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This is the 2nd sermon I preached at Moores Corner Church.
Good morning. I trust that everybody is doing well. As you well know, Pastor Riddle has been preaching through the life of Joseph the past several months. And this morning, we are going to be discussing Joseph's father Joseph's, Jacob, as you well know.
Jacob's father was Isaac, and Isaac's father was Abraham. And we want to discuss an event that happened in the life of Abraham and Isaac. And we will see what God called Abraham to do and how the Lord provided for him.
I'd like to start out by posing a question to the congregation. What has God called you to do? What has God asked of you? What spiritual gifts has he given to you to exercise? Now, some of you may scratch your head and wonder, and you may not know the answer to that.
And that would be unfortunate if that's the case, because God certainly has a work for each and every one of us. But for those of you who know what God has called you to do, try to think of the most difficult thing God ever.
Asked of you.
And then, did you obey him? Did you step out in faith? And if so, did he provide for you? Sometimes you may look at a situation and think, how can God possibly work this out for the good? You don't understand how it's going to go.
But you step out in faith, and did God provide for you when you did that? So we want to discuss this. And I've had the opportunity to take classes through Liberty University. And I'm enrolled in a biblical studies program.
One of the classes that I took was the Doctrine of the Godhead, where you learn the names of God, Elohim, and Jehovah El Shaddai. One of the names of God that I learned was this, Jehovah Jireh. This means the Lord will provide.
So open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 12. And we're going to read verses 1 through 4. We're going to give a little background about Abraham and the child of promise. Now, the Lord had said to Abraham, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Sam is about 75 years old at this point in time. And God calls him out of a pagan land, out of a pagan family. And he says, I will go to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation.
And Abraham is an older gentleman. He had no children. His wife was about 65. She was barren. And God tells him he will make of him a great nation. And I wonder what Abraham must have thought when he first heard this.
So we're going to move along to Genesis chapter 15, verses 1.
Through 6.
After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. But Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless?
And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. This was his servant. And Abram said, look, you have given me no offspring. Indeed, one born in my house is my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, this one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.
Then God brought Abraham outside. He told him, look now toward heaven and count the stars. If you are able to number them, he said, so shall your descendants be. 4 ,000 years ago in the land of Palestine, if you were to go out on a clear night where there were no city lights back then, no light pollution, you could have looked up at the sky at the Milky Way where scientists estimate there are between 200 billion and 400 billion stars just in our galaxy alone.
So Abraham would have looked. The atmosphere is much more thin in that part of the world where it is here. And he would have seen an amazing sight. All of these stars, God said, if you can tell your descendants be.
And he believed in the Lord, verse 6. And he accounted it to him for righteousness. So God made a promise. And Abraham believed on that promise. Now that, my friends, is faith. Hebrews 11, 6 says, without faith, it is impossible to please God.
So let me ask you a question. What kind of faith do you have? When you look at a situation, you know God has promised you things. All things will work together for your good if you love God and all the other promises of salvation or eternal security.
Do you believe God? Do you believe on his promises? Do you have that kind of faith to believe in the Lord? Even when a situation may look dire, you don't understand how it's going to work out. Do you have the kind of faith that Abraham had?
Without faith, it is impossible to please God. You can be a millionaire and give millions of dollars if you're an atheist if you're not doing it for the Lord.
It doesn't do you a bit of good.
It may do people good. Genesis 16, we'll read verses 1 through 4. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, and keep in mind, Abram had his name changed by God to Abraham. And Sarai had her name changed to Sarah. So if I use the names interchangeably,.
You'll have to excuse me.
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, see now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please go into my maid.
Perhaps I shall obtain children by her. Clearly, Sarah is getting outside of the will of God. She is encouraging her husband to take another wife. But she was deceived. What was Adam's excuse? And he certainly knew better.
So why did Abraham go along with this?
We don't know.
And Sarah, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her husband Abram, to 10 years had gone by. We can see in verses 15 and 16 of Genesis 16, it says, so Hagar bore Abram a son. And Abram named his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael.
Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abraham. So about 10, 11 years have gone by. And this child of promise is not yet coming. So we want to move along to Genesis chapter 17, verses 15 through 19.
God has to remind Abram here. They're outside of the will of God. God has to remind him of his promise, starting in verse 15. Then God said to Abraham, as for Sarah, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
And I will bless her and also give you a son by her. And I will bless her. And she shall be a mother of nations, kings of peoples.
Shall be from her.
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? And shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, oh, that Ishmael.
Might live before you.
So Abraham doesn't seem like he quite gets it. He's saying, God, well, what about Ishmael? We have Ishmael. Oh, that he would live before you. And what does God say? He says, no. Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son.
And you will call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his descendants.
After him.
So God has to remind him that Ishmael is not the child when he promised. It will be a child who is to be named Isaac. And finally, Isaac is born in Genesis chapter 21, verses 1 through 5. And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said.
And the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age. Remember, he's 100 years old. 25 years have gone by. I wonder, you know, what was Abraham thinking?
25 years and still no child. He's 100 years old. 25 years have gone by. And Abraham called. So Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in verse 2 in his old age at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him. And Sarah bore to him Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old as God had commanded him. Now, Abram was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
So finally, the child of promise is brought into his life. And what a wonderful day that must have been. And oh, how Abraham must have loved Isaac. It must have been his pride and joy. I can't imagine after waiting that long for this child of promise.
And you think about it, why did God wait? Why wasn't Isaac born when Abraham was a younger man, maybe in his 40s or something? Why did God wait until he was 100? Why did God wait until Sarah was 90? Why was she barren?
God did this so that they would be absolutely sure that this child was a miracle. Children are brought into the world. And the parents will say, look at this little miracle. I told them, Isaac was a true miracle in every sense of the word.
Because 90-year-old women generally don't give birth. So this child was truly a miracle. And Abram, or Abraham, must have loved him. I know a little bit about this. I remember when my firstborn was brought into the world.
When Maya was born, it was a difficult thing. There were some complications. She didn't want to come out. But once she did, she started crying. Just the sweetest thing you ever heard. So I know a little bit about that.
But she wasn't a miracle in the sense that Isaac was. Abraham certainly waited a long time. And he was 100 years old. And he finally had an heir. And oh, how he must have loved Isaac. But something happens.
In Genesis chapter 22, I'm going to read verses 1 through 2. Isaac has grown up a little bit. Not exactly sure how old he is. Maybe 10 or 12, maybe a little older. Now, it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham.
And he said, here I am. Then God said, take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
Can you imagine how Abraham must have felt when God told him to do this? And Abraham was a man who had his priorities straight. God came first. Abraham had an amazing faith. God came first. When God told him to do it, he was going to do it.
But he must have been so grieved. The son that he loved, after waiting all that time, God tells him, now take your son and go kill him as a sacrifice to me. And I can imagine his heart must have ripped in two when he heard this.
But this was a testing. This was a testing. Let me ask a question. Did God know what was going to happen? God knew how Abraham would respond. So what was the purpose of this testing? It was as much for Abraham as it was for God.
When we're tested, and we all are, whether we realize it or not, one of two things is going to happen. We're going to pass the test, or we're going to fail the test. And when we fail God's test, what's going to happen?
We'll take maybe one step forward and two steps back. We'll get discouraged. And it's easy to really lose some faith and kind of be unusable to the Lord. But when we pass a test, we become more bold. We grow in our faith.
We become more like Jesus Christ. We grow in our sanctification. We need to be mindful that God is testing us all the time. And we need to pass each and every test.
Don't fail it.
Don't keep taking steps backwards. So God is testing Abraham. As much for Abraham's sake as for God's, if not more. So take your son to the land of Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering. In verse 3, Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him.
And Isaac, his son, and he split the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. So you see Abraham rose up early in the morning. He is ready to go. He can't wait to sacrifice his son.
I'm not so sure that's the case. He probably rose up early in the morning because he didn't get a wink of sleep. Tossed and turned, agonizing over this. But he got up early in the morning. When God asks you to do something, do you get up early in the morning and do it?
Procrastinate.
You say, well, I'll follow you, Lord, but maybe next week. Or maybe next year. Or maybe when I'm older. Abraham rose early in the morning. In verse 4, on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place of Pharaoh.
And Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. The lad and I will go yonder and worship. And we will come back to you. What a significant statement that is. Abraham says that me and the boy, we will come back to you.
Told him to offer him as a burnt offering. There would have been nothing left but ashes. But Abraham says, me and the lad will come back to you. So Abraham reasoned that one of two things would happen.
Either God wouldn't allow him to sacrifice his son, or if you turn to the book of Hebrews, go ahead and turn there quickly, Hebrews chapter 11. We will read verses 17 and 18, this great chapter of faith.
By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. Of whom it was said, in Isaac your seed shall be called. Concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.
So Abraham knew that even if he had to go through with this and sacrifice his son Isaac, that God could raise him up.
From the dead.
Because he was the child of promise. In verse 6, Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son. And he took the fire in his hand and a knife. And the two of them went together.
But Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said, wait a minute, we have a problem here. We have the wood, and we have the fire. We've got everything we need except for the lamb. He probably figures, my dad's getting old here.
He forgot the most important. So he asked his father about this. And Abraham said, my son, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering. So the two of them went together. And when Abraham said that God will provide for himself a lamb, these words were far more true than he probably fully understood.
John chapter 1, verse 29, John the Baptist, when he sees Jesus Christ, he says what? He proclaims, behold, the Son of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. So 2 ,000 years after this event, God did provide for himself a lamb.
In verse 9, they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order. And he bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
So Abraham had the knife. He was ready to do it this close. This reminds me of another story in the New Testament when a different father leads his son up a hill to be sacrificed. And in the New Testament, this son was obedient to his father, just as Isaac was obedient.
Because Isaac loved his father. He didn't kick. He didn't scream. He didn't fight. He didn't yell. He didn't say to his father, what's the matter with you? What are you doing? He didn't do any of those things.
Isaac was obedient even unto death. And this son that we read about in the New Testament, when his father leads him up to be sacrificed, he is obedient even to the death. So Abraham had the knife lifted up, ready to slay his only son, whom the Roman soldiers had their mallets lifted up, ready to drive the spikes through the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.
In verse 11, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. So he said, here I am. And he said, do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.
So God stops. But God didn't stop the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Why did he not stop that? Jesus had never done anything wrong. He was the Son of God, the King of glory. But God the Father allowed him to be crucified.
And he did it because he loved you. If God didn't care about you, Jesus never.
Would have suffered.
He never would have died.
But he hung upon that cross in agony, naked, shame. People mocked him and ridiculed him.
And he did that for you.
John chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father except by me. He says, no man except by me. There's a lot of people out there who have a real issue with this.
They say, you know, Christianity is too narrow. You fundamentalists, you're narrow-minded. There can't be only one way. When a person says that, in effect, they're saying that God didn't do enough. Or sure, God sent his son into the world to suffer and die.
But that's not enough.
I want more.
I don't want just one way. I want two ways. I want 20 ways. There can't be only one way. How dare anybody say that God did not do enough? And to say there is any other way is an insult. There is only one way, whether a person believes it or not.
Doesn't make any difference. Acts chapter 4, verse 12, says, there is salvation and no other. For there is no other name under heaven, given among men, for by which must be saved. So God stopped Abraham.
He didn't allow him to sacrifice. Verse 13, Abraham lifted his eyes and looked. And there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son.
And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah-Jireh, as it is said to this day in the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided. So let me ask the question that I started with. What has God asked from you?
What has God called you to do? God will probably never ask you to do something as difficult what he asked Abraham to do. But God does ask things. If you say he's never asked anything from me, it just means you're not listening or you're not seeking his will.
God doesn't save people and say, OK, now you're saved. Now you're bound for heaven. My child, take it easy and relax. Live out the rest of your life. Don't worry about a thing. That's not what God does.
God wants each and every one of us. We don't have to necessarily preach or teach a Sunday school class. We don't have to necessarily go out on the mission field. Different people are called to do different things.
But each one here, if you are a born-again Christian, God desires you to do something.
Are you doing it?
Do you know what it is?
Whatever it is that God asks of you, remember this, Jehovah Jireh. How thankful we are that you love us, that you sent your only son to die for us. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.
It is the blood of Jesus Christ that washes away all sins. There is one way and one way only. Lord, you gave it all so that we might have eternal life. We are so thankful for this. I pray that each one here would get a deep sense of conviction to seek your will, that they may know what you desire in their life, and that they may step out in faith to serve you.
Because we know that you will provide for each of our needs. You will not leave us. You will not forsake us. You will be with us every step of the way. I pray that you would speak to the hearts of each one here.
If anyone has never accepted Christ as their savior, may they do so today. People have accepted Christ. May we serve today and tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives, until the Lord comes, or until we go by the way of the grave, serving you, Lord, the God that we love.
Pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.
