The Bible Recap - Day 019 (Genesis 22-24) - Year 6

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Yesterday we saw God fulfilling His 25-year-old promise to Abraham by giving him a son, Isaac. Today we had a pretty important story in Abraham's life. There are some really unique language things happening here that we need to pay attention to. So first, we started out with God's call on Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. This is crazy, right?

Human sacrifice, that's not the God we know, is it? No, you're right, it isn't. God does not delight in human sacrifice. This becomes obvious later, but it's even hinted at here. Abraham is called to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, not to sacrifice him. It's an offer God rejects, fortunately. God also refers to Isaac as Abraham's only son, which we know isn't literally true because of Ishmael, but in terms of the uniqueness of God's covenant with Abraham, it certainly

is true. You may remember that when God commanded Abraham to be circumcised, he immediately obeyed, and we see the same thing happening here. They set out on their journey early the next morning. Some of the toughest assignments in all of scripture are given to Abraham, and he doesn't seem to hesitate with any of it. First of all, Abraham knows that God is not going to make him kill Isaac, or that if he does, God will raise him from the dead, which by the way is something

we have no biblical record of prior to this. According to Hebrews 11, Abraham's faith was a huge faith. It was one that believed in something that had never yet been done. But it's not the size of our faith that makes things happen. It's the plan of God. And God's plan was for Isaac to live, but for Abraham to be tested. God knows our hearts, but the testing he puts us through reveals a lot to us about what we truly believe. And Abraham willingly faced the test. Here's where a lot of us may be shocked because most of us have gotten our theology from Renaissance paintings, which I've previously mentioned

as being terrible Bible teachers. Most of us picture Isaac as being a young boy when this happened, like five or six years old. But most Jewish historians say he was probably 25 to 30. And even logic would tell us that a small boy couldn't carry the large amount of wood required for an animal sacrifice up a mountain. At the very least, he would have been a teenager. This also points us to the fact that anyone who is strong enough to carry wood up a mountain is strong enough to resist their elderly dad when he tries to kill him. Abraham was over a hundred years old at this point, but Isaac didn't resist being the

sacrifice, just like Christ. Abraham was over a hundred years old at this point, but Isaac didn't resist being the sacrifice, just like Christ. And the wood that was laid on him that he carried up the mountain, does that sound familiar? This whole story is actually pointing us towards something greater than Isaac. Isaac is a Christ type. But then, as Isaac is on the altar, we see an appearance of the Angel of the Lord, capital L-O-R-D. In other words, God the Son before he was born on earth as Jesus.

He shows up and puts a stop to things. God provides a substitute. God provided the sacrifice just as Abraham said in 22, 8. It reminds me that all my sacrifices to God and for God originated as gifts from God. Nothing I offer God—worship or faith or good works or time or money—none of it finds its origin in me. When all of this happened, Abraham declared one of God's names. We see this a lot in Scripture.

People gave names based on what you do. They were a function of your activity or your character. This was how a lot of us got our last names. Someone in our lineage was a Smith or a Taylor or a Miller. Probably somebody in my lineage made shoes or maybe pies. Anyway, Abraham calls God the Lord who provides, Jehovah Jireh. God's names tell us about God's character and his actions. Put a pin in that because we'll come back to it in the future. Verse 14 goes on to say,

on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. One thing that's interesting here, this mountain in the land of Moriah where all this took place, there's a lot of reason to believe that this is the exact same place where Solomon would build his temple and that it's also on this stretch of mountains where Jesus was crucified. On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. And it was. God again reiterates his promise to Abraham through Isaac.

There would be many descendants and much land. And God says, in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Again, this is prophecy of Jesus, who came to save people from among every nation. Interestingly, even people who weren't a part of Abraham's family. In chapter 23, Sarah dies, and Abraham negotiates a burial spot for her. The reason this is a big deal is because here we have Abraham buying a plot of land in Canaan,

the very land God promised him, the land currently inhabited by his enemies. You guys, it's not just caves and fields and silver coins. It's significant. Then in chapter 24, Abraham is old and tired and he wants to make sure everything else is in order for his death. He makes an oath with his servant in a way that was customary at the time but was kind of bizarre. The texts describe him saying, put your hand under my thigh. But the generally accepted meaning is that it was more likely somewhere in the general thigh region where one might swear on their offspring if you get my drift. The reason is, this is a very big deal. At the time, Isaac was still single, and Abraham knew he would need to marry

in order to make many nations from his bloodline. And Abraham and Isaac were living in the land of their enemies, the Canaanites, people who were not circumcised as God commanded, and people who did not live according to God's ways. But it was the land God promised to give them eventually, and Abraham knew he needed to stay put. But there were zero options of women for his son to marry there, which meant he wouldn't be able to have grandchildren like God promised.

So Abraham needs to make sure Isaac marries only someone who worships the same God they worship. But all those women lived far away. You see the conundrum? Abraham's servant made the oath, then set out on a 20-plus day journey to Abraham's homeland. He went first to the well, which was a pretty smart move because that's where the young women went to draw water. He prayed a prayer, asking God for help and direction, and before he even finished praying, the answer to his prayers appeared. Rebecca

God had sent her to the well in his perfect timing in order to accomplish his plans. She was kind and generous. She had a servant's heart. And most importantly, she was from Abraham's clan. Her family didn't want her to leave, but she finally kept the apron strings and went back with Abraham's servant. As she was leaving, her family prayed the same blessing over her that God spoke over Isaac in 2217. And then there's this beautiful moment where 40-year-old Isaac, who is out working in the field, meets Rebecca, who had been working at the well. They were both walking out their calling and God crossed their paths through a weird oath,

a servant's prayer, and a bunch of camels. What was your God shot today? I'll tell you something beautiful that I noticed about the way God talks with Abraham. He has this way of talking to him that's specific yet vague. In 22 2, God says, go to one of the mountains which I shall tell you. In 12 1, it was the land that I will show you. So many of us just want God to tell us the whole plan so we can do it. But the point is not doing what God wants us to do so much as it is doing it with God and through His

power. It's like this. Let's say you're going on a road trip to a friend's beach house and you have two options. You can either ask your friend to tell you the destination address so you can type it into your GPS, then wave goodbye to them as you head out on your own. Or you can ask that friend to get in the car with you and show you the way there. Some of you introverts may think the former sounds better, but hopefully you get my point. We're on a journey with God as He leads us step by step. We're not just taking assignments and orders from Him.

It's way more beautiful to enjoy the intimacy that comes in the moment toto-moment interaction. So many of you are already experiencing this through our daily Bible reading plan. I've seen it in your Instagram posts, you've sent it to me in emails. You already know Him so much better than you did just three weeks ago because of this daily interaction

with Him, because you're starting to see with your own eyes that He's where the joy is. Each month we offer special bonus content to those of you who are ReCaptains. For the month of January, we have a bonus episode on helpful tools for Bible study. We'll be sending that out to ReCaptains who have joined at the bonus content tier or higher. If that's you, just log into your ReCaptain account to get your perks. Or if you've selected to have it emailed to you, you can look for it there. If you're a part of the ReCaptains at a different tier and you want access to this perk,

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