This transcript was autogenerated.

So last time we saw Sarah’s reaction to the Lord’s declaration that her and Abraham where going to have a child in extreme old age. She, laughed, not a scornful laugh, but a laugh of incredulous dis-belief. So how does the Lord react. Well, the first thing he does is he ask why is Sarah laughing, He points out that her incredulity is in essence a form of doubting what the Lord already said he would do.

I believe this tells us that part of the way we can deal with doubt is we should recognize that it is doubt and call it by what it is. In other words, questioning the ability of God to do what he has promised is nothing other than doubting the Lord. Sarah by thinking she was too old for this, got her thinking her physical situation made the promise of God impossible. His reply in the next verse is one of the classic statements in the bible when it comes to dealing with unbelief.

The Lord says 

“Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

(Gen 18:14)

Next time you doubt the Lord because you’re looking at you circumstances, rather than doubting the Lord to just say, “Is anything to hard for the Lord?” The way you deal with doubt - to recognize that no matter what’s going on, always remember that nothing is too hard for the Lord. We all at times have a tendency to doubt the Lord at times. John Stott in his Tyndale Commentary says.

“[Doubt or] unbelief is not a misfortune to be pitied, it is a sin to be deplored. Its sinfulness lies in the fact that it contradicts the word of the one true God and thus attributes falsehood to him”.

So, when you doubt the Lord the solution to uncertainty is to remember that nothing is too hard for the Lord. Sarah should not have been looking at her physical inabilities. What she should be doing is looking at God’s ability, God’s power. 

Maybe it is at this point Sarah finalized realized she was not dealing with just any ordinary person, but she was dealing with the Lord himself. God has the power to do what he promised so if you're thinking about your circumstances, then you are not thinking about the Lord. How did Sarah respond to that, well sadly we find out she lied and denied she laughed.

“Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh, but he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

(Gen. 18: 16)

She out and out denied that she was doubting, and she said, “I did not laugh”. Full face lie, now why would she do that why would she lie. The scripture tells us she lied because she was afraid, but God said firmly but fairly, no Sarah you lied, and you did laugh. Talk about exposing her to the truth. of who she was and her motivations for doing what she had done.

There is another helpful thought to pull out of this verse 15.

Q Why did she lie?

A Because she was afraid 

Think about this for a minute. Think about anytime in the past when you may have told a lie. Did you ever say something that wasn’t true, and then wondered why you said it? Did you ever misrepresent a partial truth as the whole truth? The answer is you very likely did it because you're afraid of something. You did it because things were not going the way you wanted, and you doubted that the Lord could work it to his purposes. So, the next time you feel tempting to tell a lie, or even deliberately misrepresent a half truth. Just pause, and ask yourself the question, what is it that I am afraid of here. There is a really useful personal insight offered here in this ancient wisdom. If you grab hold of that piece of wisdom you could save yourself £1000.00 of in psychotherapy bills.

So, the next time you are tempted to lie. Thinks what’s really going on at that point, and ask yourself what am I afraid of, what fear is driving me to make these wrong choices. A lie that might not only damage me, but also my relationship with other people. And if it’s a lie, it will probably also damage the other persons relationships with other people also.

Sarah out of her fear, denied her unbelief. Denied she doubted the Lord, but most seriously, by doing so she attributed the lie to the Lord. What was true about herself became an accusation against the Lord. By saying she didn’t lie she was doing the worst imaginable thing, she was not just attributing a lie to another person, she was attributing a lie to the Lord. The Lord didn't lie - she did.

That's the story here and we will finish of our study of this chapter by trying to draw some conclusions next time.