Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon, July 5 2009
During my college years, my summer job was painting. I remember having a conversation with one of the painters about Christianity. He not as a believer had real doubts about the Bible. And, I remember him citing the story of the binding of Isaac when Abraham was tested by God in Genesis 22. He was adamant in his belief that God of the Bible is cruel to order Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. And, he couldn’t believe in God who he saw as cruel and unjust. My goodness that was over twenty years ago. I don’t remember what I told him as a young Christian. But, I am sure I tried to answer him the best I could.
The name of God, Yahweh Yireh, or popularly known as Jehovah Jirah, that I would like to introduce to you this morning comes from Genesis 22. Yahweh Yireh means the LORD will provide. The personal I AM, who was, who is and who will be, who is personally grieved by our sins, who redeems us from our sins, this Yahweh is God who provides. This morning my prayer is that you encounter Yahweh Yireh and walk in confidence in him that the LORD will provide!
1. Yahweh Yireh tests you.
During my family time in Michigan, I met Brian Hommel who was a former professional baseball player and has been the chaplain for the Arizona Diamonbacks. He gave me a little book he wrote, ‘dropping the fig leaves.’ In defining his struggle in his own life, he wrote, “It is human nature to want the greatest amount of happiness with the least amount of pain.”[1] This is twisted sin nature of self-serving that only knows “My life for my life.” When we try to know God as the Provider through the eyes of self-serving, “My life for my life” attitude, we inevitably reduce God to the one who exists to make us happy; our self-serving selfish attitude seeks to domesticate God to our likes and wants.
But, Yahweh, the Great I AM, who was, who is, and who will be, the LORD has never allowed and will never allow his creation to usurp his authority as the Creator, the LORD, the Master, the Owner, the King.
So, what we see in Genesis 22:1 is God, Elohim, testing Abraham. Do you know that God tests to reveal what we are made of? He doesn’t test us because he doesn’t know us, for he knows us better that we know ourselves. He tests us in order to show us what we are made of. Are we the kind of people who are willing to love God with all our hearts, minds and souls? When God tests us, what would be revealed as most important to us? When God tests us, are we going to be revealed as people who simply trust God because he is beneficial to us, or we trust him with our lives?
Now, we as readers know what’s going on since the narrator tells us what’s going on here, namely that Abraham is being tested in this chapter. But, Abraham didn’t know any of this. Job was put through the fire of test and just like Abraham, he didn’t know what was going on either. So, imagine the shock when Abraham heard from God, “Take you son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.” Do you notice how this is getting more personal for Abraham? “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.” Ouch! Can you feel the pain Abraham must felt here?
This is Abraham who waited for 25 some years for Isaac to be given to him. In the previous chapter, there was this great joy of seeing beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promise to make Abraham a great nation with his offspring as numerous as stars.
But, when Isaac was old enough to wean off probably two or three, things got ugly in Abraham’s household. Sarah saw Ishmael mocking and she would have none of it. She demanded of Abraham. “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac,” Genesis 21:10. 21:11 says that the matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But, soon he found that God’s was on Sarah’s side on this. God came to Abraham. God addressed first Abraham’s distress and told him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant.” And, he told him why he should listen to whatever Sarah told him, it was because it is through Isaac that his offspring would be reckoned. And, God gave Abraham hope for his son Ishmael for he had a plan for Ishmael, to make him into a nation. So, in Genesis 21:14, we see him sending away his firstborn son Ishmael and Hagar. Here, although in distress Abraham submitted to God’s will for Ishmael.
This is the backdrop of when God came to test Abraham in Genesis 22. He’d been through a lot, but God wasn’t done with Abraham, more testing was required. God was going after Abraham’s heart, you will see.
A commentator writes that God’s command to Abraham in Hebrew has the sense of unusual gentleness. So, the nuance in Hebrew would be something like, “Please, take your son.” God understood the difficulty of the test and he spoke to Abraham with gentleness.[2]
Genesis 22:1... "Sometime later God tested Abraham..." This would be the answer to the doubt of the painter I mentioned earlier.
In later revelation, God clearly forbad in Leviticus 18:21 the Israelites from sacrificing of any of their children as offering to Molech for this would have profaned his name. He repeats this command in Deuteronomy 18:10 and 12, “Let no one be found among you who sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire,” for “Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD.” One thing that you can count on God is he is consistent. So, we must understand Genesis 22, the binding of Isaac as in God testing to reveal what was most important to Abraham as well as for his son Isaac. God’s purpose of testing was to confirm what he knew of Abraham and Isaac; his intention was never to sacrifice a child. No doubt this command to sacrifice Isaac consumed Abraham, but for God the command was only an instrument of his testing. [3] God is not cruel as my painter friend understood him."
God also tested later time during the wilderness. After three days into from escaping Egypt, when they arrived in the desert and found only bitter water they couldn’t drink, people began to grumble against God. There, he turned the bitter water into sweet and drinkable. Exodus 15:25 says, “there he tested them.” Victor P. Hamilton says, “Will the Israelites take freedom with all the insecurities that freedom brings, or will they take incarceration and the guarantee of regular meals? That is the test,” says in his commentary. God tests to reveal what we are made of, what is most important to us, whether we will treasure him over all others.[4] Are we going to be lorded over by gifts from God or by Yahweh Yireh, the Provider, the gift Giver?
Consider God’s testing. “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering” Genesis 22:2. Ouch! The burnt offering, Hebrew in ola, is translated as holokautoma in the New Testament where we get holocaust.[5] The burnt offerings of animals were to be completely burned except for the hide on the altar (Leviticus 1). I remind you that Isaac was the very fulfillment of God’s own promise to make Abraham into a great nation, to bestow him great blessing, to make his offspring numerous as stars. God was asking Abraham, “Abraham, will you give up your son whom I gave to you?
2. Worship your Provider, Yahweh Yireh
Please, look down to Genesis 22:5 to how Abraham responded to his two servants, “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Abraham did not understand that God was putting him through a test, but what he understood was that obedience was a matter of worship. I think Abraham understood that the demand upon him from God went straight to the matter of priority. What made Abraham truly happy, was it because God promised and fulfilled his promise and gave him a son? Was he happy because of the gift he possessed or was he happy because of the gift Giver?
Worship is matter of priority. What does it mean to love God with all our heart, all our mind, all our strength, all our soul? What does it mean to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, as our spiritual act of worship? Abraham understood this that worship is matter of priority. It is no worship to love gifts more than the Giver of gifts. So, Abraham, without understanding that God’s purpose was to test his heart, not the actual act of child sacrifice, Abraham understood that God was more important than his son, his only son, whom he loved. This is worship to love the Giver of gifts more than gifts he gives.
3. Trust your Provider, Yahweh Yireh
Going back to his response to his servants, “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” We as in himself and Isaac will worship and then we as again himself and Isaac will come back to you. Hebrews 11:17-19 interprets for us clearly what was going through Abraham’s mind. It says, “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who received the promises was about to sacrifice his on 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 raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”
When God tested Abraham, when God confronted his heart and mind for his allegiance, his love, his delight, his trust, he could only reconcile the fact God was demanding back the gift of his son Isaac God gave to him only through his belief in God’s power to raise the dead.
Already in Genesis, thousands of years before Jesus Christ, Abraham held on to faith of being sure of what he hoped for and being certain of what he could not see. He trusted Yahweh Yireh, the LORD will provide!
And, this is exactly what he believed and how he answered his son Isaac when Isaac asked him, “The fire and wood are here… but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” He answered Isaac, “God [Elohim] himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Abraham trusted in Yahweh Yireh, the LORD will provide!
Now, let’s look at Isaac. Back to Genesis 22:6, it says, “Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac.” This image foreshadowed of what was to take place on the Golgotha in John 19:17 where Jesus carried the cross.
Isaac was young, but strong enough to carry the wood for the burnt offering. Genesis 22:9, we see Abraham binding (the aquedah) his son Isaac and laying him on the altar. And, there Abraham drew his knife to slay his son. What you don’t see is Isaac trying to fight the rope and escape the certain death at the hands of his own father. [6] Again, it wasn’t because Isaac was weak and unable to fight off, but Father like son, as Abraham trusted in Yahweh Yireh, Isaac too trusted in Abraham, and ultimately Yahweh Yireh. That’s what you see here.
And, what’s significant is that Isaac’s obedient silence is captured in Isaiah 53:7. It speaks of the suffering servant, Jesus Christ… “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
Isaiah 53:10 says, “it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering.” And, 1 Peter 1:19-20, “but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” The difference is that Isaac was redeemed and was not killed while the ram Yahweh Yireh provided was killed and was offered as the burnt offering.
In Abraham’s determination to carry out sacrifice his child which was stopped by God foreshadowed Yahweh Yireh who didn’t hold back his One and only Son, Jesus Christ. Romans 8:31-32, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
4. Conclusion
Here is how it works. Yahweh Yireh wants to give himself, his One and only Son Jesus Christ to you and me. And, the only way to accept God Son into our lives is through worship and trust. Philippians 4:19, "But my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
God is testing you to see if you love him more than all the gifts he gives? God is testing you to see if you know him, Yahweh Yireh, the Great Provider, who demands everything from you, your life, your possession, all that you treasure, in return Yahweh Yireh gives you Jesus Christ.
[1] Brian S. Hommel, A Search for Authenticity: dropping the fig leaves. Movement Publishing: Chandler, Arizona, 2008, p. 17.
[2] Gordon J. Wenham, vol. 2, Word Biblical Commentary : Genesis 16-50, electronic ed., Logos Library System; Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 113.
[3] Sailhamer, John H. “4. The binding of Isaac (22:1-14)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 2. 167. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1990.
[4] Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1995. p. 101.
[5] Ibid., p. 103.
[6] Ibid.. p. 110.
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