Abraham: Faith That Passes The Test (Hebrews 11:17; Genesis 22)

Kootenai Church

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And we're gonna begin today in Hebrews chapter 11, so please turn there in your Bibles. Hebrews chapter 11.

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When you find your place, let's pray together before we begin. Our most gracious God, our desire is that we may hear your voice in the pages of scripture, that you would speak to us in your word, help us to see

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Christ, help us to see the intention of the author and of the spirit of God in this passage so that our hearts may see what it is that we are to obey and what it is that we are to adore.

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Be honored here through the meditation of our hearts, we pray in the preaching of your word, we ask it in Christ's name, amen.

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In our study of Hebrews 11 and specifically the life of Abraham as a role model for the faithful and as an example of faith, we come now to one of the most intriguing, the most stunning, the most incredible examples from the life of Abraham, and that is his offering of his son

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Isaac as his willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. We read that in Hebrews 11 beginning in verse 17, my faith

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Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

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It was he to whom it was said in Isaac your descendants shall be called. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which also he received him back as a type.

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That event in Genesis, which we're going to be turning back here in a moment in Genesis 22, that event is a high watermark in Abraham's life in terms of the demonstration of his faith.

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It is mentioned in James chapter two and it is mentioned here in both contexts, the authors of those passages are trying to show that in offering his son

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Isaac, this was the ultimate demonstration of Abraham's faith. Truly no list of examples of faithful men and faithfulness and demonstrations of faith would be complete without this.

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Because even though it occurs early in the biblical record, all the way back in Genesis chapter 22, almost 4 ,000 years ago, even though it occurs all the way back there, it is difficult to think of another episode in the life of anyone since that point that demonstrates that kind of faith.

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It is truly a mountaintop example in more ways than one, figuratively because it is really the, as I said, the high watermark of Abraham's faith.

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But second, it's a mountaintop experience in the sense it was on a mountaintop that he offered Isaac. So in more ways than one, this is the height of faithfulness.

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It is the height of an example of faith in the life of Abraham. And we've observed a pattern in these verses in Hebrews chapter 11, beginning in verse eight and coming all the way down through the end of verse 19, a pattern where the author is focusing on two aspects of the

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Abrahamic covenant and the promises that were given to Abraham, the promise of a land and the promise of a son.

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Those are the two things that he has been focusing on as really the center around which the examples of Abraham can be grouped, the son and the land.

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In verses eight to 10, Abraham believed God and he arrived in a promised land. And you'll notice the pattern is that the author focuses on the land promise, then the son promise, then the land promise, and then the son promise.

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So he alternates back and forth between these two things. In verses eight through 10, Abraham believed and he arrived in a promised land.

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In verses 11 to 12, Sarah believes and she receives a promised son. Then back to the land in verse 13 through 16, the author shows us

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Abraham's faith as he obeyed God by living in the land for that extended period of time, living in tents all the way through for 100 years until Abraham died.

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And now we're back in verse 17 with the promise of the son. Abraham shows his faith in being willing to offer his son

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Isaac as a sacrifice. So not only is there a pattern there, land, son, land, son, but with each of these examples that the author gives us, the intensity of it is escalated.

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Abraham believed the Lord that he was going to be given a land, and so Abraham moved from one location to another.

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That is an example of faith. Abraham demonstrated his faith in obeying the Lord. But listen, people move from one location to another location all the time in hopes of improving their condition.

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So that is faith, but it's not the best example of faith.

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It's not the ultimate example of faith. It's not the peak of it. But it is escalated a little bit with the promise of a son because both

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Abraham and Sarah had to believe God for a son. And it's one thing to believe God that he'll give you land.

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It's another thing to believe God that he will give you a son when your whole history with your wife is one of where she has been barren.

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And then the Lord waits until after she has passed the point of childbearing. Abraham, the Lord could have fulfilled that promise when

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Sarah was being, when things were happening where Sarah could have had a child.

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But when she's passed the point of childbearing, then you're trusting God for almost overcoming two hurdles as it were.

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Not just the barrenness of a dead womb and the history of that, but also then she's passed the point where she normally would be able to have children.

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And so that takes even more faith. But then it escalates again when we get to verse 13, the promise of the land.

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There we see the longevity of Abraham's faith that he lived in that land for 100 years even after he was told, you will not inherit this in your lifetime, you will die.

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Your descendants will go into another nation. They will come out in the fourth generation and I will bring them into this land. That's a longevity of faith that you see there.

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But then we reach almost an inexplicable faith in verse 17 through verse 19 where Abraham is told to offer his son and his obedience to this command of God demonstrates that this faith is not explicable in merely human terms.

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This is a faith that is a divine gift. This is the faith you cannot explain in terms of just normal, ordinary human belief.

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This is a faith that when it is tested, the proof of that faith is more precious than gold which is perishable as Peter says.

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This is a faith that is supernatural. It's a supernatural gift from God and it is evident in Abraham's life when he offers up Isaac.

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And you see there in the escalation of that faith that he goes from believing God for a land and then trusting

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God for a son and then living in that land for a long period of time and then being willing to offer that son to God that there's this escalation that takes place but Abraham's faith is growing all along with it.

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This is how the Lord deals with his people. Abraham wasn't commanded to have that kind of faith at the very beginning.

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Through Abraham's life as he lived and saw the promises of God being fulfilled and the faithfulness of God in his life, his faith grew and as God gave him greater and greater opportunities and occasions to demonstrate his faith,

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Abraham's faith was revealed to be stronger and stronger as time went on. The longer narrative that we find in Genesis chapter 22 is captured here in these three verses and before we turn back to Genesis 22,

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I just want you to notice the three things that the author here focuses on in Hebrews 11 because in the weeks to come, we're going to come back to Hebrews chapter 11.

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I'm gonna draw these three things out but I just want you to see them here as we sort of set the table for our perusal through Genesis 22.

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First, though faith is not mentioned in Genesis 22, the author clearly sees faith on everything that Abraham does in that chapter.

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So we're gonna go back here in a moment and you're not going to see faith referenced in Genesis 22 but you're gonna see faith demonstrated in Genesis 22.

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It's not gonna be spoken of but you're gonna see it lived out in Abraham's life. Second, Abraham's faith is inseparable from his obedience to the

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Lord. Obedience to God's command is the way that our faith is made manifest to ourselves and to everybody else.

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And so Abraham's act of obedience really is a demonstration of his faith. It is the living out of his faith.

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And third, Abraham's faith had a specific object, namely a God who raises the dead.

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Look at verse 19 in Hebrews 11. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which also he received him back as a type.

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It is a resurrecting God which is the object of Abraham's faith. And Abraham's actions are inexplicable apart from that belief.

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Apart from a belief that God is able to raise the dead, Abraham's actions in Genesis 22 are completely inexplicable.

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He had an unwavering belief in a God who raises the dead. Now it is quite providential that we're talking about this today since next week we're gonna be talking about bodily resurrection, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Next Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. And so it's quite appropriate that we have spent the last several weeks looking at this theme of bodily resurrection and the connection of resurrection to this.

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We've been focused on that for a number of weeks. We're going to for a couple more weeks after Resurrection Sunday. You'd almost think that I'd planned it that way, wouldn't you?

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It seems awfully like you were planning this. I promise you that no planning was involved in this. This is entirely providential.

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Didn't occur to me until a couple of weeks ago that this was gonna work out this way. And you would think that I might take today to preach on Hebrews 11, 17, and 18 so that next week we could talk about verse 19 which says that God is able to raise people from the dead.

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You would think that that's what we would do, but that's not what we're gonna do. Instead, we're gonna turn back to Genesis chapter 22 today.

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So do that now. Turn to Genesis 22. I'm not gonna tell you what the plan is for next week because I wanna have the freedom to bail out at any time between now and then and go whatever direction that the

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Spirit may lead me between now and then. So Genesis 22, we have gone through the book of Genesis and traced the land promise from Genesis 12 through the end of the book of Genesis.

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And that was in connection with verse eight of Hebrews 11. We have gone through the book of Genesis and traced the son promise, the lineage of the heir in connection with verse 11 of Hebrews chapter 11.

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And so having focused on the son promise that we observed Sarah's barrenness, we saw how the

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Lord promised them a son and then specifically that that was not fulfilled when Abraham took Sarah's handmaid

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Hagar and had a child with her, Ishmael, but instead there was a miraculous fulfillment. And so in order to set up the context for Genesis 22 a little bit, just look back at chapter 21 verse one and verse two.

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Then the Lord, this is the fulfillment of the son promise. Chapter 21 verse one, the Lord took note of Sarah as he had said, and the

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Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time of which

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God had spoken to him. Now the context here is important because God has fulfilled his promise and giving a son to Abraham through Sarah.

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Isaac is the only son that has been born to Sarah and the only son that would be born to Sarah, the only child that would be born to Sarah.

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Then there is a conflict later in chapter 21 which is important in terms of coloring the narrative of chapter 22.

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Look at verse nine of chapter 21. Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham, mocking.

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Therefore she said to Abraham, drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be heir with my son

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Isaac. The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son, namely because of Ishmael and what this would mean for Ishmael.

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Ishmael was his son as well. Verse 12, but God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because of the lad, that is

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Ishmael, and your maid, Hagar. Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.

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Now God is simply there confirming this is of me. Do exactly what it is that Sarah's asking you to do.

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Drive out the handmaid and her son. And of the son, verse 13, and of the son, the maid of the maid,

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I will make a nation also because he is your descendant. So Abraham rose early in the morning, took bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy and sent her away.

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And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba. And later on, it says that they went down in the wilderness of Beersheba.

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They lived in Perun, and then Ishmael ended up taking a wife from Egypt. You have to imagine that that is a painful encounter, right?

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You have, this is the result of sin, by the way, in that home. That Sarah, rather than trusting

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God in that moment, gave her handmaid to Abraham. Abraham made the mistake that most men make.

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They listened to their wife, and then they got in trouble. They had a child with Hagar, and it was Ishmael. This caused strife so that when

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Sarah finally had a child, the child of promise, there was this mockery and this conflict between them. And you can only imagine the strife that exists in a home that is characterized by that.

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Well, the Lord wanted to make sure that there was no confusion as to who the heir of this home was, so by God's command,

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Abraham drove out Hagar and Ishmael, and that had to have been painful. Sin has painful consequences.

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And this was a painful event. The boy settled outside of Beersheba, where Abraham was, somewhere away from him.

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We can only presume that Abraham would have had little, if not no contact, with Ishmael and Hagar after that event.

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So that by the time we get to Genesis chapter 22, Abraham and Sarah are together, and there is only one child in that home, and that is the heir of the promises, namely

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Isaac. So you have only Sarah living with him, only Isaac that has been born of them, and he is the son of promise.

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He's the only one that Abraham has had through Sarah, and he is likely the only one that has been in the home for a number of years by the time we get to Genesis chapter 22.

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Now, there are two issues that we need to be aware of in Genesis 22. One of them is Isaac's age.

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Let's deal with that here for just a moment. Isaac's age, there's no mention in the context of how old

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Isaac was when this event took place. I wish we did know. There are some clues as to how old

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Isaac was when this took place. Most people suggest or believe that he was somewhere around 20 years old or in his early 20s.

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Now, I know that the children's Bibles that we see, that if you have them, you should burn them. The children's

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Bibles that we see picture Abraham, this old man, holding the knife over Isaac and bound up in the ropes on the altar as some little six -year -old boy at the most eight years old.

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Isaac was not that young. I do not believe Isaac was that young. He was able to carry the wood upon which he would be sacrificed a long way off from wherever it was that Abraham left, his servants and his donkey, all the way to the place of the sacrifice.

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If you've ever had a son who was younger than 15, then you know it is difficult to get them to carry anything across the yard, let alone enough wood to burn their body all the way up to the top of a mountaintop.

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So Isaac is a young man by this point, probably late teens at least in his early 20s.

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We know that he was not more than 37 because by the time he's 37, that's when Sarah dies. So it happened before he's 37, probably somewhere between the time of 20.

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And if that sounds odd to you, it's only because you get your theology from a children's Bible and you should not do that or an inaccurate

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Sunday school curriculum. You're going to see in a moment, in a little bit, why it is that that is a significant detail.

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Now there's a second thing we need to deal with is what skeptics often say. This passage, this Genesis 22, is a playground for unscrupulous ignoramuses who are eager to raise objections and contradictions and moral dilemmas out of the text.

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Objections and contradictions and moral dilemmas that were just with a few moments of some serious thought about what is going on here and what the intention of God is in this incident, those things vanish.

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And we're going to deal with them. I'll give you a couple of them and we're going to address as we go through the passage. First, it is objected that God here is commanding human sacrifice and this is morally reprehensible.

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God is commanding something that is morally reprehensible. Second, that God is said to be testing or tempting

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Abraham when scripture says that God tests or tempts no man. Third, Abraham lied to his servants and to Isaac.

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You'll see in verse five that he says, I and the lad will return to you. People say that's Abraham lying because he was going up there to sacrifice

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Isaac. Verse eight, Abraham says to Isaac, God will provide for himself the lamb and they say, critics say, that Abraham there is lying to Isaac just to get him to the place of the sacrifice so he can kill him.

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And fourth, that it is objected in verse 12 that God didn't know the state of Abraham's faith since the angel of the

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Lord says, for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your only son from me. So those are the objections that we'll deal with as we work through the passage.

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Genesis 22 could easily be the fodder for three, four, five sermons as we work our way through it but I'm not preaching through Genesis, I'm preaching through Hebrews.

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So we're just going to hit some of the high points of Genesis 22 as we work our way through there today. Let's start at verse one.

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Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take now your son, your only son, whom you love,

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Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which

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I will tell you. Now you'll notice in verse one that it does say that God tested Abraham. The King James translates that God tempted

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Abraham and so as the objection goes, James 1 .13 reads this, let no one say when he is tempted,

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I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone. And yet the

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King James translation says in Genesis 22 that God tempted Abraham. So is

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God tempting Abraham, Genesis 22, or does God not tempt Abraham, James chapter one? The answer to that is what you mean by the word tempt.

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The word that is used here translated tempted by the King James and tested in the NASB is a word that means to test or to prove something.

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In James 1 .13 when it says that God tempts no man, what we mean by that is that God does not put forth a temptation with the intention of luring men into sin.

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God is not trying to trick men into sin. He is not the tempter in that sense. But scripture does not promise us that God will not test our faith.

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If you think that God is above or that he is unwilling to test your faith, that is not a biblical concept.

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God does test our faith. The purpose of the test is to demonstrate to us the genuineness of our faith and to other people who watch it.

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The purpose of the test is also to demonstrate the falsity of our faith. If we are believing the wrong thing, and you see this happen all the time when people say, yeah,

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I used to be a Christian, I used to go to church and I believe the Lord, I worship the Lord, and then my child got sick and died and I abandoned that.

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Well, that test of faith only revealed that that was not true faith to begin with. So God does test faith in the sense of revealing the genuineness of the faith.

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That's what Peter's talking about in 1 Peter 1 when he says that proof of that faith is more precious than gold which is tried by fire.

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When you persevere through the trial, you get to the other side of it and you say, my faith stood the test.

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That is a precious commodity. Because then you look at the faith and you say it's genuine. If this were a fake faith, I would have abandoned it a long time ago.

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So there is a test that is going on here of Abraham's faith and that test ends up revealing to Abraham the genuineness of his faith and to us because we're the beneficiaries of this test.

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A second objection that we should deal with is the fact that he is called in verse two, your son, your only son whom you love,

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Isaac. Do you notice that? The reference to Isaac being his only son is mentioned also in verse 12 and in verse 16.

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And the critic will say, but Abraham had more than one son at this point, didn't he? He had Ishmael. So why does he call

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Isaac, Abraham's only son? Did the angel of the Lord not know about Ishmael? Had he forgotten about Ishmael?

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What is the point of that? The point of that is to reference, to call to Abraham's mind the fact that Isaac is his only son of the promise.

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He has no other one to give. And he names him specifically, your son, your only son, in terms of being the only son through Sarah, the only son of the promise, the only son who is the heir of all of these blessings.

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That son, that one and only son of Sarah, you are to offer Isaac, whom you love.

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At issue is whether or not Abraham would offer his only child of promise. And the Hebrew author captures this, and did you catch it when we read it a few moments ago?

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The Hebrew author captures this when he describes Isaac as his only begotten son.

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The author there in Hebrews 11 is trying to capture something and that is one of the meanings of begotten.

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It does not just mean to beget in the sense of to procreate, but begotten, monogamous is the word that means unique.

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And it is translated in scripture as unique and oftentimes should be. And that's the sense in which it is used in Hebrews chapter 11.

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Isaac was not his only son, he was his only unique son, the unique son, the special son of promise.

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And that is the idea there by calling him his only son. He said, verse two, take now your son, your only son, whom you love,

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Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. Abraham, take your son, not an animal, your son, your only son, not

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Ishmael, but Isaac, and which son? The son whom you love. He's recalling all of his familial affections there.

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And the son whose name is Isaac. The Lord refers to him, the angel of the Lord here refers to him in four different ways.

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Your son, your only son, the one you love, Isaac. Just narrowing it down, right? Just your son, no confusion about which one we're talking about.

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Your only son, the unique one, yeah. The one you love, oh,

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Isaac, that's the one, the one named Isaac. Laughter is his word, is the name.

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Every reference to Isaac just would have to be pulling on Abraham's heart. And he is to offer him as a burnt offering, not just as a normal sacrifice, but as a burnt offering.

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And I think this is significant. And I'm gonna tell you why here, just in case I forget this in a couple of weeks. Abraham could have been commanded to just offer

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Isaac as a sacrifice to kill him and to slaughter him and do nothing with the corpse, bury the corpse. But he's commanded to offer him as a burnt offering, which means that he was to kill his son and then burn the corpse.

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Why is that significant? Abraham obeyed because he believed in a

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God who does what? Raises the dead. This is significant because Abraham believed in a

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God, not just who is able to resuscitate dead bodies. But a God who is able to reconstitute dead bodies.

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That's the resurrection. How many millions of Christians have died over the years and have been consumed by worms, have been burned up in flames, have been eaten by animals or fish, and their bodies are no more.

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There's no two cells of their body together in existence anymore. But we still believe in a

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God who on the day of resurrection is going to recreate out of the elements, those same bodies, bodies glorified, different bodies, but the same bodies.

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That's the doctrine of physical resurrection. Abraham could have thought if he was just asked to sacrifice

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Isaac, he could have thought, okay, I believe in a God who can give life to a dead corpse. But do you believe in a God who can reconstitute a dead body out of nothing after it has been consumed by flames?

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That's the biblical doctrine of resurrection. So he was not just to go off and to murder Isaac, but he was to offer him as a sacrifice.

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And the idea behind a sacrifice and a burnt offering would have made Abraham realize that this was to be an act of worship.

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And later on, he describes it as an act of worship. The lad and I are going to go over yonder and we are going to worship and then we will return to you.

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Abraham knew that he's not just called to go out in the middle of a field and sacrifice his son. He was to go out to a mountaintop and there in an act of worship with all the sobriety and the giving of himself and his son to Yahweh, this was intended to be an act of worship from the heart in doing what he was doing.

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Not just go kill your son for me. It is offered him up to me in worship as a gift to me.

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That's what the command was for. So here's where the objection that God is simply commanding human sacrifice is raised and where it falls short.

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Abraham knew that what he was being asked to do was not a murder. He knew that murder was contrary to the nature of God.

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He knew that human sacrifice was contrary to the law of God and to the law that was written on his heart.

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And even though he was given no reason for doing this other than just do this because God had commanded him to do it,

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Abraham could have rest assured that God was not asking him to do anything which was in that moment a violation of his law.

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God can command or cause the death of anyone for any reason. God can never be charged with murder because since he is the giver of life, he also can take life at any time for any reason and whatever reason

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God has for that is automatically justified since it comes from his holy and just nature. You can never charge

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God with murdering anyone. If I die in a car accident on my way home this afternoon, God is the one who takes my life but you cannot charge him with doing any wrong or murdering.

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He gave me my life and if he takes my life from me, he has done me no wrong. He has done nothing immoral.

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So God can therefore command the taking of somebody else's life for whatever reason or purpose he might have which is morally justified and in God doing it, it is therefore morally justified.

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It's not an act of human sacrifice and it's not an act of murder and God if he does not reveal the reasons behind his command to do that, he is no less just or no less justified than if he did reveal his commands behind doing that.

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So it's not an act of human sacrifice at all. In fact, you're gonna see it has a picture or an intention that goes far beyond what we see unfolding in the text of Genesis chapter 22.

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God had no intention to let Abraham go through with it and therefore though he is commanded to sacrifice his son as a burnt offering, it is not a command for human sacrifice since Abraham was not going to go through with it and the

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Lord was going to stop him from going through it. Look at verse three. So 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 wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which

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God had told him. On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. This is one of the passages that I think would be a whole sermon.

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Abraham rose early in the morning. Notice that his obedience was not delayed. Abraham didn't say,

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I've checked the calendar, May looks really good for me. April, March, February, not good. Probably six months from now,

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I think I can get around to doing that. The weather will be more agreeable to traveling at that time, I've got to make preparations.

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I got a lot of work for Isaac to do before we do this, Lord. No, the next day and I don't know, we don't know if Abraham had this spoken to in the middle of the night in a dream or if it was the previous day, but on the next consecutive day, the next morning, he rose up, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son, got it all together with all of the intention, with all that was necessary to make preparations for it.

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Verse three says, he split the wood for the burnt offering, arose and went to the place that God had told him. He left that next morning.

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Immediate obedience. He made preparations for the sacrifice and it was a three -day journey and I don't think that the reference to the three days is insignificant there and I draw this because of Hebrews chapter 11.

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Remember, it says in Hebrews chapter 11, by faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.

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Did Abraham really offer him up? Abraham didn't really offer him up, did he? So what is the author of Hebrews saying when he says that Abraham actually offered up Isaac?

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He didn't actually kill him. I hate to spoil the ending for you, but that's not how this is gonna work out in Genesis 22.

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He didn't actually offer him up. What is the author saying? How did Abraham offer him up?

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In his heart. In his heart. When he was told, like that, Abraham said, this is a done deal.

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I will sacrifice him. That's why he obeyed the very next morning. Before Abraham left

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Beersheba where he was at, in his mind, in his heart, the offering was as good as done.

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He had already turned Isaac over to the Lord. He believed in the God who raised the dead and he was willing to offer him up. That sacrifice took place in Abraham's heart, in his intentions, in his mind, in his spirit, in his act of obedience when he left.

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Then Hebrews says he received Isaac back as it were, from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

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So that's verse 19. So Abraham offered Isaac up when he left, that act of obedience. He's on his way there.

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In his mind, in his heart, Isaac is as good as dead. Three days later, he receives Isaac back when he is spared.

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There's a reference to three days. Do you see the parallelism that's being drawn out here? And Isaac is going to be offered and three days later,

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Abraham's gonna receive him back as it were from the dead, almost as a parable, as a symbol or a type.

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It was a three -day journey to the land of Moriah and the land of Moriah is the land that was made, Moriah was the land around Jerusalem in the mountains around Jerusalem.

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Mount Calvary, the Mount of Olives, Mount Zion, all these little mountaintops that are around the city of Jerusalem, that's where Moriah is at.

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2 Chronicles 3 verse one says that Solomon built his temple there on the mount that is called Moriah. So later on in the days of Solomon, the temple where all the animal sacrifices would be made was built right on the place where Abraham offered up Isaac.

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So you have sacrifice going on here, substitution taking place. And Abraham had plenty of time to think about this, to turn back on it for those three days, but he did not.

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And one wonders if Sarah was privy to all of this. Has that entered your mind yet? Did she know what was going on?

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Where are you going? You're making haste to get out of here. Does the lad and I and a couple of our servants went for an offering, we're going off to Mount Moriah and there we're gonna worship.

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Did Abraham tell Sarah what was going on? Did he tell her what his intention was? There's no record of that in the text.

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We have to wonder whether she was on board, whether she found out about it, whether this was all told to her after Abraham got back.

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He went to do what? I mean, I'm glad it worked out this way, but your intention was what?

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And the very next time he said, you know, I'm going somewhere, I can't tell you yet. She would have just been counting the kids.

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All right, we got them all here, we're not letting anybody go with Abraham. Verse five, Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey and I and the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you.

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Now there's no record that Abraham's servants knew what was going on. He might have kept this secret from them as well, unless they try and dissuade him or perhaps if they feared what he was going to do, if they got some inkling of that, they might try and restrain him from doing it physically, keep this from happening.

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He knew he was making up an offering and so it was going to be an act of worship. And this is another objection that people raise.

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They say, Abraham here lied to his servants. I don't think he lied to his servants at all. He was expressing his faith. This is exactly what he was going to do.

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He was going to go up and worship and he believed. He believed in his heart that even if he killed Isaac, he would be bringing that boy back with him because God would raise him from the dead.

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Why? That was the child of promise and God has to keep his word. So he believed that even if he killed

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Isaac, God would raise him from the dead and me and the lad, we will return back. We will come back here. Verse 26,

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Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son, and took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

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Notice that Isaac carries the wood upon which he will be sacrificed on his back to the place of the offering, which is the city of Jerusalem.

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See the parallelism there with the Lord Jesus Christ? This whole narrative is dripping as a prophetic type, a prophetic foreshadowing of what the

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Lord Jesus Christ was going to do in more ways than one. This is why Isaac is a strong and able man.

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He was able to make the long trek to that place, carrying enough wood on his back to build an altar and to consume his body.

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Nothing about this is easy for Abraham, especially in light of verse seven. Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said, my father, and he said, here

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I am, my son. Notice the loving language, right? The language of family, the language of love and affection.

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My father, yes, my son. Verse seven, he said, behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

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Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. So the two of them walked on together. Did Isaac, at this point, start to wonder what was going on?

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My father, yes, my son. Do you ever feel like when you leave home, sometimes you're forgetting something and you feel like it's something important that you're forgetting?

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Yeah, son, that happens once in a while. I was just going through our burnt offering checklist here and I noticed that we have the wood check, we have the fire check, you're carrying the knife, we got that.

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I feel like we're missing something for a burnt offering. Where's the lamb? And Abraham says,

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God will provide the lamb. At that moment, he is convinced, convinced that God will provide a substitute and if God does not provide a substitute, he'll raise his son from the dead.

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He's not lying to Isaac. As you're gonna see in a moment, God does provide the lamb. Stop and think carefully about the details of what we're watching.

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Verse nine, then he came to the place of which God had told him and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and bound his son

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Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham arrived there and when he arrived, there was no animal there waiting for him.

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Maybe when he crested that final crest of the hill on his way up there to the place where the offering was gonna be made that he was hoping that when he got there, there would be a lamb standing there right in the middle where the altar would be built and maybe a few lambs sort of wandering around and that Abraham could capture one of those but when he got there, there's no animal anywhere near there so his expectation that there is going to be a substitute provided at least for temporarily has been disappointed.

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He bound his son Isaac, verse nine says, and remember, Isaac is a strong man in his 20s.

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Abraham by this point is somewhere around 120 years old in terms of the way that we age today that would be the equivalent of a 70 year old man, 65 or 70 year old man which this boy

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Isaac, this young man Isaac has carried all of this wood, this distance, he is obviously a strapping, healthy, strong young man able to carry that and yet it says

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Abraham bound his son which tells me that Isaac himself would have had to submit to that because he could have easily overcome his father if he wanted to resist being offered as a sacrifice but he didn't resist it.

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Maybe when they got to the place where they were supposed to offer the sacrifice and there was no lamb there and Abraham looked around and saw no lamb and Isaac looked around and saw no lamb, they both looked at each other and Abraham said,

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Isaac, there's something I need to tell you. We've come all of this way and here's what the

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Lord has commanded me to do. The fact that Isaac was bound tells me that Isaac submitted himself to the will of the father in doing that so that he could be offered.

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That shows you Isaac's faith. Isaac knew he was the child of promise. Isaac knew all of those promises were his.

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The fact that that strapping young man with that physical ability to carry all of that wood came to that place and put out his hands and said, tie me up just like you do a burnt offering, just like they would do the lambs or the rams, they would tie them up so that they could not move and then placed himself or allowed himself to be placed on that altar with the knife standing nearby shows you

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Isaac's faith. That's why Isaac's faith is mentioned in verse 20 of Hebrews chapter 11. He's not left out of the list.

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Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau by faith regarding things that were yet to come. Isaac knew what he was in for and even though Isaac could not reconcile the promises of God with the command of God to be sacrificed by his father, even though he could not reconcile those two things,

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Isaac himself had at least we would say the understanding of resurrection that Abraham had and at least the understanding that the promises of God have to be fulfilled in some way, so Isaac yielded himself to be bound and then sacrificed.

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Verse 10, Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. He was committed. Abraham had already done this deed in his heart and in his spirit before he ever left

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Beersheba. Verse 11, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here

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I am. I bet there's no point in Abraham's life that he ever was more thankful to hear his name called than in verse 11.

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Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him, for now

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I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Here's the next objection that Abraham, that God didn't know

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Abraham's faith until verse 12 when it says, now I know that you fear God. Was the

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Lord ignorant of Abraham's faith up to this point? Because the angel of the Lord, who is a divine being, by the way, this angel of the

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Lord is the second person of the Trinity, pre -incarnate. He is called Yahweh in other passages of Scripture.

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This angel of the Lord is indicated even here as a divine being, because you'll notice in verse 12, he says, now

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I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your only son, your son, your only son from me. Right, this is angel of the

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Lord speaking on behalf of God. It's a pre -incarnate appearance or speaking of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So it is the second person of the Trinity here who is stopping Abraham from doing this, and he says,

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I know now that you fear God. So did Abraham, or did the Lord not know about Abraham's faith prior to this point?

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The answer to that is no. The Lord knows the hearts of all men. He knows infallibly all things that can come to pass and all things that will come to pass and all things that have come to pass.

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There's nothing that can be known which God himself does not know and does not know perfectly, because God learns nothing, he is omniscient, so he knows full well the scope and the depth and the reality of Abraham's faith, because back in chapter 15, verse six, it says that Abraham believed the

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Lord and the Lord credited him with righteousness. So the Lord already has seen his faith, he already knows his faith, so in what sense then does the angel of the

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Lord say, now I know that you have faith since you have not withheld your only son from me, but will you be willing to offer him up?

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This is the language of accommodation and it describes something that is true of God or something that God knows in terms that human beings wouldn't understand.

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This is, in some ways, it's kind of like an anthropomorphism where something about God is described in language that would make sense to us.

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God knows things in two different ways and Scripture recognizes two different ways of knowing things, knowing things intellectually and knowing things by experiencing them.

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And Scripture distinguishes between these two things. I can know, I can say to you, I know how to juggle. By that I mean it's true.

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You always have one ball up in the air, while at least one or two hands are holding the other two balls and that's how you juggle. And there's a little pattern,

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I can tell you I know how to juggle. But if you gave me three balls and said, hey, juggle for us, I would not be able to do that because I don't know by experience how to juggle.

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So in one sense I know something, in the other sense I do not know it. Well, God knows perfectly well Abraham's faith and the reality of it, but God knows

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Abraham's faith in a different way once Abraham's faith is lived out and experienced and once the

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Lord sees that in the sense of it being played out in time, the Lord knows that in a different sense in the sense that it has been demonstrated.

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He knew full well what the outcome of this event was going to be, the Lord did. The Lord knew full well exactly that Abraham would pass this test and that he would have the faith and what

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Abraham's faith would look like. He knew it intimately, but once it is laid out in front of him, this language of accommodation is used where the

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Lord says now it has been displayed and now we see it, now I see it, now it has happened in time, now

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I know exactly the quality of your faith and it's not that God did not know anything before that, again, it's the language of accommodation.

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Verse 13, then Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him for a burnt offering in the place of his son.

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

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Lord, it will be provided. Notice that Moses is saying concerning that mountain in the mount of the

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Lord, it will be provided. Not in the mount of the Lord, it was provided back in Abraham's day.

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But even in the time of Moses writing some 600, 700 years after Abraham, he says as it is said today in the mount of the

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Lord, it will be provided. What will be provided? Sacrifice, right? This whole event from Moses' perspective, from our perspective is intended to look forward to this ultimate sacrifice.

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The Lord provides a ram as the substitute in the place of the one whom Abraham loved. Genesis 22 verse 15, now the promise that we have seen traced all the way through the book of Genesis is reiterated.

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This is the last time that the Lord speaks audibly to Abraham recorded in the book of Genesis and that it is the peak.

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It's the last communication that the Lord has with Abraham and it is where all of these promises are reiterated and where all of them are heightened in the sense that now the

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Lord, verse 16, swears by himself. Verse 15, the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself

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I have sworn. We've seen that language before in the book of Hebrews, right, since God could swear by no one greater than himself, he swore an oath to Abraham saying what?

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So this is the Lord now, this has been displayed in front of all the eyes of all to see and in front of the

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Lord himself. Now the Lord says, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son.

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Indeed, I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.

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In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to Beersheba and Abraham lived at Beersheba.

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God can swear by no one greater than himself so he reiterates the promises that he has made to Abraham on multiple occasions and here he is sworn by himself to fulfill this.

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Now we reach the end of that passage. Now I have a few minutes and unfortunately only a few minutes.

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There is symbolism here on a level that you and I cannot even begin to imagine. There are two pictures of the

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Lord Jesus Christ in this story that we've just observed. Two pictures and they overlap a little bit. They're separate and distinct pictures.

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No picture or analogy is complete. See, all pictures or correspondences or foreshadowings are limited by their very nature because no single picture can perfectly capture what the

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Lord Jesus Christ does which is why we have so many pictures in the Old Testament, so many symbols of what he does.

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He is the light to the world. He is the animal sacrifice. He is the high priest. He is the offering of self. He is the grain offering.

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He is the incense offering. He's all of these things. All of these things are small and indistinct pictures of the work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Well, there are two of them at play here in this passage. The first is the picture of the father sacrificing the son.

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In this picture, Abraham pictures or portrays God the father who plans the sacrifice of his son, prepares the way for it, gathers the materials for it, and as time goes on, he goes to the appropriate place.

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And the place, of course, is the city of Jerusalem on one of the mountains there, very possibly the very place where all the animal sacrifices in Solomon's temple years later would be offered.

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Isaac is the son who gives himself to do the will of the father, submitting himself to the father's will as the sacrifice, willingly.

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The father loves the son, has committed all things into the hands of the son, and the son loves the father and has submitted himself to the father's will, and the son, in keeping with the father's will, comes to the very place of the offering, carries the wood for the sacrifice on his own shoulders, right up to the place where the offering is to be offered, and there yields himself to the will of the father, no man taking his life from him, but laying it down on his own accord.

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This is what Isaac is doing. Does all of that language sound familiar? It's because this is all the language that Jesus uses to describe his own sacrifice.

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And the answer to the skeptics as to why such a hideous demonstration in the Old Testament, the answer is because, number one,

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God had no intention of going through with it. His intention was to put, in the physical realm, a picture of what he himself was going to do when the

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Lord Jesus Christ would submit to the will of the father, take flesh upon himself, and die in the stead of sinful humanity.

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That was what the Lord Jesus Christ did. And yes, it is horrific, the idea of the father sacrificing his son.

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It is horrific, but that is exactly what our sin requires, is just such a horrific sacrifice. It's an ugly picture, but it is an accurate picture nonetheless.

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That's the first picture. The second one is of a substitute. The ram ends up taking the place of Isaac.

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So in the story, Jesus Christ, the son, the divine son, is the one who is loved by the father, the only and unique son, who yields himself to the will of the father as a sacrifice and comes right to the place of offering the sacrifice.

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In the picture, Jesus Christ is that, and Jesus Christ is also the ram who dies in the stead of Isaac, in the place of Isaac.

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Jesus is the substitute. So we have here the picture of the father offering the son and the picture of a substitutionary offering taking place.

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And of course, this is a portrayal of everything that the Old Testament sacrifices were intended to do. The Old Testament sacrifices were substitutionary by nature.

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The animal was to die in the place and in the stead of the guilty sinner. So the ram here dies in the place and in the stead of Isaac, and it is a ram, and that I think is significant.

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When Abraham was asked by Isaac, we have the wood, we have the fire, where is the lamb?

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Abraham said, the Lord will provide for himself a lamb, but the Lord didn't provide a lamb that day, did he?

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What did he provide? A ram. Rams and lambs are not the same.

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The Lord provided a ram. Why a ram? Because ultimately, the lamb who would be offered on a mountaintop in Jerusalem was still about 2 ,000 years away, and the

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Lord would provide a lamb who would take away the sins of the world, but that day, the lamb was not provided.

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The lamb would come later. Abraham said, the Lord will provide a lamb. Absolutely true statement.

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The Lord did provide a lamb. Eventually, that day, he provided another substitute, a ram, but ultimately, a lamb who would take away the sins of the world would die in Isaac's place.

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Christ is our substitute. 1 Peter 2, 21, for you've been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you.

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He himself bore our sins in his own body on the cross. We read at the beginning of the service,

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Isaiah 53, yet like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before his shearers, the

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Lord is pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. Verse 12 of Isaiah 53, therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty with the strong because he poured out himself to death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors.

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That is the ultimate fulfillment of the lamb that the Lord will provide. You see, Moses, in describing this event in Genesis 22, looks back upon it and he says, it is said to this day in the mount of the

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Lord, it will be provided. Why? Because ultimately, Moses himself was looking forward to that day when a lamb would be provided in the mount of the

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Lord. Still 1 ,500 years off from the time of Moses, but the Lord provided a lamb.

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In Isaiah 53 when it says he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors, friends, you and I are the transgressors.

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We have sinned and we have violated God's law. Our lying, our stealing, our blasphemy, our lusting, our fornicating, our gossip, our slander, our covetousness, all of that deserves

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God's justice. We are the ones who should be under the dagger of divine judgment. We are the ones who deserve to die.

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We are the ones who deserve eternal punishment for our sin. If the Lord were to count up our sins, there would be more than we could count.

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He knows them all, every last one of them, every thought, every word, every deed, every deed left undone, every iniquity, every transgression of his law.

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The Lord knows it all. And if the Lord were to mark or to count iniquities, the psalmist says, who could stand? Who could stand before a holy

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God and give an account for all of his sins? And it's not just the fact that we have sinned and what we have done to sin, it is the one against whom we have sinned.

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He's the holy and high and omnipotent and benevolent King of heaven who has done nothing but lavish our lives and us with his grace.

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And yet we have transgressed against his law. And if we are to have all of our iniquities counted and all of our iniquities marked against us, who could stand before such a holy

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God? Only one person could ever stand before such a holy God and to offer a sacrifice to pay the price for all of that sin.

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And that's the perfect, spotless, blameless, sinless lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the angel of the

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Lord who spoke to Abraham in that day and said, do not sacrifice your son, don't lay a hand on him. The Lord will provide a lamb.

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And the Lord did provide the lamb, and that lamb is the Lord Jesus Christ who laid down his life, died on a cross, having lived a perfect life, he died a perfect death, died on a cross for us to take the punishment that you and I deserve.

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And then three days later, he rose again from the grave, victorious and triumphant.

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The evidence that his sacrifice and his offering on our behalf was accepted by the Father and that it is atoned for the sins of any and all who will trust in him.

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And God calls you this day if you have never before trusted Christ, God calls you this day to turn from your sin and to repent of your sin and to believe upon the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He is the sacrifice who demands your faith, your trust, your obedience, and your repentance because he was offered on behalf of any and all who will come to him.

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All sin will be punished, either on the head of the sinner or on the head of the substitute. You choose.

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You bear the wrath for your sin or somebody else who died in your stead bears the wrath for your sin. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ stood in the place of sinners and he died, he suffered, he was buried, and he rose three days later.

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And his payment is sufficient and he calls you this day to trust in him. Christian, as one who is trusted in the

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Lord Jesus Christ, you can see here, unfolding in Genesis 22, that's the gospel.

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That's the gospel that's being spelled out. The son submitting to the father to take your punishment and then a sacrifice taking his place.

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In that sense, you're Isaac. You're the one who deserved the judgment. You're the one who deserved the death and another was substituted and took your death on your behalf.

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We give God praise and glory for that, do we not? Let's pray. Father, thank you for so great a mercy, so great a salvation and a savior in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Things like this are the evidence that this is a divine book, this is your revelation, this is the work of the spirit of God and that all of history is written by you for our benefit and for the glory of your great name.

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And we thank you that we can trust a God who has planned our redemption from time past, from before there was time, before you created anything, you planned the work of salvation so that you might gather to yourself sinners who will glorify you everlastingly for the grace that you have shown them in your son.

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Thank you for a substitute and for the willingness of the Lord Jesus Christ to die a death in our stead so that we may have life.

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We pray that you would be glorified by gathering to yourself those who are yours and any who have never trusted

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Christ for salvation. May you show them their need for the savior and what they must do to be saved, to have eternal life.

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Be honored, we pray, and receive the full reward for your suffering, Lord Jesus, we ask in your name, amen.

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We pray that you would be glorified by gathering to yourself those who are yours we pray that you would be glorified for salvation, Lord Jesus, we ask in your name, amen. Be honored, we pray, and receive the full reward for your suffering, Lord Jesus, we ask in your name, amen.