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Genesis 16, Abraham, Sarai, Hagar,
and Ishmael. I'm going to read the passage.
It's fairly brief, 16 verses. And then I'm going to touch briefly
from the handout on some big observations by Lig and Duncan. That'll be on pages two through
six. and then I'm going to work through the passage with you
with applications along the way. So it'll be a little different
in the way we approach it, but I'll guide you through it and
we'll enjoy this time together. But let me read this passage
first of all. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had
borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name
was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, now behold,
The Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go into
my maid. Perhaps I will obtain children
through her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. And after
Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Abram's wife,
Sarai, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her
husband, Abram, as his wife. He went into Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she had
conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight. That's referring
to Hagar relating to Sarai, the mistress's Sarai. And Sarai said
to Abram, may the wrong done to 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 Sarai, "'Behold, your maid is
in your power. "'Do to her what is good in your
sight.' So Sarai 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. He said, "'Hagar, Sarai's maid,
Have you come from and where are you going? And she said,
I'm fleeing from the presence of my mistress, Sarai. Then the
angel of the Lord said to her, return it 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
will be too many to count. The angel of the Lord said to
her further, behold, You are with child and you will bear
a son and you will call his name Ishmael because the Lord has
given heed to your affliction. 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. Then she called the name of the
Lord who spoke to her You are a God who sees, for she said,
have I even remained alive here after seeing him? Therefore the
well was called Bir Lahai Roi. Behold, it is between Kadesh
and Bered. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and
Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar
bore Ishmael to him." A very interesting story, narrative. And as we look at this, there's
an abundance of applications that we will be drawing. But
if you'll turn in your notes to page two, what... I'm indebted to Joel Beakey for
an outline for this. He called this message, when
he was working through it, the tragic effects of do-it-yourself
religion. And that will become evident
when we work through the passage, why does he call it do-it-yourself
religion? In four parts, Sarai's plan,
Abram's plan, Hagar's plan, and then God's sovereign plan. As
I mentioned a little bit earlier, just some major points from Ligon
Duncan on this, and this will be brief, but Derek Kidner, a
noted commentator, a good solid commentator says this, this chapter
marks another stage in eliminating every means but miracle towards
the promised birth. It is ironical that after the
heights attained in the last two chapters, Abram should capitulate
to domestic pressure pliant under his wife's planning and scolding,
and quick to wash his hands of the outcome. And that's a very
salient, very accurate assessment. No one comes out looking good
in this story. Abram doesn't come out looking good, Sarai
doesn't look good, Hagar doesn't look good. Frankly, none of these
folks are exemplary in the way that they've conducted themselves,
but the scripture is refreshingly candid and transparent about
the lives of major players in redemptive history. And so we
find Abram who has been, he's had some downturns in previous
chapters. Genesis 12 was not particularly
helpful. That's when he and Sarai were
in Egypt, you may remember. And Abram said to Sarai, I'm
going to characterize you as my sister so that I can live.
And you can go be with the Pharaoh. That's not an exemplary pattern
for a husband to take with his wife. But then we have the episode
where Abram puts together a a set of troops, 380 men, as I recall,
and goes and liberates Lot. And then he turns away from all
of the power and prestige and wealth of Sodom and says, I don't
want any of this. You can feed the militia whatever
they need and let them go on. But the Lord has enabled me to
do this. That's clearly a high point. And today, we look at
a passage where faithful Abraham, Abram at this point, is faithless. And so we find this oscillating
pattern of obedience and disobedience, but it's not unique. And this
won't be the last time that we'll see an episode where Abram disappoints
and later on in Genesis we'll see another trip to Egypt and
he does exactly the same thing. And so we look at this There
might be a tendency, brothers and sisters, to look at this
and say, boy, I'm sure glad I'm not like Abram. But the reality
is that all of us are battling daily with the same dynamics,
the same temptations, the same ups and downs in our spiritual
lives that we see with Abram, we see with Sarai, and others. And it's easy to read a passage
like the one we're looking at today and have a rather censorious
or judgmental disposition and say, how could they do such a
thing? I thought they were heroes of
the faith. And indeed they are. But we need to be patient. We
need to, to understand what we're seeing here is, is a refreshingly
candid, honest treatment of how God uses fallen, redeemed men
and women. to accomplish his purpose and
it should encourage us along the way. I would remind us all
that the scripture at the end of time in Hebrews 11 speaks
of Abram and Sarai in glowing terms and I'm encouraged by that. The takeaway that I draw from
this is that the scripture looks at what the Lord did in and through
Abram and Sarai and applauds them for their faithful life.
I thought there was Genesis 12, I thought there was Genesis 16,
etc., and there is. But it's how we finish. It's
the overall trajectory of our life. It's how God uses us in
our lives. And it's encouraging to me that
we need to see these types of episodes. But Hebrews 11 speaks
very clearly about Abram in Hebrews 11 verse 8. By faith, Abram,
when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he
was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where
he was going. By faith, he lived as an alien
in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents
with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise, for
he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect
and builder is God. Verse 11, by faith even Sarai,
Sarai herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper
time of life since she considered him faithful who had promised.
That's God's assessment of Abram and Sarai. And I'm encouraged
by that. That's an honest statement. That's
where we end up. That's exactly where we end up. The path that
was taken to get there is not a linear path, but it's not linear
for any of us either. We look at our lives, and if
we're honest, we'll see downturns, we'll see episodes. We look back
at our lives and we'll say, how could I have done such and such
a thing, or how could I not have been obedient in that particular
episode? I wish I had handled that situation
differently. I wish I hadn't struggled with
sin for that period of time. I wish that I'd conducted myself
in a way that was more honoring to the name of Christ. I'm sure
Abraham and Sarah, at the end of their lives, in their minds,
were looking at that. But the assessment of God is
that they were faithful men and faithful women, and they honored
Him. And they did. And they did. So let's work through
the passage. But some major observations. Page two. These are takeaways
from Ligon Duncan. Number one. It's in the middle
of page two. God is sovereign, and we have
a hard time accepting that. That's exactly how this starts
off. They had been in Canaan for 10 years, and Abram was 75
when he left Haran. He'd been in Canaan with Sarai
all this time, and no child. And yet we saw earlier a promise
that he would have a great seed that would be coming from him.
And matter of fact, God took him outside, remember, and showed
him the stars. and said, so shall your descendants be. And Abraham
believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, Genesis
15, 6, a monumental verse in all of scripture. And here we
are, no child. And so time has elapsed. Years
are ticking by. None of them are young. And from
a human perspective, the question is running through their minds,
how can this be? God is sovereign, and men and
women have a hard time accepting that. They have a hard time living,
practically speaking, day-to-day lives, realizing that God is
sovereign. So let's go over to page two,
some of the corollaries down at the bottom of the page, and
I'm just hitting the high points here for you because you can
read this later. But God is sovereign. That's not the problem. The problem
is when God's sovereignty conflicts with our desires. When the outworking
of God's promises occur in a different time, in a different way, than
we would have wished, than we would have expected. And so we
look at the promises of God and we say, I thought you said, God,
that you were going to do this. And we look at his word and he
says this and yet it hasn't happened. in our time, in our way. But
God is sovereign. And the problem is that God operates
according to his own calendar. And he does what he does perfectly.
He does it with infinite goodness, infinite wisdom, infinite justice. He's sovereign overall. The problem
is that God's sovereignty conflicts with our sense of appropriate
timing. Next page, top of the page. The
problem is not God's sovereignty. The problem is our sinful propensity
to take things into our own hands rather than waiting on God and
resting in His promises. So principle number one is wrestling
with the sovereignty of God, wrestling with the promises of
God. An implication that we'll trace,
I'm giving you a flyover and then we'll work through this
passage in detail. Sin has consequences. It always
does. Does God forgive? Absolutely
He does. I was reading and meditating on Psalm 32 this morning. How
blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Does God forgive? Absolutely He does. That's why
Jesus came. Are there consequences that endure after forgiveness?
Yes, there are often consequences that endure after forgiveness.
That doesn't mean that we're not forgiven. it does mean that
there are consequences to sin that sometimes endure in our
lives and in the lives of others as a result of sin. Let me give
you an example. Were Adam and Eve forgiven? Yes. He clothed them. Were there consequences
to Adam and Eve's sin? You bet there were. Romans 5
says, As through one man sin into the world, and death through
sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned. How
did we sin? We sinned in Adam. Are there consequences? Look
at David's life. Was David forgiven? Yeah, David
was forgiven. David committed some absolutely
abominable things in terms of adultery, in terms of murder. consequences. His political life
was laden with all sorts of trouble. Look at his son Absalom. Lots
of consequences. Sin has consequences. That doesn't
obviate the fact that God forgives, but there are consequences to
sin. So number one, the problem of God's sovereignty. Number
two, Roman numeral two, in the middle of the page, God's grace
is magnified in contrast to the sinfulness of his people. We're
going to see that in the passage that we have before us today
in Genesis 16, we're going to see God's grace shown to Abram,
to Sarai, and in a very poignant way to Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid. We're going to see the kindness
of God. Big item number three, page five. God pursues, this
is about two-thirds of the way down, God pursues the fleeing
in grace to lead to repentance. You're going to see that when
we look at what God does in the life of Hagar. God is a pursuing
God. God has a long, long, long record
of rescuing broken lives, and he's not finished yet. God has
a long record of remarkably rescuing wayward lives, transforming them,
molding them, using them, keeping them, preserving them, and ultimately
taking them home to be with him, and he's not finished yet. But
God is a gracious God and we need to always remember that
we're going to see some remarkable things that God does in their
lives. Another big item on page six
down at the bottom. Where does this all end up? God calls Abram to wait. The punchline on this is 14 years
later, Isaac is born. But after this episode that we
read about in Genesis 16, we still don't have the child of
promise. We have Ishmael, but Ishmael is not the child of promise.
14 years later, we'll see Isaac. So wait, wait, wait. The clock
is ticking. Abram's getting older. Sarai's
getting older. And yet God says, wait. And he's
good. Everything he does is always
good. So those are some major points for us to consider. Now,
let's walk through the passage. Let's walk through it step by
step. Genesis 16. The setting is that
they have been in Canaan for 10 years, no child. The scripture
says in Genesis 16 that Sarai's growing impatient. His wife is
growing impatient. Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne
him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was
Hagar. This likely occurred back in Genesis 12. You may remember,
I mentioned this earlier, that in Genesis 12, there was a famine
in the land, and Abram and Sarai went to Egypt for food. And while
they were there, remember I mentioned this earlier, that the scripture
tells us that Abram said, you're a very lovely lady and they love,
they really enjoy lovely ladies here in Egypt. So what's going
to happen is they're going to kill me. And so to save my life,
we're going to call you my sister. And they did. And what happened?
God intervened in a remarkable way. And it was really a very
poor testimony for Abram. Remember, he was supposed to
be a blessing. He was to not only receive a blessing, but
to be a blessing. He was anything but a blessing
to the Egyptians in Genesis 12. But that's just part of redemptive
history. But the scripture says that Pharaoh
bequeathed unto Abram all sorts of livestock and manservants
and maidservants. We don't know for sure, but I
think it's entirely likely that Hagar was one of the women that
came into their lives in Genesis 12. So what is the plan? The plan is that Sarai comes
to Abram and verse 2 and says, the Lord has prevented me from
bearing children. That's true. God is sovereign
over the timing of children. whether we'll have to wait or
not wait, how many children we'll have, all of these things. God
is sovereign over all. Moses never contradicts that
statement. He never says, no, that's a false theological observation
that you've made. It is true that God had sovereignly
kept Sarai from bearing children. No doubt that they had desired
to have children. They expected to have children.
They'd been promised to have children, and yet there was no
child. And so this creates some dynamics. What are the dynamics? Number
one is pressure. There's a conflict, there is
a promise, and then there is real-time experience. And those
are not syncing up very well. When I say there's a promise,
Abraham, Sarah, you will have a child. Real-time experience,
no child. There's a disconnect between
God's timing and expectations on the part of Abram and Sarai,
and there's pressure. Well, she comes and says that
I have this handmaid, and I may obtain children through her,
and that may seem like a really strange thing, but if you look
at the literature in the ancient Near East, the Code of Hammurabi,
the Newsy tablets and several major documents of that time,
this was culturally very normative. Observation. We read things that
are described that are not prescriptive. Solomon had 300 wives. He had
299 bad decisions. It was not God's plan to have
multiple wives. Genesis 224 is very clear about
God's pattern for marriage. One man, one woman for life,
one flesh, concubines, multiple wives. It happens. David had multiple wives. Does
that mean that it's something that is normative in that culture? It was normative in that culture.
Is it biblical? It is not biblical. It violates God's pattern for
marriage. But it was normative. It was
not considered Unethical, it was not considered immoral. It
was considered very normal for a barren woman to have another
woman to be a surrogate mom, so to speak, and then the child
would be adopted into the family. And that's where she's going.
So think about this. There is this conflict between
things that are culturally normative and biblically proper. Those
don't always match up. And that's exactly what we have
here. We have something that was entirely normative, considered
ethical, considered moral. Is it biblical? No, it's not
biblical. Does the scripture specifically prohibit concubines? No. The scriptures replete with
instances with Solomon and David having concubines. Those were
women that they would have in their lives that would be surrogate
moms or for just personal pleasure, whatever the case may be. Is
that God's plan for marriage? Absolutely not. Never was, never
will be. So there's this conflict between
things that we read, between things that are descriptive and
things that are prescriptive. There's a lot that's described
here that's not prescriptive. So it's important that we remember
that. God is not condoning this practice. He established in Genesis
2, 24, the pattern for marriage, but this is, they're exceeding
to what is culturally normative. They're resorting to human ingenuity,
and that's why Joel Beeky called this the peril or the tragics
of do-it-yourself religion. And when we say do-it-yourself
religion, how often do we try to help God out with our plans? When we are seeing something
that's not playing out in our lives and our experience according
to our time, our expectations, And suddenly we become very ingenious
in devising plans and strategies and how God needs a little help
to bring this to pass. I'm not being flippant, it happens
every day. Matter of fact, Paul, the Apostle
Paul, uses this exact instance in Galatians 4 to describe work's
righteousness as opposed to a child of promise. He describes Hagar
as basically works righteousness, trying to be saved by the law.
When people are trying to be saved by the law, they're relying
upon what? God's grace or their own ability
to perform, their own ability to perform. Isaac is the child
of promise. He's the one that God brought
in. Paul uses this as a very example. He describes it as an
allegory, as a picture. And he uses Genesis 16 to illustrate
the perils of trying to be saved by your own efforts as opposed
to relying upon God's promises. And that's really why some people
look at this and they say, how often in my own life am I resting
in God's promises, patiently waiting, trusting, relying upon
God to do what he says he's going to do in his way, in his time.
And I'm just taking a deep breath and just relaxing. and setting
aside my own calendar, my own expectations, and I know that
whatever God does is right, and I'm good with that. Does that
describe your experience? It doesn't describe mine all
the time. If we're honest, I think we all struggle with that. And
so that's why we can't be, we're not here to sit in judgment on
Abram and Sarah, because they're mirrors of who we are at various
points in our lives, if we're honest about ourselves. But this
was the plan. So Sarah had a plan. It was not
a good plan. And so then what happens in Genesis 2? Abram listened
to the voice of Sarah. The language is uncannily similar
to Genesis 3. What happened to Genesis 3? There
was a command of God, you may eat of every tree of the garden
except for one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan
tempted who? Eve. Adam was present, by the
way. And Eve took the fruit, and she
ate it, and she handed it to her husband, and he acceded to
this. And so we have, the language
is very similar, that Abram listened to the voice of Sarah. And that's
exactly what he did. Now, the tragedy here is Abram's
plan was passivity. We'll see that. There's going
to be two women that are going after each other and you see
exactly the same thing. So, um, Hagar becomes pregnant
and, and Sarah is at this point, barren. If you look at first
Samuel one, uh, Hannah and Peninnah, uh, two wives, again, not a good,
good thing to have. You should never have two wives,
but, uh, but Hannah was not bearing children and Peninnah had children.
And guess what? Panetta was sitting in judgment.
The scripture describes her as Hannah's adversary. Women can
be tough on each other. Men can be tough on each other.
But here we have an example of two women going after each other.
One of them says, see, I could have a child. That's why your
husband gave me to him. Can you imagine? I can see that
conversation taking place. So I get to be the one through
whom the covenant is going to be fulfilled. Well, no, she had
a child, but that was not the child of the covenant. But so
we have Hagar sitting in judgment on Sarai, and Sarai is just livid. And she doesn't come out very
good in this story either, by the way. But then what does she
do? She blames Abram for all of this. She goes on and she
says, Um, Abram lived 10 years, et
cetera, and it takes all of this. And Sarah says to Abram, may
the wrong done me be upon you. So it's your fault, Abram. And
I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she was
conceived, I was despised. May the Lord judge between you
and me." That same language, by the way, when we see that
expression, may the Lord judge between you and me, that's exactly
the same language in its language of suspicion, its language of
hostility, its language of division. You see that with Jacob and Laban
talking to each other. This was not a happy relationship.
That's why I said this is Abram and Sarah need an ACBC counselor
right now. They need the word of God spoken
into their lives. And he does that. The Lord's
going to work in their lives. But what does Abram do? So what should
he have done? If you look at some of the commentators,
Matthew Henry makes this point very specifically. Sometimes
the most powerful temptations in our lives come from those
that are closest to us. even from spiritually mature
people who mean well, who mean well, but sometimes they give
us really poor advice, really poor counsel. And that's what
makes that temptation particularly powerful is because it's coming
from a trusted source. And it happens all the time.
Friends can give us counsel that isn't wise. And so what should
Abram have done? live with his wife in an understanding
way, taken her aside, and said, I understand the difficulty that
we're both going through. As your husband, I have to say
no. I have to honor you as the woman that I love, that God has
given me. You're my wife. He knew the law. He knew Genesis
2. He knew what the pattern of marriage
was. He knew that there was a conflict between these cultural norms
and the Bible. And he should have said, I understand. Is there
any indication that any of them sought the Lord in this? And
the answer is no, none of them did. They defaulted to their
own plans. And one commentator has said
that frantic action and fearful frustration come easier to us
than faith. Let me repeat that. Frantic action
and fearful frustration often come easier to us than faith.
And that is really true when we're in the pressure situation.
And God is not delivering on His promises as we would expect
Him to deliver. And we're facing disappointment.
And what do we do? We take things into our own hands.
Sarah, let me sit down. Let's pray together. Let's go
to the Lord. And maybe you should have taken
his wife outside. Let me show you the stars. Instead
of looking at yourself, let's look up. Let me remind you what
God had said. Take her to the Word of God.
Not in a harsh way, in a loving way. I understand the difficulty.
Let's spend some time together. I can't allow you to go down
this path because this would not be God's best for you, for
me, for our marriage. And the fact that the culture
says it's a good thing doesn't mean it's a good thing. And there's
consequences for violating God's law. Let's pray about it. He
didn't do any of those things. There's an example here for us
men who are husbands and for those guys that ultimately want
to be husbands. When you're faced with a situation
where your wife comes up with a desire that is an understandable
desire, we hopefully can understand this, and it's not a godly desire,
not a godly plan, our obligation, men, is to speak to our wives'
truth and say, no, we can't do that. Here's what we should do. and let's pray about it, let's
work through this together, not simply to exceed. And then the
worst thing is that when this wagon is rapidly falling apart,
we have two women fighting each other, we have Sarah very unhappy
with the handmaid, we have the handmaid sitting in judgment
and derision on Sarah, and so Sarah's blaming Abram, and Abram's
saying, I thought this was your idea, And so, what does he do? He says, whatever you want to
do. Whatever you want to do with
Hagar, it's up to you. She's your handmaid. Is that
a biblical response? That is not a biblical response.
That is passivity. He abdicates his responsibility
as a man, as a husband, to sit with his wife and say, we can't
go down that path. We can't go down that path. But
that's what he does. Abram said to Sarai, Behold,
your maid, verse 6, is in your hand, your power, pardon me, due to
her what is good, what, in your sight. How about let's do what
would be good in God's sight. But let's do what is good in
your sight. So he completely abdicates his responsibility
as a man, as a husband. And so we have this Egyptian
handmaid who has become pregnant and she is full of pride, and
we have Sarai who is bitter, and we have Abram who is passive,
and that's not a good mix. And that's why I somewhat seriously
said they need an ACBC counselor at this point in time. They need
to go to the Word of God and say, what will God do? There's
consequences to sin, and that's what we're gonna see here. So
what happens? Sarai, in verse six, treats Hagar
harshly. very roughly. She was a handmaid,
and Sarah legally could do with her pretty much anything she
wanted. So Hagar is carrying a child, and I don't know what
it meant that Sarah was treating her harshly, but it was really
rough, whatever it was. And so what does Hagar do? She
flees. Verse 7, the angel of the Lord,
that expression, the angel of the Lord, is an expression that
almost always means a pre-incarnate manifestation of the second person
of the Trinity, a Christophany, a theophany. A theophany is an
appearance of God. A Christophany is specifically
the second person of the Godhead. The angel of the Lord is an expression
that almost always means a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ. And
it's appropriate to look at it that way here. The angel of the
Lord found her. If I can say this, Jesus pursued
her. He did. And found her by a spring of
water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. Shur
is close to Egypt. Where was Hagar going? She was
going back home. She was going back home. She
was going back to Egypt. And so that's where Jesus finds
her. That's where the angel of the
Lord finds her. God is chasing her down. God is a pursuing God. There's all sorts of examples
in scripture of God pursuing wayward people. And we have the
example of the lost coin, and then ultimately in Luke 15, the
lost son. And it's just, these are wonderful
stories about redemption and God pursuing sinners and bringing
them back to himself. And that's exactly what's happening
here. By the way, there is a fairly good reason to except the proposition
that Hagar may have been a believer. How did I come up to that conclusion?
Number one, it's unlikely that Sarah wouldn't
have chosen a pagan, a person who was engaged in some type
of immoral life, pagan worship, to be the mother of the child. Number two, Abram was known to
be instructing his family in the Word of God. You see that
in Genesis 18. Number three, you have Hagar actually giving
a name to the Lord, the God who sees El Roy, and she responds. The angel of the Lord says you
need to do two things. You need to return and submit. Brothers and sisters, that is
God's pattern for repentance, return and submit. If you look
at Hosea 14, The counsel in Hosea 14 for a wayward child of God,
for someone who's backslidden, is to do exactly that, to take
words with you and to return and to submit, to obey. And she
does that. She does exactly that. And she's
astounded that she has seen God and been allowed to live. That's
the same experience that we see when Jacob wrestled with the
angel at Pineo. And that means the face of the
Lord. And he says, can I believe that
I have seen God and I live? Hagar knew that she had seen
God. She knew that God had condescended to come and chase her down and
to lead her to repentance. And she responded in a biblical
way. She did exactly what she was told. She returned and she
submitted. She pursued the path of repentance.
So I don't know for sure, but a case can be made that Hagar
was a spiritually sensitive woman, possibly a believer. But the
angel asks her a question, and it's interesting. Notice how
he addresses her in verse 8. Hagar calls her by name, Sarah's
maid. He doesn't say Abram's wife.
He says, Sarai's maid, he's reminding her of exactly who she was and
the responsibility that she had. You were the maid of Sarai. And
so there is a pattern of obedience and submission here. She was
the handmaid of her mistress, Sarai. And so she owed Sarai
a duty of obedience and respect. But I thought Sarah treated her
harshly. She did. What's a child of God to do when
your master treats you harshly? To submit and to trust God? She does exactly that. She returns.
She's pursued a path of repentance. God has told her you need to
repent, and she does that. She returns and she submits.
She goes back. Return to your mistress, verse
9, and submit yourself to her authority. But there's a promise,
and there's grace here. This is remarkable. There is
a wonderful promise. I will greatly multiply your
descendants so that there will be too many to count. And then
there is this description about Ishmael. Ishmael, God hears. And we have in this passage two
statements about God that are so refreshing, so encouraging.
We have Hagar saying, there is a God who sees. And Ishmael is
God hears. And I'm reminded of Psalm 139,
where can I go from your presence, or where can I flee? If I ascend
to heaven, you're there. If I descend to Sheol, you were
there. You know my thoughts from afar. And Psalm 139 is all about
the God who sees and the God who hears, the God who cares,
the God who responds, the God who nurtures, the God who supports,
the God who provides. And Hagar had only been abused. Hagar had been used as simply
just a tool to have a child. And so now she's receiving a
promise from God. And God himself chases her down
and leads her to a path of repentance and restoration. It's a picture
of grace, and it's an amazing story here with Hagar. And there
is a promise here about Hagar that he's going to be a person
of hostility. Which really, there are a number
of ironies in all of this. One commentator has said, it's
ironic that in Genesis 12, Abram takes his wife and gives her
to an Egyptian pharaoh. And in Genesis 16, Sarah takes
her husband and gives him to an Egyptian handmaid. The other
irony that we see in this is, and it's the consequences of
sin, is that the antipathy, the hostility between Sarai and Hagar
continued in their descendants. You see that in Genesis 17, 20.
There are consequences to sin. There is forgiveness, there is
restoration, there is a path to restoration, but there are
consequences. And so we can explore and we
will explore, God willing, what happened with Ishmael, but it's
not a happy situation between Israel and Ishmael. But here
we have this story. So then, verse 13, she called
the name of the Lord who spoke to her, you are a God who sees
Elroy. For she said, have I even remained
alive here after seeing him? She knew what a privilege it
was. And the thought was, if you see God, you surely will
die. But she saw God and she knew what a privilege it was
that she'd seen God. and she'd heard his voice, and
she was living, and she was given a promise. Therefore, the well
was called Be'er lehi roi, behold, it is between, and literally,
it's talking about seeing God. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and
Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael,
God hears. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar
bore Ishmael to him. I want to ask a question. How
much progress has there been in Genesis 16 with respect to
God fulfilling his promises in Genesis 15? Nothing. They're not any further along
right now than they were at the end of Genesis 15. Abram is still
without the child of promise. Sarah is still barren. He's 86
years old, and Sarah is about the same age. It's gonna be 14
years before Isaac comes. So God's got him waiting, waiting,
waiting. Is God slow to deliver on his
promises? He's never slow. He always does
things at exactly the right time and exactly the right way. But
what a lesson for Abram and Sarai to go through this, to experience
the difficulties of choosing paths. Anytime you choose a path
that seems expedient, but it's not biblical, you can always
be assured that the results will be confusion, disappointment,
strife, and the results are never good. They're never good. So
we can always ask ourselves, am I doing what I'm doing because
it seems expedient, it seems wise, or am I doing it because
I'm waiting on God? And so that's, Diane asked me,
will you finish your lesson today? And I thought, surely I will. I'm not finishing my lesson.
So we'll pick it up here because there are some points that I
want to develop with you on the meaning of faith and how we can
live while we're in the waiting room with God. But these are
lessons that I think we can draw.
Abram, Sarai, Hagar and Ishmael
Series The Book of Genesis
Teaching on Genesis 16
| Sermon ID | 9224058574007 |
| Duration | 43:48 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | Genesis 16 |
| Language | English |
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