Genesis 21:10-21 KJV
10 Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.
11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son.
12 And 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 shall thy seed be called.
13 And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.
14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
15 And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.
16 And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, 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 lift up her voice, and wept.
17 And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.
18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation.
19 And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.
20 And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.
21 And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
Welcome to KJV Cafe. Thanks for taking time out of your day to listen. Each episode of the Cafe is dedicated to studying the Bible verse by verse from Genesis through Revelation. Your host here at the Cafe is Bible teacher, Clark Kovington. Looks like the coffee is hot and ready, so let's get started. Amen, glory to God. Welcome to the program. Welcome to Cafe Pastor Clark Kovington here with another episode of KJV Cafe. I have a half cup of lukewarm coffee. Whew, it has been a day. Amen, but we're getting through it. I thank you so much for joining me here today. It's so good to have you here. We are just a daily Bible study. If you're new to the podcast, you can find more about us at kjvcafe.com. And again, just great to have you here. And we're wrapping up the middle part of Genesis 21, which is verses... Let's see, make sure I get them right, verses 10. Genesis 21, verses 10 through... I want to say 21, yes, verses 10 through 21. And we're looking... Why don't we look at kind of the last... And if we're looking at Genesis 21, we've spent a good bit of time on this. Let's look at the last, say, two or three verses. And let's see what we can find here, because there's a very important lesson. In verse 19, that Genesis 21, "And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad, and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Peran, and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt." Okay, so there's so much here, because we see that previously, Ishmael, being with Hagar, was suffering, right? And we see that he's now flourishing. Now I know, if you wanted to get very technical, verse 21 says, "He got him a wife out of the land of Egypt, Egypt's a picture of the world, so he's marrying someone from the world." Kind of caps this part off, maybe in a light that shows his worldliness, but hey, he's alive. We got that going. He's an archer. We come to find out he's a mighty man, you know, a powerful man, and many kings come from his line, so he's doing quite well, and it goes to show, I think, a number of things. So when we look at this passage of Scripture, we need to think about, like, the idea that how did this happen? You know, she's in the wilderness now for the second time, in total despair, pretty much wanting to die for the second time, because of the same situation with Sarah, where she's cast away. The first time God tells her to go back, and he blesses, the second time he doesn't tell her to go back, but he says, "I'm going to bless this child." And he gives specific reasoning, "Why is going to bless a child?" In Genesis 21, he tells Abraham he's going to bless him because he's Abraham's child, right? Verse 13, "And also of the son of the bondwoman, will I make a nation? Because he is thy seed." So Abraham's seed, he is going to be a nation. And again, if you follow the genealogies of Ishmael, it can be hard to pin down exactly, like, there's not a people group that you can, like, fundamentally say, that's the Ishmaelites. You can't just look at Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Qatar, or Iraq. That's it. That's them. People have done it. They've flown over there, lived over there, written books on it. They can't quite figure it out from my study. And generally lump in the Ishmaelites with the Arab people, which, number one, goes to show how unique and special the Israelites are, because you can trace their lineages, thanks to the Bible that God's preserved for us. And they have their own unique people group, and culturally, they're not supposed to marry outside of their people group for those that are Orthodox, or those that follow the rules and so forth. And so they've been preserved, but the Ishmaelites, we can't really say so. But either way, we see God's been faithful, and I wonder, the fact that Sarah had been so adamant that the bondwoman had to go, right? And that, you know, as Hagars in the wilderness with Ishmael, and as the water's running out, and the bread has been depleted, she may, you know, kind of come to terms the idea that it wasn't Abraham that had this plan. But that it was Sarah. Now, God, He approved of this plan and told Abraham in Genesis 21, listen to your wife, Genesis 21, verse 12. And God said unto Abraham, let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, that'd be Ishmael. And because of thy bondwoman, woman, that'd be Hagar. In all that Sarah said unto thee, hearken unto her voice. For in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And so Genesis 12, 21, 12 comes just a few verses after of Genesis 21, 10, where Sarah says cast out the bondwoman and her son. For this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, Eve with Isaac. So Sarah is saying, break this up, get them out, you know, and Abraham is grieved, but God says, do it. You know, this is the plan. Yet Hagar was probably wondering, you know, what, you know, what did I do to this woman Sarah? Like, why am I being cast out, you know, from all my sense of home or security or family or whatever that had grown there through the years? We know that Ishmael was old enough to mock, Amen. And so here is the idea. God knows the heart and God was favorable to Ishmael for Abraham's sake, but he was also favorable to Hagar because he spoke directly with her. She had that beautiful encounter with him there previously in the wilderness when she speaks about God seeing her and hearing her and she says, do I see him? You know, beautiful, beautiful statement there. So God is looking to her in a light that is caring, that is loving, and that allows his will to be fulfilled by keeping her and Ishmael separate from Abraham. And at this time, because it's not a permanent casting away, we see that with Abraham's funeral. You know, if you look at who buried Abraham, I believe Ishmael and Isaac were there. And that's in, let's see here, Genesis 25, I believe it is. So we have Genesis 25 showing us that they were both there, which means that they knew each other that wasn't completely cast out. And I'm going to try to find that verse here for you. Genesis 25, you know, seven and these are the days of the years of Abraham's life, which he lived 103 score in 15 years. So I think he was 175, then Abraham gave up the ghost and died a good old age, old man full of years and gathered his people, that's verse 8, Genesis 25, and verse 9, and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Macpilia. In the field of Ephron, the son of Zoar the Hittite, which is before memory, the field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth, there was Abraham buried and Sarah, his wife. And so that's cool too, to know that God allowed these individuals to at least have some relationship and be able to bury their father. We'll take a break and get back from this break, so stay tuned. You're listening to KJV Cafe. We encourage you to look us up on your favorite podcast app and subscribe to our channel on YouTube. Now let's get back to some more in-depth Bible study. So we see this miraculous appearing of water in Genesis 21 at the end here of our passage of Scripture. And we see that verse 19, it got opened her eyes and she saw a well of water and she went and filled the bottle with water and gave the lad a drink. Now it doesn't say that he created water, it says she saw the water, so either God opened her eyes to see the water, the well of water I should say, or he created the well of water there for her. Can God do that? Absolutely. He can bring water out of a rock for Moses and the Israelites and the wilderness. He can certainly put a well of water there, he can do anything he wants. He created the earth in six days, he has all power, he is sovereign. What is too hard for God? What's too hard for God? I mean, he can do what he wants. And what he wants is to give us peace and give us a good life, I believe that Jeremiah 29, 11 through 13. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you sayeth the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall you call upon me and you shall go and pray unto me and I will hearken unto you. And you shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart. So Jeremiah 29, 11 through 13 helps us to understand that God's plan for us is peace and that what did Hagar need in that moment? Peace, good things to give us an expected end, not to have us go through evil. You see so much evil in the world today and it's hard for me lately to chew on that, to think about it because it's so prevalent. And sometimes we can be in a routine, sometimes I get in a routine and I'm just like, "Oh, I do this on Mondays, I do this on Tuesdays." You know, you just kind of go through your routine like a robot, you know, just this and this. And then of course Lord usually shakes things up, you know, here and there. So the routine is different and lately it's just been a big shake-up, you know, seems like the routine is shake-up, the only thing to expect is the unexpected. Or the only thing to expect is turbulence and you see turbulent times and you see violence and wickedness and you see evil, you know, up close, you see evil up close. And it's hard to reckon that, you know, as a Bible teacher, as a preacher, it's hard to understand all of this sometimes and I'm just being honest with you here. Hey, we're on episode 200 and something, 10 minutes in, you get the good stuff, you get the, you know, the unscripted stuff. But the truth is that I too take solace in this verse that he wants to give me peace and give me an expected end and he wants to give you peace and give you an expected end. And the caveat for that is you shall seek him and you'll find him when you search with your whole heart, with all your heart, with all your heart. So if we haven't given our heart to the Lord, if we're playing church, if we're half in, half out, we're lukewarm, if we can't separate from the world, if we have pet sins, you know, I can't expect peace in that regard. But if I've just given it all to God and I've come to him in repentance, repentance means identifying that sin, asking God through the work and the Holy Spirit to help identify it and turning from it. Saying, God, I agree with you. I don't, that thing is bad. I don't want anything to do with it. Well, if you've done that and I try to do that daily, Lord willing, if I can, make sure I understand and then not repeat the same mistake like a dummy. If you've done that, then you can expect God's peace. The Bible says that he'll give us a piece that surpasses all understanding. Can you imagine a piece that surpasses all understanding? You know, that's, that is the type of peace God gives and I find that to be absolutely true, right? And where is that found in Philippians 4? And it deals with prayer, Philippians 4, 6 through 7. Be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And so we can have peace in a time of struggle. You know, there's people out there that clearly are still literally on a mountain with a road broken with no exit point. They're running out of food. They may not have clean water or any water and their, their Christians and they're praying to God and God in the midst of that storm is giving them peace. And I believe God super, supernaturally is also going to deliver those that know him either to heaven and to glory or through the rescue worker, one of the two, but he's going to bring them through to a better situation than they're in now. And he'll give you peace in the midst of the storm. Some of those horrific things that have happened in my life. God has washed my heart with great peace, with great peace. And it's beyond my understanding. I can't explain it. But I know that if he'll do it for me, with me, he'll do it for you and with you. As you sell out and turn to him, as you say, God, I am going to make you preeminent in my life. I am going to turn to you. You didn't see Hagar saying, well, God, I want to find my own well of water. Thanks for this, but I'm going to go look over here. I had a plan to go back over to Sarah and deal with her as I want to deal with her, so I'll get this water maybe later on. You don't see her doing that. And yet that's what people, they don't turn away from God's blessings. They turn away from his word. They turn towards the ways of man. We need to get back to the old time way of seeking God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, to be desiring him as he has desired that relationship with us. To depart from the unclean thing, to cleanse our hands, to get right with him. Not living perfect, but living repentant, living the best we can. Being in love with our first love, who is Jesus Christ, doing what God's called us to do, will have peace in even the most extraordinary circumstances. And we'll have a peace that's so beautiful. It can only come from God, and he will give us that expected end with him, which is eternity in bliss in heaven with him. It's near friend. Tune in next time. Take care. God bless. Amen. Thanks for spending time with us today at the Cafe. We would love to hear from you. You can email Brother Clark directly at Clark@EnduringPromise.org. See you again tomorrow. Same time. Same place.
