21–1: Literal Promises, Literal Fulfillment — Don’t Allegorize God’s Word

Today, we begin Genesis Chapter 21!

For the Complete Jewish Bible, click here. If you’re a King James diehard, click here.

Verse one of this chapter informs us in a somewhat nonchalant fashion that God came through on His promise, and Sarah gave birth to a child.

Abraham and Sarah were overjoyed.

In her joy, Sarah named her son Isaac, which means “he laughs."

So, finally, after many, many long years, God’s promise to give Abraham a child from his loins was fulfilled.

But until it did, boy, what a roller coaster ride it was!

We can learn a lot about the frailties of human beings and ourselves by examining the life of Abraham and his wife Sarah before the occurrence of this seminal event.

We know that we have been saved.

We know the sealed promises given to us in Scripture.

Yet despite that, how often have we worked ourselves into major fits of worry because the circumstances seemed so contrary to what God had promised?

Out of disbelief, Sarah gave her slave-girl, Hagar, to Abraham.

A decision she would later regret.

Out of fear and worry, Abraham pleaded with God to let Ishmael be the inheritor of the promises.

But God would have none of it.

I can glean two very important life application principles from this story that we can put to immediate use.

1) Always keep your focus on God, NOT on your circumstances.

2) Remember that God always says what He means and means what He says.

There is a major mistake that people make when it comes to Biblical prophecies.

WE DO NOT TAKE GOD’S PROMISES LITERALLY ENOUGH!

There is too much allegorizing going on.

Every promise that God made to Abraham was literally fulfilled…

And in the future, every promise that God has made to Israel will also be literally fulfilled!

The rebirth of the nation of Israel in 1948 is a prime example.

Before this event occurred, since it was such a long time in coming, the Christian church didn’t think it was going to happen, and eventually concluded that the church had replaced Israel.

However, this theory was turned on its head once Israel was resurrected following World War II.

Despite this, I find it quite laughable that there are still segments of the institutional church that uphold replacement theology (the idea that the church has replaced Israel).

And now that Israel is back in their land, Bible prophecy is also very clear that no matter what happens, they will not be removed.

Even if every nation in the world comes against Israel, the Scripture says that Israel will become a stone so heavy that nobody will be able to lift it.

You can count on this, literally!

So when Isaac was born, Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah was 90 years old.

Given that Sarah’s womb was as good as dead, there is no doubt about the miraculous nature of what occurred.

Even though we normally only consider the birth of Yeshua to be the first virgin birth, the birth of Isaac was also, in a sense, a virgin birth.

Here are a few other fascinating similarities between Isaac and Yeshua.

-God established a specific appointed time when Isaac would be born. The same for Yeshua.

-Isaac’s name was determined by God far in advance of his birth. So was Yeshua’s.

-There was a huge length of time between the prophesied birth of Isaac and its happening.

The same happened for Messiah.

© Richoka