Welcome to Turning Point. When you think of the Bible's greatest heroes of the faith, you probably think of those who lived exemplary lives of strong moral character.
Well, today, Dr. David Jeremiah reveals one member of the Hebrews Hall of Faith whose life is characterized by failures and weaknesses, all overcome. Through her faith. To introduce his message waiting for God's promise, here's David. And thank you for joining us today.
This is Turning Point, and we are studying together from the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. These are the heroes of faith from the Old Testament. And we'll open our Bibles to Hebrews again in just a few moments. But before we do that, we're about halfway through this month, and that means I. Have diminishing amounts of time to tell you about a very special resource that we have created for you.
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So, when you send your gift of any size, please ask for your copy of the book, Where to Go in the Bible, and we'll have it on its way to you before you know it. Here is Waiting for God's Promise from verses 11 and 12 of Hebrews chapter 11. Yeah. Uh I read an article About a woman, believe it or not. who is reportedly the world's oldest mother.
She bore a child at the age of 70. And the article shows her lying in bed, dying. with this baby at her side after risking her life to beat the stigma of being barren. After nearly 54 years of marriage, Rajo Devi Lohan and her husband Bala. Two poverty-stricken farmers from India.
We were so desperate to have a child that they took out loans to pay for in vitro fertilization. Mrs. Lohan gave birth to her daughter, Naveen, in November. And she was confined to bed so frail she couldn't even lift the little baby in her arms. But she said she has no regrets.
I dreamed about having a child all my life, and it does not matter to me that I am ill because at least I lived long enough to become a mother. And misses Lohan's doctor agrees. He said, even though Rajo's health is deteriorating, at least she will die in peace. She does not have to face the stigma of being barren. If you've read the Bible, you know that there are many stories in the Bible about women who wanted to have children and did not have them.
I could make a long list and you would remember all their stories. But perhaps one of the best known stories about such a person is the woman Sarai. whose story is told in the book of Genesis and mentioned here in the book of Hebrews. I need to tell you that when Sarai finally gave birth to her child, she was more than 20 years older than Rajo. She was in her 90s.
And here is what the writer of the book of Hebrews has to say about Abraham's wife. By faith, Sarai 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.
Now, like many others that we have studied since we got to the 11th chapter of Hebrews, which we have called the hall of faith. We read the life story of Sarah and we wonder how in the world she ever got in the Hall of Faith. I mean, her life is checkered with failure, and discouragement, and issues. One author describes her as The wife of the great patriarch, and we tend to think of her with a degree of dignity. We tend to put her in a place where she does not belong.
But reading the biblical account of her life, it is impossible not to notice that sometimes. She behaved very badly. I mean, she could throw fits and tantrums. She knew how to manipulate. And she was even known to get mean.
She could be impatient, temperamental, conniving, cantankerous, cruel, pouty, jealous, erratic, unreasonable, a whiner, and a complainer. In fact, there are hints in the Bible that Sarah may have been something of a pampered beauty. The name given to her when she was born, Sarai, means my princess. And Scripture remarks repeatedly about how stunningly attractive this woman was. Wherever she went, she instantly received favor and privilege because of her good looks.
And that kind of thing can spoil the best of women. By the way, the biblical account. Of Sarah's life doesn't even begin until she was already 65 years old. And amazingly, even at her age, Her physical beauty was so remarkable that Abraham regularly assumed that other powerful men wanted his wife, and on a couple of occasions, he compromised his own integrity. out of fear that they would come and get his wife and he would be killed.
In order to understand the reference to Sarah in the book of Hebrews, We have to go back and tell her story, and I'm going to try to do that. Let me just give you a review of Sarah's life. Let's begin with the failure of her faith. Sarah's impatience is the first thing we note from Genesis chapter 16.
Now, Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar.
So Sarai said to Abraham, 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 Sarai, and Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.
So Abram went into Hagar, and she conceived and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.
Now, Sarah was 65 and Abraham 75 when God told them. That he was going to make a great nation out of them. If you go back to the 12th chapter of Genesis, you will hear the promise that God makes to them: that out of Abraham and Sarah will come a multitude of people, and a great nation will be born of them. And after God made that promise, 10 years went by, and there was still no son. And Abraham's now 85 and Sarah And so Abraham finally agrees to this sordid plan that Sarah comes up with involving Hagar.
And at the age of 86, Abraham becomes the father of Ishmael. And Ishmael becomes his son. And Genesis 16 says, So Hagar bore Abram a son. And Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
After the birth of Ishmael, as you read the Old Testament, 13 years go by, and you don't read anything about Abram and Sarah. The story just kind of goes dormant. Ishmael was born eleven years after God's promise. And as we look forward, we discover later on that Isaac is born 24 years after God's original promise. And one writer makes the following observation: The thing that shouts loudest here in the story of Abraham and Sarah is: there's not an honorable character in the whole cast.
They were all ignoble. Abraham was the worst. He was pathetic, passive, impotent, uncaring about either his wife or Hagar. Neither woman had any compassion on the other. Sarah was worse, but you get the idea that if Hagard had the chance, she'd been just as bad.
Remember, all of this chaos began when people of faith began to distrust the word of God. It took shape when they decided that God needed help in fulfilling his promise. And it took off when Abraham and Sarah took a shortcut to obtain what they knew God had promised to give them. And we all sit here and we smile about that historical event. But we know How hard it is for us to wait.
How many of you would say with your pastor, waiting is not one of my favorite things? I have told this story before, but I remember when we moved here in 1981, we came from a small community in Fort Wayne where you never waited for anything. I mean, you just walk in and get what you want. You go to the bank, nobody's standing in line. I came to here and I kind of got involved.
First of all, you have to wait in line when you go to the grocery store, you have to wait in line when you go to the drugstore, you have to wait in line when you go to the gas station, but mostly you have to wait in line when you go to the restaurants. You wait in line to get in. Then you wait in line to get a seat. And then you wait for them to take your order. Then you wait for your food to come.
Then you wait for the dessert menu. Then you wait for that to come. Then you wait for the bill. Then you wait for them to bring you your change, and they have the gall to call the person who presides over this the waiter.
Now, it doesn't make any sense. We're the waiters. Always have been, always will be. In an article on Christianity Today, Kim Hall said: people seem to believe that they have an inalienable right to be happy. I want what I want and I want it now.
And no one wants to wait for anything, and in the most part, no one has to anymore. Waiting is interpreted as pain. And people walk into my office, she said. And for the most part, they walk into my office and they say they're Christians, but I don't see any difference in them. I just see that they want to be happy and they expect God to make it work.
The problem is, she said, in this country, you can have what you want when you want it most of the time. I mean, people like the fact that they can buy a 50-foot tree and instantly plant it in their yard. Why on earth would anyone want to wait on relationships or on God? Sarah didn't want to wait. She was impatient.
She took things into her own hands. Notice secondly, not only her impatience, her insubordination. Verse 5 of chapter 16 in the book of Genesis. Then Sarai said to Abram, My wrong beat upon you. I gave my maid into your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes.
The Lord judged between you and me.
Now, I don't know if you got what this passage is saying, but guys, listen up. Sarah blamed everything on her husband.
Somehow, even though she had come up with the plan. She found a way to put the blame on him. I mean, it's really hard to find any logic in her words.
Somebody had to be blamed, so she pointed the finger at her husband. Her logic is like a letter. That I read about some time ago. This is how sometimes this whole process works and how sometimes we think. Dear John, I hope you're Not still angry.
I want to explain that I was really joking when I told you I didn't mean what I said about reconsidering my decision not to change my mind. What is that? But you can't let Abraham off the hook, can you? I mean, after all, he was the patriarch. He was the head of the house.
God had spoken to him. I mean, all he had to do was say, no, Sarah, that's a dumb idea. But he didn't. He should never have allowed that situation. In our culture in recent years, I've noticed, and I don't know if you've noticed, we've taken the blame game to an unprecedented level.
You know, we had this song when I was growing up, well, spiritual, we used to sing once in a while. It goes like this. It's not the preacher nor the deacon, but it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. We need to resurrect that song because this whole blame game is really out of control. I read a story about a CEO who had taken on a new job, and the outgoing CEO came to him and he said, Sometimes, son, you're going to make wrong choices.
I mean, you will, you will mess up. And when that happens, I have prepared three envelopes for you. I left them in the top drawer of my desk where you're going to be seated. The first time you mess up, open letter number one. The second time, open up letter number two, and the third time, open up letter number three.
For the first few months, everything goes fine, and then the new CEO makes his first mistake. He goes to the drawer, opens up envelope number one, and the message reads. Blame it on me.
So he does. This is the old CEO's fault. He made these mistakes. I inherited these problems from my predecessor. Everybody says, okay, and it works out.
Well, he goes back to work and he works a little bit longer, and pretty soon he makes a second mistake.
So he goes to the drawer and he opens up envelope number two. And this time he reads, blame it on the board. And he does. I mean, it's the board's fault. These sorry guys.
Were inherited. They came from the old regime. They're the problem. And everybody says, yeah, that makes sense. And things go on for a while, okay, and then he makes his third big mistake.
And he goes to the drawer and he opens up envelope number three, and the message reads. Prepare three envelopes. Ultimately, it comes to that, doesn't it? You can't just keep blaming people the rest of your life. And Sarah was full of blame for her husband.
And I would imagine he blamed her, and that together they just blamed each other. We see her impatience, her insubordination, her intolerance. and her infidelity. Notice in Genesis chapter 17. When Abraham was 99 and Sarah was 89, the Lord again spoke to Abram and reaffirmed that he was going to give them a son.
And this time he made it very clear that this son was going to be born to his wife, Sarah. No surrogate mother here. Genesis 17, 1 and 15 through 19, when Abraham was 99 years old, then God said to Abraham, As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but you shall call her name Sarah. And I will bless her, and also give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations, kings of peoples shall be from her.
And Abraham fell on his face, and he laughed. And he said in his heart, Shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? And shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, Oh, that Ishmael might live before you. In other words, Lord, this ain't going to happen.
You can claim Ishmael as the answer to your promise, and I'll be all right with it. He said, Lord, let Ishmael stand. And God said, no. 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 and with his descendants after him.
A little bit later, according to the story, Abraham was outside, and the Bible says he was under the mammy trees. And the Lord appeared to him. And Genesis 18 says that The Lord said to Abram, I will certainly return to you according to the time of life. And behold, Sarah, your wife, will have a son. Parentheses, Sarah was listening in the tent door, which was behind him.
Now, Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore, Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also? And the LORD said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I surely bear a child since I am old? Is anything too hard with the LORD? At the appointed time, I will come and return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah will have a son.
But Sarah denied it, saying, I didn't laugh, for she was afraid. And he said, No, but you did laugh.
Now Imagine this with me for a moment. Abraham's outdoors and he comes in. And Sarah says to him, Abraham, where have you been? And he says, Well, I've been outside having my morning devotions. And Sarah said, How was it?
And Abraham says, It was great. In fact, I had this conversation with God, and He told me something really amazing. She said, what was it? And he blurted out like only a man could. Baby, you're gonna have a baby.
And I'd like to have heard what Sarah said to that. On a scale of one to ten, Sarah's faith at that moment would be about a zero. But here she is with all of her failures, and she's enshrined in the hall of faith. What a picture of God's grace and patience that is. God is greater than our sin, He is greater than our doubts.
And it Isn't it a good thing that when we are faithless, he remains faithful, he cannot deny himself, 2 Timothy 2.13. Isn't it incredible, Romans 3.3? For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says, He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.
How many of you will join your pastor with an amen that it's a good thing? God's faithfulness to us is not based on our faithfulness to Him. Isn't that true? Amen. He's faithful no matter what, because it is impossible for him to be anything other than faithful.
And even though Sarah and Abraham wavered on occasion early on in their faith, they came to a settled conclusion that God was true and his promise was reliable. And God Continue to be faithful to them. even when They did not act out of faithfulness to him.
So, as you can see, Sarah's kind of an interesting candidate for the Hall of Faith. But let's take another look at this now. Let's look at the fulfillment of Sarah's faith. We've seen the failure of it. In light of the stories we have just read, How surprised we are when we come to the New Testament and read these words from Hebrews 11, 11 and 12.
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 and multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. And the author of Hebrews is not the only one of the New Testament writers who commends Sarah. In fact, Peter writes about her when he's teaching in one of his letters about godliness, and he talks about the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. It's very precious in the sight of God, he writes.
For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. whose daughters you are, if you do good. and are not afraid with any terror. And the Bible says in Genesis chapter 21 that the Lord visited Sarah as he had said. And the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken.
For Sarah received and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God had spoken to him. Go back and read that verse with me and notice how wonderful this passage is. And the Lord visited Sarah, As he had said. And the Lord did for Sarah. As he had spoken.
For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age. At the set time of which God had spoken to him. Three times in that verse, we are reminded that what happened to Sarah was because of the word of God. because of what God said. The scene that took place when Isaac was born.
must have been pure joy. What a wonderful picture and glorious thought. Here is God's promise finally being fulfilled after all these years of waiting. When the child was born, they called him Isaac. Do you know what Isaac means?
It means laughter. That's what the word means. It's kind of an interesting word, isn't it, for a hundred-year-old father and a ninety-year-old mother. They have a baby and call him laughter. Wow.
There was laughter everywhere. I mean, the old man and his wife laughed and continued to laugh as they held little laughter in their arms. And baby Isaac cooed and laughed, and everyone in the family chuckled out loud, and heaven smiled, and grace came down. And Abraham and his people, God had kept his word, they had obeyed, and laughter showed up on time. And I'm sure that Sarah's heart.
was singing words like this little poem. His wisdom is sublime, his heart profoundly kind. God never is before his time and never is behind. He's always on time. Past time.
Well, sir, is an illustration of a person who waits for the promise. And, you know, she waited for the promise long after it had any human possibility of being fulfilled. and God still miraculously gave her what He promised. Sarah is a wonderful illustration. For all of us who sometimes think God has forgotten about us, He never forgets and.
We can trust him as we walk. We'll have some more about this tomorrow when we get together, and I hope you will be with us then as we continue our journey through the 11th chapter of Hebrews. The Heroes of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11. This is. the important discussion of what God did in the lives of people in the Old Testament as reviewed by the author of Hebrews for all of us to be blessed and to benefit from.
And we have much more to go. Hope you'll be with us. Don't forget to get your copy of Where to Go in the Bible, which is our resource for the month of November. Ask for your copy when you send your gift today. I'm David Jeremiah.
Thank you for listening. See you next time. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith, visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio.
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This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Ordinary People: Extraordinary Faith on Turning Point.
