Let me invite you to take your Bibles this morning, turn with me to the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. This morning, we're going to be beginning our reading in chapter 17 at verse 15 and going into chapter 18 through verse 15. There are black pew Bibles in the pew racks in front of you. If you've not brought a Bible with you this morning, we would encourage you to read along and keep your Bible open as we study this passage. That passage, our passage this morning is found on page 12 in those Pew Bibles. We are working our way through the book of Genesis and for the last several chapters now, in the last several weeks, we have been looking at the life of Abraham. We've seen that Abraham is presented in the New Testament several times as a person of great faith. And we have seen Abraham's faith, we have seen the strength of his faith, we have seen him leave his home, leave his family and go to the place where God said, I will show you. And Abraham heard the voice of God and he followed God's leading. But we've also seen Abraham's weak faith, his wavering faith, if you will. We have seen Abraham fall flat on his face in faith by seeking to bring God's purposes and plans about by his own means, by his own devices. But we've also seen God come and reassure him. of faith and reassure him of his promises that God will come and he will carry out his perfect plan for Abraham and for his seed. As we saw last week, one of the most important things that the Bible seeks to do is to reassure God's people, even as God sought to reassure Abraham. But oh, that we always had that assurance. Wouldn't it be nice to always live with this certainty and assurance in our lives? But as Abraham's faith was sometimes weak, so ours is sometimes weak. And we're going to reflect on that this morning. So we're going to begin this morning in chapter 17, verse 15. We read this passage last week, but we focused on the first half of chapter 17. We're gonna read the rest of 17, then into chapter 18. So hear God's word as I read it for you. And God said to Abraham, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations. Kings of peoples shall come from her.' Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?' And Abraham said to God, O that Ishmael might live before you. God said, No, but Sarah your wife shall bear a son. and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father 12 princes and I will make him into a great nation, but I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. Then Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all those born in his house, and bought with his money every male among the men of Abraham's house. And he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, and Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised, and all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him. And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre. as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves. And after that you may pass on, since you have come to your servant.' So they said, Do as you have said. And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah, and said, Quick, three sieves of fine flour, knead it, and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man who prepared it quickly. And he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate. They said to him, Where is Sarah, your wife? And he said, She is in the tent. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself saying, after I am worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? The Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh and say, shall I indeed bear a son now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son. But Sarah denied it, saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. He said, no, but you did laugh. Thus far, God's holy, inspired, and inerrant word. May he write its truth on all of our hearts this morning. Let's go to him again in prayer. Father, we pray that you would open our eyes, that we might behold wonderful things in your word this day. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. You know those friends, family members in your life whose laughter is contagious, Their laughing, their presence makes you laugh and have great joy. My brother-in-law, Matt, is one of those people. My oldest sister's husband, who's also a pastor, a wonderful, gregarious, very funny man with a wonderful laugh that just makes everyone around him laugh as well. What's the old saying? Well, it's the saying that actually comes Wheeler Wilcox's poem, Solitude, laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone. Carefully, that's not true in the church, but that is often the case, isn't it? Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone. But really, there are different kinds of laughter, aren't there? We laugh on different occasions for different reasons. There's the laughter of scorn. Sometimes see it in schools among children. Someone trips and falls down and the other kids laugh at him. Scornful kind of laughing. A mean kind of laughing. There's the arrogant kind of laughter. I can do better than you. Or I am better than you. An arrogant kind of laughter. There's the skeptical kind of laughter when something is too good to be true. I just can't believe that, and I laugh because of that. But there is also the laughter of skepticism and doubt. Maybe when that 13-year-old-looking doctor comes in to the to the office and says, I'm going to perform your open heart surgery. They look like they're getting younger and younger. The laughter of skepticism, the laughter of doubt, evidently that kind of laughter is also contagious because we see it here in Genesis 17 and 18 First with Abraham, and then with Sarah. The laugh of doubt, the laugh of skepticism. You know, Sarah's laughter is famous. You know, people talk often, all the time you Christians will mention something about Sarah's laughing at God's promise that she, at 90 years old, would have a child. But Abraham's laughter comes first. And it is possible, I think it's slightly possible, that as some commentators think, that Abraham's laughter was more the laughter of, it's too good to be true. Although I think the text indicates something else, that both of their laughter here in chapters 17 and 18 is kind of a skeptical, doubting laughter. Now, God, as we saw last week, desires us to be assured in faith. There are times, as we saw last week, and as Thomas Brooks, in his classic work on assurance, Heaven on Earth, says, there are times when God does withdraw assurance from his saints for a variety of reasons. And there are, of course, other times when we lose it because of our own sin and our own struggles in our own hearts. But God does desire our assurance, and yet doubts are often present in the life of faith. Doubts are often present. And Christians, typically, at least evangelical Christians that I have known, are oftentimes uncertain about how to handle doubts, even how to think about doubts, even how to think about the fact that they're having doubts about their faith, about God, about their salvation. It's something that we often struggle with in the Christian life, especially in the evangelical world. From experience, we know that many great saints have struggled with doubts in their lives. Throughout history, some prominent Christian leaders have struggled with doubt. I have sat at the deathbed of several strong Christian men and women who in their dying hours have wrestled with doubt. Am I really saved? Will I really go into the presence of God? That is not an uncommon experience at the end of life, but at other times in life as well. How do we think about this? How do we think about doubt itself? Oz Guinness has written some helpful works on doubt, one, a book called In Two Minds. Come back to that in a minute. He also wrote an article in Table Talk magazine called, the title of the article was I Believe in Doubt. And here's what he says, this is an extended quote, hang with me. He says, there are two equal and opposite errors into which Christians are inclined to fall when thinking about doubt. On the one hand, those who are theologically liberal tend to be too soft on doubt. lionizing such notions as ambiguity and uncertainty, and verging on a spiritual permissiveness that becomes a slipway to unbelief. On the other hand, those who are theologically conservative tend to be too hard on doubt. demonizing the dire consequences of unresolved doubt and verging on a spiritual perfectionism that leaves doubters in such a state of guilt or despair that they dare not acknowledge their doubts to others or even to themselves. In the Scriptures, by contrast, we find a realistic and yet healthy view of doubt, which regards it as definitely serious but not terminal. And he goes on to say that doubt, when handled properly, can actually be a pathway to stronger faith and to more assurance. Now, we actually read of doubt several times in the Bible. I can't cover all of those, but let me quickly go through a handful of these with you. First of all, you remember the occasion of Peter when the Lord Jesus was walking on the water. What does Jesus say? Jesus says, Peter, come to me. and Peter wants to go and he gets out and he begins to walk and he has his eyes at first fixed on Jesus but then he looks down at the troubled sea around him. What does he do? He begins to sink. What does Jesus say to him? Why did you doubt? We see Jesus also say with regard to faith on one occasion, if you have faith You can say to this mountain, be thrown into the sea, and if you believe and do not doubt, it will happen for you. We read in Matthew 28 that at the resurrection of Jesus, some believed but some doubted, Matthew tells us. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 14 talks about doubts when it comes to Food that some people think is sin, food and drink, that some people think is a sin to eat or drink and others do not. And the Apostle Paul says there, when we doubt, when we eat something, if we're unsure if it's sin or not, he says we are condemned if we eat. Because it is not from faith. Whatever is not from faith is sin. So when we eat or drink, doubting whether it's right or proper, or we can apply that to other things as well. And it's sin because we're not acting from faith. James says, James chapter one, we are to ask God for wisdom in faith without doubting. For he says, quote, the one who doubts is like the wave of a sea driven and tossed by the wind. The doubting person. But turn with me to Jude, the second-to-last book of the Bible. I love, you know, Jude, we don't read Jude very much, but I love the clothes of Jude. Second-to-last book of the Bible, Jude, beginning in verse 20, one chapter, Jude writes this. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, and have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others, show mercy with fear, hating even the garments stained by the flesh or the sinful nature. So notice the contrast here. Jude is saying, first of all, have mercy on those who doubt, but others, which would be unbelievers, snatch them out of the fire. But for believers with doubts, have mercy on them. I can say this without a doubt. Doubts are part of almost everyone's Christian life. Their walk with God, their walk with Christ. Again, let me read from Guinness. Doubt is not the same as unbelief, he writes. So it is not the opposite of faith. Rather, it is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief. To believe is to be in one mind about accepting something as true, to disbelieve is to be in one mind about rejecting it, and to doubt is to waver somewhere in between the two, and thus to be in two minds. Hence the title of his book, In Two Minds. He goes on to say this, because faith is crucial, doubt is serious, But because doubt is not unbelief, it is not terminal. It is only a halfway stage that can lead on to deepen faith as easily as break down into unbelief. So we wrestle with doubt. Everybody at some stage in their life struggles with doubt. Oftentimes what happens in the Christian life is when we first are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we know the forgiveness of our sins, and we know God's regenerating work in us, we come on like a ball of fire. And we have great assurance and great confidence, and we can be a little bit overbearing at times with others who don't share it. But we have it, that's one of those sweet times that God comes and visits us with assurance, as Thomas Brooks puts it, so that we remain firm in the faith. God blesses us with assurance oftentimes at that time. That's a typical time when assurance is strong. Oftentimes when that time of boldness wanes in our lives, And sometimes those doubts begin to creep in. And they come at other times in the Christian life as well. So how do we handle doubt? Let's reflect a little bit more as we look at Abraham and Sarah here in Genesis 17 and 18. We're gonna look at the doubts of faith and really what leads to them. The text tells us here in Genesis chapter 17 that God has come and He has revealed Himself to Abraham. We saw this last week, and He makes these promises to Abraham, and He gives assurance to Abraham. And one of the signs that is meant to give Abraham assurance is the sign of circumcision. God gives the sign of the covenant here. It's for assurance to God's people, to Abraham and to his descendants. And now we read on in this text here in verse 15 that God has already changed Abram's name to Abraham and now He says, as for Sarai, she will be called Sarah. We understand the change from Abram, which meant exalted father, to Abraham, which means father of a multitude. We're not quite sure why the name changed from Sarai to Sarah. Abraham got a new name, we need to give a new name to Sarah. I'm not sure, I'm kidding. I'm not sure, we don't know why. Partly because we don't fully know the meaning of the word Sarai, the name Sarai. It's very possible that they pretty much mean similar things. But the word Sarah essentially means princess. And maybe the idea here, as the text goes on to say, is God says to Abraham that he will give her a son, he will bless her, and she shall become nations, kings of people shall come from her. So Sarah, the princess, becomes the mother of of nations and of kings. And what's Abram's response to this? Verse 17, he fell on his face and laughed. He laughs. Shall a child be born to a hundred-year-old man? Shall Sarah, who is ninety, bear a child? And Abram says to God, O that Ishmael might live before you. That's a telling statement. Because what we see here in Abraham is that he still, in a sense, has a commitment to this earlier plan and this earlier path to fulfill God's promises to him. He laughs because this doesn't seem like it's going to happen. So God, Ishmael, we've already got the solution for you, God. Here he is. Work through him and bring seed through him. He's committed to his earlier plan. And one of the things that often leads to doubt in the Christian life is when we become impatient, When we walk ahead of God and His plans, when we rely on human devices and human desires. And Abraham still seems to be of that mindset. We can be sure that doubts will come. Abraham still is not entirely certain that God can do or will do what He has promised to do. bring a seed through him and through his own wife. He still has these doubts because there's still sin and unbelief that's rooted in him. The wonderful thing here is that he obeys. The end of chapter 17 is the story of Abraham's obedience. He obeys what God had had told him to do, and he has his whole household circumcised. This man of faith, Abraham, even in his doubts, he continues to follow and walk with God. That's one big reason why Abraham is presented to us as a man of faith. He's presented as a man of faith not because he never doubted, but because he followed God even in the midst of and in spite of his uncertainties and his doubts. He seeks to continue to walk with God. And he's a great example for us. As we come into chapter 18, we move to the story of Sarah. Again, the Lord appears. Verse one of Genesis 18 tells us, Abraham recognizes him as special. Actually, three men. He sees three men. One is the Lord himself, the text indicates, which is most likely, as most commentators historically have believed, that this is a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, God himself, with two angels that come with him. And Abraham offers him hospitality. As anyone would do in this part of the world in this particular time, hospitality was a crucial thing. He does it in a bit of a self-effacing way. If you notice here in the text, verse 4 and 5, wash your feet, rest yourselves, I'll bring a morsel of bread, and then you can pass on. And what does he do? Go, make three cakes, let's kill a lamb and offer a big feast. So he sets a feast before these men as well. But what does God go on to say? Look at verse 9. God said to him, Where is Sarah, your wife? And he said, She's in the tent. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year. And Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent behind the door. Verse 11 tells us that that the way of women had ceased to bear with Sarah without getting into detail. Basically, that means she's beyond the age of childbearing. It's physically, humanly impossible now for Sarah to have children, is what the text is telling us. And how does Sarah respond? Verse 12, she laughs. She laughs to herself, that doubting skeptical, laugh after I am worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure?" What does her response indicate? First of all, let me say that Sarah is presented in Hebrews 11, verse 11, herself as a woman of faith, as an example of faith. And yet she is skeptical here. and she has doubts. What does this expression mean? Shall I have pleasure? What it indicates to us is that this is a kind of superficial faith still that she has. Derek Kidner in his commentary says her interest in the covenant and the promise are shallow. She's primarily interested in in this worldly things, what this world will offer to her, the pleasure in this fulfillment. Her faith is one that in many ways is focused simply on the joys and delights of earth. And this too is a breeding ground for skepticism. So we see her doubts. We see her skepticism, we see her laughter. As I've said, many great saints have wrestled with doubt and lack of assurance. Include people like great reformers Luther and Calvin at different times. Spurgeon, well-known doubts of struggle and depression and doubts. They're great leaders of the Christian faith, but much of it comes from want. Much of that, or all of that, I should say, comes from what? Our indwelling sin, our remaining unbelief. There is, in many ways, as we remain in this life, still a root of unbelief in us. Traces of unbelief, the presence of unbelief in our hearts, It leads to sin. It's lack of faith that leads us into sin. Because of this in our hearts, this side of glory, we are still going to have doubts. As sanctification comes, oftentimes we grow in assurance. That's typical for God's people. But because of our sin, The sin, as we see it here in Abraham and Sarah, so doubts are still present. And yet over against the doubt of faith, we once again see God's assurance. God's assurance. He says to Abraham, Notice three times in the passage we read this morning, 17, twice in 18, about this time next year, about this time next year. God finally puts an end date on it. Mommy, when will you be home? I'll be home now. Mommy, when will you be home? I don't know when. No, I need to know. When will you be home? We'd like to have an end date. We like to have an end time. And God comes and gives Abraham assurance. All right, now let's set a time. About this time next year, Sarah is going to have a son. What God does is God comes and he pursues us. He pursues his wandering sheep. He pursues us in our doubts. He pursues us in our unbelief, in our lack of faith. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He seeks after the one lost sheep. He leaves 99 behind, the good shepherd does, and goes after that one. And here we see this God who, even in our doubts and even in our unbelief, continues to seek after us. Really in many ways, the key is in verse 14. This question that the Lord asks, is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Doubt in many ways is rooted in the fact that humanly speaking, what God does and has done is impossible. What God does and God has done is impossible. First and foremost in our salvation. God does the impossible. He brings sinners dead in sin to new life in Christ. Absolutely impossible. but God brings it about. And so what God does to lead us in our faith, to lead us as we walk with Him in this life on the way to our heavenly city, it is an impossible task that God does and God brings about. Spurgeon on one sermon called, The Desire of the Soul in Spiritual Darkness, the great Baptist preacher, He said this, I think Spurgeon says, when a man says, I never doubt, it is quite time for us to doubt him. It is quite time for us to begin to say, oh, poor soul, I'm afraid you are not on the road at all. For if you were, you would see so many things in yourself and so much glory in Christ, more than you deserve, that you would be so much ashamed of yourself as even to say, it is too good to be true. Our doubts arise out of the fact that our God is a God who does the impossible, primarily and especially. in our salvation. Calvin wrote of the doubts of Christian faith and the Christian experience. And he says it's in large part because of God's goodness and grace that are so hard for us to fathom. He writes this, for unbelief is so deeply rooted in our hearts, and we are so inclined to it, that not without hard struggle is each one able to persuade himself of what all confess with the mouth, namely, that God is faithful. It's so hard to believe, but God is faithful. What about you this morning? Do you believe in the God of the impossible? Do you believe this morning that God has truly forgiven your sins? That God has made you His? Do you believe this morning that God can work in your difficult situation for your good and maybe get you out of it if it's His will? Do you believe that this God can convert someone that you think is absolutely unconvertible? This is the God of the impossible. Do you doubt these things? Take them to Him. Seek His face. Rest in His goodness and rest in His grace. God wants to come and give you assurance. God's Word is here to assure you. Don't deny doubt. We struggle with doubt. We face doubt at various times in the Christian life. Take those before God. God is there not to reject you because you struggle, but God is there to give you hope and to reassure you in your walk with Him. He cares for you and he loves you. Let's pray. Father, how we thank you that you are the God who does great and mighty things. Nothing is too hard for you. And we thank you, O God, that as has been the experience of many saints of old in dark times, in doubting times, You draw near to your people and you give them hope and you renew them in confidence and assurance. So Father, if there are those who are here this morning wrestling in their own faith, I pray that you would draw near to them. You would give them encouragement. Help them, oh God, to be able to talk to others about their struggles. Draw near to them and lift them up. Father, how we praise you that you are a great God. Come and do mighty things, we pray, in our midst, for nothing is too hard for you. We give you praise through Christ our Lord. Amen.