Digging Deeper – Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?
11 Abraham and Sarah were both very old by this time, and Sarah was long past the age of having children. 12 So she laughed silently to herself and said, “How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master—my husband—is also so old?” 13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say, ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” 15 Sarah was afraid, so she denied it, saying, “I didn’t laugh.” But the Lord said, “No, you did laugh.”
Genesis 18:11-15 (NLT)
IS ANYTHING TOO HARD FOR THE LORD?
The question is given in response to the laughter of Sarah. It is rhetorical – the answer is not recorded because the implicit answer is “no.” God, by His very nature, is capable of all possibility – including that which is inconceivable to the intellect. Thus, he renders possible the impossible. The physician Luke, in His Gospel, records Jesus saying likewise, “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (Lk.18:27).
In the 5th century A.D. an African bishop named Deogratias wrote to Augustine asking how to respond to pagans who ridicule the miraculous accounts in Scripture. He says, “’What are we to believe concerning Jonah, who is said to have been three days in a whale’s belly? The thing is utterly improbable and incredible’…For I have found that this kind of question has been severely mocked with much laughter by the pagans.”
Augustine replies,
“To this I reply, that either all the miracles wrought by divine power may be treated as incredible, or there is no reason why the story of this miracle should not be believed. The resurrection of Christ Himself upon the third day would not be believed by us, if the Christian faith was afraid to encounter pagan ridicule (Letters 102.30-31).”
Augustine is in effect saying, “if God can do one miracle, He can do all miracles.” And conversely, if He can’t, then what confidence do we have in anything? But God is able to do all things and He has recorded them for us in Scripture 1) because they are part of the historical record and 2) as an encouragement to all believing posterity. Do not be dismayed by laughter, either outward or inward, but instead hold fast to the God of the impossible.
Ryan Hoffer serves as NextGen Production Director at NorthStar. He holds an M.Div in Church History and enjoys playing the harp. He and his wife, Tiffany, live in Acworth and have three children.