He’s just too far gone in sin. As I said, we tend to shrug off our unbelief as if it’s no big deal. ... “God is good in both the giving and the taking away because both are for the sake of our joy in him.” The Lord, in His grace, looked beyond Sarah’s doubt and picked out her submission to her husband and held it up as an example. → https://www.twitch.tv/plechinSuscribete! That’s a strange way to give a woman a son! He may not give us an instant answer. With God, all things, including the salvation of the chief of sinners, is possible! He’s been drinking and lying and living for self, with no possibility that he’s going to change.” No human possibility! May He bless you as you wait on Him! Because she faced her sin of unbelief and thought about things from God’s perspective, Sarah received the faith to conceive Isaac. He graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.M., 1976 in Bible exposition) and Califo... More, Q. But Sarah’s laughter was different. About all you can do at that point is to turn your laugh into a cough to try to cover it up. Admit the truth yourself, because I know your heart.” Then He lovingly gets us to consider things from His almighty perspective: “I could never be in any situation which would be too difficult for the Lord to work.”. Hebrews 11:11 states, “By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.” In fact Sarah received more than faith. Salvation is totally of the Lord. But sometimes, instead of trusting Him with our impossible situations, like Sarah, we doubt Him. And yet here He asks, “Where is she?” Why does He ask this? If Hannah could have had children on her own, like Peninnah, she wouldn’t have needed the Lord. When they were helpless, God gave them Isaac. In her natural strength, she was barren. So what? But God told Jeremiah to buy it as a testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness to His promise to restore His people to the land. The Lord’s word to Sarah speaks to all who struggle with unbelief (and that’s all of us): “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?” The absurdity of the question gives it its punch. This story of Abraham and Sarah waiting all these years for the promised son teaches us an important spiritual lesson: God brings us to the end of our strength so that we will trust in His ability to do the impossible. He got out his calculator and determined that 200 denarii (200 day’s wages) worth of bread wouldn’t even be enough. It is to demote God from His place of sovereign power and to promote myself over Him. Danny D: Amanda initially came to me with the hook of “Be Bold, Be brave, God knows the way.” When I started writing verses for the song I wanted people to know that in these uncertain times, God still knows the way. God doesn’t help those who help themselves. The first step in this process is ... After the meal, the guests ask Abraham, “Where is Sarah your wife?” (18:9). It stemmed from her unbelief which stemmed from looking at things from a human perspective. Copyright 1996, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved. But apparently the Lord, who knows our hearts, knew that Abraham was not doubting God’s promise to give them a son through Sarah. God helps those who are helpless. That way, we’ll look to Him for His power, praise Him when He delivers us, and He will be glorified through our lives. They mocked him, threw him in a muddy pit, and listened to the false prophets who told them what they wanted to hear, that God wouldn’t judge them for their sin. By nature we all trust in ourselves most of the time, and in God only when we really have to. Title: Unstoppable God Artist: Elevation Worship Album: Raised to Life EP [2014] CAPO 4 (Key: B) [Intro] D - Em - C D - Em - C [Verse 1] D Em C D Em C Heaven thundered and the world was born D Em C D Em C Life begins and ends in the dust You formed D Em C D Em C Faith commanded and the mountains moved D Em C D Em C Fear is losing ground to our hope in You [Chorus] G Am7 Unstoppable God … So Jeremiah obeyed God and handed over the precious little money he had to purchase this field. But God doesn’t do that. At those moments, you wish you could become invisible. Also, Sarah received laughter. I think the Lord asked so that Sarah, hearing her name spoken, would eaves-drop on the conversation to follow. So through various means He graciously brings us to the place where we have no hope except in Him, so that we trust in Him and He gets the glory. She could get along quite nicely by herself. But how foolish to think that we can hide our sin from the Lord who knows every thought in our heads! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! But Scripture is clear that Christ didn’t die for decent folks who have worked hard to put their lives in order. I can’t deal with it now!”? Have you ever thought about how embarrassing it would be if your thoughts were uncontrollably linked to your vocal cords, so that whatever you were thinking was broadcast for everyone to hear? And the Lord wasn’t getting any glory from Peninnah and her brood. But we dare not doubt His goodness toward His chosen ones or His power to fulfill His purpose with them in His time and way. What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to trust God for? But you can trust in Him and give glory to Him, knowing that His Word of promise will stand, and that He has not forgotten His promise to you. It says, “I know better than the omniscient, all-powerful God, what He can do or not do!” It implies either that God doesn’t know what He’s talking about or He isn’t able to do it. Think about it: Is there any problem you’re facing that is too hard for God? To doubt God’s promise is tantamount to calling God a liar. So how exactly does it cause drunkenness, and why does it have dramatically different effects on different people? For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him. What is the source of our unbelief? In fact, Isaac’s name means “he laughs.” Since that was the name God gave the boy, it means that God wanted to give Abraham and Sarah the right laughter of His blessing in place of the wrong laughter of doubt. This is illustrated many times in the Bible. Note that the Lord begins by promising that which was humanly impossible: “I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son” (18:10). The Lord told him to buy a field from his cousin because he was the closest relative with a right of redemption. When the Lord said, “Why did Sarah laugh?” she denied it and said, “I didn’t laugh.” But the Lord knew differently and said, “No, but you did laugh.” It wasn’t a laughing matter to the Lord. You wonder, “Why doesn’t God do something? Maybe it’s the salvation of a loved one, and you’ve thought, “There’s no way this person is going to come to faith in Christ. How can we know whether God’s delay means “no,” or whether we should keep seeking Him for the answer we desire? I’m going to miss the kickoff if I talk to him now!” Instead of, “Great sermon, pastor,” as you go out the door, you would hear yourself saying, “I thought it never would end!”. And so the Lord has to bring us again and again to the point of helplessness, where we acknowledge our own insufficiency and depend His all-sufficiency. There’s a theologically staggering verse in Mark 6:5, which states that Jesus could do no miracle in His home town of Nazareth, except for healing a few sick people. But the Lord tested Philip by asking, “Where are we going to buy bread?” It was a humanly impossible situation. If we trust in ourselves, then we glory in ourselves. How could anything be difficult for the Lord, who spoke the universe into existence? Hudson Taylor used to say that when God wanted to open inland China to the gospel, He looked around until He found a man weak enough for the task. You struggle with doubt as you often wonder whether He is hearing your prayers. I didn’t expect that to happen! She laughed when God did not. But that’s how we think when we look at things from a human perspective. We’re also reminded that Abraham and Sarah were old, and that Sarah was past the age of childbearing (18:11). She managed to conceal her laughter, but that doesn’t work with the Lord, who knows the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts. He closed her womb! Is it medically safe to engage in ten days of total fasting monthly taking only water. Why was it so difficult. With Christ joy is constantly born anew. Why/why not? Faith is a gift God is ready to give us the moment we will turn from our unbelief and see Him for who He is: the God for whom nothing is too difficult. But is anything too difficult for the Lord? Life is passing you by while you wait. The gist of it was, “I’m too old even to enjoy sex with my husband, let alone get pregnant and bear a child!” Adding up all the human factors, she concluded that she could not in any way bear a son at age 90. Instead of, “I’m pleased to meet you,” you would blurt out, “Oh, no! This would be like telling someone to buy a house in Sarajevo when it was under siege. So the Lord asks a second question, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?” Is there anything you can think of which would make the Lord exclaim, “I’m not sure I can pull it off!”? One of life’s embarrassing moments is when you’re in a crowd and you laugh at something which no one else laughs at. We’re so quick to calculate from our human perspective how God is going to be able to do His work. Her laughter of doubt (18:12) was replaced with the laughter of joy when Isaac was born (21:6). Can you dare to think that there is some sin which you have committed or some awful habit to which you are enslaved which the Lord is not able to forgive and deliver you from? Sarah denied that she did what the Lord says she did: “I didn’t laugh.” The text adds that she was afraid. Is there a family problem that just got so bad that the Lord would have to say, “Now it’s too tough for Me to handle”? Is anything in your life too difficult for the Lord? God wants each of us to see that our situation is humanly impossible without Him. We calculate, but we leave God out of the calculation. Q. You can identify, then, with poor Sarah. The Lord confirmed Jeremiah’s prayer by answering, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?” (Jer. She was already through menopause. 32:17). Canal de Magnum → https://bit.ly/33PQje2 Sigueme en Twitch! When we trust God to do the humanly impossible, He rewards us. The Lord didn’t let Sarah off the hook. Besides, she had been barren even when she was younger. The next verse adds that “He wondered at their unbelief.” Even though God is sovereign in His almighty power, He has chosen to limit His working through our faith. But our problem is that even after we’ve trusted in Christ for salvation, we mistakenly think that we’re competent to live the Christian life with just a little help from the Lord. 5:6). A woman once came up to the famous Bible teacher, G. Campbell Morgan, and asked, “Dr. And if nothing is difficult for Him, then how can I persist in my unbelief? When they helped themselves, Abraham and Sarah came up with Hagar and Ishmael. For years he warned them of coming judgment if they did not repent, but they didn’t want to hear it. 11:13, 39). Hebrews 11:1-40 - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. He had it fixed in his mind that Ishmael would be the son of the promise (as 17:18 shows). Follow alcohol on its journey through the body to find out how it causes drunkenness and why it affects people differently. From 1977-1992 he was the pastor of Lake Gregory Community Church in Crestline, California. 4. Follow alcohol on its journey through the body to find out how it causes drunkenness and why it affects people differently. In Genesis 18:10, the Lord says to Abraham and Sarah, “I will surely return to you ....” God’s Word to us is always surely, even when circumstances shout, “No way!” Remember God’s question, “Is anything too difficult for Me?” and trust Him to do what is humanly impossible. The problem was that Sarah’s laughter reflected her unbelief in the promise of God. Abraham’s laughter may have stemmed from his being startled or astonished at what the Lord had just told him. So you would be throwing away your money. When we see our weakness and cast ourselves on the Lord’s strength, then we’re strong. She was past the age where she could bear children. The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Wisdom Concerning The Secret And Revealed Things, The Net Pastor's Journal, Eng Ed, Issue 38 Winter 2021. If God has you in a humanly impossible situation, it is to bring you to the end of your own strength so that you will trust in His ability to do the humanly impossible. Is this biblically sound? As I said, unbelief is sin because in effect it calls God a liar and me the truthful one. Should an Unbeliever Partake of Communion? So now the Lord comes so that Sarah can hear it straight from His mouth and believe. But she left out one crucial factor in her calculations: the power of the omnipotent God to do that which is humanly impossible! Philip should have said, “Lord, apart from Your power, there is no way that we can come up with enough bread to feed this crowd.” But what did Philip do? So He views unbelief as a serious sin, and He confronts it in His people, just as He confronted it in Sarah: The Lord’s confrontation got Sarah to face her sin and to look at things from His perspective. The answer was, “Sarah laughed because she didn’t believe the Lord.”. You can’t receive the salvation He offers until you see yourself as a sinner, quit trying to save yourself, and cast yourself upon His free and sovereign grace, crying out, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” Salvation is not a matter of human ability combined with God’s ability. -- Ethanol: this molecule, made of little more than a few carbon atoms, is responsible for drunkenness. Later the Lord knows what Sarah is thinking. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. The disciples couldn’t have scraped together 200 denarii if their lives depended on it. Michael Braun-Boghos, Rohan Gupta, Elizabeth Cruz, Yujing Jiang, Sarah Lundegaard, Vladimir Ivanchenko, Georg Gusewski, Rohit Lodha, Erica Zhuang, Aaron Henson, Julio Sabatés Rodríguez, Vivian \u0026 Gilbert Lee, Fahad Nasser Chowdhury, ரமணன், John simmons, June Reiling, Khalid AlAli, Mickey Mikeworth, Nathaniel Lupus, Yansong Li, Chung Wah Gnapp, Amber Alexander, Robert Patrick, Pi Guanghui, Barbara Younker, Ai Ejima, Soma Ali, Roman Pinchuk, Raheem, Hector Quintanilla, Leen Mshasha, Mariana Ortega, Danny Romard, James Bruening, Ricki Daniel Marbun, Malcolm Callis, Sabrina Gonzalez, Al the Scottish Wildcat, سلطان الخليفي, Alexander Walls, Della Palacios, Vik Nagjee, Hiroshi Uchiyama, Adi V, Andrew Bosco, Craig Sheldon, Rishi Pasham, Joanne Luce, Jason A Saslow and Mary Sawyer. But God’s purpose is that we glory in Him alone. Unbelief is also serious because invariably it leads to other sins. Finally, just as Jeremiah had warned, the powerful Babylonian king Nebuhadnezzar came and besieged Jerusalem. Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. It is to say that I know better than the eternal Creator. But when Hannah finally had Samuel because the Lord gave him to her, she sang a song of praise and gave Samuel back to the Lord to serve Him. Lucy Hale photographed kissing Skeet Ulrich — Skeet Ulrich appears to have a “pretty little” girlfriend: Lucy Hale.— The “Scream” star, 51, and the former “Pretty Little Liars” actress, 31, were photographed on a PDA-heavy lunch date in Los Angeles on Sunday — and … What would you tell someone who said, “I want to believe, but I just don’t have the strong faith you have”? The reason we struggle in our Christian walk is that we do not recognize our own weakness for what it is, and so we trust in ourselves rather than in the Lord. Browse more than 600 episodes, and find your favorite stories by topic, contributor, and year. Why doesn’t He answer?” Sometimes I’ve struggled with doubt when I’ve needed some small thing that would be easy for God to provide, something which I knew would further His work, and yet in spite of my prayers, God did not answer. We may not understand His ways and the reason for His delays. Do you suppose He’s in heaven, wringing His hands, and saying, “Oh no! He wants us to see that without Him, we can do nothing. 1. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation, Related Topics: Faith, Rewards, Spiritual Life, Steve served as the pastor of Flagstaff Christian Fellowship from May, 1992 through his retirement in December, 2018. Are any of your circumstances outside of His control? He confronted her with the truth: “No, but you did laugh” (18:15). Her reward was faith, laughter, and the Lord’s commendation (as James Boice, Genesis [Zondervan], 2:156-157, points out). He makes us confront our doubt. Without you this video would not be possible! That isn’t so. Unbelief is a more serious sin than most of us realize. Jeremiah was thrown into prison by the wicked Jewish king Zedekiah because he was predicting a Babylonian victory. God goes for the jugular. In the same way, the Lord is gracious, ready to forgive us and meet our every need when we turn from our unbelief and trust in His mighty power. But that’s how God works with His people. How frustrating for Hannah, crying out to the Lord for a son, to see Peninnah, who didn’t seek the Lord, with many children! Take Hannah (1 Samuel 1), for instance. They think that if they clean up their lives a bit, or if they go to church or give money or whatever, they can qualify for salvation. All of us struggle, at different levels, with the problem of unbelief. Surely he had told Sarah. The Lord wanted her to have a son, too. We are informed, “Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him.” The Lord couldn’t see her from where He was standing. Sometimes Christians say that we need a certain amount of self-confidence. Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. It’s an interesting question, since they know the name of Abraham’s wife without any mention of it by Abraham. He’s been addicted to drugs for years. Because she faced her sin of unbelief and thought about things from God’s perspective, Sarah received the faith to conceive Isaac. That’s where the Lord wants us in our relationship with Him, to recognize our weakness so that we will trust His strength. God has a way of turning our sin, when we repent, into that which brings praise to Him and joy to us. Factoring God into any situation suddenly changes the equation! The Lord’s rebuke brought Sarah to faith. Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.