Hagar, Ishmael & The Everlasting God: Genesis 21 Bible Study

Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now, here's your host, Les Feldick. Good evening, and once again, it's good to have everybody back. And once more, we want to welcome our people on television. And again, we're going to keep reminding you for just another week or so to write to us, let us know if you're watching. We're going to call this Letter-Writing Month, because 1st of November, we have wound up for one year. And if there is not a reasonable amount of response, we certainly wouldn't consider going for another year. But if it is, why, God willing, we'll continue on. Now, many of you in the Tulsa area have asked if we have classes. And yes, indeed, we now have begun a class on Wednesday night here in Tulsa. We're meeting at either one library or another. So I've put a number on the board. If you're interested in attending a Wednesday night class, it'll be from 7 till 9. Call this number, and the lady will be able to give you information as to where we're meeting, and so on and so forth. All right, now then, for sake of time, let's go quickly back to Genesis chapter 21, where we left off week before last. And we had the allegory of Ishmael and Isaac, if you'll remember. And then we went to Galatians to pick up the allegory. But now in chapter 21, as we go on from, oh, chapter, I guess, 21, verse 14, Abraham rose up early in the morning, took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder and the child, and sent her away, as God had instructed. Now remember, and she departed, and she wandered in the wilderness, which is really desert, of Beersheba. That's down in the Negev, as we know it today, or down in southern Israel. Verse 15, and the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. Now, the language there would indicate that he must have been just a little two-, three -year-old. But remember, he's thirteen or better, so he's a pretty good-sized lad. So she probably just said, you know, sit in the shade of one of these shrubs, and then she goes off into a little ways off, I suppose thinking that they're both going to die. And so she goes a good way off, verse 16, as it were, a bow shot. For she said, let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and she wept. And God heard the voice of the lad and the angel of God. Now remember, I pointed out several weeks ago that the angel of the Lord, or the angel of God, is always Jehovah, or it's God the Son, in another theophany, or an appearance in human form. Now always remember that, that the angel of God, the angel of the Lord, is God the Son, or Jehovah, as we know him in the Old Testament. And so he calls to Hagar out of heaven, and he said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not. For God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand. For I will make him a great nation. Now remember, it's out of Ishmael that the biggest majority of our Arab people have come from. And verse 19, now I'd like to point out something here that's rather interesting. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. Now the provision from the human element was how much? A bottle. That's all Abraham provided was a bottle of water. What does God give her? A well. See the difference? And isn't that always the way? Oh, you know, we depend on the arm of the flesh, and that's all it is. It's just a little drop in the bucket that's soon gone. But oh, God has got wells of living water in every respect. Then verse 18. Arise, I'm sorry, 19. And God opened her eyes, she saw the well of water, and she went and filled the bottle with water and gave the lad drink. And God was with him. He grew and became an archer, and so on and so forth. And he dwelled in the wilderness of Paran. And his mother, now remember, where did she come from? Remember? Egypt. She was an Egyptian, so where did she go for the lad's wife? Back home. Now there is a double connection then to the offspring of Ishmael who will become the Arab nations to the nation of Egypt. Now I've pointed this out as we've come up now through the genealogies that Egyptians are not true Arabs, but they're so closely related that in all political and everything they're all heart and mind together. Even though the Egyptians are not Arabs, they are so closely related that they always work pretty well together because she takes a wife out of the land of Egypt. All right, now I'm going to skip the intervening verses where Abraham now deals with Abimelech. But I'd like to have you come all the way down to verse 33. And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba. Now remember that Beersheba is down there in the southern part of Israel, Palestine, down in the desert area. And for those of you who will soon be going to Israel, it'll be a tourist point. That's where you'll go is Beersheba. And in the city of Beersheba they've got, of course, now a shrine of the ancient well spoken of here that was dug by Abraham, the well of Beersheba. And he called there on the name of the Lord. Now remember, go back a few weeks, these names of deity keep coming up. L-O-R-D capitalized is always Jehovah, God the Son. And so Abraham called there on the name of Jehovah the everlasting God. Now the English kind of leaves us hanging here. But in the Hebrew that everlasting God is Elohim Olam, O-L-A-M. And it's pronounced O-L-A-W-M in the Hebrew. But here's where things, I think, get interesting. If you dig a little bit deeper than just the surface, Abraham calls on Jehovah. Now remember, Jehovah is God the Son. Jehovah is Christ of the New Testament. He calls on the name of Jehovah who is, to clarify, the everlasting God. Now this fits, I think, so beautifully with what we just had in the last two weeks that we're not under law, we're under grace. Because we pick up the reason that God can do this from this very name of deity. He is the everlasting God. And I've already mentioned the word. He is Elohim. And remember Elohim was the plural word for God. So he is the Elohim Olam, L-O -L-A-M. Now this word Olam is translated out of the Hebrew with three different meanings. And yet they're all pretty well closely together. In Leviticus, Olam is used to speak of a specific time. In other words, the verse says that if they want to redeem a piece of ground, then at that time they have to do such and such. So it's speaking of a specific time. Now in another place, and I'm going to have you turn to that one this time, it is spoken of as hid or hidden. Let's just stay with the word hid. Turn to Psalms now if you will. Chapter 10. Psalms chapter 10. Drop into verse 1. And it's the same identical word Olam that was used in Leviticus. And I didn't take the time to look that up just for sake of time. It's there translated time. But now in Psalms chapter 10 verse 1 it is translated hidest. Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? Why, there's the next word, hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? Now that word hidest is Olam in the Hebrew. Speaking of something hidden. Or as it's used here, why God do you hide yourself in time of trouble? Now if you'll turn over to Psalms chapter 90, and I'm trying to use these verses within a book so we don't have to spend a lot of time looking. Now in Psalms chapter 90, this very same word Olam is translated everlasting. And look what the verse says. Psalms 90 verse 2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from Olam to Olam. What does it say in English? Everlasting to everlasting. Now the everlasting God then, as it's used in Genesis, is speaking of more than the God from eternity past. Out here before Genesis 1 even came. And we take eternity past all the way to the end of our timeline to eternity future. Now that's everlasting to everlasting, isn't it? That's the God of creation. He is the everlasting God. But as the word Olam is used in these various other scriptures, it also points out that God is not only from everlasting to everlasting, but He's also a God that is associated with what? Time. And He also has seen fit that within time in His everlasting role as the sovereign God, He can hide things at His pleasure. Now this may sound at this point in time rather gobbledygook, but I'm trying to build my case. The everlasting God to everlasting is also the God who is the God of intrinsic time. And He is also, since He's sovereign, totally capable of either revealing everything within time or He can keep it secret. Now are you with me? Now I know this is getting a little deeper than I'd probably like to go, but I think it's so imperative to start with this premise so that I can go up through the timeline and show how that there were times when God did not reveal. There were times when He did. Now let's just go back to Genesis and come up through our timeline as we did way last December when we first started. Here for a short period of time, and again we don't know how long it was, we've got Adam and Eve where? In the garden. It wasn't very long. But while Adam and Eve were in the garden, God gave them absolutely no hint of what was coming down the pipe, did He? There were no prophetic statements that by and by something like this would happen. So He chose to put them in time and that was all. He didn't reveal any prophecy or anything like that. So Adam and Eve, they sinned. They ate. And they come out of the garden and now this next period of time from the expulsion from Eden all the way to the flood. Again, it's a period of time. But I would like to point out to people that when Adam and Eve came out of the garden, was it a totally different situation than in the garden? Oh, absolutely it was totally different. You see, in the garden, they didn't know sin. They didn't know death. They had no responsibilities. It was paradise. But when they came out of the garden and now had to labor for their livelihood under the curse, it was a whole, I'm not going to say new ball game, it was what? It was a different ball game. Everything was different. They now had to work by the sweat of the brow. They now had to work with death happening around them. They had to deal with God in order to experience a redemption. They had to bring the blood sacrifice. Everything was totally different. Then we had the floods. Mankind just went down, down, down until finally God said that he was just going to have to start over is what it really boiled down to. And again, I'd like to point out when Noah and his three sons came out of the ark, was it different again? Totally different. Totally different. A whole new set of even atmospheric conditions. They are now given permission to kill animals and eat the flesh thereof, which they couldn't before. So what I want you to see is that as we come to these various breaks in time, it's a whole different set of circumstances every time. Now, Noah and his three sons come out of the ark after the flood and they are, of course, instructed to set up a human government to maintain law and order, which, of course, they didn't have back here. So that was all part and parcel of the new responsibilities that God is laying on the human race. Well, one too long after the flood, about 175 years, and instead of being obedient and scattering across the earth as God had instructed, what did the people do? Well, they all congregated at the Tower of Babel. You remember? And as they were congregated there at the Tower of Babel, it was total rebellion against what God had instructed. And so He scattered them, you'll remember, with the confusion of their languages. So now we leave Babel and the people are beginning to scatter and they're beginning to populate the various areas of the then known world as God intended them to do. But about 150 years after Babel, God does something totally different again and He calls out the man that we finally come to know as Abraham. Now, those of you who know your Bible, and if you've been with me all the way up through Genesis, is it different still? Absolutely. Once again, it's something totally different because now God is going to deal with that one little chosen nation, the nation of Israel, and He's going to let the rest of the nations go on their own pagan way in their pagan worship. But now He's going to deal with this little set-apart nation of Israel, beginning with Abraham. But now something totally different takes place with regard to things being hidden or being revealed. Beginning here in Genesis 12 with the call of Abraham and the set-apart nation, this detail before it happens, we call that what? Prophecy. Prophecy. Everything connected with Israel, God tells it before it happens. He even names kings 100 years before they're born. King Cyrus, for example. I think Hezekiah in Israel. He foretells the cross. He foretells the resurrection. He foretells the ascension. He foretells the last final episode of Israel's history, the seven years of tribulation called Daniel's 70th week. Are you getting the point? Now God has seen fit, whereas back here in time He kept things unrevealed. He kept them more or less hidden from view. But now, beginning with His dealing with Israel, everything becomes prophetic, and God tells it before it happens. And then, after the crucifixion, and we get in here after the book of Acts has begun, again the Lord Jesus, even before He's crucified, foretold that within just a little while the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed. That's in Matthew, what, 24? No, not Matthew 24. It would be in Luke 21. In Luke 21 He foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jew. But then He comes right back and everything is foretelling the end time. In other words, the seven years of tribulation, which is called in Jeremiah the time of Jacob's, or Israel's, trouble. It foretells everything that is then laid in detail in the book of Revelation. But all through this prophetic time that God is dealing with Israel, there is something that's never mentioned. Who knows what it is? The church age. Not a word about the age of grace. Not a word about Him going to Gentiles to call out that multitude of people for His name. Totally silent. Now, in that period of time, and I didn't leave myself enough room, I can see that. But in this period of time, which I'm going to call the age of grace, it's an undetermined period. Back here in Israel's history, God would lay it out on a timetable. An example, He told Abraham that 430 years from his call, Israel would come out of Egypt. And they did. 490 years from one temple till the next temple. 490 years from Daniel's prophecy to the appearance of Christ on Palm Sunday. And all the way through Israel's history, it's a distinct timetable, right on the letter. But now we come to this period of time that was unmentioned in all of prophecy, the church age, the age of grace, and there's not a single time element ever mentioned. There is never such a thing as, well, for example, Israel. Forty years in the wilderness. Forty years of each one of Moses' segment of life. Forty years in the Pharaoh's palace. Forty years leading the children of Israel. Forty years, I mean, forty years in the desert and forty years leading the children of Israel. Solomon, or David, rules how long? Forty years. Solomon rules. Forty years. Saul ruled. Forty years. And so everything in God dealing with Israel is on a distinct timetable, but it's also prophetically revealed. And then you come to this age of grace, never mentioned back here, and we've got an undetermined period of time, but within that undetermined period of time, God tells us that this was all hidden from view by sovereign decree. Now what am I talking about? Turn with me now, if you will, to Ephesians chapter 3. Before you get there, you're going to hit Romans, so stop in Romans. I'm sorry. Last chapter of Romans. Romans 16. Romans 16. Drop all the way down to verse 25. And here's a verse that I'm afraid too many people don't know is in their Bible. Romans 16, verse 25. Now just look carefully what it says. Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel. Now remember, who's writing? Paul to the Gentiles. And the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation or the revealing of the mystery. And that comes from the Greek word mysterion, which means secret. So the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the secret, which was kept secret. How long? Since the age began. I like the word age there better than world. Now do you see what it says? This period of time, as well as everything that God is going to bring about in this period of time, had been kept secret. Now remember, this is within the scope of the everlasting to everlasting. He can do whatever he wants. And remember, it's the Olam to Olam, the God of not only everlasting time, but the God of time, the God who can hide things in time. And that's just exactly what the Bible says He did concerning this age of grace. Now you can go to Ephesians chapter 3. I'm trying to take this as slowly as I can because even these things take time to comprehend. And you have to read the Scriptures carefully. All right, let's just start with verse 1 of Ephesians chapter 3. Now remember why I'm doing this. We are not under law, we're under grace. Who had the right to make that distinction? God did. He's sovereign. But He kept it hid all the way up through human history that there would be a time when men and women could be saved by grace through faith plus nothing. All right, chapter 3, verse 1, for this cause He said, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles. See what a difference? It's not for Jew only, it's for you Gentiles. And then verse 2, if you have heard of the dispensation, or you may have a translation that uses the word administration, and that's perfect. So if you have heard of the revelation or the administration or the dispensation of the, what? Grace of God which is given, the apostle says, how? To me, to you, word. Now remember I put it on the board here a couple, three weeks ago when God gave the law to Israel. How did He do it? He gave it to Moses up on the mountain. Moses came down and gave it to the people. And remember I used the same analogy. Paul says he went to Arabia and I think he went to Sinai in Arabia. And where Moses received the law, Paul receives, as he says right here, the revelations of grace which had been kept secret since the age began. And now read on. How that by revelation He made known unto me the secret or the mystery, as I wrote before in few words, whereby when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery or the secret of Christ. Now look at verse 5. Which in other ages, now that's the Greek word aion, A-I-O-N. And it's synonymous again with dispensation. Which in other dispensations or in other administrations was not made known. You see how all that fits? God had kept it secret. Which was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit that the Gentiles... Oh, you see what a difference it is? Not the Jew, but that the Gentiles might be partakers and fellow heirs of that same body. And then you'll come down to verse 9 and the same thought is repeated. And to make all... Now the word men is italicized for sake of the translators adding it. And so they said all to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery or the secret again. Which from the beginning of the world has been what? Hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ. Now, got one more portion. I'd like to have you turn through Philippians and over to Colossians. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. Drop down to... Let's start with verse 24. You know I just don't like to jump on one verse. Colossians 1 verse 24. Who now rejoice my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake which is the church. Now watch it. Of which I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you to fulfill or bring to fruition the Word of God. Now look at verse 26. And here we're going to have to stop. Even the secret or the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations but now is made manifest to who? His saints. The world can't comprehend it. The unbeliever can't comprehend it. But if you're a child of God tonight, you can. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner supported ministry. If this program has been a help to your study of the scriptures and you'd like to see others enjoy the teaching, your support would be greatly appreciated. Write to us at Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma 74552 or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember, all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.