Genesis 20 – 23
We finish out the story of Abraham and Sarah and explore some deep understanding of their relationship with God. Chapter 20 starts with Abraham giving his wife away, claiming she is his sister. The man who took her had a dream in verse 3 which protected Sarah from being defiled:
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”
Fortunately for all parties he had not slept with her and awoke to quickly return her. I am sure we all would love to have a vision or something clearly point out the obstacles in life, like Abimelech got. When we complain about things and wish for this often time all we need to do is dive into the Bible. God has provided us a guide book for almost any situation! Granted it may not have specifics of your problem or be up-to-date with technology, but it does go to the root causes.
As much as it does provide us great insight and give us stories of promise, like chapter 21 when God gives Abraham and Sarah a son names Isaac in their old age. This gives us hope that many times when we feel we are “due” something or have been “promised” something, we must wait. Think about Abraham, who was 100 when Isaac was born. That is a long time to wait for a promise!
God keeps his promises even if we tend to mess them up as in verse 13 where Hagar’s son Ishmael receives the promise even though he is not God’s intended “plan”:
I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.
This is cool when you think about it, we can mess God’s plan up royally and He still will honor his promise.
Chapter 22 is something I always struggle with since God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Think about it, you have waited 100 years to bear a son, and the one who promised him is now asking you to sacrifice him! I don’t care if God was before me with a burning bush, the only reason I would even start a journey like this is the knowledge of Abraham’s story. I would expect God to step in and therefore never intend on dropping the knife. Although that would appear to be obedience, it would not be since my heart would have no intention of completing the task.
This story foreshadows Jesus big time, but the only difference is Jesus was sacrificed! It shows the difficulty a father would have to allow his ONLY son to be sacrificed. We look at Jesus on the cross as salvation, but imagine God allowing this to happen! Would it change your decision at the altar knowing you son’s sacrifice would save the world? We should never casually accept what happened on the cross for our sake!