July 15, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Luke 21-22

Weekly Memory Verse: 1 John 1:9

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Genesis 16:1-16 (NASB95)
¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. ² So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³ After Abram had lived ten 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. ⁴ He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight. ⁵ And Sarai 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.” ⁶ 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. ⁷ Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸ He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” ⁹ Then the angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.” ¹⁰ Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” ¹¹ The angel of the Lord said to her further, “Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. ¹² “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.” ¹³ 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?” ¹⁴ Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. ¹⁵ So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.^[1]

One of the things that has stood out to me in regard to this chapter is the way that Abram and Sarai decided to take the will of God into their hands.  We can learn a lot from this, when we get ahead of God, we can sure mess things up.  According to custom if a wife was barren, she could give her slave to her husband in order to bear a child.  Once that child was born, it became regarded as the wife's first child.  Then it was up to the husband to recognize the child and adopt him as son and heir, (The Bible Knowledge Commentary). 

Even though this was a legally correct way to take care of the problem of Abram not having a son, it was not God's plan.  By taking this move, there were a few things that went into play.  First, Sarai realized too late the error that she had made and she despised Hagar.  Sarai was the first to come up with the plan, and the first to reap a reward from the error. 

Today many who have found out that their husband or wife has cheated on them will probably tell the same story.  There is an intense hatred that is developed toward the lover of the other spouse.  God designed marriage to be one woman to one man, not multiple wives.  When Sarai broke this simple rule, and Abram complied, they introduced into their marriage a relationship which should have never taken place. 

The immediate result of the broken marriage covenant between Abram and Sarai was that she went from befriending Hagar to hating her.  We could criticize the way that Sarai treated Hagar after that, but it wouldn't be right to do so.  It was a valuable lesson to all of us demonstrating the pain and agony that takes place when we share our marriage beds.  Even though both parties of the marriage were in agreement with the act, both still reaped the reward of the sin. 

Hagar received the worst of it, and she was apparently a very sensitive woman.  Under the abuse of Sarai, Hagar ran for the hills.  Which gives us the second result of the sin.  Hagar's life was messed up from that point forward.  Hagar went from being a favored servant to being a hated subordinate who was required to continue to submit to the authority of Sarai.  Many today would have advised her to run away and find another place to live.  But God said she should put herself under the authority of Sarai, and Abram confirmed it.  We don't like the idea today, but God ordained authority, and He works through it. 

The third result of the sin has had repercussions from that day forward, and is still evident today.  The nation born out of Hagar through her son Ishmael is the fathers of the Muslims that we are at war with in Iraq.  Abram called Ishmael his son in verse 15, therefore legally making him heir to his house.  At this point in time Abram's legal heir became Ishmael.  The war between the Jews and the Arabs was born right here.  The Jews claim that the legal right to the land of Israel is theirs because they are the promised son, Isaac, (by Sarah that we will discuss in a few days) was the promised heir to the land.  The Arabs claim that they have the legal right to the land of Israel because they are the legal heirs according to the law of the land. 

Judges 13:15-25 (NASB95)
¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you so that we may prepare a young goat for you.” ¹⁶ The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Though you detain me, I will not eat your food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord. ¹⁷ Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that when your words come to pass, we may honor you?” ¹⁸ But the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” ¹⁹ So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord, and He performed wonders while Manoah and his wife looked on. ²⁰ For it came about when the flame went up from the altar toward heaven, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. ²¹ Now the angel of the Lord did not appear to Manoah or his wife again. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. ²² So Manoah said to his wife, “We will surely die, for we have seen God.” ²³ But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have let us hear things like this at this time.” ²⁴ Then the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the child grew up and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.^[2]

The fourth result that can be seen is that Hagar developed a deep personal relationship with the Lord.  Her amazement in verse 13 is because anyone who looks upon the face of God and lives has certainly been blessed by Him.  There are several references to the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament that indicates that this Angel is Jesus Himself, one is mentioned above.  The point being that God had a special relationship with Hagar, He even named her son, giving him the name "Ishmael".  Imagine the surprise that Abram must have had when she returned and submitted herself to Sarai after having a faith experience with God.  The name "Ishmael" means "God hears",

I believe that God has a special place in His heart for victims of sexual misconduct.  He understands the results of sin, and understands the way that it ruins the person for life, affecting every single area of their lives.  God reached out to Hagar comforting her, and placing His blessing upon her.  Her job was to return to submit to Sarai, even though she was abusing her.  God heard her distress and sent her back not only for her sake, but also for the sake of Ishmael. 

Ishmael was promised to be a difficult child, one who was constantly causing and getting into trouble.  His nation would be just like him, a wild people who refuse to be tamed.  This type of hostility is often found in children who are the result of split or broken marriages.  Today we have an entire generation who are suffering from the results of sexual sin, and from the results of selfish ambitions of parents who don't see the value of the marriage relationship.  The result of our sin is a generation of children who are rebellious and wild, just like Ishmael.  If we in America do not return to the Lord and to His standards for marriage, it scares me to think about the world that our children will live in.  We have an astronomical divorce rate and an even higher rate of abuse and sexual abuse in our homes and outside of our homes.  We are quickly becoming a nation of broken people, who are raising children in screwed up homes, the hostility and anger that these children carry toward their parents and toward God is scary. 

We always look for the easy way out, for example, if we were counseling Hagar, would we have told her to return and submit?  No, rather we would have encouraged her to head for home in Egypt, after all she had suffered a great injustice.  God's plan does not go along with human thinking.  His words to Hagar was to return and submit to Sarai's authority.  It is simple, a mistake was made, sin was committed, but compounding the sin by adding more sin to the top of it doesn't correct the wrong.  God indicated to Hagar that she should return and live under the authority where He had placed her.  Hagar returned to submit to Sarai after having a spiritual experience with the Lord in the desert.  She walked according to faith, just like Abram did.  Abram was the father of her child and she returned to his house as the Lord indicated to her. 

In a brief summary, Abram and Sarai decided to take God's plan into their hands this resulted in immense repercussions that is resounding even today.  We have a great example of how sexual misconduct affects the lives of people.  When we walk by sight, and not by faith, we can really mess up our lives as well as the lives of those around us.

Finishing with a couple of quotes:

“After his experience in that disastrous, and all too common, midweek prayer meeting, K. P. Yohannan said he feared we were in danger of fathering an Ishmael. Ishmael, you will remember, was a child born of practical deists. When Abram and Sarai didn’t see God’s promise fulfilled in the time they expected, they took matters into their own hands, and Abram had intercourse with Hagar. They opted for the child of human calculation over the child of God’s promise. Ishmael was the result, “a wild donkey of a man” (Gen. 16:12), at war with everyone.

I think prayerless churches have fathered many Ishmaels in their history, with the most visible result being their shameful divisions. As Ishmael mocked Isaac, the practical deists will mock those who prayerfully wait for the child of promise as ethereal and impractical, hopelessly out of touch with the real world. God was patient with all who were involved in the fiasco then: Abram and Sarai, Hagar and Ishmael. He waited until they learned to wait, and finally gave them what he had promised. I pray he will continue to do so with us.”^[3]

“Ishmael was a son of Abraham but not of the promise (16:1–16). The Nuzi tablets, cuneiform documents dating from about 1500 b.c., shed light on why Sarah did what she did (16:1–4). Giving Hagar to Abraham was in keeping with an ancient custom that allowed a wife who was unable to bear children to give a concubine to her husband in order to gain an heir. What was missing, as noted in 16:2, was a request for the Lord’s advice. Abraham’s action was not rebellious, just hasty and unwise. Note the parallel between the statement, “And Abram agreed” (Gen. 16:2) and God’s words to Adam, “you listened to your wife” (Gen. 3:17). Would a son by Hagar be the answer? No. But her son, Ishmael, was greatly blessed anyway.

Why was Ishmael blessed (16:10)? Because the Abrahamic covenant stated that any offspring of Abraham would be blessed, even if that offspring was not received according to the promise. The descendants of Ishmael are modern-day Arabs, blessed with incredible wealth that silently existed beneath their tents even at the time of Hagar: the wealth of oil.”^[4]

Questions for thought:

1.  The law of the land made the actions of Abram and Sarai an option in allowing Abram to have a child by Hagar, did that make it right according to God's plan?

2.  I have referred to their actions as "sexual misconduct" several times, am I correct in making that statement?  Or does the law of the land override God's principles?

3.  Broken marriages plague our nation, does this passage speak of the results of a fouled marriage bed?

Father, as we consider Your word and consider the ramifications of it in our lives, open our eyes so that we can walk according to faith.  Remove from us the tendency to act upon fleshly knowledge and to lean upon You for understanding.

In Him,

Joe Turner.