Genesis,
chapter 21
Genesis
21:1 ¶ 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. 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. 8 And the child grew,
and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was
weaned.
It
is stated clearly that Sarah’s conception of Isaac here in this Philistine
king’s generous gift of land was an act of God’s direct will. It went against
what we think of as natural processes. We would call it a miracle. However, is
not any woman conceiving a child a miracle of God? Lifeless, empty space is the
most logical thing in the universe. For there to be something rather than
nothing staggers the mind in its improbability without a rational, directing
will. Even more so for there to be life, that complicated set of functions from
the cell, a little mini-universe all its own, to consciousness, that collection
of countless numbers of cells to be self-aware, is beyond amazing. Since we
know that the tendency is for organized things, on their own, to simply fall
apart, and not for random pieces of lifeless matter to decide on their own to
unite to form a complicated thing or process, we must understand that for this
life to function, to operate, to exist, it must be a continuous miracle.
Jeremiah
understood this.
Jeremiah
1:4 ¶ Then the word of the LORD came
unto me, saying, 5 Before I formed thee
in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I
sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
David
knew this.
Psalm
71:5 For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD:
thou art my trust from my youth. 6 By
thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my
mother’s bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.
Now,
certainly they understood this, as did Isaiah in chapter 49, in the context of
being called by God, born to a specific purpose. But, in the way the Bible is
written with characters offered as examples for us to see reality we can
understand that nothing is without a purpose. As Paul wrote;
Romans
15:4 For whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort
of the scriptures might have hope.
Randomness
does not exist except as a justification in our minds for atheism, to justify
our sin and make it have no consequence or meaning.
Isaac,
Strong’s dictionary tells us, means, “He laughs,” but that is also clear from
the context. Remember that both Abraham and Sarah laughed at the promise as
being beyond something they could even wrap their minds around. Sarah was a
beautiful, desirous woman but beyond her child-bearing years.
Abraham
obeyed God in circumcising Isaac. Read chapter 17:9-14 again for confirmation.
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