Angelic Conflict part 112: Human history – Gen 12:1-3; 16:7-16; 21:8-21; Gal 4:21-31.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 112: Human history - GEN 12:1-3; 16:7-16; 21:8-21; GAL 4:21-31.

 

 

/Abrahamic Covenant, GEN 12:1-3.\

 

GEN 12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram,

"Go forth from your country,

And from your relatives

And from your father's house,

To the land which I will show you;

 

GEN 12:2 And I will make you a great nation,

And I will bless you,

And make your name great;

And so you shall be a blessing;

 

GEN 12:3 And I will bless those who bless you,

And the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

 

The structure of GEN 12:1-3 is that of two imperatives, followed by three promises from God. “You do one, and I’ll do three; then in turn, you do one more thing, and I will do three more things.”

 

GEN 12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram,

"Go forth from your country,

And from your relatives

And from your father's house,

To the land which I will show you;

 

This is the first of seven times that Abraham receives a direct revelation from God.

 

God’s first command: Abraham is to separate from his country, fellow citizens, and family immediately.

 

This is a call to sanctification. Ur is a place of worship of the moon god sin and Abraham is called to separate from there.

 

God doesn’t tell him where he is to go, just that “I will show you.” Immediately Abraham has to operate in faith, HEB 11:8.

 

/HEB 11:8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.\

 

Following the first command we have three promises.

 

1. I will make you a great nation. 2. I will bless you (material and spiritual). 3. I will make your name great.

 

Notice who will … “I will.” Promises are always and completely based on the character and faithfulness of God.

 

Abram (exalted father) is going to be changed to Abraham (father of a multitude) and God will make him a brand new racial species. The policy of God is going to change from dealing with the world to dealing with one nation and using that nation to teach His will to the rest of the world.

 

What the builders of the tower of Babel wanted for themselves, a great name (11:4), is something that God now promised individually to Abram.

 

/Second command: you shall be a blessing. He is to be a blessing to others (Lot, Melchizedek).\

 

Then we have the second three promises.

 

GEN 12:3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

 

1. I will  bless those who bless you.

2. He who curses you I will curse.

3. In you I will bless the entire world.

 

Who will?

 

The last one is the one promise that extends beyond Israel and it is reaffirmed more than once.

 

This blessing is accomplished through the Messianic Seed of Abraham because, as the prophets pointed out, it will be through the Messiah that the Gentiles will receive their spiritual blessings.

 

God elected/chose Abram to father the elect nation Israel.

 

Stephen quotes GEN 12:3 in Acts 7:3 while speaking to Jews; Peter quotes GEN 12:3 in ACT 3:25 while speaking to the Jews; and Paul also quotes GEN 12:3 in GAL 3:8.

 

Paul calls GEN 12:3 the gospel.

 

GAL 3:8

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "All the nations shall be blessed in you."

 

Now that God will use a nation and a specific people, satan will attack those people.

 

Arab Israeli Conflict, GEN 16:7-16; 21:8-21.

 

GEN 16:7 Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.

 

GEN 16:8 And he said, "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from and where are you going?" And she said, "I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai."

 

GEN 16:9 Then the angel of the Lord said to her, "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority."

 

GEN 16:10 Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, "I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they shall be too many to count."

 

The Arab peoples are to become innumerable.

 

GEN 16:11 The angel of the Lord said to her further,

"Behold, you are with child,

And you shall bear a son;

And you shall call his name Ishmael,

Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction.

 

“Ishmael” - God hears.

 

GEN 16:12 "And 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 to the east of all his brothers."

 

The wild donkey mentioned here is a wild and untamable animal, roaming at its will in the desert, like the Bedouin Arabs that would descend from Ishmael.

 

In the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula in those days were herds of wild asses roaming from one part of the desert to another, never stationary.

 

Ishmael and his descendants would be characterized as being roamers, roaming from one part of the desert to another, leading a nomadic life.

 

"the Bedouin's boundless love of freedom as he rides about in the desert, spear in hand, upon his camel or his horse, hardy, frugal, reveling in the varied beauty of nature, and despising town life in every form."

 

And everyone's hand will be against him;

And he will live to the east of all his brothers.

 

Ishmaelites will be characterized as aggressors and will be in an incessant state of feud amongst themselves and against his neighbors.

 

And he will live to the east of all his brothers."

 

GEN 25:18 confirms this as has history. His brother(s) are the Jews.

 

He will live side by side with brother Isaac, but with an attitude of hostility and not of peace.

 

GEN 16:13 Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "Thou art a God who sees"; for she said, "Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?"

 

GEN 16:14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.

 

GEN 16:15 So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.

 

Abram calls him Ishmael. Hagar told him that she had met the Angel of the Lord and Abram believed her.

 

GEN 16:16 And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

 

So it will be thirteen years before the birth of Isaac.

 

Isaac and Ishmael will be in conflict and anti-Semitism will arise here and continue until the end of time.

 

It begins very soon after Isaac’s birth.

 

GEN 21:8 And the child grew and was weaned [about 3 years old], and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

 

The tradition was to have a special feast on the official day of the weaning of the child.

 

Weaning is needed for a boy to grow to become a man, to become mature. The child doesn’t like it and thinks its mother is being mean, but the mother does so out of love.

 

Eventually we have to put away childish things and walk maturely.

 

1CO 13:11

When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

 

1CO 3:1-2

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,

 

GEN 21:9 Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.

 

Ishmael at 17 years old is mocking Isaac who is 3 years old. This is the beginning of anti-Semitism.

 

The animosity that Hagar had against Sara has not been instilled in Ishmael toward Isaac.

 

And we have another wonderful play on words. The Hebrew word for Isaac and the Hebrew word for mocking is the same root. Laughter and mocking come from the same root word. He is isaacing Isaac.

 

Ishmael was not merely playing with Isaac; he was toying or trifling or making ridicule, and not participating in the joy of the feast.

 

GAL 4:29

But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.

 

Islam was not invented until about 610 AD. Anti-Semitism begins here at the weaning part of Isaac and continued throughout OT history and into the present day.

 

GEN 21:10 Therefore she said to Abraham, "Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac."

 

She is correct here and Abraham should take her advice.

 

GEN 21:11 And the matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son.

 

And this shows how much Abraham actually does love Ishmael. Yet God will comfort Abraham and instruct him to listen to the voice of his wife - the only time a husband is told by God to harken to his wife.

 

GEN 21:12 But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.

 

And God gives the reason - Isaac is the son of the inheritance, the seed son. Isaac is the son of the covenant.

 

In that day the father was forbidden to expel the son of a handmaid if his own wife had a son, but God intervenes and the expulsion occurs.

 

GEN 21:13 And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also [Arab nations], because he is your descendant."

 

GEN 21:14 So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar [minimum - no inheritance], putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.

 

The end of this verse suggests that she got lost. Abraham would have certainly given her enough provision to get to where they agreed she should go. But it is easy to get lost in the desert.

 

GEN 21:15 And the water in the skin was used up, and she left the boy under one of the bushes.

 

GEN 21:16 Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, "Do not let me see the boy die." And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice and wept.

 

GEN 21:17 And God heard the lad crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, "What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.

 

GEN 21:18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him by the hand; for I will make a great nation of him."

 

GEN 21:19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water [context states that it was already there]; and she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink.

 

Sometimes we miss the blessings of God that are right in front of us. God’s word tells us where to look.

 

GEN 21:20 And God was with the lad [blessing by association with Abraham], and he grew; and he lived in the wilderness, and became an archer.

 

GEN 21:21 And he lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

 

This is south of Canaan and to the east, bordered by Egypt to the south and the Euphrates to the east.

 

Paul begins with the two sons, Ishmael and Isaac (GAL 4:22-23), and explains that they illustrate our two births: the physical birth that makes us sinners and the spiritual birth that makes us the children of God.

 

GAL 4:21 Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?

 

How many people are under systems that they just do because they’ve somehow come to a conclusion that they’re supposed to be under it, but never actually read into it or even ask what its true purpose is?

 

GAL 4:22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman [Hagar] and one by the free woman [Sarah].

 

GAL 4:23 But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh [their scheme], and the son by the free woman through the promise [Gen 15].

 

GAL 4:24 This is allegorically speaking: for these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai [the Law, which bore witness of the flesh] bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar.

 

GAL 4:25 Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children [that righteousness can come from the Law].

 

The sons of Hagar [allegorically - schemes of the flesh] concluded that they could become +R by the Law and ironically the Law proves man’s unrighteousness.

 

GAL 4:26 But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother [Sarah - of the promise].

 

The contrast between earthy and heavenly is shown in the tent of Abraham,

 

1CO 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;

 

1CO 15:43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;

 

1CO 15:44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

 

1CO 15:45So also it is written, "The first man,  Adam, became a living soul. " The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

 

1CO 15:46However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.

 

1CO 15:47The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.

 

1CO 15:48As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.

 

1CO 15:49And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

 

1CO 15:50Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

 

1CO 15:51Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

 

1CO 15:52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

 

One cannot be raptured if he is not first a citizen of heaven. You must be born of heaven to be quickly taken to heaven, PHI 3:20.

 

PHI 3:20-21

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.