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!” Genesis 15:5 NLT
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “The LORD has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal.
Genesis 16:1-2 NLT
There are three places in particular in the Old Testament where the above statement applies. In the second one it is explicitly stated, but in the others it is clearly implied. Let’s look at the first.
God had made a startling promise to Abram. Although he was old, and his wife was well beyond child-bearing age, Abram would have hundreds, even thousands, of offspring. Startling as that promise was, Abram did what Eve and Adam did not do, he believed what God said. But that constituted a problem. How was Abram going to keep God’s promise for him, given the impossibility of its happening through Sarah? And there comes the real problem. Abram did not ask God how he intended to keep the promise.
Why did he not? That’s what I want to explore in regard to all three of these incidents. In this case, I suggest, we see the temptation of the open door. The solution to Abram’s problem was right at hand. There is evidence from ancient Near Eastern documents that it was expected that if a wife continued childless she should give her servant to her husband and the wife would then adopt the child of the servant. Ah, of course! Thank you, Lord. Surely this is your provision. (Also, it is a fair guess that Hagar was young and attractive!)
In fact, the salvation of the world, the deliverance from our alienation from God and each other, is never going to come through ordinary human means. In fact, as Abram’s act was going to prove, ordinary human means make the problem worse. Deliverance requires a miracle, and God intended that the child of the promise, the type of the Savior, was going to be a miracle child. Open doors are not always from God. Don’t go through them, especially if they are appealing, until you have consulted the Lord.
Called To Be Transformed 