Heb. 11:11.  By faith even Sarah herself received power to conceive seed when she was past age, since she counted him faithful who had promised: 12. Wherefore also there sprang of one, and him as good as dead, so many, as the stars of heaven in multitude, and as the sand, which is by the sea shore, innumerable.

By faith Sarah received power to give birth to Isaac. To judge by nature and its possibilities, there was no hope of a son. But the birth of Isaac was to be a work of God's power: He had promised and He would perform. Sarah believed the promise, because she believed God the promiser; by faith she received power to become Isaac's mother; and of one who was as good as dead, there sprang up as many as the stars of heaven in multitude.

We are told wherein it was that, in sight of what was impossible with man, her faith found its strength: she counted Him faithful who had promised. She looked to the promise; she considered Him who had given it; she rested on His faithfulness. The faithfulness of God was the rest of her heart and her faith.

What is the lesson Sarah teaches us in regard to the life of faith, and the work that God would work in us through faith? From one who was as good as dead there sprang as the stars in multitude. God is the living God, who delights to give life in death. When Adam sinned, he and the whole race died; they lost the life of paradise and of God. God's great work is to restore that life. In the Old Testament He showed this in a case like that of Isaac, by proving that the new race He was going to prepare must have a life from Himself, a life born of one as good as dead. Isaac's life was to be in a special sense a God-given life. In the New Testament He showed it by the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ: God's mighty power revealing the divine life in the babe of Bethlehem. What God would teach us is: the new life must come from God; His mighty power must alone and directly work it, or all is vain. It is for this our faith must trust Him.

Just as really as the life of Adam, the life of Isaac, the life of Christ, was the immediate work of God's almighty power, is the divine life in our souls His work. And it is not only His work in its beginning, as if He bestowed upon us a life that we had to keep in safety, and to nourish and bring to perfection. No, as the tree grows every day on that root from which it sprang, so our spiritual life must every day stand and grow in God and Christ. One great cause of the weakness of the spiritual life of earnest Christians, notwithstanding their prayers and efforts, is that they seek to do the work that God alone can do. They know not that God, whose Spirit dwells in us, will maintain our life in a divine power, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight. If they knew this aright, they would see that their one duty was in utter helplessness, in deep humility and dependence, to wait upon God and to trust and count upon Him to do His blessed work.

It is this Sarah teaches us. She knew what God had promised. For twenty-five long years her heart yearned for the son of whom God had spoken. At times her faith was sorely tried, but she ever came back to this one thing: He is faithful that promised! And in due time God did His omnipotent quickening work, and Sarah received power to become the mother of Isaac and of JESUS. And down the ages her voice of witness is heard: Trust God; He is faithful; He is the living God; He gives life from the dead.

The teaching of the Epistle speaks to us of the living God and the city of the living God to which we are come; of a High Priest who liveth, and liveth for ever, and of a work that He does within us, the power of an endless life; of a new and living way, in which we are borne into God's presence; of the law of life written in the heart, and of a life within the veil, in the Holiest of All. This new and wondrous life it has revealed is nothing less than the life and work of God in the soul. To the question which is so often asked, Why we do not experience that life more mightily, there can be but one answer: We do not allow God in Christ to work it in us; we do not believe in the continual indwelling and working of the Holy Spirit. Even as Sarah failed when she sought for the promised son by giving Hagar to Abraham, we fail because we seek by our effort to do what God will not allow any but Himself to do. Let us, like Sarah, come back from our self-devised ways, and enter by the new and living way; the way of death to nature and to self; the way of life through the Holy Spirit, into the life which God alone can maintain.

Faith is the power by which we take up into our being, and yield ourselves up to and become one with the object our heart clings to and reposes on. God hath spoken to us in His Son. His Son is the great promise to us, the token and the pledge of what God will make us. Let us look to the promise, let us look to the Son, let us look to the faithful One who has promised, and with whom it is impossible to lie, and we shall receive power to receive and bring forth the new life that is of God. Let us, above all, take the place before God that Sarah did as of one dead, hopelessly, helplessly dead, as far as the prospect of bringing forth a new life was concerned, and we may count upon it, God will do His work. Impotence is ever one of the conditions of true faith. Sink down before God in utter emptiness; bow before Him and wait upon Him, and walk with Him, in deep humility and meekness of soul, as having nothing and being nothing; fall down as dead at His feet, and He will say: Fear not, I am He that liveth, and maketh alive.

 1. Now, bow down, say to God that you trust Him for the wonderful new life the Epistle has revealed In Christ. Trust Him to reveal Christ, in the power of an endless life, within you.

2. Let every doubt and fear be met by looking afresh to the promise, to God the promiser, and to the faithfulness of Him who by an oath has confirmed His promise of blessing and of the power of the eternal priesthood of Christ to thee.

3. In this trust take thy place of deep helplessness and dependence and humility. Be nothing that God may be all. Just yield thyself for the living God through His Son and Spirit to do His mighty work In thee.

4. The full blessing of Sarah's faith was not only Isaac, but as many as the stars in multitude. So with thee. As thou plant thyself wholly to be filled directly from God Himself with the divine life, It will break forth in blessing around. Blessing I will bless, and multiplying I will multiply.