Chuck Larsen

We had to show our passports when we checked in at the Airport for our flight to Israel. They wanted a solid photo ID to prove we were who we said we were. The airlines won’t take us at our word; they want some proof. The religious leaders in Jesus’ day understood his claims and asked for proof. They wanted signs and wonders. But, even when they got them, they didn’t believe Him. But Jesus’ best answer to them to prove His identity came in John 5:46. He told them that His portrait, photo ID, was on every page of the Old Testament and especially in the books of Moses. He said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.”

I’ve studied the book of Genesis many times. It is one of my favorite books. The last time I went through it in detail, looking for Jesus.  I found Him in creation, the fall, the flood, even at Babel, and in Abraham’s call. However, one of the clearest photos of Jesus is seen in the life of Isaac, the promised seed of Abraham. Isaac is a prototype of Jesus in too many ways to cover in this short devotional thought. Everything about Isaac really points to Jesus Christ. Isaac was the promised seed of the woman, just as Jesus was. The miracle birth of a 90-year-old woman sets the stage for the miracle birth of a virgin according to Old Testament prophecies.

But the most beautiful observation about the two is that both Isaac and Jesus had fathers who were willing to sacrifice their sons “on a hill far away.” The hill was named in Genesis 22:14. It’s Mount Moriah. That verse says that Abraham named that mountain a more meaningful name. It says, “So Abraham called the name of that place, ‘The LORD will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.’” According to 2 Chronicles 3:1, Mount Moriah is in Jerusalem. The range of mountains where Abraham built his altar would later become the very spot where Christ would die for the sins of the world. That’s why Genesis 22 keeps emphasizing the particular site of the mountain chosen by God (vv. 2, 3, 9, 14). “On the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” Two millennia later and two millennia ago, God became a man, went to the cross, and there, shedding His blood, bridged the gulf between His own holiness on the one hand, and you and me on the other. On the mountain of the Lord, it was provided.

Peter called Lot “righteous” even though he lived among the wicked and came to a very bitter end. God called Noah Righteous even though he also came to a disgraceful end. Abraham is another man that God calls righteous. He’s righteous not because he’s perfect (thank you, Lord) but because he trusted God. Genesis 15:6 says, “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

Abraham was far from perfect. The story in Genesis chapter 20 is a perfect example. He lies to Abimelech about Sarah and lets him take her for his wife. But God intercedes and protects Abimelech from Abraham’s lie. Then, he blesses Abimelech, and Abimelech responds by blessing Abraham with great wealth. Clearly, we see the truth of Romans 8:28, “God works all things together for good, to those who love Him.” He even uses our sins for His own purposes. God doesn’t love us for what we can do for Him. His love for us is unconditional. But this is not a license to sin; it is confidence in spite of our falling into sin. We’ve all sinned in the past, and we’ll all sin in the future, and if the truth be shared, we are all sinning at the moment. There are sins of commission and sins of omission, as James instructed.

Most of you have heard the children’s hymn, “Jesus loves me. This I know for the bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, I am weak, but he is strong, yes, Jesus loves me.” There’s another verse that we don’t sing very often. It says, “Jesus loves me when I’m good, when I do the things that I should. Jesus loves me when I’m bad, even though it makes him sad.” Yes, Jesus loves me and you even when we’re bad also. Kent Hughes writes, “It is so common to think that God will love us more if we perform some great work, some external achievement. But the Bible (and here the story of Abraham and Abimelech) focuses on making a great heart. Here God was working in Abraham to create an unusual dependence upon him, because (Kent quotes Oswald Chambers here) ‘He chose and used somebodies only when they renounced dependence on their natural abilities and resources.’” It is faith that pleases God. Without faith “it’s impossible to please God.”

Abraham is the most significant figure in the Bible, with the exception being Jesus Himself. It might come as a shock to learn that God’s choice of Abraham has nothing to do with Abraham’s worthiness. One commentator added, “God does not look down from heaven to find a person who has a bit of saving faith or a bit of righteousness and then say, ‘Oh, isn’t this wonderful! I’ve found somebody with a little bit of true faith! That makes it possible for me to save him. I think I will.’” No, not at all. According to Genesis 6:5, when God looks down from heaven upon the sons of man, he sees only evil in our hearts. Romans 3:10-12 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Abraham is no exception! We know that his father worshiped the moon god of Ur and trafficked in idols. That trait was handed down to his great-grandchildren. Jacob still maintained household idols. He was told to leave his family and their household. He took many of them with him! Abram was called from Ur to go to the Promised Land but only went halfway to Haran and stayed there for 20 years. These chapters are not about Abraham’s faithfulness to God, but it’s about God’s faithfulness to him. God’s promises to Abraham had to do with the promise of Genesis 3:15. The seed of the woman that would crush Satan’s head would come through him and his wife Sarah. He lied about his wife to Pharaoh and Abimelech to protect himself – putting the promised seed of the woman in jeopardy. God had to miraculously intervene in both cases. He doubted God and called Eleazar his heir! He doubted God and called Lot his heir! He doubted God and took Hagar to produce Ishmael as his heir.

Yes, Abraham, the great patriarch of faith, had his own hang ups and was anything but perfect. But God was faithful. Abraham was on a faith journey, and like Abraham our future rests upon God’s faithfulness not our own. All along the way we are learning that we can trust God and even if it takes a miracle, He’ll ensure our safe arrival. One commentator said, “God is always dependable, while we may not be at times. When we face setbacks, God is faithful. When we face guilt, God is faithful. When the bank account goes, God is faithful. When a loved one dies, God is faithful. When we know we have been faithless, God is faithful.” God is the only real marine; Always faithful!

In Genesis 18:14, we read about an angelic visit to Abraham and Sarah. We read a question the angel asked that should be a regular part of our daily thinking. The two angels appear, and Abraham prepares a meal for them. During their discussion, the Angel of the Lord informs Abraham that God is about to fulfill his promise to them of a child. Even though Abraham’s doubt caused him to look at Eleazar as his heir, then Lot, then Ishmael, the Angel now informed him that his wife Sarah was about to have the promised heir. In his “The Message” translation, Eugene Peterson records Sarah’s response: “Abraham and Sarah were old by this time, very old. Sarah was far past the age for having babies. Sarah laughed within herself, “an old woman like me? Get pregnant? With this old husband of mine?” I can hear my wife laugh if an angel said something like that to her, and I’m only 78!  Kathy is only 73. Abraham was nearly 100! Sarah was about 90 years old.

In response to Sarah’s laughter, the angel asked one of the most important questions in the world. This is the question we need to ask ourselves. He asked, “Is anything too hard for God?” God gave Adam and Eve a promise. We call it the “protoevangelium.” That means “the first Gospel.” It’s the promise of the seed of the woman that would defeat the seed of Satan. Eve looked for one with every birth. But with Cain and his line they forgot the promise and lost faith in God. By the time of Noah all had lost hope and the lineage of Seth had become polluted by fallen angels. But God made sure the promised seed would be pure. At the tower of Babel the world had lost hope again and tried to make their own way to heaven, but God stopped their efforts. Now with Abraham, God makes another promise about a child. It too would be in the line of the promised seed of the woman. It would preserve God’s promise and the hope of salvation for all mankind. I believe God purposefully chose to bring forth Isaac from the womb of Sarah with the seed of a 100 year old man, so we’d have an illustration of the truth that nothing is impossible with God!

I need to remind myself of that every day. Just as certainly as God brought Abraham and Sarah together in their old age to conceive and deliver the promised son of “laughter” Isaac, so too can God’s Holy Spirit hover over a young virgin and bring forth into this world the Son of God, the promised deliverer of Genesis 3:15. And just as certain as those two promises were fulfilled we can trust God also to bring that promised child back to reestablish a new heaven and a new earth where there’ll be no more tears, sorrow, pain, cancer, or death! God said it, we can believe it! Nothing is too hard for God!