Hope For The Hurting Series

Intro:

1. Helen Keller, who of course was blind and deaf, said:

"I am looking forward to Commencement day [talking about graduation from Radcliffe College]...The question now is, what shall I do with this education, and these opportunities.

I feel that I could impart to a child afflicted like myself, the power to see with the soul, and understand with the heart. All his needs and difficulties would be intelligible to me, since I know the darkness he sees, and the stillness he hears.

The road he must travel, I have traveled. I know where the rough places are, and how to help him over them."

2. Hagar is going to experience some rough places, but Jesus knows where she is, and He is going to help her get through the coming storm.

3. Hagar's Helper.

Trans: Gen. 16

I. FIRST, HAGAR WAS UNATTACHED. 16:1

A. Sarai's Need.

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children - her real need was to trust in God's promises.

Life is like walking into getting stuck in quicksand. Quicksand is, just sand and water. The problem is, that the water loosens up the sand so that the sand is not compact and there is nothing to stand on.

The problem is, when a person gets stuck in quicksand, the harder they try to get out, the faster they go under.

The solution is someone standing outside the quicksand, throwing you a rope - you just hang on, and he pulls you out. Until that person comes all you have to do is relax, quit fighting it, and trying to pull yourself out.

God has told us life has it's quicksand moments - he has promised to pull us out before we go under! Abram and Sari are up to their neck in quicksand!

The problem is their are struggling and trying hard to get out - trying Elizer and Hagar. Just wait! In God's time-table he will pull them out and they will have little Isaac.

B. Hagar's Name.

And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar - her name means "to flee." She was rightly named - (1) She apparently had fled with Abram and Sari when they left Egypt; (2) She is about to flee from Sari; and (3) later she will flee again (21:9-10).

She was Unattached to say the least...She didnt seem to belong anywhere!

There is a Cemetery called Locke Hill Cemetery, one grave marker on the grave of Grace Lle-wellen Smith, has this engraved on her stone:

"Sleeps, but rests not.

Loved, but was loved not.

Tried to please, but pleased not.

Died as she lived - alone."

Many people feel unattached - they don't seem to fit in with anybody. I never fit in too well myself. I am called a Yankie; I have been called by fellow pastors a "half-bred" because I did not go to a Southern Baptist Seminary; a liberal for not preaching out of the KJ's Bible; of making light of sin, for teaching the Grace of God.

II. FURTHERMORE, SHE WAS UNASKED. 16:2

So Sarai said to Abram, "See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her." And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai - who is missing in this conversation?

A. Sarah's Persuasion.

1. She did believe in God's Sovereignty.

"The Lord has restrained me" - and He had! Eph.1:11

2. She believed in the authority of her Soceity.

"Please go in to my maid" - it was acceptable in that soceity, for a man, whose wife was unable to have children, to take on a secondary wife, in order to carry on the family line.

But just because soceity approves of something, that does not mean that God does. In our soceity the homosexual is honored; Abortion is legal; government has taken the place of God.

Trans:When will we learn that God doesn't need our help to bring about His promises to us?

Chuck Smith, "Sarah suggested the use of Hagar the handmaiden as a means by which she could help God fulfill His promise of a son...Many times I have put myself in the position of God's little helper. I give Him opportunity to work. I give Him a time-deadline.

Here we find Sarah saying, "Look, Abram, lets give up. It's not going to happen. Let's help God out." But the minute God needs my help, He's in big trouble!

The opposite is true. I need His help continually, but He never ever needs mine."

B. Abram's Permission.

he heeded her voice - he should have listen to God's voice, which clear said a child would come out of their bodies!

C. Hagar's ImPut - none!

Think how she must have felt - nobody sought out her opinion! What she thinks, feels, or wants is never taken into consideration.