Abraham & Isaac - Genesis 18-22

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
Series: Bible Stories

Rusty's Notes

ABRAHAM’S THREE VISITORS
GENESIS 18
1 The Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of his tent during the heat of the day. 2 He looked up, and he saw three men standing near him.

• The Angel of Yahweh and 2 other angels.

When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them, bowed to the ground, 3 and said, “My lord, if I have found favor with you, please do not go on past your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, that you may wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. 5 I will bring a bit of bread so that you may strengthen yourselves. This is why you have passed your servant’s way. Later, you can continue on.”
“Yes,” they replied, “do as you have said.”
6 So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Knead three measures of fine flour and make bread.” 7 Abraham ran to the herd and got a tender, choice calf. He gave it to a young man, who hurried to prepare it. 8 Then Abraham took curds and milk, as well as the calf that he had prepared, and set them before the men. He served them as they ate under the tree.
 
SARAH LAUGHS
9 “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.

• Similar question he asked Adam & Eve.
• “Where are you?”
• “Where’s your brother Abel?” to Cain

“There, in the tent,” he answered.

• What does “in the tent” mean?

10 The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him.

• It doesn’t say that she was hiding.

11 Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 So she laughed to herself: “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I have delight?”

• Doubt?
• Cynical?
• Delight?
• Sarah denied that she had laughed either from fear of the LORD's power or from fear of offending Him.

13 But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ 14 Is anything impossible for the Lord?

• Defending himself?
• Again, God built confidence in His word.
• If the LORD could read Sarah's thoughts, could He not also open her womb?
• Believers should never doubt God's promises, because nothing is impossible for Him.

At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.”
15 Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid.
But he replied, “No, you did laugh.”[1]

• Can you imagine that confrontation?

 
ABRAHAM’S PLEA FOR SODOM
16 The men got up from there and looked out over Sodom, and Abraham was walking with them to see them off. 17 Then the Lord said, “Should I hide what I am about to do from Abraham? 18 Abraham is to become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him so that he will command his children and his house after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. This is how the Lord will fulfill to Abraham what he promised him.”

• Words recorded by Moses

20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is immense, and their sin is extremely serious. 21 I will go down to see if what they have done justifies the cry that has come up to me. If not, I will find out.”
22 The men turned from there and went toward Sodom while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. 23 Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away instead of sparing the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people who are in it? 25 You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won’t the Judge of the whole earth do what is just?”
26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

• Just who is Abraham trying to save?
• The city? Or the righteous people?

27 Then Abraham answered, “Since I have ventured to speak to my lord—even though I am dust and ashes--28 suppose the fifty righteous lack five. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?”
He replied, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”
29 Then he spoke to him again, “Suppose forty are found there?”
He answered, “I will not do it on account of forty.”
30 Then he said, “Let my lord not be angry, and I will speak further. Suppose thirty are found there?”
He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
31 Then he said, “Since I have ventured to speak to my lord, suppose twenty are found there?”
He replied, “I will not destroy it on account of twenty.”
32 Then he said, “Let my lord not be angry, and I will speak one more time. Suppose ten are found there?”
He answered, “I will not destroy it on account of ten.”

• Evidently, Abraham was not trying to wear God down by pressuring Him.
• Instead, he sought clarification from God as to the extent of His mercy.
• He wanted to find out just how merciful God would be in judging Sodom.
• Why did Abraham stop with 10 righteous people?
• Perhaps he had learned that the LORD would be merciful regardless of the number.
• Perhaps he thought there would be at least 10 righteous people in Sodom.
• If so, he underestimated the wickedness of the Sodomites, and perhaps, he overestimated "righteous" Lot's influence over his neighbors.

33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he departed, and Abraham returned to his place. [2]
 
THE BIRTH OF ISAAC
GENESIS 21
1 The Lord came to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him. 3 Abraham named his son who was born to him—the one Sarah bore to him—Isaac. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me.”, 7 She also said, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne a son for him in his old age.” [3]
 
THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC
GENESIS 22
1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”

• The family test, when he had to leave his loved ones and step out to a new land.
• The famine test, when he went down into Egypt.
• The fellowship test, when Lot separated from him.
• The fight test, when he defeated the Mesopotamian kings.
• The fortune test, when he said no to Sodom's wealth.
• The fatherhood test, when Sarah got impatient with God.
• The farewell test, when Ishmael left him.

“Here I am,” he answered.
2 “Take your son,” he said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
3 So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his young men and his son Isaac. He split wood for a burnt offering and set out to go to the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.” 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac. In his hand he took the fire and the knife, and the two of them walked on together.
7 Then Isaac spoke to his father Abraham and said, “My father.”
And he replied, “Here I am, my son.”
Isaac said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide, the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Then the two of them walked on together.
9 When they arrived at the place that God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.
11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”
He replied, “Here I am.”
12 Then he said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me.” 13 Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.

• This is the first explicit mention in the Bible of the substitutionary sacrifice of one life for another.

14 And Abraham named that place The Lord Will Provide, so today it is said, “It will be provided on the Lord’s mountain.”

• Same place as the Holy of Holies.
• Where the curtain was torn on Good Friday.

15 Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn,” this is the Lord’s declaration: “Because you have done this thing and have not withheld your only son,

• God did not withhold His only Son.

17 I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the city gates of their enemies. 18 And all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because you have obeyed my command.”
19 Abraham went back to his young men, and they got up and went together to Beer-sheba. And Abraham settled in Beer-sheba. [4]

[1] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Ge 18:1–15.
[2] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Ge 18:16–33.
[3] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Ge 21:1–7.
[4] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Ge 22:1–19.