Showing posts with label Isaac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isaac. Show all posts

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Funniest Promise Ever

“Look around. Look to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west. I will give everything you see to you and your descendants. In fact, you’ll have so many descendants that counting them will be like counting grains of sand! Go ahead and explore the land. I’m giving it to you.”

Many years had passed since God had made this promise to Abram, and he was getting older and older. He still didn’t have any kids, and it’s kinda hard to have descendants without kids! He was getting impatient!

As the years passed, God made another promise one clear, starry night. “Look up at the sky. See all those stars? Try and count them. Trying to count your descendants will be just as hard!”

Abram believed God’s promises, but time was moving on, and Abram and Sarai were getting old! Finally, Sarai decided maybe God needed some help. She suggested that Abram take her Egyptian slave Hagar as a wife as well. Hagar had a child, and they named him Ishmael (which means “God hears”). Abram was 86 years old when Ishmael was born! But God was clear…Ishmael was not the child He had promised.

More years passed. Ishmael was now 13, and his dad Abram was 99. God appeared to Abram again and said, “You’re gonna be the father of many nations. In fact, let’s not call you Abram any more. Your name is now Abraham.” (Abram means “exalted father”, but Abraham means “father of many.”) “Many nations will come from you, and some of your descendants will even be kings! Your wife Sarai also gets a new name. Let’s call her Sarah. She is gonna have a son. Those kings I mentioned will also be her descendants!” Sarai and Sarah both mean princess.

That was it. Abraham started cracking up. He was splitting his sides! He was laughing so hard that he fell over, and the tears came. Did God know how old he and Sarah were?! People don’t have babies when they’re that old! That’s just silly! Then he said, “What about Ishmael? You could give him that blessing.”

So God said, “True, but Sarah will have a child. Since you thought that was so hilarious, you get to name him Isaac, which means ‘he laughs’! I will also make Ishmael the father of many, but Isaac will be the one who gets the blessing, and his descendants will be the ones I promised you. In fact, Mr. ‘He Laughs’ will be born a year from now!”

A little later, Abraham was hanging out at the entrance to his tent, when he looked up and saw three men standing nearby. He got up and hurried over to them and invited them to stay a while. It was hot, and they looked like they had been traveling. Then he hurried back to his tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Make some bread for our guests!” He ran over to his herds of cattle and picked out a calf, which he told a servant to cook. When everything was ready, he brought the bread, veal (calf meat), milk and cheese to the guests, and they ate. They asked Abraham, “Where is your wife Sarah?”

“Right over there,” Abraham said, pointing to the entrance to the tent.

Then one of the guests said pretty loudly, “I’ll be back in a year. By that time, Sarah will have a son.”

Sarah didn’t want to seem rude by laughing out loud, but she could hear the conversation. She thought that was the funniest thing she had heard in a long time! Pffffftttt…a child?? Seriously?! Did they know how old she was?? “How could that happen when I’m all worn out and way too old to have children?” she muttered to herself.

Then the guest, who turned out to be the Lord, said, “Hey, why did Sarah just laugh and ask how that could happen when she’s old? Is there anything that is too hard for the Lord? I’ll be back next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

Now Sarah was scared. He wasn’t supposed to have heard that! She said, “Huh? I didn’t laugh!”

“Uh, actually, you did,” said the Lord.

Sure enough, just as God had promised, Sarah finally got pregnant. Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah was 90, when the promised child was born. Just as God had commanded, they named the baby “He Laughs.” Sarah said, “Who would have guessed that I’d be this old and nursing a child? I’m laughing with joy, and everyone who hears about this is gonna laugh too! God has brought me laughter!”





“Look around. Look to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west. I will give everything you see to you and your descendants. In fact, you’ll have so many descendants that counting them will be like counting grains of sand! Go ahead and explore the land. I’m giving it to you.”

Picture Source: http://hdwallsource.com/sea-stars-9002.html


“Look up at the sky. See all those stars? Try and count them. Trying to count your descendants will be just as hard!”

Picture Source: http://hdwallsource.com/stars-wallpaper-2282.html

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Jacob

I did the Sunday school lesson this morning and thought I'd share. Since the main lesson was only a few verses, and not a lot happened, I thought I'd start with a review of the story up to now. The whole thing covers Genesis 25-35.


The Story so far:

The day had finally arrived! Isaac and Rebekah had been waiting for this day for many years, and at last they were about to have twins! The first one came out, and they noticed he had red hair all over. So what to name him? Hairy (or Esau in Hebrew)! The second boy wasn’t far behind. In fact, he was holding onto his brother’s heel. So naturally, why not name him “He Grasps the Heel”? Too complicated? OK, let’s translate “he grasps the heel” into Hebrew: Jacob! As Hairy and Heel-Grasper got older, they developed a rivalry. Isaac liked his older son Esau better, but Rebekah preferred the younger son, Jacob. One day, Esau was out working, while Jacob stayed home and made some stew. When Esau got home, he was all tired out and starving, and all he could think of that he needed to eat something now! As he got near the house, he smelled something cooking, and he got even hungrier. Jacob was sneaky, though. He could see that his big brother was desperate to eat, and he would give anything…like, say, his birthright!

A while later, Isaac realized he wasn’t getting any younger, and he needed to pass on the blessing to his firstborn son, so he told Esau to go hunt for food to bring to him so he could bless him. But while he was gone, Rebekah made some food and helped Jacob to pretend to be Esau and get his father’s blessing. When Esau came back and found out that Jacob had tricked him again, he was steaming mad! So mad that he wanted to kill his brother.

So Jacob ran for his life. On the way, he stopped for the night. He found a nice comfy rock to use for a pillow and laid down on the ground. That night, he dreamed that he saw a stairway going from the ground up into heaven, with angels going up and down it. At the top of the stairway, he saw God. In the dream, God promised him that He would take care of him, that Jacob would be the father of a great nation, and that He would bring him back home one day. In the morning, Jacob got up and named the place Bethel, or House of God. He put the stone he had used as a pillow and set it there as a reminder of this promise. He promised God that he would serve Him.

When Jacob got to his uncle’s house, he fell in love with his cousin Rachel, and he worked for his Uncle Laban seven years so that he could marry her. But sneakiness ran in the family. After the wedding, Jacob discovered that he had actually married Rachel’s sister Leah. So he had to work another seven years to marry Rachel. So it was that Jacob had eleven sons and a daughter during the time he lived there. (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Dinah, Joseph. Benjamin wasn’t born yet.)

Finally the time came to leave, and Jacob took his wives and children and livestock and left. But on the way home, he found out that his brother Esau was coming to meet him. The last time he’d seen Esau, he had been threatening to kill him! While he was on the way to meet his brother, God met him and wrestled with him. When that happened, God gave him a new name: “He Wrestles with God” (or Israel)! When Esau saw his brother Israel, he ran to him, and they hugged. They were friends again. Then Jacob and his family settled in the city of Shechem.

Now we pick up the story where we left off…

One day, God commanded Jacob to go back to Bethel and build an altar. So Jacob obeyed. But before he left, he told everyone in his family that they were about to go worship God. He told them about how God had always helped him when he needed help, and had taken care of him. Now they needed to get rid of their idols and earrings. At the time, the earrings some of them were wearing were used as charms to worship false gods. Jacob took the idols and earrings and buried them under a big oak tree.

The whole big family then set out for Bethel. When they got there, Jacob obeyed God and built an altar. God met him and reminded him about his new name. He was no longer Jacob, but Israel. God promised him again that he would be the father of a great nation. Not only would he have thousands of descendents, but some of them would even be kings! He also promised him to give him this land as He had done for Jacob’s father Isaac and grandfather Abraham.

To mark the occasion, Jacob set up a stone pillar to remember the promise. Once again, he called the place Bethel, or House of God.