Isaac and Ishmael
Last week’s sermon watched God bless Abraham despite his deceitful
lies to Abimelech and crass willingness to use his wife to protect himself.
One might be left with the idea that sin has no consequences. Today’s text
puts an end to kind of superficial thinking.
We reap what we sow!
Many of our favorite Bible heroes reaped sins that they had sowed.
Noah sowed to drunkenness and reaped pain in his family.
Samson sowed fornication with Delilah and reaped blindness and
ultimately death at the hands of the Philistines.
Jonah ran away from God and spent three days in the belly of a whale.
David sowed adultery and murder and reaped the death of four sons and
the ultimate dissolution of his kingdom.
In the same way, today’s story is about Abraham. He sowed unbelief in
the matter with Hagar and Ishmael. In this story he reaps pain.
The men that I just listed—Noah, Samson, Jonah, David, and Abraham—
were all God’s favorites. Despite the fact that they were justified by faith
alone and went to heaven, they all paid a significant price, in this life, for
their sins.
Main Idea: God is faithful, but sin is still costly.
A. GOD IS FAITHFUL
1. The Birth of Isaac
Verses 1 and 2 contain a threefold emphasis on God’s faithfulness.
(Genesis 21:1–2) "1 The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD
did to Sarah as he had promised. 2 And Sarah conceived and bore
Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him."
This matters because the conception of Isaac was physically impossible.
It was a miracle.
(Genesis 21:5–7) "5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac
was born to him. 6 And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me;
everyone who hears will laugh over me.” 7 And she said, “Who would have
said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a
son in his old age.”"
Why a 25 year gap between the promise and the fulfillment? Let me
suggest two reasons:
1st God fulfills his promises in such a way that it kills human boasting.
(Boasting in anything except the sheer supernatural grace of God).
2nd God fulfills his promises in such a way that the fulfillment establishes
and expands our faith.
These two principles apply to objective promises common to all
Christians. i.e. “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” “The gospel is the
power of God for salvation to all who believe.”
It also applies to personal subjective promises. Sarah’s promise.
(Jeremiah 29:11) "11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the
LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
Biblical Examples: Samuel’s promise to David that he would become
King.
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God’s promised Joseph that his brothers and parents would bow down to
him.
2. A fulfillment of Gen 12
In this chapter Abimelech re-enters our story. Last week we watched as
Abraham lied to him about Sarah. God appears to Abimelech and keeps him
from taking Sarah into his harem. Three or four years have now passed.
Abimelech is a Gentile. He is outside of God’s promises. Nevertheless, he
has watched Abraham. He sees God’s grace and blessing on Abraham. He
wants to get in on the benefits of Abraham’s relationship with God. So, he
asks Abraham to make a covenant with him.
(Genesis 21:22–23) "22 At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander
of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. 23 Now
therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or
with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with
you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have
sojourned.”"
All of this confirms God’s bigger promise to Abraham in Gen 12.
(Genesis 12:2–3) "2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless
you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless
those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all
the families of the earth shall be blessed.”"
Commentator, Gordon Wenham, interprets the promise to Abraham in
Genesis 12 that “you will be a blessing” to mean that someday others will
say, “God make me as blessed as Abraham.”1
1
Gordon Wenham, Genesis 16-50, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 200) pg 95
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B. BUT SIN IS STILL COSTLY
God’s faithfulness to Abraham has been extravagant. God loves
Abraham. He will never leave him or forsake him. God will fulfill his
promises to Abraham. For example, last week we watched God saving
Abraham from Abimelech.
Now, despite Abraham’s unworthiness, God has kept his promise to give
Abraham a son through Sarah.
However, God’s faithfulness does not do away with his discipline. God
disciplines the sons that he loves. When we sin, God’s discipline comes to us
in the form of reaping what we have sown.
(Galatians 6:7) "7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever
one sows, that will he also reap.”
In Abraham’s case the reaping is very painful. Let me explain.
At the time of Isaac’s weaning Ishmael is somewhere between 15 and 16.
Abraham loves Ishmael. He still thinks that Ishmael is going to inherit the
promises. He probably thinks that God’s promises will now come to pass
through both Ishmael and Isaac. But that is and has never been God’s plan.
On the day of Isaac’s weaning, strife erupts between Sarah and Hagar.
(Polygamy is never a good idea). Sarah does not want her son to share the
inheritance with Hagar’s son. For fifteen years there has been bad blood
between Sarah and Hagar. (It started in Gen 16). It culminates in this
passage.
(Genesis 21:8–11) "8 And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham
made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw
the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.
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10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for
the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” 11 And
the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son."
Sin doesn’t always produce a reaping. Sometimes God is merciful, and
there is little or no reaping. (Think Pharaoh and Abimelech). That is not the
case here. The reaping is deep, painful, and prolonged. It will mean
heartbreak at Abraham’s separation from Ishmael, and it will mean enmity
between the children of Ishmael and the children of Isaac for millennia.
First, it will mean separation from Ishmael.
Anecdote : Neighbors on Montgomery.
God asks Abraham to reject his son through Hagar. But Abraham loves
Ishmael. Ishmael has been his only heir for fifteen years. Abraham has
convinced himself that all of God’s promises will come through Ishmael. In
fact, when Ishmael was about 13 or 14, and Abraham was 99, God came to
our hero and told him that Sarah is going to have a son. Here is how
Abraham reacts.
(Genesis 17:18) "18 And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live
before you!”"
He doesn’t want a son through Sarah. Why does Abraham feel this way?
He loves Ishmael. He has invested himself in Ishmael. He has trained him as
only a father who receives an only son in his old age would train him. He
has doted on him. He is happy with Ishmael. He loves Ishmael. That is why
when Sarah tells her husband,
“Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman
shall not be heir with my son Isaac.”
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The text ends—
11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son."
The NBC suggests that the translation should not be “very displeasing”
but “exploded with anger.” It is very painful to hurt those we love.
Anecdote: Family Dr. who performed abortions.
However, Abraham is a man of God. Because we feel his pain, we are
astounded when he acts so decisively the next morning.
(Genesis 21:14) "14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread
and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along
with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the
wilderness of Beersheba."
Since the beginning separation from those that he loves has characterized
Abraham’s relationship with God. In fact, this theme permeates the Bible.
(Luke 14:25–27) "25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned
and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own
father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and
even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his
own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."
First at Abraham’s call God asked him to separate from his family, his
clan, his father’s house and the country of his birth.
Then God asked him to separate from Lot.
Now God commands him to separate from Ishmael.
Ultimately, God will even ask Abraham to put God between himself and
Isaac.
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Brothers and sisters, it is the same with us. God will have no competing
god’s in our lives. He expects us to love him so much more than those close
to us that our love for them is like hatred compared to our love for God.
So, he must reject Ishmael the child of his unbelief. He must reap what he
has sown.
Second, subsequent generations will also reap Abraham’s unbelief. The
effects of sin are always social. They are like a virus. They seldom stay
confined to the sinner. They attack our spouses, children or room-mates.
Ultimately, Ishmael will become the father of the Arabs. In fact, the
Moslems actually trace their descent to Abraham through Ishmael. This is a
problem. The character of Ishmael and his descendants has not been
attractive.
God prophesied this in Genesis 16. After Ishmael was conceived, Hagar
began to look down on Sarah, so Sarah sent her away pregnant. Hagar
wandered in the desert, and the angel of the Lord came to her.
(Genesis 16:11–12) "11 “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your
affliction. 12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his
kinsmen.”"
Verse 12 is a picture of the Islamic people today. Picture the Arabs on
TV in a frenzied state, screaming and yelling, throwing dirt in the air, firing
their rifles in the air.
In fact, today’s Jews are reaping Abraham’s sin through the intense
hostility of Ishmael’s descendants.
Yes, God is faithful, but sin is still very costly.
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Bottom Line? Don’t take the fulfillment of God’s promises into your own
hands. Wait for God. Don’t marry an unsuitable mate. Don’t grow your
business unethically. Don’t grow your church unethically. Don’t control
your children inappropriately, etc. etc.
C. THREE LESSONS:
1. Fear God! Don’t presume upon his Grace!
In the affair with Hagar Abraham presumed upon God’s grace. He didn’t
fear God. It cost him greatly.
Sin brings immediate pleasure, but the cost is always long term, and it is
much greater than the temporary pleasure. The fear of God is the belief that
this is true.
(Pr. 8:13) “The fear of the Lord is the hatred of Evil.”
(Pr. 16:6) “By the fear of the Lord one turns from evil”
(Psalm 36:1–2) "1 Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God before his eyes. 2 For he flatters himself in his own
eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated."
2. Husbands, Lead Your Wives
In Genesis 16, the Devil spoke through Sarah.
(Genesis 16:2) "2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the LORD has
prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I
shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai."
But now the opposite happens. God speaks through Sarah.
(Genesis 21:10,12) "10 So [Sarah] said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave
woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with
my son Isaac.” … 12 But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased
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because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah
says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be
named."
Application: Leadership of a home does not mean that the husband
makes all the decisions. It means he is responsible for all the decisions. His
job is to listen very carefully to God on behalf of his family. He needs to
hear God whenever and wherever he speaks. Then he is to lead his family in
that direction. That is his responsibility, not his wife’s. When Sarah
proposed the affair with Hagar, Abraham should have stood up to her.
Instead he capitulated. Now God tells him to listen to her.
3. God will only relate to us on the basis of grace working through
faith.
Anyone who attempts to relate to God with works will be rejected.
Abraham lost confidence in God’s promise. He retreated into unbelief.
Whenever we do that we will be tempted to take matters into our hands.
Unbelief produced Ishmael.
In the NT Ishmael represents everyone who tries to relate to God on the
basis of works. Why do we work? We don’t really believe that God will give
grace to someone as worthy as ourselves, so we take matters into our own
hands.
By contrast, Isaac represents all of those who relate to God by faith and
believe God’s promises.
(Galatians 4:21–31, pg 974) "21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the
law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two
sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of
the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman
was born through promise.
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24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two
covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is
Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the
present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is
written, “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry
aloud, you who are not in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be
more than those of the one who has a husband.” 28 Now you, brothers,
like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was
born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the
Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the
slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit
with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the
slave but of the free woman."
Hagar and Ishmael represent the OT. They represent the person who
works to gain God’s acceptance. Why? Ishmael is a work of unbelief.
By contrast Sarah and Isaac represent the NT. They represent the person
who relates to God by grace through faith. Why? Sarah is Abraham’s wife.
Her son is not the byproduct of work. Her son is a free gift of grace received
through faith. He is a miracle baby.
In the same way, every believer is a miracle baby.
The point of Galatians four is that those who insist on working to gain
God’s favor are not his children. This is why the Reformation was so
important. Only those who relate to God by grace through faith will enter
God’s Kingdom.
Which are you this morning? A son of Hagar or a son of Sarah.
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