# 8~ Abraham & Sarah HEB. 11: Study 6-21-14
Today we'll continue in our study of Hebrews 11: -- the hall of faith chapter, we'll be going to several scriptures in Genesis that is relevant to both Abraham and Sarah. ~~ listen as I read our text verses.
Hebrews 11: 9 -12 By faith he (Abraham) sojourned in the land of promise, (moved about as a stranger) as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles (tents) with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
(Isaac and Jacob with him, means they were in Abrahams loins)
10For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
~The city which hath foundations is clearly a reference to the pearly white city, the future home of the Bride.
Rev. 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
11Through faith also Sara 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.
12Therefore sprang there even of one, (Abraham) and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. -- can not be numbered.
Sarah's faith in the birth of Isaac may seem out of place here. When she first heard the announcement she laughed in unbelief, as we'll see in Gen.18:
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Listen; in Genesis 15: 2 -6 And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? 3And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.
Listen, 4And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; (Eliezer of Damascus) but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
~ Lets be sure and notice that, Sarah is not mentioned as yet.
5And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. 6And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
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Genesis 17:15 -22 And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. 16And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
17Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? -- at this point Sarah still don't know what God had said to Abraham about her baring a son.
~ As we can see, Abraham was not flawless; He found the promise difficult to believe at first. --- This is seen by what he said in his heart and by his request to God that the promises might center in Ishmael.
18And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!
Ishmael was Abraham's son by Sarah's Egyptian hand maid Hagar, which was at Sarah's suggestion; Ishmael was 12 years old at this time.
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Genesis 16:1-2 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. 2And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.
Any children that Hagar might have would be considered as Sarah's.
Hagar was given to Abraham by the pharaoh.
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Abraham had told Sarah to pretend that she was his sister, he thought that he might be killed if they knew she was his wife, she was very beautiful. -
Actually Sarah was Abraham's half sister; they had the same father and a different mother.
>Genesis 20: 12 And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
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ľ ~ Pharaoh gave Abraham many gifts because of Sarah, thinking she was his sister.
Genesis 12: 14 - 20 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. 15The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
16And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he (Abram) had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.
~ We believe Hagar was among the MAID SERVANTS.
17And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.
18And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
19Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way. 20And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had. --All that Pharaoh had given him, Hagar included.
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Her name "Hagar" signifies a stranger or sojourner, and it is likely she got this name in the family of Abram, as the word is Hebrew.
She is a figure of particular importance in the Islamic tradition, both as the mother of Ishmael, with whom she settled near Mecca, and as the ancestor of the prophet Muhammad.
ľ Hagar is the first biblical woman after Eve to whom God spoke directly.
ľ Back to Gen.17:19
Gen.17: 19And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
~Lets be sure and notice, that God said, "and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him."
~ So just who are the people that this covenant, this promise, includes?
It's Isaac, Jacob, and Jacobs 12 sons, who head up the 12 tribes, which the world over know as the nation of Israel.
20And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.
21But my covenant (my promise) will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. 22And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.
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Let's keep in mind that as of yet Sarah has not heard that she would bare a son; she had decided that her and Abraham both were now too old. And we're told here, that it would be "at the set time next year" God had only told Abraham at this point, we'll see Sarah's reaction in Gen. 18:
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Let me say that here in Gen. 18: that the 3 men we read about are the Lord JESUS, and the other two were angels, they were on their way to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah other surrounding cities, of course they knew they would be visiting Abraham on the way, God was going to tell Abraham about Sarah having his son Isaac.
~ God never does any thing just by happenstance; it was all in God's plan.
The angel of the Lord (is a Christophany, meaning an Old Testament appearance of the Lord Jesus.) -- Two of these heavenly visitors are referred to as men and also as angels in Gen. 19: -- They appeared as men, the Sodomites wanted to KNOW them. The two destroying angels continue to Sodom. -- They tell Lot;
Genesis 19:13 For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.
ľ Now let's read from Gen.18: 1-16.
Genesis 18:1 - 16 And the LORD appeared unto him (Abraham) in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; 2And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: (we're not told that Abraham saw them coming from a distance, he just looked up and there they were) and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, 3And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy (singular) sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: 4Let a little water, I pray you, (you, your, and ye always are plural in our KJ Bible) -- be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: 5And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said.
We notice that He is called Lord (Yahweh) in verses 1, 13--14 -- He also referred to Himself as "I" when speaking in the capacity of God.
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6And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah,*** and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.
7And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it.
8And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he (Abraham) stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.
9And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.
10And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him. This is the 1st time Sarah has heard that she would bare a son; Abraham had heard many times that his seed would be as the sands by the sea side.
The angel of the Lord gave the promise that in due time Sarah would truly have a son.
11Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.
12Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord (Abraham) being old also?
Sarah most likely didn't realize who these men were, if they were just ordinary men how could they make such bold statements?
Though Sarah was inside the tent, she was able to hear their words; and she laughed within herself (vs. 12), believing that the words could not be true.
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If you'll recall back in chapter 17:17 it had been Abraham who had laughed. --- It seems strange that Abraham would have laughed at the idea of a 100-year-old man begetting a son, when his own father was 130 at the time of Abraham's birth.
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Listen, the Lord knew Sarah had laughed in her heart and that brought a rebuke to Sarah, saying is anything too hard for the Lord? (vs. 14). -- And what was even worse was that Sarah denied that she had laughed after realizing that the Lord knew what she had thought, and this made her conduct to appear even worse.
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13And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?
14 The Lord said; Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.
What the Lord means here is; He will return unto Abraham the ability to father children, we know that even after Sarah's death Abraham continued to have sons by his new wife Keturah.
Genesis 25:1-2 Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. 2And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. -- So Abraham had six sons by her.
15Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.
16And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.
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ľ Even the Lord Jesus was born at a set time.
Galatians 4: 4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
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God not only rejuvenated Sarah's body so she could bear a child, but also so she could nurse the child.
> Genesis 21:1- 8 And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken.
2For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. 3And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
4And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him.
5And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.
6And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. -- The name ISAAC means laughter.
7And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age.
8And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.
ľ I have read the weaning age of the Hebrew children was about 3 years old.
The whole Jewish nation is the product of a miracle birth. (ISACC)- The Messiah, of whom Isaac was a type, would also be the product of a miraculous birth. --- More than anyone else, a Jew ought to be able to accept the supernatural birth of Jesus; for HE Himself is the result of Isaac's miraculous birth.
