Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Neidert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nyberg. What is Abraham most famous for? I'm sure you would agree he's
most famous for offering up his son in obedience to God's command. Let me read Hebrews chapter 11
beginning in verse 17. 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, I try to put myself in Abraham's
place. If God told me to kill my child,
and offer my child up as a burnt offering to him. Oh, could you
do it? Which of us have not wondered
whether we would be able to obey as Abraham obeyed? God said,
take your son and kill him and offer him up as a burnt offering
to me. Now, God had made a special promise
through Isaac. You may remember the story of
Isaac and Ishmael. God promised Abraham a son, and
after some years he still didn't have a son. Sarah, his wife,
said, well, obviously God's not going to do it through me. He's
going to do it through somebody else. So here's my servant Hagar. Go into her and have a son with
her and she'll be mine. And that way God's purposes will
be accomplished. And Abraham did that. And we
got Ishmael from that union. But God said the promise is not
going to come through that union. Ishmael represents salvation
by works. Ishmael represents man doing
his part. And God said, I'll have no part
of that. The promise is through Isaac. You see, God promised
that through Isaac, the Lord Jesus Christ would come and that
his people would be saved in him. This is God's promise. Now, Abraham knew that God had
promised that the Messiah would come through Isaac. So here's
how he reasoned. God's never going to go back
on his promise. He's going to do exactly as he said he was
going to do. So if I kill Isaac, my son, God
will raise him from the dead, because I know God will not go
back on his word. That was his reasoning. That
was his logic, if you will. He knew that God would raise
his son up, even if he killed him, because he'd made this promise
that the promised Messiah was going to come through him. Now,
faith's works, this is all we admire Abraham, that he was willing
to offer up his only begotten son. Faith's works is determined
by who faith believes. You see, Abraham believed God. He staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief. He believed God. And he believed
that God would do exactly as he said he would do. Therefore,
he was willing to offer up his son upon an altar in obedience
to God's command because he knew God would Do what he said he
was going to do. He knew the Messiah would still
come through his son. Now I want to look back at Genesis
22. The Old Testament account of
this. I read from Hebrews chapter 11. But in Genesis chapter 22,
we're given the account of Abraham offering up his son Isaac. And
if you can get a Bible and follow along with me, I know that would
be helpful. In Genesis chapter 22, verse 21, And it came to pass, after these
things, that God did tempt Abraham. God tried him. He tested him. Now, he didn't tempt him for
his own information. God already knew exactly what
was in Abraham's heart. But he did this for Abraham's
benefit. God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, and
he said, behold, Here I am. Now, every time God spoke audibly
from heaven to Abraham, it preceded some very great trial. He told him to cast out Ishmael,
cast out the bond woman and her son, and how grievous that must
have been to Abraham. When God is going to destroy
Sodom and Gomorrah, he speaks to Abraham. So every time Abraham
heard the Lord's voice, it preceded some great and grievous trial. And I imagine Abraham winced
when he heard his name. Abraham, here am I, Lord. He says in verse 2, this is God
speaking to Abraham, 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
shall tell thee of." Now, you notice that Ishmael is not recognized
as a son because he represents salvation by works. He said,
take now Isaac thy son, thy only son. and offer him up as a burnt
offering to me. Now, people have objected. How
could God do that? That would be wrong. He's telling
Abraham to kill his son. What's right about that? How
could God be right and actually tell him to kill his son? Many people have made that objection,
but let me say this. God is so supreme that He doesn't
do things because it's right. It's right because He does it.
Whatever he does is right, whether I understand it or not. Shall
not the judge of the earth do right? Whatever God says is right. So, if you have that objection,
I hope that answers it. Whatever God says is right. And notice every word. I can
almost feel the pain in this. He says, take now thy son, thy
only son, the one you love, Isaac. and take him up on a mountain,
slit his throat, let the blood run out, set him on an altar,
and burn him as a burnt offering to me. Now can you imagine what
that must have been like for Abraham to even think about this?
But he believed God. He knew whatever God said, whatever
God did was right. He believed God. That's what
faith is. It's believing God. Shall not
the judge of the earth do right? We read in verse 3, and Abraham
rose up early in the morning. Somehow I doubt that he told
Sarah about this. I'm sure Sarah would have offered
all kinds of objections, and you can certainly understand
that, but I doubt that he told her about this. But he didn't
delay his obedience, 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 he claimed the wood. Notice he doesn't take
a chance on letting anything be left out. He brought the wood
for the burnt offering. He claimed the wood, rose up,
and went into the place of which God had told him. How prompt he was in his obedience
to what God had said. Verse 4. Then, on the third day,
Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Now what do you think went through
his mind as he saw the place where he would be killing his
son? And understand this, in Abraham's mind, it was already
done. It was an accomplished fact. It was already finished. Because in his mind, he determined
to do it. You see, God works in the heart. And in his heart,
he had already determined to obey God. He wasn't looking for
a doubt. But he sees that place, and oh, the pain he must have
felt, knowing what he was getting ready to do. Verse 5, 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. Now did
you catch that? He knew that he was going to
kill Isaac, and he says, Me and the lad will come back. He believed at that time that
God was going to raise him from the dead because God had promised
through Isaac. Notice he says, I and the lad
will go yonder and worship. This is the first time we read
of the word worship in the scripture. Worship is not a feeling. Worship is obedience to the word
of God. And worship has something to
do with what this story teaches us. The key word to understand
this story is substitution. And we're going to see that in
a moment. But Abraham, worship is not just a feeling. We feel
good and know it's obedience to what God says. I and the lad
are going to go worship. And he knew that when he lifted
up his knife to Kill that boy. That would be an act of worship
because it would be an obedience to God's command. And he knew
God would raise him from the dead. That's evident from that
because he said, we will return to you. Verse six. 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. Do you remember another scene
where one carried the wood up a hill for his own execution? You see, this is a type of the
gospel. And Isaac typifies the Lord Jesus
Christ. He carried his cross up a hill
for his own execution. And Isaac spake unto Abraham
his father. Now evidently, up to this point,
Abraham did not tell Isaac what he was going to do. I'm sure
he didn't want to tell him what he was going to do. I'm sure
he dreaded telling him what he was going to do. 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? Isaac understood that the only
way God can be approached is through the lamb, that lamb that
points to the coming Lamb of God. He knew the only way God
could be approached is through the blood of the lamb. He said,
we've got the fire, we've got the wood, but where is the lamb
for the burnt offering? And you know, in a lot of preaching
I hear, this is my question, where's the lamb? Where's the
lamb? I hear preachers telling people
about how to live and what to do and what not to do and how
to be successful and how to be prosperous and all the different
things preachers do. My question is, where's the lamb?
All that stuff's a bunch of vanity. Where is the lamb? You've got
the wood, you've got the doctrine, you've got the fire, you've got
the heat and the emotion, but where is the lamb? for a burnt
offering. That's what God requires, a lamb. Now we've got the wood, we've
got the fire, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Don't
you reckon that whipped Abraham's guts out when his son said that
to him? Now let's read verse 8. Now I've got a lot of favorite
verses in the Bible and this is one of them. Verse 8, And
Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a
burnt offering. So they both went up that mountain
together. God will provide himself a lamb
for a burnt offering. Now, let me say two or three
things about that. First, there's nothing that you
and I can provide for our own salvation. Nothing that God could
accept. I don't care if it's your tears,
your repentance, anything that comes from us, God's holy. God's
holy. He can't accept it. But here's
the good news of the gospel. All that God requires of the
sinner who He saves, all that God requires, He provides. He requires perfect righteousness. You can't come into God's presence
without perfect righteousness. He provides that perfect righteousness
in His Son. He requires a sin payment. The soul that sins shall surely
die. Sin must be punished. He provides the sin payment. He requires a new heart. He provides
the new heart. He requires faith. You can't
be saved apart from faith. He gives that faith. He requires
repentance. He gives that repentance. You
see, all that God requires, He provides. God will provide the
lamb for the burnt offering. You can't provide anything, but
God does. And here's the second thing this means. God will provide
for Himself a lamb for a burnt offering. You see, for God to
do something for me or you, He first has to do something for
himself. He cannot accept me or you the way we are and still
be God. God is holy. He can't embrace
someone who's unholy, who's evil, who's sinful. He can't do it
and still be God. What would you think of a judge
who, when someone had committed terrible crimes, the judge just
let him go free and said, well, I'm just going to let him go
free because I love him and I forgive him. Well, that judge would be
out of business, wouldn't he? Shall not the judge of the earth, that's
who God is, he's the judge of the earth, shall not the judge
of the earth do right? Now for God to have mercy on
me, he had to do something for himself. He had to make a way
for him to be just, and yet justify somebody like me, who is in and
of myself, unjust. He had to do something for himself. And this is what he did in the
gospel. God provided His Son, the Lamb, for the burnt offering.
The Lord Jesus Christ is God's Lamb. The sins of God's elect
were laid upon Him. The sins of all who believe,
all that the Father gave Him, they were all laid upon the Lord
Jesus Christ, and God's wrath came down upon Him. Sin was punished. And the perfect obedience of
the Lord Jesus Christ is given and placed upon everybody He
died for. That's the gospel, the Lamb.
God will provide the Lamb. He provides for Himself the Lamb
for the burnt offering. And listen to this. God will
provide Himself as the Lamb for the burnt offering. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the God-man. It's the second person of the
Trinity. God provides himself, his only begotten son, as the
lamb for the burned offering. What a precious scripture. Abraham
said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burned offering. So they went, both of them, together. Verse 9, And they came to the
place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar
there. Now, he'd built altars before,
but you can bet this was totally different. He knew he was building
an altar that he was going to sacrifice his son on. Oh, how
painful it must have been for him to build this altar. And
Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order, God's
a God of order, and he bound Isaac, his son. Now, Isaac was
a young man at this time, and Abraham was a very old man. But
what Isaac is doing, he's doing willingly. Abraham told him,
God told me to do this. And I know that God is going
to raise you up from the dead after I do this. And so Isaac
did what his father said to do. He willingly let himself be bound
and placed upon this altar. And that typifies the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He laid down his life willingly. He wasn't a victim. He wasn't
bad luck. Something bad happened to somebody. Not at all. He said, no man takes
my life from me. I have power to lay it down. I have power to raise it up.
This commandment have I received of my father. Our Lord died willingly. As a matter of fact, he's the
only one who ever truly died willingly. Somebody says, well,
what about somebody who commits suicide? Well, they still had
to die at some point. He's the only one who ever gave
up the ghost. He gave death permission to come
and take him. So Isaac is bound willingly and
he's laid upon that altar. Verse 10. And Abraham stretched
forth his hand. Now you picture this in your
mind. He had his hand up with the knife. In his mind, he had
already killed this boy. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand and took the knife to slay his son. And can you imagine
the pain and the anguish that that created for him? Oh, but
he did it. He, with full intention, was
to kill his son in obedience to God's command. So he stretches
forth his hand to slay the son. Verse 11, And the angel of the
Lord called out unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham,
Abraham. And he said, Here am I. Now here
he is, ready to kill his son, and God cries from heaven, Abraham,
Abraham. And he said, Here am I. Verse
12, 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, thy only son, from me." Now here
we have the gospel of substitution. This is the gospel. Now, the
Lord says to Abraham, now I know you fear me because you have
not withheld your son. Now, I know somebody saying,
would I have the grace to do that? Well, if God called you
to do it, he'd give you the grace to do it. He gave Abraham the
grace to do it. But we're missing the point if all we see is the
fact that he was willing to do this. Notice that the angel said,
now I know you fear God seeing that you've not withheld. your
only son from me. I want to read a passage of scripture
from Proverbs chapter 11 verse 24. There is that scattereth
and yet increaseth and there is that withholdeth. There's
the word. More than is meat, but it tendeth to poverty. You
see, if you withhold, here's what I do when I withhold. I
keep back something. I've got an ace in the hole as
it were. I've got a plan B. If this doesn't work, maybe this
will work. No, you can't withhold anything. I let go, by the grace
of God, of any hope of saving myself. All my eggs are in this
one basket. That widow that cast in two mites,
and the Lord said regarding her two mites, she's cast in more
than they all, because she's not withheld her living. She cast in everything and she
became totally dependent upon the Lord Jesus Christ for all
things. She didn't have anything to look back to. Now, if I believe
God, I let go of every hope of self-salvation, and I rely only
upon what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished for me. I look nowhere
else, sink or swim, I go to Him, and He's the only one I look
to. Now, let's go on reading. And
he said, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
to him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou
hast not withheld thy son, thy only son from me. Verse 13, And
Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And that's what faith
is. It's a look. It's looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's looking away from yourself.
It's looking away from men. And it's looking to Christ. Just
like that brazen serpent was put on a pole and Moses said,
look, whoever looked lived. That's what faith is. It's looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ. 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. Now Abraham looked not in front
of him, but behind him. He looked and behind him there
was a ram. You didn't have to look at something
that hadn't been done yet. You see, faith, while we look
to Christ, it's always looking behind, in this sense. We're
not looking to something that hasn't been done yet. We're looking
to something that's already been done. I'm not looking to my experience. I'm not looking to the fact that
I'm a preacher. I'm not looking to the fact that I understand
the Scriptures. I'm not looking to the fact that
I pray or read the Bible. I'm not looking to anything in
me. My ground of acceptance, my assurance, my hope is behind
me. It's what the Lord did on Calvary's
tree. When he said it is finished,
those were his last words. When he said it is finished,
the salvation of all of his people was accomplished. I'm not looking
to something that hasn't been done yet. I'm looking behind
me to what has already been done. He looked behind him. He saw 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. Now that's substitution. That is the teaching of this
passage of Scripture. What is my hope? That I'm going
to be accepted by God. That Christ died for me. That he put away my sin. Now listen to me real carefully.
Most teaching and preaching that's done in our day says that Jesus
Christ died for everybody and made salvation possible for everybody
and paid for everybody's sins. Now, if Christ can die for you
and you wind up in hell, what good is it? The death of Christ
knew you. You see, that makes salvation
by works. Not by grace, not by what Christ did, but by what
you do with what He did. And that's not the case. Everybody
He died for must be saved. He offered up that ram in the
room instead of His Son. And that's my hope. that Christ
Jesus was offered up in my place, that He actually put away my
sin and His perfect obedience is given to me. That's all my
hope. That's all my salvation. I'm not looking anywhere else.
Verse 14, And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh,
which means the Lord will provide. Yes, He'll provide material things.
He'll provide me with clothing and food and all those things,
but that's not really what this is a reference to, although he
does provide those things. He provides me with all that
I need spiritually. He provides me with a perfect
righteousness. He provides me with a complete
sin payment. He provides me with a new heart.
I didn't have this heart. He gave it to me. He put it in
me. That's why I believe. There was a time when I didn't,
and I do now. It's because He gave me a new heart. He provides
the repentance. He provides the love. The love
that I have is the love He's given me. He provides the grace
to persevere all the way to the end. Now, I'm going to persevere
by His grace all the way to the end, but catch this, I'm going
to do it by His grace. All that God requires, He provides. Now, I'll tell you who that's
good news to. Somebody that doesn't have anything to offer. If you
don't have anything, this is good news. Now, if you think
you have something, this might not be good news to you, but
if you're a bankrupt sinner, this is good news. All that God
requires, He provides. Now, we have this message on
cassette tape, on CD or DVD. If you call the church, or email,
or write, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Knopf, and pray
that God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's
our prayer. Amen. To request a copy of the sermon
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