Now God had promised Abraham
an heir, a seed to which all the nations of the earth would
be blessed. And about 10 years, approximately
10 years has gone by. since God first made the promise
to Abraham that he was gonna give him the land. You remember
when Lot left, he promised he was gonna give him all that land.
His seed would possess all that land, and then his seed would
be like the stars of heaven. About 10 years had gone by since
that happened. And Sarai, Sarah, grew impatient. Impatient. I actually titled this, The Sin
of Not Waiting on God. of not waiting on God. And so
what she's going to do is help move things along. That's exactly
what's happening here. They're going to help move things
along. They are going to take the energy of this flesh and
try to fulfill the promise of God is what's going to happen. And God lets this happen. Because
God lets something happen doesn't mean he approves of it. He let
Adam fall. God doesn't approve of sin. But
God is going to take these things and he's going to overrule them
for our good. Because this situation right
here is used by Paul in Galatians as an allegory. And it gives
us a real understanding between the children of promise and those
are just of the flesh. Now we're gonna see three things
here. We're gonna see the sin of Sarah, the sin of Abraham,
the sin of Hagar, and then last of all, we'll see the angel of
the Lord, how he appears to the one afflicted. He appears to
Hagar. Now, Sarah's gonna move things
along. She's gonna move along the purpose
of God, like as if God needs help. as if he needs some help
in this matter. And she wants a child. She's
tired of waiting. She's looking in the mirror and
she says, I'm getting older and older and older and nothing's
happened. And it may be, I don't know.
A lot of thoughts went through my mind studying this. It may
be that she's thinking now, well, maybe the Lord's going to use
someone like this Egyptian woman. Because you know, when the promise
was given to Abraham, I don't know what all Abraham understood,
but I know this, he said, Abraham, out of your loins, out of your
bowels, it's gonna come from you. And about this time, they
may be thinking, well, maybe Sarah's not gonna be involved
in this, I don't know. I don't know if that's their
thought process or not, but I know the promise was to Abraham. But
anyway, they're gonna try to move this thing along. Growing
impatient with God's timetable. When God gives a promise, God's
gonna fulfill that promise. And God's gonna fulfill that
promise in his time. Call upon me in the day of trouble,
and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Well,
that doesn't mean the very minute I call upon God, that trouble
ends. It doesn't mean that. It may be 10 years down the road
that I'll really see the answer to that prayer. But God will
answer his promise, I promise. Of course, my promises don't
mean anything, but God promises that he'll answer. We always cause trouble. We always
cause ourselves real trouble when we try to move along the
things of God. When we try to move them along
ourselves instead of waiting on the Lord. There's nothing
more difficult to this flesh than waiting on God. Nothing. The Word of the Lord, the Word
of God says, Watch and pray. It also says in Psalm 27 14,
Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, be of good
courage because of the one you are waiting on. You're waiting
on the Lord who is faithful. And he shall strengthen that
heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Wait on Him, He'll answer prayer
according to His time. The Lord will fulfill His promise.
It says in the Ecclesiastes, there's a time and a purpose
for everything under heaven. And that's just, that's more
than just the big things. That's every minute thing that
has to do with me and you. Every minute, I mean minute thing.
There's a time and purpose for everything to happen. And when
that time comes, it'll happen. It'll happen. But Sarah, she
lost confidence in God's promise. She got tired of waiting. And
so she's going to move along. And now she takes an Egyptian
girl, her handmaid, and gives her to Abraham. It says, to be
his wife, And you'll notice something I'll point out in the last part
of this. And when she does this, it's all downhill from here. It's all downhill. When they
engage human logic, I'm too old. When they engage human logic
to try to start fulfilling God's promise and God's purpose, it's
gonna cause trouble. It's gonna cause trouble. We
need to learn something here. We do not begin in the spirit
and finish things up in the energy of the flesh. Flesh is never
involved in fulfilling, on our part, the purpose of God. Now
God may use the flesh, but it's God who's doing it, not us. It's
God who's doing it. Because you see there in verse
2, there in verse 2, She says, Sarah says, it may be that I
may obtain children of the Lord and in my margin be builded by
her. She has turned to this young,
this young Egyptian girl, her slave, her handmaid. And she's
thinking, she's logically thinking, here's a young, here's a young
girl. She can have a lot of children. And Sarah's going to adopt her
children. She's going to take them as her children. And what
she's saying is I may be established by her. Not by God who gave the promise. God gave the promise. She's going to be established
by this Egyptian, this Egyptian girl. And that's her thinking
right now. Her attitude is this, Abraham, I think we need to do our part
in this. I think we need to do our part. When I thought about
that, I thought this is no different than pressuring someone to come
down an aisle and make a decision. Doing our part in this to get
somebody to decide for Jesus. Somebody to accept Jesus instead
of waiting on God to do something. Instead of waiting on God to
work, it's trying to put the energy of this flesh into it
and cause something to happen. Abraham, we need to do our part
in this thing now. And of course, Abraham, here's
his sin in this. You know, he's not Mr. Innocent
here. Abraham, it says, he harkened to the voice of Sarah. He agreed. He agreed. Here's the man who just, just
a few verses back, it says in 15.6, and he believed in the
Lord and he counted to him for righteousness. Here's a man of
faith now acting like he has no faith. That's what, that's
what's going on. And Abraham Harkin, he agreed
with Sarah. What's this remind you of? Adam
and Eve. Eve took that fruit, and she
said, this is good, it'll make us wise. And Adam goes, okay. He agreed with her, and he took
it. And what happened? This whole mess we got now in
our hands is because of that. It's because of that. And here
Abraham, who had just been declared that he was righteous, he believed
God, is now acting like a man who doesn't believe at all. Someone said, and this has been
said so many times, that the best of men are just men at best.
Even the best of men of faith are still just men at best. Abraham
should have hearkened to the voice of God. Here is the head
of the house. This man, God is holding him
to be the head of the house. Here he hearkens to his wife
instead of God Almighty. He could have said, Sarah, we
will just wait on God. He could have said, Sarah, let
me seek the Lord on this. Let's seek the Lord on this.
Let's pray and seek the Lord's will in this matter. You don't
find that at all. You don't find that at all. I
think Abraham himself had grown impatient and doubtful. He's
about 10 years older now, about 10 years older. And when she said, you know,
here's this Egyptian girl, I want you to go to her and establish
children. And he just went right into her. Gave right in. And they put a
religious spin on it. Sarah did anyway. She said in
verse two, and Sarah said unto Abram, behold, now the Lord hath
restrained me from bearing Abraham. The Lord's not going to let me
have any children. I mean, here comes human logic. I'm telling
you, when you put human logic into spiritual matters, you're
going to be improper. You're going to have trouble. You're
just going to have trouble. And she says, the Lord has restrained
me from burying. Let's face it. Let's face it. Look at me. I'm too old. I'm too old. I'm way past burying
Abraham. But here's this young Egyptian
lady I got. And we can, she can establish
me with children. And Abraham fell for it, hook,
line and sinker. And Hagar, we're here in verse
four, look. And Abraham goes into her, you know, Sarah gives,
gives her to be Abram's wife. And, and, um, Abraham goes into
Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she had
conceived, her mistress was despising her. She conceived, and I tell
you, the flesh really came out. The flesh really came out. Nothing good ever comes from
the flesh, ever. Nothing good ever comes out of
our plotting and planning. Not a word doing it. The whole
now is in turmoil. It's in turmoil. Where there used to be harmony,
there's now hatred. Where there used to be peace,
there's now fighting. And you can just mark it down. and it's flesh from top to bottom,
from top to bottom. And they just messed, Sarah,
by her logic, just messed this thing up. And Abraham falling
for it. Abraham going right along with it. They just tore up their
home. And Hagar, after she had conceived,
Hagar's attitude is, look at me, old barren woman. That was
her attitude. Look at me, old barren woman.
And there ain't no doubt that Hagar thought that God favored
her over Sarah. And that Abraham loved her over
Sarah. Because no one gets pregnant
without God giving life. No one conceives without God
giving life. There's no accidental pregnancies.
Maybe on our part, it might be, but not on God's part. There's
not a person who comes into this world by accident. None. And she despises Sarah, and she
lets her know. She lets her know. And my first
thought after that was, what was Sarah thinking? That child
would never be hers. It would always be Hagar's. It
would always be hers. Even God did not acknowledge
that, you know that? God said to Abraham concerning
Isaac, when he was going to sacrifice him, listen, take now thy son,
thy only son. God didn't even acknowledge that
relationship. Thy only son. Had Abraham been the head of
the home as he was supposed to be and the man of God he was
supposed to be, this could have been avoided. It could have been
avoided. He knew better. He knew better. Even though Paul uses this later
in Galatians, it still does not lessen the sinfulness of it. Not waiting on God to fulfill
his promise. Now, Sarah is going to pass off
her guilt. I tell you, until God gives us
true repentance, all we're going to do is pass our guilt off on
somebody else. I'm telling you, we will. Adam,
where art thou? The woman you gave me, that's
the reason we're in this mess. He blamed it all on him. The
one that he admired, the one he loved, the one that God brought
to him, the one that God made from his rib. And God brought
her to Adam. And I mean, she just, she was
a work of God. She was a work of God. And when Adam fell, he just,
he turned on her. The woman, of course, in doing
that, he turned on God. But the woman you gave me. It's
her fault, it's her fault. Now listen to this as it goes
along here. And Sarai said unto Abram in verse five, my wrong,
my wrong be upon thee. My wrong be, you know, guilt
is like a hot potato. Nobody wants to hold it. Nobody
wants to hold it. You gotta try to pass it off
on somebody. Guilt is a terrible thing to
deal with. Instead of Sarah confessing her sin, she blames her husband. My guilt be upon you. You're the head of the house.
You should have stopped me, Abraham. You should have said no. That's what she's saying. My
guilt be upon you. You should have put a stop to
this. You should have. I could get stronger, but I'm
trying not to. No, yeah, right. You should have
stopped me. It'd be like trying to stop a
train. But here's a no-win situation. One person wanting to call the
shots while someone else bears all the responsibility. That
is a no-win situation. Anyway, back here. Sarah said,
my wrong be upon thee. She wanted to call the shots
in this situation, but she wanted him to bear the responsibility. We cannot shift guilt to someone
else. My guilt is my guilt. It took
David a while to find that out. He confessed it in Psalm 51,
but in Psalm 32, he tried to hide it. I believe it's Psalm
32. He tried to hide it. Let's go
over to Psalm 32. I don't want to take too much time to get
through this, all right. Psalm 32, let me see if that's
the one I'm thinking of. Okay, listen. Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit
there is no guile. When I kept silence, and this
is the situation between him and Bathsheba and Uriah, and
what happened. I kept silent. I tried not to
confess it. I tried to just keep my mouth
shut and go on like it didn't even happen. When I kept silent,
my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. I was
walking on the outside smiling, but on the inside, I was tore
up. God tore him up on the inside. convicted him of his sinfulness. For day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me, my moisture's turned into the drought of summer.
Then look in verse five, I acknowledge my sin unto thee, my iniquity
have I not in. Well, he tried to. You see what guilt, guilt will
eat you alive until by God's grace, you're able to confess
it, own up to it and confess it. We must learn to say guilty without
bringing anybody else in on it. She upset with Abraham here. And then we must be careful.
Listen, here's, I mean, when you, I tell you what, when you
sin, you just keep making it worse. She said, I've given my handmaid
unto thy bosom. And when she saw she was conceived,
I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judged between me and
thee. You sure you want to bring him in on this, Sarah? Seriously,
you sure you want to bring God in on this? God be our judge? You started this thing. Be careful
when you say that. Be careful, because I tell you
what, you might not like the sentence. Because God is no respecter
of persons. He's no respecter of persons. The Lord judged between me and
thee. Next time you and I get upset,
let's be careful we call God in on this. Let's be careful. And then we'll
see Abraham's indifference in verse six. He says, listen to
this. And Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand. You know what he's saying here?
You deal with it. You deal with it. You caused it. You deal with
it. And you know what he's actually doing? He's shirking his responsibility
as the head of that house. He's shirking his responsibility.
Yes, it may have began with Sarah. But Abraham, God holds you responsible.
Yes, it began with Eve. But it wasn't until Adam stepped
in that the whole human race failed. And he's saying here,
you deal with it. Abraham's attitude is, hey, you
started this. Leave me out of it. Oh, yeah,
I'll go in the tent. But now the trouble started.
Leave me out of it. He tried to give up his responsibility.
And then what happens is Sarah deals harshly with her. She still
has not accepted her guilt in this matter. Still too much flesh
going on. I'll tell you what, guilt will
make you miserable. It'll make you mean and irritable to others. It'll just destroy you. The way
we treat others is a reflection of what's going on in our hearts.
Now Hagar, she had to flee from Sarah's presence because it got
so bad. It got so bad. This is not the
conduct of grace in the heart. She started it. Boy, just think
how this could have gone if she had just repented and just said,
Lord, forgive me. Abraham, what a mess. Just said, what a mess, what
a mess. Instead of keep creating a mess. But then grace shows
up here in verse seven, and I gotta hurry up here, when the angel
of the Lord appears. And notice to whom the angel
of the Lord appears. To the afflicted one. Not to Abraham, not to Sarah,
but to Hagar. That Egyptian woman who just
got pulled in on this is what happened. And the angel of the Lord here,
I believe, is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
says to her, I'll multiply thy seed. I'm gonna bless you. I'm gonna bless you. Notice who found whom here. The Lord found her. You know
where he found her? By a well. Does that remind you of anything?
John chapter four, that woman at the well, the Lord's sitting
there waiting for her to show up. And here she is by a fountain,
by a well, and she meets the Lord. She meets the Lord. She was not looking for him,
but all she was going to do is go back to Egypt. He said, where
are you going to go? What are you going to do? What's your plan? She was just
miserable. She's out there in that wilderness,
had to leave. her master, and the Lord appeared
to her. He appears to the afflicted ones. And he found her in the wilderness.
And that's exactly where God finds everyone, everyone whom
God's going to save. And I'm not saying he saved Hagar,
I don't know what that situation, but I know this, everyone whom
the Lord is going to save, he's going to find them in a wilderness
of sin. That's where we're going to find us. That's where we're
gonna wind up. Out there with no help. All alone. Miserable. And then the Lord
appears. Then he appears. And here's what he tells her.
Return to thy mistress, thy master. Submit thyself under her hands,
return. And there's a, you know, there's
a gospel message in this. There's a gospel message. Return
to the Lord and submit to him. He'll show mercy. He'll show
mercy. He's the only one who can put
away the offense. He's the only one. And the Lord promised to
bless her. Thou shalt bear a son. Thy seed
shall be multiplied exceedingly through, exceedingly, although
he'll be a wild man, because this is nothing but flesh. Nothing
but flesh come out of this. And you can see right now that
group over there in the Middle East is still a warring, fighting
bunch of Ishmaelites. The fruit of sin can never produce
peace. The fruit of sin never produces
peace. And notice here, the Lord told
her to return to her mistress. You notice, he did not say return
to your husband. God never recognized that relationship. Sarah said, take her to be your
wife. That doesn't mean God said, just
because Sarah said it doesn't mean it's going to be so. God
didn't say it. God did not say it. God never recognized that relationship. He said, turn to your mistress. Abraham is Sarah's husband. Here's the message. Here's the
message. Wait on the Lord. Wait on the
Lord, however long at times it takes. We need to wait on the
Lord. Trust in Him at all times to
do just as He said He would. Just trust Him. He will. And
commit thy way unto the Lord. Just commit your way to Him.
And don't blame someone else for your guilt. And take your
burden to the Lord and leave it there. Just leave it there. All right. Anyway, back here in