Blessed By Faith Isaac Believed Hebrews 11:20

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1 Blessed By Faith Isaac Believed Hebrews 11:20 People sometimes say, I ll believe it when I see it! But God says the opposite is true: You will see it when you first believe it. There are lots of things in life that have to be believed before they can be seen. In the 1960s, the Russians sent the first cosmonaut into outer space. He circled the earth, and when he came back down, at a press conference he said, I searched the heavens, and I looked for God, and I did not see him anywhere. Therefore, there is no God. The Communists, which was an atheistic regime, said, We now have scientific proof that there is no God. About 6 months later, John Glenn went into space, circled the earth 3 times on Gemini, came back down, and held a press conference. He said, I saw God everywhere! I saw his glory in the galaxy. I saw his splendor in the universe. I saw his majesty in the stars. Which one was right? They both were. Jesus said, Unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3). Before there is spiritual transformation in your life, you can't see the possibility of what God wants to do in your life. Wernher von Braun, the father of rocket technology and space science in the United States, said, There has never been any great accomplishment in history without faith. It's faith that causes an architect to design a building because, first, he believes it can be done. It's faith that causes an Olympic athlete to practice and go to the Olympic trials because she believes she can achieve. It's faith that causes a sculptor or an artist to believe that he can paint a picture or attempt the sculpture. It's faith that causes the scientist to believe that we can put a man on the moon. Someone has to believe it before you see it. It is a universal principle of life. Faith is visualizing the future. It s believing something before you see it. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see Hebrews 11:1 (NLT, 2nd edition). As we continue our journey through the 11th chapter of Hebrews, a New Testament letter written to Jewish Christians familiar with Old Testament history, we come to verse 20 and read: It was by faith that Isaac promised blessings for the future to his sons, Jacob and Esau.

2 Not on a hunch, not through positive thinking, not blind optimism (although Isaac was blind at the time) but by faith, Isaac "promised blessings for the future to his sons, Jacob and Esau." How did he do that? Through a formal blessing. The book of Genesis emphasizes the blessing of a father to his sons. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all gave formal blessings to their children and, in Jacob s case, to some grandchildren. Receiving a blessing from one s father was a high honor, and losing a blessing was tantamount to a curse. What constituted an Old Testament blessing of a father to his son? It included words of encouragement, details about the son s inheritance, and prophetic words about his future. For example, Isaac s blessing on Jacob - meant for Esau - (Gen. 27) predicted prosperity and authority over his brother (vs ). It also promised that those who blessed Jacob would be blessed, and those who cursed him would receive a curse echoing God s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3. Jacob and Esau were twins, but different as night and day. Their mother Rebekah had a difficult pregnancy, and when she asked the Lord about it, He said: Two nations are in your womb two people will come from you and be separated One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. (Genesis 25:23) When she delivered, Esau emerged first, but Jacob was gripping his brother's heal, as if to pull him back. That was a sign of the lifelong rivalry that would exist between these two boys. Rebekah favored Jacob while Isaac preferred Esau. Back in the 1960's two brothers formed a famous comedy team known as the Smothers Brothers. They had their own TV show for a while. Decent musicians, they were really about humor. The classic shtick that ran through their comedy sketches was this: Play MP4 "Mom Always Like You Best" Rebekah really did like Jacob best - perhaps because of what God had said about the older serving the younger. But the contention and jealousy between Jacob and Esau was no laughing matter. When Rebekah overhead her blind, aging husband tell Esau to kill some game and prepare his favorite meal, and he'd confer his formal blessing, she schemed with

3 Jacob to pretend to be Esau. She prepared the meal, and Jacob put on Esau's clothes and goat's skin on his arms and neck, because Esau was a hairy guy. They succeeded in fooling Isaac in order to obtain the prophetic blessing for Jacob. May God give to you - from the dew of the sky and from the richness of the land an abundance of grain and new wine. May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. Be masters over your brothers; may your mother's sons bow down to you. Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed. (Genesis 27:28-29) When Esau showed up with a meal for his father, he discovered that Jacob had tricked the old man and stolen the blessing. Now, in our modern legal system, no promise obtained so fraudulently would be enforceable. But this was different! Isaac was seriously shaken up by the mistake, because he knew that the blessing he'd spoken was beyond recall. He knew he had tried to get around God; he knew what the Lord had told Rebekah about their sons. Yet he'd tried to thwart God's plan - out of affection for Esau. And God had beaten him. He had let Rebekah and Jacob succeed. And Isaac realized he'd always be defeated trying to resist God s will. He came to learn that despite his own arrogance, God s will was glorious. Where was Isaac's faith seen? When Esau appealed to him, Isaac said about Jacob: "Indeed, he will be blessed." (Gen. 27:33) Esau was resigned to it as well, because he didn't press his father to annul the blessing. Instead, he simply asked his father to bless him, too. His father blessed him, but it sounded more like a curse. Isaac's faith continued to grow. He charged Jacob not to take a wife from Canaan, but to go to his mother's homeland and find a woman from her clan. Then he repeated the prophetic blessing: May God Almighty bless you and give you many children. And may your descendants multiply and become many nations! May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to Abraham. (Gen. 28:3-4). Jacob didn t even have a wife, let alone many nations descending from him! But by pronouncing the blessing, Isaac demonstrated faith that God s promises would not fail, even though there was no indication at that time that they'd ever be fulfilled.

4 Isaac wasn't tricked in giving this blessing this time, but he'd come to recognize that it was God's design for Jacob to be extraordinarily blessed. Hebrews 11 says Isaac understood it by faith. That should encourage you. Sometimes when we're facing some kind of personal crisis, we may not feel like a hero of faith; we may not feel spiritually vibrant or bold, and we don't feel like we're trusting. Yet someone may say to us: You're very brave. I've seen the way you're handling this and it's obvious that you're trusting in the Lord. *Testimony by Kurt Heitman And we're comforted in knowing that Isaac, a hero of faith, at first resisted God's plan. Yet in the end, the author of Hebrews wrote: Isaac blessed Jacob by faith. The Lord accomplished it; through Isaac's reluctance and resistance, He got it done! And in the end, Isaac knew that God's favor would fall on the younger son. He fell in line with God's purpose. In spite of our own weaknesses and frailties, God can and does work in us and through us for His own glory and our good - and for the good of others. God used this whole soap opera, with each character acting selfishly without regard for God, to fulfill His sovereign purpose. God had chosen Jacob and rejected Esau. His purposes will stand (Rom. 9:11-13). It does not depend on people fully understanding His purpose. Isaac obviously did not understand it at first. It doesn t depend on people obeying Him, - though they should. But He used Rebekah and Jacob s ruse to accomplish His purpose. The Apostle Paul alludes to this story to show that God s purpose does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy (Rom. 9:16). This is in the Bible so that we'll learn to trust God, even when circumstances seem to contradict His promises. We may look at the sinfulness around us, even of those who claim to be His children, and think, There's no way that the Great Commission will ever be fulfilled." Or, "There's no way that the church with all its failures and scandals will ever bring glory to God s name. But God has said that there will be people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation, purchased with Jesus blood, gathered around His throne (Rev. 5:9). He has said that the church will be a pure and spotless bride, made ready for her

5 husband (Eph. 5:27; Rev. 21:3). In spite of all of our failures, our weaknesses, and our inadequacies, His purpose will be fulfilled. That shouldn't cause us to shrug our shoulders in apathy, but encourage us to be faithful in spite of disappointments with sinful people or menacing world events. It should cause us to "be steadfast and immovable in the Lord s work, knowing that our work is never in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58). Trusting God will often move us out of our natural comfort zone, but obedience will move us into a spiritually vibrant zone. The first two Scottish missionaries sent to the New Hebrides Islands were killed and eaten by cannibals on the day they arrived. After that it proved difficult to find missionary volunteers. But even when John G. Paton agreed to go, well-meaning people in the church tried to dissuade him. One elderly man warned that he would be eaten by cannibals. Paton replied, I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer. After fifteen years of fruitful ministry, almost everyone on the island of Aniwa where Paton ministered was converted. These islanders had practiced child sacrifice. These cannibals had sacrificed widows on funeral pyres so that they could serve their husbands in the afterlife. These were people who had witch doctors and served idols made of wood and stone. These people came to know Jesus Christ; their lives were changed because someone like John Gibson Paton believed in the power of the gospel and that people of every tribe, tongue, and nation will one day surround the throne of God. Source: John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides, John Gibson Paton and James Paton Do you believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ - that He died for our sins and rose again according to the scriptures? Do you believe that Heaven awaits those who trust in Jesus Christ; that this life is not the end - that the best is yet to come? Do you believe that life down here is a test, a trust, and a temporary assignment? (Rick Warren) And do you believe that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him, as the writer of Hebrews says? And do you believe that by faith, God will bless others through you? Isaac came to believe that. It took him most of his life to finally reach that conclusion. But he came to that kind of faith. And by faith, he blessed his sons. Will you by faith become a blessing to others? May God help us to have a faith like that!