This is Connect with Skip Heitzig, and we're so glad you've joined us for today's program. Connect with Skip Heitzig is all about connecting you to the never-changing truth of God's Word through verse-by-verse teaching. Before we get started, we want to invite you to check out connectwithskip.com to find resources like full message series, sermon outlines, and more. While you're at it, be sure to sign up to receive Skip's weekly devotional emails right in your inbox. When you do, we'll send you Skip's booklet, Hell No, Don't Go. This insightful resource will help you gain a deeper understanding of what awaits believers in heaven and unbelievers in hell. It's an encouragement for those who have said yes to Jesus and a sobering picture for those who have not. Get your copy when you sign up today at connectwithskip.com.
That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Genesis chapter 16. I recall traveling with a friend from Jordan to Germany, and we landed in Austria. Actually, it was Franklin Graham that I was with, and we touched down in Austria, and we was just about an hour on the plane, and then we were going to take off to Germany. And Franklin said, hey, have you ever driven from this airport to the city we're going to end up in Germany?
I think it was Frankfurt. Have you ever driven this beautiful stretch? You ought to get off the plane now, not take the leg of the journey to Germany, but rent a car. It's only two or three hours.
It's one of the most scenic drives you can do. So I thought, you know what? Why not? That sounds really good. Well, I eventually talked him into doing it with me. I said, why don't you get off the plane, too, and we'll take that drive together. And so we did.
It ended up to be a nine-hour drive, and we didn't get to our hotel in Germany until about 2, 2.30 in the morning. It ended up not being a shortcut, but the long way around, a detour. We wasted precious time. In chapter 16, Abram and his wife Sarai take a detour when it comes to the will of God. Once again, the man of faith, the father of them that believe, displays a shallower kind of faith than we might expect.
Taking the long way around, it actually cost him, and to this day, we're experiencing the fallout and the ramifications of that choice. Now, some people prefer not to fly airplanes, but they prefer to drive, and it's not because of economy. It's out of fear. They actually feel safer in a car than they do in an airplane. I know a businessman that drives from coast to coast. He won't fly.
He'll drive. He feels safer. But his feelings are misleading because the studies reveal that flying in jet aircraft is seven times safer than driving in a car. So going 600 miles an hour careening through space through a metal tube at 35,000 feet is safer than an eight-cylinder machine that never leaves the earth. It might feel as if it's unsafe to get in that airplane, but it's actually safer. I'm sharing that because there's a parallel with the will of God. Sometimes when we just trust the Lord, it feels really scary. It feels unsafe. We'd rather live by sight rather than faith.
But the safest way to navigate through your life is to live a life of faith, trusting in the Lord rather than what you can only see. Well, let's find out what happens. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, see now the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please go into my maid. Perhaps I shall obtain children by her.
And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. That was a mistake. It's not always a mistake. Sometimes it's the best thing a man can do. But in this case, it was a mistake.
They were unable to have children. We're presented with that in chapter 11 when they're first introduced to us. You remember that old saying, have you ever heard it, God helps those who help themselves?
Where does that come from? Because when I grew up, my father said, you know the Bible says God helps those who help themselves. And I thought it was in the Bible. Then I read it, and I read it, and I read it in different translations, and I looked in the concordance to try to find that verse, God helps those who help themselves. And I never found it in the Bible. Jesus didn't say it. Paul never wrote of it. The prophets never declared it. Now maybe it's in 1 Thessalonians, but it's certainly not in any of the real books of the Bible. It's one of those phantom verses made up, imposed by people who don't know what the Bible says.
I actually did a little research and discovered it was Ben Franklin who said that. It wasn't God at all. But we get this mistaken notion that if we set the gears in motion, we start moving, eventually God will see that we're serious and we're moving and catch up to us and then take us all the way through once He sees that we're serious and we're going to work hard. Well here's a case of people trying to help themselves, or should I say help God out, help God fulfill a promise. Because God said you're going to have a child, and we see here that his wife, Sarai, decides to do it this way. Now before we completely trash Abram and Sarai in this, let's assume the highest.
Let's imagine that they had really good intentions. So let's imagine a conversation. They're in the tent one night, burning a candle, having dinner, I don't know, lamb and olives and hummus and pita bread. It sounds so good. And they're having this conversation and Sarai looks at Abram, now she's past 75, and says sweetheart, now I know that you're really into this having a kid thing, and I know you really like me to have a child, but sweetheart, look at me.
I'm over 75 years of age. Ain't going to happen, sweetheart. Now sweetie, AB, what exactly did God say when He made all those promises to you? Can you recall? Oh, sweetheart, it's like yesterday.
Of course I can recall. God said specifically that from my own body I'm going to have a son. Okay, well now that helps, AB, because God said it's going to come from your body. God said nothing about it coming through my physical body.
So because it's going to come through your body and not necessarily mine, I propose we help God out a bit on this. I have Hagar, this Egyptian maid. She's much younger. She's capable of bearing children. You go into her and you have a child and we'll adopt that child and we'll say that's God's promise fulfilled.
And it says that Abram heeded his wife. Now you just have to imagine what it was like those 11 years they've been waiting for this promise, 11 years. It's hard to wait on the Lord. It's hard to wait and wait and wait and wait because your flesh gets really antsy. And Proverbs says hope deferred makes the heart sick. And we have a tendency when we've waited on the Lord and waited for the Lord, when we don't get what we think we should get, to just push it a little bit, make it happen and impose our own scheme and designs and produce something of the flesh rather than the spirit. That's what they're doing. They've been waiting 11 long years.
Since God first said I'm going to make you a great nation. Now I imagine that every time Sarai had a twinge of pain or walked a little bit differently that Abraham noticed and said, you must be pregnant. But she wasn't pregnant. And year after year after year after year she wasn't pregnant. And so now this.
Hey, this is crazy she's saying. Let's just get on with our life. Let's have a child. If God promised that through your body you'd have a son, he didn't say anything specifically about my body. So just take Hagar. Then verse 3, 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. And so he went into Hagar and she conceived.
And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes. Where did Hagar come from? Where is she from it says?
Egypt. So they must have picked her up on that little foray down into Egypt when they didn't trust God during those famine years, you remember? It seems that that's when she arrived into their household.
You know the past has a way of catching up with you, doesn't it? She becomes pregnant. So now it's pretty obvious that the real problem isn't with Abram, it's with Sarai. Now maybe up to that point they didn't really know because they were unable as a couple to have children. So was the problem with her womb or was he not virile? Was he unable to have children?
Well now the proof. He has no problem bearing a child with a fertile woman and so it would mean in ancient cultures that Sarai must somehow be cursed and an anger rises up in her heart. And moreover Hagar despises Sarai, her mistress.
And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes. We know this problem too well, I believe. In Galatians 3 it says, well Paul asks, having begun in the spirit, are you now trying to be made perfect in the flesh? God has started something.
Are you now trying to bring it to completion by your flesh? You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, in his book Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, author of the New York Times bestselling book The Case for Christ, provides a rational exploration of the proof of God's existence and the basis of our eternal hope. Writing to skeptics and believers alike, Strobel turns his critical mind and expert interviewing skills to perennial questions like, how do we know which God is real? And if God is real, why does he seem so hidden?
Is God real? Along with two messages preached by Lee Strobel at Calvary Church, our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your resources when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. How many times in your own situation, in my own situation, have we stepped in to help God fulfill his promise? And sometimes even counsel the Lord. Give God advice as if he needs it. Maybe you haven't done it verbally, but I bet you've thought things like, God, I know you're busy running the universe. Step into my office. There could be a couple of things you just have overlooked. Well, let me educate you.
I've gone to college. I can help here. And we might step in with an agenda and with a plan that is simply trying to fulfill God's promise by a work of our own flesh. What does it say to us in Proverbs chapter 3? Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not unto your own understanding in all your ways.
Acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Well, they're not doing that here. There's this great old Jewish proverb that says, it's better to ask which is the right road ten times than to take the wrong road once. They take the wrong road.
And as I mentioned, the repercussions are still felt today. We'll see why. And Sarai said to Abram, now watch this. Here's Sarai. My wrong be upon you.
Whoa. I gave my maid into your embrace. And when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between you and me. Well, now whose idea was it to begin with?
It was her idea. It was Victor Hugo who said, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. So here's Abram.
Oh, okay, sweetheart, whatever you say, dear. And then he does it. And then this happens and she blames him. So Abram said to Sarai, indeed, your maid is in your hand. According to ancient custom, she was the property of Sarai. That's what he meant by that. Due to her as you please.
And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. Wow. It was the Scottish poet and author, George MacDonald, who said, in whatever man does without God, he will fail miserably or succeed more miserably. Here's Abram and Sarai with the plot, with the plan, and they succeed so miserably, helping God out. And what do I mean by that? What I mean has been 4,000 years since this, and we are still experiencing the Arab Israeli conflict, the seed of Ishmael and the seed of Isaac at war with one another, with suicide bombings, with problems in the Gaza, with the 9-11 bombings, and America's policies concerning Israel.
And it seems that year after year, the focus gets back on that. And this is where it all began. Verse 7, the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness by the spring on the way to Shur. So she has now traveled all the way down going toward Egypt. She's trying to go back to Egypt where she's from, which is nothing but barren desert on this road. She would have died in the wilderness.
She wouldn't have made it. So she's by a spring of water in the wilderness. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from and where are you going?
She said, I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress, Sarai. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hand. Now this is, by the way, the first mention, and I'm trying to give you all of the rules of first mention when we come up to them in Genesis. Here is the first mention in all of the Bible of the term the angel of the Lord. You're going to read about it a lot in the Old Testament.
There's conjecture as to who this person is. Some people believe here that it's Gabriel, the one who announced to Mary and to Joseph and to Zacharias all of the events around our Lord's birth. But this is the first mention of the angel of the Lord coming.
Now here's what I love. This is the story of failure, fumbling, bumbling failure. And yet in the midst of that we see the mercy and grace of God, the overriding, overruling, intervening hand of God in being merciful and just not letting them go through all of this without some movement of his own hand. And so the angel of the Lord said, I will multiply your descendants exceedingly so that they shall not be counted for a multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, behold, you are with child and you shall bear a son and you shall call his name Ishmael, which means God hears. So every time she would call out her son's name, Ishmael, come on for dinner.
Time to go to bed, Ishmael. She would be calling out the remembrance of God's mercy in her life. God hears. The Lord intervened down there by that well because the Lord has heard your affliction.
He shall be a wild man. His hand shall be against every man and every man's hand against him and he will dwell in the presence of all his brethren. So rather than just letting her leave the home, maybe die in the wilderness, the angel brings them back to Sarai and Abram and Ishmael will grow up in the household of Sarai and Abram. God overruling. I don't know who said it, but somebody said when God can't rule because we won't let him, he always overrules. I love that beautiful verse of scripture in Romans 5. I think it's around verse 20. It says, where sin has abounded, grace did much more abound.
It overflowed. And here's an example of God's grace to this woman and her son. And she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, you are the God who sees. For she said, have I also seen him who sees me? Therefore, the well was called the er lahairoi, the well of the living God who sees. Observe, it is between Kadesh and Bereth.
So if you were ever wondering where that well was, now you know. So Hagar bore Abram a son and Abram named his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. Now we have a gap between these two chapters of 13 years. Thirteen years, by now Ishmael is a young teenager. Abram is 99 years old, raising a 13-year-old teenager.
Have pity on him. Sarai is about 90 years old and they're raising this child. But it's not over yet. Man, it's just the beginning because that son of promise hasn't yet been born into their household and that's coming.
That's Isaac. So Abram isn't going to retire. He's not going to go lawn bowling for the rest of his life.
He's going to have more children. Abram was 99 years old and the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am Almighty God. Walk before me and be blameless. Now somebody once said that one of the great things about being 99 is you don't have much peer pressure. Of course it would be obvious why, right?
You wouldn't have any peers. He's 99 years old and the Lord speaks to him. Now we have the very first mention of this title of God, God Almighty, El Shaddai. El Shaddai is mentioned in the Bible about 34, 36 times. It means Almighty God or God the Mighty One or better yet God the Most Sufficient One. Interestingly enough, the term El Shaddai is found more in the book of Job than any other book in the Bible.
It's around this time frame, same era, patriarchal era. Now El Shaddai, it is thought, is an old Akkadian word from that whole Semitic, Syrio, Babylonian region, an old Akkadian word that means mountain or breast. And the idea is that some of the ancients would, when they would see hills in the distance, it was as if the earth was flexing its muscle.
It represented like a buff muscle coming up out of the earth. So here is God saying, I am God the eternally sufficient one, the divinely buff one, the one who can do anything that you can't do. I'm strong, you're weak, I'm God, you're not. That's how he introduces himself. Now why does he call himself El Shaddai? Because Abram's 99 years old, that's why.
He's almost 100 years old. If anybody's feeling weak, it would be Abram. And so God says, let me just tell you who I am, buddy boy. I'm El Shaddai.
I have unlimited muscle, man. I can do what no man or no country or no ruler could ever do. It's interesting that the Lord says, I am almighty God, walk before me and be blameless. What does it mean to walk before God and be blameless?
The idea is this. Walk or literally live your life knowing that you're living your life in plain view of me. You know how it's like when you're a child and you know your parents watching, you act differently, don't you? If you're alone in your room, you act one way, but when your dad is watching you, you act a different way. Abram, you're 99 years old.
It's time for you to grow up. Time for you to learn how to walk, buddy. Finally, walk before me, live your life knowing that I'm watching everything you're doing. And be upright, be blameless, be pure, be a man of integrity. I think God tells him this because of Abram's history. When Abram went to Haran for 15 years and waited before he went into the land God told him to, he wasn't walking before the Lord. He was walking before his father and his family. When he went down to Egypt because of the flood, he wasn't walking before the Lord. He was walking before his 318 servants who needed food and water. When he pulled the Hagar stunt in chapter 16 with Sarai, he was walking before his wife, not before the Lord.
But here's what's cool to me. He's 99 and God still comes to him and says, you can still walk with me. You know, a new walk with God can begin for you at any age.
It doesn't matter who you are, what you've done, how old you are, what you've been through. This tonight could be the night of a brand new relationship with him, a relationship of obedience, a relationship of love. A walk with God can begin at any age. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been encouraged in your walk with Christ by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently respond to questions and challenges to God's existence.
It's Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two messages he preached on the topic at Calvary Church. Request your resources when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox?
Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
