"The Lord Will Provide"
Text - Genesis 22:1-19
"Where’s God in all of this?" The question was thrown down like a challenge, almost defiantly, by the person who had come to visit me. Knowing the circumstances of that person’s life over the last couple of years, I could understand the attitude and context of their question.
I’ve found myself wondering where He is and what He’s doing on more than a few occasions in my life, too.
When I pulled the limp body of our little foster son from a farm pond in 1985, I spent 24 hours in the most incredible anguish unable to discern the voice of the Father.
When I lost a coveted position and went for months without any responses to my inquiries to many churches, I wondered if God had judged me unworthy!
I remember watching the TV video two years ago seeing the Trade Towers in NYC crumbling and wondering how such evil could be allowed to exist in a world that God says belongs to Him!
If we had time, I’m am certain each of you in this room could relate a time - a death, a divorce, a job loss, a rough time with a child, .... when you asked, "where is God in all of this?"
Life doesn’t come wrapped in neat packages with easy assembly instructions! Hard trials, difficult decisions, encounters with evil spirits and evil people, moments when God doesn’t make sense - all these come our way. In these moments of seeming madness there are two questions we must all answer -
Do I believe that God exists?
Since I am talking to a group of Christians, I am not going to spend time on this question today. There is evidence all around us - in the created World, in the revelation of Scripture, and in the testimony of Believers over the centuries to convince us that God exists. For most of us the more vexing question raised by the trials and/or disappointment in life is:
Can I, will I, trust God?
I invite you to renew your faith in Him today as we go again to to the a story from the life of Abraham, the father of the faithful. We continue our exploration of the book of Genesis. Today we will see evidence of the tremendous faith of Abraham as he trusted God through a time of testing that had to seem like madness to him as he passed through it. It tested the depth of this man’s faith like no other test in his life.
The great news? HE PASSED THE TEST! His example for us is flawless.
I invite you to open your Bible with me to Genesis 22:1-19
READ - Genesis 22: 1-4
When his promised son, Isaac, was about 15 years of age, after years of delight and raised expectations in this true son, God speaks once again to Abraham. This time the words are not words of comfort or promise. They are words that seem, at first hearing, to be madness.... sheer insanity -
Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.
Can you imagine what a blow this was to Abraham? Nothing in the Scripture tells us what is in his mind, what emotions he struggled with. But it is not hard to imagine.
Did he wrestle with shocked bewilderment?
"God, I know Your voice. I have walked with You, worshiped You, listened to You for years now. How could You ask this?"
I think the impact of God’s demand of Abraham is somewhat lost on us, because we know the whole story. We know that God never had any intent to take this test to its ultimate end... but Abraham did not! He only knew that he was faced with the most difficult test of his entire life!
"Take your son, your only son whom you love so much--and go sacrifice him!
Why would God put a man to this kind of test?
I asked that question this week. God is omniscient, that is, all-knowing. What could He possibly learn from subjecting Abraham to this test? I know the immediate answer you’re making -- God didn’t do it for Himself. He did for Abraham. That’s not entirely true! In v. 12, the clear indication is that God DID this for Himself!
"Now I know," the angel of the Lord says, "that your fear God because you have not withheld your only son!"
I am sure that you agree with me that God knew well in advance of this event what would happen. One of the attributes of God is His ability to know ALL things including the future! But there is also ample teaching in the Bible that there is a difference between "knowing" cognitively, that is, in terms of a thought or an idea and "knowing" in terms of EXPERIENCE!
God wants to experience our faith, our love, our trust.
Let me draw an example from marriage. Years ago, I told Bev I loved her in the most powerful way: I married her! She became my partner for life, not because of duty, not because of financial arrangement, not because our parents made a deal - but because of love. She knows cognitively that I love her. But, she continues to desire to experience my love for her just as I desire to experience her love. Thus, I tell her I love her. I greet her with a warm embrace and a kiss. I bring her gifts. These acts enrich with experience what she knows in her mind and heart! And... these acts strengthen my love for her, too, reinforcing the intent and purposes of my mind with visible words and actions.
God wants us to pray, to worship, to endure trials with faith - so that HE can experience our love.
It is also true that we benefit because our love for Him can be made deeper when we act in ways that reflect our intent and desire for Him.
God is also uncovering the answer to a KEY question for Abraham.
Why do you love me... for what I do FOR YOU or because I exist?
There seems to be an implied question in this long test....Am I like the other petty deities served by the people around you, Abraham, gods that they believe must be bribed to bless them OR am I a God you love because you believe I am worthy of devotion?
Abraham had to answer a question about the quality and focus of his love that was stunning, that was irrational by all human logic; that flew in the face of every promise he had received from God up to this time. It looked like God was taking back what He’d promised. I wondered if Abraham cried,
"God, what about those promises of descendants that will be too numerous to count?
What about that promise that my heirs will bless the whole earth? Why, what, how?"
In asking these questions, he would have been only human. But, Abraham’s faith remains incredibly strong. He chooses to trust and chooses to demonstrate his love for God and his faith with OBEDIENCE.
Take another look at v. 3. (READ)
He didn’t dawdle, delay, or ask for further clarification. He OBEYED immediately. I am inspired by this obedience. Indeed, it is a key to understanding his life of blessing. God spoke and Abraham obeyed... over and over again. May we be like Him. When we hear God speak, I pray that we will recognize His voice and PROMPTLY obey.
Let me caution you.
You may be tempted to EXCUSE YOURSELF from the hard decisions that faith requires of you.
Even when you CLEARLY know what God is saying to you, there may be a temptation to resist. And in that kind of stubbornness, many blessings are lost!
If we refuse His will, let’s not fall into yet another temptation - REBELLION.
In rebellion, there is always the temptation to mask our true heart with insincere words of worship. Even as we resist His will sweetly we sing, "I love you, Lord." How promptly we gush the right words in church company, but in our hearts we are stubbornly unyielding. God is not impressed with bare words. He wants to EXPERIENCE our love shown in our obedience.
ill.- A king of ancient Israel refused to obey God’s clear command, yet prepared elaborate sacrifices for Him. When Samuel the spokesman for the Lord showed up at the sacrificial assembly, he brought this stinging rebuke from God:
"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king." - 1 Samuel 15
IF your heart is not fully yielded to God - be careful about too many declarations made publically about how much you love Him, how much He means to you. Such words, unmatched by conviction and obedience, ring hollow and their obvious hypocrisy is apparent to everyone. It is much better to be honest and to admit that you’re struggling with faith. In those moments when He doesn’t make sense, when He seems silent, IF you lack assurance - admit it! That kind of humility, and confession of weakness, opens your life to the work of the Spirit and the support of other Believers.
Peter advised suffering Christians whom he led, (1 Peter 5:6) Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
Jesus reserves his strongest condemnations for those who play at religiosity, without giving their minds and hearts to the will of God in complete obedience. To some who lived like this, Jesus said-- First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.. . .you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. - Matthew 23
The tests that come your way in the plan and purpose of God will reveal your motives to you. Look carefully as the Spirit shines His light into your heart. IF you resist and rebel, you are saying: "God my love for you is highly conditional. I love you for what You do for me, more than for who you are."
Some in life’s deep crisis moments, who profess to be Believers turn on God, abandon worship, and reject faith. Don’t let that choice become YOUR choice. With deep humility, submit yourself to God. Weep, if you must. Sit in silence if you cannot sing or pray, allowing your very silence to be a cry for His Presence. He will not abandon you.
Job, that deeply tried man of faith, answered those who accused him of sin and faithlessness with a humble confession of his willingness to trust God in the moments when His ways cannot be discerned....
Job 23:8-10 "But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
Let me read you the rest of this story. . . Genesis 22:5-14
How did the man find the resolve to travel three days and remain steadfast in his task?
His teenage son has been on these kind of retreats before it would seem from the text. He asks, "Dad, we have the wood and the fire, but aren’t we missing an important part of this thing? Where’s the sacrificial lamb?"
Abraham’s faith doesn’t waver in the face of a question so loaded with emotion.
He says, "God will provide." The Hebrew text is great here. The word that our Bibles translate as "provide" is a word that means, ’to see.’ In fact, 8 out 10 times when the Hebrew word, raÕah /raw·aw appears it is translated, simply, ’see.’ Abraham answers his son’s question by saying, "God will see to it that we have a lamb!"
Later in the passage, after God called the test to halt and revealed the ram caught in the thicket, Abraham because of his obedience, deepened his conviction about the sufficiency of God and gave the Lord a new name: Yahweh Yireh - The Lord who sees to the provision for every need.
I have been in situations where I have protested to God... "Obedience will kill me, Lord." And my protest is met with silence. No explanation comes. No reassurance is given. I have only to do what I know that He demands of me. But in obedience, I have discovered that what I thought would I certainly bring my death, actually opens the door to greater life. It is rather like the person who is told that he needs heart surgery. The surgeon says, "I can give you back your energy and strength, but I’m going to have to bring you to the edge of death, cut your chest open, and stop your heart to do the work." Now you have a choice, will you trust that surgeon’s skill and training, letting him figuratively kill you so you can find health?
God wants to make us whole, but sometimes His way takes us along a path that feels like we’re dying. Will we trust HIM? God provides, in the moment when we radically abandon ourselves to His will, by transforming the madness into something we could not have imagined.
St. Paul spoke of those moments when he prayed for the Believers in a church he had founded. Ephesians 3:17-21.... (May) Christ dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Do you love Him? Will you TRUST Him to ’see to it?’
Will you allow your faith to deepen and mature so that He is your YAHWEH JIREH, the One who provides?
The cost will be great, but what of merit or praiseworthiness is accomplished without cost? Compared to the rich rewards of obedience, the cost is nil. Remember that.
In radical obedience to God, if you have a focus in life that is set on loving His Will more than your own life, there will be those who say you are out of your mind. But they are reasoning only from the obvious, the visible.... as those who are without faith.
Let faith inform your actions. When it appears that God is asking you to throw away everything of worldly value- when your family and friends tell you that you’re crazy, listen once again.
It may be that you are hearing the wisdom that Jesus spoke when He said, Matthew 10:37-39
37 "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
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A final word.... coming back to where we started this morning....
Sometimes the world seems mad, life is simply insanity. If you have given your life to Christ, stand firm in these moments by trusting in His power and His purpose. Tho’ evil seems to triumph, what Christ did on Calvary’s cross and the subsequent Resurrection is proof positive that His kingdom will prevail.
Lily Tomlin, the comedienne, is not usually quoted from pulpits, but she once quipped, "why is it when we talk to God, we call it prayer... but when God talks to us, we call it schizophrenia?"
We must NOT stop listening for the voice of God in our souls, no matter what those around us say. IF we do, how impoverished we will become.
Listen for Him.
Wait on His voice.
He IS speaking.
And sometimes... when what He says... by our estimation seems irrational, even downright crazy , make sure you’ve heard Him. If you have, then go ahead and endure the test! His plans and purposes prevail and always for OUR good.
I do not understand why He permits those situations that make us weep, that tear at our hearts, that provoke deep questions.... BUT I trust His hand to guide me safely home to His side.
Will YOU?
Have the faith of Abraham who said to his son, "God himself will provide." He is Yahweh Yireh - The Lord, our Provider. Amen.
Jerry D. Scott © 2003
