Word of Salvation – Vol. 14 No.47 – November 1968
A Guest In Our Tent
Sermon by Rev. A. I. De Graaf, B.D. on Genesis 18:1-15
SCRIPTURE READING: John 1:1-18 & Genesis 18:1-15
PSALTER HYMNAL: 296:1,2,7,8; 282:1,2,3;
95,1,2 (after Law);140; 328:1-4; 328:5
Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ!
We all know that after this holiday weekend it won't be long and then it's Christmas again.
The shops have already begun to prepare for that Feast, and Sunday Schools and choirs discover that it's high time to prepare for the remembrance of God's coming in the flesh. In our text we find GOD HIMSELF preparing for this great event. In our text we find the LORD giving us a foretaste of this wonder – that He would come to our world and stick His feet under our table, and live with us and eat with us.... IMMANUEL – GOD WITH MEN!
He came to visit Abram's tent of Whom John later would write: "And the Word BECAME FLESH and has pitched HIS frail tent among us...! And the question comes to us in a world that has hardly anything but a shrug for the miracle of the Coming God – a world that can only celebrate Christmas by burying the Real Fact under a garish heap of commercial party-fever. A world in pain, however..... A world bleeding from a thousand wounds; A world that cannot save itself, nor make its own hope and joy....! To such a world God came – to be a guest in the tent of his own creation.
We read about this guest in our text. We read that He was...
(1) received with growing wonder,
(2) mocked by unbelieving laughter, and
(3) recognized in fear and faith.
Much, much later the writer of the letter to the Hebrews will – in chapter 13 – tell Christians that they must love hospitality, because it is by being good hosts, by being ready to receive strangers, that some have had angels as guests without knowing it.
This, here, is one of those occasions.
The beginning of our text almost suggests that old Abraham had been dozing, and was awakened by the arrival of these three strangers. For this was the time for dozing, and still is in the East. All of Italy does it, from twelve to two, when the sun is hot and the fewer movements one makes the better. A most awkward time to receive visitors. Something like getting them here at 11.30 in the evening. But now look what Abram does. He doesn't lift a tousled head to grunt: "what do you want...?" No, he "ran to meet them", the Bible says. He bows down before them as was the common way to greet someone who is respected (we find Jacob doing the same to Esau. Joseph does it to his father, Solomon does it to his mother even when he is king already)....! And he pleads with his guests, who appear to be an important gentleman with two dignified servants in his train.
"Please do not go further, Sir, but stay with me, and let me look after you..... Let me wash your feet of the dirt of your travel, and let me get you a bite to eat....!”
Just a piece of bread, he says but he is gone already to instruct Sarah to bake cake, to get a servant to prepare a selected fine calf of the flock, and to order from another milk and butter.....! And all this in the stifling heat of mid-day, when running just wasn't the thing one did! And all this when Abram certainly did NOT know who this LORD was, and his servants.
For the LORD had appeared to Abraham before, but then it was like a fire, and a cloud of smoke passing amidst the animals of the Covenant! It could be anybody.. ......but Abraham went OUT OF HIS WAY to make these men feel at home.
The writer to the Hebrews is not the only one telling us that HOSPITALITY, the art of making him who knocks at your door feel welcome, should be one of the hallmarks of the children of God. The English have a saying: "My home is my castle". And so much are we at times in need of privacy, that it sometimes looks as if our homes have invisible but huge signs put up near the door: "STRANGER... KEEP OUT!" Now this is understandable. Our age is one of noise, tension, strain. Radio and newspaper, television and telephone have their way of making THE WHOLE WORLD INVADE OUR HOMES, so that at times we heave a sigh of relief when NOBODY knocks, and we can have a moment of quiet....! Yet the LORD says to our homes and our churches AND TO OUR HEARTS FIRST AND FOREMOST:
"Love hospitality", strive to keep that door open and to keep the stranger and wanderer feel wanted and loved and cared for – for only then shall we be true children of our heavenly Father who did NOT lock his heavenly home against the wayward, sinning lost Son who had turned stranger, b0ut opened heart and door and took him in, killed the fatted calf and said, "Oh how glad I am that you have come." And He even came to the world to look him up! To get him out of his utter loneliness, to make His home with us. THAT, Abraham did not yet know. But because he knew SOMETHING of the peace of God, therefore he had something to GIVE to the stranger.....! .And how he was to be rewarded! For as this meal went on, and the Stranger began to ask His questions about Sarah his wife.... (does he KNOW? Does he even KNOW her new name? But Who is He then?) ...and then the Stranger made his solemn announcement, "I will come back, and then Sarah shall have a son....!” Then it was clear at last Who He was, who sat there in ABRAM's tent in a real human body, and ate the food Abram set before Him, as if He were a man. ........Oh the wonder of it! Of Him Who is the Owner of it all, and becomes a Stranger, a Guest in His own world! Him Who is Eternal Spirit, but takes upon Himself a body, like the ones He created Himself out of the dust of the earth, and visits US who REALLY were the strangers to tell us that HE is preparing a home for us, that HE is bringing His wonderful salvation! For this Angel of the Lord (Literally: "MESSENGER of the LORD, "SENT ONE of the Lord") Who yet speaks as God Himself; Who else is He but the Eternal Word, the Son of the Father, who was to be sent into the world one day, and then indeed permanently to assume OUR FLESH AND BLOOD and live among us; to stick His feet – that were to bring the Gospel of peace – under our Table, till we even would grab these feet and nail them to the wood.....! Oh the wonder of what Abraham was here allowed to see, just in a glimpse the wonder of what, in our day, still is too great to comprehend: "Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing! The Son preparing His own coming into the world to redeem Abraham; The Son announcing the coming of Isaac, God's laughter in our tear stained death, who would be the forefather of the very Son of Mary when God's time would be full.....!
See Him Who made the worlds, Who made Abraham, humbly eating and drinking in Abraham's tent, as later He would eat and drink with His disciples, also in that glorified body after His Resurrection....! Abraham, your eyes see wonderful things.....! When you took in these guests, little did you know Who they were! Yet they have come.... HE has come, first, now, for Sarah. For Sarah must receive her child. But she does not yet believe. She has not before seen and heard what Abraham saw and heard. And her Lord did not forget her. Hence the question: "where is Sarah your wife?" And hence the clear announcement in her hearing: "Next year I'll be back.... and then she shall have a son!" As clear, as definite, as matter-of-fact as that. Sarah gets the message. But her reaction seems to spoil it all. Sarah laughs, yes she laughs too. But her laughter is not like that of Abraham a few nights ago; Not the laughter that really LAUGHS and is GLAD. Rather the laughter of which we have such a lot in the world. The sneering laughter of unbelief. Not the smile but the grin. The laughter that leaves you empty inside. The laughter that is illustrated by the song of the hit parade (years ago):
"Laughing on the outside, but crying on the inside.”
For wasn't she an old woman past child-bearing age? Her body blossomed no more, but was like the shrivelled and discoloured flower you had in the vase too long. Maybe she still LOOKED pretty, as middle-aged women can do, but she knew: I am like a fruitless tree; my time is over, and my chance in life to be a mother has gone. She had the facts, you know, the cold scientific facts that all women know. The cold scientific facts that a doctor can see and a laboratory can verify. What can a man do against that? Ha, Ha, ha! Don't tell me a joke! Don't tell me that it can be different from what the reports of science can tell! Sarah a child.... Ha! Don't make me laugh....! Sarah knows better! Such a thing never happened before! Why could it happen now? Ha, ha! "Laughing on the outside.... Crying on the inside....!”
What do YOU think.... when did YOU hear it last? For isn't there a LOT of this laughter going on right now? A lot of this telling God Almighty what He OF COURSE cannot do? The SADDUCEES did in Jesus' days, when they said that God could do NO miracles, and a dead man was dead, just as Sarah NATURALLY assumed that a dead womb was a dead womb and that - then - was that!
O the hopeless laughter of Sarah! We understand it! We know it from our own hearts, which know this doubt, too. We cannot REALLY blame Sarah, or Caiaphas, or Prof. Geering for thinking this.... WE cannot... for how different are we?
BUT GOD DOES. For this laughter of unbelief which takes the LORD of heaven and earth down to the minimal measure of our mini-mind makes HIM a liar and offends His majesty deeply. WE MAY NOT MAKE OUR MIND THE JUDGE OF WHAT GOD CAN DO! We may not make our short-lived experience the limit of the power of the Lord of all! And THAT's behind the denial of the Resurrection, THAT's behind the doubt in miracles....! Sarah's laughter, Sarah's bitter mocking laughter, like the mocking doubt of our day that asks: "Do YOU believe that?" .....and that is really telling God what He may be able to do... and tell us – AND WHAT NOT.
.And God's answer is NOT a pat on the back, NOT the sympathetic understanding smile, but the stern question: "Why did Sarah laugh?" The only way against doubt is the stern question: Oh ye of little faith, WHY DID YOU DOUBT? So that the little sinner sees with a shock what he was doing, and WHO it was He was talking about! You cannot ARGUE any one into believing, brother, but THE LORD can put a small man before Him, and say "Look up to Me, do you realise what you were doing when you said that I was a liar?" WHO is the liar here.... the devil who made you doubt.... Or I? Do you still know Whom you're talking.... and laughing... about? Oh, God PROVES nothing to Sarah.... yet. He wants her to HUMBLE herself before Him.... and believe. THEN she shall be able to do what Hebrews 11 tells of her: that "by faith Sarah received power to conceive a son in her old age....!" That is not easy. Sarah is embarrassed that the Stranger knows what she is doing there, in the darkness of her secret tent. She knows: "This Stranger can read my thoughts... He is no man... He is... He is... oh, what have I done?" And then in her embarrassment she makes things worse first. She lies and says: "No, I didn't laugh....!" But the LORD cuts her short: "You say you didn't? Oh, but you did!" Oh, to realize that the LORD knows what's going on inside us! To realize that he knows all we think, that he knows my sitting and my standing, my thinking and my doubting! As Thomas realized when THIS SAME LORD on the very day of the Resurrection called him out: "PUT your finger in my wounds, then! "LAY your hands in MY side, then! And BE NOT UNBELIEVING, BUT BELIEVING!"
That shattering knowledge: "What have I done! Oh LORD, forgive...!” comes first, and then there is the joy of faith: "MY LORD AND MY GOD."
That Sarah got there, we know from Hebrews 11. For "by faith she received power to conceive in old age...!” Then after the heavenly Guests had gone, thanks to the stern treatment of this strict but loving heavenly Doctor, Who healed her unbelief and THEN opened her body again, she could embrace her husband and yield to what GOD could do, and now TOGETHER WITH ABRAHAM wait for HIS great works, knowing at last – as Abraham knew – that He is as good as His Word. For it has been true all along what is still true today: that NOTHING is too wonderful for the LORD, and unto those who wait for Him, HE SHALL SHOW HIS SALVATION. Thus the SON of God prepared His coming into the world, and over our doubt-ridden age His voice still calls: "I come again; yes, I come quickly" and the SON of Man, WHEN He comes, SHALL HE FIND FAITH ON THE EARTH?
Amen.