Genesis 16-17

Notes compiled with my BSF group

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S TIME (Genesis 16:1-6)

God promised Abram and Sarai a son, one of the offspring of a great nation


Genesis 12:7
The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land."

Genesis 15:4-5
"A son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir… Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them… So shall your offspring be."

Genesis 15:13-21
"Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions… In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure… To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."

Genesis 17:1-8
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers. As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations… I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."

Genesis 17:19-21
Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him... My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.”


However, Abram and Sarai were impatient for God's time and decided to do things their way
Abram showed faith in God's promise earlier: When God told him that his offspring will be as numerous as the number of stars (Genesis 15:4-5), Abram believed God, and God credited that faith to Abram as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).

However, in Genesis 16, we see how Sarai and Abram showed unbelief. Sarai was not patient enough to wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled and wanted Abram to have a son through Hagar. That is, instead of trusting God and leaving things in God’s hands, Sarai and Abram took the situation into their own hands. They did not operate on God’s time. They wanted to push things forward on THEIR OWN time.

Sarai’s actions did not show that she believed God’s promise to give Abram offspring. She took matters into her own hands by giving Abram Hagar as his wife to have children.

Sarai behaved like Eve, and Abram behaved like Adam
We can learn several lessons from Sarai and Abram.

1. Sarai behaved the same way that Eve did in the Garden. Instead of trusting the Lord, Sarai acted on her own will and convinced Abram to take matters into their own hands (Genesis 16:1-2).

2. Adam behaved the same way that Adam did in the Garden. Instead of being a good leader and guiding Sarai back to the road of righteousness, Abram followed Sarai’s sinful thoughts and had a child with Hagar (Genesis 16:2-4).

3. When we do things according to our own will, disaster results. Having a son should have been a joyful event, but because of the circumstances that Ishmael was born, everyone was upset. Sarai was upset because Hagar became prideful (Genesis 16:5). Abram was upset because Sarai was not happy. Hagar was upset because Sarai mistreated her (Genesis 16:6).

4. There are consequences to our selfish actions. In Genesis 16:7-12, THE Angel of the Lord appeared to comfort Hagar. ("The Angel of the Lord" is a term reserved for pre-incarnate Christ -- See Isaiah 63:9; Judges 13:21–22.) Hagar’s son, Ishmael, was also a seed of Abram. And because God promised Abram that his offspring will be as numerous as the stars, we see here that God extended that promise to Ishmael. Why? Because God is faithful.

However, look what this resulted in: Ishmael would become
the father of a nation that will "live in hostility toward all his brothers" (Genesis 16:12). The consequence of Sarai and Abram’s selfish actions resulted in the birth of nations that would rage war against Israel – And Israel today continues to suffer in wars with Ishmael’s descendants: the Arab nations, such as Palestinians, Iran, Iraq, etc.

If Sarai and Abram had just followed God’s will and operated on God’s time, Ishmael would not have been born, and Israel today may not have so many enemies!

Avoid selfish and prideful thinking. It is difficult to wait for God’s timing, and it’s tempting to think we have the better solution, but we should know by now that God’s solution is always the best solution. Disasters happen when we start thinking we can do better than God.


HAGAR HAD REASONS TO BE SAD (Genesis 16:7–16)
Hagar was unhappy because she was used and abused. 

Hagar wasn’t the one who wanted to have a child with Abram. Sarai gave her to Abram like a piece of property to have a child for Sarai. Hagar fulfilled her duty and indeed gave birth to a child for Abram, but that wasn’t good enough for Sarai.

Perhaps Hagar wasn’t a very graceful person, as she started to despise Sarai when she became pregnant (Genesis 16:4). However, what did Sarai expect when she misused and mistreated Hagar in the first place? It’s all just a mess that could have been avoided had Sarai been patient enough to act according to God’s will and time! 

At any rate, both Sarai and Hagar have done wrong, but Hagar does have a reason to be unhappy: She did what she was told, and she was punished for it.

"Go back to your mistress and submit to her" (Genesis 16:9)
Along with what we are taught in Ephesians 5:21-22, Hebrews 13:17, and 1 Peter 3:6–7, we need to submit to our superiors.

Back in those days, superiors are masters. Today, superiors are employers, bosses, all the way up to political leaders.

Paul said, "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God" (Romans 13:1).

In other words, ALL authority is established by God -- even the ones we think are horrible leaders and evil bosses! We may be tempted to ask why God would put bad people in leadership positions, but I think the bigger question is, why do we think we are the ones who get to set the standards? Why are we judging God? Who are we to judge God?

Before we go down that road, I would like to bring up these points:

1. God has a plan that is bigger than all of us. His plan is not to give us perfect jobs and wonderful bosses and luxurious lives. His plan is salvation for mankind.

2. As smart as we all think we are, we are not nearly as smart as God. God made the universe. We haven’t even figured out how the universe was formed. We study and research, and we can’t cure half the diseases around the world. Since it is clear that we are not nearly as smart as God, that we cannot see nearly as far as God, we really shouldn’t assume God ought to think like us and judge Him when He doesn’t. We should just trust Him. If He did things a certain way, there are reasons for doing it. When we meet up with Him in Heaven, ask Him. But in the mean time, operate on God's time, not our own time; on God's will, not on our own will.  

3. God is the ONLY judge. We may want to seek justice for the unfair things that have been done to us. However, when we take matters into our own hands, we become just as guilty and sinful.

Jesus said, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at [the prostitute]" (John 8:7).

People slowly walked away, and none threw a single stone at her.

The moral of this story? We are not the judge, because we are all sinful. Leave the judging to God, who is the only righteous judge. We just focus on ourselves, do our best to abide by God’s Word. When we are mistreated, trust in the Lord because He will right our wrongs. Do not take it into our hands, because that puts us right back in the boat of sinners! God will judge each and every one of us by what we have done, not by what other people have done to us.

Coming back to obeying our superiors, that is the same concept. We do not need to be best friends with leaders or bosses that we do not like. However, we need to respect the fact that they are our superiors. We need to submit to them and move forward with the heart of God. If we do not like working for them, then we need to find ways to part in a godly manner. It is not the heart of God to treat others with disrespect. Always remember, God is the only righteous judge.


SATAN IS ALWAYS READY TO ATTACK US AT OUR WEAKEST 

Satan will always attack us when we are in the most difficult hour and offer us his best and most attractive solution that he has so that we will follow him. He will always tempt us with an easier way out when we are in a touch spot.

When Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, he took Jesus to a very high mountain and offered to give all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus IF Jesus would bow down and worship Satan (Matthew 4:1-11). Why did Satan make such an offer? He was giving Jesus the easy way out. Satan knew Jesus would come as king and priest, and here, Satan is offering him just that: He would give Jesus the whole empire, and Jesus wouldn’t have to be tortured or die on the Cross! All Jesus had to do was to bow down to Satan. Isn’t that much easier than dying on the Cross?

Satan will always appear to us when we are at our weakest to offer us the easy way out. However, if we caved in, we’d become a slave of the Satan. If Jesus had caved in, there would be no salvation for us!

Don't choose the easier way. Don't choose the convenient way. Choose God.


"BE BLAMELESS" (Genesis 17:1–8)

We aim to be perfect, because we aim to be like Christ (Matthew 5:48). However, no one is perfect. Blameless is to behave with our heart completely following God, to walk before God faithfully. We may still sin and make mistakes, but those are always honest mistakes, meaning, we make mistakes by accident. However, because our heart is always following God, we will learn from those mistakes and become even more mature Christians.


GOD'S PROMISE TO ABRAM (Genesis 17:1–8)

- I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.
- You will be the father of many nations.
- I have made you a father of many nations.
- I will make you very fruitful.
- I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.
- I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
- The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you;and I will be their God.

Some of these promises have been fulfilled:
- There are millions of Israelites around the world today.
- Abraham is the father of the 12 tribes of Israel.
- This will happen in the future, during the Millennium
- Today, Israelites know they are God’s people, and they continue to acknowledge the covenant between God and Abram.


CIRCUMCISION OF THE HEART (Genesis 17:9–27)

God said, “My covenant will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year” (Genesis 17:21). To demonstrate his faith, Abraham, Ishmael, and every male in Abraham’s household, were circumcised.

Without heart, however, circumcision has no meaning (Romans 2).

Back in Genesis 3:21, we see that God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve. God was showing them that the only way to cover sin is through the shedding of blood. Through the shedding of blood, circumcision was a sign used to seal the covenant between God and His people. It is a physical sign to show people that they are God’s people, but it has to be backed by a heart that belongs to God.

We receive the circumcision of the heart by giving our lives over to Christ, by completely following Jesus (Colossians 2:11-15). The entire Book of James teaches us how our actions should reflect our heart condition.