Who is the Angel of the Lord? Genesis 16 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. Certainly good to have everybody back, and we're going to do as we always do, we're just going to go right into where we left off last week. So if you'll turn with me to Genesis chapter 16, we got down as far as about verse 7, but let's back up to verse 1, just for a little bit of review. And again, for those of you that are joining us on television, we trust that we can make you feel as though you're a part of the class. Pick up a Bible and a pen and jot down some notes, and we trust that you can learn with us. All right, in chapter 16 then, verse 1, remember now for years on end, God has been promising Abraham and Sarah that they would be the progenitors of a nation of people. But you know, the wheels of God grind slowly, but surely, and Abraham, or Abram as he's still called here, and Sarai, and we want to definitely keep those names as such until we see it change, and I'm going to explain why they're changed. But Abram and Sarai are now getting rather impatient, and as we pointed out then last week, without any instruction from God, without God being in this whatsoever, Sarai dips back into the custom of their day, and again this goes back to the laws of Hammurabi, who was one of the ancient Babylonian writers of their so-called moral law. And within the laws of Hammurabi, it was perfectly legitimate, if a woman could not bear, to have what we call a surrogate mother by way of a servant or whatever. And so Sarah, I imagine, is getting almost as impatient as Abram with regard of having a son, and so we found that it was Sarah's idea, verse 2, where she said to Abram, Behold, now the Lord, or Jehovah, hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go into my maid, that it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And of course, Hagar becomes pregnant in verse 4, and then as she realizes now that she's got one up on her mistress Sara, Sarai, she begins to get arrogant and puffed up and almost impossible to live with, so that Sarai begs Abram now to send this young lady away. And we pick that up in verse 5, where she said to Abram, My wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid into thy bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes, and the Lord judged between me and thee. But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, the maid is in thy hand. Do to her as it pleases thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. Hagar takes off, and then in verse 7, I think here's where we left off, "...and the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness." Now, I mentioned it just in closing, but now turn with me to Genesis 48, and I'll qualify my statement where I said the angel of the Lord was just another manifestation of God the Son, or Jehovah, or as we know, the Christ of the New Testament as He was revealed in the Old. And it's way back here in chapter 48, where Jacob is speaking, and verse 16, Jacob refers to the angel who redeemed me. Now, I think it's certainly a basic statement that there is only one Redeemer in Scripture. And who's the Redeemer? God the Son. Not some angel, not anyone but God the Son. And so whenever you see that term as well throughout the Old Testament, and you'll see it rather often, I think I mentioned last week that Balaam, the false prophet you remember, was confronted by an angel of the Lord. Well, it was again Christ in that Old Testament appears. So now if you'll come back then to Genesis 16, so the angel of the Lord, or Jehovah, in another manifestation, says to Hagar, verse 8, "...Whence camest thou, and where did you come from?" And always remember, God doesn't have to ask the question to get the information. He asks the question merely to get the person to respond. And it's interesting, even through Christ's earthly ministry, have you ever noticed that always He comes back and answers with a question? And I think we can learn from that. When you're talking to people, instead of just simply hitting them with something, put them on the soapbox by asking a question. And then you'll start getting feedback, and it's amazing what you'll find out. And so the Lord does that over and over. You remember He did it with Adam. He didn't have to ask Adam what he'd done, but what does He do? He asks Adam, have you eaten? See? All right, now the same thing here. Where did you come from? And so she says, "...I fled from the face of my mistress Sarai." Verse 9, "...And the angel of the Lord said unto her," now this is God speaking, "...Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands." Now I always like to raise questions, I've mentioned this before, because it helps us to learn. Now the question we should be asking ourselves right here, why in the world does God demand Hagar to go back to the house, or the tent, or the dwelling place of Abram and Sarai, when we know full well that in about fourteen years what's going to happen? It's going to be set out again, only this time for good. Well now, why? Well, I hope we're going to answer it, at least before the next three or four studies. There was a particular, sovereign, omnipotent reason for God to have Hagar go back to the home of Abram and Sarai. And we'll pick it up at a later moment, but file that in your computer, that now God is demanding and commanding that she go back and submit herself to Sarai for something that's going to take place fourteen years later. And when we get to that, I'll show you where another instance in Scripture God does the same thing. But for now, let's just leave her there. She's going to go back to Abram and Sarai. But now the Lord makes some statements. Remember it's the sovereign God Himself who is speaking, and now in verse 10, verse 11, "...the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude." Verse 11, the angel of the Lord continues, and he says, "...Behold, thou art with child, shall bear a son, you shall call his name Ishmael." Now here's one of those instances where God calls the shots before the child is even born. His name is to be Ishmael, "...because the Lord hath heard thy affliction." And then look at verse 12. Now this is the Bible speaking, this isn't me, but God already foretold the very personality makeup of the Arab people before the first one was ever born. Now remember that it's out of Ishmael that most of our Arab people have come. Now I didn't say all, I said most, because we're also going to have some other branches that are going to feed into the Arabian peoples. But here He gives such a vivid description of their makeup. Verse 12, "...he will be a wild man, his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." Do you see now why a Middle East peace prospect is pretty dim? These people are hard to deal with, and they always have been. I've talked to businessmen within the last few years who have had dealings with the Middle Eastern people, and this is the problem. They just are hard to deal with, and it was a very intrinsic prophecy of God Himself that this would be their personality. And verse 13, "...and she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me. For she said, Have I here also looked after him that seeth me? And wherefore," verse 14, "...the well was called," remember this is where she had stopped to get some water, "...and the well was called, Dear Lehiroi, behold," it is between Kadesh and Bered, which is down, of course, in the Sinai area, southern Canaan. And then, of course, time elapses between verse 14 and 15, "...and Ishmael is born. And she bare Abram a son." And again, Abram, in complete obedience now with God's instructions to Hagar, follows it up, and even Abram called the lad Ishmael. And now verse 16, if you're a little bit interested in numbers, how old is Abram? He's now 86. He's fourscore eighty and six years old when Ishmael is born. And you can remember that Abram, or Abraham, will be a hundred when Isaac is born, which means that Ishmael is going to be fourteen. Now then, chapter 17. We've got to keep moving on. I never would have dreamed that it'd take us a year to get this far in Genesis, but for those of you on television, we hope that after we get out of Genesis and maybe Exodus, then we'll move a lot faster, and we'll get on up into the later things before you know it. Chapter 17, verse 1, "...and when Abram was ninety years old and nine," in other words, this is the year before Isaac will be born, "...in his ninety-ninth year the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God." Now here we have another name of deity, and this is another good example of how this particular name will carry all the way through Scripture, and it always refers to God as being the all-sufficient but also the one who enhances fruitfulness. Always watch for it. Whenever you see the term the Almighty God, it's going to be associated with fruitfulness. Now look how it's used here. He appeared to Abram, and he said, walk before me and be thou perfect. Now I've got to stop there. The word perfect in Scripture, Old Testament or New, never means a sinless perfection. It means a spiritual maturity. Always remember that, because I don't care whether Paul uses the word or whether we see it back here, it never refers to a sinless perfection. It always refers to a spiritual maturity. And so he says to Abraham, just become spiritually mature. Verse 2, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. Now I hope you remember that we spent a lot of time on that Abrahamic covenant back in chapter 12, and I did it purposely. I spent a lot of time on it, and I'll continue to come back to it, because the Bible does. All the way through Scripture there is that constant reference back to that Abrahamic covenant of Genesis chapter 12. And here is another one. And he comes back and he says, and I will multiply thee exceedingly. In other words, he would have a physical fruitfulness based on the term, the Almighty God, which in the Hebrew by the way is El Shaddai, S-H-A-D-D-A -I. That's the Hebrew word which is translated into the English as the Almighty God or the God of fruitfulness. Now verse 3, Abraham fell on his face. I imagine at a hundred years of age he was awestruck that God is still talking about him having children. And I can understand now how he feels. He's been waiting a long time. But like I said in the opening remarks, God's wheels grind slowly, but surely. And so now verse 4, God says, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, speaking to Abram, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Now I think Abram was human enough that he still had to keep asking, but Lord, how, when, and so forth. Then verse 5, Neither, God says, shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham. Now we have the introduction into his name of primarily the letter H. We go from Abram to Abraham. And if you'll go over to verse 15, we see he does the same thing with Sarai. Now that's why I've been cautious in pronouncing Abram and Sarai, is waiting for these two verses, where he says to Abram, You'll be Abraham. And now in verse 15, God said to Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah. And what letter has been added? H. Now it's interesting, and I don't get hung up too much on numbers in Scripture, although it is certainly an interesting subject, but the number 5 is the number of grace all through Scripture. The number 5 will keep coming up designating God's grace. And it is also then this letter H, the fifth letter of the Abraham's life, are in years that can be divided by 5. In other words, he left Ur at the age of 75. At the age of 100, he has Isaac, and he lives to the age of 175. And over and over throughout the history of Abraham, you'll see this number divisible by 5. Now it also carries through then, when we get to the book of Exodus, in all of the instructions of building the tabernacle there in the wilderness, which is going to depict the grace of God toward His people, you watch for it, all the dimensions again are divisible by 5. 45 cubits long, 15 cubits wide, and so on and so forth. The board, so many cubits, they're all divisible by 5. Now I'm pointing these things out just to constantly enhance the fact that the Bible is a supernatural book. Men could have never thought of this, but only the mind of God. And so now Abraham becomes the letter H, and Sarah becomes the letter H, referring of course to the tremendous grace of God, which is going to be part and parcel of their very life. So now we can move on, I think, to verse 6 of chapter 17. And this is constantly a repetition for emphasis, where God says, I will establish My covenant between Me and thee, thy seed after thee, and their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. Now here's another little interesting tidbit, because over the years it used to bother me, that how can you determine when the seed is referring to the children and generations, or is it referring to the seed of the woman in Genesis 3.15, which we know is Christ? Well, I guess the reason it's been kind of hard to determine is that this word seed, again in Hebrew, is the word zirah, and it's like our word sheep. Now our word sheep, whether it's singular or whether it's plural, it's what? It's still sheep. And it's the same way with this word zirah in the Hebrew. Whether it's seed or seed, it is the same word. So the only way you can determine is if it's singular or plural is by how it's set in the text. Now it's the same way with our word sheep. If you were reading a sentence that talked about a flock of sheep covering the mountainside, you would immediately know that it's not singular, it's what? It's plural. But if on the other hand it would show you a picture of somebody shearing a sheep, by context what do you know? We're talking about one. Now it's the same way here. Whenever the context refers to a vast number of people who are Abraham's seed, we're not talking about Christ, we're talking about the generations of Israel. But when we get to it, it'll be over, I think, in chapter 21. Well, you might want to look to it. I hate to leave somebody hanging on a string. Turn to chapter 21, and here we'll see the singular. And it's over in verse 12. Isaac is now on the scene. Now verse 12, God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman, in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice. For in Isaac one person shall thy seed, singular, be called. Now turn over to Galatians. I didn't intend to do that, but turn to Galatians chapter 3. Without looking, I'm going to have you be mindful of Genesis 3.15, where as soon as Adam and Eve had fallen, God made the prophetic promise that the seed of the woman would be the Redeemer and the one who would make the way back to God possible. All right, now in Galatians chapter 3, verse 16, where Paul writes now, To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, plural, as of many, but as of Abraham. And to thy seed, singular, who is Christ? Now is it falling in place? Whenever back in the Old Testament we have the singular approach to the seed of the woman, it speaks of Christ, but when the plural is used with the generations following Abraham, of course, then that's what it is referring to. Now then, if you'll come back where we just left off, back in chapter 17, go to verse 8. And God says, And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed, plural now, after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. In other words, they can say what they want about God being through with the nation of Israel. They can say what they want about God transferring all the promises made to Israel to the church. That flies in the face of what the Scripture says, because the Bible teaches so plainly that no matter what the Israelite may do or what the Jew may do, God is still going to maintain that covenant that He made with Abraham clear back in 2000 B .C. And I think if you're watching the Middle Eastern situation with any kind of an open mind, you have to realize that the present-day Jew is still the offspring of Abraham, and even though we are not yet into the Jewish aspect of the tribulation and so forth, yet it's all coming. Everything in the Middle East is merely setting the stage for when the curtain will rise and God will once again pick up where He left off with His nation of Israel back there in the book of Acts. All right, so now then verse 9, And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant, therefore, thou and thy seed, after thee, in their generations. Now we're talking again about the line of people, and this is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and thy seed, after thee. Every man child among you shall be circumcised. Now remember, this is years after that original covenant. This is even sometime after that deed that we saw in chapter 15. But now God is going to, you might say, cement this whole thing with a blood covenant, and I think that's the best way we can look at it. If you've ever watched movies of the ancients, and they would make a covenant one with another, what would they do? Oh, they would take a knife blade and they would just put a little slit in each hand, and then they would shake hands and they would literally mix their blood, and it was a blood covenant. Now I think this is the whole aspect of the institution of circumcision, that God now has a blood covenant with the nation of Israel, or the children of Abraham. And so, he's given all the instructions of how circumcision is to be instituted, even though he himself is now 99, but from then on, every child of Abraham at the age of 8 days was to be circumcised, and I think medical science will back me up that at the 8th day, the infant's blood coagulation reaches its peak. Now, of course, in our present time, we get our young mothers in and out as quick as possible, and when circumcision is accomplished, it's certainly done before 8 days. But back in, even when, I can remember when I was younger and so forth, in fact, when my own mother had my little sister, the hospital stay for delivery was 14 days, and so that gave the doctors ample time to circumcise the boy babies at 8 days of age. So this is all so scriptural. But anyway, we'll move on now in verse 15, where we just saw that Sarai's name will also be changed to Sarah, to incorporate the H, the 5th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and a God comes back and he promises again, I will bless her and give thee a son also of her. Verse 17, Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, not a laugh of scorn or ridicule, but a laugh of joy, I think, and worship. And he says, shall a child be born unto him who is a hundred? Because after all, he's 99, and it's going to take nine months of gestation for Sarah as well as it does for anyone else. And so he knows that even if something were to happen shortly, he'd be at least a hundred by the time that child would be born. And now the verse 18, And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee. Now there's more in that verse than meets the eye. Now with such a faith in what God was going to do by bringing about the promised child, and he had brought Ishmael on the scene without any instruction from God, what does Abraham fear God's going to do with Ishmael? Take his life. And so Abraham is pleading for the life of Ishmael here. He says, O let Ishmael live, see, O that Ishmael might live before thee. And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him. Now if you haven't underlined that before, underline it now, where God says, I'm going to establish my covenant with this child that I've promised you, Isaac. And then verse 20, As for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him. God's already made up His mind. He's not going to take Ishmael's life, but He said, I'm going to make him fruitful, and I'll multiply him exceedingly. And look at the promise. Twelve princes shall he beget. You get a few chapters down the road and you get to the genealogy of Ishmael. How many sons do you suppose he has? Twelve, just exactly as God said he would. And so he says he'll become a great nation, and the Arab nations have become. They far outnumber the Jew. And then verse 21, and here we'll have to close, the half hour is already gone. But, he says, my covenant I will establish with Isaac, named now before he's born, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. Never lose sight of those two tremendous verses. I will establish my covenant with Isaac. I will bless the offspring of Ishmael, but my covenant is going to be with Isaac. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner-supported ministry. 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