Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?

Text: Genesis 18:1-33

Introduction

In Genesis 18, God reminds Abraham there is nothing to hard for the Lord. God is sovereignly working, even in our most difficult or lengthy trials.

Yet, the Lord confers to Abraham the amazing privilege of being a conduit of blessing to the world. The fact that God is the God of the impossible does not mean Abraham should just sit on the sidelines and watch what happens. The same God who sovereignly brings salvation has also sovereignly chosen Abraham as an instrument through whom He will work.

Based then on God’s sovereign working and God’s sovereignly calling him, Abraham boldly perseveres before the Lord.

The applications of this basic pattern—when seen in our supplication, intercession, personal devotion and evangelism, global missions—will be heart-changing, faith-fueling, life-inspiring, and world-impacting!

I. Nothing Is Too Hard for the LORD (vv.1-15)

1. v.1 And the LORD appeared to him- Abraham’s whole life is waiting on God, yet God is the one who initiates every encounter.
   1. By the oaks of Mamre—we read back in Ge 13 Abraham had settled at the oaks of Mamre; but it is striking that he is still—many years later—still living in a tent.
      1. Abraham’s life of faith is characterized by the tent and the altar, by a faith that waited while it wandered and worshiped.
      2. The same should be true of every believer. Our roots not deep in this world, our altar continually lit before the Lord, waiting on His directions/instructions.
   2. v.2 Tho initially described as ‘three men’, we already read v.1 that it was ‘the LORD/Yahweh’ himself who appeared to Abram, and it becomes apparent that one of these men is Yahweh himself in human form, and the other two ‘men’ are in fact angels.
   3. vv.2-8 detail Abraham’s eager and generous hospitality.
2. vv.9-15 contains the most memorable dinner conversation probably ever up to this point, and equaled only by every such fellowship around a meal recorded in the gospels with Jesus. And in fact should point out how remarkable every one of those are!
   1. Back in Ge 18, Yahweh asks over the dinner table,”Where is Sarah?” Yahweh had himself changed Sarah’s name in last ch 17, in promise of giving her a child.
      1. While Sarah may have struggled with this promise, Yahweh has not: he calls Sarah by her covenant name! She may still be Sarai to herself, but not to God. To God she is ‘Sarah’, the sure receptacle of divine blessing.
   2. Then Yahweh follows with this remark in v.10, I will certainly return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son. And Sarah was listening.
3. In v.12 Sarah laughs to herself when she hears God’s promise to give her a son. v.11 reminds us “Abraham and Sarah were old” and that Sarah had gone thru menopause.
   1. In v.12 she says to herself, “After I am waxed old/‘worn out’,” and Abraham is even older than me, how could this be possible?”
   2. But Yahweh, reading Sarah’s mind, confronts her disbelief: ‘Why did Sarah laugh?’
      1. God is long-suffering toward our weakness, but make no mistake: God does not understand or relate to our doubting Him.
      2. And so God explains to Abraham in v.14 why doubting Him is never appropriate: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
   3. Why does God wait so long? Because God is purposefully waiting until it is all spectacularly impossible! God is waiting until there is absolutely no way this can possibly happen thru any amount of human effort, ingenuity, or conniving.
      1. Beautifully, tho Sarah did struggle like her husband to believe, we do know she ultimately trusted God’s word: He 11:11
      2. This is God’s plan of redemption, in a nutshell. Proving to us the impossibility of our saving ourselves, and then showing himself able and willing to accomplish it.

II. Yet Abraham Is the LORD’s Chosen Instrument of Blessing (vv.16-21)

1. vv.16-19 As the LORD leaves Abraham’s home, he chooses to confide in Abraham his plans for Sodom because of the plans he has for Abraham.
   1. What Abraham and Sarah struggle to believe, God knows will happen for sure: v.18.
   2. But not only is God’s plan for Abraham certain, it is purposeful: v.19 is actually a cause/effect statement: God’s knowing/choosing Abraham will result in these effects.
      1. In v.17, God asks, in effect, “Why would I hide this from Abraham?” Later, in Isaiah, God refers back to “Abraham, my friend.” God Almighty has befriended Abraham!
      2. So, knowing the great and certain plans He has for Abraham and thru Abraham to all who believe, God chooses to engage Abraham in kingdom work to this very end. Tho it is clearly the God of the impossible who must bring about miraculous results,God amazingly has also chosen to make Abraham his instrument of blessing to the nations—and so engages Abraham on behalf of the nations.
2. vv.20-21 Interestingly, the LORD never explicitly says, “I’m going to destroy Sodom.” He doesn’t have to. Abraham knows enough of both God’s commands and of God’s justice to know the necessary result of this divine investigation.

III. So Abraham Boldly Perseveres Before the LORD (vv.22-33)

1. v.22 sounds as tho Abraham perhaps even blocks the way as Yahweh heads down toward Sodom: the other two men turned from there and went toward Sodom: “but Abraham stood yet before the Lord.”
   1. What we see in the verses that follow is the incredible boldness of a man who has finally grasped both his security in the Lord’s plan and also his role in the Lord’s plan.
      1. Coming to realize nothing is too hard for the Lord, yet the Lord has chosen to confide in Abraham his plans for Sodom, Abraham acts in a way that only a man who is both in awe of God and secure in God could act.
      2. Abraham prays for the cities of Sodom/Gomorrah, for them all to be spared for the sake of 50 righteous living there…Or 45? …40? …30? …20? …What about just 10?
   2. Abraham is wonderfully bold in interceding. A wonderful example of persistent, wrestling prayer for all of us; yet also of a man in awe of God all the while.
      1. While praying boldly Abraham also confesses: “I am talking to the Lord, while I am just dust and ashes; I will only speak if it does not make you angry; I realize that I am speaking to the Lord himself.’
   3. Though it may seem as tho Abraham’s intercession was unsuccessful in the end—Ge19:29 suggests otherwise.
2. v.33 It is striking that, altho Abraham is bold in interceding for Sodom, it is still Yahweh who has all authority. In fact, in each section of this chapter, it is God who has the last word.
   1. The first section ends with Sarah denying that she had laughed to herself, but God says, “No, you did laugh.” End of conversation.
   2. Then, as God confides his plans to Abraham, he says, “I’m going to Sodom to see if they are as evil as is being reported. And if not, I will know.” My evaluation of their condition is the last word; my judgment is all that matters. Period.
   3. Now, Abraham’s fervent, careful, artful wrestling with the LORD in prayer ends rather abruptly. In v.33, the Lord left when he was finished, and Abraham just went home!
      1. How do you know when to stop praying for something, or interceding for someone? When God brings it to his own divine conclusion.

Conclusion

“Is anything to hard for the Lord?” This lesson from Genesis 18 will echo through the corridors of the rest of Scripture.

1. The prophet Jeremiah, facing imminent defeat at the hands of Babylon, yet prophesying of Israel’s eventual deliverance, cries out, “Nothing is too hard for you.”
2. And of course this language of the God of the impossible is echoed in the NT. In regard to the virgin birth, Gabriel reminds Mary ‘With God nothing will be impossible.’
   1. The whole plan of redemption, from OT to NT, is purposefully designed to display the impossibility of human effort achieving it, and yet that God is able to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
3. Jesus even tells his disciples that for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven is harder than for a camel to walk through a needle’s eye… but then declares that “all things are possible with God”.

We could not plan our own redemption; we could not dream up or bring about the incarnation; and we cannot enter the kingdom of God thru our own ability. But nothing is too hard for the Lord! Have you learned this lesson in your own life?