1493 - The Fear of Isaac, Genesis 15; 17;21; 22; 31

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1493. We're going to start the week off by going back to a podcast I did some time ago on the fear of Isaac, the dread of Isaac, about how when he thought about God, he trembled because he knew that God had asked his father, Abraham, to offer him as a sacrifice. And so I tell the story of that, and some are wanting to hear it again. And so I'm going to start the week with this, and then we'll get right back into our studies. So I pray that you enjoy this, that it answers some questions for those of you who want to hear it again, and I pray that this will be a blessing as you walk on the way. Today we're going to continue with the great cloud of witnesses, those who lived a life of faith, those who were chosen by God, anointed by God, and used by God to change nations, the direction of history, and they were mighty men and women of God. Today we're going to look at Yetzak, Isaac, whose name means laughter. Let's go back to the book of Genesis, chapter fifteen, where God said, I'm going to make you and your household as the sand of the sea. If you can count the stars in heaven, you can count your lineage, Abram. And Abram believed God. He knew that it was going to be a supernatural feat, according to chapter seventeen. God said it's not going to be Eliezer, don't you fear, because Abraham was filled with fear. No doubt. He was realizing his age. He knew that it was going to be a critical time in his life that God would somehow have to intervene in order for the promises to come true. And isn't it amazing that when we're living a life of faith, that doesn't mean that we don't doubt, that we don't question, that we don't have moments of fear and intrepidation. But just as in the New Testament, just because we have doubts does not mean that we are not people of faith. I mean, after all, the man that Jesus said was the greatest among all men, John the Baptist, no doubt the greatest preacher that ever lived, and yet he did no miracle. But he was a miracle. He was a child of old age, and he was a man of faith all the days of his life. He was a Nazarite, he was pure, he was holy, he was a righteous man, yes, a sinner, but he was a man of faith. I don't think anyone would question that John the Baptizer was a man of faith. Yet when he was imprisoned by Herod, when he was sitting waiting, knowing that he was going to die, he sent word unto Jesus by his emissaries, and here's what he said. Lord, I know that you're the one. I know no, no, no, no. He sent word to Jesus and said, Are you indeed the one that we've all been looking for, or should there be another? Should we look for another? That's right, John the Baptist, who was a cousin, a relative of Jesus. He knew who Jesus was. He saw the symbol of the Holy Spirit coming down upon him like a dove. He knew that he was the Messiah. He even pointed and said, There's the Lamb that's going to take away the sin of the world. Yet in a moment of crisis, he doubted. Does that mean that he's not a person of faith? Absolutely not. When you doubt, when you question, does that mean that you don't trust the Lord? Absolutely not. It means that you're having a moment of weakness. You're having a time of trial. You're having a time of testing. And if you fail the test, that doesn't mean that you're no longer a child of God or you're no longer a person of faith. It just means that you faltered. But God is the God of restoration, the God of redemption. And he sent word back to John and He did not give him a yes or no answer. Isn't it amazing? God doesn't always speak to us yes or no. No, we're not the prosecuting attorney that says just answer the question yes or no. You don't say that to God. And Jesus sent back word not yes I am he, but here's what he said. John, your disciples are going to tell you what I said, and here it is. The lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear. Those were words that John had read over and over again from the prophet Isaiah about the Messiah. So he knew that in the language of the Bible itself, in the language of the prophets themselves, Jesus had answered his question Yes. Yes, I am the fulfillment of all the Messianic promises concerning the Redeemer. I am he. And so God answers our questions many times in ways, our doubts many times in ways that we're not used to hearing. And think about it. There was Abram in chapter fifteen doubting. Yes, he believed God, he trusted God, but God had to bring him out and show him everything and illustrate it to him, and he trusted God. But then in chapter seventeen, he is fearful, and God says, Do not fear. Now why would God say do not fear unless he knew that Abraham was fearing? I mean, God's perfect. He sees the end from the beginning. He says, I am your provider, I'm your protector, I'm the one that will shield you, I'm the one that is your portion, I am your inheritance, I am the one who brings all this about. And he told Abram that he was going to have a son. Here in chapter 18, you have the promise that God gave to Abram as he was on his way to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And the scripture says that he said to Abram, Where is your wife, Sarah? So he said, Here in the tent, and he said, I will certainly return to you, this is verse ten of chapter eighteen. I will certainly return unto you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son. And Sarah was listening in the tent which was behind him, in the door. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. And Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I'm old will I have pleasure? The word pleasure is the word Aden Eden. It's gonna be like the Garden of Eden if I can have sex at my age. She said I'm worn out. That's the word there, well advanced in age, and the word for old that's also translated worn out. She said, I am past all this. And am I going to be like I'm in the Garden of Eden again? You see, Sarah looked at sexual relations with her husband not as a chore, but like being in paradise. That's right. She looked at sexual relations with her husband as paradise, as Aden. You say, Now wait just a minute. Are you saying it's supposed to be good? Well, that's what God says. I didn't say it. And so I'm just saying to you, Sarah looked at it as being in the Garden of Eden, and may the Lord increase her tribe. Moving right along, the scripture says that indeed Isaac was born, and you can read about that in chapter 21. And Abraham was a hundred, Sarah was ninety years old, and God miraculously gave them a child. Now it's interesting that Isaac is portrayed throughout the entire Old Testament as one that is in between Abram, the great father of faith, and Jacob, whose name was Israel, from which came the twelve patriarchs, the twelve tribes of Israel. It's almost like it's Isaac the lesser. Because out of the three great patriarchs of old, Isaac seems to be the one that is somewhat lagging behind, even though he was a miracle of God, the child of the old age of Abram and Sarah. Yet God so blessed Isaac, and he blessed him in the sense of riches, of flocks and herds and of wealth, and he was privileged to be buried along with his father Abraham, with his son Jacob, in the tomb of the patriarchs at the Machpilah in Hebron, with his wife Rebecca. These things are so important. But when we come to chapter twenty two, we read about the binding of Isaac. Now remember Isaac fourteen, fifteen years old here, and he is on his way with his father to the land of Moriah, where the temple would be built, where Aruna's threshing floor was, which had been a sacred site from time immemorial. Melchizedek, the great king of righteousness, lived there, in what is Salem in the Bible, Jerusalem today, and Mount Moriah, which is that crest of that hill upon which Jerusalem is the downward slope of that, that is David's city, the Kedron Valley to the east, and then the Mount of Olives rising up, and on the backside of that is the shadow of the rain and the desert, the Judean wilderness, then the Judean desert, and then the valley of the Jordan, the Dead Sea, Yamhamelech, the Sea of Salt, and then rising up on the other side, the eastern side of the Jordan. And so they were headed up to Moriah, Mount Moriah, and Isaac began to ask questions. He said, Father, we have all of these things, but where's the sacrifice? And Nabram said in chapter 22, he said, Please understand, son, that God will provide the lamb, the goat. The word here is the word for either a lamb or a goat or even a small calf or cattle. But it's out of the flock. God will provide. Some people get carried away and say, Well, it wasn't a lamb, it was a ram. Well, that's the same thing it was provided from the flock. But what I want you to see here is that Abraham bound Isaac. That's why it's called the binding of Isaac by the Jewish people. And this traumatized Isaac for the rest of his life. You say, wait, wait just a minute. Now how do you know that traumatized him? Well, first of all, I'm a human being, and it doesn't matter how godly you are when your dad ties you up and puts you on an altar and is about to slit your throat, that's traumatizing. Don't tell me it's not. It doesn't matter how much faith you have. Isaac was certainly a man of faith, but it traumatized him. How do I know that? Well, I turn to Genesis chapter 31. And when Laban is pursuing Jacob, the son of Isaac, one of the twin sons, that had now taken two women of the tribe of his father's brother, and he had Leah and Rachel, and they were leaving. And when Laban caught up, you'll recall there was a confrontation. I'll pick up on the narrative in Genesis chapter 31 and verse 36. Then Jacob was angry and rebuked Laban, when he had searched, of course, and could not find what he was looking for. He said, What is my trespass? What is my sin that you have so hotly pursued me, although you have searched all my things? What part of your household things have you found? Set it here before me, my brethren and your brethren, that they may judge between us both. These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried their young, and I have not eaten the rams of your flock, that which was torn by beast, I did not bring it to you, I bore the cost or the loss of it. You required it from my hand, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. There I was in the day, and drought consumed me, and by frost at night, and my sleep departed from my eyes, and he said, I did all that because of you. I knew the kind of man that you were. I knew that you were always greedy for more. Thus I have been in your house twenty years I served you, fourteen years for your two daughters. I bought 'em each one with seven years, six years for your flock. And he said, For twenty years I have served you, now why are you on my back? And he said, You have changed my wages ten times, and then verse forty two there is an amazing statement. Now listen to this. It says in the New King James, unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac. The word fear here is the word for dread, the dread of Isaac had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and he rebuked you last night. Now what's all this about, the fear of Isaac? This is no doubt what Jacob had heard from his own father. When he talked about God he probably trembled. You say, how do you know that? Because this is the word Plachad. It's the word for dread. Isaac was traumatized by being tied down on that altar and his father about to slit his throat. You say, well, Abraham was a man of faith, and in the book of Hebrews it says that he believed that if he had to kill Isaac, that God would raise him from the dead. Well, Isaac wasn't the great man of faith that his father was. He was just an obedient child, trusting his father, his earthly father. We don't know how much he knew of God at this time. Because you see, he wasn't even at the age of responsibility, the age of a man yet. He's described, why would the Bible describe him as the dread of Isaac? Because when you dread something, you tremble at the thought of it. And this is exactly what Isaac did. So this gives us an insight into Isaac and his relationship with God. Did he love God? Yes he did. Did he pray to God? Yes he did. Did he trust God? Yes he did. But he also feared God with an unusual fear simply because he saw his father being asked by God to do something that caused dread in his life, and that is he was going to be the sacrifice himself. So it traumatized him. And let me just share with you that sometimes what God asks us to do in the scripture is traumatizing. And we complain about having to witness to somebody and somebody making us feel uncomfortable. Let me just tell you, many, many in our generation, forgive me, of some of you who I know you have been traumatized in ministry by the mistreatment of others, but often say to young men and old alike who are complaining about how they were treated this, that, and other, I said, Have you been shipwrecked? Have you been beaten over and over again? Have you been stoned and left for dead? Have you really suffered that much? Or have you just become uncomfortable and maybe lost some prestige, maybe lost a salary, maybe had to do something that was uncomfortable? Maybe your wife and your children were uncomfortable. And you say, Yeah, but that made them bitter. No, it didn't make them bitter. They had a choice in that, and you and I do too. We cannot control the things that people do to us. We cannot control what people say to us, say about us, say about our family, the way they treat our family. But we can, by our own example, teach our children to not be bitter and to be forgiving and loving and move on if we have to. You say, well, they had to move from place to place, and my children, you know, didn't have a life like everybody else. Well, who said they were promised that? Now, folks, I'm not saying it's easy. Look, Karen and I have been married forty six years in just about three weeks. Hear me, forty six years and we have moved twenty two times. Our children, even though, yes, they were traumatized at times, yes, they were uncomfortable at times, yes, they didn't like me at times, they made it through because God's grace is sufficient. What I'm saying is, if the worst thing that can happen to us is we have to move and relocate and we have to do that several times, look, nobody's stoning us. And if somebody's shooting at you or somebody is stoning you, it may not be for Jesus' sake, it may be because of bad choices you made, or you're just being obnoxious. I don't know. But what I'm telling you is persecution is real and it's part of the Christian life. It's not something that's strange that's happened to us, this strange, fiery trial that's come upon us. It's the normal Christian life for the child of God is to be persecuted in this world. And so Isaac literally was put on an altar, tied down, and was about to be bled out, and God saved him, but it traumatized him for life. That's a little bit more about Isaac, the man of faith. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.