“Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised,” Hebrews 11:11.

Here is the first mention of a lady in this wonderful record of faith. Here is encouragement and instruction for girls.

I. FAITH IS NOT JUST A ‘MAN’ THING!

Yes, men are chiefly called to witness for the Lord and serve Him but not EXCLUSIVELY!

1. Long before Jacob became a ‘prince’ with God, his grandmother was a ‘princess’. “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her,” Genesis 17:15-16.

2. Many of God’s greatest servants were women. “And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh, . . . Then Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died,” Judges 4:8-9, 21.

This is but one example of the great women God makes mention of. I could add the names Rahab, an ancestor of the Saviour; Ruth, the Moabitess, Hannah, Samuel’s mother. We have many mentioned in the New Testament. Mary the mother of the Saviour, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha, Phebe and of course the woman who had an alabaster box of very precious ointment and and poured it on the Saviour’s  head. The Lord decreed that she and what she had done for Him would be mentioned whenever the gospel was preached, Matthew 26:7, 13. See also Mark 15:40-41, 16:1-2.

II. SARAH BECAME THE MOTHER OF NATIONS

That we have already read in Gen 17:15-16.

1. Most importantly, of her sprang Christ our Saviour. She was part of the human chain whereby “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” John 1:14.

If you are saved today, your salvation was made possible by God’s wonderful wisdom through the ‘faith’ of Sarah. When Sarah laughed at the news she would have a son, she laughed but was answered by words so often quoted by God’s people ever since! “Is any thing 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,” Genesis 18:14.

2. As our text says, ‘she judged him faithful who had promised’. We never read of Sarah laughing again in unbelief but she believed God and had a son as promised by God. “And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac,” Genesis 21:1-3.

So, let us all take note of the place women have in the story of redemption.