With Faith God Provides
This morning we read chapters 22-24. The emphasis within these three chapters is faith. Blind faith. First, we see Abraham, who had waited his entire life to have children. His firstborn he sends away because it was with his servant Hagar and not his wife. Now, at one hundred years old, he has Isaac, and he loves him. But the Lord tells him to sacrifice the boy.
Foreshadowing Jesus
Isaac is a foreshadowing of Jesus, God’s only son, who He sacrificed for us. Much like Jesus had to carry His cross, Isaac had to carry the wood that became the altar on which Abraham was prepared to offer him as a sacrifice.
I would imagine Abraham was moving slowly, giving the Lord plenty of time to provide the offering. But he was still willing to obey the Lord.
We read in 22:7 where Isaac was noticing something a little strange as he carried the wood up the hill. He asks his father where the offering is. Did he know his father would tie him to the altar? What thoughts ran through his mind when his father tied him to the altar? How about when Abraham stood over him holding the knife?
But he survived because God provided the ram. God always provides. He demands our obedience, but He is not merciless. When we obey, He will not cause us to suffer.
Even so, you have to wonder about how that affected the relationship between father and son. Was Isaac impressed with his father’s faithfulness or appalled that he would sacrifice his only son?
Later Abraham sets into play this servant who would go get Isaac a wife. Customs in those days differed greatly from ours today. I can only imagine Isaac wondering – this man who would have killed me had not God intervened, is going to have his servant pick out a wife for me?
Rebekah had to have an equal amount of faith. Here is this servant who she allows to put a ring on her nose and bracelets on her wrist. She goes off to a foreign land to marry a man she had never seen.
But for both, this worked out very well.
There are many lessons we can take from this section of scripture. May I suggest this one: that when we trust in the Lord, He is going to provide us with good things. He will not harm us, as we saw with Abraham on the mountain, and He will not give us terrible relationships.
Matthew 7:9-11 states “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
We see through the story of Isaac that we can trust God to provide us with the things we need and even those we want. Yet, how often do we run ahead of God and reject what He is giving us, thinking we can somehow do better on our own?
Even though my wife is the fourth woman I married, I have known she was the wife He gave me and that I would only bring troubles upon myself if I did not respond to God’s command to love her every day. (see Ephesians 5:25) Some days are harder than others, but I am sure even more so for her. We find happiness by obeying God.
