Now, last time we saw in chapter 20
that Abraham and Sarah had to make confession
and put away that sin, which was a
habit that went back to an agreement they'd
made 25 years before that wherever they went,
that Sarah would say that Abraham was her
brother and not her husband.
And they had two very unfortunate experiences.
One was in Egypt, and this one in
the 20th chapter.
But this sin must be dealt with, confessed,
and put away before Isaac could be born.
Now in chapter 21, we have the birth
of Isaac.
Will you listen?
And the Lord visited Sarah as he had
said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as
he had spoken.
For Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son
in his old age at the set time
of which God had spoken to him.
Now you'll notice that there is a very
striking similarity between the birth of Isaac and
the birth of Christ.
And I believe that the birth of Isaac
is given to us for that reason, to
set mankind before Christ came this great truth.
Isaac was born at the set time God
had promised.
And Paul says in Galatians 4, 4, that
in the fullness of time, God sent forth
his son, born of a woman born under
the law.
Now I'm reading on here in Genesis 21,
verse 3.
And Abraham called the name of his son
that was born unto him, whom Sarah bared
to him, Isaac.
And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight
days old, as God had commanded him.
And Abraham was a hundred years old when
his son Isaac was born unto him.
And Sarah said, God hath made me to
laugh, so that all that hear will laugh
with me.
And she said, Who would have said unto
Abraham that Sarah should have given children suck?
For I have born him a son in
his old age.
And the child grew and was weaned.
And Abraham made a great feast the same
day that Isaac was weaned.
And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the
Egyptian, which was born unto Abraham, mocking.
Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this
bondwoman and her son.
For the son of this bondwoman shall not
be heir with my son, even with Isaac.
And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's
sight because of his son.
Now I break off the reading there at
verse 11 because here there are some very
remarkable truths that we need to lay hold
of.
First of all, the birth of Isaac was
a miraculous birth.
It was contrary to nature.
In the fourth chapter of Romans, Abraham did
not count his own body, which was dead,
nor yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
Now out of death, God brings forth life.
Now this is a miraculous birth.
And we need to call attention to this,
that God did not flash on the world
the birth of Christ, the supernatural birth of
Christ as being something new.
He began to prepare men for it.
And so way back here at the birth
of Isaac, you have a miraculous birth.
Now we find also here that God had
to deal with both of these, both Sarah
and with Abraham.
And we saw that in the last chapter.
God had to deal with them.
They had to recognize now that they could
do nothing, that it would be impossible for
them.
Abraham's 100 years old, Sarah's 90 years old.
In other words, the birth of Isaac must
be a birth that they have nothing really
to do with.
Now the coming of this little boy Isaac
into the home sure did produce a great
deal of difficulty.
Fact of the matter is, we find that
this boy that was the son of Hagar,
Ishmael, he was mocking.
And we begin now to see the nature
and the character of this boy Ishmael.
Up to this point, he seems to be
a pretty nice boy.
But now with the appearance of this other
son in the family, he really shows his
true colors.
That is an illustration, by the way, of
the fact that a believer has two natures.
Now until you're converted, you've got an old
nature, and that old nature controls you.
Do what you want to do.
Or as the popular secular song has it,
doing what comes naturally.
And what man does that comes naturally is
not always the nicest sort of thing.
But when you're born again, you receive a
new nature.
And when you receive a new nature, then
that's where the trouble always begins.
Paul could say in the 7th of Romans
that there was this battle going on between
the old nature and the new nature.
Paul could say, what I would not, I
do it.
That is, the new nature doesn't want to,
but the old nature wants to do it.
And the old nature is in control so
that the time comes when you have to
make a decision which one you're going to
live by.
You've got to make a determination, and that
is in this matter of yielding to the
Lord.
You have to either permit the Holy Spirit
to move in your life or else you
have to do it by the energy of
the flesh.
There's no third alternative for the child of
God.
Now, you have something that's quite interesting here.
The son of the bondwoman must be put
out.
That's exactly what we have here.
And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's
sight because of his son.
After all, Ishmael's his son just as much
as Isaac is, as far as the flesh
is concerned.
And after all, Isaac has just been born.
A little bitty baby doesn't know too much
about him yet, but this boy Ishmael has
been in the home there, and Abraham's attached
to him.
And the thing's very grievous if he's going
to have to send him away.
Now, again, I go back to the thing
we said at the time, that the thing
that Sarah and Abraham did, God did not
approve of it.
Now, this is a heartbreak to Abraham.
He's going to have to send this boy
away.
It's going to be a heartbreak to him.
But God can't accept him.
This sin is sin.
God just didn't approve of it.
And God doesn't intend to approve of it
at all.
It was a heartbreak to Abraham to send
that boy away.
And it was to relieve the embarrassment.
And poor Sarah just couldn't take it with
that boy around mocking her, this older boy.
You can't live in both natures.
You're either going to have to make a
decision.
James says a double-minded man's unstable in
all of his ways.
And that explains the instability, the insecurity among
many Christians today.
They want to go with the world, and
yet they want to go with the Lord.
They are spiritual schizophrenias.
They are trying to do both, and you
can't do that.
They have a race among the Greeks years
ago.
They put two horses together, and a man
puts one foot on one horse, one foot
on the other, and he starts out.
Well, that's a great race as long as
the horses are together.
But you and I have got two natures.
One's a black horse, and the other's a
white horse.
And when they take out, I tell you,
it's great if they go together.
But these two horses, you just can't hitch
them together.
They won't work together.
One goes one way and one the other.
And when they do, you and I have
to make up our mind which way we're
going, whether we go in with one horse
or with the other, with one nature or
the other.
And that's where we're told today to yield
ourselves.
Yield your members as instruments of righteousness.
And what the flesh could not do, or
the law could not do through the weakness
of the flesh, the Spirit of God can
now accomplish.
The law tried to get a hold on
man, but the old nature couldn't measure up
to it.
But now the Spirit of God can.
That is the great message that you find
here.
Then we're going to see something else that
took place here.
That the child grew, and he was weaned,
you'll notice.
And Abraham then made a great feast because
of that.
And that was the thing that this little
fellow did.
He first lived by feeding on his mother's
milk.
But there came a day when he has
to be weaned, and we're told today that
newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the
Word.
You see a little baby in the crib,
mama getting the bottle ready for him, and
everything in his entire body is working.
He's got his feet up in the air.
He's got his hands up in the air,
and he's yelling at the top of his
voice.
He wants his bottle.
As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of
the Word that you might grow, now there
comes a day when you really want to
grow up.
And instead of just reading Psalm 23 and
John 14, they are very wonderful.
But instead of just reading those two chapters,
then try going through the Bible.
Read the entire Bible.
Grow up.
Don't be a babe all the time.
So that we find this boy Isaac growing
along, and he's a real lesson for us
today.
And that is something that you and I
need to recognize.
Now, this does begin now to reveal the
character of the son of Hagar, Ishmael.
This is the nature that you'll see manifested
later on in the nation.
A nation that is antagonistic.
His hand is against his brother.
And that's been the picture of him down
through the centuries.
That has been the picture of him.
Now, there is something else for us to
note here that is quite remarkable.
And that is, in the birth of Isaac,
you have, as I've already suggested, actually a
comparison or a foreshadowing of the birth of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the birth of Isaac is that which
sets it before us.
And as we've said, God did not spring
on mankind all of a sudden the virgin
birth.
He had had several miraculous births before this.
The birth of John the Baptist was.
The birth even of Samson was.