Episode 1659: God Will Provide

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,659 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Nick Drivas: I'm Nick Drivas. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your true calling. Having the ability to achieve the best possible you across the board in all ways.

And the number one way is to listen to the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: And not just on this day in the form Ram, but in the future, in the form of Christ. Maybe we're supposed to recognize the echoing of the Christ message in this passage and see that that grace and that horrifying beauty of God giving up. [00:01:00] The son whom he loved.

Nick Drivas: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship

Scott Maderer: Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you

Nick Drivas: can impact the world.

Scott Maderer: In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Genesis chapter 22 verses one through 14. I talk about struggling to find the gospel message in passages like this, and I also share how this echoes forward to the Christ message. Genesis chapter 22 verses one through 14 says, after these things, God tested Abraham.

He said to him, [00:02:00] Abraham and Abraham said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you. So Abraham Rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac.

He cut the wood for the burnt offering and sat out on and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.

Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son, Isaac. And he carried himself the fire and the knife, and the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father, Abraham father, and he said, here I am, my son. And Isaac said, the fire and the wood are here, but where's the lamb for a burnt offering.

And Abraham said, God himself will [00:03:00] provide the lamb for a burnt offering. My son and the two of them walked on together. When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in a thicket by its horns.

Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place. The Lord will provide, as it is said, to this day, on the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided. This is one of those passages that I've struggled with. Over the years [00:04:00] as a father I hear this passage and I know that feeling of what it would be like to be asked to sacrifice your son.

And when I share those feelings, when I talk about that, I've heard all sorts of exclamations from different people about this passage. I've heard someone tell me that this passage only makes sense if somehow Abraham knew that this wasn't going to end in the sacrifice of his child. That's the way that story makes sense to them.

But to me that seems to change the message. It would be like saying Jesus wasn't really there on the cross and that he didn't really suffer. He didn't really feel it. He only appeared to be so. It seeming Abraham to be offering up his son because he knew it. That wasn't real. That [00:05:00] would somehow take away the meaning behind it in a way.

I mean, this passage, this text is so far from my experience in the world I grew up in, that I have to try to find ways to interpret it and listen to it. Maybe this is a, a model. Of a way to call out child sacrifice. Maybe it's modeling total obedience to God. I don't know exactly how to interpret it, and I finally kind of come to the point of recognizing that I don't know, and that's okay.

What did Abraham know? What do I know? What did God know? And I know, I know that last one sounds ridiculous, since we think of God as knowing everything, but. In Genesis 22, it says, as the voice of God stopped Abraham from using the knife, God said, now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son [00:06:00] from me.

Now I know, which would imply that somehow he didn't know that before. And again, that's that wrestling we have with God knows, and yet we have free will as well. Is this somehow a test for Abraham? And if it is, let's face it, Abraham's track record hasn't been all that great. Yes. Back at the beginning, a few weeks ago, we talked about Abraham being called and just going.

He just went and he drags along his extended family and everything else, and he doesn't argue, he doesn't wave, he just goes, but in the middle there's a lot of mess. There's Hagar, there's passing off of Sarah as a sister rather than a wife. Who was he trying to protect as he did that? Maybe there is the need for a test before this new plan of Gods is launched.

Even when you go to the Rabbi and the Jewish interpretations of this text it's not [00:07:00] talking about the sacrifice of Isaac, but rather the binding of Isaac, which is more accurate in a way because he was bound but not sacrificed, but. This doesn't really fit either exactly or not completely. There's debate about was child sacrifice even a thing in the surrounding nations and in certain cultic groups or even certain parts of Israel at this time?

And it's possible we're we're not really a hundred percent clear. And so maybe this was establishing that for the people of God, child sacrifice is not an accepted practice, but why not just make a decree about it? Why this ritual killing Sherrod? If we could set aside questions of blame as in whose fault is it that we're even here and recognize that.

In the world [00:08:00] today and in the world, then horrifying things happen on a way too regular basis, and maybe the message is that God is with us and that solutions, even for the most impossible of situations, can be found. If we just take a moment to breathe and to look. Maybe the underlying message is that God will provide.

We don't always know what, we don't always know how. We don't always know when. We don't always know or are not always comfortable with the solution that's provided, but God will provide. And that's really what it's about. Not explaining God or excusing God or defending God, but recognizing that God provides.

And maybe as well we can look at this with a lens of recognizing that Christ has come. I mean, Abraham says [00:09:00] God will provide the lamb and maybe for Christians, at least that's what we're recognizing, that God did indeed provide the lamb, not just on this day in the form of a ram, but in the future, in the form of Christ.

Maybe we're supposed to recognize the echoing of the Christ message in this passage. And see that grace and that horrifying beauty of God giving up the son whom he loved. Thanks for listening.

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