The 365 Prophecies Jesus Fulfilled: Prophecy 11

In order for the Lord to fulfill His word to Abraham, it was going to take some time. God does not often complete His work in us speedily. It usually requires many years for the Lord to work on us and in us, before He accomplishes His purpose for us.

This is not because the Lord cannot move quickly, but because of the frailty of man. God is always ready to move in us, it is we who must go through a long process of learning before the Lord can do what He is planning.

In Genesis chapter 20, Abraham arrives in Egypt out of fear. A famine has developed around the world that causes Abraham to worry that he will not be able to find food for his family while on the journey to the land that God had promised him.

Instead of trusting in the Lord, Abraham goes to Egypt where he learns that grain can be found. Upon his arrival, Abraham instructs Sarah to say to Abimelech, the king of Egypt, that Sarah is his sister.

The kings of Egypt were known to take a woman of beauty from her husband and have her husband executed. In fear of his life, Abraham allows his wife to lie for him.

At the end of Genesis chapter 20 we learn that as a result of Abimelech taking Sarah, the Lord had shut the wombs of all the women of his household. When Abraham prays for Abimelech, God opens the womb of his wife and female servants.

Genesis 20:17 So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; for the LORD had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

As we come to chapter 21, we see that because of Abraham’s prayer for Abimelech, the Lord also now opens the womb of Sarah and she is able to conceive the son that was promised almost 26 years before.

Genesis 21:1-3 And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac.

This has been a very long process for Abraham, as God has been developing him and his trust in the Lord. From the beginning, God had chosen one specific line of descendants to bring His Son into the world. It would have to be a line who had developed faith in God. It was the ultimate intention of God to show that it was by Faith that a man can obtain the promises of God, not by his own works.

Abraham has made many mistakes, the greatest of which was to not wait on the Lord and allow God to bring to him the son that was promised. When Abraham took Hagar and had his son Ishmael, this became a work of Abraham’s flesh. God explained to Abraham that all those who will please the Lord will do so by faith.  All of their attempts at obtaining God’s promise by their own efforts will be rejected.

As Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah, it becomes a point of increasing contention between Hagar and her son Ishmael and Sarah and her son Isaac. Sarah resents Hagar now and wants her and her son out of their household.

God tells Abraham to heed the wishes of Sarah and send Hagar and Ishmael away. This of course displeases Abraham because he loves Ishmael greatly.

As God instructs Abraham to do as Sarah wishes, He speaks into reality the 11th old testament prophecy that Jesus fulfilled:

Genesis 21:12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac your seed shall be called.”

In this very small verse of scripture we find an amazing prophetic promise of God. From the line of Isaac, a future “seed” of the woman that God first promised to Eve in Genesis 3:15, would arrive on the earth as the Savior of all men.

When we arrive at the Book of Romans, Paul who was an expert in the old testament, reveals that not all of the seed of Abraham are chosen of God, only those who are from faith:

Romans 9:7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.”

Jesus was born from a line of people whom God had slowly and methodically developed faith. It was not that there was anything wrong with Ishmael, except for the fact that he was born out of Abraham’s lapse in faith and was his attempt in his flesh, to help fulfill God’s promise.

The fulfillment of this 11th old testament prophecy is found in Romans 9:7 where Jesus becomes the one who came from that seed of Abraham, and his son Isaac. The son who came after a long period of waiting and the development of faith. The son who came by God’s work, not Abraham’s attempts.

View the original article here