Sarah — The Mother of a Nation

And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yeah, I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her (Gen. 17:16).

   Sarah in Scripture is called the mother of the "families of the earth." The knowledge we have of Sarah is derived from the knowledge we have of Abraham. For this she is commended by Peter (I Peter 3:6). The only record we have of Sarah is that of a devoted wife throughout her entire life. She is introduced to us as the wife of Abraham and as such she died. As the wife of her husband, she fulfilled all demands of God's precepts. Great emphasis has been placed upon the fact that Abraham obeyed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. He obeyed God when he left Ur of the Chaldees at the command of God in order to go into a land which he knew not. Let us not forget that Sarah also left Ur of Chaldees along with Abraham with just as great a venture of faith as he faced. In fact, it is much harder on a woman to leave her native land and kindred and friends than it is for a man.

   Even the lineage of Sarah is traced through her husband rather than through herself. She is called "the daughter of Abraham's father but not of his mother." The common Jewish tradition accepted by Jerome and Josephus is that Sarah was the daughter of Haran, the brother of Abraham, who died in Ur of Chaldees and hence, she was Abraham's own niece. Thus he could refer to her as his sister as he did on several occasions to save them both from death. Sarah shared Abraham's

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wanderings, his defections due to his weakness of faith, and his great triumphs which caused him to be called the father of the faithful and "the friend of God," until at the advanced age of 127 years she died and was buried in the cave of Machpelah, the only piece of ground which Abraham owned in the promised land.

   The name Sarai which belonged to Abraham's wife before their names were changed means "my princess." This suggests two beautiful things: First, the fact that Sarah was a woman of high social standing in the country from which she came; and second, that she stood in a very endearing relationship to her husband Abraham. If one considers that Ur of Chaldees was the center of philosophy, astronomy and culture of that ancient day, we realize what Sarah left to travel with Abraham. The scripture refers to her as being "fair" and "very fair" and "lovely to look upon." The Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hebrew University of Mount Scopus refer to Sarah in the book of Genesis as "how fair indeed are her eyes and how pleasing her nose and all the radiance of her face... and how lovely all her whiteness... her arms how goodly to look upon, and her hands how perfect." Wherever Sarah journeys, the admiring eyes of people were upon her and she was coveted for the harems of the rulers of those lands.

   Her name was changed from Sarai to Sarah at the same time that Abraham's name was changed from Abram to Abraham. The adding of the syllable, or consonant, to the names of these two persons represented Jehovah and it was a symbol of the establishment of the covenant between God and Abraham's house. The sign of that covenant was circumcision. The essence of it was that God had chosen Abraham and his seed to be the recipients of the Messianic promise in recognition of which he would give to Abraham the land of Canaan and would be Abraham's God. To Sarah God promised that He would give a son and that she should be the mother of the nations. Not only is Abraham listed in the roster of the heroes of the faith in Hebrew's 11, but Sarah is also listed. There we read, "Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive

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seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised." She also was one who "through faith... obtained promises" and "of whom the world was not worthy."

   Sarah had her shortcomings and at times was guilty of unbelief, but the great characteristic of her life is faith. In her we see a beautiful, cultured princess, who because of faith in the promise of God, underwent great sacrifices. Her experience illustrates the various kinds of relationship which a soul can have to God, all of which may be subsumed under the word "laughter" which is the meaning of "Isaac," the name she gave to her son.

THE LAUGH OF UNBELIEF

   Abraham and Sarah both laughed at the promise of God and in both cases their laugh was that of unbelief. When we understand the entire circumstances, we will not condemn them for their act of laughing at God's promise. One of the means used by God is revealing His will unto men in the early stage of divine revelation was by means of a theophany, or His appearance in human form. He appeared to and conversed with men. This is the kind of communion which Adam had with God. It is the kind of communion enjoyed by Enoch when it said Enoch "walked with God." (Gen. 5:24). The Lord on several occasions appeared unto Abraham and also to Sarah, his wife. When God first appeared unto Abraham on this matter, commanding Abraham to change Sarah's name, promising to Abraham a son by Sarah, and prophesying that Sarah would become a mother of nations, Abraham fell upon his face and laughed (Gen. 17:17). The incongruity of a woman nearly ninety years of age beargin a child after the couple had waited for so many years for the promise to be fulfilled in vain, made Abraham laugh. In response, he said, "O that Ishmael might live before thee!" But the Lord reiterated His promise and commanded Abraham to call the child Isaac, or "laughter," to remind him of this unbelief.

   At some time later the Lord appeared again unto Abraham

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as he sat in the door of his tent. Apparently Abraham recognized Him for he said, "My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant." Abraham insisted on extending hospitality. When the New Testament says that some have entertained angels unawares, it refers to this among other instances. Though Abraham knew that he was entertaining a theophany of God and two angels, Sarah entertained them unawares. Sarah herself even cooked the meal which was set before these messengers of God. It consisted of tender calf, butter, milk and freshly made bread and it was given in a spirit of gladness.

   When the meal was over, the spokesman said, "Where is Sarah thy wife?" Abraham replied, "Behold, in the tent." Then said the angel of the Lord, "I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son." Sarah had waited and longed so long for a child that now the incongruity of the thing struck her because of her age. She had even been willing that Abraham should have a son through Hagar, which expedient had brought forth Ishmael. For her now to have a child would be the result of a definite creative act of God. When Sarah heard these words pronounced to Abraham, she laughed within her heart, thinking that this was absolutely impossible (Gen. 19:12). Hers was a laugh of irony, of unbelief, of doubt that such a promise should be reiterated when now it was impossible. This laughter in Sarah was not that of an unbeliever. It was that of a believer who did not trust a particular divine promise. Her laughter was not that of mockery but it was that one single act of unbelief in the life of a believing person. It was spontaneous unbelief at the incongruity of the thing that a woman nearly 90 years old should have a son. She was considering the whole situation from the purely human side and not from the divine side.

   The laughter of Sarah was quite unlike the laughter of men who mock God today. Men who laugh at God with the mockery of unbelief, who ridicule and hate the promises, who repudiate the Gospel, have their laughter originate in basic

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wickedness and antipathy to God in the degenerate human heart. This laughter is akin to the mockery made of Christ when on the cross men said unto Him, "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." Modern mockery is centered in the intellectualism of our day which would confine God to natural law and laughs at any promise that God can intervene in the natural course of events so as to perform a miracle, to fulfill prophecy or to answer prayer. For this reason they brand passages in the book of Daniel, of Isaiah and Amos as written after the events. For this reason they laugh at the idea of a virgin birth. For this reason they repudiate the Biblical teaching of a physical resurrection and for this reason they mock the Biblical teaching concerning the second coming of Christ in glory.

   Such laughter at God and the promises of God leads one to inevitable sorrow and trouble. The first outcome is sin, for unbelief blasts one's faith in the abiding values of life and brings about an utter disregard of ethical standards. Once God is reasoned away, or laughed away, all moral standards which depend upon the belief in God will be laughed away. This might be illustrated from the way Communism, which is founded upon atheism, destroys all moral and human values. Once you laugh at God in unbelief you will begin to live as if there were no God.

THE LAUGH OF FAITH

   The evidence of Scripture is that the lives of Abraham and Sarah were not marked by permanent unbelief but rather by faith. For this reason they are given their position in the roster of the heroes of the faith. Of Sarah it is said, "Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed... when she was past age" (Heb. 11:11). Thus, Sarah exercised faith which is pleasing to God. It is interesting that when Sarah laughed in her heart, God knew that she had laughed, for the Lord said unto Abraham, "Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" Then He reiterated the promise that He would now give unto Abraham and Sarah a son.

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   Very sobering is the thought here emphasized, that God knows the unspoken thoughts of our hearts. John tells us that there is no use in our praying for spiritual objects if we regard iniquity within our hearts, for the Lord will not hear us. There is no use pretending that we believe the promises if we laugh at them secretly within our hearts. All such actions are known to God. Christ was able to tell men their thoughts before they ever expressed them and the Lord reads the unspoken attitudes of our hearts. When Sarah heard this, she denied that she had laughed, saying, "I laughed not." Truly, she had not laughed openly, she had not even so much as smiled, but in her heart, deep down, she had laughed at the incongruity of a woman of her age having a child. Christ taught that men were guilty of adultery if they looked upon a woman to lust after her in their hearts and that they are guilty of murder if they even are angry with their brothers in their hearts. Thus the Lord drives our religion deep down into the heart and He rebuked Sarah because she laughed secretly. Surely, when the Lord reiterated His promise to Sarah and Abraham, they should have believed and not have needed the third statement of the divine promise. It seems that this very rebuke of the Lord caused a change in Sarah from unbelief to faith so that she thereafter was able to act upon the promise. It was at this time that the physical vigor of Sarah and Abraham was divinely renewed so that Sarah again became a great beauty and Abraham continued in the vigor of manhood for the rest of his life. This continuance of strength revealed that Sarah and Abraham continued in faith in accordance with the divine promise, for the New Testament says, "She judged [the Lord] faithful who had promised" (Heb. 11:11).

   When the Lord spoke to Abraham, He said, "Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" (Gen. 18:14.) This promise of what the Lord was able to perform for this aged couple reminds us of the promise and of the wonderful creative act of God in bringing the Lord Jesus into the world through a virgin birth. When the angel Gabriel made the annunciation unto Mary that the child which should be born of her should be called

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the Son of God, she asked, "How shall this be?" Then Gabriel replied, "With God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37). It was not a stretch of imagination after such a visitation of God and the special reiterated promise that Abraham and Sarah did believe that Isaac was to become the Messiah as is intimated by Abraham's believing that God could raise him from the dead if he sacrificed him on Mount Moriah.

   It is this principle that nothing is impossible with God that made the men of faith throughout the ages do wonderful things. The generation of Noah mocked his preaching, ridiculed his building of the ark, and rejected his message because there had never been a flood. In fact, it is probable there never had been any rain. But Noah believed God and built an ark to the saving of his house.

   Moses stood before Pharaoh with faith in the God of the burning bush and demanded the release of the Israelites, Pharaoh laughed and said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?" But in response to Moses' faith in the God of the impossible, two million people were delivered from Egypt and the armies of Egypt were overcome in the Red Sea.

   When David visited the armies of Israel which were being defied by Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, he said, "Who is this... that he should defy the armies of the living God?... Thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine" (1 Sam. 17). In the name of the Lord God of Hosts, David went forth with his staff and with a slingshot to meet Goliath, the man of war, and overcame him. He believed that nothing was impossible with God. The Scripture says of the heroes of the faith that they "through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection... of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. 11:33-35, 38).

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Thus it is that the world laughs at faith but faith laughs at the world. Instead of being defeated by the mockery and ridicule of the world, men of faith are able to laugh at all obstacles and to overcome them through the God of the impossible.

THE LAUGHTER OF JOY

   The Scripture says the Lord did as He said unto Sarah. The day came when her son was born, when the joy of the fulfilled promise belonged unto Sarah. Bear in mind that on four occasions God had said unto Abraham and Sarah that He would give them a son through whom the nations of the world should be blessed. He had promised that the seed of Abraham should be as innumerable as the stars in the heavens and as the sands of the seashore for multitude. Just as their expectancy had led them to an act of unbelief in substituting Hagar as a mother of the promised seed, so now their expectation led them to an expression of joy when it was fulfilled. They had waited long and had prayed much for this promise to be fulfilled. Now, by a supernatural act of God, it came to pass.

   Sarah named her son "Isaac" which means laughter, because she said, "God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me" (Gen. 21:6). Believing him to be the progenitor of the Messiah, if not the Messiah Himself, her laugh was not the laugh of salvation, it was the laugh of the joy of knowing that one's sins are forgiven through the man whom God has sent. Through this son of Sarah all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, through the tidings of salvation. How wonderfully all has been fulfilled in the descendant of Isaac, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherever the name of Jesus has gone as Saviour, there has been joy unspeakable and full of glory, joy of sins forgiven, joy of victory, joy of possessing a heavenly promise. All this Sarah and Abraham felt when Isaac was born.

   This laughter of joy was the laughter of trusting God's promise. After this, Abraham was put to test by the command to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. Men have honored Abraham for his obedience to this command of God but did

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Sarah have no suffering, no expression of faith when she faced the command? Are we to believe that Sarah did not know what Abraham intended when he left with Isaac, the servants, the wood, the knife and the fire? The intimate relationship of Abraham and Sarah would have prevented his hiding his purpose from her. Though it may not have been stated, nevertheless Sarah could tell by the look in his eye, by the suffering written upon his brow, by the circumstances of his leaving what his purpose was. What agony of soul she must have passed through while Abraham and Isaac were gone on that trip to Mount Moriah! What consecration it took for her not to stand in the way of her husband's purpose! If Abraham believed that God could raise Isaac from the dead and restore him unto him, Sarah must also have believed this. Hence, we have in Isaac not only a type of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ but also a type of true faith on the part of these two parents who resigned themselves to the necessary death of their divinely sent son for the salvation of themselves and the world.

   An old Jewish legend stated by Josephus is that when Abraham and Isaac returned from Mount Moriah, they found Sarah dying of a broken heart. The terrible ordeal had been too much for her. Shortly after this, Abraham laid her away in the cave of Machpelah where he himself was later to be buried. The return of Isaac with his father was a vindication of the divine purposes and promises in relation to Isaac. Sarah and Abraham had the joy of trusting these promises.

   Theirs was also the joy of salvation through the fulfillment of the promise of Christ, for what Isaac presented to them the Lord Jesus Christ represents to us. Where Christ is not known, there is no laughter, there is no joy, there is no peace, but wherever He is known, the laughter of joy follows. Truly every soul who trusts in Christ may laugh, rejoice and sing for joy. Thus, Abraham is the father of the faithful, Sarah is the mother of spiritual nations.

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