to Genesis Chapter 21. And just
remember, if you haven't made arrangements to get your picture
taken, that sort of thing, make sure you set up the appointment
so that you can get that taken care of. But let's look into
the Scripture here in Genesis Chapter 21. At the very beginning
of this chapter, as we studied last week, we see the fulfillment
of the Word of God to Abraham and to Sarah, for Isaac was born. Isaac was a miracle baby. The Lord had said years before
this that Abraham and Sarah would have a son. And, of course, as
time went by, the years went by, they became impatient, and
Sarah told her husband Abraham, you take my handmaid, Hagar,
an Egyptian handmaid, a woman who didn't know the gospel, a
woman who didn't love the Lord God of glory. She didn't worship
the Lord like Abraham did. But they took her out of Egypt,
welcomed her into their family, and then Abraham, at his wife's
insistence, went into Hagar, and of course she became pregnant,
and had a son, Ishmael. Well, time went on. And when
Ishmael was about 14 years of age, the Lord's promise to Abraham
and Sarah came to pass, and Isaac was born. Now, we're going to
see next week, the Lord willing, as we get into the wonderful
22nd chapter of Genesis, and all of the people of God especially
love the 22nd chapter, but we're going to see then that Isaac
was a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then all of a sudden
he becomes a picture of you and me. And he needed a substitute. And so we'll get into that next
week. However, I also want us to see this week that in many
ways, Isaac was a type of our Lord Jesus even before chapter
22 arrives. So let me give you three or four
headings here, three or four points, as I bring you a message
tonight on Abraham and his sons. First of all, let's consider
Isaac and our Savior, Isaac and the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's
several things. Both births of Isaac and of our
Savior were announced many years before they ever happened. Isaac
was promised a long time before he was born, 25 years before
this. When Abraham was 75 years of
age, God promised Abraham that he would have a seed. He prayed
to the father and he said, is this servant that I have, Eliezer,
is he to be my heir? Is he the one I'm going to leave
everything to? Will I not have a son who will
bear my name? Will I not have a seed? Will
Sarah and I not have a son between us?" And God promised him and
promised Sarah that they would have a son. And the Lord, way
back in Genesis 13 and then in 15, He said, all nations of the
earth will be blessed through this one through Isaac. And of
course, years went by and God kept His Word. God always keeps
His Word. God's not like you and me. He
can't lie. Somebody says, well, so-and-so
lied about something. The Scripture says all men are
liars. That's true of all of us. Don't
go beating up on somebody else unless you beat up on yourself
first. All men are liars. But God isn't. He's not a man
that He should repent. He's faithful to His Word. Great
is thy faithfulness is what we read in the book of Lamentations
chapter 3. And God was faithful to His Word
to Abraham and Sarah. And as we studied last week,
Isaac was born. Notice, go back with me if you
wouldn't mind turning back a couple of three pages to 17, chapter
17. Look at chapter 17. It's interesting the way the
Lord speaks here. Chapter 17 verse 19. God said, Sarah thy wife shall
bear a son indeed. Thou shalt call his name Isaac.
and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant
and with his seed after him." With his seed after him. Kind of file that away. I'll
come back to it in a little while. And as for Ishmael, I have heard
thee. Behold, I blessed him. I will
make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes
shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant
will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee
at this," underline this, at this. What time? Set time. A fixed time. This is an ordained
time. This is an appointed time. And
now go back to the 21st chapter and look at verses 1 and 2. God
said at the set time. Now, verse 1 of chapter 21, 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." At the set
time. At the fixed time. At the ordained
time of which God had spoken to him. I know we grow impatient Abraham
and Sarah grew impatient. Which is why she said, here,
take my handmaid, Hagar. But God doesn't grow impatient.
Because He's not bounded by time. Minutes and hours and days and
weeks and months and years and decades and centuries. They mean
nothing to God. Millenniums mean nothing to God. He doesn't go help in time. Somebody said, time dwells in
him. But at the set time, set time. I had a couple of doctor's
appointments already this week, but I had one Monday and the
nurse was talking to me after she had done all the blood pressure
and all that kind of good stuff. And she said, you know, preacher,
I think the end is near. She said, things are in such bad
shape. She said, oh, the awful morals of our country. She said, this is just an immoral
country. And I said, you know, things
are in bad shape morally, and they're in worse shape spiritually. But I told her this. This world,
this earth that we live on, it will last just as long as God
has purposed. And at the set time, the end
will come. That's already been ordained.
It's a set time. And I know people, we're destroying
Mother Earth. Well, this is not our mother.
I'm thankful to live on earth, but you can't destroy it. God's
going to do that. God's going to do that. And it
will be at the set time. The fixed time. The time of the
end has already appointed. It's been appointed by God. It's
been ordained. It's fixed. It's set. And I fully
believe it's when the last of the shepherds' sheep are brought
into the fold of salvation. All those that Christ has redeemed. He bought these sheep with His
own blood. He has redeemed them. He has
satisfied justice for all of His sheep. And when the last
one is brought to know Christ, to believe Christ, regenerated
by the Spirit of God and brought to love Him and believe Him,
I believe that will be a set time when the end will come. You remember, when I was in high
school, we, in literature, we had to read Jonathan Edwards,
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Anybody else? After that, we had that literature
class. Listen to Deuteronomy 32-35. This is where Edwards preached
from. God said unto me, Belongeth vengeance
and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due
time. That's what he said. In due time.
Not due yet. Oh, it comes due for individuals. But there is that great general
judgment, the great white throne judgment, at the end, that's
at the set hour and day and time. In due time. He then said, for
the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that
shall come upon them make haste. The end will come when God is
finished with this world as we know it. And it will be in due
time. It will be at a set time. The Lord even said to Abraham,
concerning the destruction of the Amorites, and I think that
the Amorites are just one group that was named for all of the
enemies of Israel that inhabited the land of Canaan. The Lord
said to Abraham, the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. It is not yet full. And I'll
tell you, when the iniquity of this world is full, that's when
the end's going to come and God's going to unleash His vengeance
upon this world. Everything happens in God's set
time. You remember Solomon's words,
I'm sure, from Ecclesiastes 3. To everything there is a season,
a set time, an appointed time, which no one can alter and no
one can possibly change it. There's a time for every purpose
under heaven. There was a determined time for
this universe when it came into being and when it shall cease
to exist as it does now, for the Lord is going to renovate
it by fire. And it's not going to be a nuclear
war that's going to do it. It's God pouring out His vengeance
upon this earth that is cursed on account of man's sinfulness. In Acts chapter 1, when our Lord
Jesus was giving some final words to His disciples, before He ascended,
the disciples said, Well, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel? And He said to them, It is not
for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father
hath put in His own power. He said, My Father's in control
of that. There was a set, fixed, determined
time. And there was a set, fixed, determined
time for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. But when the fullness of the
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. The
saints of God were waiting. The saints of God in the Old
Testament were waiting for the coming of Messiah. He had been
promised. He had been set forth. Picture
the typologies, the prophecies, the preachers, the prophets preaching
about Him coming. And they waited and they waited
and they waited. When did He come? At the set
time. As it's set forth in Romans chapter
5 and verse 6, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. When our
debt to God was due. When the justice of God said,
now you must pay. And how would He pay? With His
very life. Because the law of God, once
offended, then demands death. Now, He didn't transgress or
offend the law of God, but those He represented did. And He must
bear the penalty. And that is death. In due time,
Christ died for the ungodly. We know that His coming was longed
for. They waited for Him, even in
Luke, the second chapter. when Mary and Joseph entered
into the temple with Him, and there was one Simeon. The Scripture
says he was a just man and a devout man. He's a justified man. He's
a righteous man through the righteousness of the Lord Jesus. And he's a
devout man. He's a worshiper of God. And
he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Waiting. All of the
Old Testament saints were waiting. Waiting for that time God had
said Because you see, way back in Genesis, the third chapter,
God said, He's coming. the seed of the woman. He's going
to crush the serpent's head. And in the course of doing that,
his own heel will be bruised. He'll be crucified, but he'll
crush the head of the enemy of God and the enemy of all the
saints of God. And so the saints of God waited,
and they waited through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
years. Four thousand years. Four millenniums. and there's Simeon in the temple,
and Anna, they're waiting. But the Spirit of God had said
to Simeon, you won't see death till you see the Lord Christ.
Well, that came true too. When Mary and Joseph brought
him in the temple, brought the Lord Jesus, Simeon said, this
is the one I've been waiting for. And it's as though he could
speak for all of the Old Testament saints. This is the one we've
all been waiting for! This is the set time! And he
came. He came. And Anna, oh she heard. He's in the temple and she went
and she began to speak to all who look for redemption in Israel.
He's here! He's come! This is the set time. In John chapter 7, when our Lord's
brethren were going up to the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem,
He said, I go not up to the Feast, for my time is not yet full. I'll go when it's time. And He
talked about His hour. The hour has not yet come. at
that time when he was to die. And then he says in his high
priestly prayer of John 17, he says to the Father, I have finished
the work. You gave me a work to do. And
I have finished that work. When our debt became due and
payable, He paid it at the set time. The set time. And then both were born by the
intervention of the Lord. The Lord intervened. Sarah's
womb was dead and Abraham, he considered not himself as dead.
He believed God. The Lord intervened. How in the
world can they have a baby? Well, the Lord intervened. Here's
a man 100 years old and his wife's 90 years old. And she's going to the classes
New mothers? Here are all these young ladies
in there. What are you doing in here, old
woman? She said, God has given me a
baby. I'm going to bear that baby.
And I tell you, in the right time, just the right time, Isaac
was born by divine intervention. Her womb, though dead, came alive. You see, this is what God can
do. He makes dead things to live. He makes dead things. He makes
dead worms like us. Somebody said dead dogs like
us. He makes us to live for His glory. We live spiritually and we live
eternally. And our Lord Jesus, He was born
by divine intervention. Gabriel came to Mary and said,
you're going to have a son. She said, that can't be. I've
never known a man. Well, you're going to have a
son because the Holy Spirit is going
to overshadow you. He's going to brood over you.
and that holy thing that shall be born of you shall be called
the Son of God." That's divine intervention. A miracle child. And then both of these, Isaac
and our Lord Jesus, both were named before their birth. Back
in Genesis 17, 19, God said, said to Abraham, Sarah, thy wife
shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name
Isaac. And Isaac means laughter or joyful. And our Savior was named before
he was born. Gabriel gave to Mary his name,
called his name Jesus. And then Gabriel appeared to
Joseph, said, when Mary has this baby, And don't put her away now. When
she has this baby, you call His name Jesus, for He shall save
His people from their sins. Jesus, the name His people love. The name that His enemies hate.
Saul of Tarsus with papers authorizing him to arrest anybody who believed
in that way, that way of grace, that way of Christ, that way
of salvation by sovereign mercy, that way of salvation by that
despised Nazarene, on his way to Damascus. King Jesus got a
hold of him. Knocked him off his horse. He said to him, Who art thou, Lord? And a voice came back, I'm Jesus,
the one you've despised, the one you've hated, the one you've
persecuted. I'm Jesus, whom thou persecutest. And then God established a covenant
with both Isaac and the Lord Jesus. I read to you back there
in Genesis 17, Thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish
my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after
him. His seed, just one, Christ the
Lord, not seeds, but seed as in one. And our Lord entered
into a covenant before the world began on behalf of a multitude
of people that He would save. And He chose these people unto
salvation and then gifted them to His Son. And His Son said,
I'll be surety for them. I'll be Savior for them. I'll
be the one who will substitute in their place and die for them. Count on Me, Father. Count on
Me. entered into a covenant. And both births were the occasion
of great joy. I said Isaac's name means laughter
or joyfulness. You know, Abraham and his wife
Sarah, they were just tickled to death. You talk about joy
in a house. They were so joyful. And they
just laughed about it. Laughter. And when the Lord Jesus was born,
oh, what joy! In fact, the angels said to the
shepherds, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great
joy! It's a joyful time, which shall
be to all kinds of people. For unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And
I'll tell you this, the birth of Isaac was to Abraham the very
confirmation that the true Deliverer was going to come into this world.
And I think that's part of what our Lord Jesus referred to in
John 8.56 when He said to the Pharisees, Your father Abraham
rejoiced to see My day. He saw it and was glad. He saw it and laughed. He saw
it and rejoiced. And isn't there something that's
so wonderful? This grace of God to us through
the Lord Jesus. It almost leaves you laughing
sometimes. It's just so wonderful. It's
so glorious. It puts a happy expression on
your face. And even more than that, it fills
your heart with happiness and joy. It's like a laughter. He
has come! He has saved me! He's my Lord! He's my Savior! Isn't it great? You just kind of laugh about
it. Not in a mocking way, but in a thankful way. But both births
stirred the hearts of their enemies. You see, all went well with Abraham
and Sarah and Hagar for about 14 years. And then Isaac was born. Everything was okay until Isaac
came on the scene. But when he was born, that presented
an immediate problem because Ishmael didn't like him and neither
did Ishmael's mother like him. And Ishmael, as he got older,
began to mock Isaac. Galatians 4, 28 and 29, He that
was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit.
Even so it is now. There was no difficulties before
Ishmael or when it was only Ishmael. But when Isaac came on the scene,
that's when trouble arrived. Because you see, that which is
carnal always hates that which is spiritual. When our Lord Jesus
was born, He immediately became a hunted infant for Herod sought
to kill Him. And as our Lord Jesus grew, His
enemies grew more numerous and more vocal, finally demanding
His death. And so it is when Christ comes
to a center in the new birth. The old man was at ease before
Christ was formed in us. Nothing much troubled us, certainly
nothing spiritual. Oh, we may have got a little
concerned every once in a while, well, I don't want to go to hell,
but nothing that really troubled you. But then the Savior came. The Savior came to you. And immediately,
trouble arose within you. That's that old nature. Because
you see, the arrival of the Lord Jesus, the new man, in the heart
of man, even though Christ Himself is glorious, the enemy doesn't
approve of Him. Your sinful nature. Bill read
to the men who were in the back from Romans chapter 7. There's
a war going on between the old and the new. You see, the birth
of Isaac, it didn't make Ishmael better. No. It didn't make him
better at all. It didn't improve things. In
fact, it brought out even more the distinction between Ishmael
and Isaac. And that's the way it is with
us. Because the entrance of Christ Jesus into us, it doesn't alter
the sinful nature. It doesn't make the sinful nature
better. Regeneration is not about changing
the old man. It's the introduction of the
new man of Christ Jesus. Christ in you, that's the hope
of glory. And what was once a fairly peaceful
existence for you in the heart of the center, warfare erupts
when Christ comes in. And as it says, the flesh lusteth
against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these
are contrary, the one to the other. Well, here's the second
thing, and I'll go briefly here on these last couple of points.
The Lord said, cast out the bondwoman. Something's got to be done. Something's
got to be done. Cast out the bondwoman and her
son. Hagar sets forth the covenant
of law and works, whereas Sarah represents the covenant of grace.
Ishmael is the self-righteous one. Isaac is the son of promise. Cast out the bondwoman. Can't
stay. And the third thing is the covenant,
and I'm just going to kind of glance over this toward the end
of the chapter. The covenant between Abraham
and Abimelech. Now, I've read to you how Abraham
led Hagar and Ishmael out, and they were so thirsty. And dying
of thirst, dying of hunger, evidently had been there a number of days.
And Abraham left them. That's what God told him to do,
cast them out. And the boy was crying. And Hagar, she's upset. She said,
Ishmael, go lay down under those shrubs over there. Try to get
out of the sun as much as you can, honey. And she just couldn't
bear to watch him die. And then she went a short ways
off, about a half mile. And the Lord said, what ails
you, Hagar? What ails thee? The angel of God called and said,
I've heard the lad. I've heard the lad crying. Seventeen
year old boy, he's crying. Starving to death. And more than
that, he needs water. And in verse 19, God opened her
eyes and she saw a well of water. And it's a wonderful picture. I don't want to stretch it too
far, but it's a blessed day when God opens the blinded eyes of
a sinner and shows him the well of water, the well of salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this well apparently was
a well that Abraham had frequently used. For some reason, Hagar
didn't see it. You can't see the beauties of
Christ and his salvation unless God gives you eyes to see. And
so Abraham and Abimelech, and Abimelech's chief captain of
his host, Phicol, they get together, and they just agree that there's
going to be terms of peace. We're going to get along. You
know, the Scripture says, Paul says in Romans 12 and verse 18,
If it be possible, as much as lieth within you, live peaceably
with all men, but not at the expense of the Gospel. Not by
compromising the truth. But if you can live peaceably
with your neighbor, your neighbor who hates God, your neighbor
who's wrapped up in false religion, if possible, if it doesn't require
you to compromise the truth, live peacefully with them. And
so Abraham and Abimelech, they agree on a covenant. And it is
a covenant of peace between them. We're going to get along. And
I'm thankful for the covenant of peace that dates way back
before the foundation of the world. The council of peace when
God saved His people in Christ Jesus by His eternal purpose.
And then here's the last thing. I'll give this to you and quit.
The last two verses here it says, And Abraham planted a grove in
Beersheba, planted some trees, and evidently he built an altar,
And he called there on the name of the Lord because calling on
the name of the Lord is worshipping the Lord. It isn't just saying,
Lord! calling on the name of the Lord.
Go all the way back to Genesis chapter 4. It's reverencing and
worshiping and adoring God in a public way. In a way in which
others can come and sit with you and call upon the name of
the Lord if they want to. And so Abraham, he called there
on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And he stayed there. He sojourned
in the Philistines' land many days. But still he's just a pilgrim. We know that from reading in
Hebrews chapter 11 that he's a pilgrim. He was a wanderer.
He wandered all the days of his life. He looked for a city that
had foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Well, hope
that'll help you a little bit with an understanding of this
chapter, and we'll look forward to going into the 22nd chapter
next week. Father, bless the Word that has
gone forth this evening. We do rejoice in our glorious
Savior and His finished work of redemption upon the cross
of Calvary. For by His bloody death, He made
an end of our sins. He put them all away. He erased
them from your memory because, Lord, you said, their sins and
iniquities will I remember no more. He cast them behind your
back. He buried them in the depths
of the deepest sea. He went into the grave with them
and came out of the grave without them. Oh, what a glorious Savior. and a marvelous salvation. And
we're thankful for that covenant, which was the origin of our salvation. And we rejoice, O Lord, in Your
grace and mercy to us unworthy sinners, through the doing and
the dying and the glorious person of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. In His name I pray with thanksgiving. Amen.