Abraham entertaining angels. So Genesis chapter 18, and we'll
read from verse one. And the Lord appeared unto him
in the plains of Mamre, that is, Abraham, and he sat in the
tent door in the heat of the day. And he lift up his eyes
and looked, and lo, three men stood by him. And when he saw
them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself
toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found
favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray thee,
be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the
tree. And 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. And 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. And Abraham
ran unto the herd and fetched a calf, tender and good, and
gave it unto a young man and he hasted to dress it. And he
took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and
set it before him. And he stood by them under the
tree, and they did eat. And they said unto him, Where
is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold in the tent. And 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. Now Abram and Sarah were old
and well-stricken in age, and it ceased to be with Sarah after
the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within
herself, saying, After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my
lord, being old also? And the Lord said unto Abraham,
Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child,
which I am old? Is anything too hard for the
Lord? At the time appointed I will
return them to thee according to the time of life, and Sarah
shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I
laughed not, for she was afraid. And he said, Nay, but thou didst
laugh. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. The Lord Jesus Christ appears
several times in the Old Testament in human form. And this appears
to be one of those occasions. The reason for this visitation
by the Lord to his friend Abraham is to confirm once again the
soon arrival of a son, an heir, to Abraham and Sarah and to reinforce
that promise that we have been reading about in recent chapters
of the story of Abraham. And we have a lovely account
here of the hospitality of Abraham. In these days so many years ago,
Abraham was very eager and keen to show kindness to travellers
as they passed by in that land. And it shows how kind and gracious
that Abraham was to these visitors and these strangers. Indeed it
may well be from this very passage that the writer to the Hebrews
takes his cue when he writes in chapter 13 in verse 2, be
not forgetful to entertain strangers. for thereby some have entertained
angels unawares. And looking after those who are
weak and looking after those who are in need and looking after
strangers and aliens is a blessed vocation in the family of God. It is quite likely indeed that
this was the Lord Jesus Christ and two angels that had come
to visit Abraham based on what is said to Abraham and Sarah
and what happens afterwards. And Abraham shows a great deal
of respect to these travellers. He supplies them with water to
wash their feet, which was a common need at least in those dry and
dusty conditions of the Middle East, that country. He gives
them a place to sit in the shade. and he provides a sustaining
meal of bread and meat and milk and butter. He looks after their
physical needs to the best of his ability. But then, perhaps
around verse nine and 10 of the passage that we've just read
together, Abraham begins to realise that these guests are something
special. And if it hadn't dawned on him
before, even by just looking upon the faces of these three
visitors, certainly as they begin to speak to him, Surely it must
have dawned on him that he was in the presence of someone special. We see that the Lord, as it was
who spoke, knew Sarah's name. Not only did he know her name,
he knew her new name, the name Sarah that had been given to
her because she would be the mother of many nations. And he asked where she was, not
because he did not know, as God knows all things, but perhaps
to attract her attention. He knew where she was, he knew
that she had been busy, but he would have her attention. And
it's a funny thing that happens, that when our names are mentioned,
Even when it happens in a conversation that we are not a part of, we
always seem to hear our own names being mentioned. And so it was
here, Sarah realises he's talking about me. And the Lord said,
to Abraham, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah was listening
behind the door of her tent. And when the Lord said that to
Abraham, Sarah laughed. She laughed into herself and
she thought to herself, how can I possibly give birth to a son? And in verse 13, as we were reading,
we saw that the Holy Spirit tells us there that it was Jehovah,
it was the Lord who spoke. And it was also the Lord that
knew that Sarah had laughed. And Sarah went on to deny that
she had laughed, even although the Lord confronted her with
what she had done. This little passage shows us
a couple of things and let me just bring them to your attention. The first thing that we see here
perhaps that is particularly noticeable and memorable is that
Nothing is too hard for God. That is what the Lord says to
Abraham. He is to realise that nothing
is impossible. Nothing is too hard for God. And that reminds us of another
occasion when the Lord Jesus Christ said the same thing to
his disciples in Matthew chapter 19 and verse 26. We're told there that Jesus said
that lots of things are impossible with men but with God all things
are possible. And that was to show that the
Lord is able to save men and women from their sins, to save
boys and girls from their sins, to bring us into a knowledge
of the truth because it is a divine work, it is a holy work of God,
to make men and women suitable for his presence, to take away
our sin and to bring us into that place of righteousness and
holiness and perfection before God, to reconcile and bring peace
between sinful people and the holy God. With men, that's impossible,
but with God, all things are possible. And the other thing
that this little passage reminds us of is that we must always
be honest with God. You know, we can't hide anything
from God. God knows what we say, and he
knows what we do, and he even knows what we think. and it is
foolish to pretend before God. Let us, when we are worshipping
him, let us, when we are hearing his word read, let us, when we
are praying to him, let us, when we come into the presence of
the Lord's people, remind ourselves in so doing not to be hypocritical,
not to be pretentious, but to be humble and honest and sincere
before God in all that we say and do. If the Lord, as we were
thinking about in Psalm 95, calls us to worship, to thanksgiving
and praise, let us do him the honour of being honest before
him. Our God, knows all things. Abraham discovered the true identity
of his visitors. This God with whom we have to
deal, this God into whose presence we come, this Lord Jehovah, the
Lord Jesus Christ, is the all-powerful God who can do all things and
the all-knowing God who knows all things. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us.