Hello, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #3 of Genesis, chapter 25, and we will be reading Genesis 25:11-18:

And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahairoi. Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham: And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam, And Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa, Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah: These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations. And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people. And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren.

We start off this passage in verse 11 where the Lord reveals to us that after the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac.  So God’s blessing was upon the family of Abraham, even though he had died, and now Isaac was blessed as Abraham before him.  We are not surprised at that because Isaac was the promised son.  He was the “seed” that was the son of promise.  We know that he was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and a picture of the elect that are counted for the seed in Christ.  So, in both cases, we can understand why God blessed Isaac, because God blesses Christ and God blesses the people of Christ. 

It goes on to say in Genesis 25:11:

… and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahairoi.

We have seen this word before regarding this well.  It literally means “well of the living, seeing one.”  Dwelling by the well Lahairoi is an indicator that he is dwelling close to God, the living, seeing one.  He is dwelling in relationship to God and His Word because the Bible is a “living book.”  It has the words of life, spiritually, so it just helps us to understand the blessing that Isaac was experiencing.

Then as we move to verse 12, the Lord gets into a discussion of Ishmael and his children.  It says in Genesis 25:12:

Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham:

Abraham has died.  Now God is telling us about the two sons that Galatians 4 pointed out as being born of two different covenants.  The promised son Isaac was born of Sarah.  He is a picture of the grace of God and the true salvation program of the Bible.  And Ishmael was born of Hagar, the Egyptian maid, and she identifies with mount Sinai, and mount Sinai identifies with the Law of God, so he is a picture of those born of the covenant of works, which means that he represents those people that say, “I can keep the Law,” although a lot of times they do not admit to that, but that is what they are really saying when they say, “I was saved by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.”  That would be keeping the Law of God that commands us to believe, and the Law of God is that which commands.  We read in 1John 3:22-23:

And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.

You know, if God used the word “commandment” and then talked about not killing, stealing or committing adultery, we would understand perfectly: “Yes, of course, that is the Law of God.  It is part of the Ten Commandments.”  We could also understand that we are saved by grace, and we cannot get right by keeping the commandments not to murder, steal, commit adultery or idolatry and, yet, there is a “mental block,” which is really spiritual blindness that people within the churches and congregations, including their pastors, teachers and elders, cannot understand that faith is a “work.”  And faith is a work because God commands us to believe, and whatever God commands is the Law.  When men respond to the Law, “I will keep that Law and obey it,” then that is a work.  That is a work of the Law – that is what the Bible means when it says that no man is justified by the works of the law, whether a person says, “I will keep the Sabbath,” or he says, “I will keep the Ten Commandments.”  Likewise, this is His Commandment that “we should believe.”  We are commanded to have faith in Christ. 

And, you see, that is the terrible dilemma of countless millions of professed Christians that have entered into a works relationship with God through this idea that they will believe.  They have been taught it by their pastor.  They have been taught it in their Sunday School.  They have been taught it by their theologians: “Here it is.  Just believe – that is all you have to do.”  And there is the “action” because you have to do it.  You have to keep the Law of faith.  You have to do the “work” of faith, and the Bible does call faith a “work” in 1Thessalonians 1:3:

Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love…

And what is love?  Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  Do the elect children of God do the work of keeping the commandments of the Bible?  Yes – but after Christ has saved us.  Remember, we love Him because He first loved us.  That is the basis of salvation when Christ first loved us.  Then we are granted a new born-again spirit with an ability (because it has no sin) to keep God’s commandments perfectly in our inner man, and we have an ongoing desire to keep those commandments in our whole being.  Then we start bringing the body under, by the grace of God, to do His will, more and more.  And, yet, we do not do so perfectly because we are still in our fleshly bodies.  But obedience is a “work” that God has ordained for us to perform.  This is what it means in Ephesians 2 when God, first, points out in Ephesians 2:8:

For by grace are ye saved through faith…

And we saw in 1Thessalonians 1:3 that faith is a work.  We would be saved by grace through faith if it were our faith, but it is not our faith – it is the faith of Christ, according to Galatians 2:16.  So God goes on to explain in Ephesians 2:8:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

That is, it is not your faith.  It is, indeed, the faith of Christ, and that is the reason it goes on to say in Ephesians 2:9:

Not of works, lest any man should boast.

If it were your faith, my faith or any man’s faith that God was looking to accept, then it would be a “work,” but it is not of ourselves and, therefore, it is not our work.  It is the work of Christ.  That is an entirely different thing, and that allows God to say that salvation is not of works lest any man should boast or glory.  So we are not saved by our faith or our work.  We are not saved by keeping the commandments to not kill, steal, commit adultery or idolatry.  And we are also not saved by keeping the commandment to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.  No – that is also a work.  And once you start down that road and you think, “I will keep just this one Law,” then you have to keep all the Law perfectly.  And that is what the churches have done.  They recognize that keeping the Ten Commandments to get right with God would be a works Gospel.  At least most of them recognize that and, therefore, they would never dare tell their congregations: “Keep the Ten Commandments and you will be saved.”  They realize that and, yet, they have been deceived by the deceitfulness of their own hearts and through the treachery of Satan who comes as an angel of light.

Actually God has fostered this in the sense that He has written the Bible in a difficult way that is hard to be understood, and He had hidden much information regarding the faith of Christ until the time of the end.  And it was easy for Satan who had his emissaries that were natural-minded men sown as tares among the wheat of the congregations, and they rose up and started teaching falsehood like the Arminians many centuries ago as they emphasized the “free will” of man: “You can accept Christ.  You can believe.  You can do this or that and get yourself saved.”  And it is all works, and none of it is true.  Not a bit of it is true.

Then you have the Reformers that say the Arminians were heretics and they say, “We are saved by election.  We are Calvinists.  We believe as John Calvin did that God has elected and chosen a people for Himself.”  Then do they add that we are saved by the faith of Christ?  No – they do not.  This is what is taught in their seminaries: “Believe like a Calvinist, but teach like an Arminian.”  They will say, “We are saved by God’s election program.  However, we have to exercise faith.”  Then they start talking and you cannot follow them because it is confusing; you cannot understand what they are saying.  They cannot even understand what they are saying.  Basically, they are perverting the pure Gospel of grace by adding just a little bit of work like the man that picked up a few sticks on the Sabbath:  “It is just a few sticks to start a fire.  What is wrong with that?”  It is as if they were saying,  “We are not keeping the whole Law, and we tell people they cannot be saved by keeping the Law of God, except for this one Law of belief.”  They do not even recognize it as keeping the Law because they have not read that verse in 1John 3 very carefully, or they intentionally skip over it and, yet, there it is: “And this is his commandment, That we should believe…”  So they think they must believe and have faith because God has written things in Romans and other places to allow their delusion.  God has written the Bible in such a way that it makes it hard to see truth – that is how He has hidden truth.  So they get all mixed up and confused and they have no idea that they have gone down that dark road that leads to destruction because they think that keeping the Law of faith is somehow different than keeping all the other Laws of the Bible.  They know we are “saved by faith” and they miss the fact that this is exclusively speaking of the faith of Christ, and never man’s faith.  Whenever the Bible speaks of saving faith, it is always (100% of the time) looking at the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ performed at the foundation of the world when the sins of His chosen people were laid upon Him and He paid for their sins in the atonement.

Going back to Ephesians 2 where God says that we are saved by grace and not of our own works because it is Christ’s work, He goes on to say Ephesians 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

This is why we keep the Sabbath.  This is why a woman would not want to teach or usurp authority over the man.  This is why we stay married and love our wives, and we do not even think of divorce.  It is because we keep God’s commandments.  They are good works, and we keep the Law of God in whatever way we possibly can, if that Law is applicable and pertinent to the “times and seasons,” because in keeping His Laws we are doing the will of God.  And in doing the will of God, we will be showing forth love to the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, who first loved us.  This is the Bible’s teaching.  This is the true Gospel that is despised by many, but it is the truth.  God’s elect understand and adhere to these truths that the Bible teaches, but those that are not God’s elect do not. 

That is how it has been, and that is why Abraham was said to have two sons: 1) the one born of the covenant of grace; and 2) the other born of the covenant of works.  Hagar corresponds to mount Sinai in Arabi and she represents all professed Christians that are not born again, but have a profession of being born again through their work of accepting Christ, walking down the aisle or believing on the Lord Jesus.  So they entered into a “works gospel,” but there is no works gospel that can save, but it is another gospel that brings ultimate destruction at its end.

And as we will see further on in this same chapter, Isaac will have two sons.  They will be twins born to Rebekah, Jacob and Esau.  And, again, God will paint a similar picture as He did with Abraham’s two sons, Isaac and Ishmael that represented the saved and unsaved.  That was the case with Jacob, representing God’s elect, and Esau, representing those that never were God’s elect, as the Bible tells us in at least a couple of places: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”  That is God speaking.

We will continue that discussion when we get to that point, but now we will look at Ishmael and how he had twelve son, and God gives us their names.  So, Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will look a little closer at this passage in Genesis 25.