Good morning. We're going to be looking at
a verse of scripture in Genesis chapter 22 this morning. Genesis 22. Ryan and Savannah are married. So we are very thankful for that. They're on their honeymoon. Some
of you are looking around for them. Where are they? They're
not here. They'll be back, Lord willing,
next Sunday. I'm very, very happy for them. If you have your Bibles open
to Genesis 22, let's ask the Lord to bless His Word to our
hearts. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we're so very thankful that there is a throne of grace by which
we are able to approach thee. We thank you for the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who satisfied on behalf of all
thy people the full requirements of your holy law. Put away your
wrath. We're so thankful that we have
an advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. We ask Lord that
you'd be pleased now to lift him up, lift him up by your word,
lift him up by your spirit, lift him up in our hearts and cause
us Lord to be drawn to him and to find in him our all in all. We thank you for Ryan and for
Savannah and for the testimony of faith that you've given to
them and for their union together in Christ and we ask Lord your
blessings on them. Pray you'd give them safe travels,
pray you'd bind them together and cause them to Lord to be
a testimony of Christ and his church. For it's in his name
we ask it. Amen. In Genesis chapter 22, we have
another of the glorious names that the Lord Jesus Christ gives
to his people of himself that we might know more of him. You remember at the burning bush
when Moses asked the Lord, who shall I say sent me? And the
Lord Jesus Christ spoke to Moses and said to him, tell them, I
am hath sent thee. Now we have that title or that
name of the Lord translated for us in the Bible as Jehovah. And in that name it encompasses
everything about him as God. It declares him to be the self-existent
one. He's not dependent upon us like
we are of Him. He's the creator and the sustainer
of all of life. He's the immutable one. He never changes. The hope of
our salvation is based on that. He said, I change not, you sons
of Jacob. That's the only reason you're
not consumed. And He has established Himself
in the covenant of grace, salvation for His people, and He can't
change. I'm so thankful for that. In
the name Jehovah, we have a declaration of His sovereignty. We have a
declaration of His omnipotence. He's all-powerful. He hath done
whatsoever He wills. with all the armies of heaven
and all the inhabitants of the earth and no man can say unto
him what doest thou he does everything right he is the glorious I am
Jehovah now there's six other places in the Bible where the
Lord gives to us another attachment if you will to that name And
we looked last week at the one where he declares himself to
be Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. He is all
our righteousness before God. We have no righteousness outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He's the one who has satisfied
all the demands of God's law. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. He's presented himself before
God in our stead and on our behalf. And we look to Him for all our
righteousness. In Genesis chapter 22, He reveals
Himself. All these glorious names are
necessary for us. We were, Bert and I were talking
this morning about the Lord making us to be sinners, but the only
time that we can be made to be sinners is if first He's pleased
to make Himself known to us. And we see ourselves in light
of his glory, and we can only come to one conclusion. When
Isaiah said, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, the first thing
out of his mouth was, woe is me. When Daniel saw the Lord
in his splendor and in his glory, Daniel's immediate response was,
my comeliness, my beauty, my strength, my ability has been
turned into corruption. So the purpose of the Bible is
for God to reveal himself to us and the result of that revelation
is that we learn who we are in light of who he is and we can
only come to the conclusion that we're sinners in need of his
mercy and in need of his grace. In Genesis chapter 22, the Lord
reveals himself to us as Jehovah Jireh. You'll find that in verse
14. 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." Now Jehovah Jireh translated
means the Lord, everything Jehovah, speaks of his glory, his power,
his sovereignty, his his immutability and then adds to that, that Lord
is the one who sees and provides. He's the one who sees and provides. He sees our every need and he's
the one who provides for us according to his grace in Christ Jesus
to meet those needs. He sees when his children suffer
with sickness. Sometimes he's pleased to provide
for them healing in their flesh and extend their life in this
world. Sometimes he's pleased to heal
us through death. When John Huss, in 1415, stood for the gospel of God's
free grace against the religious establishment of his day, he
was taken and chained to a pole and burned. The Lord delivered
him from his troubles through death. He saw all that he stood
for. I love John Huss's confession.
In 1415, John Huss, his name Huss actually translated meant
the goose. And while they were putting the
chain around his neck and lighting the fire under his feet, he said,
you can kill this goose, but a hundred years from now, God's
going to raise up an eagle that you'll not be able to put away. And a hundred years almost to
the year, was when Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door
at Wittenberg and a revival broke out and God reestablished the
glorious truth of the gospel in the world through that. But John Huss died. The Lord The Lord gave him that
prophecy and he was put to death at the stake. So did God see
what John Huss was going through? Yes. Did he provide for him?
Yes. And he provided for his church.
His provisions, I can't promise to you that God's going to provide
in your time of trouble deliverance in this life. But I can promise
you this, based on the authority of God's Word and what he does
in this chapter, that he will provide for all of his children
a satisfaction to the law and a putting away of his divine
wrath. That's what he provides. That's
what Abraham saw. Let's go back to the beginning
of this chapter And it came to pass, verse 1,
after these things that God did tempt Abraham. And he said unto
him, Abraham? And he said, Behold, I. Behold, here am I. God was trying
Abraham. The Lord let no man say when
he sins that the Lord caused me to do it. That's not what
he's talking about here. He's talking about what God does to
try the faith of each of his children. James put it like this,
count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into divers trials,
divers temptations, different types of situations that God
put you in. Knowing that the trying of your
faith worketh patience, and when patience is complete, makes thee
perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. So the Lord's purpose
of trying his children or tempting them or testing them is for the
purpose of perfecting them and that perfection is found in the
one that he has provided. Abraham says, Jehovah Jireh,
God has seen my need and he has provided for me. And so the Lord
puts his children to test in order that he might reveal to
them his provision. Verse two, 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 of thee. Now Mount
Moriah is where Jerusalem is located. Mount Moriah is where
the Lord Jesus Christ was offered up as the sacrifice for sinners. That's Mount Moriah, 2,000 years
before the Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary's cross. The
Lord gave this prophecy and this picture of what he would do when
he sent the provision of salvation in the person of his dear son. That's exactly what Abraham is
going to experience now on Mount Moriah, also called in the scriptures
Mount Zion. The joy of the whole earth, the
scripture says, is in Mount Zion. Glorious things are spoken of
thee, thou city of God. Literally translated, it means
a monument raised up. David built Jerusalem there at
Mount Moriah. Solomon built the temple there. And God said in Isaiah chapter
28, I lay in Zion a foundation, a stone, a tried stone. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
stone that was rejected by the builders that became head of
the corner. And he was tried. He was tried
by God like you and I have never been tried. He was tried by the
law and he proved himself faithful at every point in satisfying
all of its demands. And now, turn with me to 1 Peter,
1 Peter chapter 2. Look at verse 6. Wherefore, also it is contained
in the Scriptures, and this is that passage from Isaiah 28,
Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, God chose
Christ, he's the elect of God, precious or priceless, and he
that believeth on him shall not be confounded. You won't be confused. You'll have clear thought about
the truth of who God is, about the truth of who you are, about
the truth of how it is that God puts away our sin and redeems
us unto Himself. God's people are clear on that.
They're not confused. They know who He is. They know
who they are. They know how it is that He saves
them. They're not confounded. They're
not confused. Unto you therefore which believe,
he is precious. But unto them which be disobedient.
Notice disobedience is set in contrast to believing. Which
means that believing is being obedient. What is it to obey
God? It's to believe God. And to not
believe God is to be disobedient. They which be disobedient, the
stone which the builders disallowed, the same has become the head
of the corner, a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense, even to them
that stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they
are appointed. God has appointed unto them in
2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 the scripture says that God sent
them a strong delusion that they might believe a lie sometimes
people ask me what about when you know when when people experience
I saw walking past the TV this morning somebody cut an eggplant
in half did you see it Some cook took a knife and cut an eggplant
and the seeds in the eggplant spelt out the word God. And of
course he concluded that you know that that was a symbol of
God's blessings on him. No, it's just the opposite. God
sends men strong delusions that they might believe a lie. God
will send, will cause things to happen to people that they
will ascribe to him but all for the wrong reasons. All for the
wrong reasons. Men by nature are very superstitious
and what they do too is they pervert the scriptures. Just
the other day I saw a lady with a t-shirt on and it had a map
of Africa on it. She had obviously been on a mission trip of some sort. And
Psalm 91 15 was on that t-shirt, sort of. The words of the word of God
were changed. Psalm 91 is all about the Lord
Jesus Christ. And on that t-shirt, instead
of what it says in God's word, and he shall call upon him and
God will answer him, They just changed it. And they shall call
upon Him, and God shall answer them, making their call the effectual
cause of God's blessings. So we'll go on this mission trip,
and we'll preach the gospel, and if they call, then God will
bless. That's just what men do. They
take the Word of God, and they twist it, and they pervert it,
and they make it to say things. They'll just change the very
words of it. in order to fit their theology. Christ is that cornerstone that
has been laid in Zion. This is the place where Jehovah,
Jireh sees and provides for his children. In Revelation chapter
14 verse 1, John saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion surrounded
by his brethren. In Isaiah chapter 2, Zion is
referred to as the top of the mountains and all the other mountains
shall flow into it. It is called the city of the
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. The ransomed of the Lord shall
return and come to Zion with songs and with praise and with
singing. Zion, physically, is where Abraham
is going to have this experience. Zion, physically, is where the
Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. Zion, spiritually, is where the
Lord Jesus Christ's death on Calvary's cross is declared and
believed today. You're actually sitting on the
top of Mount Zion right now. We're in Moriah. We're in that
rare place where the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ is declared
for what it is. We're not perverting the gospel. We're not changing the truth.
We're declaring Christ for who he is and he said, and I, if
I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself. I will see their
need, and I will provide for them." That's his promise. That's
my hope. That's your hope. It all took place in Zion, and
it still takes place in Zion. And Abraham, verse 3, rose up
early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young
men with him. When we get to our passage in
2 Kings chapter 4 in just a little while, we're going to consider
this ass, but I want you to think about him now. Abraham saddled
an ass, and that's how they got from where they were to the place
where the Lord was going to see and provide for them. Abraham
rose up early in the morning, 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 into the
place which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham
lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off." He saw the place
that God was going to see him and provide for him. And Abraham
said unto the young men, abide ye here with the ass. I and the
lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. Abraham
in this story is a picture, a type of God the Father. Isaac is a
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Abraham is going to put the
wood for the fire on the back of Isaac. You see the picture,
don't you? The Lord Jesus Christ carrying
that cross to the same place, to the same place where God's
going to provide a sacrifice. And Abraham took the wood of
the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son and took the
fire in his hand and a knife and they went both of them together
The fire is a picture of God's wrath, God's justice, the judgment
of God that must be executed. Our God is a just God. He said,
I will not allow any sin to go unpunished. He can't. He's a
holy God. He must punish sin. And so the
fire is a picture of that. And the knife is a picture of
the sword of God's justice that He plunged into the very heart
of His dear Son in order to satisfy His divine justice on Calvary's
cross. Two thousand years later, and Isaac spake unto Abraham
his father and said, Can you see, can you hear the Lord Jesus
Christ crying through the voice of Isaac, saying, Father, if
there be any way this cup can pass from me, let it be. Nevertheless,
not my will but thine be done. Can you hear him saying, My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It's what this book's all
about. It's all about Christ. Jehovah,
and here he's called Jehovah Jireh, the one who sees your
need and provides. Now your greatest need, your
greatest need is to have the guilt of your sin put away before
God. Your greatest need is to have
a righteousness established before God. In other words, a perfect
obedience to the law of God. There's only two covenants in
the whole world. There's only two covenants. There's
only two religions in the whole world. It's the religion of works
and the religion of grace. Adam in the garden was put under
a covenant of works. God told him that the day in
which you eat of the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of
good and evil. Now what is that tree a picture
of? It's two trees in the garden spoken of. Lots of trees there,
but two trees spoken of. What were they? The tree of the
fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life.
The tree of life is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
covenant of grace. The tree of the knowledge of
the fruit of good and evil is the one they were forbidden to
eat from. What is that a picture of? What is it that reveals good
and evil? The law. The law. There's the two covenants. Covenant
of works established by the law and the covenant of grace established
by the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only two covenants
in the whole world. And when Adam sinned, God sent
an angel and guarded that garden with a sword. Why? To protect
the way of the tree of life. In other words, man's only hope
of salvation was to be found in the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, in the sacrifice of the Lamb. If he went back
in the garden and ate of that, you know what men do today? They
still go back to the garden. They eat of the tree, of the
fruit, of the knowledge of good and evil. And they think that
in doing so they've earned favor with God, but all they've done
is suffered themselves the sword of God's justice, which He put
at the door of that garden, at the gate of that garden. Don't
go to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't even
touch it. Don't touch it, don't eat of
it, don't take any fruit from it. It's the mountain. The mountain that quakes. The
mountain that the people were afraid of. Don't go there. The
law can only condemn. The law can only judge. The law
can't satisfy God's justice. The law can't give you righteousness. All the law can say is guilty
and sentence you to death. But all the religions of the
world, all the religions of the world without exception are based
on you doing something to satisfy some demand of God's law in order
to present yourself favorable to God. Every religion in the
world. It's a religion of works. And
here it is again, the contrast that is given to us in the scriptures
between works and grace. Look at, go back with me to our
text in Genesis chapter 22. Abraham took the wood, put it
on the back of Isaac. They took the fire and the knife
and they went both of them together. What happened on this mountain
2,000 years later is exactly the same thing that's about to
happen here. God carried the fire. God carried the sword. Isaac, his picture is going to be changed
here in just a moment, but it's the same. It's the same. It's
Christ providing a sacrifice. Isaac spake unto Abraham, my
father, and he said, Here am I, my son. He said, Behold the
fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
What are we going to do? You think Isaac was getting a
little nervous? What did Abraham say? Abraham
had already told his servants that we're going to go up here
on this mountain and worship God and we're going to come back.
Now I don't know what Abraham believed. The scripture doesn't
tell us. Abraham fully intended to take his son's life. That's
what God had commanded him to do and that's what he was going
to do. Don't try to explain it away. I remember in, well, people
come up with all sorts of perversions to twist the scriptures to try
to make them fit their theology. What happened is what happened
and what God commanded. And Abraham must have thought
that God was going to raise Isaac from the dead. Because he told
his servants, we'll be back. We'll be back. Abraham believed God. He believed
God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Faith just
believes God. The rule of life for the believer
is not the law. The rule of life for the believer
is faith. Faith. If the rule of life for
the believer was the law, then what did believers do before
the law? Abraham lived 500 years before
the law. The law didn't come until Moses,
which was after the bondage of Israel and Egypt for
400 years. How is it that Abraham believed
God if he didn't have the law? He believed God with faith. How
is it that Abel obtained a witness that he was righteous? He didn't
have the law. Faith? Hebrews chapter 11. How
is it that Enoch walked with God and was translated? Faith? He didn't have the law. How is
it that Noah was moved with fear and prepared an ark and became
an heir of righteousness, the scripture says in Hebrews chapter
11. How is it? Faith? Faith is the rule of life
for the believer. How is it that Abraham became
the father of the faithful and believed God, for which it was
imputed to him for righteousness? How is it that Isaac blessed
Jacob and Esau concerning the things to come, and Jacob's name
was changed to Prince, and he blessed his sons, believing the
promises of the covenant? All these men lived before the
law. If the law is the rule of life, then how were they saved? Now did God bring in the law
because faith was not sufficient? No. God brought the law for those
who don't have faith. It is the law that God uses to
restrain the evil of men. God gave the law. The law is
for the lawless, the scripture says. By the law is the knowledge
of sin. The law is not for God's people.
That's what Christ came to do. That's what you and I have a
need of. We need somebody to satisfy God's law for us. Faith is our rule of coming. The scripture says, he that cometh
to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of
those who diligently seek him. Faith is the rule of our approach
to God. We have access by faith into
this grace. Faith is the rule of our life.
The just shall live by faith. Faith is the rule of our walk.
We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is the rule of our standing.
Because of unbelief they were broken off, but thou shalt stand
by faith. Faith is the rule of prayer.
Whatsoever you ask, believing thou shalt receive. Faith is
the rule of obtaining God's pleasure. By faith Enoch had this testimony
that he pleased God. For without faith it is impossible
to please God. Faith is the rule of holiness.
Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Faith is the rule of justification. All that believe are justified
from all things which he cannot be justified by the law of Moses.
Faith is the rule of our warfare and race. Paul said, I have fought
a good fight. I have finished my course. I
have fought the faith. Faith is the rule of our obedience.
We have received grace and apostleship to the obedience of the faith. faith. The law is not a faith. What the Lord Jesus Christ did
is what we're seeing here typified in Isaac. He provided. He saw that we had broken God's
law and he provided a substitute. And what did Abraham say when
Isaac asked him, where is the lamb? He said, God, look at it,
look at it back in our text in verse eight. And Abraham said,
my son, God will provide himself a lamb. Now there's three meanings
in that one phrase. God will do the providing. God
will provide the lamb to himself and God himself will be the provision. That just simply translated means
salvations of the Lord. The only way that you're going
to be able to stand before a holy God and have His law fulfilled
is to have Him do all the providing. You can't satisfy God's law. You've never kept one of God's
laws one time. None of us have. God will provide himself a lamb
for a burnt offering so they went both of them together. What
happened 2,000 years later was between God the Father and God
the Son. God the Son was satisfying the
demands of God's justice and of God's law. When like this
ram that was found in a thicket And when Adam sinned, God said,
from the sweat of thy brow, and the ground is going to produce
what? Briars and thistles. And the briars are thrown into
the fire. This is a picture. Where was this rammed? Look.
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 I am. And he
said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any
harm, anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest
God, seeing that 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. Now any time you read of horns
in the scriptures, and they're mentioned many, many times, The
horn of the Lord. It's his strength. You get near
an animal with a horn and that's what you want to avoid. Why?
Because it's the horns that he uses as a weapon. And God uses
that to symbolize his strength. And now we have this ram caught
in a thicket by its horns, by its very strength. That's exactly
what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. He
was caught in the briars and the thicket of our sin and his
strength. was made weak and he laid his
life down for us. Oh, that God would enable us
to be like Abraham, to lift up our eyes and to see that there's
a substitute. And he offered him up for a burnt
offering in the stead of his son. Do you need a burnt offering
offered up to God in your stead, in your place? That's Jehovah-Jireh. Abraham named the place Jehovah-Jireh
for God saw and He provided. He saw my sin and He provided
for my justice. He saw my need to satisfy the
law of God and He provided His righteousness. He took a ram. And he's slated. God's pleased. He's pleased with Christ. Jehovah-Jireh,
the God who sees and the God who provides. Do you see what
he sees? Has he provided for you? a sacrifice for your sins. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for your word. We thank you for the many types,
pictures that remind us of the difference between law and grace.
We thank you that we have an advocate, a provider, one who
laid his life down A lamb was caught in the thicket of our
sin, put to death in our stead. We ask, Lord, that you'd give
us the faith to look to Him, for we ask it in Christ's name.
Amen.