When God Seems to be Your Worst Enemy

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How do you think God should treat you? What does that practically look like? If you don't have an answer for that, consider what the last thing that you complained about was. The last thing that happened to you that you complained about was likely something that you think you deserved from God. "I shouldn't have to do all this work myself." "Why is all this traffic here?" "Do these kids just DELIGHT in messing up the house?" "My family member shouldn't have to suffer like this." Our complaints give insight into what we think we deserve from God, and will likely inform the sorts of questions we bring to these first few verses of Genesis 22. 

We have come to the climax of Abraham's story. We might have thought that the climax was last chapter with the birth of Isaac (Bible Talk Podcast). After all that has been the thing that we have been waiting for, the thing that has been put in danger multiple times, the thing that God kept promising to Abraham in 12, 15, 17, 18, and finally in 21 has happened! But now God is asking Abraham to do the unthinkable: sacrifice him. And it isn't just stabbing with a knife. What God is calling for is a whole burnt offering. If Abraham decides to follow through, there is absolutely no turning back. This would be the total destruction of Isaac's body. There would be nothing to bury but ash. 

Why on earth would God do this? The way that we answer this question gives us some insight into who we think God is and what we think we deserve. 

Who is God? God is our All-Knowing King who deserves our best 

Let's look at this passage in its historical context to truly see what Abraham is going through. For one, we are told that this is a test, but Abraham is not. From Abraham's perspective, the goal has been reached! He has a safe place to dwell thanks to God's promise and that covenant with Abimelech. He's got a well, a son, and a place to stay! Sounds like a land, seed, and blessing to me! And now God comes back with this request to sacrifice his son he's just waited twenty five years for! This seems to come way out of left field here! 

We have yet another advantage that Abraham does not: we know what God requires in worship. We know because of later Bible passages that God roundly condemns any kind of human sacrifice. But Abraham doesn't know that. We know that this is a test, but Abraham doesn't know that. 

So why is God doing this? At first glance, it looks like God is emotionally torturing Abraham with a job that God never intends for him to actually do. This isn't even something that God is going to quickly undo. It is going to take days for Abraham to fulfill this task, and he is going to have to do it alone. It's not like you can tell Sarah what you intend to do! So why is this happening?

Whenever we see God doing something that we don't like, we tend to try to rescue Him from His own reputation. It is as if God needs some PR work to help "put some things in context," even to the point of saying things about God that are patently untrue! If we start from the perspective that God is only nice and never intentionally stresses us out, then we have a hard time explaining a passage like this! But that doesn't stop people from trying. 

One way to give God some PR is to lie about His omniscience. We might say that the reason that God does this is that there is really no other way for God to know what sort of trust Abraham has in Him! The reasoning would go something like, "I mean, this is supposed to be the father of many nations, and we really only want the best for such a character, right? How else is God supposed to *truly* know? It's not like He can read Abraham's mind or anything." This initially has something of a ring of truth. Look at verse 12. God says, "Now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." Seems like case closed, doesn't it? God didn't fully know what Abraham's faith was like, so He tested and found it to be good! 

We can't just point to one verse to prove something, however. We have to see what the rest of the Bible has to say about any particular topic. Isaiah 46:8-10 puts it pretty clearly: "Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it." This is a pretty strong statement of God's knowledge of future events. This is saying that the reason God knows the future is because He is the one who decides it! 

Matthew 10:29-30 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered." Nothing happens without God's knowledge and permission. We see in Job that not even Satan can act without God's permission. (Job 1-2). 

It seems pretty obvious that the Bible wants us to know that God knows and controls all things. But let's imagine for a moment that He wasn't. Let's see what happens when we try to rescue God's reputation with a lie. Let's say that God really doesn't know what is going on inside of Abraham. Let's say that God doesn't really know what the future holds. Let's say that God is not the one who brings trouble into Abraham's life, or, for that matter, our lives. Let's give Satan free reign to do what we wants apart from God's will. Then that means God is winging it. Sure, He could be a better winger than you or I am, but He would be making it up as He goes. That makes the success of the cross a matter of luck. The walls of Jericho could have just as likely stayed up as fallen down. You could have just as likely gotten cancer as not. God doesn't really have anything to do with that. 

I don't know about you, but that is a terrifying world to live in. That removes all purpose from everything that I go through. Yes, blessings could have come from God, but only because it happened to work out. 

No, God controls all things even the hard things. But there is another mistake that we can make here. There is another route to PR for God that makes the mistake in the opposite direction. We can too quickly run to the explanation "Well, God is God and you are not, so shut up!" It's the old "Because I said so" answer. There are times when that answer is appropriate. In fact, sometimes that is the only true answer we can give. The Apostle Paul uses just that when talking about why God chooses some for salvation and not others. Paul could have explained it any other way if there was another way to explain it. But sometimes we run too quickly to that answer. Yes, God is a mystery beyond all comprehension, but there are things that He reveals about Himself and how He works so that we may praise Him. 

Through trials, God grows faith in Him

The book of James, specifically chapters 1 and 2 read almost like a sermon on this chapter. We will explore more of those connections next week, particularly chapter 2, but for now, let's look at the surprising statement to open in James chapter 1. We get the greeting from James that in modern times would be shortened to just, "Hi, this is James writing a message to the Jews who have been spread everywhere." Opening formalities. The first sentence is basically, "Be joyful that hard things are happening to you." Excuse me, James! A little comfort, please? People have been kicked out of their homes, separated from their way of life, exiles starting their lives completely over again. Why start with this? 

James starts here because there is more to life than comfort, and in fact God will use our suffering to produce something in us better than a comfortable life. God is using these very things to build faith. Look at the next verse, "for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." Look at that word "produces." It turns out that in the Greek, the original language this letter was written in, that word means "produces." Paul says the same thing in Romans 5:3-5 "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." 

Now, this doesn't mean that troubles save us. Faith is still a gift from God, but trials do grow and strengthen it.  

The sufferings that God brings into our lives are for our benefit because it grows our faith in God. In other words, these tests not only show what our level of faith is, but it also grows us. It teaches us how faithful God is. 

It works the same way with testing kids in school. Tests reveal what the student knows, but they are also teaching tools in themselves. I had vocabulary and spelling test in my first English class in community college 14 years ago. I don't remember what words I had been tested on, except one that I got wrong. I will never forget that "superannuated" has two "n"s. The test revealed what I didn't know *and* pushed me to remember what I got wrong. The difference between my English teacher and God, of course, is that my teacher didn't know what I knew or not. God does know what I am, and He will send these tests to reveal that to me and to grow me. 

That is what God has been doing to Abraham this whole time. God has been revealing to Abraham who he is and making him into someone new. One scholar points out that these opening two verses mirror what we saw in chapter 12 (Matthews, 283). God is telling Abraham to go to a place that He will tell him, leave, and sacrifice yet again. 

Just like chapter 12, Abraham sets off, but in the narrative that follows, this is a different man. In earlier passages, when God said that he would have a son, he thought that his heir would be Eliezer. Then when he had Ishmael and was still told that a son would come from Sarah, he offers up Ishmael as the heir. No such substitutions are offered here. He just gets up and starts the work (Matthews, 291). He doesn't even try to negotiate things down like he did for Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthews, 296). He is a changed man. God grace in God's trials have brought him to this point. 

He has become convinced that God will provide. As my seminary professor Dr. Ross put it, "Belief that the Lord will provide enables the true worshiper to sacrifice without reservation." (400)

Do you believe that God will provide for you? Do you trust God to bring you to heaven one day? Has that conviction not grown under trial? Has not your comfort increased as the years have gone on? 

If it hasn't, perhaps you are looking to the wrong source of strength in your trial. Maybe you think that you got yourself out of difficulty. Maybe you think your life is a product of chance and not mercy. If that is your hope, it will be revealed to be the sandy foundation that it is. Only trial will reveal that. 

So what is our takeaway here? Our takeaway is that we shouldn't expect that God will never bring difficulty into our lives. Sometimes, as one theologian put it, God will test us to the point that God appears to be our worst enemy (referenced in Ross, 396). After all, who but a worst enemy would take a child from you? Yet even in this, God is working in you, as blindingly painful as it is. But He isn't doing this because He lost control. He isn't doing this because He's a monster. He's doing this to reveal to you the faith—the greatest gift He could possibly give— that He Himself planted in your heart and is even now strengthening. In your troubles here on earth, He is preparing you for heaven. So don't shrink back from trial. Don't say its useless. 

But don't seek it, either. God will bring it when He thinks you need it, and He is a better judge of that than you are. Instead, continue to look to the cross. See God bring the greatest good out of the greatest suffering, and know that He will do the same for your suffering when it comes.