the 21st chapter of Genesis.
It's on page 22 in the Pew Bible. You have one of those. I echo the request Brother Wayne
made this morning for Brother Glenn, that you please remember
him, think of him for his surgery tomorrow. Very serious. In verse 1, if I can get through
this, my throat gets stopped up when I try to sing, but hopefully
it will clear up in a bit. Genesis 21 and verse 1. The Lord visited Sarah as He
had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as He had spoken. And Sarah
conceived and bore 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 bore unto him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son
Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. And
Abraham was nine 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 me 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. And Sarah saw the son of Agar,
the Egyptian, which she had borne 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. And God said unto Abraham,
Let not it 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
I will make a great nation, because he is thy seed. And here's the
main verses that I want to look at this morning. And Abraham
rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of
water, and gave it to Agar, 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 sat over against him, and lifted
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 hath heard
the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and
hold him in your 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. I was reading this and I thought
about the statement here in verse 15. The water was spent. The water was spent out of her
bottle. The water was spent. Well, she
was in a desperate situation, wasn't she? And her water was
spent. The only mode of survival that
this poor woman had. And now it was all gone. It was
spent. Sometimes people perceive themselves
to be in a worse condition than they really are. They imagine
that they're at the end of the road, that they can't go on,
but lo and behold, it's just their imagination. It's something
they perceive that's not even really true. And they can go
on. They do go on. They find a way
to endure. The Bible says that weeping may
endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. And they learn,
they patiently wait, and they can bear that trouble. That happens
so often, doesn't it? You wait patiently for the Lord,
and you see some light at the end of the tunnel, and so you
just wait. You just wait, and you get through
your trouble. There are some troubles that
we get into that we can find a remedy ourselves. David was
in trouble with Saul the king and he said, I know that Saul
is going to kill me. But he found a remedy. He escaped
to the land of the Philistines and he dwelt there. He found
a remedy for his trouble. There were four poor lepers. that was starving to death in
a dead drought. And they said, if we stay in
this city, we're going to die of hunger. And if we go outside,
we're going to die. So they figured out what they
could do. The Assyrians were by, and they
fell into the hands of Syria, and they found all of this spoil,
and they were saved. Sometimes when we get into trouble
and problems, and it seems there's no way out, Yet, thank God, He
provides a way for escape. And we figure it out how to get
through it. And still there's other times,
you consider this, there's still other times when the Lord intervenes
and uses what little we have. Sometimes we're in a trial, we're
in a strait, but we've got a little strength. We've got some means
of survival and the Lord blesses the means and He gets us through
the trial. Remember that woman in Elijah's
day that had a little bit of meal in her pot? And she said, I'm going to fix
that one last meal and I'm going to die. But that meal never did
run out, did it? The Lord blessed it, and she
survived the whole time that they had the drought. There was
one time when there was over 5,000 people who were hungry. And one of the Lord's disciples
said, Oh, we've got two little fish and five loaves. But you
know, the Lord fed the whole 5,000 with that. So sometimes
we think we're at the end of our road, but He blesses us with
what strength we have and provides the means, the little means that
we have, and He blesses it. But boy, it wasn't so with this
woman and her son, was it? None of these things that I've
said apply to this poor woman. She had a bottle of water when
she left, but now it was spent. She didn't have one drop of water
left in her little bottle to wet her child's lips or to cool
his parched tongue. The water was spent in the bottle. Her situation was dire. And boy,
she knew it. She knew it. It wasn't something
that she imagined. She said, we're going to die.
We're going to die. She was so desperate that she
took her little son, however old he was, maybe 12 or 14 or
15, but anyway, she took him and led him and set him under
a shrub. And she went off a bull's cast
and said, I can't see him die. My heart is breaking for him
as well as for myself. So she realized that she was
the end of her road. She didn't have a little for
God to work with. She had no strength left. She
had no remedy. She had racked her brain how
to get out of this mess. But she said, it's nothing. It's
nothing. I can't get out of this. The
bottle was spent of its water. And there she was. There she
was. I wonder what she thought. I
just wonder what she thought. Do you ever have to use your
imagination as you read some of these passages? There she
sat, lifting up her voice, weeping. I just wonder what she thought.
You know what we think sometimes when we get in trouble and there's
no way out? Man, what a mess I've gotten myself into. What
a mess. How did I come out of Egypt and
finally wind up out here in this wilderness with my son ready
to die? Boy, then we start thinking,
don't we? We start thinking about all the sins of our youth and
what a mess and all these errors that we made and all these things
that we've done. Boy, if I had it to do over,
I'd do things different. All that she began to think.
But nothing gave her any comfort. She lifted up her voice and she
wept. She was ready to perish without
any known remedy. The Bible says she lifted up
her voice and she wept aloud. Now imagine the situation that
this woman found herself in. The bottle of water was spent. Her mode of survival was gone. But here's the mystery of this
situation. And here's what I want to dwell
on and get us to think about here just for a few minutes.
There was a remedy. for all that ailed this woman. And lo and behold, it was near
to her. There was a well of water nearby. All the time that she was weeping,
all the time she was fearing, all the time she was despairing,
there was this fresh well of water so near that she could
have seen it. But here was her whole problem. She needed her eyes open to see
it. Ain't it amazing that here this
whale was there and she had stumbled all around it and hadn't seen
it? And all it was going to take was for her eyes to be open to
see it? Isn't it the same way with salvation? Look at this world in a spiritual
sense, and this world is sometimes called a waste, howling wilderness. And humanity is dying of thirst,
and there's no well of living water that they can drink out
of and live forever. But you know something, brothers
and sisters, there is a well. There is a well of living water,
and here's the thing, it's nearby. The Word is nigh thee, even this
morning while you and I are sitting here, and while the world goes
on starving to death and perishing, there is a well of living water,
and it's near. But here's the whole problem.
You know what the problem of this dying world is? It can't
see. It needs their eyes open that
they can see this well of living water. You know one of the terms
used to describe salvation is this, to open the eyes. Isn't that a wonderful way to
describe salvation? And we can all relate to that,
can't we? Because a blind person can't see anything. There can
be all of this beauty around them, but they can't see it until
they have their eyes open. When the Lord Jesus came, this
is the way He described Him saving people. The recovery of sight
to the blind. And here's the most amazing thing.
The remedy for a man's salvation has already been paid. Salvation,
redemption has already been accomplished. Jesus Christ has came down from
heaven. Has He not? 2,000 years ago,
and has He not already did everything that's needful for a person's
salvation? He's honored the law in keeping
it. He satisfied the penalty of the
law by offering His own blood to God to atone for sin. Isn't
that already done? What more needs to be done for
a person's salvation? It's accomplished, isn't it?
I love the little track we have back there on our table. It says,
not to do. Our salvation is not to do. That's
not the way we describe salvation. But the way we describe salvation
is done. It's done. But here's the problem. We need eyes to see it, don't
we? We need eyes to see it. The recovering
of sight to those that are blind. What more needs to be done? Nothing. The well was here, but she couldn't
see it until the Lord had opened her eyes. When the Lord was sending
the Apostle Paul to preach the gospel to the Gentiles so they
could be saved, here's what he said, Saul, I send you to the
Gentiles to open their eyes. to open their eyes. One of the most amazing things
in my own salvation, and you may have felt the same way when
the Lord saved you. This is one of the most amazing
things to me after the Lord saved me. I realized that my salvation
had already been accomplished. That was astounding to me. And
here's why it was astounding to me. I was doing all of these
things. I had my little bottle of human
merit, and I was drinking from that stagnated bottle, and I
was trying to do all these things to please God, and all these
things to put the guilt away from my conscience, while all
along, my salvation had already been accomplished. And it was
just a matter of seeing it. Seeing it. And when the Lord
opened my eyes to see, then I drank from that well of living water.
And I thought to myself so often, it's amazing. And even to this
day, do you feel this way sometimes when you just get overcome with
a sense of your sin and your unworthiness and your weakness?
And suddenly you remember again, well, my salvation is already
accomplished. Here I am weeping over my sin
and confessing my sin, but already my sins have been punished in
someone else. I just need my eyes opened to
see it. Oh, you may be here this morning
and you're just lost. You're just lost. You're miserably
lost. And you're thinking of all these
things you need to do. I've got to get my act together.
I've got to straighten my life out. Listen, that bottle is empty. It's already spent. You need
your eyes open to see there is a well already dug. And when you have your eyes open,
you can drink of that living water. Oh, the living water. That's all we need. Our eyes
open, isn't it? It's done. It's done. That's what the world
can't figure out. It's done. The well is there.
The well is there. Israel was in this wilderness
of sin. They had sinned against the Lord,
and He had sent these serpents among them, and they had been
bitten by them. They were dying. I don't know how many died. Many
died. And they cried unto the Lord,
and the Lord told Moses to put this brazen serpent, beat this
serpent out of brass and put him upon a pole, and it shall
come to pass. When anyone looks upon that serpent,
he shall live. The serpent was hanging up there.
All they had to do was look to the serpent. Look to the serpent. Isn't that what salvation is?
Looking. But a man can't look until he
has his eyes open, can he? Knowing human nature as we do,
don't you imagine that a lot of commotion was going on there
in the desert when people were dying? Moses hung up the serpents
and said, look and live. And don't you imagine that there
were others there that said, we need to get a committee to
study these serpents. Oh, you know they did that. Why?
Because that's what we do, isn't it? There were some others there
that said, we need a crime watch committee. We need people to
pick up their stones and their sticks and go out and kill these
snakes. We need to watch for them. They did that. There was a physician
there claiming that he had the ability to cure the bite. Oh, if you have been, come to
me. I will heal you. There was a man there that invented
eyeglasses to help people to see. There was a man there that
trained people to look. And I can see this fellow there
who said, if you will come up front here, I can help you to
decide to look. But you know what the simple
remedy was? To look. It was to look. All them that
looked, they were healed. And men go on in their despair,
go on after their bottle is spent, saying, I've got to do this and
I've got to do that. No, the remedy is there already. Get your mind off doing this
and doing that. The remedy is there. And here's
what you need to ask the Lord. Open my eyes that I can see. That's what we need. I'm not here this morning to
judge men's motives. All these remedies that these
fellows in the desert may have offered. Maybe they were as sincere
as they could be. But the fact remains, doesn't
it? The fact remains there was only one way to be delivered
from sin and the wrath of God. Only one way to be delivered
from sin and the wrath of God. And that is through that remedy
that has already been offered. We need our eyes opened. Abraham
was sincere when he filled Hagar's bottle, but that bottle ran dry. We must have water that man cannot
provide us. We must have heaven's water.
It's my Father that giveth you the true bread, and He gives
us the water too. Oh, in the whole business of
salvation, in the whole business of salvation, here's a beautiful
picture for us. The well of living water has
already been dug. Christ has already accomplished
the work. We need our eyes open to see
Him. To see Him. Look unto Me and
be ye saved. All the ends of the world. There
is something else that we can learn from this text, not just
in salvation. The water was not only spent
for Hagar, but it was spent for her son too. And she seemed to
be as much or more worried about him than she was worried about
her son, than she was worried about herself. It says here,
when she saw the water, the first thing she did was fill the bottle
and she took it to him. She took him a drink. She was
more concerned about him than she was herself. I bet you this
applies to some of you here this morning. You have a child, you
have a son, you have a daughter, you have a dear loved one, you
have a friend, and you know that the water has been spent in their
bottle, that they're going to perish? You find this all through
the Gospels, Matthew through John, people coming to the Lord
Jesus. Listen to some of these examples.
There was a Canaanite woman, a Gentile woman, and her daughter
was grievously vexed with the devil. I don't know what effects
that was having upon her. Maybe it affected her old attitude.
Maybe it affected what she was doing. But her daughter was grievously
vexed with the devil, and this woman came to the Lord on behalf
of her daughter, and here's what she said, Lord, have mercy on
me. Woman, you're not the one that's
vexed with the devil. It's your daughter. But she said,
I might as well be. It so affected my heart. I love
her so much that her possession of this devil is my possession.
Lord, have mercy upon me. Do you ever feel that way about
your child or your grandchild? There was another man, a man
by the name of Jairus, came to the Lord Jesus and said, Lord,
I have only one daughter and she is at the point of death. Please come and lay hands on
her and she shall live. There was another man who had
a son, a little child. And he came to the Lord and he
said, Lord, often the devil takes him and casts him into the water
and into the fire to destroy him. If you can help us, have
mercy on us. There was another that came and
had a servant that was grievously ill and dying. And he said, Lord,
have mercy upon my servant. He's grievously tormented. There
were four friends that came, burying their friend that had
palsy. Remember that? They dug up the roof. I'm just
saying this, brothers and sisters, sometimes we're so burdened for
our children and so burdened for our family, we have drank
in the well ourselves. But we want their eyes open that
they may drink from this well. It's good when we burden for
somebody else, isn't it? It's good to have a burden, a
real burden for someone else, especially our family, our children.
And sometimes we think our children's case, because they wandered so
far and they're so deep in sin, we just almost despair for their
salvation. Don't we sometimes? Oh, they're
so blinded. They've gone off in sin to the
point they won't listen to us. They won't heed our instructions.
They won't even let us pray with them. They just almost hate us. They don't want us to talk about
the Lord. They're so stooped in sin. We just almost despair,
don't we, of their salvation. Look what a mess their lives
are in. But you know, we shouldn't despair. Why? Well, here's a woman that despaired
of her child. But here, there is a remedy close
by. And the same well that you drink
from, they can drink from. The same Lord who opens your
eyes so easily and so quickly can open theirs that they may
drink. Oh, we have a tendency to think
sometimes, if the Lord saves my child, oh, it's going to be
so difficult for them because look at the habits. Look at the
habits that they're bound with. Look at sin that's bound them.
It's just going to be so difficult. Why do we think that? As soon
as we drink of this well, it changes everything, doesn't it? I love the portion here that
told us about Ishmael. And he went on here to where
I read to you in the text that he was dying in this wilderness.
out in the wilderness and dying of thirst. But as soon as he
drank of this well of water, he lived in that wilderness.
Now isn't that amazing? You'd think, well, he'd have
got him a drink and left the wilderness. But he didn't. He
made his home here in this wilderness. The well sustained him. And what
I'm saying this morning is this, we may be terribly burdened for
our children, our loved one, our neighbor, and we think, boy,
it's just going to be impossible. But listen, the Lord can save
our children and put them right back in this world where they
mess their lives up at, and they can live a life for the glory
of God. Here's the thing, when the Lord
opens their eyes, And they drank of this well of living water.
That's the thing. That's the thing. Wouldn't it
be wonderful this morning to say of your child, God has opened
their eyes. They have drank of that well. And now God is with them. That's what God told this Agar
about her son. God is with him. Well, if he's
drinking of this well and God is with him, he can live in the
wilderness, can't he? It would be rather easy. It would
be rather easy. Oh, I could rest. I could rest
tonight if the Lord would say this about my children. They
have had their eyes opened. There's something else here too
about this. Doesn't this teach us something
else about our own lives when trouble comes as believers? confusion,
and sometimes we see no way out of our dilemma as believers,
as children of God. Sometimes we see no way out of
the trouble that we're in. But lo and behold, all the Lord
has to do is just open our eyes, and immediately our dilemma is
solved. It's just that quick and easy.
I've been places, and you have too, where you thought, man,
I'll never get out of this. I'll never get out of this. I
can't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I'll never get
out of this. But the Lord just opened my eyes. And that's all
that was needed. And that was it. That was it. You were at the end of the tunnel.
You remember in Luke chapter 24. Luke 24 is a wonderful chapter. But the disciples, two of the
Lord's disciples, the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead, and
they didn't know it. They didn't know it, and they
didn't believe it. And two of His disciples were on the road
to a Mass from Jerusalem, and they were walking, and the risen
Savior came and was walking by them. They could have reached
out and touched Him. And they were so sad. And He
said, why are you sad as you're walking? And they said, are you
a stranger? Don't you know what's happening?
And He said, what? And they told Him the sad story.
You know, this Jesus of Nazareth, we thought He was the Redeemer.
But they crucified Him. They put Him in the grave. And
some of the ladies said that they saw angels that said He
was risen. And we're so confused about this. And we've just left
Jerusalem and we're going home. And he began to talk with them.
And they coached him into going and sitting at the table and
eating bread. And while he was eating bread, the Scripture says
their eyes were opened. And they knew him. And all their
sadness and all their confusion suddenly vanished. And the only
thing it took was to have their eyes opened. I love the 24th chapter of Luke.
Read it sometime because it's a chapter where everything is
open. God is open in everything. You
know God is a God who opens. He opens and nobody can shut.
You read there in the first few verses, He sent an angel down
from heaven and opened up the sepulcher. The ladies were saying,
how can we get in to anoint the body of Jesus? But when they
got there, God had already opened the sepulcher. When they were
sitting at dinner with the Lord Jesus, He opened their eyes that
they saw Him. And then He said, did not our
hearts burn within us while He talked with us by the way and
opened to us the Scriptures? And then He finished it with
this. He opened their understanding. Oh, He's a God who opens, isn't
He? And you may be here this morning and you're facing heaviness
in your heart and trials that nobody knows about. And you think,
it's going to be so hard. And if I'm delivered, it's going
to be so slow and long. It may not be at all. As soon as the Lord opens your
understanding and you see the well, you're refreshed. It's
just that easy. That's why David said, Lord,
open my eyes. Why? That I may see wondrous
things out of Thy law. Oh, a dark place in the well.
Do you believe Jesus Christ is near this morning? Do you believe
He's near? We think of Him as being so far
off, but you know He's near. He's not just a God of far off
in heaven. He's near! He's near! And we just need our eyes open
to see. Charles Spurgeon talked about a man they locked away
in a dark room. And he was in there for days
and almost starved to death before somebody got him out. But he
said, lo and behold, when they let him out, he saw that he had
been locked in a food pantry. But he couldn't see the food
because it was dark. That's what I'm saying. That's
what I'm saying. Yes, the path may seem dark. And we think, oh, it's going
to be a long, hard struggle. We're so sad. But just let Him
open our hearts to see Him. Just to see Him. And drink of
Him, our trouble is over with. When the Lord first saved me,
all I knew, all I knew was I was a guilty sinner. That's all I
knew. And Jesus Christ was the only Savior. That's all I knew. He pleaded my cause. and saved
me. But it wasn't long before the
Lord began to open my eyes to see some other things in the
Scripture. And one of the things I saw was my awful depravity. Before, I'd felt my guilt. But
boy, I began to see, when He opened my eyes, my awful depravity. But you know, He showed me something
else. I saw something else. That's the way it's supposed
to be. And this was such a comfort to me as He opened my heart and
He said such things like this, I will give you a new spirit
and a new heart will I put within you and then you shall loathe
yourself in your own sight. And that was like refreshing
waters to my soul to drink of that well of understanding. I never knew a thing about election
when the Lord saved me. Some of you may have. I never
knew anything about effectual calling. I experienced it. But
I never knew anything about that. Never knew anything about particular
redemption. I just know that Christ put away
my sins and that's all I knew. And some dear brethren, they
judge us and they find some fault with us because we didn't know
these things. We didn't know all of these truths.
But some of us wasn't raised up around these wells, were we?
This blessed well of election, I loved to drink out of it. And
effectual redemption and so on. Perseverance of the saint. When
the Lord first saved me, I didn't even understand that. I was so
confused about that. I thought, well, I could fall
away myself. But the Lord opened my heart
and He showed me that wonderful well. that He that hath begun
a good work in you will perform it. And oh, I drank and it refreshed
my heart. Oh, the dear brethren shouldn't
be too aggravated at us because we didn't drink of these wells.
Some people raised up around these wells. I've raised up around
the well of free will. That's all we had to drink out
of, that stagnated water. But oh, it wasn't long, the Lord
began to open our eyes. And we drank out of these other
wells, and this well and that well. You know what the Bible
says about salvation. With joy shall they drink water
out of the wells of salvation. Christ is one and the gospel
is one, but there's many wells that make up that gospel, isn't
there? And I tell you, in my area where I was raised up at,
and even when we come up here, those wells had been filled up. They'd been stocked up. Nobody
could drink out of them. You remember when Abraham had
died and he had dug all these precious wells, and the Philistines
came in and stopped up the wells. And Isaac came along and dug
them out. He cleaned them out. That's what
we've had to do around here, isn't it? We've had to clean
out these wells, these blessed wells that had been stopped up.
And now we drank out of them. We drank out of them. But the
Lord opened our eyes, and we saw the well. And we saw the
well. Somebody said, well, I don't
believe in that business of election. Well, you will when the Lord
opens your eyes. And when He opens your eyes, you'll drink
out of it. And you'll love it. You'll find it so refreshing
to your soul. With joy shall they drink water
out of the wells of salvation. These four disciples on the road
to Emmaus, They were so ignorant and they were so sad. But you
know the Lord loved these disciples. They were ignorant. They didn't
even know they did raise from the dead, but the Lord loved
them. And all they needed was their eyes to be open. Eyes to be open. Here in our
text in verse 13, Agar didn't know everything. There was a
promise given to her before she ever knew it. The Lord told Abraham,
He said, Abraham, I'm going to make a great nation out of her
son. They're not going to die out
in the wilderness. That's why Abraham put the bottle of water
and some loaves of bread and sent them away. He knew they
weren't going to die. The Lord had given a promise. But you
know, Agar didn't know that, did she? She had no idea. I wonder why Abraham didn't tell
her. You know, the Lord may have told him, don't you whisper a
thing. Don't you whisper things. She'll find it out soon enough.
Some promises are learned in times of great trials, aren't
they? When we get through the great
trial, our understanding is open and we lay hold upon a precious
promise. It wasn't her knowledge of the
promise that secured the promise anyway. It was God who made the
promise that secured the promise. And all the promises in Christ
are yea and amen. But do you know all the promises?
Do you have knowledge of all of them? Why, no! You'll get
them as God opens your heart to see them. But you're knowing
it and you're believing it. It's not what secures the promise
anyway. He that made it is the one that secured it. Has your little bottle of water
been spent this morning? You know everybody's bottle of
water is going to be spent. It's going to be spent. If this life don't spend it,
death will. Boy, death is a king of terrors.
It'll spend men's bottles of water on it. Hell will do it. Boy, hell will
spend it. That rich man in hell had not
one drop of water to cool his tongue. Men leave this world
thinking, I've got enough water in my own bottle. No, you don't.
To stand before God and give account of your sins, I'm telling
you what, that will drain the water out of your little bottle.
Men will stand there with their little bottles of human merit
saying, we've done all these wonderful works, but I'm telling
you the Lord Jesus Himself will turn their bottles upside down
and squeeze it and throw it away and put them in hell. Has your
bottle of water been spent? I pray God it has. And I pray
God has opened your eyes and you've seen the well of living
water. I pray God will bring us into
the desert and the wilderness this morning, every one of us,
and all our bottles are spent. And He opens our eyes to let
us see the well of living water. And here's the thing, it's there
already. It's there already. You just need your eyes open
to see it. What a wonderful text. I wish
I'd have handled it properly, but it's there. Wonderful text. Let's pray.