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The Faithfulness of God to the Natural Man (Genesis 25:12–18) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reform Thinking. I'm your host, and today we are
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  dealing with a section of the Bible that, if we're being
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  totally honest, most of us just skip.
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  Oh, absolutely. You know those parts of the Old
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  Testament where the font seems to get smaller, the paragraphs
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  get denser, and the names become, well, almost
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  unpronounceable? That is where we are parking the
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  car today. It's the fly over country of the
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  Bible for a lot of readers it. Really is we are looking at
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  Genesis chapter 25 verses 12 through 18.
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  It's the family tree, the genealogy of Ishmael, and
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  usually when I hit a list of names like this in my morning
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  reading, my eyes just, they glaze over, I look for the next
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  dialogue tag, the next plot point, and I just move on.
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  It feels like a speed bump on the way to the real story.
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  That is a very normal reaction. I think we all do that.
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  We tend to view these lists as, I don't know, administrative
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  clutter. We think, OK, the author had to
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  include this, for the record, but there isn't any real
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  spiritual nutrition here. We treat them like the credits
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  at the end of the movie. You know they represent real
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  people, but you aren't staying in your seat to read them.
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  Right. I'm trying to beat the traffic
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  out of the theater, but what you're saying is that skipping
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  this specific list is a mistake. A massive mistake.
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  If you skip these 6 verses, you miss a really crucial piece of
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  the theological argument Genesis is making.
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  This isn't just data, it's a defense of God's character.
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  And strangely enough, it addresses a problem that I think
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  is one of the biggest issues facing the modern church.
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  OK, which is what? The seduction of pragmatism.
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  Pragmatism. OK, that's a big word to throw
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  out there so early. When you say pragmatism in a
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  church context, what are we talking about?
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  I mean the instinct to judge whether God is in something by
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  looking at the results. You know, we look at the
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  numbers, we look at the size of the building bank account, the
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  bank account. If a ministry is huge, if an
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  influencer has millions of followers, if a book sells out,
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  we instinctively say God is blessing that.
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  We equate visible, tangible success with divine favor.
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  That makes a lot of sense. It's the old might makes right
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  idea. Just spiritualize right?
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  If it's growing, God must be watering it precisely.
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  But then you run head first into Genesis 25.1218, because here we
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  have Ishmael. Now let's just recap who Ishmael
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  is. So we're all on the same page.
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  Good idea. He's the son of Abraham.
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  Yeah, he is the son of the bondwoman Hagar.
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  He is the son born according to the flesh.
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  He's explicitly not the child of the covenant promise.
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  God has been crystal clear. Isaac is the chosen line.
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  Ishmael is out. Right.
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  Ishmael is the result of Abraham and Sarah trying to to hack the
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  system. He's the backup plan that nobody
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  asked for. He is the non elect son.
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  And yet when we read this text, what do we find?
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  Does Ishmael just fade away into obscurity?
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  Does he live a miserable, cursed life?
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  Not at all. I was looking at the text
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  earlier and honestly the guy is crushing it.
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  He is absolutely crushing it. He doesn't just survive, he
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  thrives on a scale that is almost hard to comprehend for
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  that time period. He has twelve sons, and the text
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  doesn't just call them sons, he calls them Princess.
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  He has castles, he has fortified encampments, he controls a
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  massive swath of territory from the border of Egypt all the way
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  across N Arabia, and he lives to be 137 years old.
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  Which is a long time. A very long time by every
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  earthly metric. Wealth, military power,
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  political influence, longevity. Ishmael is a massive success
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  story. And that is bothersome, isn't
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  it? It should be.
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  I mean, if I'm playing the part of the skeptical listener here,
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  or even just the confused Christian, I'm looking at this
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  and thinking, wait a minute, Isaac is the blessed one, right?
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  Isaac is the miracle baby. But Isaac is living in a tent.
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  Isaac struggles to have children.
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  He and Rebecca deal with infertility for 20 years. 20
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  years. He doesn't have 12 Princess.
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  He has two feuding sons. He doesn't have castles.
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  He has wells that the Philistines keep filling up with
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  dirt. You have just hit the nail on
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  the head. That is the tension.
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  If you are standing in the desert in 1800 BC and you look
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  at Ishmael's fortress, then you look over at Isaac's tent and
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  someone asks you which one of these men does God love?
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  You point to Ishmael. You point to Ishmael every
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  single time. Because the visual evidence says
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  Ishmael is the winner. Correct.
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  And this forces us to ask a very, very difficult question.
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  If the non elect can possess such staggering earthly
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  blessings, how do we distinguish between God's universal
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  Providence and his saving covenant?
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  Because if our calculator for God's blessing is just material
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  success, then Ishmael is the hero of the Bible.
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  So our job today is to take apart this text, this list of
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  names, and see how it acts as a hinge in the story.
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  We need to understand why God gives so much to the natural man
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  and why that is different from what He gives to the spiritual
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  man. We need to see that God is the
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  God of the Arab nations, just as he is the God of Israel, but in
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  a very different way, and we need to learn to stop envying
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  the castle when we have been given the Kingdom.
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  All right, let's get into the text itself then.
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  Genesis 25, starting at verse 12.
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  These are the generations of Ishmael.
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  We have to pause right there. That's on that first phrase.
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  These are the generations in Hebrew.
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  That is the totally dot formula. Totally dot.
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  Remember that word? It pops up a lot in Genesis.
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  It is the skeleton of the entire book.
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  It's used 10 times. It marks the major epochs of
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  history. You have the Toledad of the
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  heavens and earth, the Toledad of Adam, the Toledad of Noah.
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  It is like the author Moses is putting down a chapter marker.
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  It signals that what follows is a structured significant
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  history. So by giving Ishmael A toledad,
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  the Holy Spirit is saying this matters.
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  That is right. He isn't putting Ishmael in the
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  footnotes, he is giving him a dignified place in the record.
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  This is a valid history. It's not just some secular side
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  note. But notice where this section is
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  placed in the narrative. Well, looking at the previous
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  verses, Abraham has just died. Abraham is dead, the great
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  patriarch is gone. So the question hanging in the
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  air is who carries the story forward?
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  Right, who gets the inheritance? Who inherits the narrative?
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  We know the answer is Isaac. We know he is the son of
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  promise, but before we get to verse 19 which says these are
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  the generations of Isaac, we get this block of text about
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  Ishmael. It feels like a detour.
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  Why not just go straight from Abraham's death to Isaac's
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  story? It is a deliberate literary
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  pattern. Scholars call it the discarded
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  line structure. Or maybe a better name is the
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  non covenant line first pattern. Genesis does this over and over
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  again. Think back to Genesis 4:00 and
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  5:00. Cane and Seth.
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  Right before we get to the line of Seth, the line that calls
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  upon the name of the Lord, we get this detailed breakdown of
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  the line of Cain. And it's not a shortlist either.
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  No, it's not. We learn about their
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  achievements. They are building cities.
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  Jubal is inventing musical instruments.
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  Tubal Cain is figuring out metallurgy and bronze working.
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  So civilization is exploding in the line of the murderer.
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  It is they are culturally dominant.
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  They are the innovators and the text makes us look at them,
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  acknowledge them and see their success.
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  And only after that is fully described as the text turned to
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  Seth. And it happens again later.
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  It happens again later with Esau and Jacob.
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  Genesis 36 is this massive long chapter listing the chiefs and
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  kings of Edom, Esau's line. It's page after page of Dukes
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  and Royals. And then Genesis 37 turns to
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  Jacob, who is just a shepherd. So what is the Bible structure
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  it this way? Is it just to get the other guys
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  out of the way? That is part of it.
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  It clears the stage. It answers the question, well,
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  what happened to them? Before we settle in for the main
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  story, it is like the narrator is saying, OK, you are worried
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  about Ishmael, let's look at him.
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  God made promises to him. Let's see how they turned out.
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  He's great, He's rich. OK, good.
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  We are done with that. Now let's focus on the
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  redemptive line without distraction.
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  It's satisfying in a way. It ties up the loose thread so
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  you're not wondering about it for the next 20 chapters.
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  It closes the door gently on the natural line so the door can
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  open on the spiritual line. But there is a deeper
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  theological reason too. It teaches us that God's promise
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  doesn't ride on natural rails. What do you mean by natural
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  rails? Well, think about how the
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  ancient world worked. How does a modern world work?
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  Primogeniture. The first born gets everything.
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  The strong, charismatic, culturally prominent son is the
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  heir. Ishmael is the first born.
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  He is the one with the 12 Princess.
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  He's the one building the empire.
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  Naturally, you would assume he is the main character if this
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  were a movie produced by Hollywood.
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  Ishmael is the star. But God flips the script.
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  God constantly flips the script. The structure itself is a rebuke
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  to our assumptions. It says, yes, Ishmael is great.
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  Yes, he is first. Yes, he is powerful, but he is
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  not the heir. God's redemptive purpose isn't
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  bound by biology or cultural dominance.
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  It cuts across the grain of what we expect.
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  The blessing doesn't flow to the guy with the most horses, it
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  flows to the guy with the promise.
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  That is a really helpful way to see it.
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  It's almost like the Bible is training us to look past the
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  glitz. It is so we have this pattern,
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  non covenant line first, then the covenant line.
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  Now let's look at how Ishmael is actually introduced here in
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  verse 12. It says these are the
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  generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the
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  Egyptian Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham.
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  That is a loaded sentence, it feels.
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  Like a lot of qualifiers, Why not just say Ishmael, Abraham's
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  son? Why drag Hagar and Sarah and all
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  this into it? Because the text wants us to
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  remember the mess, it wants us to remember the receipts.
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  It's keeping the receipts. It absolutely is Sarah's
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  servant. That phrase drags our minds
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  right back to Genesis 16. Do you remember the situation?
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  Sarah is barren. She is impatient.
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  She decides that God is taking too long.
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  So she takes matters into her own hands, right?
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  She gives Hagar to Abraham. It was lack of trust in God's
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  timing. It was pragmatism again.
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  God isn't working fast enough, so let's make this work
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  ourselves. That is it.
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  It was sinful problem solving, and the text refuses to let us
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  forget that. By calling her Sarah's servant,
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  it reminds us that this line, this Ishmael's line, this
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  powerful nation came from a moment where the family of Faith
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  stopped acting in faith. And then it calls her the
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  Egyptian. That also feels pointed.
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  Yes, the Egyptian in Genesis. Egypt is never just a neutral
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  location on a map. It's a symbol.
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  Abraham went to Egypt in fear in chapter 12 and almost lost his
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  wife. And later, his descendants will
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  be enslaved in Egypt. Exactly.
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  By highlighting Hagar as the Egyptian, the text is connecting
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  Abraham's family to the nation's, to the other.
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  It's reminding us of this ongoing entanglement with the
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  powers of the world. It seems like there is a balance
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  here, though. The text isn't excusing the sin
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  that led to Ishmael's birth, but it's also not saying that
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  because sin was involved, God is absent.
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  That is the key point. This is the glory of it.
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  Genesis refuses to excuse the human mess.
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  It names Hagar and the servant status explicitly, but it also
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  refuses to imply that the human mess ruins God's faithfulness.
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  God, he governs the results of human failure.
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  Ishmael exists because of lack of faith.
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  And yet God says I will still make him a nation.
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  I will still bless him. That leads us right into the
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  list of names. In verses 13 through 16.
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  We get 12 names, Vayath, Kedar, Ed, Beal, MIB, Sam and so on.
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  Why do we need to know these specific names?
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  Is there anything special about them?
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  There is. They are the proof that God is
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  not a liar. See more about that.
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  How so? Go back to Genesis 17 verse 20.
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  Abraham is pleading with God for Ishmael.
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  He knows Isaac is coming, but he loves Ishmael.
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  He says, Oh, that Ishmael might live before you.
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  And God says, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him and
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  will make him fruitful. He shall bigot 12 Princess, and
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  I will make him a great nation. God put a specific number on it,
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  12. Not a lot of sons, but 12.
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  You put a number on it. So when we get to chapter 25, we
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  see a list of exactly 12 sons and then verse 16 calls them 12
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  Princess, this is the Holy Spirit saying check the math,
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  right? God kept his word.
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  Even promises made outside the covenant of grace, promises of
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  temporal fruitfulness, are kept with mathematical precision.
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  But hang on, if I'm playing devil's advocate here, and I
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  know a lot of critical scholars do, isn't it easy to just say a
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  scribe invented these names 500 years later to explain why a
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  certain tribe is called Kedar? Like, oh, the Kedarites exist,
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  so let's invent an ancestor named Kedar.
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  That is the standard critical argument.
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  It's the entomological myth theory that these are just
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  stories made-up to explain place names.
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  But here is where archaeology throws a real wrench in the
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  Gears of that theory. OK, we aren't just guessing
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  these people existed. We have the proof.
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  Real proof, not just, you know, theories, the.
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  Stone and clay proof. We have inscriptions from the
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  Neo Assyrian Empire, specifically from the annals of
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  King Tiglath Palace of the Third.
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  We're talking about records from the 8th century BC.
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  This isn't some Bible thumping commentary.
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  He's bragging about his conquests, and he explicitly
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  lists the tribute he received from the Kings of Kiara.
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  So he is listing gold, camels, spices.
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  Exactly, and he lists Kedar as a specific political entity, a
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  confederation of Arab tribes in the northern desert.
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  And it's not just him, as Shabana Paul, another mass of
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  Assyrian king, records his campaigns against the Kedarites
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  and the buy off. He talks about capturing their
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  camels and their herds. These names, Nabayef and Kedar,
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  matched the first two sons in Genesis 25 exactly.
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  That is incredible. So these aren't just names on a
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  page, they were major players on the world stage.
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  They were a powerhouse. They controlled the spice trade.
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  If you wanted frankincense or myrrh in the ancient world, you
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  had to deal with the sons of Ishmael.
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  And the text says they had villages and encampments, which
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  implies a network of castles and fortified trading posts.
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  They weren't just wandering aimlessly in the sand.
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  They were the moguls of the ancient Near East.
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  Which brings us right back to that tension we started with.
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  The bad guys, or at least the not chosen guys, are running the
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  economy. They have the power.
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  And that forces us to deal with the theology of common grace
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  versus covenant grace. I hear those terms flown around
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  and Reformed circles all the time, but if I'm not a
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  theologian, how do I distinguish them in the real world?
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  Is common grace just God is nice?
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  That's a good way to start, but it's deeper.
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  Think of it like the difference between a severance package and
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  an inheritance. OK, I'm listening.
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  That's a good analogy. Ishmael gets the severance
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  package. God says I created you.
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  You are Abraham's son. I will make you a great nation.
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  He gets the cash, the resources, the land.
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  He gets the common blessings that God gives to creation to
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  keep the world running. A non believing CEO runs a
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  successful company. Common grace.
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  A secular nation has a booming economy, common grace.
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  God provides rain and sun for the just and the unjust.
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  It's his kindness to all creation.
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  But no seat at the dinner table. Exactly.
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  Covenant grace is relational. It's the difference between God
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  saying here is a gift and God saying here is myself.
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  Isaac doesn't have the castles yet.
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  He doesn't have the 12 Princess, but he has the covenant.
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  He has the promise that through his line, the world will be
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  saved. Ishmael gets the present.
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  Isaac gets the future. I feel like there is a huge
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  warning here for us today because we really do like to
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  look at the fast growth and say that's God.
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  We do, and Ishmael proves that you can have the blessing of
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  numbers, wealth, and power and still be outside the covenant of
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  salvation. If you judge your spiritual
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  standing by your material success, Ishmael is your hero.
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  But if you judge by the Word of God, you realize that all that
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  success is, well, it's temporary.
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  It's common grace, not saving grace.
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  It is almost a rebuttal to the prosperity gospel 4000 years
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  before the prosperity gospel was even invented.
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  It is exactly that. The prosperity gospel says if
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  you have faith you will have the castles and the riches.
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  Jensen, 25, says actually the guy without the saving faith got
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  the castles and the riches first.
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  God is the God of the Arab nations in terms of Providence.
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  He sustains them, He orders their history, but he is the God
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  of Israel in terms of the covenant.
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  We cannot confuse the two. That brings us to verse 17,
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  which puts a pretty sharp point on the temporary nature of the
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  success. That's verse 17.
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  These are the years of the life of Ishmael, 137 years.
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  Again, that is a good number. That's a blessed life by any
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  standard. It is we should acknowledge the
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  blessing. A long life is a gift of common
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  grace. But then he.
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  Breathed his last and died. The full stop, the limit of the
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  natural man, the law of sin and death, which Paul talks about in
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  Romans 5, applies to Princess just as much as it applies to
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  paupers. 137 years and 12. Princess cannot conquer the
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  grave. And then there's that phrase
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  gathered to his people. I have heard different takes on
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  this. Does it mean he went to heaven?
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  What are we to make of that? It is a fascinating phrase and
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  you know, some commentators like John Calvin actually hope this
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  implied A deathbed repentance. Really, Calvin?
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  Yes, he looked at the fact that Ishmael came back to help Isaac
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  purry Abraham earlier in the chapter and thought maybe there
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  was reconciliation there. Maybe this means he was gathered
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  to the people of God. That is a nice thought.
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  We want to believe that, you know.
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  It is, and we can't say for certain, but if we stick to the
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  source material and the way the text generally works, gathered
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  to his people usually refers to Sheol, the realm of the dead,
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  the ancestors. It's distinct from the language
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  used for Abraham, who is gathered to the righteous.
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  It feels more ambiguous than the clear hope given to the
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  Patriarchs. Yes, the text leaves his eternal
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  state in the shadows. It doesn't give us the bright
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  shining hope of the covenant line.
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  It just says He was gathered to his people.
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  He exits the stage of redemptive history.
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  He had his reward in full then. In a sense, yes, he received the
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  temporal blessings God promised, but the text doesn't explicitly
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  give us the eternal assurance. And that is the tragedy of the
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  natural man, even the successful 1.
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  You can build a legacy that lasts for centuries, but you
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  yourself, you die. OK, let's move to verse 18.
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  This is the geography section. They settled from Habilah to
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  Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Asher.
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  This maps out the North Arabian desert.
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  It places Ishmael in a strategic in between corridor.
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  He's right in the middle of the major trade routes.
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  So geography is theology here always.
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  God grants real space and territory.
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  Acts 17.26 says God determines the allotted periods and the
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  boundaries of their dwelling place for every nation.
• 18:25
  So Ishmael isn't just floating in the ether.
• 18:27
  God gave him a zip code. But then there is this phrase at
• 18:30
  the end of the verse. It's translated in a few
• 18:32
  different ways depending on your translation.
• 18:34
  It says he settled over against all his kinsmen, or he died in
• 18:38
  the presence of all his brethren.
• 18:40
  That's a tricky 1. The Hebrew verb there is nephal.
• 18:44
  Nepal. What does that mean literally?
• 18:46
  Literally it means he. Fell.
• 18:47
  He fell. That sounds dramatic.
• 18:50
  It does. Now the ESV translates it as
• 18:52
  settled, which makes sense in the context, but the root word
• 18:55
  suggests something heavy, sudden, or even aggressive.
• 18:58
  It is used in Judges 7.12 to describe an army falling along
• 19:02
  the valley like locusts. It implies a heavy encampment.
• 19:05
  So it isn't just he bought a house next door, it's more like
• 19:09
  he dropped his army camp aggressively.
• 19:11
  Something like that. And notice the syntax.
• 19:14
  The phrase over against all his kinsmen is at the front of the
• 19:18
  sentence in Hebrew. It highlights the tension.
• 19:21
  This is a direct fulfillment of the prophecy from Genesis 16.12
• 19:25
  that Ishmael would be a wild donkey of a man, his hand
• 19:29
  against everyone and everyone's hand against him.
• 19:31
  Wild donkey of a man. That isn't exactly a compliment
• 19:34
  in our culture. If I called you a wild donkey,
• 19:36
  we might have words, but in that context it meant something else.
• 19:40
  It wasn't an insult like it is today.
• 19:42
  No. In the ancient world, the wild
• 19:44
  donkey was a symbol of freedom, untamable nature, rugged
• 19:48
  independence. It lived in the wilderness where
• 19:50
  no one else could survive. But the posture is in your face.
• 19:54
  He lives over against his brothers.
• 19:56
  It is a settlement defined by friction and proximity.
• 19:59
  He's near the chosen line, but he isn't unified with it.
• 20:02
  That seems like a perfect description of secular history.
• 20:04
  Impressive, vast, but defined by hostility and this falling of
• 20:08
  the flesh. It is, it is the story of the
• 20:10
  nations. They rise, they fall, they
• 20:12
  encamp, they fight, they are over against one another.
• 20:16
  It is a stark contrast to the call of the church, which is to
• 20:19
  dwell in unity. The Hebrew word for dwelling in
• 20:22
  peace is shekin. Ishmael, doesn't shekin?
• 20:25
  He now fall. He falls.
• 20:27
  I want to pivot now to the bigger picture.
• 20:29
  We call this show Reformed thinking, so we have to do some
• 20:31
  systematic and Christological thinking here.
• 20:34
  How do we connect Ishmael to Christ?
• 20:36
  Because they seem like total opposites.
• 20:38
  They are opposites and that is where the beauty lies.
• 20:40
  We can look at this through the lens of contrast, OK?
• 20:42
  Walk me through that. Think about that verb to fall to
• 20:44
  a fall. Ishmael falls upon the land in
• 20:47
  hostility. He grabs territory.
• 20:49
  He establishes his domain, but Christ Jesus talks about himself
• 20:53
  in John at 12.24. He says unless a grain of wheat
• 20:56
  falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it
• 20:59
  dies, it bears much fruit. That is a very different kind of
• 21:02
  falling. Completely different.
• 21:04
  Ishmael falls to dominate. Christ falls to die and bring
• 21:08
  life. Ishmael builds castles that
• 21:10
  eventually turn to dust. Christ builds a church, a living
• 21:14
  temple that the gates of hell cannot prevail against.
• 21:17
  And we have the number 12 again. That can't be a coincidence.
• 21:20
  No, not at all. The 12 Princess of Ishmael are a
• 21:23
  temporal shadow. They are impressive, but they
• 21:26
  are a shadow. Then you have the 12 tribes of
• 21:29
  Israel, the vessel for the promise.
• 21:31
  And finally you have the 12 apostles, the messengers of the
• 21:34
  true King. So Ishmael's 12 are the natural
• 21:37
  version, the earthly copy. Yes, the flesh always tries to
• 21:41
  counterfeit the spirit. The world has its Princess, the
• 21:43
  world has its 12. But the Kingdom of God has the
• 21:46
  true seed. What about the Ishmael inside of
• 21:49
  us? Is there an application there
• 21:50
  for the Christian life? That is a great question because
• 21:53
  if we are honest, there was a part of every believer that
• 21:56
  still resonates with Ishmael. We want to settle in defiance.
• 22:00
  We want to trust in our own Princess, our bank accounts, our
• 22:03
  connections, our abilities. We want to build our own
• 22:05
  independent castles. We want to be the wild donkey.
• 22:08
  We want to be untamable and free from any authority.
• 22:11
  Spot on. We want to live over against our
• 22:14
  brothers instead of in submission to one another, and
• 22:17
  the call of the gospel is the mortification of that nature.
• 22:20
  We have to put that Ishmael spirit to death.
• 22:22
  We're called to Gwell independence, not fall in
• 22:26
  aggression. That connects to the third use
• 22:28
  of the law in the Westminster Confession right.
• 22:30
  The law guides us to live not against our brothers, but in
• 22:33
  love. Yes, the law shows us our
• 22:36
  hostility so we can repent of it.
• 22:38
  It drives us to the cross where the true peace is found between
• 22:42
  brothers and between US and God. I also find it interesting that
• 22:45
  Ishmael doesn't just disappear from the Bible after the
• 22:48
  section. The Ishmaelites show up again.
• 22:50
  They do. And this is a fascinating
• 22:52
  canonical echo, as some call it. Think about the Joseph story
• 22:55
  later in Genesis. Joseph is thrown into a pit by
• 22:58
  his brothers, who pulls him out and tastes into Egypt.
• 23:00
  The Ishmaelite traitors. I always forget that.
• 23:03
  The Ishmaelites Genesis 37 God uses the non covenant line.
• 23:08
  These traitors who are just going about their business
• 23:10
  making a living to preserve the covenant line.
• 23:13
  They take Joseph to Egypt, which eventually saves Jacob's family
• 23:16
  from famine. That is heavy.
• 23:18
  God uses the rejected line to save the chosen line.
• 23:21
  It shows the absolute sovereignty of God.
• 23:23
  He uses the nation's He uses the secular world to serve as
• 23:26
  redemptive purposes. The Ishmaelites are just trying
• 23:30
  to make a buck trading spices, but God is using them to get
• 23:33
  Joseph to the throne of Egypt so that the Messiah's lion can be
• 23:37
  preserved. And then of course, Paul brings
• 23:38
  it all full circle in Galatians 4.
• 23:40
  He does. He uses Hagar and Ishmael as a
• 23:42
  typology. He says they represent
• 23:44
  righteousness by works, slavery under the law, and Isaac
• 23:48
  represents righteousness by faith, freedom in Christ.
• 23:52
  So even the New Testament looks back at the story and says don't
• 23:55
  be like Ishmael. Right not.
• 23:56
  Don't be an Arab, but don't be a child of the flesh.
• 23:59
  Don't try to secure your standing with God through your
• 24:02
  own effort, your own pragmatism, your own castle building.
• 24:05
  Receive the promise by faith like Isaac.
• 24:08
  Let's land this discussion with some pastoral application.
• 24:11
  We like to break this down into head, heart and hands, doctrine,
• 24:16
  affection and practice. Sounds good.
• 24:19
  Let's start with the head doctrine.
• 24:20
  What is the key take away for our minds?
• 24:23
  What should we believe differently after this?
• 24:25
  You have to believe in God's sovereignty over all nations,
• 24:28
  not just the church. We can get very insular.
• 24:32
  We think God is only working in our little circle.
• 24:34
  But this text shows God managing the genealogy, the geography,
• 24:39
  and the history of the non elect with absolute precision.
• 24:42
  He keeps His word to the natural man just as faithfully as He
• 24:45
  keeps His word to the elect. That is comforting, actually.
• 24:48
  The world isn't just spinning out of control.
• 24:50
  It isn't. The chaos of the nations is
• 24:52
  still under the pen of the author.
• 24:54
  OK, what about the heart, The affections?
• 24:56
  How should this change how we feel?
• 24:58
  I think the big one here is killing envy.
• 25:00
  Envy. Yes, why do we envy the Ishmaels
• 25:03
  of the world? We see the celebrities, the
• 25:05
  tycoons, the influencers, and we think, man, they have the life,
• 25:08
  they have the castles. Or in a church context, why is
• 25:11
  their ministry so big and mine is so small?
• 25:13
  Exactly. But the text gives us the final
• 25:16
  word. And he died.
• 25:18
  Their glory ends at the grave. Why envy a glory that is
• 25:22
  destined for dust? That puts it in perspective.
• 25:24
  And it also helps with anxiety. If God carefully managed the
• 25:27
  genealogy of the non elect son, giving him exactly 12 Princess,
• 25:31
  just as he promised, how much more will he care for the
• 25:34
  children of promise? If he feeds the wild donkey in
• 25:36
  the desert, will he not feed his sheep?
• 25:39
  That is beautiful. So repent of the wild donkey
• 25:42
  spirit, the hostility, the bitterness, and rest in that
• 25:45
  care. Yes.
• 25:46
  Kill the anxiety. Kill the envy.
• 25:48
  And finally, the hands practice. How does this change what we do
• 25:52
  Monday morning? Reject pragmatism.
• 25:54
  That's where we started. Do not judge ministry success by
• 25:57
  the size of the camp or the number of Princess.
• 25:59
  If you are a pastor and you have a small congregation, but you're
• 26:03
  faithful to the Word, you are in the line of Isaac.
• 26:06
  Do not trade your birthright for a bowl of pragmatic Stew just to
• 26:09
  get Ishmael's results. And evangelism.
• 26:11
  How does this affect how we see the world?
• 26:13
  This is crucial. We must not view Ishmaelites,
• 26:17
  and here I mean the nation's, the non believers, the secular
• 26:21
  world with political hostility. We shouldn't look at them and
• 26:24
  say they are the enemy. We should look at them with
• 26:27
  gospel urgency. They have temporal blessing,
• 26:29
  maybe more than we do, but they need the seed of promise.
• 26:33
  They need Christ. We don't need to conquer them,
• 26:35
  we need to convert them. That is it.
• 26:38
  We don't go out to build a bigger castle against their
• 26:40
  castle. We go out to invite them into
• 26:42
  the city of God. This has been such a helpful
• 26:45
  discussion. Who knew a list of names could
• 26:47
  hold so much theological weight? It is the word of God.
• 26:51
  Every letter is there for a reason.
• 26:52
  As we wrap up, let's just summarize that Hinge concept one
• 26:55
  last time, the. Text closes the door on the
• 26:57
  natural line in order to open the door to the spiritual line.
• 27:02
  It shows us 2 realities at the same time, the wideness of God's
• 27:06
  Providence, which is common grace, and the narrowness of His
• 27:09
  saving promise, which is covenant grace.
• 27:12
  We can appreciate the first, but we must cling to the second.
• 27:15
  And here is a final thought for you to chew on as you go about
• 27:19
  your week. Ishmael had 12 Princess.
• 27:24
  He had the power, he had the legacy.
• 27:27
  But he is gone. When we gather at the Lord's
• 27:30
  Table this Sunday, or whenever you gather with your church, we
• 27:32
  aren't gathered by bloodline. We aren't gathered because we
• 27:35
  are powerful chieftains. We are gathered by the blood of
• 27:38
  the true heir. Amen.
• 27:39
  The question for all of us is, are you spending your life
• 27:42
  building a castle in the desert that will eventually fall, or
• 27:45
  are you seeking the city whose builder and maker is God?
• 27:48
  That is the question. Thanks for listening to Reformed
• 27:50
  Thinking. If you enjoyed this, share it
• 27:52
  with a friend who thinks genealogies are boring.
• 27:54
  We will see you next time. Grace and peace.