Message: El Roi God Who Sees Scripture: Genesis 16:1-16 Given at Searchlight Ministries, Jamestown, MI: September 14, 2014 Pastor Stan Drenth

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1 Message: El Roi God Who Sees Scripture: Genesis 16:1-16 Given at Searchlight Ministries, Jamestown, MI: September 14, 2014 Pastor Stan Drenth INTRODUCTION: How appropriate that on this week when we are recognizing domestic violence and domestic abuse we would have such a public example as Ray Rice on the national news nightly. Ray Rice, the NFL running back who knocked out his then-fiancé in a casino elevator, is getting the publicity that many deserve. Check out these statistics from the Huffington Post (January 2013): Number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq: 6,614: Number of women, in the same period, killed as the result of domestic violence in the U.S.: 11,766 Number of people per minute who experience intimate partner violence in the U.S.: 24 Estimated number of children, worldwide, exposed to domestic violence everyday: 10,000,000 Average number of times an abuser hits his spouse before she makes a police report: 35 Percentage of teen rape and abuse victims who report their assailant as an intimate : 76 As we continue through our study of these O.T. Names of God, we come today to Genesis 16 and this name: El Roi God Who Sees. And strange as it may seem, we discover this Name for God within a story of domestic abuse and violence. The main characters in this story are Abram, Sarai and Hagar and of course, their God! He is the One who brings healing and redemption into even this most savage of circumstances. Consider with me: 1) the savage setting of domestic abuse; 2) the savage suffering in domestic abuse; and 3) the savage solution to domestic abuse.

2 I. THE SAVAGE SETTING OF DOMESTIC ABUSE Seems a bit ironic to see the words savage and domestic in the same phrase, doesn t it? The play on words is deliberate, however, because this whole issue of abuse is made the more savage by virtue of it taking place in a domestic setting. After all, we expect our homes to be places of safety and shelter. Robert Frost, in his poem entitled The Death of the Hired Man, put it this way: Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. In other words, it may be scary and frightening out there but it is expected to be safe at home; I may be rejected and used out there but I can expect to be loved and accepted for who I am at home. Amos the prophet writes about how devastating these false expectations can be. To Israelites who were looking forward to the Day of the Lord he says, Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord it will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him (5:18-19). Such danger and harm is made all the more savage by the fact that it is happening in a place where we expect to be safe. Also, the setting of domestic abuse is so savage because we expect family members to be self-giving, sacrificial and good. This story is about Abram, a man who walks and talks with God and enters into covenant with Him. This is the man whom three world religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) call their Father of the faith. And yet here is a man who is so selfish in pursuit of his own ends a child for his inheritance that he is willing to use a lowly slave girl to meet his own needs. Peter Scazzero says we should not be so surprised by this. In his book, Emotionally Healthy Churches, he shares about church people who may well be

3 theological giants but act like emotional infants. He writes: The sad reality is that too many people in our churches are supposedly spiritually mature but remain infants, children, or teenagers emotionally they expect to be taken care of and often treat people as objects to meet their needs (p.18, 19). This is what Abram and Sarai are doing with Hagar using her to meet their own needs. Sadly, this is still going on in many good, Christian homes today. Even right here among us this morning there are undoubtedly victims of domestic abuse because some others of us are using these people for our own selfish needs. Which leads us to look at this next bit of savagery II. THE SAVAGE SUFFERING IN DOMESTIC ABUSE Just as the setting seems the more savage because it is domestic, so, too, does the suffering of these victims. This is true first of all because victims of domestic abuse are robbed of their greatest strength. What is this greatest strength, you might ask. It is their voice their ability to be able to tell their story. Is this not one of the most basic of our human rights? Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the General Assembly of the United Nations says this, in its Article 10: Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charges against him. But in cases of domestic abuse and violence, the victims are more often than not sworn to secrecy and silence: Don t say anything or you ll get us all in trouble! Don t you dare let this out or you ll ruin the whole family! Genesis 16:6 says quite simply, then Sarai mistreated her. In the chapter before this God uses this very same word to describe to Abram what is going to happen to his descendants in Egypt for 400 years (Gen. 15:13). It brings to our minds a picture

4 of extreme anguish with no recourse for justice; a suffering in silent hopelessness. Such suffering is also made the more savage and intense because its victims are robbed of their greatest support. The worst of human suffering is that which we must bear alone. If those who are meant to be our support system and our means of strength in times of trial are instead the ones who are causing the trials, then our suffering is greatly multiplied. A large part of our Lord s agony on the cross is to be found in his cry: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? To be abandoned and abused by the very ones to whom we look for support is often more than we can bear. Hagar runs away. Many domestic abuse victims do as well. But there are also many, many more of these victims who cannot physically run away from their situation and are forced to do so mentally and/or emotionally, And as they withdraw further and further from their reality, further and further from the society around them, their suffering only increases. So what is the solution? III. THE SAVAGE SOLUTION TO DOMESTIC ABUSE Where do those who are suffering such abuse and violence and mistreatment find help? Our story in Genesis 16 would suggest that the answer to all such suffering begins with the realization that God is always sovereign. God appears to Hagar on the road to Shur (read: as she is heading back to Egypt) and reveals to her that not only does he know her past and her present, but he knows her future as well. Imagine how this must sound to Hagar: nothing which has happened to her has been in secret; at no time was she ever truly alone; there is at least one other person who understands exactly how she is feeling and what she is going through. And this person is asking for her complete trust. Notice that there is no theodicy in this story no trying to

5 vindicate the ways of a just God in the face of human evil. There is, rather, simply a call for Hagar to trust in God. And how is she to do this? She is to go back and submit to Sarai. Genesis 16:9 is perhaps one of the hardest verses in all of scripture. Knowing the situation as he does, because he is the God Who Sees, how can God say to Hagar go back to your mistress and submit to her? There are some who will make a generalization from this verse and say that those who are victims of domestic abuse should return and submit to their abusers. I believe that could only be a proper application if such victims are also, like Hagar, promised by God a happy and fruitful outcome. After all, God promises Hagar that her child will be a son, and a wild donkey of a man. Although that may not sound so flattering to our ears, Hagar surely heard in that phrase the promise that her son would be a free man, as untamed as the wild donkeys that ran in herds through the Ancient Near East much like wild stallions across the plains of our own country years ago. She, the Egyptian slave girl of a Hebrew couple, will bear a son who will be answerable to no man. And how will this happen? She must trust completely in the One who sees her and who alone will bring it to pass as she returns to face the situation from which she has fled. CONCLUSION: In this small way Hagar even points us to the cross, doesn t she? For is this not how God deals with our sins and abuses and violence? He doesn t run away from them, or try to explain them away, or make excuses for them. Nor does he start over with different material. No, he faces it all head-on at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, the place at the center-point of history where His justice and mercy meet.

6 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is and always will be El Roi the God Who Sees. If you are an abuser and have selfishly used those God has entrusted into your care, know that He has seen it. Repent and turn to the cross for forgiveness and healing. If you have been or are now being abused by those in your family circle, know that El Roi has seen it, and he invites you as well to turn to the cross for healing. If you have been a silent observer to such abuse, turn to the cross in repentance and faith and find courage to speak out against such violence. For it is on the level ground before the cross that all abusers and all victims stand on equal footing in need of redemption and new life. Turn to him and be saved.