FBC Daily Devotional – January 21, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Here we are, three weeks of January are about to be done. We are in Thursday of this third week of January.

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I hope your month is going well and that even this week you can look back over the last few days and just see the hand of the

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Lord in your work, in your home, in your family, some answers to prayer, some encouragement in your

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Christian walk, maybe growth even as you read the scriptures. Did you read

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Genesis 24 through 6 this morning or sometime today? I hope you did.

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And if you did, did you catch the stark contrast between the two sons of Abraham?

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It's quite a contrast if you see it. It's a contrast that leaves you really kind of wondering when you get to the end of chapter 25, if the promise that God made to Abraham that all of the families of the earth would be blessed through his son

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Isaac, if that promise was really going to come to pass. When you read chapter 25, you get to the end of that chapter, maybe the promise is going to be fulfilled, but not through Isaac, through Ishmael, because look, here's

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Ishmael. Ishmael is the son of... I can figure this out on my own and produce offspring.

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Remember Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, Sarah's servant.

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That was a mess. That was a mess that was created with the mentality that we,

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Abraham and Sarah, we can figure out how to generate offspring and not through the wife,

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Sarah. Well, that's Ishmael. And so Abraham's son Ishmael, Genesis 25 tells us, is quite prolific.

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He has 12 sons. He's fathered 12, 12, a dozen sons, and all of them are princes of their tribes.

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So each of these 12 sons has sons and children and offspring of their own, and a large enough number of offspring that each has his own tribe, and that son of Ishmael is the prince of that tribe.

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So there are these 12 tribes of Ishmael, and each one has a prince.

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And these sons and the tribes, they all seem to get along quite well.

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They're all living in the same general area, you know, on the way toward Egypt.

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And so, man, it looks like Ishmael's doing quite well for himself. His family's doing well and so forth.

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And you contrast that with Isaac. What do you see about Isaac? Well, Isaac doesn't get married until he's 40 years old and he marries

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Rebekah, okay? But then for quite some time after that marriage, and we don't exactly know how long, for quite some time,

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Rebekah can't even have children. So all right, now watch. Ishmael, Isaac's older brother by a dozen years,

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Ishmael already has a dozen sons who are princes of tribes.

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Isaac is married to a woman that can't have any children. That leads

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Isaac to pray and ask God for a miracle. Would you please open my wife's womb so that she can have a child?

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And God answers that prayer. And finally, finally, Rebekah conceives twins.

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Two sons. Oh, things are kind of looking up. But as the story continues, even through the rest of chapter 25, these are two sons that can't get along.

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They can't get along in the womb, and they're not going to get along after they're born either. They're two different personalities, as all are, but their differences, it's like you can't reconcile their differences.

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They can't get along with each other. These two sons are at odds with one another constantly, and that will carry on through their life.

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Will this promise—it's the end of chapter 25, and you've got to kind of scratch your head a little bit—will this promise really be fulfilled?

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And yet, it's like the Holy Spirit, in inspiring this passage of Scripture, He anticipates that question.

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And as you continue on into chapter 26, you don't go very far, but until you come to verse 4, where the

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Lord appears to Isaac, and He tells Isaac, and He gives

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Isaac almost an echo of the promise that He made to Abraham more than a half century ago.

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So in verse 4, the Lord says this to Isaac, Remember how many offspring

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He has? Two. Two. The Lord says, Did you get the emphasis?

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Did you hear the emphasis? I'll multiply your offspring, not Ishmael's. I will give your offspring, not

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Ishmael's, all these lands, and in your offspring, not Ishmael's, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

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All right, now let's ask ourselves, let's think about this. Does it ever seem to you that the fulfillment of God's promises to you are so very unlikely that they will ever come to pass?

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Oh, well then, listen, let's read and learn the inscrutable ways of our

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God. Our Father and our God, we thank you for this passage of Scripture that raises both our doubts and then answers them.

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May we find in you a God who is always faithful to His promise, even in spite of our doubts.

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We thank you for it. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your

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Thursday, and I trust that God will indeed richly bless you in it. Have a good day.