This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Let's turn to Genesis chapter 21. Starting at verse 1, this is the reading of God's holy word Then the Lord took note of Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old as God had commanded him. Now Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me. And she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? yet I've borne him a son in his old age." The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac. the matter distressed or greatly grieved Abraham because of his son. But God said to Abraham, Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid. Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her. For through Isaac your descendant shall be named. And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy and sent her away. she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was used up, she left the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him about a bow shot away. For she said, do not let me see the boy die. And she sat opposite him and lifted up her voice and wept. God heard the lad crying. And the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has made, God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, take hold of him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink. God was with the lad and he grew and he lived in the wilderness and became an archer. He lived in the wilderness of Paran and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. And we'll stop there. That's the reading of God's Word. Well, we get to the long-awaited birth. Sometimes when a young lady, young wife, finds out she's going to become a mother, those nine months can seem to drag on for a long time. I just want to tell you, this dragged on for 25 years. And this was no ordinary birth, and I will assure you that this was no ordinary boy. Now, to be sure, Isaac will be ordinary enough. In fact, out of all the patriarchs, Isaac is by far the most boring. But from God's perspective, this is no ordinary son. Isaac is not just some bouncing baby boy. Isaac is actually the fulfillment of God's promise and the next big step in God's purpose. So if we read this passage, and Lord willing we'll get through the end with the story of Abimelech, and if we read this passage just with human eyes, then the only thing that we're going to see is an unusual birth, and some really intense jealousy, and incredible family dysfunction, and the breakup of a home, and then a covenant concerning water rights. After reading this, some of you thought, man, my family is actually more normal than I thought. But if we read this passage actually with biblical lenses, we see that there's something much bigger happening here. In fact, if we have biblical-shaped lenses, we will see a bigger picture here. and something that's much more significant than just a covenant concerning water rights and jealousy on the home front. Now, there are three parts to Chapter 21, and the first is the long-awaited birth of Isaac, which is 1 through 8, and then the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, 9 through 21, and then strangely, We get reintroduced to our old friend from the last chapter, Abimelech, and we are going to see that he wants to now be friends with Abraham. Now, the first part, the birth of Isaac, is an amazing passage because we see that in verses one and two, God's kept his promise. Remember as we've gone through this that that all along the way there would be these reiterations of the promise concerning a son and then disappointment after disappointment and then Abraham or Sarah would try to sort of be God's consultant and offer him some good ideas about how to deal with this incredibly huge problem like you promised us a son but we're really super old and we're not getting any younger and it doesn't look like this is going to come to pass. And we get to this passage, and alas, God has finally kept his promise. They had waited 25 years, a quarter of a century, for God to keep his promise. Bruce Waltke says these 25 years must have been excruciating tension as delay after delay they encountered. And then, lo and behold, the passage opens up, and actually, with not much fanfare, it says that God visits Sarah. I just want to remind you how incredibly gracious this is. I would put it like this. God visits Sarah, even after the gigantic fiasco of chapter 20. I love this phrase. The Lord did for Sarah as he promised. Does that strike any of you as maybe not exactly what you're expecting the writer to say at this point? Actually, I would expect Moses to have written something like this, and God did for Abraham just as he promised. But no, the focus here ends up being on Sarah. And notice this, the Lord, in caps, L-O-R-D, did for Sarah as he promised. Yahweh, the covenant faithful God, kept his promise to Sarah. And so we see actually in later scripture in Hebrews, the writer capitalizing on this very theme. So he says, let us hold fast our confession of hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. You know, you can get a lot of mileage in the Christian life with just that verse, for he who promised is faithful. But then later, the writer to the Hebrews is going to say this, by faith, even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life since she considered him faithful who promised. And so Isaac comes about and I don't know what the labor was like. Although I'm sure that Sarah was up for the task, no matter how old, no matter how worn out. And when that little baby comes out of the womb, that child is both a miracle and a covenant promise fulfillment. Beautiful story. And in two short verses, we have the fulfillment. Then we see Abraham's obedience and so the first thing he does is he calls his name Isaac, Yitzhak, which of course means laughter. That goes back to chapter 17 and verse 21 where God had given yet another one of his promises that they would have a son and he tells him in 1721 that that son is going to be named Laughter, Isaac. And there's going to be a good reason for that, because in a sense, his name was almost prophetic, because when God and the three angels, or two other angels, come back in Genesis chapter 18, and Sarah's hiding behind the tent, eavesdropping on this conversation, God tells Abraham, in one year's time I'm going to come back and we're going to have a child that's going to come from your body and from Sarah's body, and Sarah's back behind the tent, and she starts laughing. Her laughter at that point was not because it was faith-filled laughter. How do we know that? Because the angel says, why did Sarah laugh? And Sarah pokes her head out from behind the tent and said, I didn't laugh. God calls, or Abraham calls his name laughter. And then he circumcises him on the eighth day in obedience to Genesis chapter 17 and verse 12, and notice the way in verses 3 and 4 all of these details just go by really quickly, but don't you know that for Abraham each detail was absolutely amazing? As he stands there and and pronounces or announces the child's name. Can you imagine, after waiting 25 years, at times wondering whether this was actually going to happen? And being able to say, this is his name, write it on the birth certificate, Yitzhak. Amazing! And then could you imagine him taking that little boy in his hands and taking that flint knife and getting ready to circumcise him and actually thinking, this is absolutely unbelievable. I want to tell you, this is more unbelievable than 7,000 Cubs fans actually celebrating that the Cubs won the World Series. I said 7,000, I think it was 7 million. 7,000 and it hadn't bowed the knee to Baal, 7 million celebrating. I mean, just imagine, you know, wow, I can't believe you won the World Series. There's Abraham, wow, I can't believe I have a son. Abraham and Sarah in verses 5 through 7 just rejoice. The text tells us that Abraham's 100 years old. That's old to have a kid. And Sarah is filled with joy and laughter. And in fact, the text is telling us in verse 6, Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. There's obviously a play on the name with Isaac. Everyone who hears will laugh with me. Sarah goes from the laughter of disbelief in chapter 18 to the laughter of pure amazement and joy here. The laughter of unbelief actually just turns into the laughter of praise and gratitude and thanksgiving to God. And she says, who would have thought? Who would have thought? Every time somebody made fun of Abraham's name, the father of a multitude. Where's the multitude? I'd say, one of these days there's going to be a bun in this old ancient oven. And now they're laughing with me. Now they're laughing with me. Verse 8, they throw this great feast for Isaac. In the ancient Near East, there would be a custom that when the child was weaned, there'd be a great feast. Now, you have to understand that in the ancient Near East, the child wasn't weaned until he was about three years old. Big feast for this little guy. Now I don't have any textual evidence for this, but I would imagine that Isaac was probably the center of attention in that tent, don't you think? I have a feeling that he probably was maybe a little on the spoiled side because he is not only the miracle baby, but he's the very embodiment of of God's promise. And so they throw this gigantic feast, and of course, Abraham being a wealthy man, the feast no doubt was a royal feast. And here's this grand party, and it's all centering around God's fulfillment of His promise to Abraham and Sarah, embodied in this little boy, this little toddler, laughter, Isaac. And in fact, there's something that's happening in the text that we're not going to be able to miss, or at least we shouldn't miss it, and that is that now at this point in the unfolding, not only of Abraham's life, but in a real sense in the unfolding of redemptive history, you're not going to be able to be rightly related to Abraham without being rightly related to Isaac. Well, Abraham and Sarah have a way of having wet blankets fall on their joy, and that's what happens in verses 9 to 21. In fact, in 9 through 21, we go from this happiness at the birth of this baby boy to this grand party and celebration of him being weaned, and then we get this other picture, and that is In verse 9, Sarah observes and notices it doesn't say Ishmael. In fact, Ishmael's name won't be mentioned throughout this whole chapter. One of the things the Bible does is that when a person becomes a villain, oftentimes they will be unnamed. Their name will not be used. It's actually a demonstration of what we would call disrespect. He's being dismissed in a real sense. And so throughout this chapter, he's just going to be the son of. Ishmael will not be, his name will not be on the page. And so what Sarah notices is that there is laughing at laughter at the party. She notices that there is this, this interaction going on. And so Ishmael is mocking Isaac. Ishmael is not just playing with Isaac, he is mocking Isaac, and in fact in the Hebrew text there's a play on Isaac's name. So in the first part everybody is filled with laughter over Yitzhak, over laughter, but then we move to this next part and there is this mocking laughter at laughter. And in fact what the picture is is quite disturbing especially if you're a parent because at this time Isaac is 3, Ishmael is probably 16 years old. These aren't two toddlers fighting over the toy. This is a 16-year-old kid actually mocking and insulting and in fact the way that Paul puts it in Galatians 4, 21 through 31, is that Ishmael was persecuting Isaac. Ian Duguid says, not everyone was equally happy about Isaac's birth, however, to Ishmael The birth of the baby was a cause not for rejoicing, but for scorn. Ishmael laughed too, but his laugh was the laugh of unbelief, not that of faith. He was not laughing with Sarah, but at Sarah. He was mocking Isaac and with him God and God's promise. To him, the excitement surrounding the birth of Isaac was all a big joke. What we have to understand here is that Isaac's mocking is not just some teenager who's teasing a toddler. What's actually going on is that Ishmael is mocking not only Isaac, but he's mocking Abraham and Sarah, and he's mocking the very idea that this baby is the promised seed of God. Duguid goes on to say, he says, faith believes God and takes Him at His word, mockery ridicules God's word and treats Him with scorn. Now Sarah doesn't like this, obviously. What mother would? She notices and she insists in verse 10 that these two need to be finally kicked out. And now on the one hand, from the human level, this is really just the fruit of their sin going back to Genesis chapter 16. But on another level, there's something more happening than just this jealousy. What seems to us to be harsh and painful is actually something else that's going on that's far more significant than any distress Abraham's going to feel over this. What's happening is that God, through the orchestration of these events, is securing the full inheritance for Isaac himself. Sarah comes and says, you need to kick her out. I never liked her anyway. And you need to kick that brat out with her. He's picking on my son, he's mocking my son, he's ridiculing my son. They are out. Abraham is distressed. Could you imagine? I mean here's Abraham and of course he loves Ishmael. Ishmael is actually the fruit of his own loins, and he loves him. He realizes that he's not the promised son, but he's still his son. But I will tell you that whatever distress Abraham feels in this chapter, it will pale as we enter into the next chapter. Verses 12 and 13. I was thinking of just doing a sermon on these verses for the joy of all the wives of our church. God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because the lad and your maid, whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her. For through Isaac your seed shall be named and of the son of the maid I'll make a nation also because he is your So here's this incredible tension going on inside of the tent, and here's Sarah who is insistent that Hagar and Ishmael need to go, and here's Abraham whose heart is attached to Ishmael, and he doesn't want to see him go, and so God then intervenes, and God intervenes in a way, and he basically says this, you need to listen to Sarah right now. You need to listen to the voice of your wife. Now let me just say, in case you want to proof text this verse later, ladies, Back in chapter 16, Abraham should not have listened to his wife. So, all that to say, if you hear a voice from heaven and God says listen to your wife, then do it. I'm just teasing. It's usually safe and right to listen to your wife, right hon? The reason that God actually intervenes and says, listen to Sarah is because at this point, Sarah is actually legally right. This is ultimately not just a matter of jealousy and anger. This is a matter of actually Sarah looking out for what? Looking out for the promised seed. And how do we know that's true? We know that's true because God turns around and says, this is why you need to listen to your wife. Because it's Isaac who's the child of promise. It's Isaac who is the heir of the covenant. Sarah's right, he's got to go. Because it's Isaac who is the chosen child. It's Isaac who is the elect one. It's Isaac who is the promised seed. Now, God actually alleviates some of Abraham's fear here because he turns around and he says, you know, Ishmael is going to be blessed also. We know all the way back in chapter 16 that God had already promised that he was going to make Ishmael into a great nation. And so here, God, in a sense, is underscoring the idea that even though He's not the heir of the covenant, He's still the son of Abraham and He's still going to be blessed with the blessing of Abraham. Verse 14. So Abraham rose early in the morning. You know we're going to see those exact words in the next chapter? after God tells Abraham to take Isaac, his son, his only son, Isaac, whom you love, and offer him as a whole burnt offering. And the text will tell us, and Abraham rose early in the morning. The picture is actually this immediate obedience. And this, of course, must have been incredibly difficult for Abraham, but he does it because God has told him to do it. And for Abraham at this point in his life, now Abraham doesn't always obey, but when he does, he does it quickly. He makes provision for them and sends them on their way, really, with nothing more than three gallons of water, some bread, and the promise of God. The next scene that we see is actually Hagar in distress, and then God intervening. And so they go, and I don't know how long three gallons would have lasted, the two of them, but the water runs out, and they come to a point as they're going through the wilderness that Hagar actually just thinks that they are going to die. And in fact, she is in such bad shape that that she decides that she can't stand to see her son die this terrible death, and so she goes and puts him comfortably under some bushes in the shade, and then goes about a bow shot away, and there she is, absolutely agonizing, crying out, weeping, and you can imagine the absolute turmoil and anguish of her own soul. She may not have been cherished in Abraham and Sarah's tent, And Ishmael may have always been considered just the son of the handmaiden. But Ishmael was her son. And she loved him. And there they are, and she's crying out and she's weeping. But the amazing thing is, is that the text tells us not that God heard Hagar, but that God heard Ishmael. Which, by the way, Ishmael's name means the God who hears. God hears Ishmael and then turns around and addresses Hagar and you have to appreciate this. Here is God doing biblical counseling. What's the matter with you? He doesn't say, here, here, Hangar. Everything's going to be OK. Why are you crying? Let me fix it. He's just, what's the matter with you? Now, that may sound a little harsh, but it makes total perfect sense when you stop and consider that back in chapter 16, God had already directly promised Hagar that he would take Ishmael and turn him into a great nation. She already had the promise of God. She had already received mercy in the wilderness back in chapter 16. And it's almost as if God is saying, listen, You believed me then, what's the matter with you? Won't you believe me now? That's probably what the Lord would say to a lot of us here, right? You believed me then, what's your problem? Why don't you believe me now? Have I changed? Did anything happen between chapter 16 and chapter 21 that would lead you to believe that I'm going to nullify my promise to you? Yeah, life is hard, but I've given you a promise. What's the matter with you? Don't be afraid. I've heard His voice. And so what you need to do is you need to go over to Him, take Him by the hand, because I've got plans for Him. And what we see with God is showing mercy once again in the wilderness to an Egyptian handmaiden who has no claims to the covenant, and, by the way, to Ishmael who is also No claim to the covenant. And yet God shows mercy. This is what God does. Verse 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 lad a drink. You know, this is just what God does, right? I mean, this is who God is. Here is Hagar. She is in distress. She is burdened. She is absolutely beside herself. She thinks that she's going to die of thirst and her son is going to die of thirst. Don't you know that she probably was just hoping, I hope I die first because I can't stand to see him die. And what God does is God opens her eyes to see a well that was there all the time. That's what God does. He opens our eyes to see what was there all the time. Some of you are, you're seeking, and you're searching, and you're anxious, and you want to know, how do I know God? And how can I have peace with God? And you, in a sense, you just kind of like wander all over the place, thinking that you're looking for something. And what you need is for God to open your eyes to show you what's there all the time. For God to open your eyes so that you see the well. Dale Ralph Davis says this, he says, what do we make of Hagar and Ishmael here? Here's Ishmael who was mocking and disdaining the covenant heir and he's sent away. And yet for all that, he's still cared for by God. We might say that verses 15 to 19 give us a basis for what is sometimes called common grace. Just because folks are not a part of the covenant people doesn't mean that God does not do them good. On the contrary, their lives are held in his hands, and he sustains them. You know, that's absolutely true of some of you here today. You're not in a saving relationship with God. You've never put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. You're standing three feet from the well. You can't see it. And yet, God continues to show you goodness day after day, week after week, year after year, decade after decade. He upholds you, He sustains you, He shows you this amazing love and a common grace that is just His goodness on the just and the unjust. So Hagar is saved, Ishmael was saved. Verses 20 and 21, we see in a sense the rest of the story. God was with the lad. Don't read that too quickly. God was with the lad. God was with this boy. Ishmael, the father not of all Arab people, but a father of many of the Arab people, and God was indeed with him. And he's blessed. Why is he blessed? He's blessed not because he's actually the covenant child, but he's blessed because he's Abraham's son. He becomes an archer in the wilderness, and so this of course, you know, he's obviously a bow hunter, very good at it for sure. No doubt could put a sneak on a deer like you wouldn't believe. And all of this is fine and good. God is with him. He becomes an archer. But then there's this one little detail that's not very good. His mama went down to Egypt to take for him a wife. The text doesn't give us any comment on this, it passes no moral judgment but let me just tell you from a larger biblical perspective for Hagar to go down to Egypt which was natural for her, natural. It was in a sense symbolizing abandoning. the very promised land itself. Every time somebody goes down to Egypt, it's not usually a good trip. It's an amazing passage. So here they are, they're cut off. But God's a God of mercy. He's a God of common grace. And he doesn't abandon them. Think about this. They're kicked out. They're expelled. They're not a part of the covenant. But God doesn't abandon them. And in fact, maybe, maybe it is this very passage that would point us to the fact that Just as God had rescued these two in the wilderness by His common grace, there would come a day when many of Ishmael's descendants would in fact be rescued by Abraham's greater son, Jesus Christ. And I will tell you, there have been Arab Christians for 2,000 years. And in fact, one of the things that we are sometimes short-sighted about is that In places like Syria, there have been strong, long-standing Christian communities of faithful believers in Jesus Christ. And so maybe that act of rescue here in the wilderness pointed us to the greater act of rescue that God would effect. And by the way, I would remind all of us that even at this very moment, More and more Arabs, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, are coming to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Now, expository preaching does something, I would just describe it like this, it just cramps your style. If I was just preaching what I wanted to preach, I'd look at this next passage and I'd say, this is weird, I think I'll skip it. Let me read it to you quickly. It came about at that time, so this is all in the same timeframe, that Abimelech and Phechol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham saying, God is with you in all that you do. Now, therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or my posterity, but according to the kindness, the chesed that I have shown to you, you shall show to me and to the land in which you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I swear it. But Abraham complained to Abimelech because of the well of water which the servants of Abimelech had seized. And Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me, nor did I hear of it until today. Verse 27, Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. Then Abraham set seven new lambs of the flock by themselves. Abimelech said to Abraham, What did these seven new lambs mean which you have set by themselves? He said, You shall take these seven new lambs from my hand so that it may be a witness to me that I dug this well. Therefore, he called that place Beersheba, because there the two of them took an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba, and Abimelech and Phekel, the commander of the army, rose and returned to the land of Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba. And there he called on the name of Yahweh, the everlasting God, and Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines for many days. Now to be honest with you, as I was studying this passage this week, I felt great anxiety. Jason will tell you. One of the big challenges is where do I stop? In the passage, where do I stop? And then based on where I stop, I have to realize that that's where I gotta start next week, right? So I'm looking at this passage and I'm thinking, okay, Isaac is born, Ishmael's booted, that's a sermon. Then Abimelech wants to make a covenant with Abraham and Abraham complains of water rights. So what do you do when you're absolutely perplexed? Well, I can't skip the passage. And trust me, this would not make for a whole sermon in and of itself. And it would be a really strange introduction to Abraham offering up Isaac in chapter 22. So what do you do with it? Well, you ask yourself this big question. Why is it here? What is it doing here? I don't think that These passages get thrown in all mish-mashed and just sort of happen haphazardly. I think that this passage is right here for a specific reason. And so I try to figure out what's the reason. Bimelech sees Abraham's blessings. And he wants a partnership with Abraham. Basically what he wants is a pact of non-aggression. That's what he wants. Notice Abimelech, who by the way is a pagan, who's encountered God back in chapter 20. Remember, you're a dead man. That's the same Abimelech, okay? And he says, I see that God is with you in everything that you do. Now, I just wanna make a suggestion here, and that is, it seems a little more than coincidental to me that this observation of Abimelech comes right after Isaac's birth. I think that the news of Isaac's birth probably no doubt spread throughout the land, and so Abimelech is thinking about the way in which Abraham's God had blessed Abraham in so many ways, in fact even giving him and his wife a baby in their old age. Now, to be sure, there's going to be an ulterior motive here, and that is Abimelech's last dealings with Abraham made Abraham to be a little on the shady side, and so I'm sure that he wants to get something from Abraham in writing. Abraham agrees, he swears, verse 24, and then in the midst of all of this, so here's Abimelech, he was the king of the Philistines, and here he is, and so now the two lords, have entered into a partnership, into a covenant. And Abraham says, you know, since we're all friendly and stuff now, I had a well. By the way, he didn't call somebody to come out and drill that well for him. He and his servants dug it. He says, I have this well, and your servants have actually seized my well. He said, well, it's just a well. Well, actually in desert life, water's absolutely vital for life, for your livestock, for your sheep, and for your very family. And so Abimelech says, well, I didn't know anything about it. Now, this is the first I've ever heard about it. And so in verses 27 to 32, the two of them make another covenant. Now this is not some sort of redemptive covenant, but this is a covenant in terms of a partnership between Abraham and the king of the Philistines. At the end, Abraham does something. He gives seven new lambs to be accepted, and Abimelech says, what are the seven lambs for? And Abraham says, the minute that you take the seven lambs, it is actually testifying that the well actually belongs to me and that I dug it. So you take the lambs, You're telling everybody the well is mine. And so they make this oath and they call this place Beersheba, which just means well oath. By the way, Beersheba would be at the southernmost part of the land of Israel. So when you wanted to actually in the days of Israel, talk about from the farthest north to the farthest southern point, you would say from Dan to Beersheba. You say, all right, well, this is a business agreement, it's a peace treaty. You have to understand there's something more than that happening here, and that is, it is a recognition that Abraham has actually been blessed by God, and to be in proper connection with Abraham is indeed to be in a position of blessing. Where in the world would Bimelech get that idea? Well, from the very fact that from the beginning, God has said to Abraham, through you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And right now, even the Philistine king is about to be blessed through his association with Abraham. What Abraham does next is actually indicative of helping us see what's going on in this bigger picture. He plants a tree, plants a tamarisk tree. In a sense, it's an altar of sorts. And then the text tells us, and he called on the name of the Lord. Now I told you going back to chapter 12, that when we read this, that Abraham called upon his name, Many Old Testament scholars, and in fact, even Luther, when he's translating the Bible into German, translates this phrase continually, and Abraham proclaimed the name of the Lord. He sets up the altar, he plants the tree, this then becomes a place where Abraham is doing what? Abraham is proclaiming the name of Yahweh, his covenant God, and notice, he proclaims the name of Yahweh, the Lord, who is El Elyon, God, the Everlasting One. He said, well, what's going on? Abraham will end up sojourning in that land of the Philistines for many, many days. And in fact, by the time he dies, do you know how much land he's gonna own? He'll own one piece of property when he dies. Sarah's grave. That's it. But as he plants that tamarisk tree, and he's entered into this covenant with Abimelech, he is actually doing something, and he's testifying, as it were, the fact that his God is the covenant-keeping God, the promise-keeping God, and he is indeed the everlasting God, and it is God, El Elyon, is the everlasting God, who in fact has the ultimate claim upon this land for the sake of his descendants. And he strengthened. He may think to himself, all right, I got a well, and even that's not very secure. But the God that I worship is the everlasting God. And if he is the everlasting God and he has made promises to me and to my descendants, then the everlasting God will see to it that those promises are fulfilled when I am long gone. Well, what's going on here? We have a miraculous birth, right? Of the promised son. Through that miraculous birth, God is faithful, he keeps his promise, and now everything stands in relationship to Isaac. Ishmael's gonna be booted out because he mocks Isaac. By mocking Isaac, he rejects the blessing of Abraham. To actually get the blessing of Abraham, you have to accept Isaac, and he won't bow to God's plan. In fact, Ishmael resents it. But God still shows kindness. But make no mistake, Ishmael cuts himself off because of his attitude towards Isaac. Contrast that. Think about this. Here's one who for 16 years is raised up in the home of Abraham. He's raised in Abraham's very tent. His mother actually has encountered the living God. She actually is the only woman in all of the Bible to name, to give God a name. And here, no doubt, don't you know that Ishmael must have heard those stories growing up, and he must have heard Abraham talking about the promises, and he must have heard his mother talking about that encounter of great mercy in the wilderness, and yet here he is being brought up in such wonderful close proximity to the very fountain of blessing for the entirety of the nations, and yet he cuts himself off because he won't submit to God's plan through Abraham's son. Contrast that. Here's the pagan king, Abimelech. Did Abimelech have any reason not to trust Abraham? He had lots of reasons to say, all right, I know God told me he was a prophet, but I'm not really too sure about that. But instead, here you have the pagan king who's actually not repulsed by Abraham, but is drawn to Abraham, and maybe even the birth of Isaac playing into it. And what we see is Abimelech going out of his way to make peace with the Lord's anointed. There's a trajectory here. I hope you see it. God is faithful. And in the fullness of time, you know what He does? He brings about an even more miraculous birth than the birth of Isaac. In the fullness of time, what does God do? God sends forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. That is the greatest miraculous birth of all time. And in fact, it is the greater son of Abraham, Jesus Christ. And just as at this point in redemptive history, everything stood in relationship to Isaac. So this point in redemptive history, everything stands in relationship to Abraham's greater son, Jesus Christ. And so to reject Christ, is to actually cut oneself off from salvation and to cut oneself off from the covenant keeping God. And maybe you're sitting here and you have rejected Christ and you've rejected Christ for years and yet God still lets you breathe. You've rejected Christ. You've been brought up in a Christian home and you want nothing to do with Jesus. And the only reason you're here is because if you didn't, you'd have to answer to mom and dad. And you sit here and you think, I don't want anything to do with Jesus. And yet God still lets you eat his food and drink his water and breathe his air. and He shows you common grace and common mercy time and time and time again. I would remind you that it's God's kindness that's designed to lead you to repentance. To reject Christ is to cut oneself off, but to embrace Christ, to embrace Jesus Christ is to accept Him as one's life and one's salvation. To embrace Abraham's greater son actually brings you into a relationship with a God who will never fail you. To trust in Abraham's greater son, Jesus Christ, actually brings you into a relationship with a God who will never leave you. He's a God who will keep all of his promises to you to the very end. The trust in Abraham's greater son, Jesus Christ, brings you into the relationship with the Lord God forever. El Elyon. God. The everlasting God. And so, where do you stand? in relation to God's Son. Do you realize that that is the most eternally important question that you could ever be asked? I didn't ask you, what church are you a member of? What services do you do? What good works are you engaged in? All of those things have their place, but there is a question that is of paramount importance, and that is, how do you stand in relationship to God's Son, Jesus Christ? Is He your all in all? Have you embraced Him by faith? Is He yours? Are you attached to Him? Are you in union with Him? Is His righteousness your righteousness? Is the shedding of His blood the forgiveness of your sins? Or do you stand aloof and say, you know what? I'll take my chances. Don't do that. Don't do that. In fact, if you are not a Christian, today is another day of God's kindness to you for you to hear the gospel once again. And for God to say to you, as it were, through his holy word, listen, I've offered you my son before, you've said no, I offer you my son again today. Please, for the sake of your eternal soul, say yes. Say, I'm with Him, He's mine, I'm His. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We may well see all of Bimelech in heaven. A Philistine. Do you know what that means? That means there's hope for us. Right? If a Philistine can be saved, anybody can be saved. Turn to Christ. Turn to Christ. Today is the day of salvation. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for passages that are clear and passages that aren't that clear. We thank you for the fact that you fulfill your promises. And in Christ Jesus, all of your promises are yes and amen. And so Father, we pray that you would help all of us to see the great promise that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. and whoever calls upon your name will not be disappointed. Believe on the Lord Jesus, you will be saved. Father, we pray you'd be mighty to save today, in Christ's name, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.