Genesis 20–21

0:00 There is, at Six Flags Over Texas, in Arlington, a gigantic wooden roller coaster called the Judge Roy Scream. It was named actually after an old, famous Texas judge named Judge Roy Bean, but they changed the name of it to Judge Roy Scream, because at least when I was a kid, this was the largest wooden roller coaster in the world, and it had this gigantic hill at the very beginning of it where the chain would take you up, and then, you know, it would drop you down this hill, and it was the biggest drop in the world. I remember the first time I got to ride this thing. It was with my dad, and vaguely remember this. It's been a really long time ago, but it was the first time that finally I got to go to Six Flags, and I was tall enough to make it onto the Judge Royce scream, and so my dad's telling me about this judge, and we get onto it, and you head up the hill, and at the very top of the hill, like right before you're about to plunge over into this, at the time,

1:00 biggest drop in a roller coaster in the world, there's a sign above the drop that says appeal denied. In other words, you're done. Like you're about to be executed and off you go off the hill. You know, roller coasters are not just a physical thing. Roller coasters aren't just about the G forces and the pressures and the slamming of you up against the walls of the car. They bring to bear, and this is deliberate, if you talk to the engineers that put these things together, they bring to bear all kinds of mental stuff to create the experience. There's excitement and fear and elation. It's supposed to bring about this, not just physical sensation, but this whole body, whole self experience. One famous roller coaster engineer said, look, you don't need a degree in engineering to design roller coasters. You need a degree in psychology. In fact, the designer of the Judge Roy Scream in Texas was a man named William Copp. He was actually one of the most famous roller coaster designers in America back in the 1970s, 80s, 90s. He built some of the ones

2:05 that you'll see at, what is it called, Cedar something or other in Ohio. He built some of those, designed some of those. Here's how he described what you have to do in order to design a good roller coaster. He said, you have to be a little bit mean. You get them going on a nice straight track and they think, well, this looks smooth. And then you dip it down a little to give them a good jolt. Or you set it up so that when they go over a hill, it looks like they're going to get their heads chopped off at the top. Well, that's true of roller coasters. I think it's also true of this story that we've been studying in Genesis about Abraham. Because since chapter 12, as we've been following the life of Abraham, this whole thing has just been a head-slamming series of ups and downs, backs and forths, faithfulness and unfaithfulness, obedience and sin.

2:58 And never more so, I think, than what we're about to get over the next few chapters. It's going to be a jolt, and then a deep breath, and then a plunge, like nothing we've experienced yet in the book of Genesis. Today we're going to be looking at two chapters of the story, 20 and 21. Let me invite you to take a Bible and turn over to Genesis 20. That's where we're going to be starting today. We'll be making our way all the way through chapter 21. If you're using a pew Bible like this sort of maroon one that I've got here, you can find it on pages 14 and 15.

3:32 So Genesis 20 and 21. These couple of chapters have always been seen as a little bit strange, maybe even a little bit out of place in the narrative as we've been looking at it. It's just a kind of, you know, jolt in the track of the story. And there are a few reasons for that. So for one thing, at the beginning of 21, you finally get what we've been waiting for since chapter 14. You get the birth of this son, Isaac, that's been promised to Abraham and that we've been waiting on for like 25 years by this point.

4:03 But when you finally get there in 21, the birth of Isaac is, it's not really what you might expect. It's narrated extremely quickly. You get a little bit of celebration. You get Abraham doing what he has to do as a father, right, circumcising and naming. You get a little bit of celebration from Sarah, but there's no detail about it. There's no sort of grand song that's sung in the wake of Isaac's birth. It's narrated so fast. And then the story moves right on into Abraham and his wife Sarah, that's Isaac's mom, Doing what at first glance just seems to be a really awful thing to Abraham's other son, Ishmael, who's 13, 14 years old at this time, and his mother.

4:50 So the whole thing is really strange. It just kind of hits us like a jolt in the track. It doesn't quite work. And then, to top it all off, on the other hand, you've got this whole episode in the middle of the birth of Isaac and the sending away of Ishmael, flanked by two interactions with this kind of seemingly random foreign king named Abimelech. And the question as you go through those two sections about Abimelech is, why are these two things in here at all? Like, how is this moving the story forward? I mean, I get that the Bible sometimes just does history, right?

5:23 It sometimes just tells you things that happen. But what's going on with these stories? How do they move the grand narrative of Genesis, much less the Bible, forward? Well, at this point, I'm going to steal a little bit of my own thunder here. But I think that's okay. You can think of this as just sort of one of those enigmatic flash-forwards, right, that happen at the beginning of movies sometimes. And then they go backwards and you have to kind of figure out how we got to the flash-forward in the first place. Think of it like that if it helps. Part of the reason these chapters seem a little strange and maybe even a little hurried is that chapters 20 and 21 are not about themselves.

6:05 Their point is not themselves. In fact, you're not really supposed to stop at 20 and 21. You're not supposed to linger here very long. The point of chapters 20 and 21 is really to set you up as the reader for what's coming next, especially in 22. So as you slide on into the end of 21, you're supposed to be thinking, whew, okay, the worst is over. Finally, at the end of chapter 21, everything is going great for Abraham.

6:38 If this thing has been a roller coaster, then this chapter, 20, 21, especially the end of 21, It's one of those kind of, you know, slower times on the track when the car kind of slows down. Maybe it takes a turn, dips you a little bit to the side, maybe just a little bit. But it's a slower time, and you have a moment to catch your breath. But then you realize, maybe even all of a sudden, that actually that little breath that you took is really just the deep breath before the plunge of what's coming in chapter 22. So what's coming in chapter 22?

7:09 That's the big question, but I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves because there's plenty to learn here, even right here on this slightly calmer section of track, and then we'll get to the great plunge in 22, God willing, next week. So look with me at Genesis chapter 20, and we're going to read these two chapters. Genesis chapter 20, beginning in verse 1. From there, Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur, and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, she is my sister. And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, behold, you are a dead man because of the woman you have taken, for she is a man's wife. Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, she's my sister? And she herself said, he's my brother? In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this. Then God said to him in the dream, yes, I know that you've done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore

8:13 I did not let you touch her. Now then return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours. So Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, what have you done to us? How have I sinned against you that you've brought on me in my kingdom a great sin? You've done to me things that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said to Abraham, what did you see that you did this thing? Abraham said, I did it because I thought there's no fear of God at all in this place and they will kill me because of my wife. Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, though not the daughter of my mother. And she became my wife.

9:00 And when God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to her, this is the kindness you must do to me. At every place to which we come, say of me, he is my brother. Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen and male servants and female servants and gave them to Abraham and returned Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelech said, behold, my land is before you. Dwell where it pleases you. To Sarah he said, behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you and before everyone you are vindicated. Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. Now the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac.

9:56 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me. And she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children, yet I have born him a son in his old age. And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham, laughing. So she said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son.

10:30 For the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac. And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. 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. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring. 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.

11:03 When the water and the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off about the distance of a bow shot. For she said, let me not look on the death of the child. And she sat opposite him. And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 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. Up, lift up the boy, hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. And then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.

11:35 And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. At that time, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, 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 descendants or my posterity. But as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear.

12:07 When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized, Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You didn't tell me, and I have not heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart, and Abimelech said to Abraham, what's the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you've set apart? He said, these seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me, that I dug this well. And therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba, and then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines.

12:44 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines. So over the course of these two chapters that we've just read, you really have three sections. So at the beginning and at the end, you have these two sections regarding this foreign king of a city called Gerar. His name is Abimelech, or at least his title is Abimelech. And then in the middle of those two episodes, you have the birth of Isaac and the rejection of Ishmael.

13:18 Now, at first glance, I think it might be a little bit hard to tell what's going on here, at least in the unfolding of the story. But I think it becomes clear if you remember what the main tension and drama of the story has been so far. What has the main tension and drama in the story of Abraham's life been so far? It has been, is God going to keep his promises to Abraham? Despite everything that's happening, Abraham's own rebellion against God, his own unfaithfulness, despite pressures from the outside, is God going to be able to keep his promises that he made all the way back in chapter 12, 25 years ago at this point, is he finally going to keep them?

14:03 You remember what those promises were, right? He said, Abraham, I'm going to make a great nation out of you. I'm going to make you a great name. I'm going to give you land. I'm going to give you offspring, seed, an heir, a son, in other words, right? So I'm going to give you offspring. I'm going to give you seed. I'm going to give you land. And I'm going to give you blessing. I'm going to make you a blessing to other nations around you and ultimately all the nations and families of the earth. And now, after those promises are made, for eight chapters, it's just been one stinking thing after another. In one minute things seem like they're going great and then the very next chapter they seem to be falling apart. Several times Abraham does things that are so dumb and so unfaithful to God that they actually put the promise in danger. In fact allowing Abimelech to take his wife Sarah in this story puts the promise in danger because it could bring all kinds of question onto the legitimacy of Isaac. Whose son is he? He does all kinds of dumb stuff like that.

15:12 Well, in these two chapters, here's how it clicks into the story. Here's how this whole thing knits into the fabric of the story of Genesis. In these two chapters, the main thing that's happening is that all the promises of God from chapter 12 are finally locking in. All the different constituent pieces of the covenant a great name land seed blessing even worship in the midst of all of that it all clicks in and by the end of chapter 21 God has basically done everything that he has promised to do Abraham has got it all despite all the hijinks of the last few chapters So here's the main idea.

16:00 If we're just taking 20 and 21 on their own terms, not looking forward to 22 yet, though that's really their whole point. That's what they're setting up for. But if we just take 20 and 21, here's the main idea, I think. Friends, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath because despite everything that you might think about, God will keep his covenant. Take a deep breath, because despite it all, no matter what you might be thinking about, no matter what objections might rise, no matter what fears might come, God will keep his covenant, which honestly is as encouraging a thought to us.

16:45 We believers who are in covenant with Christ Jesus and yet racked by the ups and downs, backs and forth, jerks of life, that is as comforting a promise to us as it would have been to Abraham. So two points to the sermon corresponding to these two chapters. First 20, then 21. Number one, back to this idea from last week, a flawed mediator. Number one, a flawed mediator. Looking at chapter 20 and then looking at chapter 21.2. And yet, a relentless God. Number one, a flawed mediator.

17:17 And number two, and yet, a relentless God. All right, let's start looking at the details. Number one, a flawed mediator. So chapter 20 opens sometime, doesn't exactly say how long, but it can't be very long. It opens sometime after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in chapter 19. Now, there are times in the storyline of the Bible when you can't really tell what order the events are in. Even in the Gospels at times, the biblical writers will sort of rearrange events chronologically to make a theological point.

17:48 But there are other times in which the order is very clear. And it's clear here in chapter 20, verse 1, that this episode is following on the heels of Sodom and Gomorrah precisely because it says that Abraham went from there into the Negev. In other words, from the mountain overlooking the valley of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's the last thing he's seen, right? The smoldering remains of Sodom and Gomorrah down in the valley. And he went from there, from that mountaintop, into what's called there the Negev, which is just Hebrew for the south.

18:19 So anytime you run across the Negev in scripture, it's just the southernmost part of what became known as the promised land. It's the south. And while he's there in the south, Abraham spends some time in a region that's ruled by a city called Gerar. And it's king who's named here Abimelech. Now, as you read the Bible, you're going to run into a whole lot of people that are named Abimelech. Because that word, Abimelech, is not a name, a personal name like Greg.

18:50 It's a title. It's a title, kind of like Pharaoh is a title or, you know, King Charles over in England. His name is not king, right? That's a title. His personal name is Charles. Well, Abimelech is a title in the same way. And you can see that if you kind of pull it apart. You can see what it's doing. So it's made up of two Hebrew words, Abi and Melech. So Abi means my father. Ab is father, E is my, Ab, my father, Melech is king. So what the word means when you stick it together is my father was king, and therefore, so am I.

19:27 You see the point of that? My father was king, and therefore, so am I. So it's a throne name, like king, or like pharaoh, or like majesty. And this one in particular, with its meaning, my father was king, and therefore, so am I, It's to say, this guy who has this title, Abimelech, is not just a kind of tribal chieftain. If that's how you think about people who are named king in the Bible, you got that all wrong. Some of them were. This guy is not just a provincial tribal chieftain who happened to just be the last guy standing and grunting with a club in his hand.

20:01 Oh, me, Abimelech. It's not it. This is an established dynasty, right? He is king. His father was king. Probably his father had the title, Abimelech, too. this is an established dynasty of pretty powerful and recognized kings, and Abimelech now sits on this throne. That's important. Hang on to it. What happens next is, you'll remember it if you were here with us a few months ago, highly reminiscent of another episode all the way back in chapter 12, 25 years earlier. In fact, the details of the story, at least for the first part of it, almost exactly. Abraham comes into this foreign land. He's scared that the people there are going to kill him and take Sarah for themselves. So he tells her to tell everybody that they meet she's his sister instead of his wife. Well, the king hears about this, takes Sarah into his harem, maybe taking her as a wife, probably more like taking her as a concubine that's supposed to create more sons for the king, right? That's the whole idea. When you're a king, it's not just

21:06 about the one heir, right? You can have your one wife that produces the one heir and you might take other wives, but the reason you have a whole harem of concubines to create more sons for you is because basically you're creating an army who's loyal to you and loyal to the heir. And the more of those sons that you can get who can wield the sword, the more solid your heir's claim to the throne is going to be, right? So that's what you're trying to do with your harem. So he probably takes her into his harem to create more sons. Bad things happen when he does this because she's the wife of another man. The king becomes aware of it because God appears to him. He gets mad at Abraham for lying, and then kind of inexplicably, he gives him a bunch of gifts to make things right with him.

21:48 So that's what happens. Same basic thing that happened back in chapter 12, and we don't need to belabor the details of it. What I want you to see and get here, though, through this story of Abimelech and Abraham, is basically two fundamental truths that are in high tension with each other in this story. Two truths that are in high tension with each other here, but it's not a tension that exists just kind of literarily, interestingly, to kind of keep us squeezed and give us something to think about. It's not why that tension is there. What that tension is going to do is actually in the pressure between these two truths it's going to rocket us forward to a whole different time in history so let me explain what i mean by all of this two things that i want you to see here first first thing i want you to see here is that abraham does basically everything wrong here he does basically everything wrong he's a deeply flawed character at this point in the story and

22:53 Abimelech knows that he's flawed. You can see that in the way the story unfolds, right? Because throughout the whole thing, even when God confronts Abimelech about taking Sarah, Abimelech is insistent that, I didn't know that she was Abraham's wife. Abraham lied to me. Sarah lied to me. Everybody lied to me. And if you look at verse 6, or sorry, 4, he says he never got close to her anyway. And the thing is, God agrees with him. I mean, look down at verse 6. Abimelech makes this sort of defense, right?

23:23 And what is God's response? And he says, yes, I know. You're right. I agree with you. In the main, you're innocent of the worst stuff here. For that matter, so does Abraham. Abraham agrees with him too. Look at verse 11. Even after Abimelech reams him out for lying to him. He's just like, why have you done this? You've put me in danger. What did I do to you to bring this about? Look at 11. Even after all that, Abraham's response is, I did it. So, at least as regards the worst of it, Abimelech is mostly innocent in this thing.

23:56 He's been wronged by Abraham. Look down at 11 again. We're going to look at these verses, 11, 12, and 13, in some more detail. Because Abraham offers up in those verses a series of things that he means to be explanations for his behavior. We would more call them excuses. But really, all three or four of them just become an indictment of his own heart. So I want you to notice five things here that Abraham does wrong. Even though he's trying to make a defense of himself, he kind of gives himself away.

24:27 First of all, his action was born of inexcusable ignorance. His action was born of inexcusable ignorance. Look what he says in verse 11. I said, I said to myself, there is no fear of God among these people and they're going to do bad things to me. They're going to kill me and take my wife. You see what he's doing there? He just assumed that these people had no fear of God, that they were just evil pagans who would naturally do evil things. And yet it turned out that there were people like Abimelech in the land, who even if They didn't know Yahweh were people of integrity and honor.

25:10 And yet, Abraham just assumed that it wasn't the case. He assumed the worst about the people around him. You know, I think it's funny how often we, even as Christians, offer up, well, I just assumed, as some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card for our actions. As if the fact that we assumed something about someone else, their motives, their reasoning, gets us off the hook for what we did in the wake of our assumption. Well, that's what Abraham did, and he was wrong.

25:44 And it would have been a hundred times better for Abraham to go into the land, to go into Gerar, to meet Abimelech, and to go in with a question rather than an accusation. Not strutting into the land going, I assume that there is no fear of God among these people. I assume that they are motivated by bad motivations. It would have been a hundred times better for him not to go in saying, there is no fear, but, hmm, is there fear of the Lord among these people? And where can I find it? It's the same with us as Christians.

26:17 It's the same with us as members of a church. Friend, don't lead with your chin when you go into a situation. If you feel some tension between you and another brother or sister in Christ, and you need to kind of work that out, don't strut into that room going, you think this. Go in saying, can we talk about this? What's going on? Don't lead with your chin. Lead with questions, not accusations, and not assumptions.

26:51 Because we all know what assuming does, don't we? Second, his action was born of cowardice. His action was just born of cowardice. Look again at verse 11. I assumed that they had no fear of God, and I assumed, therefore, that they would kill me and take my wife. And you see the cowardice in that, right? He was worried for his own life, not his wife's, not his family's, to the point that he thought, you know what? If I, Abraham, can just live, if I can just live, I'm totally happy for my wife to be taken into the harem of some godless king.

27:30 I mean, remember, he doesn't know Abimelech. He doesn't know that he's a man of honor until kind of this moment. He's assuming that Abimelech and everybody else is godless, and yet I'm going to save my own life and let her go into the harem of a godless king. He was motivated by cowardice. Third, his action was born of self-justification with half-truth. Self-justification with half-truth. Look at 12. 2012. Besides, she is, in fact, my sister. The daughter of my father, though, not the daughter of my mother.

28:03 And she became my wife. People often say if you're explaining, you're losing. And that's a whole lot of explanation that Abraham is having to give there. My wife is my half-sister. My half-sister is my wife. It's a classic example of fronting the truth that's beneficial to you while at the same time hiding the truth that's inconvenient to you. Because even if it was true, and it was, even if it was true that she was his half-sister, it was also true that she was his wife, and he left that out.

28:42 So Abraham's half-truth, put into his own service and benefit, was a whole lie. Fourth, his action was obviously a repeated sin. You can see that, right? It's a repeated sin. He's already done this thing. I mean, almost point for point, he's already done it back in chapter 12, 25 years earlier. And in verse 13, he kind of admits that. When God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to my wife, this is the kindness you must do to me at every place to which we come.

29:18 Say of me, he is my brother. Now, we don't have any other record of him doing it elsewhere. We know he did it in Egypt, and we know we did it here. It had become a kind of policy of his to lie in this way, to sin in this way. Friends, there's a really important lesson here. Just because, listen to me, this is important. Just because God at one point in your life, in the past, rescued you and even taught you lessons from a particular sin does not mean that that sin isn't still a threat to you.

29:55 Just because God rescued you from a sin and even taught you some really important lessons from it years ago does not mean that that sin is dead and gone and no longer a threat to you. It is still a threat, and you need to be on guard for it. The dragon of sin will lay dormant and quiet for a very, very long time until you're not paying attention anymore, and then it will bite your leg off. Be on your guard against sins that even you think are not a threat anymore. This one jumped up and bit Abraham again. fifth and most importantly his action was just born of faithlessness it's just born again of faithlessness there's this one's a little bit hidden but i think you can see it in verse 13 do you see that phrase god caused me to wander god caused me to wonder now you can tell right on the surface that there's some mealy mouth stuff going on there right because that is not our understanding of the story at all. It is not that God just caused him to wander around. And God

31:01 caused me to wander is some pretty weak sauce compared to what he could have said, right? When God called me to go, not caused me to wander around aimlessly, but called me to go. He could have said that, but he has this mealy-mouthed thing in front of Abimelech. That's bad enough, but it gets even worse i'm not going to go into the detail too much because it's just a lot of hebrew but but look at that look at the phrase again caused me to wonder that verb in the hebrew it's all one it's all one verb it's one word caused me to wonder right that's the way hebrew works with these things it's one verb and that verb is actually in the plural and so i'm not going to go into the detail of it but the fact that that verb is in the plural means that what abraham actually says here is the gods caused me to wander. The gods caused me to wander. The gods. Do you see that? So in the face of this pagan polytheistic king, Abraham basically abandons his faith in the

32:08 one true God and adopts language that lies about God in order to conform to the cultural atmosphere around him. He adopts language that lies about God in order to conform to the cultural atmosphere around him. And the Bible wants you to see that as sin. Do you know, Christian, that there are a thousand opportunities a week for you to adopt language that lies about God so that you can fit into the cultural atmosphere around you? Be on guard against that. Never, never in order to fit in at your school at your workplace in your neighborhood never say untrue things about god or his world so you see the point here from from start to finish this whole episode in chapter 20 it's just a sad showing on abraham's part he is deeply flawed and yet the second thing that i want you to see that is in really terrible tension with that is that it is clear from chapter 20

33:13 that Abraham, despite all of that, is still the legitimate covenant mediator because God has made him that. Now, where do we see that? Well, you see it mostly in the way God tells Abimelech that he can avoid dying. So look back at verse 3. This is God speaking. God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, Behold, you're a dead man because of the woman whom you've taken, for she is a man's wife. So what that means is that even though Abimelech is maybe mostly innocent here, He hasn't sort of gone all the way and made it as bad as it could be.

33:46 He's not entirely innocent in the whole thing. I mean, he did, after all, more or less kidnap Sarah away from her established family to just take her as his own. That's the word that's used. So God says, you're a dead man for that. But there's a way out. Look at verse 7, what God says to him. Now then, even though your life is forfeit, return the man's wife. And listen to this. for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you don't return her, know that you will surely die in all those with you. Do you see the point there in 7? The way out of this whole thing is that Abimelech has to make things right with Abraham by returning Sarah. Yes, he's got to do restitution for what he's done wrong, but he's to do that. Why? Why is he to make restitution with Abraham. It's so that Abraham, the mediator, will pray for him, intercede for him, step in between him and God, essentially execute this office of prophet mediator between God and

34:51 man, so that Abimelech and his dynasty won't die. And of course, that's exactly what happens. So look down at 17. Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech. So all the arrangements are made now. Everything is done, and that's what happens. You see what happens here? Do you see why God heals Abimelech and his dynasty, his family? He doesn't heal Abimelech because Abimelech was innocent. He wasn't. He kidnapped the woman. He wasn't. He didn't even heal Abimelech because Abimelech repented and made amends. That's not why he healed Abimelech. He did it because the mediator Abraham with all his flaws stood between him and the wrath of God and when the mediator interceded for him the God of all the universe relented from destroying Abimelech it was because of the mediator now let's bring this together because I want you to see and feel the tension

35:53 that's present here obviously on the one hand Abraham is a legitimate mediator but because God has said so. Abraham is not going to be saved, or Abimelech is not going to be saved, unless Abraham intercedes for him. But Abraham is also, too, a wildly imperfect mediator. I mean, after all, just think back on it. He's the one that kind of put Abimelech in this position in the first place. He's a liar and a self-justifying coward at this point. And to top it all off, Think about it. The last time he tried this mediator thing in praying for Sodom and Gomorrah, he wound up on top of a mountain looking down on the cities he'd prayed for, and there was nothing but smoke and fire.

36:38 It didn't work. So at best, in Abraham, we're being introduced to the concept of a mediator, but we're getting a very shattered image. Of what the mediator was ultimately supposed to be. We don't get the full picture. But you know where we do get the full picture? In the New Testament. In Jesus. Think about the contrast that the Bible paints between Abraham and Jesus.

37:09 Abraham lied. But Jesus had no deceit found in his mouth. Abraham shifted blame to other people. Jesus took blame that wasn't even his. Abraham was a coward. Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross. And you know what's greatest of all? You know what the greatest contrast is? Abraham put his family in danger to avoid death. Jesus embraced death to save his family.

37:45 Friend, you, as a human being, have a great need for somebody to stand between you and God. And let me tell you a few things. Abraham is insufficient to do that job. Moses is insufficient to do that job. Joseph Smith is insufficient to do that job. Muhammad is insufficient to do that job. You are insufficient to do that job for yourself. But, friend, Jesus is all-sufficient.

38:16 He is all-sufficient to stand between you and the wrath of God and say, My father, not this one, because I stand for him. And I know you'll never pour out your wrath on me. Friend, you need Jesus to do that for you. You need him to do that for you now, today, and you'll certainly need it on the last day. Come to him in faith. Turn away from your sin and rebellion against him. Get down on your knees and say, Jesus, I know that I need you to stand for me, To put your life in place of mine, to put your death in place of mine.

38:53 I need you to stand for me as my representative and king and mediator and savior. So we see here a flawed mediator. And yet we also see a relentless God. A relentless God. As I've read this story, Genesis 12 through 20, I think it's just remarkable how through this whole thing, God is determined to keep his promises, to fulfill his covenant, to push his purposes onto effect.

39:28 And he's determined to do all of that stuff no matter what. It's almost as if the circumstances around the whole thing are just there to prove to us that no matter what those circumstances are, God's purposes will prevail. it's like a gigantic bulldozer that plows through the wreckage. Abraham can be faithful. He can be unfaithful. He can lose his faith entirely. He can be stunningly loyal to the Lord. It just doesn't seem to matter. God is just this bulldozer plowing through the wreckage, and he just keeps moving things forward to his intended end. And I think that's exactly what we see here in chapter 21, even in the wake of this absolutely disastrous showing by Abraham as mediator. So looking at 21, I want to make some observations about what we see there and then give you three things to think about.

40:15 So the chapter 21 opens with the announcement of the birth of Isaac. Abraham circumcises him, he names him, and then Sarah rejoices with a call back to the time when she laughed at God's promise. And then God told her, okay, fine, you want to laugh at me? Excuse me, you're going to name your son Isaac, which means laughter. Which at the time probably kind of seemed like an insult to her. She's probably like, even if this happens, now you're going to insult me by reminding me for the rest of my life about this laughing that I did at you. You know, that's horrible.

40:46 But finally, when the time comes, she finds herself laughing, not in mockery and derision of God's promise, but now in praise to him for keeping his promise. And so the little name Isaac, which she probably took as mockery early on, it's now been totally rewritten for her into a song of praise to God. Sometimes people wonder why the birth of Isaac, this event that we've been waiting on for so long, and which is absolutely critical to the covenant being kept, people wonder why it's told so quickly.

41:18 I mean, there are other birth narratives in the Bible that just kind of go on and on and on. And you've got songs, and you've got this and that, and it just goes on. This is so fast. But I think the reason for the quickness is probably because of what you see in chapter 21, verse 1. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Do you see that kind of drumbeat that goes through it?

41:50 It's just like, again and again and again, three different times in those two verses. It's just, this is exactly what God said, and this is exactly what God said, and it all happened exactly when God said. Do you see what that's doing there? the idea there is, look, we don't need to dwell on this because it was never in doubt in the first place. We don't need to dwell on this because it was never in doubt in the first place. I think that's a super interesting thought for us as Christians. And it is the question, really, When God keeps one of his promises to us, should we be astonished?

42:35 I mean, I think that's generally the evangelical thing, is that when God keeps a promise to you, you ought to go like, God kept a promise! Amazing! Right? You go on and on and on and on and on. Is that the way Christians ought to respond when God keeps a promise? I think Christians sometimes think we're supposed to go nuts when God keeps his promise, as if it was unlikely somehow that he was going to do so, and OMG, he finally pulled one off.

43:07 I wonder, actually, if there's not something good in being able to just kind of quietly, confidently, knowingly smile, kind of like this text does here, and say, of course he kept his promise. Of course he kept his promise. Why wouldn't he? He always keeps his promises, so let's praise him for keeping this promise as well, but there's no need to lose our minds over it. As the sports fans say, let's act like we've been here before.

43:42 Anyway, God keeps his promise of his son immediately. You get some celebration there, a little bit. And then immediately in verse 8, You get this story of Ishmael being sent away from the family. So, you know, Sarah notices Ishmael. His name isn't mentioned here, which is probably a part of the Bible's kind of stiff-arming him, right? He's just called the son of Hagar or the child or the boy, you know, throughout this whole story. His name is never mentioned. She sees Ishmael laughing at Isaac, and she insists then, in some pretty harsh language, That both he and his mother be sent away from the family.

44:18 Like sent out into the wilderness. You give him a little bit of provisions and then you send him away. Out of the family. Now, I think at first reading that this just seems nasty of Sarah. I just think it seems mean of her. And even Abraham doesn't like it. It just seems wrong. But is it wrong? Is Sarah wrong to see the laughter of Ishmael about her son Isaac and then say, I want him and his mother sent away?

44:53 Is that wrong? Well, Paul in Galatians 4 says that the sending away of Ishmael was entirely justified. And he even says that these words that Sarah says here that seem a little bit harsh to us, were a kind of word of prophecy. It was a word from God himself, Paul says, that the covenant line through Isaac and the non-covenant line through Ishmael should never be confused with one another.

45:23 And so she was entirely right to have him sent away. Which becomes even clearer when you see in the next couple of verses that God agrees with her and says, Abraham, you should send her away. Well, I think if you think about this, Give it a little more thought. You start to realize that Sarah was, in fact, actually right here. And it doesn't take a divine kind of, you know, command or fiat or judgment to make that clear if you just think about it a little bit. I mean, the whole issue at this point, now that Isaac has been born and he's about two years old, at this point when he gets weaned, that's about when that would have happened, two to three years old.

46:02 Now that we've gotten to that point, the whole issue in this story is who is going to be the heir to this vast fortune that Abraham has amassed. And in a situation where you have an older, illegitimate son and a younger, legitimate son, you've set things up for all kinds of trouble and probably even bloodshed in the future. You're going to get factions in the family. You're going to get doubt about who the heir is.

46:34 You're going to have this now 17-year-old fully grown man in Ishmael looking at this three-year-old kid who has now displaced him as the heir and saying, I could be rid of him in 30 seconds. And the Bible's already said he's a donkey of a man and violent. You're setting yourself up for massive trouble. And so that's why in verses 12 and 13, God agrees with her. Tells Abraham to send him away. Now, I've alluded to this a couple of times, but it's really important. You have to keep in mind that by this time, Ishmael is not a cute little toddler.

47:09 Now, I know I've mentioned his age a couple of times, but I know that in most of our minds as we read this story, we're thinking about the cute little toddler, right? He is not a cute little toddler. He's 16 to 17 years old at this point. He is a full-grown man. So even when, you know, some more liberal scholars will look at that laughter, you know, he was laughing at Isaac. They'll look at it and say, well, he was a toddler. He was just playing. That's the laughter of play. No, it's not. It's the laughter of derision. It's the laughter of mockery. Paul in Galatians 4 calls it the laughter of persecution.

47:40 That's what it was. It's way more ominous than it would be if he were just a toddler. Just by the way, there are a few other details in the rest of the story that kind of immediately just make us think of a toddler as you're reading it. You just have all this language about the crying out and the laying down. all this kind of stuff. And you can sort of easily run the whole thing through your mind as, oh, it's a toddler, right? And Hagar's carrying him and all the rest. You don't have to read it like that. The other way to read it that makes total sense of everything is to think about a teenager who is dying of thirst and heat exhaustion out in the desert. And then Hagar and he would do exactly the same things that the text says, which kind of make you think of a toddler at first, but you really ought to be thinking about a heat, basically a heat-stroked teenager who's dying.

48:29 that's what you should be thinking about. So Abraham sends him and Hagar away. They almost die of thirst in the desert. God intervenes to save them, shows them this well, and Ishmael grows up to be a deadly archer, a donkey of a man, as God called him, and the father of nations, it turns out, that are going to plague Israel for the rest of its history. And that's pretty much all we have about Ishmael. And then you get this last episode, again with our old friend Abimelech. Now, starting in verse 22.

48:59 We don't need to spend much time on this, but I do quickly want you to see what's going on here. So over the course of chapter 21, what's going on, and this is true of the Abimelech thing too, in the second half of 21, is that, like I said, all the pieces of the covenant promise are clicking into place. Abraham has his heir now. Isaac has been born. He's weaned. He's established. He survived infancy. Abraham's got his heir now, and the line is secure.

49:29 We've gotten rid of this donkey Ishmael, right? And now, now that we've got the heir, this great king, Abimelech, is coming to Abraham and making a covenant with him, which undoubtedly would have launched Abraham into the upper tiers of international affairs in the area. So he has become famous and hugely influential. Also, you just notice here that Abraham, through the course of this story, is giving blessing. He's giving good things to this foreign king. And once Abimelech ratifies that this well was actually dug by Abraham, even though his men were kind of taking it, but he sort of calls them off and says, No, that's your well. It's established a covenant around it. I give you this well.

50:11 Guess what's happening now? Abraham now owns a piece of land in the promised land. Do you see what's happening? And it's happening fast in 20 and 21. You get an heir. You get greatness of name. You get land. You get blessing. You get everything God had promised back in chapter 12. It's all clicking into place. And look how it ends. 33, 21-33. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God, the eternal one who will establish this covenant forever.

50:49 And then he sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines. Land, seed, blessing, greatness of name. And then in response to all of that, worship. I mean, it's like the end of the story. I mean, the whole thing could have ended right there. And I don't know that we would have thought there was anything weird about it. Like it's just God keeping his promises and then getting worshiped because of it. You can take a deep breath. God has kept his covenant, land, seed, blessing, greatness. And the response, now worship of the eternal God who's going to establish these things forever.

51:25 So, what's there to learn? If that's where 21 ends, what's there to learn? Well, three things quickly that I want you to see here. Number one, praise God that he keeps his promises with meticulous, sovereign precision, even if it takes a long time. Praise God that he keeps his promises with meticulous, sovereign precision, even if it takes a long time. That's what Abraham learned through all of this. And the promise was first made to him back in chapter 12 when he was 75 years old.

51:57 And now here he is at 100 years old. And only now is God bringing it to completion. And yet he does so meticulously. He doesn't leave anything out. Every detail is exactly as he said. As he said. Exactly when he said. Brothers and sisters, don't ever doubt that. And if you do, go back and read all these stories in the Bible where God basically spent all of history giving you stories to convince you that he always keeps his promises.

52:33 Go back and read them and believe him. Number two, God's purpose moves forward even through situations that are chock full of ambiguity and tension and pain. God's purpose has moved forward even through situations that are chock full of ambiguity and tension and pain. I mean, you can look at, you know, chapter 21 and figure out pretty quickly that even though this is a fulfillment of promises, this is not a fairy tale fulfillment of promises, is it?

53:06 And God keeps his promise, but it's in a story that's mixed with all kinds of bad stuff. Household conflict, Abraham's grief, Hagar's despair, Ishmael's near death, a family that's torn in two. I think we as Christians often look around at the chaos. Maybe it's not even chaos at this point for you. Maybe it's just rubble in our own lives. And we think God can't possibly be working through all of this. And yet, brother, sister, he is. He is. Just take it to the bank in a thousand ways that you can't even imagine, much less see.

53:42 He is always working. I mean, you remember that he is infinite, right? And you are finite. Like Romans 8 says, all of those things that he's doing, whether you can see them or not, he's doing them all, working them all for your good. Rest in that. Number three, finally, God's greatest blessing ultimately comes only through his chosen mediator.

54:13 God's greatest blessing, salvation, ultimately comes only through his chosen mediator. Now, it's true, right? The point of one section of this whole story is that God shows kindness to those that are outside the covenant. Outside the covenant of salvation. That's what we call common grace. And Ishmael is like the prime recipient of that common grace of God. Even though he's rejected from the covenant, God still shows him kindness and even gives him blessing. You may be one of those people out there who has benefited from some of that common grace in your life.

54:54 God may have made you well-connected or highly influential or really, really rich. Or maybe just content with what you've got. But here's my exhortation to you, kind of from the life of Ishmael. Don't ever make the mistake of confusing God's common grace to you with his saving grace. I don't know how many times, I don't know how many times I have heard particularly successful men, when you ask them, how's your relationship with God?

55:28 they will say something like, God has been so kind to me. I have everything I want and need. I've been successful in my business. I have this and this and a happy family. God and I are good. Alfred, Ishmael would have said exactly the same thing. And yet he was excluded from the covenant of salvation. Don't ever make the mistake of confusing God's common grace for saving grace. God's special saving grace, the blessing of forgiveness from sin, justification before him, salvation comes only through his chosen mediator.

56:05 And that is Jesus. Friend, if you would say God has been so kind to me and therefore I must be right with him, I would beg you to reconsider that. And realize that all that stuff one day will go away and you will stand before God. And the one question that will matter is what did you do with my son? because all the other stuff is off the table. Only through Jesus does true blessing come. So that's where we are.

56:37 At the end of chapter 21, all the covenant promises are clicked into place. God's promises are kept. Abraham's got greatness, a name, land, seed, blessing. He's worshiping. It's all there. So take a deep breath. But you better hold on to it because you're going to need it bad for what's coming. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you are the great covenant-keeping God who offers everyone who will come to your son Jesus salvation and forgiveness and justification before you.

57:17 Oh God, we pray that you would help us to rejoice in knowing that our eternity is secure, not because of who we are, but because of who Jesus is. and what he's done for us. Lord, help us to honor him as our great mediator. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.