sermonette: Ishmael

A Prophecy for Today
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 31-Aug-02; Sermon #574s; 25 minutes

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Seems like either really early in the morning or just about sundown, the way the outside looks there pretty dim and dreary, but thankfully there is water coming out of that dim and dreary sky, and I've been really happy that we've gotten, I do not know, upwards of a half a day's worth of steady rainfall. And it's not been like it's been out east here coming down in buckets. It's just been very steady and the ground has been able to soak it up and that's a good thing for us here. The drought's not over. Don't think that I'm saying that, but this will certainly help. I'm glad to see that. I hope you've been praying for it, and if you have, then here is your answer. We're also approaching the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. It's just a little over a week away. Uh, on the 9th, I mean the 11th where is my mind, huh? September 11th, that's yeah, that's only about a week and a half away. I thought it would be appropriate as we approached this time to look at one of the main actors in this nearly 4000 year dispute between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael. The news media and our generally non-judgmental culture have avoided placing the blame for these attacks on young men of Islamic fundamentalists strain, you might call it, ideas, beliefs. But 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals and at least a few of the others were Egyptians. They were not Palestinians. They were not Iranians. They were not Turks, but Arabs. What we would call biblically Ishmaelites. Most were probably adherents of Wahhabism. I do not know if any of you know what Wahhabism is. But it it is a militant Saudi version of Islam. And I just We went on the internet to try to find a very succinct definition of what Wahhabism is. And I found one at the Encyclopedia of the Orient. It says this Wahhabism is a movement in Islam from the mid 18th century calling for a renewal of the Muslim spirit. That's very interesting, a renewal of the Muslim spirit with cleansing of the moral and removing of all innovations to Islam, meaning anything that's non-Islamic has to be gotten rid of. The movement, it goes on, has played an important role in the funding of Saudi Arabia. Much of the money that Saudi Arabia uses comes from Wahhabis because they own the wells. They own the means of making money for the nation of Saudi Arabia, which is pretty much all oil. Wahhabism is known for its conservative regulations which have impact on all aspects of life. Uh, this next sentence we do not understand at all. It has been recognized as being in accordance with ibn Hambali doctrine, and I have no idea what Ibn Hambali doctrine is. Going on, the term Wahhabism is not used by Wahhabis. The term they use is m. Wahidan Wahidan. Wahhabism is a term given to them by their opponents. And is now used by both European scholars and most Arabs. The name Wahiins comes from their founder Abui Wahab, and this term is in Arabic. In Arabic means Unitarians. Which is kind of interesting. Prohibitions of Wahhabism. No other object for worship than Allah. Holy men or women must not be used to win favors from God. No other name than the names of Allah may may enter a prayer. No smoking of tobacco, no shaving of beard, no abuse of language. No rosaries. It's kind of funny. And mosques must be built without minarets and all forms of ornamentation. And the commandments of Wahhabism, there are 3 of them in particular here. All men must attend public prayer. Alms must be paid from all income type of tithing, and slaughters, killing animals, according to halal, must be controlled for their lifestyle, not only for doing the basic rituals correctly. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but Uh, they are not, I think what it means is they are not supposed to be doing it just because it's a ritualistic practice that's commanded, but they are supposed to do it because their lifestyles demand that they Make sacrifices for the forgiveness of their sins. Which I just thought that was kind of interesting. They call themselves or others call them Unitarians because they are basically trying to get all Islam into one. Unified force, one unified religion, and they are so conservative that they are beyond fundamentalists. They go all the way back to the strict aspects of, of Islam under Muhammad. OK. That's just a background because what I'd really like to talk about today is Ishmael. And once we get through talking about Ishmael, you'll see why Wahhabism is part of all of this. Let's start in Genesis 16:10. Genesis 16:10. Now, the whole of Genesis 16 is the conception or the preconception, the conception, and then the birth of Ishmael. Remember Sarah, I was barren, so she asked Abraham if she could use use Hagar as a Surrogate A Sound says, go ahead, whatever you want to do and uh. So A child was conceived. And Hagar used this to Lord it over Sarah. And so Sarah treated her roughly and then Hagar decided to leave. So she went out in the desert. And God met her there. Let's pick this up. In verse 10, then the angel of the Lord said to her, After telling her that she was supposed to go back to Sarah. And Abraham and submit herself, he says, I will multiply your descendants exceedingly so that they shall not be counted from multitude. Verse 11, and the angel of the Lord said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has heard your affliction. That's what his name means God has heard. He shall be a wild man. Now this is very important here in verse 12. He, Ishmael, shall be a wild man. His hand shall be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren. Now this prophecy in verse 12 is what concerns us most because God is not just speaking here of Ishmael himself, but traits of his. Descendants his progeny. So I'd like to take each one of these phrases and just take a look at what they mean. The first one is that he shall be a wild man. Now this sounds kind of funny because it literally means he shall be a wild ass man. Now if I put a little bit different emphasis there. You might think that it meant what it would mean today, but it actually doesn't. What it really means is that he will live much like the wild asses of the desert do. Let's go to Job 11. We'll see here in Job what this term, a wild ass of a man or a wild ass man actually means. So this is Job the 11th chapter. And verse 12. Now this is a very interesting scripture. It's, it's very hard to interpret what it actually means, but I think Adam Clark gives a good understanding of it. OK, it says here in the New King James, for an empty headed man will be wise when a wild donkey's colt is born a man. OK, this is what Adam Clark says that it means. It's kind of a paraphrase. Veinman, vain man is puffed up with pride. And he supposes himself to be, let me start again. Vain man is puffed up with pride, and he supposes himself to be born free like the wild ass's colt. OK, his comment on this. Man is full of self-conceit and imagines himself born to act as he pleases, to roam at large, to be under no control and to be accountable to none for his actions. So in a very succinct way we have A nutshell version of Ishmael's Personality Here we have it in just a few words proud. Nomadic Independent Uncontrollable. And he thinks himself unaccountable. Proud, nomadic, independent, uncontrollable, and he thinks himself unaccountable to no man or to any man. OK, let's go back to Genesis 16:12. Take the next phrase. His hand shall be against every man. Now this is very similar to what Isaac prophesized about Esau. We can just put there quickly Genesis 27th chapter verse 40. Where you'll remember, Jacob has at this point, gotten the birthright and the blessing, and Esau comes to Isaac and says, What do you have for me? You must have something for me. And so this is the prophecy that Isaac gives verse 39, Behold, your dwellings shall be of the fatness of the earth. Some think that that means from the fatness of the earth, meaning he will not have much of what is good. And of the dew of heaven from above, verse 40, the first phrase here is in particular what I'm looking at. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother. We do not need to go any farther, but his hand against every man is very similar to this By your sword you shall live. Raising one's hand. Against another is a Hebraism, a Hebraic illustration of strife. What God is saying to Hagar here is that Ishmael and Ishmael's descendants will always be in conflict. We can see this in other places. Daniel 11. Verse 40 I'll read it for you here. This is the northern king, the king of the north, coming against the king of the South. At the time of the end, the king of the South shall attack him, and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind with chariots, horsemen, and with many ships, and he shall enter the countries, overwhelm them and pass through. We've just noticed here a series of battles. OK, verse 41, he shall also enter the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown, but these shall escape from his hand, Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon. Verse 42, he shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape. So here is the king of the north stretching out his hand or raising his hand against another, and he's doing military action. Having some sort of strife against all these other people. If you go to also Zechariah the 14th chapter. Uh, verse, let's see what do I want here 13. It says it shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the Lord will seize them, will be among them. Excuse me, this is the time when Christ comes back. And there is this great army standing up ready to fight him as he returns. It says here, everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor and raise his hand against his neighbor's hand. And Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. So what we see here is that this Um, phrase raising his hand against whoever is used throughout the Old Testament. It's often used of God raising his hand against those who are his enemies. And here we have Ishmael being shown to be raising his hand against everybody. He can't seem to stay out of a fight. It's like he has a chip on his shoulder and he's always looking for someone to blame and to hit. OK. Then it goes on here in Genesis 16:12, every man's hand against him. Showing that his aggressive warlike manner, his personality that's just full of strife, causes his neighbors to fight back. They can't help it. If they are always posturing for war, the neighbors are always going to have to stay in a war posture too and either fight them when they attack or attack them first. And so there is never any peace with Ishmael around, it seems. Because they are always kind of aching for a fight. So he draws other peoples into war against him. And there is no solving of conflict in his eyes without fighting. For it And then finally says here in Genesis 16:12, he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren. Who's Ishmael's brother? Isaac For the most part, Ishmael, it says here, will hover around the habitation of Isaac. He'll be somewhere close. Literally this means he'll be in front of his brethren. And this is another hubraeism. When the Hebrews tried to tell you directions, they said, go to the in front of you. Which meant go to the east because they were, it was like they were standing in the middle of the land with their back to the sea and their face toward the rising sun. So in front of you meant to the east, in back of you meant to the west. To the right meant to the south and to the left meant to the north. So what we can get from this. Is that if the descendants of Israel are going to be anywhere, they are going to remain in the east of Isaac. Uh, generally So Ishmael will dwell in front of Isaac to the east, where is Arabia in relation to Israel to the east, slightly to the south. It's interesting that the modern nations of Israel are among the foremost nations of the what. The West, the Western world, while the Arab nations are termed the peoples of the Middle East or the Near East, they are the closest part of the Orient, the east. So we have a kind of fulfillment there. It is also interesting, and this is what I got into in my CGG Weekly essay yesterday is that one of the primary problems in the nations of Western Europe right now is that They are being overwhelmed with immigrants from the Middle East. Not just the Arabs, but Turks and people like Pakistanis as well. Uh, in recent years and recent years in the past, the socialist and rather multiculturalist governments of Western Europe welcomed them because their own natural populations were dropping, and they needed people to fill the jobs that were not being filled anymore, the more menial ones, so they welcomed the Turks and the Arabs and the Pakistanis and others. Into their nations and gave them residency status, and sometimes they gave them citizenship after a few years. But now they are finding that they are a real cultural and political problem within their countries, and this is occurring in Germany, France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, and several other countries as well. They're all having this problem with Arab Muslim, particularly immigration. And as I said in the the CDG weekly yesterday, I mentioned Denmark in in particular. In Denmark, Arabs make up less than 4% of the population but account for more than 40% of the welfare spending of that nation. They are responsible for 3/4 of the rapes that occur in Denmark. And they are also responsible for a high percentage of other crimes. They isolate themselves in ghettos. In the cities, they do not integrate with the local population. They bring in unacceptable cultural practices, particularly things like forced marriages. And we see the other one in particular, I can't seem to remember it right now. It's not coming back coming to mind. Um, Oh yeah, threatening to kill fellow Muslims if they convert to anything other than than Islam. So they are not only their hand is not only against others, their hand is against themselves if they just happen, if you become disloyal. Um, another thing they do is they persecute Jews and publicly call for their deaths, and they foment rebellion against the government because they want to eventually establish Islamic law and a caliphate in those particular nations, so they are really causing a great deal of problem. Let's just see one example of how this came out in the life of, of Ishmael. Please turn to Genesis, the 21st chapter. Just read. Uh, 2 verses here verses 8 and 9. So the child grew, this is Isaac, and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned, and Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing. Now another place it was translated mocking. Some, some say that he was laughing at Isaac in a derogatory way making fun of his name, which means laughter. And what this did was create a conflict, and what happened was that Hagar and Ishmael got sent away. And This is the sort of thing that's been happening ever since between Isaac's children and Ishmael's children. If we would go on to Genesis 25 verses 12 to 18, we find that Ishmael had 12 sons. which became 12 tribes, which is very interesting. It's almost a mirror of what happened with Jacob. that Jacob had 12 sons which became 12 tribes. So it's kind of interesting to see that God paralleled it there. And then if you go down to into Galatians, you'll see that Hagar and Ishmael were were a sign of this covenant. That was not good. As opposed to Sarah and Isaac, which were a sign of the proper godly covenant. And so this thing about the 12 tribes of Ishmael and the 12 tribes of Israel seemed to have some sort of a correlation there. It's kind of interesting nonetheless. OK, to finish here, I would like to go to Psalm 83 just to show that these sorts of things occur in the end time as well. Psalm 83. This is a prophecy of a conspiracy against the people of Israel. The psalmist here Aa beseeches God to wipe them out. Verse 4, they have said come and let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. Now if that is not inflammatory and warlike, I do not know what is. Verse 5, and that's very much like what is being said over there in Palestine. They want to certainly cut off the nation of Israel from being a nation and wipe them all the way off into the sea and take the land. OK, verse 5. For they have consulted together with one consent, they form a conspiracy against you. It's against God. The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites. Moab and the Haarites. It's interesting that it's Made into they are broken up into two different groups here. There is the Ishmaelites and then there is the Haarites. And They're, we could say that they are the same people. Just split into two different elements here. And Haarites is thought to be a derogatory term for certain ones of these because they name Hagar as the founder of the dynasty and not Ishmael. Which is interesting. Uh, they call them by the mother's name and not the son's name. It may also be an Israelite way to emphasize the Egyptian side of the Arabs. Because Hagar was an Egyptian, and then she took an Egyptian wife for Ishmael, and so they are 2/3 Egyptian and only 1/3 Semitic if you want to look at it that way. Uh, I do not know how that would actually come out, but that's roughly what it is. Actually, would it be a quarter and a 3/4. My mind's not working that way right at this time. I just wanted to show you that this goes all the way from the birth of Ishmael, all the way down to the time of the end when there is a confederacy against the peoples of Israel. OK, finally, this was where Wahhabism comes back. We should mention that the Arabs are now united, if you want to put it that way, we could put the quotation marks around the word united. They're united by Islam, a violent and intolerant religion. Islam seems to codify and institutionalize the national character of Ishmael. It's put into uh. This Quran that they go by and that's the way they are. It's they, they like this religion, they are able to believe this religion because that is inherently how they tend to be. So do not expect any changes in the way the Arab nations behave themselves as time goes on, because that's just the way they are. It's in the genes and we have God's word here to show that it's going to happen all the way down through the time of the end this way that they are.