We go here to Hebrews chapter
11. Hebrews chapter 11. I've done something this morning I
don't normally do. I normally try to title the message
with a title that has something to do with the exact wording
of the text or the basic theme of the text. I've kind of done
that today, but the title of the message this morning, of
the lesson this morning, is Wet Helmet. Wet Helmet. And I'll tell you why it's titled
that. I have an illustration for you at the end that has to
do with a wet helmet. And it sums up everything that
the Lord's teaching us right here. And if you can remember
the illustration of the wet helmet, you can understand what the Lord's
teaching us through this trial Abraham had. But you've got to
wait until the end, because I'm not going to give it to you until
the end. Knowing how full of unbelief we are, most believers,
most every believer, desires to trust God more fully. Faith
is grown by God, just like it's given by God. But you can rest
assured that great faith, which is given and strengthened by
God, shall be greatly tried by God. In fact, that's how God
grows us in faith, is through trials. Trials from the Lord
are not for His own information. They're for our information,
for our benefit. So we'll look here at Hebrews
11, verse 17. It says, By faith Abraham, when
he was tried, 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 that
God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence
also he received him in a figure. Now you hold your place over
there in Genesis 22 and we'll reference that some as we go
through here. But let's begin here in verse 17. By faith Abraham
when he was tried offered up Isaac. The Scripture over there
said, in Genesis 22, said it after these things. Abraham had
suffered some trials. This wasn't the first trial he
suffered. He was called in the beginning to leave his homeland,
to leave his family's house. That was a trial. He buried his
father in Haran. That was a trial. He suffered
through family strife with his nephew Lot. And then he watched
Lot go with his family down into Sodom and live in that land,
perfectly content to live there. And you know that if you have
loved ones that you see in a dry and barren land, you know you
suffer for them. That was a trial for him. And
he knew the Lord would destroy Sodom like he promised where
his nephew lived. And so he had seen war. Abraham
went to war with some heathen kings to save his nephew, Lot. That had to be a trial as well.
And Abraham had some relatives down there when Lot and his wife
came out of Sodom. He had some relatives that were
destroyed at Sodom that stayed there. And for 25 years he had waited
for the Lord to fulfill His promise to give him a son Isaac. And
he took matters into his own hands and had a son named Ishmael.
And the Lord made him pack Ishmael up and send him away. Can you
imagine doing that for one of your children? I'm talking about
trial now. That was a trial. And now he's
brought to this place where the Lord says, offer up your son
Isaac. for a burnt offering. Every trial seems like a great
trial when we're in it. But usually this trial makes
the last one pale in comparison, doesn't it? And every one of
these trials we go through prepares us for the next one. And it may
just be that the Lord's preparing us for the day, that hour, when
we'll face death. To know all the way through To
trust Him. To trust Him. That's what He
teaches us every time, is to trust Him. If that's not the end of it,
if that's not what we learn from it, that He's Jehovah-Jireh,
the Lord will see to it. The Lord will provide. In the
mouth of the Lord it shall be seen. If that's not where we
come to at the end of the trial, it may just be that we're just
suffering from sin just like The rest of the world suffers.
But a believer is going to be brought to that place where he
sees the Lord and trusts Him. And Abraham knew this was from
the Lord and he trusted Him. Well, during this trial, most
of what the Lord ordered him to do made no sense at all to
Abraham. Absolutely no sense whatsoever. The scripture says, he said in
Genesis 22 verse 2, the Lord said, Take now thy son, thine
only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of
Moriah, and offer him up there. Offer him there. He's going to
have to slay him. He's going to have to kill his
son. And offer him there for a burnt
offering. You're going to have to kill
him and burn him. This was Abraham's son. This
is Abraham's only son. This is the son that Abraham
loved with his whole heart. And this is not only the son
whom Abraham loved, this is the son there in Hebrews 11, 17.
It says, And he that had received the promises, Abraham had received
the promises. And verse 18 says, of Isaac it
was said, in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Abraham not only
loved this boy, and this was his only son that the Lord was
telling him to slay and to burn on an altar, but this was the
boy that the Lord promised him Christ was coming through. The
Messiah is coming through his lineage. None of this makes sense. And now the Lord has promised
Abraham a seed out of all the nations, a people, a promised
people out of all the nations that shall dwell in Zion, in
heavenly Jerusalem and inhabit the earth. He's promised him
a Messiah wherein his salvation lies. And now he's telling Abraham,
go kill this boy. And yet in spite of the questions
he could have presented, and the things Abraham could have...
He could have said, why? Or what? All the questions we
ask when we get into a trial. He could have done all that.
But the Scripture says Abraham rose up early in the morning. He didn't waste any time. He
just went and obeyed God. He offered up Isaac. He offered
up His only begotten Son, and He went to the place God told
Him to go. He wasn't rebellious. He didn't
question God. He did what God revealed to Him.
God didn't answer all His questions. He just showed Him, this is what
I'm going to tell you to do. Now go do it. Scriptures tell us in Proverbs
3, 5, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. This is the
Lord's command to a believer. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart and lean not unto thine own understanding and He'll direct
your path. He'll direct your path. Be not
wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from
evil. That's evil. To look to our own
understanding, to think ourselves wise in our own eyes, that's
evil. The Lord said, depart from that.
And it shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones. Pride. Until pride is broken. And the only time pride is broken
in a trial is when God makes us satisfied with His choice
instead of our own. There would have been a lot of
other sacrifices that Abraham would have been pleased to make.
And he would have got to retain his dignity and his pride. But the Lord is going to bring
him down to the dust of humility and say, no, this is my choice.
Y'all hear me talk a lot about the rabbit barn. We had a one
year, it was just one thing after another. Trial after trial after
trial after trial. One after another. And towards
the end of it, I went to work at a rabbit barn. Tending to
rabbits, feeding rabbits, and spraying out the rabbit barns. I didn't go take that job because
I wanted to. I went and took that job because
it's the only choice I had. It's the only choice I had. I
was a whole lot more qualified for something else. But I took
that one because it was the one that I could take. It was there.
The problem was, I was still full of pride even in doing that. And the Lord took that away from
me. Took that away from me. Well, what was it Abraham knew
by faith? What was it he knew by faith
which was greater than all his carnal reasoning? Anything he
could have reasoned on this thing and figured out a better way
or better at what was stronger than all of that. Look at verse
19, Hebrews 11 verse 19. Accounting that God was able
to raise him up even from the dead. Faith is counting God able. It doesn't matter how insurmountable,
large and big and high and wide and mighty, the obstacle is before
us. Faith is counting him able. Counting him able. And Abraham
knew he himself was one that the Lord had raised from the
dead. He was in a land of idolatry when the Lord found him. He knew
by his own experience what the Lord had done for him personally.
Isaac, his son, was born after Abraham was 100 years old and
his wife was past the age of childbearing, he was one given
to him from the dead. And so Abraham charged God faithful. He counted God faithful, saying
he's able. He's able to raise this boy up. I don't know how. I don't know
what he's going to do. And I'm not even going to question Him.
He's able. I'm just going to do what He's shown me to do and
what I have at my disposal to do. And that's all I'm going
to do. He's able. And Abraham, when
he went there and he saw that mountain, this is what he said
in Genesis 22.5. He said to his young men there,
he said, you stay here with the donkey and I and the lad will
go yonder and we're going to worship the Lord and come again
to you. We'll be back. We'll be back. Verse 19, Hebrews 11, verse 19. And it says there at the end,
from whence also he received him in a figure. From the dead,
he received him in a figure. Two things here. One, Abraham
received Isaac from the dead figuratively, or as though he
really had slain his son. which gives us an understanding
of how God looks upon the heart. True obedience to God's heart
obedience. True obedience to God's heart
obedience. We could go, Abraham could just as well have went
through these motions and been kicking up his heels and kicking
and screaming inside and it wouldn't have been true obedience. But
his heart was right in God's sight and he literally As far
as God's concerned, he killed that boy. He killed him because
he was determined to do it. If God hadn't stopped him, he
would have killed him. And think about how long he had
to think about it. Three days journey to get to
that place. And then when they got there
and he sees Mount Moriah far off, And they have to go to get
to that place. And as they're walking this whole
time, you got to think there's Abraham walking along. And he
he's the only one so far as I can tell from what description, he's
the only one that knew anything about this. I want you to I'm
going to point something out here in a moment. I want you
to consider that fact. He's the only one who knew anything
about this trial. And he's walking along that whole time looking
at the wood and the fire. that's going to consume his son.
He's looking at the knife that's going to slay his son. He's looking
at his own son that's walking up there with him for three days. For three days. And then he gets
up there, and they came to the place which God had told him
to go to, and it says he built an altar. I don't know how long that took.
He built an altar. And with every stone that he
laid in place building this altar, he has to be thinking, I'm about
to kill my son on this altar. And he builds the altar and he
takes the wood and he lays the wood there in place on the altar.
And he takes the boy who carried the wood. He wasn't a little
boy. He carried the wood up there.
And he took him and he laid him down and tied him down on the
wood. Can you imagine with every knot he tied? What he's thinking? I'm talking about a trial. And in Abraham's heart, Isaac
died that day. He died that day. And the Lord said, Thou hast
not withheld Thy Son, Thine only Son, from Me. And from the dead,
he received him figuratively. He received him in a figure,
in a picture, back from the dead, just like he'd been raised from
the dead. But this whole account, secondly, is a figure of being
raised from the dead, of being spared and raised anew. It says
here, it says in Genesis 22-13, 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. Scripture says, the Lord said,
Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced to see it. Though he's gone through all
this trial, when he seized the lamb, when he seized the ram
caught in the thicket, he's reached the end of the trial. He's reached
the end of it. Now, I see what this trial was
about. This trial was to show me The
Lamb. This trial was to bring me to
see that God's going to offer up His only begotten Son. Just
like He told me to offer up my only begotten Son. This has brought
me to see something of God's love for me in that He would
offer up His only begotten Son. God so loved the world that He
gave. And He's reached the end of the
trial And now Abraham sees why he was commanded to offer Isaac
for a burnt offering to his Lord. And he sees him there caught
in that thicket. And he says, Abraham saw my day
and he rejoiced to see it. Do you think he rejoiced to see
that ram caught in that thicket? This ram is going to die in the
place of his son. This lamb is going to die. That
lamb is going to be put on the altar and the cords are going
to be cut loose and his son is going to walk away free because
the lamb is going to die in his place. That's what Christ did. That's what Christ Jesus the
Lord did. Every message I preach to you,
as long as the Lord will give me breath to speak it, is going
to be to bring you to see the end purpose for which Abraham
suffered this trial. And that's to see the ram caught
in the thicket so that you could go free. Every trial you go through
in this life, that's the end purpose for which God brings
you through it so you can see the lamb caught in the thicket
and go your way. And when he drew back that knife
and was just about to pierce it through his son's heart, he
knew something, felt something. Abraham felt something of the
love that God showed for him and the price of redemption of
what it would cost. It's going to cost me my only
begotten son! And God revealed to him, that's
the price I paid to redeem you. I gave my son to redeem you,
to buy you, to purge you of your sin and your iniquity and to
make you righteous and accepted. Many say Mount Moriah was where
Abraham offered Isaac. Or they say Mount Moriah where
Abraham offered Isaac is Mount Calvary, where God the Father
offered His only begotten Son. And it may be, I don't know.
But whether it is or not, I know this, in Mount Moriah that day,
by faith, Abraham truly did see the Mount afar off. He saw Mount
Calvary. He saw Christ. When He saw that
lamb that would die in the place of His Son, He saw Christ. He
saw the Lord. I want to give you something
here. The Lord doesn't give trials
to you and I who believe because He's angry with us. He does it
because He loves us. What he did here for Abraham
was one more manifestation of his love. It was painful for
Abraham. All that time he was going up
that mountain, it was sorrowful for him. But when he saw that
lamb, you know how much he rejoiced when he saw that lamb? Now, when
we get in a trial, we'll do a lot of things. And
the heart's deceitful. Let me tell you, the heart is
deceitful. And we'll do a lot of things religious, in a religious
manner. A lot of religious things. Not
because we really believe what we're saying. or really have
come to the end where we see the Lamb, but because we want
to get out from under the trial. We want to get out from under
it. And the heart's deceitful to where we'll do those things
thinking we're doing those things from a pure motive when it's
not. And it takes God to reveal that in us. Notice something here with me. Abraham is the only one who knew
anything about this trial. He didn't tell his son. He didn't
tell his servants. He didn't tell anybody. Not anybody. It was between him and God. When we foresee difficulty that
possibly looming out there on the horizon, like Paul did in
his ministry, we'll ask our brethren to pray for us. When we're brought into the grips
of death and we can't pray, we have the privilege of having
brethren to be called for, that'll come to us and pray for us, to
anoint us with oil, to cheer us and to give us some strength
as we lay on our sick bed. But when a man's brought into
a trial of affliction like Abraham was brought into, he didn't say
a word to anybody. He didn't say a word to his brethren
and to his servants, to his son. That's why James says, if a man
is among you afflicted, let him pray. You know why? I'm not your high priest. These brethren aren't. You aren't
my high priest. I have a high priest in the heavens.
And God's going to press upon me to bring him to his bosom
so I behold him as my great high priest who has suffered infirmities
just like I'm going through. That he might comfort me in any
affliction that I face. But I will not come to him until
I'm brought into affliction. Most of what people request prayer
for is dung. It's dung. Where does it end? Where is it going to end? What
infirmity do you not have to pray for? What infirmity do I
not have to pray for? But you let a man come into true
affliction, he gets quiet. He gets tight-lipped. And I'm
not talking about this flippity-flop mess that people won't pray for.
I'm talking about true affliction. I'm talking about you have to
offer up your son today, Eric. You have to offer up your child
today, Scott. That's what I'm talking about.
Then a man will quit trying to be self-righteous. Then a man
will quit trying to let everybody know he's religious so he can
get out from under his burden that he's under because he doesn't
want to suffer it anymore. Then a man will be brought down
to the dust of depravity to see his high priest. And then he'll
behold the ram caught in the thicket. But not until then. I don't have a problem with prayer.
What I have a problem with is the motive. What's the motive?
And I'll tell you, we get in one another's way. This religious,
self-righteous world gets in the way between God and a sinner
because we want to set men up to be the high priest and not
Christ. We've got one high priest. We've got one high priest. I'm
not going to get in your way of God bringing you to Him. I
don't want to have anything to do with it. I'll tell you what
does happen, though, Any time when Isaac beheld his
father going through what he was going through, that boy will pray for you before
you even ask him to. The brethren will pray for one
another before you ever ask them to. But I'm talking about we've
got to be brought to behold his son. That's where he's going
to bring us. That trial is not going to end until we're brought
there. We can go through all our religious motions. We can
make our requests. We can say long prayers. We can stand up and make sure
everybody sees us like the Pharisees did. We are not going to be brought
to the end purpose for which God gives every single trial
and every single Gospel message and every single word in this
book until we are brought to see Christ our High Priest and
not to them. Does that make sense to you? That's why He gives it. That's
why He gives the trial. And then secondly though, notice
here, in Genesis 22, verse 15, everything that He said to Abraham,
when He said this promise that He said He was going to fulfill,
it's all in the seed, the Son of God's love. Look, verse 15,
He says, by Myself I've sworn This thing is coming to pass
in thy seed, verse 17. Verse 17 again, he says, and
thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. Verse 18, he
says, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Abraham is brought to see that
just as Isaac is the one here that is going to have all this
glory given to him because Abraham believed him, Christ is going
to have all the glory given to Him through faith in Him. All
His people are going to be brought to worship Him. His enemies are
going to be made His footstool. Check it sometime. His footstool
is connected to His throne. Everybody knows His enemies outside
the church are going to be brought to His feet, but all those that
are enemies in their mind by wicked works are going to be
brought to His feet too, to kiss His feet and say, Lord, have
mercy on me. And he's going to receive all
the honor and glory for it. And then, this promise here that
he makes in his verses in Genesis 22, it sounds like the same promise
he made to Abraham before he went through this trial. Sounds
like the same exact promise he made to him. He said, Because
thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine
only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying
I will multiply thy seed. As the stars of the heaven, as
the sand which is upon the seashore, thy seed shall possess the gate
of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice."
That sounds like what he said beforehand, doesn't it? But that's
a brand new promise. That's an all new promise to
Abraham. because he sees it more clearly
now. He beholds the Lamb and he sees God's going to bring
this to pass. I thought I saw it when he told
me to come out of my homeland. That was a trial. I thought I
saw it when I was burying my daddy in Haran. That was a trial.
I saw it a little better when that was over. I thought I saw
it when I came through the trial of wrestling with my nephew Lot,
but I saw it a little better. But that day when he saw that
lamb caught in the thicket after that trial, he says, Oh, now
I behold Him. I behold Him. I behold Him who
promised. And it's like that promise had
never been made to him before. He beheld it so new. And he said,
Lord, I believe You. I believe You. Now, I said the
title of the message was Wet Helmet because I want to give
you an illustration at the end that sums the whole thing up.
It's just as simple. This is how simple the lesson
is. My truck was in the shop last week, and so I spent a lot
of time at home with my littlest one. And you know who I'm talking
about, don't you? And there's a law in New Jersey,
I understand, that you have to have a helmet on to ride a bicycle. And we were going down to the
schoolhouse to pick up Emma. And so he wanted to ride his
bicycle. So we went out, got his bicycle,
and we had left his helmet out the night before, strapped onto
the handlebars of his bicycle. And it's got those little foam
things inside it, you know, and they're wet. They're wet from
the rain. And I said, son, your helmet's
wet. And I said, here. I said, feel right here. And
he reached in there and felt it. So he said, well, I'll walk. So we went on and about 15 minutes
have passed. We're almost to school. And he
says, daddy, you don't have to show me. And I, son, what, what,
what are you talking about? And he said, he said, you showed
me my helmet was wet. So I know you were telling me
the truth, but you don't have to show me. I believe you daddy. There's where we come to. He
went on to tell me, I believe most of what my sister said,
but I believe everything you say. But there's where we come
to at the end of it. I believe you. You don't have
to show me. I believe you. I trust you. And that's where
Abraham was brought to. And until we've been brought
to that place, if we're his, until we've been brought to that
place, he's not going to let us come out from under something.
Not at all. And when we are brought to that
place, we're going to rejoice. And the rejoicing will be so
much better than the trial, and so much newer, and the promiser
so much more faithful, that we'll thank Him, thank Him, thank Him
for sending us through the trial. Thank You, Lord. That was good
for me. That was good for me. Alright, I hope that's a comfort
to you. And I hope it'll be a blessing to you.