David Macdonald - March 30th 2025

Am I coming through? Yes, okay, good, there we go. Sorry, doesn't wanna clip on my belt. There we are.

Good to see you all here today. And wow, there's a lot of people back there. Let's take a moment and look to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we thank you this morning for bringing us here.

We thank you for this one that we've been singing praises to, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for the one who gave himself for us, that we may have life and life in him and eternal life. We may know him and know him forever. We look to you to guide us through this day.

As we look into your word, I pray Father that you would give me some clarity of thought and help us to understand the lessons from the scriptures. And we pray for all, for all ages. And we just look to you when the name of the Lord Jesus, amen. I had trouble, a little bit of trouble with my son-in-law.

Oh, that thing, I'm very attached to it. So I'll keep talking while he's playing with my tailpiece there. All right, we good? Can you hear me down there now?

Good, because now that ringing sound that was in my ears has gone away. All right, good. One distraction handled. Yeah, I had trouble.

What do I call this? Part 14, Abraham, Sarah, Sarah, I haggard, and Ishmael? Or the other title that I thought maybe is even more appropriate is I did it my way is a very bad song. So that's, you have to be old like me.

You have to know who Frank Sinatra is. And you have to know that that song he crooned for many years, I did it my way. And I won't try to belt it out. I have a sore throat, otherwise I would.

It's a very, very, very bad song. I actually looked up the lyrics to it the other day, and I thought it actually kind of made my stomach a little queasy just to read the words to it. It's actually worse than I thought they were. So it's just so bad.

So that will be my title. I did it my way is a very bad song. If you're putting a title on this message for Facebook. All right, we're going to continue in studies and genesis in the life of Abraham.

This is one of those days where I'm going to do two chapters, 16 and 17, and we'll see how that goes. Here is a summary. And somebody mentioned to me that it's good to start off with this summary of where we've been to get to where we are. They find it helpful.

So I'm going to do that. But I've shortened it down from what I've done in the past messages. So from Adam to Noah, Shem to Abram, we have this period of time of roughly 2,500 years. That is the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis.

They are in purple and lighter purple. The rest of it is chapters 12 to 50. It is crammed into that short little spot. And it focuses on people, on nations, and the building of Israel.

Abraham, as we probably remember, but I just want to remind you, if you haven't been here, he descended from Noah's son Shem. He lived in a place in Mesopotamia called Ur of the Calvians. And he was called by God to leave his family in Ur and to go to where? Don't know.

Destination unknown. Actually, I believe that is another song, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Ward and I are living the oldies here. So he brings his father and his nephew a lot with him. He wasn't really supposed to do that, but he did. He stayed at a place called Heran until his father passed away.

And then he carried on into the land that God had wanted him to go to. And when he got there, he said, I know God wants me to be here, but there's a famine here. He can't really want me to be here. So I'm going to go down to Egypt and take care of things myself.

And that turned into an absolute disaster. He lied to Pharaoh, tried to pass his wife off as a sister. Pharaoh figured it out. Said, like, you're not legit, man.

Get out of here. He sent him packing, and he went back. So he returned to Bethel. And so God had promised him that he was going to make him a great nation back in verse 14 of chapter 13.

And it says, the Lord said, Abraham, after Lot had separated from him, lift up your eyes. Oh, this is actually after. Sorry. He had said to him, look from the place where you are, northward, southward, eastward, and westward, the land that you will see.

I will give you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as a dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring can also be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land that I will give you. So then the last time we looked, in chapter 15, God came to Abraham.

If I say Abraham, I mean Abraham until today. Later today, I will say Abraham, and I'll be right. But if I say Abraham from previous things, I mean Abraham. And if I say Sarah, I mean Sarah.

Just so you know, I'm old and just be kind to me. And then so he repeats this. Later on, he says, in chapter 15, God comes to him and says, after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, fear not, Abraham, for I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.

And he brought him outside and said, look toward the heavens, the number of the stars. If you will be able to number them, then he said, so shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it. The Lord counted it to him, Abraham, as righteousness.

And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of the Urer of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. So that brings us up to where we are today. So Abraham is around 86 years old, I believe, at this point in time. And his name means exalted father.

He has no children. That's very interesting. But God has promised him that you will have offspring, that this great nation is going to come from you, not from one of your servants, not from one of your friends, not from a close associate, but from you will come this great nation. So Sarah, here's the same thing.

And she's thinking, this is going on a long time, Abe. And I mean, I'm, you know, I'm not far behind you. I think my childbearing years are back there, like, and yours too. So they get to this point where she starts thinking.

And it says, and so if you have your Bibles or your devices or you want to follow on the wall behind me and your eyesight is very good, it says now, Sarah, Abraham's wife had born him no children. But she had a female servant whose name was Hagar. And sorry I said to Abraham, behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant, then it may be that I shall obtain children by her.

And Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah. And so after Abraham lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarah, Abraham's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abraham, her husband, as a wife. And he went into Hagar, and she conceived, and when she saw that she conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. I'll stop there for a minute.

God has promised the impossible. An old man and an old woman with out any children well past their years, you're going to have children. It hasn't happened. And I can kind of see the conversation, like, OK, you know, Abraham, this is Sarah speaking, Sarah.

You know, the Lord was pretty clear. This child will come from you. He didn't really say anything about me. So maybe he needs some help here.

Maybe we need to help God along. I mean, I have an idea. And it's probably better than anything he's come up with so far, because it hasn't worked. We don't have any kids.

So how about that faithful servant I have, Hagar? I mean, she's young. She'll have children. There won't be a problem.

And this way we'll figure it out whether it's me or you. What's the problem? I mean, we've gone a long, long time. What can go wrong?

What can possibly go wrong? You see, she was reading in First Flesh Alonions that God helps those who help themselves. And that's the only version of the Bible you're going to find it in. That's the only chapter that you'll come across that.

First Flesh Alonions, three, I think it is. God helps those who help themselves. And so she was doing that in her devotions. And she said, let's put a work in motion here to help God along.

So she's now past 75. And she proposes this Egyptian maid. We'll marry you up. You guys can have a child together.

Well, unfortunately, Abram was drawn into her impatience. And it says here that Abram listened to the voice of Sarah. You see, Sarah, I was off base. She was wrong in this.

Now, when I read that, that's not like a life first to say, look what happens there when you listen to your wife. No, in fact, you probably in most times, in most cases, should listen to your wife. But in this particular case, she is so far off base. And she is now going to overrule what God has said.

She's doubting the word of God. And when you do that, I don't care if you're the husband, or the wife, or the child, or the professor, or whatever you are. But if somebody is giving you a great word that's taking an excess ramp from the word of God, you know you're going to be in trouble, right? You know it's not going to go well.

So what happens? She gets pregnant. Hagar, first five. And Sarah, I said to Abram, me the wrong done to me, be on you.

OK, so going back, Hagar gets pregnant, and she just absolutely despises. Sarah, what have you done? Here I am. Now I'm going to have a baby with your husband, who's 86 years old.

And what am I going to ask you to put me in? And she despises her master, who is Sarah? And Sarah says to Abram, you made the wrong done to me, be on you. OK, isn't that interesting how the blame thing starts, right?

Right back to Garden of Eden. Genesis chapter three is where the blame game was invented. That great board game, I blame you. It started in Genesis chapter three.

And it continues on, Genesis chapter 16. May the wrong done to me, be on you. I gave my servant to your embrace. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt.

May the Lord judge between you and me. But Abram said to Sarah, behold, your servant is in your power to do to her as you please. Then Sarah dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. So I'm pretty sure it wasn't just a scolding that she gave her.

You see, this was first of all not a relationship that was born out of love. This was not Abraham fell in love with Hagar and decided to marry her, even to have a second wife or anything like this. This was just totally a concoction that was to override and overrule what God had planned. It was really kind of a means to an end.

And the problem here, obviously, and this is what Sarah probably really bent out of shape, is the fact that the problem is with her body, not with Abrams. And the shame in that culture, in that ancient culture when she could not bear children, there was a great shame that came upon Sarah. And that was probably at work in all of this reaction that she had towards Hagar. And that hatred develops between Hagar and Sarah.

You see, and maybe you're asking like, okay, this is crazy. Abraham had a wife, happy to get a second wife. Well, God did allow polygamous situations, but that wasn't his purpose. If you go back to Genesis, God made man, and then he created for him one wife, one wife, one woman, not many wives, he was to be faithful to one woman.

Now we do see in the scriptures, we do see other situations where there were polygamous marriages, that God had allowed them to happen. But it's interesting because none of them were blessed by God. Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, Solomon invented the word polygamy, pretty much. I mean, he was the poster boy for it for sure.

He had over 700 wives. So, you know, but all of these things were there undoing, especially Solomon. It says wives that led him into idolatry. It says wives that led him away.

God's designed for marriage, and if you're a young person here, you need to understand. It's one man, one woman for life. That's his plan. Anything outside of that plan, it may happen, but it's not in God's plan.

And it will be a problem for those who are in that type of relationship. The verse that came to mind for me here was, as I thought about this, and I thought, you know what, what Sarah did is kind of not unlike what I do sometimes. I look at it and think, yeah, okay, you know what, everybody's telling me God has a plan, but I gotta do something here. I gotta do something about this situation.

He just not understanding. Maybe he doesn't understand me the way I think. Maybe it's my psychology he doesn't get. Maybe it's my limitations that God doesn't understand.

I gotta kind of take this into my own hands and do it. I can't look on Sarah with scorn and say, oh, how could you do that? I mean, it's the God of heaven to me, this promise. Because every single day that I go along, there are things in my life I look at it and think, okay, I got this in control.

I got this in control until it's not in control. And then I go, God, please help me. I know you said that you would. Can you, now I've made a mess, a real mess.

And I look at it in the verse that came to my mind yesterday, so I was thinking of this as, Proverbs chapter three, verses five to seven. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make straight-year paths. That is the stuff that we love to go to the Christian books or if they ever existed anymore.

Christian book distributors and buy a plaque that says those two verses we love to put those two verses up on our wall. It's amazing, yeah, I'm gonna be guided by those. But it goes on, do not be wise in your own eyes. Okay, that's more like directed at the way I might live.

Maybe we'll just go with the first two verses and leave that one out. But you see, sometimes we think, no, no, I know God has this plan. I know if I trust him with all my heart and I don't lean on my own understanding, if I acknowledge him and just say, yeah, the Lord's helping me, the Lord's, it's all about its own. But I actually know better than him.

I'm wise in my own eyes. I'm gonna fix this problem. I know, I've got this. You see, that's what Sarah did.

And that's what Abraham got sucked into. And that's what David does at times. I have to confess. And I always find myself in a situation like Sarah and Hagar and Abraham.

I've just taken something and made it a mess. We need to patiently wait for the Lord and listen to him. One person said, it's better to ask for the right road 10 times than to take the wrong road once. It's better to ask directions for the right road 10 times than to take the wrong road once.

John Wells knows all about taking the wrong road. I remember that story he told when he was going to a meeting somewhere and he got on this road and he's just like, I know what it's like the morning you're half awake, you're half asleep, you're just focused on going somewhere doing something. And yeah, the city just happened to have the same name as the city that you're supposed to go to. Should have asked directions.

Should have looked at a map. Should have, you know what, all those things. So it's better for us to do that. The thing is when we take it into our own hands, we will find ourselves like Sarah, we get frustrated and then we get angry with God.

We get angry with the situation. And that's what happened with Sarah. The thing is God had a plan for Abraham and Sarah. He had a plan for the future for them.

But they decided that they're going to just like, okay, we'll break away from God here and just do this on our own because we can do it. The writer George McDonald and Old Scottish writer said this, no relation to me by the way. He says, whatever man does without God, he'll fail miserably or succeed more miserably. I like that.

Whatever man does without God, he'll fail miserably or he'll succeed more miserably. You see, even if it works, it's the wrong plan. It's the wrong thing. It's not what God's choice was.

And we don't want to find ourselves in that situation. This is where they found themselves. So Hagar gets away from Sarah. I'm sure she was bruised and beaten.

I'm sure it wasn't just an argument like it shows here. And then we read this. The angel of Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness. Angels of the Lord always have a white, by the way, as a garment, so you know.

Actually, thank you, you may have for providing some of these pictures for me from the rejoiced thing. So the angel of Lord found her by a spring, the waters of the wilderness, the spring on the way to sure. And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarah, where are you to come from and where are you going? And she said, I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarah.

And the angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. And the angel of the Lord also said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring that they cannot be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, behold, you are pregnant and you shall bear a son. And you shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction.

He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him. And he shall dwell over against all of his kinsmen. So he called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God of seeing, she said.

Truly, I have seen him who looks after me. Therefore, the well was called Beer, lie Roy, it lies between Kedish and Beerid. And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of the son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. And Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

So here we, we see Hagar meets up with the angel of the Lord. This is the first time actually you ever read in the scriptures of the angel of the Lord. It's the first mention. It's interesting, the angel of the Lord is mentioned through the scriptures, but you read it here for the first time.

So it's a story of failure, but God comes here in his mercy and in his grace. And he meets Hagar. She's told that she should name her boy Ishmael. Ishmael means God will hear, which is interesting.

Every time she says his name, every time she calls his name out, she's reminded God will hear. God will hear. Hagar didn't plan to be dragged into the situation, but she was. It was a very difficult situation for her.

But her son Ishmael is described in verse 12. It says he will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand against him. And he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.

That sounds kind of familiar as to what might be going on in the Middle East right now. You see, if you go and take the propaganda from the guy with the Palestinian flag down on the Spring Garden Road that's walking up and down and passing it out. And he keeps talking about 1948, 1949, 1969, and so on and so on. He's missed 4,000 years of the story.

He really has. Because this conflict that you see going on, this conflict that's going on in the Middle East right now comes from a battle between two sons. It's the son of Abraham through Hagar, and the son of Abraham will study it another time through Sarai. It says here that his hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand against him.

The conflict in the Middle East is spread around the whole world. And it goes back to this moment. This is where it comes from. So we'll talk a little further on this a little later on.

But what amazes me in this is the appearance of the angel of the Lord coming to her. Here's some other to be. She had a bit of a pride problem. And she was mistreated by the woman who put her into the whole mess.

But isn't God's love and mercy great that he would send this angel to comfort this woman who is in such distress by the river? She's sitting there, she's pregnant. I'm sure she was crying. Probably cried for days.

She has no money. She doesn't know where she's knowing. She doesn't know what she's going to do with this baby that she's now God. She's been rejected.

But God and his mercy and his love comes and comforts this woman. I look at this and I think it's also a story that gives me a picture of the love of God, of the mercy of God, of his care, of his caring character. So then she goes back and she presents the boy, the child, she has the child in Abraham calls him Ishmael. And that, he was 86 years old when Hagar bore his male.

And that's it. In chapter 16, you don't hear anything more at that point in time. So now we move into chapter 17, 13 years later. It's good to read the scriptures and look at numbers and look at where it says this happened at this time.

And then we were reading something about the Apostle probably wasn't in this place for so long. You realize, ah, there's a gap of a year or two years or so many months between these sections. It doesn't just go along and rapid fire succession. So here we are.

We're looking 13 years later. Nasar is 90. Abraham's 99. He's still the exulted father with none.

Well, he does have one. So it feels a little better for him. People come to him, so what's your name? Abraham.

Oh, it's all the father. How many kids do you have? One. That's cool.

Before it was like, you don't have any kids, and you're calling yourself that. So here he is now. And God declares to him, or God comes to him and declares to him a new name. Let's look at chapter 17 and verse 1.

And I didn't put it there. Chapter 17, verse 1, I apologize. Bear with me for 30 seconds. Genesis 17, 1.

So when Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am God almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you and multiply you greatly. Abraham fell on his face, and God said to him, and so on.

So here he is. God comes to him and says, I am God almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. God reveals a new name, a new to man.

It's not new to God. It's new to man. He comes to him and he says, I am God almighty. Now the name that he's using here is El Shaddai.

Have you heard that before? Have you heard that before today? During this day? Today?

When? Yes. What's wrong? It's not anyone.

Clyde read it this morning. I thought maybe I should have Clyde convening this substitute at that point in time and speak. El Shaddai, El Shaddai, I am God all sufficient from the word Shaddai or to shed or to pour out, pouring out blessing, giving richly, abundantly, continually. That's one meaning of the word.

The other meaning of the word, it also means chest or breasts. The chest represents what? Strength, the strength of a man, the chest. When you go to the gym, you talk to the guys, what do you work on today?

It's always chest. They're always working on chest. Chest and legs, chest and arms, chest and toes, chest and lips. Whatever it is they're doing, they're working on their chest because it's their strength.

But when you hold a baby, when a mom holds a baby, she holds a baby to her breast. It means both, the comfort of her breast. God is saying, I am strong and you're weak. I can do what no other can do.

And then he says to him, he says, walk before me and be blameless. So walk before me and be blameless. It's interesting because when you walk before somebody, they're watching everything you do. When we're walking before people, we tend to walk a little more carefully, don't we?

So if we recognize that we're walking before God, he's seeing everything we do. Everything is not displayed for God. Walk before me. And this is what he says to Abraham.

Walk before me and be blameless. In 2 Chronicles chapter 16 verse 9, it says, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. God is always watching. Nothing gets past him.

He doesn't miss anything. You see, Abraham walked differently at this point in time. At one point in time, he walked for the first 15 years. He walked before his family.

And he went to Heron. He took them all with him when he left. Secondly, he walked before his servants. And he took them down to Egypt.

I know you're going to starve to death in this promised land. So here's my plan. Let's go to Egypt. And then he walked before his wife.

And he went into Hagar and got into the mess that he got into in the last chapter. Now he has a new walk. He's 99 years old. And he's now going to walk before God.

You know what I like about this? Is a new walk with God can begin at any age, even at 99 years old. You can start to walk before God. Maybe, I don't know where you are in your life.

Maybe you've had a difficult time walking with God. Maybe you feel like it's been off and on. It's been up and down like a roller coaster. You know today that you can walk with God.

You can walk before God. You can begin. If you've never walked with God, because you don't know him. Today is the day of salvation.

Today is the day when you can come before God, admitting you're a sinner, admitting that you've walked away from God, admitting that you need to walk with God. You have taken the wrong road. You can turn today in repentance to God. Through the Lord Jesus, dying on the cross to take away all of your sins.

He is offering you an opportunity. Walk before me, just like he did with Abraham. Walk before me. Walk with me.

You have that opportunity. If you don't know how to come to Christ, if this is kind of new to you and you've been struggling with it, maybe it's old to you. Maybe you've heard a lot of times and you're thinking, I know what he's saying and I know I need that. I remember going through that in my life.

I know I need this. This is what I want. This is what I need, but I don't know how to get on that road. Then talk to somebody.

Please talk to somebody. Open the scriptures. Ask God to open your eyes to see how you can walk with him, how you can know him. So now he says, my covenant is with you and you shall be a father of a multitude of nations.

I'm going to change your name. It's going to go from exulted father to the father of many nations, 99 years old. I mean, I can't help but kind of chuckle at this. I'm thinking, okay, that was a stretch that I would have a child and I could be called exulted father.

Now you're telling me I'm going to be the father of many nations, not just many children, many nations. Okay. The burden of the name just became greater. The burden of the name that he has.

Behold, it says in verse 4, Behold my covenant is with you and you should be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham. There. Now I won't make any more mistakes from here on.

So your name will now be called Abraham. For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

And I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God. This is an amazing promise. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. Kings will come from you.

Like what a great promise to him. But he's still 99 years old. I will give you and your offspring after you the land of your sordrenings. It'll be an everlasting possession.

Here's what he's promised. First of all the land. The borders of the land that were given, we'll read it further later in scripture. If you took the borders and you looked at it, it's 780,000 square kilometers of land.

That was to be the promised land. 780,000 square kilometers of land. And that's kind of outlined in this right here. So at their peak, this is how much they had.

Right there. 10%. They only occupy 10% of what God says. Here's what everywhere you set your foot.

This is what I'm giving you. But they only occupy 10%. At the height of Solomon's reign, it was 78,000 kilometers. God promised, but they only took a tenth.

God promised that every place your foot walks, they didn't and they didn't take it all. So I'm reading this and I'm thinking about this and I'm thinking, okay, what's the point here? Well, the point is how much of the promises of God have I taken for myself? How much of what I read, more dramatic if I hold up my Bible.

But how much of what's promised in there to me have I taken as my own? 5%. 100%. 10%.

50. Are we leaning on the promises of God? Are we taking the promises of God every single day? How do we know what the promises of God are?

Are we looking at and reading and understanding and spending time in the scriptures to get to know the promises of God? The last time I was here, brother, anybody spoke and he said, you put out a challenge. Put your ear things in and listen to a gospel. Listen to one gospel this week.

Okay, all right, I'll try that. I went on to walk on the trail. Two days I had the gospel of John was done. Huh, that was cool.

And I learned an awful lot by just listening to what the Lord Jesus was saying in the scriptures. I mean, it's a good supplement to opening the scriptures in front of you and reading the Word of God. You need to read the Word of God. Look, God speak you with the written word that he has provided for you.

But also to listen to the promises of God. I'm thinking that was such great comfort to do that. Went to Matthew. Mark was easy.

One walk. One walk. And I got 10 chapters of Mark. Listen to it.

Just one walk on the trail. It's amazing. You get to know the promises of God so you can claim and hold on to the promises of God. Don't leave 90% of what God has promised you behind you.

Don't leave 90% of it behind you. God promised everywhere they put their foot. They didn't take it all. You know, eventually Israel will possess the land during the millennium.

They will. They will possess all of that. Secondly, he promised him a posterity. Nations will come from you.

Nations, not just a nation, but nations. Today in the world, there are 16 million Jews in the world today. Less than half the population of Canada. There are 22 Arab nations with 475 million people.

They all descend from Abraham. There are kings. There are sultans. There have been kings through scripture.

There are kings today that have descended from Abraham. God has made good on the promise. Six percent of the earth's population today traces their heritage directly back to Abraham through blood. Everybody here who knows the Lord Jesus and his believer has been grafted into that family and we can trace our family back by faith to Abraham.

And then there was a sign of the covenant as we will read as we continue through here. God says in verse 9, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring throughout your generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring. Every male among you shall be circumcised.

You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin and shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male through your generation, whether born in your house or brought with your money from the foreigner who is not of your offspring. And it continues on.

There's a sign that goes with the covenant. There's an over sign to demonstrate the covenant. We think back of Noah and he looks the rainbow is given as the sign for the covenant. With Moses it was the Sabbath, with Abraham its circumcision.

This is also a symbol that is carried through into the New Testament. It's a picture in the New Testament of the relationship of the believer as he's now walking in the spirit and not in the flesh. In Philippians chapter 3 we read, for we believers are the real circumcision who worshiped by the spirit of God and the glory and glory in Christ Jesus who has put no confidence in the flesh. In Philippians chapter 2 verse 11, in him you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh and by the circumcision of Christ.

So we'll continue on as I wrap up here with Sarah. Sarah was, some have said that her name Sarah meant domineering and contentious. I find that the arguments for that are somewhat weak but her name has changed to Sarah which means princess. Princess.

Imagine every day he comes home and he calls her princess. That would help the marriage with them. Remember that guys, if you want to, especially where's Christian? Christian's not here today but he can go home and speak to Sarah every day.

He says princess. Hope that's his nickname for her. God promises a son through her. So now she knows, okay, yikes, this whole Hagar thing was a mistake.

The son is coming through me. So in verse 18 it says, and Abraham said, and Abraham said, oh the dishmail might live before you. It says this to God. And God said no.

But Sarah, your wife will bear you a son and you should call those names Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him a fruitful and multiply him, make him fruitful and multiply him greatly.

He should be a father of twelve princes and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac whom Sarah will bear to you at this time, next year. When he finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. And that's where it comes to the end.

So I wrote down because I have a minute left. I thought, okay, this is a difficult passage in some ways to look through. And I tried to give some application as I studied through and thought of it. But let me give you five points.

Five fairly easy to remember points. First one, God doesn't need our help. God has a plan. God knows what he's doing.

We lose patience, but he doesn't need our help to bring his plan along. Doing it my way, number two, can have dire consequences that last way longer than you want them to last. We're in a conflict for four thousand years right now. And we're going to have a problem with people in this conflict because of an act of, I'm going to help God along.

And here's the plan. Let's have those two have a child. If we decide we're going to concoct our own way to do things, it could have long term consequences for us. Thirdly, God's plan is going to be fulfilled, guaranteed.

The timing might not be what we want. The timing might be a little longer than we expect it. But it is going to happen. If God planned it, you can bank on it.

It's going to happen. The other thing, number four, is God's mercy is abundant. I look at Abraham blew it so many times. This is what I've enjoyed studying through Abraham.

I always thought like, this is great pillar of faith. If you read through Hebrews chapter 11 about Abraham, you think, well, did this guy ever do anything wrong? But they go back and read the life story and Genesis and say, did this guy ever do anything right? Like, he's so, like, we're, he's human.

We're like Abraham. He fails. He falters. He does this.

He does that. He disobeys. But here's what I got out of that. God's mercy is so abundant.

Every time Abraham blows it, what happens? God comes alongside. He's so beautiful. And he comes and he speaks to him again.

If you ever got yourself into a situation, God, if you're so mad at me, I don't think he's ever going to speak to me again. What would he want to do with me? That's not the way God works. It is not the way God works.

When we blow it, guess where he is? He's right there. Mercy. Hey, let's have a talk.

Let's have a talk. Let me comfort you with my promises. Let me discipline you like a son. Let me deal with you in mercy, in abundant mercy.

And the fifth one, and this is not to be political by any means. But when I read these verses, I understand that Israel will always exist. Israel is going to expand. Israel is going to prosper.

Do not be fooled. Do not be fooled by the lies that you hear around you. This is God's chosen nation. He has promised through Abraham.

He has promised through Abraham. It will be a great nation. It will expand its borders. Israel will be a great nation.

The people of Israel need to be saved. The people of Israel need to come back to their God. The people of Israel are away from God, for the most part. And they need to come back to their God.

The day will come when all Israel, who is truly Israel, will be saved. It says in Romans. Read Romans 9, 10, and 11. And you'll realize Israel does have a future.

Israel has not been forgotten and cast aside by God. There is wars going on. There are awful and horrendous things going on in this world. And in that part of the world especially.

It's true. Wars, murder, death, destruction, hatred, they all go back to Genesis chapter 3. It's all a result of sin. It's all a result of walking away from God.

It's all a result of disobeying God. But Israel will not be forsaken by God. Israel will not be written off. Israel has the right to that land because God has promised it.

And here's the thing that's important about that. Because if I doubt that promise, if I say, yeah, but that day they've blown it. So God's changed on that. Well, then you know what?

Then every promise that God has ever made, I have to cast it aside. Because if he's going to backpedal on the promises to Israel, then he could backpedal on the promises to me. And he won't do that. He will not do that.

I stand on the promises of God. And his promise of Israel is a basis on which I can look at God and say, surely he is the God of heaven, surely he is the God who is in control, and surely I can trust him. And if you haven't trusted him, may you trust him today. Father, thank you this morning.

As we have studied through this passage, may we learn some lessons here of who you are, how great you are, how great is your mercy? Lord, you have been so kind and merciful to us. Because just like Sarah, just like Abram, we have shown doubt. We have walked away at times.

We have disappointed you in the way we've lived. But Father, what I have gleaned from this and learned from this and hopefully we all have is that your mercy is great. Your mercy is abundant. Father, you sent your son the Lord Jesus to die for us, to take away our sins.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. When we were enemies, you sent him to take our sins. Father, if there's any here this morning who don't know the Lord Jesus as their Savior, may they come to you, may they trust you fully with all their hearts. If there's somebody here who needs this explained more clearly to them, may they talk to one of us, talk to someone here that we may be able to help them to understand and may they open your word into business with God.

Thank you, Father, for your great love and your abundant mercy in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.