Kootenai Church Morning Worship

If you're not there, please open your Bibles and turn to Hebrews 11. There are a lot of promises that we find in the pages of Scripture, many different kinds of promises, some of them to us, some of them for us, but not all of them for us. Have you heard that old song—and I'm not sure if it qualifies as a hymn or not. I don't know that we've ever sung it here in this church. But the old song says, “Every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line, all are blessings of His love divine, every promise in the book is mine” (traditional, “Every Promise in the Book Is Mine”). Amen? No. No, no, no. That's horrible theology.
You know why that's horrible theology? Because not every promise in that book was made to you. Some were made to Noah, some were made to Abraham, some were made to Isaac, some were made to Paul, some were made to other various characters in there. There are promises in that book that are for us and to us, but not every promise in the book is mine. Not every promise in the book can I lay claim to.
God promised Noah that He was going to destroy the world with a flood. Can you lay claim to that promise and claim that verse as your own, that if you build a boat and put two of every kind of animal on it, God will save you and your family? Is that promise for you to claim? Can you lay claim to Abraham's promise of a land and say, “Well, God gave Abraham land, and I'm claiming that promise as my own, and I'm waiting for God to give me some land. I just need to know what pagans I have to run out of it in order to take possession of it”? Or will you take the promise that is given to Abraham of his prosperity and say, “God promised blessings—material, financial, fiscal blessings—to Abraham. Therefore, I'm going to lay claim to those promises. Those promises are mine”? See, we have to read Scripture carefully and clearly with minds that are tuned to understand the context and the intention and the design of the author and God's working in history to know which of those promises I can lay claim to, which of those promises I can trust God for, and which of them I can't.
About this time every year, the National Day of Prayer Task Force—and if this is going to step on some toes, your toes need to be stepped on. The National Day of Prayer Task Force will take that one verse, 2 Chronicles 7:14—if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and seek My face, I will return and I will heal them, or I will bless them and I will heal their land—something like that. I mean, I've just kind of paraphrased it there. That's the idea. Is that promise for America? No, that promise is not for America.
Now, we've been praying and claiming that promise for twenty-five years probably. How's that working out? Has God healed our land? Maybe if we didn't take Scripture and serially abuse it like it's a redheaded stepchild, we would have a better chance of actually having our prayers heard by God. But when you take His verse like that, His Word like that, and you rip it out of its context, and you apply it to modern-day America when that is a promise that was made to national Israel under a covenant that is no longer in force to a people at a specific time, in a specific place, for a specific purpose that has nothing to do with us whatsoever—see, we can't just claim that verse as if it is our own. We have to think clearly and carefully about the promises that are made, to whom they are made, and why they were made so that we can know whether or not that promise applies to us.
Now God has made promises to us, has He not? Yeah. Now just because we say that not every promise in the book is mine doesn't mean that no promise in the book is mine. There are promises that are made specifically to us and to the church. God has promised to provide—I'm going to give you an example of some of these. God has promised to provide for our needs. God has promised to guide our steps by His providence without revealing His will to us ahead of time. Without still small voices and whispers, without any kind of promise for special divine guidance, God has promised to work out the affairs of our life and to guide our steps as we trust Him and walk in obedience to Him. He has promised to give us peace, to grant us assurance, to save the one who comes to Jesus Christ and places their faith in Him for salvation. He has promised to sanctify us, that the one who is saved will be sanctified, will be made holy. He has promised to secure us in Christ. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us, to deliver us from the penalty of sin (that's forgiveness), to deliver us from the power of sin (that's sanctification). He has promised to adopt us as sons, to seal us with the Spirit, and to gift us and use us for service, and then to reward us for service.
Now everything I've listed there are promises that God fulfills in this life. I don't have to wait till death to receive the bulk or most of those promises. Now obviously the reward for service is yet to come after we die, but most of what I just read to you are promises that God keeps to us in this life.
Then there are promises that are fulfilled in the life to come, and promises which will only be and can only be fulfilled in the life to come. Promises like this: The promise of your glorification. The promise of your complete deliverance, not just from the power of sin but the presence of sin. That is something that awaits your death. The resurrection body is a promise that God has given to you that you will have to wait until the last day to receive. The promise to never die. Jesus promised, “Everyone who . . . believes in Me will never die” (John 11:26). He's not talking obviously about physical death because people who believe in Jesus die physically all the time. He's talking about spiritual death and ultimately the spiritual and eternal, both physical and spiritual, death.
The promise that the righteous will be vindicated, and the ultimate reward for our service—all of those things await the future. We're still waiting for the fulfillment of all of those. The judgment on the nations—that is still yet a future reality in its ultimate sense, though nations are being judged even now and our nation is being judged even now. The rewards for service for the righteous and in the church—all of that still awaits the future day.
So there are blessings and promises that God fulfills in this life, and blessings and promises that God grants in the life to come. And we have to read Scripture carefully to understand which is which and what we are due in this life. Biblical faith believes God for both, by the way. Biblical faith trusts that the promises that God has made for this life, He will fulfill in this life. And the promises that God has made for the life that is to come, biblical faith will wait patiently for, enduring trials and tribulations and suffering and affliction and injustice in this world for the sake of reaching that final eschaton, that final last day, when all things will be made right and everything will be paid up and God fulfills all of His promises to us.
And by the way, there is a promise of blessings forevermore at God's right hand. Psalm 16, I think it is, where David talks about how the Lord has prepared for him pleasures at His right hand forevermore (v. 11). So when—this is mind-blowing to me—when we step into eternity on that first moment, when it's all done and eternity begins and we have nothing but endless ages ahead of us, there are still blessings and pleasures and privileges and joys and delights that will await us on day one that we will never experience or see until day ten thousand. And on day ten thousand, there will still be joys and delights that we have yet to experience and realize until day ten million. God delights in us waiting and developing and enjoying Him in the moment so that we can look forward to the next unfolding joy and the next unfolding pleasure at His right hand.
Biblical faith looks forward. Biblical faith knows that there is a life to come. And so we are commanded, 1 Peter 1:13, to fix our hope entirely, completely, on the grace that is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So there is in biblical faith a forward-looking element that looks past the realities of this life to the joys and delights of the life that is to come and the reward that comes with that and has a confident expectation that God will keep His every promise to His people.
Abraham is an example of both of those kinds of faith that we read about in Hebrews 11. We have looked at some of the promises that Abraham enjoyed and delighted in in his own life. There were three promises that God made to Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant—the promise of offspring, the promise of land, and the promise of a blessing. And in Abraham's lifetime, he enjoyed, in a sense, at least a little bit of each one of those. With the land, Abraham did get to dwell in the land even though it was in tents, but he still got to enjoy the land and see it and dwell in it and meet the people there. But the fullness of that land promise was never realized in Abraham's day, though he enjoyed a little bit of it in his day.
Likewise, with the promise of offspring. Abraham was promised that nations and peoples and kings and princes would come from him, entire tribes of people would come from him. What did Abraham actually live to see? He lived actually to see the fulfillment of an offspring that came from him—Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. Abraham would have seen to his grandchildren's day, maybe even his great-grandchildren's day if Ishmael had children early. Abraham would have seen some of the offspring, but did he ever live to see nations and kings and peoples come from him? He never did.
And what about the blessing? He enjoyed financial benefit and blessing in this world, but did he really realize the fullness of what awaits him, what God has promised to him? I think there's still more yet to come.
So we've looked at the promise that God made to Abraham with the land, and now we're going to look at the promise that God made to Sarah with a son. And of course, Abraham is a participant of this as well. Sarah enters the picture in verse 11: “By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive.” She is involved, obviously, not just in the land promise and that she lived in the tent with Abraham, but also she is involved in the promise of a son since God's intention was to bring forth a son from Sarah. So let's read this passage together, verses 11–12. This is our focus this morning. And if you are reading here today in the New International Version, you're going to notice a slight difference from what I'm about to read, but just bear with me because I will explain this here in just a moment. Hebrews 11:11–12:
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.
12 Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. (NASB)
Now I always have to articulate that last phrase, the sand which is by the seashore, because someone commented that with how fast I speak, the last time I read that, it sounded like “sandwiches by the seashore,” which is an entirely different thing than sand which is by the seashore. So if you're thinking, “Did God promise Abraham sandwiches by the seashore?” the answer is no. He promised him descendants as numerous as the sand which happens to be by the seashore. Does that make sense? OK, just so we're clear. And if I—just don't smirk or smile if I say “sandwiches by the seashore” quickly.
All right, we're going to notice three things about Sarah's faith. First, the trial of her faith, and for that we're going to have to go back to Genesis. Don't turn there just yet. We're going to look at the trial of her faith, the triumph of her faith, and then the testimony of her faith. And we will get to all three of those and all the way through verse 12 today. But before we jump back into Genesis and look at the trial of Sarah's faith, we have to answer the question, Who is it that is being described in Hebrews 11?
Now how many of you might be reading the New International Version, the NIV, here this morning? Raise your hand so we can get you a brand-new Bible at the end of the service. OK, if you're reading the NIV, then you will notice that the NIV has a different subject for verse 11. It's not Sarah, but Abraham. This is true for the RSV as well as the NIV. Those are the two translations that have Abraham as the subject of this verse, rather than Sarah. The New King James, the King James, the ESV, and the NASB, which I just read, all have Sarah as the subject of this verse.
So here's how the New International Version renders it. And if you are not unfortunate enough to be holding one of those in your lap this morning, then just listen to this. And just in case you're new, with the NIV, just calm down; I'm just playing with you. Verse 11: “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age, and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.” Now the benefit of the NIV is that it avoids the sandwiches by the seashore—it says, “The sand on the seashore.”
So the New Revised Standard likewise has it as Abraham: “By faith he received the power of procreation” (v. 11). So the RSV doesn't name Abraham, and you won't be surprised if I tell you that the name Abraham does not occur in this verse in the original; it's an assumed subject of the verse. I'm going to explain to you why here in just a moment. “By faith he received the power of procreation, even though he was too old, and Sarah herself was barren, because he considered him faithful who had promised” (v. 11).
So there are two modern translations that have Abraham as the subject of this, making this Abraham's faith that is notable, and they remove almost any reference to Sarah's faith, which the NASB, the New King James, and the King James all note. So some translations have Sarah as the subject of the sentence and some translations, lesser translations—lesser in number—have Abraham as the subject of the sentence. So who is it, and why this confusion? Why the different translations?
It's not as easy of an answer as you at first might expect. Abraham is assumed to be the subject even though he is not in the verse simply because verses 8–10 all talk about Abraham's faith, right? And then verse 12 mentions Abraham as well: “Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants . . .” So it is kind of assumed that Abraham is intended as the subject of verse 11 even though he is not stated in there because it would make the discourse flow more naturally if it is just Abraham that is all the way through, rather than breaking this out and seeing Sarah as the subject of this sentence. So that's one of the arguments for Abraham. I'm going to give you the big argument for Abraham being the subject of it here in just a second. But one of the arguments is that.
Now, contrary to that, Sarah's name is in the nominative case, which is the case typically used for the subject of the sentence. So though it could be understood as Sarah not being the subject of the sentence, that would not be the most natural rendering or reading of that verse.
Third, and this is really the reason why Abraham is assumed to be the subject of the sentence, that phrase in verse 11, “received ability to conceive”—in the original language, it is dynamin eis katabolen spermatos. Dynamis, or dynamin, from the word dynamis, which describes power or ability or strength for something; katabolen, which referred to laying down something like a foundation or depositing something; and spermatos, the word for seed. So the phrase literally means “she received power for the depositing of seed.”
Now, just in case you are a homeschool biology student, that is not typically how we refer to a woman's contribution to conception. And some of you are smirking and sitting up in your seat because you're thinking, “This is one of those times where Jim says something so ill-advised and so imprudent, and it is going to be caught on video forever, it's going to be recorded, and I get to be here live for that.” I'm hoping to disappoint you sorely today if that's what you were hoping for.
So the phrase literally means “she received or had the power for the laying down of seed,” or “she had power for the depositing of seed.” But it's used of Sarah. So why would the description of the male contribution to conception be used of Sarah if she is the subject of the sentence?
So you see why it is that Bible translators get to verse 11 and they assume that the subject here must be Abraham. And so they would take it to mean that it is by Abraham's faith that in the laying down of seed Sarah was able to conceive, or that Abraham was strengthened along with Sarah herself, both of them being the subjects of the sentence, in the sense that faith on behalf of both of them was required at that age. And so she had faith in the depositing of Abraham's seed in order to conceive. Either way, Abraham then would become the subject of the sentence.
The solution is this, I think, and I'm going to keep it as Sarah as the subject of the sentence because even though it is possible to read Sarah's name as not the subject but as one contributing to this or coming along with Abraham, that's not the most natural rendering of the verse. It does seem as if Sarah is intended here, which means that this could be read with Sarah in the dative case, and though it's not the most natural rendering of the verse, it would mean that Sarah is the one who had faith in this moment, and she had faith in regards to the laying down of Abraham's seed and her ability to conceive as a result of that. So it is Sarah's faith that is active, but it is Sarah's faith in regard to the promise of God regarding Abraham's seed, both his literal physical seed as well as his offspring. So it would be as if to say, “Sarah received power with regard to that so that she could conceive.” It would be a very sort of truncated way of describing it, but I do believe that Sarah is the subject of the sentence.
So don't burn your NIV after the service today because it's a very possible translation. I think one of the important things to remember is that the faith of both Abraham and Sarah is active at this moment. In that moment, in that case, for the continuation of Abraham's offspring, the faith of both Sarah and Abraham is notable. Though Sarah's faith was not initially notable, nor was it initially evident. And for that, we have to turn back to the book of Genesis. So please turn back to Genesis 11. And we will be coming back to Hebrews 11, but for now, turn back to Genesis 11.
What is interesting is in regards to the promise that was made to Abraham and to Sarah, Sarah's faith is not highlighted in the narrative of Genesis at all. In fact, there's scant reference to any of Sarah's faith in regard to the promises of God, whereas Abraham's faith was evident in all of these things that he did, in moving and going to the land and leaving his family behind, in trusting and waiting in the promises of God. Even in his belief that God would fulfill His promise through Hagar, Sarah's handmaid, though confused and though disobedient, there is an element in which Abraham was expecting God to fulfill that promise. So Abraham's faith—and of course in the offering of Isaac later on—Abraham's faith is on display all the way through the book of Genesis. But when it comes to Sarah, there are things that are said of Sarah that make you think, “Did she have any faith at all?” In fact, some of the narrative is very uncharitable toward Sarah in terms of faith. And we have to turn to the New Testament to find out that no, she did have faith and this was rewarded by God in the conception of Isaac.
So we are introduced to Sarah in Genesis 11:29: “Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.” Look at verse 30: “Sarai was barren; she had no child.” Now that's very significant because chapter 11 comes obviously before chapter 12. It's great how the translators numbered them like that. So in chapter 12, we have the promise of the offspring and the seed and the multitude of the nations that would come from Abraham's line. But we are introduced in verse 30 of chapter 11 to the fact that Sarah was barren. And so this sets up this conflict. Abraham's wife was barren and God promised him offspring. So how is that going to resolve through the rest of the book of Genesis? And that's the tale of this story between these two—how would God fulfill that promise? Sarah was barren.
And I want you to notice and please keep in mind that Scripture does not connect the barrenness of Sarah to a lack of faith, a lack of faithfulness, the presence of sin, or any kind of defect in her moral character or her belief or her faith. Scripture does not do that. Scripture does not connect barrenness necessarily to sin. There are people who are barren, there are couples who are infertile, and it has nothing to do with personal sin or lack of faith or lack of faithfulness.
It is a painful thing for infertile couples or for barren women to deal with this, and we do not want to make the mistake that the disciples made in John 9 when we say, “Who sinned, this woman or her parents, that she was born infertile?” We never want to do that. Because the answer to that, Jesus said, is neither of them sinned. God created them this way for His purposes and for His glory. And you have to have room in your theology for that, that God creates blind people. He creates deaf people. He creates crippled people. He creates infertile people. He creates barren women. And He has His purposes in it. And when we try to dive in and through the mystery of divine providence and try to discern what God's inscrutable purposes are in the workings of that divine providence, we go beyond what is written in Scripture and we run into error. God does not need us to be His interpreters of His mysterious providential ways and to say, “Here's the reason why this is happening, and here's the reason why that is happening.” That is not for us to determine. We cannot know the mind of God in those things. And He does not need us to comment on them.
It is possible, in fact, I would think likely, in most cases, that women who are infertile, couples who are infertile, or women who are barren—don't you think it's possible that God would create them that way and make them that way not because they lack faith and not because of their sin, but because they are mature, pious, godly, holy, and righteous enough to be the vehicles through which God can demonstrate His strength made perfect in their weakness as a testimony of His ability and glory to any and all who will watch that unfold in their lives? Does your theology have room for that? I hope it does.
Scripture does not connect barrenness, particularly Sarah's barrenness—and we are going to see a purpose in just a moment for that barrenness. But the author in Genesis 11 makes note of the fact that she was barren so that he can show us how the hand and the providence of God unfolded and how God's strength was made perfect in this infertility, this barrenness that Sarah suffered from. This happens before the Abrahamic covenant, which comes in chapter 12, verse 2, and you'll notice there the reference that God promised him multitudes of descendants that would come after him. But there is this hurdle for God to overcome in order to fulfill that promise, and that is Sarah's barrenness.
So turn over to chapter 13, verse 14, of Genesis. We're going to just trace here through this not the land promise but the promise of descendants and see how it is that God brings this to pass. Genesis 13:14–15: “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.’” When God said that, Abraham had no children, none. It's just him and Sarah, their servants, and the servants' children maybe in their household, but he had no offspring at all because as we saw back in chapter 11, Sarah was barren. So he had no descendants.
Genesis 13:16–17: “I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you.” It's the promise of God to give him not just the land, but also descendants that would outnumber the dust of the earth. That's a hyperbolic statement that basically means that the number of them would be so innumerable that you cannot even at this point possibly fathom that number of people that will come from you.
Now years pass, and there is no son. And so the question continues to be, as we read chapter 13 and 14 and into chapter 15, How is this going to happen? Because we saw back in chapter 11 that Sarah was barren. Again, not because of any sin or unfaithfulness—otherwise she could have just dealt with that and then she would have been fertile. But that was not God's purpose in that. So how would this promise be fulfilled and how would it unfold?
Genesis 15:2: “Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless [he’s still childless], and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’” Eliezer was one of the servants’ children, born in his household. If Abraham had died without any descendants or offspring between him and Sarah, then the people who would have inherited all of Abraham’s possessions and his land would’ve been his servants. And here was Eliezer, one born in his own house, and Abraham is wondering, “Is Eliezer the fulfillment of that promise, Lord? Is there some way in which spiritually the promises that You offered to me can be fulfilled by Eliezer? I’m without a child.”
Verse 3:
3 And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.”
4 Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”
5 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
6 Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:3–6 NASB)
That's the verse that is quoted twice in the New Testament to describe Abraham being saved by faith and by faith alone. This is before circumcision. Abraham believed the Lord. He looked up, he saw the stars, and he believed that God was going to fulfill His promise. Now at this point, Abraham didn't know how God was going to fulfill His promise, but he believed that it would be so. And that belief, that faith, was reckoned to him, counted to him, as righteousness.
Then we come into chapter 16, and Sarah decided to take everything into her own hands. She gave her maid to Abram, Hagar, and Abram was eighty-six years old at the time. And Ishmael was born. Ishmael was born to her. That attempt to fulfill the promises of God in her own strength by her own wisdom in her own way has brought an untold amount of misery and destruction into this world. And since I strive to be as politically correct as I possibly can in everything that I always say, I'm not going to identify any of the Arab nations that might have brought this pain and misery and destruction into the world, but from Ishmael came all of these Arab nations that have from the time of Genesis persecuted the promised seed, and it happens today, and it will happen all the way up until the judgment comes. Sarah decided to take matters into her own hand, and it was an utter disaster, which is what every act of disobedience and lack of faith and trust and weight in the providence of God always brings. Sin brings destruction. Sin brings death. Sin brings untold misery to untold numbers of people.
Chapter 17—this is where we finally find out that this is going to happen through Sarah, or at least where it is explicitly stated. Abraham, by chapter 17, verse 1, is ninety-nine years old. We know that Sarah was ten years younger than Abraham, so she is eighty-nine years old at this time.
1 The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless.
2 I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”
3 Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,
4 “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations.
5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you.
7 I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.
8 I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
9 God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.” (Gen. 17:1–9 NASB)
It's later in chapter 17 where God adds the fact that this is going to be through Sarah.
15 Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
16 I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”
17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” (Gen. 17:15–17 NASB)
So he responds to this with a measure of incredulity.
Now how old was Abraham and Sarah when Abraham and Sarah first received the promise of a multitude of descendants? Abraham was seventy-five back in chapters 11 and 12. Abraham was seventy-five, Sarah was sixty-five. At that time, Sarah was not past the child-bearing age, though she was barren. In other words, if she had not been barren, she was at the age when she could have conceived a child. And we're going to talk a little bit about the age issue here in just a moment.
But now, Sarah is ninety. This is thirty years later. Sarah is ninety, and Abraham is almost one hundred, and now the promise is reiterated that this would be fulfilled through Sarah. And Abraham laughed. The first mention that Sarah would be a mother caused Abraham to kind of snicker to himself. “That old—I mean, that advanced-in-years woman, wife of mine, she's going to be a mother?” It made him chuckle a little bit. I think because Abraham was assuming something that Sarah is going to assume later on, and that is that God was just going to work through the natural means of His providence. And Abraham knows that now she's past child-bearing age. In other words, the manner of women is no longer with Sarah so that she is no longer able to conceive even if she wasn't barren.
So you have her barrenness, her track record of barrenness, that is on the record, on the table, as well as the fact that she is now past child-bearing age. That is now on the table. And Abraham himself is no spring chicken because every year that Sarah has matured and aged, Abraham has aged another year as well. So he's getting up there in his age. So this whole thing strikes Abraham as quite beyond the means of God to accomplish this, at least in the moment. At least in the moment, because he chuckled.
I think that Abraham might have chuckled because possibly he thought that this could have come from Ishmael, could have come from Hagar, could have come from any other handmaiden in his home. But that Sarah would be the one? She had a long track record of being barren.
Verse 18: “Abraham said to God, ‘Oh that Ishmael might live before You!’” Now he has a son by Hagar. Remember the disastrous decision that Sarah had made earlier, offering up, “Take my handmaid, have a child through her. That can be the line, the promised seed”? And Abraham is thinking, “Why make this more difficult than it needs to be? I have a son. If we could just bless him, if the promise of all this land and blessing and everything could just fall on Ishmael, Ishmael could live before You. We don't need to bother Sarah at ninety years old with having a child if we could just let Ishmael live, be the promised son, before You.”
Verse 19:
19 But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.
21 But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.
22 When He finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. (Gen. 17:19–22 NASB)
So there the promise is restated again. Abraham gave God His out—Ishmael. Let Ishmael live before You. God said, “No, I'll bless him too.” Why? Because he comes from Abraham. But that's not the line of the promised seed. My covenant, the land, all these blessings, they will be upon Isaac. He is the promised seed, and Sarah will bear him for you this time next year.
So now things get exciting because we're within a year of seeing the promise fulfilled. Chapter 18, verse 9. These are two visitors that Abraham receives.
9 Then they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “There, in the tent.”
10 He said, “I will surely return to you at this time next year [so this is not too long after the events that we just read in chapter 17]; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him.
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; Sarah was past childbearing.
12 Sarah laughed to herself [she had the same response as Abraham had], saying, “After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” (Gen. 18:9–12 NASB)
The reference to pleasure is to the pleasure of bearing children and having that joy; that's what she's describing there. So she laughed, and there is a level of incredulity there. She is thinking, I think in the same way that Abraham was thinking, just in terms of the normal providence of this, this is now unfeasible. It could have been feasible if the Lord had decided to do this thirty years earlier. That might have happened. But now she is old, she says, by her own admission. She is past childbearing. This cannot physically happen now.
So why wouldn't the Lord have done this twenty-five years earlier? In other words, what was the reason why the Lord waited all of this time? When Abraham was seventy-five years old, He gave the promise of a son, a descendant. And Sarah was with him, but Sarah was barren. Why didn't the Lord give Abraham and Sarah the son then at that time? She still could have had a child. All the Lord had to do was make her no longer barren. That would have been an easy thing, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's the problem with it. It would have been an easy thing. That's why. He waited twenty-five years until not only has she been barren this whole time, but now this couple has every reason to lose all hope that this will ever happen because Sarah is past the childbearing age.
Now, remember several weeks ago I made mention of the fact that we need to think of biblical ages in the ancient world right after the flood and right before the flood in terms of the slowing down of age, not necessarily just the length of life. In other words, Adam living until nine hundred years is not a problem when you realize that Adam just aged slower than we age. So that I would be a five-hundred-year-old man in Adam's day. This is what a five-hundred-year-old man would look like. Not exactly like this because I think we're more mutated by sin than Adam was, but you get the sense. It's not that the people at one hundred years old in Adam's day were like one-hundred-year-olds today and that they just lived for another eight hundred years in that condition. It's rather that the aging process itself slowed down.
So if Abraham lived to be 175 years old, that would be the equivalent of living to be 90, 95, maybe into 100 or something like that in our day, which means that when Sarah was 90 years old, it would be like being 55 or 60 years old today. So in that condition, Sarah—this is the author's way of making note that Sarah has been past the childbearing capacity, physically speaking, for some time, and she has passed the childbearing age, and Abraham, being 100 years old, is like a 65-year-old in our terms. So they are old, and they are past what we would typically think as childbearing ages, even in our own day.
Verses 13–14: “And the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, saying, “Shall I indeed bear a child, when I am so old?” Is anything too difficult for the Lord? [Notice the reproof] At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.’” This is a foolhardy move in verse 15: “Sarah denied it however, saying, ‘I did not laugh’; for she was afraid.” You’re going to hide that from the Lord? Right? No, I didn't laugh. I wasn't laughing. Your children try that all the time, right? No, my hand wasn't in the cookie jar. I didn't laugh. She was afraid.
Verse 15: “And he said, ‘No, but you did laugh.’” You did laugh. And all the Lord is doing there in those couple of statements is just pointing out the fact that Sarah in this moment is not responding to Him in faith. And this is really the trial of Sarah's faith. Her physical condition as well as her age posed huge hurdles in her mind for God to overcome in order to fulfill His word. So in the moment when she is promised this, she responds the same way that Abraham does, which is to assume that God is talking about the normal workings of providence in life to conceive a child, and she responds with laughter. She chuckles. It's not by faith that she responds in this moment, but I do believe that she eventually responded by faith, and I think that's where the author of Hebrews comes in. So, turn back now to Hebrews 11.
You say, “That is a long way to go just to get to 11:45 with about ten minutes left to take us back to Hebrews 11.” Let us learn the correct lesson from this—while you're turning back there. Let us learn the correct lesson from the account of Abraham and Sarah, and it's not that you can claim a son in your old age. It's not that you can claim a son if you are barren. That's not what these verses are talking about. It's not that you can just claim any promise in Scripture, but rather we are going to learn that God always keeps His word. There's nothing too difficult for Him. There is no physical limitation in this world that can keep God from accomplishing His sovereign purposes.
You and I trust God for a lot of impossibilities. I believe that eventually God is going to raise this corrupted and perishing body from the dead, immortal and glorified. I believe that with every fiber of my being; there's not a hair on my head that doubts that proposition. That is to me absolutely impossible, physically impossible. Because we have not figured out a way to do that. We don't even understand how that can happen. And even if this body is burned up, even if this body is drowned and eaten by sharks, even if this body goes into the ground and is eaten by worms and decays and is no more, God will still raise it from the dead. You and I have to come to the point of understanding how God works and that He works in spite of any physical limitations. There is no limitation in this world that will keep God from fulfilling His promises.
I believe with every fiber of my being that God will regather the nation of Israel and give them that entire promised land between the river Euphrates and the river of Egypt. You say, “But that's owned by the Arabs.” I understand it is. Yeah, and I believe God's going to have the Jews build a temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. You say, “But there's a mosque sitting there today.” I know there is. And you say that all of that land that God has promised is going to be fertile and green and lush and productive, it's nothing but desert, arid desert with rocks and sand. I know it is, but there is nothing that is physically impossible for our God. And so I believe with every fiber of my being in a whole bunch of things that are yet to come, which are physically impossible in my mind. But that is what biblical faith is, isn't it?
Sarah responded to the promise with biblical faith. Look at verse 11. Now this is the triumph of her faith. She bore a son. Hebrews 11:11: “By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life [and he's just simply saying there, ‘Even though her years of childbearing were past, where she normally would have conceived a child’], since she considered Him faithful who had promised.” At some point, Sarah considered the God who had spoken to Abraham as faithful to His promise. In the moment, promised a son past childbearing age, a lifetime of barrenness without a child, never known that joy, never known that pleasure, and now probably had given up all hope, and God promised her that, and she chuckled. But sometime in the next three months when she conceived, she considered Him faithful who had promised. And this is ultimately what Sarah's faith and hope was in: a God who keeps His promises.
This is the consistent theme throughout Hebrews 11. Faith is taking God at His word when you have no reason to believe that such a thing is possible. Remember Noah was warned of things not yet seen? Abraham was promised a land he had not yet seen. Sarah now is promised a child in a manner that had been not yet seen. And yet she took God at His word, believing that exactly what God had said He would fulfill.
And the faith that Sarah had is only as good as the object in which it is placed, which is why the author of Hebrews says that she considered Him faithful who had promised. You can have all the faith in the world, the strongest faith in the world, the most ardent belief in the world, but if it is placed in the wrong thing and in error, then the faith is useless. But a little bit of faith placed in a strong God is a strong faith. A lot of faith placed in a weak God is no faith at all. Sarah considered Him faithful.
Did she know how this was going to happen? I mean, physically, she had some idea of how this would happen. But did she know how it was that a barren woman past childbearing age would be able to conceive a child of promise? She did not know that, but in faith she responded. And that faith of Abraham and Sarah, coupled with Abraham's laying down of seed, as we saw earlier, resulted in the conception of Isaac.
And I want you to notice in Hebrews 11 that there is no mention of her chuckling or her laughing or Abraham's laughing. Do you notice that? What is mentioned? Her faith. Why is that? Is the fact that she for a moment responded in that way really the important part of her story? It's not. What is important is that at some point her faith triumphed and she considered Him faithful who had promised. Initially she did not respond that way, but eventually she responded that way, and that is the point of the faith. That is the triumph of her faith.
Now look lastly at the testimony of her faith. This is seen in the outcome in verse 12: “Therefore there was born even of one man [that is Abraham], and him as good as dead at that [it's a comment on Abraham's age], as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.” God kept His word to Abraham literally just as He had promised. Not through Ishmael, not through Eliezer, not through any other woman, but through Sarah. That was God's intention. That was His plan. That was what He had promised. He had given His word of that, and God kept it just as He had promised it.
By the way, God kept that promise. And this statement in verse 12 is from other passages in Genesis which we looked at—an innumerable company of descendants that came from Abraham. The Arabs, the Jews, the Edomites from Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, kings, princes, queens, nations. When you consider the number, and we're talking billions upon billions of people who have come from Abraham's line, it is truly an inconceivable number of people. That Abrahamic covenant being one of, if not, I think, the most significant event in the Old Testament charts the course for everything that flows out of it. All of the fulfillment, all of the covenants, all of the salvation, all of it comes back to that promise to Abraham. And God has fulfilled His word.
Now regarding Sarah, her faith and obedience is mentioned, not just here in verse 11, but also in 1 Peter 3. I would just remind you of this. Verse 5:
5 For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands;
6 just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear. (1 Pet. 3:5–6 NASB)
And there Sarah is held up as an exemplary woman in her submission, her obedience, her love, her faith. And she is called the mother of any who follow in those steps. And I'm not going to comment on that comment in 1 Peter that she called him lord. I'm going to let Dave handle that when he preaches through 1 Peter. I think what Dave is going to say is that it means all the women in this congregation should call all the men in this congregation lord. I think that's where he's going with it. But we'll see. We'll see.
Here are the two things that I want you to take away from this. Number one, Abraham and Sarah are examples of God keeping His word faithfully. And this encourages our faith. God has a great track record of keeping His word. This ultimately is where we place our confidence and our trust: in He who is faithful to do as He has promised. Just as God has kept His word about giving Abraham offspring, just as God has kept His word about blessing Abraham and the nations through him, just as God has kept His word and brought Israel back into that promised land, so God will keep His word for everything that He has committed to national Israel, to any Jew or Gentile who comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ, and to His church. God is the one who always fulfills His word. And when we look at how God kept His word to Sarah even in the midst of circumstances which were physically impossible and beyond their ability to understand, you and I can lift our eyes to Heaven and say, “Our God will keep His word even when it seems to us to be absolutely impossible and contrary to everything we might expect in this world.”
Second, the same God who is incarnate in Jesus Christ has made promises to us. So God has a track record of keeping His promises, and the same God has made promises to us. He has promised us that the one who repents of their sin and turns from their sin to embrace the sacrifice of Jesus Christ made on the cross will be forgiven of all their sins and granted eternal life. That is His promise to you. He has promised you that He is the resurrection and the life and the one who believes in Him will never die. He has promised that. He has promised that He came down from Heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him. And this is the will of the Father who sent Him, that of all that the Father has given to Him, He loses none of them and raises them up on the last day, that everyone who beholds the Son, sees Christ, and believes in Him will have eternal life, and that Jesus will raise Him up on the last day.
He has promised to hold you securely through this life in spite of all the chaos, the wicked rulers, the destruction of nations, the wars and the rumors of wars, the famine, the pestilence, the past, the present, and whatever the future holds. He has promised to hold all of us all the way through that, to keep us securely all the way to the very end, to present us to the Father, and to raise us up on that last day. That is His promise. That is glorious news.
But there is another promise that He has made. And that is the one that will not repent of their sin and trust Christ for salvation will stand before Jesus Christ and be judged on the final day. Acts 17:30–31: God has overlooked the times of ignorance, and He is now declaring to all men everywhere that they repent because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, and He has furnished proof to all men by raising that Judge from the dead. That is Jesus Christ. The one who repents and believes has eternal life. The one who will not turn from their sin and believe will stand before that Judge and be judged on the final day. That is His promise. God has a great track record of keeping His promises. If you are in Christ, He promises you life everlasting. If you are not in Christ, He promises you judgment for your sin everlasting.