Sermon Tone Analysis

Abraham left his relatives in the east and headed for Canaan.

He knew only this: God said go and God promised blessings, including lots of kids.

The hitch: Abraham was old – 75 – and his wife couldn’t have kids.

But, he went.

Time passed.

God blessed Abraham, and later said to him again: “I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth.”

Wonderful promise, but still no children for Abe and Sarah.

More time passed.

The LORD spoke to Abraham again, saying: “Do not be afraid, Abram.

I am your shield, your very great reward.”

For the first time, Abraham fires back: “What can you give me since I remain childless…?

You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

The LORD responds: “A son coming from your own body will be your heir.”

And “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

Ten years go by.

Still no son.

Sarah gets an idea.

She says: “The LORD has kept me from having children.

Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abraham does the math.

He’s not getting younger.

Sarah’s not getting less barren.

He sleeps with another woman and, lo and behold, Ishmael’s born.

Perhaps God’s promised son?

He isn’t.

Thirteen years later, the LORD appears to Abraham.

He repeats all His promises about blessings and children and owning the land.

And then goes further, saying: “I will bless [your wife] and will surely give you a son by her.”

In other words, Ishmael isn't the promised son.

And what happened with Hagar was not pleasing to God: it was adultery, plain and simple.

Yet, here’s Abraham: “He laughed and said to himself, ‘Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?

Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?’

And Abraham said to God, ‘If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!’”

God took it in stride: “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac.

I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.”

A year later, with Abraham 100 and Sarah still barren, Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the promised son.

Hebrews says today: “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.

And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.”

The Spirit commends Abraham’s behavior over the course of this twenty-five year wait.

By grace, God counts Abraham’s faith as righteousness.

We read about a faith that looked in all the right places, that clung to God’s promises, that clung to Christ.

But, listen closely.

You also heard wavering; you saw eyes drifting in other directions.

You saw a faith looking elsewhere than at God.

Abraham was as good as dead.

75, 85, and 99 year olds don’t have children.

Barren women don’t suddenly become fertile.

Knowing that, Abraham looked elsewhere.

He looked to his servant, Eliezer.

“He will be my son.

This is how God will keep this promise.”

Abraham tries to think good thoughts, but he can’t quite grasp God’s promise.

He looked to the fertile womb of Hagar, and said, “Here’s my son.

This is how God will keep this promise.”

Far less good thoughts here.

God doesn’t make people commit adultery.

He didn’t grasp God’s promise.

Finally, Abraham threw up his hands, “I’m 100! Sarah’s barren!

Just use Ishmael!”

Abraham’s faith rode a roller coaster, like ours.

He believed the LORD and God credited that faith as righteousness.

Yet, he also spent time putting faith elsewhere.

A dangerous, a deadly, a damnable thing to do: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” Jesus said today.

God is patient, yet His patience wears out.

Faith looking in the wrong places won’t find God, can’t find God.

That faith won’t be ready when the Master returns.

Scripture says nothing good about that.

It’s either faith in Jesus or faith in something else, and faith in something else, anything else, means hell.

This happened to Israel.

After centuries of idolatry and spiritual adultery, God said, “All that you could have had is no more.”

This nearly happened to Abraham.

God means it.

When faith looks inward and not at Him, then He leaves, He rejects, He revokes covenants and promises.

Since we’re talking about children, let’s talk about children.

We live in a society that deals with children and childbirth as something we control.

We speak about birth “control.”

We have pills, barriers, and surgeries that allow us to have children (or not).

Worse, we have pills and surgeries that remove living children from our wombs, because we don’t want them.

We’ve designed procedures that allow us to preempt or cut off that which God has begun.

We take control.

We look to doctors and medicine.

We look at bank accounts and career paths.

We look at convenience.

We try to stop what God starts.

As if God can be stopped.

We forget the old man and the barren wife.

We forget the unmarried virgin.

And even if we have an understanding of these things, even if we carefully avoid birth control or conception procedures that end lives, even if we search the Scriptures and conform our motives for having or delaying the having of children so that they’re God-pleasing, we can still find ourselves looking in the wrong places.

Abraham had expectations.

And when God didn’t meet them, Abraham formed his own plans.

He couldn’t handle this cross, so he did things his way.

He looked to himself.

We hear God say that His ways and our ways aren’t the same, that we can’t understand His ways, and intellectually we might get that, but spiritually we don’t always.

We give God a moment to do what He says, but that’s all.

Our faith expects to see certain things.

We expect fertility.

We expect what we expect and desire.

We expect success and comfort.

We demand it.

We complain to God about all that’s gone wrong.

We question him vigorously when something goes awry.