Genesis 24 – Faith is the legacy

Abraham is now a very old man. He wasn't young when he started his big adventure in life, moving from Ur to Canaan. Now he's pushing 140. Sarah has died. Isaac is well into adult life, and ready to take over Abraham's responsibilities – for a family business and more importantly for living in that covenant relationship with God. But – he is still single. So Abraham is concerned – like all parents – to see his son settled and happily married. So he calls his chief steward, the servant who is kind of general manager of the family business, an older, trusted employee who is kind of like a godfather to Isaac. Abraham trusts him to find a suitable partner for Isaac. But he makes his promise, not to choose a wife from Canaan, but find someone from back up north, where Abraham's relatives still lived. More important than finding a partner, was preserving family purity.

The servant asks “What if I can't persuade a girl to come down south to marry Isaac, shall I take him up North instead?” And Abraham replies “No way. Whatever you do, don't take Isaac back up north. He must stay in the land God has promised.” Abraham's priorities are clear.

First, the land God has promised.  The first priority for Abraham, in looking to the future and setting Isaac up as a married man, is pursuing that promise. Don't leave the land. Make sure he stays in the land. Don't take him back up North. He has to stay in Canaan. Because that's the place God promised us.

And we need to make our first priority receiving the promises God has for us. We need to be concerned about appropriating the “land” that god has promised to give us. And in our NT world that is the Kingdom. It is the Spirit-filled life; it is the reality of being a New Community, the people of God today; it is the grace of God not only forgiving us but transforming us. It is the riches of our inheritance in Christ Jesus. And it may be the specifics of how God has spoken within the context of the New Covenant, into our personal lives.

Second, the blood-line. Family purity is the next priority. Abraham had taken the Egyptian Hagar as a wife and raised Ishmael. He and Sarah had experienced various challenges and difficulties among the Canaanites. It was important to Abraham that Isaac marry one of their own people.

We need to be concerned about purity – not in the racial sense but spiritually: if the desire for the racial purity in the OT means anything at all for us today, it means that we need to belong wholly to god and not compromise or trade the realities of the Kingdom of God for a “quiet life” or for a cheap sense of popularity. Paul says “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female...” and we want to be an inclusive community – but we want to be a community that belongs 100% to God.

And then, finally, the practicalities. Finding a wife for his son. Yes, it was important. He wanted to see it sorted. But it was not his first or even his second priority.

And interestingly, it is as Abraham stands firm in his desire to see Isaac enter and possess the land, that he is able to take a stand on faith – not just wishful thinking – and tell his servant “[God] will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from among our people up North.”

We have a legacy for the next generation. But the quality of that legacy will be determined by what are our priorities. Get them right. First, the promises. Second, the purity. Thirdly, the practicalities. So often we turn it on its head. We are concerned about the practicalities:

I could easily stop there. Do I hear an amen? I don't want one! I want briefly to unpack the rest of the story and show how that works out.... how the legacy Abraham wanted to leave, is secured. 

 

Almost immediately, the servant decides it is time to make a journey, pursue his master's desires, and find a wife for Isaac up North. So he provides himself with what he needs from Abraham's wealth, loading up ten camels with good gifts. When he gets there he sits by the well and prays for guidance (verses 12-14). He calls the Lord, “the God of Abraham””. That isn’t meant to suggest the servant worshipped another god. Not at all. The Lord was his God too – but God had made a covenant with Abraham and the servant says “show kindness to my master” and as we learned from Colin Symes, that word kindness is chesedh – covenant-keeping love! Literally “serve up covenant-keeping love”.

He prays that when he asks one of the girls who comes to the well, the girl God has chosen for Isaac will not only give him a drink but will water these ten camels. That is a lot of water. One big camel can drink as much as 200 litres – 40 gallons. Even if they were smaller – half that size, ten camels might drink 200 gallons of water.

"Camel" by "Jiron" licensed Creative Commons by SA 3

And as he finishes his prayer, this gorgeous girl, called Rebecca turns up, and draws water. The servant asks her for a drink, and she offers to water the camels; the servant observes her as she does this job, give her a nose ring and bracelets, and finds out that she is related to Abraham. She runs home to tell her family what has happened; her big brother Laban runs back to the well and the servant is invited to stay the night. Before eating he tells them why he is there – verses 34-49 are the servant's word-for-word retelling of the whole story.

Bethuel the girl's father and Laban her brother, immediately recognise God's hand in this, and it is all agreed, before dinner. I wish it was always that easy. That is – as the servant acknowledges in a prayer of thanks, God's covenant-keeping love at work.

So after a night of feasting, Abraham's servant is keen next day to get back home to report to his master how good God has been,. Mission accomplished! But the family, understandably, want to keep Rebecca for a while, to give her – and them – time to get used to the idea. It's all a bit sudden. But the servant is desperate to get home, so they ask Rebecca what she thinks and she is happy enough to go off there and then. I think she is a very special girl. Sure, she will have her weaknesses. A tendency to make a favourite of one of her twins, Jacob, and then resorting to deception and encouraged Jacob to do the same. So she is far from perfect. But she's beautiful, hard-working, decisive, fearless and adventurous. She turns out to be wise and sensitive to Isaac's needs and culture, putting on her veil as soon as she sees him. If she had chosen to wait – or indeed refused to go at all, her family would have respected that. But she was ready for the big adventure. How good god is to Abraham! He knows that all he can do has been done to pass on the right legacy to the future. How good god is to Isaac! He has a wonderful wife to comfort him after the death of his mother and as he begins to pick up where Abraham has left off (the servant treats Isaac as equal to Abraham now) he is beginning to enjoy the spiritual legacy of his father. We have a faithful and good God.

If we want to leave a legacy of faith, we need to get our priorities right: God's promises; spiritual purity, and then the practical details.

In the little story of Rebecca we are almost back where we started. Here is someone new, who is, like Abraham, prepared to leave her home comforts, and step out in to the big world, following God's call.

One last thing. There's one word that is used twice in the story – and missed out both times in the NIV! In v. 10, we are told that Abraham's servant “arose, and went to Mesopotamia;” and in v. 61, that “Rebecca and her maids arose, and rode upon the camels ...” (RSV gets it right both times!)

If we want to be part of the legacy, part of the promise, we need to arise. To stand up. To step out. 

© Gilmour Lilly July  2015

 

Genesis 23: Abraham – Loss and Hope

Loss: 
Eventually,  Abraham experiences a tragedy – and this time he is not offered a choice. His beautiful Sarah dies.  No-one can deny the sense of loss Abraham experienced at this point.  Despite the sadness, worry, confusion and shock he had felt at different stages in his life, Abraham's grief was so overwhelming that the writer actually mentions (for the first time) that Abraham wept. (v. 2)   He mourned – meaning eh wailed and beat his breast, and shed tears.  And only those who have experienced something like it can understand that loss. 

Loss is part of our experience, whether we choose it or not.   And we experience loss in different ways –

• the loss of a loved one as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death
• ageing or  life changing illness with the loss of health, |mobility, independence;
• loss of employment, of prospects and prosperity
• family break-up
• we lose a vision or a dream we have cherished.
• the death of traditional elements in our culture, so we lose familiar landmarks and  the Church loses status and influence in society
• change in our churches that feels like loss.

Bereavement changes our lives.  Those who have been through bereavement experiences will agree with that.  You experience the loss of a loved one.  Life changes – and as it does the sense of loss continues.

Change and loss are closely intertwined.  Loss is change.  Change – even positive change – involves loss.   Choice involves saying “No!” so one thing in order to say “Yes” to another.  The traditional marriage service includes the line “forsaking all others...”   Coming to Rosyth Baptist Church means not going to that other church down the road. 

So, for Abraham, there is a sense of loss. His only choice is what this change will do to his life: will he block it out and live in denial?  Will he allow it to dominate his thinking and ultimately destroy him?  Or will he face it, be reconciled to it, and begin to hope again.  

“Change marches onward – may all change be blessed”  so says Henry Twells in his old hymn, "Awake, O Lord, as in the time of old!" But not all change is welcome.  How can we ensure change is blessed?

Hope
Sarah's death had brought something home to him sharply: where would he bury

Sunset on Castleland HIll, July 2014 by G Lilly

her? He was still a stranger in Canaan: a visitor.  He needed somewhere to bury Sarah; but he needed, more importantly, to look to the future.  His time would come eventually; all that god had promised, he would need to hand over to Isaac.  This moment of loss was a moment to look to the future. 

So Abraham went to the Hittites who lived in the land.  He took a bag of silver with him; it was now or never.  Time to do a deal. 

What we have in the rest of the chapter is a description of a polite, formal discussion, a negotiation that ends up with Abraham being given the right to own land, and buying a field that included a convenient cave, from one of the Hittites called Ephron. 

Buying the cave was not just about honouring the past: it was about having a stake in the land. For the first time, Abraham actually owned a little piece of the promised land!  It wasn't much, but it was a  start.  One scholar calls it a “prophetic sign” of what God was going to do in Abraham's family, of the inevitable journey from being a tribe to being a nation.  Abraham would be buried in that cave (Chapter 25 9). So would Isaac (35. 27ff),  Rebecca and Leah (49. 31); and Jacob (carried all the way from Egypt, see 50. 13); And even Joseph: Exodus 13. 19 tells us that although Joseph was buried in Egypt, when Israel left Egypt, they took Joseph’s bones with them – for forty years in the desert – so they could be buried in Canaan.  It's all a way of saying “We are expecting God to give us this land.  It is our land.”  They were “looking for a country of their own” (Heb 11. 14). but they were also “longing for a better country – a heavenly one.”  (Heb 11. 16)  We need to live hopefully – for God's kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven;” and  for heaven itself.  And “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”  Romans 5. 5

So how do we move towards hope?

Firstly, stand up. Abraham  “rose from beside his dead wife” (NIV) or “left the place where his wife's body was lying”.  Literally “he stood up from the face of his dead.”  We need to consciously decide we are going to stand up.  Our loss is staring us in the face.  We feel wrecked.  We've cried, we've shouted, we've thrown things.  I was reading in the Gideon news about a guy called Steve Woodcock who's now a Pastor but who describes when he came back to God: “I had a little Gideon testament (which had survived remarkably well having been flung at walls) and  began to it”.   And some of us can relate to that.  We've told ourselves all hope is gone.  But we reach a point when – the the face of our loss – we stand up.

Secondly, be real.  Abraham admitted the weakness of his position.  “Here I am, grieving the loss of Sarah, and I am a foreigner and stranger among you.”  There's an urgency about this.  In the Middle East, burials have to take place within 24 hours of death. And there's a long term necessity about getting it sorted.  And as they speak, Abraham is in the embarrassing position of not owning property nor having the right to do so.  

Thirdly, press in. Abraham avoided distraction.  The Hittites responded by saying “No, Abraham, you're like a prince among us.  None will refuse his tomb for you to bury Sarah.”  It's very polite, very respectful; in fact, it's almost flattering.  And it's clever: they are actually sidestepping the issue:  “Abraham, you're a great man – a prince among us, we know your people are god's people. So you can use any burial cave you want – pick the best you can find.  But it won't actually change hands.”  It would have been easy to think “That sounds reasonable.  They recognise that I am a powerful, rich man....” But it's not good enough.  Don't be distracted by what sounds reasonable; don't be distracted by flattering words.   When Peter healed the beggar at the beautiful gate of the Temple, there were plenty of distractions – a crowd walking by, and some of them may have given the man money – but Peter and John said “Look at us!”.  Don’t be distracted by money or TV of career or reputation.  Don't be distracted by anything. 

Fourthly, pay the price.  When Abraham made the deal with Ephron, the land he bought was probably overpriced, but Abraham didn't haggle about the price.  He paid the four hundred shekels of silver straight away.  The point is not that “Nothing is too much to spend on my Sarah!”  (although I suspect that the funeral industry exploits that sort of sentiment) but “No price is too high for the future God has called me to be part of.”  Can we say that? “No price is too high for the future God has called me to be part of.”

Finally
We have to ask the same questions, face the same choices Abraham faced.  Do we live in denial, or face reality? Do we allow reality to crush us, or do we learn to hope. We can't choose to opt out. But we can choose how we respond.... 

• Face it.
• Honour the past.
• Embrace the future.
• Live hopefully.

© Gilmour Lilly July  2015

Genesis 22:

Photo by G Lilly

 "Tried and Tested"

This is one of the deepest and darkest pools in the ocean of Scripture.

The Test. Temptation is not a good word: God doesn't tempt anyone!

Question: Who needed to know what was in Abraham's heart?

It looks like God tests Abraham so that God will know what is in Abraham's heart. But the Hebrew word to Know (v 12) is yāḏa — “I know by experience”, or “I observe, take note”, so God doesn't need to find out what is happening in Abraham's heart. He isn't filling in the gaps in his knowledge – but maybe he is filling in the gaps in Abraham's knowledge... He is “proving” to Abraham where his faith and fear of God have taken him.

Photo by DAVID ILIFF. Used under creative Commons License

When Jonas Bjorkman is training Andy Murray, maybe having him repeat his serve over and over, the point is not just to satisfy Bjorkman, but to satisfy Murray, that he can do that serve. What Jonas Bjorkman knows about Murray's ability isn't going to win points on Centre Court: but what Murray knows may well win points. And we all need to move towards that point of “proven” faith, where we know what our faith can do.

What is God trying to “prove” or test? Not just that Abraham loves God more than he loves Isaac – but “To prove his faith” (John Kennedy) and his fear of God (v. 12). These two things: faith and fear; reliance and reverence.

Faith...

... in two specific things: God's Person and God's Power. Who God is and what God can do.

Who God is. This experience goes right to the character of God himself. Abraham had lived a lifetime in the belief that his God was not the same as the gods of the other people in Canaan. That his God was “the One True God” and was holy, pure, the Judge of all the earth, and One who would do what was right. Abraham's God was pure, not a fertility god represented by some nude statue; he is a God who gives, not some vile deity demanding infant sacrifices. The sacrificing of children was known in the ancient world, and God outlawed them as an abomination when he gave Moses the law. Was this – something Abraham may have heard of – what his God was now asking of him? Had he been wrong in his understanding of the character of his God? Was he worshipping a monster?

We will encounter things in our world, and in God's word, that cut across and challenge what we know of God's character. How can a God of love flood the world, or command the destruction of Jericho? How can a God of love allow the suffering that is taking place throughout the Arab world because of the so-called Islamic State? How can a God of love allow earthquakes and tsunamis? How can a God of love allow us to experience our own personal payload of suffering? Sometimes our answers – or the answers of other – sound cheap and trite, and add to our pain. It is a test of our faith, to encounter these things, and still believe that God's character is good. It's the ability to say “I know him: I have walked with him. And even though this is not consistent with what I know of Him, I will love him and trust him.” Abraham managed to hold all that together. That's faith! Job in the midst of incredible suffering made worse by people’s fumbling attempts to sort him out, said “I know that my Redeemer lives,  and at last he will stand upon the earth”; and Paul says “I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. ”

What God can do. Humanly speaking, if Abraham sacrificed Isaac, that was the end of all hope of becoming the father of a great nation. It was the end of God's promise. But as Abraham gets up in the morning to do what God had said, he does so in the confidence that God has made a promise and that God will still fulfil that promise. No delays. No discussions. No excuses. He simply makes the preparations he needs to – including taking firewood so that nothing will deflect him from this task. Twice he hints at his confidence in what God can do. In v. 5 he says to his servants “My son and I will go over there and worship, and then we will come back to you.” Then father and son haver a wee conversation that is full of affection; the boy asks “Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” and Abraham says “God will provide himself a lamb.” There is a confidence that God knows what he is doing and will provide the guidance and the material things that were needed at just the right moment.

But that moment is a long time in coming. Isaac is eventually tied, laid on the altar, and Abraham picks up the knife. What is going through his head at that moment. The writer to the Hebrews tells us, two thousand years later: 'It was by faith that Abraham, when God tested him, offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice. God made the promises to Abraham, but Abraham was ready to offer his own son as a sacrifice.  God had said, “The descendants I promised you will be from Isaac.” Abraham believed that God could raise the dead, and really, it was as if Abraham got Isaac back from death.' Hebrews 11. 17-19. That's a really remarkable level of faith.

Fear. 

 Don't imagine that Abraham did this easily, without emotion. The emotion was there: the writer simply doesn't mention it. This is an epic story from two millennia before Christ, not somebody's Facebook page: “Got to sacrifice Isaac today. So gutted...” The storytelling style is interested in events not emotions. But that doesn't mean Abraham was a cold fish, a kind of psychopathic type who was incapable of feeling. This took faith and courage at every level. It cost Abraham; but he goes with faith. Abraham has shown a level of faith in the reality of God, that fears Him. The fear of God is reverence for Him. It is a sense of respect for Who He is. “Lord you are who you are, you are good; you are able to raise up Isaac from the dead; I cannot disobey your word. What can I do but obey you! I lay my life down at your feet. No more striving to hold on to what you have promised. No more conniving and scheming to bring your future by my own efforts. Everything, everything, is yours.” That's the fear of God. It is a place of utter surrender, utter yieldedness to Him. The great preacher C H Spurgeon says that what Abraham did was “As much to sacrifice himself as to sacrifice his child”.

Fear of God is an outworking of Faith in God. It is related to a confidence in who God is and what God can do. It's not anxiety or terror. We are not saying “I wonder what he's going to get up to next!” It's not something that paralyses us; it's something that motivates us. Paul said “knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men”, (2 Cor 5. 11)

Blessings: 

It is to that place of relinquishment, faith, and fear, that God wants to take us. And it's not about whether we love Isaac, or our home, our ambitions or our families more than we love God. It's about surrender; it's about control. It's about taking our hands off the steering wheel.

In relinquishment, Abraham prophetically models the surrender of God who gave his son for the salvation of mankind. In letting go we model the character of our Heavenly Father – who “did not spare his own son but gave him up for us.

And in relinquishment, Abraham received the promise of God: see verses 15 and

Lewis Beach: Photo by G Lilly

following. God revealed himself as Yahweh Yireh – the Lord provides. God said “I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore.” God promised Abraham “by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” Relinquishment releases the promises of God into our lives. It releases his provision; it releases blessing not only for us but for the nations and peoples around us: “because you have obeyed my voice. It is in surrender and letting go, as an expression of faith in God and fear of God , that we best express the character of God , end experience the blessing of God.

© Gilmour Lilly July  2015