Book of Hebrews - Ch. 11, Vs. 17-22 (06/06/2021)

Okay, good morning. This morning, we're going to continue with Hebrews 11.

We're going to pick up in verse 17, and then we're going to bounce back to Genesis for the background story.

Hebrews 11, 17. By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac.

And he that received the gift, actually, he that received the promises, that's

Abraham, offered up his only begotten son. That was a major part of the promise.

Let us pray. Most gracious heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for all of the blessings that you have given us.

We love you, and we know that we love you only because you first loved us, and that you loved us enough that you sent your son, that he might die to bear the punishment and the sins that we committed and continue to commit.

Bless us and protect us and allow us to have fewer sins to add to the load that Jesus paid for when he died on the cross.

Bless us and keep us and go through the services today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So now we're going to go back to Genesis chapter 21.

Sarah had a son already, Isaac, and Sarah saw the son of Hagar the

Egyptian. That would be Ishmael, which she had borne unto

Abraham, mocking her son Isaac. Wherefore she saith unto

Abraham, cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.

And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son.

Now which son? His son, Ishmael. And God said unto

Abraham, let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad and because of thy bondwoman, and in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice.

Now what did she just told Abraham to do? Cast out the bondwoman and the son, the son that she was instrumental in even being there in the first place.

But now she's calling for Abraham to cast them out. And what does

God say? And God said unto Abraham, let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad and because of thy bondwoman, and in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice, for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.

But then he goes on and gives a little consolation to Abraham and also of the son of thy bondwoman.

I will make a nation because he is thy seed. He is thy seed as well.

Ishmael was also a seed of Abraham. He was just not the seed through which the ultimate seed,

Jesus, would come. And he was not the seed through which all nations would be blessed.

Now we're going to go back a few chapters to Genesis. I guess this will be forward from here.

Genesis 17, 20. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee.

Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly.

Twelve princes shall he be yet, and I will make him a great nation.

But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which

Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.

And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.

Now I want you to notice a couple of things and note it very carefully. God promised Abraham, among other things, that it would be through Isaac that his seed was called.

That implies that Isaac must live long enough to have offspring. At this point, he had no children.

He had no wife. So he had no offspring.

So keep that in mind. And now we're going to go to Genesis 22, verse 1, and continue.

And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham. That word tempt is to test.

He's going to test Abraham's faith. And said unto him,

Abraham. He just called his name once. And Abraham said, behold, here

I am. And he said, take now thy son, thine only son

Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him therefore a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which

I will tell thee of. Well, a couple of questions. Number one, does this create a dilemma for Abraham?

He had to have faith to obey. The thing that was right in front of him.

The thing that the Lord asked him to do. He knows who's asking. He knows the Lord is not asking.

It's telling him to do. And that's to offer this child. Actually, he was about 20 years old, 25 or something like that.

This young man on the altar. Now, does he believe

God? He does. And so what does he do? He gets up early in the morning and he obeys.

And he obeys. Well, he had something else going on in his mind too,

I'm sure. He had God's promise that Isaac would have a son.

We just read that a couple of times. He had God's promise that the line to the ultimate seed,

Jesus Christ, would have to pass through Isaac and his seed. And Isaac doesn't have any seed at this point.

He also knows that God cannot lie. And now he's asked to offer this very son as a burnt offering.

And the question is, how can he make sense of this? How can

Abraham make sense of the fact that God told him two things that, on the face of it, are diametrically opposite and not possible to happen?

He promises that the seed, that he'll have a seed.

The seed will multiply like the stars in the sky. And Isaac doesn't have a child yet.

And he's now telling Abraham to take this son up to the mountain and slay him.

That doesn't make sense, does it? Okay, here's what

I said. He can't make sense of it. It doesn't make sense. All he can do is have faith and know that nothing is too hard for God to do.

So what did Abraham do? He rose up early in the morning.

You'd have thought that at least he'd waited until noon. He procrastinated a while, thought it over, maybe

God would change his mind. No, he didn't. Up in the morning early, as soon as he could go, he rose early in the morning.

He settled his ass, and he took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and claimed wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went into the place of which

God had told him. Take up three days. Then on the third day,

Abraham lifted up his eyes, and he saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto the young man,

Abide here with your ass, or with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you.

I'm going to read that again. Abide ye here, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you.

Now, why is he going? He's going to sacrifice Isaac.

And what does he say? Isaac and I will be back to see you in a few minutes, in a few days, in a few hours.

We'll be back. In spite of the fact that he intends to sacrifice

Isaac, he seems to believe that Isaac will come back with him. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son, and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they both went, and they went, both of them together.

Isaac consented to this. Isaac obeyed too. And Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said,

Father, and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said,

Behold the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.

So they went, both of them together. Now, I find that verse very interesting.

What question did Isaac ask of Abraham? Where's the lamb?

Where's the sacrifice? And what did Abraham answer? Not just God will provide it.

It doesn't say provide a lamb. It says provide himself a lamb.

I'm going to put a pause between two words. God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering.

Isn't that cool? When God told

Abraham, you obey. Abraham obeyed.

God took care of the rest. Now, in the short term, we're talking about short -term prophecies and long -term prophecies.

Right now, when Abraham made this comment to Isaac, had anything been, let me try that again, had anything been provided for the sacrifice at this point in time?

Other than Isaac, no. Other than Isaac, no. Now, so what

Abraham is doing here is prophesying a short -term prophecy and a long -term prophecy.

The short -term prophecy is fulfilled when? On the mountain, that day when

Isaac was about to slay his son, or Isaac, Abraham was about to slay his son, and he looked up because the angel told him to look up, or the

Lord told him to look up, and he saw a ram entangled in the bushes. He said, take the ram and sacrifice him instead of your son.

So the ram was a substitutionary sacrifice for Isaac.

But there's also a long -term prophecy involved here. 2 ,000 years later, there's going to be another sacrifice, and another lamb will be substituted for the person that should have been sacrificed.

We'll get to that in a minute, but I just wanted to lay that out in front of you before we got too far.

Verse 9, and they came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound

Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. Now, Isaac is probably somewhere in his early 20s.

Abraham is probably around 120. He was 100 when

Isaac was born, and so if Isaac is 20, Abraham would have to be 120. I don't know about the rest of you, but I know this.

I would have a hard time taking any 20 -year -old man and tying him up and putting him on an altar to be crucified unless he was willing to help me.

I couldn't do it. Maybe Abraham could. I'm sure he could, but he was only 50 years older than I am now.

So I've got some more time to deteriorate before I get to that point.

I don't think Abraham could have put Isaac on the altar if Isaac had objected to it.

What do you think? Looking at his dad who threatened to do this to him.

Yes, but, you know, Isaac also had faith, and they both had faith in the same thing, and we'll get to that later as well.

Isaac also grew up seeing his father's faith, and I think that's very important in a child's life.

Absolutely. He saw how many times Abraham showed his faith. Now, there was also a side of Abraham.

Yes, sir? Ben said if I was to strap him down like that, he'd say, Dad, I'm going to have to take your keys away.

Okay. Okay. What about Dave, you, Virginia? Would you agree with Ben?

Oh, Dad, your favorite pencil strapped me down. Okay.

Okay. Okay. I'm not going to go any further with that. It is almost, it's totally clear that Isaac had to agree, at some level he had to agree, to be put on that altar for a 120 -year -old man to be able to put him there.

That's assuming he was 120. If he was 25, he'd have been 125 for Abraham. And they came to the place which

God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound

Isaac, his son, and laid him on the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took a knife to slay his son.

Talk about last minute. And the angel of the

Lord called him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.

This time he called him twice, just in case he wasn't listening. Well, he was listening.

I'm sure he was listening and hoping. But maybe not. Maybe he was waiting for something else to happen.

But in any case, he did hear and he said, here am I. And the angel of the

Lord said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him.

For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only son from me.

Okay, so who is this angel of the Lord that's speaking? It's got to be

Jesus, because that's who he's withholding. That's who he's not withholding Isaac from. If you just read it, you don't know whether it's the angel of the

Lord or just an angel of the Lord. And I think I put enough stress on the first one to make a difference.

But if I didn't, I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only son from me.

And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him, a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.

And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah -Jireh. As it is said today, in the mount of the

Lord it shall be seen. So what is it that shall be seen in the mount of the

Lord? Not the ram.

The ram has already been seen. Though the short -term prophecy has already been fulfilled.

When he's talking about, and Abraham called the name of that place after he'd seen the ram, after he'd done the sacrifice, he's already offered him up the ram for a burnt offering instead of his son.

And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah -Jireh. As it is said to this day, in the mount of the

Lord it shall be seen. What shall be seen? The future reference to the same event, the long -term prophecy.

And that was fulfilled when? On the cross, when Jesus substituted himself for us, for our sins, paid the price on the cross.

A wonderful thing. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham out of heaven a second time and said, by myself

I have sworn. Why didn't he swear by himself? There was no one greater than he to swear to.

For because thou hast done this thing and hath not withheld thy son, thy only son, that in blessing

I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seeds as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore.

And thy seed shall possess the gates of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.

Okay. Now, that's the story of Isaac and his sacrifice of his son.

Yes. I noticed it says in verse 12, when

God provided, he said, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only son.

But you can't have another son. But this is his only son. And I think there's also another reference pointing forward to Christ, because Christ was

God's only son. Yes, and in fact, for God, Christ was his only, only, only son.

Yes. But for Abraham, that wasn't quite true, was it? But what was probably true is

Isaac was the only son through which

Abraham's seed would pass through to the ultimate seed,

Jesus Christ. Right. So in that sense, he was the only son. Right. But in another sense, he had

Esau out there too. Not Esau. Ishmael. Yeah.

I get my second sons. My first son's confused. I have a question.

Yes. So where it says in verse 17, he that thy seed shall not desecrate of this enemies, that's obviously like a prophetic statement.

Could that have a near and far? Yes. I think the near has not been.

I'm wondering if the near has to do with Samson, who in Judges 16 literally grabs the gates and walks away.

You know, I haven't thought about that. If that was the near prophecy, and he was a son of Abraham, in the sense that he came down through Abraham and Isaac, and he did possess the gate of the city, but that's not the far prophecy.

The far prophecy hasn't happened yet. When will that happen? When Christ returns.

And that's what brother David has been talking about for weeks. And I'm not going to trample on that soil anymore than I have to, but there will be a time when

Jesus, the true seed will possess the gate to not just the city of Israel, of Jerusalem, but.

Possess everything. Yes. Anything else? Well, go back and read

I'm going to read verse 17 again, and then I'm going to read what Dr. MacArthur said about that.

He said it in much fewer words. By faith, Abraham, when he was tried.

Offered up Isaac. And he that had received the promise. For the promises.

Offered up his only begotten son. Now here's what MacArthur said. Abraham again proved his faith.

By his willingness to give back to God, his son of promise.

Isaac. Whom he had miraculously received because of his faith. Now. What was miraculous about that?

Well, only that he was a hundred years old. And his wife was a 90. Well beyond both of them well beyond childbearing.

Years. Both of them. That took an act of faith to believe

God would provide him a son at that stage. He hadn't provided it 70.

He hadn't provided it. At 80. He hadn't provided it when Sarah and.

Abraham. Contrived. To get a son, a new way.

And they wound up. Ishmael. He got a hundred years old.

It took a miracle. Neither. There was a time when neither Sarah nor Abraham believed that God would.

Do that. And that's comforting to us too. We don't have to be totally faithful all the time.

Well, we do. But we will slip up. We'll make mistakes. We will. Backslide.

But we know this. That God has already provided the solution to that.

It's just like. We all. Man has always looked for another way to get to God.

Man has always looked for another way to get to God. Who was the first man to look for another way to get to God?

I was going for. I was going for a can. I thought.

I thought somebody would say. Nimrod. When they built the Tower of Babel.

The way to God. There's a lot of time. Yeah. There's at least three instances where man has tried to find his own way to God.

Actually, when Adam. When Adam and Eve took the. Fig leaves and did the apron to cover their sin.

That was the first attempt to gain passage back to God. By covering their nakedness.

In any case. Abraham again proved his faith to God by his willingness to give back to God, his son of promise,

Isaac, whom he had miraculously received because of his faith. It would take an even greater mirror.

For them to replace Isaac. By natural means. He trusted

God. Or resurrection. I don't know that that was the case. I don't know that Abraham.

Thought that he was going to kill his son. Put him on the sling and that God was going to raise him from the dead.

I don't know if that occurred to Abraham or not. So I don't know. But he might be. But one or two things he had to know that either the

Lord had to provide a different way of meeting that salvation moment, or he had to raise him for the day.

He had to do one or the other, because if he killed him. He couldn't bring him back to life.

Only one person. Good. We know that God could. So God could have raised him. God could have allowed him to have slain his own son.

And then brought him back to life. Yes. It had to be one of the other.

Unless he still held out some sort of hope that there would be another way.

When Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane, why did he pray if there'd be any other way?

And he said, no, there's another way. Yes. Yes.

Exactly. That's fine.

Or God would keep me from sacrificing him before I do that. And that's in fact what actually happened.

So, yes. Yeah. And of course we can't know that.

You're right, but we can't know that. We can't know really what was in Abraham's mind, because the Bible didn't tell us what was in his mind.

What did the Bible tell us? That through faith he obeyed. He did understand that God could take care of the problem.

He did. Yeah. Okay.

Romans 416. Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end, the promise might be assured to all the seed.

Not just to Jesus, not just to the Old Testament and even

New Testament, physical descendants of Abraham, but to all seed.

Not to that which is of the law, but also which is on the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

Jew and Gentile. As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations.

Before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Who against hope, believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations.

This is Paul telling what he thinks was going through the mind of Abraham. According to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be.

And being not weak in faith, considered not his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb, he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able to perform.

And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. And now 23, that's the reason

I went to this particular passage. And now verse 23. Now it was not written for his sake alone, not just for Abraham, not for Isaac, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our

Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and who was raised again for our justification.

Now back to Hebrews 11, and we're now in verse 18. Of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figure.

Okay, so if we'd read on a couple more verses, the writer of Hebrews would have told us what was on Abraham's mind, or what the writer of Hebrews thought was on Abraham's mind, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figure or a parable.

Now here's what's happening. Abraham understood that the promise that God had made to him.

Now, what promise? A lot of promises, but this was part of the promise. In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

He understood that, that his seed had to come through Isaac. He also understood that a promise made by God was as certain as if it had already happened.

So he concluded that God would fulfill his promise, even if it required

Isaac being raised from the dead. Now that's what the account in Hebrews is saying.

This can be seen as a prophecy of an event that would take place 2 ,000 years later with the death of Jesus on the very same mountain.

Hence the name of the mountain. What's the name of the mountain? Jehovah -Jireh.

In the mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. Now, I ask two questions at this point.

What has already been seen? Well, let's put ourselves back in the time of Abraham and Isaac.

After this event, what has already been seen? What has already been seen is the substitutionary sacrifice of the ram in the place of Isaac.

What shall be seen? And that would be all the way up until Jesus.

The substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus for all of us.

And that's the crucifixion of Jesus, followed three days later by his resurrection.

And now I guess I can ask one more question. What has been seen? After the crucifixion, it has all been seen.

Jesus' sacrifice of himself on the altar for us.

That has been seen now. It wasn't seen at the time of Jesus. It wasn't seen until Jesus was crucified.

Okay. We are, I think I'm going to go up to Noah.

So a couple of more verses. Chapter 20, not chapter 20, verse 20, still chapter 11.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

You notice anything odd about that statement? We finished talking about Abraham and his faith in sacrificing

Isaac. Now we're talking about Isaac's faith. And by faith,

Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. Well, what's odd is not really obvious.

It should have been Esau and Jacob. Because again, like Ishmael was the firstborn son and Isaac was the secondborn.

Esau and Jacob. Which is the older? Esau is the older.

So it should have been Esau and Jacob. But the fact of the matter is, at this point in time,

Isaac was blind. And Jacob, the trickster, took advantage of his father's blindness.

And with the help of his mother, tricked Isaac into blessing him instead.

Now, you remember the story of how that was done.

He killed a lamb and the mother made this savory meat stew that his father loved so well.

And Jacob put sheep wool on his arms so that his father might think that he was

Esau. Because Esau had hairy arms. And when I think of a sheep, I think, wow, hairy was his arms.

But, so what was the outcome of that? Esau asked his father, give me the blessing too.

Give me the blessing. Undo the blessing to Jacob. But what ultimately happened is, both

Jacob and Esau received a blessing. Well, let's look at the story.

This is in Genesis 27, verse 1. And it came to pass that when

Isaac was old and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called

Esau, his eldest son, and said unto him, my son. And he said unto him, behold, here am

I. And he said, behold, now I am old, and I know not the day of my death. Now, therefore, take,

I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison.

And make the savory meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat, and that my soul may bless thee before I die.

So what's Isaac's intent? What's Isaac's intent? To bless

Esau. But whom did he bless?

Jacob. Jacob. Well, did the blessing to Jacob hold?

Did it take place? Yes, and it was through Jacob, not through Esau, that the seed passed.

And both of Joseph's sons, oh, by faith, Jacob, this is the next man in line.

By faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning upon the stack, top of his stack.

There's a lot to be said here. Who was the eldest son? Who was

Jacob's eldest son? Reuben. Reuben. Did Reuben receive a double blessing?

No. That was normally the method is the eldest son got a double dipping.

He didn't because he had had a relation with one of Jacob's concubines.

And... Joseph did. Yeah. And Joseph didn't.

Now, Joseph tried the same thing. When Jacob called in Joseph to present his sons, he presented one son to be blessed.

Jacob switched and blessed the younger instead of the elder.

And then he blessed the younger as well. So as a result, both of Joseph's sons

Ephraim and Manassas received a blessing from Jacob. Jacob. Now, when they divided the inheritance, when they came into the promised land, who got a portion and who didn't?

Did Reuben get a portion? Yes, he got one portion.

They all got one except the one that didn't get one was Levi. Because they inherited the whole, the priesthood.

So we're one short. So Joseph got two.

He got the blessing that went through Joseph to his youngest son,

Ephraim, and to his elder son, Manassas. So it was

Joseph that got the double blessing rather than Reuben.

Interesting. Uh -huh. Yes, but at this point, at this point in time,

Joseph was the preeminent son because of what he had done and what

God had done through him. Basically, not what he had done at all, what God had done through him.

We should always understand that. It's not what we do, it's what God does through us that pleases him. What we do never pleases

God. It's only what he does through us that pleases God. By faith,

Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave a commandment concerning his bones.

Joseph is at the very beginning of the exile in Egypt. It lasted 400 years.

So 400 years later, Joseph is dead and gone. But before he left, he prophesied that the children of Israel will be leaving

Egypt. And what he said was, when I go, take my bones with you and bury them in the land of Cana.

Joseph spent all of his adult life in Egypt. Even though he was a fourth generation heir of the promise given to Abraham, he never returned to Cana while he was alive.

Yet facing death, he still had faith that God would fulfill his promise and demonstrate that confidence by making his brother's promise to take his bones back to Cana for burial.

And I'm going to read that account. This is in Genesis 50, verse 25.

And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit ye, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.

So Joseph died being 110 years old. And they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Now, why did they embalm him? That wasn't characteristic for the

Jews. It was Egyptian culture. But what purpose did it serve that he was embalmed?

That his bones be available 100 years later to be transported out of Egypt and buried in the land of Cana.

Now, we're now to verse 23. And if I went to the rest of the chapter, it would be 130 before I get through.

So I'm going to stop at this point and pick up next week, God willing. Any comments or questions?

If not, Brother David Hueber, would you dismiss us with a prayer? Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we just thank you for this word today.

Lord, we just know that your word is perfect. It's amazing how awesome it is when it's looked at as a whole.

Lord, we just have to hide your word in our heart and bless the people that are here, bless the people that are listening.

And Lord, thank you again for this word. Bless us as we go into the service.