Let’s give God a helping hand
Selected readings:
Genesis 15:1-6; Gen. 16:1-15; Gen. 17:1-2 and 15-16; Gen. 18:1-2, 9-15 and Gen. 21:1-12
Let’s give God a helping hand.
In the first week of our Lenten addresses we looked at the Call of Abraham to leave Ur of the Chaldees with his father Terah and enter the Promised Land – and you recall that Terah stopped off at Haran and never made it
Last week we saw how Abraham was in the Promised Land and managed to get hijacked from the Promised Land to Egypt.
Indeed, it is probable that the slave girl Hagar was probably picked up in Egypt by Abraham.
This week I want to look at Genesis 15:1-6 and 16:1-9 and 16 and 17:1-8 and 15-16 and 21:1-12
What happens when you try to give God a helping hand.
Impatience often brings us into trouble with the Lord.
God can keep his promises without our help.
3.1. The promise - Gen. 15:1-6
The promise of God was that Abraham will have an heir.
God made a promise to Abraham and Abraham believed God.
The trouble was that God never told Abraham of his timetable. We have no record of Abraham asking either.
Often we only listen to half of what God tells us to do. It is not that we PURPOSELY go out of our way to be disobedient.
It is that we often do not THINK about our Christian Life
3.2. Weak faith leads to human action Gen. 16. 17
Sarah and Abraham have been in the Promised Land 10 years and still no baby.
So they start to WORRY.
There is no record of them asking the Lord what to do. God has said it. True, but I think I better giver Him a helping hand.
So we see a scheme born out of IMPATIENCE.
We see the human plan to fulfil a divine promise.
This is true of us today. We live in the fast lane.
a) Fast Cars.
b) Fast Foods McDonalds, instant coffee and chocolate
c) Fast Living heavy drinking and partying
d) Fast Forward Button on the Hi Fi.
Perhaps the only "fast" we don’t practise is Fasting and Prayer.
Again Abraham did not set out to disobey God. He just did not ask the Lord for His Guidance.
So Abraham and Sarah thought out what seemed a reasonable course of action. There is no record of them having prayed through the plan.
Story: I know I get into the worst problems when I start doing things that I have not prayed about.
3.3 God gives more details of how He will fulfil the Promise Gen. 18. 10
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre and when Abraham looked up he saw three men standing with him (Gen 18;1-2)
They talk awhile and then one of the men says:
10 I shall duly return to you in due season and your wife Sarah will have a son.
Thirteen years have passed from the birth of Ishmael. Abraham has been walking by faith.
He has stumbled and made some bad mistakes, for example in Egypt and in the question of Hagar.
And yet the Lord is still prepared to speak to Abraham and strengthens Abraham’s faith.
You see ABRAHAM’S HEART was right.
Many Christian commentators believe that this is a pre-incarnational appearance of the Lord Jesus.
That is to say an appearance of the Son of God on the world stage before he was born in a stable in Bethlehem
One of the reasons for the visit is to establish Sarah’s faith. (The other reason was to announce the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah a subject that I will not speak on this evening).
Abraham is 99 years old and Sarah 90. What is an impossibility to man is a possibility to God, if we will believe Him.
I wonder if Sarah’s faith was on the way out and she was starting to become disillusioned.
How often we get like that when we cannot see the Lord’s will being fulfilled before our eyes.
Look at God’s love for Sarah. Many years earlier she had lost her faith that she would be the mother of nations.
She needed a personal revelation from God to restore her faith.
There is no substitute for hearing from the LORD FIRST HAND.
There are no "second hand faith" shops in heaven.
3.4 God’s fulfilment of the Promise - The Birth of Isaac.. Gen. 21: 17
At last the long awaited son is born. 25 years have passed since Abraham and Sarah have entered Canaan. God waited a long time so that they realised that this was a divine intervention of God to fulfil his promise.
Perhaps they would have thought little of it if they had had children at the usual child bearing age.
Isaac’s birth was supernatural and a result of divine promise.
Isaac means laughter. Is it not interesting how Sarah had laughed ironically when she heard the promise yet she laughs with joy at its fulfilment.
How often we laugh incredulously at something that God promises us and when it happens we rejoice.
Yet there was still the problem of Ishmael. It was impossible for Ishamel and Isaac to coexist together.
This is a spiritual lesson for us.
Those living under the bondage of the law, signified by Ishmael cannot coexist with those living under Grace (signified by Isaac).
This was so in the Church. The Judaisers wanted all Christians become circumcised. (Gal 3:13).
Let us read Paul’s commentary on the story of Isaac and Ishmael in Gal.4: 21-31.
Hagar and Sarah
21Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.
24These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27For it is written: “Be glad, O barren woman,
who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud,
you who have no labour pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband.”[a]
28Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”[b] 31Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
3.5 What can we learn?
1. God will not be coerced into keeping His word. Nor does He need our help! But he may choose to use our Obedience.
And when we try to lend God a helping hand we can get into all sorts of trouble.
What Abraham did in his own strength has had consequences for the last 4000 years.
The Arabs (descendants of Ishmael) have been warring for millenniums with the Jews, (descendants of Isaac).
We need to walk in FAITH, which means spending time with the Lord.
4.0 Conclusions:
4.1 God fulfils his promises.
We don’t need to do it for Him.
We need to be obedient when He tells us to go (like Abraham from Ur to Canaan) but when we don’t have a word from the Lord on important divine matters (like whether Abraham should have taken a second wife to fulfil God’s promise) I would like to suggest that we are unwise to undertake things in our own strength.
4.2 But how can we know God’s will.
By spending time with him – in prayer - in Bible Study. Let us be careful not to be too busy with other things that we neglect coming to God
It was after a personal meeting with the Lord that Sarah’s faith was strengthened and THEN she inherited the promise.
SELECTED READINGS TO ACCOMPANY THIS TALK
Genesis 15:1-6 God’s Covenant With Abram
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield,
your very great reward. "
2 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD , what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit [c] my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
6 Abram believed the LORD , and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 16:1-15
Hagar and Ishmael
1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 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."
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 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."
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.
7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?"
"I’m running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered.
9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." 10 The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."
15 So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.
Genesis 17: 1-2 and 15-16
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty ; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."
15 God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."
Genesis 18:1-2, 9-15
1 The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. ….
9 "Where is your wife Sarah?" they asked him.
"There, in the tent," he said.
10 Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son."
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?"
13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, ’Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the LORD ? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son."
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, "I did not laugh."
But he said, "Yes, you did laugh."
Genesis 21:1-12
The Birth of Isaac
1 Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac [a] to the son Sarah bore him. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me." 7 And she added, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."
Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away
8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac."
11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
