We Are Still In God's Holy Plans - Genesis 18:9-14

When hope feels threadbare and timelines mock your prayers, the question that changes everything is simple: Is anything too wonderful for God? We walk through Genesis 18 with Abraham and Sarah, tracing a promise given in impossibility and fulfilled on God’s clock. Along the way, we explore why delays can be holy, how names signal destiny, and what it means when God calls you specifically—by name—into a future that looks bigger than your history.

We broaden the lens beyond Abraham’s tent. Mary Magdalene moves from torment to first witness of the resurrection because devotion kept her near Jesus when others left. Fanny Crosby, writing thousands of hymns without sight, shows how limitation can become a megaphone for grace. Chuck Colson’s journey from political infamy to global prison ministry proves that even a shattered reputation can be repurposed for mercy. Their stories, alongside Moses, David, and Paul, reveal a pattern: the waiting room is often God’s workshop, where character is forged to carry the very answers we’re asking for.

You’ll hear how shortcuts complicate what faith clarifies, why our words can guard or jeopardize a promise, and how to live with steady expectation when results are slow. We share practical ways to endure delay—writing the vision, aligning speech, walking in obedience, and staying close to community—so your hope can mature rather than wither. If your heart has grown cautious like Sarah’s laugh behind the tent, let this be the moment you lift your eyes again.

Subscribe for more scripture-rich encouragement, share this with a friend who’s waiting on a breakthrough, and leave a review telling us the promise you’re holding onto. Your story isn’t over—and neither is God’s promise.

Chapters

• 0:07 Welcome, Prayer, And Invitation
• 1:57 Genesis As Book Of Beginnings
• 4:38 Abraham’s Call And The Promise
• 8:02 Hagar, Ishmael, And Consequences
• 9:56 Names Changed And Promise Reaffirmed
• 10:31 Three Visitors And Sarah Named
• 12:51 Mary Magdalene’s Deliverance And Devotion
• 18:18 Fanny Crosby’s Calling And Legacy
• 21:03 Delays, Moses’ Formation, And Timing
• 23:13 Chuck Colson’s Conversion And Prison Ministry
• 27:04 Is Anything Too Hard For The Lord
• 30:43 Faith Through Doubt: Abraham To Paul
• 34:12 Zechariah, Elizabeth, And Guarding Words
• 40:32 Modern Testimony Of Waiting
• 42:52 Promise Fulfilled After Twenty-Five Years
• 45:20 Invitation To Faith And Salvation Prayer

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Hi and welcome to Catch on Fire Podcast. I am Dr. Novella Springett. I have been a follower of Jesus Christ since I was a child. Over the years, I have spent considerable time studying the Bible and the history of the Christian religion. Catch on Fire Podcasts will be conducting an in-depth study of scripture with the goal of encouraging us all to grow in Christian discipleship. This podcast is for all those who have an interest in knowing more about Jesus and what it means to live for Christ in today's pluralistic society. We pray that this podcast will positively impact all of our lives and enable us to become more like Jesus. Please like and subscribe to Catch on Fire Podcasts on the varying platforms that we're featured on. Donations to the ministry can be made via Zell using COFM1013 at protonmail.com. We are a 501c3 organization, so all contributions are tax deductible. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please bless this offering. Please bless this podcast. Let it be all of you and none of me. In your name, Jesus. We pray that the word will go forth with power, that lies will be changed, that we'll grow into discipleship. We thank you for your presence that is here with us today. In Jesus' name. Amen. And it's based on Genesis chapter 18, verses 9 to 14. And the scripture reads thus, Where is your wife Sarah? They asked him. They are in the tent, he said. Then one of them said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, will have a son. Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, After I am worn out and my Lord is old, will I now have this pleasure? Then the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh and say, Will I really have a child now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son. When you look at the background to Genesis, traditionally Moses is considered to be the order of Genesis and the other books that comprise the Torah, that is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These books were written by Moses during the 40 years that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. Genesis is essentially an introduction to the rest of the Bible and is referred to as the book of beginnings. Genesis describes events that took place in the ancient Near East. It chronicles the beginning of civilization, right down to when Jacob's family relocated to Egypt. Genesis stories presents the oldest nations in the world. It speaks of Assyria, Babylon, Elam, and Egypt. Bible scholars affirm that the division between Genesis 1 and 11 and Genesis chapter 12 is of greater importance than the division between the Old and New Testament. In chapters 1 to 11, the word earth occurs 92 times. In chapters 1 to 11, Genesis speaks about the creation, Adam and Eve and the fall, known the flood and the Tower of Babel. Mankind is committed to corruption and destruction in these first 11 chapters. Chapter 12 begins a story of how God will redeem mankind back to him. The central figure of chapter 12 is Abraham, who would be named Abraham. God picked Abram out and gave him seven wonderful promises that would allow mankind to once more have communion with God. Abraham is hailed by the observance of the three great monotheistic religions, which are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. These three religions all affirm that there is only one God. The Jews are of the lineage of Abraham, as they're descended from his son, the child of promise Isaac. The Muslims are also of the lineage of Abraham, as they are the descendants of Abraham's son Ishmael. Christians have been grafted into the lineage of Abraham as we believe on the promise and faith of the blood of Jesus Christ. To understand Genesis chapter 18, we have to look at the previous chapters and what took place. So we start in chapter 12, where God is calling on Abraham. He says, Leave what you know, leave what you have and come and follow me. And in and in exchange, God makes these promises to then Abraham. I will bless those that bless you. I'm going to curse those that curse you. In a sense, Jesus is God is saying to Abraham, I'm going to be a champion. And he told Abraham, I'm blessing you because you're going to be a blessing. In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This promise is fulfilling Jesus. And he told Abraham, You're going to become a great nation. You're going to have many descendants. And when we look back, we are in chapter 12. In chapter 11, we are told that Sarah was barren and had no children. So when God made this initial promise to Abraham, it was already impossible by man's standards. Not only that, Abraham was already 75 years old, and Sarah was 65 years old. By the laws of mankind, a child was an impossibility. And without the birth of the child, of a child, the promise of Abraham becoming a great nation could not come to fruition. As we keep reading the book of Genesis, we find that the years roll on and Sarah remains barren. We come up to Genesis 15. Some years had passed. We're not told how many. And God took Abraham out on a starry night and he said, Look up at the sky. You're going to have as many descendants as those stars in the sky. And it is said that Abraham believed God and is credited to him for righteousness. However, it is not possible to have a sky full of descendants when you don't even have one child. And Sarah remained barren. In chapter 16, Sarah became tired of waiting and she decided to help out God. So she told Abraham, Go, you know, you're 86, I'm 76, go and have a child with my slave Hagar. And the ploy, the play was successful, and Hagar became pregnant. So finally Abraham had a child, a son whose name was Ishmael. The descendants of that son of Abraham, Ishmael are the current Palestinians, and it is well documented the enmity, the hostility, and the hatred between the Palestinians and the Jews. Sarah not being willing to wait on God and feeling that she could help out God is one of the reasons why we have the current animosity in the Middle East. In chapter 17, God appeared again to Abraham to declare the promise yet another time. It is in this chapter that Abraham's name was changed to Abraham. God also changed Sarah's name to Sarah. You know, he was making it clear that she was part of the covenant and the promise included included her. Abraham's reaction to God showing up and promising you're gonna have a child of promises, Sarah was twofold. First, he laughed. He was almost a hundred years old and Sarah was 90. Abraham looked at the impossibility of the situation by God's standards and he laughed. Second, he asked God, don't worry, don't keep this promise. You know, I have Ishmael, I'm content. And God told Abraham, I am going to bless Ishmael, because Ishmael is your child. But I have not changed my mind. I made this promise. You will have a child of promise. And we this brings us to chapter 18 where we join the story. At this point in time, Abraham and Sarah have endured years of waiting and disappointment. 24 years have gone since they heard from God. Abraham is 99, 100 years old, Sarah is 90 years old. And when we come to chapter 18, Abraham is sitting in the door of the tent. He's avoiding the heat of the day, and the Lord appears to him. Jehovah, the one true God, appears to Abraham. Three men stood before Abraham, and it is said that these persons represented the Trinity, the triune God. And Abraham arose, he recognized them, and he ran out to meet them and bowed himself to the ground. The Hebrew word that is used here for bow indicates a low ball bow, which means he went flat on the ground, horizontal, and he put his head down. And this way he was given not only respect but worship. He recognized that he was in the presence of God and these strangers were to be worshipped and honored. Then he invited them in to rest, be comfortable and eat. And then they've eaten. We're at the beginning of the passage we are looking at, and one of them says, Where's Sarah, your wife? Abraham responds, They are in the tent. Having eaten dinner, the strangers started to talk business. In those days women did not eat dinner with the men, especially when strangers were present. This stranger knew Abraham's wife name, and he knew her new name. You know, it had been given to her just a couple of weeks ago. Adonai came looking for Sarah. Sarah was not seated at the table where the others were, but that did not mean that she was forgotten or being slighted. God asked for Sarah by name. Sarah was still living right. She was still in the tent. And you know it must have been rough on Sarah all these years being childless, especially after Abraham had a child with Hagar. As it was very clear now that Sarah was the problem and not Abraham. But Sarah was still holding, was still holding on. And in response to her commitment, God called Sarah by name. Another woman who God called by name is found in the New Testament as Mary Magdalene. She was not a fallen woman as a pro or prostitute as sometimes these traits are erroneously attributed to her. This might be because in Luke's gospel her story follows that of the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her hair. This woman was of a suspect character. The same is not true of Mary Magdalene. We knew that Mary had to have been tormented because we are told she had seven demons that had taken up residence in her body. No information is provided on how she felt prey to this calamity. Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy. And when he has you under his influence, he doesn't hold back. Based on what I have seen in others, I presume that when she was demon-possessed, she was filthy, her eyes were wild, her hair looked terrible, and she was just walking around looking crazy, talking to herself, and everybody was avoiding her. And we do not know how many years she was under the influence of these demons. What we do know is that no one had been able to free her from the influence of these evil spirits. And she was a Jew, so she was surrounded by members of the priests and scribes and Pharisees who had failed if they had even tried to set her free from this tyranny of demonic influence. But when the King of Glory, the lion of the tribe of Judah, Jesus, stepped into Mary Magdalene's life, she was delivered from bondage. We are told Mary was from Magdala. We know this because her name Magdalene means she was from Magdala. Just like how you say I'm a Citician because I'm from St. Kitts. Magdala was a well-off manufacturing town. And Gluke tells us that after she was set free, Mary, Magdalene followed Jesus and supported his ministry financially. So she must have been well off. As she didn't need to seek a job, she was from a wealthy town, so she might have owned one of the manufacturing companies. She also did not have a family, such as husband, children, or parents who needed looking after. Jewish custom in those days meant that she would not have been allowed to neglect her family and follow Jesus. The Bible records that Mary Magdalene stuck with Jesus during his last days on earth. She was there when the crowds were saying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. She was there when they said, Crucify him. She was at the cross with Jesus' family looking on at him as he suffered and he gave his last seven cries and died. She followed behind Joseph of Arimathea to see where Jesus would be buried. And early on resurrection Sunday, Mary rushed to the tomb to continue worshiping Jesus. She didn't go empty-handed. She arrived there with sweet spices to anoint Jesus. Even in his death, she was still giving Jesus of the best that she had to offer. The Gospel of John records that Mary found an empty tomb and went to bring Peter and John to help her search for Jesus. These two disciples left when they did not find Jesus' body. But Mary stayed back. She was distraught, she was weeping, but she was still hoping that somehow, some way she find where her Lord was. She did not yet know that Jesus had risen, and Jesus came to her. She thought at first he was the gardener, and she begged him, please tell me where the body is so that I could collect it. But when Jesus called her by name, she recognized that her Lord was risen, is risen. It is first to Mary Magdalene that Jesus entrusts his message to the other disciples that he is truly risen. The once despised and much looked on woman was treated with love and grace by our loving Savior because she stayed committed, she stayed diligent. Her dedication, her often was not despised by our Lord. She went to the others, I have seen the Lord. They didn't believe her, they thought she was crazy, but she had seen the Lord. In today's time, uh about a hundred years ago, we hear about Fanny Crosby, who was born in upstate New York in Putnam County. She was the only child of a widower and her second wife, and she lost her sight at the age of six weeks. Then her father died when she was only six months old. But she was raised by a devout mother and grandmother. She even went at a certain age in 1843, 1835, she attended the institution for the blind. She didn't have braille to work with. She had been religious since childhood. But at the age of 31, well, she had a dream that a close friend of hers was dying and asked her, Will you meet me in heaven? And the question bothered her. And so one day she and her companions were singing a lesson, did my savior bleed? And when she came to the line, here Lord, I give myself away, she offered herself to God, and she experienced the joy and love that comes with knowing Jesus. And she went on to join the old John Street Methodist Church. And it was about 1864 that Fanny Crosby, who was blind, began writing hymns. It is believed that she wrote between 5,500 and 9,000 hymns. She wrote a number using pseudonyms, false names, as she did not want the accolades to go to her head. But we are still singing her hymns today. Some of the best known are saved in the arms of Jesus, rescue the perishing, blessed assurance, all the way my savior leads me, savior more than life to me, and pass me not, O gentle Savior. And even in her blind state, God called her by her name and she was able to touch the world. She died in 1915 of a stroke after a long illness. But the same way that God called to Sarah, called to Mary Magdalene, called to Fanning Crosby, he's still calling our name. Let us ensure that we're in the place to hear from God and be likewise use of God. The scripture goes on to say, I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. Up to that point in time you might have a doubt, or who are these strangers? But with this pronouncement, both Sarah and certainly Abraham knew that they were in the presence of God. The God who created the heavens and the earth was emphatically making a promise here. Nine months from now, Sarah is going to have a son. God is saying, My words are yea and amen. When I say let there be, there is, and it's gonna happen. We look at Moses. Moses was 40 years old when God called him. And the first thing Moses did was to kill someone. He wasn't ready yet. Moses spent another 40 years in the wilderness looking after sheep. At the age of 80, 40 years later, the Bible says that Moses was the most humble person on the face of the earth. It was then that God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush and told him, Go and tell Pharaoh, let my people go. God had never changed his mind about using Moses, but it took time for Moses to be in the position to be used mightily of God. To today the Jews still say that Moses is the greatest prophet to ever live. It was he who raised his rod and the Red Sea parted, and they were able to walk through as though on that dry ground. We hear about Charles Weldon Carlson. He was born in 1931, and his parents were very devout. His mother fed the hungry during the Great Depression. His father was a lawyer and used to donate his legal services to the United Prisoner Association in New England. Carlson was brilliant. He won a full scholarship to Harvard, which he didn't take. But he obtained his JD from George Washington University Law School in 1959, and significantly in 1969 he was appointed as special counsel to President Nixon. His responsibilities included performing special assignments for the president. In this role, Carlson achieved notoriety. The writer for Slate magazine, David Platz, described Carlson as Nixon's hard man, the evil genius of an evil administration. Carlson has stated that he was valuable to the president because he was willing to be ruthless in getting things done. Nixon's White House chief of staff described Carlson as being the president's hitman. He is noted for several nefarious acts. He was the brain behind this memo which listed Nixon's major political opponents. This memo became known as Nixon's Enemies List. And he instigated the unions in New York to attack student protesters who were protesting the Vietnam War. He also proposed that they should firebomb the Brookings institution so they could steal documents while the firemen were busy putting out the fire. And he tried to organize an assassination of a journalist. Thankfully, this did not come to pass. At the height of the Watergate scandal, Carlson was named as one of the Watergate seven. He was indicted in 1974. He pleaded guilty, and he served seven months in the federal Maxwell Prison in Atlanta in 1974. He was the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges. As he was about to be arrested, he had a very good friend, Thomas L. Phillips, who gave him a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. After reading it, Carlson became a Christian and he joined a prayer group. Ah, he served seven months in prison and he was released early in 1975. But while in prison, Carlson became increasingly aware of what he saw as injustice being done to prisoners and shortcomings in the rehabilitation. He also discovered by reading some of his father's writings that his father had been interested in reforming the prison system in America. And he became convinced that God had placed him in a unique position to develop a ministry to prisoners. After his release from prison, he founded the prison fellowship in 1976. Today, in America, this is the nation's largest outreach of prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families. He worked to promote prisoner rehabilitation and attempted to reform the prison system in the United States. In 1977, he co-founded Prison Fellowship International, which is now present in approximately 120 countries. This fellowship attempts to proclaim the gospel and alleviate the suffering of prisoners and their families. He died in 2012. But he was already a man in his 40s when he founded prison fellowship is still impacting lives today. He did not say he was too old. God's promise was not implemented in him when he was very young, but he was still and is still changing the world today. It may seem like a long time coming, but a change is coming. It is our season. We have been praying. We have been fasting, but our time is coming. It is now time. God says he's going to restore to us the years that the canker worm has stolen. That he's going to give us beauty for ashes. He's telling us that he's not changed his mind about us. He's going to fulfill the promise that he has made to us. Now, scripture said Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old. Sarah had passed the age of trialbearing. Therefore Sarah lived laughed within herself, After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure? Sarah, like a lot of us tend to do, was eavesdropping. She wanted to know what was happening between her husband and these three strange men. Moses, who documented this, pointed out that both Abraham and Sarah were very old. Sarah was 89, 90, Abraham was 99, 100. They were both well past middle age. Sarah had already gone to menopause. Ah, this is definitely physically an impossibility. It would take a real miracle for them to have children. And the scripture says that Sarah laughed to herself. That means she wasn't telling anybody that she was laughing. Ah the Hebrew here means on the inside in her gut. And it means that she didn't just do a hee hee. It says that he is a role. It on the ground and laughing, the belly laugh, because this was really in Sarah's eyes, ridiculous, can't happen. You know, she did not dare to believe the promise that she would conceive, carry a child, and give birth to a son. She had heard this story many times before, and it still had not happened. She had no reason to believe that it would happen now. By all the standards and laws of nature, there is no way that this could take place. At that point in time, there was no advanced science to help a woman become pregnant. There were no fertility clinics, no IVFs, no surrogate mothers. The only method is the one that God had ordained. Physical relationships between a man and a woman had to take place for pregnancy to occur. We read about in 2019 a woman in southern India used IVF to give birth at the age of 74. She had been married for 54 years and wanted to have a child. She wanted to lose the shame that was normally that is normally associated with being childless. She successfully gave birth to twin girls at the age of 74. But this was not possible when Sarah was around. She would have to have sexual relations with her husband, get pregnant, nine months of pregnancy, then give birth. And it is possible that by then Sarah had begun to rationalize away God's promise. She could have been saying, Abraham is Ishmael, I'm good with that. I probably misunderstood. Here, God is making it clear that he has not changed his mind. Twour years had come and gone since God first gave Abraham the promise, and God still intended to fulfill this promise. Abraham and Sarah would have normal physical relations and they would be a baby. We look at David. He was a teenager when Samuel anointed him as king over Israel. He didn't take the throne until he was 30 years old. He spent many of those years on the run. Saul was trying to kill him because Saul had figured out that he would be the next king of Israel. It's not an overnight process. It takes time. We have the apostle Paul stating that he had learned to be content. And he didn't just get up the day after God called him on the road to Damascus. It was in 80 36 that God called him. And it was in 80 62 that he had writes that he had learned to be content. 26 years had passed. And in 2 Corinthians 11, 23 to 27, he gives us some of the lessons that he had learned. He had been in prison. He had been flogged. He had been left for dead. He had been shipwrecked. He had been in danger on rivers from bandits, from fellow Jews. He had been hungry. He had gone without sleep. These are the lessons that had learned Paul to say, that had taught Paul to say after 26 years of experiencing hardships that he doesn't care what comes. He had learned to trust in Jesus, no matter what situation he found himself in. Yeah, it was Dedrick von Hoffer who said, when Christ calls a man, he calls him come and die. Over the centuries you have lost track of the fact that one of the biggest supporters when Hitler came to power in Germany was the German church. The church stood with Hitler. They say he was called of God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer disagreed and he was banned from preaching in the German church as he preached that the church was now glorifying a man and was no longer serving God. He was killed because he spoke out against the evil of Hitler. On the day of his death, Bonhoeffer was stripped naked just as Jesus was and led out to be hung. The priest, the doctor that was there, stated that never in his 50 years of doing implementing practicing medicine had he seen someone so humbly submit themselves to God as they face death. Many years later, the world acknowledges that Bonhoffer was right. His book, The Course of Discipleship, is still touching life today. The Apostle Paul told Timothy that God remains faithful. The gifts and calling of God without repentance. He does not change his mind when he calls us and when he gives us a gift. But we are still in God's holy plan. We need to still keep holding on. And the Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh and say, Will I really have a child now that I am old? And say, Will I and say, Will I really have a child now that I'm old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year. And Sarah will have a son. Jehovah, the one true God, spoke again to Abraham. And the word that is translated here as God means the existing one. The I am that I am, the God that is from everlasting to everlasting and doesn't change. Sarah laughed within herself, but God still heard her. Normally nobody could have heard that, but God knows everything. There's nothing hidden from God. Abraham and the men couldn't even see Sarah because physically, because she was hiding in the tent and listening on the slowdown, on the sly. But God said to Abraham, is there anything too hard? Wonderful, amazing. The Hebrew word that is used here for hard is the same Hebrew word that Enzaiah uses when he says, and the name a child is gonna be given to us, and his name will be called wonderful. It means is there anything too amazing, too wonderful for God to do? Sarah, as the years have passed, justifiably has become cynical. She's undoubtedly exhausted by what appears to be God's unkept promises. Sarah is afraid to hope, afraid to believe that God can. However, God continued to articulate the promise that he first made almost 25 years ago. And this time, he has a specific time. He said, I'm coming back. In nine months, you're gonna have a son. You know, Abraham had waited 25 years for this promised child. He's 99, 100, Sarah is 90. He had to sleep with her so that she could become pregnant. He did his part, he didn't dismiss the word of God, and God did this. Today in the annals of human history, there are few people as honored as Abraham. The Muslims, the Jews, the Christians. We all claim Abraham as our father. And this is because Abraham kept the faith. And Abraham, as God promised him, has more descendants than their stars in the sky and sand on the seashore. We come to the New Testament and we find Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist. Jesus said that of men that were born of a woman, none is greater than John the Baptist. Zechariah was a priest of the temple, and he and his wife had been childless and grown old, as Elizabeth could not conceive. And at a time when it seemed impossible to have a child, an angel appeared to Zechariah and told Zechariah that he and his wife was going to have a son, and he should name the son John. Zechariah didn't want to believe. So he questioned. He said, You know, I'm advancing age. How is this going to be possible? Gabriel wasn't pleased. He's like, I'm the archangel of the Lord. I'm coming to you from the throne of God. And you're doubting me, and you're speaking like you can't believe. So I'm gonna shut you down so that you don't speak debt over the promise of God. And he made Zechariah dumb until the baby was born. And in the course of time, just as uh Gabriel had prophesied, John the Baptist was born to Elizabeth and Zechariah. It's about two Sundays ago. I went to a celebration service at a church, and a couple who had been trying to have a child for seven years showed up to have a celebration service. Their testimony was that uh last year they came to be prayed over by the man of God. Seven long years they had been trying to have a child, and they brought with them on this celebration Sunday the twin boys that the wife had conceived and given birth to. God is saying to all of us, I have not changed my mind. I'm going to come true for you, I will restore, I will repair, I'm gonna give you back the years a cankerworm has eaten. I'm going to write your story again. God has not changed his mind when he comes to us. God is saying, write the vision, make it plain, have a time appointed when it's gonna come to pass. We must keep the faith like Abraham, like Zechariah, and keep on believing that God's will and that the promise that he made to us would be done in our lives. In Genesis chapter 12, God made Abraham and Sarah a promise that would they would be the ancestors of a mighty nation, one that would number more than the stars and the sky and the sand and the seashore. And it's God made his promise when it already seemed impossible. Sarah was 65, Abraham was 75. And we were told in the prior chapter that Sarah was barren and was childless. But here in chapter 18, 25 years later, Sarah is 90, and Abraham is 99, 100, 24, 25 long years have come and gone with no child. And God reappears again, and he's specific. Nine months from now, I'm gonna keep my word. It took 25 years, but the promise was fulfilled in the life. God longs to do the same for you and I. We must ensure that we're in God's holy plan. You must follow Jesus in the discipleship. Today, if you do not know Jesus as personal Lord and Savior, he's knocking at the door of your heart. Will you please let Jesus in? There's eternal life after this life here on earth, and we have to make a choice where we'll spend eternity, hell or heaven. Hell is real. Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven. There's only one way to heaven, and that is by confessing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and believing in our hearts. If anyone listening wishes to come to know the joy, peace, and love that can be found in Jesus, please feel free to repeat after me. Jesus, please come into my heart and be Lord of my life. Wash me and make me clean. Teach me to live for you. Amen. If you have prayed this prayer, congratulations. You're now officially one of Jesus' believers. Please find a Christian church to go to fellowship with other believers so that you can learn to be a disciple of Christ. As we go out into this forthcoming next days, that we don't know what tomorrow holds, but we know who holds tomorrow. We will declare, we declare and decree in the name of Jesus that we are still holding on to God's unchanging hand. We are still in God's holy plan. We decree and decree in the name of Jesus that we are the head and not the tail. We declare and decree in the name of Jesus that from the crown of our head to our soles of our feet, we have received healing, as by his stripes we are healed. We declare and decree in the name of Jesus that God is ordering our steps, that no weapon formed against us shall prosper, and every tongue that rises up against us in judgment we will refute. We declare and decree in the name of Jesus that we have been made more than conquerors through the blood of Jesus. We declare and decree in the name of Jesus that angels are watching over us, our family, our children, our grandchildren. We decree and declare in the name of Jesus that we are financially in line in God's word, and as such, we are lenders and not borrowers. We declare and decree in the name of Jesus that all of our debts have been paid and are forgiven. We declare and decree in the name of Jesus that the enemy of our souls has no authority over our finances and our funds, and that we are good stewards of the money that God has placed in our keeping. We declare and decree in the name of Jesus that doors are being opened and that blessings and answers to prayer are being manifested in the spiritual and the physical in our lives. Let's say the 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters, he restored my soul, he leaded me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk to the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, thou anointest my head with oil, my cup run it over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me on the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace. Amen. Be blessed.