Today, we are in chapter 21 of the “From Dust to Life Series” in Genesis. What we will see in this passage is the end of the 25-year long wait for God’s covenant promise to Abraham and Sarah. As we have said earlier in this series: God is never too late and He’s never too early. Though sometimes \difficult to believe, God is always right on time.
Let’s turn to Genesis 21. We’ll be reading from the English Standard Version.
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. 3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 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.” 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.b 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. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased 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. 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” 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.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt (ESV).
What can we perhaps see in Abraham and Sarah’s journey of faith?
? Preparation for the Promise
? A Precise Moment in Time
? A Painful Process
? God’s Unfailing Provision
Let’s look at the first point:
1. Preparation for the Promise
25 years earlier, God had called Abraham to leave behind practically everything in his life, everything that represented security. He got up and left his home country, his friends, his relatives, and everything that was familiar to him. God called him to leave these things behind and to just go. Abraham had no idea where, but God told him, “I will show you.” Does it ever seem that just as we get comfortable in a city, in a neighborhood, in a workplace, God does something new just to shake things up?
God’s vision for Abraham's life was to make his name great. He told Abraham to leave his home country, that he would become a great nation, and that all the nations through him would be blessed. We don’t know what Abraham was thinking when God came to him but we do know that he obeyed God by faith, and by moving forward he would discover God’s will.
During the majority of Abraham’s journey, however, God was quiet. Sarah was also very much involved as a recipient of the promised child and during their walk of faith, they experienced difficulties, despair, trauma, heartache, victories and failures. Through it all, Abraham trusted God and called on His name.
Abraham and Sarah went through many years of seeming silence from God’s side and ended up trying to fulfill His vision themselves. And we also know that their self-sufficiency was brought to an end and that they grew past the point of relying on their own intuition and common sense. These years of silence wasn’t because they weren’t in favor with Him, it was for a purpose resulting in deepening levels of trust and discipline. God is never in a rush and always has a reason for His delays.
Warren Wiersbe wrote:
Trusting God's promises not only gives you a blessing at the end, but it gives you a blessing while you are waiting. Just as Olympic athletes develop their skills as they practice hard and long before the big event, so God's children grow in godliness and faith as they wait for the fulfillment of God's promises.
When God gives you a vision it doesn’t usually come to fruition right away. God keeps His promises and will bring the vision He has for your life to pass but you also have to wait for His timing. There are times of waiting, darkness, discipline, and maybe many times of doubt but this is how God prepares us for the blessing.
I believe Abraham and Sarah weren’t ready for the promise and so this time of preparation was necessary. AW Tozer said:
The reason we are all being disciplined is that we will know God is real. As soon as God becomes real to us, people and our plans pale by comparison.
As we follow God by faith, we don’t have to pretend that everything is wonderful and that our lives are always going to be filled with confidence and bubbling joy. We just need to keep ourselves grounded in Him and in His promises while we wait on Him (Isa 50:10–11). From Genesis chapters 12 - 21 God had been preparing this couple to receive a promise at…
2. A Precise Moment in Time
In verse 1 God said:
The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised.
The word visited doesn’t simply mean to “drop in,” but always implies purposeful intervention in someone’s life. And in order for Sarah to become pregnant at 89, she needed God’s miraculous intervention. In vv. 4-6 Sarah gave birth to a son just as God had said: meaning God made it happen at just the right time. Scholars agree that the word “said or spoken and promised” speaks about how the sovereign God is able to bring everything He said to pass “at the appointed time,” at a precise moment in time. When Habakkuk prayed for God’s answer concerning the judgment of the wicked God said:
For the vision is yet for the appointed [future] time. It hurries toward the goal [of fulfillment]; it will not fail. Even though it delays, wait [patiently] for it, Because it will certainly come; it will not delay (Hab 2:3).
This couple’s son was born at just the right time, at a precise moment in time, or in the fullness of time - when God would get the glory. And just as the Lord commanded Abraham they named him Isaac.
The birth of Isaac is a picture of the coming Messiah, of the gospel. Both Jesus and Isaac were:
? Promised sons
? Given their names before birth
? Had mothers assured of God omnipotence
? Miraculous conceptions
? Born at a precise moment in history
? Both were the fulfillment of God’s covenant promise
? Both brought great joy.
God told Abraham and Sarah to name the child “he laughs.” Abraham laughed at the promise because of his amazement, Sarah laughed because of her unbelief (Gen 18:12-13). Now their laughter is an expression of great joy because of the birth of Isaac, the long-awaited promise. Sarah admits that it is God who has made “Isaac” or laughter for her. Some scholars think that Isaac was given this name because God laughed. In a sense, God gets the last laugh.
Think about it. What gives us the greatest reasons for joy and celebration? An everyday occurrence? Or when God supernaturally answers an impossible prayer. If we got everything we wanted right away, life wouldn’t be very exciting. If someone really works hard and accomplishes something of great significance there is joy and celebration. But when you trust God to take an impossible situation where there is no hope humanly speaking, and He takes something from dust to life, ex-nihilo, we all rejoice because what’s impossible for us is possible for God.
Sarah reflected on God's blessing in v. 7:
Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.
Have you taken time to reflect on the impossible things God has accomplished on your behalf? I can think of several situations in my life where God showed up at just the right time, at the fullness of time, where it was clear that the intervention was supernatural.
In verses 8-11, three years passed as Isaac grew and was weaned. In the Middle East when a child made it to this stage of life it was celebrated with a feast. Asian countries like Korea, Japan, and China as well as in the near East and countries like Nigeria and Egypt also celebrate the first year of life in a big way. Not only was the first birthday supposed to indicate what type of future the child had, they celebrated because the child made it through their first year of life! But we see that for Ishmael, Hagar’s son, Isaac’s life was not an occasion for celebration. We see that Ishmael was also laughing, not in celebration but in derision. This is where we see a:
3. Painful Process
Galatians 4:29 says that Ishmael "persecuted" Isaac. It could be that Ishmael (who represented the flesh) thought that he, as the first born, was Abraham's rightful heir. Cuneiform law indicates that the son of a slave woman had a legal claim on his father’s property. Ishmael, who was 16 years old by this time, was understandably jealous and was competing for first place. Sarah perceived that Ishmael was a potential threat to Isaac’s inheritance and so demanded that Abraham cast out the slave woman and her son.
Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.
Though Abraham didn’t agree with Sarah, God told him to listen to her.
Isaac and Ishmael could not coexist together - two different worlds, two different destinations. Ishmael was born by human plotting, Isaac was born according to the promise. Ishmael represents the flesh and the law - what a man or woman can do without God. Isaac represents that which only God can do. Isaac was the result of God’s power, apart from human ingenuity and it was through his line that the Messiah would come and Sarah was not going to let anything interfere with the promise. Abraham was distressed because Ishmael was his son and had been the sole focus of his fatherly love until the arrival of Isaac. His affections were divided and for him to send Ishmael and Hagar away was a painful process.
But just remember why they were in this situation. Sarah and Abraham didn’t trust God and they had to live with the consequences for 16 years. Yet God graciously intervened in the painful process of moving from past mistakes into a promise. He took the tangled threads of Abraham’s life and masterfully wove them into his own divine plan.” Nations would come through both Isaac and Ishmael.
What does this say to us today? I think sometimes in our impatience with the plan of God we, in a sense, mock God’s promises and His goodness and give birth to an Ishmael (something born from our natural life and not from the Spirit of God). And then, we have to live with the painful consequences of those decisions. Getting us to transition from the natural to the spiritual can be painful process. (Trusting God by faith instead of ourselves) There are times when we need to make hard decisions to let go of certain things, personal desires whether good or bad that compete with our loyalty and obedience to the Lord.
There may be times when God’s vision for our lives is not the same as what our family wants, or what we want, yet God knows the end from the beginning and we can trust that His vision is far greater than ours or anyone else’s. If we go forward by faith, like Abraham, we will discover God’s will. God wants the best for us and will prepare us for the vision and calling He has for us. There will always be painful processes in our lives when we walk with the Lord / but instead of running the other way, the key is keeping our eyes on Him and trust Him to bring His vision to fruition. (Illustration of sailing). The waves of circumstances can make us sick but if we keep our eyes on the horizon, on God and His promises, we will find stability in the storms.
In Sarah and Abraham’s case, they needed to face this together in order to pursue the promise of the covenant. It may have seemed harsh but they had to send Hagar and Ishmael away into the wilderness. There was an ancient law in Mesopotamia that stipulated that the father may grant freedom to the slave woman and the children she has borne him, in which case they forfeit their share of the paternal property. They may have lost Abraham’s inheritance but they gained their freedom. Abraham had to let them go so they could discover the plan God had for them. They would have to discover for themselves…
4. God’s Unfailing Provision
Abraham set Hagar and her son free and God reassured Abraham that He would take care of them. God said He would prosper them and make Ishmael into a great nation. In verses 15-21, we see that the next day, in the cool of the morning, Abraham gave them bread and water and sent them away peacefully. Abraham “gave Hagar the boy,” meaning he committed guardianship of Ishmael to Hagar, thereby relinquishing responsibility for his son.
They wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, possibly trying to reach Egypt but after some time found themselves in a dire situation as the water had run out. They thought they would die in the desert and the midst of her despair Hagar cries out to God. Apparently she had forgotten the promise God made to her 16 years earlier about her son. The angel of the Lord, for the second time, comes to Hagar’s rescue and graciously asks her, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Don’t be afraid! God heard Ishmael’s cries for help and then He opened Hagar’s eyes to see the provision - a well of water. Can we think of another time when God met someone by a well of water? Hagar and Ishmael are a picture of us. At one time we thought we could make it without God, but then God brought us to the end of natural resources and we cried out to Him. In His mercy He meets us in our times of despair, when we have no hope left, He opens our eyes and gives us hope - He offers us living water.
We see that God not only came to their rescue in the wilderness but that He was with Ishmael as he grew up. He never stopped providing for Hagar and Ishmael and kept His promise for His vision for Ishmael’s life and made him into a great nation.
What a story of redemption for both Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael. He prepared Abraham and Sarah for the promise and despite their tangled mess He brings about the promise in His perfect timing - at a precise moment in time. It is a picture of how God sent his son at the fullness of time, where everything was prepared for the gospel to go out to the farthest regions of the World. God’s promises are worth waiting for.
