The Three Heavenly Visitors

"And the LORD appeared unto him [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lift up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and made cakes upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh." (Genesis 18: 1-15)

The opening phrase of this passage that says "and the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre…" is extremely important, for it is the first clue that we have that one of the three men who are suddenly standing in front of Abraham's tent is the LORD Himself. The second clue is that one of the men prophetically announces (a confirmation of an earlier prophecy) that Sarah will soon have a son. The third clue is that when Sarah laughs, and it is not a laugh of faithful joy as Abraham earlier laughed, it is a sneering kind of laugh, full of unbelief; Sarah knows immediately her error when this man [the LORD] announces to her who is standing inside the tent that he heard her laugh, for she knows that the laugh was not out loud but only deep in her heart, something impossible for any common human to have known. She is suddenly caught and ashamed, and compounds her error by lying about it.

What is interesting to me about this passage is that I can't help but wonder who the other two men are. Are they angels in attendance with the LORD? Why do they all three answer Abraham, in unison it seems, when Abraham asks them to stay so that he can refresh them with food and drink and washing of their feet. Would angels answer in unison with the LORD? Or would they let the LORD answer for Himself? Whoever these other two are, they are in unison, it seems with the LORD, almost as though the three are one. Sounds like the trinity, yet I have found no biblical scholars who suggest that possibility, and it is because of a verse that follows shortly after this section of scripture, which we will get into. This is not the trinity. Yet ONE of these men IS the LORD. And yet they all seem to speak in unity. Further along in the passage, is the verse that again says "they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife?" THEY said unto him, not just one of them spoke.

The next section of passage will reveal to us that these men who accompany the LORD are angels. How wonderful then, that the angels have such a unity with the LORD…just the sort that we will have one day when we are in His presence as well; something that we strive to have now, but fail at many times because we let our flesh get in the way. But once the flesh is out of the way, the unity will be perfect, such as is displayed here. What a day that will be!

Another interesting point is that the meal that Abraham serves is not kosher. In a kosher meal dairy would not be served with meat. In this case, milk and calf are served together. Obviously, kosher rules comes into play further down the line with the law of Moses, and for a good reason which we will get into at that time, but those rules are not evident at this point at all.

One final point is that even with Sarah's sneering sort of laugh and doubt, yet she is called a woman of faith by the writer of the book of Hebrews who is most likely Paul. The reason is simply this: if she had not had faith to trust that she would have become pregnant, she would not have received the blessing of bearing a child. Faith works the same way for all of us. Jesus told many when He walked on this earth during his short three year ministry that it was their faith that healed them. So it is with Sarah. It is her faith that allows her to reach out and receive that blessing that the Lord has promised; she might have doubted for a moment, as we all may do, but her faith was strengthened apparently, for she did conceive just as promised, and it was because in the end she trusted in the word of God more than she did in the evidence of her age.

So it is with us. The promises of the LORD only apply to us as we receive them. If we don't take them as our own, they never become our own. They have no power in our lives, unless we trust that what the LORD says is true; versus believing what our old tired bodies, or other folks around us tell us is true. There is only one truth. And that truth resides in the God with whom ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!

"…IS ANYTHING TOO HARD FOR THE LORD?"