13/08/2023
TOPIC - DIVINE VISITATION
TEXT- GENESIS 21:1-3
INTRODUCTION
“When God is ready to visit someone it doesn’t deal with background, age, status, condition, or faith of the person. Once He His ready to, His ready.”
And the LORD looked after Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time which God had told him. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.
Genesis 21:1-3.
And the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken, the question now is who is Sarah, what did the Lord told her, when, and how did he do it.
Sarah (Sarai in the old testament before God changed her name to Sarah Gen 17:15) is wife of Abraham who started out with him when God told Abraham to leave Haran (his father land) to a land He promised to show him (Gen 12:1-5). Sarah was childless until she was 90 years old but God promised Abraham that she will be a “mother of all nations” (Gen 17:19).
Sarah was embodies with fear and doubt that will she still be able to bear a child due to her body tension (Gen 11:30) she gave her maidservant (HAGAR) to Abraham so that Hagar might bear a child for them which she did (Gen 16:15) but because Abraham is embodies the theme faith and hope God repeated His promise,
And God said, “Your wife Sarah will certainly bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant, and with his offspring after him. ”
Gen 17:19.
God appeared to Abraham at the Oak tree of Mamre where he saw three angels and quickly entertained them, one of the angels ask Abraham about his wife and told him that “And he said, “I will certainly return to you, according to the time of life, and then your wife Sarah will have a son”. And Sarah heard it standing in the tent door, which was behind him.Gen18:10.
Sarah expresses her doubt in sarcastic laughter And when the promise is kept Gen 21:1-3, Sarah, overcome by joy.
We can see that Sarah is 90 years of age which is very impossible for her to bear a child but because of the divine visitation of God she was able to and this visitation make her realize that God is capable to do all things. When God is ready to visit someone no matter the state or status of that person He will do definitely as He said.
CHAPTER 1
WHAT IS DIVINE VISITATION
The word Divine can be defined as the coming from or relating to God while the world Visitation is defined as ;
• an official visit to a place or person (Longman dictionary)
• an act of going to see some person or place or thing for a short time (vocabulary)
• a visit for an inspection or supervision (education study)
• an event in which God or non human being seems to appear to someone or contact them (Collins)
• an occasion when a parent is allowed to spend time with their children (law)
What’s now Divine Visitation?
Before going into what Divine Visitation means I want to quickly tell us about a story of an event that happens doing my school time’s.
Some years ago, doing my Primary School period, the school I attended then wanted to start writing common entrance examination (final exams to secondary schools) in their building instead of taking their pupils to others schools to join them in writing the exam and for that to be possible they needed government approval. The Head Master of the school wrote to the government about it and they were given a date which the school will be inspected to check maybe they are qualified for the approval before allowing them to.
The Head Master started renovating the school after receiving the letter from the government for inspection, he renovated the buildings, and even redesigned the environment and to our surprised some of the teachers we don’t have then were employed and some teachers that are not doing their duties as expected were also sacked, pupils were all instructed to complete their notes to date and also to wash and iron their uniforms before coming to school daily.
On the day of inspection the staffs that were sent by the government officials were very happy with what they saw, both the development, the infrastructures and neatness of the pupils and on that day the school was given an approval from the government to start writing the exam in their building but they were told to try and look out for more students in the next session.
With the story above we can see that because the government gave the Head Master date for inspection/visitation the school became renovated and some things were put in place while some corrections were also made by sacking the bad teachers , telling the pupils to complete their notes and to always dress neat to school.. The visitation makes the school turn a new chapter and also became part of the best in the environment.
Divine Visitation
Division Visitation is when God visit someone either in an expected or unexpected time, Divine visitation does not come by accident, there is always a reason why God would pay us mortal visits. A look at the various times when God paid visits to men reveals that God always have a reason and a purpose and whenever God visit someone it’s always for maybe friendship, to reveal secret, for correction/ turning a new leaf and sometimes to test our faith/character and through visitation God bring goodness out from unexpected places.
Chapter 2
WAYS GOD VISIT
God works in different ways to prove to human being that He alone is the Lord of all things, some of the ways are,
through God Himself
through Angel
through His son
through prophet
through apostles
through believer
through dream
through visions.
Through God Himself
Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8-12). God visited Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He visited them just as He usually do so as to inspect and communication with them but on the day devil had tempted Eve and Adam to eat the fruit God told them not to eat, when they both heard God walking in the Garden (inspecting the garden) they both hid and were filled with shame to face God. Immediately God inspected the garden and saw that Adam and Eve had both ate the fruit He forbid then not to, he quickly made a correction by sending them out of the garden and He put living creatures and a flaming sword at the side of the garden.
And also ( Genesis 6:13-14,7:1-5,9:1-15). God visited Noah when He looked at the world and saw that it was evil and all the people were all living evil lives, He visited Noah and told him that He’s going to weep away the world with water (for correction) so He told Noah to build a Ark and instructs him to go inside with his family and some animals after God has used water to weep away the world, He made a covenant with Noah (for turning a new leaf). The visitation was for correcting the evils on the earth and to start a new world with Noah and his family.
(Moses Exodus 3:4-8, Samuel 1 Samuel 3:8-10 and so on )
Through Angel
Hagar (Genesis 16:7-11). After Hagar ran away from Abraham house, the angel of the Lord appear to her at a spring in the desert on the road to Shur and told her to Go back to her and be her slave and through the Angel the Lord made a covenant with her.
Also (Luke 1:38). God sent Angel Gabriel to a young woman named Mary the wife of Joseph. The Angel told her not to be afraid that she will become pregnant and give birth to a son named Jesus. The visit make the promise of God in (Gen 3:14) “Her offspring will crush your head” come to fulfillment.
(Peter Act 12:6-10, Herod 12:21-23 and so on)
TBC
