Genesis 16 El Roi

And pray that we would not only understand the ideas that you want us to take from it, but also be able to apply your word to our lives. We thank you for Jeff and his preparation and his teaching and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Abraham, Faith, and the Promise to the Nations

Well, we are studying at this point in the book of Genesis,.

The life of Abraham.

And one of the most important verses in the book of Genesis and especially with regard to Abraham's life is Genesis 15, six. It says, and he, referring to Abraham, believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.

This is what Paul picks up on in Romans chapter four as the first example that he calls the first witness that justification by faith is not a new doctrine. It's not against what God has always taught.

The New Testament gospel is in keeping with the Old Testament. So Abraham was justified by faith just as we are justified by faith. Paul will then use David as another example. David didn't earn righteousness from God.

He was justified, his sins were forgiven because of his faith, his trust in the Lord. Well, what does that mean then about those who are not descendants of Abraham? David was a descendant of Abraham. Paul was a descendant of Abraham.

Jesus, all the disciples, descendants of Abraham. They're Jews. So how do we know that God even cares about the Gentiles? Is that a New Testament invention? Or is that something that we can find in the Old Testament as well?

In Genesis 17, Abraham will be called the father of many nations. And in chapter 16, we learn how one of those nations actually came from him. That's those who descend from Ishmael who became 12 nations as well, just like the 12 nations of Israel.

Only these are not the chosen seed. These are not Israel. And yet they, by faith, can be justified the same way those who are the descendants from Isaac are justified, and that is by faith. So let's read the story of Hagar and how her relationship with Abraham was troubled, and the question would be if she is, in essence, a mistress to Abraham, illicitly related to him, at first only a servant, but then given to him to be a wife against the will of God, does God still love her?

Does he reject her? Or does she have the opportunity also to come by faith? So who would like to be my first reader? We're gonna just go through Genesis chapter 16 today. And the main idea is that, this is the term that I want us to all remember leaving today, El Roy.

El Roy. It's not your neighbor whose name is R-O-Y, Roy. This is El, not like the Spanish the, but El is the prefix for God, Elohim. El refers to God, and Roy, R-O-I. The God who sees me. This is where we learn that term, the God who sees me.

He's faithful in the midst of suffering.

The French word for king is Roi.

Is that R-O-I?

Yeah, actually, I thought it was a king.

Ah, the king, no. This here in the Hebrew is, it means to see, that he's looking at you. So in the midst of suffering, God is there. I'm sure each of us could remember a time in our lives where we wonder why God is allowing some difficult circumstance to come into our lives.

The death of a loved one, maybe some financial suffering, a loss of a job, and you wonder, where is God? Is he seeing me?

Does he care?

And Hagar is a prime example of one who suffers greatly, and even to the point of almost losing her life in this chapter, but she learns by the end of it that El Roy sees her, that he is the God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

That's how he described himself to Moses, and that's who God is. And we all need to be reminded of this because there will be times when we're called to suffer, where God will allow difficult things like this to happen to us, and we can very much learn from God's character as he shows himself to Hagar.

So Genesis 16, how about I work from this side of the room, across the semicircle, with Tim opening up. Genesis 16, one to three.

All right.

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar, and Sarai in it, said to Abram, behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to him.

Well, what's wrong with this reasoning? After all, the promise in Genesis 15, and this is what Abraham believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness, that he would have descendants like the stars of the sky, offspring who are numerous and illustrious.

Well, here's the problem. His wife is barren and giving on in years. So Sarai reasons, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

True or false?

It's true, but can you attribute that to the Lord? Isn't that just the work of Satan and his demons?

Well, maybe God just wants them to leave.

You're getting right to the point here. Yes, the answer is God's providence does include the difficult things of this life. We forget that often. It's not just the work of demons or things. There's never beyond God's control.

Sarai is actually right to say, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. It has not yet been God's will for her to get pregnant. As much as they've tried, it has not happened. But here, halfway through her statement, is where the problem comes into play.

It's not the fact that she's been barren, it's her plan, that's her, yeah. She says, go in to my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. How would she have known that this is not God's will?

How should she have known that this would not be God's? Well, why not just take another wife? And she would just bear the children, and Sarai would consider this her.

Trying to remember at this point in the story, this was.

He actually, this is a very interesting question. He doesn't say that it will be through Sarah, in Genesis 15. In Genesis 15, he just says, from your own loins. It says, your only son, which actually, the Hebrew of that, from your own loins, from your own body.

So the promise was it would come from Abraham, but he didn't say Sarah. Yet, I'm telling you that there was earlier revelation, which makes this a necessity. And that, of course, is Genesis chapter two, a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his singular wife.

Not more than one wife. Where did this come from? This idea of polygamy. Is that from God?

No, but like, yeah, culture, or time, or whatever.

This is the danger. When Lot cast his tent towards Sodom, he began to be influenced by the culture of Sodom. And when Abram comes into this wicked land,.

There's polygamy.

It's just acceptable. There were times in this country's history where slavery was just acceptable. Where things that are against the word of God, polygamy in this case, was just what the culture did.

The culture doesn't define right and wrong. And that's something we always have to be careful of. Romans 12, one and two talks about, do not let the world press you into its mold.

That includes doubt.

Doubt?

Yeah, because the culture and the world.

Is pressing in on her because she's trying to feel the weight of that promise, right?

Yes.

And she's like, whatever she wants.

This, I think she's 75 at this point. No, he's 75. No, 75, he's 86 right now. So she's 76.

Where did polygamy start? How did Sodom become?

Yeah, but Sodom was more than polygamy.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But the, if you, so the whole world gets reduced to just eight people in Genesis chapter eight and nine. And so you just have Noah and his children. But right away, you see the evil proliferating again.

It started with a man named Lamech.

Lamech. Yeah.

Is that his name, Lamech? Maybe I'm saying it wrong. But he was the first one to take two wives in the Bible. And they made mention of that.

Yeah, Ada and Zillah, and he boasts to them. And the thing is, I think Lamech was before the flood.

Before the flood, yeah.

But it's already part of the wickedness of people.

They have heard of it at that time.

Yeah.

This is pre -10 Commandments.

Yes.

How do they know that it was wrong?

Correct.

Okay, so that goes back to the creation mandate. Genesis two, given through Adam, was already established. And once God has spoken, it's law. Now, it's also written in the law of nature. That just even in moral conscience, even if you don't have the law of Moses or any moral law from God, God has made the world and put conscience in man.

That if it wasn't corrupted, would know, of course, one man, one woman. There's a correspondence. It's just natural and reasonable for commitment and trust. Like, any pagan should be able to reason to that.

But conscience doesn't often get you there because conscience is perverted. Now, you do have a command, though. It's Genesis two. A man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, singular, and the two shall become one flesh.

So that makes it impossible that there would be a third if you're one flesh.

That was before the Ten Commandments, so.

Before the Ten Commandments, right. Okay, so this is worldly thinking. That's the big idea here. But the ultimate, somebody mentioned it. What's happening here is she's been given a promise. It's clearly implied to be through her, but it's not happening.

Maybe some years have gone by. The issue here is waiting on the Lord. Anybody here struggle with waiting on the Lord? How many days till your marriage? 31, 31, you're counting down the days. You have to wait on the Lord, Barbara.

And it's so easy to rationalize in that situation.

Yeah.

Well, God hasn't done this, so.

Yeah.

This isn't happening, so I'm gonna have to come up with, it's God's fault. But he's told us to wait on him.

I think it was assumed that it was gonna come through Sarah, because that was implied.

Correct, yes, I'm saying it was implied, but it was never stated in Genesis 15. And the interesting thing there is in Genesis 17, Abraham laughs at the idea that it's through Sarah. Because still, when he gets the covenant of circumcision, he's saying, well, God, let it be Ishmael.

Ishmael's here, he's my son, let it be Ishmael. And God says, no, it was never Ishmael.

Well, Sarah laughed too.

Yeah, she laughed later, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, let me just read this in Genesis 17, 15 and following. God said to Abraham, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her.

See, this is coming another chapter later. This is when Abraham gets the direct revelation, but he should have known already because he was married to her, not the slave girl. So the issue there, if you keep reading, he tells Abraham, and then in verse 17, Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old?

Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? Well, at the end of chapter 16, verse 16, he was 86 when they had this plan. So if he's now 100, he's waited another 14 years, and God is just now telling him, no, you need to wait.

That's a long time to wait, especially when you're aging.

And you can, and you can, and that's just wiki.

Yeah.

I always try to remember that like, these are real people.

Yes.

That are experiencing real life that are not, you know, outside of the normal doubts and concerns that you have as a person.

Yeah.

So like, that's a long time.

Yeah.

So this is a trap that we have to take note of because if we fail to wait on the Lord, we're led into gross sin. And this is what happened to Abraham and his wife. He listened to the voice of Sarai. So Abraham had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan.

He took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abraham, her husband, as a wife. I mean, that's drastic gross sin. This is just against the will of the Lord. Psalm 27, 14, wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage.

Wait for the Lord. Psalm 27 is a great chapter of the Bible to help you wait on the Lord. When something just doesn't seem to be happening, you wait on the Lord. You don't take matters into your own hands and become sinful.

So he took her as a wife. Now, was it more like a concubine or a wife? Because later, did they technically get divorced then? Because she got sent away.

Taking her as a wife here is more euphemistic to a concubine because she's still regarded as a servant to Sarai. Not like an equal to her. So yeah, I think it's, he's taking her, but the child.

It's like a second-tier wife.

Yeah, second-tier wife.

It's bizarre.

Now, this is an important lesson as well. Sin has painful consequences. Hebrews 12 is about the discipline of the Lord. God disciplines those he loves, but discipline does not feel pleasant at the time.

A loving father inflicts painful discipline on his son because he knows that correction is necessary. But one thing about sin, when you're disciplined by the Lord and the result of that sin is painful, it can lead to more and more sin.

One sin opens the door to another sin. Maybe you lie to protect something that you did wrong. And sin just has this devastating snowball effect. So Mary Elizabeth, would you read for us verses four through six?

And he went into Hagar, and she conceived. And Sarai said to Abram, to your embrace. And when she saw that she had conceived, may the Lord judge between you.

Verse six.

But Abram said to Sarai, behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please. Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

What a mess. Sometimes homes are in disorder because of sin. And each person in that situation is blaming other people. Sarai blames Abram because why? What did she say Abram did wrong?

Yeah.

Well, she says, I gave my servant to your embrace. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me. Whose idea was it?

Hers.

But was he guilty?

Yeah, there's sin all around here.

He could have just said no.

Yeah, he could have said no, bad idea. Yeah, but he was willing to do that. And that was his sin. The result was just devastation everywhere. What about poor Hagar in this? First of all, is she innocent?

Yeah.

I do have a quick question, because I was saying to Tim. Did they think that they were doing something right by him marrying her? Like why couldn't he have just had a child with her?

Right, because yeah, he took her as his wife. They might've done some kind of consecration ceremony. It was in their mind. They probably did try to legitimize it in some way. Like this is to fulfill the promise.

You know, this is, God will bless this. There are ceremonies today between a man and a man in a church where they're proclaiming the blessing of the Lord over the abomination, right? So people often try to do that, but it's only a facade.

It's just trying to bless what God has not blessed. And God did not bless this as a marriage, but yeah, they tried to put some religious garb on it,.

No doubt.

And how many slaves were impregnated by their masters?

Oh yeah, that's been all throughout history, been often the case.

And we're still kind of feeling the aftereffects of this today.

How so?

Of Jews and Muslims.

You know, it literally stems from here all the way out.

Yep.

These two sons.

Verses 10 to 12, and we'll get to it in just a minute, because that's the point in your notes there.

It's still here.

It's still here, yeah. Well, so you see just the snowball effect. The whole home is in disarray, and it gets so bad that Sarah now becomes a persecutor in her jealousy against this other woman that she's just dealing harshly with her to the point where Hagar says, I'd rather go survive in the wilderness if I can than live under this kind of treatment.

Can't blame her. Now, real quickly though, do you think Hagar had any complicity in the sin with Abraham?

Did she know?

He knew.

So I would imagine she probably.

They know better what you, she probably knew, but it was condoned by the two of them.

And there's, see, here's the important point I wanted to make about this. The Me Too movement, the whole power dynamic construct, excuses the sin of those who have less power, but the Bible does not agree with that.

So listen, David did not rape Bathsheba, even if John Piper said that David raped Bathsheba. John Piper's a good teacher, but he was influenced by critical race theory at that point and the cultural Marxism of oppressor and power having control over those who have less power.

It's true that there could be greater sin on the part of the one who had the greater power here because she really had probably less recourses.

And things like that.

And she got pressed into it or whatever, but she was still responsible. And every human being is still responsible before God for their own sin. So both things can be true. Abraham is probably the greater, has the greater guilt.

Jesus talks about the greater guilt, but she was still responsible. The moral law was written on her heart that this man is married, I should not sleep with him. She knows that in the depths of her heart, she had to go against her own conscience to go along with it, yeah.

And she was exhibiting herself as well.

Bathsheba, yeah.

And Hagar, we don't know if that's the case at all, but yeah, in either case or not, yeah, Bathsheba clearly was guilty. And that's obviously the cultural Me Too movement pressing into the church that is saying that she had no guilt there, that it was rape.

This isn't rape. This is her guilt as well as his, but he is really the head of the household and the one who is responsible for all this problem.

Today we call it consensual relationship.

Yeah, yeah. Was it consensual? Yeah, yeah.

So she was, I think like I was saying before. Yeah, and that's what's happening in our culture.

Yeah.

You're right, there's nothing in the text.

That indicates that they had to force it, right?

Every single person in the text could justify it in their own minds.

Correct. Yeah, yeah.

Probably better than most of us can justify things that happen.

You justify so many dumb things.

I think the funny thing is, with Sarai like showing her contempt and her saying, I'd rather go in the wilderness, well, why didn't you do that in the first place when they came to you?

Right, yeah, exactly, yeah. They're all experiencing consequences for their own sin. Okay, so verses seven to nine.

Rick.

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, the servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? She said, I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarai.

The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her.

Now, that's an interesting command, isn't it? In the New Testament, we'll often have commands for slaves to submit to a master, and yet slavery is fundamentally oppressive. How could the Bible allow this or call her to this?

The Bible's first concern right here is not the removal of societal ills and all the problems of the world, it is relating to God. Now, in time, the implications of the gospel and the full teaching of ethical standards will come to bear, and it will be the Bible itself that drives slavery out of the world.

Yeah.

But unless this translation's wrong, but like.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, and it could be more of like an indentured servitude.

The angel said, go back.

Right.

It's not like he's saying, go back into slavery. He's saying, go back to your job. Go back to your home.

But what she knows about that home, quote unquote, is oppression. Like, all she's getting is trouble from Sarah.

I'm getting it.

Yeah.

I'm feeling the heat of that.

Like, yeah, she's feeling the heat of that, and it is a bad situation. Big picture of where I'm driving with this is God sometimes will allow very difficult circumstances and still wants you to be in those.

Not because he is evil, but he calls you to endure evil from others. Sometimes you're supposed to be in a very difficult spot. There might be an easier way out, or there could be some other thing, but God sometimes leaves us uncomfortable.

Can you believe it? If we don't know that, if we don't know that, then very many people will turn away from God because they think, well, he doesn't see me.

He's not watching.

He doesn't care. Otherwise, he wouldn't let me be going through this. But what do you see here in the text? The Lord is compassionate. He finds her. You see that? He found her, the angel of the Lord. Now, who do you think this angel is?

Sometimes the angel of the Lord is Christ himself. We even see that in Genesis. I think very clearly in a couple chapters later when the Lord is with two angels, and one of them is referred to as the Lord, and he calls down fire from the Lord in heaven.

That one, I think, is the pre-incarnate Christ. This could just be a regular angel. It could be Jesus, pre-incarnate, but in any case, the angel is a representative of God. He's a messenger of God. It's God seeking her out because he does care for her, and he finds her by a spring of water in the wilderness.

Do you think it's important that it's the angel as opposed to an angel?

Yeah, I think that's often the case that that indicates a theophany or a Christophany. Yeah, the angel of the Lord. Yeah, like the one who met Joshua or others before battle. Often it's the Lord, and he said, "'Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from "'and where are you going?'.

"'Captain, I joke.'.

"'She said, I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.'. "'The angel of the Lord said, "'Return to your mistress and submit to her.'. Within God's will, the blessings of this life are often mixed with hardship.

John 16 .33, "'I have said these things to you, "'that in me you may have peace. "'In the world you will have tribulation, "'but take heart, I have overcome the world.'". Maybe somebody here needs to hear that today, that in any tribulation that you're going through, he is with you.

He has not left you. He says, take heart, I have overcome the world. Whatever your tribulation is, it's not strange. First Peter talks about the suffering of the righteous, and he says, count it not strange when you suffer tribulations in this world.

It's part of life, part of this life, not part of the life to come, but the suffering, the hardship. So one of the things that Mike brought up a minute ago, so Mike, can you read this for us? Verses 10 to 12, is that a very interesting thing is said about the son of Hagar, who is Ishmael, the implications of what will come from her.

The angel of the Lord also said to her, "'I will surely multiply your offsprings, "'so they cannot be none but their son. "'You shall call his name Ishmael, "'because the Lord, he shall be a wild donkey of a man, "'his hand against everyone, "'and everyone's hand will be against him, "'and he shall dwell over against all his kin.'".

And actually, just read right on through to 14.

So she called the name of the Lord, who's not of seeing, for she said, "'Truly, here I have seen him who looks after me. "'Therefore, the well was called Bir Lairoi.'".

Lairoi?

Yeah, it lies between Kadesh and Bereth.

Okay, so here you have Hagar, she's pregnant, she's off by herself in a little spring of water. Now, it's very hard to bring out a living from the ground. It takes time to farm and to clear land and to grow crops and to be able to be a hunter or a gatherer.

Her odds of survival are slim out in the wilderness as a pregnant woman by herself by a stream. She's in a very precarious position, but she's been called and told to go back, therefore, so God would preserve her life, even though it's gonna be hardship.

Now, when it says in verse 10, "'I will surely multiply your offspring "'so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.'". That sounds like the promise given to Abraham, right? Your children like the sand of the shore, like the stars in the sky, numerous.

Is this a promise of blessing? I think it is. God is blessing her. Look, he's comforting her in this context. He just says, return to your mistress and submit to her. He's caring for her as by provision.

She will have enough to eat. She'll be okay. God will be with her. And then it says, I will bless, I will multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered. And I say it's a blessing because in verse 11, she's told, the Lord has listened to your affliction.

He's gonna bless her. So are the Ishmaelites, who Mike has rightly pointed out, are the Arab people now, descending from Ishmael, are they cursed? No, they are saved the same way we are saved as Americans and the same way that Jews are saved.

It's by faith in the Son of God. So that needs to be the first thing that we understand. It's a mixed blessing with this people group. But something is said here about the history of this people group.

Nationally and as a people, does it mean that individuals can't be saved? Like Paul, who was a persecutor of the church, became a Christian. What can we say about the descendants? And first of all, about Ishmael himself, but then also about his descendants.

A particularly violent people. And this has borne out in history. As a matter of fact, if you look out at the world right now, the son of Sarai, who is Jacob, and named later Isaac. I mean, Isaac and then Jacob, who becomes Israel, is the nation of Israel.

And they're surrounded by Arab peoples all around them. And on this very day, they're under threat of being attacked from the north and the south and the east and the west, from many Arab peoples. And Persian peoples as well, by the way, the Iranians.

But it says, he shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him. And he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.

Against, against, against.

Against, against, yeah. And it's even within the kinsmen. So within Arab peoples fighting one another, which has been a history of the peoples around Israel, always at war and always a threat to God's chosen people, the Israelites.

Verse 13, so she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, you are a God of seeing. And this, again, is the key thing that I want us to take away today. Her response to God, she learned something that day.

When God met her out by that stream and made this promise, even though it's kind of a mixed kind of thing, you gotta go back and live under Sarah. And your son, he's gonna be numerous in all these tribes,.

But they're gonna be at war.

She still realizes that God is in all of this. And she knows now something that we all need to know. You are a God of seeing. Truly, I have seen him who looks after me. Isn't that a beautiful thing? And there is a short phrase to remember that.

It is El Roy. Because in the Hebrew, God of seeing, El is God, the prefix El. And Roy, here, R-O-I, means see, God who sees. And so, therefore, in verse 14, the well was called Be 'er Lahei Roy. Why would it be called that?

That means the well of the living one who sees me. So the well is named after the God who sees. Why do you think she named a well? Well, what's the point of doing that?

I actually thought that there's.

Sure, if they're white.

Yeah, the living one, and there's life from a well. Okay, yeah.

Why does Christ and so many people be met at a well after having been seen?

The woman at the well in John 4.

You know, all the Hebrew Bible wells are like inordinately mentioned. Like, immensely mentioned.

Yeah, I have a book on my desk that I only just started reading called The Wonder of Water. And it's not so much a Christian book, although it is. The guy is a believer, but he just talks about the scientific marvel of water and how all of life and the hydraulic cycle and all of this just points to God.

Just amazing. But then Jesus comes along and says,.

I am the living water.

If anybody's thirsty, come and drink. He's like this well of water. And from him, the Holy Spirit will be in you like wells of life springing up. So I think there's something to that imagery.