Sermon for Sunday February 25th, 2007

GENESIS 15 - 21: Sibling Rivalry by Bruce Ball

Genesis 15:1-21:21

We are continuing our trip through the book of GENESIS. We have previously covered from the creation of the world, on down to where a man named Abram obeyed God by stepping out into the unknown as God had requested – without knowing where he was going or what he was supposed to do when he got there.

Abram was not a perfect man. He had told people his wife was his sister so that they would not harm him. So, if he was such a low-down scoundrel, why did God use him? I believe God used him for two reasons.

First of all, Abram was a liar, but he also believed in and trusted God with his whole heart. Secondly, I think God chose such a man to show us that we, too, can be used by God – even though we are also low-down scoundrels in our own right.

First, let’s talk about what happens when …


1. WE TRY TO HELP GOD DO HIS JOB

We are going to talk about Sarai for a moment. Now, keep in mind that the people of yesterday were the same as people of today. Their minds worked in the same way our minds do today. And Sarai was no exception.

God has created life to be simple, yet we always make things so complicated it takes God to simplify it once again, just so we can understand. Sarai tried to help God and when she did, she ended up making things very complicated.

GENESIS 15:3-5 Abram was talking to God in a vision.

‘And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir. Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.” Then He said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Now, Abram was well past 75 years, and the Lord is telling Him that he is going to produce so many generations that he will not be able to count them all. How would we feel if we were in Abram’s shoes and God told us that? The first tendency for many of us would be disbelief. What was Abram’s reaction?

GENESIS 15:6 says that Abram believed the Lord and that was credited to him as righteousness. God likes it when we believe in Him without having doubts.

In this same chapter, God goes on to tell Abram that his descendents will be slaves in another country for 400 years, but when they come out, they will come out with many possessions. And then the Lord made a covenant with Abram. It is important to know that a covenant is a promise that cannot be broken. In this covenant, God is telling Abram that He will give Abram’s descendants a vast area of land as their own.

As we go into chapter 16, we see where Abram’s wife Sarai started trying to help God do His job. She knew that she was too old to have children, so she did like we do: She thought through all the possible ways this could happen, and then “she” decided that the only way for her to become a mother was to be a mother by proxy. She told Abram to sleep with her young maid, Hagar.

Abram, being a dutiful husband and not wanting to argue with his wife, said, “Okay, darling. Anything for you.” And I am sure that before she could change her mind, he went and slept with the young maid named Hagar. Keep in mind that Abram was now 85 years old. Most men of that age today have a difficult time going to the kitchen to get a glass of water, much less trying to think about raising a family.

So Hagar got pregnant, and guess what happened? Being human, she and Abram’s wife started having difficulties getting along. That shows right there that they were the same as humans today. Then Hagar ran away into the desert and an angel found her. He told her to go back and be obedient to Abram’s wife. Then the angel talked to her a little about the future of her unborn baby.

In GENESIS 16:11-12, the angel says;

‘You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone – and everyone’s hand will be against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.’

What a miserable future the angel painted for the baby she was carrying. But we are going to see in a few minutes how that description was very accurate, and how that has been constant from then on down to today, and how that is causing all the problems that are going on in the Middle East.

Hagar went back and bore a son to Abram, and she named him Ishmael. And when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him again and confirmed His promise to give Abram many descendants. This is when the Lord changed his name from Abram to Abraham, for Abraham means “father of many nations.”

In GENESIS 15, God also changed the name of Abraham’s wife from Sarai to Sarah, saying that she would bear a son and that God would bless her and make her a mother of many nations. A few verses later, God told Abraham that he was to name that son Isaac, and God would create a covenant with Isaac to give him the whole land of Canaan, as an EVERLASTING GIFT to Abraham’s many descendants. That land, by the way, is where Israel sits today.

God was going to give a son to Abraham and Sarah so he could inherit the land of Canaan. The reaction by Sarah to that promise is much like the reaction we have today to God’s promises for us.

Sarah heard the Lord telling Abraham that she would give birth the following year, and Sarah laughed to herself in disbelief. Then, when the Lord asked why she laughed, she got afraid and denied it. That is what happens to us today. We only believe what we can understand, and then when the Lord calls us on it, we pretend we didn’t do that. We keep forgetting that the Lord knows our sins even when we try to hide them.

Sarah didn’t understand how she could give birth, so rather than to just sit back and trust, she decided to help it along. I am reminded of a verse in ISAIAH 40, that reminds us to "wait" upon the Lord.

Sarah got in front of the Lord and tried to help Him keep His promise. First of all, let me say that God does not need our help to do His job. The only thing God wants from us is for us to be obedient, and wait on Him. He will let us know when He wants us to do something, so don’t try and manipulate things to go the way we think things should go. Let them go the way God wants them to go.

Now, let’s switch gears and talk about …


2. AN HEIR FOR THE LAND

In a vision, the Lord tells Abram that He is Abrams’ great reward. And Abram tells the Lord that since he has no children, he has nobody but a servant to leave his estate to. Then God says:

Remember the promise God gave to Abram in GENESIS 15:4-5. He said that Abram’s descendants would be so numerous they would not be able to be counted.

That means that Abram will be the natural father of a son, and He will give a great amount of land to the boy’s descendants, who turn out to be God’s chosen people, the Israelites, or the Jewish people as we call them today.

The Lord reiterates His covenant with Abram’s son in,

GENESIS 15:18

‘On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates …’

God wanted Isaac, the promised son born to Sarah to receive the land. Had Sarah just waited upon the Lord in the first place, the only child they would have had would have been Isaac but, because of her interference, Abram now had two sons: Ishmael and Isaac - Ishmael being the oldest by 13 years.

Now, in those days, inheritances would normally be given to the oldest son. But this inheritance was promised to the youngest son. Can we see where this would have upset Ishmael? Abraham loved Ishmael and asked God to bless him. God said he would bless Ishmael, but the promise of the land was only to Isaac.

GENESIS 17:21

‘But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.”

Now go with me over to GENESIS 21, and let’s read about the day when Sarah chose Isaac over Ishmael.

GENESIS 21:8-13

‘The child grew and was weaned, and on that day, Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that Ishmael was mocking Isaac, and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son.”

The matter greatly distressed Abraham because he loved his son Ishmael. But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”

Early the next morning, Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy into the desert near Beersheba, where she wandered.”

Now, Hagar wandered the desert until the water was gone. Now for those of you who have never been in the desert, let me tell you that the desert without water can easily be a place of death.

When my nephew, Chase’s father, was about twelve years old, he walked from his house, across a stretch of desert in Mesa, Arizona, to a friend’s house. The entire walk took about 15 minutes. But, at 120 degrees, my nephew needed immediate help when he got there, because he was going into dehydration. It is a very dangerous place, and that is where Hagar and her young son were.

She placed her son Ishmael under a bush to die in the shade and then she went into the shade of another bush a distance away because she could not bear to see him die.

As she sat there crying, an angel called to her from heaven, telling her that God has heard the cries.

GENESIS 18-21

“Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.’

Many people know “something about” two sons born to Abraham, but do not understand who they were, what happened to them, and how that still affects us today.

Let’s talk now about how …


3. THEIR RIVALRY BECAME OUR WAR

There continued to be some contact between Ishmael and the house of Abraham, and their descendents. GENESIS 25:9 tells us that both Isaac and Ishmael were present at Abraham’s funeral. Isaac’s son Esau even married one of Ishmael’s daughters. When Ishmael died at age 137, his 12 sons had each become kings with kingdoms.

I have often wondered how Ishmael felt about what had happened. Like I said earlier, the custom was to give the inheritance to the eldest son, who was Ishmael, but they gave it to the youngest son, Isaac. To make matters worse, Ishmael and his mother Hagar knew they were thrown out of the family because Sarah could not get along with her.

Now, we all know that when a child is without a father, that child suffers to some degree. But can you imagine how much that child would suffer if the father gave him and his mother some water and food and said, “Hit the highway and be gone!” I believe Ishmael, being human, must have grown up with some very deep hurts and maybe even a few “get even” thoughts roaming around in his mind.

Ishmael’s rejection was even worse, because it also seemed to be an outright rejection by God. God had blessed Ishmael, but had taken away his place as the firstborn. Instead, God chose Ishmael’s younger brother Isaac for His purposes.

How much hatred of Isaac would that have caused? How much dysfunction would come from such an apparent rejection? Enough of those feelings to create a culture of rage, anger to be predominant in Ishmael’s life and that of his descendents?

When Islam sprang up thousands of years later, it did so from among the descendants of Ishmael. And it quickly moved to re-write history to show that Ishmael, not Isaac, had been the chosen son and had been wronged.

Islam claimed their god was the true god, and was not the God that Isaac knew. They said the true god was Allah, not Jehovah. And Islam claimed it was really Ishmael who was nearly sacrificed on Mt. Moriah instead of Isaac.

Allah approved of revenge, even though the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had ruled revenge out during the time of Moses.

Allah allowed the killing of those who did not believe in Islam. Jehovah only allowed the killing of the enemies who would have killed the Israelites. War was already a part of life in the seventh century, and Allah approved and encouraged war and the killing of all enemies. Jehovah said, “Thou shalt not kill.”

The Arab culture at that time was full of all kinds of mistrust and revenge. Islam built on that as a way to motivate the believers to unite together, and gave it a moral approval. But scholars find that the root cause of all the rage points back to the sibling rivalry between those two brothers, Ishmael and Isaac, Abraham’s two boys.

If that is the case, that would explain why the entire Arab world hates the Jews with such a deep hatred that westerners cannot comprehend. But how does that perpetuate itself in this day and age?

Here is a quick civics lesson.

The United Nations funds the schools in the Palestinian territories. Those schools create books and videos that are taught and then shown to children when they turn six years of age, and from there on out, it is a constant thing they learn. These books and videos teach that Jews are pigs and need to be slaughtered. These wonderful young innocent children are fed a steady diet of these teaching from age six, so it is no wonder they grow up to consider the Jews their sworn enemies.

What I don’t understand is that this has been verified; yet nobody says anything about it. That is beyond my realm of comprehension.

Two brothers. God blessed both brothers, but only one got the land from God. Jealousy and anger going so far back that people have adopted it as a normal way of life. That is the very root of all the problems in the Middle East today. The Muslims want to kill all the Israelites and claim the land as their own. The Jews want to live in the land that God gave them.

Muslims say the Jews changed the Torah to reflect that Isaac was not given the land. Muslims say that the original text showed that it was Ishmael. Satan is using sibling rivalry to the fullest extent, and it will be that same sibling rivalry that brings about the promised Battle of Armageddon in God’s timing.

Now, it is very easy to hate an enemy. But we are called to love our enemies and to even pray for our enemies. Let me give you one quick reason why we need to continually do just that.

It is only through prayer that we see enormous things happen for the glory of God. And one of the most glorious things that can ever happen is seeing somebody come to the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

There are two different types of people who tend to make the most “on-fire” Christians: Jews and Muslims. When either of these people come to know Jesus, they get on-fire for Him, and they stay on-fire for Him. They take the time to study the Bible in detail. They take the time to pray for others like we should do. They take the time to make decisions; decisions like humbling their once proud hearts to Jesus.

Let me tell you something. If the average Christian were half as eager to please God as Jews and Muslims are when they convert, there would already be a world-wide revival! That is why we are supposed to love them enough to pray for them. So that they will end up loving others enough to pray for other souls, too.

So that is the quick story of what happened thousands of years go to create the situation that will end the world, as we know it. That ending will be when our Lord Jesus comes back and calls us into the clouds to meet Him. What a glorious day that will be!

But until then, we shall have wars and rumors of wars, especially in the Middle East. Remember when the angel of God told Hagar that her son would be a wild donkey of a man, always at odds with his brothers? That is our situation until the day our Savior comes.

Are you ready for that day? If that were to happen right now, would you be ready to meet Jesus, or would you need a little more time to get ready? You are being offered a time to get ready right now. Won’t you take it?