Hebrews - The Faith of Abraham and Sarah - Part 2

We are looking at Hebrews 11:8-19, the fourfold obedience by faith of this great man Abraham. Abraham obeyed by faith when he did not understand where, Hebrews 11:8-10. He went out, not knowing where he went. And then Abraham obeyed by faith when he did not understand how, Hebrews 11:11-12, the birth of the baby Isaac. And then he obeyed when he did not understand when, Hebrews 11:13-16. He had to wait, wait, wait for God to fulfill the promise. And finally, the hardest test of all, Abraham obeyed by faith when he did not understand why, Hebrews 11:17-19, the offering up of Isaac on the altar. 

Faith is not a feeling, although it touches the emotions. Faith is not just a mental understanding, although the brain has to be involved. Faith involves the will. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he did not understand where, or how, or when, or why, but God honored his faith and God blessed him.

Now we look at Hebrews 11:11-12. "Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable."

Sarah is mentioned here because Sarah was a great woman of faith. God had to use both Abraham and Sarah for the fulfillment of His promise. Sarah is one of the few women mentioned in Hebrews 11. Sarah is mentioned, Moses' mother is mentioned—not by name, but she is mentioned in the parents there of Moses in Hebrews 11:23, hidden by his parents, so Moses' mother was involved in a great act of faith. And then Rahab is mentioned in Hebrews 11:31. She was a Gentile woman in Jericho who trusted the Lord and was delivered with her family. Then in Hebrews 11:35, we have the word "women"—"women received their dead raised to life again." 

And so God recognizes the fact that there are women of faith as well as men of faith. In fact, throughout the Word of God, you meet some great women of faith. That Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was possessed of a demon, who persisted in asking Jesus to deliver the girl, was a great woman of faith. Jesus said, "O woman, great is thy faith." And it's a wonderful thing when you have a man of faith married to a woman of faith. 

Now, I may get in trouble for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I've been a pastor for many years; I've preached in many churches; I've counseled with many couples. My experience has been that the women usually have more faith than the men. So often in a marriage, the woman is the spiritual leader in the home. She is the one who prays with the children. She is the one who teaches the children. 

I want to say a word to you men: don't abdicate your priesthood in your home. You are the priest in the home. You are the spiritual leader in the home. You're not a dictator; you're not to exercise lordship over people's faith. But I wish we could have more men's Bible studies. Why is it the women are getting together for Bible study all the time? Where are the men? 

I know the men have to work. I know that. I know that men have busy schedules. But there's always time for the will of God. Why is it that it's the women who get together and pray for the missionaries? It's the women who entertain the missionaries when they come. 

Men, let's get with it! It's good to be a man of faith in your home; it's also good to be married to a woman of faith. And if I'm speaking now to some single people, you be sure that when you get married, you're marrying somebody who belongs to Jesus Christ, who knows how to live by faith. 

Sarah and Abraham were believers together, heirs together of the grace of life. You know, Peter talks about this over in 1 Peter 3. He talks about the wives and the husbands living together in compatibility, and he mentions Sarah in 1 Peter 3:6, "even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." "In like manner, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life—that your prayers be not hindered."

You mean God expects husbands and wives to pray together? Yes, He does, and it will be a blessing in your home if you'll do that. You say, "Well, I don't do much praying in public." Well, it's about time you started, right in your own home.

Well, Sarah was a great woman of faith, and she was married to a great man of faith. Now, God had promised Abraham a son. When God first called Abraham back in Genesis 12, He said, "Now I'm going to bless you, I'm going to make you a blessing, I'm going to make your name great, and from you all the world is going to be blessed." You see, when you're called by God and you obey God, somehow God uses you to be a blessing to the whole world. And Abraham was promised a son. 

This was a part of God's great plan of salvation that had been instituted before the world began. It had been revealed there in Genesis 3:15. When Adam and Eve sinned, God clothed them. God gave them a picture, as it were, of covering by death. The animals had to die that Adam and Eve might be covered. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. And God made the promise that one day the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. One day a Savior would come who would defeat the evil one and bring righteousness and redemption and salvation. 

Now, in order for this Savior to be born, God had to have human channels through which to do it. He rejected the Gentile nations; He called Abraham and Sarah and established the Jewish nation. Salvation is of the Jews. The Bible came to us through our Jewish friends. Jesus Christ was born of Jewish blood, and salvation is of the Jews. And we thank God that Abraham and Sarah were obedient to God. They were faithful; they believed God, and God was able to give to them a son, Isaac. 

Then Isaac had a son, Jacob. And then Jacob had twelve sons, and from these twelve sons came the twelve tribes of Israel, and the nation was born. Then the nation was purified and prepared in the land of Egypt. Then the nation was called out from Egypt to go to Canaan. And then down through the years, the devil did everything he could to destroy that nation. He did everything he could to keep that line, that line of inheritance, from being formed. 

God had ordained that the Savior should come through the Jewish nation. Then He chose the tribe of Judah to be the tribe through which the Savior would come. But there were many families in Judah, and so He chose one family, the family of David. And so it was through David's family that the Lord Jesus came into the world. 

Do realize how important Sarah and Abraham were? I'm not sure they fully understood all that was involved in this. We do know that Jesus said that Abraham saw My day and he rejoiced. We don't know how much God revealed to Abraham of the entire plan of salvation, but this we know: Abraham and Sarah obeyed God and trusted Him when they did not understand how. They had to wait for twenty-five years for this baby to be born. 

Now the sad thing is this: they tried to work it out their own way. Do you remember that in the book of Genesis? And in Genesis 16, we are told the sad story of how Abraham tried to do something not by faith, but by sight. Sarah came to him one day and said, "Now the Lord has restrained me from bearing." Isn't it nice that we can blame things on God? What she should have said was, "You know, we don't have that baby yet, but don't give up. Let's keep trusting, let's keep waiting. God not only has His plan, but God has His time, and we're going to wait for Him." 

But instead, she says, behold now, Genesis 16:2, "the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid"—that was Hagar, who came from Egypt—"go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her." Now, this whole statement is an evidence of unbelief. First of all, "the Lord has restrained me from bearing." Oh, she couldn't say that. That was an evidence of unbelief, blaming God. Then she says, "go into my maid; it may be." There was no assurance here. It wasn't "the word of the Lord came unto Sarah saying." Oh no, "it may be." 

Back in Genesis 15, God is dealing with Abraham, and God says to him in Genesis 15:13, "Know of a surety." You see, when God talks to you, you have assurance. When you work things out yourself, you don't have assurance. "It may be that I..." She wasn't concerned about God's glory or God's plan; she was only concerned about Sarah. Sarah wanted to have a baby, and she said, "You can have this baby through Hagar, my Egyptian maid." Everything that Abraham picked up in Egypt got him into trouble, and Hagar was among them. 

Interestingly enough, Law Number 144 of the Code of Hammurabi back in that day approved of this procedure. The law said that if your wife did not bear any children, you could take a second wife, and the child born by that second wife would be considered the child of your first wife, sort of like an adoption procedure. There are some things that are legal that are not biblical. There are some things on the law books that are perfectly alright that are not approved by God. Well, Abraham did this, went into Hagar, and she did conceive, and she did give birth to a son. 

But you know, God never recognized this. God never recognized the marriage; God never recognized the son. He blessed Ishmael with some physical and material blessings, but Ishmael was not a part of the covenant relationship that God had with Isaac. And Ishmael was a wild man. And Ishmael created problems for Abraham, and for Isaac, and for Sarah. And the descendants of Ishmael are still creating problems for the descendants of Abraham. 

God promised Abraham a son, and faith believed that promise. But unbelief said, "I'm going to work it out my own way." Faith is living without scheming. If you're scheming to get something done to help God, watch out—you'll get your fingers burned. You'll end up living with a mistake, like Abraham had to do for so many years.

Now, faith always involves the miraculous. Abraham was too old to have a child; Sarah was too old to have a child. But that's the kind of thing God delights in doing. God delights in doing the impossible. Nothing is impossible if you'll put your trust in God. In Romans 4, Paul talks about this. Romans 4:19: "And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform." 

I like that. He didn't stagger around and say, "What am I going to do next?" He was persuaded that God's promise could be performed. And God fulfilled His promise both in Sarah and in Abraham. And the amazing thing is this: whenever you trust God, God can do the impossible. 

You may be facing something impossible now. You say, "Well, I don't know what I'm supposed to do." Do what God tells you to do. Obey God even when you don't understand how, because He will do what needs to be done. 

The Exodus was impossible, but God opened the sea. Jericho was impossible, but God tore down the walls. Goliath was impossible, but God gave David victory. Walking into a burning furnace is impossible, but God gave the three Hebrew children deliverance. 

Jesus said to a man with a withered hand, "Stretch out your hand." That's impossible, but faith releases power, and the man stretched out his hand and he was healed. He told the lepers, "Go show yourselves to the priest." Well, you can't do that when you're a leper; they won't let you near them. But when they stepped out by faith to obey, they were completely cleansed and healed of their leprosy. 

Faith releases God's power. The trouble with us is we don't get to the place where we are really dead. We have to use our own ingenuity, our own plotting, our own scheming. You've got a problem in that church where you're a member, an officer, maybe you're the pastor, and you're figuring out some way to scheme your way to get that problem solved. Don't do it! It'll only make it worse. Faith is living without scheming. 

God can do the impossible. In my own ministry, I have seen God do marvelous things in providing, in changing, in obstructing, in doing what only God can do, doing the impossible. So don't look at yourself. Abraham and Sarah did not look at themselves and say, "Well, it cannot be done." 

Oh, at first Sarah laughed, I know that. I know that. But she had faith and she trusted God, and Abraham trusted God, and they were able to have this son. And the descendants of Isaac and Jacob became like the stars of the sky and the sand by the seashore. 

I wonder if the suggestion in Hebrews 11:12 may not be that God has two kinds of children: He has His earthly children, the children of Israel; and He has His heavenly children, those who have trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, like the stars in the sky. Now don't look to yourself, look to God. You don't know how something's going to be done—that's alright, just look to God. God is able to work it out. He's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. It's a wonderful thing to walk by faith, to adventure by faith, to step out by faith and to know that no matter how high the walls may be or how deep the sea may be, God can do the impossible. Trust God and obey Him even if you don't understand how, and you'll see Him do the impossible. 

And now we've come to Hebrews 11:13-16. Abraham obeyed God by faith when he did not understand when. "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from which they came out, they might have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city." 

When Hebrews 11:13 says that they had not received the promises, this means they had not received that which was promised. God promised them a land, but Abraham never owned that land. He lived in it as a stranger and a pilgrim, and the only thing he owned in that land was a grave where he was buried, where Sarah was buried. Isaac, Jacob, were sojourners in the land, but eventually God gave those people the land, their descendants, because they claimed it as their inheritance. 

It's important when you walk by faith to realize that God has a timetable. God has His schedule. To do something to the glory of God means that we must do it in the right way, with the right motive, at the right time. You know, it's possible to do a good thing at the wrong time. It's possible also to do a good thing at the right time with a wrong motive. So our motive must be right—the glory of God. And our means must be right—we should do it the way God wants it done. But also our timing has to be right. 

The Lord Jesus Christ lived on a divine timetable. He said to His disciples, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? My hour is not yet come." I believe that God has ordained for us works that He wants us to perform. Ephesians 2:10: "For ye are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before prepared, before ordained that we should walk in them." I believe that God does have a plan for our lives. 

Now He expects us to use our common sense. Unfortunately, common sense is very uncommon these days; people are doing very, very strange things. He expects me to think, and to plan, and to pray, and to meditate, and to wait for the Spirit to guide. It's such a wonderful thing to wait before the Lord and to see how He opens up the way, how He puts things together in a beautiful way when we wait before Him. We think, we plan, we meditate, we search the Scriptures. 

God has a definite plan for our lives. Now there are those who say it really doesn't make much difference what we do as long as you do it to the glory of God and you're willing to be sincere about it. I believe God has a definite plan for each of our lives. I don't believe that we should worry God with little details we can think about ourselves. I had a friend in school who actually became a nervous wreck because he prayed about every little detail of life. "What breakfast food should he eat at breakfast?" I rarely pray about that. 

I commit my life to the Lord and I expect God to guide me, and I don't ask God if I should eat a certain breakfast food. My friend would come to an intersection and he would pray which way he should cross the street. Now you need to watch and pray as you cross the street, but we have to use our common sense. There are some decisions we have to make ourselves. I don't know that it's going to ruin some great eternal plan if I wear a green tie or a blue tie to church on Sunday. If God wanted me to wear a certain thing, He would show me what He wants me to do. 

What I'm saying is this: God has given us a brain to think with. God has given us a Word, His Bible, that we can trust. God has given us the Holy Spirit within. Now as the Spirit of God uses the Word of God and impresses on our minds the truth of God, then our minds are transformed and He can guide us. But we have to have patience. Patience, patience, patience. I need to preach to myself at this point because oh, how I need patience. 

I suppose the one area in life that God constantly has to be working on in my life is this matter of patience. Because it's through faith and patience that we inherit the promises, Hebrews 6:12. Now God gives His promises, but God doesn't always give us His timetable. I don't know what God's timing is. There are some people who do; they have everything all planned. They have everything all dated and numbered, and they know exactly what God is going to do. 

I don't always know that. When God says, "Now I want you to take a step," I'll take a step. "Now take two more steps," I'll take two more steps. I believe in waiting before God, and this is what Abraham had to do.