area.
One of their children is the darling of
their heart.
And because of that one, their parents cannot
be disciples of Jesus Christ.
I have seen that so many times.
And I have also seen that people have
heard these exhortations, and they still are not
able to cleanse themselves from this inordinate attachment
to one of their children more than to
the others.
So they get stuck in Genesis 22, verse
1.
Never go beyond that.
They are stuck there.
We ought to be free, brothers and sisters,
from inordinate attachment to anything or anyone.
And that which we value the most is
the one we are attached to, which we
need to cut.
God didn't ask Abraham to kill Ishmael, but
He asked him to kill Isaac.
Think of that.
Yeah, there is a lesson there for us.
What does Abraham do?
Great man that he was, without any exhortation,
without any challenge.
Verse 3.
He rose early in the morning.
The same old habit.
It is a habit.
This fellow who took six months to obey
God twenty years ago, even today he will
take six months to obey God in something.
This fellow who rose up immediately and obeyed
God twenty years ago, today also he rises
up immediately and obeys God.
It is a very dangerous thing when you
converts are slow in obeying God.
When you hear the truth and you are
slow to respond, the chances are all your
life you will be like that.
Be quick.
Don't discuss.
He didn't even discuss it with Sarah.
Sarah may have given another opinion.
He just rose up in the morning and
went on.
He said, I have got to do what
God says.
There is no need to discuss with my
wife whether it is a reasonable thing or
not.
It sounds so unreasonable.
It is 100% against reason to kill
your own son.
Isn't that against reason?
If there is anything which is 100%
against reason, it is this, to kill your
own son.
No, he lived by faith, not by reason.
And he saddled his donkey and took two
of his young men with him and Isaac
and he split wood for the burnt offering
and rose and went to the place which
God had told him.
God had told him to go to the
land of Moriah.
And it says on the third day Abraham
raised his eyes and saw the place from
a distance.
Have you ever wondered why God didn't tell
Abraham just to sacrifice him around the corner
or in some place one mile away?
Three days he had to walk.
Three days for many reasons.
And I believe one reason is God wanted
Abraham to think about it.
Sit down and count the cost.
Or while you are walking, count the cost.
For three days you can think about it
and you can turn back.
See, God doesn't want this.
He wants obedience instantaneously, but he doesn't want
us to act without counting the cost.
He says, think about it.
Think about what you are going to lose
if you follow me.
There are many things in life that you
cannot do.
Many comforts that you cannot have.
Many pleasures that you cannot have.
Many people including your own relatives whom you
will have to offend and hurt.
Think about it.
Don't rush.
The people who rush without thinking are the
people who rush back also in some time
of difficulty or testing or persecution.
But the people who count the cost and
say, Lord it's worth it, they are the
ones who stick it out till the very
end.
So God gave Abraham three days to think
about it.
And every time I can imagine Abraham must
have said, I can't understand it, but it's
worth it to obey God.
It sure is.
And it says here, on the third day
Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place
from a distance.
And Abraham said to his young men, stay
here with the donkey.
I and the lad will go up to
this mountain.
And we, we, I and the lad, will
come back.
We are just going to worship and we'll
come back.
This is the first place in the Bible
where the word worship comes.
People talk about worship meeting.
Abraham had a worship meeting.
But it wasn't the cheap frothy thing that
is conducted in charismatic circles.
Abraham didn't go there just to clap and
dance on the mountain top.
That would have been easy.
He says, we are going to worship.
What was worship first time in the Bible?
Giving up that which was most dear to
him.
Saying, Lord, I love you more than even
that.
That is worship.
And there are very few people who live
in that spirit of worship.
It is a fantastic counterfeit that the devil
has called worship today.
He'll just make people clap their hands and
jump around a bit and sing a few
jumpy choruses and say, we had a worship
meeting this morning.
Garbage!
They may have thanked the Lord, but that
was no worship meeting.
Compare that with Abraham, with a pain in
his heart, loving his child, going up and
saying, I'm going to kill him to prove
that I love God more than my son.
That is worship.
When you've gone through experiences like that, where
we've given up to God that which is
most precious to us.
We've been willing to hurt a father and
mother who has loved us so much, because
we want to obey God.
That's worship.
When everybody else is going around pleasing them.
When we stand up for the truth when
it hurts people whom we love so dearly.
That's worship.
How many people worship like that?
How many people are willing to give up
something which is so precious to them?
That is worship.
When nothing on earth has any value for
me, when your job doesn't have any value
for you, when your profession, your education doesn't
have any value for you, but God is
everything, then you are a worshipper.
And Abraham says, he says, I and the
lad will go yonder and we will both
worship and we will both return.
How did he say that?
How did he say that we will both
return when he knew that he's going to
sacrifice him on top of the mountain?
It's a very interesting question.
We say, well, he must have been just
bluffing.
He wasn't bluffing.
Hebrews 11 says he was speaking in faith.
Turn to Hebrews 11, verse 17 to 19.
It says, Abraham, when he was tested by
faith, Abraham, when he was tested, Hebrews 11,
17, offered up Isaac, and he who had
received the promises was offering up his only
begotten son.
It was he to whom it was said,
in Isaac your seed shall be called.
How can my seed be called in Isaac
if he's going to die?
He considered, here is where his faith comes,
that God is able to raise men even
from the dead.
Do you know the first person who had
faith in the resurrection?
Abraham.
He had faith that God can raise somebody
from the dead.
Has God raised anybody from the dead up
till now, Abraham?
No, he hasn't done that yet.
I haven't heard of anybody being raised from
the dead yet.
Abraham says, but I believe God can raise
people even from the dead.
From which also he received him back as
a type.
In other words, virtually Isaac was dead when
he laid him on the altar.
And in a sense he got him back
from the dead.
That's why he told the servant, we'll come
back.
I'm going to kill Isaac up there, but
God has to raise him from the dead,
because God has said that in Isaac my
seed will be called.
So maybe I'll kill him and God will
raise him up.
Because Isaac, my seed has to be called
in Isaac.
God has said that.
He was so sure that what God has
said he has to do.
Fine, we'll go along and we'll come back.
Genesis 22, verse 6, and Abraham took the
wood of the burnt offering and laid it
on Isaac, his son, and he took in
his hand the fire and the knife.
The two of them walked on together.
And you can imagine all that is going
on in Abraham's heart at this time.
The pain, the struggle.
And he's saying, Lord, it's worth it.
It's worth it.
I'll obey you.
If we have been through that, we can
know.
Lord, I'll obey you.
I'll put you first.
And Abraham took the wood and they walked
together and Isaac spoke to Abraham.
This must have been so painful when he
asked Abraham this question.
My father, here I am, my son, he
said.
Behold the fire and the wood, but where
is the lamb for the burnt offering?
And Abraham must have choked back the tears
when he replied, God will provide himself the
lamb for the burnt offering, my son.
So the two of them walked on together.
Then they came to the place which God
had told him.
And Abraham built the altar there and arranged
the wood and bound his son Isaac and
laid him on the altar on top of
the wood.
And Isaac was a grown man.
He wasn't a young boy, because it says
here in verse six that Abraham laid the
wood, all that wood, on Isaac's shoulder.
He couldn't have been a little boy that
Abraham put all that wood on his shoulder.
If Isaac was going to carry all this
wood up the mountain, he must have been
in his twenties, perhaps twenty-five year old,
strong, hefty young man.
And when Abraham ties him on the altar,
verse nine, he binds Isaac on the altar.
Isaac could have resisted, but he doesn't.
There we see a picture of a submissive
son, of the way Abraham had brought up
his son, that when he puts him on
the altar at the age of twenty-five
and says, Isaac understands now that there's no
lamb, I'm going to be killed, he submits.
It's fantastic.
Just like God said, I know Abraham will
command his household after him.
It's tremendous, brothers and sisters, if we fathers
can produce children like this, that at the
age of twenty-five, we tie them down
to an altar to kill them and they
just say, that's fine, Dad, I trust you.
Tremendous.
Tremendous if we can be fathers like that.
And Abraham stretched out his hand to kill
him and immediately the angel stops him and
says, Abraham, Abraham.
We can stop there, we know that God
saved Isaac from that death, but we can
learn something about Abraham's attitude.
He raised his hand, there was a knife
coming down to kill him and God stops
him.
This was no play acting, he wasn't pretending,
hoping that at the last minute God would
say no.
No, Lord, I love you and I approve
it.
I believe there are many, many things in
this chapter that we could learn from Abraham.
His instantaneous obedience, his faith that God has
to keep his word, his fear of God,
his not consulting his reason or anybody else,
exactness in his obedience, going where God told
him to go, counting the cost, putting God
above his own son, giving up that which
is dear, a son brought up to learn
obedience.
Let's pray that God will give us grace
to follow in his footsteps.