2026.08.02 District Message Week 31
「The Seed of Unbelief and Its Descendants 」 (Ge 21:9-21)
Genesis 21:9-21 (NIV)
9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. 13 I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”
14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob.
17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.
Summary
When hardship arises, we become anxious. And because we are anxious, unbelief arises, and the more we worry, the more we increasingly fall into unbelief.
Introduction_ Difficulty – RT 7
But is it really hardship? When our nation was struggling, there were three kinds of people. There were those who said our country is poor and has no strength; there were also those who confronted it and fought against it; and there were those who quietly worked to develop our country from behind the scenes. With which eyes should we look at this? This is the hardship that the 7 Remnants endured. Joseph was sold as a slave and imprisoned because of his brothers’ wicked act of human trafficking. But the hardship Joseph faced was not hardship — it was God’s blessing. John Bunyan discovered the blessing God had given him in prison, and wrote the world’s most important work, Pilgrim’s Progress. Abraham too, because of worry, had his eyes darkened, and though he believed in God, he did believe with anxiety. One day he realized this was not right and began to build an altar, and from that point God gave him a word, and that word was fulfilled. David, in his greatest hardship, said, “Because the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” David truly won. If we don’t properly understand this, look at the early church. If you go to the upper room in Mark’s house, it is breaking the law; if caught, you get arrested; if you keep doing it, you are put to death. Even though the strongest nation in the world, Rome, oppressed them, the gospel won. If we keep being deceived, our spiritual eyes go dark, and our physical eyes become sharp instead. We must see accurately. Once the seed of unbelief is planted, it becomes a problem all the way down to one’s descendants.
Main
1. Ishmael – This is the name of the son born when Abraham did not believe God’s word that He would give him a child, and instead had a son through another woman. Right now, the peoples causing the most problems throughout the world are the descendants of Ishmael (Muslims). These have become a complete axis of unbelief.
2. Isaac – God gave Abraham faith, and when the faith of the gospel arose, He gave him Isaac. We must recover our faith.
3. The work of God – God had promised Isaac, and He will surely raise up a movement of the gospel.
1) You look at your environment and fall into unbelief.
2) Conditions are not met. This is looking only at what is physical, and it is speaking only of results that are visible while not knowing the causes that are invisible.
3) You constantly employ humanism. It is easy to fall for this. There were three great heroes of Japan, and if you read that book, humanism looks extremely appealing. This is how people are deceived by just one book.
4) When a trial comes, you are shaken again. This is when unbelief comes out.
5) Public opinion – not listening to God’s word and instead listening to what people say. Those who died in the wilderness spoke words that seemed more right than Moses, Joshua, and Caleb. Moses, Joshua, and Caleb said it will happen unconditionally, while those who died in the wilderness spoke words that seemed reasonable. And so those people all died. If they had been righteous people, they would have said, “Coming out of Egypt is God’s will. Going into the land of Canaan is God’s plan. It’s fine even if we die here. Our descendants must go.” That is what should have been said. God’s promise said we go to Canaan.
Conclusion
1. Only Christ – We cannot overcome darkness, our circumstances, our problems, or disease. And if you look closely, the world cannot help us either. That’s why it becomes clear why it must be Christ alone.
2. Background – throne (darkness) – The background that appears here, we come to know it as the power of the throne. Without this power, I cannot even change my own destiny; without this power, Africa cannot be saved; without this spiritual power, the 5,000 unreached people groups cannot be saved. And in our nation, there is a dark power that keeps driving us into a curse. We must take this and break this darkness.
3. This covenant is what opens up the 3 eras.
Transcript
When hardship comes, we become anxious. And because we are anxious, unbelief arises, they say. As we keep worrying, we increasingly fall into unbelief.
Introduction_ Difficulty – RT 7
Now then, we must think about this first. Is it really hardship? When our nation was struggling, there were three kinds of people. “Our country is poor. We are struggling. We have no strength.” There were people like this. And then there were also people who confronted it and fought against it. And it wasn’t only people like that. There were also people who quietly worked to develop our country from behind the scenes. With which eyes should we look at this?
In truth, you all must think about this carefully. This is the hardship the 7 Remnants endured. Because of his brothers’ wicked act, Joseph was sold to a human trafficker. And so, though he was the son of a noble household, he lived as a slave. Just when things were becoming somewhat bearable, he was thrown into prison. But Joseph did not regard that as hardship. This is important. If Joseph had complained, “Ah, this is too hard,” then he would have lost. Sometimes you see even pastors resenting someone and being wounded. That’s losing. And then no matter how you try afterward, in the end you collapse. What Joseph endured was not hardship. It was God’s blessing. This is the perspective you must adopt first.
“But isn’t this really hard in reality?” You could say that. Ah, but you all know from real life. Some person suffers such hardship that they end up in prison even though they’ve done nothing wrong. At that time this person serves a very long prison sentence. What did he do at that time? He discovered the blessing God had given him. He created the most important work in the world. Who is this? It is John Bunyan. What did he create? He wrote a book called Pilgrim’s Progress. That book has been popular enough to be considered second in influence only to the Bible.
Especially you Remnants. If you already carry a wound about your parents, you have lost. And you will lose again. Surprisingly, elders who have a lot of experience and are living well also often hold wounds. If that’s the case, your spiritual eyes grow dim. Even Abraham had his eyes darkened because of worry. He believed in God, but he was anxious. “But I have to make a living,” these kinds of thoughts kept coming. “If I make a mistake, this could kill me,” these kinds of thoughts kept coming. Then hardship keeps coming your way. Abraham’s thinking wasn’t wrong. Why? Because it was truly hard. No. One day he realized this wasn’t it. From that point he began to build an altar. From that point God gave him a word. That word was fulfilled. It is exactly like that. Remnant.
And so, as you all know well, someone like David also endured a great deal of hardship. At that time David said this. At his greatest hardship he said this: “Because the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” But he didn’t just say it with his mouth. He truly did that. David truly triumphed.
If we don’t properly understand this, look at the early church, just once. You cannot. If anyone with a properly functioning head checks into it, they cannot. It was made illegal from the start. So then, going to the upper room in Mark’s house was breaking the law. In the end, if caught, you get arrested. Even so, if you kept doing it, you would be sentenced to death. What would you all do? But it doesn’t end there. Later, Rome applies pressure. Rome, the strongest nation in the world, begins to persecute Christians. Then, what is the clear proof? Did the Jews win, or did the gospel win? Did Rome win, or did the gospel win? Look at the historical evidence.
When we keep being deceived, our eyes grow dim. Our spiritual eyes grow dim. In the same way, once Adam and Eve were deceived and sinned, their spiritual eyes grew dim. Instead, their physical eyes opened. Their physical eyes opened, and they said, “Ah, we are naked.” That’s what happened.
So, all of you — especially our Remnants — I’m not saying this to comfort you artificially. We don’t need to comfort ourselves artificially, nor do we need to receive comfort. We must see accurately.
「The Seed and Descendants of Unbelief」
Do you understand how terrifying this unbelief is? Once this seed is planted, it becomes a problem all the way down to one’s descendants. That’s how you should see it. Here in the introduction there are various people of unbelief from the Old and New Testaments, but just take that as reference material.
Main
You only need to understand this part.
1. Ishmael
Ishmael. This is the name of Abraham’s son. Abraham doubted, and even though God said He would give him a child, he did not believe, and had a son through another woman. You must absolutely remember this. Later on, sending Ishmael away is not the real issue. Right now, in the present, the peoples causing the most problems in the entire world are the descendants of Ishmael. Right now. It is a frightening thing. It seems like nothing at all, but right now they are the ones waging war and causing trouble. Muslims — all of that is the descendants of Ishmael.
2. Isaac
God gave Abraham faith, and when faith arose, He gave him Isaac. And so, this unbelief continues on and on. This seed, it continues. As we go through this lesson, you must look at the lesson book a lot, but you must also recover your faith by looking at Scripture.
1. Ishmael → Unbelief
This becomes a complete axis of unbelief.
2. Isaac → Gospel
After Abraham had Isaac, he began a complete recovery of faith and the gospel. You must look at this closely.
3. History
When you remove unbelief, God works. These are the same three things. Ishmael’s unbelief continues. God promised Isaac, but He will surely raise up a movement of the gospel. Today’s lesson too, there’s no need to look at it in great detail. Just take hold of this: “Ah, I must get rid of unbelief.” What should you look at?
1) Environment
You look at your environment and fall into unbelief, right?
2) Conditions
And then, “the conditions aren’t right.” This is all looking only at what is physical, without any spiritual eyes. Whatever it is, there’s always an invisible cause that comes first, right? But we don’t know the invisible cause, and only talk about the visible result.
3) Humanism
What else? Today, being swayed by sentiment, is what’s called employing humanism, again and again. When you go outside and look at people, you easily fall for this, I’m telling you. I read a book about three great heroes of Japan. The three great heroes of Japan were impressive, and I learned a lot from that book, but once I finished reading it, what happened to me? Employing humanism started to look really cool. They use trickery and scheming, and that looked cool. It’s being deceived momentarily by just one book, you see. That’s how it happens to us. If we get rid of this unbelief, history happens. We think we need to do some great big thing, but that’s not the case.
4) Test
What else? When a trial comes, you get shaken again. Because a trial comes. You only find out when you go through a trial, right? You only know a person once hardship comes to them. Otherwise you don’t know. Right when a trial hits, that’s exactly when unbelief already starts coming out. What else?
5) Public Opinion
It’s more and more not listening to God’s word and instead constantly listening to what people say. That’s public opinion. Once you keep listening to what people say, your faith disappears. And even your leader starts lying now. Even though it’s their own thinking, they say, “Everyone is saying this,” and they even lie like that. Of course there will be some truth in it. So in any case, they make it sound reasonable enough to make you lose sight of God’s word.
You must not be deceived. Those who died in the wilderness spoke words that sounded right. Right? They spoke words that sounded right, I’m telling you. They spoke words that seemed more right than Moses, Joshua, and Caleb. Moses, Joshua, and Caleb said it will happen unconditionally, but those who died in this wilderness spoke words that seemed reasonable, I’m telling you. “But we ate well when we were in Egypt. There’s nothing to eat here in this wilderness.” That’s right, isn’t it? “We were eating well and living well, but now we’ve come to this wilderness and there’s not even any water. What do we do if we die? Then do we have to die on this sand?” Every single thing they said really did seem right. Right? And so all those people ended up dying.
If they had truly been righteous people, they wouldn’t have talked that way. If they had faith, they wouldn’t talk that way. “Coming out of Egypt is God’s will. Coming out of Egypt was God’s will. Going to the land of Canaan is God’s plan. It’s fine even if we die here. Our descendants must go.” That’s what they should have said, right? If they had reached that level, that would have been a somewhat intelligent kind of person. We aren’t even at that level. God’s promise said it goes forward. God’s word said it would bring them into the land of Canaan. You must remember these three things. When we remove this unbelief, God’s work happens. First, your eyes open.
Conclusion
And so, from this point, this is the answer that comes out.
1. Only Christ
Why is it only Christ? Now, this answer comes out. “Ah, we cannot overcome darkness.” We cannot overcome our circumstances either. Right? If problems and sickness hit me hard, can I overcome them? I can’t. Especially if you look closely, the world cannot help me either. The answer becomes visible. That is what it means to see that it is Christ alone.
2. Background – Throne (Darkness)
And so we come to know that the background that appears here is the power of the throne. Without this power, I cannot even change my own destiny. Without this power, Africa cannot be saved. Without this spiritual power, we cannot save the 5,000 unreached people groups. From this point it becomes visible. What it means to break darkness. There is a dark power that keeps driving our nation into a curse. This is what breaks that.
3. The 3 Eras
Today, too, this covenant is what opens up the 3 eras.
And so, many multi-ethnic peoples have now also attended WRC this time. It starts from next Sunday. May it be a week in which you all take hold of this covenant and pray a special prayer this week, in the name of Jesus Christ. Let us pray.
Prayer
Let today be the best day. Let it be a new day. Let it be a day of gaining new strength. Let it be a day of seeing what belongs to You. Let us recover the strength of God that can save the world. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.