Last month was the Academy Awards – which, just so you know – I did not watch nor cared to watch. But each year at this ceremony they give out awards for all sort of things related to movies & movie making. I guess the top or most important or most anticipated awards are the “Best Actor,” “Best Actress,” & “Best Picture” awards. But another important award – not the top one but an important one nonetheless is the “Best Supporting Role” & they give 1 out for the best supporting role for an actor & 1 for the best supporting role for an actress as well.
Last week, in our study of James in 2:21-24, in order to illustrate his point that faith w/o works is dead uses the OT story of Abraham being willing to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice in obedience to the Lord’s command. And throughout the story & ever since then the spotlight is & has been on Abraham. And rightly so. But because of the emphasis on Abraham, because of our focus on his incredible act of trust & obedience & all the ramifications that came from that for Israel & for us as Christians, we have missed viewing & thinking much about Isaac’s role. So I would like for us to go back to Genesis 22 & look at this story again but this time let’s let spotlight shine on Isaac some because I would like to nominate him for the “Best Supporting Actor” award.
Genesis 22:1-19
This is 1 of the tremendous stories in the Bible. Abraham shines brighter here than anywhere else. We sit back & marvel at his trust & obedience. As fathers, we wonder if we could have done what Abraham was willing to do. But God appeared to Abraham for the purpose of testing him. Now God already knew what was in Abraham’s heart. This test was not going to reveal anything to God that He didn’t already know. But it was going to reveal a lot to Abraham, those who knew Abraham & to generations since.
-22:2 – Here we read of this startling, inconceivable command. And it was a command. “Abraham, go take your only son, this son whom who so dearly love & offer him as a sacrifice to Me.”
Now we are told in v.1 that God was testing Abraham, but Abraham did not know that – for that would have defeated the purpose of the test. Is it possible that God does the same thing in your life too? It is! He doesn’t show up & announce, “Chuck, I am going to test you.” Or “Chuck, what is happening to you right now is a test from Me.” No, things just happen (at least from our viewpoint). They seem to be random & we don’t necessarily associate them w/ a test from God.
Not let me bring in that very familiar verse from Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your what??? – own understanding! Take that verse, that principle & apply it to Abraham here.
? How can he not lean on his own understanding in light of the fact that what God has commanded him to do goes against everything he knows about God & the character of God?
? How can he not lean on his own understanding in light of fact that obeying God here will cancel out God’s covenant, God’s promise that through Isaac He would make him a great nation?
? How can he not lean on his own understanding when obeying this command seems opposite to what makes sense to him?
? Which brings up the question: What are you going to do when His command seems opposite of what makes sense to you? Maybe you are facing 1 of those kinds of situations right now - What are you going to do – lean on your own understanding or trust in the Lord w/ all your heart?
-22:3 – V.3 tells us that Abraham got up the next morning, gathered up everything that would be needed to carry out God’s command & took off the land of Moriah which was a couple of day’s journey. As I read this part of the story, I am reminded of something that was said about Jesus when He was facing a very difficult task. As time was growing closer for His sacrifice for us upon the cross & knowing that He had to allow the religious leaders to have their evil & wicked way over Him, we read in Luke 9:51 – “And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
I think the same could have been said about Abraham – even though he was facing the most difficult trial/test of his life, even though what God had commanded of him made no sense (do you ever feel like you are in that kind of situation), even though everything in him wanted to recoil at what he had to do – he was determined to obey God’s command – strange as it might have been. And so he “set his face” to go to the land of Moriah – which is what we need to do sometimes. We need to declare, “I’m going to ‘set my face’ to do what God has asked, what God has commanded of me to do, no matter how hard it is, no matter how illogical it seems, no matter how I may feel about it, no matter how I think it will cost me happiness – I will ‘set my face’ on doing what He has commanded me to do, all the while entrusting myself into His loving care & plan for me.”
It’s not a problem to “set your face” when the task is easy, when you can understand why God is asking something, when it doesn’t cost you something. Anyone can do that & there is not anything noteworthy about it. What is noteworthy is when you are facing a task like Jesus did & like Abraham did & you “set your face” to do what God wants you to do.
Let me ask you a few questions that flow out of this:
? How many times have you in disobeying God, not trusting God used the excuse & rationale that His command is just too hard or difficult? I don’t see how it could have been as difficult as Abraham’s or Jesus’, but they didn’t excuse or rationalize it away.
? How many times have you in disobeying God, not trusting God used the excuse & rationale that to trust & obey God didn’t make any sense? How could Abraham make any sense out of what God had commanded of him – yet he did it away.
? How many times have you debated & wrestled for days, weeks maybe months over what you know God wanted you to do – yet Abraham, when faced w/ this startling, inconceivable command gets the very next morning & takes off to fulfill God’s command?
And what made his decision all the more remarkable is that he had far, far less light about God than we do. He had practically no knowledge or understanding about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit. He did not have the Bible to go to for comfort, for encouragement & for promises.
Abraham, Isaac & their 2 servants travel from their home to 1 of the mountains in the land of Moriah. When they get w/ eyesight of the mountain, Abraham instructs the 2 servants (v.5) to wait behind as he & Isaac proceed to the mountain to worship.
As father & son continue on, we know Isaac is going over things in his mind for he asks his father (v.7) “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering, father?”
Abraham replied (v.8), “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” I would love to know what was in Abraham’s mind when he said that.
We are told in Hebrews 11:17-19 - By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
Abraham was so confident & convinced of God’s promise that through Isaac His seed would be blessed that he believed if Isaac were slain; God could & would raise him from the dead. Such was Abraham’s confidence in the character of God & that under no circumstance would God violate or fail to keep 1 of His promises. Two of the greatest themes you should constantly be looking for when you read the Bible are: 1. the character of God & 2. promises – and in reality if you look behind the promise you learn something about the character of God there as well. But those are 2 themes & truths that you will constantly need to be relying on, leaning on. And that’s what Abraham did – he trusted in God’s promise to him about Isaac & be believed that God would keep His promise, even if it involved doing something miraculous, doing something that had never been done before – he believed God would keep His promise because of the character of God.
Now I don’t know if Abraham’s answer in v.8 satisfied Isaac or whether he kept wondering about it because Scripture doesn’t tell us. You do have to wonder what Isaac was thinking at this point.
They finally arrive at the appointed place & we read (v.9) – “Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, [nothing unusual yet – but then we read] and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.”
Now that is striking to me & here’s where I want to shift the spotlight off Abraham & onto Isaac. Scripture does not tell us of any the conversation that occurred between Abraham & Isaac as Abraham at this point as prepared to sacrifice Isaac. Surely there must have been some because Isaac had to be bound & it wouldn’t have made sense why his father was doing that. This is 1 of those places where I wish Scripture was not silent. I would love to know what was said between father & son.
Get the scene or picture in your mind: Here is a young man, at least 20 years of age – don’t think this is a little child like maybe you have seen in some SS pictures. This is a young man 20 or even 30 years old.
Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. If Isaac is now 20, that puts Abraham at 120. Abraham lived to 175 years – which Genesis 25:8 refers to as “a ripe old age, an old man…”
So you have a strong young man of 20ish & an old man of 120ish. My point is, most likely Isaac could have overpowered his 120 year old father if he had wanted top resist. At the very least, he could have outrun him.
And yet – he submits to him & allows his father to bind him & lay him on the altar to be sacrifice. In other words, it is now crystal clear to Isaac that HE is the sacrifice. And he allows it. Does that strike you?
I am drawn to the trust & submission of Isaac to his father. The Law had not been given yet – but it was clear that human sacrifice was wrong.
We don’t know of the depth of Isaac’s faith in God at this age but it is clear the depth of his trust & submission to his father in the midst of what surely must have appeared as – illogical & irrational.
I think Isaac could have stopped this, had he chosen too – but there was a trust & submission in the face of what he did not understand.
This episode was the highpoint of trust & obedience in Abraham’s life but I submit to you that it was also the high point of trust & obedience in Isaac’s life as well.
Doesn’t this cause you to marvel at Isaac?
My application is this: I want to trust the Lord to the depth that Isaac trusted Abraham.
Here’s my question for us this morning:
? Do you trust God to the depth that Isaac trusted Abraham, his father?
? Do you trust God to the same depth as Isaac in all the areas where God is commanding you?
? Is there any area where do you lack a trust in God this morning – some area where there is a battle going on – to trust God or to lean on your own understanding?
-something w/ your family
-in your extended family – adult child
-your business or job
-something related to your future
-some area of guidance & right now there seems
to be no open doors or not even any doors to
knock on
-in your attitudes
-your finances
? Is there some promise of God that is a struggle to fully trust in & rest in?
Listen, if Isaac could so trust a human being – can we not trust God to the same depth as Isaac did Abraham?
I marvel at the trust of Abraham & rightly so but I also marvel at the trust of Isaac. And in some ways I marvel more at Isaac’s trust than Abraham’s because Isaac’s trust & submission was in his father, a mere human being who had faults as we read about in Genesis - whereas Abraham’s was in God. I think there was something a little bit different there in Isaac submitting to his father than Abraham submitting to God & it calls me to marvel at his trust.
Let me close w/ this: I know that sometimes you feel like God is asking you to sacrifice yourself; to sacrifice your dreams; to sacrifice your happiness. “Lord, You don’t know what You’re asking! You’re asking me to give up my dreams. You’re asking me to offer up my hope of happiness.” And you know what – you’re right. He is asking you to do that – He calls you to lay your dreams, your happiness, to lay yourself on that altar. But don’t miss the fact that it is not just a call to sacrifice those things or to sacrifice yourself just for the purpose of sacrificing but it is a call to sacrifice it TO someone – to God.
? Now in light of everything you know to be true about God,
? about His character,
? In light of all that He has done for you in Christ,
? in light of all that He is planning for you in Heaven -
Is it really a risk, a gamble to lay it on the altar to sacrifice it that God? In light of what is true about God & His plans for you, how could it be risk? And here is where knowing about the character of God is critical. But is it really a risk?
A while back I preached a message on rewards, God’s rewards & it was 1 of those messages that I crammed full of verses. I don’t usually do that because you can lose people if you they are having to turn to & think about too many passages, but I did it in that message because wanted to overwhelm you, in a sense, w/ how frequently God, through His Word, speaks on the subject of rewards, how frequently He promises rewards.
But again, when you think about God & all that He promises – is it really a risk?
As we close this morning – we have an altar here, a different kind from Abraham & Isaac but an altar where symbolically you can come & lay something upon it & offer up to the Lord.
I ask you this morning – would God want you to come & lay something upon this altar as a sacrifice to Him? And in so doing pray, “Father, help me to trust You to the depth that Isaac trusted Abraham.”
Maybe you need to get very specific, “Father, help me to trust in regard to _____ to the depth that Isaac trusted & submitted to Abraham.”
Is that something the Lord is asking, is wanting from you this morning? Trust in the Lord w/ all your heart & lean not on your own understanding. Would you come as we sing?
