First he says, I do not know who has done this thing. And then he says, you did not tell me.

Well, what is Abraham doing? He's telling you right now. Then he claims, I have not heard of it until today.

Well, okay, you're hearing about it now. And you're not responding the way that you would expect a covenant partner to respond.

And so I think we're seeing the deceitfulness, the untruthfulness, and the difficulty of interacting with the seed of the serpent.

All right, welcome to episode seven of Bible Talk, a kind of new podcast brought to you by Nine Marks.

Nine Marks exists to equip church leaders with the biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches.

For more, you can visit Nine Marks.org.

My name is Alex Duke, and with me are two of my friends.

Sam Amati and Jim Hamilton.

And guys, for a few weeks now, we have been following Abraham and Sarah as they wait on the

Lord to fulfill his promise of a son. Now, this waiting, as we have seen, has not always been

neutral, it's been full of ups and it's been been full of downs, and now finally we arrive at Genesis

21, where Moses, the author of Genesis, gives us the tale of two sons. Now, these tales are

quite the opposite of one another. One features the joy of long-awaited fulfillment, the other

features the sorrow of long-awaited fulfillment. The other features the sorrow of long-expected

disappointment. One features laughter. One features weeping. One features new life. One features near-death.

That's the story, I think, of Genesis 21. We've got Isaac's birth, and then we've got Ishmael's

expulsion. So, Jim, when we get to the

actual birth of Isaac there in chapter 21, all of it seems a little bit understated and honestly

not really that remarkable, considering we have been waiting for years and years, or at least

Abraham's been waiting for years and years and we have been waiting for chapters and chapters

for this.

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