Sarah - Is anything too hard for the Lord?

[0:00] Well, if you would turn with me this evening to Genesis chapter 18. Genesis chapter 18. I will read again at verse 10.

[0:25] Genesis 18 and verse 10. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year. And Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.

[0:38] Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, After I am worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure?

[0:50] The Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh and say, Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you about this time next year.

[1:05] And Sarah shall have a son. But particularly the question which I suppose would describe Sarah's life and character.

[1:17] The question, Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord? This evening we're continuing our character study of women in the Bible.

[1:33] I gave you the reason why. The majority of you are women. And I thought it would be a good thing to study some of the women in the Bible. And we've titled our study as The Daughters of the King.

[1:46] Because I believe the character of every daughter of the King, it reflects the character of the King. Not only the character of the King, but also the character of the Church, which is the Bride of Christ.

[2:00] And therefore by considering the daughters of the King and what they were faced with in their day and in their generation. I hope that we'll learn more about the God whom they loved and the God whom they worshipped and the God whom they served.

[2:16] Because we can't deny the fact that women played a key role in the story of redemption. It was through women that God's covenant of grace, the covenant of salvation, it was through women that it was continued throughout every generation.

[2:32] Because they carried in their womb the heir of the covenant promise. They carried the covenant of grace, you could say. And this evening we're looking at the first woman who carried in her womb the heir of the covenant of grace.

[2:49] Last week we were considering the life and character of Eve, who was the mother of all living. And we saw that she was the first woman in creation.

[2:59] And we saw that she was the first wife in creation. But she also showed the first weakness in creation at the fall. But this evening we come to consider the life and character of this woman, Sarah.

[3:14] Who was also a woman of many firsts. Because she was the first woman to carry in her womb the covenant promise. She was also the first wife of Abraham.

[3:25] The one whom the Lord issued the covenant promise, the covenant of grace, was given to Abraham. And as the first woman of the promise and the first wife of the promise, Sarah also displayed the first weakness.

[3:39] By not believing in the promise. And the reason Sarah struggled to believe that the promise of an heir would come through her was all because of her age and her inability to have children.

[3:55] In fact, when we're introduced to Sarah, or Sarai as she's called. I suppose you could call that her maiden name before the covenant promise was given. When we're introduced to Sarah in chapter 11, we're given this description of her.

[4:11] And all we're told is that Abraham's wife was Sarah. But Sarah was barren. She had no children. And so throughout the narrative of Sarah's life, or Sarah's life, there is this tension.

[4:28] This tension between Sarah's barrenness and the Lord's promise to his people. This promise that was given to Abraham. Sarah's barrenness and the promise to Abraham.

[4:41] And the promise, as we know, was the covenant of grace. A covenant which arose out of the backdrop of the fall and later the flood, where God flooded the world because man was evil continually.

[4:53] And then there was the Tower of Babel just at the end of chapter, at the beginning of chapter 11. The Tower of Babel which many people tried to make a name for themselves. And the Lord judged them and the Lord scattered them over the face of all the earth.

[5:08] And so by the time we come to the end of chapter 11, everything seems lost. It seems hopeless for mankind. Mankind has lost sight of their chief end of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever.

[5:23] But then when we step into chapter 12, we cross over the threshold into this new territory. And there's going to be a new beginning. A new era is about to dawn and everything is going to change.

[5:37] Because when the Lord graciously calls this idol worshipper out of our of the Chaldees, He tells Abraham, get out of your father's house and go to a land that I will show you.

[5:51] And Abraham went. And Abraham's, in his obedience, the Lord promised that through his wife, he would make a great nation. And that through his seed, through the child of promise, all the nations of the earth were going to be blessed.

[6:06] But even this, when this promise of hope and light was issued in the midst of despair and darkness, there was still a problem that needed to be overcome.

[6:19] This massive problem. How was the Lord going to fulfill his promise through a woman who was unable to conceive? How was the Lord going to fulfill his promise?

[6:33] And although there is this tension between the problem of Sarah's inability to conceive and the promise of the son, the theme and thrust of the narrative all comes back to this one question in the words of our text.

[6:48] Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord? And of course the answer is no.

[7:00] And so by looking at Sarah, I'd like us to remind ourselves that with God, all things are possible. With God, all things are possible. Now, Sarah isn't present in every chapter of the narrative.

[7:15] The narrative is primarily about Abraham. Because he was given the promise. But Sarah plays this crucial role in the outworking of God's promise.

[7:27] And so by dipping into the narrative at different points, at these points that we were reading, we'll hopefully learn more about this daughter of the king.

[7:38] And there are four areas that I'd like us to touch on briefly this evening. And the first area is Sarah's disguise. Sarah's disguise.

[7:51] So if we jump back to chapter 12 and read again at verse 10. Sarah's disguise. Chapter 12, verse 10.

[8:01] Now there was a famine in the land. So Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarah, his wife, I know that you're a woman beautiful in appearance.

[8:14] And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say that you're my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.

[8:31] At the beginning of chapter 12, we're presented with the greatest hope for mankind. God called this man Abram, a name which means exalted father.

[8:42] And he called him to serve the Lord in the land of Canaan. And to Abram, the Lord promised that the land of Canaan would be Abraham, the father.

[8:54] He would be Abraham, the father of many nations. But what we see here is that Abram and his wife, Sarah, they had barely reached the land of Canaan when they were confronted with a severe famine in the land.

[9:09] And you would think that Abram and his wife, that you would think that they would be richly blessed and receive an abundance of possessions from the Lord because of their obedience and because of their faithfulness.

[9:22] Where they had left everything to follow the Lord. They had left their home, they'd left their family, they'd left all their possessions in order to respond to the call of the Lord upon their life.

[9:34] And you would think that the Lord would respond towards their faith and their obedience by blessing them. You would think that they would be blessed. But when they arrive in Canaan, there is a severe famine.

[9:48] And they have to travel even further towards the land of Egypt. And we read this, when we read this, we're not left asking, why would there be a famine in the land where God had just called Abram to be?

[10:06] Why would there be a famine? Why would the Lord allow that? Why would the Lord bring that upon them? They'd left everything. They're going to this land unknown to them. Why is there a famine there? And of course, it was to test their faith.

[10:19] It was to test their faith. But for Abram, the famine wasn't going to be his only test of faith. Because as Sarai and Abram were coming closer and closer towards Egypt, we read there that Abram strikes up this conversation with his wife on the road where he tells her, you're a beautiful woman.

[10:44] And she's so beautiful that the Egyptians, they will want to take you and make you Pharaoh's wife. And because the Egyptians are ruthless people, says Abram, if they find out that I'm your husband, they'll kill me.

[10:59] And Abram's suggested solution to the whole dilemma was to disguise Sarai as his sister. We're told in verse 13, say you're my sister that it may go well with me because of you, that my life may be spared for your sake.

[11:17] And of course, saying this to your wife, it would put a massive, massive pressure upon her because she had not only left her home and all her family in obedience to follow her husband and follow her husband's call from the Lord, but now she had to disguise herself as her husband's sister in order to spare her husband's life, which might also include getting married to a foreign man in a foreign country.

[11:49] And I suppose that from Sarah's perspective, she was probably looking at the whole situation and asking herself, why did you bring us here in the first place?

[12:00] Why did you bring us here at all? Nevertheless, Sarai went along with her husband's plan. But this plan for both Abram and Sarai, it wasn't a plan built upon faith.

[12:18] It wasn't a plan based upon asking the Lord for the Lord's leading and the Lord's directing. It was a plan based upon fear. Because it wasn't faith that brought Abram and Sarai into Egypt.

[12:31] Faith brought Abram and Sarai into Canaan. Faith brought them out of the colonies to follow the Lord's call, but fear. Fear brought them into Egypt.

[12:43] And it wasn't faith that made Sarai disguise herself as Abram's sister. It was fear. It was Abram's fear and Sarai's fear that caused them to try and deceive the Egyptians.

[12:58] And you know, that's what can often happen in the life of the Christian. Where like Abram and Sarai, we start off on our Christian sojourn by faith.

[13:13] By faith we step out into the unknown and we keep focused upon the Lord. And we're looking to the Lord for everything. We're looking to the Lord in His leading and we're looking for His directing and we're looking for all His guidance and we're reading and we're praying and we're seeking the Lord continually right at the beginning.

[13:33] and what happens is that faith starts the work. But sometimes after a while and somewhere along the journey it's not faith it's trying to see it through.

[13:47] Because our faith can waver when we encounter difficulties and problems and when our faith wavers fear can be its replacement.

[13:57] but fear doesn't focus upon the Lord. Fear only focuses upon circumstances and providence. Fear looks to self for help.

[14:11] Fear makes us self-reliant. Fear makes us independent of God. And the outcome is that we don't pray as often as we once did. We don't ask the Lord for His help as often as we used to.

[14:25] We don't bring things to the Lord in prayer and say lead me, guide me, show me as much as we did in the past. And instead we go ahead and make our own decisions and we ask the Lord to bless the decisions that we're making without even consulting them at all and the result of our lack of faith and our attempts to solve everything ourselves is that we make a mess of things.

[14:53] And what Abram and Sarah should have learned with the famine in Canaan and with the incident in Egypt is the question is anything too hard for the Lord?

[15:06] Is anything too hard for the Lord? And maybe that's what we need to learn too. To bring everything to the Lord. To ask the Lord about everything.

[15:17] To ask the Lord about even the smallest most insignificant thing. To bring it to him because is anything too hard for the Lord?

[15:31] But what we see here in this chapter is that despite Abram and Sarah's unfaithfulness despite their deception and despite their disguise and their failure to look to the Lord the Lord was still with them and the Lord still blessed them.

[15:49] Because we're told in verse 16 that the Pharaoh in Egypt had treated Abram well. He gave to him sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys and camels.

[16:05] And after the Pharaoh had discovered the truth about Abram and Sarah we're told in the last verse of chapter 12 that Pharaoh commanded his men to send him away with his wife and all that he had.

[16:21] All that he had, Abram and Sarah, they got to keep everything. And in this we see that despite their deception and their lack of faith the Lord provided for Abram and Sarah and blessed them.

[16:35] But this blessing it was going to be the means of Sarah's discontentment. Which brings us secondly to consider Sarah's discontentment.

[16:46] We've seen Sarah's disguise but secondly Sarah's discontentment. So jump to chapter 16. Chapter 16 and verse 1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.

[17:01] She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her.

[17:15] And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife.

[17:29] So after the events of chapter 12, Sarah doesn't reappear in the narrative until chapter 16. But when Sarai or Sarah, when she does reappear, the narrative again highlights to us the tension that is present the tension between the promise of a son and the problem of Sarah's inability to conceive.

[17:55] And we're reminded about this tension in the opening words of the chapter because as we read it says, now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And again the narrative is highlighting the problem.

[18:10] And it wants us to ask the question, where is this child of promise ever going to come from? How is the Lord's promise going to be fulfilled? And if anyone was asking these questions, it was Sarah herself.

[18:27] Because after their eventful detour to Egypt, Abram and Sarah, they had now been in the land of Canaan for ten years. They had been in the land of promise waiting on the Lord, the Lord's promise for ten years.

[18:43] And as far as Abram and Sarah were concerned, nothing had changed. It seemed that nothing was going to change for them any time soon.

[18:54] And undoubtedly this would have plagued on Sarah. And it would have put a lot of pressure on her. Because according to the promise, Abram was going to be a father of many nations.

[19:07] And the only way Abram was ever going to be a father of his own household, let alone many nations, the only way was by Sarah giving birth to a son. But by the looks of things, this wasn't going to happen anytime soon, if at all.

[19:22] And this would have been a great cause of concern for Sarah and Abram. But more so for Sarah, because she was the means by which the promise was meant to be fulfilled.

[19:36] But in Sarah's mind, she was only hindering the promise being fulfilled. And thinking that she was in the way of God's plan and withholding the blessing of God, it must have brought her into this emotional state of feeling discontent, feeling useless, feeling worthless, feeling insignificant, feeling like a hindrance rather than a help, to the point that she probably blamed herself and thought that her inability to conceive was all her fault.

[20:14] But more than that, after ten years of waiting upon the Lord, Sarah must have concluded that it would be almost impossible for her to have a child by now. Not only because she was barren, but with every passing year she was getting older, to the point that her chances of having a baby were so slim that it would be near impossible.

[20:36] But one method of not waiting upon the Lord to fulfil his promise or trying to make the impossible possible is to take the matter into your own hands.

[20:48] And in Sarah's mind it wasn't taking the matter into her own hands as such. It was just helping God getting his plan into action and the ball rolling a lot quicker.

[21:00] And having consumed her mind about how this child was going to come into the world, Sarah logically thought about the whole thing because she thought the promise of blessing it has actually been given to Abram, not to her.

[21:15] The promise was that through his seed all nations of the earth would be blessed. And from these thoughts Sarai formulated this plan to bring God's promise into fruition.

[21:29] And Sarai presented to Abram her alternative plan which she says in verse 2, Sarai said to Abram behold now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

[21:40] Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. What we should notice straight away is that the plan was flawed from the start.

[21:56] Not only because it was deviating away from God's promise but because Abram submitted to the words of his wife Sarai.

[22:07] Just like Adam submitted to the words of his wife Eve. And as we know in both cases of the fall and here the outcome was disaster.

[22:20] The outcome was pain and sorrow because we're told in verse 4 and he went into Hagar and she conceived and when she saw that she had conceived that's Sarah.

[22:32] When she saw that she conceived she looked with contempt on her mistress. And what we see is that Sarah's discontentment led to Sarah despising Hagar.

[22:46] And it's interesting to see that Hagar had come out of the turmoil in Egypt. She was only there because they had gone into Egypt but now she was going to cause even greater turmoil in Canaan.

[23:00] because when Sarah's plan backfired it created even more tension within the narrative. Because Sarah's jealousy it took over and it began to consume her and it started eating away at her to the point that she despised Hagar and she wanted rid of her immediately.

[23:19] She was an enemy. She was someone who was getting in the way. in fact we're told that Sarah dealt harshly with her faithful servant. She dealt harshly with her.

[23:31] So much so that Hagar fled. She ran. And it makes us realise the sheer intensity and power that jealousy can have.

[23:43] That it will make people do things that they would never otherwise think of doing. And there's a proverb in the book of Proverbs that says wrath is cruel.

[23:55] Anger a torrent. But who is able to stand before jealousy? Makes you realise how awful it can be.

[24:06] Wrath is cruel and anger a torrent. But who is able to stand before jealousy? And this proverb shows to the extent to which people can be taken when they are consumed and eaten away and overcome.

[24:23] with jealousy. My friend jealousy is a dangerous thing and we ought to be aware of it and stop it progressing if it's beginning to take over us.

[24:38] But jealousy came as a result of not waiting upon the Lord. It came as a result of not waiting upon the Lord and trying to push the Lord's timetable ahead.

[24:51] And you know one of the hardest things to do is to wait upon the Lord. Whether that's to wait upon the Lord for direction or guidance or assurance, it's not easy to wait upon the Lord.

[25:06] And that's because by nature we are impatient. And I see that even with my own children. I'm impatient but I see it with little children.

[25:16] because when David and Finley, when they want juice, they'll just ask for it and straight away they'll go and try and get it themselves. They'll open the fridge and they'll start climbing the shelves to get it.

[25:28] They don't want to wait. They've heard the answer of wait but they don't want to wait. They want it there and then. They want it now. They want it immediately without delay. And it's not that they aren't going to get it but it's that they have to wait for it.

[25:43] And I don't know as parents do you find yourself always saying wait give me a minute. And you know the same is true spiritually. The Lord sometimes, not always, but sometimes he will give us what we desire but we have to wait upon him.

[26:00] We have to wait for his timing. And far too often we want to try and orchestrate things to suit ourselves and to do God's work for him.

[26:12] But more often than not, like Sarah, it will backfire on us. And we need to learn to wait upon the Lord. And sometimes people will say that well providence will direct you and guide you on these matters.

[26:28] And that's certainly true. Our providences are all ordained by the Lord. But our providences should never contradict God's word. They should never contradict God's word.

[26:41] Providence doesn't contradict the word. Providence confirms the word. Providence doesn't contradict the word. Providence confirms the word.

[26:52] And that's what we see with Sarah. Because as providence would have it, Hagar was able to be Sarah's substitute. She was there.

[27:04] Providence would have it. She was there. She was able to do it. But the promise of God's word asserted that it was through her that the promised heir would come. Therefore providence should never govern our decisions.

[27:19] The word should govern all our decisions. That's what the catechism teaches us. It's the only rule to direct us. How we may glorify God and enjoy him forever. But providence should be understood as a confirmation of God's word as we wait upon him.

[27:37] And the hardest thing to do is to wait upon the Lord. To wait upon the Lord. But that's what the psalmist was encouraging us to do in Psalm 37. He was urging us as the Lord's people, set thou thy trust, he says, upon the Lord and be thou doing good and so thou in the land shalt dwell and verily have food.

[27:59] Delight thyself in God. Make God your focus, he says, and listen to his word and lay hold of all the promises. Delight thyself in God.

[28:10] He'll give thine heart's desire to thee, thy way to God. Commit him trust it bring to pass shall he. And then the psalmist went on in verse 7 of Psalm 37.

[28:23] He says, rest in the Lord and patiently wait for him. Do not fret. Do not fret. It's all in the Lord's hand.

[28:33] The Lord is sovereign. He's in control. But then there's the warning in the other half of verse 7. For him who prospering in his way, success in sin doth get.

[28:46] And that was Sarai's portion. She sought to prosper in her own efforts. But her discontentment only led to despising Hagar.

[29:00] But all the time the Lord was teaching Sarah to wait upon and to lay hold of the promise. And see that there is nothing too hard for the Lord.

[29:13] And yet as time went by Sarah's discontentment soon changed to Sarah's doubt. Sarah's doubt. That's what we see thirdly.

[29:24] Sarah's doubt. We've seen Sarah's disguise, Sarah's discontentment, but now thirdly, Sarah's doubt. If you look, jump to chapter 18, see Sarah's doubt.

[29:38] Chapter 18 verse 9. They said to him, that's the guest, where is Sarah your wife? And he said, she is in the tent. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year.

[29:49] And Sarah your wife shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah.

[30:01] So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, after I am worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? And so by the time we come to chapter 18 in the narrative, the only thing that has changed is Abraham and Sarah's name.

[30:18] But their situation still remains the same. The years have now progressed even further and there is still no sign of this child of promise.

[30:29] However, with the name change it seems like it's a preparation for a change of circumstances. Because the change of name for Abraham to Abraham or Sarah to Sarah, it's all to do with the Lord's reaffirmation of the covenant promise that was given in the previous chapter.

[30:51] Because in chapter 17 the Lord talked with Abraham and said to him, he said to him at the beginning of the chapter, behold my covenant is with you and you shall be a father of many nations.

[31:05] No longer shall your name be called Abraham but your name shall be Abraham for I have made you a father of many nations. And that's what the name Abraham means, the father of many nations.

[31:17] And then later on in the chapter, the Lord said again to Abraham, he said, as for Sarah your wife, you shall not call her name Sarah, which means princess, but you shall call her Sarah, which means noble woman.

[31:35] Sarah shall be her name and I will bless her and give you a son by her and then I will bless her and she will be a mother of nations, kings of peoples, shall be born from her.

[31:47] And we're told that Abraham, fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child.

[32:05] And so the change in their names was a preparation and an affirmation that the Lord's promise was soon to be fulfilled. God is but what's interesting is that when you contrast Abraham laughing in chapter seventeen with Sarah laughing at the Lord's promise in chapter eighteen, Abraham's laugh was one of delight but Sarah's laugh was one of doubt.

[32:31] Abraham couldn't believe that after all this waiting the Lord would finally fulfil his promise Abraham delighted in the promise but Sarah doubted the promise.

[32:50] And we can see Abraham's delight when these visitors arrive at his house because he tells them hang on I'm going to make a marshal of bread, I'm going to get a marshal of bread to eat just enough to tie you over but in reality Abraham was so delighted that he went into his house and he tells his wife go into the kitchen and start baking and he does that and while she starts baking he goes out into the field to find a butcher to kill the fattened calf and when Abraham comes back to his guests there's no sign of the marshal of bread instead he sets this feast before the Lord for all his guests to eat.

[33:32] But after the meal the guests ask their host where is your wife? why do you want to know about her? Where is your wife? Where is the one who will bear the child of promise?

[33:43] Where is the mother of nations? And Abraham responds and says well she's here in the tent. And the Lord wanted to make sure that Sarah was listening when he was going to affirm the covenant promise.

[33:56] What he says in verse 10 the Lord said I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah your wife shall have a son. Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.

[34:08] In nine months time Sarah will have a son. And just in case we somehow think that Abraham and Sarah are in their prime for having children the text tells us now Abraham and Sarah were old advanced in years the way of women had ceased to be with Sarah.

[34:28] In other words the likelihood of Sarah conceiving at the age of 90 having been barren all her life and even Abraham being part of that conception at the age of 100 it left it almost impossible almost impossible and it's because of the sheer impossibility of it all that as Sarah listens to what the Lord is saying she laughs.

[34:54] She laughs and she says so Sarah laughed to herself saying after I'm worn out and my Lord is old shall I have pleasure.

[35:05] Sarah laughed because she had come to the conclusion that the Lord wasn't going to fulfil his promise. She laughed because she had come to the conclusion that what she had been waiting for for so long was never going to happen.

[35:22] And I think she had lost all hope in the promise. And as the years went by she had given up. She had given up all hope of ever seeing her son being born to her.

[35:35] Sarah laughed because she looked at herself at the age of 90 and her husband at the age of 100 and she looked at her situation. She looked at her providence and she laughed and said impossible, impossible, impossible.

[35:51] And you know my friend, laughter is the response of doubt. laughter is the response of disbelief. That's what the world does with the message of the gospel.

[36:06] They respond with laughter and say impossible, impossible. They laugh at the creation account of God speaking everything into being in the space of six days and they say impossible.

[36:17] They laugh at the incarnation of God becoming man and they say impossible. impossible. The world laughs at the cross, God dying for our sin and they say impossible. The world laughs at the empty tomb and God being raised from the dead and they say impossible.

[36:33] The world laughs at the second coming and God judging the world that laughs and they say impossible. And that's what the world does with the message of the gospel.

[36:45] They respond with laughter. But the Lord responds and says, is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord?

[36:58] And you know, thinking about it, these promises, this promise that Sarah was meant to be clinging to, maybe for you my friend, the Lord has given you a promise.

[37:11] Maybe it's a promise that someone in your family will be saved, whether your husband or your wife or your children or another family member, and maybe the Lord has promised to help you and provide for you in some way.

[37:28] Well, what Sarah ought to teach us is that we shouldn't lose hope in the promise. Sarah ought to teach us not to laugh at the promise of the Lord, but to cling to it, to lay hold upon it, and to plead it before the Lord.

[37:47] Because every promise, as Paul says, is yea and amen in Christ Jesus. It's affirmed in him. My dear friend, you may have to wait many hard years for that promise to be fulfilled.

[38:02] And maybe for some of you, you might never see the promise being fulfilled. But after many years of waiting, if you're spared to see it, I hope that you'll discover, like Sarah did, that the Lord is faithful to his promises.

[38:22] The Lord is faithful to his promises. Because nine months after this meeting in chapter 18, Sarah's doubt was transformed to Sarah's delight.

[38:34] Sarah's delight. We've seen Sarah's disguise, Sarah's discontentment, Sarah's doubt, and lastly and very briefly, Sarah's delight.

[38:44] We jump to chapter 21. Sarah's delight. Just verse 1. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised.

[38:59] And I just love those words, because their emphasis is upon the Lord and his perfect timing. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah.

[39:14] as he had promised. The Lord was faithful to his promise. The Lord fulfilled his promise according to his own timetable.

[39:27] And as Solomon reminds us, to everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born, and a time to die.

[39:39] And that was certainly true for Sarah. Sarah. Because as we've witnessed throughout this narrative, waiting upon the Lord and believing the promise, it was the hardest thing for Sarah to do.

[39:51] But even though she was surrounded by doubts and fears, Sarah was still a woman of faith. In fact, she's the first woman to be named in that list stuff in Hebrews 11.

[40:04] We're told that by faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed. And she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had promised.

[40:20] She judged him faithful who had promised. And that's what Sarah learned about the whole experience. And that's what we will always learn about the Lord.

[40:31] It may take a lifetime to learn it just like it did for Sarah. It wasn't until she was 90 that she learned it. But we will always come to the same conclusion as she did.

[40:46] She judged him faithful who had promised. She judged him faithful after the famine sent them into Egypt. She judged him faithful after the incident with Hagar.

[40:59] She judged him faithful even after receiving a personal promise from the Lord. She judged him faithful as she held her newborn son in her arms.

[41:12] After everything that had happened in Sarah's life, we're told the Lord visited Sarah as he had said and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. Despite Sarah's disguise and Sarah's discontentment doubt, Sarah's delight came when she learned that the Lord is faithful to his promises.

[41:38] Sarah's delight came when she learned that the Lord fulfills all his promises. And most of all, Sarah's delight came when she learned that there is nothing too hard for the Lord.

[41:54] There is nothing too hard for the Lord. May the Lord bless these thoughts to us. Let us pray. O Lord, our gracious God, we bless and praise thee for thy promises, every promise that is founded upon Christ.

[42:09] Help us, Lord, to plead them and help us to wait upon them. Lord, we know that we are so impatient. We are those who want things now. But help us, Lord, to wait upon thee.

[42:22] For even the psalmists end, wait upon the Lord and be thou strong. Help us, Lord, then, to see that thou art the God who is working all things together for good, according to thy purpose, according to the ways and wills of thy heart.

[42:39] Do us good then, we pray thee. Help us, Lord, to serve thee in this day and age. Lord, help us to look to thee, to keep our eyes fixed upon thee, the author and the finisher of our faith.

[42:52] Cleanse us then, we pray, and do us good. For Jesus' sake. Amen. We shall conclude by singing to God's praise in Psalm 105.

[43:07] Psalm 105, that's page 375. Singing from verse 6 down to the verse marked 10. Psalm 105 verse 6.

[43:24] O ye that are of Abraham's race, his servant well approved, and ye that Jacob's children are, whom he chose for his own, because he and he only is the mighty Lord our God, and his most righteous judgments are in all the earth abroad.

[43:39] Down to the verse marked 10 of Psalm 105. To God's praise. O ye that are of Abraham's race, his servant well approved, and ye that Jacob's children are, whom he chose for his own.

[44:19] He knows he and he only is the mighty Lord our God, and his most righteous judgments are, in all the earth abroad.

[44:51] His love that he remembered God, that it may ever stand, two thousand generations, the word he did come on, which all were none he firmly made, with faithful Abraham.

[45:36] Abraham, and on to Isaac, by his soul, he did renew the sin, and on to Jacob, for our law, he made it firm and sure, a covenant to Israel, which never should endure.

[46:25] endure. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, now and forevermore.

[46:36] Amen.