Genesis 22
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
There's really nothing in this life that changes your life quite like having a baby. And those of you who have children know that. Some of you are about to find that out. The Mitchells are about to find that out in the next few weeks. There's nothing quite like it. I mean, you can go through your high school years, you can go through your college years, you can go through graduations, and even a marriage. But when you first have a baby, you realize that my life has changed forever. In fact, there's kind of a moment that happens when you have your first child as you're maybe sitting there in the hospital room holding the baby.
And you realize all of a sudden, my heart no longer lives inside me. It lives outside of me. And it does things that I never thought my heart could do. It cries at night. A little bit later, it runs up and down the hall screaming at the top of its lungs. A little bit later, it hits its brother, which is also your heart. It goes out into the basketball court and it plays basketball and it gets technical fouls.
Your heart no longer lives inside you. It lives outside of you. There's nothing quite like it. There's nothing quite so visceral, nothing quite so heartfelt. In fact, there's nothing in this life where you work quite so hard to make sure that someone you love with all your heart can successfully leave you one day. Somebody once said, parenting is the only job in the world in which you actively work hard towards your own heartbreak.
somebody else said parenting is the only job in which your whole aim your whole aim in life is to teach someone that you can't live without to live without you and the relationship between parent and child is something just absolutely indescribable and yet it's exactly that relationship between father and son between parent and child that god presses on in our passage today let me invite you to take a Bible and turn to Genesis chapter 22. That's where we're going to be for the entirety of the sermon this morning. We're continuing a study in the book of Genesis.
We've been in it for the last, I don't know, nine or ten weeks, something like that, with a big break in the middle of it. But we started in the fall with Genesis chapter 12, and week by week we been making our way up through this Since chapter 12 we basically been looking at the life of one particular man in the Bible named Abraham He a pivotal character in the book It actually to Abraham that God makes all the promises that eventually he formalize into a covenant and then seal with a seal and then make an oath today in order to confirm. And ultimately those promises that he makes are going to bloom over the course of about 2,000 more years into the full gospel of Jesus Christ. But it all kind of starts here in this middle section of the book of Genesis. Well, last week we came to what seemed very much like a stopping point in the course of the book. Because by the end of Genesis chapter 21, it basically looks like God has done everything he promised to do. Like the whole story has been about, is God going to keep these promises that he's made of land, offspring, blessing, a great name, remember all those. Is God going to keep
those? When is God going to keep those? And how is God going to keep those? And by the end of chapter 21, he's basically done it. I mean, if the book had ended at the end of chapter 21, nobody would have thought a thing about it. You just would have kind of closed the book up and been like, oh, okay, God keeps his promises. Great story. And by the end of 21, Abraham has a great name. He owns a piece of the promised land. He's bringing blessing to the nations around him. And above all, he's got an heir now, this promised boy, Isaac, who's born a whole decade after he was promised. And finally, you get to the last verse of chapter 21, and it seems like Abraham and we as readers can take a deep breath and just enjoy what God has given him. And then you get chapter 22, which turns everything on its head.
As we talked about last week, it's the plunge after the deep breath. Look with me at Genesis chapter 22. If you're using a red pew Bible that you can find sort of either under your chair or in your pew rack in front of you, it's on page 16 of that Bible. So Genesis chapter 22, starting at the very beginning of it. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son, Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar And then Abraham said to his young men Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife.
So they went, both of them, together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, my father, Abhi. And he said, here I am, my son. He said, behold, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went, both of them, together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order.
and bound to Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here I am. He said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.
And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord Will Provide. As it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.
And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned to his young men. They arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba. Now after these things it was told to Abraham, Behold, Milcah also has borne children to your brother Nahor. Uz his firstborn, Buzz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram, Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaf, and Bethuel. Bethuel fathered Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother.
Moreover his concubine whose name was Reumah Borteba Gaham Tahash and Ma Well there you have it And just like that you got the whole story here I mean there not a whole lot of point in drawing out the drama You all probably know the story of the near sacrifice of Isaac. You know that Isaac, at the end of this story, doesn't finally die. And so you can kind of breathe a deep sigh of relief on that. But really, if you're going to understand this story, you kind of have to let it sit, don't you?
You kind of have to let it sit with all its weight on your mind and on your imagination. I mean, at the end of 21, Abraham's got it all. Everything God has promised has clicked in place. And now, what you have to let sit on your conscience and sort of horrify you, even though you know the ending of the whole thing, is that in the first two verses of chapter 22, God basically says, hey, you see all this stuff? You see all this stuff that I've given you? The land, the seed, the blessing, the great name. You see all of that? Destroy it all. Lift up your hand now, Abraham, and destroy it all.
You see how that works? I mean, everything that God has done and has promised to do depends on Isaac. Think about it. The promise, I'll make your descendants more numerous than the stars, that depends on Isaac. I'll bless the nations through you, that depends on Isaac. I'll give you this land, that depends on Isaac. And now God says, out of nowhere, kill Isaac. The one on whom the whole thing rests, the one I promised you, the one through whom all of these promises are going to come to pass, kill that one.
It is an insane command. It's one that makes you say, no way. I'm not doing it. I don't care. God, if that's what you're going to command, then I'm not worshiping you. I'll find some other God to worship you. And yet Abraham obeys. He doesn't. You know, he's not finally allowed to do it, which is crucial, but he goes ahead with it anyway, doesn't he? So what are we supposed to make of all this? Well, there's a lot to learn here.
The main idea, I think, is this. It's pretty simple. God demands everything from his people. God demands everything from his people. But he gives even more. God demands everything from his people, but he gives even more. He asked everything of Abraham, but then he gave him more than he asked of him. I want to explore this text in three points. We're just going to kind of step through it.
So we're going to look at verses 1 and 2. That's the first point. Then we're going to look at the bulk of it. So 3 to 14. And then we're going to look at 15 to 19. The last little bit about the descendants of Abraham's brother. So verses 20 to 24. We're basically going to leave that until we come back next fall. Because really it's the setup for the next story. So I'm not going to be saying much about those five verses. But we're going to look at 1 to 2. Then 3 to 14. Then 15 to 19. And here are the three points. Number one, we're going to see a crushing command in verses 1 to 2. A crushing command.
Number two, a desperate faith in Abraham in verses 3 to 14. And then number three, a staggering promise in verses 15 through 19. A crushing command, a desperate faith, and a staggering promise. That's where we're headed. So point number one, looking at verses 1 and 2, a crushing command. So last week, chapter 21, we've already said this a couple of times, everything looked like it was in place. God made all these spectacular promises to Abraham over the course of the last few chapters, right? Chapter 12, it's a promise. Chapter 15, God formalizes it into a covenant.
Chapter 17, he seals it. And now in 21, it looks like it's all done. Abraham is a great man, right? I mean, he's rubbing shoulders at the highest level of international politics with kings and emperors and all the rest. He's got land because this king, Abimelech, has recognized that he dug this well and this well is his. And so he's got a piece of land that he owns in the promised land. He's blessing the nations around him by giving Abimelech these gifts. And now he's even got an heir in this promised son, Isaac.
So the beginning of chapter 22 with this command comes to both Abraham and to you as an absolute shock. There is nothing in the story that foreshadows this. There's nothing that looks forward to it. There's nothing that tells us this is coming. it comes out of nowhere to you as the reader and to Abraham. God comes and tells Abraham that he is to take his son Isaac on whom all these promises rest and sacrifice him on top of a mountain Now if you ever going to understand this story if you ever going to let it get into your heart and sort of have its intended effect, you have to understand what a mind-blowing and crushing command this was for Abraham.
I mean, it was first just the fact that God was telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, which is not a small thing, right? For God to say, take this precious baby that you've been waiting on, that you love with all your heart, take this baby and kill him in my name simply because I have commanded it. He doesn't deserve it. He's done nothing, it looks like, to do anything to deserve death. It's not an execution. God just says, I've given you this baby, now give him back to me by your own hand. He's telling Abraham to sacrifice his kid. And God seems to understand that if you look at verse 2. And it actually piles up these phrases to sort of ratchet up the emotional weight of this. Take your son, Isaac. Remember what Isaac means? He laughs.
Take your son, the one who brings laughter into your life, your only son. Now we know that Abraham also fathered Ishmael, but of course Ishmael's gone. He sent him out into the wilderness. There's no getting him back. And besides, all the promises rest on Isaac anyway. So for all intents and purposes, not biologically, but in the grand scheme of things, this is in fact now Abraham's only son. Take your son, the one who brings laughter, Isaac, your only son, whom you love, and kill him.
That's what God is asking. But it's not just that. It's also that Abraham has spent a huge portion of his life now. like 25 years trusting God to keep these promises that he had made, holding on to these promises through all kinds of ups and downs, even through his own failure, but he's held on to the promises. And now it turns out that all of these promises, every single one of them, depend on this boy, Isaac. He's the center of it all. He's the center of everything. It's through Isaac, God said, that Abraham is going to have descendants, and those descendants are going to occupy the land, and those descendants are going to produce kings that will bless the nation of the world.
If Isaac isn't there, then that whole complex of promises is lost. It's gone. The future that Abraham's been banking on and trusting God for is completely gone. So basically God puts everything together He clicks in all the pieces at the end of chapter 21 only immediately in the next two verses to tell Abraham now to punch out the center to completely burn everything to the ground you can just imagine what Abraham's thinking I mean he's got these he's got this vision of a great future of becoming a nation of kings coming from him of the nations of the world being blessed through him and it must have been like some you know back to the future special effects he thinks it's all just gone because God tells me to kill my son that's the main tension in the story all of a sudden Abraham has to grapple with an apparent contradiction in the very words of God.
And remember, Abraham doesn't know God at this point like you and I know God. I mean, I think we have a tendency to read about these characters in the Bible and think, oh, well, if I just had the knowledge that Abraham had, I'd be fine, right? It's just because I don't know God. I'm not as close to God as Abraham was. But you realize Abraham didn't have the Bible. Abraham had no scripture Abraham had no New Testament Abraham had no theology books telling him about God's character God had not even revealed his character yet God's in the process of revealing his character and now Abraham just doesn't know what to make of it I've got this contradiction in the very words of God that I can't put together in my brain my whole life for 25 years has been about trusting the words of God and now there's this thing that violates, it looks like, the law of non-contradiction.
Right? On the one hand, he's got these promises from God that depend on Isaac's survival. And now on the other hand, he has this command of God to kill Isaac. Promise versus command. Both of God. What is he supposed to make of that? I mean, you've got to think Abraham thought about this, right? You've got to think that as he was chopping the wood, as he was loading the wagons, as he was putting the stuff on the mule to head out to Mount Moriah, all of these things were in his head.
I mean, I'm sure there were moments when it was just excruciating, when he was cutting the wood and thinking, I have to cut this wood. And in a few days, I'm going to have to lay my son down on this wood, and this wood is going to consume the dead body of my son. He got to be thinking that But then he also got to be thinking who is this God that would promise me one thing with his left hand and then take it away with his right hand Who is this God What is he doing He must have thought, God, can I just offer myself instead of Isaac? You see, God was asking Abraham for more than just himself. He was asking Abraham to give up the future. If Abraham had just killed himself, right? If he had just thrown himself on the fire, it would have killed him, but the future would have lived on. Isaac would have kept going, and all the promises would have been fulfilled.
But no, God was asking more. Give up the future. Give up everything that I have promised you. We'll talk more about that in a few minutes, try to get inside Abraham's mind a little bit. But first, I think we have to just ask the question, just kind of slow down a little bit and ask the question, why does God do this in the first place? Why does God tell Abraham to sacrifice his son in the first place? Now, some people have looked at verses one and two, that phrase, Isaac, your son, whom you love, and they've taken that phrase, whom you love, as a kind of rebuke of Abraham, as if in one way or another, he's allowed Isaac to become something of an idol to him, maybe displacing God as the center of Abraham's own life and love. Yeah, I suppose you could read it like that. There are certain ambiguities in the text that lend themselves to a couple, usually deliberate in the text that lend, you know, leave you in a little bit of suspense. Maybe that's right,
but there's nothing else in the text that gives us that impression. I mean, nowhere else in the Bible is it said that Abraham made an idol of Isaac or that Isaac somehow took center stage in Abraham's life and God was kicked out. There's nothing like that in the text. So it's probably better to just look instead at the reason the text itself gives us in verse 1 for why God did this, which is that God intended through this crushing command to test Abraham. Now what does that mean? What does it mean that God is testing Abraham? Well the word test there, It's a pretty common word in scripture. And what it means, essentially, is something like prove. It means to prove something, right? To put it under pressure so that the quality of it is demonstrated. You put metal under pressure. You put a ship, for example, under pressure or a bridge under pressure. And the idea is to prove it, to demonstrate its solidity. And that's what's
unusual at all for God to do this to his people. I mean, at various times, God puts his people under pressure, sometimes with wrenching trials. And the point of that pressure, the point of that test is in order to reveal the strength of their faith, to reveal their loyalty to God, to reveal their reliance on God. I mean, most famously probably, if you think about it, there are various times where God tests his people, Israel. He tests Moses.
He's testing Abraham right here. Most famously, he tests or pressures Job in order to reveal the strength of his faith, and he's very straightforward about that. He tells Satan, when Satan comes to his throne room and says, Let me put pressure on Job. The Lord is very clear about it. Yes, put pressure on Job and it will prove his faith and his loyalty in me. Pressure in this life from the hand of God is to demonstrate or reveal the strength of faith. And here's the thing. Here's the thing.
That testing, that pressuring of faith in order to reveal its strength and its nature is no joke. It's not a small thing. It's not an easy test when it comes. When it comes, that testing usually comes at exactly the point where we are most tempted to make an idol. It most often comes when God pulls away or threatens to pull away the very thing that we are holding most tightly to. And that's what is happening here with Abraham, right?
He's pulling on the thing that Abraham is holding most tightly to. It's true for Job. Job's testing involved the loss not only of his riches, but also of his children. All of them. Here it comes at the point of Abraham's greatest love as well, his son. The very means by which God would keep his promises. Brothers and sisters you can read the Bible you can look through the Bible and you will find that it is not unusual for God to test his people It was not unusual in the Bible and it is not unusual among us either The hardships and the difficulties that various ones of you have faced, even in recent years, even in recent months, are meant to test your faith.
In other words, to put pressure on your faith so that what is demonstrated, demonstrated what's revealed to heaven and hell and everyone else that is listening is your faith and loyalty to God. I mean, Heather, I can't help but think about your husband, Shane. I spent so many hours with Shane right before he was taken home by the Lord, and this is exactly what happened to Shane. Then a year ago, year and a half ago, whenever it was, Shane wasn't expecting to have his life pulled away from him. And yet in that test, in that pressure, what came out of Shane was an immovable faith in God. And he talked about it. I mean, every time I would see him, every time we'd have lunch, every time we'd go on a hike out at Herod's Creek, every time I would see him. What came out of Shane through the pressure was faith in God.
He talked more about his faith in God in one hour than I typically do in a week. Because he was pressed. And that's what came out. Friends, where is God pressing you right now? Where is God pressing you? Is it in your friendships? Is it in your finances? in your marriage and relationships here at Third Avenue? What if God pressed you even harder?
What if God pressed you to the breaking point? What would come out of you? I've seen Christians get pressed before. And what comes out of them is not love. It's not faith. It's not peace. It's not trust. It's bitterness, anger, upsetness. what comes out of you when you get pressed friends don't be surprised when god does that the new testament tells us that it happens to every single christian because god has designed it that way the testing of your faith produces perseverance and perseverance produces character and character produces hope which is a forward faith in God Don be surprised when it happens What's going to come out of you when God presses you?
Well, what came out of Abraham was point number two. Point number two, a desperate faith. what came out of Abraham was a desperate faith so starting in verse three and for the next few verses Abraham begins the preparations for what he has to do next I mean a whole lot of people over the centuries Jews Christians everybody have noticed how the narrative slows down dramatically in this section I mean it almost goes into slow motion where every action every movement every sound is amplified. I don't know if you've ever seen these YouTube videos, ASMR, I forget what they're called, but it'll be like extremely close-up sound, right? And if you put headphones on, it'll be like a pencil dragging across a piece of paper, and it's just, it's like in the microphone, you know, it's, right? Somehow that's supposed to be relaxing to certain people. I don't know who you guys are, but apparently you can make millions with these things if you put them on YouTube. ASMR. Well, this story kind of goes into ASMR,
but it's not just sound, it's visual also. It's as if the story itself wants us to join Abraham in this agonizing, excruciating process of getting ready to kill his son. I mean, look down through verses 3 to 14. Just kind of look over it, especially 3 through 10 or so, and notice the detail that's included in the story. And in fact, it's detailed that if you start to think about it, really isn't necessary to the story, right? And there's a concept in drama when you write a play or when you write a movie called Chekhov's Gun. I don't know if you ever heard of this, but it was a principal by this playwright named Chekhov. And he said, look, if you're going to have somebody walk into the room and lay a gun on the table, that gun absolutely must go off by the end of the play. In other words, you don't just put extraneous detail in. The gun's got to go off if you introduce a gun into the story. This story in Genesis 22 violates that all over the place.
Violates Chekhov's gun because it's trying to slow down. It's trying to put your eyes on every detail I mean look at it He saddled his donkey The saddle doesn come up again The donkey He doesn come up He gathers his servants None of this detail is necessary to push the story forward It's just slowing it down. It's making your senses, it's making your sight and your hearing just as raw and acute as Abraham's would have been.
Now I have to saddle the donkey. Now I have to call the servants. Now I have to cut the wood. Now I have to light the fire. One thing at a time. There's several other emotional cues here too. The authors note at least a couple of times in verses 6 and 8 that Abraham and Isaac went on, both of them together. There's Isaac's heartbreaking question in 7.
Father, where is the lamb for the sacrifice? And that phrase that he says at the very beginning of it, my father, it's just a heartbreaking phrase. I mean, Isaac is probably 14, 13, 14 years old, right? He's still called a young child. This is how we kind of date him. He's called a young child. It's a particular word in Hebrew. And yet he's big enough and old enough to carry a load of wood, big enough to burn his own body up the mountain, right? So he's strong, but he's also a young boy. So we date him at 12, 13, 14 years old. something like that, and he calls to his father as they're walking up the mountain, my father.
Sometimes I think we think of that as a loud call, my father, right? I don't think it is. I think it's, he's thinking, he's thinking, and he's come up on a disturbing thought, and so he says the Hebrew word for father, avi, avi, and I can't help but think that it was more like avi, avi, where's the lamb? It's just a heartbreaking question. I mean, there's even the fact in verse 9 that Abraham binds Isaac. Why does he do that? Why does he bind Isaac? I mean, it can't be, it just can't be that Isaac, when he finally figured out what was going on, was finally unwilling to accept his fate. It doesn't, it couldn't have been that at all. I mean, think about it. Isaac is a 13, 14 year old kid who's strong enough to carry a load of wood up a mountain, right? He's like a
Sherpa, gigantic load on his back going up the mountain. He's strong. Abraham's feeble. He's 100 years old. He's going to die. And I'm going to die. And I'm going to die. And I'm going to die. if Isaac didn't want to accept his fate if he didn't want to obey God by being sacrificed he would have fought the old man off and run he didn't run he didn't fight he was obeying God once he figured it out he was obeying God just like Abraham was and yet Abraham binds him why?
Well, nobody knows. People have made various guesses, but the text doesn't tell us why. I mean, was it in case maybe Isaac lost his nerve at the last minute? Was it maybe to just be absolutely sure that the killing stroke of the knife would strike true and that some last second movement of Isaac wouldn't prolong the suffering? Maybe that was it. or maybe as I think about it and try to imagine it maybe, maybe the binding was just one more way just one more little way for Abraham to delay the inevitable by just a few minutes the last stroke of the hair, the last kiss on the cheek we'll just do this because it'll take a minute and we don't know the text obviously wants you as a reader to feel
every last agonizing moment so what about this fact that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son what do we make of that the text agonizes about it. But what are we to make of it, just in its own right? What do we think about God here commanding though not carrying through on human sacrifice And since the 19th century it been really popular to charge God with wrongdoing here To say that even in the command even though he didn carry it out it been very popular to say that even though he didn carry it out, God is basically here acting no more good, no better than the pagan deities of the Canaanites. But as I read the story, I think that gets it exactly wrong, and that for a couple
of reasons. I mean, for one thing, there is just the obvious fact that God doesn't allow Abraham to go through with the sacrifices. And even though the author wants us to feel the full weight of the story, he even signals right from the very beginning that that's going to be the case. And when he says that this is a test to press Abraham, he wants you to understand that there's something strange about this. It's not just a bare command to sacrifice. There's something deeper going on. But he withholds the conclusion, right? But I think there's even more to say here.
Let's think about it for a second. From the very beginning of human history, from the very earliest days that we have any record of whatsoever, from the very first days that we know anything about human history, humans have always spiraled toward human sacrifice. Every religion, every civilization, human sacrifice eventually becomes the norm. It takes different forms, it has different meanings, but every civilization spirals toward human sacrifices.
The Canaanites practiced it. The Inca and the Aztec in our own hemisphere here in North and South America practiced it by the thousands and maybe even hundreds of thousands. The Romans considered the blood of the gladiators in their arenas to be sacrifices to the gods. Americans practice it when we sacrifice babies by the millions to convenience and comfort. And it makes sense. If you think about it, in every pagan religion, the whole idea is that if you give certain gifts to the gods, and if those gifts are good enough, then the gods in return will give you good things.
So you offer grain so that the gods will give you a fertile harvest. You offer an animal so that the gods will give you more animals. You offer money so that the gods will give you more money. It's the whole idea of pagan religion. give good things to the gods, give valuable things to the gods, and the gods will give you more valuable things back And take into its conclusion what is more valuable than human life What could you give the gods that is more valuable more likely to get them to give you good things than human life or even the life of your child?
In fact, the logic is eventually going to run to if you are not willing to give up your life, the life of another, the life of your child, if you're not willing to give that to the gods, then are you really loyal enough to them to receive what they want to give you? If you're not willing to give up to them the life of a human, then are you really devoted enough to receive that God's greatest gifts? I mean, again and again, throughout human history, that is the logic that drives civilizations toward human sacrifices.
So how do you break that logic? How do you break the logic that leads inexorably to human sacrifices? If you're going to break that logic, you really need a story like this. You need a story where God commands the sacrifice. The human is ready to do it. God has every right to demand the sacrifice. Talk about that more in a few minutes. But then we're at the last minute. He forbids it. You need a story like this.
because with this chain of events, that human logic that leads inexorably toward human sacrifice, that I will earn God's favor by offering him what is most dear to me, is broken. He forbids that logic. He stops it in its tracks. Salvation, he says to Abraham, is going to need some other means. You know, I think Abraham probably was thinking through a lot of these things as he was cutting the wood and saddling the donkey and making the three-day walk to Mount Moriah.
Sometimes we read the stories of Abraham in doing all of these things was just filling his mind with death and foreboding. His mind must have just been filled with the thought of the moment when he had to kill Isaac. And I'm sure there were moments when it was filled with that. But I don't think that's all he was thinking about. I think Abraham, in the midst of all this preparation, was actually doing theology in his mind. He wouldn't have called it that, but that's what he was doing. He was thinking about the nature and character of God. What is this God like? He's put himself into a conundrum where his promise is diametrically at odds with his command How is God going to get out of this conundrum that he made for himself I think that what he was turning over in his mind He was turning over in his mind everything he knew about God trying to figure out how God was going to get out of it.
I mean, it was, in fact, a dilemma of God's own making. God did this, right? God got him into this problem. God said it's through Isaac. There was no backtracking. There was no wiggle room. It's through Isaac. this boy that your offspring are going to be named. And now it is God who is saying to kill Isaac. So I think Abraham spent these days rolling that conundrum over in his head. And I think by the time he reached the foot of the mountain, he'd come up with a solution.
He'd figured out how God was going to get out of this conundrum. You remember what we read this morning? There's a call to worship. Hebrews 11 says that Abraham became convinced that God was going to raise Isaac from the dead. In fact, it says that he reasoned his way to the conclusion that God was going to raise him from the dead. I mean, it's just mind-blowing that he would come up with that idea.
And yet, that's where this put him. He looked at the promise, and he looked at the command, and he said, I have two options here. I've got two options that I can run down in my own mind on the one hand I can say that God is some fickle capricious pagan awful deity who says one thing means another who changes his mind who doesn't mean what he says who doesn't keep his promises I can say that God is that kind of God and I can run away from him and find some other God who's also awful and capricious and fickle don't need this one. That was one route he could have taken. Or he could say, no, no, but I know this God.
I've known this God for 25 years, and I've never once seen this God fail me. He said he was going to bring me into the land. He brought me into the land. He said he was going to make me a great name. He made me a great name. And above all, he told me 10 years ago he was going to give me a son, and I laughed in his face. and yet he gave me a son he has never failed his character is such that he never fails so so i can say i can say that god has made this promise and yet now he's going to break it i can say that and i can run away or or i can How's he going to do that?
And he comes up with this incredible idea. It's never been seen. In the story of the Bible so far, it's never been seen. The only way to get out of this is he's going to raise him from the dead. He's going to raise him from the dead. he's clinging desperately to the character of God, even to the point of believing the impossible. And you know that's what a lot of Christianity is, right?
I mean, a whole lot of the Christian life is just clinging desperately to God in the face of circumstances because we know who God is. You live through the hardship. You endure the pressure. You endure the testing because you know who God is. People always want more faith, more faith. I want bigger, greater, stronger faith. I want bigger faith. And so they read books about faith. And they read dictionary entries about trust.
And they read theology books about reliance and about faith alone and all the rest. You want a bigger faith? You want a bigger trust in God? You know what you need to do? learn about the character of God. Because as you get to know him, your reliance on him deepens. Abraham's faith survived this test. It survived this pressure because he knew God. And he knew God never fails. And I think we see this most beautifully in Abraham's answer to Isaac in verse 8.
Isaac Isaac answers this question right Isaac asks this question behold the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for a burnt offering and Abraham says God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son Now it tempting to read that as just sort of comforting a child right. You don't want to tell him yet but I don't think that's it at all. I think Abraham has come to a firm conviction that God is going to get himself out of this problem. I mean, look up at verse 5 even. Abraham says to his young men there, this is before they head up the mountain, look at the careful wording of it. Stay here, he says to the servants, with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship, and then we, the two of us,
will come back to you. He's not misspeaking. He's not lying to them. He firmly believes that when all is said and done, God's going to get himself out of this problem. He's convinced that if he does kill Isaac, God is going to raise him from the dead. And so Abraham names the place, finally, when all is said and done. The Lord will provide.
You can see it there in verse 14. I mean, he's actually a callback to verse 8, right? Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide. Just as he said, God will provide the lamb. The Lord will provide. If you don't translate that out of Hebrew, you may have heard the phrase before. It's Jehovah Jireh. That's Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide. And if you translate Jehovah Jireh, literally what you get is a phrase that means this, but I think it's much more punchy if you translate it literally. It is God will see to it. God will see to it. He will make it happen in all its detail.
And I love how even in the way Abraham says that, the Lord will provide Jehovah Jireh, I love how it's not in the past tense because it could have been. The Lord saw to it, right? Because he did. He provided. He saw to it. But I love how it's in the future tense. God will see to it. Abraham's eyes are forward. They're into the future because he recognizes that what has just happened with this near sacrifice of Isaac is a picture of how God is actually going to bring blessing to the world.
It's a kind of object lesson of how God is finally going to save the world. How? How is it a picture of ultimate salvation, this near sacrifice of Isaac Well just on the surface I mean there the fact that the promises now are fully confirmed Now that Isaac is alive I mean he not going to die He's going to survive. And so God's promises to make Abraham a nation and all the rest are completely established and secure. The future is secure. But there's also the fact that this almost sacrifice itself, I mean, if you just look at it in itself, right?
You don't even have to think about the promises. Just look at it in itself. it's this kind of kaleidoscope of what God was going to do in Jesus Christ. Now you have to be careful not to force it to be an allegory, right? Where each character in the story is one thing and they're only one thing. It doesn't work like that. Various characters are various things, right? It's like a kaleidoscope or like a diamond. And every time you turn it just a little bit, you get a different picture. The light hits a little bit differently. Several pictures at once.
So on the one hand, you've got a father offering his son as a sacrifice, just as God the Father would offer his own son as a sacrifice for sin. So Isaac, in that picture, in that sort of angle of the diamond or the kaleidoscope, Isaac, in that picture, is Jesus. He's the son that's being offered as a sacrifice. But you've also then got the fact that from another angle, Isaac isn't Jesus anymore. He's us. Isaac is us. I mean, think about it, right?
God has, this is the God of the universe, by the way, the creator. He has every right to demand the death of Isaac. Why? Because Isaac is a sinner just like everybody else. God killed the entire world in judgment in the flood, and he had every right to do it. He has the right to demand the death of Isaac because Isaac is a sinner just like everybody else, and there's nothing wrong at all. In fact, there's something profoundly right about God executing judgment on Isaac.
He deserves it for his sin. And yet, you also see in verse 13, one of the most poignant pictures of substitutionary atonement in the entire Bible. God provides a ram to die. And it says literally, instead of his son. the ram dies so Isaac doesn't have to Isaac deserves death but the ram caught in the thicket dies in his place I mean how do you get a more poignant picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ because that's the whole message that you and I just like Isaac deserve to die because we sinners And yet God provides a sacrifice to die instead of us In our place.
As our representative, our substitute, our mediator. So yeah, Abraham's, here is a desperate faith. He clings to God and his promises and his character. even in the face of what looks like impossibility. And he does it right up to the moment of death. And that's the thing, isn't it, about obedience to God. Obedience to God often feels like death before it feels like life.
Obedience to God often feels like death before it feels like life. And if you're not a Christian and you're thinking about becoming a Christian, you may be feeling that right now. If I become a Christian, I have to give up this and I have to give up that and I have to give up that dream and I have to give up that goal. It feels like death. But I promise you, I promise you, if you'll trust in God and his promises and his gospel and his son, that feeling of death will give way to life.
Amen. Trust in him. Number three, finally, a staggering promise. So starting in verse 15, the angel of the Lord, whom we've talked about a couple of times in this series, and we've seen that actually it's just the Lord himself, right? Or maybe a kind of representative of the Lord. It's a little bit unclear the way the Bible talks about it, but basically it's the Lord himself. But in verse 15, the angel of the Lord, the Lord, restates these promises that he's been making to Abraham since chapter 12. I mean, you can see them there if you look down from 15 to 19.
You've got land, seed, blessing, greatness. It's all there, right? And it's all going to be in basically language that you're going to understand. There are very few elements that change. But there is one gigantic change that happens here compared to the way the promises are given before. You see it? Do you see how in every single one of these promises, the focus is now your offspring? It's not just you anymore, Abraham.
It's your offspring. Do you see that? By myself, I've sworn, declares the Lord, because you've done this, not withheld your son. I will surely bless you. I will surely multiply, not you, but your offspring. as the stars of the heavens. I will surely multiply your offspring. Your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. See, now that Abraham's passed this test, now that this pressure is done and it's faith that has come out of him, now that Isaac has survived it, there's this kind of fireworks display of celebration that pushes the promises away from just Abraham himself and generations into the future.
that word offspring there is incredibly interesting look down at it you can see it like four times in those verses it's an incredibly interesting word because it is in the singular not the plural it's in the singular not the plural so it's not it doesn't translate to in your descendants will all the nations of the earth be blessed. I will make your descendants a great nation It not that It singular In your offspring singular I will bless the nations.
Now there are times when a singular word like that can mean a group of people. So we use the singular word team to refer to a plural group of team members. So it could mean that. It could just sort of be a collective singular. Right? but it's singular. And it turns out, as you read more and more of the Bible, it is exactly that ambiguity that is so interesting here. And C.S. Lewis once compared reading the Bible to a fox hunt, and he said it's exactly where you see these very strange ambiguities.
It's where you see the weird stuff that you ought to go looking, because that's probably where the fox is hiding, in the weird stuff. God could have used a word. That clearly just meant plural descendants. But he didn't. He used a word that could also refer to one single descendant of Abraham. Who would be the fulfillment of all these promises. And in fact that's the argument that Paul would make about 2,000 years later in Galatians 3. He says the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings.
Referring to many. But referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ. It's not a mistake. It's not just ambiguous. It is God calling his shot And notice also finally the way God speaks here He swears by himself Verse 15 and 16, The Lord called to Abraham a second time and said, By myself I have sworn. I mean, we read this earlier in the service too. The author of Hebrews marvels at that.
And he says, let's think about this swearing by oneself for a minute. The reason you swear is to set your words, to set your promise, on a firmer foundation than you yourself can be, right? It makes no sense to say, I swear by myself that I'm going to do this. Because the reason you swear in the first place is to set your words on a firmer foundation. And the author of Hebrews says, there's nobody greater that God could swear by. There is no firmer foundation than he himself. And so he swears by himself. So you see what that means?
You see what that means? your salvation rests not on your own wavering will or your own spotty obedience. It rests on God's unchanging, unassailable oath that he will save those who put their faith in the offspring, singular. Friends, some of you desperately need to do that today, this Christmas season. Maybe you've spent a little bit of time this Christmas thinking about a baby born in a manger.
And maybe that seems cute to you. Maybe it's even striking to you that this one who claimed to be God would be born in a stable in a manger But here what I want you to see It not just cute It not just striking It is your only hope Because that little baby who laid in that manger is not in the manger anymore He also not on the cross anymore. And praise God, he's not in the tomb anymore. He's on the throne. and he will one day judge you.
You're going to bow to him. Like the song said, Joy to the World, right? You will one day receive your king. The only question is, will you receive him now in faith, in joy? Or will you acknowledge him at the end of time under a rod of iron. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you and praise you that you sit now enthroned over all the universe, over all the world.
You are the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You are the one offspring that was promised who would fulfill all these promises that you made to Abraham to bless all the nations of the world. Lord, we thank you that we are among those nations who have been blessed. We who are believers in Jesus Christ are called out from all kinds of ethnicities and all kinds of nationalities. And we are now part of that great nation united around your son. Lord, we thank you for this. We pray that you would remind us of these things even as we celebrate your son's birth this Christmas.
We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.