Prophetic Prospective Daily Devotional

As you will notice we have slipped over Genesis 20 and have taken our devotional reading from Genesis 21, the record of the birth of Isaac, the “son of promise” to Abraham and Sarah.

I have said that the book of Genesis is key to understanding the entire Bible and in particular the prophetic passages of God’s Word. In the process of developing an understanding of the prophetic portions of the Bible we must deal with all the passages that set the stage for Bible prophecy in Genesis.

The key verse in our devotional today is the statement of the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah, a son born unto them, even in their old age. It is interesting to notice that Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born and Sarah, 91 years old.

This was a “must” birth in order to continue the lineage of the Jewish people from Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and beyond. Interestingly, the name “Isaac” in Hebrew means, “he laughs” appropriate for what Sarah had been doing since she heard that she would have a baby at her age.

Verse 6, Sarah says “God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.” The Lord gets the “last laugh” and gives the evidence to the world that He would keep His promise and also fulfill His covenant to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac.

Verses 9 to 21 record the three-way conversation between Abraham, Hagar and the Lord Himself. The Lord tells Abraham that his son Ishmael will be the father of “one nation”, Genesis 21:13 and 18. These verses are further confirmation of Genesis 17:20.

Again I remind you that Ishmael was not the “father of the Arab world”. Ishmael fathered the nation located in Saudi Arabia today. Mohammad, the “father of Islam”, coming out of Saudi Arabia, said that he was a “direct descendant of Ishmael”.

In this one chapter you have both the “son of promise”, Isaac and the “son who was not a son of promise”, Ishmael. Isaac would have a son, in fact his second born son, who would become the father of twelve sons, the “sons of Israel”, the Jewish people of today.

If Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, fathered anything other than his twelve sons, he “fathered the Islamic religion”. These two entities, the Jewish people and the Islamic people, will both play a key role in the end-times scenario found in Bible prophecy.

The truth be known, the Jewish people and the Islamic world are moving closer everyday to that scenario being fulfilled and we must realize how close we are to the return of Jesus Christ to the Earth. The next event in this scenario, the Rapture, could happen at any moment. Keep looking up.