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Studies in Genesis, Culture’s Sway, Lesson XXXVIII, Genesis 16:1-6
We are in the sixteenth chapter of Genesis, about to read 16 verses concerning an event in Abram and Sarai’s life which at the time must have seemed inconsequential as far as the world was concerned but we know from our vantage point, it was a pivotal event in the history of the whole world.
Reading Genesis 16:1-16, Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. 3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. 4 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. 5 And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the Lord judge between me and thee. 6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. 7 And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. 8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. 9 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. 10 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. 11 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. 12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. 13 And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? 14 Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. 15 And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. 16 And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram.
Abram is 86 years old when Ishmael, the son of Hagar is born.
He is also the son of Abram, however he is not the son of promise for he is the son who was the result of a couple who chose to have God’s promise fulfilled by going it alone.
They in essence said, We can do it ourselves!
And so God, through his angel spokesman, is only mentioned here in chapter 16 whereby Hagar is told to return to her mistress.
So we see that all the actions of Sarai and Abram have been executed from their minds without guidance from God, without a plea for help in time of need.
And the offspring of Abram through Hagar and Sarai have been paying for this lack of faith ever since.
In this passage we can sense the tension that is building, for God has not given Abram a son, a son which will begin the process of fulfilling God’s promise that from Abram a great people, a great nation will result.
Sarai claimed that God had restrained her from bearing a child so therefore it was up to her to take things into her own hands and help God out for it is certainly true that God indeed needs our help, at least that is the popular opinion is it not?
And certainly, it was a cultural practice of the day that supported her opinion, so it was easy to bring about an answer to God’s promise by using her maidservant Hagar as her surrogate birthmother.
But watch out Sarai for culture is not God’s word.
Culture can be good, culture can be bad, culture can be neutral, but God’s word is always good, and never bad and never neutral.
Choose culture over God’s word and life problems and family problems are sure to arise as it did so prominently in Abram’s family.
Ask our Pastor, what is the most pervasive problem he faces as he leads this work and I believe he would answer it is the acceptance of authority of culture over the acceptance of the authority of God’s word.
Jesus said in Philippians 2:5, Let this mind be in you.
Satan says, Let the mind of culture be in you and he blasts it your way from every direction.
And this is the mind Sarai and Abram chose to let in and the result was a people who despised the people of God and who continue to despise the nation which came from the seed of Abram in fulfillment of God’s promise.
Culture put pressure on Abram’s family and culture even more so puts pressure on our families to violate God’s Word.
Unless you are immersed in God’s word you will be affected greatly by the culture in which you live and your children even more so.
But time was pressing on Sarai as aging was creeping up on her.
No son was given, and impatience crept in whereby she saw a God in which some things were impossible to Him.
In her culture it was imperative to produce a son to carry out the family name for sons showed that you were prosperous and blessed.
To be childless was a mark of reproach, a mark so strong that if a wife could not produce a son, a servant girl was chosen to bare a son for her and that son belonged to the wife as much as a son she bore herself.
It was common in those days as it is somewhat common today to ask a man or a woman, How many children do you have?
And the father of many would advertise the number of his brood with great joy but a man without any children who answered none, would be met by faces of wonder, wondering what is wrong with this man and what keeps him from the blessings of the gods?
And also in Abram’s case the pressure to have a son was amplified by his name which meant high or exalted father.
Later God will change his name to Abraham which means father of a multitude.
So, upon meeting and saying his name and answering the question of how many children do you have and saying none you can imagine the silencing of the conversation.
And in Abram’s case hadn’t God given repeated promises to him to give him a son?
When Sarai proposed a surrogate mother to Abram he was 85 and she was 75, but even with the longer life spans in that day, they were getting close to that age when it became physically impossible to reproduce.
If God was going to fulfil his promises they had reasoned in their mind, it had better be soon.
Their faith could not conceive that their God could figure out a way around this impossibility.
They limited God by their reasoning fashioning Him according to themselves.
This is what trying to do the will of God without God will bring.
Consequences unintended and far reaching.
It is normal to never think things through and see a far distance off, but faith leaves it up to God who sees all things, that which is today and that which is eternal.
So, Sarai, simply thinks of today and comes up with her plan in accordance with the custom and culture of her times and decides to broach the plan to Abram.
Perhaps Abram had thought of this before but being a wise man, he did not propose such an idea to his wife for all kinds of suspicions would arise from such an idea coming from a husband.
But now the idea, coming from Sarai was to give Abram her maidservant Hagar, an Egyptian woman, perhaps part of the dowry which Pharaoh had given Abram when they had gone down to Egypt.
So, the saying “Be sure your sin will find you out” comes to mind!
Abram had sinned going down to Egypt engaging in deceit concerning his wife and now this sin comes back to face him in the woman named Hagar, the Egyptian.
And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.
There is no discussion of the possible consequences of the union his wife proposes.
We are simply told Abram goes along with this faithless plan apparently thinking that God will be pleased.
So, what are we to learn from this?
One thing we can learn is that the greatest temptations many times come from those who are closest to us.
As I said before Abram may have thought about this plan apart from Sarai, Abram may have had this plan suggested to him by a friend but resisted the idea as too farfetched and never to be agreed upon by Sarai.
But when Sarai his wife, his mate who ordinarily would shun without any question such a plan, proposes it herself Abram agrees and accepts it.
He accepts it without considering God’s promise to provide him a son, and that son would never come outside of his marriage to Sarai.
But close associations and culture herein dictate otherwise for it is normal to our nature to be influenced by those who we are closest to emotionally.
One of two may be close to the Lord, one of two may be hot but if the other is lukewarm or cold you can almost be sure the lukewarm one or the cold one will influence the hot one and not the other way around.
Sarai used the argument that the Lord had restrained her from bearing so it was up to her to solve the problem for the Lord.
We learn from this that God does not need your help to hurry up his will.
And we learn from this that God’s word is paramount over and greatly above the word of any loved one as Jesus taught us in:
Luke 14:26 when He said, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Another lesson we are to learn from this experience of Abram and Sarai is that right motives are not enough, we need right methods.
It seems that this couple had the right motives for they wanted to bring about God’s will by producing the heir God had promised.
They had a mind to help God out for it seemed to be that He was taking too long or perhaps He had forgotten.
They wanted results but results by their own methods.
But our Bible teaches that results are to come from dependence upon God and not on the flesh.
Trust in God and He will bring it to pass.
Lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Jeremiah 17:7,8, Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. 8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
Ask the question: Did the result come from God or did it come from our fallen human nature?
We are not to simply be a pragmatic people, we are to be a trusting people.
Just because it works does not mean it is of God.
We are not to pattern our church or our home or our ways or even our dress after others but are to seek God’s ways by trusting him.
Abram and Sarai got their intended results with Hagar for she produced a son.
But he was not the son from the Lord! He was the son of the flesh!
Ishmael was not God’s will to bring forth in Abram a great people, a people for God’s name.
God desires a building, but all the details and dimensions are laid out by Him in accordance with His plan.
Our God is not satisfied with just any old building for we know in the case of the building of His children they are all to be conformed to His Son, Jesus Christ and He is the One who does the conforming.
You have no right to present yourself to God built to your own specifications as so much of the church thinks these days.
Thinking that God will be satisfied with a son or daughter put together with strange and corrupt plans is wicked thinking indeed.
It is the whatever thinking of the day, but God is not a whatever God!
Sarai spoke words that should have set off alarms in Abram’s head for when she spoke of God’s restraint of her child bearing Abram should have immediately said then it is wrong to try to circumvent God’s methods.
If God is taking too long, it is not His problem because too long indicates that you are not satisfied to wait on the Lord.
God was putting this couple through this trial for a purpose.
People of faith do not try to remove the trial without seeking the Lord’s help to lessen the problem by yielding to His will.
The Apostle Paul asked three times to lessen his problem and God said to him, Paul, simply call upon my Grace within the problem for My Grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.
We are so prone to resort to human solutions, worldly solutions, that leave God out or just give God polite recognition in passing, but that “going through the motions lifestyle” will always bring trouble.
God’s ways are past finding out so quit trying to do it!
Right methods always involve seeking the Lord and depending solely upon Him and that always puts Him upon the throne and not a loved one or friend who sometimes presses you to violate God’s Word.
What do we learn about Abram’s relationship with his wife Sarai?
Is there a lesson in leadership here?
God tells us in later chapters that He knows him, Abraham, and that he will command his children and his household after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord.
Note that word “command”, an idea foreign to the American mind, but a Bible idea of the man’s role in marriage.
In chapter 15 Abram listened to the word of the Lord but here in chapter 16 he listens to the voice of Sarai and Abram passively goes along with her plan and then when problems result, he tells her to do whatever she thinks is right, not dealing with it himself.
He simply used Hagar to produce a son, forgetting his responsibility toward her as one under his protection.
No one here nor in the Bible is saying it is wrong to listen to your wife.
God gives a man a woman as a help, fitting to his weakness.
It is wise for us to listen to our mates for in so doing we may gain an insight into a problem that we do not know.
But the problem is not listening, the problem is abdicating spiritual leadership if your mate suggests something that is not of the Lord.
Remember Eve and remember Adam’s “Yes Dear” and you won’t have to remember the results for we all live them every day!
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