Genesis 21:1-7
The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
“Yet”
Don’t you love those conjunctions on which the whole world pivots? It’s almost laugh-out-loud funny. What mirth is aroused by the incredulity of Sarah’s pregnancy, deliverance, and suckling of a child! The woman is a nonagenarian for crying out loud.
Abraham’s body was as good as dead, and until now Sarah’s womb was barrenness (Romans 4:19).
Yet!
The neighbors were shocked silly. Centenarians do not become fathers. Ninety year olds do not have babies. Neither do virgins—but that’s another story.
Yet.
“Yet” is the Christian believer’s secret weapon. Let doubters, pessimists, skeptics, and agnostics line up their reasonable mainstream evidence and arguments. Even Sarah could not believe, without laughing, that God should suggest such an impossibility.
Except God doesn’t suggest the impossible. He accomplishes the impossible. And, oh yes, lest someone think it a fluke, there was another aged mother named Elizabeth whom everyone called barren. Regarding her the angel Gabriel pronounced, “Nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37) Again, that’s another story.
The conjunction “yet” introduces the true story in the life of every believer. When logic, common sense, biological science, precedence, and research all sew up their conclusions, the merry Christian happily says, “Yet …”
Here is the conjunction on which the Apostle Paul hinged all his hopes. Paul had been greatly harmed by a coppersmith named Alexander who opposed the Gospel of Christ. When Paul was hauled before the authorities and charged with preaching a subversive message, no one stood with him. Everyone deserted him. (2 Timothy 4:14-18)
“Yet”
Here it comes … the believer’s unfailing password.
Paul writes, “Yet the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.”
“Yet” is such a tiny word, yet it is God's Word for us to employ as often and freely as we like. It carries more than enough weight to turn the world, override any fear, prevail over any enemy, and justify our saving faith in the living Lord Jesus Christ.
If all those intractable obstacles preventing Sarah’s motherhood were powerless against God so that she could say, “Yet I have born Abraham a son in his old age,” can you not say, like the blind man, “Yet he opened my eyes.” (John 9:30). Martha believed when Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” God's Word is doubled-down for the highest stakes. “Yet shall he live!”
And our Lord always comes through.
Jesus rested his whole being on this tiny conjunction. He told his disciples, “Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet, I am not alone, for the Father is with me.” (John 16:31)
So, next time a diagnosis of illness, a discouragement, a despair, or the death of a loved one blocks your way and tells you no answer is possible, take out God’s little conjunction and say, “Through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, we are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:8-10)
Then go on your way laughing with joy.
