Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord? Genesis 18 & God in Human Form

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Good evening once again, and we're going to do just like we always do, pick right up where we left off last week and turn to Genesis chapter 18. Now we're going to skip a few of those last verses with dealing with the rite of circumcision, but you can pick that up in your own time. Now as you come into chapter 18, verse 1, I like to remember chapter 18 as one of the most vivid chapters of God appearing in human form to the Old Testament patriarchs. And that's what you've got here. Verse 1, where the Lord, Jehovah, God the Son, appeared unto him, that is, unto Abram, in the plains of Mamre, and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day, so evidently it was summertime. Verse 2, Abram, or he, lifted up his eyes, and looked, and lo, three, what, men, that's what the Scripture says, he lifted up his eyes, and lo, three men stood by him. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the ground. And he said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Now what all Abraham is doing here is typical Middle Eastern hospitality at the time of the ancients. Because after all, you know, they didn't have a McDonald's every few miles, and they didn't have motels or anything like this, and the desert was harsh, and so it just demanded that if you were a native and you had these things at your disposal, that wayfaring strangers would be brought in and be fed, maybe replenish their water supply, and then send them on their way. And so that's really all Abraham is content to do at this point in time. Now I know in verse 3 the word Lord is capitalized in the King James, but if I'm not mistaken in some of the other translations, I think in the revised, I'm not sure, but I know I've had people in my class over the years where the word Lord here is not capitalized, it's small l. And I would tend to agree with that simply because I do not feel that at this point in time as these three men approached Abraham's tent that he knew one of them was Jehovah. Now if he did, then of course it should be capitalized as it is, but I can find nothing in the next few verses that gives us a hint that Abraham understood that the Lord was one of these three men, but it is of course. Now then he drops down to verse 5, and he says, "...I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort you your hearts, and after that you shall pass on." Now when you analyze that, if he knew that this was Jehovah, would he be so ready for him to just pick up and go again? Well, I don't think so, but he just thought these were three wayfaring strangers who merely needed a rest and some sustenance, and they could take off and go on their way. But if you want to maintain that Abraham knew who this was, that's all right, I've got no argument with that either. So then verse 5, continuing on, he said, "...after you shall pass on, for therefore you are come to your servant," and they said, "...so do as thou hast said." In other words, go ahead, prepare us some food, and we're ready to partake. Verse 6, Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and he said, "...make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, make cakes," and so on and so forth. Verse 7, Abraham ran to the herd, fetched the calf, tender and good, and gave it to the young man, and he hasted to dress it. Verse 8, now I mean this is a Middle East banquet, "...and he took butter and milk, the calf which he had dressed, and he set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree, and they ate all three of them." Now remember, these are spiritual beings. This is the Lord and two angels. But nevertheless, Abraham sees three men. Now, maybe this would be a good time, let's go back and look in the life of the Lord Jesus a moment, after His resurrection, and go back to Luke 24. Now I think some of these things are good to comprehend, because there's a lot of ignorance, I think, on the part of even believers as to our spiritual state when we get to eternity. And remember that we're not going to spend eternity in some ethereal, invisible soul state. We're going to be bodily involved. And I think as such, we're also going to enjoy a lot of the good things that God's going to provide, and among them, eating. And now here in Luke 24, we have the Lord Jesus in that forty days of time after His resurrection, and He has now approached the eleven. He's also talked, if you remember, with the group on their way back to Emmaus, and they invite Him in, and He sets a table with them, if you remember, but it isn't quite so vividly clear that He actually partook of food. But here in this event, it says it plainly as day. Verse 36 of Luke 24, "...And as they thus spake, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and He saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit. And He said unto them, Why are you troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me, touch Me, see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see Me have. And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they yet believed not, even though their hearts were filled with joy, yet they believed not for joy, and wondered, He said unto them, Have ye any meat? Have ye any food? And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and of honeycomb, and He took it, and what did He do? And He ate before them." Now, that's in His resurrected body. A lot of people don't realize this. I think this might be a corresponding, but if not, some commentators maintain that the four Gospel writers do not always write about the same events, and so consequently, if they aren't exactly the same, there's not a contradiction, but these are all different events. But whatever. Do you remember when He approached the eleven, and they'd been fishing all night? Sure you do. That's in John's Gospel, I think. Yeah, let's turn to it, just for the fun of it. Let's go to John's Gospel, that would be chapter 20, 21. John 21, beginning of verse 3, so we get the setting. John's Gospel, chapter 21, verse 3. Now Simon Peter said unto them, I go fishing. What in the world caused him to say something like that? Well, Peter as yet just didn't comprehend that things weren't all down the drain. There was still a lot left to be done, but he was ready to go back to his old profession of fishing up there on Galilee. And so the rest of them said, well, we'll go with you. Now continuing on in verse 3, they went forth and entered into a ship immediately, and that night they caught nothing. Now you remember the story, and the next morning they still hadn't caught anything. But verse 5, or verse 4, when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. And then Jesus said unto them, Children, have ye any meat? Have ye got any fish? Have ye got anything to eat? And they said no. Verse 6, and he said unto them, Cast on the right hand of the ship, and ye shall find. And again, you know the account. They got so many, the net almost broke. But now come up, for sake of time, to verse 10. And Jesus said unto them, Bring of the fish which you have now caught. Now get the correct time setting. This is after his resurrection. And Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty-three, and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. And then verse 12, And Jesus said unto them, Come and dine. Verse 13, Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. Now it doesn't say in this text that he partook with them, but I think he did. I think they had a glorious breakfast there on the shores of, I think it's the Sea of Galilee, and I don't think the Lord had to wait for the fish out of Peter's net. I think the Lord already had fish cooking on the fire when they came there. But all of this just indicates that it is not some horrible thought that we're going to be able to eat and partake of food when we get to the new resurrected body, because here's the lesson clear and plain. Jesus ate, and the same way back here now, if you'll come back with me then to Genesis 18, these three spirit characters, and they're all spirit beings, but they're in human form. It's the Lord and two angels, as we'll pick up in the next chapter, but they sat down and they feasted. There's nothing unusual about that. All right, now if you'll continue with me back then in chapter 18, verse 9, Now they said unto him, that is, some one of the three, Where is Sarah thy wife? And I imagine the Lord is speaking, and Abraham says, Behold, in the tent. And again, I think you've got to kind of get the Middle Eastern setting back in those days. You want to remember, the old patriarch had his own tent, and his wives, if he had more than one, had tents set out in the back. I remember when Irish and I were privileged to go to Israel many years ago. They let us stop at an Arab, in this case, an Arab sheikh out in the desert, and that's exactly the way it was. He had his tent, and then out behind were the tents of his four wives and his, what, 24 kids, honey, something like that. But anyway, that was the setting, and I can picture that so vividly here. And so they ask Abraham, Well, now where's your wife? And he says, Out back in her tent. Verse 10, 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 it. Now, what are these two people finally realizing? Who is speaking? Because you see, for years God has been telling them, You're going to be the beginning of a nation of people. Kings are going to come out of thee. And now they must have known that only one person has ever said something like that, and that was God Himself, the Lord. And so now I am sure that Abraham, maybe not Sarah completely yet, but Abraham knows who's talking, and Sarah heard it, and what does she do? Verse 11, Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age. Don't lose sight of this. Abraham is now 99, and Sarah is 89. They're both going to be 100, and she'll be 90 when the lad is born. But they were well stricken in age. Verse 11, And it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Verse 12, Therefore, in spite of all that has been promised, Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord? Now there the small l is correct, because she's using the word Lord. You remember in our study a few weeks ago that the word Lord was used in a small l with reference to the husband? And so in so many words she says, Shall I have pleasure, my husband, also being this old? And then verse 13, And the Lord, now here it's Jehovah, And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child which am old? Verse 14, Is anything too hard for the Lord? Now when I read something like that, and this is what I try to get my class people to do, immediately transcend yourself into a New Testament situation. And you remember when the Lord said that it was almost impossible for a rich man to be saved? He said it would almost be as hard as to put a camel through the eye of a needle? And the disciples picked that right up, and they said, Well, then it's impossible for a rich man to be saved? And what did Jesus say? Why, of course not, because with God, what? Nothing is impossible, nothing. You know, in light of our present-day science, I'm amazed that scientists have such a hard time believing. They can scoff at so much of what the Bible claims to be the supernatural, such as this, a camel passing through the eye of a needle, and yet scientists tell us that there are black holes out there in space, and they claim that a black hole is stars larger than our sun, who have literally collapsed in on themselves, and they become so dense that they're not any bigger than the head of a pin. And they believe that, and yet you can come to a verse of Scripture that simply states something that's no more impossible, and that they can't believe. But always remember, with our God, nothing, nothing is impossible. You can't dream of something that's impossible in the eyes of our God. All right, now then back here in Genesis 18. And so, verse 14, if God can do the things that He's already done, is it too hard for Him to cause a woman of ninety and a husband of a hundred to have a child? Why, it's nothing. Verse 14, continuing on, At the time appointed, I will return unto thee according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Now remember, he's already ninety-nine, so this is going to take place within the next year, because Abram, or Abraham now, is going to be a hundred when Isaac is born. So we're getting close now to the time of the conception. Now verse 15, now Sarah has to backpedal. Oh, she said, I wasn't laughing, I wasn't laughing, for she was afraid. Now she knows who she's dealing with. For she was afraid, and he said, the Lord did, nay, but thou didst laugh. But you know, this is all within God's sovereign will, because you know, what does the name Isaac mean? Laughter. That's what the word Isaac actually means, translated out of the Hebrew. He would be a child of laughter, and so it was part and parcel of it, even before he was conceived. Verse 16, Now the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom. Now I suppose we should put a little bit of a geography on the map again. Our Mediterranean sea coast, and always remember this is never according to scale, but it'll help a little bit. Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and down here in the Jordan Valley at the lower end of the Dead Sea, it was well watered, just tremendous place for cattle and livestock, whereas up here in the center part of Israel were the mountains. And it's up in this mountainous area, remember, that Abraham agreed to stay with his flocks, whereas Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom, because it appealed to him. It was beautiful, and it had all of the possibilities for increasing his herds and his flocks. All right, so from that vantage point then, from the highlands, the Lord says as he looks toward Sodom, verse 17, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? Now he's in reference to destroying Sodom. Verse 18, Why does he want to bring Abraham in on this? Because he'd been such a man of faith, see? And he says, Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. Now isn't that something? All the nations of the world, Gentile as well as the Hebrew, can trace their great men back to this man, Abraham. Now from the Old Testament, of course, we know that the kings of Israel, Saul, David, Solomon, and all the kings, be they good or bad, throughout the Old Testament, were all from the loins of Abraham. But, you see, the children of Abraham branched out, and they encompassed more than just the nation of Israel. We've already seen Ishmael is going to be the beginning of the Arab nations. These are all children of Abraham. And you come into modern history, even in our own democracy of the last 200 years, do you realize how many of our great government men have been Jewish? I was thinking the other night, as I was kind of putting all this together in my mind, I can remember from the time that I was in high school, and I know we'd already been on the scene a long time then, and he went through president, after president, after president, the old boy by the name of Bernard Baruch. Do you remember that? A Jew through and through, but he was advisor, I think, from almost World War I, all, every administration kept Bernard Baruch as an advisor. And you can take, in European governments, the same way. Some of the great men who were direct descendants of this man, Abraham. So the Word of God is not stretching the point one bit when it says that all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. But, of course, God is looking beyond the politics, He's looking beyond the economics, He's looking to the salvation that He would bring about through the Lord Jesus, who, of course, was born a Jew. All of these are foretelling now, then, of what God is going to do down through the ages of time. Now then, verse 19, He continues to tell us about Abraham, I know him, he'll command his children and his household after him, they shall keep the way of the Lord, and so on and so forth. Now, verse 20, the Lord says, "...because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is grievous, I will go down now and see," or prove, "...whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me, and if not, I will know. And the men," that is, the three, "...turned their faces from the fence," well, the two really, "...and they went toward Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before the Lord." So now take your three men that appeared up there in verse 1, two of them are going to start heading down toward Sodom, but the third one, or the first one, the Lord, is going to stay here with Abraham and finish out the chapter, but these other two men are going to start making their way down now to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now in the next series of verses, we're not going to take time to take them verse by verse, you've all heard sermon after sermon after sermon on them, and here is Abraham pleading with the Lord concerning the inhabitants of Sodom. Why is he so concerned? Lot, his beloved nephew, and his offspring are now living in Sodom. And so Abraham begins to bargain with God, I guess is a safe word, and he said, but now Lord, if there's fifty righteous in Sodom, will you spare it? Yes. Forty? Yes. Thirty? Yes. And he comes all the way down to ten, and the Lord even agreed to spare Sodom if there would be as few as ten believers in that city, but see there weren't. And I think we can take comfort, you and I as Bible believers, I think we can take a little comfort on the future of our own beloved land, that as long as we still have a relatively strong Christian community, and that Christian community continues to send the gospel to the ends of the earth, and along with that our nation is still a friend of God's covenant people, I think we stand a pretty good chance of surviving. But any time any of those three things go down the tube, America's had it, because America is ripe for judgment, we know she is, just as surely as Sodom and Gomorrah were. But you see, I think if we can take a lesson from this, is that God will spare judgment because of His own people. Now I know that we who are abject believers in the gospel and the Word of God, we're getting fewer and fewer percentage-wise by the week, but nevertheless we still have a strong Christian influence in America, and like I've already said, we are still the lighthouse for sending the gospel to the ends of the world, Europe certainly doesn't, Great Britain doesn't, and we can't expect the Orient to, because they're saturated, of course, with the Eastern religions. And so America is the only possible hope of continuing to send the gospel to the regions beyond. And then thirdly, as I've said, as long as we take an official stance of being a friend of Israel, and we do nothing to stab them in the back, then I hope and trust that God will continue to grant us our freedoms for at least a little while longer. My prayer is if the Lord will just grant me and my wife health and strength and keep America free until the trumpet sounds, when one day soon I think the Lord is going to leave heaven with the shout and with the sound of the trumpet, and we're going to be caught up to meet Him in the air. What happens after that is not so much my concern. Well, anyway, our time is just about gone. We get into chapter 19. I guess we can at least start the chapter. These two men who had now left off with Abraham and the Lord now make their appearance to Sodom and they're identified. What are they? Verse 1. They're angels. And the two angels who were part of the three in chapter 18 now come to Sodom just at even time. The sun is probably setting and it's just approaching darkness. And Lot, this nephew of Abraham, is sitting in the gate. Now I don't know how many of you, most of you who have been in my class long enough, you understand. But for those of you who do not understand, in the Oriental or in the time that this setting is taking place, to sit in the gate meant that they were the city leaders. So Lot is, if not the city manager, he's on the consul. We can put it that way. He has become a great man in Sodom. He's sitting in the gate. And we can pick this up in secular history as well as in some other Bible references. And so now he's become an important man in Sodom. And seeing them come, that is these two, now he doesn't realize they're angels. All he sees is what Abraham saw, two men. And when Lot sees them coming, he rises up to meet them. And he bowed himself with his face to the ground and he said, Behold now, my lords. Now there is that small l again. So it's merely a reference to, as if we would say, my master or sir. It was just simply a word of greeting. And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house and tarry all night, wash your feet, you shall rise up early and go on your way. Now do you see that hospitality coming through? Only you see Lot knowing the Sodomite people has more at stake even than Abraham as he entertained the three. But this was still in accordance with the custom. So he says, Come on in, spend the night in my home, be refreshed, and early in the morning you can be on your way. But poor old Lot has a curve thrown at him, doesn't he? And what's the answer? Oh, no. No, we're not going to sleep under a roof, we're going to spend the night in the street. Last part of verse 2, Nay, but we will abide in the street all night. Put yourself in Lot's shoes. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. 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