Day 11: The Sacrifice of Isaac — The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

hi i'm father mike schmitz and you're listening to the bible in the ear podcast where we encounter god's word and live life through the lens of scripture the bible in ear podcast is brought to you by ascension using the great adventure bible timeline we'll read all the way from genesis to revelation discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today this is day 11. so let's get started let's keep on moving we're not started we're cruising right now day 11. we're going to be reading from genesis chapter 22 and 23. very famous story but so so powerful and so important for us as christians genesis 22 and 23 we're also going to continue our walk with our friend job chapter 11 and 12 and we'll also be reading from proverbs chapter 2 verses 9 and 15. as always i am reading from the revised standard version catholic edition of the bible i'm using the great adventure bible from ascension and the reading plan that we're using is accessible to you if you want you can go to ascensionpress.com bible in a year again that's ascensionpress.com bible in a year you can also subscribe to this podcast by clicking subscribe and you can also sign up for our email list by texting the word catholic bible to the number 33777 again that's catholic bible to 3377 as i said today we're kicking off by looking at this and journeying with abraham in his greatest test of his life he's been tested so many times in his life called by god to be faithful and today we have uh the one of the greatest tests and one of the most iconic tests that is going to echo not just in his life but he's going to echo down the generations even to our lives today so we begin genesis chapter 22 and 23. after these things god tested abraham and said to him abraham and he said here am i he said take your son your only begotten son isaac whom you love and go to the land of moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which i shall tell you so abraham rose early in the morning settled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son isaac and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which god had told him on the third day abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off then abraham said to his young men stay here with the donkey i and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you and abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on isaac his son and took in his hand the fire and the knife so they went both of them together and isaac said to his father abraham my father and he said here am i my son he said behold the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for a burnt offering abraham said god will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son so they went both of them together when they came to the place of which god had told him abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood then abraham put forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son but the angel of the lord called to him from heaven and said abraham abraham and he said here am i he said do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him for now i know that you fear god seeing that you have not withheld your son your only begotten son from me and abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son 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 and the angel of the lord called abraham a second time from heaven and said by myself i have sworn says the lord because you have done this and have not withheld your son your only begotten son i will indeed bless you and i will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore and your descendants shall possess the gates of their enemies and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves because you have obeyed my voice so abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to bear sheba and abraham dwelt at beersheba now after these things it was told abraham behold milka also has borne children to your brother nehor who's the firstborn booze his brother kamil the father of aram kased hadzo pildash jidlaf and bethul bethuel became the father of rebecca these eight milkabor tenehore abraham's brother moreover his concubine whose name was ryuma bortiba gaham tahash and ma'aka sarah lived 127 years these were the years of the life of sarah and sarah died a kiriath arba that is hebron in the land of canaan and abraham went into the mourn for sarah and to weep for her and abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the hittites i am a stranger and a sojourner among you give me property among you for a burying place that i may bury my dead out of my sight the hittites answered abraham hear us my lord you are a mighty prince among us bury your dead in the choicest of our sepulchers none of us will withhold from you this sepulcher or hinder you from burying your dead abraham rose and bowed to the hittites the people of the land and he said to them if you are willing that i should bury my dead out of my sight hear me and entreat for me ephron the son of zohar that he may give me the cave of machpala which he owns which is at the end of his field for the full price let him give it to me in your presence as a possession for a burying place now ephron was sitting among the hittites and a from the hittite answered abraham in the hearing of the hittites of all who went in at the gate of his city no my lord hear me i give you the field and i give you the cave that is in it in the presence of the sons of my people i give it to you bury your dead then abraham bowed down before the people of the land and he said to ephron in the hearing of the people in the land but if you will hear me i will give the price of the field accept it from me that i may bury my dead there ephron answered abraham my lord listen to me a piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver what is that between you and me bury your dead abraham agreed with ephron and abraham weighed out for ephron the silver which he had named in the hearing of the hittites four hundred shekels of silver according to the weights current among the merchants so in the field of ephraim in makkpala which is to the east of mamra the field with a cave which was in it and all the trees that were in the field throughout its whole area was made over to abraham as a possession in the presence of the hittites before all who went in at the gate of his city after this abraham buried sarah his wife in the cave of the field of machpula east of mamra that is hebron in the land of canaan the field and the cave that is in it were made over to abraham as a possession for a burying place by the hittites job chapter 11 and 12 then so far the name of thy should a multitude of words go unanswered and a man full of talk be vindicated should your babble silence men and when you mock shall no one shame you for you say my doctrine is pure and i am clean in god's eyes but oh that god would speak and open his lip to you and that he would tell you of the secrets of wisdom for his manifold in understanding know then that god exacts of you less than your guilt deserves can you find out the deep things of god can you find out the limit of the almighty it is higher than heaven what can you do deeper than sheol what can you know its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea if he passes through and imprisons and calls to judgment who can hinder him for he knows worthless men when he sees iniquity will he not consider it but a stupid man will get understanding when a wild donkey's cult is born a man if you set your heart a right you will stretch out your hands towards him if iniquity is in your hand put it far away and let not wickedness dwell in your tents surely then you will lift up your face without blemish you will be secure and will not fear you will forget your misery you'll remember it is as waters that have passed away and your life will be brighter than noonday its darkness will be like the morning and you will have confidence because there is hope you will be protected and take your rest in safety you will lie down and none will make you afraid many will entreat your favor but the eyes of the wicked will fail all way of escape will be lost to them and their hope is to breathe their last then job answered no doubt you are the people and wisdom will die with you but i have understanding as well as you i'm not inferior to you who does not know such things as these i'm a laughingstock to my friends i who called upon god and he answered me a just and blameless man am a laughingstock in the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune it is ready for those whose feet slip the tents of the robbers are at peace those who provoke god are secure who bring their god in their hand but ask the beasts and they will teach you the birds of the air and they will tell you or the plants of the earth and they will teach you and the fish of the sea will declare to you who among all does not know that the hand of the lord has done this in his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind does not the ear try words as the palate tastes food wisdom is with the aged an understanding and length of days with god our wisdom and might he has counsel and understanding if he tears down none can rebuild if he shuts a man in none can open if he withholds the waters they dry up if he sends them out they overwhelm the land with him our strength and wisdom the deceived and the deceiver are his he leads counselors away stripped and judges he makes fools he looses the bonds of kings and binds the waste cloth on their loins he leads priests away stripped and overthrows the mighty he deprives of speech those who are trusted and takes away the discernment of the elders he pours contempt on princes and loses the belt of the strong he uncovers the deeps out of darkness and brings deep darkness to light he makes nations great and he destroys them he enlarges nations and he leads them away he takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth and makes them wander in a pathless waste they grope in the darkness without light and he makes them stagger like a drunken man proverbs chapter 2 verses 9-15 then you will understand righteousness and justice inequity every good path for wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul discretion will watch over you understanding will guard you delivering you from the way of evil from men of perverted speech who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways father in heaven we glorify you and you raise your name we thank you so much for your word we ask you to please enlighten our minds with your truth and enliven our hearts with your love in jesus name we pray amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen okay wow so that reading from uh genesis is uh pretty phenomenal but in so many ways we can hear this reading and like so many other readings of scripture where we we might not get it on the surface we don't get like what is god trying to reveal to us we think that this is just crazy i hope god never asks me of that i hope god never asks me to give him the thing i love the most because sometimes we look at this as some arbitrary story remember this abraham is over well over 100 years old at this point so abraham has been walking with the lord for so so long this is not god springs on abraham this uh this offering of a sacrifice in fact at the heart of everything in this reading is the fact that we talked about this yesterday that abraham is the father of faith and here is the moment where he not just demonstrates i would say he reveals he reveals the depth of his faith it is a profound trust in god abraham is not under the impression that god is going to take away his son isaac that this story will end with isaac's destruction how do we know this we know this for so many so many ways one is the very text itself what happens is if they have the two young men who accompany abraham and isaac and abraham says to the two young men we're going to go up to that mountain and we're going to both come back to you i mean he says it he says we're both coming back to you abraham says in the letter to the hebrews he knew that even if he were to sacrifice his son that god had the power god who has the power of life and death to bring back even from the grave his own son this is abraham's deep and profound trust in the father and yet we asked the question why would god do this though what what's the whole point of this story because this this point of the story is not i don't think it's just simply for abraham and for isaac i think that point of the story is it sets up the context for everything about the spiritual life that's how that's how deep and profound this story is it sets up the context for virtually everything in the spiritual life because this is not merely a story about um the father who's willing to sacrifice his son this is the story of a father and a son team this is so important for us you know art will sometimes depict this image you know the image of the sacrifice of isaac or the binding of isaac and it has abraham the old man who has bound up his son isaac who is like struggling and who is like a child and yet this is abraham and isaac working together how do we know this because we know that isaac is not a child we know he's a child compared to the 100 plus year old abraham but isaac is not a child who was overpowered by his by his father in fact if anything isaac is the one who's stronger in this story why well they go up the mountain they go up the hill right a moriah and it says that abraham laid the wood for the altar of lord for the sacrifice on the back of his son now if his son is like a seven-year-old kid he could not possibly carry enough firewood that would actually be able to be a holocaust right a a burnt offering of an entire human being up the mountain isaac is in his in fact the tradition is that isaac is in his 30s maybe even 33 years old think about that for a second isaac is stronger than his father abraham in this in this time in their lives and so isaac carrying up the wood demonstrates that he could overpower his father that he submitted to his father um binding him and he laid down willingly and this is what what is this teaching us this is setting the stage for the eternal father with his only beloved only begotten son whom he loves and that sacrifice of the son and of the father on calvary this is unmistakably a preparation for christ's sacrifice let me even think how what do the words say take your only son your the only begotten son whom you love was john chapter 3 verse 16 say for god so loved the world that he gave his only beloved son this story of abraham and isaac is not just about abraham and isaac it is a revelation of how the father in heaven and the son of god cooperate with each other in bringing about salvation this deep and profound trust all the way to the point of death here is abraham or isaac the son walking up with the wood of the sacrifice on his back of mount moriah which is right outside of jerusalem you have jesus the son walking up with the wood of the cross on his back up on mount moriah right outside of jerusalem calvary and mariah are part of the same mountain range right outside of the city of jerusalem what you have here is this deep and profound cooperation and this is what we cannot miss this is why this story of abraham and isaac is about us not because god is going to ask you to sacrifice everyone and everything you love that's not the point the point is trust that is the number one word abraham is the father in faith why because when it came down to it he was willing to trust god but it wasn't just him alone it was the father and the son isaac trusting each other and this is why this is so important for us to get this into our hearts god is not your enemy this is what job is wrestling with is god my enemy does god care for the deep and profound expression of our faith as christians we realize we know that this is true that even the only begotten son of god jesus christ our lord on the night before he was to be crucified he said father let this cup pass for me yet not my will but yours be done he was able to call out to his father and say i don't want this to happen and at the same time in the same breath he was able to say but i trust you and i will be done and that's what we're called to do man today gosh you guys we just started we just started this journey through the bible and it has been a trip so far oh my gosh i hope that this is a blessing to you i know it has been a blessing to me walking with you these days and also i want you to know that i have been praying for you these days and please keep me in your prayers keep each other in your prayers this is the large community of people who are who are uh walking through the scriptures with each other so please keep each other with your prayers you have any prayer intentions just you know lift those up and know that the people who are listening with you also have prayer intentions we struggle to trust the lord we struggle to walk with him we struggle when we're in the position of our friend job and we also struggle when we're being asked to cooperate and trust the father in the midst of what looks like the end but we know cannot be the end because he is too good to let the end be simply destruction he's too good that's why this is not the end of the book this is the beginning of the book my name is father mike schmitz and i am so honored to be able to walk with you through the scriptures and i cannot wait to walk with you some more i'll keep praying for you today and we'll walk further into scripture tomorrow god bless [Music] you

Channel: Ascension Presents

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Keywords: ascension, ascension press, ascension presents, the bible in a year, bible in a year podcast, fr. mike, fr. mike schmitz, father mike, fr. mike schmidt, biy, biay, fr. mike bible in a year, jeff cavins, bible reading plan, biblical worldview, catholic podcasts, genesis 22, genesis 23, job 11, job 12, proverbs 2, sacrifice of isaac, abraham's test, God tested abraham, God's only son, passion of Christ, sacrifice of Christ, trust in God

Id: 51FQLxXX5Rw

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 12 2021