In Genesis 18:14 we read about an angelic visit to Abraham and Sarah. We read a question asked by the angel that should really be a regular part of our daily thinking. The two angels appear and Abraham prepares a meal for them. During their 14 too harddiscussion the Angel of the Lord informs Abraham that God is about to fulfill his promise to them of a child. Even though Abraham’s doubt caused him to look at Eleazar as his heir, then Lot, then Ishmael, the Angel now informed him that his wife Sarah was about to have the promised heir. Eugene Peterson in his “The Message” translation records Sarah’s response to this: “Abraham and Sarah were old by this time, very old. Sarah was far past the age for having babies. Sarah laughed within herself, “an old woman like me? Get pregnant? With this old husband of mine?” I can hear my wife laugh if an angel would say something like that to her and I’m only 66! Abraham was nearly 100!

In response to Sarah’s laughter, the angel asked one of the most important questions in the world. This is the question we need to ask ourselves. He asked, “Is anything too hard for God?” God gave Adam and Eve a promise. We call it the “protoevangelium.” That means “the first Gospel.” It’s the promise of the seed of the woman that would defeat the seed of Satan. Eve looked for one with every birth. But with Cain and his line they forgot the promise and lost faith in God. By the time of Noah all had lost hope and the lineage of Seth had become polluted by fallen angels. But God made sure the promised seed would be pure. At the tower of Babel the world had lost hope again and tried to make their own way to heaven, but God stopped their efforts. Now with Abraham, God makes another promise about a child. It too would be in the line of the promised seed of the woman. It would preserve God’s promise and the hope of salvation for all mankind. I believe God purposefully chose to bring forth Isaac from the womb of Sarah with the seed of a 100 year old man, so we’d have an illustration of the truth that nothing is impossible with God!

I need to remind myself of that every day. Just as certainly as God brought Abraham and Sarah together in their old age to conceive and deliver the promised son of “laughter” Isaac, so too can God’s Holy Spirit hover over a young virgin and bring forth into this world the Son of God, the promised deliverer of Genesis 3:15. And just as certain as those two promises were fulfilled we can trust God also to bring that promised child back to reestablish a new heaven and a new earth where there’ll be no more tears, sorrow, pain, cancer, or death! God said it, we can believe it!