David Bahn – Reflections

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Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. ² And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³ So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. ⁴ And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. ⁵ And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” ⁶ But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. – Genesis 16:1-6

“God punishes sin with sin.” I remember that as a major teaching of my professor at the seminary. We were studying Romans, and once we got past Romans 1:16-17 (at least a week-long process), we looked at the rest of that chapter. In those following verses, the phrase “God gave them up…” occurs 3 times. And you know about how something is true if it is in the Bible one time. Twice, it is quite true. And three times??? It is most certainly true. 

God gives people up to their sinful ways when they repeatedly rebel and refuse to acknowledge him and repent. This is the message of Romans 1:18ff. It is being played out here in the relationship between Sarai, Abram, Hagar, and God. Sad to say, there is much sin here. And it will only beget more.

Sarai gives up trust in God’s promises. She writes herself off as one who will be the means by which God’s promise is fulfilled. Abram is to have children greater in number than the stars in the heavens. It’s been 10 years or more. No child has come. No child will come for 13 more years. Sarai gives up on being God’s instrument in this, and offers her own solution. She offers her servant Hagar as a surrogate mother for Abram’s child. Not God’s plan. And when Hagar becomes pregnant and becomes disrespectful, Sarai treats Hagar so poorly that she flees the camp. Sin.

Abram listens to his wife and takes Hagar and conceives a child with her. And when Sarai complains about Hagar’s haughty attitude, basically discards Hagar. He says, in effect, Do with her as you please. Sin.

Hagar, for her part, cops an attitude toward Sarai because she is able to conceive a child whereas Sarai could not. Arrogance. Ridicule. Insolence. Sin.

How is it that we believe we can break the sin cycle apart from repentance? Why would we ever entertain paths of greedy machinations, lustful indulgences, or arrogant self-promotion and think there would be no consequence? 

The rule of the hole is simple: when you’re in a hole, stop digging. The rule of sinful forays is, when you’re in the vortex of sin, repent and believe the good news. And then, bring forth the fruits of repentance. 

We may not have full-on rebellion here on the part of Sarai, Abram, and Hagar, but their lack of faith and their unwillingness to wait for God’s provision leads to sinful actions. Lack of faith will always lead to sin of one kind or another.

Lord, keep us strong in faith, and faithful to your ways, and patient for your provision. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 

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Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. ² And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³ So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. ⁴ And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. ⁵ And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” ⁶ But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

⁷ The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” ⁹ The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰ The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” ¹¹ And the angel of the Lord said to her,

“Behold, you are pregnant
and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
because the Lord has listened to your affliction.
¹² He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”

¹³ So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”¹⁴ Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. – Genesis 16:1-14

I know you said trust me, but I gave up hope that you would come through. So I acted on my own.

Yes, it’s true, it would have been better had I kept my hope alive, but I just lost hope and gave up on your help. 

I didn’t think you were coming, so I went ahead without you.

Those are the statements we’ve all either stated, or that represent things we’ve all done. We don’t trust others so  we take care of things ourselves. We’ve lost hope and despaired of relief. We’ve not been willing to wait and struck out on our own.

It’s the stuff of fallen sinful people – even those who have been redeemed. Even those who have heard directly from God! Even the father of faith, our friend Abram. He is not willing to trust, wait, and hope any longer in God’s ways and promises. So he takes matters into his own hands. The outcome is not good. Hagar becomes a means to an end, and a poor and discarded means at that.

Sarai is not seeing the promises of God come to pass. It’s been a long time since God’s original promise to Abram. It will be 13 years longer before the child of promise is actually born. Living in patient hope and trust is essential. But it is short supply here.

There are many times that advice from a godly wife has helped a husband along the path of faithful obedience and wise decisions. I, personally, have benefitted greatly from the wisdom and godly isights of Diane. She is a blessing to me! 

Sadly, however, this is not the case here with Sarai and Abram. Sarai seems to have instigated this idea of a surrogate mother for the child of promise. She gave Abram permission and encouragement to take things into his own hands. And he did not resist. 

Abram could have said, “We’ve been at this for a while. We learned a bit in Egypt. God just recently reiterated his promise to me. We can wait.” But he didn’t. 

He could have said, “Let’s not leave God out of this story. Let’s trust him and not lose hope for a child to be born to us, just as he promised.” But he didn’t.

Instead, Abram simply took Hagar and conceived a child with her. This was not the child of promise. This was not the path of God. This was not going to be the fulfillment of God’s promise. This would be only a child. And a cause for resentment. And the beginning of a lineage that is not of God’s choosing. 

Thank God there is a bigger story unfolding here. For the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abram is in Jesus. He died for the sins of the whole world, and then commanded that his followers make disciples of all nations. The promise to Abram is not fully realized in the nation of Israel, but in those from every tribe, nation, and tongue, who believe the promises of God in Jesus (cf. Matthew 28:18-20; Revelation 7:9-12; Galatians 3:7).

For your personal meditation and edification on this Lord’s Day…

Psalm 18:1-3

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
² The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
    my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
³ I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
    and I am saved from my enemies.

Psalm 48:9-14

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As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” – Genesis 15:12-18

Diane and I have lived in seven states during our lifetimes. I don’t think we’ll be making it to 8. Seven is a good number. We’ve lived in 14 different abodes: apartments or houses. One bedroom “shotgun” house, an upper loft, a dust-infested rambling apartment, a family of 6 in a 1200 square foot 3 br house. Several others, and now a very nice house for which I am very thankful.

On every outward level you would say that we chose where to live. We decided on the upstairs loft apartment and the shotgun house. We determined to move from one house to another in every city we’ve lived in since my first call to Utah. We chose. 

Truth be told, however, we chose from within a very small range of options. We didn’t choose to live in a Manhattan high-rise apartment at $1MM down and $25,000 per month rent. We didn’t choose to live on a 40 acre lakeside country estate with a 200 foot shoreline. We chose where we would live based on what was available in our price range and at the time we needed housing. 

Many of us live under the delusion that we have more control over our lives – like where to live – than we actually do have. Our choices are limited. But that’s not just a matter of time, money, and the currently-available real estate inventory. There is a providential component to the homes of our lives. God has a part to play in all this. 

He certainly did for Abram and his descendants. God lays it all out for him. His descendants would be taken captive for 400 years. They would be slaves, but then they would be delivered from that bondage and brought back to the place of God’s promise. And he sealed it with an oath. 

Paul picks up on this when he speaks to the people on Mars Hill in Athens:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. – Acts 17:26-27

Perhaps it is a good reminder for us to consider God’s part in the lines of our lives at this time. Who are our friends? Who are our neighbors? With whom do we work? Just as God has prepared good works for us in advance that we may walk in them (Ephesians 2:10), so he has planted us where we are and has us in place for a reason. 

Abram’s reason for being who and where was so that he would be the father of a great nation. He wouldn’t live to see the number of his descendants as great as the stars in the sky. Nor did he see his loved ones taken into slavery in Egypt. Nor did he see them rescued. Nor was he alive when they crossed into the Promised Land. None of that, however, undercut the promise and purpose of God in his life. He lived day by day as we do. And he heard and believed God’s promises as we must. And the ebb and flow of his life is for our instruction that by the encouragement of the Scriptures and endurance we might have hope (Romans 15:4).

Might someone be watching you today, or in the years to come even, and learning what it is to live by faith? Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

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As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” – Genesis 15:12-18

I’ve been having weird dreams lately. Some slightly disturbing, but mostly just weird. Things and people intersecting that make no sense. It would be like seeing Martin Luther driving a Ferrari as an egret sits on a cantaloupe. Nothing about that makes sense, right? 

But dreams are all over the Old Testament, and in the New Testament as well. Remember Pilate’s wife? She told her husband that she had suffered gravely in a dream on account of Jesus the night before Jesus was arrested and brought before him. Joseph had a dream, and understood that he was to take the baby Jesus and his mother and flee to Egypt for Herod was trying to kill him. 

Joseph – one of Jacob’s sons – had dreams, and interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh. Daniel interpreted the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar. The prophet Joel promised that in the latter days young men will have visions and old men will dream dreams. 

Abram seems to have a dream here – even though it doesn’t exactly say it was a dream. At least part of what is revealed is surely during the deep sleep the Lord causes to fall on Abram. Dream or not, the message is clear. This is no Martin Luther in a Ferrari fantasy. This is a revelation of God. He will keep his promise. Abram will inherit the land. His descendants will ultimately prevail. God is making his promise both clear and certain. 

The normal manner of establishing a covenant in those days was for the two parties to pass through the sacrificed carcasses together. They were both saying, in effect, if I break this covenant, may I become like these sacrificed animals. In this case, however, Abram never passes through the middle of the sacrificed animals. The LORD alone does this. This is a unilateral covenant. David Guzik comments:

God, represented by the smoking oven and the burning torch, passed through the animal parts by Himself; as Abram watched, God showed this was a unilateral covenant. Abram never signed the covenant, because he passively watched while God signed it for both of them in the ritual. – Enduring Word Commentary

So maybe this is a little weird. Sacrificed animal carcasses split in two and laid out on the ground is not a normal every day occurrence. But more than weird, this is God revealing how serious he is to his promise to Abram. Remember, this is the first book of the Bible. This sets the stage for all that is to follow. God is making a promise that will have eternal consequences. He wants it to be clear and certain. 

Fast forward to 2000 years ago and consider Jesus on the cross. Nothing like we see these days. But this is the sign of God’s absolutely certain promise and his clear commitment to redeem a lost world. That’s no dream. But it is a hope to which we may attach our greatest and most glorious dreams.

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As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” – Genesis 15:12-21

Give me flowers. No war. No bloodshed. No harsh reality. Give me peace. Give me joy. No hardship. No difficulty. No gritty brutality. I realize it’s very naive, but I’m with Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?” History shows otherwise. People fight and quarrel. They posture and bluster. They assert their powers and impose their wishes on us. We might want to play nice, but there are those who don’t give a wit about playing nice. They don’t care whether you like them or not. They have no fear of God. Or they suppose that their way is so right that they will do anything necessary to impose it on others. Think the Inquisition. Think Sheria Law. Think Stalin. Think Hitler. Pol Pot. Fidel. Kim Jong-un. Saddam Hussein. 

Or think Amorites. Or Egyptians in the years to come. Or the Babylonians. Or the Taliban. Or…well, the list can go on and on. 

I regularly post portions of the Psalms on Sunday mornings. I choose verses from Psalms based on the days of the month. Last Sunday, the 11th, I posted verses from Psalms 11, 41, 71, 101, and 131. Take the day of the month, and start with the Psalm of that number, then add thirty. If you read the Psalms in that manner, over a month’s time, you will have read through all 150 Psalms. Sometimes the Psalms in the range for a given Sunday are imprecatory. They wish for the complete destruction of their enemies. They call down the judgement and vengeance of God on their enemies. There seems to be no self-conscious hesitation in regard to that. 

These verses reveal a side of God that aligns with such imprecations. “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete,” the Lord says. That bodes poorly for those who will be in the vortex of the Amorites’ iniquity. Sinful behavior is destructive to the victim. It will also prove to be the destruction of the perpetrator as well. 

And I wish it were not so. I wish we could all just get along. I wish God didn’t have to judge. I wish the children of Abram did not have to go into captivity – even though it would afford God a grand opportunity to intervene in a dramatic way to redeem his chosen people. 

But, as they say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” So there will be a sojourn into Egypt for God’s chosen people. The iniquity of the Amorites will be completed. And there will come a redemption. It will be harsh and brutal. But it will come. 

Look in that manner at Jesus on the cross. This is a time of grave brutality. But it is also God’s redemptive moment. And through this redemption, all people may be saved. For in Jesus, God’s chosen people are all the people of the world. God so loved the world. Jesus Christ is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. 

The path of our redemption may take us to a brutal moment 2000 years ago. But it also leads us to an empty tomb, and points us toward the fullness of that redemption that will be revealed on the Great Last Day. 

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As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” – Genesis 15:12-16

I remember watching the photo develop before my very eyes the first time I made a print in the darkroom. It took about 2 minutes for the image fully to appear. Then came the stop bath to stop the development process, and finally the fixer which secured the image on the paper, and prevented fading when the lights came on. It wasn’t a quick process. Even before I could develop the print, I had to finish the roll of film, take the film into the (completely) dark room, load it into a film canister and develop the film – in the same manner. And then, I would print a contact sheet or guess by looking at the negative which I wanted to print. It. Took. Time. But it was rewarding.

Abram is put on notice here that what the LORD had in store for him would also take time. It wasn’t going to be a quick blessing. In fact, the pathway to the fulfillment of God’s blessings to Abram would take his descendants into captivity, slavery, and only after four hundred years would they be brought up out of slavery. It would take a long time for God’s promises to be fulfilled.

But they would be fulfilled.

And Abram believed the LORD. 

In this milieu of instant gratification, how long are you willing to wait…

• for a raise?
• for the house to sell?
• for the server to bring the chips and salsa?
• for your offer to buy a working vintage Minolta A5 camera on eBay to be accepted? (Not just theoretical here. A Minolta A5 was my first serious 35mm camera. I bought it from Jerry when I was in high school, and I put an offer in on eBay just a few minutes ago.)

Or more seriously, how long are you willing to wait…

• for God to answer a long and often prayer for peace of heart?
• for God to return a wayward loved one to the fold of faith and family?
• for God to heal a chronic disease?
• for God to bring peace to your heart?
• to see the fruit of your faithful love to a neighbor?

There is an intertwined relationship between waiting, hoping, and trusting. These are the active components of faith. When these are turned toward God, founded on his promises, centered in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the wait will always be worth it. For whatever good things God has promised are worth waiting for – even if we will not see them during our lifetime on earth. 

And the Lord said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” ⁸ But Abram said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” – Genesis 15:7-16

“If God told me to take a feather and strip the quills from it one by one, and by that I would be saved, I would do it.” My seminary prof was fond of saying something like that – which apparently, Martin Luther had said. I can find no reference of Luther’s to that effect, but it does sound like something he would say. It relates to baptism, preaching the foolishness of the cross, and the blessings of the Lord’s Supper. Luther had a very high view of God and God’s word, and God’s work – through means that we take for granted today. But seriously? Water on the head or bread and wine at the rail? 

Here we have a bit of a mystery about animals being cut in half and a covenant being made between God and Abram. David Duzik has a helpful comment on this:

i. In those days, contracts were made by the sacrificial cutting of animals, with the split carcasses of the animals lying on the ground. The covenant was made when parties to the agreement walked through the animal parts together, repeating the terms of the covenant. The LORD made a covenant in Genesis 15:18 is literally, “the LORD cut a covenant.”

ii. Jeremiah 34:18-20 makes reference to this same practice of a covenant made by cutting animals and repeating the oath of the covenant as one walks through the animal parts.

iii. The symbolism was plain. First, this is a covenant so serious, it is sealed with blood. Second, if I break this covenant, let this same bloodshed be poured out on my animals and me.

iv. When Abram had his doubts and wanted assurance from the LORD, God said to him clearly, “Let’s sign a contract and settle this once for all.” – Enduring Word Commentary

Rather than getting stuck in the unpleasant idea of animals sacrificed, cut in two, and laid on the ground, let’s consider what God is really up to. He wants to assure Abram of his good will, and the reliability of his promises. God is so serious that he will also walk through the midst of this, which we’ll see in the verses following these above. 

If you need assurance of God’s love, take a long look at the Lord Jesus on the cross! He went there for you and for me. And remember that whenever we partake of the Lord’s Supper we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). And do you doubt God’s power to save? Look into the empty tomb! Are you uncertain of his goodness? Watch as Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, forgives an adulterous woman, and speaks with the woman at the well (John 4; 8; 13).

I’ll agree: It’s a little unusual, and not in our everyday religious experience to see animal sacrifices – laid out on the ground to boot. But God wanted Abram to be clear. He has made a promise. He will now sign it himself. I don’t think Abram understood it at that time. But he obeyed God, prepared the animal sacrifices, and even kept the birds of prey from them. All this in anticipation of God’s next action. 

Is there something that God is calling you to prepare for his use, for his glory, and for your blessing? 

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For your personal meditation and reflection on this Lord’s Day

Psalm 11:7

The Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
    the upright shall behold his face.

Psalm 41:13

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting!
Amen and Amen.

Psalm 71:1-3

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame!
² In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
    incline your ear to me, and save me!
³ Be to me a rock of refuge,
    to which I may continually come;
you have given the command to save me,
    for you are my rock and my fortress.

Psalm 101:1-2

I will sing of steadfast love and justice;
    to you, O Lord, I will make music.
² I will ponder the way that is blameless.

Psalm 131

Some time later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.”

² But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth.³ You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.”

⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” ⁵ Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”

⁶ And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. -Genesis 15:1-6

R.C. Sproul writes about this passage in the Reformation Study Bible. In commenting on Genesis 15:6 he says