Isaac

Yeah.

Abraham is going to be father of many nations and the dust of the sea, but with one seed, Isaac.

Yes.

Beautiful.

Mm.

Isaac, I'm, Isaac had, had how many children?

Two.

And it, and instead of say, "Isaac, God say you're gonna be bi- a mighty nation."

I am the Lord who does all these things." So God commands, or Yahweh commands Abraham.

Uh, initially when he commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his name wasn't Abraham, it was Abram, A-B-R-A-M, which is a combination of two Jewish words.

Abba, which is where the Ab comes from, Abram, Abba, which means father, and ram means ram.

Father Ram.

The Jews are the people of Aries, the ram worshipers.

That's why they blow the ram's horn during the high holidays.

Um, so God commands Abram to sacrifice Isaac, and then he ends up not doing that, and then he becomes Abraham.

Incidentally, this is the genesis of the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews.

He said to him, Abraham, hineni, he said.

Then he said, take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains about which I will tell you.

So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac, his son.

He split wood for the burnt offering and got up and went to the place about which God had told him.

On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from a distance.

Abraham said to his young men, Sit yourselves down here with the donkey.

As for me and the young man, we'll go over there, worship, and return to you.

Then Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on Isaac his son.

A person who is blessed lives and can give away everything because they know it will come back.

It's in Hebrews chapter 7 that we understand the mindset of Abraham when he sacrificed Isaac.

The Bible says that Abraham understood that God was able to raise him from the dead.

So he understood that God can do anything.

And so it wasn't difficult for him to sacrifice Isaac.

So he cultivated a culture of blessing because he understood his relationship with God and he understood what God was capable of doing.

Abraham was blessed.

It is trust.

There are certain songs that I always like to play on the radio and sing at this time of year, and one of them comes from Steve McConnell, and it's called Yom Teruah, The Day of the Trumpet.

Isaac bound by Abraham It seemed this sacrifice would be But God looked on the faith of Abraham A ram's horn caught meant Isaac would be free Sound the shofar from the highest hill See the harvest nurtured by scarred hands.

Soon our God and King will reap the harvest from the land.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

I said that's fantastic.

And what else were you going to add?

I have to say, the thing that was kind of funny was in the first three years of grade school, I had heard the stories of different biblical characters like Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, Daniel, David, and just sort of as individual stories.

And then in the fourth grade, our Sunday school curriculum took us on a three-year trip through Genesis through the end of 2 Kings.

And you also point out that sometimes this ancient animosity goes all the way back to Genesis, whether it is the sons of Elam or even Esau and the Edomites that followed, he being a brother of Jacob who was renamed Israel.

And there's a sense of jealousy or covetousness that some of these other people groups, even their ancient forefathers, had a resentment of Israel, of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because they were chosen.

And it's not like God said, well, all the rest of the world is cursed, but through Israel, the rest of the world would be blessed.

And yet over and over again, this animosity is fed by Satan out of a sense of jealousy or again, covetousness.

So let's go ahead and bow our hearts and our heads and get ready to enter into this beautiful study with the Creator.

Yahweh Elohim, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we bless your holy name.

We thank you that you keep on making us and you don't stop.

We thank you for your beautiful sanctification process that is bringing us into the full salvation of who we are to be in you.

It's a story about Jacob.

Jacob was the son of Rebekah and Isaac, brother of Esau, except the two of them did not play together often.

They were in conflict a lot.

And where this story picks up, Jacob has just stolen the birthright blessing from his brother Esau.