Whose Way?

Gen 16:1  Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. 

2  And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. 

3  And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. 

4  And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. 

God has a plan. How often is it that man cannot just wait for God’s plan to develop? How often God has His way and it is too old fashion, too sedate, too boring. Instead of allowing the gospel to convict and draw man has a better plan. Make the praise and worship of God, exciting and attractive.

In this passage, God has made a promise of a son. Sarai says that God is not working fast enough. You go in to my handmaid. Here man is trying to change God’s plan. Are we ever guilty of this. I believe God has laid out his plan in His inspired word and man is continually going around God’s plan to use an appeal based on senses of man. Make the service appealing to people and we can fill the building.

See the conflict caused by man doing things his way. The middle east is in conflict and turmoil because man did it man’s way instead of God’s way.

Study the Word. It contains God’s plan.

Shield and Reward

Gen 15:1  After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

The mind of Abram is here lifted up to the spiritual and the eternal.

(1) thy shield.

(2) thy exceeding great reward.

Abram has two fears – the presence of evil, and the absence of good. Experience and conscience had begun to teach him that both of these were justly his doom. But God has chosen him, and tells Abram that He (God) will stand between Abram and all harm, and God will be to him all good. With such a shield from all evil, and such a source of all good, he has no need to be afraid. The Lord, we see, begins, as usual, with the immediate and the tangible; but he sets a principle that reaches to the eternal and the spiritual. We have here the opening germ of the great doctrine of “the Lord our righteousness,” redeeming us on the one hand from the sentence of death, and on the other to a title to eternal life.