Abraham Tested (Hebrews 11:17-19 Jeff Kliewer)

Worship, Faithfulness, and Trust in the Lord

Magnify, exalt, together, exalt. Bless the Lord every day and every night. Never-ending praise, let our voices rise to the Lord. Our voices rise. Magnify the Lord. Come exalt His name together. Glorify the Lord.

Come exalt His name. Many psalms are written by David with that same worship to the Lord. Psalm 34, like we sang, and Psalm 27. It says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life.

Whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Continue to sing. Whom shall I fear? The enemy is my sword and shield.

Though troubles linger still, whom shall I fear? I know who goes before me. I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies is always by my side.

My strength is in Your name. For You alone can save. You will deliver the victory. Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I fear? I know who goes before me. I know angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine.

The God of angel armies is always by my side. And nothing formed against me shall stand. You hold the whole world in Your hand. I'm holding on to Your promises. You are faithful. You are faithful. And nothing shall stand.

You hold the whole world in Your hand. I'm holding on to Your promises. You are faithful. You are faithful. You are faithful. Who goes before me? I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side.

The one who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies is always by my side. I know who goes before me. I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine.

The God of angel armies is always by my side. The God of angel armies is always by my side. Lord, we come before You. You are the strength. You are the protector. You are the one we lean to because You are faithful and You will take care of us.

We give You all of our fears and anxieties, all the things that are happening in our world and in our country. We want to give them to You. We want to lean on You for our peace as David did throughout the Psalms.

You are faithful, Lord. Father, there is no shadow of Thou changest not Thy compassions As Thou hast been Thou forever Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth.

There's just something about those hymns, isn't there? Especially when you're singing about faithfulness, that He's been faithful to generations and generations before us and He will always be. Let's pray.

Faith Tested Through Trials

So Father, as we come here this morning, our prayer is that You would help us to have faith. We pray that those of us who are going through trials and are being tested, that our faith would be found to be pure gold and You would refine our faith, strengthen our faith.

We think of the man who came to Jesus wanting his child to be healed and Jesus, You asked him, do you believe? He said, I believe. Help my unbelief. That's us this morning, Lord. We believe this Bible.

We believe Your Word. Help our unbelief. Let us leave here stronger in Your Word, more convicted, more sure, more steadfast, even so in the trials, Lord. We thank You for Your Word to us this morning.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, it is good to be back. It has been really three weeks since I was in the pulpit because two others filled in. So normally I'll start preparing a sermon on Monday, the day after I preach.

And the first day after my vacation, to be honest with you, I was glad to not be writing a sermon. I was in Florida taking a deep breath and just enjoying a little bit of time off. But by the end of that week, I was ready to go.

And so all of the second week, I was getting antsy to preach, I'm taking notes, I'm studying, but I'm still in Florida. There's no one to preach to but the palm trees. So I just kept taking more notes and got more and more thoughts.

And here I am, and I've been preparing for three weeks. So prepare to drink from a fire hose. I think my notes are double the length they normally are. But I have been prayerful this morning about cutting the unnecessary.

But I will try to be brief. But the point is, we love God's Word. So y 'all want to drink from a fire hose, right? All right, let's do that. Let's go to God's Word. Let's begin, first of all, with a story like I normally do.

Rob mentioned that there are many things going on around the world from Australia and South Africa with the riots, the Cuban uprising, and the pastors who were thrown in jail, the English evangelist who's thrown in prison for preaching nothing but the Word of God, unadulterated.

In Canada, 45 churches burned. Well, they are also arresting pastors for keeping their churches open despite the government lockdowns. We all prayed here for James Coates when he was locked up. And by God's grace, he was delivered.

Another one who was thrown in prison was named Tim Stevens, pastor of a Baptist church in Alberta. He refused to stop preaching the gospel, administering the communion and baptizing, fellowshipping in the assembly.

According to Hebrews 10 .25, he was obeying the Lord and therefore needing to disobey what their government said. In January, they began to fine him. At first, it was $1 ,200. And by the end of the fines, it was half a million dollars for every Sunday.

So I can only imagine the kind of fee that church is facing. Hopefully, the court would throw that out. But in June, they threw him in prison. And he was locked up for, I think, 18 days. Well, imagine being the father of young children and making a decision like that when it would have been a lot easier just to preach online, a lot easier to just stay home with your family.

And his wife took to Facebook to say these things. One thing that has come up both in my own mind and in some of the questions I've received is how Tim's actions serve the shepherd, serve to shepherd his family and church.

Some have argued that he is actually being unfaithful since he's now prevented from being with any of us. I've wrestled with this. How is this taking care of us? So pause. He's in jail. How is he shepherding his family?

How is this shepherding us? This, of course, is not a situation we would wish upon anybody. But what it shows to me, my children and our church family, is that Christ is worthy of full devotion. She goes on to say the throne in Tim's heart doesn't belong to us.

It belongs to Jesus. In regular times, that would mean that he daily lays down his life for us, since that's what God calls him to do. But today, it means we're apart for a time. And that's what we need most.

We need to be exhorted to dethrone the idols in our own hearts. Health, wealth, security, family, reputation, entertainment, politics. So many idols to make way for the true king. We need to understand that compromising obedience to Christ, aka disobedience, for anything else shows where our heart and allegiance truly are.

Tim is caring for us by giving us what we need most, to see Christ as worthy of all in the little things and the big things. And it is God who works in this to his glory alone. I love the words of Raquel Stevens.

She's trusting that when Tim makes a sacrifice and takes what's most dear to him, and is willing to even lay that on the altar, he proclaims that Christ is Lord over all. And this, brothers and sisters, is the meaning of our passage this morning.

Abraham's Ultimate Test of Faith

Hebrews 11, 17 to 19, is the story of Abraham laying down his most beloved, his own son, Isaac, on the altar. Let's turn to Hebrews 11. There's a little bit of a rumble back here, guys, in the back, if you can...

I don't know if you can... Can you guys hear that out there? Or is that just me? Okay. You hear it? All right. So I don't know if you can tweak that. So the big idea here is that God will put our faith to the test.

And Abraham had the ultimate test of faith. It says... Well, first of all, let's get into Hebrews 11 from the first verse before we get into the 17th, just to remind ourselves of some of the major ideas here.

Faith, the assurance of things hoped for, certainty of things not seen. Oh, that's better. Thank you. And then we have examples. And the first example is us. Look at verse 3. By faith, we. You will see this refrain again and again in Hebrews 11.

By faith. By faith, we. And we are the first ones mentioned because all of us, no matter who reads the book of Hebrews, has the revelation of God in the things that they can see. We can see the universe.

And according to Psalm 19, the universe, the world, pours forth speech. The stars above, the sun in the sky. It communicates that there is a God who made everything. And that's the beginning point of faith.

We all have access to that general revelation, even though some people will stifle that revelation and pretend that they don't see it. There's a... Just thinking of this now. A guy I like named Doug Wilson, who debated with Christopher Hitchens.

You guys know who that is? He's the atheist debater, and he's just really antagonistic. Well, he's passed away now. But Doug Wilson said two things about Christopher Hitchens. He said, I know two things about him.

One, he does not believe in God. He's an atheist. And two, he hates God. Meaning there's some contradiction there. He's on a rampage against a God he supposedly doesn't believe in. The point is, he suppresses truth.

All of creation, the fact that there are visible things to see, testify to the fact that there's a God who made all that is. That's the beginning of faith. That's the first example. The second, of course, is Abel, verse four.

He's a picture of justification. Justification. Because he believed God and offered the sacrifice that God had commanded. Which of course was a blood sacrifice in the garden. As God killed an animal and made a covering for sin, to cover the shame of Adam and Eve.

So Abel killed an animal and offered that sacrifice and God was pleased with it. Third in verse five, who's next? Come on, feedback. Enoch. Right. And this is an example of sanctification. He walked with God and was no more.

For God took him up. Next in verse seven we have Noah. And Noah was one who had so much faith that even when he was persecuted, he was ridiculed. By believing the promise rather than capitulating, he condemned the world and was rewarded.

Verse seven. And that brings us now to Abraham. But we've already studied Abraham from verses eight to sixteen. We learned about two episodes of his faith. The first is in Genesis 12, one to three, where he's told to leave everything that he knew.

His family. His father's house. And go to the promised land. And just on that promise, he didn't have a sandals commercial with beautiful white beaches and the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. He didn't see that.

He was just told to go to a land that I'll show you later. And in faith he took God at his word and he went. And then it says in verse nine, by faith he, again Abraham, another example, continues to wait, living in tents like a sojourner for 25 years until God comes in Genesis 17 and reaffirms the promise.

And of course we know he laughs and Sarah laughs. But God tells him, your descendants will be like the sand on the sea. Sarah in verse 11 has like faith. And that brings us to verse 17. Today we're studying 17 to 19.

By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son of whom it was said through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking he did receive him back. This I think is the preeminent example of faith. To offer his most beloved, Isaac, on the altar in obedience to God's word.

Incredible picture of faith. Let's look at some of the terms here. It says in verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested. That language comes from Genesis 22, that God tested Abraham. And this test is not uncommon for the believer.

In fact, it's normative. Christians, do not think it's strange when you suffer various trials. When adversity comes into your life, it's not because you have failed to believe the health and wealth gospel and you've lacked the positive confessionalism to just make everything rosy all the time.

That's not the reason. Trials are tests that come from God. God has purposes in allowing difficult things to come into our lives. And I can't imagine anything more difficult than being told by God to sacrifice my child.

This is what he's told. He's tested by this command. The most faithful believers are often tested with the most difficult trials. Noah was tested with 120 years of ridicule and shipbuilding when he had never seen rain, only later to be rewarded.

Job was tested because of his faith, by the stripping away of everything that he had, including his 10 children, only to later be rewarded for his faithfulness to God. David, as we heard about earlier today, was on the run from Saul.

Everything stripped from him until he was exalted to become king over all of Israel. And this pattern goes throughout the scriptures. You think of Esther. When her people were being threatened, took her own life on the line, passing the test, she goes to the king, even though she wasn't invited, which could have very well cost her her life.

And she said, if I perish, I perish. And so the people were saved. But think also of Mordecai in that situation. To Mordecai, Esther was like a daughter in the faith. He's the one that raised her. This was his star, Esther.

He loved her and cared for her. And yet he told her, you go to the king, knowing full well that this could cost her her life. He laid her down on the altar of that sacrifice because he knew that this was God's will for such a time as this.

And if she didn't go, God would have delivered them some other way. And yet he was willing to lay her down. Daniel and the lions then, only to give glory to God as he comes forth. And all of the empire recognizes that his God is different than the gods of the nations.

Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, they go through the test of a fiery furnace, only to be rewarded and bring glory to God. In the New Testament, the same story is told. The apostles are commanded not to speak in this name.

And remember, these are the apostles who just saw their Lord crucified. Imagine the threat of a cross hanging over your head, and yet you go, you pass the test, and then are protected through the preaching of the word, and rewarded with this amazing time of revival.

Paul, stoned and left for dead at Lystra, yet passing that test, he goes back to Lystra to preach the word. The church is planted, and everywhere he goes, the gospel is established. Through tests, through beatings, and shipwreck, sleepless nights, and hunger, betrayal from his own countrymen.

The tests of the faith are not extraordinary, they are ordinary. Expect them. Do not think it strange when you suffer various trials. God has a purpose in these tests, and what is that purpose? It is to bring glory to his name.

That through the display of your faith, those enemies of the gospel will be put to shame, and the value of Christ over and above everything will be magnified. When they see us suffer, and yet hold to our testimony, we show that Christ is more valuable than anything in this world.

He is glorified in these tests, and it changes us. This is how God, according to James 1, verse 3, produces steadfastness in us. We are sanctified when we are tested. So it's not that God is needing to discover something about us, like he's putting you to the test, and if you pass, then he'll know he can welcome you into the kingdom.

It was his grace that came to you and quickened you in the first place. He doesn't need to learn anything about you, and you can't earn anything from him by passing the test. Rather, the test is meant to strengthen you.

When I was in seminary, we had some wonderful professors. One was Howard Hendricks, and another was Dwight Pentecost. Pentecost wrote Things to Come, this thick volume on eschatology. I loved that book.

I had read it before seminary, and I just really wanted to take eschatology from Pentecost. However, I already took eschatology from another professor when I was in Florida. But Dallas Seminary offered some other option.

You could take the class by audit. Who knows what it is to audit a class? When you audit a class, you go and you listen to the professor, you get the chance to be there and learn, but you never take a test.

Sounds pretty sweet, right? However, if you enter with 80 credit hours, you exit with 80 credit hours. Here's the catch. You don't get the reward. Third, listen, in the Christian life, there is no auditing this class.

There is always a test, and the test is good, and it's meaningful, and it accomplishes the purpose for which it is sent. Some of you are going through tests, and sometimes you're overwhelmed by them, right?

But know that God has a purpose in these tests. They're ordinary. They're a part of the Christian life. Next, look at verse 17. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

Notice what God asks Abraham to offer up. The son he loves. Back in Genesis 22, where this story is taken from, turn with me there. We're gonna go back and forth between Genesis 22 and the commentary on that chapter, which is what we're reading today.

Notice it says in verse two, God says to Abraham, take your son, your only son. Now, is Isaac the only son of Abraham, by the flesh? No. Ishmael has already been born, but he is the unique son of promise, through whom the promise is made in Genesis 21, 12, that through Isaac, your offspring shall be named.

But notice this next sentence here, in Genesis 22, verse two, whom you love. That Hebrew word for love is appearing right here for the first time in the Bible. Why did God wait until this moment to introduce that word, love?

It is the same reason that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, the synoptic gospels, the first time we see the word love is with reference to Jesus. At his baptism, this is my son, says the father, whom I, agape, who I love.

And then the first time love appears in John, will be a verse that's familiar to you, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

The point is this, the relationship between Abraham and Isaac parallels the relationship between God the father and God the son. The father-son love, that Trinitarian love that existed before anything else did, which is why we can say God is love, by the way, because when nothing else was, father, son, and spirit existed in perfect love.

That love is eternal. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and gave his son as a propitiation for our sin. And so back now to Hebrews 11, verse 19, I'm sorry, verse 17, notice the emphasis here, offered up Isaac.

Recognize, this is the command to offer the one he loves. The son whom you love, the beloved son of promise, Abraham held nothing more valuable than Isaac. He was not only his firstborn, I mean, his son of promise, but everything that came through Abraham according to Genesis 12, one to three, was resting on his shoulders.

The promise of a people like the sand of the sea, like the stars of the sky, it had to come through Isaac. All of that rested on him and God tells him to give that up. From this, I deduce that there is nothing that you or I have that God does not have right over.

He owns it all. And when the rich young ruler came to Jesus, he thought he was righteous and he said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said, you know the commandments. And in his pride, the rich young ruler thought, oh yeah, I've kept all of those, yeah, right.

But Jesus said, okay, one thing you still lack, go sell everything that you have, give it to the poor and come follow me. And the rich young ruler refused to do that because he was very rich and he held his possessions dear to him and he was unwilling to give it all away for Christ.

And yet Christ made that demand. You must take up your cross and follow him. Christ deserves not just a little bit of our devotion, not just the best part, he deserves everything that we are. He's Lord of it all.

In Matthew 6, 33, he tells us, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else will be given to you. Meaning all that you need, food and clothing, all that you need to survive and to live and to bring him glory, to accomplish your purpose that he made you for, all of that is wound up in him.

But first you must give yourself to him. All of you, the Navy SEALs provide for us a good illustration of what this looks like. How do you become a SEAL? It's weeks and weeks of training, but one week, hell week, I think they only sleep a few hours throughout the course of the week.

And the Navy SEAL who led the 2011 raid of Osama Bin Laden's compound gave us some insight into what it takes to be a SEAL. Here's what he said, it takes to be a SEAL that you don't quit. In an interview, Bill McRaven, who led this raid, said the one thing that defines everybody that goes through SEAL training is that they didn't ring the bell, as we say.

They didn't quit. And that's really what you're trying to find in the young SEAL students because in the course of your career, you're going to be cold, wet, miserable. You're going to kind of fail often as a result of bad missions, bad training.

But what makes a SEAL is that you never rang the bell, you never quit. In this Christian life, you will be cold, you will be miserable, yet joyful in your misery. You will endure many hardships, but this is what you must never do, crawl down from the altar.

You are a living sacrifice, Romans 12, 1 and 2, presented to God. You must never ring that bell. Your life must always be His, no matter what you endure, what trials He puts before you. God asked the ultimate thing of Abraham.

Others endured, right? We talked about Job and losing his kids, but it was the house that fell on his family. Abraham's trial was different, for God told him, you are to raise your own hand and slay your son and offer him as a burnt offering on the altar.

It is the greatest trial ever given to a mere mortal. And yet, even in that, Abraham sets for us an example of obedience. Right away, he considered, and according to the language of Genesis 22, the moment he heard, he was obeying.

Hold nothing back. Third, we move on now to the promises of God. Look at verse 17, it says, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, we talked about how these tests are normal and part of the Christian life.

Offered up Isaac, that means you've got to give everything, even what's most dear to you. Next, it says, he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son. Of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

Notice that faith is taking God at His word, and I want to put your minds at ease over a question here. What Abraham was called to do can never be repeated again, can never be repeated. Abraham was receiving special revelation from God as one of the authors of scripture, direct revelation from God.

We do not receive special revelation of that nature. In Ephesians 2 .20, we learn that the apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church. When the last apostle died, there will be no more books of scripture given, no direct special revelation.

Now we can have promptings from the Holy Spirit that lead us and give us feelings and prompt us to do things, but it is never a special revelation to do something which would contradict a command or in any way compete with the direct revelation of scripture.

Make sense? So we'll never have this kind of trial laid upon our shoulders. That was for Abraham to endure. But notice what we do have, his great and precious promises. Look at 2 Peter 1, 3 and 4 in your notes, or you can be real fast with your fingers.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.

Translation, we have everything we need in this book. All things for life and godliness. It has been given, it's complete. The word of God, the promises of God on which we stand are all that we need. Faith means taking this word from God and standing upon it.

It introduces a problem here, though, for my last point in verse 19. How is it that a promise of God seemingly contradicts a command of God? Consider, through whom did the promise come? Isaac. God said in Genesis 21, 12, through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

Back in Genesis 22, verse 2, here's the command. Take Isaac, the son whom you love, and kill him. And so it appears there's a contradiction. The blessing comes through this son and him only. Ishmael will not do.

No other son of Keturah or any other son will do. It's Isaac. Now kill him. How do we put these two things together? Here's what modern Christians do in our day and age. We pick and choose the ones that we like and we say, well, look, hey, there's really good people on this side that take it this way.

And there's other people who take it that way. So I'm going to go with this and either way you go is fine. Nowadays, Christians pick and choose scriptures according to what sounds right to them. That is not how Abraham reasoned.

Look at verse 19. And I think this is the most amazing part of this passage of scripture. It gives us a glimpse into the mind of faith and how the mind of faith approaches scripture. It says in verse 19, he considered.

Now I've written down the Greek here for considered. Logissimenos from Logos as a root, which means rationality or reason. It's to think or to consider, to count, to reason, to decide, to conclude. You see what's happening here.

He's thinking about how one thing is promised, another thing is commanded, and rather than throwing one away and keeping the other, he's reasoning how in a systematic theology these things do fit together because let God be true and every man a liar.

What does he come to in verse 19? He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. From which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. You see how Abraham thinks? Even if I slay my son, even if I burn my son to ashes, God will raise him from the dead.

God can do all things and he reconciled those things in his mind. In fact, the author of Hebrews here is picking that up from Genesis 22. Because in Genesis 22, Abraham tells the young men, wait here while I and Isaac go to the mountain and we will come back to you.

Not I will come back to you, but we will come back to you. Abraham was reasoning that God would raise Isaac from the dead. Isn't that amazing? That is awesome. His view of scripture is the highest view of scripture I can imagine.

He takes everything revealed as true. Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. So there's some mysteries. In fact, Abraham didn't quite figure it all out, did he? He thought he would be raised from the dead, but figuratively speaking, he did come back from the dead by not actually having to die because he was the type of Christ.

That's how it actually worked out. But his view of scripture held God's word above God's name. He held the highest view of this word, and he refused to compromise on any point. That was his systematizing of this theology.

Notice, though, halfway through verse 19, he's reasoning like this. He doesn't see the whole picture yet. Here we are, looking back on this episode. This happened 2 ,000 B .C., so we're 4 ,000 years removed, and yet it's still speaking.

How powerful is God's word? It's speaking to us, and what does it say? Figuratively speaking, it still speaks as a figure. That Greek word is parabolos. What does that sound like? Parable. It's a parable.

It's a type. It's a shadow. It speaks to something bigger, so figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. Turn with me, and we're for the last time, to Genesis 22. This figure is one of the great grounds of our faith.

If there's anybody here this morning, maybe you've just been told by parents that Jesus is the Son of God. Maybe you've heard it, maybe you're listening online, and you're weighing these things. You don't know.

How do I know that this is actually true? Genesis 22 is the ground on which you can stand. You see, the gospel, according to 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ was crucified, that he was buried, that he rose from the dead, is according to the scriptures God has implanted ahead of time.

Scripture, the writings which reveal the Son of God. Now, look at Genesis 22 for a few of these things. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love.

We talked about that word love, the prized one, 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. Later, I want you to go through and read the story.

Can everybody do that? Even kids, can you read this story before you go to bed tonight, Genesis 22? Here's what you're going to find. It is the story of a father and a son, Abraham and Isaac, but it speaks to God the Father and Jesus the Son.

And you'll find no story like this anywhere in the Bible because the drastic and truly incredible point of this story is that the Father is saying to the Son, come with me, lay down your life. My will is to kill you.

Do you hear the force of that? This is gospel truth, and this is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his Son as a propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4 .10. What is a propitiation for sin?

It is a sacrifice. It is an atonement. It is a bloody offering on an altar by which God sees that sacrifice and no longer holds the guilty accountable. He credits righteousness to the one who offers that sacrifice because his wrath is satisfied in the death of that substitute.

Abraham was told to kill Isaac because the Father gave the Son. Who killed Jesus Christ? Yes, Roman soldiers, Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Jews, the Greeks, all of us, but ultimately it was the Father. It pleased the Father to crush him.

The Father gave the Son as an atoning sacrifice. 1 John 2 .2. That's the first thing. A Father offering the Son. The second thing, it's his one and only Son. Even though in the flesh there is an Ishmael, this is the unique one who's different, the Son of promise.

Jesus is that only begotten, the monogamous, the only unique one of the Father. Third, the Son goes with the Father and must carry the wood of his sacrifice. Abraham laid on Isaac the wood. And he said, well, where is the animal?

On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided, Son. Speaking to the mountain. Just like Jesus hefted the cross and carried it up that mountain, Isaac had to climb a mountain, Moriah, a three days journey from where they were, which many scholars will tell you is the very mountain on which Jesus was crucified.

On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. When he got there, imagine, Joe Foch has estimated that Isaac is 30 years old at this point because the word for boy just means young man, same Hebrew word.

Could Isaac, the 120-year-old man, pin, I'm sorry, could Abraham pin Isaac to that wood? All the 15-year-old teenagers through 30-year-old, you know the answer to that. Impossible. So what does that say?

That means that when Isaac got there and discovered the will of the Father, of Abraham, he willingly laid down on that wood. He willingly allowed himself to be tied up, to be slain and burned because Jesus says, no one takes my life, I give it willingly.