Abraham, Part 13 - You're Never Too Old To Be Used by God
Genesis 17v15-22
4th December 2010
Last week we saw how God re-stated His covenant with Abraham, and gave him circumcision as a sign of that covenant. At that time, God said "No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations". God also gave Sarai a new name and a promise:
Genesis 17:15-6
God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah.
I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of
nations; kings of peoples will come from her."
Despite all his previous experience of God's power, and despite all the times God had spoken to him, promising him descendants, Abraham found this promise difficult to believe:
Genesis 17:17-18
Abraham fell face down; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?
Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?"
And Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!"
God often waits longer than we would like Him to, before He fulfills His promises. He often waits until we can no longer imagine how He can fulfill them. But God's ways are not our ways, and His timing is not our timing. Abraham laughed at the very idea of the promise coming true. It was too late, wasn't it? He and his wife were just too old. Abraham would have been happy to settle for second best, for Ishmael to be blessed by God. Ishmael wasn't what God had promised, but at least he was Abraham's son (although not Sarah's). But God can do anything.
Genesis 17:19-22
Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish
my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly
increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.
But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year."
When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.
God would indeed bless Ishmael. But the chosen people, God's redemption community, would come through Isaac, who would be born to Sarah.
Abraham must have thought "if God wanted to use Sarah and me, he'd have done so before now. He'd have used us when we were young and healthy. It's too late. I must have missed my way somehow. But God knows what He's doing and, though advanced in years, Abraham and Sarah would continue to be important in God's purposes.
Society has a tendency to write us off when we reach our sixties. Most of us retire from full-time employment and many retire from active life altogether. We take up hobbies, or watch day-time television, and wait to die. But God has much for us to do, and much for us to experience.
It's never too late for God to accomplish his purposes through you.