Genesis chapter 22, and I'm going
to read from verse one. And it came to pass after these
things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, behold, here I am. And he said, take now thy son,
thy 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 claved the wood for the burnt
offering, and rose up and went unto the place of which God had
told him. Then on the third day, Abraham
lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said
unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and
the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. And Abraham
took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son. And he took the fire in his hand
and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake
unto Abraham his father, and said, My father. And he said,
Here am I, my son. And he said, behold the fire
and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God
will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went,
both of them, together. And they came to the place which
God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there and laid
the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar
upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the
Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he
said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
unto him. For now I know that thou fearest
God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from
me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket
by his horns. And Abraham went and took the
ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his
son. And Abraham called the name of
that place Jehovah-Jireh. As it is said to this day in
the Mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. And the angel of the
Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and
said, By myself have I sworn, 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, and in multiplying
I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the
sand which is upon the seashore. and 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. So Abraham returned unto his
young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba. And
Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. And it came to pass after these
things that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath
also born children unto thy brother Nahor, Huz, his firstborn, and
Buz, his brother, and Chemuel, the father of Aram, and Chesed,
and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlath, and Bethuel. And Bethuel begat
Rebekah. These eight Milcah did bear to
Nahor, Abraham's brother. And his concubine, whose name
was Rumah, she bear also Tebah and Gaham and Thahash and Machah. Amen. May God bless to us these words
from scripture. I did wonder whether I should
read those last four or five verses from the chapter. It really
doesn't have anything to do with the story that we're going to
be concentrating on today. And then I thought, if I don't,
they'll just say I was frightened at the pronunciations. So I went
for it, and I think I got, what, seven out of 10, maybe six. The only reason why they're there
is because we are being introduced in these verses to the lady in
verse 23 called Rebecca, and she is going to feature large
in the story as it continues in the book of Genesis, but we
needed to be introduced to her, so that's the reason for these
verses here. But our thoughts this morning
are going to be predominantly surrounding the events in the
earlier part of the chapter where Abraham is told to sacrifice
his son, Isaac. We've been thinking on a Wednesday
evening about the Book of Romans and our studies have been in
these early chapters of the Book of Romans and Abraham has been
mentioned a lot of times there because he is being used by Paul
as an example for the way in which the gospel is to be believed
and the way in which the promises of God in the Lord Jesus Christ
have to be believed by faith and Abraham is the great example
of a man of faith and therefore the Apostle Paul uses his example
liberally, freely in order to testify to the nature of faith. And as we were leaving a few
Wednesday nights ago, somebody mentioned, you know, we should
go back and look at this man, Abraham, in the context of these
promises that were made. And I thought, well, we finished
Peter last week. We've got the conference coming
up. I've got a week here. Let's just do that. Let's go
back and have a look at Abraham. And that's what I plan to do
today. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
living in this world and performing his ministry, he told them that
the Old Testament scriptures testified of him. He said to them, All these Old
Testament scriptures that you value so highly, that you read
in your synagogues and in the temple week by week, day by day,
that you write down on pieces of paper and roll up into little
balls and wear in your clothing and on your head, all these scriptures
that you have, do you know what they're even talking about? They're
talking about me. and they laughed in his face.
They mocked him when he told them that the scriptures testified
of him. And yet, I do believe that no
one can read these Old Testament scriptures with New Testament
eyes, ears and understanding and fail to see the Lord Jesus
Christ in these passages. John chapter 5, the Lord said
in verse 39, I'm paraphrasing here through to verse 47. He said to those that he was
speaking to, search the scriptures, search them. They are they which
testify of me. For had ye believed Moses, Moses
wrote the book of Genesis, so that's exactly what we're reading
today. Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for
he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings,
how shall ye believe my words? If something's true, if something's
true, and person A says it, and you
say, I don't believe you. And then person B says it. What
are you gonna say, I believe you? They've just said the same
thing. If you're not going to believe
Moses, how are you gonna believe Christ? He testified of Christ. There is a unity, there is a
completeness in this testimony that God has given us, this revelation,
that whether you begin at Genesis or you go all the way to Revelation,
this is one message of grace and mercy in the person of Christ. If you believe not his writings,
how shall you believe my words? He then goes on to say in John
8, Abraham of whom Moses wrote, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Abraham in his own day looked
forward. He looked forward in vision.
He looked forward with those spiritual eyes that we were talking
about a few minutes ago. He saw things because he trusted
in God. He was a man of faith. He believed
in God. He committed his well-being,
his future into the hands of Christ. and he saw Christ's day. We look back and we see Christ's
day in retrospect, but these men looked forward and saw Christ's
day just as clearly, just as fully, because you have to see
these things with spiritual eyes. This isn't history book stuff.
This isn't the greatest story ever told in the movies. This
is spiritual understanding of the revelation of God. Abraham
rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and he was glad. He was glad. Abraham went through
a lot of hard trials, difficult times. I'm pleased that he had
some times of gladness in his life. Sometimes when he rejoiced,
And here was one of those moments when he rejoiced, when he saw
the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, it's good for us to
become familiar with these Old Testament scriptures, the history
and the people, because we will find in them pictures of the
Lord Jesus. And today we're going to be looking,
I think, at perhaps one of the clearest and most powerful of
those pictures. Moses wrote this particular one,
and it is an incident out of the life of Abraham and of Isaac. Here we can see, as the apostle
Paul well knew, lessons about faith. That's what Paul was doing
to the Romans. He was using Abraham's example. And we can see these examples
if we look for them also. Lessons about faith. Lessons
about trusting. What it means to trust. Lessons about God's provision. How he has taken care of his
people in the past. What is it we say of God? He
doesn't change. And if he has acted in one way
at one time, we can have confidence that he will continue to act
in that way towards us also. And we can see something of the
early revelations of the Messiah. This is messianic. This is speaking
about that one who would come as the anointed one of God. and
who would fulfil all the requirements of God's plan and purpose for
the salvation of his church and people, those that he loved in
his eternal love. This points, therefore, to the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it speaks to us of sacrifice
and of substitution and of redemption and of resurrection from the
dead. And it's a wonderful witness,
I think, to you and to me of the faithfulness of God in it
all. There are many details in this
passage which echo the Lord Jesus Christ's own life and ministry,
his sacrifice and his death. And I'm not going to take the
time to go through all of these things because there are just
far too many. Isaac is called here the only
son. Take thy son, Isaac, thy only
son, whom thou lovest. Now, Abraham had other sons. Ishmael for example. But Ishmael
was not regarded by God as a true son because he had not been born
to Sarah. It is Isaac who is the true son
of promise and he is the only son and that is the point that
the Lord is making here. And so we see in Isaac an only
son. as we see in the Lord Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God. Here is a parallel. Here is one
of these examples where we see the type and we see the anti-type. We see the picture and we see
the reality. And then we can think about the
way in which the three days are spoken of. Abraham took three days to journey
to this place where Isaac was to be sacrificed. From the moment
that God gave that vision, Isaac was regarded as dead in
Abraham's mind. And three days later, Isaac was
restored to Abraham alive. There's a picture there of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Wood was laid upon Isaac and
the Lord Jesus Christ had wood laid upon his shoulder as he
carried his cross. Even Mount Calvary is prefigured
here in this story because Mount Calvary is in the hill land of
Moriah. Jerusalem later would be built
upon these mountains, this range of mountains, and we always talk
about Jerusalem or Mount Zion as being in a hilly country.
One of those hills in that area was Calvary. And so even when
the Lord said to Abraham, go to the land of Moriah and I will
show you a hill there. I will show you a place where
I want you to sacrifice your son. He was pointing him at Calvary. The binding of Isaac as a sacrifice
reminds us that the Lord Jesus Christ was bound and nailed to
the cross. The ram caught in the thicket
was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ entangled in the sins
of his people, which he carried to the cross, which were laid
upon him and for which he suffered and died. But I want, rather than dwell
upon some of these pictures, to think about this faith of
Abraham that is so much lifted up in the New Testament. Moses and the Holy Spirit, through
Moses, describes this incident as a trial or a test. Abraham was tempted of God, it
says. It's a trial or a test of his
faith. And God had given promises to
Abraham, and Abraham believed those promises. And yet that
reminds us that faith is not a one-off event. Please don't
ever think that you went forward at a meeting somewhere back when
you were 16, or back when you were 25, or back when you were
in your mid-30s, and that that's your faith. Oh yeah, I've got
a certificate. It's not worth the paper it's
written on. Faith is an ongoing thing. Faith
has to be worked. Faith has to be exercised. Faith
has to be tried in order to maintain it and to increase it and to
grow it. It is ongoing. It is a dependence,
an ongoing dependence and trust on the Lord Jesus. It's a lifelong
relationship with God so that our little faith might grow and
be nurtured and develop. And the Lord tests and tries. The Lord employs trials. in our lives in order to strengthen
and enlarge our faith, that we might know how to worship him
more. Now the Lord didn't need to learn
whether Abraham's faith was real. He knew it was real because he
put it there. But Abraham had to know. And
Paul had to be able to use Abraham's faith as an example to the Romans.
And we had to be able to look back in Abraham's faith and see
it as a testimony, as it is used and employed again in the book
of Hebrews, in that great catalogue of those who were those men and
women of faith. And that's the same faith, the
same faith that we are called upon to exercise in the Lord
also. God called and Abraham answered. He said, behold, here I am. The Lord called Abraham. It seems
to have been during the night. Maybe it was a vision, maybe
it was a dream, but the Lord spoke to Abraham and Abraham
said, here I am. Are we ready to hear the Lord
when he speaks? You know, sometimes we get so
crowded out in this world. Sometimes we have so many things
going on in our heads. Would to God that we could put
them all in a bag and leave them at the door when we were coming
in in the morning. But you can't. I can't. We were just reflecting on this,
some of the men, as we were having a moment of quietness before
the service, and how things just seemed to crowd in upon you.
We turn up at church and there's so many things going on in our
heads. If the Lord spoke to you this morning, would you hear
him? Would you? If he called your
name, would you hear him? Behold, here I am. I'm listening, Lord. I'm listening. What have you got to say to me?
Well, the Lord still speaks. He speaks in the gospel. He speaks
in the scriptures. He speaks in the testimony of
men and women of God who have themselves acted in faith. These
are the men and women who have gone before us. These are the
men and women in whose footsteps we follow. We follow our Saviour
as they followed the Saviour. We believe in Him as they believed
in Him. Let us be a listening people. Let us be a people who are listening
to hear what God has to say. What did God say to Abraham? He was to take his son, the son
that he loved. He was to take Isaac. and he
was to sacrifice him on a hilltop three days walk away. What is that? Dr. John Gill is a commentator. He was an English Baptist teacher
a few hundred years ago, and I like to read what Dr. Gill
has to say on some of these subjects. And sometimes I read it and I
say, well, I can't say that any better. Actually, all the time I read
him, I say, I can't say that any better, but I couldn't come
up here and just read what he has to say, right? So I'm going
to quote what Dr. Gill says about this instruction
that was given. And just listen to this because
it's actually pretty intense. Gill calls this a dreadful work. that Abraham was called to. He explains, by this order, he
was to cut the throat of his son, then to rip him up and cut up
his quarters. and then to lay every piece in
order upon the wood, then to burn everything to ashes. And he was to do it as a religious
action, with deliberation, in seriousness, and with devotion
to God while he did it. And remember, this is me speaking
now, this is the child of promise. This is Isaac. This is the one who for decades
God had been speaking to Abraham about, that he would be given,
that Sarah had laughed at. What, should an old lady like
me give birth? This is the one in whom God's
future blessing was vouched safe to Abraham and upon whom Abraham's
faith had been built. This is the one of whom the stars
in the sky would be numbered, the sand of the seashore. This is the one. And yet, such is Abraham's confidence
in God. Hey, no wonder the Apostle Paul
used this man as an example. Such is Abraham's confidence
in God that he obeys at once. He got up in the morning early. And he got his young men and
they got the ass and they went out and they cut the wood. They
literally cut the wood because he didn't know that he would
have wood when he got to the hilltop where the job was to
be done. He was purposeful. He had the
full intention to fulfil what God had instructed him to do. The wood was carried all the
way in order to set it alight and to burn his boy's body to
ashes. He carried the fire and he carried
the knife. He was purposeful because he
even told the two servants, the two men that he had brought to
carry these things and to presumably carry the camp equipment that
they would require for the two or three days journey, he told
them to stay back after God showed him the place where the deed
was to be done. I wonder why he told them to
stay back? Because they would try to stop
him doing what he was doing? Three days he travelled. Three
days he carried the actions that he was to enact in his thoughts,
in his hearts, as he made that journey to the place of sacrifice. Three days he thought about what
he was going to do. Think about the sentiments involved
in that. Think about the feelings of a
father in that situation. And I want to just add something
here as a little rider, because much as we think about Abraham's
faith, I wonder if you would indulge me for a moment or two,
that I might also speculate on Isaac's faith. Isaac knew about sacrificing.
They're walking along and he says to his dad, father, I can
see the fire, I can see the wood, where's the lamb? He knew about sacrificing. That's
good for those of us who are parents or grandparents. It's
always good to raise our children with a knowledge of the things
of God. Isaac had been raised with a knowledge of the things
of God. He knew that in order to approach God, there had to
be blood spilled. But I think more than just a
head knowledge, I think we can discern a heart knowledge in
the part of Isaac also. I think that we would be wrong
to regard Isaac here as being a little child. Now there has been some thought
given over the years by various writers as to what age Isaac
was. and it's quite a spread, from
being a child to being almost 40. Maybe the best balance is to
come in somewhere between that, maybe around his late teens or
early 20s. He was certainly physically capable
of carrying the wood up a mountain. And what we are told is that when Abraham went up
the mountain with him, Abraham was over 100 years old. So here's
a strapping youth, and Abraham takes him and lies
him on the altar. and covers him, or covers the
wood and lies his son on the altar and takes a knife, binds
him and takes a knife. Would not Isaac have been able
to withstand his father? Would he not have been able to
resist? Would this whole scene have unfolded
without Isaac being complicit to what was happening? So I think Isaac probably understood
more than the surface reading of this passage gives us. I believe
that Isaac would have been strong enough to disrupt Abraham's purpose
had he so desired. And yet we are told on two separate
occasions in this passage. I think it's interesting. In
verse 6 and in verse 8, we're given a little line there, which
you would read and you would just skip right over it and you
wouldn't think that it meant very much. But it's a repetition
within two verses. That usually means that it's
emphatic and it usually means that you're supposed to notice
it. And they went, both of them, together. and they went, both
of them, together. So, I'm not going to say that
it is absolutely certain, but I am going to leave it as a thought
for your reflection, that perhaps Isaac was more in tune with his
father's purpose here than the reading might immediately suggest. We do know from the book of Hebrews
that Isaac was a man of faith, and that faith By that faith
he was able to bless his own children. So Isaac was a man
of faith and it may well be that he already in these earlier days
of his life had come to trust in God in something of the same
way in which his father did. I think there's a lovely picture
there as well. We've been talking about the
metaphors that this or the pictures that this passage gives us. And
perhaps here in Isaac, we can see a picture of the obedience
and voluntary surrender of the Lord Jesus Christ also when he
went to the cross. Isaac was obedient and voluntarily
surrendered himself to the will of his father there at the altar. And the Lord Jesus Christ did
also the same on the cross. He is the one who gave, says
Ephesians 5 verse 2, himself, he gave himself for us. an offering and a sacrifice to
God for a sweet-smelling savour. Let us also think about God's
provision in this situation. In verse 8, the old man, the
old patriarch, Abraham, says to his son in response to the
question, God will provide himself a lamb. Maybe Isaac was just working
through with his dad what was happening here. Are you ever
perplexed by what goes on in this world? Are you ever perplexed? Are you ever puzzled about what's
happening around about us and looking for answers? You observe
and you think to yourself, I can't make sense of this situation.
I can see this, I can see this, I can see, but I don't see how
this all fits together. How is it going to work? What
is it that's happening here? What's the end of this process
going to be? Well, as we were saying to some
of the younger ones a little bit earlier, we can't see things
because we look with natural eyes. And we are so preoccupied
with the things that are going around about us that we fail
to grasp what the true purposes in these matters are. But we
need to remember that God is in control. I say that so often. I wish I believed it as often
as I said it. He is accomplishing his purpose.
He is doing it in the best, most effective, most efficient way.
He is accomplishing his purpose. So what you see happening out
there today is God's purpose being fulfilled. And Abraham and Isaac were called
to trust. And that's what you and I are
called to do, to trust him. The Lord Jesus Christ, because
I believe that it was the Lord Jesus Christ that interacted
with Abraham here on the top of this mountain, the Lord Jesus
Christ intervened. with a double call to Abraham
in verse 11. He says, Abraham, Abraham. And he brought thereby the sacrifice
to an abrupt end. The test that God had given to
Abraham was complete. The trial was over. Another way
had been found. There would be a sacrifice that
day, oh yes. But not Isaac, not Isaac. He did not need to be sacrificed. There was another way. There
was an unforeseen outcome that Abraham hadn't anticipated. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I know thou fearest God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. Now this is not craven fear.
This is not the fear of a guilty man expecting judgment. But this is a reverential fear.
This is a holy fear. This is a fear of a humble and
a needy creature before the God who alone can do him good. Proverbs 3 verse 5 says, trust
in the Lord with all thine heart. and lead not unto thine own understanding. Though you cannot see your way
through your troubles, through your problems, through the thing,
the dreadful thing that you are called to experience, though
you cannot see your way through that, You're called to trust
the Lord, that he is in it, that he is with you, that he is working
this thing out aright. Though you see it not, the Lord
will provide. Jehovah Jireh is a fine name
for our God. The Lord will provide. And he
provided a ram in this situation. He provided a ram in a thicket.
Abraham hadn't noticed it before. He hadn't seen it. How did it
get there? When did it get there? But it was sufficient for the
need of the moment. And that's what our provider
does. That's what our great provider
does. He gives us that which is sufficient for the need of
the moment. No more and no less. Because
he would have us be a people of faith. I wonder how long Abraham
never noticed that ram. I wonder how long we've never
noticed Christ. I wonder how long we've never
known about the substitute that was provided. Isaac was unbound. The ram took
his place. The sacrifice continued, but
God had provided a lamb for himself. And in the Lord Jesus Christ,
we see that the Lord provided himself a lamb. The substitute
took Isaac's place. The ram was behind Abraham. Abraham turned. Abraham was a man with many flocks,
but he had never seen a ram as beautiful as that one. And when a sinner sees the Lord
Jesus Christ as a substitute, he sees him as altogether lovely. And he thinks, why have I never
seen him before? Why has it taken this long? Why
is it that I've never turned around? Why have I never seen
the Lord my Saviour? What a mix of emotions must come
flooding in to Abraham's mind and Abraham's heart. He had sacrificed
his son with a heavy heart and now he turns in joyful worship
and praise to God. Job chapter 33 verse 24 says,
Then he is gracious unto him and saith, Deliver him from going
down to the pit, I have found a ransom. You see, sin demands
a blood payment. Guiltiness requires recompense. Disobedience will be marked and
retribution will be taken. Be not deceived. God is not mocked,
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. So here's the simple question
for you this morning. Shall we pay for our sins personally
or shall we seek for a substitute? one that is offered in our place
and in our stead. We will never find peace in our
personal efforts until we turn around or rather until we are
turned around. and thereby are enabled to see
the Lord Jesus Christ with spiritual eyes and spiritual understanding
as that one who is the substitute for our sins. Many people will
say in reading this story, coming to it new perhaps or for the
first time, how can a father slay his own son? And yet, is that not what our
Heavenly Father did? Is that not what God has done? And did not our Saviour, the
Son, go willingly to the cross in our place? There's a lovely commentary on
this passage in the book of Hebrews. And the apostle tells us there,
he says this, Hebrews 11, verse 17, following. He 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. Abraham believed God. He believed
if God promised to make Isaac his heir and by him father a
great nation, then God would surely raise him from the dead
again after he had sacrificed him and burnt his body to ashes. That was the faith that Abraham
had in God. He believed that God would raise
him back to life. Abraham believed that, and I'm
going to suggest to you that Isaac believed it too. and the
pair had walked for three days to watch God do it. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 3 says,
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according
to the Scriptures. And in a very true sense, Abraham
received Isaac back to life after three days. What a beautiful
picture that is of our Lord Jesus Christ and all that he has done
for us. Jesus said, search the scriptures. They are they which testify of
me. Abraham rejoiced to see my day
and he saw it and was glad. May God grant each of us that
same grace to see Christ's day. Faith to believe in the Lamb
of God and gladness of heart in the multiplied blessings of
Jesus Christ, our Substitute and our Saviour. Amen.