Dr. Dean Alley PhD: Alright, Chaplain Dean Alley. I had a moment. I hope you're doing well. It is Tuesday. And I'm off and thought I'd jump into this chapter real quick and just kind of run through it. I was working through some of the Torah readings here. Excuse me, specifically around these events that we find in chapter 21. So let's just kind of rehearse a bit a little bit. of where we came from and what we're going what we're doing, right? So just to kind of get us up to speed, if you will, I like to I like us to be able to kind of know where we are. The best way to know where you you're going Know where you're coming from. Remember, I want to take you from Genesis to Revelations. We may wiggle through that a little bit when we get to The minor major minor part province. All right, let's see what we got. We talked about we came right out of the gate at with With Genesis talking about the primal history, the creation of the world. We learned we talked about the story of man, we talked about Adam and Eve in the garden, Adam and Eve in the fall, Cain and Abel and their murder, and the godly line through Seth. Remember, everything's gotta come through the lineage for for Jesus Christ to come in Matthew. So This is being preserved for for record, basically, and for us to know that hey, you should see exactly where the lineage of crisis coming from. I forgot to mention I am live streaming just to save some time on editing. Editing is always the toughest for me. So just gonna give it to you straight and you guys can go through it from there. It's easier sometimes on the back end. So Or go back and read it or watch it or see it another time. And I will post it up on Apple Podcast in my Spotify page and on Substack I have a podcast as well. it'll be on there also. All to give you the access for free. Did you hear that? I remember growing up, my dad used to say, Son, there's nothing free in this world. And I can remember we could get We could drink free water, you can go to the hose, get a free water, or you could get free air. You can't do either of those today. It's all changed. Everybody, as he said when he was alive, everybody's got their hand in their pockets on it. You know what? Very smart man. That is the truth. And it continues to grow even more and more when I look at society. I look at software and all this. Everybody, you gotta pay, pay to play this, pay to play that. You gotta pay to go here, gotta go to this level, you gotta level up one here, you gotta pay. They're they're making millions, okay? If I'm a software company today and I'm just going back to my old Radio Shack days, the TRS eighty days. Macintosh when it first came out way back when in my software days. And where we have come to see how we are bleeding the customer dry with their money is ridiculous in my opinion. So, anyways, so stop gouging people, software people. Stop gouging them. Some of this stuff I mean, pay for a package and be done with it. Do the updates and be done with it. Stop adding these features on here that cost They get done, they're paying crazy money. So, anyways, we talked about the line of Seth, the point of where Jesus comes through, right? We talked about the flood and how important that was. God had had enough. He'd had enough. He said he repented. He turned away from man as hard as it was for him. He wanted everybody to live with him forever. And didn't want anybody to die. That's where we're heading back to, folks. That's why he sent his son to die on the cross for you and me. So we can get back to the Garden of Eden, get back to the the eternal life with him in the relationship with God. That's why we hate he had to send his son to come here, and he had to die on the cross, and he had to die so that he had somebody had to take, yeah. Okay, let me just in in old testament to get your sins removed. You had to take an animal, spotless, firstborn, to the priest, depending on the severity. You would have to then have the priest so slaughter that that that animal for the propitiation or for your sins to be covered. And then there's a bunch of other things in between that. But that was ceremonial. And that is, yeah, but that was the way it was. And don't ask me why, but it shouldn't happen today. But anyways, and it does it. Doesn't because Judas or Judea or even the Orthodox Jews do not have the capability to slaughter animals and have propitiation for their sin. So they're they're using the wall, they're using these little hybrids, all this stuff, and they they're still waiting for the Messiah. They see they'll say, We're waiting, and we we you know what we say, he's coming back. See the two difference? They wait. We know he's coming back because he was here once. They fail to realize that. Or they don't want to, or they're blinded. And that's that's a choice they're gonna have to make in the future. So anyways, so when we talked about the sacrifice, the flood, the tower of Babel, how bad was that? Everybody wanted to be their own God. You see that today. everybody, I remember, let me tell you a story. When I was in a let's just call it a corporate America, let's just we'll leave that. And I worked my butt off to get and manage every single department, took every single test, went to every single school, all the way up to to the top, to district manager school or or leadership, supervision, whatever it was. And I took every one of those courses and classes, and they were beneficial. Don't get me wrong. They were very, very beneficial. What I learned over time was I met a lot of people through my time. And I remember this guy from Nabisco. I might have told you the story. But you know, he was probably in his sixties, close to retirement, and they basically let him go. And I was like, Well, what's going on with that? I mean, this guy's always out here. He's always making sure that he's doing his job. He's always putting stuff on the show. He's doing everything right. Problem was he'd been with a company a long time and his salary was very high. His vacations were very high. His cost in retirement was very high. It was easier to get the 18-year-old kid, pay him maybe one week out of the year, teach him how to do that, and deal with a much less cost. One-third of all profit is always going to be your labor cost. That's why you're going to see AI take a lot of jobs, because it's going to reduce the amount of overhead with manpower. And manpower, human power, whatever you want to call it, it's gonna be taken over by the computer in some form or fashion. I would say more white collar jobs opposed to the blue collar. If you want to prepare for this time frame, send your kids to a trade school. Get a trade, go make three hundred fifty thousand dollars as a plumber. You can do it. Stay in the high c if you stay in the white collar jobs, those jobs are gonna be sucked up. You're you're gonna get see smaller and smaller and smaller. You're gonna like Can start off with everybody's a you an analyst and then there's only five analysts, then there's a supervisor and the analyst, then there's a region over the analyst, and these are all going away, and then it gets to a point where this one person is managing all the analysts. And it's only him. He's the analyst, because AI is gonna do it. They're gonna do that because they're greedy. Say all you want. Great product, gotta have it. People need it. Sell it, sell it, sell it. You bottom line, at the end of the day, when you close your eyes at night, put your head on a pillow, you corporate CEOs, you are flat out, in my opinion, greedy. And you can say all you want. You can say everything you want. I've lived it. I've seen it. so and that's the way the world is, right? Yeah, I call it an anthill. Okay. Every company has an anhill, especially if you're big. You never I always used to tell people when I was in corporate America, you never want to be the guy at the top. Because when things get tough, they take the big guy out. You're not you're not getting the results they want. They have to have a point man that's gonna take the fall. Has to happen. Has to. You saw our Apple CEO's gone. He's out. They're not generating the sales or the profits or things they want. Shareholders are more greedy. Gotta come up another way. You need another set of leadership with another set of ideas and have a fresh look. You ever heard that? I used to watch the CEOs have a fresh, fresh look for two th every year. And it's just nothing more than motivating having something on paper that looks good, sounds good, and that the shareholders can buy and that's the way it is. you never want to be at the top. Then once you get there, you never think you could you're too good to do anything else. And I chose to stay out of that realm and I am no better than anybody else. I am a servant and I choose This form of communication using the podcast and all the work that we're doing here is to glorify God and not me. Trust me. I put a lot of time and effort in in not this the not this this but lots of other people as well. So we talked about the flood, we talked about Tower of Bamo. We had conversations apart patriarchs, right? We talked about a lot, we talked about Abraham had they separated, then we got into the point where Sodom and Gomorrah came in. There was a big destruction. That was last session we did. And then we're we we saw the birth of Isaac, which we we're gonna see right here and right now in in twenty one. The born he's born Yahweh. Now Yahweh visited Sarah. We're gonna get there next. So and that's kind of the the the takeoff point for us and and that's where I wanted us to go this way. This afternoon if I can hold my books up, for us to get there. So just asking for the Lord to lead us and direct us as we go through the this this session here. All right, so chapter one, we know Isaac's born. This is what it says. Now Yahweh, who's Yahweh? Yahweh we know is the Lord, visited Sarah and he had he had said and Yahweh did for Sarah and he had promised. So he is doing what he said he was gonna do, right? Or what he had previously spoken. so Sarah, we know conceived and bore a son a son to abraham in his old age at the appointment time of which god had spoken to him now I will say this that she was ninety when she conceived and then it said and Abraham you think about that how many people today could could say well you know I know somebody had a baby at 90 that's crazy but it happened then it was a miracle right God can do anything This is what people don't understand. They think logic, reason, science all has an answer for the mysterious God that we serve. Folks, you can't you can't can't live like that. So Abraham, he called his son who was born to him, and who Sarah bore to him as Isaac. So he gets the tit he gets the name Isaac. So he's and Isaac's gonna be one of the biggest patriarchs out there. He's the promised son to who? Abraham and to Sarah for a longest time they wanted the child. and he's going to be the father and he's gonna pass it on to Jacob and it's gonna go forth and go further further. Alright, so he's born. He's born Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old. That is how they would. Circumcise gives them it's an outward appearance of being a Jewish person or from Israel is to be circumcised. You you get a whole different viewpoint in the New Testament about circumcised and uncircumcised. We turn we turn it into not we turn it into circumcise of the heart for for a Gentile. But it still goes on today. I I I think for medical reasons it's safe to do that. But I'm just trying to give you a background of the meaning and everything. Now, Abraham, he was a hundred years old when he had his son, Isaac, was born to him. Sarah said, God had made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh at me. So she's already coming out saying, Hey, you know, people are just gonna start laughing at me, they're gonna hear about it. It's just gonna be one of those things. I'm gonna be the joke, right? And You know, they'll laugh at her for that, right? So Finish up this part of the born being born. So she says, Who would have said that or to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a child or children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age. And that is a huge miracle, folks. It it it leads us to where the word of God and the promise. How God fulfilled his promise, right? He said, I will give you a child. He fulfills it. He fulfills that. And we know that he he proves himself. He's the word and the power. And God used his power exactly as he said he would in this promise. And folks, if it's written in the Bible, I don't care if you you it was four thousand years ago, it it and it happened. And he writes it again that things are gonna happen in the future, which we see. Typically you you see I wrote it down the other day. It was I heard a great analogy. I was listening to somebody. Old Testament to Acts nine was being written to by God to Jerusalem, Israel, in Acts nine. They rejected all through the Old Testament, they rejected and had him killed, right? God had a plan from the beginning, right? We know that if we go back to the beginning, who is the word? The word was and the word is. So we know that he had a plan that he kept secret from the beginning of the ages. And that was the church. That was the gentile bringing the Messiah and accepting him and accepting him as our Lord and Savior and being the now grafted into the promise of Israel, simply put. A lot of people sh run away from that, depending on what Protestant you want to stay in or where you want to go. I'm just giving you Bible. I don't care what religion you are, I don't care what you Catholic priest said, I don't care what you Lutheran pastor said. I'm telling you, if you look at the context of how things were written and you look at it, that was written to them. I'm not saying, Tamplin Dean, are you saying that the Bible is not no no no no no no? It's all it's all it's all inspirational, it's all proof for us. it's approved for us, and we should be thinking it from all But when we think about the what was going on, you have to think that he was trying to get their attention to get them to to accept him as their Lord and Savior. And they were off and on, off and on through the Old Testament, and they definitely were off on and and and and and the devil's behind all that. We know that. So I wouldn't get too jazzed about that. But the point of being I'm trying to make for you is to let you know that Acts 9 is right when Saul gets kicked off the horse. Why do you persecute me? And Paul and Paul's Paul basically submits then. He completely submits because he's blind now, right? And then he has to be taken by Aeneas. And Aeneas, we know, that was afraid to, didn't want to take didn't want to take Paul under his wing because he was somebody that was going around persecuting the Jew and he was he was quite frankly, he was killing them. And he was somebody that everybody heard about. He's just a bad guy. Stay away from Paul. But God tells Ananias, no no, he's he's my chosen one for my Gentiles. He lets us know that. So when we start thinking about starting in Acts nine is where we start seeing where the Gentiles it's warming up where where Paul's gonna come into play and he's going to preach and bring it to the Gentile. Bring what? Bring Jesus. The the because before then, anything before Anywhere from Gent Gent Genesis to Acts nine, you were considered a dog if you were a Gentile, simply. You were a dog, you were not worthy of being a Jew. A Jew was above status of that. And he's going to be the one that brings it to the Jews. So, anyways, but in this this this capacity here, we learn essentially that God does what he promises. He fulfills it. you know, when you start thinking about the thought, God keeps his word, his promises, but God sometimes delays it. You ever seen that happen anywhere? See, sometimes we don't realize our time is not his time. We're infinite. We want things immediately in the world that were real fast. I'm just going, you know, Instagram. I get I put that up. I got a hundred likes. I'm gonna order Instagram or Instacart. I'm gonna order this to get my food. This, that, you know, and I'm going to use these services like that because that's what I'm used to. And the society's built around that with their little fingers, having carpal tunnels. Not that you're listening. You probably ought to take a break from that every once in a while. because you're getting controlled by it. Anything that takes your attention away from God is a idol. no, I said it. Your phone is an idol. If that takes you away from God, takes you away from Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, you gotta start determining which one's more important. All right, so we talked about that, keeping the promises, learn to endure through the hardnesses. They went through some hardnesses. it makes you become stronger, right, in those hardness and makes you more determined sometimes. And then you y you almost learn to trust a little bit more too and the hope more in God to pray and f and fellowship and worship. So that's extremely important. So they there was a multitude of reasons why we or us, why God had to immediately fulfill his promise in it in our lives. But there were two facts that were always true, right? One, God is faithful. God is faithful, we know, and he keeps all his promises. He makes that very clear in the scriptures. 1 Corinthians 1 9 says it this way: God is faithful by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of Jesus Christ. What? What does it say? Our Lord. And let's say the second one is obedience. So Obedience, Isaac, he was circumcised. We're following what we're told and commanded to do in this situation. You know, the thought here about when I think about the how God fulfills his promises, he steers the obedience, and faithfulness to God, Abraham Abraham's joy can be ma imagined. You can imagine how he felt, and how he fell on his face to worship God. And remember, It all came true for him and he had to be elated about the situation. Another thought is we must obey God in order to receive the promises of God. If you don't do what he asks you to do, you're not gonna get what you want. If he says, I need you to read your Bible, pray, I need to have a relationship with you, and I need to turn away from those things that take you away from me, and I want to spend more time with you, and you don't do those things, and you say to yourself, Well, I don't know why. I I'm I'm all everything always goes wrong for me. I never get anything right, always is bad. I'm I'm always the worst of the worst of the worst, and nothing ever happens. Good in my life. Folks, you you're you're in the wrong camp. Don't be thinking in that way. That's too negative. so the other part is joy. We knew the joy in this is six seven. He says it really good. He says, In Sarah, God had made laughter for everyone who hears the laughter with me. And who would have said that Abraham and Sarah would even have children or nurse a child at their age, right? So again. Sarah didn't believe at first. She laughed, you remember. And we know that Abram he fell on his face when he was born. It was a miracle. Christ's birth was a miracle, folks. He was born of a jer virgin. God set a time for Christ at birth. He set that time. He's an orderly God. I'm gonna say this a hundred times. There's a lot of people out there in different camps would disagree with me, and that would be More of the charismatic, more sensual sen sensation churches. We're gonna speak to your sensation to get you all worked up, you gotta go you gotta walk on so I really feel good about myself. Folks, you are in the wrong camp. That's not what you're there for. and people spin you up. And they spin you up and they want you to you know, be part of the church or their flock to you. What do they want from you? I want you to ask that. You walk in the door, what does everybody in that church want for? Because once you know what they want from you, it's easier to to deal with them, right? What does the pastor want? The pastor wants you to listen. He wants you to be obedient and he wants you to serve Christ. And he more likely wants you to serve in the church. You may get that same thing from a deacon. Outside of that, you may get, you know, if you're you're a lady of the church, maybe an elder, they may want you to do something a little bit different with teaching somebody or or doing something or giving wisdom or or walking through a difficult time. just use your talents. Maybe that's what they they're they're looking for. but you know, when you start understanding what they're looking for and you'll know and how you feel. the sense that you get it. I listened to a lady this morning and she was so confusing. She was dipping into the Christian Gentile world of Paul back into the Messianic six hundred and thirteen laws and bouncing back and forth and intertwining both of those. And they were very, very confusing. And I told her as much. I said, I'm very, very confused. I gave actually wrote a long a long thing to her, just to say, Sister, you are creating a stumbling block. You're not clear on what you're saying. You're you you you you're you're you look intelligent, you sound intelligent, you are are a very good looking woman. And you seem to have the gift to be able to speak and have that gab, that that that talent. And I'm afraid that you're going to steer people wrong based on using your your attributes opposed to God's attributes. And Anyways, that was just my two cents. Whether she read it or not, I don't know. But okay, so let's look at so let's get into and she grew up. Let's go into eight. She ate. And the child grew and weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day of the of Isaac and and weaned. And Sarah saw that her son Hagar. The Egyptian woman who she had born to Abraham, laughing in jest. Therefore she said to Abram, Drive out this maidservant of her, of her son, the son, this maidservant shall not be the heir with my son, with Isaac. So she's saying, Look, you're not gonna you're not gonna have you're talking about he's talking about Isaac and he's talking about Hager's son. Talking about you He's he wants she doesn't want him around, wants him gone. And doesn't want to be around with you know with Isaac and Ishmael and Isaac and then the matter distressed Abraham, so he's greatly distressed, as we always as men, we always get like that because of his son. It was still his son, even though it wasn't the chosen seed of the son. People say to me a lot of times, why is Israel chose their folks that are chosen? They're God's people. They're the smallest. He he chose a small aggregate of people of of population to bring Jesus Christ through it. Doesn't make Israel the most fantastic thing on the entire planet. It just means that he was brought through that lineage. So God said to Abraham, Do not be distressed, because your boy, the man and your man servant, whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice, and though Isaac, your seed, shall be named, and the son of the maidservant, I will look at a nation also, because he is your seed. So Abraham rose in the morning, and he took the bread and the skin of water. And gave it to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder and gave her child and sent him away. So she went wandering in the wilderness in Bertheba. basically she goes, she's in Berthiva. verse 15 says, The water skin was finished. She put the child under one of the bushes. she went and she sat down opposite him with a bowshot away. For she said, Do not let me see when the child dies. And she sat upon opposite of him, lifted up her voice, and wept. The God heard her voice, and the boy crying it, and the angel of God, Hagar, called to Hagar from heaven and said, What is the matter of you, Hagar? Do not fear. God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Arise, lift the boy, hold him in your hand. Right? Hold him in your hand, for I will make him what a great nation, which we know he does. That's where your air Arab nations come from. Then God opened his her eyes and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the skins of water, and the boy drank. So there was no water at the time. So she figured just we're gonna die out here. And he provided that w water for them to drink. And God was with the boy as he grew, and they lived in the wilderness, and was an archer. So he became a skilled archer, which he uses for his conquering tribes and things to the to the nation. So let's see So he's told him to send them away. Get out of here. Go away. The conflict. It's causing strife. Get out of here. Go. You know, the conflict is very dangerous. I am for peace. But when I speak, they for the war, Psalms 120. It's a conflict to answer. There is an answer to the conflict. He had to leave. There's no other way around it. God wanted them separated anyways because of what he planned to do in the future. So when we think about God and the answer to the conflict, we have some we have the same for the generation. For everyone knows what the conflict is. The answer is found in God's word. His word will relieve whatever distresses we have and give us an answer to the questions. God's word tells us what to do. Our tasks. is a search for his word, always seeking the truth, right? And the answer is always in God's purpose. It's always found in in the assurance of blessings in God. All right. So from fourteen to sixteen, that conflict and that result we see was hitting ahead at that point. And there were broken hearts. I'm sure I mean, as a dad, I'm sure he was very upset and I'm sure the mom was very upset. But this was d this is a divine expectation. And The results confli of the conflict were were were devastating in some cases. many had hearts that were broken and conflict that led to more conflict. note that h that Hagar's experience had her her experience pitchers, the experience of so many, so many wandering in the world not knowing where to go, where to go next and where she should be going to. So she didn't even know that was her conflict. She didn't know what to do or where to go. think of the people over the world too that are totally exhausted, have no food, are hopeless, faced often death. I think of people that have less the cap capabilities of a you know, a support like America or one of the big co countries out there. So there was an exhaustion and hopeless. That was part of where Hagar was. She was there. No water, no food, no anything. And God reached down and he took care of that conflict. And the conquest of Isma Ishmael's is where we see where that becomes the the next step of what was gonna go on in this story. But Hagar wept bitterly and she lifted up her voice to pray. And with up one's prayer she suggested Hagar and Ishmael would soon die. So she was praying to die. That's where she was. She was all she was hopeless. So too often we get in this position before we cry out to God. We're at our last rope, right? We're at our last leg. Then we call out to God. Why can't we call out sooner? Knowing that God is there, He's gonna stir and He He's gonna take care of that problem. What is the problem, Hagar? Is what he said to her. So he didn't say it as a big problem, I guess. But we have the permanent word of God, we face problems and crisis, we are desperately need to go to God for the word. And God stresses the fact that he had heard the voice of Hebrew, of the Hebrew. Notice what I said there. He heard the word of the Hebrew. This is where we get the Hebrew Ishmael from. So he gets the okay, God says this two times in this process that he utters under the repentance and crying out to God to forgive the sins that we have done wrong. And then only then does God hear. So admitting and s and submitting is important. Very important in our walk with God. So then we come into where he talks about Abraham made this covenant with Amalek. So First part, what do we see? We see that they are they had the baby. The next stage problems or situation we're gonna talk about Sarah has to s they send away Hagar. Now we're at the covenant, the last part of this chapter, which is the covenant, and Abram had to had a striking constant testimony. He says, and it came to pass that it That that time that Amalek and Fakul, the chief captain of his host, spake unto Abraham, saying, Is this with thee in all that ye or that you that you do? So now he swears, wants him to swear to him by the god by his God that you will not deal with me falsely, or my offsprings, or my posterity after I leave after I'm dead. But according to the loving kindness that I have shown you, you show to me that the land of our sojourn. So they're staying in the same place. This is Amalek. And he says to him that and Abraham says, I swear it. He gives him he swears it. He makes this covenant with him. But Abraham reproves Amalek about the well water with his servants and with that have been seized. And I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me, So Abraham took sheep and oxen and he gave them to Amalek as a as a peace offering, right? The two of them they cut the covenant. Remember, we talked about the covenant? They had to slice them in half, and they both walked through them. That became the covenant. They didn't do it with the birds, but they did it with the large animals. And then Abraham set seven ew lambs and flocks by them, and Amalek said to him, What does these seven ooze of lamb of lambs mean, which you have set by themselves? And he said And he said, You shall take these seven Ulams from my hand, so that it may be a witness to me that I dug this well. Therefore he called this place Bersheba. So here you go. How did they come up with this word Bathsheba? Well they gave him lambs. There were seven Eulambs, because there were two of them that swore the oath. So that they cut the covenant at Beersheba and Amalek in Phil, which was his servant, main servant, the commander of his army, arose and returned to the land of Philistine. And Abraham planted a temrisk tree, which is sometimes found in the in the wilderness out there. It's kind of a long and has feathery branches on it, has some tough tufts of leaves on it, but They planted it. So Abraham plants it at Beersheba, and there he called Bathsheba the town of them and swore the oath. And so the and then he said he called upon the name of Yahweh, our the everlasting God, and Abraham sojourned there in the land of Philistine for many days. We take you back to our video. So let's look. what he's talking about. So here's Beersheba again, remember? So the Philistines were there. They were a a very large I mean there back then it was all about Trying to get it to work, yeah. Sorry. It was always about capturing somebody else's land, taking the land. This is one of the principal cities in Negev, the region of Levant. Bersheba was founded by the patriarch of Abraham and became the capital in this region. And the Old Testament Beersheba is mentioned as the southern extent of the Israelite kingdom. It has been occupied sporadically. From the Calcoclic era from modern times. So again, I just want to show you that what we're talking about, and I'm back. So here you have it in the nutshell. We talked about the testimony, we talked about the covenant. I think about you know the fact that prayer and worship, the sixth step to building a good r relationship with the Lord is one to ask for help in building relationships, Amalek. And his military chief and Abraham planted a ten tamarisk tree in Bersa in Bersheba, and the small bush was grown in the desert, anyways. And the leaves provided shade for the dev for the traveler. So it had a purpose there. It would provide that shade, but it had a deeper meaning, and it was more so the covenant. So, folks, chaplain Dean Alley, I had a moment. I hope you have a good rest of the blessed day, and we'll talk to you soon.