Title: Sarai, Abram, Hagar! /Genesis 16:1-6
Content Title: Sarai, Abram, Hagar!
Bible: Genesis 16:1-6
Date: 1997. 1. 5 (Sunday) Sunday afternoon at Mission Church
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Lord, what do you know?
Karat Berit / Split the contract.
This is a form of signing an alliance contract in the ancient Near East.
What this contract means
Your descendants will be slaves for 400 years. / Speaking of slavery in Egypt
We listened to Abram's urgency last week.
“Lord, what shall I know?”
“Answer me in a way that I know!”
And I saw that God alone took responsibility for breaking all covenants with the covenant of his own curse, which he established by passing through the pieces of meat.
After receiving such a sure promise from God, the event in today's text occurred.
Today's case of giving Hagar as a concubine in Chapter 16 is an incident that shows the cowardly, weak, and corrupt nature of human sinners, whether Abram, Sarai, or Hagar.
Sarai! (Verses 1-2) - I
(Genesis 16:1) Sarai, Abram's wife, bore no children, and she had a maidservant, an Egyptian, and her name was Hagar. Sleep with her, lest I have children by her." Abram listened to Sarai.
① “The Lord did not allow me to produce…” / Did he not allow it? The situation is Yes! Promise No! You obviously allowed it. But Sarai continues to talk about the situation. Where have God's promises gone? In this way, faith is lost when we base ourselves on circumstances rather than on God's promises. “(Romans 10:17) Therefore faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”
② “Sleep with my maidservant!” / It is the general appearance and custom of people. But the providential nature of God, who originally created man as monogamous, rejects it. Otherwise, why would Sarai only allow a maidservant? We should not think that just because the people of the world do everything that is worthy of God. We must act only according to the word given to us, the influence of the Holy Spirit, and the image of God implanted in our nature, that is, a good conscience.
③ “Maybe I will have children through him!” / We use human means and methods when promises are delayed, and we try to believe that that is God's way of fulfilling promises. It is to crumple God in your own way. This is a practical disbelief in God who promises and gives children.
Abram! (v. 2b) - I
(Genesis 16:1) Sarai, Abram's wife, bore no children, and she had a maidservant, an Egyptian, and her name was Hagar. Have sex with her, lest I have children by her.” Abram listened to Sarai. (Genesis 16:3) When Abram's wife Sarai took her maid, Hagar the Egyptian, and gave her to Abram her husband as a concubine, Abram gave her husband Canaan. It was ten years after he had dwelt on the earth.
Abram (rather than God's word...) listened to Sarai! / You have to read the words between the words. That's the problem.
Ex) The same situation actually happened in the Garden of Eden in the beginning. “(Genesis 3:17) And he said to Adam, “Cursed is the earth because of you, because you have listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I told you not to eat.”
Ex) Ahab, king of Israel, is a representative king who listened to Jezebel, a Sidonian woman, and went on the path of complete destruction.
The woman's words are truly the words of a helper. Therefore, if you listen closely, there are many cases where men are carefully coached on things that men do not think about. But sometimes they are too situational and even unbelieving. Therefore, it is possible to see events that are just decided and performed without consultation on the things that are really important and the will of God is certain.
Example) The case of offering Isaac
Abram could easily follow his wife's advice without much resistance for the following reasons.
Ex) 120 years of Noah's Ark
② Perhaps Abram was also hoping for a situation like this.
③ And you may think that you have endured it for a long time. In verse 3, at this time, Abram was 85 years old, 10 years after he came to Canaan. He came to Canaan according to God's promise, but nothing had changed. Therefore, it can be said that he endured a lot from a human point of view. / But it is important to note that circumstances have changed, not promises. Faith is based on promises, not circumstances. Therefore, even if 50 years have passed since the promise, not 10 years, it should never change.
Simon, a man who obeys the circumstances, was called by Jesus and became the Lord's servant Cephas and Peter, like a rock that stood firm in his promise.
Who are we listening to? Are you really putting God's Word first? Or are you prioritizing changes according to the situation? When God sees me, who am I listening to? Man or God? Circumstances or God's promises?
Hagar! (Verse 4) - I
(Genesis 16:4) Abram slept with Hagar, and Hagar conceived, and when she realized that she was pregnant, she despised her mistress.
Hagar may have been secretly expecting this situation. If she had a wonderful son, she could have become the hostess. In a sense, according to the customs of that time, Hagar should have already been in the first place.
Now that she realized she was pregnant, Hagar's attitude toward her master suddenly changed. It was done ignoring the owner and ignoring it. She treated her mistress with a look down and a horsetail. He had made the mistress whom he had served his whole life his enemy and made the most suffering. / In that sense, being a servant is happiness. This misfortune begins when a servant receives a treat that overflows. “(Proverbs 29:21) If you bring up a servant from a young age, then he will pretend to be a child.”
Unfortunately, Hagar was not a great person to rise to such a position.
Sarai! (Verse 5) - II
(Genesis 16:5) And Sarai said to Abram, "You deserve my reproach. I have put my maidservant in your bosom, and when she realized that she is pregnant, she despises me. The LORD judges between you and me I want
Sarai still interprets events only from a completely human level. It must be a sense that the servant must have said something to the mistress when the servant was so terrified of the mistress.
In fact, what did Abram or Sarai do well? Nevertheless, God came and asked me to judge between my husband and me. No, the whole incident was wrong from the start, and now that there is a problem between the two of them in the process, God asks God to solve the problem. We too often make this mistake.
Rather, Sarai should have understood this contempt of the servant as a spiritual phenomenon resulting from her unbelief and human endeavors.
Abram! (Verse 6) - II
(Genesis 16:6) And Abram said to Sarai, "Your maidservant is in your hand, do to her what is good in your eyes." So Sarai mistreated Hagar, and Hagar fled from her presence.
All Abram did to solve this problem was to say, “Do what you have commanded!” How irresponsible is this? To entrust a woman's life to a woman's envy and anger, even to a woman who is bearing her own seed, is a great evasion of responsibility and a cowardly act of subhumanity.
Hagar! (Verse 6) - II
“(Genesis 16:6) And Abram said to Sarai, “Your maidservant is in your hand, and do to her what is good in your eyes.” So Sarai mistreated Hagar, and Hagar fled from her presence.”
Hagar had a heart that could not be surpassed, and as a result of despising her master, she was abused by her mistress in return and was forced to flee. Perhaps even though having a child is an opportunity to earn more trust and love with the mistress, he ultimately took it as the worst opportunity. If you let go of greed, you can gain wisdom.
From Hagar's point of view, it must have been an unfortunate day. It was done according to the master's suggestion, but there must have been a feeling of injustice in being abused by the master and being driven out into the wilderness as a pregnant woman.
Sarai! (Verse 6) - III
(Genesis 16:6) And Abram said to Sarai, "Your maidservant is in your hand, do to her what is good in your eyes." So Sarai mistreated Hagar, and Hagar fled from her presence.
Now she began to mistreat Hagar, the maidservant. Also look at Sarah, the woman of hatred who is abusing her 85-year-old husband's child. In fact, it was done by one's own command... / That is the sinner's nature. I see Sarai, who is terribly selfish. It is the human nature of Sarai that is absolutely unsuitable as the wife of the ancestors of faith.
Now, the three people who appeared here in chapter 16d are better and worse. None of them deserve to inherit the promises of God. They are not worthy of God's great covenant at all.
Let's think about it here! What would have happened if Abram had passed through the pieces of meat? He had already been destroyed by using the curse of the covenant he had broken, and he would have become a stranger who had nothing to do with the covenant. That is why God did not allow Abram to pass through the pieces of meat, but he passed by himself, so he bore the curse on all the covenants that Abram broke.
The incident of Hagar's affair after the covenant of meat showed that Abram and Sarai were not worthy of the covenant. All the curses of breaking show that God alone will bear it.
Therefore, what this chapter shows today is that no one, including Abram, can fulfill or keep that covenant. That is why Jesus Christ bore the cross of his own curse. For the eternal covenant that I have broken...
If every human being could have saved himself, Jesus Christ would never have taken the cross.
And since all human beings cannot save themselves or become heirs of the eternal kingdom of heaven, God sent Jesus Christ to bear the cross and bear all those curses.
In conclusion, let's find and read only the following three verses and finish.
(Isa 53:4) Indeed, he hath borne our afflictions and carried our sorrows; but we thought that he was chastised, smitten by God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:5) He was pierced for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace; with his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:6) We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way. He laid upon him the iniquity of our multitude.
(John 14:6) Jesus said to them, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.
(Acts 4:12) There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.