Our scripture this morning comes from Genesis chapter 16. I'll be reading the entire chapter as we look at this incident in the life of Hagar. Let us pray. Father, as we come once again to the reading of this portion of your Word, we plead for your Spirit's help. to understand this passage of Scripture. We're thankful for your Word. We're thankful that we have it in our own language, and yet we confess that in and of our own selves we're not capable of understanding your Word without your Spirit teaching us. So, Holy Spirit, be active in our midst, I do pray, that all that's said would be for your glory. And, Lord, you would work to make your Word applicable to my life and to each of our lives here according to our spiritual needs. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Genesis chapter 16. Now Sarah, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. So Sarah said to Abram, Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid. Perhaps I shall obtain children through her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarah. And after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram's wife Sarah took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife, and he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight. And Sarah said to Abram, May the wrong done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms. But when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight." May the Lord judge between you and me." But Abram said to Sarah, Behold, your maid is in your power. Do to her what is good in your sight. So Sarah treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence. Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, Sarah's maid, where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I'm fleeing from the presence of my mistress, Sarah. Then the angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority. Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they shall be too many. to count. The angel of the Lord said to her father, Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. And he will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him. And he will live to the east of all his brothers. But then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, Thou art a God who sees. For she said, Have I even remained alive here after seeing him? Therefore the well was called Beherlah Roy. Behold, it is between Kadesh and Bereth. So Hagar bore Abram a son. And Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him." Well, here ends the reading of this portion of the Word of God, but I trust you'll keep your Bibles open now and make sure that what I say conforms to what, or is in accord to what the Word of God says, because it's God's Word. that lives forever, that is eternal. Well, who is God? As we mentioned earlier in our introduction to worship, this is a very important question for us to have before us and to turn to God's Word for an answer. And we find that God reveals Himself. He opens up some of His character to us throughout His Word and the different names of God that are found in the pages of Scripture. This morning, we want to look at what Hagar named God or called God, I should say, based on His revelation to her. Thou art a God who sees. Now, we all know that God is one who He sees all things. He's an ever-present God. But yet in our lives we can live as if we don't think about that or don't realize that as we should. And this text opens that up into some surprising ways for us. The first point we want to make is maybe where some of you are this morning. And that is that Hagar is, quote, unseen by people in her world. She thought that no one cared anything about her, and from her perspective, she could look back on her life and see evidences of that. You may be right there this morning as an adult or as a young person, due to your own circumstances in life. You may not be, but you may know someone that is. And this passage of scripture will, I think, give us some insights as to how to counsel, whether it be yourself or others, in terms of the Word of God. We first meet Hagar in a way in which she is unnamed. Back in Genesis chapter 12, there she was a number, apparently, to Pharaoh. In Genesis chapter 12, we read that Abram and Sarah journeyed down there to get something to eat due to the lack of food where they were. And Abram loved himself so much that he told Sarah to lie and to not say that she was his wife, but instead to say that she was his sister. And the reason for this was because Abram was afraid that the Pharaoh would kill him in order to marry Sarah. And Scripture tells us it was a beautiful woman. And so to save his own skin, without thinking about the consequences to Sarah, who could easily be given over to Pharaoh, He told her to lie. Well, God sent great judgment upon Pharaoh as a result of having taken Sarah and nothing went on from any testimony in Scripture because God prevented that with the judgment that he sent. But Scripture tells us that in Genesis chapter 12, verse 16, that Pharaoh treated Abram well for Sarah's sake and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels. And then it was after this that we read in the next verse about the judgment falling upon Pharaoh and his house. Although Hagar is not mentioned here, this is where she was obtained by Abram, I believe, and she was brought to the Promised Land. We can see from this text that She was just a number from the standpoint that no name is given to her or to any of the other male and female servants that were given to Abram at this time. And so at this point, we see them traveling off from Egypt into the Promised Land. And then we turn to our text of this morning, Genesis chapter 16, and there we meet Hagar again. But again, we meet her as a convenience for Abram and Sarah. God had promised Abram some ten years earlier that God was going to bless all nations through him. Ten years had passed. Abram had been 75 then. He was now 85 at the time of this incident in Genesis chapter 16. and no child. Over 3,600 days had passed. They hoped in God to provide a child. But as Sarah says in verse 2, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Perhaps they needed to take God's promise into their own hands. Perhaps they needed to activate that promise themselves and leave God out of the picture, quit trusting in God to do this. And so, Sarah comes up with the idea, if I can't have a child, then I'll help God along. Now, I'm speculating as to what went on in Sarah's mind, but this could very well have been what went on in her mind. I'll help God along by providing my handmaid, my servant to Abram. And maybe we can get this child that way. But we notice here that Sarah doesn't even mention Hagar's name when she talks to Abram, at least in the text before us. We read in verse 2 that what she says is, please go in to my mate. Verse 5, may the wrong done me be upon you, she tells Abram, I gave my maid into your arms. Verse 6, Abram replies to Sarah, Behold, your maid is in your power." No name given, you see, here. Even though she'd spent the night with Abraham. Just a convenience, it seems. It's from the Lord's Word here. All Scripture is God's Word, but in this narrative section, and that's from section of this section of Scripture, we find Hagar's name being mentioned in verse 1. God tells us there she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. Abram and Sarah did not have children. Sarah says here, take Hagar, my handmaid. and spend the night with her. And in that relationship, verse 4 tells us that he went in to Hagar and she conceived. She bore Abram a child. So where Abram and Sarah did not have children, now Abram and Hagar were going to be the parents of a child. Now, perhaps this would bring great joy, they thought, to their home. Here would be a child they could cuddle and hold and watch grow and watch mature and watch the Lord do great things therein. But what they thought would turn out to be a delight turned out to be a source of great conflict. For we read in verse 5, And Sarah said to Abram, May the wrong done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms. But when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight. May the Lord judge between you and me. Now you can imagine Hagar, she was a maid now at the beginning of this passage, and then she was elevated from a maid to really a wife of her boss, Abram. And you can imagine the jealousy that would arise between Sarah and Hagar. Again, I'm going to speculate, I want you to understand that I am speculating. We don't know what went on there, but you can imagine Sarah giving her several tasks to do after she became pregnant, and Hagar would say, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm pregnant. I have to take care of myself. I'm Abram's wife too, you know. Not just you, but me. And I've born his son. I'm carrying his child, I should say. Or you can imagine her going around with her hands folded or pointing to the groin pregnancy. We don't know what all went on, but we know that there was a great amount of situations that occurred. that made Hagar despised in Sarah's sight. She was despised by Sarah and in her eyes she was better than Sarah because she was the mother of Abram's child. She had been able to do as a maid what Sarah had not been able to do as a wife. And so now Sarah turns to Abram. once again in the passage that we've read already earlier. She comes to Abram. She tells him in verse 5 of her situation about her being despised in Hagar's sight. And Abram says to her, Behold, your maid is in your power. Do to her what is good in your sight. He takes no responsibility. He leaves her unprotected from Sarah's harshness. And we read at the end of this verse, Sarah treated her harshly and she fled from her presence. How easy for us as heads of home not to step into situations in which we need to be involved in as heads of the home. Because we want to stay out of conflict. We've already seen Abram doing that earlier with his wife in Egypt when he lied or had her to lie about their own relationship as husband and wife. And now we see him saying, no, I'm not going to get involved. Yes, I spent the night with her, but now in this time of conflict. you do with her what's good in your sight." So, no, probably what happened was that she was given the most menial of tasks to do, really treated as a servant. I certainly don't want to say that she was beaten or anything like that. Scripture doesn't say that at all. But Scripture does say that she was treated harshly. And so she flees from her presence. Here she's gone from being, in her own eyes, the wife of Abram, to Abram not getting involved to protect her from Sarah's harshness, to Sarah now treating her harshly, giving her, no doubt, the most menial task to perform. So this one who had been a number to Pharaoh, had been a convenience for Abram and Sarah, now hides from everyone. And we need to stop here and make a couple of applications before we move on to her encounter with God. The first point we want to make here is that covenant families have sin that must be dealt with. That's one reason we go into the homes of Abram and Sarah in Scripture and other homes. It's to see that covenant homes, Christian homes, have sin. Sinners are married to sinners. So if you're here this morning and you say, well, my parents are Christians, but boy, they're a bunch of sinners. Well, we all are, and God's Word gives us direction as to how to live and how to deal with sin in the home. We're not saying in the least that Abram and Sarah did things correctly here. From the first verse of this chapter on down, one sin not dealt with led to other things going on. But God's word points out that we have sin, and we have to have it dealt with. And this points us to Jesus Christ. He's the only one. He's provided the way for sin to be dealt with through His shed blood on the cross of Calvary. And it's there we must flee to for a covering. It's there we must flee in repentance. toward God and toward those in our own home that we have wronged. But there is hope, you see, for sin in homes. But that hope must be resolved in God's way, must be carried out in God's terms. And we see Sarah and Abram not doing that as they should in the text that is before us. And building on this, we want to point out that we as Christians may use one another for our own purposes. Maybe you have done that. We see that that's what Sarah did here. We saw Abram did that earlier in the passage we referred to in Genesis Chapter 12, and now we see here in Genesis Chapter 16. That's Sarah and Abram. use Hagar for their own purposes. And Hagar got caught in the middle. We may use our relatives, not in this way, but in many other ways, for our own purposes. We may use our co-workers, our friends. We too, you see, have selfishness that must be rooted out in our own lives. Many times this is the way it comes up is through the use of others in a wrong way for our own purposes and aims. Thirdly, we want to point out here before we move on that too often we think that God neither sees nor cares about what occurs in our life. You see, to this point, God's out of the picture. He's not been mentioned. Sarah and Abram are living their lives day by day. Sarah says, go in to Hagar. Abram does. Still no mention of God, you see. And it's very easy in these first six verses of Scripture. think, for a reader that would come to this cove without reading other portions of Scripture, to say that our lives are not lived under the eye of God. But you say, of course we have to live under the eye of God. God is omnipresent, and how true that is. But we don't show that when we sin, you see. When we sin, when you and I sin, we live as if God doesn't see us. As if God doesn't exist. You know, how many times have you sinned and you said, boy, I hope so-and-so doesn't find out about this, or I'm glad so-and-so didn't know about this that I did. And we forget. We put out of our mind our very actions. that God has seen it all. And God's far more important than anybody on this earth that could see this or that, the words that we say, the thought life in our own minds, the actions that we do, the websites we visit, books we read, etc., etc., when we think no one else knows what's going on. The ideas that we entertain in our mind that may be lewd or hateful or murderous or profane, the list goes on and on. God is a God who sees, as we're going to see in the coming section of Scripture. But while it's a fearful thing to think that God sees all that goes on in our mind and the words that come forth from our mouths, even before they're formed, He knows them. We read earlier this morning in Psalm 139. That's the God that we serve, and while it is fearful, I hope we'll see in a few minutes that it's also a great comfort to us as well. Hagar flees. She hides from everyone, she thinks. Now, we might think that Abram is going to send someone after her because, after all, she is carrying his own child. But no, we don't find Abram or any search party from Abram mentioned as coming out after her. Instead, we find in verse 7, the angel of the Lord appearing to her. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness." The true water of life, in other words, comes to her and visits her by this spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. This one who is the who sees. And he speaks to her in a place that she least expects, in the wilderness, in a desolate area, far away from her native land, far away from her most recent home, out in the middle, as it were, nowhere. Hagar is seen by God in a place that she least expects." What a lesson there that if he saw her there, he saw her back in Egypt. He saw her back in her home of Abram and Sarah. And she replies here in verse 8. that she is fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarah. She still recognizes, you see, that relationship. And then the angel of the Lord says to her, these words in verse 9, return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority. Here, he gives her knowledge. You see, that she least expects, and a command that she least expects. God knows that she is fleeing. Where are you fleeing from? Where are you going? God's had a knowledge of her all along, and God commands her to do that which she least expects him to command. Return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority." Now, why would God command her to do this? Sarah has been treating her harshly. That's why I say I believe it's in doing menial tasks, not in physical abuse or anything of that nature. But I believe the reason that she is commanded to return is because that's a covenant home. Where else can she go to hear the word of God? Yes, God's word is going to come forth and be practiced in an imperfect manner because there are sinners in that home. But where else can she go to hear the word of God? A couple of chapters over in Scripture in Genesis 18, verse 19, God says this regarding Abram, "'For I have chosen him in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, in order that the Lord might bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken about him. Here was a home in which God's Word was going to be taught and lived out imperfectly. She couldn't find that in Egypt. She couldn't find that in the wilderness. And this took importance, you see, over her current situation. Some of you young people may be chomping at the bits, as it were, to leave home, to go out. Not simply because you want to establish homes on your own. That's perfectly normal to want to do that as we mature and as we grow. But your chief reason of wanting to leave home is so you can do your own thing and be out from under the ice. of your parents, so they won't be questioning you if you get into some activities that you know deep in your heart you shouldn't be involved in, but why not go on and do it one time anyway, just to see what it's like. You want to be out from under that type of observation, doing your own thing, answerable for once in your life to no one. free. Take thought of what we read here in this passage of Scripture. God says that covenant homes are a tremendous blessing, and one that we should not want to flee from unduly. For therein you have those that will pray with you and for you, remind you of baptismal promises and how to improve your baptism, train you in the Word of God, and hopefully in the midst of sin, come and repent and say, I'm sorry, I did you wrong. I was wrong at this point or that point. Value a covenant home. Yes, there are times and will be times when you need to be out on your own and working and establishing a home, etc. But again, I'm speaking to those who in your heart want to leave because you want to cast off that home life. You want to cast off that teaching. You want to live on your own and do your own thing for once. in your life, and go to church if you want to, but sleep late if you don't want to, if you don't want to go to church on Sunday. Just be yourself. Remember, your parents may not see you, but you are always under the eye of a God who does see. Hagar was in a wilderness, and yet God saw her and came to her. You can never flee. from the eye of God. Hagar, who had already realized, you see, that no doubt God was the God who sees because she was most likely aware of the judgment that had fallen upon Pharaoh's house back in Genesis chapter 12 due to Abram's lies. Abram didn't get by with that. You see, Pharaoh didn't get by with that. And now, she sees in her own life that God is one who sees. We notice here in verse 8 of our text of Genesis chapter 16 that her name is spoken of by this angel of the Lord. And Sarah, in their conversation, referred to her as a maid. But God says here, Hagar, Sarah's maid. Where have you come from? And where are you going? And so Hagar says in verse 13, she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, Thou art a God who sees. She can't even believe that she has remained alive after seeing him, after seeing this theophany, this Old Testament appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, the well was called Bir Laha Roi. She named, you see, the well as the well of a living one who sees me. And so she does return home. God tells her she's going to have a son. Here's one in scripture that knew the very sense of her child before the child was born because God told her that she would have a son. And his name would be Ishmael. Ishmael means God hears. So here we see another aspect of God's character. So whenever Ishmael's name was called, Abram, Hagar and others in that house would be reminded that God is a God who hears. He hears all things. But this morning we want to close with just making a few applications regarding the fact that God sees all things. Now, we've already seen here that God sees the home life. of Hagar in Genesis chapter 16, verses 4 through 6. What a reminder he sees your home life and my home life as well. He knows what goes on therein. But we see that God sees many other things throughout Scripture as well, and we'll just note a few of those as we try to apply this to our own lives this morning. The Scriptures there will point us to some other things that Scripture says God sees. Psalm 44, verse 21. God says there He knows the secrets of our hearts. What do you think about when no one else is around? What do you think about as you go to sleep at night, as you're driving? What do you think about? You tell no one. But you don't have to, you see, because God sees the secrets of our heart. We have nothing to confess. We can rejoice that we have thoughts that are pleasing to God. Even when no one else is around. Even when only God alone knows. what goes on in our mind. But if we do have those thoughts that we are ashamed of, then we can repent. And we can work on replacing those with good thoughts, thoughts that are God-honoring, that God will be pleased with. But either way, God knows the secrets of our heart. But as I said, this is a good thing, and another application I want to make in just a few minutes, but I'll go on and make it now, is that Christ died on the cross for all of our sins. All the sins of all who will put their trust in Him. And we can take great comfort in this, in that God sees all things because none of our sins have been overlooked by God. He didn't neglect to put one sin. on the sin bearer himself on the cross of Calvary because it was overlooked or unknown by him. This is the great comfort, one of the comforts we can take in the fact that God sees all things and that all of our sins, even the secrets of our heart when they are sin against God are laid upon Christ on the cross of Calvary. in Psalm 139 that we read earlier this morning and then sung a portion of as well. In verses 13-15, we read there that God has women with children under His eye and their children that they are carrying. Verses 13-15 in Psalm 139, we read these words. For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Wonderful are thy words, and my soul knows it very well. We turn back to Psalm 113, verse 9. And we read there, he makes the barren woman abide in the house as a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord. He knows the barrenness of women who, for one reason or another, are not able or have not yet born children. Even they are under the eye of Almighty God. On the opening verses of Psalm 139, shows us that single parents and single individuals are under God's eye as well. Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou dost know me when I sit down and when I rise up. Thou dost understand my thoughts from afar. Now, we can see from this passage in Genesis chapter 16, our text this morning, that God is one. who has single parents under his eye as well. Nothing escapes his eye, you see. And that's what Scripture is so clear on in point after point. We turn to Psalm 44, verses 20 and 21. And we read there. A little bit different perspective than we read earlier when we looked at the last part of verse 21. If we had forgotten the name of our God or extended our hands to a strange God, would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of our hearts. God not only knows the secrets of our hearts, but He knows our spiritual slides, you see. when that slide becomes apparent and stretching forth our hands to another God, whether it be materialism or advancement or rebellion of one type or another. God knows it all, from the secrets of our hearts to our spiritual slide. But thank God for repentance, you see. We flee to Him. And I trust that's what you'll do if any of this applies to you this morning. In a way in which you need to repent that you'll find yourself fleeing to the God who sees. You won't surprise Him by telling Him anything. He already knows the secrets of your heart, you see. And He has the remedy and the work, the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Flee to Him. Find forgiveness there and go on with life. Replace evil actions, evil thoughts with that which is good and honoring unto Him. Genesis 29, 32 and another verses of Scripture, we find here that God also knows your affliction. and my affliction in life." Again, not even that is hidden from God. Not even that is overlooked by Him. Here we have the account of Leah, a woman that was in a marriage in which she was not loved. She was overlooked by her own husband for another woman that was more beautiful. As Jacob had two wives, and he loved Rachel, but Leah was one who had not the outward beauty. And so, in Genesis 29, verse 32, We read there that she conceived and bore a son, and she named him Reuben, for she said, Because the Lord has seen my affliction, surely now my husband will love me. She thought because she provided him with sons, she would get the love of her husband. But she knew above all that she had a God who saw her affliction. Secondly, we want to point out from our text, and we won't spend time on these last two applications, but next, that God takes the initiative in people. It was God that came to Hagar, you see. It was God that sought her out, this all-seeing God. Abram didn't care really about her. Sarah probably was glad she was gone and out of her hair. But God comes and He addresses her by name. We have God's Word this morning that comes to you. God has brought you here and He's brought me here to be under His Word, to worship Him. May God's Spirit apply this Word according to our own needs as He sees those needs in our own heart and lives. This God, finally, we want to point out, the God who sees is a God of grace. He hears injustice as it is cried out unto Him. We read here in verse 11, the very end of verse 11 of Genesis 16, "...the Lord has given heed to your affliction." God is a God of grace. Look to Him in the midst of your affliction, or if you're going through a time of great peace, look to Him now so that you will be practiced to look to Him when affliction comes into your life of one type or another. And secondly, under this God of grace, I want to reiterate and underline that this God who sees all is the One who laid all sins of His people upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what made his suffering so terrible. Many people had been crucified and that was a terrible way to die at the hands of the Romans or at the hands of anybody. But what made Christ's suffering so far beyond the pain and agony of crucifixion and being beaten and crowned with a crown of thorns that pressed down into his brow was that he who knew no sin was made sin on your behalf and mine. All who will put their trust in him that we might live. That was an agony that went beyond The suffering, you see, the physical suffering that came with the nails and the beatings, as terrible as that was. But in this, God showed Himself to be a God of grace, and His Son went voluntarily. But it was the Lord God, you see, that 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21 says. The Lord God made His Son. sin on our behalf that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. May we look to the God who sees all things, repent of our sins to Him, trust in Him in the midst of our affliction, in the midst of our state, whatever it may be, and walk in faith day by day under the eyes of a God who sees. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, it scares us to think You are a God who sees, particularly sees the evil actions in our own lives and thoughts, etc., but yet we take great comfort, Father, in that, only because we can flee to You in repentance. Lord, enable us to do that where we need to and when we need to. Let not repentance be far from any of us in any area that we need it. Find us to you more and more, O God who sees our affliction. Bear us up in it. Keep our eyes on you. Work out affliction and all things in our own life for your glory and our good. In Jesus' name, amen.