MOB Lesson 11 Genesis 18:1-19:38 Part 1
Oct/21/07 10:02 Filed in: MOB Bible Study
We are moving to Lesson 11 in
Genesis and will be covering this portion of
scripture for the next 4 weeks. This week we are
going to be looking at Sarah's response to God
about having a baby at 90 years old. We will be
contrasting how she responds verses how Abraham
responded in the previous chapter.
This week please answer questions 1-3 on pages
123-125. We will be focusing on Genesis 18:1-15.
Here are two Great Resources for this study. The
first is a John Piper sermon on Genesis 18:10-15
and the second is Calvin's Commentary on the key
verses of Sarah's response:
John Piper Sermon:
God Does the Impossible - the Isaac FactorThis morning's message is simply to point to another Bible story and how it illustrates this truth. It's the story of the birth of Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, the child of promise. Let's get some of the details of the story in front of us.
According to Genesis 11:30, Abram's wife was barren even before they came to the Promised Land. "Sarai was barren; she had no child." This was not merely coincidental. It was planned by God. We know this because in Genesis 16:2 Sarah said, "The LORD has prevented me from bearing children." So God is putting in place circumstances that will make the fulfillment of his promise humanly impossible.
What promise? The promise that Abraham would have many offspring and become a great nation. Genesis 12:2, "I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing." That promise came after the knowledge that Sarah was barren. Indeed, God had closed her womb, and then made the promise. So now, if Abraham believes the promise, it will be a believing not just in the ability of God to predict the future, but in the power of God to create a future that is humanly impossible.
This is what I call "The Isaac Factor": God's purpose to do what is humanly impossible, so that we have to trust his power and grace, and he gets the glory. But we do not naturally trust God so easily. It goes against our fallen nature. Here's what usually happens: When we meet a situation like this, we try to think of ways that we can actually make it happen by ordinary human means.
Let's watch this in Abraham's life. The first natural thought he has is that God may fulfill his promise to make him a great nation (Genesis 12:2) by raising up heirs to him through his slave, Eliezer. God has to set Abraham straight here and make sure he sees how impossible he really means the promise to be. Look at Genesis 15:2-4.
Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." 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."
So God cuts off Abraham's escape. No, Abraham, my promise will not be fulfilled in the humanly possible way of using your slave as your legal heir. My way will be humanly impossible: You will become a great nation through your own physical seed - your own biological son.
God's Requirement for Us - Faith
What does God require from Abraham? He requires that Abraham believe him, trust him. So God takes Abraham outside and says to him in verse 5, "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." Then verse 6 says that "Abraham believed in the LORD; and [God] reckoned it to him as righteousness." That's the faith that corresponds to "The Isaac Factor".
But there is one more escape hatch from God's sovereign grace and the humanly impossible promise. God has only said that the son of promise would come from Abraham's body (Genesis 15:4), not from Sarah's body. So what about using a concubine to get the promise to come true?
Let's watch what happens when Abraham and Sarah try this. Genesis 16:1-2: "Now Sarai, Abram's wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, 'Now behold, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.' And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.'" Verse 15: "So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him."
This was not God's plan for how his promise would be fulfilled. God's promise was going to depend on sovereign grace, not on human ingenuity. Ishmael was not the son of promise, precisely because he was humanly possible.
Look at Genesis 17:15-16 to see what God says about this. The time is about thirteen years later. God comes to Abraham and says, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her." This was a great setback to Abraham. He thought he had a human way figured out to have heirs from his own body just as God said he would.
Now God says, No, I will do it the impossible way, Abraham. So Abraham's faith wavered for a moment and Genesis 17:17 says, "[He] 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?'" And he pleaded with God to fulfill his promise in a less spectacular way. Verse 18: "Abraham said to God, 'Oh that Ishmael might live before You!' 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.'"
Why Won't He Settle for the Humanly Possible?
Why? Why won't God opt for anything less than the path of impossibility? I think he tells us in the next chapter (Genesis 18:10-14). God comes to Abraham and makes the promise again:
"I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; Sarah was past childbearing [not only barren all her life, but now passed childbearing years]. Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" 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?"
There it is. That's the reason God will not settle for anything less than the path of impossibility: He aims to show that nothing is too difficult for the Lord. His purpose in all he does is
To magnify his sovereign grace And keep us in our humble place.
This is "The Isaac Factor" - and it is exactly what God did. Genesis 21:1-3: "Then the LORD took note of Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac."
God planned and worked in a way that made the promise to Abraham humanly impossible. 1) He saw to it that Sarah was barren from the beginning. 2) He refused the human solution of a legal heir named Eliezer. 3) He rejected the human solution of having sex with Hagar to beget Ishmael. 4) He waited till Abraham and Sarah were old and she was beyond childbearing years before the child of promise was born. 5) And he predicted the very time of the child's birth.
Implications for Us
In all these ways God acted to make clear that sovereign grace, not human initiative, brings about children of promise. Now let me apply this to us in two ways.
1. The first is that each of us who is a child of God - a member of his saved covenant people, an heir of God's promise - became what we are by sovereign grace, not human initiative.
You can see this application in Romans 9:6-9. Paul is wrestling with the heartache that many of his fellow Jews are not believing in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and are therefore perishing (Romans 9:3). Does this mean that God's promise to his Jewish people has failed? He answers in verse 6, "It is not as though the word of God has failed." How does he explain this? He says in verse 6b, "For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; (7a) nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants." In other words, to be an heir of the promises made to Abraham you can't just be the product of ordinary human reproduction.
Then he goes right to our story of Isaac and the way Isaac came into being to show what he means. He says in verse 7b, "But: 'THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.'" In other words, "Not Ishmael, the fruit of your human self-reliance, but through Isaac the child whom I brought into being when it was humanly impossible." Then Paul states the general principle that he is drawing out of the story. Verse 8: "That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants."
What is the difference between a "child of the flesh" and the "children of promise"? The difference is that ordinary human resources bring children of the flesh into being, but the sovereign power of God's promise brings the children of promise into being. You see this in verse 9: "For this is the word of promise: 'AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.'" In other words, Abraham tried to make an heir for God's promise by the human initiative, that is, out of flesh (Ishmael), but God said, "No, heirs of promise come into being through supernatural, divine intervention. That is what it means to be a Christian - an heir of God's covenant promises. That is how you became a Christian.
Know this. Cherish this. Be thankful for this with all your heart. Be humbled by this. This is "The Isaac Factor."
God magnifies his sovereign grace And keeps us in our humble place.
2. Finally, the second application is to the funding of Education for Exultation. Is it possible that we could enter a $9 million educational and multi-purpose building in two years, debt-free? The answer we offer is simply the word of God to Abraham in Genesis 18:14, "Is anything too difficult for the LORD?"
Our hope and prayer is that God, in his great mercy, would look upon our plan not as presumption but as one more expression of the great Isaac Factor that runs through the whole Bible: God often does things in a way that makes us depend on him for the humanly impossible. Why?
To magnify his sovereign grace
And keep us in our humble place.
John Calvins Commentary
Genesis 18:12. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself. Abraham had laughed before, as appears in the preceding chapter Genesis 17:1: but the laughter of both was, by no means, similar. For Sarah is not transported with admiration and joy, on receiving the promise of God; but foolishly sets her own age and that of her husband in opposition to the word of God; that she may withhold confidence from God, when he speaks. Yet she does not, avowedly, charge God with falsehood or vanity; but because, having her mind fixed on the contemplation of the thing proposed, she only weighs what might be accomplished by natural means, without raising her thoughts to the consideration of the power of God, and thus rashly casts discredit on God who speaks to her. Thus, as often as we measure the promises and the works of God, by our own reason, and by the laws of nature, we act reproachfully towards him, though we may intend nothing of the sort. For we do not pay him his due honor, except we regard every obstacle which presents itself in heaven and on earth, as placed under subjection to his word. But although the incredulity of Sarah is not to be excused; she, nevertheless, does not directly reject the favor of God; but is only so kept back by shame and modesty, that she does not altogether believe what she hears. Even her very words declare the greatest modesty; 'After we are grown old shall we give ourselves up to lust?' Wherefore, let us observe, that nothing was less in Sarah's mind, than to make God a liar. But herein consisted in this alone, that, having fixed her thoughts too much on the accustomed order of nature, she did not give glory to God, by expecting from him a miracle which she was unable to conceive in her mind. We must here notice the admonition which the Apostle gathers from this passage, because Sarah here calls Abraham her lord. (1 Peter 3:6.) For he exhorts women, after her example, to be obedient and well-behaved towards their own husbands. Many women, indeed, without difficulty, give their husbands this title, when yet they do not scruple to bring them under rule, by their imperious pride: but the Apostle takes it for granted that Sarah testifies, from her heart, what she feels, respecting her husband: nor is it doubtful that she gave proof, by actual services, of the modesty which she had professed in words.Genesis 13. And the Lord said. Because the majesty of God had now been manifested in the angels, Moses expressly mentions his Name. We have before declared, in what sense the name of God is transferred to the angel; it is not, therefore, now necessary to repeat it: except, as it is always important to remark, that the word of the Lord is so precious to himself, that he would be regarded by us as present, whenever he speaks through his ministers. Again, whenever he manifested himself to the fathers, Christ was the Mediator between him and them; who not only personates God in proclaiming his word, but is also truly and essentially God. And because the laughter of Sarah had not been detected by the eye of man, therefore Moses expressly declares that she was reprehended by God. And to this point belong the following circumstances, that the angel had his back turned to the tent, and that Sarah laughed within herself, and not before others. The censure also shows that the laughter of Sarah was joined with incredulity. For there is no little weight in this sentence, 'Can anything be wonderful with God?' But the angel chides Sarah, because she limited the power of God within the bounds of her own sense. An antithesis is therefore implied between the immense power of God, and the contracted measure which Sarah imagined to herself, through her carnal reason. Some translate the word alp (pala,) hidden, as if the angel meant that nothing was hidden from God: but the sense is different; namely, that the power of God ought not to be estimated by human reason. 4 It is not surprising, that in arduous affairs we fail, or that we succumb to difficulties: but God's way is far otherwise, for he looks down with contempt, from above, upon those things which alarm us by their lofty elevation. We now see what was the sin of Sarah; namely, that she did wrong to God, by not acknowledging the greatness of his power. And truly, we also attempt to rob God of his power, whenever we distrust his word. At the first sight, Paul seems to give cold praise to the faith of Abraham, in saying, that he did not consider his body, now dead, but gave glory to God, because he was persuaded that he could fulfill what he had promised. (Romans 4:19.) But if we thoroughly investigate the source of distrust, we shall find that the reason why we doubt of God's promises is, because we sinfully detract from his power. For as soon as any extraordinary difficulty occurs, then, whatever God has promised, seems to us fabulous; yea, the moment he speaks, the perverse thought insinuates itself, How will he fulfill what he promises? Being bound down, and preoccupied by such narrow thoughts, we exclude his power, the knowledge of which is better to us than a thousand worlds. In short, he who does not expect more from God than he is able to comprehend in the scanty measure of his own reason, does him grievous wrong. Meanwhile, the word of the Lord ought to be inseparably joined with his power; for nothing is more preposterous, than to inquire what God can do, to the setting aside of his declared will. In this way the Papists plunge themselves into a profound labyrinth, when they dispute concerning the absolute power of God. Therefore, unless we are willing to be involved in absurd dotings, it is necessary that the word should precede us like a lamp; so that his power and his will may be conjoined by an inseparable bond. This rule the Apostle prescribes to us, when he says,
'Being certainly persuaded, that what he has promised,
he is able to perform,' (Romans 4:21.)
The angel again repeats the promise that he would come 'according to the time of life,' that is, in the revolving of the year, when the full time of bringing forth should have arrived.
Genesis 15. Then Sarah denied. Another sin of Sarah's was, that she endeavored to cover and hide her laughter by a falsehood. Yet this excuse did not proceed from obstinate wickedness, according to the manner in which hypocrites are wont to snatch at subterfuges, so that they remain like themselves, even to the end. Sarah's feelings were of a different kind; for while she repents of her own folly, she is yet so terrified, as to deny that she had done, what she now perceives to be displeasing to God. Whence we infer, how great is the corruption of our nature, which causes even the fear of God, -- the highest of all virtues, -- to degenerate into a fault. Moreover, we must observe whence that fear, of which Moses makes mention, suddenly entered the mind of Sarah; namely, from the consideration that God had detected her secret sin. We see, therefore, how the majesty of God, when it is seriously felt by us, shakes us out of our insensibility. We are more especially constrained to feel thus, when God ascends his tribunal, and brings our sins to light.
Nay; but thou didst laugh. The angel does not contend in a multiplicity of words, but directly refutes her false denial of the fact. We may hence learn, that we gain no advantage by tergiversation, when the Lord reproves us, because he will immediately dispatch our case with a single word. Therefore, we must beware lest we imitate the petulance of those who mock God with false pretences, and at length rush into gross contempt of Him. However he may seem to leave us unnoticed for a time, yet he will fulminate against us with that terrible voice, 'It is not as you pretend.' In short, it is not enough that the judgment of God should be reverenced, unless we also confess our sins ingenuously and without shifts or evasions. For a double condemnation awaits those who, from a desire to escape the judgment of God, retake themselves to the refuge of dissimulation. We must, therefore bring a sincere confession, that, as persons openly condemned, we may obtain pardon. But seeing that God was contented with giving a friendly reprehension, and that he did not more severely punish the double offense of Sarah; we hence perceive with what tender indulgence he sometimes regards his own people. Zacharias was more severely treated, who was struck dumb for nine months. (Luke 1:9.) But it is not for us to prescribe a perpetual law to God; who, as he generally binds his own people to repentance by punishments, often sees it good to humble them sufficiently, without inflicting any chastisement. In Sarah, truly, he gives a singular instance of his compassion; because he freely forgives her all, and still chooses that she should remain the mother of the Church. In the meantime, we must observe, how much better it is that we should be brought before him as guilty, and that like convicted persons we should be silent, than that we should delight ourselves in sin, as a great part of the world is accustomed to do.