This is chapter 21 at verse 8, reminding yourself, as you look at the first seven verses, how brief is the account of the birth of the long-awaited promised son, I think. Verse 8 of that chapter, Genesis 21, so the trial grew, it was weened, and Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weened, and Sarah saw the son of Hegar, the Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham, scoffing. Therefore, she said to Abraham, cast out this bond woman and her son, for the son of this bond woman shall not be air with my son, namely with Isaac. And the matter was very displeasing in Abraham's sight because of his son. But God said to Abraham, do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bond woman, whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice, for in Isaac your seed shall be called. Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the bond woman because he is your seed. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water, and putting it on her shoulder, he gave it and the boy to Hegar, and sent her away. Then she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Bishiva, and the water in the skin was used up, and she placed the boy under one of the shrubs, because she went and sat down across from him at the distance of about a bowshot, or she said to herself, let me not see the death of the boy, so she sat off as it hit him and lifted her voice and went, and God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hegar out of heaven and said to her, what else you haigar? Fear not for God has heard the voice of the lad, where he is, arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hands, for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw well of water. Then she went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink, so God was with the lad, and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness and became an archer, he dwelt in the wilderness of Karen. His mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt, a quote again this evening from Christianity to Day, just want you to know I read that very article. I found interesting a little news bit, an item, about the new $250 million museum in Wellington New Zealand, much hailed in the art world. I had no idea until I read yesterday in that periodical how controversial the opening of that museum would be. The Virgin Mary was pictured in one of the great first exhibits in a way I cannot speak of from this desk. Then a subsequent visit, the first drawing outrage, understandably from New Zealanders, depicting our Lord Jesus at the last supper in a way I cannot describe from this desk, then interestingly. Not only the Roman Catholics, the evangelicals, Muslims joined in the outrage, interesting, they were offended, they reject him as only Savior and Lord, they respect him nonetheless, you know that. I found it interesting that New Zealand would join us in art exhibits that are culturally sensitive to everybody, but offensive to our God, but that interesting time when in all of the hostilities we understand an experience between the Christian truth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the falsehood of Islam, there were Muslims in outrage with evangelicals over their art exhibits. While I am glad for that, I use that nonetheless as a springboard to say that in this passage before us, on the casting out of Ishmael, the son of Hagar, the reiterating by God that the covenant purpose and plan is in Isaac alone, that we are to understand a basic incompatibility between the natural and the spiritual. That would be true in confessing Christendom, as well as to be true between Islam and the gospel. That which is born of the flesh and man's endeavor is not compatible before God, usable by God with that which is born of the Spirit. There is an incompatibility and that's at the heart of this record of the reiterating of the covenant promise as it relates to Isaac and the rejection of Ishmael and casting him out. To think about this, therefore, for a few minutes from the word, let's use contrast, which are inherent in this passage and surrounding data that are appropriate. First, the contrast between the impravident and the impossible. It was impravident, what's it? For Abraham and Sarah to attempt to produce a covenant child by their own means. That's what I mean by impravidence. They produced Ishmael and we live with the tension and tragedy to this hour, whether it's a bomb in New York City in the trade tower, or the feeling of an invalid, off the deck of a ship to sink in the sea, because he's not as long of as long. We live with that tragedy to this hour in our day. The impravidence of the natural man is not compatible finally with the spiritual. The distinction is greatly blurred in our day, in our land. Did I herald the incompatibility this night of the natural and the spiritual? What Abraham and Sarah accomplished in the flesh, God rejected, but by way of contrast, is the impossible. The birth of Isaac, and as we can say it this way, God dragged all that on until it was obviously uncontestably impossible. For Abraham to fire a son and Abraham and Sarah to conceive and nurse a child. They were impoverished, impravident, and produced Ishmael whom God rejected. They struggled with the impossibility of the promise of a covenant son Isaac. These things are historical, factual, dependable, but they also provide the basis for New Testament allegorical teaching, in other words, there are types here in the history. Let me say it again, by seeing the types I would not imply ever that this is only allegory. It's history, it's fact. But if you will turn to Galatians for just a moment in chapter 4, look with me in that fourth chapter beginning at verse 22, at St. Paul's use of the historical facts of Ishmael and Isaac, the impravident, the impossible, the teaching from that is the type. Galatians 4.22, for it is written that Abraham had two sons. The one by a bond woman, Egar, the other by a free woman, Sarah. But he who was of the bond woman was born according to the flesh, and he of the free woman, supply the words, was born through promise. Which things are symbolic or typical? For these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Egar. For this Egar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children, but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all, supply the word who believe and are saved. Let's be clear that which is born of the spirit and in religious endeavor, we can be impravident, impulsant, and produce what we only can produce. We can do it on the mission field, we can do it in the second room, you can do it in vacation Bible school. Our goal, as I say at this night, is to be used of God to produce what is only possible by the spirit of God. I have illustrations that I won't have time to use and maybe the Lord is protecting us at this point. One of them has to do with a major issue coming up at our General Assembly. It is this, I guess I will tell you. Will we allow Northern California Presbyterry to take almost the whole of Nevada and all of Utah under their wings so that nobody else of the church in general can enter an evangelistic church planting in Java, that Presbyterry has a man who needs to be removed. There are only two churches that have 125 Communicants in the whole of North California Presbyterry. The videos they use is MTV, I have reviewed it in its own single. Whatever happened to the preaching of the cross, whatever happened in our circle, are we only conservative, producing conservatives, there are we spiritual, saying what God will do by the spirit, whatever happened to the power preaching of the cross. It is by the foolishness of preaching that men are saved. The national MTV is incompatible with the gospel presentation. I may not get to every session of General Assembly, but I'll be at that one. The impossible over against the impromptuant, Heygar, Sarah, Ishmael, I think, all we want in vacation Bible school, you want in Tanzania, we want in Lisbon, we want in Kennedy Church, what is impossible but for God who raises the debt, that doesn't mean that we're in Earth matter in active people, may I say it with gentility, Abraham and Sarah lived as man and wife to produce Isaac, but God used them spiritually, in Providence the impossible, inclusion, exclusion, Isaac is the one of promise and plan, Ishmael, excluded, does it sound heartless, reading here in Genesis 21 to put Heygar out on a desert, do you understand the pay false of it? You know why she sat down at an archer's distance, you know the expression an archer's distance, it's where a good archer places the target and then moves that distance back to shoot. She couldn't bear to see her son die in the wilderness, so she puts him in what little shade there was apparently and she moves at the archer's distance to watch, very likely that the wild animal doesn't get him, sounds heartless, that's in it, and yet it is the commands of God, Ishmael was not born of promise and resurrection power, he was included at the household of Abraham, even his long protests, the blasphemy of ours in the new museum in Wellington, but they're not of a covenant, Isaac is the son of promise, even as the gospel promised, is to as many as received him, to them he gave the authority to become the sons of God, and then that next person, John I, who are born not of the flesh, but of the spirit, it isn't just the son of Abraham that makes us believers, we must be of Isaac as well, see that in Romans chapter 9 with me for just a moment, Romans chapter 9, I knew I'd prepare too much for tonight, I'll never get through it, I'll just stop at some point when I see the BBS workers nodding after preparing all afternoon, I'll have mercy, so that you'll be fresh in the morning, but for just a moment, Romans chapter 9, at verse 7, Romans 9, 7, let's start at verse 6, but it is not that the Word of God has taken no effect, or they are not all Israel, who are of Israel, and that's a solid word, they're not all the Lord's who confess openly, verbally, and join a church in America, ishmael wasn't, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham, but in Isaac, in Isaac your seed shall be called, that is those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed, for this is the word of promise, and this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son, I trust you wish with everything it is within you, for restoration will go to this church, the vision I shame with, I've watched in a language, and from afar, way on my spirit, we can fill it with ishmael's, programs, come on, or we can trust God to do the impossible with Isaac's, where God gives life, where there is death, we were once all children of darkness, dead and trespasses and sins, it isn't just that we're not friendly enough, that we want to build a church just on pushability, I have no interest, or are we able to understand the incompatibility of the natural and the spiritual in the contrast to the incompetent of the impossible to understand God's exclusion of the ishmael, they're not all Israel, who are Israel, but the resurrection power and the gospel, the presenting of the Lord Jesus to believe that it is the power of God and the salvation to every one who believes to Jew, to Gentile alike, to say oh blessed spirit of God who quickened the womb, Sarah, the verim of the in Abraham, brought life, whether it was death physically, and all of that allegory, we learned a lesson, will you old God, spirit of God, work life, where in the midst of religion, general acceptance, nonetheless, and maybe spiritual death, the contrast of the exclusive, covenant line and the exclusion of those who are of the flesh, a Isaac was born of the power of God, the consummate power of God in the resurrection, greater power than creation now, bringing out of death, life, this enables me to evaluate methods, materials, so-called ministries, and I lay before you this night, the time of this go all their ways, we stand out some emissions change, so-called that you fix up a room over the church and listen so-called, so-called that we did a VBS, unless the spirit of God does what only he can do in our feeble endeavors, I don't want to end up my life with what I could do, a part of him, a lot of us are clever, creative, we have resources, they can all be sanctified, surrendered to him and used of him, but we don't want Ishmael, the God was merciful to Ishmael,
and part of that mercy of his general providence, and providing water to Ishmael so that he grew to majority and married an Egyptian wife and is the progenitor of all of the Arab people and whom Islam has found such favor, but we want to have what God alone can do,
and perhaps it is that God will shut us up like Abraham and Sarah to the impossible until we say, Lord, we can do it, would you come and praise us power and give life in the midst of death,
natural means, natural work is never compatible with the spiritual, oh God, do a deep spiritual work in these latter days, that the latter glory of this temple may be greater than the former,
though we see about as all sorts of things, may we be a part of the revived spiritual remnant church that grows more powerful, more fruitful in the midst of the decline, right up to the return of our king, we sang it before we sang it again, Lord, lift us up and help us stand on heaven's table land where we see the things that only God can do, transformations of life, total surrender of life, thrilled with the Savior, oh Father, do we spend so much of our time trying to entice so-called Christians to love the word and worship the oh God grant life and victory and power, leave us not to ourselves, to our own budgets, to our own gifts, to our own energies, to our own abilities, creativity, leave us not to that alone, but sanctify all thou hast given us, we give it to thee a new afresh this night,
blessed spirit, grant us again in this place what only the spirit can do, and we'll be careful to say it is the Lord's doing and marvelous in our eyes to pray in Jesus' name. Amen.