Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
We read often about "the faith of Abraham" and how he is "the father of all that believe," but only once do we read about Sarah his wife being a woman of faith, and that at the very end of the many years of their waiting for an heir (Heb. 11:11).
She was bitter in her heart against the Lord all this while that He had been proclaiming New Covenant truth to Abraham (Gen. 16:2). In her unbelief, she did not state the truth when she said, "the Lord has restrained me from bearing children." The truth was quite different.
When the Lord promised Abraham that he would be "the father of many nations," the promise naturally included that Sarah would be the mother of many nations because the two were married, they were "one flesh" in God's sight. God recognizes and honors the marriage relation. Sarah was a faithful wife when it came to "works." She prepared food for example, for the entertaining of his guests (18:1-8); there is no hint that she complained about her husband's hospitality that made extra work for her. All this while she was the good "Laodicean" wife of good works (cf. Rev. 3:15).
Meanwhile, Abraham humbles his heart to believe God's gracious New Covenant promises (Gen. 12:2, 3) and has this rich "Christian experience" of walking in the light while Sarah nurtures her dark unbelief.
Admittedly, her "burden" was heavy to bear: all around for miles, all the wives of the neighbors were bearing children, but Sarah apparently was being passed by, and this by the Lord Himself. It seemed that God was against her--"the Lord has restrained me from bearing children"(!). He leaves me to be humiliated before everybody!
She was as honest as Martin Luther when his father-confessor Staupitz told him to just "love God, that's all you need to do!" and young Luther blurted out, "But I hate Him!" That honest confession from his heart was the beginning of Luther's conversion.
Sarah at last confesses her resentment against the Lord, and now she is on the way toward resolving her problem: "By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised" (Heb. 11:11).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 8, 2007.
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