The second one, which is the one that I want to push on, is the one where people get impatient, where they get impatient. Now young people get incredibly impatient. We have a whole generation that is very, very impatient, it just wants it now and the world is wired to give it to you now. You have instant coffee, instant access, instant messaging, and we can't not be without the phone, we can't be without the instant messaging. I've got to talk NOW! I know I'm talking to you, and we had an appointment to talk, but I've also got to talk NOW because someone's putting a demand on me. So there's a whole culture has built in the society we're in now, which wants things now, and becomes impatient if it doesn't get it now, and won't do what needs to be done. Here's a good example in Genesis, Chapter 16. Let's have a look at this example in case you don't think godly men get impatient have a look at this one. Abraham is the father of our faith, so he's a really godly person. He's the father of our faith. If you're a man of faith, he's the great example, the great leader in faith. Now - Verse 1 - Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. Now that was a very sad thing, that he had a promise from God that he would get children. God promised I would have children! But it says he had no children, and that went on for years, went on for year after year after year, and the problem is, when it goes on for years, you're getting older, you start to lose passion and desire and almost you think, well maybe this is never going to happen.
So time went on, and so Sarah came up with an idea. She had a maid called Hagar and she said now the Lord, notice now she is blaming the delay on God, and she said now the Lord has delayed me from having a child, but this doesn't mean to say your promise shouldn't come about. Why don't you have a child by my maid, and he listened to his wife's voice. Now most times it's good to listen to your wife's voice. This was not a good time to be listening to what she had to say. She's proposing that he has sexual relationships with someone else, so they can get the child. Get what the thing is; there's a passionate desire for a dream. It's a God given dream, a God promised dream, but circumstances seem to be working against it, time is running out, and he just got impatient. When you get impatient, you try and make it happen yourself. You kind of think, God needs a help to get this to work. I need to help God out in this matter, and so what Sarah and Abram did is they helped God out in the matter of getting the extra child.
Of course what happened is, the moment she got pregnant, Hagar began to despise Sarah. There was a conflict came in the home, and now Abram who was having this great idea of having sex with the maid and having another baby, she gets pregnant and gets ready to have the baby, now he's got turmoil in his home. His wife is extremely unhappy. His maid is getting pretty proud, and putting her down with her comments, and so in the end there's such a major conflict - get this - that Sarah drives the maid out, and so later on the Angel Lord appears to Hagar and says - now get this - you are with child, Verse 11, you'll bear a son. You'll call his name Ishmael, because the Lord heard your affliction. He will be - now get this, this is what happens when we help God out. Now remember, every time you turn on the news and you look at the Middle East and you see Arabs fighting, you see people fighting one another, and you see the conflict around Israel, you see all the kinds of stuff that's going on, just remember this. All of that was because one man was impatient - and so he helped God out.
So he said, he shall be a wild man. His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him. And he'll dwell in the midst of his brethren - be a wild man, or like a wild ass. In Pakistan they call it donkey brain, because it just gets such fixed mindsets, and so Abram had this great idea, I'll help God out. I know - well you know, you need to do something to fulfil this dream, and I've got to help God out, and it's not working through my wife. I've got to have another plan, so he abandons Plan A, now he's got Plan B, now he's got a huge mess and he still has to wait. He waited until he was 100 I think, somewhere around about that and she was in her nineties, until all hope of having a child had gone. And then God came through. Isn't that amazing? God came through. He always said He'd come through. He did come through. The problem is, in the time between Him saying it, and Him coming through, we wonder what on earth God is up to, and whether He really knows what He's doing, and we'll help Him out a little.