1st February 2026

Abraham 11 - 01/02/26 – Martin Mowat

Readings: Psalm 47 & Genesis 21:1-10

No turning back, we told ourselves last time.  Each and every one of us, if we call ourselves Christians, has a calling walk with God on whatever pilgrimage he calls us. 

This is the penultimate message in our series about Abraham, and we still have a lot of valuable ground to cover. Let’s pray, from lectio this morning Father, thank you for your beautiful, multicultural, intergenerational family, gathering today in so many countries.  Revive and sanctify us we pray. Make us a house of prayer for all nations, and set our hearts in fire again with the truth of your word and the good news of the gospel, Amen

Last time we heard about Lot, his wife and his daughters being personally saved from ‘fire and brimstone’ as Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

Did you read Genesis 19, as I suggested you might?   If you did you will have also read about Lot’s daughters, who, having lost everything they had, including their fiancés and with them everything they ever hoped to have, and having been brought up in a town where morals and integrity seemed to be of no consequence whatsoever, committed incest with their father. As a result each of them had a son. Those sons in turn fathered the Moabites and the Ammonites, tribes that we hear about again and again in the Old Testament.  But let’s not get involved in the rights and wrongs of that, and let’s get back to the account of God’s friend, Abraham, who probably thought that his cherished nephew Lot and his family had succumbed in the inferno.  

He was a shepherd, remember? And the life of a shepherd wasn’t easy in those days, and in that part of the world. You lived in tents and you had to keep on the move, constantly searching for green grass and water.

So he heads south again; and this time to a place called Beersheba where he’s met by its king, Abimelech, and it’s time for an action replay.  What happens is precisely what happened when he went to Egypt and met Pharoah, and claimed that Sarah was his sister, rather than his wife.  

That was a dangerous thing to do at that particular moment, because not only was she probably already pregnant, if Abimelech slept with her it would have put the authentic fatherhood of her child in question.

Fortunately for Abimelech, God intervenes and in a dream one night he said to him, ‘You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.’

But fortunately for him, we’re told, Abimelech had not gone near her, so he said, ‘Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation?  Did he not say to me, “She is my sister,” and didn’t she also say, “He is my brother”? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.’

It’s a story that has a happy ending.  Abimelech and Abraham made friends. He gave Abraham free grazing rights to the area that he governed, as well as a thousand shekels of silver (perhaps about 170 k€), and Abraham prayed to God for Abimelech and his household.

Again, I don’t want to get too bogged down in that part of the story because the next thing that happens, is the thing that we’ve all been waiting for, that Sarah had been waiting for, that Abraham had been longing for, the birth of baby Isaac.  We heard about it in our second reading. 

You may remember from a couple of weeks ago that when Abraham and Sarah had three unexpected visitors in their camp, one of them said, ‘I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.’

Sarah had been eavesdropping and when she heard the visitor say that she laughed to herself, thinking ‘After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?’

Then the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Will I really have a child, nowthat I am old?”  Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.’

Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, ‘I didn’t laugh.’ But he said, ‘Yes, you did laugh.’

That was in chapter 18.  But in the previous chapter, chapter 17, when God had visited Abraham on his own, without the two angels, he had said, among other things, “… your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. “

"Isaac" means "he (or she) laughs”.  Was this some kind of practical joke on God’s part? 

Then, when the baby was born, Sarah said ‘God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.’ Not “at me” but “with me” 

All around Abraham's camp there was laughing. They were overjoyed, every one of them. Not surprisingly. 

Well, actually, there was one person who wasn’t so happy, a sixteen-year-old, up until that moment the apple of his father’s eye, an adolescent called Ishmael.  He must have overheard conversations between his father and his stepmother about God’s promises that this baby was going to inherit, and he wasn’t.  He was jealous, very jealous, and as jealous people do, he began to criticise and torment.

Over the next few years, as Isaac became a toddler, and then a small child, Ishmael used to take it out on him. I can just imagine him using Isaac’s name to taunt him. “Oh Isaac, laugh, laugh, you’re just a joke, and a bad joke at that.”  

There may well have been physical abuse too, we don’t know, but eventually it got to the point where Sarah said to her husband “Enough’s enough.  I’m not having this a moment longer. Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.’

Poor Abraham, he was absolutely devastated, he loved this 16-year-old and had looked on him as his heir, one who bore his DNA. He had watched the child become a young man, taught him, farmed with him, hunted with him, and enjoyed his company. 

But nevertheless, first thing the very next morning he did as his wife requested.  He gave Hagar food and water and sent them off into the desert, knowing full well that it was a death sentence, that they would starve to death out there. 

But they didn’t, of course, God heard their distressed sobs and intervened, as he had promised he would, but that too is another story. 

In conclusion then, Abraham may have been wealthy, he may have had a beautiful wife whose attractiveness seems not to have faded even in her old age, he may have had two healthy sons, but he wasn’t without his problems 

His wife’s beauty was one of them, as we have now seen twice. 

His wealth was another, the Egyptian servant girl that he had been given by Pharaoh was, through absolutely no fault of her own, another. 

Then there was his oldest son Ishmael.  He was another because he was a bully. 

So life for Abraham wasn’t a bed of roses, even though he was God’s best friend at the time. 

Sometimes we assume that because we are Christians, life should be a doddle. No major illness, financial stability, no unresolvable relationship problems, and so on, and so on. 

But the reality is that it’s not like that, is it? 

So what’s wrong? 
Is God not all he’s made out to be? 
Does he not see the difficulties we’re having?
If he does, doesn’t he care enough to do anything?
Or is it that in reality, he doesn’t want to, or worse, that actually he can’t?

No, it’s none of those things.

Read your Bible. Noah had problems, Moses had problems, Abraham did, King David did, Nehemiah did, Peter did, Paul did, they ALL did.

NOWHERE in the Bible does it say that the Old Testament God believing Jews, or the New Testament God believing Christians would live in a protected bubble.  NOWHERE. 

What it DOES say is that He will be there, with us, IN the problems, and that they will prepare us and strengthen us in our faith. I could quote scripture after scripture, especially from the gospels. And the Bible gives us hundreds of promises, the most precious of which is that, on the day of reckoning, we will see him face to face, we will be forgiven for our weakness and our sin, and we will be taken into his loving arms, where we will spend eternity in heavenly, problem-free, bliss.