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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. We have trouble understanding how a father who loved his son could put a piece of bread in his hand and a little water and pat him on the back and send him and his mom out in the wilderness. It's especially difficult to understand that since Abraham was very wealthy, we've already established that fact and seen some of the wealth. Not only what he brought with him from Ur of the Chaldees and his travels, what he got from Pharaoh, what he got from Abimelech, the king of the Philistines.
The guy has some bucks and resources. Why not send a caravan with him? Why not some foot soldiers to protect her and him as they're out in the wilderness? Why not several animals laden with food and water and other victuals for the trip?
Why not? Now some commentators, and some taters are more common than others, but I've noticed that some of the commentators like to say that based on the ancient codes of the day, like the code of Hammurabi, what Abraham did here was in perfect context and provision of the code of Hammurabi in releasing a slave, giving her the freedom with her son to go out and do what they wanted. It was the releasing of a slave, setting him free.
Go on your way. It was perfectly legitimate. I don't really see that as the reason. I think the reason he let his son go off into the wilderness, and you're wondering, how could he do this? How could a father do this? Don't misunderstand me and listen carefully is because of his faith. He was a man of faith. If you think this is hard for him, what do you get to the next chapter?
It's going to get a whole lot worse of a test, but he has reached a place in his life where he believes that God is going to do what God said he's going to do, right? God said he was going to have a son, didn't he? Sarah said, it ain't going to happen, and Abraham kept saying, it's going to happen, it's going to happen, it's going to happen. Twenty-five years, it's going to happen.
Twenty-five years, she said, it ain't going to happen. It happened. So do you think by now he's learned the lesson?
Oh, you bet you. Well, God has also promised, not only here, but in other places, that he would make a great nation out of Ishmael. So he knows Ishmael can't die.
Impossible. God has promised that he's going to take care of them. I don't need to send a caravan.
I just need to release them. God is going to do something great in his life. Now, to me, this is a good word for parents, parents who sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about their children, especially the children they have dedicated to the Lord. They have entrusted to the Lord. They have committed to the Lord.
They've trained up in the Lord. And I've heard parents quote so often in great hope and belief, train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. And yet, some parents, it would seem, want to surround their child with a caravan their whole life, a caravan of protection. Don't let anything bad happen in such an overprotective manner that it becomes unhealthy for the child and reveals the parent's own lack of faith. I've heard or seen over the years parents, well once they become parents, you know theoretically it's one thing, but once you become a parent, you have your own child.
I've watched people change. Suddenly it's like, I can't send my child to Sunday school. You know, a child could get a cold. Don't want to expose my kid to those germs. Got to protect the child.
I suggest to you that's not a smart tactic. Don't try to protect what God is trying to direct. You pray for the child, you raise the child in a normal environment, let the kids be around other kids, play, get sick, they'll get better, and then release them to the Lord and trust the Lord. But instead of placing the caravan of protection around them to release them and say, Lord, I believe your word, I believe your promises, I'm entrusting them to you now, reveals the kind of faith that Abraham displayed in releasing the child that God promised he would bless.
And he does. Look at verse 17. God heard the voice of the lad and the angel of God called out to Hagar from heaven.
It must have been a wonderful time. She's at the wits end and suddenly she hears a voice talking to her from the sky from heaven and said to her, what ails you Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand for I will make him a great nation. Now, I don't think that means pick up the child in your arms.
The kid was 17 years of age. But you help him up. Pick him up. Get on your way. I'm going to do something great. To me it's a picture of a single mother dedicating her child and walking out in faith.
It's a beautiful picture. My heart goes out to single parents, especially single mothers. They have the responsibility of two people and the income of one person. 12 million in our country, 12 million adults are single parents. Twenty-eight percent of the children in our country are being raised by single parents. And it says in Psalm 68, God will set the solitary in families. And maybe it's your family. Maybe you know a single mom or a single dad and you could reach out a little more often and have them over frequently for dinner or mentor one of the children or get them involved in sports and help out a little bit.
Maybe offer to mow the lawn or fix an electrical problem. Just to show support. God sets the solitary in families. And certainly our church family.
We love the idea that many single parents are here and we can provide a network of support to them. So God opened her eyes, verse 19, and she saw a well of water and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink. So God was with the lad and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness and became an archer. So that, you ever wonder what happened to that 70s band, the archers? He was one of them.
A lot of you don't even know what I'm talking about. Forget it. Forget it. He dwelt in the wilderness of Paran. And his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. Now why the land of Egypt?
She was an Egyptian. Now it was a mistake rather than selecting a wife who was a believing wife from the covenant and the clan of Abraham. He got an Egyptian wife and later on he will become the father of 12 nations. He'll have 12 sons and several nations will develop from the 12 sons like Jacob later on out of the loins of Abraham. And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech, remember him back in chapter 20, and Phichol, you don't know who he is but he's introduced here, the commander of his army, now you know, spoke to Abraham saying, God is with you in all that you do.
Really? This comes from Abimelech? Remember he was the guy that Abraham lied to and said about Sarah, this is my sister and got him into trouble and God closed up the wombs of all the Philistine women? But notice he says, God is with you in all that you do, now therefore swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me. Why would he say that? Because he had dealt falsely with him.
Simply by experience he says, look, you were a creep in the past, don't be a creep in the future. Because I watched you, now I know that God is with you. Or with my offspring, or with my posterity, but that according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me in the land in which you had dwelt. Now in chapter 20, Abimelech rebukes Abraham for being mischievous, for lying, for misrepresenting the truth. An unbeliever rebukes a believer but over time Abimelech has just watched Abraham, just observed his life. And in observing his life over time, whatever misconceptions and anger he had against him was quickly assuaged or at least it was over a period of time, because he could see the evidence that God was with him. And I love this, because as you live in the world and as you work in the world and as you're observed by the world and you go through the problems of day in and day out life working with people, misunderstandings, even if you blow it before people, over time you can outlive your critics. Just show them that the Lord is with you. Just show by a consistency over time as they observe you, you know, I've been watching you.
I think I've had you wrong. I think God really is with you. So rather than Abraham trying to make it all better and fix it and promote himself and argue about how really good he was at heart and really didn't mean all that, he just let it go. And over time Abimelech recognized that. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, in his book, Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Case for Christ, provides a rational exploration of the proof of God's existence and the basis of our eternal hope. Writing to skeptics and believers alike, Strobel turns his critical mind and expert interviewing skills to perennial questions like, how do we know which God is real? And if God is real, why does he seem so hidden? Is God Real?, along with two messages preached by Lee Strobel at Calvary Church, are our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your resources when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Now watch this. Abraham said, I will swear, and Abraham rebuked Abimelech.
Now it's his turn. Now because he sort of has the moral high ground regained, Abraham rebuked Abimelech because of the well of water which Abimelech's servants had seized. Now, of course, in those days when you're a nomad, I don't mean somebody who's not angry, I mean a guy who's traveling around in tents, a semi-nomadic lifestyle, wells of water are absolutely important. You don't have water.
You don't have life. So obviously he had a well that he had dug. It was seized by Abimelech's servants. He didn't know about it, as you'll see. Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing.
You didn't tell me, nor had I heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech. The two of them made a covenant. And Abraham set seven ewe lambs, female lambs, of the flock by themselves. Then Abimelech asked Abraham, what's the meaning of these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves?
And he said, you will take these seven ewe lambs from my hand, that they may be the witness that I have dug this well. Therefore, he called the place Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there. Beersheba is a word that means one of two things, or it could be a double entendre and actually mean both.
That's what I think it does. Beersheba could mean well of the oath, since shebuah is the Hebrew word for oath. But the word shebuah is the Hebrew word for seven, chad, shtaim, shalosh, arba, chameh, shesheva, seven. Seven is the Hebrew word shebuah for seven. So it could be either the well of the seven, i.e. the lambs that I gave you for this well as a witness, or the oath that we made, since the words are very similar to each other, Beersheba, or a double entendre.
This is the well of the oath that we made with these seven sheep. So Beersheba is still there today. We've been there before on tours to Israel.
We're not always able to make it, because it's way down south. But you can still see the well that is dug in Beersheba. Thus, they made a covenant at Beersheba. So Abimelech rose with Fichel, the commander of his army, and returned to the land of the Philistines. And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba.
Now you see them all over the place down there. It's an evergreen tree. To plant a tree meant that you had the desire and the indication that you were going to stay in that place for a while. You're going to remain in the area.
It's a shade idea. They called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God, El Olam. And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines for many days. Now it came to pass, after these things, that God tested Abraham. And he said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am.
I love the conversations that he has with God. Now go back to that whole wedding analogy that I started with. How that so many couples just think of better and richer and wealth or health. Every couple that gets married has in their minds a picture of a perfect marriage.
It's what it's going to be like. Here's the problem. They marry an imperfect person. They have the picture of the perfect marriage, but they marry an imperfect person. So now they're confronted with a choice.
Either tear up the picture and accept the person or tear up the person in favor of the picture that's in your mind. Now that same idea between a married couple is in our walk and our faith with God. Many people have a picture coming to Christ and what God's going to do, expectations that they're going to have from the Lord. And many times what they picture is like for better, richer, health, so that if the Lord allows any other circumstance or situation that is troubling or painful or inconsistent with the little picture they have in their minds of what it's supposed to be like, you see some of these people fall away. And it's troubling.
You wonder. They were here one week at church, worshiping, getting involved, quoting scripture. And then you see them months later in no Bible and you mention the Lord and they're not too excited anymore and you probe a little bit deeper and what they thought would happen or expected God to do we hadn't done.
So they've taken their spiritual football and gone home. Jesus predicted there were people like this. He talked about the seed that was sown upon the soil where the weeds grew up and choked it. He said the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, or the desire for other things choke out the word or the seed and it becomes unfruitful. He talked about the seed that was sown on the ground that didn't have much earth but it was rocky soil and the sun came and beat down on it and He spoke about the trials and tribulations and many people fall away during that time. Think of all that Abraham and Sarah had gone through as I mentioned as a married couple and keep that in mind as you get into this chapter because he's about to be tested like he has never been tested before. This is not what he signed up for.
This is not what he expected. There was an author years ago named Ann Kimel. She married somebody.
Now her name was Ann Kimel Anderson but she had a lot of great literature and books that she wrote. She said something interesting. She said, living by faith in God is sort of like jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. If God doesn't catch you, you'll splatter on the ground. But how will you know if God will catch you if you don't jump?
Abraham is about to jump out at 10,000 feet, sort of being kicked out of the airplane. If God doesn't come through, He's toast. It says it came to pass. You read that a lot. It's one of the great little phrases in the Bible. There's one woman in the country, she said, that's my favorite Bible text. It came to pass. She says, because wherever I go through a trial, I know it hadn't come to stay, it's come to pass.
So take that to the bank. It came to pass. After these things. After what things?
Well, about 50 some years of things. After all of the things that we read about, and I won't get back to that phrase in just a minute, that God tested Abraham. Now the old King James says, tempted Abraham. And so this and other translations have put tested in it.
That's a better translation. Because James chapter 1 says, God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt any man. And yet, we face both temptations and testings. Satan tempts us to ruin us. God tests us to demonstrate His faithfulness and to develop our faith.
So Satan tempts to destroy, God tests to develop. Here's the problem. We can't always tell the difference. And that bothers some people. They want to say, well, the devil's really after me. Well, is that the devil or could it be the Lord is developing something? So does it really matter?
Absolutely not. It doesn't matter. Because you handle it exactly the same way, whether you're being tempted by the devil or tested by the Lord. Example, when Joseph was sold into Egypt and he went into Potiphar's house as a slave and he went to prison and all of that happened. Was that the devil or was that the Lord? Well, there's a case that could be made that it was the devil. I mean, after all, the brothers could have been instruments of the enemy to really bring him down and destroy his life. However, it didn't really matter in the end because Joseph said to his brothers, as for you, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
To save many people as it is this day. So whether it was from the devil or from the Lord or both, it was something God allowed and the devil could have tried to use it to destroy him, but God used it to develop him. Same with Job. Was Satan after Job? Uh-huh. Did God allow it?
Yes. Satan wanted to destroy Job. God knew it would develop Job. It was all by God's sovereign hand.
So how do you treat it? Well, you treat it by recognizing God is sovereign. The Romans 828 principle, all things, all things, all things work together for good to those who love God. It's a hard scripture to believe.
Some of us wish it said some things or most things, but it's sort of tough to get our hearts really around all things. Joseph believed that. Job came to believe that and Abraham is coming face to face with it. The Lord tested him, but notice he tested him after these things.
Men and women of God, this is so important and so precious. There was a period of time where God prepared Abraham for this test. God didn't give him the test until he was ready, until he was prepared for it. Now, we don't know how many days, it says in verse 34 of chapter 21, Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days.
We don't know how many days. We don't even know how old Isaac is at this time. Some believe he's about 10 years of age, so that would be about a seven-year time difference, seven or eight. Others say he was a teenager. Josephus, in his writings, said he was 25 years old. Isaac was 25 years old.
Some even push him up into the 30s. 33, some suggest, when this happened. But enough time had passed, and I don't know what the days were like, but since they were down in Beersheba, I can only imagine the child was weaned. There was now peace in the family. As he grew up, that little child, probably Abraham and Sarah and Isaac took walks.
I don't know how long they could walk being 100 years of age, 120 now, 110, whatever. But they talked about God's goodness and about God's faithfulness. It was a period of rest and it was a period of preparation before God pulled this heavy test. Keep that in mind because some of you are afraid of what the Lord might allow. And you see somebody else going through a trial or you read about Abraham and you think, I could never do that. I could never have that kind of faith. I could never handle it that way.
Well, maybe not now because you're not prepared. Abraham could and he did because he was prepared. God prepared him for that. There's an old Yiddish proverb that says, God sends burdens, but first God sends shoulders to bear those burdens.
He had prepared Abraham for this. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been encouraged in your walk with Christ by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently respond to questions and challenges to God's existence.
It's Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two messages he preached on the topic at Calvary Church. Request your resources when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
