The Failure of Abram

This morning we come to the story for which Abraham is probably best known. Sure, he is

known as the man of faith. He is known as the father of the nation of Israel. But, more than anything else, Abraham is probably known for this colossal failure that we will see him carry out. I want to look at this passage in two sections: “The Blindness of Abram and Sarai” and “The God Who Sees”. The first thing I want you to see in this text is the blindness of Abram and Sarai. Look with me at Gen. 16:1-6. There are two types of blindness that I want you to see in this passage, and they both are related. Remember that God has made a promise to Abram that he will give him innumerable

descendants. Abram initially believed God and trusted his promise, but there have been some

significant signs of doubt. For one, he went down to Egypt and nearly gave his wife away to the

Pharaoh out of fear. This doubt really came to a head in the last chapter, when God reassured Abram

with a covenant. Apparently Abram and Sarai still doubt, and it is going to take a terrible turn for the

worse here.

The first blindness we see is the blindness of worldly pressure. Sarai is about 85 years old at this

point. She is well past child bearing years, and she has never been able to conceive a child anyway.

Now, all of the sudden her husband gets a promise from God that he will be the father of a great nation, and she is initially hopeful. But, at this point, 10 years after the initial promise of God, Sarai is

wondering when God is going to deliver. She wants a baby for all sorts of reasons. In her day, women

were effectively property, and like a heifer that couldn't bear calves was worthless, so too, a woman

who couldn't bear children was considered worthless in those days. In fact, a man could openly and

shamelessly divorce his wife because she was infertile. Even today, you ladies find your identity in

children. It is, after all, the most precious gift that God has given women. Even today, couples who

struggle with having a child or even can't have a child experience far more difficulties in their

marriages than couples who can.

These are some of the pressures that Sarai is experiencing here. So, she is blinded by those

pressures. She is blinded to the fact that God rescued her from Egypt when even her husband was not

willing to do so. She is blinded to the fact that God gave her husband a great victory over the most

powerful king in the land. She is blinded to the fact that God has taken care of them the whole time

they have been in the land of Canaan. All she can focus on is the pressures of the world, and because of those pressures, she comes up with what has to be the craziest idea in all of Scripture. She has a

handmaid that they picked up while in Egypt, and this handmaid is a good looking, healthy 20-

something. She gets the idea that since the handmaid is effectively hers by right, she will have her

husband sleep with the handmaid, and then she will adopt the child as her own to be the son that God

could not give her.

The second case of blindness that we see in this passage is the blindness of ungodly counsel.

Abram is also feeling the pressures of the world. We've already seen that he is doubting the promise of God, and the covenant that God made with him in Chapter 15 is still not enough to satisfy his doubts. But, then Abram's wife comes to him with a fantastic proposal. Now, some of you gentlemen that have been married for a while, imagine this. Your wife comes to you and says, “Honey, I know you are really disappointed that I am unable to conceive your child, and let's face it, I'm not getting any younger. So, in order to meet my obligation as your wife, I propose that you take this young, good looking Egyptian servant girl of mine and make her your wife so that you can have that son you've always wanted.” Now, I want you to notice how much of this parallels the temptation of Adam in Genesis 3, because I believe that's intentional. Eve took the fruit that she had eaten, and she gives it to her husband. Adam should have spoken up when the serpent was spewing his venom, but he didn't. He should have spoken up as his wife was reaching for the fruit, but he didn't. Instead, he sat idly by while his wife was tempted, then he participated in her sin with her. Abram allowed the wealth of Egypt into his camp. Remember, while he was in Egypt, he received a dowry for his wife/sister. This servant girl, Hagar was in that dowry. What should Abram have done? He should have done what he did with the king of Sodom when he came to give him gifts. He should have rejected them and trusted the Lord. But, because he accepted those gifts and stood idly by, now his family is in the situation it's in. Also, instead of rebuking his wife for such a crazy proposal, instead of seeing his wife as his standard of beauty and trusting God to deliver his promise, Abram gave into ungodly counsel and his own lustful desires.

Well, look what happens next, starting in verse 4. This is how you know the Bible is true: it

reveals human behavior for what it really is, even in the Father of Faith. After Hagar has her child, it

says that she began to despise her mistress. In other words, she became insubordinate. She realized that she had the upper hand. She was young, fertile, and had produced a baby boy for her master. Sarai was old, infertile, and manipulative. So, Hagar began to disobey. Well, Sarai starts nagging Abram about the situation, so much so that she blames the whole thing on Abram and calls down God to defend her. In order to shut her up, Abram gives her permission to do whatever she wants with Hagar, and so Sarai abuses her to the point that Hagar flees.

This brings me to my last point found in verses 7 – 16. Hagar flees, and she is headed back to

Egypt. I want you to feel the weight of the situation that Hagar is in. She is a slave who has been sold

out of her own country. She is pregnant with a bi-racial baby from an old nomad father. She is stuck, out in the desert with no food and no protection. Hagar is in about as bad a place as she can be. If she

returns to Egypt, she will be a runaway slave and the mother of a bastard. If she goes back to Abram, he might sell her as soon as she has her child, and take her only joy away from her.

She is at her wits end and she comes to a well in the middle of the desert. While she's there, an

angel appears to her and asks why she is running away. Notice the promise that the angel gives Hagar

in verse 10. She gives her the same promise that God gave Abram. Her son will be the father of many

great nations. Hagar worships God there and she gives God a name that we do not find anywhere else

in the Bible. She calls him “The God who sees”. Hagar thought she was forgotten by the world, a

runaway slave, doomed to die either in the desert or in jail. She was as far away from anyone or

anything as she could get. And in the middle of her despair, God saw her.

There is another case very similar to this in the New Testament. It involves another woman at

another well. In John 4, Jesus is traveling through Samaria, a place that was despised by the Jews

much like Egypt was. He comes to a well in the middle of the day, and there is a woman there drawing water. This is odd because women usually drew first thing in the morning or last thing before dark because of the heat during the middle of the day. It's obvious that this woman doesn't want to be seen, but Jesus sees her. He asks her for a drink, and she's shocked because Jews don't talk to Samaritans, and then Jesus tells her that she should have asked him for living water. Jesus reveals that he knows her inner most secrets, that she has been married 5 times and she is now living with a man who is not her husband. Jesus doesn't judge her, he doesn't condemn her, he saves her by telling her that he is the Son of God and the promised Messiah.

Brothers and sisters, do you recognize that God is the God who sees? For some of you, this may

be a terrible thought because God does indeed see your sin. You might think, like Sarai and Abram did, that you can hide your sins, or you can do things your own way and God will be OK with it. But know, that the Lord is the God that sees. He sees the fact that you give into the pressures of this world and you try to fit in by throwing your life away. He sees that you give into ungodly counsel or the lust of your flesh and look at things you shouldn't. He sees when no one else is looking.

But, the fact that God sees is not meant to be a terrifying thing. It is meant to be a gracious

truth. God sees you, and he knows exactly who you are. He knows that you've done things that have

brought shame in your life or the lives of others. He knows just where you are in your faith. But, he is

gracious all the same. You might think that the world is against you. You might feel, like Hagar, that

you are despised and rejected, but God is the God who sees. In closing, I want you to think about who

the hero of this story is. It is not Abram, the man of faith, who listened to his wife and brought about a dysfunctional family that to this day is still fighting over in the middle east. It is not Sarai, who tempted her husband to destroy their own marriage. It is not even Hagar, who ran from everyone, including God. No, the hero in this story is once again God Almighty, the God who sees.