The Promise Fulfilled and the Weaning of Abraham

Genesis 21 shows that God keeps His word, right on His timetable. The Lord took note of Sarah “as He had said” and did for her “as He had promised.” Isaac’s birth was not Abraham’s accomplishment or Sarah’s strength. Abraham was one hundred, Sarah’s womb was dead, and God waited until nobody could miss where the glory belonged. What God promises, He performs.

Sarah’s laughter becomes different laughter. Isaac’s name no longer just points back to unbelief and Sarah laughing at the promise. Isaac now reminds the family that God did the impossible. The promised son arrives by faith, by God’s power, and at the appointed time.

Ishmael’s mocking reveals the problem created when Abraham and Sarah tried to help God out through the flesh. Hagar and Ishmael were caught in the painful consequences of that fleshly decision, but God did not abandon them. God heard the lad crying, just as Ishmael’s name says, and God opened Hagar’s eyes to the well. The God of the covenant promise also shows Himself to be the God of the outcast, the rejected, the abused, and the dying.

God’s command to send Hagar and Ishmael away also weans Abraham from one of the last places where his hope could rest besides God. Abraham loved Ishmael, but Isaac alone was the promised heir. The separation hurt, yet God protected Isaac and promised a future for Ishmael. Painful separations can be necessary when fleshly substitutes threaten to take the place of God’s promise.

Paul uses these two mothers and two sons in Galatians 4 to show that law and grace cannot be mixed. Hagar and Ishmael picture bondage, self-effort, and trying to earn salvation through works. Sarah and Isaac picture the covenant of promise, received by faith. The gospel does not call sinners to improve themselves into heaven. Christ alone saves, and faith alone receives Him.

Abraham’s treaty at Beersheba shows God continuing to provide peace, protection, and a place for His servant. Abraham calls on El Olam, the everlasting God. The everlasting God remains faithful through deserts, through weaning experiences, through long delays, and through the painful consequences of foolish decisions. Isaac’s supernatural birth also points forward to Christ, the promised Son whose coming, name, timing, miracle, joy, and obedience all display God’s saving plan.

The final question comes down to death and eternity. Jesus is the only way to God, and no good works can make a sinner right with Him. Faith and trust in Christ alone give the confidence needed for the last lap.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. God performs every promised work. God did not fulfill His promise when Abraham and Sarah felt ready. God fulfilled it when human strength was gone and His power could not be denied. Delayed answers do not mean forgotten promises. The appointed time belongs to the Lord. [35:23]
• 2. Fleshly shortcuts bring real pain. Abraham and Sarah tried to accomplish God’s plan by self-effort, and Hagar and Ishmael lived inside the consequences. Sinful decisions often have a lot of ouch to them, even after repentance. God brings mercy into the mess, but His children should not confuse mercy with permission to leave Him out of the equation. [34:14]
• 3. God hears the outcast’s cry. Hagar had been used, rejected, and left in the wilderness without water. God heard Ishmael, opened Hagar’s eyes, and provided the well that was already there. Fear loses its grip when God’s love and care become more real than the wilderness. [48:21]
• 4. Grace and works cannot be mixed. Hagar and Sarah picture two completely different ways of relating to God: bondage through law and freedom through promise. Good works cannot purchase salvation because sinners cannot obey their way into acceptance with God. Faith in Christ receives what grace freely gives. [58:24]
• 5. Christ alone prepares sinners for death. Death preparations may settle many earthly details, but they cannot answer the biggest question without Christ. Jesus alone is the way, the truth, and the life. Confidence before God rests not in being a good person, but in trusting Christ alone as Lord and Savior.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [28:39] - God Uses Failure to Build Character
• [32:41] - God’s Plan Cannot Be Thwarted
• [34:14] - The Promise Fulfilled and Abraham Weaned
• [35:23] - Sarah Conceives at God’s Appointed Time
• [40:06] - Isaac, Laughter, and Covenant Obedience
• [42:51] - Ishmael Mocks the Promised Son
• [45:39] - Abraham Sends Away Hagar and Ishmael
• [48:21] - God Hears Ishmael in the Wilderness
• [50:14] - Abraham’s Covenant at Beersheba
• [55:01] - El Olam, the Everlasting God
• [56:26] - Hagar and Sarah: Law Versus Grace
• [60:23] - Isaac’s Birth Foreshadows Christ
• [63:11] - Trusting God Through Painful Weaning
• [66:44] - The Only Preparation for Death

1. The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. [35:23]
2. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.
3. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. [40:06]
4. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
5. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6. And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.”
7. And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8. And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
9. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. [42:51]
10. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.”
11. And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son.
12. But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” [45:39]
13. “And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.”
14. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
15. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes.
16. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept.
17. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.” [48:21]
18. “Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
19. Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20. And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.
21. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. [50:14]
22. At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do.”
23. “Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned.”
24. And Abraham said, “I will swear.”
25. When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized,
26. Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.”
27. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant.
28. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart.
29. And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?”
30. He said, “These seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well.”
31. Therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath.
32. So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
33. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. [55:01]
34. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.

1. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?
2. For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.
3. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.
4. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.
5. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
6. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
7. For it is written, “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.”
8. Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. [58:24]
9. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.
10. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.”
11. So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

1. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. [37:22]
2. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,
3. fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

1. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. [38:16]
2. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

1. What repeated phrases in Genesis 21:1-2 make clear that Isaac’s birth happened because God kept His word, rather than because Abraham and Sarah found a human solution? [35:23]
2. What changes can be seen in Sarah’s laughter in Genesis 21:6-7 when compared with her earlier laughter at God’s promise?
3. What does Genesis 21 show about both the seriousness of Ishmael’s mocking and Abraham’s emotional attachment to Ishmael? [45:39]
4. What specific actions did God take for Hagar and Ishmael after their water was gone in the wilderness? [48:21]

1. Why did God wait until Abraham and Sarah were far beyond the age of having children before fulfilling His promise? What does that timing reveal about where the glory for Isaac’s birth belongs? [37:22]
2. In Genesis 21, sending Hagar and Ishmael away was painful, yet God both protected Isaac and promised a future for Ishmael. How can a painful separation sometimes be an act of protection rather than abandonment? [46:34]
3. Galatians 4 contrasts being born “according to the flesh” with being born “through promise.” How does this help explain why salvation cannot be earned by moral effort, religious activity, or good works? [58:24]
4. God told Hagar, “Fear not,” and then opened her eyes to see the well already nearby. How does God’s care for Hagar shape the way believers should understand fear during desperate circumstances? [49:46]

1. Is there an area of life where God’s timing feels slow or confusing right now—such as family, health, work, finances, or a long-prayed-for change? What would it look like to wait in faith rather than trying to force an outcome? [01:04:35]
2. Abraham and Sarah tried to accomplish God’s promise through self-effort, and the consequences brought great pain. Where might there be a temptation to leave God out of a decision and take a shortcut instead? [34:14]
3. Hagar could not see the well until God opened her eyes. When fear or anxiety is strong, what truths about God’s love, presence, and care need to be brought back into view? [01:03:58]
4. Abraham had to release a son he deeply loved because Isaac alone was the promised heir. Is there a relationship, habit, activity, goal, or source of security that may be taking too much of the heart’s trust away from God? What could faithful surrender look like? [01:03:19]
5. Some separations involve leaving something plainly harmful; others involve laying aside something good so there is room for God’s best. What is one good thing that may be crowding out prayer, Scripture, worship, fellowship, or service?
6. Abraham called on the name of El Olam, the Everlasting God, after years of waiting, failure, conflict, and loss. Which part of life most needs to be entrusted again to the God who remains faithful through every season? [55:21]
7. Confidence before death does not rest on being a good person but on faith in Christ alone. If someone asked why there is confidence of being accepted by God, how would the answer clearly point to Jesus rather than personal good works? [01:11:09]