God Will Provide the Lamb

The Gospel According to Mark and the Call to Repent

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, chapter 1, verses 9 -15. At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, He saw heaven being torn open, and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, You are my Son, whom I love.

With you I am well pleased. At once the Spirit sent Him into the desert, and He was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended Him. After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news.

The time has come, He said. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news. In the name of Jesus. Our text this morning for my sermon is taken from our Old Testament, reading from Genesis chapter 22, 1 -18.

Abraham, Isaac, and the Sacrifice on Mount Moriah

It begins, Some time later God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, here I am, He replied. Then God said, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.

So, if you've ever heard anyone preach on this text, then chances are you may have heard a message that goes something like this. See, Abraham was tested by God to see whether or not he loved the gift more than the giver of the gift.

Abraham passed the test, and because of his obedience, God blessed him even more. So, what is the thing in your life that God is asking you to lay on the altar? What is the thing that you need to sacrifice so that God can bless you even more?

If you've ever heard a sermon like that, then I apologize. I apologize because that is not what this text is saying. That is not what this text means, and that is not how God wants you to apply this text to your life.

In fact, if I can be blunt, and I pray that you will not think me rude for being so, this text is not about you. Nope, this text is not asking you to sacrifice anything. It's pointing to the one true sacrifice.

Christ in the Old Testament and the Gospel of John

This text, from beginning to end, is about Jesus and His sacrifice for you. So, let's take a look at the text. Now, by the way, how do I know this text is about Jesus? Well, because Jesus said so. You know, there's a passage in the Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 39 through 40, where Jesus kind of challenges the scribes and the Pharisees.

And He says, You diligently search the Scriptures because you think that in them you possess eternal life. Yet these are the very Scriptures that testify about Me. Yet you refuse to come to Me to have life.

Jesus makes it clear. The Bible is about Him. It's not about you. It's about what He has done for you. So, this story, this is a thorny story. God asking Abraham to sacrifice His son. I think a good way to think of this is to think of it, well, it's like a movie preview in the days before film existed.

Okay?

So, when you go to the theater, you know, before the movie starts, before the thing you went to go see begins, they always have those previews of coming attractions. Well, that's what's going on in this text.

In a sense, it's a very real preview of coming attractions. So, this text continues. It says this. Early the next morning. So, after God told him to sacrifice His son. His only son. And that's kind of a weird phrase.

And the reason why it's weird is because how many sons does Abraham have at this time?

Two.

Your son. Your only son. Well, Ishmael was born first. And Ishmael is clearly alive at this time. And Isaac, the son of promise, is finally born. If we follow that scarlet thread through the Old Testament, the genealogy leading to the Messiah.

Well, it's come to Isaac at this point. So, where is the Messiah right now? He's the unborn great, great, great, great grandson of Isaac. The bloodline has come to there. So, who in this story is the stand-in for the Messiah?

Isaac is.

So, this is a preview. So, take your son, your only son Isaac. Only son. Whom you love and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.

Hebrew word, by the way, for burnt offering is holocaust. Fascinating little feature. Mount Moriah, by the way, you all know where it is. You may not know that's what it's called. If you've ever seen pictures of the holy city of Jerusalem, the temple mount caps Mount Moriah.

And Jesus was crucified just outside the city gates of Jerusalem on the slopes of Mount Moriah. Golgotha itself is part of the edifice of Mount Moriah. This is important information. So, early the next morning, Abraham got up, saddled his donkey.

He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day, Abraham looked up.

Third day.

You've got to always pay attention to that third day stuff going on in Scripture.

Third day.

On the third day, he saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife as the two of them went on together.

Who's the sacrifice?

Isaac.

What's he doing? Carrying the wood, the thing that he's supposed to be sacrificed with. Does that hearken to Jesus' march through the streets of Jerusalem, carrying his own cross? They placed the wood on Christ, too, as he ascended or descended to go to Mount Moriah and be crucified.

Now you begin to see what's going on. This is almost like a time portal, in a sense. This type and shadow, everything is aligning and you can see into the future what's coming. So Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, Father, yes, my son, Abraham replied.

The fire and the wood are here, Isaac said. Where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And here is one of the best prophetic statements in all of Scripture. Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.

He will.

And he did. And the two of them went on together. When they reached the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there, arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Years later, on that same mountain, Jesus would be laid down onto the cross, have his hands nailed into it and his feet nailed into it before he was raised up and suspended between heaven and earth. This all prefigures that.

He laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham, here I am, he replied.

Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns.

And now the substitute comes. And that's what Christ is. He's our substitute. On that day, Isaac wasn't sacrificed, but Jesus, hiding in the form of a ram, if you would, caught by his horns in the thorns of a thicket, prefiguring Christ's crown of thorns to be placed upon his head.

That day, God did provide the sacrifice. But that was not the ultimate sacrifice. Because Jesus, eventually, on that same mountain, with a crown of thorns pressed into his head, he became that ram caught in the thicket for real.

So Abraham went over, took the ram, and sacrificed it as a holocaust instead of his son. So Abraham called that place, Yahweh will provide. And back before Jesus was ever born, or the Virgin Mary, long before we knew what his name was going to be, it was said of that place, on the mountain of the Lord, Mount Moriah, it will be provided.

And it was.

For centuries the Jews read this text, knowing that on Mount Moriah it will be provided. Of course, that begs the question, what's the it?

The lamb.

God himself will provide the lamb for the sacrifice. It will be provided on the Mount of the Lord. For centuries, this prophecy sat there, waiting for its fulfillment. And finally it was fulfilled. It was fulfilled when Jesus took your sins upon himself, was marched away, scourged, beaten, spat on, mocked, nailed to the cross, and bled and died for your sins.

On that day it was provided. This prophecy is no longer not fulfilled. It's been fulfilled for nearly 2 ,000 years because God has provided the lamb. Now here's the important part after this. This is where people will mess it up.

The Oath of God, Faith, and Hebrews 11

The angel of the Lord called Abraham from heaven a second time and said,. And, see, that's the thing about God. When people swear or take an oath, I swear by God or the Bible or whatever, right? Well, there's none greater than God himself.

So when God swears, he has to swear by himself. That's just what goes along with deity. I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, there's that only son talk there pointing us to Jesus, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.

Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed. And then the NIV has what I would consider to be a very bad translation.

We'll clean it up a little bit. The NIV reads, Because you have obeyed me. It's not quite what's going on there. Because if you think about it, is the reason why all of the nations on the earth are blessed is because Abraham was obedient?

That means we're not saved by grace through faith or the obedience of Jesus. We're saved by the obedience of Abraham. And the Hebrew word here for obey is shamah. And obey is kind of the right way to read it, but it's not quite right.

There's not an English equivalent. In fact, what's fascinating is that when you read the King James Version, oftentimes when it comes to the Hebrew word shamah and it's put in a context like this, they kind of created their own word.

The word was hearken. Hearken. And so the ESV gets it a little bit better, and here's what it says, and I'll tell you why I like it slightly better. Verse 18 says, And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.

Now we're getting closer. But I think that the better way of putting it is that all the nations on the earth will be blessed because you have hearkened to my voice. Hearkened assumes greatly faith. It's to hear God's voice and to believe.

And when you believe and you have faith and you trust in that word of God, you can't help but respond in action. Does that make sense? And that's the better understanding of shamah. To just translate it obey makes it sound like works righteousness, and that's not the gist of this word.

Hearken is better. So because you have hearkened to my voice, all the nations of the earth will be blessed because you have believed what I have said. And if you think that's a crazy translation, well, remember, Scripture interprets Scripture.

And Hebrews chapter 11 gives us the exact theological correct understanding of this event. Hebrews 11, 17 through 19 reads, By faith, Abraham. Notice it says, by faith. By faith, Abraham. When God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.

So notice, his actions are the result of his faith. And remember, Scripture earlier in Genesis said that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. So you can't go back now in chapter 22 and renegotiate Abraham's righteousness.

His righteousness is by faith. His actions showing that his faith is there. Hebrews 11 says, by faith, Abraham. When tested by God, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He did this because he hearkened to the voice of the Lord.

He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son. Even Hebrews picks this up.

But he had two, right?

Right. Even though God had said to him, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. And then Hebrews reveals to us what was going on in Abraham's mind. It says, Abraham reasoned within himself that God could raise the dead.

And figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death. In other words, he hearkened to the voice of the Lord and he believed God. He believed God, that his promise that the whole world would be blessed through this child, Isaac, his only son.

He believed that. So much so that he basically figured, well, God has told me to sacrifice Isaac. Well, then that means that God is true to his word. He would not lie if the whole world is to be blessed through Isaac.

And my descendants will be as numerous as the sands on the seashore. Well, then the only solution is, is that God's going to raise him from the dead. That was Abraham's reasoning. And Hebrews reveals this to us.

Without the New Testament, you can't know what's going on there in this text. And the thing is, is that in a sense, that's what happened. So Isaac truly was dead. And he was raised again because of the sacrifice, the substitutionary sacrifice.

Figuratively speaking, raised from the dead. But all of this, Jesus' death and his resurrection then are prefigured in this text. And this is good news for us. This is not about you sacrificing anything.

Salvation by Grace Through Faith and the Lamb of God

This is the good news that God looks at you. And even though you were dead in trespasses and sins, He says, I love you. And I'm going to come to earth. And I'm going to live perfectly in your place. And I am going to bleed and die and take the penalty for your sin upon myself.

So that you can go free. God himself provided the Lamb. And the Lamb is Jesus. And this text is all about that. As we in Lent meditate on and prepare for Holy Week, when Christ is crucified for our sins, this text focuses us this first week of Lent at that event.

And makes us ponder and meditate anew on the mercies and the love of God who could save and would save sinners as wretched as myself. And as wretched as you. What a great gift we've received from God and Jesus.

He has provided the Lamb. And the Lamb is Jesus. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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