All right, brethren, let's be
turning to Genesis chapter 21. Genesis 21. And I'm going to read our text
to begin. It's the first eight verses. 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. And Abraham called the name of
his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son
Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. Now
just pause there for a moment to take notice of how careful
Abraham was to do everything for this child that God had commanded
him to do. And this is the child of promise. This is the child of promise. And yet, it didn't make Abraham
careless. in regard to what God had commanded
him. He didn't say, well, it's going to be what it's going to
be. He actually was more careful to do everything that God had
said concerning this child of promise. And that's meaningful
to us, right? The Lord has promised us salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet we're not careless about
that. It should encourage us and make us the more diligent
in what we have heard and what our Lord tells us in putting
off the old man and putting on the new man. It should encourage
us and make us more diligent. Verse 5, And Abraham was an hundred
years old when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah
said, God hath made me to laugh. That's what the name Isaac means.
It means laughter. 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 borne 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. So Isaac's birth, it was a fulfillment
of God's promise made to Abraham and Sarah. This is the fulfillment
of the promise that God had made. And it was by miracle, a miracle
of God. And so this birth is much more
than a historical event about the history of the creation of
Israel. This birth foreshadows for us
the coming of the promised seed which is Christ. It foreshadows
the promised seed of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He would
do in redeeming His people and purchasing His people. When we speak about redemption,
we're talking about the payment of the price. Christ came and
paid the price of our redemption. He settled and satisfied the
justice of God by paying what we owed to that justice. Christ
satisfied that to purchase us, to take possession of that which
he purchased. You who are his people, who believe
him. Now, this morning, I want us,
in this hour, to look at Isaac's birth and see how it first foreshadows
the coming of Christ. We first see how this speaks
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, in the second hour,
we'll return and see the marks of the spiritual birth of the
Lord's people. We'll see how that pictures what
our Lord works in his people by a spiritual birth. So when
we're looking at this birth of Isaac, we're seeing a type, a
foreshadowing of a greater promise. We're seeing a foreshadowing
of the promise of Christ. And so what our God is doing
through the scriptures is he's setting our expectation. He's
setting an expectation in his people of what we should look
for in our redemption. You that look for redemption,
he's setting your expectation here. And there's a lot of lessons
that we can learn in Isaac's birth. As I said, we're going
to have two messages from this passage right here. But for this
hour, we'll focus on six things, six things that our Lord teaches
us between the birth of Isaac and the birth of Christ. Six
things. I'm going to go through them
because we may not get to all six if we run out of time, but
I'll say them here. First, we see that our God is
a God of promise. Our God is a God of promise.
And second, our God keeps his promises. He doesn't just make
them. He makes them and he keeps them. The third thing we see
is that with our God, nothing is impossible. Nothing's impossible. We believe God. We believe the
promises of God because with him nothing is impossible. And
fourth, we know that nothing's impossible because he's omnipotent,
meaning he's all powerful. Omni, all, potent, powerful. He's all powerful. And fifth,
we see that our God leaves nothing to chance. He is sovereign over
all things, all things, and he brings them to pass. And then
sixth, when we get through that, if it seems miraculous to you,
too wonderful to be true, the reality is it is a miracle. It's
a miracle of his grace for his people chosen in Christ, given
to Christ before the foundation of the world. And so why does
God do this? Why does he take so much time
in his scriptures to teach us these things? It's because He
is gracious and kind. He gives us this word to comfort
our hearts, our troubled hearts, and to settle us who are so worried
and so afraid and so scared about many things. Our God gives us
this word to comfort you that are troubled. to set your hearts
and minds at ease in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not in ourselves,
but in Christ, looking to him and trusting him. So first, from
this passage, we establish that our God is a God of promise. He's a God of promise. How do
we know this? Because the Savior himself is
the promise of God for a fallen, ruined people. Christ himself
is the promise of God for a fallen, sinful, ruined people. Immediately upon the fall of
Adam, it didn't take long at all, when Adam fell in sin in
the garden and he died spiritually, our God came that day, that day
and declared the promise to redeem his people, that very day. That
very day, he made promise to his people, and he said this
promise to those who heard it. What do I mean by that? Well,
he was speaking to the serpent. He was telling the serpent what
he was going to do. But it was not for the serpent's
benefit. It was for Adam and Eve, who
stood by and heard. who heard that word, a picture
of the hearing ear that the Lord gives to his people. It was for
those who heard the promise. And our Lord was speaking to
those whom he chose, to those whom he would be gracious and
merciful to. That promise is from Genesis
3.15. It says, and I will put enmity
between thee and the woman. That's a picture right there.
Who is this woman? Well, it's Eve. Yes, but who
does Eve picture? She pictures the church, a people
to whom God will be gracious, a people to whom he would save.
I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy
seed and her seed. And there's only one person who
is called the seed of woman, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He wasn't born of man's seed, because man's seed is corrupted. It's defiled, it's ruined in
sin. He's born of the woman when the
Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary. And it shall bruise thy head
and thou shalt bruise his heel. Showing us that he's not only
the promised child, he's the promised son. A son shall be
given. And so when we come to Isaac,
we're reminded here what the Lord is doing. He's repeating
this promise. It's a repetition of what he
promised in the garden. This is a picture in Isaac's
birth reminding us of that promise. Why? Because Isaac is a child
of promise. Isaac's a child of promise. This
didn't just happen, and God didn't just say, well, that's convenient.
I'll take him and make use of him. No, God purposed this according
to promise. Genesis 17, 16, the Lord said
to Abraham, I will bless Sarah and give thee a son also of her."
And then the Lord repeated it to Abraham. He repeated it in
Genesis 18 verse 10. And this time Sarah was there
and she heard it. She was sitting in the tent door.
And she heard it in the tent door, right? A picture of when
we hear the gospel, when we hear the grace of God in the heart,
which is open unto him by his grace and power. She heard it,
and the Lord said, I will certainly return unto thee according to
the time of life, and lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And so this promise was given,
and this promise was repeated, And the whole thing is a repetition
to show us that what the Lord had promised in the garden, he
would bring to pass. It's a continuation and a repetition
of the promise, which is why we preach the gospel. Every time
we come together, we preach and declare what God, what Christ
has accomplished for us graciously, because it comforts us. It keeps
us ever looking to him, trusting him, waiting for his return,
just as He promised to do. Keeps us looking to Him. And
so the promise of Christ, when we speak of that, it speaks of
our Savior. It speaks of our Redeemer. It
speaks of Him who would purchase us from death, who would come
and pay the required price to take possession of us, to deliver
us from death, and to give us life and hope and an expected
end. and in his inheritance because
of what he's done for us. And so another example of the
promise is in Isaiah. This is many years after Abraham. This is after Israel was founded
as a kingdom, and they had a king, and there were prophets coming,
and Isaiah was given this prophecy. The Lord himself shall give you
a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. And Matthew
tells us Immanuel means God with us. Because the Son of God, according
to promise, came in the flesh. And so he's repeating this promise
throughout history to show us that what he said he's going
to do, he does it. And it keeps us looking for redemption. And as Luke said, when these
things begin to come to pass, look up. Look up for your redemption. Lift up your head for your redemption
draweth nigh. And so he keeps repeating this
and keeps showing you these things are according to promise. And
then second, we see how our God is a God who keeps his promises. You that believe God, you that
wait upon him and look to him to fulfill his promise, he tells
us, you shall not be ashamed. What's that saying? Fool me once,
shame on me. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool
me twice, shame on me. Because we've learned that you
can't trust and depend upon people. If you do, you're going to be
ashamed. But with the Lord, you shall never be ashamed. Because he is the God who promises
and the God who keeps his promises. depend upon it. He keeps his
promises. Now we have a very different
sense of time and space than what God does. It has something
to do with our mortality and our inability to bring to pass
what we think should come. And we see this, we see this
right back in Eve. When Eve heard the promise, And
then she had a son. And it says in Genesis 4.1 that
Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain.
And the name Cain means possession. Possession. And said, I have
gotten a man from the Lord. She thought that in Cain, she
possessed the promised seed. And so confident was she in what
she thought, that she possessed that seed, that when Abel was
born, she named him Breath. You're just a vain breath, unnecessary. I've got the seed. I've got everything
I need right here in Cain. And so he was just a breath,
a vain vapor, totally unnecessary. But we know that that wasn't
true. His life proved to be a breath. His life proved to be over very
quickly when his brother Cain slew him. But she didn't possess
him in Cain. It actually came through Seth.
And that line is where the promised seed came through, in Seth. Now
listen, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some
men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that
any of us should perish, but that all of us, all his chosen
seed, should have life in him. And we should come to repentance.
And so we expect immediacy, but what the Lord shows us is that
these things don't come to pass as we think they should come
to pass. They come to pass as God purposes to bring them to
pass. So first of all, one of the things
that we see is with Isaac. You know, I read you a couple
of the promises when they were made in Genesis 17 and 18. But
the promise was first made in Genesis 12 when Abraham was still
back in Ur of the Chaldees. And the Lord visited him and
told him to get out of there. It was back there. It was Genesis
12, 7 says, the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, unto thy
seed, unto thy seed will I give this land. And there builded
he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. That was 25
years earlier. And so God gave promise and 25
years is when the promised seed was brought forth, when Isaac
was born. 25 years and in between all that
time we see through Abraham's journeys. And he even tried to
bring that promise to pass by committing adultery, by taking
another wife with Hagar, and having a son of the flesh, Ishmael. He tried to bring it to pass.
But that didn't stop God. God keeps his promises. That
didn't change or alter God's purpose and promise at all. didn't alter it at all because
he still brought forth Isaac. He still brought him forth. And
so we see there, just as Isaac took 25 years, it's to set that
expectation to wait upon the Lord to bring forth his promise.
It was 4,000 years from the promise in the garden till Christ was
born. 4,000 years passed before Christ
was born. It proved the faith of the brethren
then. His death was a test to their
faith, a trial of their faith. His resurrection proves our faith. It reveals those in whom the
Lord is gracious because he brings this word of promise. He declares
the good news, and He reveals and manifests those that are
His. He manifests those whom Christ
shed His blood for, because He reveals faith in them. He brings
them under the sound of the gospel, and He reveals that gospel to
them. He does all that work by His grace and mercy. And so believe
the Lord. He's the God of promise, and
He's the God who keeps His promise. Those who believe on him shall
never be ashamed. Never be ashamed. Third, our
God shows us that with him all things are possible. All things
are possible. Sarah, when she heard this promise
concerning Isaac, laughed. She laughed and said, shall I
surely bear a child which am old? And what did the Lord say
to her? Is anything too hard for the
Lord? You're old. You're dead. You can't do this.
Your womb is dead. But is anything too hard for
the Lord? And so what the Lord is showing
us here is that by nature, Sarah is a picture of what we are by
nature. We're an old man of flesh. We
don't believe God. We don't trust the things of
God. We're like Adam, who fled and ran from the voice of God.
Because as soon as we sinned, we died spiritually. We died
spiritually, and so we don't believe God, and we don't think
that God is, even if we're listening, we don't think God is able to
do anything except we give him permission to do it. or except
we cooperate in some way, or except we bring some offering
of our good works to the Lord. And Sarah thought that as well. She said, how am I? I'm old. Am I going to bring forth a child? Am I going to do that? She's
saying, without my ability, God's not able to bring to pass his
promise. That's what she's saying. I'm
too old. You can't do it. But the Lord showed, yes, I can.
And I will. I will keep my promise because
nothing is impossible for me. And that, brethren, gives me
great hope and great confidence because my salvation and your
salvation does not rest on you. It rests entirely on Christ. the promise of God, who came
just as God said he would come, and nothing, nothing is impossible
for him. We even see it in the birth of
Christ. Mary had to ask, how shall these
things be? How am I, a virgin, going to have a child? I don't
know a man. I don't know a man. And the angel said the same thing.
With God, nothing shall be impossible. So we see in Isaac's birth, The
same things we see repeated in Christ's birth, because He is
the promise that God has an eye on when He brought forth Isaac. He brought forth Isaac, and the
Lord is showing us here, salvation is not of man. We kid ourselves
that we think that we're real good cooperators with God. and
that he can only do things when we let him. That's a lie. It's
simply not true. It is a lie. God is able and
God does what he pleases, when he pleases, because with him,
nothing is impossible. If it depended on you and me,
it would not come to pass. It would not come to pass. Thank
God that he does not rely on us, but he put everything on
Christ. And so what he promises He is
able to bring to pass, and he does it. Fourth, the reason he
can do it is he's omnipotent. He's God. He's the El Shaddai
who appeared to Abraham, Almighty God. He's able. He's able. And so we see it. It's a small thing to us, but
it's a mighty thing. He named both Isaac, and he named
Christ. He told Abraham what to call
him. How did he know it was a son? because he gave him. He's the
son of promise. And so he told Abraham, thou
shalt call his name Isaac. Well, he did it again when Christ
was conceived. He went to Joseph and said, thou
shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sins. He's the God who names his people. He's the God who knows them,
because it's according to his purpose. It's according to His
purpose. And He is Almighty God, able
to bring to pass whatsoever pleases Him. And so that gives us great
confidence. Because more than Christ's birth,
it was what He did at the end of His life. The purpose of Christ
was to give His life a ransom for many. to lay down his life,
to pay that price, to propitiate holy God, to propitiate his wrath
from being poured out upon us and instead poured out upon Christ
so that he bore that price that we owe. He satisfied holy God. He satisfied the justice of God
that you who believe him, you who are needy sinners, You who
have no hope in yourselves might have hope in Christ. And that's
how we come to God, believing Christ. We come to God trusting
that Christ has provided everything, that holy, almighty God demands
of me. It's all given in Christ. And he draws us and brings us
to himself in peace. in grace, in mercy. And that's
why we look to Christ. That's why we believe Him, because
He's effected this grace in His people, in Christ. And He accomplished
that very work which the Father sent Him to do, to save His people
from their sins. Fifth, God leaves nothing to
chance. He leaves nothing to chance.
That's what I was saying about He doesn't leave anything to
us. He doesn't even say, I'll save you if you can believe on
me. We can't believe. You that believe,
it's of grace that you believe. You that have faith in Christ,
it's the gift of God that you have faith. It's not of this
flesh. Flesh doesn't save. They that
are in the flesh cannot please God, Romans 8. Is that Romans
8, 8, I think? But we can't please God. Christ
pleases God. And you that come to God in Christ,
that's pleasing to him. And that's the work of Christ.
That's what he affects in his people. He does not fail, and
he leaves nothing to chance. He doesn't put anything upon
you and I. What he requires, Christ has
worked and accomplished. And so he accomplishes salvation
in his people. All those fruits, all those things
that we must do, so to speak, it's all brought in us by Christ. It's all of his work and of his
power. And so in verse two, now we see
that he leaves nothing to chance and even the timing of their
births. was not left a chance. It was according to the purpose
of God. In Genesis 21-2, Sarah conceived
and bare Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which
God had spoken to him. At the set time. That is the
same language that's used to describe Christ's birth. Galatians 4.4, but when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman,
made under the law. And so sovereign God leaves nothing
to chance. Nothing is resting upon you to
do your part, otherwise God's helpless to save you. Thankfully,
he doesn't leave it to us. He put it all on Christ, and
Christ paid it all, satisfied it all. And so that accomplished
salvation continues to work powerfully and mightily in the hearts of
his people, taking us out of darkness, bringing us out of
death, and bringing us into light and life and liberty with the
sons of God. Ephesians 1 verse 10-11 says
that in the dispensation, this again shows the certainty of
our salvation, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also
we have obtained an inheritance. Whether you know it now or not,
if you're God's chosen child and Christ redeemed you with
his own blood, you're gonna know it. You're gonna know it in his
day of grace for you. Being predestinated according
to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will. And so every purpose of God is
fixed and he is never frustrated. We don't frustrate God. God has
his way with us and the sinner saved rejoices in him. We're
thankful for that. We're thankful that he's sovereign
and almighty. And it angers the flesh. It angers
the man of flesh because he wants to have some part in it. He wants
to glory in something that he has done. And so it pains him
to hear this, to rejoice in Christ alone, to glory in Christ alone.
But that's who the sinner saved glory is in, Christ and Christ
alone. He's all my salvation, all my
hope, all my joy is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the apostle
exhorts us saying, let us hold fast the profession of our faith
without wavering for he is faithful that promised. And that brings
us back to what we saw with Abraham. He was careful to do everything.
He named him Isaac, just like the Lord said to do it. He circumcised
him on the eighth day, just like the Lord said to him to do it,
because he was the son of promise. Well, God has promised us. So
go forth confidently, knowing that your God is working all
things to the praise and glory and honor of his name. Rejoice
in him and declare and look expectantly for what your God is doing for
his people. And then sixth, if this all seems
miraculous to you, it's because that's exactly what it is. It's
a miracle of grace that any of us should be saved. It's a miracle
of grace that any of us who are sinners, who are foolish and
careless in ourselves, who are creatures of flesh born of sinful
corrupt seed and atom, that God should be so gracious, so condescending,
so loving, so merciful to call us by His grace this good news
to tell us not what you need to do, but what Christ, His Son,
has done and accomplished for you. And through that word, by
his power, through his spirit, he works salvation. He circumcises
the ear. We'll hear that in the next hour.
He circumcises the heart. He breaks that death, that grip
of death and darkness that's upon us and delivers us out of
death and eternal death and ruin and brings us into the life and
light of Christ Jesus. And so The scriptures speak of
the deadness of Sarah's womb. They speak of the deadness of
Abraham. But when it pleases God, just
as Sarah received strength by faith which he gave to her, she
was delivered of a child. So when it pleases God, you that
have no life in yourselves, who are dead in trespasses and sins,
When the Spirit comes, there shall be a new birth, a new creature,
born and wrought of His glorious power, obtained by the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what we need, brethren,
and that's exactly what He's done. And you that believe Christ,
who hear these things and rejoice with Sarah this day in the promised
seed, rejoice, because flesh and blood hath not revealed this
to you, but our Father which is in heaven. Amen.