22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham!

Transcription

1 Genesis 22 One of the questions that is often asked, especially during my university days where students sit around and asks questions like these, and also on the internet is this: You tell me that your Christian God is a good God, and that we as human beings are supposed to obey whatever he calls us to do, right? What would you do, if God were to appear to you and ask you to kill or sacrifice your son? Would you do it? Have you been asked this question before? Or maybe you yourself came up with this question when reading the Bible. What was your answer? What is the answer? Should we obey God in that case? Well, some of the answers that I have heard are quite different from each other. There are those who say, of course you would obey God, he is God! If he asks you to do that, then of course you should do it and go kill/sacrifice your son/daughter. We must have faith in God and trust and obey him. There is nothing else! And then, another answer is that of course not! Why would we sacrifice our sons or daughters? What kind of God is that?! That is such an evil act, and I can t believe that a good God will ever ask that. If he did, then we have absolutely no obligation to follow or obey him. So, no, of course I won t do it. I don t even have to think about it. You see, these kind of questions sometimes are asked to trap us. Just like how the Pharisees asked Jesus some questions to trap him, sometimes people ask us this question to trap us. Sometimes, not all the time. Why is it a trap? You cannot answer this question yes or no without making it seem like the Christian God is an evil God. 1 P a g e

2 If you answer yes, of course I would obey a God who will ask me to sacrifice my son/daughter, then what kind of image of God will you be giving to the people asking you? If you answer, no, of course not! I will not obey this God who will ask this of us. It s just evil, then what you re doing is diminishing the authority and sovereignty of God, isn t it? What kind of God is this Christian God if you can just choose to disobey his command like this? So, however you answer this, you do not end up looking good. You end up making the Christian God an evil tyrant, or diminishing his authority or sovereignty. What are we to do? Well, let s look at where did this question actually comes from. As most of you would know, the reason why people ask this question is based upon the fact that that request or that command was actually given to someone in the Bible. That someone is Abraham, from Genesis 22. I m sure most of you are familiar with the story, but as always, because this is the word of God, there are always new things that we can learn from the story. If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Genesis 22, or you can just follow along with me in the booklet. 22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham! Here I am, he replied. 2 Then God said, Take your son, your only son, whom you love Isaac and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you. 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, Stay here 2 P a g e

3 with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you. 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, Father? Yes, my son? Abraham replied. The fire and wood are here, Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? 8 Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham! Abraham! Here I am, he replied. 12 Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. 15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. 3 P a g e

4 Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring[b] all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me. 19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba. As always, let us pray before we continue. Our Father in Heaven, we pray that the same Spirit who breathed out the Scriptures, and breathed out this book through your servant Moses, will breathe your words into us in a fresh, powerful and gripping way, so that we may see you more clearly and love you more dearly and follow you more nearly. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. If you look at page 11 of your notes, there is a page for you to take notes. As you can see there, there are three things that we can look at and learn from. The first is Abraham s unfailing obedience. (1) Abraham s unfailing obedience To see the full picture of Abraham s complete devotion and obedience to God, we first need to be reminded of the history of Isaac, his son and how he was born. You would remember from Genesis 12 that God promises that Abraham will be the father of many nations and his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky or as many as the sands on all the seashores. That is a lot of descendants! But many many years passed, and Sarah, his wife, is still not able to conceive a child. They were getting desperate and then finally Sarah suggested to Abraham that he sleeps with their slave, Hagar, to conceive a child. He did just that, and she bore Ishmael. But, it turns out that God s promise was not through Hagar, but through Sarah. 4 P a g e

5 So they had to wait even longer, and eventually Sarah s body was physically unable to conceive a child, but God miraculously gave them Isaac. Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was also in old age already. Can you imagine that, giving birth and becoming parents when you are 100 years old? How many of you here are one hundred years old? Isaac is a miracle child! God has given them the miracle child. That is in Genesis 21. Fast forward a number of years until Isaac is able to speak and understand things. And so we come to Genesis 22, God tests Abraham and calls out to Abraham! He says, Here I am. This is what God says in verse 2, Take your son, your only son, whom you love Isaac and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will show you. What must Abraham be feeling take your child, and kill it! Sacrifice it! What must he be thinking? What are you doing God?!? Why are you asking me to sacrifice my son?! My son whom I love! Why?! What s the point!? Nothing, silence. He was not told. And as readers of the Bible, there is also another question that we should be asking as well. We just read in Genesis 21 that God is the one who miraculously gave them Isaac, and now he is asking them to sacrifice him? What is going on? Why is God doing this? And isn t the line of the promised Messiah through this line of Isaac? Why is God trying to get rid of that? All these questions should be lingering at the back of our minds when we read this part. It is a very strange and absolutely puzzling command by God. But, Abraham did not say anything, but sets about obeying God straightaway. Abraham had an unfailing obedience to God. The God of the universe, the one who controls the stars, and holds up the universe by the power of his word, the one who holds all our lives in his hand, has just asked this Abraham, this small human being in this small part of the 5 P a g e

6 universe to sacrifice his son, do you not do it? Of course Abraham sets out to do it. He obeys God. We do not see Abraham having a discussion with God about the merits and justification of why he should do that. I know sometimes when I was growing up, especially when I was a teenager, when my parents would ask me to do something, I would always ask, Why? Why should I do it? Give me 5 good reasons why I should do that? Yes, that wasn t very nice of me. But we do not see Abraham doing that, do we? He just said, Here I am and sets out to obey God. Now, I m not saying that he did not grieve over it. I am absolutely certain that he is dreading the whole ordeal and absolutely crushed by the idea that he has to sacrifice his son. And this is not just a momentary thing. The next morning, he got up, loaded his donkey, took two servants with him and his son Isaac, and even had to get enough wood for the burnt offering. And then once all the preparation has been done, it took him three days to arrive at the place. Three days! I do not want to guess what must have been in his mind the whole time. And when he reached there, when he built an altar and arranged the wood on the altar. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar. How he did that with his son, I don t know. Whether Isaac struggled or tried to escape, we don t know. It is not told to us, except that Abraham seemed to be completely focused on obeying God s command to him. And when he has done all that, he lifted up his hands, with a knife in it, no doubt with tears flowing from his eyes about he is going to do, he plunges his knife down to slay his son. But at the last minute, Abraham! Abraham! 6 P a g e

7 Here I am He stops, and his son is spared. Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. What a great relief! He didn t have to sacrifice his son after all! But he was completely ready to do so. He had an unfailing obedience to God. And that is something amazing that we all need to learn from Abraham isn t it? This is the God of the universe that we are talking about. He is the one who made the whole universe, the one who sustains and the one who gave you life and who is giving you life, right at this moment. If he wanted to, he is absolutely just in ending my life right now. He can just stop my heart, and he is still just in doing so, because he is the creator. He gave me life and he has the right to take it away. And if this God commands me to do something, how can I not follow or obey his commands? Abraham had an unfailing obedience to God and his commands. Do we? Do we have that same conviction and drive to obey this almighty God? Or do we find excuses or reasons to sidestep God s commands to us? Let me give you an example. One of the many things that Jesus said his disciples need to do, is to deny themselves and take up their cross every day. Not just a few hours, or half a day or a few days, but every single day. So, as disciples of Christ, we are called to deny our own sinful and selfish desires, to take up our cross every day. But do we do that? I cannot tell you how often I have heard stories of Christians not wanting to go on missions trips because they are afraid that it may get too uncomfortable. I need my pillows and my bed. Or if they do go on mission trips, complaining all the time about how uncomfortable things are. Oh, why don t they do this? They don t have electricity? But it s something so basic! Whatever happened to taking up your cross and denying yourself? How about something closer to home and something a bit simpler? How about a normal Sunday church attendance? As Christians, we are called to not give up 7 P a g e

8 meeting together regularly in Hebrews 10, but how many of us, when we plan our holidays, we make sure that we come back in turn for our Sunday gathering? How many of us have made our weekend gatherings the indispensable time of the week, that we put the highest priority and make the most effort during the week to come for our weekend services? When I was a student, a common excuse that I heard during those times was that because they have an exam or test the week after, that they will skip church this weekend. That is not obeying God. Whatever you do, as far as possible (I understand that there are times where it is not), make sure and make the most effort to come to our church weekend services, because that is what God commanded us to do. Now, there are more reasons to do that, and in the coming months, I hope that I can cover some of those things. But, we are not to give up meeting together every week, to encourage each other, so that we all can be obedient to God. If Abraham had the unfailing obedience to God, even to the point of sacrificing his son, how much more should we be able to fulfil the commands of God in the New Testament? So, do you obey God? Are you planning to cultivate your increased obedience day after day? I m not saying the obedience that we see in Abraham just comes about in a day, but it is something that he has gained after many years of walking with the Lord. So, start walking with God, or if you already have, then make sure it s intentional, and that you are growing in your relationship day after day, so that one day, you can say that you have an unfailing obedience to God. That is our first point Abraham s unfailing obedience. Our second point is this Abraham s unfailing trust. 8 P a g e

9 (2) Abraham s unfailing trust To understand this point a bit further, we have to once again, go back to Genesis 12, and the promise that God gave him. In Genesis 12, we read that God calls Abraham out of a blue and makes him a grand promise. This is what God says there, I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. With that grand promise, with that word from God, Abraham has been then eagerly awaiting God to fulfil that promise. The readers are also waiting eagerly to see how God is going to fulfil that promise. But as we read on from that chapter onwards, we keep seeing obstacles after obstacles in the way of the promise. Sarah was barren the whole time, and they could not have a child. Has God been faithful to his promises? Has God failed? Abraham must be asking those questions. But then, as we saw, suddenly, in Genesis 21, we see that God miraculously provided a child for them! Isaac was born when they were very old, in fact, after they were much older than any child bearing age, but God miraculously gave them Isaac. We have been waiting for that! Yes, God has finally pulled through! You see, for us, it s just a couple of minutes of reading from Genesis 12 to 21, but it has been years after years and decades and after decades for Abraham and Sarah, with silence from God. They had no idea if God is going to fulfil his promise. They just had to live their lives, day after day, month after month and year after year, relying upon the word, upon the promise that God gave Abraham all those years ago. God said that he will make Abraham into a great nation with many descendants, Abraham only had those words to go on in his live. God did not appear to him all the time, every day to remind him about that. God told him some time ago, and he had to 9 P a g e

10 rely and trust upon God s word. He had an unfailing trust upon the promise and word of God. He believed God all those years. So, when Isaac came, God came through! God s promise will continue to live through Isaac! Yes! Finally! After so many years! God s promise and hope lies now in Isaac. So, when the command came from God to sacrifice Isaac, not only must Abraham struggle with the fact that he will lose his one and only beloved son, and not only that he must lose his one and only beloved son through him, that he will be the one doing the slaying, he must also struggle with the fact that God is asking him to terminate that one line of descendant through which God s promise was supposed to come. I mean, they waited years for Isaac to be born, and now he is just supposed to sacrifice him? From his viewpoint, it does not make any sense whatsoever. But despite all that, he still trusted God. He had an unfailing trust in God s promise, that even though God asked him to sacrifice his son, the one through whom God s promise was supposed to be fulfilled, he still set out to obey God, even if he did not understand it one bit. Turn with me quickly to Hebrews 11:17-19 the great chapter about the hall of fame of faith. Hebrews 11:17-19, this is what it says, By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promise was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking, he did receive Isaac back from the dead. Isaac was as good as dead when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice him. Abraham himself knew that he was not about to disobey God. He knew when God commanded Isaac to be sacrificed, Isaac was as good as dead. But what about God s promise? What about his word? What will happen to it? We see 10 P a g e

11 that in Hebrews 11, Abraham reasoned that, You know what? God is God, God can raise Isaac from the dead if he wanted to. He trusted in God s promise, even when sometimes, it does not make any sense whatsoever. All he needed was God s promise and God s word, and he trusted God s promise. He had an unfailing trust of God s promise. So, for us, do we trust in God s promises that we read from the Scriptures, from the Bible? Just like how God spoke to Abraham, God now speaks to us through his Word in the Bible. When we read the Bible, God speaks to us. And in the Scriptures, there are many promises of God, do we trust in those promise? Do we believe them, even when sometimes, the circumstances or situations do not make any sense whatsoever? This is especially important when we are going through seasons of our lives where there is hardship isn t it? Do we trust in God s promise of a new glorified body, when there is cancer is ravaging our bodies? When our hair is falling out one by one because of chemotherapy? Do we still trust in God when we receive news that we have terminal cancer? Do we believe God when he says through Paul that all things work for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose? Do we believe that or are tempted to believe the lies of Satan that God is punishing you or has left you? This is also important for those of us who have loved ones who do not know Christ, or who have strayed away from Christ. Do we believe it when God says that he is the sovereign one, that he is the one who saves people, not us? Do we trust in God s promise that he is the one who sends his Spirit to cause people to be born again so that they can enter the kingdom of God? God has given us his promise of the Gospel in Jesus Christ. 11 P a g e

12 Like Abraham, we need only to trust in God s promise. Like Abraham, sometimes, it is impossible for us to understand why and what God is doing, but we still trust God anyways. Abraham had an unfailing trust in God s promise, and that is something that all of us here need to learn to do. Pause. Let s go to our third point: (3) God s Unfailing Promise (3) God s Unfailing Promise God promised Abraham that through him all nations of the earth will be blessed, and that promise was supposed to be reckoned through Abraham s son, Isaac. So, readers will be left puzzled why God would ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But the fact of the matter is that Abraham did not slay Isaac. God did not let Abraham kill or sacrifice Isaac. At the last second, God stopped Abraham. Even Abraham himself had some kind of inkling that something is going on before that in the passage, isn t it? Have a look with me to verse 7, when Isaac asked his father, Father, where is the lamb for the burnt offering?, Abraham said that God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. After the angel of the Lord tells him that now God knows that Abraham fears God, because he has not withheld from him his son, his only son in verse 13, Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. He took the ram and sacrificed the ram instead as a burnt offering, and so Abraham called the place The Lord will Provide. And you know what, the Lord does and did indeed provide a lamb offering, about 4000 years later years later, there will be a Father, whose Son became the 12 P a g e

13 lamb offering, the lamb sacrifice. Unlike Abraham, who stopped his hand just before he slayed his son, this Father did not stop his hand, and crushed his Son on the cross. God the Father gave us his Son as the lamb offering, to die for us on the cross, for our sins. We are blessed through the offspring of Abraham, Jesus Christ. We are saved, because God the Father provided his Son to us as a sacrifice for our sins. That was God s promise from a long time ago. He did not fail in fulfilling his promise! It was God s unfailing promise that he will bless the world through Abraham, and he did just that by giving us his Son. So, this whole episode and story about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, is a picture about God s sacrifice of His Son. It is designed to help us understand and give us a clearer picture of what God the Father went through in giving us his son. Just as how Abraham took his one and only beloved son, to be sacrificed, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only beloved Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. The angel of the Lord said to Abraham in verse 15, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld you son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. And God is saying to us now, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because *I* have done this and have not withheld *my* son, my only beloved and begotten son, I have surely blessed you. And those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ throughout the centuries are considered the offspring and descendant of Abraham. Christians from all every nation, every tribe and every tongue, from all ages are as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore, because God the Father gave us his one and only Son. 13 P a g e

14 So, some of you may be thinking about halfway through this sermon, Wait a minute, Chin. Are you saying that the answer to the question at the beginning of the sermon is yes, that we should obey God if he asks us to sacrifice our child? Based only on the first two points of this sermon, I can understand why you would say that. No, that is not my answer, because of our third point, because of God s unfailing promise. God sacrificed his one and only son, so that we don t have to. This God of the universe, the one who upholds all things, to whom we owe all things, he has done it all for us, so that we don t have to. So, that story in Genesis 22 is not designed to say to us that if God commands us to sacrifice our son, that we should do it. But rather, it is the opposite. It is designed to point us forward to Jesus Christ, that God himself has sacrificed his own son so that we don t have to. God will never again ask or command us to something like that anymore, because it has been done by him. And our response to this wonderful God is to completely trust in him and obey him completely. We can trust in this God, even though sometimes we do not understand or have the answer, because we know that this God cares for us. He is not aloof and far away from us. He is there with us when we struggle, and he cares for us, so much so that he gave us his son. That is the Gospel message in a nutshell. And this wonderful magnificent message should not just stop with us is it? It should be going throughout all the world, letting everyone know of this wonderful Father, who cares for us. So, a very practical thing that I want you to do this coming Easter, is to invite you friends or family who do not know who this God is or who Jesus Christ is, to come to our Easter Sunday service. Start praying for who you want to ask now, and pray that God will give you the courage to do so. Think of a person or two, and start praying for 14 P a g e

15 opportunities to ask them. And then when you have done that, pray that God will work within the hearts of all those who will be here on that service. This is a very practical way that we can respond to this great God. People need to hear the Gospel, so let us invite our friends or family members to come and hear about this great God. Let me end by quoting this from an Australian scholar: Let us pray. In the gospel we do not find a catalogue of human religious sentiments offered up for our perusal, no buffet of philosophical theories for us to snack on. In the gospel there is no unearthing of relics and ritual to ponder, like broken pottery pieces from a dead civilization, nor are we offered merely modern mantras promising nice things for nice people. To the contrary, the gospel offers us much more, something much better than anyone could envision: the gospel is the offer of God himself. For in the gospel, God is the giver and gift all at once, a gift of life and love that comes by sharing in the life and love that is in his Son. This is the God of the gospel, the God who commands the attention of our intellects, the God who pushes the boundaries of our imagination, the God who stimulates our creative energies in art and music and literature, and the only God worthy or singing or studying about. 15 P a g e