Presentation 28
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.
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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 selfdestruct’. 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.
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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.
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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
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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!
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