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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] Genesis, chapter 16. Genesis, chapter 16. Verse one of the Bible reads, Now Sarah, Abram's wife, there are no children, and she hadn't had any in Egypt, and his name is Hagar. And Sarah, I sent to Abram, Behold, Lord, to restrain me from bearing. I craved her, going in unto my hand, and it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarah. And Sarah, Abram's wife, took Hagar, who made the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the Lamb of Cain, and gave her to her husband, Abram, to be his wife. And he went in unto Abram, and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarah, I said unto him, My wrong will be upon me. I have given my maiden till I butcher her. And when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes, as the Lord's judge between me and thee. But Abram said unto Sarah, Behold, thy maid is in thy head, due to her as a plea to thee. And Sarah, I dealt hardly with her, and she fled to her face. And the angel of the Lord, founded by a fountain of water in the wilderness, set a fountain in the way of Shurk. And he said, Hey, brother, Sarah is a maid, whence camest thou? And whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarah. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her head. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Thou wilt multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou with child shall bear a son, and shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild one, 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, and spake unto her, Thou God, seest me. For she said, Have I also here looked after him that seest me? Wherefore the well is called Beed, the year of Lehi, and Roach. Behold, it is between Kadesh and Baruch. And Hagar bare Abram's 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. For that he must pray for us. Our Lord Heavenly Father, just thank you for your goodness and mercy, Lord God, and thank you for your church, and just thank you, Lord God, for your word, Lord God. I ask that you just fill deep into your spirit, Lord God, and just give us a heart and ears of understanding, Lord, that you will make a prayer for them. We kind of covered Abraham's salvation last week, but I, again, want to point out the fact that Abraham believed that promise, that he believed that God was going to multiply his seed as the stars of heaven, as the sands of the earth. So, obviously, when you get into chapter 16, you see the story kind of unfold. You kind of might be scratching your head saying, you know, what's going on here, Abram? You know, just, you know, one chapter ago, you're believing in God. He's making this great promise to you. You're making the sacrifice, so on and so forth. And then we get to this chapter, and all of a sudden, you're going into, you know, Hagar, and you're having this other child, and it seems like Abram has a lapse of faith here. But, again, what we have to remember about the Bible is that it's telling us what these people did, and even it's telling us when they're doing things that they shouldn't have done, okay? Obviously, we know at the end that the angel is sent onto Hagar, and she is sent back to her mistress. She's sent back to Sarai and Abram to go and have the child there. So we kind of know that Abram and Sarai made the wrong decision here, because God actually intervenes miraculously and corrects the decision that was made, if you catch that there. But my point is that the Bible's showing us that oftentimes we see people making decisions that are wrong. They make decisions in the flesh. They make decisions based upon emotion and anger, envy, and those are lessons that we need to learn. Now, when you read your Bible, you want to keep that in mind, because sometimes you just read through these stories, and you're just reading the events. You're just reading the facts. The Bible doesn't often give us a lot of the inner monologue, what's going on inside the people, what they're thinking, what their motives are. God kind of leaves that open-ended, but we have to understand that these are all men, women of like passions as we are, that they are subject to the same sins that we're subject to. So when we read our Bibles, we should take that understanding to the Scripture and try to make sense of what's playing out here and learn a lesson from it and be reminded of some things. And when we do that, there's a couple things that we can learn from this chapter tonight, so we'll get into it here. The first thing I'll point out there in the first four verses is where it says in verse one, Now Sarah, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And she had in handmaid an Egyptian whose name was Hagar. So obviously somewhere along the way, probably when Abram had gone down into Egypt and gotten all that wealth, picking up a handmaid coming up out of Egypt, just kind of goes to show you that when you go into the world, part of it kind of sticks with you. Sometimes things just kind of hang on, right? Not that Hagar's a bad person. Let me say that at the beginning here, too, is that Hagar here is not, it's kind of an unfortunate name if you ask me, but she's not like a bad person. She's not like somebody that we need to despise or look down upon. But she is an Egyptian, and obviously not all Egyptians were wicked, but in the Bible, Egypt often is a picture of the world, a picture of sin, and it kind of shows us in the life of Abram that when he's having his lapse of faith prior to this chapter, going down to Egypt and making the decisions that he made, that sometimes those decisions stick with you. The consequences stick with you. Now he has Hagar here, and this Egyptian kind of following him along. But that's kind of not the point I wanted to make. Look there at verse two, it said, And Sarai said unto him, 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 unto the voice of Sarai. So again, you're kind of wondering, well, he has the promise of God. He believed it in the chapter before. Why is he hearkening unto the voice of his wife and going in and having a son by Hagar? Again, it's because people are flawed, and what's great about the Bible is that that's what makes it relatable. Obviously Abram was a great man of faith. I think when I started out with the story of Abram, we got into his story. I made sure to say that in those first couple of sermons, that Abram was called to do something that probably none of us will ever be called to do. We'll never probably have to exercise our faith the way Abram did. But nonetheless, he is a man, and he does have a lapse in faith here, and it's relatable. We've probably all failed at some point and done something, gone back on our word, or had a lapse in faith in some way, shape, or form. So that's what I think is going on here, because this isn't right. This is not what God intended. Abram's wife took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram came in 12 to 10 years in the land of Canaan and gave to her husband Abram to be his wife. Again, this is not condoning polygamy. Obviously, that's something that God is going to condemn when the law is given. Verse 4, it says, And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. So you've got to make sure you read that carefully to get an understanding of what's going on in the story. She conceives, and when she realizes that she's conceived seed, and she knows the story with Sarai and Abram, they're getting old, they're on in years. Sarai can no longer conceive. She's kind of gloating a little bit, I think is what's going on. That's why it says that her mistress was despised in her eyes. Her eyes being the eyes of Hagar. She's despising her mistress. She's feeling like maybe she shouldn't be the handmaid. After all, she's the one that's giving Abram this child. And women, such as they are, it gets a little catty here in verse 5. And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid into thine bosom, and when I saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes, the Lord judge between me and thee. So what I want to point out here in the beginning is that when we make decisions in life, sometimes they have unintended consequences. If you notice in the story, this is all Sarai's idea. She comes up with this, she concocts this scheme, and Abram just goes along with it. She's just trying to, I'm assuming, trying to please Abram. She's just trying to have a child to call her own. But what she doesn't really count on is the human element here. That Hagar is a person too. She has feelings, personality, emotions, all of that. And she's going to have her own take on things. Maybe that didn't factor into Sarai's reasoning. But nonetheless, there's things that happen often in life, and if you would, go over to Proverbs chapter number 30, that we really don't count on. And this is the danger of when we start making decisions that are sinful in nature. We have to understand that when we make a decision, it's going to have far-reaching consequences. That sometimes the outcome is not going to be what we intended or anticipated at all. It can kind of come out of the blue. Especially when we start doing things that we know are against God's will or questionable, we have to make sure that we're prepared to deal with the consequences as well. And often we're not able to. As in the case of Sarai here, this unintended consequence of being despised in her handmaid's eyes is too much for her, and we know the story. She ends up kicking her out of the house. She chases her off. She wasn't counting on things turning out the way that they did. If you look at Proverbs chapter number 30, look at verse 21, it says, For three things the earth is disquieted. The earth is disquieted. It's upset. It's disquieted. And for four, which it cannot bear. So these are things that are abhorrent. These are things that are not natural. These are things that are upsetting. They're disquieting. The things that cannot be borne. Look at verse 22, for a servant when he reigneth, and a fool when he is filled with meat. It just doesn't make any sense. For an odious woman, meaning like a woman, a repugnant woman, a woman that, you know, it should be, it's right to hate, right? An obnoxious, odious woman when she is married, right? That doesn't seem natural, right? It's kind of, who married this woman? This odious woman, right? This loud, obnoxious woman, it doesn't seem right. Like, why would a woman like that be able to land a spouse? It's just, and it's upsetting, it's saying the earth is disquieted. And by the earth, I think it's saying in verse 21, it's talking about the people, like people in general, when they see these kind of things, everyone just kind of scratches their heads and it just doesn't make sense, right? An odious woman when she is married, but look at the last half of this verse. And an handmaid that is heir to her mistress, right? And that's kind of what's taking place in the story this evening, is that we have a handmaid, Hagar, who it appears is going to be a type of heir to her mistress. She's going to be like, in verse 22, a servant that's going to reign, right? Because she's the one that's going to give an heir to Abram, right? So obviously she potentially could have been lifted up and exalted and maybe, you know, been put on the same level as Sarai. But, you know, the Bible's showing us that there's things that happen in life that we all just kind of wonder at. We all kind of are just saying, how does this happen, right? These are unintended consequences. These are things that aren't normal, okay? And I'm pointing it out because it's, you know, it's talking about this specific situation in verse 23. Like it's a handmaid that is to be heir to her mistress. Like she's going to, instead of being subservient, and you want to keep something in problems, we'll go back there later tonight, but she's going to, you know, be lifted up and not just be, you know, in submission. And that's kind of what's taking place here. And the greater application is this, is that when we make decisions, okay, especially those that are sinful, there's unintended consequences. Even if the reasoning sounds good, well, we're going to do this and X, Y, Z, and we have all of our reasoning and all of our excuses and it all makes sense and we have just figured out all the logic behind it, you know, you can't eliminate the human factor often and you can't eliminate, you know, God and His judgment and His chastening when we make decisions that we know are sinful. And we don't know what those outcomes are going to be. So that's what I see taking place here in the beginning is that she's making this decision, Sarai, right, in verse 5. It says, well, you know, he said, she says, The Lord judged between me and thee, no, my wrong be upon thee, verse 6. And Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy handmaid is in thine hand. Do it to her as it pleaseth thee. And Sarai dealt hardly with her, and she fled from her face. Right, so she's running her out of the house, she's causing her to flee. And what we see is that when people, people make poor decisions, don't they? People make poor decisions, and often this is because of a lack of leadership sometimes. And that's what I kind of see taking place here with Abram. She comes to Abram, Sarai, and says, hey, my wrong be upon thee. Right, we did this, we, you know, we kind of, you know, obviously you had a part to play in this. You know, you did your part too. This is kind of a mutual thing that we agreed upon. And it's not turning out the way I had hoped. There's these unintended consequences. I'm being despised in my, in my handmaid's eyes. And now she's kind of putting it upon him. Like the Lord judge between me and me. You need to do something about this, right. And again, I think we see another one of Abram's character flaws here, is that he kind of has this passive approach. He's very passive in his leadership, right. He doesn't say, he doesn't jump in and try to rectify the situation or calm her down or get them together and, you know, and try to work things out. He just says, well, you know, you just do whatever you want, right. You just kind of make the decision. That's what he says there. Behold, thine maid is in thine hand. Do to her as it pleaseeth thee. Right, he's kind of being passive. That's the sense that I get and he's not, he's not really taking charge here. He's not taking control of the situation. And of course, he, things escalate, right. And when people are left to just make decisions for themselves often, those decisions often are poor decisions that they make, right. That's why we don't let children just make all the decisions in the house, right. Because they're going to make very poor decisions, as much as they might like to think that their way is better or superior. You know, that we would be, they'd be eating, you know, candy bars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You know, the place wouldn't get cleaned. It would just be, it would be mayhem, right. It would be pandemonium. It would be, you know, it would be, you know, it would be pandemonium. It would be, things would get out of hand if we let children make decisions. Why? Because they make poor decisions. Well, you know, the same thing can be said of adults too. You know, sometimes we make decisions that are poor decisions, especially when emotions are involved. Once emotions become involved in a situation, you know, we become very reactive. We don't think clearly, okay. And that's what I think is taking place here in the story because obviously she's being despised in her eyes. And again, you have to put yourself in the situation. You have to think about these people as people because that's what they were. They were flesh and blood people like me and you. You know, Sarai obviously has a great desire for a child, right. That's something that, you know, ladies and men experience. You know, men want to have children too. They don't want to do that child birthing part of it, right. They're like, leave that to the ladies by all means, right. But, you know, they want to have an heir, right. They want to have a legacy to leave behind. And so you can understand why they kind of made this brash decision, right. They made it in emotion, right. They weren't emotional about this decision. They weren't thinking clearly. They didn't consider the unintended consequences. And as a result, you know, this is what happens. This is what plays out. Hagar just gets chased out of the house, right. And God has to intervene and set things right again. And a big part of this is because of Abram's poor leadership, his passive leadership here. He should have said, first of all, at the very beginning, you know, no, we're not doing this. You know, God just told me that he's going to provide me with an heir. You know, we've already talked about this. You know, a horror of great darkness has come upon me. If you remember that from last week, right. He has this vision. God's speaking to him. I felt like God was really trying to make an impression on Abram in chapter number 15. And you would think that when you get to 16, Abram would have, you know, recalled that once again and said, hey, this is, we're good here. But again, lapse of faith, right. And because of that lapse of faith, he's making, he's become very passive. He's just kind of going along with this, okay. What it becomes, these unintended consequences start to surface and boil up with, you know, now they're despising one another. Now there's this situation between his wife and the handmaid. And instead of, again, getting involved and straightening things out, he just says, well, you know, you do whatever you want. And, you know, he's being very passive. And, you know, that's a lesson to husbands, is that you can't be passive in your marriage. You have to be a decision maker. You have to be, someone has to lead because someone will lead. Why is it that somebody has to be in charge? Because someone will be in charge. And God has ordained that men lead and that men be in charge. That's what God has decreed. That's what God has ordained. So men, we need to do that. But here's the thing, if men fail to do that, if men don't step up to the plate and lead as they should, then it's going to play out a lot like this. You know, the Sarai is going to fill the vacuum. She's going to say, well, if he won't do it, I will. Because somebody has to lead. Someone has to make a decision. And the problem is, is that when those that lead don't and they become passive, you know, a lot of times decisions are made out of emotion. Decisions are made out of personal bias or whatever it might be, right? Specifically, in this case, obviously there's a lot of emotion involved. Sarai is very angry, right? She's being despised in her handmaid's eye. She's getting the evil eye, right? And she's very envious, right? And if you would, go back to Proverbs, chapter number 27. Proverbs, chapter number 27. Because obviously, you know, she wants to have, the whole intent behind this was that, this whole plot that she hatched, was that she would have a child by proxy, right? Through Hagar, right? This would kind of be, we'd both know it's her, but it's kind of like, you know, we're going to call it mine. Because you're my handmaid and I gave you permission, So obviously, she's envious that Hagar so quickly, so easily conceived, and is burying this child, now she's getting attitude from her, you know? And she's obviously angry and envious at this. Why? Because Abram didn't make the right decisions. He was very passive, he kind of went along with things, and he allowed people to, he allowed these people to just make decisions on their own. And he kind of was maybe hoping that the child hoping that these problems would just work themselves out. Very rarely do problems just work themselves out. That's what I've found in leadership. A lot of times, whether you like it or not, you're going to have to go say something. Whether you like it or not, you're going to have to get involved. You know, you try to not get involved any more than you need to be involved, but at certain points sometimes, you know, we as leaders have to just get involved. We can't just say, well, it'll work itself out. No, it won't. It'll work out, but it's not going to work out the way you want. Things escalate, people get emotional, people get angry, people get upset, people make decisions based on emotion. There's no one with a, there's no cooler heads prevailing. There's no one who's just kind of a, you know, a third party. You know, just a bystander kind of judging and making decisions, right? We have to, as leaders, make sure that we get involved, that we can't be passive because problems often don't work out the way they should, and people often make poor decisions, right? This is kind of a poor decision on the part of Sarah and Abram. If you look there, how'd you go to Proverbs 27? Proverbs 27, let's look at verse 4. Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy? Who can stand before envy? Of course, this is kind of a hypothetical question here, but the answer is no one, right? The Bible's showing us that, you know, there's certain emotions, and we're done in Proverbs, that are very powerful, right? Wrath is cruel, but who can stand before envy? When someone is envious, to a certain degree, there's really nothing you can do to stop them. They're going to act out, right? And they might end up destroying you as a result. They might try to do you harm. And that's what I think is taking place in the story, right? Hagar doesn't stand a chance because of the fact that she has made Sarai envious, and Abram has just let go of the reins, and said, do whatever you want. The problem with that, Abram, that might sound like a real nice modern marriage, this 50-50 idea where we make decisions as a team, this is really how it plays out, well, you just do whatever you want, right? The problem with that, Abram, is that she's full of wrath, and anger, and envy, and she's only got one thing in mind, and it's get Hagar out of here, because I'm going to tell her how I feel, right? This is why people have to lead. This is why people who are supposed to lead need to lead. When we're called to lead, when we're in a position of leadership, we must take the reins. And guide and lead. Especially when things start to be like this, when bad decisions are being made, people aren't doing what they're supposed to do, poor decisions. Hey, let's keep it on track here, right? So Abram says, in verse 6, due to her as it pleaseth thee, and Sarai dealt heartily with her, and she fled from her face. And the angel of the Lord, she's read that as, when she's dealing hard with her, just because she's offended. Like, she's dealing hardly with her, as in, she's kicking her out. That's how I've always kind of... ...her own accord. Maybe she just said, well, if that's the way you're going to be, I'm out of here. But I get the feeling from the reading of the text that, you know, the part of that dealing hardly with her was chasing her out. And it says here in verse 7, and the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way of Shur. So again, you know, that's how we kind of know that these decisions that were being made by Abram and Sarah probably weren't the right ones, right? I mean, that should be pretty obvious. Especially when now you have the angel of the Lord intervening, God's getting involved, and trying to correct the situation. And he said, verse 8, And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? And whither wilt thou go? She said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the Lord sent her to return to thy mistress, and submit thyself unto her hands. So he's saying you need to go back, as awkward as that might be, and submit. Like, maybe drop the attitude, right? Maybe don't despise your mistress in your eyes. Don't forget you're the handmaid in the situation. Don't forget you're the Egyptian that they kind of just picked up on their journey. She's his wife, right? Submit yourself under her hands. Do what you're told. Now, if you assume, you know, my interpretation, right? That Sarai ran Hagar out of the house, right? And now the angel's telling her to go back, right? You've got to, you can't imagine the awkwardness there, right? Like, because you don't really get the rest of the story. Like, she goes back, but there's no, like, explanation of, like, how that played out. Like, what are you doing back? Well, you know, right? It's kind of like, like if you got fired, and then just showed up at work the next day, like, nothing happened. Like, you got called in the boss's office, you got chewed out, and said, that's it, you're done here. Like, fine, and you left. And then at eight o'clock the next morning, you're just at your desk going, hey, how's it going, you know? It's like nothing had happened, right? It's kind of an awkward situation. And I always kind of, whenever I read this, I always thought about that. I always thought that that was kind of funny. It's like, well, just go back, you know? And obviously we don't get all the details. I'm sure things were explained or whatever. And the angel of the Lord said to her, return to thy mistress and submit thyself on her hands. The angel of the Lord said to her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, and it shall not be numbered for multitude. Now, so the angel here is making the same promise to Hagar that has been made to Abram, concerning his seed, right? Concerning the child of promise, right? And why is that? Well, that's because this is Abram's seed, right? This isn't the child, this isn't the son of the promise, right? That's going to be Sarah's or Sarah's child, right? But this is still nonetheless Abram's seed. So I believe God is honoring that because of the fact that it is Abram's, the father, here, he's going to continue to honor the promise that's been made unto him to some degree. And it says in verse 11, the angel of the Lord said to her, Behold, thou art with child, and should bear a son, and should call his name Ishmael, because the Lord had heard thy affliction. Verse 12, And he will 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. Now, a lot of Zionists erroneously point to this verse and say, and they want to somehow, through a bunch of mental gymnastics and a bunch of conjecture, just say that Ishmael here is clearly the Palestinian people, which is completely wrong, okay? It's kind of outside the scope of this sermon tonight. I wasn't really planning on making that point, but it kind of dawned on me as I was reading that that you'll sometimes hear Zionists go, Well, see, his hand shall be against every man, he's a wild man. He's like those crazy, Palestinians over there in the promised land, messing with God's people, right? They just kind of lift this stuff out of the Scripture and just apply it however they want. And we will break down in future sermons as we get further into the story with Ishmael and Isaac. We'll talk more about that in Galatians 4, how this obviously are real events, real people, but how these things are an allegory. A lot of the story here is allegorical, eventually, right? It really happened, but it's also, there's a broader application spiritually between the Old Testament Israel and the New Testament believer, okay? But I don't want to get ahead of myself. That's going to make more sense. We're building up to that. We're kind of getting the backstory here on who Ishmael is, where he came from, and the role that Hagar played. So, she's, you know, so put yourself in Hagar's shoes here as we close tonight, make my last point, but she's been, you know, she's kind of an innocent bystander in all this, right? She's not the one that's making these decisions. She's not, you know, as far as we know, there's nothing in the text that tells us that, you know, she maybe put a bug in Sarai's ear and said, hey, you know, I could have that kid for you if you're really interested. You know, let me be a surrogate for you of some kind. You know, this all seems to have come out of the mind of Sarai, and Abram has just kind of gone along with it, although he should have known better. And, you know, Hagar's really just kind of a bystander in all this. She's really just a victim of circumstance. You know, she's the handmaiden. You know, is she not going to do what she's told? You know, obviously, she was probably honored to, you know, be thought of that way and to be taken into Abram's house like that and to be, you know, one to bring him an heir. You know, she's probably glad to do that. But, you know, I doubt she foresaw how she was going to be treated. Now, she was the one that kind of got an attitude, I understand, right? But, you know, she is kind of a victim here because she's just being run out of the house, left, you know, in a strange land with the child, right? You know, imagine just driving your wife, you know, who's pregnant with your child out in the desert and just saying, drop her off and say, well, figure it out, right? I mean, that's essentially what's happening here, right? She's just getting run off into the wilderness with a child and just saying, go. It's not our problem anymore, right? So that's a pretty desperate situation. And if you're Hagar, you know, this angel of the Lord showing up, you know, it's a pretty big deal. And then to hear what he says to you, that God is going to multiply thy seed, that you're going to call his name Ishmael, he's going to be a great man, he's going to be a mighty man, right? Now, you need to go back, right, and make things right and continue to live there. And this is probably a great relief to her. So that's why you get into verse 13, right? Verse 13, when she says there, verse 13, and she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, thou God seest me. For she said, Have I also here looked for him that seeth me? Wherefore, she was the well called, Behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. So she calls it this name, and the name means, thou God seest me, right? And this should be an encouragement to us that even when, you know, maybe even if we played some part in the circumstances that we found ourselves in, you know, if we've gone along with something we shouldn't have had, or we've gotten an attitude kind of like she has, and we've suffered certain consequences, if people are treating us poorly, if we've, you know, just been, you know, dealt with wrongfully, right, and even maybe even a desperate situation, it should comfort us to know that God sees us. That it's not when we make decisions or do things that we shouldn't that God just says, okay, well, that's it. I'm just not gonna, you know, you're gonna just deal with that for the rest of your life. You know, God still cares about us. God still gets involved. God still acts on our behalf. Even when people are doing things they shouldn't be doing. Even where people are making poor decisions or not leading like they should when things are just a mess. Cause this is a mess. This sounds like something out of like the Jerry Springer show. This sounds like daytime television, right? You are the father, right? You know, it turns out we did the tests and it turns out you are the father, Abrams. Like, oh, you know. The next thing you know, they're pulling each other's hair out and chairs are getting thrown and the crowd's all taking turns on the mic calling our names and stuff like that, right? And it's crazy, right? It's just this human drama. And sometimes you wonder, you know, when we see things that maybe we do or other people do and the decisions that people make, you know, sometimes I scratch my head and I wonder why does God even give any of us a second look at the things that we do? But nonetheless, He does. And, you know, God keeps us as the apple of His eye. God knows that, remembers that we are but dust, that we're flesh, that we're gonna make decisions and do things that we shouldn't. But that doesn't mean that God just, you know, writes us off. Cause look, if God was gonna just write us off every time we did something we shouldn't, we'd all have gotten written off by now. Or we're well on our way to getting there, right? And again, obviously that's not an excuse to say, well, I know God, you know, is always gonna figure it out. There's always going to be consequences. You go down into Egypt, you're gonna have a Hagar around and who knows where that could lead, right, Abram? We're always gonna have to deal with our consequences but that doesn't mean God gives up on us and quits on us or doesn't care about us. I mean, that's a very caring thing that God did here. Comes to her in a low point and says, hey, don't worry, everything's gonna be alright. And I think that's why you kind of get the, the sentimental, you know, naming of this place, right? Thou God seest me. What an encouraging name. Isn't it a great thing to be seen of God? Now, there might be times in our life we'd rather not be seen of God, you know? And if we can't entreat God's eye, if the thought of God seeing us is something we'd rather not have happen, we'd rather do without, rather, then maybe there's something going on in our life we need to fix, right? But the encouragement is, is that when things are going wrong, when life's just not turning out the way we wanted through our own fault and other people, you know, God still sees us. God hasn't written us off. God's still there. God cares. And I found that to be very encouraging. It's an encouraging story, really. Obviously, again, it's a messy bit of Scripture here with people making bad decisions and people not leading like they should and people getting attitudes and a lot of anger and emotion and envy getting involved and people lashing out and people reacting and it's just, it's an ugly story, but nonetheless, God looks down and all that ugliness and says, well, let's try to make the best of the situation. Okay? And that's what we need to do in our lives. If our lives are less than picture perfect, right, which is, that's all of us. No one's life is perfect. We've all got issues. We've all got our own problems. Don't throw in the towel. Make the best of the situation. Honor God. Serve Him and submit yourself to Him, right? Maybe we can't go back and submit ourselves to a Sarah in our lives, but we can definitely go and submit ourselves on the Lord and confess and forsake our sins and just say, going forward, we're gonna do the best we can and just thank God that He hasn't given up on us, that God, behold what manner of love God had bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God, right? And that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, that we're God's children and He doesn't write us off any more than we would write off our own children, okay? Does He get upset at us? Does He deal with us? Does He chase us? Yes. He does all those things because He loves us, because His eye is on us, which can be a very, you know, frightening thing or can be a very encouraging thing based upon the way we're behaving. So if there's a problem there, it's probably on us. All we gotta do is correct it and move forward. Let's go ahead and close the word of prayer. Dear Lord, again, thank you for this story and thank you, Lord, for this example of real people, Lord, people that we can relate to, people that we might even see a bit of ourselves in and see where they're coming from and be able to relate to and even in ways maybe we wish we couldn't. And Lord, thank you that you're a God that sees us, that you don't leave us when we're in our most desperate moments, when we're at our lowest points, Lord, but that's what we're looking for. often, Lord, where we find you to be the closest, Lord, when we need you the most. And I pray to help us to always be mindful of that, that you're always seeing us, that the eyes of the Lord go throughout the whole earth, beholding the evil and the good. Lord, help us to be found, to be seen of you, doing good. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. All right, we'll go ahead and sing one more song before we are dismissed tonight. Please open up your song. This is song number 343. We'll be singing song number 343. Revive us again in another song number 343. We'll be singing song number 343. Revive us again in another song number 343. Come on for the three, four, three. ["Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah"] Sing it out in the church. Praise be to God, O Lord, Son of the Lord. For Jesus Christ is now above all. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, revive us again. Praise be to God, O Spirit of God. For His shoulders are sweeter and scarier on earth. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, revive us again. Glory and praise to Thee, the Lamb that was slain. As Lord of all our sins and past times when we stay. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, revive us again. Hallelujah, hallelujah, revive us again. With His heart, with our love, maybe so old we can go with our humble love. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, revive us again. Amen. Good singing. We are dismissed. Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Hey, can you open this up for the player? For the player, brother. Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me? Can you play it for me?