The Lord Sees and Hears: Genesis 16

The Lord Sees and Hears: Genesis 16

Six years ago my wife and I sold our dream home and bought a farm. We built a three-car garage with a two-bedroom apartment above it, intending to build our home next door. Six years later we are still waiting. You may have a wayward child you have prayed for. You may long for a godly spouse and have waited and waited. You may have a marriage that has fallen apart, or circumstances that are not what you ever dreamed. You may be crying out to God and nothing is getting better. That is where Abram and Sarai were. God had told Abram he would give him a son, and for ten years they had done everything they should, and nothing had come of it. They got tired of waiting. Chapter 16 has three people: Abram, Sarai, and Hagar, the other woman. But it also shows a God who sees and who cares.

Eleven years pass from Genesis 12, when Abram was 75, to the end of this chapter, when he is 86. Chapter 17 will skip another 13. God draws out in each case what he wants us to know. I started in verse 7 and went to the end, to show that we have a God who hears and sees. There are two points: the Lord sees the brokenhearted, and the Lord sees the impatient.

The Lord Sees and Hears the Brokenhearted

This is the first appearance of the angel of the Lord, a phrase used 58 times in the Old Testament. I believe he is the pre-incarnate Christ. He finds Hagar by a spring in the wilderness, heading back to Egypt, about 150 miles. He asks, “where have you come from and where are you going?” as God asked Adam in the garden, “where are you?” He knew, and he asks because he has words to say. He speaks words of help: return and submit to your mistress, not to be abused, but because God has a will for her life and for Ishmael. He speaks words of assurance: I will surely multiply your offspring. He announces her son’s birth, and names him Ishmael, meaning God hears. Every time she said his name, she would remember that God heard her in her anguish. Ishmael would be a wild donkey of a man, with a chip on his shoulder and his finger on the trigger, and the ancestor of the Arab people, while Isaac’s descendants would be the Jewish people. And Hagar gives God a name, the only time anyone does in Scripture: “you are a God of seeing.” “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” The well was named Beer-lahai-roi, the well of the living one who sees me. God says one thing to her: I see you and I hear you and I am here.

The Lord Sees the Impatient

No matter how mature you are, you can mess up like Abram. First Corinthians 10:12 says let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. We are not judging Abram and Sarai. We are them. Jesus asks questions, and so I asked eight.

1. Are my motives pure? Sarai probably had the best motives. She had a promise from the Lord. But just because you are sincere does not mean it is the will of God. They were sincerely wrong.
2. Am I acting by faith or flesh? After ten years, with childlessness a struggle and a sign of lack of blessing, Sarai wondered what was wrong with her. They wanted what God had promised. They went about it in the wrong way, seeking “a human solution to a divine promise.” People say God helps those who help themselves, but that is not a Bible verse. No: God helps those who can’t help themselves. “God does not need your creativity,” your strength, or your plan. And it will be 25 years before Isaac is born. God is not being unkind. He is drawing them to himself.
3. Is it a clear violation of Scripture? Previously Abram gave his wife to an Egyptian, and now his wife gives her husband an Egyptian. Genesis 2:24 says the two shall become one flesh, not three. “God’s will never contradicts his word.”
4. Am I following the world’s standards? In that day it was accepted for a servant to bear a child for the wife. God has not called us to live to the world’s standard. If it was wrong 50 years ago according to God’s word, it is wrong today.
5. Am I considering others? Nobody asked Hagar. We have no right to use and abuse other people, whether the kids, a spouse, or coworkers.
6. Will it cause disharmony at home? Hagar looks on Sarai with contempt. Sarai blames Abram for her own suggestion. Abram says, do to her as you please, and Sarai deals harshly with her. The whole household loses. “Hurting people hurt people.”
7. Am I running from my problems? Abram failed to stand up to his wife and said, do as you please. Hagar fled. The Lord says to go back and face it; I will be there.
8. Have I considered the consequences? Hagar was probably among the servants Pharaoh gave Abram in Egypt. And Muslims and Jews are still fighting thousands of years later because of this decision. “Trying to accomplish the promises of God through human means have always been disastrous.”