We looked in our last study of
this passage, the birth of Isaac. And I want us to pick up reading
in verse 8 of Genesis 21. The child grew and was weaned. Isaac grew two or three years
old 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 she had borne unto Abraham, mocking." He was
laughing, mocking Isaac. "'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. And God said to Abraham, Let
it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because
of thy bondwoman. And all that Sarah hath said
unto thee hearken unto her voice, for in Isaac shall thy seed be
called. And also of the son of the bondwoman
will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. And Abraham rose
up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water,
and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder and the child,
and sent her away. And she departed and wandered
in the wilderness of Bathsheba. And the water was spent in the
bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And
she went and set her down over against him a good way off, as
it were a bow shot. For she said, Let me not see
the death of the child. And she set over against him
and lift up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the
lad, and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said
unto her, What illeth thee, Hagar? Fear not. For God heard the voice
of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold
him in thine hand, for I will make him a great nation. And
God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she
went and filled the bottle with water and gave the lad drink.
And God was with the lad, and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness
and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness
of Paran, and his mother took him a wife out of the land of
Egypt." Now, I want to consider this passage mainly down through
verse 8 of 15, but I want to look at it this morning, this
incident, in a sense as when you read this, especially if
we would have stopped there around verse 15 or so, A bottle of water was spent and
she cast the chall under the shrubs and wept, lifted up her
voice and wept. As you and I consider this incident,
I want us to think of it this morning, how we often sympathize with this incident and with Agar
and with Ishmael. And as I read this, as I've studied
on this, this past few weeks, and maybe as I read it this morning,
you may have considered this and thought, how unsympathetic
could Sarah have been to demanded that this woman, her servant,
her slave woman, and her child should have been sent away from
their household. And it does seem like she was
so hard-hearted and harsh. I know he mocked, but the punishment
that was given her seemed to be more harsh than the crime
that he'd committed. And I thought as I read this,
you know, If we don't understand the circumstances surrounding
this incident, then we'll look at Abraham and Sarah and Isaac
sitting there in their tent, all secure, with wealth enough to spare in
need of nothing, and we'll look at Hagar and her son out wandering
in the wilderness, ready to die, And our sympathies will be towards
Hagar and her son and a measure of contempt towards Abraham and
his household. Now that's the way we naturally
feel as we read this passage. And that's what I want to look
at this morning. Because we don't understand sometimes,
and because of our natural sympathies, sometimes we don't understand
God's ways. And our natural sympathies will
not only come in conflict with God's purpose, but sometimes
they'll be opposed to God's purpose. And I think we'll see in this
morning why the world and God's purpose and grace are often in
conflict one with another. But as we read this this morning,
I think there's three things quickly that we need to see in
this. It's not unnatural, as we read
this, to feel sympathetic towards Hagar and her son. Abraham felt that way. There
in verse 11, he was grieved. He was very grieved. It was grievous
in his sight that he had to do this. And there's three things
quickly I want to mention before we go on, and it's three, three
things that I want you to remember concerning this passage. It was
done at God's command. Why did Abraham send this woman
away? Why did he send her and her child
away out in the wilderness? It was done at God's command. That's what he says there in
verse 13, in verse 12 and verse 13. But it was done with a promise. that God would be with the child
and bless the child. That's what he said there in
verse 12. Abraham, you hearken unto Sarah
and send the child away. And in verse 12, I will make
of him a great nation because he is thy seed. Now I want you
to turn back quickly to chapter 17. This wasn't the first time
that Abraham made this promise. God made this promise to Abraham.
And he reaffirms this promise here in our text because Abraham
would have never been able to send his son away. He's not going
to send his son out in the wilderness facing potential death without
God's promise to bless him and cure and protect him. Now look
here in what he says in chapter 17 in verse 20, all the way back
here the Lord had spoken concerning Ishmael. And as for Ishmael,
Abraham had prayed, O that Ishmael might live before thee. As for
Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him, and
will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve
princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. So our sympathies are with her
Natural sympathies are with her, but Abraham could have never
sent her away with his child, except God had promised to protect
him and bless him. That's the first thing that I
want us to remember. We have a tendency to look down
upon Abraham and Sarah, very secure in their tent, and to
sympathize with a slave woman and her son, but we do that because
we don't understand the circumstances. We don't understand God's promise
to protect them and to bless them. And secondly, if we read
the context, if we go ahead and read all of this chapter, it
seems to hint that Abraham had sent them away, but his intentions
all along was to keep them close by. Seemingly, if you'll read
the entire passage here, Abraham had intended to send them away
into the wilderness of Beersheba and later on to meet up with
them and to provide their needs and to keep them close by to
keep an eye on them. Now you'll read there in verse
14 that they wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba And go
down here in verse 33 and look at this. And Abraham planted
a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord
the everlasting God. So the same place that he had
sent them to wander in was the same place that he planted this
grove in. It seems like they probably got
out in the wilderness of Beersheba, and they got confused as to the
location where they were to meet Abraham at, and they got lost.
wandering there in the wilderness and the water was spent. There's
the first two things I want you to consider concerning this incident. But the third thing and the final
thing is this. Remember what the Apostle Paul
told us about this incident in Galatians chapter 4. He said
this was an allegory. This was a true story, but it's
meant to teach us a spiritual lesson. Abraham sending Hagar
and her son Ishmael away, Paul said, represents to us the law. Hagar is the law, and those who
are under the law are represented by her slave son. She was a slave
and she had a son, and by virtue of her being barred of him, her,
he was a slave. You can't be barred of a slave
and be barred free, can you? And that's what this incident
teaches us. Isaac was born of a free woman,
of Sarah, and because he was, he was free. If you're born of
a free woman, you're not a slave. And that's what the Apostle Paul
is teaching us from in this passage as an allegory. Those who live
under the law, they're like Agar and her son, the slave baby. And just as Agar and her son
ran out of water, ran out of provisions, those who live and
die under the law will find out that they're out of provision.
They'll be sent off into hell, cursed, and they won't have one
drop of water to wet their tarmented tongue. Depart from me into everlasting
fire, ye cursed. But the children of grace, the
Isaacs, the children of promise, will be secured and fed in the
Father's house. They'll have plenty. That's what
this incident is to teach you and I. In this world, the children
of promise will have the living water, a well springing up into
life everlasting. They'll eat of that bread which
comes down from heaven. The whole problem with Agar and
her son was just this. They had a limited supply. They
had this little canteen of water that she carried on her shoulder
and it didn't last long. That's what Brother Glenn was
talking about this morning. These people that get all pumped
up in their emotion, And they try to please God and be accepted
with God and justified with what they do. Pretty soon their emotions
run dry. And they find out they're lacking
and the provision is gone. But the Isaacs are children of
Abraham, you see. And Abraham was a rich man. And
the scripture says here that he provided a feast, didn't he?
He made a feast. This wasn't a potluck. This wasn't
something he says, well, we can do it if everybody will pitch
in. Abraham was a rich man, and he provided a great feast. But who was that feast for? Who
was the feast to honor? It was the Isaacs, you see. It
was the Isaacs. When you and I talk about saving
grace, And that virtue that's in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're
not talking about a limited supply. We're not talking about a little
canteen that we can carry and run dry when we find ourselves
out in the wilderness. When we talk about the grace
that's in Jesus Christ, we're talking about a well gushing
up. Ain't that what He told the woman
of Samaria? There shall be in you a well
of water It's springing up. It's gushing up. It's called
a river that flows. Our flowing rivers. He that believeth
on me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers. Rivers of living water. Not a little canteen of water,
but rivers of living water. An old prophet referred to it
as water so deep a man could swim in. Ain't that what you've
been talking about, Clarence? He says it's water so deep and
so broad it has no banks to it. You can't pass over this river
of grace and virtue that's in Jesus Christ. It has no banks. And Ezekiel said of this water,
this river that flowed everywhere it went to, down through the
desert, It broke loose and went down through the desert, and
everybody it touched, it healed them. And everybody it touched
gave life to. Ain't that a good way to describe
the grace that's in the Lord Jesus Christ? It's a river. And John the Apostle followed
it up to its fountainhead, and he noticed two things about it.
He said it's a pure river. It's a pure river, clear as crystal. And he said, I see its fountainhead,
I see where it's coming out of, the throne of God and of the
Lamb. That's where it proceeds out
of, the throne of God and of the Lamb. Now somebody say, Bruce,
it's going to take a lot of grace to save me and get me through
this world of devils and temptation. Well, how about grace that's
exceeding abundance? Will that do it? Not only grace
that's abundant, but exceeding abundant. I was a blasphemer,
but His grace was exceeding abundant. Paul said, that's the kind of
grace it took to save me. I tell you, a little canteen
won't do it, will it? A little limited supply won't
do it. It's going to take exceeding abundant grace, where sin abounded
with all its power and polluting influences, Grace did much more
abound. Not just abound, but much more
abound. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. Sin is not going to have power
over you anymore. Why? Because you are not under
the law, but you are under grace. Under grace. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the only Savior, has a heart that is larger than this universe.
Now don't He? Don't he? This universe is in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He was in the world, but I'm
telling you, the world's in Him. That's how big He is. That's
how big His heart is. His heart is bigger than this
universe, and the Scripture says He has a heart full of grace
and truth. Now, brothers and sisters, that's
an unlimited supply. That's an unlimited supply. And therefore, the apostle said,
let us come boldly to the throne of grace. Why come to the throne? I'll tell you why. That's the
fountainhead. That's the fountainhead. If you
hit the one on the right on the bottom, you'll get it. There
you go. You have to preach them up here
and direct those back there. If you're a preacher, you've
got to preach the word and you've got to direct the congregation.
So what do we see here? Well, first of all, we see this.
What seems to us at first as a harsh treatment, it only seems
that way because we just don't understand. We trust in our natural
affections. Our natural affection goes out
to the bondwoman and her son, and we look somewhat with contempt
upon Abraham. How could rich Abraham do this?
That's just not right. That's just not fair. Set a thorn
in his rich house with plenty and put a little bottle of water
on his slave woman and send his own son out into the wilderness,
possibly to die? That don't seem right, does it?
But what's the problem with that? We just don't understand the
circumstances surrounding that. And we trust in our natural affection
to discern things. And you know our trouble with
natural affection. They're natural. They're natural. That's our whole problem with
a natural affection. This is one of the greatest problems
that man faces in his relationship with God. They don't understand
God's way of salvation. And man's natural sympathies
are often contrary and even opposed to God's purpose of grace. Now,
ain't that the truth? And when the natural man is confronted
with how God saves sinners and why He saves sinners, the natural
man often says, that just don't seem right to me. There's something
wrong here. I want to give you three things
right quickly. I remember the message we heard last week from
Brother Chad Duncan who preached for us and he dealt very aptly
with Romans chapter 9. And he read that passage there,
Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. You remember that. And
the way I always interpret that, and I think the meaning of that
obviously is this, that Jacob have I chosen to life. I'm going
to give Jacob grace and life eternal and everything that pertains
to eternal salvation, I'm going to give that to Jacob. But I'm
going to withhold it from Esau. I'm giving it to Jacob. I'm withholding
it from Esau. And we see in that passage that
Jacob wasn't chosen because he was good. Now here's what gets
the natural man. Jacob was not chosen because
he was good. But listen to this. Esau was
not rejected because he was bad. We often think, well, Jacob wasn't
chosen because he was good, but Esau was rejected because he
was a bad man. No! No! The children being not
yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God, according to election, might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. And that chapter teaches to us
that God dispenses His mercy in a sovereign manner. And this
is what gets our natural affections, boy. His purpose to save many
from a deserved end, and His purpose that sin and the devil
will rule everybody else to their own deserved misery and eternal
ruin. And this seems so harsh to the
natural mind. that it refuses it. It rejects
it. But Jad so aptly reminded us
of verse 29 there in that chapter. If God had not did this, if God
had not purposed to do this, we'd have all been a Sodomite.
All of us would have perished at last. So God's purpose in
election is not only right and just because He did it, but it's
good and gracious as well. It's right, but it's good. It's
just, but it's gracious. Election is God exercising His
sovereignty, and the reason many oppose it is because they don't
understand it, and it's contrary to their natural sympathies. They look upon that just like
we look upon this passage when we read it. about Abraham sending
Agar away, it just doesn't seem right. I have more sympathy for
her and her child than I do Abraham and his family. And I know of
nothing that will convert us from such an attitude any quicker. Now listen to me. There's one
thing that I know of that will convert us from this attitude.
And that's having a thorough application of our guilt upon
our conscience. And recognize our responsibility
towards God. Those two things. A thorough
application of our guilt upon our conscience. And recognizing
our responsibility towards God. What is our responsibility towards
God? To love Him. To believe Him. to fear Him, and anything short
of this is inexcusable. Now, ain't that so? Look here
with me for just a minute. Hold chapter 21 and look with
me over in Psalms chapter 51. I think we have a good illustration
of this here with David. Do you remember Psalm 51 when
David had committed that awful sin of adultery and murder? And God sent Nathan the prophet
to him. And boy, his conscience was thoroughly
convicted of his sin. Oh, I'm going to die. He said,
I've sinned against God. I deserve death. I've sinned
against God. Nathan said, you'll not die. The Lord's put away
your sin. But he said, I tell you this,
that child that you begot, that child's going to die. And the sword will never leave
your house. You're going to live to regret
this the rest of your life, what you've done. That's what the
Lord told me to tell you, David. And here's the prayer that David
prayed after Nathan left him. And look at this, and this is
what I say, this is what I'm saying, that a thorough application
of our guilt before God will drive these natural sympathies
away from us and make us see things as God says and as God
sees. Look here at what David said.
Notice here where David's hope was. Notice his hope. Here he
stands praying against this guilt. And notice where his hope is.
Verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness,
according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my
transgression." What did his heart turn to? What was his hope
at now? Mercy. And not only mercy, but
tender mercies. I don't know what he thought
about mercies before. Knowing David, I imagine he thought about
it. But boy, I tell you, when he came to pray, he addressed
these mercies as tender mercies. This wasn't mercy then. Tender
mercy. And notice where his faith was. Notice how he worked this
faith in his heart. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. See what guilt will do sometime
when the Holy Spirit has put it there upon you. A sinner is
a sacred thing. The Spirit has made him so. And
when we come to the Lord with our guilt, Where is our faith
in? It's in the blood of Christ.
In the blood of Christ. Men who aren't sinners don't
need the blood of Christ, neither will their faith be in the blood
of Christ. But I tell you, real sinners have one place to look,
and that's the blood. Wash me. Wash me. And cleanse
me. And notice what he says in verse
3. Look what put David to hoping and believing. Right here is
what it was. I acknowledge my transgressions. and my sin is
ever before me. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." See that? A thorough application of sin
upon the conscience will put a man to hoping in mercy, and
here to put a man looking and believing in the blood of Christ
to cleanse him. And I'll tell you what he'll
do. The last portion of verse 4, he'll justify God in his judgments. Look what he says. That thou
mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou
judgest. David didn't have a thing to
complain to the Lord about, did he? The Lord said, I'm going
to kill the child. Lord, you're clear. The sword's
never going to depart your house. Lord, you're just in your judgment.
What made David acknowledge that? Boy, when you come to the Lord,
guilty as he did, and you've got nothing to plead but mercy
in the blood of Christ, you'll wind up then agreeing with everything
God does. It has a tendency to drive these
natural sympathies away and cause us to trust in God and what He
says. David justified God in his dealings
with it. Let me give you another example.
First in his electing, God's electing love and his sovereignty
and the exercise of that sovereignty, it's contrary to the natural
thinking of man and the sympathies of man. But let me give you something
else concerning the Lord's salvation, and you may not have thought
of this, but it's concerning the atoning death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, there's a way in which
you and I can look upon the death of Christ, the sufferings of
Christ, and the world can look upon it and sympathize with Christ
in His suffering. You can even present the sufferings
of Christ in such a way that it can draw a tear out of those
who are even going to perish. I have talked to men about the
sufferings of Christ, and they were so sympathetic with Him,
I've seen them shed tears. And yet they perished after all. And the way that we know that
this is mere human sympathy, and not godly sympathy, and not
heart affection, it doesn't bring them to abhor their sin. And it doesn't bring them to
abhor themselves because of their sin. Neither does it bring them
to put all their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's merely
a natural affection. And I tell you when it usually
reveals that it's a mere natural affection, and not a godly affection,
is when you mention these two things about the atoning death
of Jesus Christ. You mention who Christ died for. Who did Christ die for? You know
what the Scripture says? The ungodly. The ungodly. When we were without strength
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. When we were yet
sinners, sinners against God, sinners against the law of God,
sinners against light, sinners against one another, Christ died
for us. Jesus the Lord never died for
good people. He died for bad people. He died
for evil people. He never died for any potential
that he saw in us. But he died for our open rebellion
against God. You know the cross doesn't set...
When you and I look at the cross, it doesn't set forth humanity
in a very good light, does it? Now, when we look at the cross,
what we have to remember is this, the very cross teaches us that
all we, like sheep, have gone astray. Every one of us have
turned from God, we've turned from His way, and we've turned
to our own sinful and selfish way. That's what the cross teaches
us. And I'm telling you, when you
start looking at the cross in this light, those natural sympathies
will vanish away. And those sympathizing tears
that were there before will quickly dry up. Because it seems strange
that the Son of God would die upon a cross and men would sympathize
with Him, but all alone they do not know why He died upon
that cross and who He died for. When we begin to dwell upon what
kind of people Christ died for, these natural sympathies will
be exposed after what they are. And what are they? Natural. Natural. But the second thing, and this
seems so strange about this concerning the tone and depth of the Lord
Jesus Christ, when you mention this, when they're confronted with
the death of Christ being effectual. Now this is very strange, but
you try this sometime, and you try this especially on free willers
who seem so sympathetic towards Christ and His suffering. You
confront them with what did He accomplish in His sufferings
upon that cross? Did He accomplish anything? Did
He die in vain? This is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for many for the remission of their sin." Why
did Christ pour out His blood? For the remission of the sins
of many. And listen to this, God saw the
travail of His soul and was satisfied. What did Christ do upon that
cross? He rendered satisfaction to the justice of God. Ain't
that what He said? And listen to this, He shall
justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. He shall justify because he shall
bear their iniquity. What's the consequences of the
Lord Jesus Christ bearing a man's iniquity? There comes a time
when that man will be brought to faith in Christ and be regenerated
and be kept through this world of sin and evil and stand guiltless
and spotless before the throne of God because Christ bore that
man's iniquity. He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and shall be satisfied. And he shall justify many, for
he shall bear their iniquity." It seems so kind and it seems
so sympathetic to the natural mind to hear that Christ has
suffered and died for those who finally perish. When they think
that Christ has died for everybody without any exception, that seems
so kind and sympathetic. But it proves how warped the
natural affections can be. Oh, Jesus has died for everybody.
Even those in hell. Judas as well as Peter. Pharaoh
as well as Moses. And the tears begin to flow.
And they sympathize with Christ. But it's warped affections. It's
a misunderstanding of what he accomplished. Charles Spurgeon
said this, he said something to this effect. He said, a universal
atonement, Christ suffering for everybody without exception,
is like a bridge that goes halfway across the river. And let me add, a deep river,
a raging river. But Spurgeon said it gets everybody
on it, But nobody across it? Not for sure. Not for certain. Ain't that what the natural people
tell us? It gets everybody on it. Well,
is anybody going to get across on it? We're not for sure. Would
you think an engineer that made a bridge like that deserves a
man's sympathy? People that built a bridge like
that, would you sympathize with them? What kind of bridge do
you want if you're going to cross a raging river? I tell you, once
I get on it, I want to know that He'll get me across to the other
side, don't you? Let a man come and put his trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ, the trust of all his heart, and I
tell you, you'll find He'll get you all the way over to the other
side. But a man who does not come and place the trust of his
heart in Jesus Christ, his Savior, he'll die lost and perish. but do not put the blame upon
the death of Christ failing. You and I must be careful, brothers
and sisters, not to allow our hearts to deceive us. Our natural
affections may be drawn out toward sin, while all the time we think
we are godly and kind. God says, My thoughts are not
your thoughts. My affections are not your affections. My love is not yours. My ways
are not your ways. As high as the heavens is above
the earth, so are My ways above your ways. May God thoroughly
convert us that our affections will first and foremost be drawn
out after truth. After truth, the Lord said to Abraham, you
send away the slave woman. That's not what my affections
tells me. Why are you going to do it then,
Abraham? I'm not going to trust my affections. Why? My affections
are natural. My affections will deceive me.
I'm going to send her away because God told me to. God told me to. One more example is this. How often does the providence
of God cross our natural affection? The sovereignty of God? And don't
look at me this morning and say, the sovereignty of God has never
crossed me. It still crosses you, don't it? And I tell you what, when I first
heard of particular redemption, I didn't know what to think about
it. I thought, man, I've got to go study on this. I don't
know about this. And the providence of God, how
often it crosses our natural affection. The children of God
lives in this world and they are daily tried. And sometimes
they think it's strange. They're told not to think it's
strange, but yet they think it's strange. Some of the most difficult
trials that you and I face in this world is family trials. And almost every trial that Abraham
faced had to do with his family. Have you noticed that up to now
in our studies? His brother and his dad died. That's the first
thing we're told about it. Lost two family members. He came
over into the land of promise and there was a famine in the
land. He and Sarah had to go down to
Egypt. Then later they had to go down to Gera, almost lost
Sarah, to Abimelech and to Pharaoh, remember that? He lost Flot,
when they couldn't get along about their cattle. He lost his
fellowship, his friendship, his presence. Later on he lost him
for good. He had to go deliver Lot, fight
those four kings, remember that? And here in chapter 22, that
we'll get at in the next study or two, he has to go offer his
son a sacrifice, his only begotten son. And now here in chapter
21 in our text, verse 11, it's a grievous thing what he's told
to do. Boy, I tell you, when trials
arise in the family, they can crush you, can't they? No trials
are like family trials. They can grieve us to death. You know, we often, all of us
remember about Spatford, Horatio Spatford, that wrote that beautiful
song, It Is Well With My Soul, and the circumstances that inspired
him to write that. His daughters had drowned him
on that shipwreck out in the Atlantic. And he got up there
and wrote, It is well with my soul, when sorrows like sea billows
roll, whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, it is well,
it is well with my soul. But we don't want to think about
what else happened to Brother Spafford. We don't want to talk
about his nervous breakdown he later had, and how he went to
Jerusalem and thought for a while he was the Christ. We don't dare
talk about that, do we? That's crushing. One moment we
can say, it is well, it is well with my soul. But the next moment,
we're crushed and we're grieved. George Spurgeon likened the providence
of God to this big wheel, this huge wheel. And he said, sometimes
this wheel has us up on top. And the air is so fresh and the
scene so beautiful. But without us being able to
hinder the rotation of the wheel, it's not long until we're on
the bottom. And the weight of the wheel seems like it's ready
to crush our very existence. And then what do we do? Oh, it's
grievous in our eyes, isn't it? We're opposed to it. Oh God,
if it be any other way, And when we lay crushed, we're
made to acknowledge this, that this thing is of the Lord. Abraham sent his maid away and
her son, but it was of the Lord. How could a good Lord purpose
such a thing? How could a good Lord determine
that Abraham would do this and be so grieved? What good could
possibly come out of such grief? And I tell you, when we think
about this, and when we confront it in our experience, it naturally
crosses our affections. Joseph was sold down into Egypt,
spent two years in prison. His ankles swole up and began
to bleed. He couldn't understand the language
that they used, was accused of rape, and he wept tears because
he missed his dad, he missed his mom, and he missed his brother.
Year after year after year. What good could possibly come
out of such grief and suffering? And oh how it crossed that young
man's affection while he was down there. But you know something? Joseph
didn't understand. He didn't understand it was God's
purpose. And God often crosses our affection
because it's His purpose to do it. But you remember what Joseph
said to his brother? And if he'd have known this all
along, He would have probably took this grief away at least
to a measure. But he said, you fellow sold
me and you meant to do me evil. But God meant it for good. God
meant it for good. That's the only way that Abraham
could send this woman and his son away. He knew that God's
purpose was in it. It was God's providence ruling. And if we don't see that, if
we don't see that, we'll not only not understand God's providence,
but I'll tell you what our natural affections will be opposed to. It'll do it. It'll be opposed
to it. Brothers and sisters, listen. Don't believe something
because it feels good. And don't disbelieve something
because it feels bad. Believe it because God said it
in Holy Scriptures. It doesn't matter if it crosses
your natural affections. Leave the outcome to the Lord
and you'll never go wrong. When providence seems to crush
you and grieve you, believe the Lord and wait upon Him and be
of good courage. It won't be long. to the same
providence that's got you under the wheel now and seems to crush
you, can just as easily lift you back up on top again. That's
the nature of providence. And aren't you glad it's that
way? You can't control it. God controls this wheel. You
can't stop it from turning. You'll wear yourself and grieve
yourself to death trying, but you have to trust Him who turns
the wheel. And I'm glad it's that way. You
know, you come here and we read this story and things were so
bad, Abraham was grieved to death. But just as quickly, this woman
and her son was delivered. And he married a wife and had
12 children. See how quickly providence works?
See how quickly it can deliver? Because it's in the sovereign
God's hands. If the world accuses you of harshness, when they hear you've turned
the slave woman and her son out of the house, when they complain
that you're too strict and dogmatic in your belief, and they call
you unkind because you won't unite with free will and promote
human merit, just tell them you understand why they feel that
way. You used to feel that way yourself. And you never at one
time in your own life believe what you now believe and practice
what you now practice, but you trust that God has converted
you from trusting your natural feelings. And now you believe God and walk
by faith. If God said it, that's why you
believe it. And when the world, because of their natural affections
and trust in their natural heart, cannot agree with you, but finds
you unkind and harsh, you're a happy man, you're a happy woman,
because you believe God. You believe God.