18th January 2026

Message 18/01/26 – Abraham 9 – Martin Mowat

Readings: Genesis 17:1-8, Matthew 5:1-16

OK.  We’re back with Abraham and I’ve only got 3 more weeks after this to get the series finished.  It’s going to be a bit of a squash, so let’s get stuck in.

We heard last time how Abraham and Sarah took things into their own hands and used their Egyptian servant-girl Hagar to have a son called Ishmael. Big mistake, as we’ll hear in a minute. But the point was that we have to learn to be patient.  When God promises to do something, we have to let him do it HIS way and in HIS time. 

So now God has to tell Abraham, at 99, YET AGAIN that Sarah will have a son. Sharon just read us the beginning of that conversation.  This time he announces himself as El Shaddai, God Almighty, I’ll come back to that, too, and then the first thing he says is “walk before me and be blameless”.  Was that, I wonder, a condition of inheriting God’s promise? Whether it was or not, God clearly expected Abraham, as I believe he expects us, to live righteously and transparently.

Then, not only does he repeat the promise of a son, he changes Abraham’s name from Abram, to mean something like “exalted father” or “father of many nations”, and Sarah’s from Sarai. Sarai probably meant something like “my princess”, but Sarah signified “princess to all”, because she was to give birth to Isaac.

But also, to reinforce the promise, he adds three very important extras.

1. I will make nations of you, he said, and kings will come from you.

2. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you

3. I will be their God

But Abraham fell face down; 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!’

He would, God replied, but not THE blessing. That was for Isaac, and then for his 12 sons, and then for the 12 tribes.  From one of those tribes, the tribe of Judah, a king would come, as promised, and inherit that blessing, David.  And he would be the 14 x great grandfather of Jesus, the Saviour of the world.  Wow! Some blessing! Well worth the wait, wouldn’t you say?

As for Ishmael, Islam teaches that HE, not Isaac, who was the son of that promise, andthat Arab Muslims are his direct descendants. Add to this belief the reality of the Jewish people, the descendants of Isaac, coming back to their homeland and succeeding in building a country out of a wasteland, and you have the recipe for the conflicts that we are witnessing today.  But that’s another matter. 

Back to the promise. This time it wasn’t just a one-way promise, it was a two-way “covenant”.This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, God said, the covenant you are to keep: every male among you shall be circumcised … and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.  Both Abraham and his son Ishmael, now 13, were circumcised that same day, as well as all the other males in his household.  This procedure was of course hugely significant, but sadly we really don’t have time to expand upon it this morning. Suffice it to say that for Christians today, the sign of their covenant with God is not physical circumcision, but spiritual circumcision of the heart, and is evidenced by believer’s baptism.

A little while later, in the next chapter, to rubber stamp the thing, three men turned up in Abraham’s camp, one of whom was the Lord himself. Abraham and Sarah immediately rushed around to make them comfortable and give them a delicious meal of corn bread and barbecued veal. 

As they got up to leave, the men looked down into the valley below and caught sight of the town of Sodom, where Abraham’s nephew Lot was living. It was renowned for its licentious living and our word sodomy comes from the sexual practices that were common there. 

Genesis goes on Then the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.  For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.’

Then the Lord said, ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous  that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.’

The two other men turned away and set off towards Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said: ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 

You’ve certainly heard the story, how the Lord and Abraham barter for the sparing of the population. At the end of it Abraham managed to persuade the Lord to say ‘For the sake of ten righteous people, I will not destroy it.’

But they couldn’t find ten righteous people, so Sodom and Gamora were destroyed. Lot’s family escaped, but we’ll come back to that next week.

I don’t know about you but get really excited when I read stories of OT characters, like these, particularly when God announces himself as “God Almighty”.

Why? Because even if the characters are long gone, God Almighty isn’t. 

Not only did he do amazing things, but he spoke to these people, they heard, and they responded

Do we? Do we believe, do we hear, do we respond, do we expect God to fulfil his promises, do we REALLY think of him as “God Almighty”? 

He’s been doing amazing things for eternity, since the very beginning. He will continue to do amazing things through eternity, to the very end. 

God, the God of the Bible is supremely powerful, all knowing, totally wise, absolutely discerning, …

And if he could do amazing things in Ur of the Chaldeans, for Abraham and Sarah giving them a son in their dotage, if he could do them at Sodom, if he could do them on Mount Sainai, if he could do them on the cross, if he could do them in an upper room at Pentecost, he can do them in Mirepoix, and I can’t resist saying he can do them in Washington, in Tehran, in Kiev, or anywhere else on the face of the earth, today, tomorrow, the next day, whenever He determines is the right time.