Genesis 18:1-15: Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?

Genesis 18:1-15: Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Genesis, and today the next passage we come to is Genesis 18:1-15. It says,

1 And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3 and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5 while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” 6 And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.” 7 And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate. 9 They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” 10 The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” 13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” 15 But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.”

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, we know that in order to rightly understand both what this passage is teaching and how it connects to our lives, we need the Holy Spirit. So please, send your Spirit to minister to us through this passage today in a most powerful way. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

The longer you live, the more apparent it becomes that life doesn’t always turn out the way we think it’s going to turn out or the way we want it to turn out. We often begin our adult lives with at least a basic idea of what we want our future to look like. We have dreams and desires and goals. We might have educational goals, for example, that involve going to a certain college or getting a certain degree. We might have career-related goals that involve working in a certain field and doing something we enjoy and earning a generous salary. We might have family-related goals of finding that special someone and getting married and having kids. There are all kinds of goals and desires people often have for their future. Yet, life doesn’t always turn out the way we think it will. It’s actually not that uncommon at all for us to encounter significant disappointments in our lives. And, sometimes, these disappointments are so severe and so painful that it feels like we’re just wandering around in a desert wasteland and struggling to understand why God’s allowed our lives to turn out this way. We might even be tempted to become bitter against God.

And that seems to be where Abraham’s wife Sarah is here in Genesis 18. For decades, Sarah had desperately wanted a child and had even been promised a child by God. But, now, here she is as a 90-year-old without any children. Not surprisingly, as we’ll see in a few moments, by this point, Sarah had basically given up hope of ever having a child and had resigned herself to what she viewed as that inevitable reality.

Yet, as we’ll see, Abraham and Sarah receive some very important visitors in this passage who come with a very important message. Look with me at verse 1 and the beginning of verse 2: 1 And the Lord appeared to [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. Now, as we’ll see, these three “men” aren’t actually men at all. Two of them are angels, and one of them is the Lord, Yahweh, himself. Now, that might be surprising to you—that Yahweh would appear in the form of a human in the Old Testament—but that’s what the text clearly says. And, in fact, there are a number of other examples in the Old Testament of this happening as well. The theological word for it is a “theophany”—a compound word which comes from a combination of the Greek words for “God” and “appearing” or “manifestation.” So, a theophany is a physical manifestation of God in the Old Testament.

And, right off the bat, Abraham recognizes that these three “men” are very important. We can see that in the lengths to which Abraham goes to honor them and be hospitable to them. Verses 2-8: 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3 and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5 while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” 6 And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.” 7 And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

So, as soon as Abraham sees these three men, he runs out to them. In that culture, it was very unusual to see an older man running in that way—especially one of the social standing of Abraham. Running would have usually been considered beneath the dignity of a man like Abraham. Yet, without any hesitation, Abraham runs out to these men, bows down in front of them, and proceeds to act toward them as a servant would act toward his master. Not only does Abraham set an elaborate feast before the men, he doesn’t even count himself worthy of eating it with them but instead, as we see in verse 8, simply stands by them as they enjoy the food.

The three men then get down to business with Abraham in verses 9-12: 9 They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” 10 The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?”

Now, if you’ve been attending here recently and have been a part of our journey through Genesis, you may remember that this isn’t the first time God’s promised that Sarah would have a child. However, it is the first time he’s put a time frame on that promise, which has the effect of making the promise feel all the more real and potent. Yet, when Sarah hears the promise, verse 12 says that she laughs to herself. And in contrast to Abraham’s laugh recorded in the previous chapter, Sarah’s laugh seems to have an element of scoffing and unbelief in it. It’s as if she’s saying to herself, “Yeah, right. That’ll be the day—when I have a child.”

And it’s very understandable for her to feel that way. First all of, she’s been infertile for her entire life. And, on top of her infertility even during her younger years, she’s now ninety years old and has gone through menopause. As the text says, “the way of women had ceased to be with [her].” So, in the words of one commentator, it would seem that Sarah is “doubly dead in respect to childbearing.” The promise of a child is absurd from a human perspective. So, Sarah laughs.

We then read in verses 13-15: 13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” 15 But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.” So, the Lord sort of calls Sarah out a little bit for laughing to herself about this promise. By the way, if God ever manifests himself to you in the form of a theophany and calls you out for something, I don’t recommend denying that you did whatever he says you did. He’s God and he knows what you did, so you should probably just own up to it. Otherwise, it’s just awkward. I mean, can you feel the awkwardness in verse 15? Sarah denies it and says, “I didn’t laugh,” so then God has to come back and say, “Yeah, you kind of did.” Then, I imagine an awkward silence probably ensued until Abraham was like, “Alright, then, can I get anyone another drink?”

Yet, the climactic statement of this passage is actually what God says in verse 14 after Sarah laughs. He asks, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And that brings us to the main idea of this entire passage, which is that God delayed Isaac’s birth to show that nothing is too hard for him to accomplish. Again, God delayed Isaac’s birth to show that nothing is too hard for him to accomplish.

You see, we might be limited, but God isn’t. He can do anything he wants, any time he wants, any way he wants—and nothing can stand in his way. For those of you who are Avengers fans, it’s like God has all six infinity stones all the time, and he doesn’t even have to snap his fingers to use them. His power is truly limitless. As Job says to God in Job 42:2, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” In addition, the prophet Jeremiah prays in Jeremiah 32:17, “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.” God then confirms what Jeremiah says several verses later in
Jeremiah 32:26-27: 26 The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 27 “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?

You know, so often, we have this ridiculous tendency to reduce God down to human proportions in our minds and to think of him as less than he really is. We think of God as being essentially like us except maybe a little more powerful. This is actually the very thing God rebukes his people for in Psalm 50:21, where he says, “[Y]ou thought that I was one like yourself.” “[Y]ou thought that I was one like yourself.” Big mistake. Friends, God doesn’t share our human limitations. Remember that God created us after his image—not the other way around. So, beware of conceiving of a god in your mind who’s created after your image or who shares your limitations.

And, back in our main passage, that’s essentially what Sarah was doing. She was projecting her human limitations onto God. Just…think about how ridiculous that is. I mean, we’re talking about a God who spoke this universe into existence. How hard can it be for a God like that—with that kind of power—to enable a woman to conceive and have a child? Not very hard at all.

And that’s a good thing for us to remember as well. You know, maybe the next time you’re tempted to doubt something about God or that God’s able to do something, just go outside and look around. Go up to an overlook somewhere and look out over the vast landscape. Or go outside at night and look up at the stars. Surely the God who spoke all of that into existence is able to accomplish his will in your life and keep his promises to you and look after your welfare.

And let’s get specific here. In what specific areas of your life have you perhaps been tempted to think or act as though something’s too hard for the Lord? The first situation that comes to my mind in which those of us who are Christians might be tempted to think that way is with regard to the people we know whom we long to see put their trust in Jesus but who haven’t done so yet. If you’re anything like me, there are certain people you’ve been praying for for years or even decades to be saved, and yet they still show almost no interest in the gospel. That can be tough, and, if we’re not careful, we can gradually begin to give up hope that they’ll ever be saved. Even though we’d never say it out loud, we can sometimes begin to imagine that certain people are, in a sense, beyond saving. So maybe you need to let God’s gentle rebuke to Sarah here in Genesis 18 sink into your heart as well: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

Friends, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been praying for this or that person. God can save that person today, if he wants to. I mean, if you want an example of God’s ability to do that, just look at the way Christianity’s flourishing right now in Iran. There are numerous reports of the astonishing way in which evangelical Christianity’s currently spreading like wildfire in Iran, of all places, which has been ruled by an Islamic theocracy since the 1970s. According to an estimate cited in Newsweek magazine, Christianity’s growing faster in Iran than in any other country of the world right now. As one Iranian pastor has stated, “We find ourselves facing what is more than a conversion to the Christian faith. It's a mass exodus from Islam.” Obviously, these Iranian Christians aren’t able to gather in public, but they do gather secretly in tiny house churches of 4 or 5 people. And there are so many of these house churches that the current Iranian government reportedly considers these Christians to be what’s been described as “an existential threat.” To put things in perspective, about 20 years ago, the number of Christian converts from a Muslim background in Iran was between 5,000 and 10,000 people. Yet, today, that number is estimated to be between 800,000 and 1 million people—making Iran the site of the fastest-growing evangelical movement in the world.

So, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Obviously not—as we see right now in Iran. And if God can save people the way he’s doing in Iran right now, don’t you think he can save that loved one or that friend or that neighbor or that coworker you’ve been asking him to save? So, whatever you do, don’t stop praying for them and actively seeking to lead them to Christ. God’s put you in their lives for a reason and has called you and empowered you, by his Spirit, to be a faithful witness. Don’t let anything discourage you from that mission—because, as God’s words here in Genesis 18 remind us, nothing is too hard for the Lord. God might take a long time to save the people you’ve been praying for—just as he took a long time to give Sarah a child—but that doesn’t in any way mean that he’s not going to do it.

And, of course, there are many other areas of life as well in which we’re often tempted to think or act as though something’s too hard for the Lord. So, whatever your situation, be reminded that God can do anything. His power has no limit. He can break the bonds of any addiction in your life no matter how strong that addiction is. He can provide for you financially no matter how challenging your financial situation currently seems to be. He can bring about reconciliation and restoration of any relationship in your life no matter how estranged you and that other person currently are. God can provide a spouse for you even if you’ve been searching for one for years. He can provide comfort and strength for you after the loss of a loved one even if your grief, at times, feels overwhelming. There’s absolutely nothing that God can’t do. And, not only that, he also hasn’t forgotten about you. Just as God hadn’t forgotten Sarah but visits her in Genesis 18 and reminds her of his promise, he hasn’t forgotten about you, either.

And, as we think about Sarah and the way she’d soon miraculously conceive and give birth to a child named Isaac, we’re reminded of another woman who’d miraculously conceive and give birth and thereby show that nothing’s too hard for the Lord. In Luke chapter 1, we read about a woman named Mary. And Mary was a virgin. Yet an angel appeared to her one day and told her that, even though she was a virgin, she’d nevertheless conceive and give birth to a child and was to call him Jesus. And get this: as the angel made this announcement to Mary, he reminded her that “nothing will be impossible with God.” That’s his exact words as they’re recorded in Luke 1:37: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” You know, if I didn’t know any better, I might just start to think there are echoes in the angel’s statement to Mary of what God told Sarah back in Genesis 18:14.

And, sure enough, Mary conceived and gave birth not just to any child but to one who would show in a climactic way that nothing’s too hard for the Lord. You see, the Bible teaches us that Jesus was no ordinary person. Not only was he miraculously conceived, he was actually God in human flesh. God became a man in the person of Jesus. And the reason he did that was to rescue us from our sin. After Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to God the Father, he voluntarily allowed himself to be crucified on a cross in order to pay for our sins. Our sins deserved God’s judgment, but Jesus suffered that judgment in our place. The Bible says in Isaiah 53:5 that “he was pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities.”

Yet, the greatest display of God’s power didn’t come until three days after that. After Jesus had laid in a tomb for three days following his crucifixion, he miraculously rose from the dead and thereby defeated sin and death in a decisive way. I’m sure that during those three days between Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, his disciples must have thought that that was the end of it. Jesus had died. It was over. Kind of like Sarah in Genesis 18—in their minds, all hope had been lost. But God showed that he is indeed the God of the impossible when he raised Jesus from the dead—and even gave him a glorified resurrection body that would never die again. So, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” The resurrection testifies in a climactic way that the answer’s “no.”

And that’s then confirmed as the Holy Spirit takes the power of Jesus’s resurrection and applies it to our lives in what the Bible calls a spiritual rebirth. You see, not only to we have the miraculous birth of Isaac in Genesis and the miraculous birth of Jesus in the New Testament, we also have the miraculous rebirth of people today as the Holy Spirit transforms people from the inside out—taking those who are spiritually dead and making them spiritually alive. That means no matter what you’ve done in your life that you’re not proud of—no matter what messes you’ve made—you’re never too far gone for God to turn your life around and forgive your sin and transform you into a new person. Just cry out to Jesus for rescue and put your full trust in him, and you’ll experience in your own life what God helped Sarah understand so many years ago—that nothing’s too hard for the Lord. He can meet you wherever you are and make you new and make you whole.

Yet, that’s not all. Looking back once again at how the story unfolds in Genesis 18 and the surrounding chapters, notice how God deliberately delays Isaac’s birth so that he can show in an even more dramatic way that nothing’s too hard for him to accomplish. You know, so much of studying the Bible well basically comes back to asking the right questions of the text. And as we think about what’s happening in Genesis, we should ask ourselves, “Why does God delay Isaac’s birth for so long?” I mean, God promised Abraham way back in Genesis 12 that Abraham would have offspring and could have fulfilled that promise that very year. So, why did God make Abraham and Sarah wait 25 years and endure such heartache and emotional turmoil before finally fulfilling that promise?

And there’s really no other answer except that God was accomplishing his purposes in Abraham and Sarah’s lives. First of all, he was teaching them what it means to live by faith and using this trial to draw them closer to himself. And that’s what he does in our lives as well. God uses trials to break us of our prideful self-sufficiency and bring us to a place where we’re able to experience his goodness and grace on a level that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

Charles Spurgeon, writing in the nineteenth century, says it this way: “There is a blessed proportion. [God] bears a pair of scales—in this side he puts his people's trials, and in that he puts their consolations [or their comforts]. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy. When the black clouds gather most, the light is the more brightly revealed to us. When the night lowers and the [storm] is coming on, the Heavenly Captain is always closest to his crew. It is a blessed thing, that when we are most cast down, then it is that we are most lifted up by the consolations of the [Holy] Spirit. One reason is, because trials make more room for consolation. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation. [When] God comes into our heart [and] finds it full, he begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The [more] a man [suffers], the more comfort he will always have, because he will be more fitted to receive it. Another reason why we are often most happy in our troubles, is this—then we have the closest dealings with God. When the barn is full, man can live without God: when the purse is bursting with gold, we try to do without so much prayer. But once take our [earthly blessings] away, and we want our God….Hence [our trials] bring us to God, and we are happier; for nearness to God is happiness. Come, troubled believer, fret not over your heavy troubles, for they are the heralds of weighty mercies.”

And, brothers and sisters, I can tell you from personal experience that that’s been true in my life. The seasons of greatest difficulty in my life have, almost without exception, also been the seasons when I’ve been brought the closest to God and experienced his presence in the most powerful way.

In addition to that, back in Genesis, another reason God deliberately delays Isaac’s birth is in order to show in the most dramatic way possible that—in the words of Genesis 18:14—nothing’s too hard for him to accomplish. You know, it’s one thing for an NFL quarterback to win a Super Bowl. But imagine winning a Super Bowl with one hand tied behind your back. That would be crazy, right? Yet, if something like that were to ever happen, it would demonstrate in a stunning way the athletic abilities of that quarterback. And that’s essentially what God’s doing here in Genesis by delaying Isaac’s birth. God’s demonstrating his power in a dramatic way—so that Abraham and Sarah and everyone else throughout the rest of history who reads the book of Genesis will see how glorious he is and be led to put their faith in him.

And if you take that basic idea back far enough, you could even say that that’s why God allowed evil and suffering into this world in the first place. People often ask, “Why would God let evil and suffering enter the world?” Or, “Why would God create a world that he knew would one day be plagued by evil and suffering?” And there are several answers that are often given to that question. But I think the best and most satisfying answer is that the reason God allowed evil and suffering to enter the world and chose to create a world that he knew would be plagued by evil and suffering is because, without evil and suffering, his glory would never be fully known. To state it another way, if sin didn’t exist, there would be no Savior, no cross, and no gospel of grace.

You see, the way in which God’s most exalted is through the display of his glory—and especially, as Ephesians 1 emphasizes over and over again, the glory of his grace. That’s the exact phrase Ephesians 1 uses—“the glory of his grace”—that is, the glory revealed through God’s saving grace in the gospel. And that also happens to be the way in which we experience the deepest joy and satisfaction as well. The greatest pleasure in the universe for us is to behold and experience the glory of God’s grace. Yet, without a world in which sin exists, we wouldn’t ever get to experience that. We’d never have a chance to see or experience the greatest pleasure in the universe that is the glory of God’s grace in the gospel. So, that’s why God allowed sin and evil and suffering to enter this world. He knew what it would cause, and he knew he’d eventually have to endure the worst of it himself in his death on the cross. And yet, he also knew it was necessary in order to accomplish his greater purpose of displaying his glory.

And that’s the same basic dynamic we find in Genesis 18 as well. God knew that delaying the fulfillment of his promise of a child would be very difficult for Abraham and Sarah. But he also knew that it was necessary in order for his glory to be displayed in a more dynamic way—for Abraham and Sarah and all future generations.