Studies in Genesis

1. Studies in Genesis Presentation 28

2. I Can Fix it Gen 16v1-16

3. Introduction When I was a child I was given an aeroplane construction kit for my birthday. It was made of a light balsa frame covered with tissue paper and powered by a large elastic band. My dad said, I would need his help to put it together and I should wait until he had a free Saturday. You can guess what happened! I couldn’t wait and decided to help dad out. Pieces were glued in place upside down and the wrong way round the result was a mess. Why didn’t I wait? Impatience can complicate our lives and it will certainly complicate our spiritual lives as Abram learned to his cost. Presentation 28

4. Temptation’s Timing and Appeal God had made great promises to Abram. In order to strengthen Abram’s faith in those promises, they were sealed in a very spectacular manner by a covenant. God was saying in effect, ‘If I fail to keep my promise, I will self- destruct’. Now we might think that after such encouragement Abram’s faith would be unassailable. He could trust God to provide him with an heir! But in actual fact the fiercest temptations often follow the greatest encouragements. Jesus’ wilderness temptation followed hard on the heels of his baptism, when he heard the encouraging voice of God saying , “This is my beloved Son…” Severe testing often follows God’s blessing and encouragement. Presentation 28

5. Temptation’s Timing and Appeal Further, we might expect that a temptation to step out of God’s will would come from unbelievers, who want to harm us but often it can come from well-meaning friends and family who think they are trying to help. You will remember, when Jesus explained to his disciples that he was going up to Jerusalem to die that his dear fried Peter exploded in protest and sought to steer Jesus away from the cross. Jesus traced that temptation to its source with the word’s, “Get behind me Satan” Matt 16.23. Dear Sarah was the mouthpiece of Abram’s temptation. Presentation 28

6. Temptation’s Timing and Appeal In that day childlessness was a source of great shame for a wife and that, linked to impatience, caused her to suggest that her slave Hagar might act as a surrogate mother. As soon as we stop trusting in God we tend to blame him for our difficulties, ‘the Lord has kept me from having children v2’. It is as though Sarah was saying, ‘God is forcing me to do what under normal circumstances I would reject’. Foolishly Abram agreed. Now this temptation would not have taken root so readily in Abram’s heart if it had been spiritually healthy but his impatience was diluting his trust in God. Presentation 28

7. Temptation’s Timing and Appeal Further, this temptation had a particular appeal, because it was the practice of the day to father children through concubines – it fell into the ‘everyone’s doing it’ category. But more than that, surrogacy seemed a perfectly reasonable way forward - Sarah was past the age of bearing children and God’s promise was to Abram! Hagar’s children would have his bloodline! After all don’t people say, ‘God helps those who help themselves!’ All sorts of meaning can be poured into that expression but we cannot use it to justify unbelief, impatience, or running ahead of God. The Psalmist writes, ‘Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD’ Ps 27.14. Presentation 28

8. Disintegration of Relationships Abram and Sarah refused to wait upon God any longer and that resulted in the disintegration of the relationships in Abram’s household. We read that, ‘Hagar [when she became pregnant] despised her mistress’ v4. Whether by word or attitude Hagar was saying to Sarah, ‘I have been able to give my master what you have failed to give him’. Such careless cruel barbs do untold damage to childless women cf Hannah in 1 Sam.1.3-7. Given the fact that 1 out of 6 couples today are unable to have children, great sensitivity needs to be exercised in their presence. Presentation 28

9. Disintegration of Relationships What is Sarah’s response? She blames Abram v5 - had she forgotten that it was she brought the whole idea of surrogacy to Abram in the first place! When our plans go sour we blame, either God, or others for their failure for we cannot bring ourselves to accept the blame for decisions we have made. And it has ever been so from the time of Adam’s disobedience…. Of course Sarah may also be alluding to the fact that Hagar entered their household during their stay in Egypt. And they had only gone to Egypt because Abram failed to trust God to provide for all their needs in Canaan. The consequences of disobedience do complicate our lives. Presentation 28

10. Disintegration of Relationships How did Abram respond to the this crisis? He washed his hands of it, saying to Sarah, ‘do what you think best’. This was not spiritual leadership at its best! And as a result Sarah mistreated Hagar, who in turn ran off into the desert imperilling her own life and that of her unborn child. Abram failed to take decisive action. Why? Did he think, as many people do today, ‘anything for a quiet life?’ Now it was Abram’s inactivity that resulted in Hagar thinking, ‘the only way to find relief is to escape from this situation’. What a mess! God then took the initiative and stepped into the situation. Presentation 28

11. The Intervention of God We read that the ‘The Angel of the Lord’ found the runaway Hagar in the desert. This is the first use of the term ‘Angel of the Lord’ in the OT. Many scholars consider this to be a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. Clearly, God is indicating that he has a special interest in those unjustly treated, the helpless and the distressed. Hagar, though not a complete innocent, was nevertheless the victim of the impatience and unbelief of Abram and Sarah. Presentation 28

12. The Intervention of God We may attempt to run away from the terrible things that happen to us but we can never outrun God. Note the significance of the question put to Hagar. “Where have you come from and where are you going?” Hagar could answer the first part of the question but she did not know where she was going. Indeed, she had nowhere to go. In her panic to escape she had endangered her life and that of her unborn child. God often comes to us in our lostness in order to give direction to our lives. But that invariably involves our readiness to admit that we have nowhere else to go. Presentation 28

13. The Intervention of God Hagar learned that if she returned to the place God wanted her - and that is always the starting point of recovery - then God would make her son the father of a great nation. It’s not easy to return to the point, where we made a wrong choice and start over, but it is the only means by which we can be assured of God’s blessing. In Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son Lk.15.11ff the hard decision to return home to the Father and admit he had been foolish to leave was the one, which brought about unprecedented blessing. Presentation 28

14. The Intervention of God Significantly, Hagar named the place where she encountered the Angel of the Lord, ‘Beer Lahai Roi, which means, ‘The One who sees me’. What had she discovered? Not just that God sees the world, but that, ‘he sees me - he really is interested in an apparently insignificant person like me! Are you aware of the fact that God sees you? He sees, where you have come from and where you are going. He sees what you are going through, how you feel, what your anxieties are, what you need and what you don’t need. He sees what he wants to make of your life and how that is to be achieved. You cannot see it but he can and it is for this reason that we must learn to submit to his wisdom and walk in the path that God has set out for us. Presentation 28

15. The Consequences When we run ahead of God, when we demonstrate impatience with his plans for our lives, when we think we can fix God’s plans, when things are not happening quickly enough, we are simply adding complications to our lives! Abram had to live with the consequences. The immediate consequence of Abram’s impatience and unbelief is God’s silence. Hagar returned, Ishmael was born, but heaven remained silent. For thirteen years there is no recorded communication from God cf. 17.1. What went on in Abram’s mind during those silent years? We are not told! Surely, he had only tried to help God out, what was the harm in that? Was there a growing sense of unease in Abram’s heart that he had blown it big time? Presentation 28

16. The Consequences What he certainly could not have foreseen was the long-term consequences. Hagar’s son Ishmael, became the father of the Arab nations and they in turn would be a thorn in Israel’s life throughout her history! We cannot undo the past and while God’s grace and forgiveness enable us to deal with our failures we must live with the consequences. What a sobering lesson we have here of the danger of a determination to fix God’s plans, when in our impatience we think he is slow. Jesus, though tempted to run ahead of God, and to achieve Lordship by a quicker and easier route, nevertheless set his face towards Jerusalem and to death upon a cross! His is the example to follow! Presentation 28