Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy Marketing for our church Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full. The glory of Jesus. Let's go. We are in Genesis, chapters 21, 22, 23. I love the book of Genesis. And to be honest, I've preached a lot of sermons on the content that we're in today. We're going to look at a really, really, really fascinating story of Abraham being called or being asked by God to sacrifice his one and only son, Isaac. Hey, if you haven't done the reading, go do that right now. Pause the video, pause the audio. Go do the reading. Come on back when you've actually done it. For those of you who are on a streak, I'm proud of you. I'm so glad that you've decided to go through the entire Bible and that you trust me and that you trust us to go through that journey with you. Let's look at Genesis chapters 21, 22, and 23 together. Let's dive in like always. We'll start with some context clues. Now, obviously the big focal point of this reading today is Genesis chapter 22. Tons of sermons have been written on Genesis chapter 22. But to be honest, Genesis chapter 22 has to actually get put into context with Genesis chapter 21 because there are two stories here that are actually getting paralleled. Now, it could be really easy to miss the fact that there are two stories getting paralleled, but in Jewish traditions, it's actually like prominent. Like, Jews know that there's what's called the binding of Isaac, which is called the Akedah, and then the phantom Akeda, which is the binding of Ishmael. Okay? So these stories are actually side by side. You realize this because in the first story in Genesis chapter 21, you just randomly get like, Ishmael and at like 13 years old. And then the very next story, okay, in Genesis chapter 22, Isaac's 13 years old. So like, this is this weird relationship with time. We don't get any stories about Isaac, and all of a sudden, I mean, any stories about Ishmael, and all of a sudden he's 13. And then you don't get any stories about Isaac, and then all of a sudden he's 13. And these stories are side by side. Let's look at the clues that kind of match these stories together. Okay, the first thing we're going to look at is Genesis chapter 21, verse 14. It says this early the next morning, Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Okay, so we get early the next morning, Abraham take some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. And we're going to compare that to Genesis chapter 22, verse 3. Genesis chapter 22, verse 3 says this, early the next morning, Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough burnt wood for the burnt for cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. So in both stories, we're going to get early in the morning, Abraham's going to get up and do something. Now we're going to go back to Genesis chapter 21 in verse 14. It's gonna then say, what does Abraham do? He gets the food and the skin of water, and he set them on Hagar's shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. The boy is Ishmael. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. So she gets these supplies placed on her. And if you look at Genesis chapter 22, verse 6, it says Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac. And he himself carried the fire and the knife. There's this correlation between Hagar and Ishmael and then Abraham and Isaac. And the story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is actually paralleled with Hagar who's out in the wilderness with Ishmael. And instead of being asked to sacrifice Ishmael, here's what happens. Hagar and Ishmael are sent away. And it says this. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. When she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, I cannot watch the boy die. And as she sat there, she began to sob. God heard the boy crying. The angel of God. So realize there's an angel of the Lord in the story with Abraham and Isaac as well. The angel of God called to Hagar. Got it. So there's an angel of God in both stories, both calling to the parent characters. An angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid. God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled a skin of water and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt. Well that makes sense. She's Egyptian, so she gets a wife for him who, who's also Egyptian. Now you can see the parallels. Early in the morning, supplies are loaded onto Hagar. There's angel of the Lord who cries out from heaven and almost like intervenes, right? The Bible says that Hagar just kind of like puts Ishmael under a bush because she doesn't want to watch the kid die. Now when you listen to the story, it kind of makes it seem like is this an infant? Like is this a toddler? But no, this is a 13 year old boy. What kind of 13 year old boy is being placed under a bush like to just. To what? Just starve to death? Like, like the story doesn't really make any sense. And so then the divine intervention is actually to make Hagar like enter into the pain of the story. She, she wants to avoid it. She's actually saying she went off and sat down about a bow shot away. For she thought, I cannot watch the boy die. I can't enter into the suffering. I don't, I don't want to see like how this is going to go bad. Now you would, you may be thinking like, wouldn't a 13 year old boy be like, I don't know, able to last longer in the wilderness than this woman? And so lots of questions. Okay, now we have to like, we've created context now for Genesis chapter 22. The chapter 22 rolls around. Abraham now is going to have to sacrifice Isaac. And so verse six of Genesis, chapter 22, Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac. And he himself carried the fire and the knife. And the both of them went on together. Isaac spoke up and said to his father, father, yes my son. Abraham replied, the fire and what are here? Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And the two of them went on together. And the two of them went on together. This, most rabbis and scholars think that this is the moment that Isaac understands exactly what's going to happen. Like, because there's two ways to read this verse. Verse 8. God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering. Colon, my son. Like the, that the, that the provision will be Isaac or hey, my son, don't worry, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering. It could go either way. And this is the point where Remember, Isaac is 13 years old. Abraham is really old. There's no way that Isaac would be weak enough. Or let's say it this way, there's no way that Abraham is strong enough to actually hold Isaac down to kill him. This verse right here, and the two of them went on together that prior to this moment, Abraham is kind of leading Isaac along. And then Isaac creates conversation, says, well, hey, he spoke up. The Hebrew therefore spoke up actually means that like Isaac interjects like Isaac interrupts Abraham talking. I don't know if you know, you've ever like been in the middle of like just doing something that you don't really want to do. It's almost like you're trying to make small talk. You don't want your son to get scared. You're definitely thinking through all of the ramifications of what's about to happen. And then Isaac just kind of like interrupts Abraham talking about the weather or sports or who made the playoffs or whatever. You know, Abraham's Making small talk about. He's like, hey, let's talk about. Let's talk about the fire and the water here, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering? And then Abraham answered, and a light bulb goes off in Isaac's mind. Here's the two things that we have to see. Number one, as opposed to Hagar, who's afraid to enter into the pain of what her son is dealing with, Abraham here invites questions and conversations. He enters into the pain. This dad is not able to prevent what's going to happen, but he's able to be present in what's happening. And then Isaac makes a willful decision. Now this is really, really important because if Isaac doesn't make a willful decision, then Abraham is just murdering his son. If Isaac is not a willing participant in the sacrifice, then Abraham is just doing something against Isaac's will. And if Abraham is doing something against Isaac's will, then this is not able to be a portrait of Jesus in God in the Garden of Gethsemane. See, we have all the ingredients for this story to actually be a type and shadow for Jesus in God the Father. Number one, the wood for the burnt offering is placed on the son, Isaac. The cross was actually carried by Jesus. Number two, Isaac has to actually agree or Isaac is on an ascent. He's not just going to the place of sacrifice, but has to go up to the place of sacrifice. In the same way that Jesus goes up to Calvary, he actually has to climb up a hill to get to the place where he's going to be sacrificed next. The ram that's actually sacrificed in place of Isaac is caught in a thicket. What's a thicket? A thicket is a thick thorn, a bush of thorns. And if you remember from Genesis chapter three, there were no thorns before Adam and Eve sinned, which means thorns are actually the symbol or the product of our sin. What does Jesus wear on his crown? What does Jesus wear on his head as a crown as he goes to the cross? A crown of thorns. And the ram is caught in the thicket. Why? Because the ram is going to be a substitute in place of Isaac. So not only is Jesus portrayed in the person of Isaac, but now he's portrayed in the ram. That's actually going to be the thing that saves Isaac's life, the substitute so that Isaac doesn't have to die. And then last, Abraham did not purchase or pay for this ram. It wasn't purchased. It was provided. No, it's provided because salvation cannot be bought. Salvation can only be procured by God for us. See, this picture is actually a foreshadow of Jesus and God. And what does Jesus say in the guard against Semini, Hey, I really don't want to do this, Okay? I don't want to do this. And I think there's an understanding if, if Jesus does not want to do this, then they kind of can't do this, right? People always say, what kind of father. Like, you know, they're. These are people who are kind of like, they feel like the cross is. Portrays God the Father in a negative light. They're like, what kind of loving father would pour out his wrath on his son so that all of us can get freedom? It's like, ah, a dad whose son has like, willingly agreed to that scenario. It's not like the father's dragging Jesus to the cross, making him do this. Jesus actually has to surrender and say, you know, of my own free will, I choose to do this. And we see that in this one verse, verse eight of chapter 22. And the two of them went on together. I don't know if they're halfway up the mountain at that point, but you can kind of think about it as the first half of the journey. Abraham's just kind of like leading Isaac. And then all of a sudden there's this conversation that shifts everything. Abraham enters into the pain, Abraham enters into the perplexity and the tension. And what happens is Isaac, because his dad is able to be present and lean in, Isaac leans in. And instead of Abraham dragging Isaac to the place of sacrifice, they journey on together. And what we see from the moment of Gethsemane on is that Jesus and the Father actually go to the cross together. It's not God the Father dragging Jesus to cross. It's the two of them go up together. Bible nerds. I have an announcement. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos releases May of 2025 in pre orders are officially open. When I began to learn Genesis in its proper context, I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget was a game changer for me because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really God's solution to chaos is never peace, but rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into and that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is A game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show, show notes to pre order, or head to crushing chaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life. And that starts with grabbing a copy of this book. Now back to the podcast. Now let's kind of wrap this up. That's all the context. Okay. By the way, there's a thicket in chapter 22 with the story of Abraham and Isaac. And there's a bush in chapter 21 with Hagar and Ishmael. Again, parallels in the story. There's the. A repeated word that gets used over and over in chapter 22. Chapter 22, verse 1, it says, sometime later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham. Here's Abraham's response, here I am. We're gonna get that repeated, actually, in chapter 22, verse 11. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham. What does Abraham say in response? Here I am. What does God want us to actually do in the middle of confusion when he asks us to sacrifice our son? But we don't know whether or not that's even moral. It's just to say, here I am. Like, I don't know all the answers. I don't have everything figured out, but I'm present. I'm here. I'm here. In the middle of the discomfort, in the middle of pain, I'm here. I think this is where in the Western world we value solutions over presence. But for God, God says, actually, I'm present. And the thing that I want from you is for you to be present. Present with other people, suffering, present in other people's pain, present in your own emotions, present in your own pain. Like that. The biggest thing that you could give is presence. So if we juxtapose these two stories. Hagar wants to avoid the pain of her son. The word isn't starving. I don't know. Like, starving would be, I guess, like not eating. I don't know what the word is when you can't drink. I don't know. It's like the liquid version of starving, whatever that is. Okay. Dying of thirst, dehydrating, I guess would be the word. Well, anyway, Hagar doesn't want to enter into the pain of watching her son. You know, dehydrate and die. But Abraham is willing to engage his son in questions as he's going through a moment of challenge and hardship. Okay, let's move to our nerdy nugget. One of the things that strikes me about this whole passage of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son is this, this little nerdy detail that Abraham doesn't need to ask any instructions on how to perform a child sacrifice. Abraham actually knows how to perform this sacrifice. And you may be wondering, why does Abraham know how to perform a human sacrifice? Well, Abraham knows how to perform a human sacrifice because every God in the surrounding cultures that Abraham would have been familiar with knew how to perform human sacrifices. And every God of every religion that Abraham was aware of demanded human sacrifices. This is a test for Abraham. But more than that, it's God revealing to Abraham, hey, guess what, man? I'm not like that. I'm not like baal, I'm not like these Canaanite gods. I'm not like them. I don't demand human sacrifices. Like, the fact that Abraham even thinks like, yeah, this is a fair thing for God to be asking reveals Abraham's worldview. According to Abraham's worldview, it's not wild or ridiculous that God would ask for this. This is totally within the realm of reason for Abraham. Yahweh asked for Abraham to kill Isaac, and Abraham goes, that's difficult. But that's standard operating procedure for every deity in the ancient world. And by the end of the story, what does Abraham actually know about God? Now, I don't demand human sacrifices. I don't do that. I think that for a lot of us, when we, when we get to Leviticus, we'll see this. We look at Leviticus and we go, oh, my gosh, so many rules. I can't believe God would demand all these sacrifices. But for the ancient person, they would have read Leviticus and went, finally, now I just know what God requires. I don't have to guess. I don't have to guess why it didn't rain and then offer to the gods the most valuable thing that I have, which is my child. I no longer have to play this guessing game as to whether or not God wants 20 goats or two goats or a cow or a lamb, or my son. God has finally just told me exactly what he demands. We read books like Leviticus and we think, man, this is so overwhelming. This is barbaric, and this is. This is so legalistic. The original audience would have read Leviticus and went. They would have breathed a sigh of Relief and gone. Now we know we don't even have to guess as to how much or how many or how often God has actually laid this out for us. And now we don't have to play this guessing game with the gods. So we get to the end of the story. And what is God actually doing? He's doing theology. He's fixing Abraham's understanding of who he is, who God is, that this is not the kind of God that would demand your son. What's our Thomas Truth is that the story, the whole story, Genesis chapter 22, ends with this. These words, verse 12. Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said, do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God. Now I know. Now I know. Why is this the thing that actually proves that now God knows? Well, because Abraham has been on a wild journey with God. And I think a lot of times we think that God should know how faithful we are once we go through a test or two. But for Abraham, he passed the test of being circumcised, but then he failed the test of telling Abimelech that Sarah was his wife. And then he failed the test of having sex with Hagar and having a whole kid. And. But then he passed the test of getting rid of Lot. But then he failed the test of telling the Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister, not his wife. He made that mistake twice, by the way. So Abraham has been in this journey of failing some tests, passing some tests, and I would say that this is his final exam. And there's a lot of times where I think you and I, we think we're at our final exam, but really we're only at, like, a midterm. A midterm test. This is just like a pop quiz. And I think that my encouragement to us today is to be faithful along the journey until we finally get to our Genesis chapter 22 moment. This whole story has been unfolding for 10 chapters in Abraham's life. This is the guy who left his father's house, but he took Lot and he has to get rid of Lot. And then he lies about whether or not his wife is his sister, but then he gets circumcised. But then there's a whole Hagar thing. He passes and fails and passes and fails. So God finally gives him a final test, and now God knows. I think there's a lot of us who have a pretty Calvinistic mindset that God's going to do whatever God's going to do because he knows everything. Yeah, God knows everything. But I actually think he knows everything. Not because he chooses to know everything, but because he actually takes the time to get to know us, that he learns us like he knows us because he's in relationship with us. And so he finally gets to the place where he tests Abraham. He doesn't tempt. He tests. He tests him. And he wants to know whether or not his character has developed to the point where he can be tested this final time and pass. That's my timeless juice for the day. All right, let's dive in tomorrow. Tomorrow's day 89. We'll be in Genesis chapter 40. Genesis, chapter 24 to 27. I'll see you right here. I'm proud of you. If you're on a streak, don't break it. And I will see you right here as we keep tracking through Genesis. Love you guys. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebibledepartment. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow. It.