Throughout His ministry to the Jews, the Lord Jesus was trying to impress upon the Jews, the importance of what is unseen. He told them plainly, "Stop judging by mere appearances and make the right judgment." (John 7:24)  

 

Israel had been used to making judgments according to what they saw.  This was part of the law, handed down through Moses, and this judgment was seen by all.  They were commanded to judge one another to the death.  "If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must be put to death.  You must purge evil from Israel." (Deut. 22:22)  So Israelites were under the impression that they could rid their nation of sin, by ridding it of the sinners. Those who disobeyed the Ten commandments were put to death. 

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"While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath.  Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him.  Then the Lord said to Moses, 'The man must die.  The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.'  So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses." (Numbers 15:32-36)  Those who glibly claim to be "obeying the Sabbath" by going to church on Sundays should take note.  This is the consequence of being under the Ten Commandments (the Law).

 

But this man wasn't stoned to death simply because he gathered wood on the Sabbath.  He was stoned to death because he was seen gathering wood on the Sabbath.  It says; "Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses".  If he had not been seen by others, his sin would have gone unpunished.  So if individuals avoided being caught in their sin they also avoided this punishment. 

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Israel's rewards were also something that could be seen. "The Lord will establish you as His holy people, as He promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to Him.  Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will fear you.  The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity - in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground - in the land He swore to your ancestors to give you." (Deut. 28:9-11)  So if Israel was obedient to God's commands and walked in obedience, they would have abundant prosperity and be feared by other nations.  This was the covenant established by God.  So the Israelites were focussed on what was seen. 

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But the ministry of the Lord Jesus was to point Israel toward a new covenant, which He would establish through His death and resurrection.  A covenant under which we need to acknowledge what is unseen, and strive toward a reward in heaven, which is also unseen. 

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This is what the Lord Jesus taught them throughout His ministry.  What we see is limited - so our judgment is impaired.  "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’  They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’  Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.  At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’

 ‘No one, sir,’ she said.

‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’"

 

It's obvious that the Pharisees were right in what they said:  "In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women."  But if they had been genuine in wanting to uphold the law, they would have brought the man as well, because the law required both the man and the woman should be stoned. 

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However, the Lord Jesus had something much more important to teach them.  They had brought the woman before Him because of sin that was seen, but He convicted them of sin that was unseen, "and those who heard began to go away one at a time."

 

He also taught them to seek a reward which is unseen.  "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." 

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This was something new for the Jews.  The Lord Jesus was telling them that God Himself would judge them as individuals, rather than as a nation.  He also told them that their reward wasn't prosperity on earth, but something far greater.  "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt. 6:19-21)

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The new covenant is now well and truly established, and we, as heirs of God's promises, are reminded to be careful about making judgments according to what we see.  "Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes.  He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart.  At that time each will receive their praise from God."

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There is so much that we, as individuals, don't see, so our judgments are often wrong.  This is not only true about sin, but about our own good deeds and accomplishments.  Abraham gave us a perfect example of how we can get this wrong. 

 

God made Abram a promise - “This man (a servant) will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir”.   (Gen.15:4)

 

“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.  But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar, so she said to Abram, ‘The Lord has kept me from having children, go sleep with my maidservant ; perhaps I can build a family through her.’

 Abram agreed to what Sarai said.  So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant and gave her to her husband to be his wife.  He slept with Hagar and she conceived.” (Gen. 16:1-4)

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At this point, things seemed to be going well.  The Lord had promised Abram a child from his own body, and through Sarai’s plan, a child has been conceived. 

 

This is also the way we often, mistakenly do things. Instead of simply trusting God and obeying him in each day, we hatch our own plans to ‘achieve His purpose’.  But, even when we think we have achieved this goal, things can be very, very wrong.  The problem with making our own plans to achieve certain goals is that we only judge these achievements by what we see, and we often deliberately ignore the consequences of our actions along the way toward reaching them.  God sees things very differently, he knows what will happen in the long term.  

   

And so, the story continues; “When she (Hagar) knew that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

Then Sarai said to her husband Abram, ‘You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering, I put my maidservant in your hands and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me.  May the Lord judge between you and me.’ ‘Your servant is in your hands’,  Abram said  ‘Do with her whatever you think is best’”  (Gen. 16:4-6)

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Things had started to go sour between Sarai and Hagar.  Abram and Sarai were putting the responsibility for the problem on each other.  But this is not the real issue, because we are still talking about judgement day, and how God views the issue.  So we have to follow the story through.

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“Then Sarai ill-treated Hagar, so she fled from her.  The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.   And he said, ‘Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?  ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai’ she answered.  Then the angel of the Lord told her, ‘go back to your mistress and submit to her’.  The angel added,  ‘I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.’ The angel of the Lord also said to her; ‘You are now with child and will have a son.  You shall call him Ishmael for the Lord has heard of your misery.  He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility towards all his brothers.’” (Gen. 16:6-12)

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“So Hagar bore Abram a son and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.  Abram was eighty six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.  (Gen. 16:15-16)

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Abram was ninety nine years old when the Lord appeared to him again, so Ishmael was already thirteen years old and Abram still considered Ishmael to be his heir.  He still thought that Ishmael was the son that God had promised him, but Abram was wrong!

 

“Abram fell face down, and God said to him.  ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you;  You will be the father of many nations.  No longer will you be called Abram, your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.” (Gen 17:3-5)

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God goes on to establish his covenant with Abraham.  He tells Abraham about the land that his descendants will inherit and establishes the covenant of circumcision with him.  All the while, Abraham still thinks that God will do these things through Ishmael .

 

However,  “God also said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai, her name will be Sarah.  I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her.  I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her” (Gen. 17:15)

  

For thirteen years, Abraham thought that he had achieved God’s promise by fathering Ishmael.  After all, God promised him a son and he had a son.  But God then says, “I will give you a son by her” (Sarah).

 What was Abraham’s response?  “Abraham fell face down: he laughed and said to himself,  ‘Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?’   And Abraham said to God ‘If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!'

  Then God said to him, ‘Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac.  I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.  And as for Ishmael, I have heard you;  I will surely bless him;  I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers;  He will be the father of twelve rulers and I will make him into a great nation.  But my covenant, I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear you by this time next year.’” (Gen. 17:17-22) .  Of course, Sarah did bear the child that God had promised, but then the tension between Sarah and Hagar became even greater, as well as the divide between Isaac and Ishmael.

“Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the very time God had promised him” (Gen.21:2)........ But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had born was mocking, and she said to Abraham,  “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac. (Gen. 21:9-10)

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So the tension between the two sons had started, but the consequences are still with us to this day.  The descendants of Ishmael and Isaac continue to fight wars, just as it was prophesied; “his hand will be against everyone and everyones’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility towards all his brothers. ”  They still fight over who are the true heirs of God’s covenant and the land promised to Abraham, as well as who has the right to the remains of Abraham, whom they both view as the father of their nations.

These are the ongoing (earthly) consequences we risk, when we arrogantly follow our own plans instead of waiting for God’s timing and will.  But this is still not the final result!   We still need to read about God’s judgement of Abraham’s ‘achievements’.

 

“Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love and go to the region of Moriah.  Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will tell you about” (Gen 22:2)

......   “When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it.  He bound his son Isaac and laid him on top of the wood.  Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.  But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven,  ‘Abraham, Abraham!’  ‘Here I am’ he replied.  ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy’ he said, ‘Do not do anything to him.  Now I know that you fear God, because you have not with from me your son, your only son.’” (Gen. 22:9-12)

 

It is clear that Abraham had two sons.  Ishmael was thirteen years older than Isaac, yet throughout this passage of scripture, God refers to Isaac as Abraham’s “only son”. 

It is plain that God knows about Abraham’s other son Ishmael, but when it came to the time of Abraham’s greatest test, God did not even acknowledge Ishmael’s existence. 

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