God Will Provide the Lamb

Chapter 22 However, it's such a long passage this morning. I usually read it beforehand. I'm not going to read it beforehand So if that's let me let me just pray

Lord Jesus, I pray today you would simply come here by your spirits and open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf So that they might see and hear your gospel and God be in my head and in my thinking and in my heart and in my understanding And in my mouth and in my speaking and so we thank you in your name. Amen If you don't have a Bible by the way today's text is in Your announcements. It's on should be in the back page or something like that. We are coming to the end of Not the series in Genesis, but toward the end of Abraham's life and I was trying to think what was this like? Wow, how do you set up a passage where a father is commanded to kill his son? That's pretty funky by anyone's Standards and then I remember this summer watching the Decalogue by Christof Kislawski during community group who our community group watched several episodes of the Decalogue It's basically a Polish filmmaker who made several short films based on each of the ten commandments and if you remember if you've seen it in my opinion One of the most powerful ones was the first one They'll show have no other gods before me and in the first film in the Decalogue series What happens is you have a father who's an atheist who who's God basically you think is Science particularly computer science and he can do anything through his computer and his life is run by his Computer right that sounds familiar. I'm sure it's a some of you and he has a son who's about I don't know eight or nine years old And the son gets a new pair of ice skates for Christmas and so the father and the son go and they check on the computer What the weather report would be and they they calculate precisely what the thickness of the ice should be on the pond outside of their apartment building and The son goes ice skating And falls through the ice The calculations were wrong and if you've seen the film the father goes several children fell through the ice and Many of them make it and there's one missing. It's his and he's looking and he can't find him And he can't find him and he can't find him and eventually they pull the child from the water and he's dead And the father of course is tortured right and he runs to a local Shrine and he pushes it over and you think the reason he's so angry is because his god has failed him Science right he put his that's that's what I think Kislevsky's point is is that this got man's god was science and it failed him look at that look how bad it is But there's a bigger subtext to there that I think most of us miss you see your god is that which Defines your life, but also your god is the primary thing in which you place your affections You see one of the reasons the man was so upset was not that his god had failed him, but that his god had died Who was his god? His god was his child You know that whatever it is that you primarily place your affections upon that is your god and for many of us our God is our children why because they're the primary things in which we place our affections They're the primary things that define our lives and our lives are made up by making sure they are comfortable and making sure They they have every amenity and making sure things go well for them and to guard them from danger And most of us fortunately will never be will never be put in a situation where we have to be tested as to whether or not They're more important than god is to us Most of us will never have to make that choice and in fact living in the lives of relative ease We can think that God is in fact our main priority and our main affection when in fact it really is our children and yet Most of us won't have to make a choice is it God or a child God or a child who do we choose? That's what makes today's tech so hard with Abraham Because Abraham is given that choice not only is he given that choice? It is it is voiced it upon him it is forced upon him Right if you remember the text up to this point Abraham has been waiting for this child his whole life Isaac Right, we'll read about him in a minute He's been waiting for Isaac his whole life and he finally comes and as soon as he comes Everything seems Copacetic Abraham's comfortable and then God comes and it says he tested Abraham And it's bigger too because it's sort of a double whammy for Abraham Why because God commands him to sacrifice Isaac we'll see in a minute But not only does he sacrifice sacrificing Isaac a big deal his son whom he loved but Isaac is also the one whom God promised Through him his descendants would be named the Redeemer would come So to sacrifice Isaac means to get rid of the promise and so God gives him a promise that I'll never failure for sake you and then he says kill the promise What is he supposed to do Right that's almost irrational His only choice really is faith and so we'll look at this morning three things We're going to look at the test of faith. We're going to look at the evidence of faith. We're going to look at God's provision of faith Look at the text and verses one and two

Says now it came about after these things the God tested Abraham and said to him Abraham and he said here I am He said take now your son Your only son whom you love Isaac and go to the land of Mariah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you some test God comes to Abraham it says after these things after what things Well, it's after the call of Abraham certainly in Genesis 12 Remember God comes to Abraham in Genesis 12 He is just a pagan or a he then an unbeliever living in the land of earth which is present day Iraq and says Abraham I'm calling you out of this land to go to that land the land of Canaan And I want you to be a blessing to all the nations and in you all the nations will be blessed and whoever blesses You will be blessed and whoever curses you will be cursed and then in Genesis 15 We see a little bit the promise become a little bit more to fruition Because he says that the blessing to all the nations is going to come through one of your descendants an heir

And in 17 he comes and makes it even more clear He says the descendant one of your descendants is going to be an heir He's going to come through Sarah and his name is going to be Isaac he gives the kid a name laughter And in Genesis 21 Sarah gives birth to Isaac laughter So God has fulfilled his promise finally that one of Abraham's That Abraham has had the heir through whom his descendants will be named and through whom the redeemer will come Everything is wonderful Except of course Ishmael sort of put a glitch in the matrix why because Ishmael didn't laugh with Sarah but Abraham Ishmael his older brother laughed at him And remember God tells Abraham to drive out Ishmael and if you thought that was hard right today's an even bigger deal He says drive out Ishmael Sarah does and Abraham is disturbed What should I do? Should I drive him out? He's my first born son What should I do and remember what God says? He comes to him promises him Hey, I'm going to take care of Ishmael, but he's not the childhood promise Isaac is the childhood promise It's through Isaac that I'm going to name all of your descendants And Abraham says okay, that's beautiful after these things God comes to Abraham and tests him You see Abraham is getting quite old now. He's probably 120 or 130 years old He has everything that God has promised him he has the heir He's now in the land of promise Everything is closed ready to settle down into retirement and hand over the family business of blessing bearing to Isaac And it says that God came to him and tested him now you need to know that that's an editorial comment Abraham does not know that God is testing him we know that God is testing him Because we get to look at the story all Abraham knows is that God came to him and said Abraham and he answered and said here I am And God said to him now take your son listen to how God drags it out. He says take your only son Home you your son your only son the one whom you love Isaac if you're unclear yet Abraham him and this is the same language actually that is used of Jesus in John 3 Right when it says God gave his only begotten son that the word is monogonese it means unique your Abraham had other children by this time But God was making it clear. I want you to take your only son your unique son the child of promise this one Isaac And I want you to take him to a place where I will tell you and sacrifice him Now what was Abraham to do? You see that that's all like a double whammy as I said before on one hand He's got to kill his son who would want to do that On the other hand he has to kill the child of promise. He has to sacrifice the child of promise This is the child through whom God promised that all blessing would come to the nations through whom he himself Abraham would have redemption What's he going to do? Is he going to trust God or is he going to not trust God? Is he going to obey God or is he not going to obey God and this is the same tension that Israel struggled with when they were in the wilderness The original audience to this book would have read this and say I know exactly how he feels why Because God did the same thing for them. He delivered them from Egypt Into the wilderness instead. I promise you I'm going to get you into the land of Canaan into the promised land Remember Israel was the land of bondage and the promised land was the land of milk and honey and Israel sent 12 spies into the land 12 men and they came back to give her a port and the people waited anxiously and they said God Told us he was going to give us that land. What do you think should we go and he get it and ten of the spies said what They said we're like grasshoppers to those people the people in the land of Canaan are hostile. We vote No, we don't go. It's too dangerous And remember Joshua and Caleb stand up and said basically and I'm paraphrasing the Hebrew. Hey guys come on So they're giants. So we're like grasshoppers, but God promised He promised us he was going to give us the land So we vote that we go in Outvoted ten to two Israel stays in the wilderness and we know that whole generation it says died in the wilderness Except for Joshua and Caleb in the book of Hebrews in chapter four says that they did not enter the land of promise Because what they didn't believe the gospel preached to them? And what was the gospel preached to them? The gospel preached to them is the same gospel that is preached to you I will deliver you from the land of bondage and I will finish the job. I will see to it You trust me. I don't care how dangerous it looks how bad it looks go in there and I will take care of it And they did not believe that and so they perished in the wilderness You see so Abraham's tension. It's really not as uncommon as you think Because we also have the same tension right if it sounds strange for God to come to Abraham and tell him to sacrifice the child of promise Does it not sound strange to you when Jesus comes and says whoever wishes to save his life must lose it

Sacrifice yourself But the promise is that I'll be whole the promise is life the promises resurrection and you're saying in order to live I must die and Jesus is yeah You want to be great and you say yeah, and he says become small

You want to become something? He says become nothing Do you want us to become the greatest in the kingdom become the servant of all right? Take up your cross and bear it. It sounds completely backwards You see you and I are faced with the same decision is Abraham right? Do we go into a situation trusting Jesus which seems utterly dangerous and unsure or do we stay in bondage? Do we obey God or do we not?

When Jesus makes these claims to us when he says come follow me lose your life in order to save it it would be hollow if Jesus himself didn't do that All right Remember if anyone was tested Jesus was tested remember he began his ministry and he walked out as soon as he was baptized It says that the Holy Spirit drove him into the desert to be tempted By Satan and he didn't eat anything for 40 days. It says he fasted and after 40 days it says he was hungry And if you've ever gone long time without food it not only makes you hungry it makes you delirious. You'll do anything And right in the middle of Jesus's weakest moment Satan comes and tempts him and he doesn't tempt him with big things by the way He tempts him with common sense right common sense Out rules the promise every single time because he comes to him Jesus hasn't eaten for 40 days and he says hey if you're the son of God just make these rocks turn into bread

And he takes him to the top of the the temple mount and he shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says Jesus I will give you all the kingdoms of the world if you just bow down to me Now remember God had promised Jesus all the kingdoms of the world too Now it would seem that common sense would tell you I can get all the kingdoms of the world just by taking one knee And it'll be over with or I can get all the kingdoms of the world by enduring the cross By being spat upon and beaten and scorned and being treated ill and being misunderstood and being cast away and deserted By all of my friends and even deserted by my father and crushed and bearing the wrath of humanity I can do that to get the kingdoms of the world too

knee horror knee horror Common sense says take the knee pal And yet he doesn't why because God told him to go to the cross He said the cross is the way that you will bring redemption to all mankind It seems stupid doesn't it so you're telling me I'm going to save everyone by dying What good am I dead and God said don't worry about that. I'll take care of that in a few days Right and at the end of his life as well. He faces the test why he's in the garden of gasemini Jesus was no stranger to pathose and Jesus was no stranger to struggling with issues of wondering whether he or not He should be obedient in the garden of gasemini. What did he do? He did the opposite thing of what Adam and Eve did in the garden right it when they were in the garden They were tempted and the aid of the fruit. He was in the garden He was tempted to give up and instead he looked at God instead if there's any other way If there's any way that we can do this beside me having to go to the cross, please let me do it Nothing silence. He prayed it again. God if there's any other way, please can we get another way silence The third time he says God if there's any other way, please let this cup pass from me Then he says what not my will but you will That in the face of what would seem the most irrational thing in the world to go to the cross one person Go to the cross to bear the sins of everybody. Jesus goes forward and does it he obeys And that's the test before Abraham now. Are you going to obey or not Abraham? I'm sure I was thinking this week. Can you remember that clash song Don't dare. I'm bound. I'm bound right should I stay or should I go? I'm sure that was based upon this passage in the Bible Should I stay or should I go right if I go it will be trouble and if I say it will be double

That's the decision laid before Abraham right should I stay or should I go He goes There's still trouble He goes and when his going is the evidence of his faith That's the next point With the evidence of Abraham's faith in verses three through ten So Abraham rose early in the morning and settled his donkey and took two of his young men With him and Isaac his son and he split wood for the offering in a rose and went to the place of which God had told him On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance and Abraham said to his young man Stay here with the donkey and I and the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you Abraham took wood of off burned offering and laid it on Isaac his son and he took in his hand the fire and the knife and so the two of them walk together Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said my father and he said here I am my son And he said behold the fire in the wood But where is the lamb for burnt offering and Abraham said God will provide for himself the lamb for burnt offering my son So the two of them walked on together Then they came to a place of which God had told him and Abraham built the altar and there arranged the wood Embound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son

What are the evidence is a faith that we see here? They're at least three Right the first thing you've got to know is that faith alone is not good enough Right we're justified by faith alone but not by faith that is alone in other words Your evidence that you believe the gospel is always is always evidenced by the fact that you are obedient to the gospel And how do we know Abraham believed God's promise because he went in verse three It says that he arose early in the morning Saddled his donkey took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son he split the word for burnt offering a rose and went to the place Which God had told him Now if you followed Abraham's life nobody has had to have more stuff and more foibles and more struggles in his life than Abraham And you would think this at this the biggest test of his life This is the time where he would struggle and this is the time where he would question He's gotten to appoint his life apparently where God has told him to do something And he has no choice but to believe the promise and that's what he does the first evidence of his faith is simply that he goes He rises early and goes now. Notice. I don't think he told Sarah what he was going to do We've if you've been here for a while you remember that Abraham was somewhat hadn't packed and Abraham didn't tell Sarah Abraham doesn't want anything to get in the way of his obedience to God And it's not not because I think he's he's that resolute I think because he's trying to guard himself if he told Sarah she may be able to talk him out of it And in fact when he goes up the mountain he leaves the servants behind because they might try and stop him or take him out of it He's trying to do the right thing on one hand, but he's got to be struggling with it Notice I mean that he it took him three days to get there and it doesn't have one word of conversation And some people have grappled and said you know why isn't their conversation you know Abraham This is some kind of gloss in the text. What is he supposed to say? Did he supposed to talk through it with his son? Okay, so we're going to get there and I'm going to I'm going to kill you But it'll be cool. It's going to be all right. They just go And he sees the place and the second evidence of Abraham's faith is not just that he went But that he preaches the gospel to himself and he preaches the gospel to his servants notice what he says On the third day in verse 4 they raised his eyes saw the place from a distance and Abraham said to his young men Stay here with the donkey and I in the lag will go over there And we will worship and return to you That's very important to catch He doesn't say I in the ladder going to go over there and then I'm going to come back He says we will go over we will worship and we will return and it's very interesting some people some commentators said That whatever him was doing here was lying There's just a white lie. He was lying to his servants He didn't want them to know what a horrible thing he was going to do. He didn't want them to stop him And so he lied to them. You know, we're going to go over there and worship and we're going to come back Some say he was lying for Isaac's sake Right he didn't want Isaac to know what he was going to do We're just going to go over there. We're going to worship and we are going to come back But that's not what the Bible says The New Testament doesn't say Abraham was lying the New Testament says that Abraham was said that and he was doing this in faith What did he mean when he says that we are going to worship and we will return what it was that they gave him the hope that that would happen If you look at Hebrews you don't have to turn there in Hebrews 11 verse 19 17 through 19 it says by faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son It was he to whom it it was said in Isaac your descendants shall be called And this is the important part it says and he considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead from which he also received him back as a type How can Abraham say that by and the lad will go over and worship and we will return to you Abraham's only hope was that God was able to raise the dead and apparently that is what he believed He believed that if he sacrificed his son an obedience to the promise the only hope that he had was that if he raised the dead And that of course has implications for the resurrection remember it says he received him back as a type a type of what

You see we look at the cross and say that's stupid how can a guy die for the sake of all What good is he dead? And the beauty of the gospel is as he doesn't stay dead. He was he comes back from the dead. He raises on the third day The third evidence of faith you see the first is Abraham's obedience The second is Abraham's believing of the promise of God the third is not Abraham's at all, but it's Isaac's Isaac's is where we see another evidence of faith why Listen to the dialogue between Isaac and Abraham and verse six Says Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son and he took in his hand the fire and the knife and the two of them walk together Now imagine how hard this conversation was Isaac spoke to his father and said my father and he said be hold here I am my son and he said be hold the fire in the wood but where is the lamb for burnt offering and I want you to Notice something here that Isaac is no dummy Isaac says to his father father Where's the lamb The question that he doesn't ask is actually more important the question that he doesn't ask is this he doesn't say father Why do you need all this rope they wouldn't fuse that for lambs Right he lays all this sacrifice stuff on him and all this rope You see Isaac I think is beginning to get the idea there is no lamb God is bringing all this rope and so what does he do He trusts his father for one listen to Abraham responds to him how He responds in faith again my son God will provide a lamb And apparently that's all Isaac needed to hear even though it seemed irrational because it says in verse 9 They came to the place of which God had told him and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son That had to have been enough Abraham telling him my son God will provide the lamb Isaac must have believed that with all of his heart even though he's probably afraid because there is no way that 130 something year old man would have been able to bind up the 20 or 30 year old man without him being willing You realize that Isaac was no toddler Isaac we know was between 15 and 30 years old And so the only way Abraham would have been able to bind him is if Isaac willingly gave himself up So here's your picture right you have a father who is sacrificing his son you have a son who is willingly giving himself up The knife is drawn What's gonna happen in this existential moment of crisis? It's in this existential moment of crisis and only in this existential moment of crisis can they understand the provision of faith You stand or send the test of faith they understand that obedience is the outworking of our faith But only when they come to the end of themselves can they understand the provision of faith that Abraham and Isaac both have literally nothing left to themselves They have nothing there's no hope of reward. There's nothing that it lays in front of them But obedience to God's promise. What are they gonna do? And the answer is nothing they see that God provides something else's substitute look at the provision of God In verse 11 through 14 it says Abraham and Tannis is Abraham stretched up the knife to slay his son 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 ladder do nothing to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son your only son for me And then Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his thorns Everybody's horns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for burnt offering in a place of his son And Abraham called the name of the place the Lord will provide as it is said to this day in the mount of the Lord It will be provided So what happens? He has come to the end of himself and at the end of himself the angel stops him And says Abraham now I know that you fear God now get this He's not saying Abraham you've done the right thing and now you're acceptable Abraham you've done everything I ask you to do and now I love you Basically he's saying to Abraham I know that you fear God what he's saying is you've had the promise the whole time And now I am utterly convinced that you get it You understand to the to the very farthest degree my promise and that my promise will never fail Even if I ask you to do the most crazy irrational stupid thing in the world if you move forward I will still take care of you and not only that but I will provide And what does he provide provides a lamb God will provide a lamb it says that Abraham took the ram and he sacrificed it and it says that he named the name of that place The Lord will provide that's the name Jehovah gyra which many of you are familiar with and it really doesn't mean the Lord will provide It really means more literally the Lord will see to it The Lord will finish the job And Abraham after having experienced this after having seen the substitute of the ram says the Lord will see to it In other words Abraham saw Remember Jesus said in John chapter 8 that Abraham looked for my day. He saw it and was glad It's not that he probably looked down from heaven and saw it's that he Saw right then that God wasn't back going to preserve one of his descendants that God could Bring people back from the dead. That's how he received Isaac back But not only that that one of his descendants would be a substitute And you see this burden borne out throughout the rest of the Old Testament and into the new that a lamb is Substituted for the people of God right in Exodus and the Passover you see a lamb provided so the first born don't die The Passover lamb and then King David says who is this lamb Isaiah asked where is the lamb Zechariah says where is this lamb of God Malachi says where is this lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world And in John chapter one John the Baptist is baptizing people in this hair you the Christ and he says no I'm not the Christ, but he's coming after me and what he is one of whom I'm not worthy to untie his shoes and the very next line It says John looked up and he saw Jesus and he shouts behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world But if you're looking for Jesus in this passage with Abraham it's not Isaac laid upon the altar It's that ram It's the ram that is substituted for Isaac And John looked up and he says behold the lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world Behold the lamb who takes away the sin of the world and Hebrews chapter nine The author is saying in the temple the priest just to go in over and over and over and sacrifice Bulls and goats and yet it never worked but Jesus went in He was the perfect priest and he offered up the perfect sacrifice Not the blood of bulls and goats, but his own blood the blood of the lamb to cleanse your guilty conscience once and for all That whoever would trust in Jesus as their substitute would be guilty no more and then it's a very end of the Bible You see it again in Revelation chapter five Listen to what John says John the apostle is given a glimpse of heaven And The first thing he does is cry because it says in Revelation chapter five He says I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back Sealed up with seven seals and I saw strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice Who is worthy to open the book and break its seals and no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it then? I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book Or to look into it and one of the elders said to me stop weeping Behold the lion that is from the tribe of Judah the root of David has overcome So is to open the book and it seven seals and I saw between the throne with the four living creatures in the elders a Lamb standing as if slain having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne and when he had taken the book the four living creatures And the twenty-four elders fell down from the land before the land each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense Which are the prayers of the saints and they sang a new song saying Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals for you were slain and you purchased for God with your blood Men from every tribe tongue and people and nation and you have made them to be a kingdom and priest to our God And they will reign upon the earth forever and then I looked and heard a voice of many angels around the throne And the living creatures in the elders and the number of them was myriads and myriads and thousands and thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing And every created thing which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all the things in it I heard saying to him who sits on the throne into the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever And the four living creatures kept saying Amen that Jesus is the lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world You see Abraham look he saw that day He saw certainly he was overjoyed that he got his son back But he saw that God will provide God will see to it and not only bring this redeemer But he will be the substitute who will die for the sins of his people and he had joy because of that and we Don't look forward and see some kind of goat That's a type but we look back and see Jesus and all of his glory and all of creations crying out worthy is the lamb Who is slain before the creation of the world think about that think about whether or not you have joy Let me pray dear Jesus. We thank you and praise you for Your worthiness and for your blood shed for all of us and so we praise you and thank you and your name Amen