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Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 24:15, 17-21

15 And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder.

17 And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher.

18 And she said, Drink, my lord: and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink.

19 And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking.

20 And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.

21 And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not.

It is a wonderful little detail that Rebekah appeared on the scene before the servant had even finished his prayer. That means she had been well on her way before he voiced his request of God. God had already sent the answer before the petition came, thus the servant’s prayer wasn’t necessary to convince God to send Rebekah to him, it was necessary for the servant to be ready to receive her.

By taking the time to think through all the qualities that he was looking for in Isaac’s companion, the servant was bringing his focus into alignment with the woman that Rebekah already was. He had an image in his thoughts so clear that he wouldn’t be able to mistake her when she arrived.

We often approach our prayers like we are trying to convince God to be in harmony with us, but as we see in the example of the servant’s prayer, he was the one coming into harmony with what God had already laid out. Abraham foretold that God’s angel would prepare the way before the servant and now we see that he was right.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 22:15-18

15 And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,

16 And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

One thing that stood out to me in this study was how many times God reaffirmed His promises to Abraham. This reaffirmation, though, coming after Abraham has passed the ultimate test of his obedience, is the last time. Before this moment every affirmation was only an offer from God, contingent upon Abraham’s continued faithfulness. Here, at last, the promise is made sure. There will be no more proving.

This is the goal that Peter speaks of in 2 Peter 1:10, where our calling and election are made sure. It is a long and difficult road to attain that surety, though. It is not a cheap gift, and so it cannot be earned cheaply. It is something to give one’s whole life in pursuit of.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 21:4-7

4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him. 

5 And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. 

6 And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. 

7 And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age.

The record once again makes abundantly clear that Abraham immediately followed all of the instructions God had given him, and circumcised his son when he was eight days old, the exact age that the Lord had specified in His commandments. By this he welcomed his son into the covenant that God had established, making Isaac ready to receive all the promised blessings.

As for Sarah, she recalled the moment when God said she would have a son in her old age and she laughed in incredulity. The Hebrew word used here for “laugh” is the exact same as the one used in that earlier passage, which means to make sport or play. Sarah was observing that all the world would be in on the joke now that the promise had been fulfilled. A joke that she was happy to have at her own expense!

Posted on by Abe Austin · 2 Comments

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 21:1-3

1 And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken.

2 For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.

3 And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.

The author of this passage wanted to make it extremely clear that God had made good on His promises. Look at the phrases “as he had said,” “as he had spoken,” and “at the time of which God had spoken.” God had come through completely, and this is an important difference between God and man: God not only keep His promises, He keeps them in every detail of how, when, and where.

Abraham and Sarah’s patience had been tested by this promise. It was years between when God first announced they would have son and the day that it actually occurred. But when God finally gave a specific timeframe for the birth to occur it happened “at the time of which God had spoken.”

Many times we might struggle to believe in God’s promises when it seems long since the time that they should have been fulfilled. Many times God gives us encouragement far in advance of the realization, and it requires great patience to see the journey through to the end. But as soon as God does give specific details of His promises, they will all be met to the letter.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 20:6

6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.

Obviously we should all do our utmost to preserve good and prevent evil. This verse gives an important reminder that God will be championing these same causes as well, independent of us. Things were looking like they might have gone a bad way for Abimelech, Sarah, and Abraham, but God intervened and did not let that happen.

I have had times in my own life where God has intervened to prevent me from evil, He has even saved me from my own willful foolishness. I have also had times where I wanted to help another, but had no way to do so, and God assured me that He also wanted that person to be helped, in fact He wanted it even more than I did, and He would take care of it.

So yes, we should do what every good thing that we can, but the good that we cannot do we should surrender to God, trusting that He is capable of bringing good and preventing evil all by Himself.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 20:2-6

2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.

3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.

4 But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?

5 Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.

6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.

God came to Abimelech with a strong sentence: “thou art but a dead man!” But when Abimelech professed innocence of any wrong God admitted that he already knew this to be the case. He was actually only warning Abimelech from destruction.

But why did God approach the matter in this way? Why start by pronouncing a punishment for a crime that Abimelech was innocent of? I can’t know for sure, but one possibility might be that God was helping Abimelech to evaluate the state of his own heart.

Being put on trial is often thought of as an unpleasant thing, but sometimes it can be a cleansing, justifying experience. By taking a close inventory of all their actions and motivations, the innocent are relieved to find that their heart really is pure, more so than they even realized. They can look anyone in the eye and honestly testify of their own worthiness. It could be that this experience was what God sought for Abimelech, even if it took a little fire to get him there.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:23-25

23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;

25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

Interestingly, the further we get from the beginning of the biblical record, the more rare these grandiose moments become. With Noah we hear about the entire earth being flooded, but with Moses it’s only the Red Sea being parted, and with Jesus it’s only walking over the Sea of Galilee.

Perhaps this is because the human population increased enough that it became simpler for God to topple one empire with another, rather than send fantastic powers out of heaven. Or perhaps it is because the further humanity exists from the Garden of Eden, the less God’s hand is directly shown. Or perhaps the miraculous judgments of God are actually just as prolific as ever, but we do not attribute His hand to them, calling a natural disaster or an epidemic “bad luck” instead of the hand of justice.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:12-13, 15-16

12 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:

13 For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.

15 And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

16 And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.

The angels that came to Lot urged him to leave the place as quickly as possible. They let him linger only through the night, then grabbed his hands and dragged him out of there! This reaffirms my thought that God must do very real work to shape the course of our lives. If He was the magical genie that we often view Him as, then why not just snap His fingers and instantaneously teleport Lot and His family to safety? God and His servants must still work to accomplish His purposes.

Which makes the statement in verse 16 “the Lord being merciful unto him” ring all the more true. These angels are exerting themselves to get Lot out of the city when he is foolish enough to linger in harm’s way. They are saving him through effort, and all because God is gracious and is willing to redeem men from their own follies.

As I look back at my own life I can’t help but wonder how much work I have heaped on God’s plate to rescue me from sin and guide me towards purpose. And yet He did all that labor, even when I wasn’t asking Him to.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:9-11

9 And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

10 But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.

11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

The people of Sodom and Gomorrah took offense that an outsider like Lot would come into their lands and judge them for their behavior. In their wrath they pledged to do even worse to him than they had intended to the visitors that were in his house. The depravity of them in this moment is enormous and mob law reigns supreme.

And there is a notion here that is commonly repeated throughout the scriptures: soothsayers and false prophets will use all manner of clever reasoning to make evil appear palatable, but once evil has the support of the masses, argument and reason can be sidelined. All that matters is that Lot is standing in their way and so any perceived offense is held as justification for whatever hurt they intend on him.

Consider the similarity of this behavior to that in Zechariah 7:11, Acts 7:57, and Acts 19:34. These are three separate accounts of a wicked audience forcing their ears shut so as not to hear the arguments of the righteous, and in one of these cases they even rush to silence God’s messenger with violence.

If one cannot be reasoned with, then how can they be helped? It is understandable why the angels have come to this city to destroy it. Thankfully they were also able to employ some divine intervention to rescue Lot and keep the wicked masses kept at bay.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Spiritual Analysis- Genesis 19:4-8

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,

7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

What a horrifying passage. In verse 4 it makes clear that those who came to Lot’s door were “both old and young, all the people from every quarter.” Sodom was not beset by a few bad actors or a single troubled generation, they were corrupt from one end to the other. Their immediate thought upon seeing new visitors in their town was to rape them.

And Lot’s proposed solution, to let them have his virgin daughters instead, was also horrifying. Lot lived in a place that was frightening, and in his fear he tried to make compromises with evil. I don’t understand why Lot chose to live in this place instead of another city or even the wilderness. Compare his choice of residence to Abraham’s. Abraham pitched his tent out in the plains where he would be free to live as morally and righteously as his heart dictated, unconstrained by the pressures of an evil society.

And ultimately Lot’s attempts to make deals with the devil didn’t even work. You don’t quell evil with evil. As we will see in the next verses it only incurred the wrath of the horde, who then sought to do even greater harm to him.