Genesis 22:20-24
The Preparation of the Bride

It seems an odd wrap up to the story of Abraham sacrificing his son. And it's an even odder prologue to the death of Sarah. Yet here it is, the seemingly irrelevant news of Nahor's children wedged in between those two stories and forming a bridge between them.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and useful for the preacher to instruct you and convict you of sin and restore you to fellowship and provide for your growth in grace. What does the Lord have in mind here?

To understand that, we begin by noticing…

1. Parallels with the Ishmael Story
   Isaac's life has paralleled Ishmael's rather purposefully. God means us to see their similarities as sons of Abraham. But more important, he means us to see their differences as a child of the flesh and a child of the promise - the difference between works and faith.
   1. Ishmael's and Isaac's Lives Jeopardized by God's Command
      1. The sacrifice of Ishmael
         1. Before Abraham sacrificed Isaac, he sacrificed Ishmael.
         2. Do you remember that?
         3. Sarah complained about Ishmael mocking Isaac and told Abraham that this boy must not share in the inheritance with her son.
            1. And Abraham was livid; he was furious at the idea.
            2. After all, why couldn't he care for both sons. Where did Sarah get off saying he should dump one of them?
            3. Even after all he's seen, he's not willing to get rid of the work of his flesh
               • He will give the glory to God for Isaac
               • He will even acknowledge that Isaac is the more important son
               • But he wants his other son, this work of his own power, to receive some recognition
               • He wants Ishmael to have some share in the inheritance, maybe a lesser share than Isaac's, but something.
         4. So God says, "Sarah's right this time."
            1. Get rid of the bondwoman and her son.
               • Get rid of this Egyptian woman whom you acquired when you went in doubt and unbelief to Egypt, relying on your own cunning and your lying lips for protection.
               • Get rid of Ishmael, this work of your flesh, this product of your own effort.
            2. Only in Isaac shall your seed be called. He will be the full inheritor. All my promises shall be yes in him. Say Amen to this Abraham. Believe.
         5. And Abraham believed and he packed up his concubine and his son by her and sent them away. He finally turned his back on his own works. He finally agreed to put all his hope in God's promises being fulfilled exclusively in Isaac.
         6. In the next scene Hagar and Ishmael have run out of food and water. She lays him in the shade of a bush and sits where she cannot hear his cries and waits for him to die.
         7. Abraham obeyed God and now his son is in danger of his life. He has sacrificed his son at the command of God.
      2. The sacrifice of Isaac
         1. In the same way, once Ishmael is gone and Abraham has put all his eggs in Isaac's basket, God says "break those eggs as well."
         2. Take your son, your only begotten son Isaac (now that Ishmael is gone) whom you love ad sacrifice him to me in a place I will show you.
         3. Again God demands that Abraham deliver up one of his son, the only one he has left.
         4. Again, a son of Abraham is put in danger of his life by Abraham obeying the command of God.
      3. But the sacrifices are as different as night and day
         1. Of Ishmael, God is saying, "Reject him. Send him far away. He has no part in the inheritance. Get him out of my sight." And it is right that God should say this concerning the work of Abraham's flesh which cannot make him righteous before God.
         2. Of Isaac, God says, "Give him to me. He is mine." God is not rejecting Isaac but claiming his right to him. And he is claiming an exclusive right to Abraham's faith and love. Abraham must not love the gift more than the giver. He must not believe that Isaac, the child of the promise, can fulfill the promises of God any more than Abraham can. Rather they must both by faith utterly depend upon God to fulfill his promises, even if that means bringing Isaac alive again from the dead.
      4. But they are also similar for in both God tests Abraham's unwavering faith in his ability to fulfill his promises on his terms.
   2. God Saves both by Speaking from Heaven
      1. For Ishmael
         1. God calls out to Hagar, the boy's caretaker and shows her how the boy is to be saved by a hidden spring of water.
         2. And God repeats his promise to make a great nation of Ishmael
      2. For Isaac
         1. God calls out to Abraham, the boy's father, and shows him how the boy's life is to be saved by a substitutionary atonement.
         2. And God repeats his promise to multiply Abraham exceedingly and bless all the families of the earth in him.
      3. Again there are differences
         1. The well of water that sustains Ishmael is just that - water
            1. It is not a well of water springing up to eternal life so that the one who drinks from it will never thirst again.
            2. We know this because Ishmael receives no gospel promises; he is not the promised seed. His greatness is a merely earthly - indeed a self-rightoues - greatness.
         2. But the ram caught in the thicket is Christ
            1. Isaac is the child of promise; the provision for him is the provision of the gospel of Christ
            2. The ram sheds his blood in Isaac's place, a substitutionary atonement.
            3. This is no ordinary ram but a shadow of the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
         3. We see this as well in the geography
         4. God's reiterated promise to make Ishmael a great nation is simply made out of honor to Abraham. It does not need to be received in faith, for it is not a gospel promise.
         5. God's promise concerning Isaac is a gospel promise and must be received by faith. So God repeats the promise after Abraham's supreme demonstration of his utter trust in God, the sacrifice of the promised seed.
   3. Ishmael Takes an Egyptian Wife; Isaac…
      1. So we're set up to see parallels between these two stories of sacrifice, nearness to death, redemption, and promise.
      2. And the next event in Ishmael's life is that he takes a wife:
         1. He takes a wife in Egypt, the land of Abraham's unbelief and sin.
            1. Egypt is where Abraham fled when he doubted the promises of God and tried to live by his own ingenuity and strength.
            2. And Egypt is where Abraham acquired Hagar, the woman by whom he tried to fulfill God's promises in his own power.
         2. So Ishmael's taking an Egyptian wife signifies his rejection of God's promises and his reliance on his own strength.
         3. He has formally turned his back on the covenant and has been cut off from the people just as God, in circumcision, promised.
      3. So where is this next event in Isaac's life?
         1. Where is Isaac's bride?
         2. Can Abraham take for him an Egyptian wife? God forbid! That would be to return to the place of his unbelief and to show that he still doesn't rely on the Lord alone to keep his promises?
         3. What then? A Canaannite woman? That's no better. The people of this land are under a curse. Abraham's descendants shall throw them out and destroy them and possess the land. Abraham cannot mingle his seed with theirs or Abraham's seed will be devoted to destruction too.
         4. Yet if Isaac has no wife, his birth is for nothing and God's promises are vain. For how can Abraham's descendants be named in Isaac if Isaac has no one with whom to father descendants?
         5. We have been so focused on getting this boy born and then on seeing his life preserved that we have spent no time asking or considering the answer to this question.
         6. But God has.
2. God Has Been Preparing a Bride for Isaac
   1. "It Was Told Abraham"
      1. Sometimes we feel as though the whole world revolves around us. We sit in a traffic jam with a thousand other people, but we cry out "Why does this happen to me?" as though God in his providence had brought all these people here at this time precisely to make us late for work. And there's a truth behind that, but I don't want to be sidetracked from the main point.
      2. The main point is this: At this time, the entire world revolves around Abraham.
         1. This isn't just an impression he has. This is God's perspective.
         2. Thousands upon thousands of people were being born in the world while Abraham lived. Born in China and Africa and Europe and North and South America and Australia. They are irrelevant
         3. What is relevant is Abraham and his seed. Without them the rest of history is meaningless.
      3. So the focus of this brief passage is that the news is told to Abraham
         1. Nahor may have been a proud papa.
         2. Milcah may have rejoiced over her many sons as much as Sarah rejoiced over her one.
         3. These things are very important to them.
         4. But from the point of view of Scripture and the history of redemption, Nahor's and Milcah's reactions are irrelevant. The important thing is how this affects Abraham. For it is through him that redemption will come.
      4. While Abraham's attention and ours have been focused on the birth and preservation of the promised seed, God has been at work far away as well. He has been preparing a bride for the seed so that Abraham may have descendants and God's promises be fulfilled. Now the news of what had already happened years back comes fresh to Abraham that he may be encouraged in his faith and rejoice in God's faithfulness.
   2. "Milcah also Has Borne Children
      1. Sarah is not the only one who has born a child to her husband.
      2. God has been at work in your brother's life as well; your sister-in-law, Milcah, has born him children.
      3. God is indeed the sovereign controller of all things!
         1. He closed up the wombs of Abimelech's household; and he opened them up again.
         2. He made Sarah barren; and at the proper time he made her fruitful.
         3. Now God - who is in control of conception - has granted conception and birth to other members of Abraham's family.
      4. Even before Abraham thought to ask for a bride for Isaac, God was providing the answer.
      5. Truly Abraham can trust God to manage his life more wisely than he himself ever could.
   3. God Has Given Nahor Twelve Sons
      1. A significant number in Scripture. Reading this and counting the sons as 12, our thoughts race forward to the 12 sons of Jacob, the great-grandchildren of Abraham, the tribes of Israel. Let us hold that thought for a moment.
      2. Abraham has heard of God's blessing in terms of the number 12 before.
         1. He was promised that Ishmael would bear 12 princes (17:20). (The fulfillment of this is recorded in ch. 25)
         2. And this was the sign that God was setting up a dynasty for Ishmael, a multitude of descendants
         3. Now God blesses Abraham's brother with 12 sons, another dynasty
         4. Meanwhile Abraham has one lonely son, hardly worth boasting in in human terms, especially in human terms
         5. Where is Abraham's dynasty, the one promised by God for the redemption of the world?
      3. For it is from Abraham the real and lasting dynasty must come
         1. Isaac will bear Jacob.
         2. Jacob will bear 12 sons, the tribes of Israel.
         3. But even those are not the true dynasty, the true multitudinous family of Abrahm. They are a picture of the true family
         4. That family is being built not by the flesh but by the Spirit, a community of those who believe the promise, true children of Abraham built on the foundation of 12 apostles and the one true seed of Abraham.
         5. Our hope is not in the 12 children of Ishmael or the twelve children of Nahor, however glorious and long lasting those families may be in the eyes of men.
         6. Our hope is not even in the 12 children of Jacob, as though being descended from them in the flesh is of value before God.
         7. Our hope is in the one perfect child of Abraham, Christ Jesus. Following the example of the 12 apostles, we put our trust in him alone.
   4. (And One of Those Sons Has Borne Rebekah, Isaac's Bride)
      1. I put this in parentheses in your outline because this is not part of what was told to Abraham. The Holy Spirit inserts this information here so you will understand the fuller significance of this event.
      2. It is clear from ch. 24 that Abraham only knew about the 12 sons, but Moses, inspired by the Spirit, inserts the statement that "Bethuel begot Rebekah" so that his hearers may understand the importance of this genealogy. We are reading here of the birth of Isaac's bride.
      3. Ultimately, it doesn't matter that Abraham didn't know of Rebekah's birth.
      4. The story doesn't revolve around Abraham after all.
      5. But Moses tells his audience you need to know the significance of this part of the story.
         1. The children of Israel outside the promised land need to know that this story is for their sakes so they will not doubt the power and the grace of God.
         2. They need to be able to marvel at the providence of God in this matter.
            1. The story has been so focused on Abraham and the Seed. They have yearned and longed for Isaac to be born.
            2. The whole story has focused on this; yet all of a sudden they realize with a start that Isaac's birth is useless if he has no bride.
            3. And as soon as they realize this, God surprises them by saying, "See? I keep all these things in mind. I have been preparing a bride for Isaac all along. I was at work not only here in the Promised Land, but far away in another corner of the world preparing everything necessary that I might fulfill my promises to Abraham."
         3. It is not just that God gave Isaac to Sarah and then realized in a panic that he needed to provide a wife for Isaac
            1. Rebekah is not Nahor's daughter but his granddaughter
            2. Abraham and Sarah sat and waited in faith for the birth of a child. It seemed as though God was doing nothing. But all that time God was granting sons to Nahor so that one of them might bear a daughter, Nahor's granddaughter, and betroth her to Isaac.
            3. Now, the Israelites understand with a thrill, God has had the situation under control all the time.
         4. These things are written for your sakes, Moses tells the Israelites, that you may understand how God from the beginning was powerfully overseeing everything necessary to bring forth the mighty nation of Israel, the seed of Abraham, that you are today.
         5. These things are for you, O Israelites, that you may know while you sit in the desert that God is working far off, preparing the nations of Canaan to be overtaken by the people of God. God may seem to be doing nothing; don't be deceived.
      6. 1500 years later, Paul - inspired by the Holy Spirit - trumps Moses
         1. Speaking to a mostly Gentile audience, he boldly declares, "These things are written for your sakes upon whom the ends of the ages have come!"
         2. The story revolves around Christ. And it revolves around you.
         3. We, to whom Christ has been revealed, may understand this passage more fully than Abraham or Moses or David or Isaiah or Malachi.
         4. Children of God, this is written for you, that you may see the love and providence of God in providing you a Savior
         5. We have focused on the birth of Isaac and longed for that.
            1. For it is a picture of the birth of Christ.
            2. And Christ will be descended from Isaac.
            3. But how will this be if Isaac has no bride?
            4. We can scarcely keep track of one aspect of the story. But if God is to save his people, he has to keep track of every aspect all the time.
            5. God, having set his love on you from all eternity, had you in mind all along.
            6. So he was preparing a bride for Isaac that Christ might be born and you might be saved.
         6. All of history points to Christ, and God was at work even back in Abraham's day preparing the world for this Savior and granting children to those from whom this Child would be descended.
         7. Let us have this confidence, then, that God is never inactive in bringing about the goal of our salvation.
         8. It may seem so to us.
         9. We may wait all our weary lives for the coming of Christ, toiling under the curse and wondering why the Lord delays.
         10. He delays because he is busy preparing a bride for his Son.
      7. Let us wait for that Son with confidence.
         1. God is faithful.
         2. We are being built on the foundation of the 12 apostles, Christ himself being the chief cornerstone
         3. When the building is complete it will be presented as a bride to Christ, a new Jerusalem, a new heavens and a new earth - all the promises of God which are yes in Christ will be revealed at once and we will rejoice forever.

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