Genesis chapter 22, and I want to read to you some
verses of scripture that I hope we're not a stranger
to concerning a man by the name
of Abraham. Genesis 22. beginning at verse 1. And it came to pass after these
things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham, and
he 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 there for a burnt offering upon
one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.' And Abraham rose
up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two
of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, enclave the wood
for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of
which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham
lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said
unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and
the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. 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 went both of them together. And Isaac spake
unto Abraham his father and said, my 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. 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. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the
Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he
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, thine 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 to this day, in
the mouth of the Lord it shall be seen. In the scriptures we read quite
a bit about this man Abraham. And he is given as an example
of what true faith or true believing really is. And here on this occasion is
probably the greatest trying or testing of Abraham's faith. When it says that the Lord did
tempt Abraham, it simply means that he tried Abraham. And that trial was not so that
Abraham could see whether or not he had faith or not. And even though it's an example
to us about what faith really is, the trial of his faith was
to show God's faithfulness. God tried him in order to prove
him and prove to him God's faithfulness. And when we come to this, we
ought not to think that Abraham was any different from us with
regard to his love for his son Isaac. Actually, if you notice
in these verses, God refers to Isaac as his only son. He has another son according
to the flesh by the name of Ishmael. But here is Isaac being taken
by God and commanded Abraham to offer him as a burnt offering
and sacrifice. Like I said, Abraham undoubtedly
loved his son, this special son. But he also has to have a love
for him that is one of wisdom. He has to have a love for Isaac
that is one of obedience to God. and one that is resolved to the
will of God concerning him and Isaac. And maybe we can learn a little bit
here about how we're to look at and love and view our own
children. All are subject to the will and
purpose of God. And Paul tells us here in the
scriptures that these individuals, this picture is an allegory that
represents spiritual things. We don't go to the Old Testament
to just read a good story or an inspirational story. These things picture something,
and they picture something that can only be seen by God-given
faith. Abraham saw some things. As a matter of fact, our Lord
said, Abraham saw my day. He rejoiced in it. He saw in
these things the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's my prayer for us,
that we might be able to see by faith what is spiritually
represented in all we find here in the Old Testament. Abraham, according to Paul in
Hebrews 11, it says, By faith Abraham, when he was tried, speaking
of this occasion, offered up Isaac, and he that had received
the promises offered up his only begotten son. You see, the promises
of God to Abraham all rested in this promised son. And now God has commanded him
to take him up into the mountain and offer him as a burnt offering
and sacrifice. But since he was the one in whom
the promises were given, It would appear outwardly that that was
the end of God's faithfulness. But Abraham believed that even
if God had him to sacrifice his son, he was able to raise him
up again to life. Paul goes on in Hebrews 11. He offered up his only begotten
Son, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. God's promised him a seed, He's
promised him a seed in Isaac, and now He's commanded him to
offer him up as a burnt offering. But listen to what Paul continues
there in Hebrews 11. Speaking of Abraham, he says,
"...accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the
dead, from whence also he received him in a figure." This all represents
something. This has to do with a picture
and a type here in this text. And it has also to do with a
picture of what worship is. If you look back at verse 5,
it says that Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here
with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship. How could they ever have worshipped
God when they had no elaborate building? When they had none
of the trappings of modern day religion, when they had not the
music, when they had not the pictures and the relics and ceremony,
how could they worship God without these things? They worship God in the only
way that He's ever worshipped. And that is in a God-appointed
and a God-provided sacrifice for sin. That's what's being
represented here. And so sure was Abraham of God's
faithfulness Even to the point when he would raise up the knife
to slay his own son, he had already told those young men not only
that they would go and worship there on that mount, but that
they would also come and return again. Abraham, God has told you to
slay your son. And yet here he is telling these
young men that both he and Isaac will return again off that mountain. He believed God that if he offered
him up, he was even able to raise him again to life. But they went
there to worship God. They must have a sacrifice. And even Isaac knew that. Isaac
knew that the only way that God could be worshipped was through
this sacrifice which he had appointed this way that had been pictured
again and again to them all the way back to Father Adam. So he
says, Lord, he says, Father, I see we have the wood. And it's
obvious that you have the knife, we have the fire, we've got everything
that is necessary to worship except for that one essential
thing. Where's the lamb? Where's the
lamb? And there is no wonder in this
world this very moment. how many people will gather and
imagine that they are worshipping God, that they have gathered
and they will do things and worship the God, but they will not have
a lamb. They will not have the lamb. And when Abraham, after this
event takes place here, it says that Abraham named the place
Jehovah-Jireh. And this means three things,
essentially. It means, first of all, the Lord
will see. Meaning something like this,
the Lord will see to it. The Lord will do this. This is the Lord's doing. It's
not Abraham's doing. It's not Isaac's doing. This
is the Lord's doing. He'll see to it. He'll save his
people. And then it means, secondly,
something like this. It means the Lord will be seen. That is, in this, the Lord Jehovah,
Almighty God, will be seen in a way that He cannot be seen
or known any other way. That is, God's glory, God's grace,
God's wisdom, His mercy, His justice, His love, His righteousness
will all be demonstrated in this because it is a picture of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. You'll not find out much about
God by looking at the sunrise. You'll not find much about God
except for the fact that He is, and you're accountable to Him
by looking in all the things of nature. where you'll find
out about God, who He is, and how He is, is through the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Him crucified on the cross. The
Lord will be seen in Christ. The glory of God will be seen
only in the face of Jesus Christ. But maybe the chief emphasis
of that phrase, of that name, that Abraham named this place
after all this took place, the chief thing is, the Lord hath
provided. The Lord has provided. That is in response to what was
said in that 8th verse. Abraham said, My son, God will
provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. Here is this place,
Jehovah Jireh, the Lord has provided, that is, He's provided Himself
a sacrifice and an offering. He has provided this offering
and sacrifice for Himself, first of all. You see, that's not much known
in our day. That the sacrifice by which God
saves His people, it is first of all for Himself. It is for
Himself. It is to honor Him. It is to
satisfy Him. It is to reveal the glory of
His grace in that sacrifice. It's in honor of His justice
and His broken law and His offended holiness. God was in Christ reconciling
the world unto Himself. It's for Him. You see, the problem in our day
is that modern religion is all about us. But as an old preacher said,
before God can ever do anything for us, he has to first do something
for himself. He has to act in a way that's
consistent with himself and with his own glory and with his own
purpose. That's what Abraham is saying
here. the Lord has provided. And there are a multitude of
things that we can look at this morning that are pictures and
types throughout all these verses showing the glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ. But I want us to just notice
a couple of them this morning. And the first is this. And that
is that Isaac himself, this son Isaac, is a type and picture
of all God's elect sons, all His people, all His people
who are described by the Apostle himself as being children of
the promise. You see, God has a people that
He loved and that He chose. Whenever you read about this
people of God, these children of God, these elect of God, Paul
says that God has chosen them in Christ before the foundation
of the world. all of salvation, apart from
the fact that it glorifies God, is about a people that were given
to Christ in the everlasting covenant. And I say that because if you
read the history of Abraham, you're going to read about that
one named Ishmael, who was born to the bondservant, and yet here
is God in his view of these promises and these blessings referring
to Isaac as Abraham's only son, his only son. Paul writes to the Thessalonians,
he says, we're bound to give thanks always to God for you,
brethren beloved of the Lord. Somebody said, well, God loves
everybody. Well you just read this second
chapter of II Thessalonians and you read about a whole lot of
people that he says God sent strong delusion to them that
they should believe a lie rather than the truth and then he turns
and he says but God's to be thanked, praised, because he hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. You see, Isaac here, according
to what the apostle says also, is representative of this people
that are described as being a part of this allegory. Turn over to
Galatians chapter four. Galatians chapter 4. You see, Isaac is said to be
a child or son of promise, and so are all of God's elect. They are the children of promise. Galatians chapter 4, beginning in verse 22, For it
is written, that Abraham had two sons, the
one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was
of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free
woman was by promise. Now this didn't begin with Isaac
and Ishmael. It actually began all the way
back between Cain and Abel. It goes on with Jacob and Esau. And here it is with Isaac and
Ishmael. And Isaac and Jacob and Abel,
all three are described as children of promise. They're God's elect. Because
he could, and because he would, God loved them with this discriminating
love. He made this discriminating choice,
chose them to salvation in Christ. Here they are, the children of
promise. Which things, he says, are an
allegory, for these are the two covenants, the one from Mount
Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar
is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which
now is, and is in bondage with her children, but Jerusalem,
which is above. Now he's distinguishing here
between two Jerusalems, one that natural Jerusalem there in the
Middle East, that nation that was a part of that Jerusalem. He says that is simply of the
flesh like Ishmael was. But Jerusalem which is above
is free. which is the mother of us all. He describes these that are like
Isaac, the children of promise, the children of the free woman,
the children of that Jerusalem which is from above. And he says that these, if you look down at verse 28,
Paul says to those Galatian believers, now we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. Before Isaac was ever born, before
Isaac ever drew a breath, before he ever existed in human flesh,
God had determined and decreed and promised things concerning
him. And there wasn't anything that
anybody could do about it. When will we ever learn this,
that when God determines, when God promises, when God purposes
to do something, especially to bless a people in Christ, there
is nothing anybody can do about it. Nothing. And that's the only hope we have.
That's the only hope. You see, the elect are these
promised spiritual descendants of Abraham. These who are of
faith are sons of Abraham. And if you are Christ, he said,
then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Look back in Galatians chapter
3 and verse 7. He says, Know ye therefore that
they which are of faith the same are the children of
Abraham. Look down at verse 29, And if
you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according
to the promise. In other words, everything that
Isaac was to receive, just like everything that God's people
are to receive, it was all based on God's promise and not their
performance. But it causes a problem. It causes a real problem. with
all the Ishmaels of this world, no matter whatever time it is. Because it says that just as
Ishmael, who was the bondwoman's child, a picture of works and
law and man's own doing and self-righteousness, just as he persecuted the son
of promise, Isaac, He said, that goes on to this
day. You mean to tell me that you believe that salvation
is all of God and we have nothing to do with it? You mean to tell
me that my works, all I've tried to give and do and be in this
world, you mean to tell me that that has no part of God accepting
me? You mean to say that it is all
of His free grace? Well, we just couldn't have anything
to do with that. But that's the way it always
is. The children of promise persecuted by the children of the flesh. If you notice here though, Isaac
in that first verse is appointed to die. Take him up on that mountain,
slay him, offer him, he's appointed to die. And that's the very same
thing that's true of all of God's elect by nature. By what we are
in this flesh, all that does is condemn us and give us an
appointment with death. The soul that sins shall surely
die. The wages of sin is death. Isaac
was a sinner. And so are we. Here he is, appointed
to die. And he is taken there by his
father, Abraham, and he's tied up fast and placed on the altar. Now why in the world was Isaac
taken and bound up? when evidently he was in one
sense fully submissive to what went on. Why was he taken and
bound up with ropes and laid on that altar of wood? To show our condition. To show
the condition of every Isaac by nature and by our affiliation
with our father, fallen Adam. so that it renders us first of
all captives to the devil who must be released and delivered
and set free, and those who in themselves cannot release themselves. They don't have a free will.
Their will is bound to their fallen nature. We're just like
We're like Isaac laying there on that altar of wood all tied
up. We couldn't untie ourselves from
our sins and the mess we're in for nothing in this world. Work
and strain and strive and stretch and do whatever we will. We cannot
release ourselves from the predicament that our sins have put us in. We're like Isaac laying on that
altar. And we're helpless. That's the
way the Bible pictures us. It says that we are without strength. Our Lord said, no man can come
to me. That's inability. Not only are
we unwilling in ourselves as sinners fallen, but we're unable
of ourselves. He looked at those Pharisees
and he said, you will not come to me that you might have life. You know what that's saying? He's saying, you will not will
to come to me that you might have life. Somebody always says, well, I
believe we can do whatever we want to. That's the problem. We do not want to come to Christ. We do not want Christ. We do
not want a Savior who saves all together by himself. The carnal
mind, the natural mind is enmity against God. But now here's the real picture.
And that is that Isaac was delivered from death through a lamb that
God provided to die in his place. You say that's so simple preacher.
I do believe it is. But I live quite a long time
on this earth before I ever found out anything about it. before
I ever found myself willing to believe it, before I could ever
see the necessity of it, the completion of it, and the glory
of it. Look back in verse 10 again in
Genesis 22. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand, and took the knife to slay his son." Now, can you just imagine
that in our day in light of modern thinking about families and children
and such as that? Call in social services. Call in whatever it's called
now, whatever abbreviations given for it. Abraham is a child abuser. Abraham is this. Abraham is an
unfit father, an unfit parent. Or even the logic that most fall
after, that we want to do all these things for our children.
It doesn't matter that they're going to die in their sin. We
want them to be well-rounded. We want them to be successful.
We want them to be helpful, healthy. There's nothing wrong with that.
But my friends, if they're all those things and ten times more,
if they die in their sins, if they die without Christ, if they
never see in our lives how important and how essential the gospel
and truth of the only Savior is, they'll perish. Abraham stretched forth his hand
and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord
called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he
said, lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do anything unto
him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast
not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted
up his eyes. Now somebody said, well that
was lucky, wasn't it? No. That was a great coincidence,
wasn't it? He lifted up his eyes, and looked,
and behold, behind him a ram, which is a male lamb, male sheep,
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." We understand what that means. it means in the place
of his son. He offered him up in the place
of his son. And what we find is this sacrifice
that God had provided and which God received because he had provided
it, which is a picture of the substitutionary death of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I'm always a bit hesitant to
say that this or that is the heart of the gospel or essential
to the gospel, but if anything is, it's this matter of substitution. that God, on this occasion, provided
an offering and sacrifice that was to be offered by Abraham
in the place of his son. All right, Abraham unties Isaac. He puts the knife in that ram
instead of Isaac. Isaac gets up, walks away, and
beholds it as it happens. Do you think he got the message? It was a message that just cried
out like God's gospel cries out that salvation is through and
by a perfect substitute and sacrifice. Christ said, I laid down my life
for the sheep. This church, these elect are
purchased by his blood. That's a clear picture. That's a clear picture. Because
even on this occasion, a death had to take place. There's no worshiping God apart
from this death. there's no God releasing a sinner
apart from this death. But what died was this provided,
God provided sacrifice. It is just like Abraham said,
the Lord will provide himself a lamb. And you read in Job 33, he says,
Man's like in a stupor of deadness and lostness and all these things
and he can't do anything. He won't do anything if he could
do anything, but here he is and all of a sudden God stands up
and says, let him go free. Let him go free. Let him go free. Why? He said, I found a ransom. He didn't find it. No sinner
ever finds it. But God found it. And that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that lamb's sacrifice is
a picture of Christ and Him crucified. Not just Christ. Not just a lamb
like They have at the state fair every year just a few weeks ago
when they wash them and clean them and whoever's got the best,
finest looking lamb, they win the prize. But they live. Not this lamb. This lamb has
to die. And in Christ, God has fulfilled
the promise of providing a sacrifice for His people. It can be said,
it must be said, the Lord hath provided Himself a Lamb. And the fact that they need a
sacrifice for sins shows them all to be sinners. And here is
not only a bunch of sinners represented in Isaiah, but a perfect sacrifice
and offering represented in the land. You know, Isaiah, he had about
as much to say about Christ as possibly could be said by an
Old Testament prophet. And guess what character Isaiah
is led by the Spirit of God to describe the Messiah. He says, all we like sheep have
gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was
afflicted, yet he openeth not his mouth. He is brought as a
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears his
dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." He's the spotless, sinless lamb. He's the Christ. And he is the one, one of the
creatures that in that Old Testament economy was described as being
clean. In Deuteronomy, God says, these
are the beasts which you shall eat. They're acceptable for food
because they're clean. And one of them, he says, is
the sheep. That's just simply signifying
the sinless perfection and worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ as that
one sacrifice for sins forever. He must be clean. He must be
acceptable. He must be perfect to be accepted. And that's why John says of Christ,
And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in
Him is no sin. We don't have to wonder whether
or not there is a lamb, a savior, a sacrifice. God has told us
about the only one, pointed to us, showed us, revealed to us
the one perfect sacrifice. For he hath made him to be sin
for us. in our place, he who knew no
sin." Peter is just enabled to so clearly
state of Christ who did no sin, neither was guile found in his
mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered
he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously,
who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,
that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness, by whose
stripes you were healed. and then as if we might not quite
get it. We might not see the picture,
or as we say, we might not make the connection. He says, for as much as you know
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by the tradition of
your fathers but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot who verily was for ordained before
the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times
for That's plain, isn't it? Here's this lamb. His horns are
caught in the thicket. Horns are a symbol of power.
But our Lord, He laid down, laid aside that heavenly glory. and submitted himself to the
will and purpose of God to be the one sacrifice and savior
for the sins of his people forever. And so here's Abraham. He's a
type of God the Father. And he goes and he takes this
ram out of this thicket. He brings him to that altar,
sheds his blood, and offers him up as a burnt offering. Nothing is out of control. As a matter of fact, it's as if God is saying to Abraham,
just to put it in there, our way of thinking sometimes. When
Abraham raises his hand to pierce the heart of his son, pour out
his blood, it's as if God says, hold it, Abraham. You're the wrong father on the wrong mountain. This is
the wrong son. But God on that mountain called
Mount Calvary brings his son. Some say, well, no, it was all
because of the Jews or all because of the Romans or all because
of the Pharisees or whatever. Well, forget all the second causes. Because Peter, he says in Acts
2 concerning Christ, Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain. By the determinate counsel and
foreordination of God. for of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus whom thou has anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. The cross death of the Lord Jesus
Christ for the sins of his people is no accident, no contingency
plan, but the purpose of God wherein he comes to die as the substitute of his people. He's the lamb. And so when he
steps out as a man on this earth into his first days of public
ministry, the one who has long before been determined and described
to be his forerunner, the one who would announce that Messiah
has come, old John the Baptist, Does he say, Hail King Jesus? He could have. Did he say, God
the Son, the Eternal Son? No, but he could have. No, he says, Behold the Lamb
of God. And that's what I'm praying the
Lord will help us to do with the eye of faith. Behold Christ
in this character as the Redeemer, as the substitute and sacrifice
for our sins. Behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. That world being Jew and Gentile,
a people out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, all
who look to Him, He's our Lamb. We worship God because we have
a Lamb. We have the Lamb, the Lamb of
God, who is God and who is from God. The Lamb died and Isaac
lived. And Christ died and all he died
for will have everlasting life. That's our gospel. The gospel
of a crucified, successful savior and substitute. And if he died
in my place, I won't have to die. Is that right? If he died in
my place, will God come along at some later time and say, well,
you know, these people said that Christ died for everybody, so
I guess I'll, I just can't honor that. I'm going to have to send
somebody to hell. No. The old hymn writer said something
like this, payment God cannot twice demand. first at my bleeding
surety's hand and then again at mine. The Lamb died and all he died for must live. The Lamb died and those he died
for his spirit will bring to hear and believe this truth and
look to him alone. in this character. Not just some historical figure,
not just some kind of mystical imaginary figure, mythological
figure, but as the Lamb of God. And when you get to the Revelation, and all those figures are used
to describe the devil, his deceivers, the beast. It says, everyone will bow down
and believe them, except for those whose names were written
in the Lamb's before the foundation of the world. God help us to look only to Christ,
only to his blood and his precious righteousness. Father, this day we give you
thanks for your son, for our substitute, Help us, Father,
that that never become a dry and cold doctrine to us, but
that it be always our only hope, our only salvation. It is enough that Jesus died
and that he died for me. We thank you for your word. We
pray that you would take Your word, not my feeble explanation,
but your word, and cause your word by your spirit to speak
to each heart as it pleases you. Go with us as we depart out of
this place. Watch over us. Keep us. Bring us back at that next time
that you have appointed. Receive this day our thanks for
your mercies and grace to us, and may all the honor and all
the praise be yours alone. We pray in Christ's name, amen.