Lenox Federated Church - Firm Foundations, Creation to Christ

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Firm Foundations

Creation to Christ

Lesson 18 - God Gave Isaac; God Delivered Isaac from Death

Questions for the LFC Firm Foundations Coordinator may be emailed to firmfoundations@lenoxchurch.org

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REVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. What did God tell Abram after Lot left him?

a. God told Abram that He would give him all the land of Canaan.

b. God promised that Abram’s descendants would number more than the stars.

c. God said that Abram’s descendants would go to live in another country and that they would be ill-treated for four hundred years, but after that time, God would bring them back to the land of Canaan which God had promised to Abram.

2. What new names did God give to Abram and Sarai? Abraham and Sarah.

3. Why couldn’t Abraham and Sarah have a child unless God performed a miracle?

a. Sarah was unable to have a child.

b. They were both too old. Abraham was now 100 years old, and Sarah was 90 years old.

4. Who created the first man and woman and gives life to every baby? God.

5. Is there anything which God wants to do but cannot? No, God can do everything He wants to do.

6. Who knows the future of every person? Only God.

7. Did God know about all the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah? Yes.

8. If people ignore God, will He bypass them and not punish them? No, God is interested in all people. He is the judge of every person.

9. Why didn’t God immediately punish the evil people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and why doesn’t God immediately punish sinners now? Because God is loving, merciful, gracious, and patient, He gives people time to change their minds and trust in Him.

10. Does God merely threaten but never punish sinners? No, even though God is patient, He will eventually punish sinners.

11. Can anyone stop God from punishing people when He decides they have had sufficient time to repent (change their minds)? No, God is supreme. No one is greater than He is.

12. Why did the Lord send His angels to rescue Lot, his wife, and his family? Because Lot agreed with God that he was a sinner and trusted in God’s promises to send the Deliverer.

13. Why did God turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt? Because she disobeyed the command of the Lord when He told them they must not look back at the burning cities.

OPTIONAL THOUGHT QUESTION:

14. Men and women today are telling us that sexual relationships outside of marriage are all right, because everyone is doing it. Do you think God agrees? We know for certain that God does not agree, because God does not change.

In our last lesson we read that Abraham believed God, and God credited Abraham’s faith to him as righteousness.

- Today we are going to study the greatest test of Abraham’s faith.

- But more important than Abraham’s faith is the faithful God in whom he trusted.

God is the central focus of this story and of the whole Bible.

Even though Abraham and Sarah were too old to have children,

God had promised to give them a son.

- By this time, Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90.

- Sarah had laughed when God said she would have a child. Sarah had never had a child. She knew it was naturally impossible at her age. But nothing is impossible with God; He can do anything He wants to do.

Many years had passed since God first promised to give Abraham a son, but God hadn’t forgotten His promise.

- He had not changed His mind.

- Sarah had a son just as God had promised. Abraham and Sarah called their son Isaac.

God could decide to give Abraham and Sarah a son because He is the Creator of all people and all things.

- God gives life to all people everywhere.

- He gave life to our ancestors.

- He gave life to each of us and to our children. This world and everyone in it belongs to God.

- Abraham and Sarah belonged to God.

- Their son Isaac belonged to God.

Many years passed by, and Isaac grew to be a young man. His father and mother loved him. Abraham believed that all of God’s promises concerning the coming Deliverer were to be fulfilled through Isaac and his descendants. One day God told Abraham to do a most unexpected and difficult thing.

God was testing Abraham to see if he loved Isaac more than he loved God What authority did God have to tell Abraham to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice?

- Consider:

Does your neighbor or anyone else have the right to tell you what to do with your children, your house, your car, or your possessions? No! Why not? Because they are yours. They belong to you. They don’t belong to your neighbor. But didn’t Isaac belong to Abraham? Wasn’t Isaac Abraham’s son? Didn’t Abraham have authority over Isaac? Isaac was Abraham’s son, but who gave Isaac his life? Who gave Isaac to Abraham and Sarah? God did! Isaac belonged to God.

God gives life to every person and every living thing. God created everything. Therefore, God has authority over all people and all things.

Think about what was happening!

- What a surprise this must have been to Abraham!

- What an impossibly difficult test!

- Had God changed His mind about Isaac and His promises?

- How could God’s promises be fulfilled through Isaac if Abraham killed him?

- Had God changed His mind?

- Had God decided that the Deliverer would not be one of Isaac’s descendants?

How did Abraham respond?

- Even though Abraham was told to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, hedid not doubt or question God.

- He accepted what God had said. How could he respond like this? He knew and believed God.

- He knew that God would not lie.

- He knew that God would not give him promises and then change His mind.

- He trusted God and believed that God would still keep His word.

Wasn’t this an impossible thing for a man to do?

- Abraham was just a person like us.

- This test of his faith was terribly difficult—we might say, impossible.

- But Abraham had put his full trust in God.

- He had come to realize that God never fails!

- Consider:

It is hard for us to imagine one who never fails to keep His word. Oh, our intentions are often very good, but we just don’t follow thing we promised God is not like us. Abraham discovered just what each person needs to discover for himself: God never fails to do the things He has promised to do. We can fully trust Him. This is what God wants us to do—to BELIEVE Him.

Hebrews 11:19 says that Abraham believed that even if he did kill Isaac in obedience to God, God would raise Isaac from the dead.

- He knew it was impossible for man.

- But He trusted God to do this.

- Consider:

Abraham was different from Adam and Eve. When they were in the garden, God had told Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if he did, that day he would surely die. But when Satan told Eve they wouldn’t die, Adam and Eve believed Satan. They doubted the word of God, and they disobeyed Him. Adam and Eve did not believe God, but Abraham did. He believed that God would keep His word.

Because Abraham believed and trusted in God, he immediately made preparations to go to the place where God promised to lead him.

Consider Isaac’s situation.

- He had undoubtedly witnessed many sacrifices.

- He could not understand why they had not taken a sheep with them to sacrifice.

- Abraham had not told Isaac what God had told him to do.

Abraham trusted God. Believing God is the most important thing that we can do.

- Just listening to a sermon or even hearing or reading the words of the Bible will not deliver us from Satan’s control.

- We must accept God’s words and trust in Him.

- Consider:

If you were sick and went to the doctor and he prescribed medicine, would it be any benefit to you if he only told you about the medicine and how it could heal you? Would just listening to him tell about it heal you? Only listening to God’s words will not help us. If we only listen but refuse to believe, then we are doing what Satan did when he spoke to Eve: We are calling God a liar. God will never accept those who refuse to believe Him. God accepts those who, like Abraham, believe all God says and trust only in Him.

There was no escape for Isaac.

- He was bound and laid on the altar.

- Abraham had lifted up the knife to kill him.

- God had commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, and there was no way for Isaac to escape once he was on the altar.

- Consider:

It was the same when God shut the door of the ark after Noah. Noah’s family and all the animals and birds were safe inside, but there was no escape for the people outside the ark who didn’t believe God and were shut out. And there was no escape for the people in the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when God sent down fire on them. There was no escape for Lot’s wife when she disobeyed God and looked back at the city of Sodom.

God saved Noah and his family from the flood. God saved Lot and his daughters from the fire which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Only God could save Isaac from being killed. Is there any way that we can save ourselves from death and everlasting punishment for our sins? No! We cannot save ourselves. God will punish all sin. No one can escape from God. God and only God can make a way to escape. Do you know what God did? Let’s read what the Bible says.

God saved Isaac; God told Abraham not to kill his son. Isaac couldn’t be saved, however, unless there was another suitable sacrifice to offer to God.

- Abraham and Isaac didn’t have a suitable sacrifice with them.

- But God provided another offering instead of Isaac.

- Abraham could not provide the sacrifice. God graciously provided a ram instead of Isaac.

God caused the ram to be caught by its horns in the bush.

- If it had been caught by any other part of its body, it would have injured itself by struggling and trying to get free.

- If it had been injured, it would not have been an acceptable offering to God. God would only accept a healthy, strong animal as a sacrifice. Because God is perfect, He will only accept whatever is perfect. God provided an acceptable sacrifice in place of Isaac.

God is faithful.

- He kept His promise to Abraham.

- Through Isaac, God would give Abraham many descendants. Abraham took Isaac off the altar and put the ram which God had provided on the altar so it could be killed instead of Isaac.

- Abraham killed the ram and burned it as an offering to God.

- The ram died instead of Isaac.

- The ram was his substitute.

- God saved Isaac by providing the ram to die in his place.

Abraham called the place where God provided the ram “The Lord will provide.”

- God provided a ram to die instead of Isaac.

- Abraham believed that God would also provide the Deliverer to rescue mankind from the power of Satan and from the punishment of sin.

We cannot begin to imagine such a difficult test as Abraham faced. But we can see that God rewarded Abraham’s faith. He provided a way for Isaac to be saved; He provided an acceptable sacrifice—a ram to die in his place. The line of the promised Deliverer was preserved. God can be completely trusted to fulfill His promises. God is worthy of our trust!

QUESTIONS:

1. Why was God able to give Abraham and Sarah a son even though he was 100 years old and she was 90?

a.

b.

2. What authority did God have to ask Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice?

a.

b.

3. Did Abraham think that God had changed His mind about Isaac being the father of a great nation and the forefather of the Deliverer?

4. What did Abraham think God might do?

5. Once Abraham had bound Isaac and put him on the altar, was there any way Isaac could deliver himself from death?

6. Is there any way a person can save himself from the payment of death and everlasting punishment which he deserves because of his sins?

7. Who spoke to Abraham and saved Isaac from death?

8. Was there anyone else who could have saved Isaac from death except God?

9. Who provided a sacrifice to take Isaac’s place?

10. Why was the ram held in the bush by its horns?

11. Why did Abraham call the place where God provided the ram “The Lord will provide”?

Suggested Daily Bible Readings:

Day 86: Deuteronomy, Chapters 18 and 19

Day 87: Deuteronomy, Chapters 20 and 21

Day 88: Deuteronomy, Chapters 22 and 23

Day 89: Deuteronomy, Chapters 23 and 25

Day 90: Deuteronomy, Chapters 26 and 27