Let us go to Genesis 16. We have already seen through Abraham’s life that for justification by faith, or you might say the receiving of God’s Spirit, does not prevent us from trying to fulfill God’s will on our own strength. Abraham has already tried a couple of different times. He had that venture down in Egypt, which I think was wrong for him to do, but nonetheless he did it. Here in chapter 16, we are going to see another attempt for Abraham, in which Abraham and Sarah, this time, becomes directly involved with them trying to fulfill the promises of God through their own human will, their own human energy, however you might want to put it. We might put it by works of the flesh.
Sarai is involved in this with Abram, and maybe Abram wore her down. Maybe he was overly concerned about having the promised seed fulfilled. This constant concern about this undoubtedly made her feel guilty, made her feel that she was less than a woman than what Abraham expected her to be. Maybe it led her to concoct this scheme to have a child.
Now, I know that this scheme seems like something pretty far out to you and me. However, I have it on pretty good authority from both the Bible and also from secular history where they have found records in archeology digs, that this was very widely accepted practice during the time of Abraham and even much later period. This does not mean that God approved of it. It is pretty obvious that God did not approve of it one bit. But it is something that men came up with, I do not necessarily mean the male gender, but mankind came up with, as a solution to a problem. It certainly was a solution to a problem, but as the facts show, it shows what can happen in polygamist situations.
That is exactly what Sarah did. Again, records that have been dug up indicate that this was a very widely-accepted practice. I tried to find out what this means, “and she will bear a child on my knees.” Well, the indication is that as part of the legal process of making the child legally the mistress of the house and not the handmaiden. When the handmaiden was delivering the baby, she actually had to be sitting on the mistresses lap. It almost gives the appearance that the baby was coming from the mistress.
Well, their scheme was successful in the sense of Hagar becoming pregnant, and a life was about to be created. However, the rest of the chapter is going to show us that the works of the flesh accomplishes nothing. That is a statement out of the New Testament. It is very likely that this is one of the incidences where that principle was applied. So, the flesh profits nothing and when we add verse 5, we see the beginning of the unfolding of that truth.
The book of Genesis relates the story of a man and his wife who, rather than trusting God to give them what they desired, decided to take matters into their own hands. Here they were, in a land that was not theirs. There were not many Hebrews around. They were on their own. God had sent them there. It was His will that they do this, to go into a land of people of a totally different race. They were all alone, and they decided to do the expedient thing—what they thought was the expedient thing. And you know what? The world is still suffering for their jumping the gun. This is obviously Abraham and Sarah, and putting Hagar into the mix.
Notice that there was a marriage. Hagar became a secondary wife. I guess they figured ten years was enough. They gave God ten years, and if He did not do it by then they were going to go ahead and do their own thing. At least that is the way it seems.
Suddenly there was strife in the camp of Abram. ("Never let two women in the same kitchen," I hear.) Well, this was a different type of kitchen, and one of them had the upper hand.
We can see that taking matters into our own hands, when faith and patience are required, can produce absolutely horrendous results. Now Abraham is a special case. He is the father of the faithful. The things that he did are magnified because of his position, but with us similar things can happen on a somewhat smaller scale. They are still awful to have to endure, and who knows what problems will be in future generations because of this.
Does not God say that He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him? Obviously we do not hate God, but the principle is still there, and the results of sin often go down several generations. Someone has to take the punishment, whether it is us, or our children, or our grandchildren, or our great grandchildren. Mistakes have consequences.
It is interesting here. I do not know if you picked up on it but twice, Moses, the writer of this book, clarifies that Hagar, Sarah's maid, is the Egyptian, the sojourner. Now, this situation is actually a bit reversed from a situation that happened a few years back. She is a sojourner in a foreign land. But I want to call attention here to the first instance of this underlying Hebrew word translated Egyptian four chapters earlier. Turn back there with me.
Now we are going back to Genesis 16 and we see this time it is Abram taking Hagar, the Egyptian who is the sojourner in the land of Canaan. And I think it is basically God saying, "Abram, you knew better. You saw the same thing, you saw what happened when Pharaoh tried to do this to you, and here you are, you did it to Hagar! Don't you see how I punished him?" Now, it is clear that Sarah was a bit desperate here and she wanted to take matters into her own hands, but Abram could have refused. And I think it is part of becoming at-one with our spouses by the way, right? It is not just blindly listening, it is having a conversation. "What does God really want from this situation? What should we do?" And it is that level of reciprocity and relationship that allows us to be better together and to get to a better answer.
Abram just listened. He did not have that conversation. I think in his gut he probably knew a little better but maybe not. We should note that it was after 10 years that this happens. So after 10 years that Abram is living in the land of Canaan he goes in to Hagar and we see the result. Immediately, as soon as he has multiple wives, turmoil and division. Sarai wants to send her handmaid away, only for God to bring her back. And we see this account of having more than one wife ends very poorly and causes issues for many generations to come.
