Abraham’s Sons

Good morning. Welcome to Insights. This

is Pastor John. Uh first, it's uh

Christmas Eve, so I want to wish you a

merry Christmas. Uh let's pray and then

we're going to go in to take a look at

Abraham's sons. That's today's message.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for an

opportunity to take a look at your word

today. We ask you Lord to help us

understand that uh your word is here to

help us grow to give us guidance and

direction and to help us understand you

and what you have for us to know in

Jesus name. Amen. So,

you know, when I first got saved, one of

the one of the things I I remembered was

we used to teach we used to teach the

kids in Sunday school a song which was

Father Abraham. And it goes, "Father

Abraham had many sons. I am one of them.

So are you."

And uh a lot of times when you talk to

people about or or people think about

Abraham's sons, we automatically go to

Ishmael and Isaac. And a lot of people

never go beyond that. But Abraham

actually had eight sons.

And uh it's important to understand this

because these eight sons of Abrahams

plus the descendants of Esau

um

are the people who live in the Middle

East.

And uh you know there's this push right

now for what's called the Abraham

Accords and uh in the Middle East to

create peace. So, first thing we need to

do is we need to realize that there's

more in the background about what's

going on in the Middle East conflict

than most people can uh usually wrap

their mind around. But so Abraham,

he had eight sons. He had Ishmael

whose mother was Hagar the Egyptian. He

had Isaac whose mother was Sarah. And

then he after Sarah died, Abraham took a

second wife and her name was Kitura. And

she had six sons.

And u these six sons are Zimran, Joshan

and Megan, Midian, and Ishbach and Shua.

And these

sons

are the fathers of the people who live

in what we call the Middle East.

We have to first thing we have to keep

in mind is the fact that Abraham was not

a native to Canaan. Abraham came from uh

which is in modernday Iraq. Abraham was

Calaldian

and believe it or not that makes them

related to the Babylonians because the

Calaldanss became the Babylonians

u later on 1,500 years later. So these

people in the Middle East are all

related to each other because they're

all descendants of Abraham.

And remember Moses when he left Egypt

and he he fled Egypt, he went to Midian

and his wife Zapora was a Midianite. his

father his father-in-law Jethro was was

the high priest of the Midianites

and they were the Midianites

were Abraham's

descendants through his wife Coutura and

so when you start looking at this I want

you to if we get in Abra Abraham's

descendants are listed in Genesis 25

verses 1-6 so he says then again Abraham

took a wife and her name was Kitura

And she bear him Zimmeran and Jacan and

Midian and Midian and Ishbach and Shua.

And Jacian begat Shiva and Deedon. And

the sons of Did Ashuram and Leashim and

Li Leamin. And the sons of Midian, Epha,

and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Ela.

And these all these were the children of

Cutura. Now here's where the conflict

starts. And Abraham gave all that he had

unto Isaac.

So the birthright, the promise to

Abraham of that God had said that

everywhere you look that you're able to

see, I will give to you as a possession

to you and to your descendants

is part of the birthright. And uh

and then but he didn't leave his other

sons out. It says, "But and Abraham gave

all that he had." This is verse 5. "All

that he had unto Isaac, but unto the

sons of the concubines which Abraham

had, Abraham gave gifts and sent them

away from Isaac his son, while he yet

lived eastward unto the east country."

It's important

that uh we realize that those maps in

the back of your Bible are important

and uh we need to uh

keep this in mind.

The Saudi the people in Saudi Arabia

they are descendants

of

uh

Ishmamail. And then the other people

there are all descendants

from either the other sons of Cura or

from Oh man. Crap.

Okay.

Okay. So, uh, my microphone died.

Hopefully that I can still be heard on

my phone.

Um,

so what's going on there is you have the

birthright which was given to Isaac.

It's that small strip of land we call

Israel was given to Isaac and these

other seven sons

were excluded from the birthright and

Abraham sent them away. He sent him to

the east away from Isaac so that Isaac

could flourish in the land that God gave

him.

And they have been fighting over this

ever since. Because real remember under

normal circumstances the birthight was

passed to the firstborn.

And

Isaac was secondborn. So Ishmael was

already he was cut out of the

birthright. He was the son of

permission, not the son of promise.

Isaac was the son of promise. So

everything was given to him. But Abraham

didn't leave the rest of his sons out.

He gave all of them gifts and and and

then sent them east to get to be away.

And in the next generation, which is uh

Isaac, he has two sons also, Esau and

Jacob. The birthright gets passed to

Jacob. Esau was the firstborn and he

also went to the east. He went east of

the of the land that was given to his

father. and it becomes Isaac's

possession.

So,

it's important for us to realize that

this conflict that we're dealing with

today, and we're 4,000 years out, the

conflict that we're dealing with today

is based on the fact that there were

eight sons, not one or two. They're all

fighting for the same piece of property.

And there there is jealousy that's been

there all the way back. So, if we're

going to keep our minds wrapped around

what's going on in the Middle East

today, we have to go back and look where

it all started. And where it all started

was back with Isaac. So,

Isaac received the birthright. He

received Abraham's everything Abraham

that God had given Abraham. The other

sons didn't receive that blessing, but

Abraham gave them gifts also. And then

he sent them to the east. And if you

look through the names of the

descendants, and a lot of people don't

like to spend a lot of time reading the

genealogies that are listed in the

Bible, but take my word for it, they're

in there for a reason. And the reason is

for us to better understand what's going

on there. So you have Abraham, he leads

of the Caldes. He takes he goes to Han

and he takes his father and his brother

and his nephew and everything that he

has. When he gets to Han,

um his father and his brother stay there

and he takes Lot, his nephew, and they

go to Canaan.

When they get to Canaan, their their

flocks and their herds are so big that

they have to separate.

And Lot goes to the east. He goes to the

veil of Sodom and Gomorrah, the valley.

And u he gets himself entrenched with

the Sodom with Sodom and Gomorrah. Um

and

those his descendant Lot's descendants

are

um

the Moabites and the Amorites that back

and forth were either enemies or friends

or vassel states of Israel. And then

Abraham stays on the west

and then Ishmamail he becomes the father

of the people in Saudi Arabia. But as we

were reading through there uh Solomon

which this is thousand years later

Solomon

uh gets visited by the queen of Sheba.

Well she was a descendant of one of the

sons of Cura. So all these people in

that part of the Middle East

from the Sinai Peninsula, Saudi Arabia,

the countries Lebanon,

um

Jordan, all these countries that are

there, they're all related to the Jews.

The Jews didn't become known as the Jews

until they came back from captivity in

Babylon. Prior to that, they were known

as Israelites. provide it. Prior to

that, they were all called Hebrews

because of the field that Abraham

purchased as a place to bury Sarah.

And uh so we have this conflict going

over there. All these people are related

not only by genetics and and blood

relations, but language wise, they're

all Smitic.

um

and and they're related to the people in

Iraq because that's where Abraham came

from. So this conflict that's over there

is all centered around a birthright.

And if you read the promise, the promise

to Abraham was not it was a promise that

Abraham would become the father of many

nations, which he did the whole Middle

East.

but also this promise of a savior that

would come through the line of his son

Isaac.

That promise was made to Jesus in the

New Testament. Jesus received that

promise when he came as the Messiah, as

the Christ. And he came as the suffering

Messiah first. He's going to come back

as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,

which he already is. But everything

that's there is so jealousy is the focal

point of why this conflict in the Middle

East is continuing to go on is because

all these people there,

they didn't get Abraham's blessing.

They didn't receive

u the birthright which was given to

Isaac. And even though they were

Abraham's descendants, God chose to send

the savior of the world, not through one

of them, but through the descendants of

Isaac, and then Jacob, who became

Israel. And that's where Jesus's lineage

as a human came from. And so you have

this jealousy and anger between these

descendants of these eight men that uh

has been going on now for 4,000 years.

So you might say, "Well, Pastor John,

why are you going through all this?"

Because it's important.

It's why the most hotly contested,

fought over piece of land

is about the size of New Jersey.

And it's the center of everything. It's

the center of everything in the Bible.

Everything in the Bible, the thread that

connects it all is Jesus. And everything

centers around Jerusalem and and the

promise to Abraham. If you read through

the book of Revelations and and you're

reading what's going on there, you re

you realize that even though the whole

world's involved, everything is focused

on Israel.

And so that is

God trying to get us to focus on him and

what he's doing. And then the other part

that comes out of this that you have to

realize that's why the genealogies are

important. is why reading through what

Matthew listed and what uh Luke listed

as the genealogies of Jesus of Joseph

and Mary

is

um

when we as Gentile believers that's what

the word the Bible uses these are

non-Jewish believers is what that means

became grafted in to the true vine we

became

hes and joint hes with Christ

of the promise to Abraham. So we're no

longer strangers, but we're family. So

now we're So Abraham's descendants

and those that are grafted in became the

three major religions in the world. Do

you realize there's 8 billion people on

the face of this earth? Half of them are

either Christians, Jews, or Muslims. If

you combine them all together,

Christians, there's about 2 and 12

billion Christians in the world. There's

one and a half billion um

uh uh

Muslims and and there's, you know, uh

bearing in numbers, but there there's a

significant number of Jews also. And all

three of these are what's classified if

you look it up as Abrahamic religions

because they follow they they came

through Abraham.

So half the world

is involved in an Abrahamic religion.

And the sad part about it is everybody's

fighting over the same thing. He

realized that the crusades, there was

three of them

that went there, went to Jerusalem, the

whole thing was to take Jerusalem

and take it out of the possession

of uh the Muslims.

And the Muslims wanted to wipe out

everybody else

and the Jews.

And

this one piece of ground, the most

central piece of real estate in the

world, worldwide,

is focused on this one strip of land

roughly the size of New Jersey.

Because everything in history,

if when you read the history from the

Bible and and you read Bible history and

you look at everything that was going

on, that one small piece of land on the

east end of the Mediterranean ocean,

Mediterranean Sea, is the most fought

over, hotly contested

piece of real estate anywhere in the

world.

and everything that we believe as

Christians came from there. Um

the message of Christ,

the kingdom of heaven is at hand was

preached to the Jews first and they

rejected it. And then God said that when

they rejected it, it be it went to

um

the Gentiles and the church became a

gentile church. So,

I want you to keep in mind of something.

We're called to peace. We're called to

be peace

makers.

And

we're to be believers and we should be

shining the light of Christ into

people's life who haven't heard the

message of Jesus. I I feel very blessed

and and humbled by the fact that in in

March I'm going to Pakistan. Pakistan,

it's a Muslim country.

They they have less than 1% of the

population of Pakistan are Christians.

Yet, I'm going there to preach the

gospel to people who need to hear about

the hope that's in Christ. The same

message that's been going on now for

2,000 years. Jesus said, "I am the way,

the truth, and the life, and no one

comes unto the father but by me." And as

Christians, what we're our

responsibility to others is to

show the world the love of Christ.

So I want you on this Christmas Eve, as

we're going into Christmas tomorrow,

think about the fact that Jesus came.

He was born as a baby. He lived as a

man. He was He died on the cross and

then he rose from the dead three days

later

to redeem everyone.

Nobody has a

uh a specialized seat at the table

without Jesus.

And uh we need to be able to tell people

how much Jesus loves them no matter what

the situation is. So, I want you guys to

keep that in mind this Christmas. Jesus

is the reason for the season and no

other reason. He came to redeem the

world. We'll see you guys next week.

Have a merry Christmas.