His Time. His Way, His Power
Genesis 18:10-14 Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?” Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, `Will I really have a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son."
God has a plan to bless, prosper, save, heal, and restore us It is in His Time
Genesis 12:2-3 God told Abraham, "I will bless you,"
It is always God’s plan to bless his people, and this is true of us as well.
In Genesis 12 God commanded Abraham to leave, country, people, and kindred. Abraham was seventy-five years old - Gen12:4
In Genesis 13:15-16 He had no land or children - God appeared to Abraham and promised to give him both land and children. Years passed, Abraham did not receive either land or children. He made a servant his heir. In Genesis 15:4-5 God appeared again to Abraham and promised that not only would he have many children, but that a son would come from his own body to be his heir.
Abraham was ninety-nine years of age - Genesis 17:1
The Lord appeared to him again and promised to give him a son, Isaac, to be his heir. Abraham had fathered a son, Ishmael. That was not God’s plan, "Your wife Sarah will bear you this son Isaac," "It will happen by this time next year."
God’s Blessing comes at a Set Time
"Now the Lord visited Sarah, as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised." If God makes a promise, you can count on it, no matter how long it takes to be fulfilled. Don’t ever get impatient and settle for the second-best, as Abraham and Sarah tried to do in the case of Ishmael. They had leaned onto their own understanding and made things happen rather than waiting for God, and the result was Ishmael. God’s best comes to us in God’s own time. The best plan for Abraham was to father a son through his wife Sarah by the energy of God. God is never in a hurry. Any delays we encounter are for our benefit, not his. God is always on time, and twenty-five years does not matter to God.
It is in His Way
What was Sarah’s response to the amazing news she refused to believe it. Sarah reacted in unbelief to the message Abraham brought her. Sarah had all the reasons in the world not to believe this promise of God. But God wanted her to exercise faith in him, not to remain in her unbelief. Hebrews 11:6 "without faith it is impossible to please God,"
Sarah’s Reasons for Unbelief
Let us consider Sarah’s reasons for not believing God’s promise of a son. Sarah was a very reasonable person, and we are very reasonable also. Let us, then, examine Sarah’s reasons for her lack of faith in God’s promises.
"I am barren." The first reason Sarah gave for not believing God’s promise was that she had been infertile all of her life. We read about this in Genesis 11:30 How can a barren woman bear a son? "I am past the age of conception, even if I had been able to conceive." Genesis 18:11. Sarah knew she had passed the age of childbearing long before, even if she had been able to bear children. "I am an old woman of ninety years." Not only was Sarah past the age of childbearing, but she was ninety years old. Genesis 17:17 "My whole life was a disappointment. My hopes have been aroused again and again, only to be dashed and brought down. Why should I raise my hopes now?" Sarah didn’t want to take the chance of trusting God and having her hopes destroyed if God failed to keep his word “I am waxed old” Genesis 18:12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, I am waxed old after shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? She used waxed to describe her physical condition. It means something that is worn-out, withered, and ready to fall apart as an old, used, moth-eaten garment is. This is how Sarah described her body. "I have gotten used to having no children of my own. I have gotten used to living with this disgrace. It’s okay. I know how to handle it." Sarah had learned to live with her disappointment.
"Abraham is ninety-nine years old and his body is as good as dead. He is impotent; thus, it is biologically impossible for him to father a child."
Abraham and Sarah came up with a plan of their own to have children according to the custom of our country and region. Abraham was eighty-five years old, he slept with the handmaiden Hagar, he fathered a son, Ishmael--a good-looking, healthy boy--
These were Sarah’s reasons to justify her unbelief in God’s promise. Sarah was basing them on her understanding of the world and herself. Sarah refused to believe God’s promise given to her through Abraham, so in Genesis 18: 1-2 we read that God himself came to personally minister to Sarah we read the Lord addressed the issue of Sarah’s unbelief. This is an illustration of the irresistible grace of God, and is something we experience also. As he did with Sarah, God deals with our unbelief and causes us to believe when it is his intent to bless us. God himself graciously breaks down our castle of unbelief and enables us to believe.
The Lord’s Ministry to Sarah
He knows our names
In Genesis 18:9 the visitors asked Abraham, "Where is your wife Sarah?" That was an amazing question, Abraham had just begun to call Sarah by that name a month or so earlier after God had spoken to him. This tells us that the Lord we worship is omniscient;
He knows our problems
In verse 10 we read, "Then the Lord said, ‘I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.’" In verse 12 we read, "So Sarah laughed to herself." Sarah was in the tent, behind the Lord, so he did not see her listening. When the Lord said Sarah would bear a son, Sarah began to laugh to herself in unbelief.
He knows our thoughts.
In verse 13 ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, Will I really have a child, now that I am old? Not only did Sarah refuse to believe, but then she lied. In Genesis 18:15 we read, "Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, ‘I did not laugh.’" Sarah had expressed unbelief to her husband when he brought her the word, and now she was expressing unbelief to God himself and lying about it. God did not leave Sarah in her sin. He challenged her, saying, "Yes, you did laugh.”
God knows everything--our sin of unbelief, our lying, our cover-ups, our cheating, and our secret sin. We stand before him stripped naked--stripped of all our defenses, excuses, and reasons. Psalm 139: 1-4 "O Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord,"
The omnipotent, omniscient Lord is in the midst of us. He sees all our excuses, all our reasons for unbelief, and all the foolishness of our hearts. But, he also works on our behalf, and the power of our God is incomparable for us who believe. God will work on our behalf to bring all his plans to fruition.
It is in His Power
Is Anything Too Hard for God?
God responded to Sarah’s unbelief by asking, "Is anything too hard [or, in some translations, too wonderful] for the Lord?" The idea here is, "Is anything too difficult for God?" The Hebrew word carries the sense of the judges of a lower court not being able to deal with an issue--it is too difficult--so they push it up to a higher court. But nothing is too wonderful for God. God was not surprised or stymied by Sarah’s problem. He is omnipotent. When Sarah thought of her problem, she never figured the almighty power of God into the equation. But nothing is impossible for God.
We see this question, "Is there anything too hard for the Lord?" repeated throughout the Scriptures, particularly in Jeremiah 32:17, 27; Zechariah 8:6; and Luke 1:37. And what is the answer? No.
All of Grace
When we look at Abram and his wife, what kind of people were they? Sinners, without strength and without hope. They had done nothing to merit anything from God, yet God in his mercy and grace wanted to bless them. Sarah refused to believe, but God convicted her of her sin and she agreed with him. Then the Lord himself reiterated the word for Sarah, so that four times in chapters 17 and 18 we find the same words: "Next year at this time you will have a son." Praise God that he repeatedly speaks to us!
Hebrews 11:11 "By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered him faithful who had promised."
Abraham and Sarah both began to feel God’s power working in their lives. There was rejuvenation, repair, healing, and restoration.
Do we have any evidence of the tangible nature of this rejuvenation process? Yes. In Genesis 20 we read that Abraham and Sarah left Canaan for a time and went to a place called Gerar. In those days, a king could take any unmarried woman into his harem, if he wished. Gerar was ruled by a king named Abimelech at this time, and his people were always noticing women who could be brought before the king. When they saw Sarah, they noticed her immediately and brought her before Abimelech. Why do you think people would notice a ninety-year-old woman? Because Sarah was once again a beauty, God had worked in her mind, in her face, in her body--in every part of her--to prepare her to bear Isaac, and it was obvious to all who saw her.
In Genesis 21 we find the description of another change in Sarah--a change that she had been looking forward to her whole life. In verse 2 we read, "Sarah became pregnant." As Sarah realized what God was doing in her life, her whole countenance changed. I am sure she began to laugh more, but this time it was in faith, not in unbelief, and where she had been miserable and unhappy before, Sarah now began to experience the joy of the Lord. It is God’s intention that we should laugh, rejoice and be blessed. We may have thought it was his intention to make us miserable, but it is our own unbelief that causes us to be miserable.
In Genesis 21:6 we read, "Sarah said, ‘God has brought me laughter.’" That is what we will do too when God blesses us. Not only will we believe; not only will we experience blessing--spiritual blessing and tangible, historically verifiable blessing; not only will our mouths be filled with laughter; but, finally, we will fall on our knees and say, "God did it."
God Wants to Bless Us
God wants to bless us, and he is willing and able to help us in all our problems. He is the Lord almighty and nothing is too hard for him. Today he is saying to us, "The time has come--the time for blessing, the time for joy, the time for laughter." Genesis 12:3 "All the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you." God wants to bless you even this day.
Friends hold on to the hope God gives us. Keep your eyes on Him. In the end You will never be disappointed.
