And good morning, ladies and gentlemen for this unusual sermon, because today we are having a prerecorded online sermon. Thank you for being with us and for worshiping here today. Even though the worship is a little bit different, you're not sitting in the pew and things are a little different in America's greatest tiny church. And sometimes in a congregation like ours, it just so happens that everybody goes out of town, including the preacher. And so here we are online to minister both locally and around the world. And it is a great pleasure to do so, so honored that you are a part of our congregation, even if you're apart from afar, some of you have other churches that you're parts of. Many of you consider tow's First Baptist Church to be your home, your church home. And we appreciate that. We are constantly aware of your presence even when we're gathered together in the sanctuary of Taos First Baptist Church. And today we're gathered at the Tau's First Baptist but in the studios of Randy White ministry. And so here we are today to come into our preaching time today, which comes from Genesis, the 16th chapter, as we continue our journey through the life and times of Abraham. And we have been with us now for, I believe, eight sermons are we on, and there's an outline available for you@worshipey.com or at the RWM connect site and you can get those. Sermon number eight here for the consequences of faithlessness is the sermon title, genesis, chapter 16, verses one six. Again, continuing in the life and times of Abraham. But I suggest that we just go to the Lord in prayer and ask his blessings upon what we do today. Heavenly Father, we are most grateful for your word for us, for the blessing that it is to us. And even as we have walked with Abraham through these weeks, it has been such a blessing and such an encouragement. And we come tonight, today, and we rejoice in what you have already taught us through Abram. And now today as we look at Abram and Hegar and Sarah and even Ishmael, pray that it would give us some insight into even the world today. I asked this in Jesus name, amen. And now let's turn in our Bibles to Genesis the 16th chapter, verses one through 16, and begin our journey today in the life of Abram. And we begin in chapter 16, verses one through three, which contains a shall we call it, a human solution to our problem. Let's all do like we always do and start out with some artwork here. Here. We have hagar to Abraham with Sarah. By Joseph Marievain, 1749. Actually here at this point it's Sarah and Abram. And here's a little introduction that is made of the handmaid of Sarah and the man Abraham, who's about 85 years old at this point. And they do not yet have a child, as you know. And so that's what we're going to come and we're going to consider genesis, chapter 16. Beginning in verse one, it says now, Sarah, Abram's wife, bear him no children. Can I stop right there? As I often do? Sarai, Abram's wife, at least twice she's going to be called Abram's wife. The text wants us to know she is Abrams wife, not Hagar. And Hagar is going to be his wife. In a sense. We're going to see that in a moment. But again, in chapter 16, verse one, sarah, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian whose name was Hagar. Now, if you were with us, the last sermon, you know that we talked about Hagar, where she came from. It says right here she was an Egyptian. Very likely she came out of that episode that we read about in chapter twelve where there was a famine in the land. They went down to the land in order to escape the famine. Really kind of out of faithless nest on Abrams part to go down there. And then a continued faithlessness on Abrams part. As he says, hey, why don't you just say you're my sister? This is a good plan. Why don't you say you're my sister? And Abram gets what appears to be kind of a dowry. He gets lots of cash, lots of livestock, lots of handmaidens and lots of servants, all sorts of loot. Here he comes out of there, rich, really, almost in a picture of what happens to the nation of Israel later as they go down there to escape famine. They come out with all the wealth of Egypt and that sort of changes everything. So they're down there. Of course, Pharaoh receives some plagues. He finds out, he says, Why didn't you tell me? Get out of here. Take everything you got and get right now. So much like again, his descendants would experience 430 years later. And so it's very likely that Hagar came out of this experience I think that's important background that Hagar came out of this experience of faithless ness. And now faithlessness is going to come home to Roost and there's going to be some consequences of this faithlessness that takes place. And so we read here, continuing on in verse two, genesis 16, verse two, sarah said to Abram, behold now the Lord Hathors restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go into my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram, hearken to the voice of Sarah here. It's her idea. You go and you let her be the Surrogate, as we might call it today, and she will carry the child for me. Seems like a good plan, right? Well, it picks up in verse three, sarah, Abraham's wife. There it is again. Took Hagar handmade, the Egyptian again, twice now it said, Sarah is the wife, Hagar is the handmade and Hagar is the Egyptian. We're told these things twice just in case they escape our knowledge. So takes Hagar the Egyptian, after Abram, had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. Okay, we've got ten years in the land of Canaan. Incidentally, that little phrase ten years in the land of Canaan is helpful to us in other ways. We won't go into all of the details on it, but ten years they had been in the land of Canaan. It helps us just chronologically to put some things together in the entire biblical experience. Biblical chronology is not an easy thing, and those who study it have to study very meticulously, very persnickety in order to try to figure out exactly the chronology. So things like this are just a boon to anyone who's doing biblical chronology. But there's another little hint that's given in here, and we won't take time to look at it. But ten years in the land of Canaan, it appears that when God is in direct fellowship with his people, that's when the clock is ticking, that's when things are counted. And there are numerous places in the Bible where you simply can't figure out the chronology unless you pick up on those little secrets. Hey, it's when they're in the land or it's when they're in fellowship that the clock gets counted. Ten years in the land of Canaan. And this Egyptian handmaid who is named Hegar again comes to serve the family. Now, a handmaid is not necessarily a slave. I don't want you to think like American slavery. A handmaid is very respected in the family, is a confidant in the family, carries on the business of the family. And here we even speculated in the last sermon that perhaps hegar was the daughter of Pharaoh, the Pharaoh that kicks him out and says, hey, I'm tired of you being here. You bring a plague upon my house and sends them with all these things. Now, it says in verse three that Sarai made this suggestion and takes, as we see again in the picture here, takes Hagar and says, hey, I want you, my husband, Abram, I am your wife, and I want you to take Hagar my handmade to be your wife. Now, that issue there to be your wife actually fits with something that we discovered later, and that's the Hammer Ruby code. The hammer. Ruby code. I want to read a portion of it to you. It comes from paragraph number 146 of the Hammer Ruby Cope. We'll talk more about it here in just a moment. But it says this, obviously in English translation. It says, if a man take a wife and she gives this man a maid servant as a Childbearer, and the maid servant does not bear him children, then the maid assumes equality. Excuse me. And if the handmaid does bear him children, then the maid assumes equality with the wife because she has born him children. Her master shall not sell her for money, but he may keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the maid servants. Now, again, the Hammer Ruby Code, this tells us, first of all, that what we've got in Genesis, chapter 16. And according to the Scofield Bible and usher's dating, this is about 1913, years before Christ. So 1913, years before Christ happens to put the Hammer Ruby Code at, let's see, probably 75 years old. And the wording of this, take her as thy wife, she'll bear you a child, she will be your wife. She will be equal with me. Later on. By the way, Hagar is going to take that seriously and she's going to come in and basically say, I'm equal with you. Now, why does it matter that and it's incidental to the story, but why does it matter that? This appears to be in conjunction with the Hammer Ruby Code. It is legal for the day. In fact, it is standard for the day. That childbearing was so important that sometimes the handmaid would be brought in as the surrogate. If she did produce a child, then she would be considered equal. She could not be sold because a wife could not be sold. She is not a piece of property. She happens to be your wife and you end up with two wives is what you've got here. And that is the code. Now, one of the reasons that it's noteworthy is because it certainly was in existence in Abrams day and Abram was going by the law. This Hammerubi Code went really from Babylon up to Egypt, not including Egypt, but certainly including the land of Canaan and the Promised Land. And later on in history, let's say about 1875, in the late 1800s, there was this movement called Higher Criticism. Higher criticism took place among German rationalists. A rationalist is opposite of a supernaturalist. Now, you and I, when it comes to the Bible, we believe that the Bible is supernaturally given. It is a revelation from God. The German rationalist denied that the Bible was supernaturally given. When I was in seminary, they taught a little bit about this and they taught how we got the Torah especially. And they said there was the Yahwist source and the Jehovah source, and there was the Priestly source, the Levitico source, the JEDP theory. It's called the Higher Criticism of how we got our Bible. Now, one of the very foundational premises of Higher Criticism was that Moses absolutely did not write the Torah. He did not write the book of Genesis, exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And these critics, and they came from seminaries, by the way. Seminaries are often the problem in churches. They're often the source of liberalism. And this one affects the church to this day, as I'll show you in just a moment. So here is Higher Criticism comes about in the late 1800s built upon the premise that Moses could not have written it. And the reason they say moses didn't write it is because there was no such thing as a legal code in the day of Moses. No one had ever devised anything like that. There hadn't been anything heard about anything like that. And it couldn't have been until really hundreds of years after Moses that legal codes came into existence. And therefore, whoever wrote the Book of Exodus, for example, or the Book of Genesis, whoever wrote it, lived hundreds of years later and they were doing this anachronism of writing their concept of legal codes back into history. And they're making up this guy Moses, or they're perhaps not making him up, but they're puffing him up a lot more. That doesn't bought more legend than anything. And so higher critics, basically in German rationalism, basically did not believe the Bible. Most of it was a book of bunk. It was just totally made up. And again, these are the guys who were producing preachers for Germany and around the world. And by the way, a couple of them were named Westcott and Hort, and they are the ones that developed the critical text, which was foundational to all the modern versions that are used. It all goes back to religious liberalism. It all goes back to higher criticism. Now, what does that have to do with this? And the hammer will be code. Well, what it has to do with it is that in 1901, the Hammerubi code was discovered by archaeologists, and it is absolutely, without doubt dated to the times prior to Abram. And here we see Abram is living according to this Hammer Ruby code. I mean, everything, it just aligns perfectly, which means those in Higher Criticism absolutely didn't know what they were talking about. They totally made things up. And all their work really ought to just be let me find a nice way to say it flush down the toilet. Their work is a bucket of bunk. This is not a book of bunk. This is a book of truth. And it's a book of truth that represents the really, as we've called this sermon series, it represents the life and times of Abram. And so we look at that and we rejoice in that. So here it comes, ten years after Genesis, chapter 16, verses one, two and three, that Sarah says, okay, this is not going to work. It's been ten years we've been waiting for a baby, waiting for a baby to be waiting for a baby waiting for a baby waiting for a baby waiting for a baby waiting for a baby, waiting for a baby waiting for a baby. And then we waited one more year for a baby and we didn't have a baby. It's time now for us to bring in a surrogate, I think Hagar, Pharaoh's daughter, royal blood. This is the one. Abram, come on together. Get together with Hagar and see if she can produce for us a surrogate. Verse three gave her to her husband Abram, to be his wife. Okay, sounds like a great plan. As we said, sort of sarcastically. And then we come into, shall we say, some human problems. And that leads us to our next bit of artwork for today. Sarai sends Hagar away. James, we've seen so many of his pictures. And of course, here is let's see, I assume this is Sarai right here and saying to her handmaiden, get the out out of here. We don't want you anymore. We want you gone. And this is where we pick up in Genesis, chapter 16, beginning in verse four, it says, he went into Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. Now remember again, hammer, Ruby, Code, and everything that we saw in here, now they become equal. Well, Sarah was not really accustomed to this. She's not used to this. She doesn't want this. And maybe there's even more. Maybe Hagar strutting about saying, boo boo, you couldn't have a baby. But look at me. I have now conceived. I am about to have a baby. And so she rubs it in rejoices. And all this she gets impossible to live with. Who knows how much of this is Hagar and how much of this is Sarai. But what's going to happen is Sarah is going to say, out of here. Now, we begin in verse verse four. So her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarah said to abram, my wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid unto thy bosom. And when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judged between me and thee. Well, some pretty strong words here and there appeared to be a pretty quick conception. He goes in, she conceives, she is pregnant, and she becomes despised. And Sarah says again in verse five excuse me. My wrong be upon b. Now, don't misinterpret this. My wrong be upon b. She's not saying, Oops, my bad, I shouldn't have said this. I shouldn't have done this. But hey, it's your problem now. That's not what she's saying. She's saying, the injustice that I have experienced, it's yours. It's your fault that I have this injustice. Now, again, without the sermon that we had last week, it becomes rather difficult to try to figure out, well, Sarah, you're just being unreasonable here. How in the world is it Abraham's fault? You're the one that brought it up. But she further declares, and this, in verse five, shows us that she really does think she's in the right. Because she comes along and she says, the Lord judge between me and thee. Now, I don't think you do that without really being pretty confident that you are in the right. The Lord judge between me and thee. As a matter of fact, go. And there's even a link at the bottom in the footnotes, at the bottom of the handout today, if you want to find. Or you could just go on the internet and find it, look at the Hammer Ruby code and even just read 1234 the first few lines of it. And what you'll see is that it was very, very strong in if you made an accusation and couldn't prove it then you ended up paying the penalty. And this I imagine cleared out the courts quite a bit. But here in that kind of environment she is willing to say my injustice be upon thee, my wrong be upon thee, the Lord judge between me and thee. And so she felt certainly she was in the right, her husband Abram was in the wrong. She could prove it and would carry that out. Now I suspect this really does come back to the episode in chapter twelve that we looked at in the last sermon. And that is to say Hagar came from Egypt. It was your shenanigans that got us in Egypt. You are at the root of all of this problem. She probably does have a point. That again is why we called this sermon the Consequences of Faithlessness. The faithlessness is all the way back in Genesis chapter twelve, those ten years ago. And yet now, as we said before, the chickens come home to roost. Well, Abram kind of decides to stay out of it a little bit. Wise man. And he comes in verse six. And Abram said to Sarah, behold, thy maid is in thy hand, do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarah dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. Now notice that Sarah again is pretty careful to live according to the Hammerbi code, the legal code of the day. She doesn't in fact this picture we've got here is a little bit wrong. Sorry James. Do. So Sarah sends Hager away. She doesn't really send Hager away. Again, if you read in verse, verse six, when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. So what we've got is that Hagar decides to leave. She flees, she runs. Now no doubt it is because in the scripture tells us it is because the pressure that was given on her by Sarah, I mean, you know when you're not wanted, right? And so she reads the tea leaves, she can pick up on all this and she says no, I want some freedom, I got to be out from under this. I want out of here. And so she leaves. And this is where we move on into chapter 16, verses seven through eleven. And verse seven it says and the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of the water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to shore. Now I don't think there's anything all that significant about the location there. Here she's running away. A wise place to be in that part of the world would be near water. And there the angel of the Lord meets her. Here we have a picture, Ferdinand Bowl in 1650 of Hagar meeting the angel in the desert. And so here we have Hagar. Here we have what I think is a bad depiction of the angel of the Lord. But I'm not the artist and I doubt I could have painted it. But here they are in their meeting and this is the angel of the Lord. Now the reason I think this is a bad depiction of the angel of the Lord is first of all, I doubt he had wings. Second, we won't take the time to do it in this sermon, but we could go through the scripture on the angel of the Lord. And I think we could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that when you have that phrase, the angel of the Lord, now it's got to have the definite article not just an angel of the Lord, but the angel of the Lord, as we see here in this verse. I think it is always a reference to the second person of the Trinity and that is to say the pre incarnate Christ. So I tried to find a good picture of this that I thought looked something like Jesus and I couldn't really find one. Most of them were girl angels. The artists never get the Bible quite right. They were girl angels. I don't even know if there is such a thing. There were girl angels who were visiting. This kind of looks feminine as well. And they were visiting with Hagar here. And so we have again Hagar coming in and she is out in the wilderness by the fountain and the angel of the Lord appears to her. Now let's pick up again that is in verse verse seven an angel of the Lord found her by the fountain. And now in verse eight he said hey, by the way, let me stop right there looking for those pictures on the angel of the Lord. Clearly it's a he. Clearly I want to go back to all those artists and say if you're gonna paint a Bible picture, do it like the Bible says, make a man angel. And nonetheless here we're back, verse eight, he said, hey Gar, Sarah's maid. Should we stop right there? Not just hagar, but Hagar's maid. Almost from the very beginning he says if I can put some words into his mouth remember who you are, you got a responsibility. Can't just run when it gets a little tough, when Sarah deals hardly with you. Get back to where you belong. We can almost see what's coming here. So back in verse eight, hey Gar, Sarah's made whence cometh thou and where wilt thou go? Think of that. That's nice King James, isn't it? When's cometh thou, where do wilt thou go? Do you think that the angel of the Lord? Even if it isn't the pre incarnate Christ, do you think that the angel of the Lord meeting her out there by that fountain knows where she came from and where she's going. Of course he knows her name, he knows her position, he knows from when she came, and whither, she goes. So you've got what certainly I think you would have to call a rhetorical question again in verse eight. When's comethal, when's camus thou and wither wilt thou go? Rhetorical question. And she answers, I flee from the face of my mistress. Sarah. There's something interesting here in this rhetorical question that comes from, in this case, the angel of the Lord. There's a few times we see it, and I didn't look all of them up in the Scriptures, but a number of times you see the Lord asking rhetorical questions. And the first time you see it is when the Lord meets with Adam after the garden. Adam, Adam, where art thou? Well, the Lord knows where he is. What are you doing? Who told you you're naked? Okay, rhetorical questions. Then you see it with Cain in Genesis, chapter four. You know, Cain, cain, where's your brother? My brother's keeper? Rhetorical questions. So with that, you begin to see a pattern that whenever the Lord shows up, whether it's in the form of the voice of God or the Second person of the Trinity and the angel of the Lord, whatever it is, when the Lord comes and Starts asking rhetorical questions, here's the pattern that we always see in Scripture you're in trouble. Things aren't so good. I suppose a parent does the same thing when their children are in trouble and they're staying out too late. And mom or dad knows, well, good, they haven't been up to any good and they come in at one in the morning. Do you know what time it is? Well, they're old enough to drive. Surely they know what time it is. It's a rhetorical question, but it has that note of condemnation in it. So here the angel of the Lord shows up. Hagar. Sarah's handmade. Where'd you come from? Where are you going? It is a critical kind of approach that is taken here. That's verse eight. And then we continue in verse nine. And it says, and the angel of the Lord said unto her, return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. That's the first of the several commandments here, verses 910 and eleven. There's a little phrase I want you to notice. Look at verse nine. At the beginning of verse nine, it says, and the angel of the Lord said, now jump down to verse ten. And the angel of the Lord said, now jump down to verse eleven. And the angel of the Lord said I don't know if you remember, but several weeks ago we had a sermon in the same series and we talked about that double, in this case, triple announcement of who's speaking. You don't really need that. You could just have at the beginning the clarification of the angel of the lord said and then go all the way through. And any reader would pretty much figure out that this is still the angel of the Lord speaking. But it says that not once, not twice, but three times. And when we talked about that in the previous sermon, what we said is biblically. And in Hebrew it's this little I don't know, shall we call it a poetic issue that is done that tells the reader, kind of announces to the reader each time you have that introduction to the speaker again and nobody has spoken in the interim. Each time that's really announcing to the reader that there is a pregnant pause here, if we can call it that. A pause that adds some drama to the moment if nothing else. So let's get, let's pick back up here in verse nine and the angel of the Lord said unto her, return to thy mistress, submit thyself under her hands. And a pause, let that sink in. You can almost see hagar she's dealing with that in her facial expressions, in her body language and the silence. And then you have in verse ten the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. That probably perks your interest. She's probably thinking, I thought this was going to be wholly bad return, go under that burden and then that uncomfortable silence. But in verse nine I want you to do suchandsuch. In verse ten he says, I, I'm going to do something here. Will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. It's a little awkward phrase there but basically it says you're going to have so many you can't count them. There are going to be so many descendants you can't count them. And here obviously that looks an awful lot like the Abrahamic covenant. Lots of descendants coming out. Verse eleven, the angel of the Lord said unto her, behold, thou art with child and shall bear a son and shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. Now here in verse eleven, when you read that verse eleven, thou art with child, thou shalt bear a son, shall call his name Ismael. Doesn't that sound an awful lot like the announcement of Jesus birth when you get to say Matthew one, verse 21, the Lord speaking in that case to Joseph, behold, she is with child. She will bring forth a son. You will call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. So with child a son. Here's the name, here's the reason for the name. Now again, this is I think the pre incarnate Christ speaking and he comes says, you hagar, you're with child. You hagar are going to have a son. You are going to name him Ishmael. Ishmael. Because well, says again in the end of eleven, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction, ishmael means God. Hears or the hearing of God, really a pretty amazing promise prophecy that is given here. Well, let's go on in this particular chapter, chapter 16. Let's go on through verses twelve through 16. It gives us an interesting word about ishmael the Lord still speaking? And it says in verse twelve, and he will be a wild man. Let's just stop right there. He will be a wild man. From that you kind of have to determine is that a good thing or a bad thing? You and I have our notions about it because we know ishmael and we know the ishmaites and all the things that come about there. He will be a wild man. Now, it can be good or it can be bad. The word wild, there actually is the word for wild donkey. Wild donkey. He will be a wild donkey man. Now, wild donkey, I don't know. I mean, you and I probably have not the greatest view of say, a wild donkey man, but probably it didn't have quite the negative connotations as we would put into it because we have this hindsight and whatnot and we have some preconceived notions. Just north of here, there is a place just over the New Mexico state line into Colorado and southern Colorado, there is a place where the wild horses run. And you go and you see not a picture of a deer on the yellow sign or elk or a bear. You see a picture of horse and the wild horses run through there. Many of you have been there and many of you have seen the wild horses. Now when we think of a wild horse, if we were to say he would be a wild horse man, we might kind of say, you know, who, wow, look, he's free. I'm going to get down to Santa Fe and give me a palomino and I am going to be free. Free at last. And Hagar, his mother is trying to get from under the heavy hand of Sarai, her master mistress. It almost kind of says, hey, I want you to go back under bondage, but your son is going to be free. Son is going to be free. But there are some consequences to freedom. Sometimes you need to be careful what you ask for. So again we pick up in verse twelve, and he will be a wild man. His hand will be against every man, in every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Just think through that for a moment here a moment. Let's take wild man as unrestrained undomesticated. I'll use that term because it's a wild don't give a man you're not going to put this guy in a barn. And there is some degree of value, you know, nobody wants to see a man who's got a hook in his nose and is pulled along by his wife, by a snout or the corporate world just got the whip out there cracking the whip and he's just time to make the donuts. Time to make the donut. Nobody wants to see a man like that. Someone wants to see a man who's a man. He's a man who is strong and free, but that has its negative side. And this is brought up right here again in verse twelve. So he's going to be a wild man. Undomesticated his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him. If you think about this for just a moment, here's a guy, nobody's going to tell him what to do. He's going to be free of the bird out there. The challenge with this is if you are out wandering, let's put it this way the man who is so free, he never puts down roots, also has no place to call home. And if he has no place to call home, then he's never home. He's never in his stuff. He's always in someone else's stuff. And this is really kind of the picture that's Given of Ishmael is he's just always going to be free roaming around out there. I think of Kane excuse me, I think of Cain in the land of Nod in the land of wandering. Here he's going to be out there in Gnawed, just wandering around. Oh, isn't this wonderful? Isn't this just great? And in the end, he's always on somebody else's property, doesn't have a home. So he's always at somebody else's home, doesn't have a tent. And so he's always up approaching somebody else's tent. This is kind of the picture of Given. Yeah, he's got freedom, but he doesn't have any freedom. I think of this sometimes, you know, there's a young man out there and he decides, oh boy, I don't want the corporate world. I don't want to be tied down. I don't want a wife, I don't want a job. I just want to backpack and I just want to go and live free and easy. And it's sort of fun for six months. And then you realize, you know, I I don't have my own door porch to go to. I'm always sitting on somebody else's porch and I'm always having to fight for what I get. This is going to be Ishmael here. He's like the young drifter. Yeah, free and easy boy in life. Good. I have no place to lay down my head and every little inch of I move over here and someone says, that's mine, get out of here. Okay, I move over here. No, that's mine, get out. And that's kind of the life that Ishmael is going to live. So his hand will be against every man and every man's hand will be against him. Here is a picture of the picture says, an Arab on a camel. How's that an Arab on I couldn't find a good picture of Ishmael. So this is the closest we got. And these are the descendants of the Ishmaelites just kind of wandering about, not domesticated. I don't need a city, I don't need a house, I don't need all that. I'll just go here, I'll go there, I'll wander around and that's where Abram Washmael was. And that was the blessing and the struggle. Two sides of the coin. Let's go on verse 13. And Shegar now she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her thou God seest me. That's the name that she gave. Shall we just say the God who sees she called the name of the Lord that visited her. That is some people might disagree with me. No, that's not that's not the second person of the Trinity. That's not God, it's just an angel. Well, the text right there says she called the name of the Lord. And by the way, notice that's all capitalized Lord in verse 13. That means it's the word Yahweh. She called the name of Yahweh. That's taken to her thou God seest me almost like man, you read my soul, you saw, you saw me out here, you came and you saw me in here. Thou God seest me for she said have I also here looked after him that seeth me, God, you see me and I can still see, I can still look around. She is amazed. She's flabbergasted. Look what's happened, I just saw the Lord and I'm still alive, I'm still seeing. I think she had a fair degree of good theological understanding that's coming through here. Let me say that Muslim people would put their father as Abraham but through the line of Ishmael and we might call the Ishmaelites the father of the Muslims. I don't think in fact Islam didn't come about until the 7th century Ad. Could have been that early on with Hagar and maybe even with Ishmail because Ishmael was circumcised. We'll see it later that they originally were submitting to God, understood God for who he was. So I don't know that we can really blame and put Ishmael in this totally negative light like we sometimes want to do. Because at least for, I don't know, the first 13 years of his life, probably longer than that, he is submissive unto the Lord and his mother seems to be submissive unto the Lord. And this is the case. And so verse 13 you know, thou God, seeth me. Verse 14 wherefore the well was called Bear, Lehigh Roy. Behold it's between Kadesh and Barred. That is the well of the one that lives and sees me. It's mouthful of the word. Verse 15 hey Garbarett, Abram's son abram called his son's name which hegar bear ishmael. And Abram was four score and six years old and heger bear ishmael to Abraham. Again. It closes out with that little word there about the age that he is along with ten years really helps in the chronology of it all. So now we've got a child, we got a baby boy. In the house. And God has given some promises about this baby boy that, yeah, he's going to be, shall we say, the father of a great nation. Multitudes so great you can't even number them. It's right there. Well, we'll want to look as we go and see if this is the promised child. Of course, you and I have read ahead of time and I think we kind of have an understanding of what we've got. The life and times of Abraham. There are some consequences of his faithfulness and the consequence really is going to be two competing nations. And how are we going to deal with this in the household? The faithlessness that he had really goes all the way back to those days in Egypt, and that's what he had to struggle with all the way. Let me lay this in the word of prayer. Heavenly Father, again, as we learned the life and times of Abraham, we learned some things about the scripture, we learned some things about understanding. We learned that for basically time immemorial, god has been a God who sees, and yet through his son, he has seen us and we live to tell about it. We still look just so much like hagar in those days and we're grateful for it. As we continue over these next weeks to look into the life and times of Abraham, we pray it would continue to encourage us and give us insight. And today's sermon, dear Heavenly Father, really is more insight and understanding into the 16th chapter of Genesis. And now I pray that we are far closer to being an expert at these passages we've looked at in these eight sermons now, genesis 1213, 1415 and 16, and that understanding this, we would have a better biblical worldview. We asked this in Jesus name, amen. Well, thanks for being with us here again in the unusual online version of the sermon today. I appreciate it. I always appreciate you been vacationing this week with my family down in Katy, Texas, and I'm headed home tomorrow on Monday and we'll be back in the studio on Tuesday with Ask the Theologian. Then Tuesday through the rest of the week and Wednesday night we will be studying the Book of Hosea. Looking forward to that and that's been a fun journey. We're in the fourth chapter of the Book of Hosea and we'll continue that there. If you're local, come on over for some chicken and dumplings. We got that at 05:00 and we'll enjoy that. If you're not local, I guess make your own chicken and dumplings. It'll be a good night for it. And then the Book of Jose about ten after 06:00 p.m. On Wednesday night. Next Sunday, we'll be back full in house, full schedule with 945 and 1045. Look forward to seeing you, Randywhiteministries.org. Always appreciate hearing from you. And you can email me, Randy@randywhiteministries.org. And until next time, again, thank you very much for being with us. Thanks, Nathan, for doing the controls. And all of you for being with us here. We'll see you soon.