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.
Sarai was the first to feel the consequences of this plan. The first evil consequence is contempt that she feels undoubtedly was there from Hagar towards her.
When sin is involved it is not going to produce the right fruit. It is going to be something that is uncomfortable, maybe sometimes its exceedingly painful to deal with. She says, “My wrong.” The wrong here was the contempt, that is the contempt that was done to me, me upon you. Again, this was another, very well-established way of passing on a curse. I want to show you this by going to Genesis 27. This is the passage where Rebekah and Jacob were scheming to get the birthright and the blessing away from Isaac. So Isaac is blind and Rachel concocts this scheme where Jacob is going to make himself seem like Esau.
So she is making this oath that if indeed there is a curse, rather than come on Jacob it will come on her. Now that is at what Sarah did. She passed on her curse to Abram. Let us go back to another place and this time it is God speaking.
We are beginning to see that instead of securing the fulfillment of all of their desires, which was to have a son, an heir, a seed, to have the promise of God, instead they began to reap grief, frustration, and apparently they lost faith in the process.
