Moving along now in the book of Hebrews and having entered, as we did some weeks ago, the Hall of Faith in Chapter 11, we come today to the first specific mention of a woman in this list of heroes of faith. Our text today is verses 11 and 12 of Hebrews Chapter 11. 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. Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, first a doubter and then a believer. And as we reflect upon it, we do understand, don't we, that all of us start out as doubters. And some, we would certainly trust and desire that all, become believers by the work of God's grace in our hearts. But nobody starts out as a believer. We all start out as doubters.
We all start out as natural men and women. We all start out as those whose hearts are darkened by sin, blinded to spiritual truth. And therefore, it takes the work of the Holy Spirit to open up our understanding and to open up the scriptures and to enable us to believe. No longer be doubters, but doubt is the natural and first response to the word of God. But in the passing of time, by the grace of God, we trust we shall all become believers in what God has spoken. Because, as we've already learned in this chapter, we need faith in God, faith in his word more than anything else in all this world. For without faith, it is impossible to please him. And our need is to please God. Our need is to be reconciled to God. Our need is to be in a right relationship with God. And that only comes about by the exercise of faith in the revelation which he has given to us in the Bible. And so may today's text be used of God to grant and strengthen God-honoring faith in every heart.
My outline will sound similar because they have been similar person by person as we've traveled so far through this hall of faith. And so today, talking about the faith of Sarah, we will, number one, look at historical background in Genesis. Number two, textual insight in Hebrews.
And three, lessons that are appropriate and applicable from this text. And so now I ask you to turn back to the book of Genesis, even further back than chapter 18 where we read earlier this morning. But we're going to go all the way back to chapter 12 and simply take time to point out how many times God made the promise to Abraham about a child, a son, descendants that would come from him. You know that God spoke that promise to Abraham. We're probably aware that he spoke it more than once. But I think you may be surprised at how many times he gave that promise before we come to Sarah's unbelief in chapter 18.
So let's look in chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. Now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing.
I will make you a great nation. That promise is a little bit vague. It seems certainly to imply that he will have descendants of himself. I suppose it's possible that that could be fulfilled in some alternate way.
But it would be hard to imagine what alternative would produce from Abram, a great nation, if it was not for the birth of children, at least a child to Abram. So the first promise is a little bit vague, but it becomes more specific and definite as each reiterated promise comes to him throughout the text that we're looking at now. Look now in chapter 12 down at verse 7. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, again another occasion, another appearance, and said to your descendants, I will give this land.
And there he built an altar to the Lord who appeared to him. Before, I will make of you a great nation. Now, a little more specifically, your descendants. I will give this land to your descendants. And it wasn't until Abram arrived in the land that God had called him to after calling him out of the Ur of the Chaldees that he made this promise that he was going to give him the land.
When he went to it, it was just go there, go to the land that I will show you. But now he says to your descendants, I will give this land. And so the promise is no longer implied. It is stated. It is a promise of descendants from Abraham.
But it is even restated and expanded more as we turn to chapter 13 and look at verses 15 and 16. For all the land which you see, I give to you and to your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Again, descendants, that means children from Abram, but now numerous.
They are going to become, they are going to multiply over the generations, of course. And here he says they'll be like the dust of the earth. If you could count all the particles of the dust, so you could count your descendants, Abram. Later he says, like the sand of the seashore, another impossible amount to calculate. Or like the stars of the heavens, again another number that's impossible for men to count or calculate. And all of these things clearly are idioms.
There are different ways of saying lots and lots and lots and lots. You're going to have not only descendants to inherit the land, you are going to have such a multitude of descendants that it will be impossible to accurately count them. But there's more, chapter 15, verses 4 through 6. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him saying, this one shall not be your heir. He's talking now about his servant who Abram said to God, I don't have an heir. The chief servant, the chief steward of my house, he's my heir right now.
Everything I have will go to him because I don't have a descendant. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him saying, this one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. Then he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. And then this very important statement of verse 6. And he believed in the Lord and he accounted it to him for righteousness. That, of course, is picked up in the New Testament. Abraham believed God and God counted it to him for righteousness. He believed God and that faith, God said, is what brings righteousness to you. That faith in my word is what gives you salvation. That faith in my word is what brings cleansing, what brings justification to your soul, Abram. And he believed him regarding this seemingly impossible promise, he who had no children, that you will have children, you will have an heir, you will have descendants from your heir that will be innumerable.
But going on in Chapter 15, we read a little more, an extended passage beginning in verse 13. Then he said to Abram, know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will serve them and they will afflict them for a hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge, afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried at a good old age.
But in the fourth generation they shall return here. This of course is speaking about the Egyptian bondage. For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. And it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark that behold there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your descendants I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. And again restated with a few more details and now even stated more firmly by a covenant oath. I promise with this covenant that I'm making with you that you shall have descendants and they shall be numerous and they shall inherit this land of Canaan. Now in chapter 16, I'll not take the time to read it, we come to Sarin's barrenness and unbelief.
Well maybe I will read chapter verses one through four. Now Sarim, Abram's wife, had borne him no children and she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarah said to Abram, see now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children.
Please go into my maid. Perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram heeded the voice of Sarah. Then Sarah Abram's wife took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. A second wife, an inferior wife, but nevertheless a wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.
So he went into Hagar and she conceived and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes. Here's Sarah's, not only her barrenness that doesn't seem to come to any end, but also her impatience. I know that God has promised that you shall have descendants.
I haven't been able to produce them for you. So we'll just assume that God has another way of fulfilling this promise and I'm going to make it happen one way or another. Here's my handmaid.
Let's see if you can have an heir, a child, descendants from her. But that of course was not God's plan. It was very displeasing to the Lord. Verse 10, then the angel of the Lord said to her, see these promises came not just to Abram, but also to Sarah as well.
I don't know how many of these promises she heard that we've read so far, but evidently some of them, and this one there's no question about. Then the angel of the Lord said to her, I will multiply your descendants exceedingly so that they shall not be counted for multitude. Well, that was chapter 16 and it is reiterated again in chapter 17 verses one and two when Abram was 99 years old. The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am almighty God, walk before me and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face as God talked with him and so forth. Verses, well, I won't continue reading chapter 15, but in chapter 15 is where we find Abraham laughing. But his laugh is a laugh of delight. It's just like these promises are so incredible, so unbelievable.
I know you're going to do it, but it is just, it is so delightful to consider this impossibility taking place. So as we know, when Isaac was born, his name Isaac means laughter. And isn't that interesting? It points to Abram's laughter of delight as well as Sarah's laughter of doubt, which we read about in chapter 18. And that's where we turn to next. We've seen the promise given in chapters 12 through 17. And now we see the promise doubted by Sarah in chapter 18.
And we read it earlier. The Lord with two angels, as we find out later, that's who the other two men are. The Lord and two angels visits Abraham and repeats the promise of a son.
How many times now? He's made this promise that's recorded at least six or seven times. He repeats the promise of a son.
And yet there's the reminder of this physical impossibility. Verse 11. Now Abraham and Sarah were old. Yeah, like 99 years old for Abraham and 90 years for Sarah. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age. And Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore, because of this physical impossibility that Sarah didn't see any solution to, therefore Sarah laughed within herself saying, after I have grown old, shall I have pleasure? My Lord being old also?
And that's where we find the confrontation. The Lord says to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh? And is there anything too hard for the Lord?
That's the question. Don't you believe my promises? Don't you believe my ability? Don't you believe that I can and will, that I not only am determined to, but able to fulfill these promises which though they seem impossible to you, they are doable by the Lord?
Is there anything too hard for the Lord? And then she is rebuked. She said, oh, I didn't laugh.
He said, yes, you did. But nevertheless, the promise is going to be fulfilled. So when we're left with this information in the book of Genesis, we don't really see any or hear or read of any statement about Sarah's faith, only Abraham's.
But after this, the promise is fulfilled. The next year, according to the promise of God, Sarah is with child. Sarah delivers a son. Sarah and Abraham become joint partners in the production of a son named Isaac. That's the background that we now keep in mind as we return to Hebrews chapter 11 in the Hall of Faith and come again to our text in verse 11. 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, therefore from one man and him as good as dead, they were born as many as the stars of the sky and multitude, innumerable as the sand, which is by the seashore. What should we think about as we look at our text in Hebrews chapter 11? Well, first of all, we need to consider a translation issue, and most of you will not be aware of this unless you are using the NIV. How many of you have an NIV with you today? Any of you? I'm surprised. Oh, I see a hand back there.
Okay, at least one. Of course, the NIV was a very popular modern language translation for many years, and a number of the commentaries I have on my shelves are based upon the NIV, and therefore it really comes up in this text because the NIV translates, verse 11, quite differently from the New King James. And here's what it says. Listen to the NIV translation of Hebrews 11, 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. Did you catch the change? It's a major change. Instead of saying by faith, Sarah also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child, she who was past age. It says by faith, Abraham, though he was past age, was enabled to become a father. So where does this alternate translation come from?
This is not a minor change, is it? It shifts the whole text from the faith of Sarah to the faith of Abraham, and Sarah's faith is omitted entirely if that translation is correct. But I am not at all convinced that it is correct. In fact, I'm convinced that it is incorrect.
And I just offer a couple of thoughts before we move on. I don't want to dwell on this, but as far as I could find out, and I searched quite a few other translations, and I could not find any other translation, ancient or modern, that translated it as if this is Abraham's faith and not Sarah's. None of the others do that. The sticking point in the question about the accuracy of translation, how this should be translated, is that phrase in verse 11, she received strength to conceive seed, and the Greek actually indicates not a woman receiving seed, receiving strength to conceive seed, but rather the male who produces the seed, and that's where it's the problem here. And that's true in all the Greek manuscripts. This is not a manuscript issue.
They're all unanimous in this. It's a translation issue. Here you have what sounds like Sarah producing seed, which is not possible. You could only find reference to that perhaps in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. In the case of Mary, sometimes the language follows that line of expression.
But here it seems to be out of place. So which is it? Is it Sarah with a faith to conceive seed? Is Abraham seed? Or is it Abraham producing seed and Sarah becoming impregnated by that seed?
So that's the issue. What does that phrase mean and how should it be understood? And I already mentioned all the other manuscripts that I have, no, all the translations that I've looked at consider this to be Sarah's seed. And all the manuscripts that I was able to learn about, to read about, state that this is Sarah's faith. In other words, to translate it like the NIV does, it leaves out the clear statement in every manuscript that we have in our English translation, by faith Sarah.
That's in every manuscript. By faith Sarah. Not by faith Abraham as they translated here, but by faith Sarah. And so I think it's clear that this is about Sarah's faith, not Abraham's faith. She's the subject, not only is she explicitly stated by faith Sarah, but the Greek syntax is such that she is clearly the subject of the verb. And so there's no question that every evidence of the manuscript lines that underline our translations points to Sarah. Her faith, not Abraham's faith.
How do you therefore explain what appears to be a contradiction or a difficulty? And I read one commentator, I don't remember which one now, that just simply said something like this. And look, it's true that in all the Greek examples of this phrase that we have, both in the Bible and in secular Greek, it refers to the male part of the conception of a child. We don't have very many examples, and we really don't have enough to be sure that it's never used in the way that it's used here in Hebrews chapter 11. So therefore, looking at the irrefutable evidence that Sarah is named, Sarah is the subject of the verb, Sarah is the main person involved in this text, we all agree, nearly all agree, except the NIV translators, that this is talking about Sarah.
I go with that. I'm quite confident that is correct. So, your NIV aside, or any of your commentaries that you're studying based on the NIV aside, this is a report not of Abraham's but of Sarah's faith. By faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive, seed, and bore a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised.
In verse 11, we have a declaration. Sarah received strength to conceive by faith. Her ability to conceive was a result of her faith, not Abraham's faith.
And following the declaration, we have a delivery. She had faith to believe and she bore a child. She conceived and nine months later, she delivered a child. She had a healthy pregnancy and she delivered a healthy child. But our text also reminds us that this was a miracle because she was past the age. Now actually, it's a double miracle because she had never been able to conceive children in her youth. She was barren.
And now on top of being barren all of her childbearing years, she is now 90 years old, way past childbearing years. And to her, it's not surprising that this promise seemed impossible as Genesis 18 makes clear. But as our text makes clear, she moved from doubt to faith and she believed the promise just like Abraham did.
And that is what produced the child. The reason for her faith is given. It is because she judged him faithful who had promised.
A little slow in coming along, but she did. She believed like Abraham that God would be true to his word. Now some, of course, there are always those who are critics and they're trying to find discrepancies in the Bible. And they say, see here, Genesis says that Sarah doubted that she didn't believe. And Hebrews says that Sarah believed, doesn't even mention her doubt. But that is not a difficult one. There are a whole lot more difficult issues to iron out than that one. It's so obvious. Yes, she doubted and then she believed.
Isn't that the way it is? Really with all of us. First we doubt and then we believe. We who first doubted later believed.
That should not pose a problem to anyone at all. And the result of her faith along with Abraham's faith is given in verse 12. Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky and multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. So what was the result of her faith in God's word? Number one, she received the desire of her heart. All of her life she had desired a child. All of her life she mourned the inability to produce a child. All of her life she felt shame at being able to give her husband a child.
All of her married life. All of her life she had felt the questioning eyes of others who looked at her and her inability to produce a child. All of her life she considered this promise that God had made to her husband about progeny, about children, about a great multitude of descendants and yet she was unable to conceive a child. But when she believed God, and I tend to, would like to think, there's no way to know for sure, but I tend to think that her faith, her attitude flipped from doubt to faith when those words, Is anything too hard for the Lord, struck her.
It's not that she hadn't really considered anything like that before, but it came to her with full force by the power of the Holy Spirit and suddenly she was ashamed that she had ever doubted. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Of course not. I believe. He'll do it. He'll do it.
All right. Now it will be fulfilled because you have exercised faith in my word. So the result was she received the desire of her heart. The result was, number two, she participated in a divine miracle. This took a miracle. It had to be a miracle. There was no human way for this to happen. But is anything too hard for the Lord?
Absolutely not. And so she participated in the divine miracle. What else? She cooperated in a joint venture of faith. The main emphasis in the Genesis account and even in the Hebrews account is on the faith of Abraham, whose faith was stronger than his wife's, to be sure. But don't think he always had faith. Remember, we learned last week that he was called out of an idolatist background. He'd been called out of the Ur of the Chaldees, where they worshiped the moon god. He was called out of a family of people who were idol worshippers.
He undoubtedly was one of them. And so there was a time when he did not believe the revelation of God, but he became a believer. And eventually his wife joined him in that believing posture toward God. And so she, by faith, cooperated in a joint venture with her husband. And number four, she therefore originated a great multitude. It had to start somewhere, and here's where it started. A great multitude you will have, so great that they will be too many to count.
But that has to start somewhere, and years keep rolling on and it doesn't look like it's ever going to happen. And then when Sarah believes God, the promise is fulfilled. She believed the promise of God and acted accordingly. And the result was this wonderful child, this miraculous child born. When she joined Abraham on a journey of mutual faith, then all of these things came together in her life. And I think there's no question that Sarah's faith was in part inspired by Abraham's faith.
He had been the believer earlier, she was a little bit skeptical, but now she believed as well. And there are probably some of you that are in a similar situation. You're married to a spouse and your spouse doesn't have the same level of faith that you have, and you really wish she did, or he did.
It goes both ways. And that's a source of difficulty in your marriage. But just keep being an example, quietly, tenderly, in a godly way.
Just keep being an example and see how God will use that in the life of your mate. Because Sarah's faith was, as our text makes clear, as necessary as Abraham's. She conceived when she believed, not before. Abraham was believing all along, but she believed.
She received strength to conceive and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had promised. And God gave Sarah, the believer, the high honor of becoming the mother of his chosen people. We think of Abraham as the father of the nation, but the nation also had a mother, and the mother is Sarah, and Sarah, by faith, participated in that great honor.
Sarah's faith is, well maybe I'll put it this way, her unbelief is rebuked, and it is forgiven, and it is forgotten. And this epistle, written of course to the Hebrews, is reminding them. The Hebrews, Jewish people, written to Jewish people who professed faith in Jesus Christ but are being tempted to turn back. But Jewish people have this strong sense of specialness, this strong sense of being a special people in God's purpose and plan. And they're not wrong to think that way, but they need to remember that their position of honor is because of the faith of Abraham and Sarah, otherwise they wouldn't even exist. And, here's the main point, if they don't themselves continue in faith, they're going to lose that position of honor, right? They must believe like Abraham believed. They must believe like Sarah believed. They must believe the revelation that God has given to them, now revealing that the Messiah has come and he is Jesus the Christ from Nazareth. They must believe in him to maintain their position of honor.
If they turn back from him, their position of honor is imagined, but it is not real. Now let's look at a few lessons. And the first one I've chosen regards the faith of women.
That I think jumps off the page. By faith Abel, by faith Enoch, by faith Noah, by faith Abraham, so far no women, by faith Sarah, a woman joins the hall of faith. And so we have Sarah included to remind women of their part, their place in God's work. We have this record of Sarah's faith to remind all of us of women's faith, equal to the faith of men. Sometimes superior to the faith of men, but sometimes not superior. In the case of Abraham and Sarah, the man's faith was the stronger faith, but the woman Sarah came along in faith.
Sometimes it's the other way around. In the case of Christ, who was found at the cross when all of those who were afraid fled? Well, the only people left were the women.
Their faith was stronger. Where were the men? Who was it that got to the tomb first on that resurrection morning? It was the women.
They made it first. In fact, they had to come back and make the report so that John and Peter came to investigate. John and Peter, none of the other men were looking around the tomb, but the women were women of great faith. And women's faith is often superior to men. Women's faith often puts the faith of men to shame in churches. I don't judge that to be the case in our church as a general rule, and I'm thankful for that.
We have strong, believing men, many of them. And so the work of our church is borne equally by men and women, and each taking their God-given position in the work of the church as it is spelled out in the New Testament Scriptures. But there are a lot of churches, I would say maybe even the majority of churches, if you've had any experience with others, where if you took the women away, the church would collapse.
It'd be gone. They're carrying the work of the church, sometimes stepping into roles that God had not designed for them. But where are the men?
Where are the men? Sometimes they're shamefully missing, but thank God for women of faith. Sarah is a reminder of that. God uses women who believe His word. But a second lesson is the development of faith.
We've already touched on this. Abraham's faith was stronger than Sarah's. Let me read another New Testament text in Romans chapter 4. And, not being weak in faith, he, that is Abraham, did not consider his own body already dead since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb, he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what he, that is God, had promised, he was also able to perform, and therefore he was accounted to him for righteousness. Abraham's faith is the strongest.
Abraham's faith is celebrated. But Sarah is a good example of those who move from doubt to faith. We can see it so clearly in her life. And we shouldn't be too hard on Sarah's unbelief. What God was promising seemed incredible. What God was promising seemed unbelievable. But God often calls upon His children to trust Him for things thought impossible.
You remember that chorus? It just now came to my mind. God, any rivers you think aren't crossable? God, any mountains you can't tunnel through? God is able to do the impossible. He does the things others cannot do.
I forgot the exact wording there. But that is exactly right. That's what we're learning in this text today. God then did what for human abilities was absolutely impossible. God today does that which, according to human abilities, is impossible. And Sarah went from doubt to faith, like all of us. Faith has to have a beginning point when God works in our hearts to enable us to believe. Faith has a development over a period of time. And God is gracious.
And God is patient. And God is active with our faith. We are called upon to believe. We must believe.
We are sinful if we don't believe. But faith must develop. And Sarah is a good example of the development of faith. And it developed, as we've already seen, by the power of God's Word. Is anything too hard for God?
And it struck her. God is so great that nothing is too hard for Him. I don't know how He's going to do this.
I don't know how He can use me. But I believe His Word. And next year, Sarah is cradling a little baby in her arms. Isaac, laughter. And the question comes to us today.
How about you? The question is, have you ever doubted? That's not the question. Have you ever doubted? Because of course you have. The question is, are you believing now? Are you believing the Word of God now? Yesterday's doubts committed to God are forgiven and forgotten. But if you believe now, God is going to fulfill the promises which He has made. But you must believe Him. That brings me thirdly to the nature of faith.
It is reiterated again. We've been seeing it all through this passage. But faith is that which believes the revelation of God. Faith hears God speak and trusts His Word. And God has to open our ears to really hear His Word. But when He does, we are required to believe it.
In fact, we're required to believe it. Whatever He's given to us, we have a responsibility to believe it. There is no biblical faith where there is no divine revelation. There's a lot in our day that is foolish and is not Bible faith at all. Faith is not in something that we created. Faith is in that which God has revealed. How many people think if I decide that I want this and I will believe it hard enough that my faith will make that happen? That's not biblical faith. That's idolatry. You have conceived of the thing that you are believing in.
You manufactured it. And now you're believing it and you're calling that biblical faith? No, no, no. That's not Bible faith. Bible faith is not believing what you imagine, not what you desire, not what you wish to come to pass. Bible faith is believing what God has said. Faith is not something we create, but faith is in what God reveals. It's not I'm going to make it happen like Sarah did with her handmade Hagar, but I'm going to trust God to fulfill His Word. Sometimes we hear a promise of God and that sounds good and we're waiting for it to happen, and then it doesn't happen fast enough to please us. Well, tell that to Abraham.
Tell that to Sarah. You talk about waiting. Tell that to Noah as he waited 120 years.
Don't think that you are the only one who's ever waited. God is honored in our faith. God is honored in our persevering faith.
God is honored in our patience and waiting for His promises and continuing to believe that they will be fulfilled. So not I'm going to make it happen, but I'm going to trust God to fulfill His Word. We must not, listen to me, we must not believe anything for which there is no divine revelation. We must not believe anything for which there is no divine revelation, but we must believe everything that God has revealed in His Word.
It's that simple. If God didn't say it, you not only don't have to believe it, you better not believe it. But if God did say it, you better not fail to believe it.
It is His Word. That brings me finally to the necessity of faith. It's necessary to please God. It's necessary for salvation. The Philippian jailer said to Paul and Silas, What must I do to be saved?
And what was the answer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Faith in the gospel, faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation, but faith in the Word of God is also necessary for service. You want to be a fruitful servant of Christ? Believe His Word and act according to His Word. Follow His instructions. Don't lie behind.
Don't get ahead. Just walk in step with what God has revealed in His Word. And you will be a faithful servant.
And we'll hear that one day. Well done. Thou good and faithful servant. What made me a good and faithful servant?
You believed my word and you acted in accordance with what I said. May God help us. Shall we pray? Father, thank you for this portion of your word that teaches us what biblical faith is. And now, having been reminded of this, O Lord, we realize it doesn't come from within us. It comes by divine bestowment. And so, Lord, we prostrate ourselves at your feet and ask you to give us and to stir up within us the faith which is necessary to please you as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
