Trying Abraham

Genesis 22. There have been people you've known, I'm sure, as I have, that believers that just have a hard trial of things. And like, this bad thing happened, and then they kind of got over that. And something else bad happened, and this bad thing happened, and just one thing after another. That might be you or me. I feel that way about me. But boy, we just come out of something, and we're going right back in it. So I hope we can relate to this a little bit.

I call this the trying of Abraham. Here in Genesis 22, the heading there says, God tests Abraham. In my Bible, Genesis 22, 1, and it came to pass that after these things, God did tempt. That word is proves him. He tested me. He sends him a trial. God did tempt Abraham.

It says it came to pass after these things. After what things? All the great trials that had happened in Abraham's life up till now. That's what, after these things. His whole life, all of eternity up till that point. After everything that took place, this is something the Lord did. And I was thinking, and my old man says this, instead of bowing to God, what the Lord does is right. He does all things well.

But my old nature says, boy, ain't he been through enough? Ain't he learned yet? And I think that of me. Ain't I been through enough? Haven't I learned yet? I haven't, have I? Here's the thing. Some people say the 10 trials of Abraham. I counted several more than that, but I'll briefly skim over them. The Lord comes to Abraham when he's grown, well-grown, up in the 70s, and he tells him, leave everything you know, everything you're comfortable with, leave your friends, leave your family, Leave the town you grew up in. You had to walk past that one corner where you and Sarah met, and you had your first date.

And you're always reminded every time, leave that. That's gone. Go away from that. And you'll go to where I want to tell you. Well, where is that? I'll tell you when I tell you. Get up and go. That was a great trial. That's hard. We've done it. It's hard. He tells him, he says, don't take your family with you. Leave your daddy there. Leave your mother and your father and you go to where I tell you. Well, he did anyway, didn't he?

That caused some problems. That was a trial coming out of that for a couple of years. And he finally gets to Canaan. As soon as he gets to Canaan, where the Lord tells him, this is where I'm going to have you, there's a famine. The Lord brought us here. Now everybody's starving to death. This couldn't be right. He comes up with a great idea to go to Egypt. Business is booming down there. Of course, the Lord probably wants us to soldier in there for a while. We'll go down. As soon as they get there, Pharaoh takes a lock into Sarah. Abraham knew this ahead of time. And he says, you tell them you're my sister or they'll kill me.

I couldn't imagine. He does this twice. He didn't learn the first time either, did he? That's a great trial. It's grateful. A man asked me one time, Sarah was 90 some years old, and a king of a nation took notice. They say, what do you think that signifies? I mean, she's real good looking. She was. She's pretty. Bride of Christ is beautiful to him. There's a significance there, but she's a good looking lady. And Abraham was scared. They finally settle. They're close to Sodom. Him and Lot's there. And there's just too much cattle. The servants start fighting.

And he says, Lot, if you go left, I'll go right. If you want the flat land, I'll take the hilly land. You pick what you want. And I'll go the other way. And that seems nice. But what would Lot say? I'll tell you what. I ain't worried about servants. I'm not worried about sheep. This earth is where God meets with you. I'll sell off everything I got. Let it burn. I'll stay with you. I'm going to stay where the word is, where the gospel is. Young poor Lot said, I'll go that way. I'll take that pretty land. Ah, what a trial. Watching youth, his little nephew, go off and do something dumb. That's hard. It's hard. You can't stop him.

Abraham took 318 farmhands. That's four kings that defeated five kings. So they're real strong. They had kidnapped Lot and a bunch of other ones. And he takes 318 untrained men and slays everybody and rescues them. Brings Lot back and all those goods. And after that, that King of Sodom came and said, oh, you give me those people and I'll give you everything.

That's a trial. That's a trial of abundance. You can have an easy life. You'll get the glory for this. And he said, I won't have it. No. At the same time, King Melchizedek came, the King of Peace, King of Siloam. And they broke bread together and drank wine. That's a blessing, isn't it? Abraham and Sarah, the Lord says, we're going to make a mighty nation out of you.

And it had been a few years. And so he heeds his wife, as his great-great-granddaddy Adam did. Heeded his wife. And they take matters into their own hands. And Hagar comes along. And they have Ishmael. And immediately, as soon as she has Ishmael, she's despised in Sarah's eyes. I know what it's like having one wife mad at you. I couldn't imagine having both.

That's a double trial. That compounds. Maybe that's a triple trial. That's a problem, isn't it? The Lord gives Abraham circumcision as a token of the heart work that he's going to do to his people. He said, I'm going to give you this token, this picture of outward circumcision, so you know what I'm going to do in the hearts of my people when I give you a heart of flesh. He's grown.

He's not an eight-day-old baby that doesn't remember this. Look how that happened, I guess. I don't remember. I don't remember the pain. I don't remember nothing. No, this physically took place. Medically, this is dangerous. And then he had to do it to all those in his household. That's a trial. That's a big problem.

Abraham interceded for Sodom. And I thought, oh, what the heaviness laid on. You ever prayed for your enemies? It's been a couple of times I've prayed for those that despitefully used me. And that's heaviness of heart, because you're thinking of what you are. What do I deserve? Lord, there ain't no different than I am. I'm the same kind of rebel that the enemies against me are. You can save them if you're pleased. That's a trial.

It's hard for the Lord to put that in your heart to pray that. It's heavy for us, isn't it? Abraham watched the smoke rise after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. Lot had come out, but he watched the destruction, the destruction of the enemies of God.

And we will rejoice in that day. I can't imagine that. When people I love and I care for and I like And they're rebels against God and he sends them to eternity of damnation. I'll say, amen, this is right. Well done. Good. I can't understand that. I think, oh, what a heavy heart he must have had. And then Isaac's born. And the Lord tells him, say, put away that bond woman and Ishmael. They can't live together. Get rid of Hagar. Get rid of Ishmael.

He loved that boy. That's his flesh and his blood. He loved Hagar. She'd been around for about 28 years at that point. That's a trial. He said, cast him away. Give him a loaf of bread and a jug of water and send him out in the desert. And they'll either die or fall into ruin. You don't know what's going to happen.

The Lord took care of him. That's hard. That's hard. And after all these things, After all these hard, serious, heartache, lasting trials, the Lord had another one. He tested, He proved Him once again. And this is the most difficult trial of all, isn't it?

Now our text. The Lord says, That son, your only son, whom you love, you take him and you offer him to Me as a burnt offering. Here in Genesis 22 verse 1. And it came to pass, after these things that God did tempt, He tried, He proved, Abraham and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, behold, here I am. And he said, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac.

It wasn't Ishmael, his son. People said, well, that man down there on the corner, that's a child of God. Well, the Lord's the Lord over the living and the dead. And in a sense, as Ishmael, every human that's ever walked the face of the earth, that human is God's property. And it's there because he made it. But this is his only son, Isaac. This is the son of promise.

Whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. Take your son, just like you do that lamb, up there, build a altar, you tie him to it, you cut his throat, you quarter him, and set him on fire to me. Sacrifice is worship. That little translation, when you worship God, you're sacrificed. What do you bring to God? If He didn't give it to you, don't give it to Him.

We bring His Son, His only Son that He loved. That's who He's provided, we'll see here at the end, has provided for us. The Lord's willing to test and to try and prove the faith of Abraham. Does the Lord test faith to see if it's any good, if you will last? No, it's His faith. It's the faith of Christ that His people have.

He gives it to them. And He's not proving it to Him. He knows what it is. It's His. He's proving it to us. When He proves Abraham, He's not proving Abraham to Himself. He's proving Abraham Himself to Abraham. If the Lord gives true faith, a gift only He can give, if we really have His faith, He will prove it to us. He's going to test us in it. And he'll be made to put to use. And that faith calls on him and trusts him and looks to him.

Some say this is a weird thing, this is strange. It's not strange at all. Why is this happening to me? It's supposed to. Peter said, Beloved, think it not strange concerning fiery trials, which is to try you. As though some strange thing happened to you. This ain't some random thing. The Lord's not an austere man that abuses his children and bops them on the head for no reason. This is out of love.

He said, rejoice in as much as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings. That, here's the reason, when his glory shall be revealed, not yours, when you see Christ's glory in it. Ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. That's the intent. The real broad picture of a trial. The Lord brings us down in His providence. He brings us to something. It comes to a head. We don't know what we're going to do. And then we see Him on His throne. We see that victorious Savior. Who sent the trial? You can breathe a little bit. You calm down some. That doesn't mean the trial is over. But what's the instant? We're going to see Christ high and lifted up and us lowly. He's going to increase and we're going to decrease. That's why we have trials.

Now there's many other things the Lord's teaching and I don't know what he's doing and all those things, but overall, that's the purpose of it. James said the same thing. Brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. It works patience. You don't just, the Lord don't save somebody and they're patient and they're content Everything's rainbows. Paul said, I've learned to be content. He didn't show up content one day. It took a while. It took trials to learn. The Lord taught him. And they'll be taught of God one day. What gives us comfort and assurance during these trials? We know who sent them.

For the Lord loveth whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you endure chastening, God deal with you as sons. You're a child of God doing this. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? Who doesn't chasten their sons? Now this is times of change son. Now they say you're a horrible parent if you make your children mine. It don't matter what we do, our heavenly father is a good father. He chastens his children.

I worry about people that don't have heavy trials, that don't go through some type of sorrow, that don't go through some type of worry To go without a trial could be a trial. It says in Hebrews 12, 8, but if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then ye are bastards and not sons. All the children of God are partakers of this chastisement, this testing, this proving, because Christ is proving himself to us. Now worry about people. Now you can have all those trials with a happy smile on your face. We can have contentment. It don't mean we're miserable and sad faces and walk around gloomy all the time. It still hurts though, doesn't it?

The faith God gives must be tried for a few reasons. First, it must prove to us that it's true faith, genuine faith. And how do you know that unless it's through the fire and through the trial? Faith is the substance of things hopeful, the evidence of things not seen. We have that hope, that expect, not what we wish, to be made like Christ an end. It's a hope, it's an expected end. He said so, I believe him, we're just waiting on it.

Next, our faith needs to be proven so it grows, so it's strengthened. Just like our muscles, if we stop moving altogether, you lose a bunch of muscle, you get where you can't walk. You know, it gets worse and worse. The Lord has to exercise those things, and faith must be tried to give us patience, and tribulation worketh patience. to wait on Him, to learn to wait on the Lord.

And then we get these trials because that's where we get comfort and peace. The Lord sends it, shows Himself, gives us comfort, gives us peace in Him, and that's how we learn to comfort others, by being comforted. That's where we get our comfort from. Someone else comes to us, a brother, a sister, I know, I've lived through it. Here's what the Lord did to me.

And then you go through that trial. Some else, you get to the other end of it. Some else is going through the same things. Oh, I remember. I always thought if I had to be laying on a deathbed for two or three weeks, wouldn't Lazarus be such a comfort? Oh, brother, I've died and come back. You want me to tell you what's going to happen? It's fine. Just calm down. You're going to see the Lord's face. Just relax if you can.

He's lived through it, hasn't he? Paul said this in second, Correct, is blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in our tribulation that, he tells us why he does this, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. We have to go through this hard time so the Lord comforts us and now we know how to comfort somebody else. Me and John was just talking about that. It's hard to get up and preach sometimes.

And there's another preacher hugged me before he got up to preach. He said, I'm nervous. I said, good. He said, I'm scared to death. You ought to be. If you was, I got a person, I'm going to knock this out of the park. Run. Don't listen to me. It ain't going to be worth nothing.

God tries Abraham. It's good for him. And it's good for the whole body of believers then at that time. This was good for Isaac, this is gonna be good for Lot, gonna be good for Sarah. And for us today, we can read it. We can look at it. So let's look at this, I'll go through it quick.

Genesis 22, verse one. And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, he said, behold, here I am. He said, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac. whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and claimed the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went to the place of which God had told him.

He rose up early. He got after it early. It doesn't say he got up and he told Sarah. That wouldn't have went over well. The Lord told him and he did it. He got up early and he was prepared for this. He took some servants with him. And Isaac his son, he took the wood. He was ready to go. And they traveled. And I was thinking all the thoughts that went through his mind. What about this? What about that? What's going on? We don't know what's going to happen, do we?

But he knows what God said. He don't know how the Lord's gonna make this come to pass, but he believed God. He did. And that faith that God gives is what's making him walk. Verse four, and on the third day, three days later, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, abide here with the ass, and I and the lad will go up yonder and worship. They're going to sacrifice. Worship. That's what it is. And come again to you. There's been a lot of speculation over who these servants are. Abraham's a good picture of the Father. He's a good picture of Christ. Isaac can be a picture of us. He can be a picture of Christ.

There's a whole lot of facets to this diamond if we spin it around. We see a whole lot of different light in it, don't we? But these servants, that's us. The Father and the Son are going up high where we can't go. A sacrifice is going to be made. God's going to be satisfied. And then they're going to come tell us about it afterwards. That's what happened to me. Is that what happened to you? All the work was done. He saw to it. We'll see in a second. And then we were informed about it afterwards. He brought us on board, told us about it. Verse six, and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son. He took that wood that Isaac was going to die with and put it on his back and he carried it up the mountain.

Do you remember that anywhere else in the scripture? Christ bore his cross. It's just unbelievable. He should have died. Most men did after the scourges and the beatings and all this. And he put that cross on his shoulder and he went up that mountain. He laid it upon Isaac, his son, and he took the fire. Abraham had the fire in his hand and the knife. That's the sword of justice and the fire of judgment. That's what the father had. And they both of them went up together. It's just the two of them. And Isaac spake unto Abraham. Abraham, his father, said, my father.

Isn't that how the Lord taught us to pray? Our father, my father, and he said, here my son, my son, he heard him. And he said, behold the fire and the wood. But where is the land for a burnt offering? Isaac was trained upright by his father. And Adam and Eve, he'd heard this from them, hadn't he? A lamb had to be slain. Blood must be shed. A covering must be provided. And he's heard this from you.

Later on, Moses, the Lord's going to give them the Passover in Exodus when they leave Egypt. And he's going to say, you're going to have this Passover feast. And I'm going to tell you why you're going to have this feast. It's as plain as anybody. A lawyer can tell you this is what this English means in this book. The Lord says, I'm going to tell you why. You're going to have this feast, and your little children are going to say, Daddy, why do we do this? And he goes, and you're going to tell them what I did. That's it. Daddy, why are we doing this? Well, honey, here's what the Lord did. And this is just a picture. It's just to remind us. And so you'll ask me. And so those things happen.

Isaac, from a young child, said, Daddy, why are we doing this? And they said, the Messiah is going to come, son. The lamb slain for the foundation of the world is going to come to this earth and he's going to give up himself willingly and die for us so we have life and he'll come again. And then it happened in the gospels, didn't it? And what's the epistles say? He's coming again.

My Lord's coming. Abraham had five words to his son. And if we could just dwell on that, he keeps going and I'm thankful, but here in verse eight, And Abraham said, my son, God will provide. Jehovah, Jehovah. It doesn't say God might provide. God will provide if he will. The Lord will save his people. That's as prophetic as I can get. How do I know that God's going to do that?

He said he's going to. How's he going to do it? Well through the preaching of the gospel, but other than that, I don't know. What means will he use to get somebody to hear? I don't know what he's doing. I don't know how he's working in the hearts of kings and all those things. I know he's on his throne and I know he will save his people. Why? He said he would. He said so. Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So both of them went together. That's a wonderful... Where's the lamb? Where's the lamb? How can there be peace between God and man? Where's the lamb? There has to be a lamb. Well, we have some good spousal training programs. We can help you with your marriage. No, where's the lamb?

Well, here's a good thing for children. You know, children like the color green. And we've learned that they learn best if things are in green. So we can turn everything green. We can teach them. Where's the lamb? I don't need green. I need lamb. God will provide himself a lamb.

We understand what provide means. If you need water, I give you water, I provided you water. We understand what that word means. Another translation is he will see to it. That means he'll perform it. He's the lamb, he gives the lamb, he sees to the lamb. Everything that needs to be done with that lamb, he's doing it.

Just the two of them went up that mountain. That's between the father and the son. That's it. The spirit informs us of it. But there's three ways of seeing this. God will provide himself a lamb. Three angles of this I saw, and I hope you can see it too. Jehovah, that's God there. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. The self-existent one. The Lord of hosts. He requires a blood sacrifice to atone for sin. The blood of bulls won't do. The blood of goats won't do. My blood won't do. Your blood won't do. So what does He require? Whatever He requires for His children, He provides. He requires Himself.

The Word was with God, the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh. His Son. They're one. The Father and the Son are one. And that's who the Lamb is that He provided. He provided Himself. He's the Lamb. Second, he's providing that lamb to himself. God will provide himself. He needs a lamb to atone for that sin. And it's to him. I've seen bumper stickers in these programs. We need to go out to the public and homeless and children and whatever and offer Christ to them.

He is an offering to God, not to us. He's our king. He's our savior, the captain of our salvation. But this is the offering to himself. He's providing the lamb to himself. The Messiah was not offered to us, he was sent. Sent to us, declared in our hearts. And third is to provide. He'll see to it. He will see to himself a lamb for a burnt offering. That means this is his plan. This is what he's decided he's satisfied with. He prepares it, and he sees it through completion. And he declares it good. Say, I accepted it. We have an empty tomb over in Jerusalem. Ain't no need to go looking for some holy lamb. It's empty. Why?

The Lord's satisfied. He accepted the burnt offering, and he's on his throne. Seen to it, I always think of my friend. I showed up in Iraq a long time ago. And a friend of mine was there. He knew me. And he had seen to everything when I showed up. Everything was provided. I got off the helicopter, and there was two privates there to carry my bags for me. And he said, right this way.

I said, do we need a vehicle? I got one waiting. Here's your water bottle. If you ain't yet, we got a plate of food for you. Here's your room. Here's the key. Here's this. Here's that. Just handed me stuff. He wouldn't stop doing it. He took good care of me. Do I get all the glory in that? I said, look how well I'll brag on Him. I have nothing else to brag on. He took good care of me. He saw to it. He provided for me. What does man's part in this? Nothing.

The Lord did it and He just tells it to us and we're happy about it. He gives us a new heart and says, thank you. The trial, the suffering, the pain that Christ must endure of being forsaken by the Father for His people. But it declared a just and holy God, didn't it? How could He be just and justify? Only He can provide this. Only He can see to this. It has to be His plan. Man can't figure this out.

That blameless Messiah, the God-man, worshipped in purity, without vanity, and there's not deceit in His mouth ever. Never a thought that was wrong. Solely looking to His Father and trusting His Father, it was as always focused from the cradle to the grave. That's the Lamb that God provided. He was tempted and tried in every way like we are, yet without sin.

And that's who the Lord is proving to Abraham. And that's who he's proven to us. Look at what he provided Abraham in verse 8. And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they both went together. And it came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there. He took his time. This wasn't hasty. And he laid the wood in order. He stacked it appropriately.

And he bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham was 120 some years old. Isaac's 19, 20. How do you think he wrestled that boy down to bind him? Isaac gave his life willingly. He was bound at any moment. He didn't want to do that. Those that's tying his hands, he could have whooped him and walked off. He willingly laid down his life for the sheep. That's what Christ did. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and he took the knife to slay his son.

That sounds like a brutal, horrible thing. That's trusting God. Rahab the harlot lied to government officials, and we read that what a great act of faith. How's that? The Lord said so. She was looking to him. Abraham's looking to his Lord. trusting him that he'll raise him again. And the angel of the Lord called out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. Phos, that's familiar. He knows him. And he said, here am I. And he said, lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. Don't touch him. Nothing. Zero harm. Zero punishment. Zero.

For now I know that thou fearest God. He knew that already. He's the one that put that fear in him. He's just speaking in a language that we can understand. Now Abraham knows. Seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him every word means something. It wasn't in front of him. It wasn't beside him. Behind him. Did they go do circles, loops, the whole way up that mountain? No, they walked up the mountain. They walked right past. This is in the past. They didn't know it before.

But a long time ago, there's a ram caught in a thicket, a lamb that had been provided a long time ago from the foundation of the world. And behold, behind him, a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, a crown of thorns on his head. I came to this text, I have a ram at home, and I was feeding them alfalfa and that's strawy stuff they don't like to eat, they like the nice, that's like the sweet treats to them, the powdery stuff. And that ram stuck his head up out of that bucket and he had them twigs all over his head.

It just melted my heart. I knew what that was. I knew what that meant. The Lord taught me. Sent a man to tell me. Verse 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 instead of his son. Substitution. We get that? One had to die so he could live. Someone had to die for me to live. Someone had to die for you to live.

And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord will provide, the Lord will see to it. And it is said to this day in the mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. Have you been tested? My God will provide all your need. Not your wants, your needs. We don't know what we need. We don't know what we want halftime either. But the Lord even gives us a lot of our wants, doesn't he? We're in air conditioning with lights on right now.

I had to drive three hours in heated seats and air conditioning at the same time. That's pretty good, isn't it? He took good care of me. Fed me a good chicken biscuit this morning too. If he gave his son for us, I think he can handle anything else, don't you?

I've learned that. And you want me to tell you a secret? I'm going to have to learn that again. And then whenever I'm 70, I'm going to have to learn that again. If I live to 90, I'm going to have to learn that again until I see him, until I'm made like him. And then faith won't be needed. I'll know him. I'll be right there with him. And you will be, too. All right. Lord bless you.

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Trying Abraham

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