The Day of visitation
The Day of Visitation
Taught by: Carolyn Sissom 10/7/07
Genesis 18, 19, 20
“What Shall You Do In The Day of Visitation?”
(Isa. 10:3)
In Genesis Chapter 18, the stage is set for God’s judgment by the appearance of the Lord. He has come to see Abraham to take care of business. “ The Lord appeared to 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.”
I think we can conclude two of the men were the two angels in 19:1 that were sent to Sodom and they smote the whole city with “brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” (Gen. 19:11;24)
In the Day of Visitation one of two things will happen: either blessing and promotion or judgment. We see both in Genesis 18 and 19. It is the responsibility of the Ministers of the Gospel to inform the people of the times and seasons of the Lord. We cannot blame our politicians for the present moral failure of our nation. It is the responsibility of the Minister of the Gospel to preach the uncompromised Word of God of His ways and His times. If the politicians do not hear the Word from the Lord’s ministers, they, too, will perish for lack of knowledge.
In 18:17, the Lord said, “Shall I hide anything that I do from Abraham?
God shares his intents with his Covenant friend. “Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? for I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He has spoken of him. Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come to Me; and if not, I will know.”
Here we see the dominion of the covenant man:
1. The future is not hidden from him.
2. He is known of the Lord.
3. He commands his children to keep the ways of God. (Fatherhood)
4. He stands before God in confidence of his rightful place.
In verses 2-8, we see Abraham ministering to the Lord. All of these are characteristics of a ministering church:
Verse 1 –“The Lord sat.: -
Verse 2 - “Abraham bowed himself toward the ground” – Humility
Verse 3-4 – “washed His feet with water” - Cleansing
Verse 5-8 – “fed him bread, a calf, butter and milk.” Feeding
Verse 7 - “He set it before Him.”
The Lord then blesses Abraham and Sarah with His covenant promise to them of an heir. “I will certainly return to you according to the time of life and lo, Sarah your wife shall have a son.”
Sarah laughed. The laugh of unbelief is motivated by fear, the opposite of faith. The Lord hears us when we laugh in unbelief though we deny it. Remember Abraham fell upon his face and laughed at the same promises in 17:17. With the Lord sitting in their home, both Abraham and Sarah laughed.
Genesis 18:11: “Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.” Abraham was almost 100 and Sarah almost 90. And “none saith, RESTORE.” (Isa. 42:22)
What did 90-year old Sarah look like:
The Circumstances of Old Age: In Her Youth:
Traditional Church:
Bald-headed
Jaded eyes
Drawn and colorless
Gnarled and wrinkled
Weak ears at the door
Arthritic hands
Lost the ability to feed
Careful in diet
Enlarged heart because of strain. Strong Heart
Sarah was restored!! God is restoring His Church!! Something happened between Genesis 18 and Genesis 20! Of all the young damsels in the land, Abimelech wanted Sarah. She had been rejuvenated. She had become a fair woman. She had experienced this change in one year because she believed and received the Word of the Lord. Hebrews 11:11 mentions her in the Faith Hall of Fame: “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.”
Truth (the word) in the inward parts is that which revitalizes the body and brings healing from within. The following is from one of the Dead Sea scrolls (related to the King by the chief prince Horkanosh): (The Message of the Scrolls, Simon & Schuster, 1957).
‘How …beautiful the look of her face…and how …fine is the hair of her head, how fair indeed are her eyes and how pleasing her nose and all the radiance of her face…how beautiful and how lovely all her whiteness. Her arms goodly to look upon and her hands how perfect...all the appearance of her hands.
How fair her palms and how long and fine all the fingers of her hands, her legs how beautiful and how without blemish her thighs, and all maidens and all brides that go beneath the wedding canopy are not more fair than she. And above all women is she lovely and higher is her beauty than that of them all, and with all of her beauty there is much wisdom in her, and the tip of her hands is comely.
And when the king heard the words of Horkanosh and the words of his two companions, for all three spoke as one man, he desired her exceedingly and he sent at once to bring her to him and he looked upon her and marveled at all her loveliness and took her to him to wife and sought to slay me.”
Now this was quite a visitation for Sarah. All of us hear would like the Lord to visit us and restore us as he did Sarah. It seems in 18:11 that Sarah had her ear to the tent door. We could compare this to the Church that is watching, praying and listening with her ear tuned to the Lord.
In verses 22-23, we see the power of intercession in the Covenant man:
(1) God changed from 50 to 45 to 30 to 10 to 10 righteous men in Sodom.