Let's come back to Genesis chapter
22. The Bible bookends are about
the Lamb slain. It's always about the Lamb slain. It's the Lamb slain in Genesis
3, and there's a remarkable verse in Revelation 13, 8, and the
more you ponder it, the more remarkable it becomes. In Revelation
13, verse 8. 13, verse 7, verse 8, yeah. And all that dwell on the earth
shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of
life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And not only in the scriptures
do we have all of these remarkable pictures and all of them point
to the finished and extraordinary work of the Lord Jesus Christ
bearing the sins of all of his people on Calvary's tree, but
throughout the Old Testament it's promised and prophesied
and pictured The blood of this Lamb, the blood of substitution,
the Lamb slain. Genesis 22 is just one of those
remarkable passages of scripture that no doubt when John the Baptist
was declaring to that both the Pharisees and others who came
to Jerusalem to him and to his own disciples, he says, behold
the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God. And if
we're gonna behold the Lamb of God, we need to behold him as
he's beheld in the scriptures. So here in Genesis chapter 22,
we have this remarkable picture. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that you might be the one who teaches your people and
that we might see In this extraordinary story, a glorious picture of
the remarkable transaction that took place on Calvary's tree,
where the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sins of his people, the glorious
substitute for sinners. Bless your word to the hearts
of your people. Amen. So let's begin at the beginning
of verse 20, chapter 22 of Genesis. God did tempt Abraham. It's not to tempt him, not to
tempt him not knowing what was going to be the outcome of it.
God knows the end from the beginning, the tempting of Abraham. was
to exercise Abraham's faith, that he, who is the father of
the faithful and the picture of faithfulness upon this earth,
might know yet again that he might have the opportunity to
see the faithful provision of God in a substitute. Jireh, God
will provide. But also Jehovah Jireh means,
in the mount of the Lord, verse 14, it shall be seen, it shall
be seen, substitution shall be seen. True saving faith pictured in
this remarkable work of simply believes what God says. Faith is believing God and also
faith is forsaking all for Him. So to have Christ in this world
is to have all, to have all, lacking nothing. That's what
the Lord said to His disciples, have you lacked anything? Will
you be with me? Have you lacked anything? God's
children lack nothing. And so just to make sure, James
tells us very, very clearly in James 1, verses 13 and 14, that
God doesn't tempt anyone. And when people are tempted,
they're not to say that God is tempting them. Let no man say,
verse 13 of James 1, let no man say when he's tempted, I am tempted
of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he
any man. But earlier on in verse two,
he says, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse
temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh
patience, and let patience have her perfect work, that you may
be perfect, entire, wanting nothing. Peter speaks in a well-known
passage in 1 Peter 1, verses six and seven. He says, we're
kept by the power of God, verse five, through faith under salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein you greatly rejoice.
No, now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through
manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much
more precious than gold. It's the trying of your faith,
which is the precious thing, isn't it? Much more precious
than gold that perishes. Though it be tried with fire,
it might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ appears
here. In verse two, Abraham's told, Take now thy son, thine
only son. Of course, anyone who knows anything
of the Bible would know that Abraham had another son who was
a teenager by this stage, well, a young adult man in his thirties
probably. God counts the children of promise. You take your only son, you take
your son, your only son, Isaac. And of course in this I want
us to see, as is so clearly revealed, that this is a picture of God
the Father and God the Son in the glorious transaction of the
salvation of sinners and the revelation of all of the glorious
character of God. You take him and you take him
up to Mount Moriah. Mount Moriah, of course, is the
mountain where Jerusalem was situated, Mount Moriah is where
the temple was. Mount Moriah is where all the
sacrifices to God were. Mount Moriah means chosen of
Jehovah. It's the place where God appeared
to David. It's the place where God met
with people in the temple at the mercy seat. And he met with
them there on the basis of shed blood, the shed blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And I love Abraham's response,
the father of the faithful, exercised and moved by the knowledge and
the grace of God. Verse three, it's remarkable,
isn't it? You take him up to that mountain
and you offer him there as a burnt offering. You could take him
and you sacrifice your son. Verse three, and Abraham rose
up early There was no hesitation in the
father of the faithful obeying God. He rose up early. He saddled his ass and took two
of his young men with him and Isaac, his son, and he claimed
the wood for the bird offering and rose up and went unto the
place which God had told him. And we pass over and our story
doesn't doesn't tell us of the emotional life of Abraham at
this time. But what a journey, what a request
from God. How Abraham's heart must have
felt with this child of promise, this one and only child of Sarah
whom he loved. for all those years of barrenness. You take him, you take him up
and you sacrifice him. So of three days Abraham had
to contemplate and to debate, and to ask God, and Abraham In verse 4, he lifted
up his eyes and he saw the place afar off. The place of substitution
or sacrifice seems distant to us, afar off. It's a place that
God showed him, and we're not told how God showed him, but
by revelation Abraham knew this particular mountain, and this
mountain alone is the mountain on which Isaac will be sacrificed
to this mountain and this mountain alone is going to be the one
in which the substitutionally work of the Lord Jesus will be
fulfilled in remarkable ways. But listen to what he says. He says of this activity that
he's about to undertake, and Hebrews 11 makes it very clear,
as far as Abraham was concerned, Isaac was a dead man. And for these three days, the
judgment of God was pending, was hanging over Isaac, as it
were. And he says, listen to the faithful,
the father of the faithful, he says in verse five, to the young
man, you abide here. with the ass, and I and the land
will go yonder and worship. We'll go yonder and worship. He considers this act in obedience
to the command of God, worship. He considers it worship. What
a picture of God the Father and God the Son. The great transaction
of the salvation of all of the souls of all of God's people
is a transaction between God the Father and God the Son. And
they go alone together. Twice it says, they went both
of them together. In verse five and verse eight,
they went both of them together. God the Father and God the Son
in this mighty transaction of the salvation of souls. They
both go together. They both go together. But look
what Abraham says. Abraham, we'll read Hebrews 11
later on, but Abraham really believed that he was going to
plunge that knife into Isaac, and Isaac was going to be resurrected
by God, and they were coming back together. Listen to what
he says. We'll go, Labnai will go yonder, at the end of verse
five, and worship, and come again to you. promise. How many of the trials
of this world and how many of the extraordinary difficulties
that we face in this world could be swallowed up in the very promises
of God. We'll go and worship. The Father
and Son, they go to this place of offering and sacrifice. The
reality is that God must do something for Himself. before he can deal
with us. He must do something for himself. There must be an extraordinary
transaction between God the Father and God the Son, and in that
three hours of darkness the eyes of the world are hidden from
the activities of what happened on the cross. That we mightn't
speculate about it, that we might understand it according to what
God has said, and that we might just trust the fact that they
went together. And they go, they go with the
wood for the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac. You might well
think of the Lord Jesus Christ bearing that cross to Calvary's
tree. And Abraham has in his hand,
he took the fire. The fire is the wrath of God,
isn't it? Against sin, the holy wrath of
God. And he takes the knife, is the
sword of his justice. That sword. that must arise. Zechariah 13, verse seven is
just the most remarkable picture of what happened on the cross.
He says, our God is awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against
the man that is my fellow, the one that is my companion, the
one that is my equal, saith the Lord of hosts, and smite the
shepherd. and the sheep shall be scattered,
and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. I'll turn my
hand of grace, I'll turn my hand of love and mercy upon the little
ones. The fire, the fire and the knife
is in the Father's hand. They'll go yonder and worship.
We'll go together and worship. Worship derives from that word
worth-ship. The Lord Jesus Christ honoured
His Father. He honoured His Father's holiness.
He honoured His Father's justice. He honoured His Father's faithfulness.
He honoured his father in the most remarkable ways, in the
depths of despair, in the depths of him. And we say, and the scriptures
say, that he has made sin for us, and we have absolutely no
idea what that means. We have no idea of the depths
of what it was for the Lord Jesus Christ to bear in his own body
the sins of his people. He who could say that he always
does those things that please him. Worship, it's called worship. It's worshipping God in his true
character, it's worshipping him for his holiness, it's worshipping
him for his justice, it's worshipping him for his faithfulness, it's
worshipping him. I know Abraham. We'll go on. He must be put to death. And Isaac's question, as I said
earlier, is a great question, isn't it? It's a great question. And it brings an extraordinary
answer, doesn't it? Isaac, verse 7, Isaac spoke to
Abraham, his father, and he said, my father, and he said, here
I am, son. And he said, behold the fire
and the wood. But where is the lamb? Where is the lamb? Isaac, as with Abel and Noah
and all of those patriarchs, they'd been taught. Where's the lamb? Where is the
lamb for a burnt offering? It is the question that everyone
listening to a sermon should be asking, shouldn't they, again
and again. Where's the lamb? Where's the
lamb? And any message that any preacher
delivers that doesn't begin with the lamb, doesn't have the lamb
as all of its food in the middle, and all of its essence and have
the lamb at the end is not a sermon that's not worth preaching. I love what Spurgeon said, if
he said, if my ministry and my messages were focused on the
Lord Jesus Christ and his shed blood on Calvary's tree, it would
be, and that alone, 1. Behold the Lamb He could have said all sorts
of other things about the Lord Jesus Christ, but he answered
Isaac's question, where is the Lamb? And the answer to the question
is the most remarkable answer if you look with me in verse
8. Abraham said, God will provide himself a lamb. All the other lambs are typical
lambs, there's not another human being, there's not another sacrifice
on this earth could make do. God will provide himself a lamb. If you behold a lamb, you'll
behold a lamb of God's providing. He'll behold himself, provide
himself a lamb for a burnt offering. God the Son, God the Lamb, God
the Lamb who is the Lamb of God alone can satisfy the justice
of God and satisfy the holiness of God and satisfy the law of
God The Lamb is the only one that
can cause God, in justice to be propitious to sinners, to
look upon his Son and be merciful to us. cannot save any sinner and do
any harm to his holy nature or his holy covenant what a great
question where's the lamb what a great question where's the
lamb himself a lamb. And verse 9,
they came to the place which God had told him of. The sacrifice
is always going to be in a place of God's choosing, at a time
of God's choosing, by the predetermined counsel of God. And this particular
place, at this particular time, this world exists so that the
lamb of God's providing could be sacrificed on Calvary's tree. This world owes its existence
now to the lamb sacrificed on Calvary's tree. And Abraham built
an altar there. What must have been going through
his mind at this time? What must have been going through
the mind of Isaac? And he bound Isaac, his son,
What remarkable faithfulness in Isaac the son. What remarkable
obedience to his father. One of the things that's extraordinary
in the scriptures, as I said earlier, that we're not allowed
into the emotional lives of these two men at this time. Isaac was
at least a man in his late teens and maybe older by this stage. And he bound Isaac and laid him
on the altar upon the wood, not a single mention of Isaac fighting. The Lord Jesus Christ set his
face like a flint. He willingly went to Calvary's
tree. For the joy set before him, he
went to Calvary's tree. For all of that, for the joy
of the glorification of his father's character, for the joy of fellowship, Isaac. Bind the sacrifice, says
the Old Testament. Bind the sacrifice with cords
to the horns of the altar. He's bound. Our Saviour is bound
in covenant. He's bound in promise. He's bound
as a surety. He is the one, according to Psalm
15, that swears to his own hurt and changes not. And he laid
him upon the altar of wood. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand and took the knife to slay his son. Let's turn to Hebrews
chapter 11. I love the fact that the New
Testament gives us the most glorious pictures, the most glorious explanations
of these Old Testament pictures. In Hebrews chapter 11, verse
17, Let's begin. Let's begin a little
bit earlier. It speaks of all these men that
died in faith. In verse 14 it says, for they
that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country,
and truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they
came out, they might have had an opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better
country, that is, a heavenly country. Wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them
a city. By faith Abraham, when he was
tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises
offered up his only begotten son. the greatest son, this son was
going to have a multitude of children. You can go to the stars
of the sky, says God to Abraham, and you will have as many children
and they'll all come through Isaac. You count those stars
and you keep on counting. That's how many children Isaac
will have. He offered up Isaac. And he that had received the
promises offered up his only begotten son. Of whom it was
said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting, reckoning. This is God's accounting. This is the accounting of the
faithful people of this earth, isn't it? Accounting that God
was able to raise him up, even from the dead. From hence, from
whence also he received him in a figure. He stretched forth
his hand with every intention of slaying his son. And the angel
of the Lord, the angel of the Lord, verse 11, the angel of
the Lord, if you want to have any doubt about who the angel
of the Lord is, the angel of the Lord, in verses 15 and 16
is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the messenger of
God. He is the one who is the angel of God in this story. And
he says, and he called to him out of heaven. And said, Abram, Abram. And he
said, here I am. And he said, lay not thine hand
upon the lad, neither do anything to him, for now I know. Literally, I have known. I've always known. God wasn't
doing this to gather some information for himself. He knows all things
all the time. Now I know that thou fearest
God. The fear of God, and the worship
of God, and the obedience to the command of God, are all tied
up, aren't they, for those who know his character. There's a
reverence for God, and Abraham, the father of the faithful, shows
the most remarkable reverence for the character of God, and
shows the most remarkable reverence for the word of God. Oh dear, if the Lord could cause
us to lift up our eyes from the things of this world, we'd see
so much more clearly than what we see around us. Abraham lifted
up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him, a ram. See, the ram was always there,
and Abraham hadn't seen it. The Lamb of God is slain for
the foundation of the world. The Lamb of God is always there,
and Abraham hadn't seen it. He's always there. He's only
ever seen when God points him out to us. He's only ever seen
by revelation. As the Apostle Paul saw the Lamb
of God slain from the foundation of the world on the Damascus
road. And when he had the gospel preached to him, the scales fell
off his eyes and he saw. And what did he see? When you
see the Lamb of God, you see that he's always been there.
When you see him, you see that you've always been in him, you've
always been loved by him. And he reveals not just a little
bit of himself, he continues to reveal more and more of himself.
So that's what Paul prayed for those Ephesians, that the eyes
of your heart being enlightened. And what do you see? You see
the glory of God. You see the glory of God in the
grace of God, in his electing, in his predestinating work. You see the glory of God in the
character of God. The ram was caught in a thicket
by his horns, and horns in the scripture are always a picture
of power, aren't they? was bound by his covenant promises. He was bound by his character. He was bound by his faithfulness.
He was bound. We are redeemed by the precious
blood of a lamb, a lamb without blemish. For even Christ, our
Passover, is saved. Abraham took the ram and offered
it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called
the name of the place Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord will provide. In the
mount of the Lord it shall be seen. The Lord will provide and
the provision of the Lord will be seen. And all of the Lord's
provision and all that will be seen is going to be seen in the
Lamb the Lamb sacrificed. See to see God is to see the
Lamb. To see God is to see the Lamb
as a substitute, to see Him as promised, to see Him as provided. And I love what follows in verse
15. The covenant is renewed. This
is a covenant that Abraham was promised back in Genesis Chapter
12 and it's renewed again in Genesis Chapter 15. It's a covenant
in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the promises of
God to the children of God. It's the promises of God that
come to the faithful one, the father of the faithful, that
all of the faithful children will see. And he called to Abraham,
verse 15, out of heaven the second time and said, by myself I have
sworn, so there's no question about who the angel is, only
the Lord Jesus Christ can swear by himself, because there's no
one greater to swear by. Saith the Lord, for because thou
hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine only
son, that in blessing I will bless thee. In multiplying I
will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand
which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate
of his enemies. Your seed will possess the strongest
part of all of what the enemies have as their protection and
their gates. The Lord makes a table for us
in the then we feast, don't we? And in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his
young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba, and
Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. He's the father And in thy seed, there is only
one seed that's mentioned in reference to this, and you can
read about it in Galatians. The seed is the Lord Jesus Christ. And in thy seed, all the nations
of the earth shall be blessed. We are recipients of this blessing
here and now, brothers and sisters. He's the father of the faithful. And it was credited to him for
righteousness. John the Baptist wraps up all
of the Old Testament and says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. He doesn't say, Behold Moses
and behold the law. I was gonna read some of these
remarkable statements from scripture about faith and may the Lord
cause us to find delight in them. Paul says, he that cometh to
God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them
that diligently seek him. So faith is the rule of believers
coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have access by faith into
this grace wherein we stand, Romans 5 to. So faith is the
rule of our approach to God. The just shall live by his faith. Then faith is the just man, the
righteous man's rule of life. We walk by faith and not by sight. So faith is the rule of our walk,
not legalism, looking away, looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
says in Romans 11 20, you stand by faith, and faith is the rule
of our standing. Whatsoever you shall ask in prayer,
believing you shall receive, says Christ. then faith is the
rule of that branch of worship. By faith Enoch had this testimony
that he pleased God, but without faith it is impossible to please
Him. Then faith is the rule that God
approves of and is pleased with. Whatsoever is not of faith is
sin. Then faith is the perfect rule
of holiness. He that believes is justified
from all things which he could not be justified by the law of
Moses. In faith is the rule of our righteousness. It is by faith that we overcome
the world. To lay hold of eternal life is
to fight the good fight of faith, according to Paul. Paul says,
I have fought the good fight, I have finished my cause, I have
kept the faith. And faith is the rule of his
warfare. Faith is the rule of his race.
It's the grace of God that causes his children. to be obedient to that rule.
It's called the obedience of faith in Romans. To the bookends
of that extraordinary book of Romans, it talks about the obedience
of faith. Faith is the delight of the faithful
one. It's the delight of God to give
faith. It's the blessing of God to try
faith. And it's the glory of God. May God bless His words to our
heart. May He cause us to see the faith
for one, our dear and precious Saviour. Okay, we're going to
have a break. I don't know what we're going
to do with the technical things, but let's have a cup of coffee. Thank you.