Old Testament 13 Patriarchal Stage 3 Liberty Home Bible Institute HL Willmington

This is lecture 13 in a series about the Old Testament. It discusses Genesis chapter 16, focusing on Abraham's compromise. The lecturer mentions the angel of the Lord, who is believed to be the Lord Jesus Christ. The angel appears multiple times throughout the Bible, including speaking to Moses and protecting Israel at the Red Sea. The lecturer also discusses the significance of God appearing to Abraham and changing his name to Abraham, symbolizing his future as the father of many nations. God establishes the Abrahamic Covenant, promising the land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants forever. God also commands Abraham and his descendants to be circumcised as a sign of the covenant. This is number 13 in a series of 80 Old Testament lectures and as we begin this lecture I want to finish up with a few thoughts concerning Genesis chapter 16 which is entitled Abraham's Compromise. We've already discussed the kindness of God here and the faithfulness of God in dealing with this pregnant young Egyptian girl in the desert and we noticed that in verse 7 we find the expression the angel of the Lord first time mentioned in the Bible and we concluded at least your teacher has concluded this and we think that we'll be able to demonstrate it later on that when you read the expression the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament it usually often if not always refers to the Lord Jesus Christ but anyway he is very well known in the Old Testament later in Genesis 20 or 32 the angel of the Lord wrestles with Jacob and then in Genesis chapter 48 we read where the angel of the Lord redeems Jacob and in in fact this was his dying testimony he says concerning his life Jacob does as he dies down there in Egypt he said that God has been so good and gracious to me and he said in mercy hath his angel redeemed my life we know that no archangel or no seraphim or cherubim can redeem an immortal soul and yet here Jacob is saying apparently under inspiration of God that an angel redeemed his soul okay so in Exodus 3 we have the angel of the Lord speaking to Moses from a burning bush and then in Exodus 14 that same angel the Lord protects Israel at the Red Sea and then in Exodus 23 and other passages that we can call your attention to that you'll have in your notes it was the angel of the Lord that prepared Israel for the promised land some years later in Judges chapter 6 we're told the angel of the Lord commissions Gideon and in first Kings 19 the angel of the Lord ministered to Elijah and several more references in Joshua 5 the angel of the Lord are here it's a captain the Lord's host apparently it's a reference to the same individual reassures Joshua after he crosses over the Jordan River and he's about ready to attack the city of Jericho then Isaiah 37 we hear where the angel of the Lord saved Jerusalem remember by the slaughter of a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrian troops and then finally in the book of Daniel chapter 3 verse 25 it is the angel of the Lord that preserves three Hebrew young men in the fire so we have this very important person you ought to mark it in your Bibles if you have not already in Genesis chapter 16 verse 7 now this passage ends that is to say the chapter ends with these words and Hagar remember God told Hagar to go back and submit herself to her man to her mistress Sarai and that God would make sure that she was treated kindly she does this and in verse 15 Hagar then in the fullness of time bear Abram a son and Abram called his son name which Hagar bear Ishmael and Abram was four score and six years old when Hagar bear Ishmael to Abram I can then in chapter 17 verse 1 we read this I think rather significant fact and when Abram was 90 years old and nine the Lord appeared to Abram notice he was 66 year of that is say he was 86 years old when Hagar bear Ishmael to him here he is now 99 years old and God appears to him the next time I don't want to add too much or try to read too much into the account here but we do know this that is chapter 16 ends Abram is at his lowest spiritual point because he sinned he's out of fellowship with both God and family but the Lord seems to do nothing to his erring child and we ask the question is Abram going to get away with all this you know why we do something like this God would send his cancer God would spank us but you know these Old Testament saints seem to get away with murder well did they really I think to answer this we need only to know that as we said before he was 86 years old when Ishmael was born but he's 99 when God again speaks to him I think it's entirely possible that Abraham might have suffered a 13-year period of God's grief silence where God did not where he did not enjoy the fellowship with God that he once did because of his sin and I think here the words of the psalmist comes to mind concerning Israel's history when he says this remember in the Old Testament later on the children of Israel on the way to promise to the promised land they demanded this from God and they demanded that and often God actually asked and gave them their request but Psalm 106 verse 15 says and gave them their request but sent leanness into their soul and I believe here he allowed Abram to go ahead with his plan his carnal plan and yet he suffered a lack of fellowship because of it well at any rate in spite of Abram's sin now God appears to him and said unto him I am the Almighty God walk before me and be thou perfect and I will make my covenant between me and thee and will multiply thee exceedingly now the word Almighty God is a very important name for the Lord in the Old Testament in the Hebrew it's the word El Shaddai and the word Shadd S-H-A-D-D refers to the bosom of a nursing mother and the word El means of course the strong one and so here it seems that God has assured Abram that he would be to him the strong nourishing God in other words not only would he be a father to him but also a mother to say this is one of God's great names in the Bible and and we often read God reassuring and strengthening and nourishing his Saints with this name in Genesis chapter 35 Jacob will need much comfort later on who will be Abram's grandson and God will comfort Jacob with this name he'll say I am El Shaddai and then in Exodus chapter 6 Moses is commissioned at the burning bush and God uses this name also among other names on that occasion I am El Shaddai and this title by the way El Shaddai is found more times in the book of Job some 31 times than any other Old Testament book and perhaps the suffering patriarch needed it more but I guess the most sublime passage where it is used is Psalm 91 verse 1 this is my life verse he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty or under the shadow of El Shaddai now in verse 5 this is also a very important verse of chapter 17 Abram's name is changed officially to Abraham God says neither shall thy name anymore be called Abram but thy name shall be called Abraham for I have for a father of many nations have I made thee and I will make thee exceeding fruitful and I will make nations of thee and kings shall come out of thee and I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God and to me and to thy seed after thee a dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse we refer to him several times now in this study and he summarized the life of Abraham at this point in time in a very wonderful and I think a witty way this is what dr. barnhouse says and the point of the story lies in the fact that Abram had no seed this may not be a disaster in our western lands but in the Orient it must have been particularly galling there are some things in the Bible that caused me to chuckle barnhouse goes on to say and there is a thought in connection with this verse that always has had that effect on me I cannot help but think of what must have happened when Abram broke the news to his family and servants that he was now changing his name so barnhouse would have us imagine that here he calls a special meeting and the boss has important announcement to make they all knew of course that his former name was Abram which meant father of many and they knew it had been somewhat of a thorn to him so we can imagine a stir of interest and curiosity when he announced I am going to change my name they probably snickered some of the servants said well the old man couldn't take it any longer it finally got under his skin I mean after all to be a father of nobody for 86 years and then to be the father of only one with a name like he has father of many must have its rough moments so he is going to change his name I don't blame him I wonder what it'll be then the old man spoke I am to be known now from this day on as Abraham father of a multitude we can almost hear the silence of the stunned moment barnhouse goes on to say as the truth breaks upon them father of a multitude then the laughter broke forth behind the scene the whole man has gone crazy he had one child when he's 86 and now at 99 he's beginning to get ideas father of a multitude was there anything more ridiculous for a man of his age well God calls him now a father of many nations thou shall be called Abraham and as we've seen already for the fourth time in verses 5 through 9 of this chapter God reaffirms the land and the covenant to this old patriarch remember the Abrahamic Covenant was the first of three great covenants in the Old Testament Abrahamic Covenant promised the land of Israel to Abraham forever and to his seed forever and then there is the Davidic Covenant given some ten centuries later that would promise that from the seed of David would come a king that would rule over that land forever and that was the Lord Jesus and then the final immutable covenant and we're going to repeat these three covenants a number of times as we go through the Old Testament is called the new covenant given by God through the Prophet Jeremiah and this said in essence that God was going to give his people a new heart all right on this occasion at this moment in the Old Testament record God orders Abraham now to do something very significant we read about this in verse 9 of chapter 17 and God said unto Abraham thou shall keep my covenant therefore thou and thy seed after thee in their generations this is the covenant which he shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee every man child among you shall be circumcised and he shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you and he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you every man child in your generations he that is born in the house or bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed he that is born in thy house and he that is born with thy money must needs be circumcised and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant all right so here we have the first mention in the Bible of circumcision let me just stop here now briefly and give you a quick review or perhaps I should say a preview a summary of the biblical teaching on circumcision number one as we've already discussed Abram or Abraham was the first man to be circumcised and you know that this in itself was a real act of faith because it would render completely helpless physically all the males in the camp at least during the third day which is normally the day that the swelling would take place upon the body and they were out in the almost the desert of the Middle East and surrounded often by hostile tribes so Abraham really had faith to believe God in and putting himself along with all other males in the camp in a position where if need be for a while they could not defend themselves so Abraham was the first man to be circumcised then the second thing we'd like to bring out about this right and I spell that rite a ceremony that circumcision was to be the seal or the sign of God's promise but it was not to be the source Abraham was saved at least 14 probably 20 years before he was circumcised you remember we have the record of his salvation in Genesis 15 and he was justified by faith and God imputed his faith for righteousness that was years before he was circumcised so circumcision here is a seal it's a sign of the Covenant but faith in God was the source all right now the fourth thing that we need to call the attention to is that circumcision of the flesh even in the Old Testament without circumcision of the heart was absolutely worthless some folks think that as long as the Old Testament saint and patriarchs and the people simply lived up to certain Old Testament or that is to say certain formal outward external ceremonial things that it didn't make any difference how they felt on the inside that's certainly not true and later on in the book of Deuteronomy Moses the old warrior that will lead his people up to the very promised land will remind them concerning this very thing and in that time Moses said and now Israel what doth the Lord now remember class this is an Old Testament passage what doth the Lord thy God require thee but to fear the Lord thy God to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul notice circumcised therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no more stiff-necked and so circumcision of the heart was far more important than circumcision of the flesh but this was nevertheless to be a seal and a sign of the covenant that God promised to Abraham the last thing that we need to call your attention to concerning a matter of circumcision is that circumcision was officially as a religious right again r.i.t.e. a ceremony would be set aside in Acts chapter 15 and verse 29 remember in the New Testament account of history the early church there was a matter that threatened to split the church right down the middle and that was concerning circumcision and here was the problem was it necessary for saved Gentiles to submit to circumcision in order to not only remain saved but to be a faithful Christian and there were apparently a number of Jewish believers that said yes they God can save Gentiles by faith they understood that but they need to be circumcised even though they're Gentiles well they had a big meeting I suppose the most important Bible conference ever held in Jerusalem and apparently the pastor of the church James the half-brother of Christ moderated that meeting and the Apostle Paul was there and the Apostle Peter was there and Barnabas was there and Silas was there and we would say all the biggies were there and they really hashed this thing out and they finally came to the conclusion and James then made the announcement that to his sentence was that we troubled him not that is to say that Gentile believers need not submit to circumcision and of course the reasoning behind this was that circumcision was given as a religious ceremony to Israel and not the Gentiles something else important happens in this chapter and that is that Sarai the wife of Abram or Abraham her name is now changed to Sarah we read that in verse 15 and God said unto Abraham as for Sarai thy wife thou shall not call her name Sarai but Sarah shall her name be some believe are not absolutely sure the etymology of the word Sarai but some believe it means contentious and I suppose Sarai was sort of hard to get along with before Isaac came into this world and not because she was just naturally probably you know bitter but she had become bitter because of her barrenness and those days for a woman to be barren was almost tantamount to a curse and the her neighbors probably didn't even look upon her completely as a woman and so she was contentious about being barren now she begins although she still has a long way to go to have a little more faith in God and but he changes her name from Sarai which means contentious to Sarah which means a princess all right in chapter 17 verse 17 God again promises that someday the seat of the covenant will come from Sarah then we read Abraham fell upon his face and laughed and said in his heart shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old so another years gone by now since we opened up chapter 17 he was 99 now he's a hundred and shall Sarah that is 90 years old there and so he laughed in his heart and we would not know perhaps by reading this chapter whether it was a laugh of belief or a laugh of unbelief you know you can laugh and say praise the Lord that's wonderful and and or you can say yeah sure yeah happens every day well apparently from the book of Romans chapter 4 verses 19 to 21 we're told that this laugh was the laugh of joy and Abraham now is really beginning to respond to the promise of God that he made so many years ago and he's saying thank God God is finally going to bring his promise into being well this probably ends chapter 17 I don't think we need to go into too much more except to say that in verse 23 through verse 27 Abraham did at the age of 100 what God told him to do we read in verse 23 and Abraham took Ishmael his son and all that were born in his house and all that were brought with his money every male among the men of Abraham's house and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in that self same day as God had said unto him all right now in chapter 18 we read the next main division in the life of Abraham entitled his compassion stop for a moment and go back and go through these C's again in his life we've looked at his conversion his calling his commission his caution his Canaan his carnality his condensation his courage his communion his covenant his compromise his circumcision and now his compassion this opens up when Abraham sitting there in the plains of memory in the heat of the day lifts up his eyes and looks and he sees three strangers coming his way now these are going to turn out to be two angels and the Lord himself let's read about it he looked up his eyes and looked and low three men stood by him and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door and bowed himself toward the ground and said my lord apparently he says this to the leader of the group and later on as we said this will turn out to be the Lord himself the word Lord simply means sir noble sir he's not probably referring to the Lord is the Lord Jesus but he recognizes the leader and he said if I have found favor in thy sight pass not away I pray thee from thy servant let a little water I pray you be fetched and wash your feet and rest yourself under the tree and I will fetch a morsel of bread and comfort ye your hearts after that ye shall pass on for therefore are you come to your servant and they said so do as thou has said and so he goes and he slaughters a calf and he brings milk and butter and doubtless water both to drink and then to wash their feet and so they're having some fellowship under the tree there and they did eat then one said perhaps the Lord himself to Abram Abraham in verse 9 and they said unto him where is Sarah thy wife and he said behold in the tent and in verse 10 now for the first time God sets a time limit upon the birth of Isaac before this time he's promised Isaac or he's promised Abraham on a number of occasions your wife will sometime in the future bear a son and now verse 10 he's saying I'll set the time limit for this birth and he said I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life now that seems to be an expression that means next spring at this time next spring next March or April according to the time of life and lo Sarah thy wife shall have a son and Sarah heard it in the tent door which was behind him now Abraham and Sarah were old and well strict and innate the Bible says and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women therefore Sarah laughed and we know that her laughter was the laughter of unbelief she laughed within herself saying after I am waxed old shall I have pleasure my lord being also old yes I'm going to have a child when I'm 90 I mean sure every night on the CBS News that Walter Cronkite gives a list of all the grandmothers in the world that day you know 90 years old that have had children never happen verse 12 she laughs in verse 13 the Lord said unto Abraham wherefore did Sarah laugh saying shall I of a surety bear a child which am old now notice in verse 12 Sarah laughed within herself she was behind the tent and she didn't laugh out loud but she just laughed in her own mind and we know this to be the Lord because the Lord said Sarah laughed in her heart no angel would have known this and certainly no human being would have owned it would have known it and he said why did she laugh and then in verse 14 one of the great passages in the Bible is anything too hard for the Lord at the time appointed I will return unto thee according to the time of life he's saying again now I've told you next spring I'll return I'll touch her womb and Sarah shall have a son notice again this statement is anything too hard for the Lord there's a song got any mountains you think are unpassable got any let's see got any rivers rather you think are uncrossable got any mountains you can't tunnel through listen friend God specializes in things thought impossible what he's done for others he will do for you and so many years later an angel named Gabriel will visit a young teenage virgin girl in Nazareth and he will tell her about the virgin birth and she says to him how shall this thing be for I have not known a man and he'll say to her similar words that God said to Abraham and Sarah here he will say for with God nothing shall be impossible and then in verse 16 the men apparently the two angels that were with the Lord when he this is Abraham here rose up from fence and looked towards Sodom and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way so they leave at this time now and they make their way southeast Abraham as far as we know was living at the Hebron or as the Jews would call it in Palestine Hebron and so they leave and they make their way toward we're not sure where Sodom was located perhaps at the bottom of the of the base of the Dead Sea somewhere but they start for the city of Sodom and in verse 17 the Lord remains behind and the Lord said shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him and then we learn that actually God had a twofold purpose in passing that way where Abraham was in Hebron on that probably summer afternoon some 22 centuries 21 centuries BC and the first reason was to set a time limit for the birth of Isaac but the second reason was to announce to Abraham concerning God's plans for that wicked city called Sodom and in verse 20 God then allows Abraham to know his plans and the Lord said because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me and if not I will know and the men turned their faces from fence and went towards Sodom but Abraham stood yet before the Lord and so now God tells Abraham Abraham it is important for you to know that it has become necessary now for me to wipe the city of Sodom from off the map of the Middle East and Abraham of course his thoughts immediately go out to the fact that his nephew Lot and his family are living in Sodom so he begins now his remarkable prayer plea for Sodom this is the reason that we have entitled this section his compassion because his heart breaks over the fact of what God is going to have to do and this is certainly verses 23 on down to the end of chapter 18 verses 23 to 33 certainly needs to be one of the most compassionate and persistent prayers in all the Bible and perhaps in recorded human history three things about it it was definite we're going to see what he prayed in just a moment it was very definite though he he did not pray for that soul nearest hell and he didn't pray for the missionaries around the world or he didn't pray for aunt Tilly's sore toe I suppose that would be pretty definite prayer but it was it was very deaf and it was to the point and then it was verse 27 he said I am but dust and ashes and then he was mixed with faith because regardless of the outcome in verse 25 Abraham concluded shall not the judge of all the earth do right Oh God you've told me you're going to have to do something and I'm going to pray about this but whatever happens I know that the judge of all the earth will do right and I know you never make a mistake and I know Lord that at thy right hand are joys forevermore now let's notice his prayer at first he asked God to spare the city if but 50 righteous persons could be found there Lord he said if I can find 50 people that are not corrupted given over to the terrible perversion of that city would you spare the city for 50 people and God said yes Abraham if you can find 50 people I'll save that city and then he says well now Lord let's just suppose I can't find 50 let's suppose I can find 45 would you save it for 45 God said yes I'll save it for 45 Lord what about 40 so as I can find 40 God says I'll save it for 40 and then he says what about 30 and God said yes Lord would you save it for 20 he's working him down now and God agrees and then he says 10 Lord suppose I can find 10 will you save it for 10 God says Abraham I'll save it for 10 now you notice as you read the prayer that here Abraham stops now what do I didn't press for 5 well maybe he didn't want to push things too far but you know I think one of the reasons he stopped at 10 is I think Abraham felt he could find 10 people I mean the city of Sodom have thousands of people in it Dallas and and Abraham could have reasoned this way said well now my son or my my nephew lot is saved and that's one and that's true but as it turned out that's about the only one and I'm sure he must have married a fine Christian girl well his wife was anything but a Christian girl we don't know by the way whether a lot was married before he left Abraham when they got in that little discussion back in Genesis chapter 13 or not perhaps he was but I'm sure he must have counted her in as saved and Abraham said now let's see the last time Sarah got a letter from lots wife she said that they still had two unmarried daughters living with them maybe that's sort of heading to the scripture there but at any rate they're saved Dallas he's brought them up and the admonition of the Lord so you have lots and his wife and they're two unmarried daughters that makes four and then I know they have a number of married daughters and I'm sure they all married you know Baptist deacons in the local church there in Sodom and so why I'm sure there's at least ten and perhaps many more you know if you to ask God for five God would have spared the city for five but I think God would have still had to destroy it well I don't think he'd have found even four he may have found three there we do know from the New Testament that lot was a saved man we don't know that anybody else was his two daughters unmarried daughters will escape as we'll see in the next chapter and whether they were saved or not is very doubtful but he could not have found five he may not have been able to find but one all right now in chapter 18 I'm sorry chapter 19 we have the two angels as they have left Hebron now and they make their way on into the city of Sodom and there came two angels to Sodom at even the evening time here and a lot sad in the gate of Sodom he was probably an alderman here now because this is where the business of the city would take place and he's very important he's on the council and a lot seeing them he realizes that these are not just two ordinary visitors but these are godly men the way they carried themselves would doubtless be indicative of the fact that here we have some somebody very important and lot seeing them rose up to meet them and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground and he said behold now my Lord's turn in I pray you into your servants house and carry all night and wash your feet and ye shall rise up early and go on your ways as he's rather anxious for them to get in off the street he doesn't want to tell him why because then they might ask him a lot if this city is so wicked why are you as a child of God living here but he said listen it's uh it's going to get cold tonight and let's get in off the street right away but they said nay but we will abide in the street all night no that's all right stranger we're we were thankful that you've asked us to stay with you but we'll just sleep out here it's not going to be that cold we have our sleeping bags oh he's terrified now verse 3 he's really concerned and he pressed upon them greatly he begged him oh no please come to visit me and they turned in unto him and entered into his house and he made them a feast and did break I'm sorry did bake unleavened bread and they did eat I think this verse proves several things or indicates several things notice he made them a feast he did this I wonder why his wife didn't and possibly she wasn't saved and maybe he didn't even want to bother maybe she would refuse to cook for these these fanatical preachers but he did the cooking which is something normally a man would not do not only did he do the cooking but he baked them unleavened bread this might have been an indication here that he recognized that these are indeed men from God because this sort of was a type of offering to a special offering of unleavened bread you wouldn't offer that to just anybody and later on of course the in the Levitical sacrifices and the offerings it was to be done with unleavened bread so this was the bread of spirituality as it were and they did eat but before they lay down the men of the city even the men of Sodom compassed the house round both old and young all the people from every quarter and they called into law and said unto him where are the men that came in to be this night bring them out unto us that we may know them now here we have and described this a definite description I should say of one of the vilest sins in all the Bible and this has come down to us today named after this city and these men called the sin of sodomy and what it is of course is in plain language homosexuality and these men now words got around that these two handsome strangers are staying now at the house of lot for that night and they demand that the lot have these men come out notice that we may know them literally that we may sexually abuse them and so we're told in verse 6 and lot went out at the door unto them and shut the door after him you see he didn't want them to know that on the inside he was talking to him on the outside and notice verse 7 and this is just amazing and said I pray you brethren well these weren't brethren in any sense of the word they were far from brethren I pray you brethren do not so wickedly then in verse 8 lot invites them to do something which is just absolutely inconceivable behold now he said I have two daughters which have not known man two young teenage girls virgins let me I pray you and notice what he's offering to do now bring them out into you and do ye to them as is good in your eyes only unto these men do nothing for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof in other words he had become apparently so carnal that he attempted to appease these sodomite animals by offering them his two virgin daughters and in verse 9 they have no respect whatsoever for him and they said stand back and they said again this one fellow came into sojourn and he will need to be a judge now we will deal worse with thee than with them and they press so upon the man even lot and came near to break the door I was just saying you know this fellow who does he think he is you see the world has no respect whatsoever for a backslidden believer and well they would have they would probably kill him on the spot and verse 11 they smoked the men the angels had to do this the men inside put forth their hand and pull lot into the house to them and shut to the door and they smoked them in that were at the house of the door of the house with blindness both small and great so that they worried themselves to find the door and now the next few verses we have the angel saying look we're going to destroy this city do you have any other besides sons and daughters for we will destroy this place because the cry of them is wax and gray before the face of the Lord and so a lot went out and what a tragedy we have here in verse 14 he spends the rest of the night in a frantic but a fruitless attempt to convince his married daughters to flee to the city from the city with him he's very dangerous to be out but he's running around now trying to talk to his sons-in-law and his daughters and he's saying in verse 14 up get you out of this place for the Lord will destroy this city but he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law and when the morning arose then the angels hastened lot saying arise take my wife and my two daughters which are here lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city well the next lecture will discuss the destruction of the city of Sodom and the destruction of lots on life and then the terrible sin of incest between lot and his two daughters in a cave outside the burning city of Sodom and lot will learn the high cost of low living