Abraham and Sarah have arrived at the city of Gerar, and Abraham tells Abimelech (the king), "She is my sister." This is a similar thing that occurred back in Genesis chapter 12 when they entered into Egypt. Well, so, King Abimelech took Sarah and I am sure was going to make her his wife. Thankfully, God intervened and came to King Abimelech in a dream and warned him that he would die because he had taken another man's wife. Abimelech explains to the Lord that he is innocent because he was misled by Abraham. God then tells Abimelech to return Sarah to Abraham or he and his family will die. Abimelech does as God commanded him and the he asks Abraham why he did this to him. Abraham responds," I did it because I thought, there is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife." Abraham then explains that she is his half sister. And then Abraham mentions that he had asked Sarah to do this very same thing at every place that they had come to!
King Abimelech then gave many gifts to Abraham and Abraham prayed and God opened the wombs of the women of the city. Apparently, God had made it impossible for anyone to conceive to preserve that Isaac was truly Abraham's son.
But what can we learn from this second account of Abraham and Sarah's lie? Yes, it is wrong to lie as we mentioned before. But I want to approach this a little bit differently. I want to show how merciful and gracious of a God we do serve. What would have happened if God had not intervened? Abimelech probably would have touched Sarah and possibly altered God's plan of a son coming from Abraham. That one little lie could have seriously altered God's promise to Abraham and could have affected so many future generations. Thankfully, God intervened. We know that God does not exactly intervene the way that he did back in the days of Abraham. Yes, God is still merciful and gracious and he does intervene in other ways, but how easily could a simple little lie cause us to embark on a path that God had not intended? We need to be so careful! God can use our lives and situations even when they may not be his perfect will or plan. He is God. We are sinful man. He does work all things for our good and His glory. But we need to be following Him. We need to be women of truth. We need to put away lying.
The beginning of chapter 21 we see the fulfilling of a promise! And we also see how much of a hand God does have in creating life! Yes, it does take a man and a woman to create life, but God is also in it as we clearly see in verse 1 which states, "the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised." Sarah conceived and Isaac was born at the exact time that God had told them it would occur! The name Isaac means laughter. This could go back to Sarah laughing in chapter 18, or it could be in reference to both Sarah and Abraham bearing a child in their old age. Verse 6 says, "...everyone who hears will laugh over me."
In verse 9 we see that Sarah and Hagar still have a struggling relationship. Obviously, there is still bitterness on the part of Sarah over Abraham's other wife and her servant. Sarah observes Ishmael (Hagar's son) mocking, and has both Hagar and Ishmael sent away.
I found it interesting that even though Abraham was not pleased with this, God told Abraham to do as Sarah said. Obviously, God was going to work it all out despite Sarah's bitterness toward Hagar. That is not to say that Sarah was right to be bitter, no, it is never right to be bitter towards another person. But God was in control of the situation regardless of the sinfulness of man.
So, Hagar and Ishmael flee to the wilderness of Beersheba (I have been here...it is pretty desolate even today. Notice the picture below.) with some water and bread. Before long the water and bread were gone, and so she had Ishmael sit under one of the bushes for shade and she went off a little ways and wept and cried out in despair for she did not want to watch her son die. God heard her cry and answered her and God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water!
Hagar's story is one that many women can relate to! Even I can. She had two times when she had nowhere to run and was at the end of her rope (chapter 16 and chapter 21). She did not know what to do. The first time she was in the wilderness she was beside a spring of water. And the Lord had to find her! I find this interesting because I think this was the moment when Hagar also found the Lord. The second time she was in the wilderness she ran out of water. What did she do? She cried out to the Lord! The Lord answered her cry and gave her what she needed!
Have you found yourself in the wilderness, lost, with nowhere to turn? When I was in the same wilderness over in Israel where this story took place, it was desolate. There were hardly any animals and everywhere you turned the landscape was the same. You could have been walking in circles and have never known it. When you were in that wilderness, did God find you? I know he was looking for you! Once God finds you he will never let you go! But you also need to be looking for him! What am I talking about? Becoming his child! Realizing what he has done for you when he had his only Son die in your place so that you could be free from the penalty of sin. That penalty being death and an eternity separated from God. How do you become his child? It is so simple! Simply cry out to God, admit that you are a sinner and are not worthy of God's gift of eternal salvation, believing that because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ (God's only son) when he died on the cross, you have everlasting life in God! And trust God with your life. Choose to follow him and give your life to God as a sacrifice for what he has done for you!
I believe Hagar knew this beautifully when the Lord found her in the wilderness and when she cried out to God in the wilderness! Because, in all reality, without God we are truly lost. Has God found you? Are you his child? Can you cry out to Him when you have nowhere else to go?
the wilderness. Very much full of nothing.
a truly desolate landscape.
This was in the middle of the wilderness pictured above! It was amazing! We literally walked along seeing nothing different from the pictures above, and then we rounded this corner, and Voila! Here is this little spot of water! I am not kidding when I say you could have easily walked around this for days without finding it!
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