a. As we start looking at this passage we are greeted with a very abrupt description of the death of Sarah. There is no fanfare, no explanation of how she died. We are just told that Sarah is gone. As I said, Sarah greeted the full promises of God from afar. Sure she saw the promises being fulfilled but she did not witness the fullness of the promises. Sarah dies in the Promised Land but her family still does not own any land there. The land that her descendants will possess is still unowned. Moses mentions that she dies at Kiriath-arba which was the old Hittite name for what would be called Hebron. This means that somewhere since the last story Abraham moved his home back to where he used to live, near the oaks of Mamre. It was there that he built an altar to the Lord and now Sarah has breathed her last at the same place. Hebron would be a place that would have a long history for Sarah’s descendants. Hebron would be one of the cities that Joshua devotes to destruction. Some of the Anakim or the family of giants, according to Joshua 11, lived in Hebron. After the conquest, the city was given to Caleb, the one spy, along with Joshua, who trusted that God would fulfill his promise to Abraham. In the nation of Israel, Hebron was a city of refuge for those that had committed manslaughter. Samson would take the gates of the city of Gaza and carry them to Hebron where he displayed them on a hill. And it was at Hebron, that God told David to go to reign over Judah before he reigned over the united nation of Israel. Were are told that Sarah was 127 years old when she died. We are never told the impact of Sarah’s death on Abraham. They were probably married for over 100 years and had been on this adventure in the land of Canaan for over 60 years. Sarah got to see her promised child grow and become a man. Isaac was either 36 or 37 years old when she died. And Sarah is given the honor of being the only woman whose death and age at death are recorded in Scripture. Sarah was a special, chosen woman. Now, this isn’t the last time that Sarah is mentioned. We looked before at Galatians and saw her mentioned there. But there are two places in Scripture where Sarah is given as an example to follow. There is no other woman in the Bible who God calls his people to emulate. In Isaiah 51 it says, ““Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.” God says to those that are seeking him and his righteousness, look to Abraham and Sarah as an example of what that means. In 1 Peter 3, Peter points Christian wives to Sarah. She is the example of what it means to be a gorgeous woman, not outwardly but inwardly. “For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands.” Sarah submitted herself to Abraham even though Abraham did some fairly stupid things. She had her moments but overall she had a gentle and quiet spirit, which God finds very precious. How was she able to be submissive? Because Sarah did what was good and did not fear anything frightening. She was an example to women and to all people who seek the Lord by faith. Some of you might have heard of a woman named Ruth Bryan who died in 1860. Her correspondence and diary have been published and give you insight into the inner thoughts and struggles of a Christian seeking to follow God. Let me read to what a biographer wrote of her which made me think of Sarah. “It will be perceived she was one of the Lord’s favored children, often privileged to walk in His sunshine, and to dwell under His shadow. But be it remembered that the beauty of her character was all of GRACE. Without its wonder-working power, she would have been but a cumberer of the ground, a stone in nature’s quarry; but the Lord, in His Divine sovereignty and matchless love, took her from thence, to cleanse, and clothe, and consecrate her for Himself: and, under the hand of the Great Refiner, she was prepared and adorned to take her place among the living stones in His heavenly temple.”