Lessons from the life of Abraham
Faith and Patience: The Birth of Ishmael
When we come to chapter 16 of Genesis, we find that Abram’s faith begins to waver - he begins to lose his simple, happy confidence in what God had promised him.
God had said that he would have a son through whom would come a great nation but, after all, Abram was now 86 years old. And Sarai was only ten years younger and still barren –is the word we’d use today.
Gen.16: 1-2 begins the story:
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her”.
Isn’t this a familiar scenario? The impatience that unbelief produces?
God had promised Abram and Sarai children and yet nothing was happening! As the years passed by, their confidence faded and the thing that God promised just didn’t seem possible any more.
Sarai now doesn’t really believe that God is going to do what He promised – either she believes that He can’t or she believes that He won’t – it doesn’t really matter which: it's still the sin of unbelief!
So what does Sarai do?
She searches around for a way to ‘help God out’.
She looks for a natural, humanly reasonable way to bring about what God promised that He would do! And Abram should have seen this for what it was. He should have sat Sarai down and had a long talk with her. He should have explained that both of them needed to wait patiently on the Lord to accomplish His promise.
People prefer anything to the attitude of waiting. It’s one thing to believe a promise in God’s word – maybe a promise that we believe with all our heart that God has given to us; it’s one thing to believe it at first – but it's quite another thing to wait quietly for God to fulfil that promise - in His time and in His way.
When things don’t seem to be working out – even when we’re in God’s will, we’ll often try anything – any scheme – any program - to make sure we bring about what God has promised, whether in our personal lives or in our churches.
But you see, what God wants is faith because only faith can please God.
Faith, according to, Hebrews 11:1, is: being sure what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
“Without faith it is impossible to please God because they that come to God must believe that He is:
Do we understand the significance of this? Much of the time we plan and strategize and worry as if God doesn’t really exist! We read of something He’s promised to do and then we try to do it ourselves!
The verse goes on: and that he rewards them that diligently seek him.
But you see, spiritual immaturity results in Sarai’s attitude – restlessness and impatience.
With God we’re often like children on a family outing – say a longish journey into the country. The family sets out, full of Weeties and good cheer, but, because the children aren’t old enough to understand the nature and the length of the journey, and how much time is required to finish it, they soon start to whinge and grumble.
“When are we there?” ……. “Are we there yet?”
The child doesn’t doubt the parent! The child believes that the family will arrive at the destination. What immaturity produces, is a child who is restless and impatient.
This is the problem in our spiritual lives. The writer to the Hebrews tackles it head-on. In chapter 6:12 he urges the believers:
We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.
You see, God makes a promise, faith believes it, hope anticipates it and patience waits quietly for it!
In Genesis 15, Sarai and Abram showed faith in God but in Chapter 16, both of them failed in patience. What Sarai had effectively said was this: ‘The Lord has failed me. Maybe Hagar can do the job for me!’
If we lose the sense of God’s nearness; if we lose sight of His faithfulness and if we lose confidence in His ability and sufficiency, then we tend to try everything and anything to reach the desired end. We, of course, call this an intelligent and logical use of resources. The Bible calls it unbelief!
Often the hardest thing in life to do, is to: Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
If Sarai had said: ‘Nature has failed me; but God can do the job for me,’ how differently everything would have turned out. And this was the right attitude to take in any case. I mean, nature really had failed Sarai: her husband was in his late eighties and she was sterile!
But instead of trusting God to fulfill His promise Sarai tried to use other means. And she did what seemed reasonable and logical: she chose to use their young, fertile Egyptian maidservant.
Sarai hadn’t learnt to turn away from natural resources. She hadn’t yet learnt that in spiritual things, in the accomplishment of what God has promised, natural capability – natural ability – means absolutely nothing in God’s eyes!
Hagar could certainly get pregnant, but she was no more able to deliver the promised child than Sarai herself was! And Abram should have realized this.
Nature - young or old, powerful, weak, attractive, plain – it’s all the same to God and therefore all the same to faith!
Nothing human, no matter how capable, is able to bring about God’s promises.
Have you tried to bring about what you believe are God’s promises for your life? Are you relying on yourself - your gifts and abilities? Are you dependent on other people for your opportunities? Dependent on them to recognize you?
Do you see the years slip by and despair of ever really making your life count for the Lord? Do opportunities seem to have always passed you by? Are you becoming impatient and disillusioned?
It’s so important to stop depending on ourselves, on others, and on circumstances. And yet we’ll only be able to do so when we’re consciously leaning on the only true, wise and living God.
Of course God sometimes uses natural methods to accomplish His will. If we didn’t believe that, none of us would ever go to the doctor for treatment. We’d never buy an alarm system for our home. In the words of one wonderful, old teacher, we’d look at the insurance company as a ‘depot of unbelief’.
And clearly, this would be irresponsible!
We don’t despise natural instruments – human or otherwise: that would be recklessness - not faith!
But here’s the difference!
Unbelief looks only at the instrument. And it judges the success of the instrument by the extent to which it seems to have worked.
Faith, on the other hand, values something only if its being used by God – and for that reason only!
Saul looked at David - then he looked at Goliath – and he said:
‘You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth’ (1 Samuel 17:33)
Yet the question in David’s mind was not whether he was able to defeat Goliath but whether Jehovah was able. David, and his slingshot were the instruments God had chosen to use. For that reason only, they were successful. Because in our lives, the means is not important. The doctor’s surgery or the naturopath’s clinic; this job or that career. What is all-important is whether or not God is using the instrument.
It reminds me of the time Jonathan and his armor-bearer attacked the Philistines at Michmash. Alone, without the knowledge of the other Israelites, the pair of them put an army to flight.
And in 1 Samuel 14:6, Jonathan give us his reasoning:
“Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few’
God had promised Abram and Sarai a son. But Hagar wasn’t God’s instrument! And because they resorted to her, Abram and Sarai brought trouble and sorrow on themselves!
Verse 4 says
He (Abram) slept with Hagar and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
Sarai’s dignity was trampled down by Egyptian bond-servant and Sarai, instead of being empowered by her efforts to fulfil God’s will in her life, found herself in a place of weakness. She found herself an object of contempt. Hagar despised her and mocked her.
And ever since then, Ishmael’s descendants have despised the children of Israel and in the Middle East we’re now seeing the full-flowering of that contempt.
What we learn from this, is that the only true place of dignity and power in the Christian life is when we feel ourselves to be weak, acknowledge our weakness and become completely dependent on God.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:10
‘For when I am weak, then I am strong’
There is no-one so entirely independent of everyone around as a child of God who is really walking by faith and waiting only upon God. The moment you or I begin to rely upon natural abilities or upon the world, the moment we put ourselves in debt to anybody or anything but God Himself, we will lose our dignity and our testimony.
So impatience and unbelief brought Sarai humiliation!
But what was her reaction? How did she deal with it?
Verse 5
Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me”.
When we act wrongly, when the things we try to do don’t work out, when things go wrong in our lives, we’ve got a tendency to put the blame on someone else. If a movement falters, if our carefully thought-out plans don’t go well, if we don’t get used the way we feel we should, then we’re inclined to look at others for the reason. But what caused the problem in the first place? Impatience and unbelief!
Except the Lord build a house, they labour in vain that build it:
The work is all of God! Philippians 1:6 says this: Being confident that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
An absolute certainty in the Christian life is this: if we’re living close to the Lord with no known sin in our life – and yet God’s will isn’t being perfectly worked out in our experience - if our spiritual lives are not flourishing, it can only be for one of two reasons: either we’ve not trusted God to work out His will in our circumstances, or, having trusted Him, we’ve failed to wait patiently for Him to do His work. We’ve tried to live in our way, according to what we think should happen – with our gifts, with our circumstances ,and with our lives.
And now Sarai tries to get rid of the problem that her own impatience had created:
Verse 6
“Your servant is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her;’
But Sarai couldn’t get rid of the slave-woman by harsh treatment. And we can’t counter the results of our mistakes by acting high-handedly; by justifying ourselves; by criticizing other believers; by blaming circumstances.
If we do, we only make matters worse. The Bible tells us that when we mess
up, we need to humble ourselves, confess our sin and wait on God for deliverance!
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
But there was none of this with Sarai. She tried to get herself out of an awkward situation in her own way - but it didn’t work!
In verse 9 it says:
Then the angel of the Lord told her (Hagar), “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”
Hagar had to return and give birth to her son who proved to be great trial.
Abram and Sarai had to endure Ishmael’s presence for a number of years, then get rid of him in God’s way – as chpt 21 describes.
And the problems didn’t stop there! The descendants of Ishmael form some of the Arab nations who have been implacably opposed to Israel over the centuries.
What a price to pay for a moment of impatience and unbelief!
But what Abram and Sarai’s experience teaches us is that when we make mistakes because of our unbelief, things must take their course.
The Bible says in Galatians 6:7 that: A man reaps what he sows.
Perhaps you find yourself in difficult circumstances. Things which might be the result of mistakes made and decisions you’ve come to regret. You’ve thrown yourself before the Lord and found that grace forgives the sin and restores the soul. But you’ve also learnt that that which is sown, must be reaped. Sometimes we must put up with and live through the consequences of our actions.
But you know, God is able to work out His will in every life – without exception! Human wisdom may say you’ve blown it, but God never does. He is able to restore the years that the locusts have eaten. God doesn’t reckon in years – or in numbers. He can take your life, right now, no matter what mistakes you’ve made, and He can make it a blessing for His glory.
But learn the lesson from Sarai and Abram. Whatever you’ve done up to this point, realize that the rest of your life will be safer and more blessed if you determine to not only trust in the promises of God, but to also patiently wait for their fulfillment.
May God bless you as you seek His will in your life.
Amen.
