To Encourage You

Genesis 18:10-15 “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. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ’After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?’ The Lord said to Abraham, ’Why did Sarah laugh and say, ”Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?“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.’ But Sarah denied it, saying, ’I did not laugh,’ for she was afraid. He said, ’No, but you did laugh.’”

In the account above we have God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would miraculously bear a son in their old age.  Abraham was 100 years old at the time and Sarah was 90 or 91.  So what was Sarah’s response?  We are told here that it was laughter – not joyful laughter as one might expect, but mocking laughter, for which Sarah was rebuked.  It’s interesting that when the baby was born to them one year after these words were spoken, he was given the name Isaac, which means “laughter.”  Isaac was a daily reminder to Abraham and Sarah that one should never mock the Word of God.  It was also a reminder of the joyful laughter that occurred as Sarah realized God’s promise fulfilled.  What God has said will always, without fail, come to pass.  Yet men and women, throughout history, have mocked His Word.  We find this mocking reach its apex when the Word incarnate, Jesus the Son of God, was constantly mocked while He was on earth.  For example, when He told the crowd that He was about to raise Jairus’ dead daughter back to life, “they laughed him to scorn (Luke 8:53).”  At His trial, the crowd, the chief priests, and the soldiers all mocked Him.  And today, many people mock the Word of God. They view God’s commands as old-fashioned nonsense.  They mock the creation account. They mock the prophesies about the second coming of Jesus.  The foolishness of such mocking of the omniscient, omnipotent God is difficult to put into words.  To the mockers God has said “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap (Galatians 6:7).” In the end, those who mock God will themselves be mocked by God, as He has warned us with these words: “Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. (Proverbs 1:24-28).”  May God help us to not doubt or, worse yet, mock at His Word.  Of all people, believers should never doubt the Word of their God who is the Truth.  Yet unbelief plagues us all.  Thus, the words of Jesus to His apostles in the midst of a storm “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith (Luke 8:53)?”  Indeed, why are any of us, who call Christ our Savior, afraid of anything?  May God increase our little faith and may we pray as did the weakly believing father who brought his demon-plagued son to Jesus for healing: “I believe; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24)!”