God created Women

THE STORY OF HAGAR, ISHMAEL'S MOTHER

 AND A FEW MORE WOMEN IN GOD'S WORD

 

THE WONDERFUL CREATION

After God had created every living being, He was satisfied.  Now at last He had people and animals on which He could pour out His love.

WOMAN, GOD’S SPECIAL CREATION

The last living being He created was Eve, the wife He created for the man, Adam.  God created woman in a wonderful way.  He uses her to carry life within her.  She was the first being after the Creator God Himself to whom He had given the ability to carry life within her self.  She could give life to a baby, another human being.  God created woman with a womb where a baby can grow.

The womb is a wonderful organ.  Scientists have spent billions of dollars to try to replicate it, but they were not successful.  A baby can develop in a womb only.  The womb knows to provide exactly the right nutrients at exactly the right time.   THIS IS HOW IMPORTANT WOMEN ARE IN GOD’S CREATION.

In this leaflet I want to tell you three stories of three women and how they loved God and how God loved them.

Story No 1.  THE STORY OF HAGAR

4 000 years ago there was a woman, named Hagar, who was an Egyptian slave in the household of a very rich man, Abraham and his wife, Sarah.  Sarah could not have children.  The custom of the time was that a slave should bare her mistress a child and this child would belong to the mistress.  Sarah asked her husband to take Hagar as his wife so they could have a child.

When Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she despised her mistress. 

Then Sarah mistreated her and Hagar fled away from her mistress into the desert.  She sat down near a spring, not knowing where to go and where to find her people. She was heartbroken and felt sad, lost and alone – a pregnant woman not knowing where to go and where to find food to sustain herself and her unborn baby.

All of a sudden somebody talked to her.  He knew her.  He called her by her name. 

“Hagar’, he said,  “servant of Sarah, where have you come from and where are you going?”

She looked up in shock.  She never heard anybody coming.  She did not know this man, she has never seen him in her life.  He was big and had shining eyes that looked at her with a loving and an understanding expression in them.  He seemed to know everything about her.  This was the Angel of the Lord who saw her there alone and hungry.

“I’m running away from my mistress,” Hagar confessed.

Then the angel of the Lord told her:

“Go back to your mistress and submit to her.  I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.  You will have a son,” He said to her.  “You must call him Ishmael, which means ‘God hears’.  For the Lord has heard your cry.  He has seen how sad and lonely you are.”

The angel disappeared and Hagar was overwhelmed.  “God sees me!” she shouted and jumped up ready to return to Sarah.  “God knows about me!  I am not alone!  God came to me and He talked to me!” 

Hagar gave a name to the God who came to her and talked to her.  She called Him El Roi, which means ‘You are the God who sees me’.  She said: ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’

This story of Hagar is a wonderful story with a massage to all women all over the earth.  It says that God sees you when you are sad.  He sees you when you are lonely, despised and mistreated.  He knows about your heartaches and pains.  He knows when you battle to give your family food to eat.   

And then He tells you through the story of Hagar, Ishmael’s mother, that He loves you.  God cared enough about Hagar to come to her in the desert where she was alone and crying.  The same God cares enough about you to come to you when you cry and when you are lonely  and sad.

About 18 or 19 years later Hagar had a similar  problem when she and her son were kicked out of the house of Abraham again.  Again God heard her cry in the desert and again He came to help.  God does the same today.  He never changes.  He still hears your cry.  He will come to you to help you if your heart cries out to Him.  It does not matter where you are.  He knows you and He will come.

Story No 2.  THE WOMAN AT THE WELL

One day Jesus walked through a region called Samaria, today the West Bank.  It was hot and dusty and he was tired and thirsty.  He went to sit down at a well.  The wells in those days were deep and one needed a bucket and a rope to get water out.  While he was sitting there a woman came from the town to fetch water. 

“Will you give me some water to drink?” Jesus asked her.  She was caught by surprise.  Firstly a man was not supposed to talk to a woman in public and secondly she was a Samaritan, and the Jews never talked to the Samaritans.

But Jesus had something in mind.  He said to her: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.  But whoever drinks the water I give him, will never thirst, because the water I give, will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Then he asked her to go and call her husband and come back so he could talk to both of them.  But she blushed and admitted that she had no husband.  Jesus said: “I know that.  You had five husbands already and you are not married to the one you are living with now.”

Then they talked about worshiping God.  Jesus said some people worship God in the wrong way.  “God is spirit,” he said to her.  “God’s worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth!”  This means they must worship God not with what they try to do for God, but with sincere hearts knowing the truth. 

Then Jesus did a wonderful thing.  He confessed to this woman that He was the Saviour, the Christ that the people were waiting for.

The woman ran into the village and called the people to the well to come and listen to this man who told her everything she had ever done.  She became a follower of Jesus as did many people of the village after they had heard Him talk.  They said: “Now we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.”

 Story No 3.  THE ADULTEROUS WOMAN

Jesus was sitting in the house of prayer teaching people about the Living God.

A group of men came to him.  They were notables of the village and they had a woman with them.  She had been caught in the act of adultery.  The men wanted to stone her to death.

Jesus did a rather astonishing thing.  He just bent down and started to write something on the ground with his finger.  Then he said to them: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Then he stooped down and wrote on the ground again.

The men stopped talking.  They started to leave - first the older ones and then the younger ones.  No one threw a stone.  

Jesus asked her:  “Woman, where did the men go?  Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir”, she answered.

“I also do not condemn you,” Jesus said, “Go now,  BUT LEAVE YOUR LIFE OF SIN!”

This was the condition Jesus offered to her.  

SHE SHOULD LEAVE HER LIFE OF SIN!

She should stay with one husband and not fool around with many.

What Jesus wrote on the ground the Bible does not tell us.  One thing we know for certain:  Jesus Christ respected women and God gave women a very important role to play in the world.  The most important of them all is that God wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth.  This means He wants us to worship Him with sincere hearts and we must know the truth.  God wants to pour out His love on women.  He wants women to reject the evil world of spirits and turn to the only true Spirit of God and to worship the living God alone.  The Living God does not want to share his love with any other being in the spirit world.  He has created women and He wants women to worship Him alone.

  

Story No 1:

* Why do you think the Angel of the Lord asked Hagar the question “Where have you come from and where are you going?” since He knew everything about her.

* Describe what Hagar must have felt like when she was driven out of the house into the desert. Has anything like this ever happened to you?

* What do the words: “The God who sees me” mean to you?

Story No. 2:

* How does the Living Water Jesus talks about, differ from the water we drink every day? 

* How will you explain this Living Water?

*How does God want us to worship Him?

Story No 3:

· What do you think Jesus wrote on the ground that made the men to leave?

· After Jesus had pardoned the adulterous woman, what was His command to her?

The first story of Hagar is found in the first book of the Torah and the other two stories about Jesus are found in the New Testament.