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1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, "See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her." And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. 3 Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. 4 So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes. ~ Genesis 16:1-4
Today, we transition into Genesis 16 where we learn that it had been ten years since God had first given the promise of many descendants to Abram. But, there was a problem; he had not one child. As we have seen, God made this promise to Abram three separate times; in Genesis 12, 13, and 15. At this point in the narrative, Abram was 85 years old and Sarai was 75 years old and time was running out. Abram and Sarai had probably been married for at least 50 years at this point and it was pretty evident to them that Sarai was barren and would not have any children.
This record of the life of Abram was clearly not written merely to give us historical facts from the distant past. Many who claim the name of Christ today are superficial in that they are concerned more with the amount of mileage there was from Jericho to Jerusalem than with the distance between man in his lost estate and the heart of God. Though we find the physical details of Abram's life interesting, we must be much more concerned with the spiritual lessons learned from his life.
In v.1 of today's passage we read, "Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar."
Hagar, Sarai's Egyptian maidservant probably came into Abram’s home at the time when they traveled down to Egypt during the famine in the Promised Land. While in Egypt, Sarai had been taken into Pharaoh’s home in order to become his wife. This happened because Pharaoh didn’t know Sarai was Abram’s wife. When Pharaoh took her in, he gave Abram a great deal for her, including servants. Hagar was probably one of those servants. After coming into their home, they named her Hagar as this is a Hebrew, not an Egyptian, name. Hagar’s name means "flight" which is closely related to the term "the sojourner."
By the way, when we deliberately disobey God, we open ourselves up to all kinds of opportunities for the enemy to cause havoc in our lives. In 1 Corinthians 5:5 we read, "I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Due to sin, rebellion, and the other factors, there are times when God has to simply withdraw His protective hand from us because we have chosen to willfully disobey Him in an egregious way. And then, when things go sideways, we want to blame God for that which we caused.
Getting back to today's narrative, we, like Abram, are justified by faith in God. We received the gift of God's righteousness by simply choosing to believe. We know we possess it, not by our efforts but by our faith in Jesus Christ. Then we set out to please God because of all He has done for us. We did this by the only means we know, trying to do the best we can. In time, though, we discover that somehow our Christian experience loses its vigor, and instead of the fruit of love, joy, and peace which we were led to expect, we find instead nothing but barrenness. We have had the same problem as Sarai. This life which is expected to produce immediate fruit results only in barrenness and it is difficult for us to understand. The problem is that we take things into our own hands. When the problem of barrenness begins to haunt us, we find ourselves yielding to the misguided proposals of the flesh.
In v.2 of today's passage we read, "So Sarai said to Abram, 'See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.' And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai."
At 75 years old, Sarai realized she wasn’t going to have children and she certainly wanted them as much as Abram expected them. I am sure that she thought,"What am I doing wrong since God has given us a promise but I am not getting pregnant?" So, by using the customs of the day, she did what any Canaanite would have done, she offered up maidservant Hagar to conceive a child with Abram. According to the prevailing culture in Canaan, Hagar was Sarai's possession and any children she would conceived with Abram would be the possession of Sarai. Therefore, the child would belong to her as much as to Abram.
Sarai resolved, through what struggles we can only imagine, to give up her own rights in an act of courageous renunciation. She gave up what is a wife's most precious possession, the right to have her husband's sole affection, and she offers her maid to her husband that he might have a child by her and thus fulfill the will of God. This, of course, was not only an act of real sacrifice, but also one of deep sincerity. She was not hoping that he would talk her out of this. She was quite prepared to go through with it.
In v.3-4 of today's passage we read, "Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes."
As history has born out, this choice resulted in endless sorrow and heartache to all concerned. The Arab nations who fight against the nation of Israel today originated in this act. And, no sooner had Hagar conceived, Sarai began to act harshly toward her.
We are so like Sarai ourselves that we feel resentment at the idea that she should be blamed for this. Yet if we do not learn the lesson here, we shall find our own walk with the Lord continually plagued with this problem of barrenness, and we shall miss the secret of fruitfulness. This story provides for us a picture of how we can learn to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. In fact, in Galatians the Apostle Paul uses this very incident to illustrate this point.
Sarai's difficulty was simply that all of her actions grew out of a basic philosophy which, put very simply, says: "God has told me what He wants, now the rest of it depends on me. God has shown me what the goal is, and it is up to me to figure out how to reach it." This is a very common and widespread philosophy, even among believers in Christ. This is the place that the barrenness in our walk with the Lord leads us.
As we read the Bible, we learn we are supposed to be conformed to the image of Christ, so we set out to start trying to be like the Lord Jesus. Then, we make up a list of rigid rules for acceptable behavior. We become frightfully busy doing things for God. We work hard, perhaps to the point of neglecting our family. We sincerely try to meet His demands. We do our best. We note how the community around approves of our strenuous efforts and we love the pats on our backs for our faithful duty. But despite all the effort and sincerity, deep in our hearts we know there is nothing but barrenness in us. The inauthenticity this creates repels others from the Lord.
This happened to Sarai. Notice the appearance of selflessness. The result is fruit all right, but it is Ishmael, not Isaac, the fruit of the flesh rather than of the Spirit as Paul points out in the book of Galatians. Both Abram and Sarai consented to something that especially harmonized with the desires of the self-life. In all of this we see their readiness to do the will of God without seeking to discover the way of God. This is always the heart of the problem.
The immediate results of acting in the flesh will always be the same. We become petty and petulant, displaying enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, and other ugly emotions which lie ever near the surface of our yet fallen human hearts. Wherever these are evident they are the thermometer which tells us we are being ruled by the self and not by the Spirit.
