Genesis chapter 22 and we're
going to read from 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. and claimed 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 in the
land 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 mount of the Lord it shall be seen. Amen, may God bless
to us this reading from his word. In many respects, this is a strange
and wonderful episode in Abraham's life. An episode in which the
patriarch, his faith is tested, and in many ways, it could be
a puzzle as to why God would act with his servant in such
a way. What kind of God asks a father
to sacrifice his own son? What kind of father would consider
doing such a thing? And what kind of son would be
willing to lie upon an altar without resisting? There are
many things in this narrative that we have before us today
that we could consider with much blessing and good. There's a
lot of things that could be said about the history and the circumstances
and even the geography, about the timing of these events and
those involved. There are lots of lessons in
this passage had we time to dwell upon them. Some things we know,
but a lot of things we don't. But in the end, The real wonder
in this strange incident in the life of Abraham is the picture
that it supplies of what we call substitution. The fact that Abraham
was ready to sacrifice his son but God provided a ram to be
sacrificed instead. The ram became the substitute
for the son. And that is the enduring picture
that we have before us in this passage. Substitution. the ram being slain in the place
of Isaac. We should say that while the
text tells us here that God did tempt Abraham, the use of that
word tempt ought not to suggest to us bad or negative things. Certainly, the Lord God does
not tempt his people to sin. That is the devil's job. He is
a tempter. He tempted the Lord Jesus Christ
and he tempts the people of God. But it is God's trying of Abraham's
faith that is before us here. And God will test and he will
try and he will prove the faith of his people. He will prove
that it is genuine. He will prove that it is real.
He will give opportunities for us to act out the faith and the
trust that we have in him and in the Lord Jesus Christ. After
all, it would be an easy thing for us to say, oh yes, we believe
in the Lord Jesus, if we were never called to act upon that
belief. It's an easy thing to say, oh
yes, we believe in God, if we never have any needs, or any
trials, or any difficulties, or any problems. But it is in
the problems and the difficulties, even in the persecution, that
we prove our faith, and that our faith is strengthened. And
this is the picture that we have before us here. The Lord God
tests his people, tempts them if you like, in order to deepen
our trust, supply our needs, and teach us things about himself. And as with all scripture, we
read it and we study it with an eye to the Saviour, Jesus
Christ, for it all points to him. And the Lord Jesus Christ
is not far from our view in this passage. When I was a little
boy, this passage was a favourite of my grandfather's and he often
used to speak about this and he would read these verses and
then he would pass on some thoughts on this passage. So I've been
looking for the Lord Jesus in this passage and in these verses
for a long, long time. But the first thing we can say
about this looking for Jesus in these verses is this, that
Isaac himself is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaac
was the son to Abraham, and he was loved of his father, and
he was the heir of all that his father possessed. And in this
sense, we see the Lord Jesus Christ. He too was the son of
a father who loved him and he was heir and is heir of all things. And also it's a picture of God
not asking Abraham to do what he himself was not willing to
do. I wonder if you've ever thought
about that. that here was Abraham being told
to go and sacrifice his son, which is exactly what God the
Father did when he sent the Lord Jesus Christ into the world in
that great covenant purpose to lay down his life to redeem his
people from their sins. Isaac did not die that day. at the hand of his father because
God indeed did provide a ram and the ram took the son's place
but in a very real sense the Lord Jesus Christ did die under
the knife of his father's judgment and wrath. and by the sword of
his justice. Because Isaac was a picture of
the reality and to the extent that the Lord Jesus Christ came
and laid down his life, we see there a beautiful picture of
substitution. The ram was caught in the thicket
by its horns. And I think that that's a nice
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ too. It was provided by God. Nobody went and captured the
ram. It was caught in a bush. It was
caught in a thicket. But God meant it to be used as
a substitute for the sun. And the Lord Jesus Christ there
died for his people on the cross. Caught by its horns is an interesting
thought because it's wool. Sometimes you see when, or sometimes
around here anyway, we see sheep getting caught up, maybe on a
piece of barbed wire or in a bit of a swampy area or in some bushes. And very often that sheep can
become torn. It wriggles so much, it squirms
so much, it pulls so hard trying to escape that it cuts itself
and it bleeds and it tears itself on the thorns or on the fencing. But this ram was caught by its
horns. Its wool wasn't torn, its flesh
wasn't cut. Nothing torn or bruised. It was
a perfect substitute, a perfect redemption and the Lord Jesus
Christ was our perfect substitute when he died on the cross for
us. I just want to touch on one final
thought as we leave this verse today, this passage. It may well
be that Abraham's faith, Abraham was called the father of the
faithful, And it may well be that Abraham's faith was such
that he believed God's promise that Isaac would be his heir
despite those things which God now required him to do in the
sacrifice of his son. If Isaac was to be the heir,
Abraham reasoned. then it would be impossible for
Isaac to die. Or at least if he did die, he
would have to be raised again from the dead. And that is a
very interesting thought because in the New Testament we hear
some things about that which I think are interesting. And
it may well even be that Abraham received some sort of vision,
some sort of insight and understanding about the Lord Jesus Christ's
own death on the cross, there as he stood at the top of that
hill where God had directed him to. Why would I say that? Well,
for two reasons. One is the place where Isaac
was put upon the altar was the land of Moriah, the mountain
of Moriah, which is the very same place as Jerusalem's temple
is built. So it is very likely that this
was the same place or very close to the place where the Lord Jesus
Christ was crucified. And I do believe that the sadness
of Abraham's trial to the old man was mitigated by a sight
and a glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's why I say
that. There are two references in the
New Testament. One is in Hebrews 11, verse 19,
and it says this. Accounting, Abraham accounted
that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from
whence also he received him in a figure. Abraham believed that
God was able to raise Isaac back up from the dead. That is wonderful
faith. And the Lord Jesus Christ himself
in John chapter 8, 56 says this, your father Abraham, he was talking
to the Jews, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, rejoiced
to see the day of Christ's glory. And he saw it and was glad. Do you think perhaps that is
a reference to the fact that Abraham saw the Lord Jesus Christ
coming in his glory, coming there to the cross and understood the
significance of the substitution that took place? We could talk
about Abraham's faith. We could talk about Isaac's awareness
of what was happening. We could talk about the amazing
voice that came from heaven as God spoke. But the real message
is the message of grace. The Lord Jesus Christ taking
the place of his people and dying for them, shedding his blood
and washing away their sin. There was no substitute for the
Lord Jesus. He was the substitute. He was
the Lamb of God that died. May God the Holy Spirit give
us eyes to see our substitute as clearly as Abraham saw the
ram. And may we have cause to rejoice
as Abraham rejoiced. when he saw that God did indeed
provide himself a lamb. Amen.