If you would turn in your Bibles
to Genesis, we're going to go through a few passages through
Genesis. We'll just have the one service
today since we're into the second stringers. What I've been doing is going
through Genesis very slowly. And I noticed in going through
it, what I started out to talk about was the calling of Abraham
versus the calling of Paul, kind of comparing. Well, that has
morphed into something I think a lot more interesting. I started
going through the various, the first few callings of God of
the patriarchs in the Old Testament. And I noticed going through that
that there was something happening at the same time, and that is
very closely related to God calling these men, was these men making
an offering or making a sacrifice back to God. And I started looking
at this, and it's really interesting. The whole thing about the sacrifices
in the Old Testament, how they're pointing to Christ, of course,
that's all they're doing, because they had no merit on their own.
the whole thing about how the sacrificial system came along,
and all of that in connection with the calling of God to people
and their response to him in making an offering. So I wanted
to go through that with you, and I think this will take two
times. Whenever the second time that I'm up will happen again,
we'll go through the rest of it. But let's start out in Genesis,
and let's do this this way. Let's go through Noah, Abram,
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, and look at the passages where
God called them or saved them or whatever you wanna say about
it first, and then we're gonna go back through and look at the
offerings that they offered in very closely related passages. So let's start out with Noah.
In Genesis 6, eight through nine, But Noah found favor in the eyes
of the Lord. These are the records of the
generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. Blameless
in his time, Noah walked with God. Noah became the father of
three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. So here is Noah finding favor
in the eyes of the Lord, finding grace or being called by the
Lord. And you notice that in verse
9, by the way, it says that he was a righteous man, blameless
in his time. That's after he found grace in
the sight of the Lord. That's not what caused him to
find grace in the eyes of the Lord. So Noah is the first one
we look at. First found grace, and then he
was righteous. Now let's look at Abram in Genesis
12. Actually, there are at least
three accounts of Abram being called from God in Genesis 12,
15, and 17. And you see in Genesis 12, the
first few verses is where God initially said to him, Go forth
from your country and from your relatives and from your father's
house to the land which I will show you. And I will make you
a great nation. I will bless you and make your
name great. And so you shall be a blessing.
And I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you
I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will
be blessed. Then look at chapter 17. He repeats it in chapter
15. We won't read that. But he repeats
it again in chapter 17. where he's coming to him and
telling him he's going to have his son soon. And in chapter
17, he was 99 years old. So God comes to him and says
essentially the same thing. I will establish my covenant.
between me and you, I'll multiply you exceedingly.' Abram fell
on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold,
my covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude
of nations. No longer shall your name be
called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I will make you
the father of a multitude of nations. This is where he established
circumcision as the sign of the covenant, and where he established
the covenant with Abram. Now let's jump to Isaac. In Genesis
26, so we're going down the line of the patriarchs in the royal
line to Christ. They're all getting called by
God, getting salvation and getting called. In Genesis 26, one through
five, Now there was a famine in the land besides the previous
famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went
to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. The Lord appeared
to him and said, do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land of
which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will
be with you And bless you, for to you and to your descendants
I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath
which I swore to your father Abraham. I will multiply your
descendants as the stars of heaven. I will give your descendants
all these lands, and by your descendants all the nations of
the earth shall be blessed. And because Abraham obeyed me
and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws, So
that is the calling of Isaac. All right, Isaac's son in the
line of election is Jacob, Genesis 28, 10 through 22. This is the passage where, well,
let's just read it. 10 through 22, then Jacob departed
from Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place
and spent the night there because the sun had set. And he took
one of the stones of the place and put it under his head and
lay down in that place. He had a dream. And behold, a
ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. And
behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the
God of your father, Abraham, and the God of Isaac. So he's
in the line here. The land on which you lie, I
will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants
will also be like the dust of the earth, and will spread out
to the west and the east and the north and the south, and
in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the
earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will
keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land,
for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised.
And Jacob awoke from his sleep and says, surely the Lord is
in this place, and I did not know it. He was afraid and said,
how awesome is this place. This is none other than the house
of God. That's Beth of God, the house
of God. And this is the gate of heaven.
So Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that he had
put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil
on its top and called the name of that place Bethel. However,
previously the name of the city had been Luz. Then Jacob made
a vow, saying, if God will be with me and will keep me on this
journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments
to wear, and I return to my father's house in safety, then the Lord
will be my God. This stone, which I have set
up as a pillar, will be God's house. And of all that you give
me, I will surely give a tenth to you." So there's the tithe
again, before the tithe became law. And this is Bethel. And Bethel is a big deal in the
Old Testament. I didn't really realize how big
a deal it was until reading some of these passages and how many
times that these guys came back to Bethel. So that's a significant
place. Then, along also with Jacob,
let's turn to Genesis 32. Genesis 32 is where he wrestled
with the angel of God. And this is in verses 24 through
30. Then Jacob was left alone, and
a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he
had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his
thigh. The socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he
wrestled with him. Then he said, let me go, for
the dawn is breaking. But he said, I will not let you
go unless you bless me. So he said to him, what's your
name? He said, Jacob. He said, your name will no longer
be Jacob, but Israel. For you have striven with God
and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him, and he
said, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it you ask
my name? And he blessed him there. So
Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, I have seen God
face to face, yet my life has been preserved. very interesting
Christophany or appearance of Christ in the Old Testament,
the angel of God that we see so much in the Old Testament.
So he wrestled with Jacob and so this is further testimony
to the election of Jacob. Then Joseph, we're gonna do Joseph
and Moses and then go back around again. Genesis 37. We're not
gonna read this, but just remember it. In Genesis 37, remember the
dreams Joseph had? In one dream, he saw the 11 stalks
of grain standing in the field and they bowed to him. Now, he's
recounting this to his brothers. and his parents and making him
really mad doing so. But that was the dream God gave
him. And then he had a dream where the sun and the moon and
11 some kind of stars or planets or something were bowing down
to him. So not only were his brothers
bowing down to him, but his mother and father, which did come true.
And so That dream was recounted, but where did that dream come
from? The dream came from God, and it was God's plan that Joseph
be in the election, in this dream of election. So that's in Genesis
37. And then look at Genesis 39,
verse two. The Lord was with Joseph, so
he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his master,
the Egyptian. And verse 21, but the Lord was
with Joseph and extended kindness to him and gave him favor in
the sight of the chief jailer. So we know that Joseph was called
of God. And finally, Moses. And we don't
need to turn there. You know the story in Exodus
3. Fantastic account of how Moses was on the backside of the desert
and is drawn over to the burning bush. And God talks to him there
and calls him. And all of that dialogue is so
interesting, where Moses says, I can't do this. And God says,
oh, yes, you are. And I'll give you the means of
doing it. And Moses says, I can't talk.
And he says, I'll be your mouth, and I'll give you Aaron to talk
for you, and all of that. This was God's call of Moses. And this is also where God had
that dialogue about the Hebrew verb, I am. And so Moses says,
well, who do I tell people did this and called me? And he said,
I am who I am, it called you. So that's the verb that's related
to Yahweh, the proper name of God, a very interesting passage.
So these are all of the passages that struck me as being the chief
passages in the Old Testament of the calling of the patriarchs.
Now, along with that, there was offerings made back to God. There
were offerings made back to God. And I want to run through those
passages and show you the relationship here. What was happening was
God was calling these men. work of grace in their hearts,
and in response to that, they were making sacrificial offerings
to God, and in response to him, and also calling on the name
of the Lord. That phrase is also seen along
here. So, men began to call on the
name of the Lord, and men began to make offerings to the Lord
in response to the Lord's working in their hearts. Hold that thought
and think of all the rest of the world at this time and then
later. What do you have happening in
most of the world through history? You have offerings being made. You have sacrificial offerings
among pagans. The difference between this is
that the Christians and the Old Testament saints had a real reason
for the offerings they were making, and they were foreshadowing the
death of Christ, the offering of all time. They were foreshadowing
a payment for our sins so that we could be called by God to
be Christians, to escape hell, to escape our sins. So there's
a good reason for the offerings of Christians through the ages
There's a horrible reason for offerings of the pagans through
the ages. So different, night and day.
Why do pagans, why does man in his raw state make offerings
to God? I've been thinking a lot about
this lately, because it's all through the world and all through
history. I believe that pagans make offerings either to appease
the gods, I don't think it's done very often to say thanks
to the gods. I think man in his selfishness
wants to appease the gods, wants to win the gods over to our side
so that things will go well for us. So it's appeasement. It's also some guilt. probably,
to paying for some guilt, and to bribing gods, the gods, to
bribe them to have crops and have good things happen to them.
That's what the pagans give offerings for. But the Old Testament saints
didn't do it for that reason. So now let's go through and let's
look at Noah, Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses as far as the offerings
they offered. Genesis 8.20. Now, there's one more thing to
say about this. How did they know to make offerings? That's a good question. Let's,
first of all, go back to the first time you see an offering
in the Bible is Genesis 4, 3 and 4. Let's go back there first. Genesis 4, 3 and 4. So it came
about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the
Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part, also brought
of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And
the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for
Cain and for his offering he had no regard. So Cain became
very angry and his countenance fell. And this is what ultimately
led to Cain killing Abel. is the fact that he was jealous
over the fact that God accepted Abel's offering and not Cain's.
Why did God accept Abel's offering and not Cain's? Well, there may
be two things going on here. Some people think it's because
Abel's offering was an animal sacrifice with blood, which we
know was the foreshadowing of Christ. whereas the grain offering
was not that. But you see later on the real
reason, I think, in, I believe it's Hebrews, it comes to say
that Abel's offering was offered in faith. He's listed with the
ones of faith. So that's the reason God really
accepted his offering. So this is the first time that
I can find that there's an offering made in the Bible. And we don't
have any word of God telling them to do this, but evidently
he put it in them somehow to do it. So this was an offering
made to God. There had to be a reason for
it. But now, let's move on to these men we've been talking
about. Let me show you another verse in the same chapter, chapter
four, that I think is significant. Chapter four, verse 26. "'To Seth, to him also a son
was born, "'and he called his name Enosh. "'Then men began
to call upon the name of the Lord.'" All right, so here's
where I believe we have these two things happening, and they're
in the same chapter. Offerings are starting to be
made, and people are starting to call upon the name of the
Lord. We know that they wouldn't do that unless God worked in
them first, right? So God called men and women,
Then they made offerings, and then they called upon the name
of the Lord themselves. So the offerings are huge in
the Old Testament. And the next time I talk to you,
I wanna go through the Levitical offering system. The offerings
that are set forth by God in the law, and how they're supposed
to be done. Very, very intricately complicated
in the, I believe there's five offerings there. Most of them
are blood offerings, but a couple are grain offerings, and we'll
go through those as a type to Christ and relate that. But here
we are hundreds of years before the law is given, and people
are still making offerings. So I think it's very significant.
And it's just a statement as to how the whole Bible hangs
together. The whole Bible is about the offering. that was made for us, the Lord
Jesus Christ, from the very beginning. So let's look at that in the
patriarchs. Let's look at Noah, back to Genesis
8.20. So we've already gone through
the passages where they were called. Now let's go through
the passages where they made their offerings. And a lot of
them made many offerings. I'm just gonna name a few. Genesis
8.20. Then Noah built an altar to the
Lord and took of every clean animal and every clean bird and
offered burnt offerings on the altar. So he took the clean animals
and made the offerings. Now let's look at Abram, Genesis
12, seven and eight. The Lord appeared to Abram and
said, To your descendants I will give this land. So he built an
altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded
from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched
his tent with Bethel on the west and I on the east. And there
he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the
Lord. There it is together. He built the altar and called
upon the name of the Lord. This is throughout the Old Testament.
So there were very nomadic people and they would move from this
place to this place and they'd build an offer and call on the
name of the Lord. And so that was their life then,
is doing that. Let's look at, still with Abram,
chapter 13, verse 4. To the place of the altar which
he had made there formerly, and there Abram called on the name
of the Lord. Then 15.8 and the following. He said, O Lord God, how may
I know that I will possess the land? He said to him, bring me
a three-year-old heifer, and a three-year-old female goat,
and a three-year-old ram, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.
We won't read the rest. But what he has him do is he
has him cut them in half and set the halves on this altar.
And then he came later in a great firestorm of lights and everything
else, and he evaporated that sacrifice on the altar. So that
was quite an offering right there. The last one I want to go through,
but later, at the end of the session this morning, is I want
to go through chapter 22 with you. What offering is that? That's the offering of Isaac. The almost offering of Isaac. What a picture that is of Christ.
And we'll go through that last. So save that thought. Now let's
turn to Isaac. Genesis 26, 25. Actually Genesis
26, 24 and 25. The Lord appeared to him the
same night and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do
not fear for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply
your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham. So he
built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and
pitched his tent there and there Isaac's servants dug a well.
All right, then Jacob, let's turn to Genesis 31, 54. Then Jacob offered a sacrifice
on the mountain and called his kinsmen to the meal. And they
ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain. This is with
respect to Laban and all of the work he was doing to gain his
wife. Chapter 33, verse 20 is the next
one with still Jacob. 33, 20. Then he erected there an altar
and called it El Elohe Israel. So God, the God of Israel. And
35 one, back to Bethel. Then God said to Jacob, arise,
go up to Bethel and live there and make an altar there to God
who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.
So this is Bethel. And Genesis 46 one. So Israel set out with all that
he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the
God of his father Isaac. So just put yourself back there
somehow in your mind. And these great patriarchs of
ours, of Christianity, And they're moving through this land, this
barren land, and they're just constantly making altars. You can see them building the
altar and calling on the name of the Lord there, and then offering
an animal sacrifice. What all was going through their
mind? How much revelation did they have of what that really
meant? And we don't know, but we know
what it meant. that there was going to be a
sacrifice someday that was gonna really take away sins. And that's
what existence is all about. So these men were doing that.
All right, now let's look at, we don't have any recollections
in the Bible that I can find of Joseph offering a sacrifice. But let's look at Moses for a
second. Moses, Exodus 10, 25. says, now this is in his discourse
with Pharaoh. What was he saying to Pharaoh
all these times when he was in with him? Pharaoh says, get on
out of here, go. And Moses said in verse 25, but
you must also let us have sacrifice and burn offerings that we may
sacrifice them to the Lord our God. So we hadn't gotten out
of Egypt yet and into the Sinai Peninsula and to the giving of
the law when God was going to tell him exactly what to do for
sacrifices, but he still knew he had to offer sacrifices on
their journey. So I can just see them every
day on their nomadic journey doing these sacrifices, even
before they had the tent, the tabernacle or meeting room. So
Moses did it. And of course Aaron, his brother,
was the first high priest. And we'll get into that next
time. So we have everywhere sacrifices
and offerings. The Hebrew word, one of the Hebrew
words, there's several of them, ola means to go up. And it either
refers to the smoke going up or the fact that they put the
sacrifice up on the altar. So to put a sacrifice on the
altar, to offer, And we know why it was done. The word kippur
means to atone or to cover over. And when we finally get to the
Ark of the Covenant and to all the furniture in the temple,
we'll get to that covering of the Ark, which is the atonement,
which is what Christ did for us. And that is the ultimate
sacrifice. So let's look at The offering
of Isaac, or the near offering of Isaac, in Genesis 22, as the
final step, what we'll look at this morning. In Genesis 22,
we have this story of the testing of Abraham with the sacrifice
of his own son, Isaac. And this is a tremendous foreshadowing
of the sacrifice of Christ in so many ways. Let's just read
it slowly and look at all the ways that it points to Christ. Now it came out about after these
things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and
he said, here I am. He said, take now your son, your
only son, right there, your only son, only begotten son, right?
We're foreshadowing Christ. Whom you love, Isaac, and go
to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering
on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. So Abraham rose
early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his
young men with him and Isaac his son And he split wood for
the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which
God told him. I believe, let's see, I don't have it written down,
but I believe Abraham was 99 at this time. Did we read that?
But that means Isaac was probably 13 or 14, because I believe he
was born when Abraham was 86. Don't believe me on that, but
something close to that. So Isaac's a pretty old kid,
and he's probably wondering what all's going on here. Verse four,
on the third day, Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from
a distance. Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the
donkey, and I and the lad will go over there, and we will worship
and return to you. It took the longest time in my
Christian life before I noticed this, but I think it's really
significant. That is the fact that he told
the two men, we're going up there and we're coming back, right? Okay, so what does that mean?
Well, it means a resurrection or something because God told
him to go sacrifice his son. So if he's gonna do that, he's
somehow got faith in God that they're gonna both come back.
Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on
Isaac, his son. Now, maybe I'm going too far
here, but do you see anything there? Isaac is carrying wood
up to the mountain, right? Like Christ carried the cross.
And laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand the fire,
some way to spark a fire, and the knife. So the two of them
walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father.
I mean, the silence was overwhelming, I guess, and Isaac finally has
to say something. My father? And he said, here
I am, my son. And he said, behold, the fire
and the wood. But where is the lamb for the
burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide
for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. So the
two of them walked on together. What a foreshadowing that is.
The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. That's what
John the Baptist said. He's got to be thinking of this.
Then they came to the place of which God had told them. And
Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and bound
his son Isaac and laid him on the altar. Now, this kid's not
rebelling. He's not fighting it. But he's
submitting to this. This is an amazing story. on
top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand
and took the knife to slay his son. He was going to do it. But
the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said,
Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. And he
said, do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing
to him. For now I know that you fear
God since you have not withheld your son, your only son. He says
it again, only son from me. Then Abraham raised his eyes
and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket
by his horns. And Abraham went and took the
ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his
son. Abraham called the name of that
place, The Lord Will Provide. As it is said to this day, in
the mount of the Lord it will be provided. So what a story
and what a foreshadowing of the greatest event of all of history,
and that is the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ for us. So that's the offering, that's
the sacrifice, that's what all of these passages are pointing
to in all of the Bible. And we are the benefactors of
all of that.