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have proved themselves incorrigible. That this is a Fundamental of Dispensational Truth
we shall find by other scriptures:--
"And in the latter time of their Kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full,
a King of fierce countenance. . . . shall stand up. . . . , but he shall be broken without
hand" (Dan. 8: 23-25).
In Matt. 23: 32-36; I Thess. 2: 16 we find the words:--
"Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. . . . that upon you may come all the
righteous blood shed upon the earth. . . . All these things shall come upon this
generation." "Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up
their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost."
"Filled up" sins are met with "filled up" wrath. John saw `seven angels having the
seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God" (Rev. 15: 1).
There are spiritual and human workers of iniquity for whose fulness the inheritance
waits. The book of the Revelation shows human and Satanic iniquity fully ripe. The
bondage of the redeemed will then come to an end. Those that afflict them will be
judged, and afterward the redeemed shall "come out with great substance".
Another covenant is made by God, which defined the geographical boundaries of the
land of promise. This land has never yet been possessed by Israel. It is the "good land
and large" that awaits them. When they enter it they will dispossess 10 nations, "the
Kenites. . . . the Jebusites", which is typical of the overthrowing of the 10 antichristian
kings at the time of the end. An episode follows this chapter of faith which again shows
the failure of the flesh.
Abraham believed that the son and heir promised to him should be his own flesh and
blood, but both Abraham and Sarah seemed to have concluded that Sarah was not to be
the mother of the child. Indeed Sarah says that the Lord had restrained her, when He had
done nothing of the kind. One of the hardest things for the believer to do is to WAIT.
The promise seems to tarry, and the flesh counts the longsuffering of God "slackness".
The flesh also seeks to help God to fulfil His own unconditional covenant, and the end is
always disaster.
Ten years had passed, and the trial of faith proved too much. "Abram hearkened to
the voice of Sarai", sad repetition of Gen. 3: 17. The transactions of this sixteenth
chapter of Genesis seem strange to our ideas, but it was strictly in accord with the law of
the land at the time. This is specially to be remembered when considering verses 3 and 6.
The result of the intrusion of the FLESH into the realm of FAITH was the birth of
Ishmael. The epistle to the Galatians has much to say concerning the flesh and the spirit
and the enmity between the son of the bondmaid and the son of the freewoman. The one
indicates law which can only touch the flesh. The other indicates faith which can only
apply to the spirit. The reader is referred to the whole epistle as an inspired comment
upon these chapters. The individual working out of the comparisons and allusions will be