God Is Not Through With You Yet - Part V
November 20118 |
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”
Joel 2:28
THIS SCRIPTURE INDICATES that God does not discriminate against women, which is verified in Galatians 3:28 when He said, “There is neither male nor female … in Christ Jesus.” So, God is trying to tell older women that He is not through with them as seen in the examples of Sarah, Naomi, and Elisabeth.
Sarah was married to Abraham when God told him to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to an unknown country. This meant that Sarah had to leave comforts of living, her family, friends, and everything she knew to live the rest of her life in a tent wandering, looking for an unknown place. On top of that, she was barren and could not provide an heir to carry on the family name, or fulfill the promise of God that from them He would make a great nation (Genesis 12:2).
Besides that, at two different times Abraham was willing to give her to a leader of a foreign nation to save his own life. If God had not intervened, the promise of God would never have been fulfilled. Since she could not have children, Sarah came up with the scheme of giving her handmaid, Hagar, to have children with Abraham instead of trusting God. Hagar had a child, but it caused a lot of problems because it was not God’s will or way. Twenty-five years after His original promise, when she was 90 and he was 100 years old, God gave Abraham and Sarah the child whose offspring would lead to the birth of Jesus Christ. Certainly God had not been through with Sarah.
Naomi experienced several hardships. She and her husband lived in Israel when a famine came, and they lost everything they had. As a result, they left Israel and moved to Moab, which was an idolatrous nation, and their boys married Moabite women. Before long her husband and two sons all died, and her world was turned upside down. She was devastated, but she was still used of God to influence her daughters-in-law. After 10 years, when the famine was over, she decided to move back to Israel, but she was bitter and believed God had caused her afflictions. She told her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab because she could not guarantee that things would be better for them in Israel away from their families. But, even though she was doubting and discouraged, God was not through with Naomi, and one of them, Ruth, insisted on coming back with her because she wanted to serve Naomi’s God. When they got back to Israel, like the Holy Spirit, she advised Ruth how to receive the blessings from a kinsman redeemer, which was a picture of Jesus Christ. As a result, Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, paid Naomi’s debt, married Ruth, and they became forerunners of King David, and ultimately, Jesus Christ.
Elisabeth was the wife of Zacharias, who was a Levite. She was also barren. Even though God said she and her husband were both righteous and blameless (Lk. 1:6), not being able to have children was considered to be the judgment of God and a reproach. They gave up hope of ever having a child, and quit praying for it (Lk. 1:13) because they were both too old (Lk. 1:7). But God was not through with her, and the angel of the Lord promised Zacharias that they would have a son who would be used of God to unify families, to turn the disobedient to righteousness, and prepare people for the ministry of Jesus Christ (Lk. 1:7). They hoped against hope (Rom. 4:18) by believing the promise of God and received a tremendous miracle from God, who was John the Baptist.
So regardless of age, gender, or circumstances, God was not through with these women, and He used them in great ways to impact multitudes of people, even up to today. If a person is alive, God still has a plan and purpose for his or her life (Jer. 29:11).
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