Now, if you'll take your Bibles
and turn with me to Genesis chapter 16. Let me read the first several
verses here in this chapter, kind of refresh our memories.
This is the chapter I spoke to you from last week, but we're
going to go a little different direction this week. Now, Sarai, Abram's wife, bear
him no children. And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian,
whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold
now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee,
go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children
by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice
of Sarai. And Sarai, Abram's wife, took
Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years
in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband, Abram, to
be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and
she conceived. And when she saw that she had
conceived, her mistress was despised in her eye. And Sarai said unto
Abram, My wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid into thy
bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised
in her eyes. The Lord judged between me and
thee. But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold,
thy maid is in thine hand. Do to her as it pleaseth thee. When Sarai dealt hardly with
her, she fled from her face. The angel of the Lord found her
by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in
the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid,
whence camest thou, and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I
flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the Lord
said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself
unto her hand. And the angel of the Lord said
unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall
not be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said
unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son,
and shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy
affliction. And he'll be a wild man. His
hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against
him. and he shall dwell in the presence
of all his brethren. And she called the name of the
Lord that spake unto her, Thou God, seest me. For she said,
Have I also here looked after him that seest me? Wherefore,
the well was called Beelaheroi. Behold, it is between Kadesh
and Bereth, and Hagar bare Abraham a son, And Abram called his son's
name which Hagar bare Ishmael. And Abram was four score and
six years old when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram. Now last week
I took you to Romans chapter 9 and Galatians chapter 4 and
showed you in the scriptures where the Lord revealed what
this story was all about. With Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael
and Isaac were types. They were types of the two covenants
of works and grace. I showed you that from the Scriptures. Abraham had two sons and these
are the covenants. They stood in type. Man's flesh,
man's reasoning, man's ideas, man's finagling. produce that
system of works by which he can bring about the promises of God
and produce the true heir of God. And that system of grace
whereby God promises a thing and purposes a thing and brings
it to pass. All of him and all of grace. And also in these two women,
in Sarah and Hagar, are the true The true church or true religion
is revealed from worldly religion. The religion of this world which
is all natural, it's all dependent upon man and what he can imagine
and what he can reason and what he can do. And that spiritual
religion which is heavenly Jerusalem is what he calls it in Galatians
chapter 4. There's two religions and there's
two results from these things that we looked at. There's a
result of bondage. That which man does, that which
man is, and for that reason, what he does and what he says
and what he thinks and everything that he can finagle around of
his own self can only bring him into bondage. The best old Hagar
the slave can do is to bring about another slave. That's the
best you can do. And so it is with natural religion.
The best they can produce is just natural. And then I know
these things. When men are unsure of these
things, when men don't understand these things, they're going to
have a difficulty in this world trying to discern what's right
and what's wrong. what's real and what's spiritual
and what's natural. You're going to meet people and
they're going to talk to you and you're going to be deceived
if you're not set straight on these principles of grace and
works. You're going to get messed up.
You're going to get messed up. And these things are put here
in the Scriptures and preserved here in the Scriptures. They're
not just stories. They're the very foundation principles
of the church. and of the living God. But then
after the service last week, I was talking to William, and
he said, do you think Hagar was a saved woman? And I said, well, I've been looking
at that for about 30 years. And I'm not sure I can say that
with all confidence that she knew the Lord. Maybe you can. But I just have a problem seeing
it cut and dry. Now, was Abraham a saved man?
I believe he was. I believe the Scriptures identified
in Hebrews 11, these all died in faith. I've got no doubt about
Sarah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all those names in
that list. God as much as opened up the
book of life and said, here they are, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. He goes down the list. These
all died in faith. They will save people. But there's
a lot of people in this book that it doesn't just, it's not
black and white, is it? King Saul, have a little trouble
with him, don't you? Lots of people wrestle over Lot,
but I find Lot named of God in the Scripture, that righteous
man. I don't have too much trouble with him. But there's lots of
names in the Bible that you see where they said a lot of good
things and did a lot of good things. But you just can't, I'm
just not going to say it. Now maybe you're willing to do
that, I'm not. Does she know the Lord? Whom
to know is eternal life. Well, I don't know. And I'm not
going to say she was or she wasn't. But, and this is what I want
to talk to you about tonight. She's a pretty good picture of
how God reconciles sinners. She's a pretty good picture.
And I tell you this, I'm leaning strong as far as my part towards
saying that Hagar did know the Lord. I'm leaning pretty hard
that direction. But tonight I want us to look
at this story of Hagar just as it stands. We're not going to
look at it as a type or a figure or a picture. We're just going
to take it as it stands in its natural history, just as I read
it to you a few moments ago. And when I began to study this
story, I found out three things in studying this whole event
about Hagar. The first thing I discovered
was that she's a perfect representation of how God saved me. The longer
I looked at what... She left Abraham's house. As
far as I know, that's the only place on God's green earth where
God manifested His name at that time was in that house, in Abraham's
house. And she left it. And she went
out. She was disgusted. She didn't
understand what was going on. She knew some things. Nobody
stayed in Abraham's house without being instructed. This was a
servant of God. This was a man to whom, this
was the father of the faithful. This is the example that God
set apart for faith. And I know that Abraham was faithful
in all of his house. And he was faithful in instructing
not only his wife and ruling over his house, but his servants
and all his house. They all knew what Abraham professed
to believe. All of them did. All of them
did. But she left that house and she
left there in disgust and ignorance and rebellion and she took off. She didn't know where she was
going. Didn't have a clue where she was going. But she left.
And God came to her and reconciled her and sent her back. He didn't
leave her out in the wilderness. He didn't say, well, I'm going
to do you some favors out here and I'm going to reveal my name
to you now. You just go wherever you want
to go. First thing he told her, I read it to you a few minutes
ago, he said, you go back to Sabra and you submit yourself
to her. You submit yourself to her because
that's where my purpose put you to start with and put you exactly
where you were and under my authority and that's where you're going
to go back to. And that's exactly what God did with me. Exactly
what he did with me. I found in here a perfect representation,
or a pretty good representation of my experience with Grace. And then I started looking at
this thing pretty hard, and I found this out secondly, that she's
a pretty good representation of what, for lack of a better
word, I'm going to call the Gentile church. God has a church, it's
a spiritual church, it's a universal body of believers made up from
beginning to end of time. But there came a period when
God singled out a nation and identified them with the name
of Israel. Some of those people in natural
Israel were of his church, and some weren't. I read an article
by Joe Terrell, I thought it was a really great article a
while ago, and the article said this, not everybody that came
out of Egypt came out of Egypt. Their hearts stayed there. And
out of about two million people, only two of them went into the
Promised Land outside of those who were born out in that wilderness.
All those original ones who came out of there, they didn't go
in. So not everybody that is called Israel is Israel. We're told that very clearly
on Romans chapter 9, Romans chapter 2, and Galatians. But I find
here a picture in the Old Testament, a representation in this meeting
between God and Hagar, I see there Something of God's dealings
with the Gentile church, with the Gentile believers. Now, I'm
not going to go through a long line of things talking about
this tonight, but in Colossians chapter 1, Paul tells them how
he came about to minister to them, and he said, I've come
to minister to you. A great mystery, a mystery that's
been hidden from the world from generations, but now it's revealed
in the Gentile people. This mystery of the Gentiles,
the glory of which is Christ in you. The hope of glory. All
about that Gentile church. And the Lord Himself declared
this to Israel, and when he finished, they were ready to throw him
off the brow of the hill. You remember I mentioned that
the other day, that he preached to people who often wanted to
kill him, but his hour was not yet come. Well, on one occasion
he stood up and he said, back in the days of Elijah the prophet,
one of your heroes, Elijah, He said there was widows, there
was lots of widows in the land, a great famine, and there was
widows in the land starving to death. God only sent His prophet
to one of them, and she was a Gentile. And he said, in the days of Elisha,
the one who followed Elijah, who got a double portion of Elijah's
spirit, Elisha, he said in the days of Elisha, this was another
one of those heroes that they held up. He said there was lepers
everywhere in Israel. God didn't cleanse any of them.
God went over here and cleansed a Gentile king by the name of
Naaman. And boy, they understood exactly
what he was saying. And they come at him and thrust
him out of their city and carried him out and were going to throw
him off the brow of the hill. But he passed through the midst
because His hour was not yet come. So I see here a representation
of this going on, and rightfully so. Here's the Father of the
faithful. Here's all these principles of
God being established at their very root, at the very beginning
here in the Scripture. And why shouldn't He establish
this mystery also of the Gentiles? So I think I've got a pretty
good reason for saying that. And then thirdly, as I studied
this text and began to get a picture of what was taking place here,
I begin to see a pretty good representation of how God reconciles
all chosen sinners. It's pictured right here in His
coming to Hagar. So let's take a look for the
next little bit and see if we can maybe learn something about
how God saves sinners. Now the first thing I want you
to see, if I can show it to you, is the problem. There's a problem. What brought her to this place
of misery? What brought her out here? What
was causing her so much? Here she was under the providence
of God. She had been led into the very
house of the Father of the faithful. Here she sat. The best possible
place that any human being could have been in that day is in Abraham's
house. The best possible place. And
here she sat. So what's she doing out here
next to this well weeping in the wilderness? Why didn't she
stay put in that house? Well, I'll tell you what happened.
What brought her to this place of misery was this unhallowed
attempt to produce the air of grace. Now that's what throws
men into a tizzy and that's where their problem is today. Religion
tries to produce the air of grace. They try to do it through human
finagling. They try to do it through an
obedience to the law. They try to do it through a self-righteousness
that they work out. They try to do it by their own
decisions, by their own willingness, by all sorts of things. There's
as many things that cause the problem as there are people on
this earth. There's just no end to it. Everybody's
got a different story, a different background, but there's just
two religions in the world, works and grace. And all these experiences
will fall under one of those two categories. But as far as
the individual stories, there are as many as there are people.
You just talk to them and see. Am I telling the truth? People
just come through all kinds of trouble. All kinds of trouble. But here's the basic reason why
she's out here. And you can go through this with
her and you can talk about, well, what she really needed to do.
And you'd be surprised how many writers majored on this point. What she really needed to do
and what God made her do was go back to her duties. That's
not what was going on out here in the wilderness. And then they
talk about her responsibility and her unwillingness and all
these things and they just went on and on and on. What brought
her to this place of misery was finagling by Abraham and Sarah,
mostly Sarah. Reasoning and trying to figure
this thing out how this air was going to be produced by the arm
of the flesh. Natural reasoning. And that's
what causes us the problems. The Lord begins to deal with
us and we see these promises and then we start, here it goes,
here it goes, here goes the reasoning. Now how can I get my name in
that book? How can I connect myself with this book of life. How can
I connect myself to these promises? And then we start all this finagling
and reasoning and all this kind of stuff and have ourselves in
an uproar. I'll tell you how you get in
there. Of God are you in Christ Jesus. That's the only way you
can get in as far as I know. If that ain't so, I missed it.
I missed the story of this book. Of God are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. And if wisdom had anything to
do with it, natural wisdom, He wouldn't have chosen the weak
things of the world and the unwise things of the world. He'd have
chose the princes. Not many mighty are called, not
many noble. How come? That no flesh should
glory in His presence. That's just the way it is. But
this is what brings on the misery. It's what brought it on to me.
It's what brings it on to everybody. You either go to a church and
they talk you into a false profession of faith, or you go and you hear
some things and you talk yourself into a false profession of faith,
or you might be raised in a real church. I wasn't. But I attended
one for a while and I heard the truth. And yet, in the arm of
the flesh, I made a false profession of faith. I'm telling you, that's what
natural man will do. He'll always do it. We all want
to do it. We all want to look in here and
find some evidence. And it ain't in here. The evidence
is up there. It's up there, sitting at the
right hand of God. That arm of the flesh, it cannot
produce the promised heir. And what it did produce was misery
for everybody involved. Here's Abraham, his wife is blaming
him for the whole thing. He didn't go to her, she came
to him. But he was as much at fault as she was because she
gave in to him. What's he doing listening to
Sarah tell him about the promises of God? He's the head of that
house and he should have been teaching her. But he gave in. He gave in. And then when she
realized she's wrong, just like the woman in the garden, she
didn't want to take this on herself, so she put it on him. And he
said, you ain't putting it on me, you deal with her. She was
your idea, now you deal with her. So she did, but she dealt
too hard. Drove her out, and away she went.
Now she's sitting out there in the wilderness. Everybody involved,
the most miserable of the three was Hager. And she's probably the most ignorant
of the three. And here she is, out by the well.
A soft voice come and spoke to her and told her, said, if you
go into this man, I want you to think on the promises that
are going to come to pass. And said, Ann, you can't tell
me that this maid went into Abraham without some understanding of
these promises that God had promised through this coming heir. She
knew about it. You know she did. And that soft
voice whispered to her, now all you've got to do, all you've
got to do, huh? How many times in my life have
I heard, all you've got to do, all you've got to do, huh? Just
come down now. Just take my hand. Just bow your
head right where you... How many times have I heard that
in my lifetime in religion? How many times is it being said
this very night? This very night. That's the arm
of the flesh trying to produce the air of grace. And it ain't
going to happen. All it's going to do is cause
misery. Misery. And the most miserable
one of the bunch is that one that you tried to make an heir.
Miserable. Our Lord said, you come from
sea and land trying to make one proselyte after yourself, and
when you've made them, they're two-fold more the child of hell
than you are. That's what He told them. Abraham was vexed for giving
in to his wife. Sarah was upset and angry at
the attitude of Hagar, and Hagar was the most miserable of the
three, driven out into a wilderness to escape her mistress's attitude. Most everybody I run into today
has had or is having some kind of an experience in religion
or has formed some kind of a thought that they rest on concerning
religion and concerning these things of God. And these experiences
will leave us in one or two ways. It will either give you a refuge
in which you hide and find satisfaction and stay there until you die.
Gain and strengthen it. Gain and strengthen it. Now,
I'm telling you something, I'm surrounded by some old folks
over here in Taylor who made false professions of faith back
in their teens and early 20s. And you can't even talk to them. Winston knows one of them. You
can't even talk to them. You can't get your foot in the
door to even... bound by this years and years
and years of following after these things and being assured
of these things and going down to that church and that preacher
just piling things on them one deception after the other. You
can't even get your foot in the door. You can't even talk to
them. If you could just open the book and say, well, look
here what God says. They don't care what it says. They're resting
on what they did. On what they did. About everybody I talk to today
is in that situation. They've either made this profession
of faith or whatever, but it's going to produce one or two things,
and one is that you're going to latch on to that refuge and
you're going to hang on to it until you die. Now people think
this is ridiculous, what I'm telling you tonight. I watched
my mother-in-law. She was not a religious person.
Not at all. She wasn't an evil person, but
she wasn't a religious person. And by evil, what I mean is she
didn't go to the bars and was a drunk and a cheat and all that
kind. She lived a decent life. She
was respected in the community and all those things. But her
friend got her to go to church with her for just a couple of
weeks, just a couple of times. And they had this big Hollywood
evangelist in there and he got her down the aisle and made a
profession of faith and she was baptized. And never went back
again as far as I know. As far as I know, never went
in the church again. She died hanging on to that refuge. That man took her by the hand,
told her she was saved and she hung on that until she died.
She went out to meet God with that. Now I'm telling you, you're
either going to do that Or are you going to get driven into
the wilderness? One or the other. Driven into
the wilderness. The Bible says God gave them
over to believe a lie and be damned. Gave them over to that
satisfaction. But some of them it drives back
out into the world and not really understanding why or being able
to give you an explanation. They just are miserable and don't
want to stay in that church. They don't want to do whatever
they're doing in that church and they just leave it, throw
their hands up and go out into the world. They take whatever
principles they think they know of honesty and these things and
are determined to live by them and they just shove the rest
of it over to the side because they don't want to deal with
it. I've been there and I know what I'm talking about. Just
shove it over here. I don't want to deal with it.
I don't want to hear it. I don't know how many times people came
to me, dear friends, friends I've known for years, some of
them that I actually preached to. Came to me, wanted to talk
to me, and I just shut them off cold. I don't want to talk about
it. It's got nothing to do with you. It's got nothing to do with
this church. It's got nothing to do with that preacher. I'm
just telling you, I don't want to talk about it. Shove it out
of your mind. Shove it out of the way. Take
whatever principles that you believe are right and live that
way and go on. Until God drives you into the
wilderness. Until He drives you out into the wilderness. Something
that drives back out into the world and they don't understand
why. They're not able to give you
an explanation. Any true man can't give you an
explanation. Did you know that? He can't tell
you what the trouble is because he don't know. He just knows
there's trouble. There's trouble. Poor Jesse,
I remember him calling me on the phone and talking to me in
tears. What's the problem, Jesse? I
don't know! That's the problem. That's the
problem. You don't know. You don't know. And how do people deal with it?
They shove it to the side. Shove it to the side. I want to say two things to you
now, and I want you to listen to me, what I'm telling you. The first is this. It matters
what you hear. It matters. Don't you ever swallow. Don't fall for that lie out of
hell that tries to convince you that God saves men by hearing
a lie. It ain't so. It ain't so. God has set forth His Son. God did. He didn't leave it to
a bunch of apostles to do or prophets as far as that goes.
God set Him forth as a propitiation, as a mercy seat. What this mercy
seat in the old tabernacle was about was making amends, setting
things right. It was pictured probably the
best in that year of jubilee. In that 50th year, that year
of jubilee, all debts were settled. If you had a slave, he was free
to go. If he owed you money, his debt
was canceled. Everything forgiven, everything
forgotten. Everything back to square one,
that 50th year, that year of jubilee. That pictures this work
of redemption. That pictures this propitiation
he's talking about. The word literally means mercy
seat. But it has to do with making
amends and setting things right. Forgiveness of debt, setting
the captives free. All of these things pictured
in that year of jubilee. And like the old mercy seat over
the Ark of the Covenant, this was the basis of God speaking
to us, God's accepting us, God's forgiving us, God's restoring
us again into faith. This mercy seat. And God has
set Him forth as a mercy seat, as a propitiation through faith
in His blood to declare, now listen, to declare His righteousness. to declare His righteousness. Because if He don't have a righteousness,
you're in trouble. Because His righteousness is
that righteousness which you receive by faith. That God might
be just when He justifies all those that believe. Now, He's
got to be set forth that way and He has to be believed on
that way. I'm telling you, they come preaching
another Jesus. They have another spirit. They
have another gospel. It tells us that in the Scripture. And Paul said, if I come back
to you and something's wrong with me, I've got a brain tumor
or something, and I come back here and I preach to you another
gospel, or you see an angel from heaven come down and he preaches
to you another gospel other than the one that I've already preached
to you, let him be accursed. And just in case you didn't get
it, he said it twice. Must be pretty important. And
I'm telling you this, first of all, it matters what you hear
and what you believe. It matters. But I tell you this,
and I'm telling you as straightforward and clear as I know how to tell
you tonight, this hearing must be attended by the presence of
God. Hager heard the truth. But it
had no effect on her. It had no effect on her. I heard
the truth. It didn't have any effect on
me. It didn't have any effect on me. Doctrine in and of itself
is not sufficient to produce an air of grace. Only God can
do that. God has to do that. Hagrid heard
the truth. No doubt in my mind, everybody
in Abraham's house heard the truth. But what she knew so far didn't
do her any good. Huh? Didn't do her any good. It's hard for me to believe that
this young slave, who was the hope, the hope of Abraham and
Sarah, that she didn't know the truth, she knew the truth. But
I tell you this, it's one thing to know it up here, and it's
another thing to know it here. as best as I can. This was the
problem. This was the problem. God hadn't
done the work. Man did the work. They tried
to do the work and use her and then she tried to do the work
with what they used her for. Neither one worked. They were
all miserable. Now let me tell you something.
Here's the second thing. Here's the solution. It says
the angel of the Lord found her. She wasn't hard to find. She
was exactly where he drove her to be. He found her. That's what has to happen. He
has to find you. He has to find you. He pictured
that. He pictured the Holy Spirit's
work in this thing by a candle searching for the coin, the lost
coin. Searching. Looked everywhere.
He gives us these pictures so that we can understand Him. If
He just told us in heavenly terms, we couldn't understand any. We
barely understand earthly terms that He gives. The angel of the
Lord found her. Now, the God who finds lost sinners
knows where to find them. He does, don't He? He knows exactly
where to find them. He knows where to find them because
He drives them into that place. And I fear any profession of
faith that has not ever been convinced of sin and lost. I fear it. I fear it. I just
fear it so bad. There's a difference between
being reproved and being convinced. Now, one man said this. And listen to this Scripture.
I'm going to quote you Scripture first before I give you my example.
This is over in Proverbs chapter 29. He said, He that being often
reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed,
and that without remedy. That's reproof. And a man's reproof. Reproof is like the waves of
the sea that beat against the great rock. Like that big rock
Gibraltar out there next to England. That ocean beats on that rock,
beats on that, probably been beating on it for a million years.
Who knows how long that water's been beating on that rock. No
visible change. It's like the wind that bends
the great oak. But when the wind ceases, the
oak goes right back where it was. Takes that same standing
it had before the wind blew. That's reproof. That's reproof. And there's a place for reproof.
He tells us to reproof. But only the Spirit of God can
convince. To convince us of sin, He shows
us our unwillingness to believe and rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ain't that what this whole thing
was all about? God gave them the promises of
grace and they weren't satisfied with it. They wanted to help
bring it about. They wanted to hurry it up. Wanted to hurry
it up. Wanted to make it happen. Wanted
to assist God. And I'll tell you this, to convince
you of sin, He shows us our unwillingness to believe and rest in the Lord
Jesus Christ, whom God has sent. He said, here's condemnation.
You want to know what condemnation is? Here's condemnation. Light
has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light.
Now, you haven't been convinced of sin until He takes you out
and shows you, point blank, your unwillingness to trust the Lord
Jesus Christ. When He does that, you'll be
convinced of what you are. Here it is. It's free. It don't
cost anything. Huh? Come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. Come get it. Here it is. Here
it is. Here's the treasure of heaven. All you have to do is come. You don't have to be anything.
You don't have to do anything. Just come. Come as you are. You don't have to clean up. It's
for sinners. You don't have to hit the mark.
It's for sinners. All you have to do is come. Why
won't you come? You find out after you find out
what you are. You find out what you are. You
find out that your sin hates God so much that it won't receive
His free gift of grace. Like a river. I'm telling you,
sin is like a river. When you discover you're in it,
there you go. It's sweeping you away. It's
sweeping away with it all your hopes, all your dreams, all your
peace. It's just going down with this
thing and you can't swim out of it. Nobody can pick you out
of it. It's just taking you away. And
nobody can get you out of it except God. That's what it means
to be lost. That's what it means to be a
sinner. Man becomes a lost man when he discovers his inability
and utter lack of affection for the Christ of God. He'll trust
in his works. He'll trust in his will. He'll
trust in his experience. Think about your will. You can't
will a germ. You can't will anything. And
you can't will a paycheck. You can't will your way through
the grocery line. But we're going to will God into
salvation. Think about it. This is sin. That's the ignorance and blindness
of it. We trust in His works and we'll
trust in our will and we'll trust. A man will trust in his experiences
and he'll trust in another. If he comes in his own name,
he'll trust in it, but he won't trust God. He will not trust
himself nor rest the weight of his soul on the promised Messiah
of God. And the sin of our nature, it
just sweeps us away. God who is sovereign in power, He orders the life of His children
in such a way as to bring them to the end of themselves. And
ain't you glad He does? Huh? I don't know how He does it.
I don't know how He does it. I just know that He does. I've
talked to hundreds that really have given evidence over the
years that they love God and trust in Christ and have a good,
solid hope of eternal life. Every one of them tells me the
same thing. He brought me to the end of myself. And it's all
by different experiences. But that's where he brought them.
That's where he brought them. They're in a wilderness. John
said, We know that we are of God and the whole world lies
in wickedness. And Hagar ran, but she had nowhere
to go. Listen to what the Lord said
to her here in Genesis 16.8. He asked her two questions. He
said, Whence camest thou? Where did you come from? He didn't
ask that for information. He asked that so she could answer
it herself. And he said, Where are you going? Where are you going? If I can
but answer these two things from my heart, they'll tell my story. I came out of Adam. I came out
of the curse. I came forth from the womb speaking
lies. These are all confessions of
Scripture. I came from a heathen world. Paul said, remember who
you are. You're Gentiles. without God
in the world. No promises, no covenants, nothing
to connect you to God. I came from a heathen world.
Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 3, he said, Thy birth and thy nativity
is of the land of Canaan. He's telling a bunch of Israelites
this, of Canaan. He said, Your father was an Amorite
and your mother was a Hittite. Gentiles, heathens, idolaters. Which camest thou? I came from
the broad road leading to destruction. I came from the rule and influence
of the God of this world. I walked, all of us did, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience, and we're all by nature the children
of wrath. I came out of heathen idolatry
and bondage. That's where I come from. And
he said, where are you going to go? Where you headed? What's your hope? Where's your
destiny? Running as fast as we can run
and don't know where. Going at it wherever I might,
but have no destination. We got no goal. We're just going
through this world. It'll be all right. One old man
told me one time, what will be, will be, whether it ever comes
fast or not. I'm having problems with that.
God said, where are you going? What's your goal? Going back
to Egypt. Going back to that bondage. Going
back to the land that sold me out to start with. Going and
running and fleeing to any place except that place where God's
hand put me. Oh, thank God for intervening
grace. The angel of the Lord found her
and He spoke to her. He said, where are you going?
Where did you come from? Where did you come from? Oh, grace that leads us to the
end of ourselves and grace that exhausts our efforts and exhausts
our means and confuses our passion until we find ourselves helplessly
lost. Lost. I believe this book pictures
a lost man coming to that place where he cannot find any connection
between himself and the God of all grace. He can't find one
thing to obligate God to save his soul. You been there? Not one thing. Can't put his
faith. Now it says right here, no sir. No sir. Because he knows what
he is. And he knows what he is because he knows who God is. Lost. There is, I believe, a
golden rope of grace that's around the neck of all his elect, and
God lets them go until they reach the end of the rope. And he said,
that's enough. That's enough. And he comes to
you and he finds you there in despair. And then watch this,
Genesis 16, 11. Look at the last part of this
verse. The Lord hath heard thine affliction. I looked at that
a long time. It's not so much the words. I
went back and I can only interpret some of these things by my own
experience. But I believe God deals with us very similarly
when He deals with us in our heart when we're talking about
these things of God. It's not so much the words that
men say as it is the condition of the heart. That's what gets
God's attention. I didn't know the words. I prayed. I remember muddling some words.
But I tell you this, man looks on the outward countenance. He
listens to the words. He watches what we do. And then
he evaluates by what he sees. But God looks on the heart. I remember Brother Scott. He
just died here last week. But Brother Scott, the first
time I heard him preach, he come up to me and he pretty heavy
tapped me on the chest. Just like that. And he said,
salvation is a heart work. He said, don't you ever forget
it. Don't you ever forget it. Every time I think of Scott,
I think about that. And what I recall most about
his preaching is he preached to your heart. God looks on the
heart. Keep thine heart. Out of it are
the issues of life. Oh, these soft spoken words she
heard. You just give in to this man,
you'll be the mother of the promised heir, you're going to be queen.
Queen of the heir of heaven. But instead of being the queen,
she was despised. Despised. And now here she is
in this wilderness ready to die. Oh, how an empty soul cries out
to God. It just cries out. Not the words.
It's the heart. The heart just cries out to God.
Oh, how so lost and undone, alone in the wilderness, no hope in
sight, no peace of mind or heart, no direction, no solution, no
remedy for what ails. You remember? Cries out to God, and he hears
it. He hears it. Oh, you muddle some words, but
your heart will do most of the talking. and high and lifted
up on the throne of glory." Listen to what God said. There's His
people down there in Egypt under the taskmaster's whip. The prophet
called it the iron furnace. Down there laboring, up the tally
of bricks, but they had to gather their own straw. Down there in
Egypt, the Lord upon his throne, he said, Surely I have seen the
affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and heard their
cry, and I know their sorrows. He knows them. It's not the words of this trembling,
frightened, confused maid that God heard. It's a broken and
contrite heart. I ought to get his attention
quicker. Thank old blind Bartimaeus. Here
comes the Lord of Glory down the road. He's an old stinky
beggar, blind, been sitting on that blanket for years. Everybody
knew him. He'd been listening. Nobody else
been listening. God speak, people hear. God spoke
to him, troubled his heart. And the Lord of Glory was coming
by one time, and he knew it. And he cried out, Jesus, thou
son of David! Hush! Hush, Bartimaeus, hush! But he cried out them more, didn't
he? Huh? Jesus, thou son of David. Have
mercy on me. Stopped the Lord of Glory in
his tracks. Why? Because of a broken and contrite
heart, he said, I will not I hear it. I hear it. I hear it. And I'll tell you this, she was
in a sad condition. But the angel of the Lord found
her where she was and came to her as she was. Didn't change
anything. And told her what she was and
what she had to do. She had to go back to God's house.
She had to submit to God's authority. And she had to take her place
as a servant. And she had to do it all willingly.
And she was with him. She was with him. And then last
of all, Hagar, considering everything that happened, she named that
place Beer-le-Hay-roy. Beer means well. That's what
that means. And what it means is well of
him that liveth and looketh on. Hagar described the God that
saw her. He said, Thou God seest me. She wasn't talking about his
omniscience. She wasn't talking about his all seeing. Everybody
knows God can see all things. Don't we? Surely we know that.
God seeth all things. You can't hide from God. But
that wasn't what she was talking about. She was talking about
God saw her in her affliction. God saw her in grace. He saw
her in mercy. He saw her in tenderness. Huh? He saw her in His purpose. He
saw her in His covenant. He saw her the way He always
saw her. He saw her in a substitute. He
saw her justified. He saw her in sovereign mercy.
And I'll tell you this, when He saw her, she saw Him. She saw Him. Listen to this, Genesis 16, verse
13. And she called on the name of
the Lord that spoke unto her, Thou God seest me. For, she said,
have I also here looked after him that seeth me? God sees us just like He sees
us in His everlasting purpose of grace. He sees us as only
the living God can see us in mercy and grace of a substitute. God sees us in His Spirit of
conversion and regeneration, and He sees us in a preservation
and a perseverance of faith, and God sees us in an ultimate
perfection of spirit and body at the last day. God sees us. And what happens in the heart
of a sinner is that it causes that chosen sinner to see God
seeing him. That's what happens. He sees
God seeing him. Seeing him. He sees himself through
those eyes that see him. That's how he learns of sin. And that's how he learns righteousness.
And that's how he learns about that judgment satisfied. Here's
what he learns. He learns that the holy, just,
and sovereign God can save a wretch like us and still be God. That's the glory of the gospel.