The Sacrifice of Isaac
Transcript
Good morning. All right, so we just got done walking through a series on multiplier. We spent five weeks walking through the calling to make and to multiply disciples. And then we, before that, were our gift series. And we spent December walking through our gift series. But before that, we were doing Genesis.
We made it halfway through. And we are jumping back in. We're going to finish Genesis, this half of Genesis, over the rest of winter into spring. So we're going to be in Genesis 22 today. You can go ahead and open there. It's on page 10 of your blue Bibles.
It'll also be on the screen as we follow along. But before we jump in, I want to catch us up to where we have been in Genesis and follow a storyline that we've been following. So in Genesis 1 and 2, God creates the earth. It is cosmic. It is big. It reflects his glory as he intentionally crafts different parts of creation.
And then in Genesis 2, we focused in on the creation of Adam and Eve. The guy creates Adam and Eve. He creates humanity different than any other aspect of creation, that we bear his image and his likeness. And that we have the unique ability to have a relationship with God. So Adam and Eve have a perfect relationship with God.
It is beautiful and it is good. And then in Genesis 3, they are in the Garden of Eden. And Satan, in the form of a serpent, comes into the garden. Causes them to question God and his goodness and his word. And they listen to Satan. They don't listen to God.
And they eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And in that moment, they sin. They rebel against God. And they bring sin and rebellion into this world. And it brings in death. And it affects every aspect of creation.
And when this happens, God comes down into the garden. And he makes a couple declarations. But one of the things that he says is that one day, Eve, you will have an offspring. And this offspring will come and she will come, or he will come and crush the head of the serpent. He will crush the head of Satan. And that is the declaration that Jesus one day is going to come.
That's the first declaring of the gospel that we have in the Bible. So we've been following this line that through Adam and Eve, the offspring is coming. And we see they populate the earth. Eventually, the earth gets so corrupted with sin, with violence, with hate, that God wants to start new. We followed the story of Noah, that God calls Noah. Noah builds an ark.
And his family is saved. And the line is preserved. And then we followed from Noah all the way to the character we've been following going into our gift series, which is Abraham. Abraham has a unique relationship with God. God comes to Abraham in his old age. Him and his wife Sarah do not have kids.
And he comes to Abraham and he says, I'm going to give you a son. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make a great nation through you. And from that point forward, Abraham and Sarah are waiting for God to give him this blessing, to give him this son. And there are times where it's going really well, where he's trusting God. When there's this beautiful covenant ceremony that he does, he puts Abraham in a dream.
And in the dream, the animals, they split an animal in two. And God walks through the center of it. And what is being declared in that ceremony is that this promise is going to happen. And if it doesn't happen, may God be like this animal who's been broken apart. Meaning this is going to happen. This promise is going to come true.
And then there are times where Abraham and Sarah, they try to force the promise. They don't trust God. They end up finding a surrogate, Hagar, to have a son who is Ishmael. We followed that story that Ishmael is a son. He loves Ishmael. But God says, this is not the promised son.
No, I'm coming to you, Abraham and Sarah. Y'all are going to have a son. His name is going to be Isaac. And then 25 years between God's promise to them and the birth of Isaac, Isaac finally shows up. Abraham's 100. Sarah's in her 90s.
And that is where we are today. Isaac's a little bit older. He's a young boy. And in this story today, which is one of the more, one of the biggest stories that we have in the Old Testament, we're going to walk through this story and we're going to see how God tests Abraham. We're going to see how God tests Abraham. Then we're going to see how Abraham responds.
He responds in faith and obedience, trusting God. Then we're going to see how God ultimately provides. And then as we back up, we're going to see what this story points forward to. So let me pray and then we'll walk through this story together. God, thank you so much that you love us, that we have a story that reminds us of your good news. God, I pray today that you would help us be present, that you would speak to us powerfully.
In Jesus' name, amen. All right, speaking of verse 1 and 2. So this story just took a very serious turn. It starts out by telling us that he tells Abraham, he reminds us that Abraham is going to be tested here. And what is the test going to be? You are going to sacrifice your son.
This story starts out like a tragedy. It starts out like a tragedy and understand really what's going on here as we walk through it. There's two things that we need to understand. Firstly, we need to have a basis for what sacrifices are, as it shows up here in Genesis. Sacrifices were made with animals early on in Genesis to show the heinous nature of sin. That sin is rebellion against God and it's costly.
It costs blood. You don't sin against the God of the universe and commit cosmic treason and there's no punishment. So early on in Genesis, we see this practice of sacrificing animals to show this. And then later on throughout the rest of the Old Testament law and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, we see this system, this formalized system of sacrificing animals to show this. To show the grievous nature of what sin is and what it does to the people and how serious it is. And in this system later on, you see burnt offerings.
Burnt offerings are to show the total destructive nature of sin. That animal would be slaughtered and they would be burned up completely. That is what a burnt offering is. And God just called Abraham to do this to his son. And we look at this and there's a part of you that should say, What? Like this doesn't make sense.
I mean, this is explicitly forbidden in the rest of the Old Testament law because this is what the pagans would do. They're the ones that would sacrifice their kids. This doesn't make sense and it should catch us off guard. Because I feel like there's something inside of us that says, No, that's not right. There's a part of us, when we watch movies and films and we hear stories and there's certain thrillers and horror films where you know characters are going to start dying off. And then there's a sweet little seven-year-old girl.
There's a part of us, when we watch these films, we have this kind of social compact with Hollywood that says, You can take some of the characters out, but the girl lives. The innocent one lives. There's something inside of us that says, No, this isn't right. And this story begins with a setup that he is calling Abraham to sacrifice his only son, the promised son. So we get frustrated.
We start to think this isn't fair. But we're going to walk through this more and see what's happening here. The second thing that we need to understand is that God has always tested his people. From Old Testament to New Testament, God has always tested his people. Now, sometimes that word tested gets conflated with the word tempt. And they are two different things.
This is not tempting. James 1.13 says, Let no one say when he is being tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. God does not tempt. This is different. Tempting is luring you into sin and rebelling against God.
Testing is actually something that brings you closer to God. The Hebrew word for testing here means testing what someone is really like. Seeing what they are really made of through hardship and difficulty. And we see this all over the Bible. We see it in this story here. We see it in the book of Job.
The book of Job is another really challenging book where there's a man named Job, and he's prosperous, and he has a big family, he has lots of money, he has lots of land, he has great health. And then Satan comes along and says to God, you know, the only reason that job loves you and worships you is because of the things that you give. If you took it away, he would curse you. So God allows Satan to take away his health, his prosperity, and even some of his family. And ultimately, Job shows at the end of the book that he worships the Lord, he does not curse him. We see testing in the book of Job.
We see testing in how the nation of Israel comes out of Egypt. After the nation of Israel is brought out of Egypt by Moses, they sin against God in the wilderness, and they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. And this is what Deuteronomy says about this in chapter 8, verse 2. It says, And you shall remember the whole way the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, hear this, testing you to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. God tests our hearts to see what is in, to see if we will follow him. We see this in the New Testament when the early church is being persecuted, and Peter is writing to a church that is being persecuted, that's going through trials, and he says this, he says, In this you rejoice, though now for a little while.
If necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the Revelation of Jesus Christ. And the picture that is being played out here is that testing is like the purification of gold. When you purify gold, when you heat it up, impurities will rise to the surface. It shows what the gold is really made of. And it's an opportunity for you to clean the gold even further. And that's the picture of what testing gets to be, that when we are tested by God, it allows us to be closer to him, because it shows us our hidden faults.
It shows us where we don't believe the gospel, and it shows us where we need to repent and follow Jesus. Oftentimes what happens here is the thing that really gets us frustrated about testing, is we want to know specifically why. Why does this happen? Why does suffering happen? Why did this kind of period of testing happen for me? And a lot of times we don't get that answer.
We don't get the full picture. We get the theology here that we have to trust in the process, which is testing. But we don't always get the reasons, the specific reasons of why we're ultimately called to trust God, trust in the process, and trust that God is good, that he has good for us in the midst of testing. But every once in a while, I've seen this in my own life, every once in a while you might get a picture of why this happened, why periods of testing, periods of suffering happen. And in this story, we actually get the purposes of why this is going to become clear, why this is happening later.
So once you know, have a basis for what sacrifices are, once you have a basis for what testing is, we can walk through this story. He says, 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, go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall tell you. He says, he calls out to Abraham. Abraham says, Here I am. And then he says, Take your son, your only son, and offer him as a burnt offering.
That word son is going to show up repeatedly here. Son, your only son. Now, both Abraham and God know this is not his only biological son. They both know this. This just comes off the heels of the story of Ishmael. What is being implied here is this is the promised son.
This is him. This is the one. And it's repeated 14 times in this passage. Son, son, son, only son. Your only son whom you love. It's meant to show us this is the promised son.
It's meant to remind us of everything that it took to get here. Think about this. It took them 25 years after years of being childless. 25 years for this promise to come to fruition. They have this promised son whom they love, and God has just called him to reduce the promise to ashes. This is a weighty calling that he is calling Abraham to, and this is how Abraham responds in verse 3.
He says, It says, Oftentimes when we read the Bible, we have an American way of reading passages, of reading the text. I don't think it's necessarily bad. It allows us, I think, to be empathetic. We read it. We're a feelings-based culture. You talk to any other cultures that look at us, they say, Well, Americans, we care a lot about our feelings.
And that can go crazy. That can go awry. I went through 90s self-help seminars and schooling. That can go a little bit crazy with emotions. But I think it allows us, since we're an empathetic culture, to put ourselves in other people's shoes, to be able to understand some of these stories and how they play out.
I think that's helpful. But what can happen is, is that we can start to make definitive statements about what they were thinking and what they were feeling when the text doesn't give us some of those pictures. Ultimately, we have to look at the text and what it is telling us. But sometimes, in the Bible, we get the behind-the-scenes picture. Sometimes we get to understand a little bit of what they were thinking. And we get that in this story, but it's not in this chapter.
You've got to flip to the New Testament. If you go to Hebrews 11, it says, By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his son, of whom it was said, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named. Hear this. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. So in the mind of Abraham, as he's received this calling, in his mind he knows God is able to even raise Isaac back from the dead.
So he has plans to go through with this. He's going to trust the Lord. But in the back of his mind, he knows God is even able to raise this son from the dead because this son is the promised son. This is the one that he is going to bring this great nation through. It is him. So he is trusting the promises of God as he's being tested.
And we see this in how he responds. He says, Abraham gets up, that he packs his donkey, that he grabs some supplies, that he gets some help from two young men, then he gets his son, and they hit the road. And if you read that, right off the heels of what he was just called to, man, it just seems robotic. He just got told to sacrifice his son, and he packs up everything, and they hit the road. It's a little confusing. Two things.
Again, we don't get a window into his emotions. It is reasonable to think this is very difficult for him. He loves his sons. You can see in his relationship with Ishmael in the previous chapters, he loves his sons. This is a difficult and weighty calling. But ultimately, we look at what he is trusting in.
He believes the promise that Isaac is the promised son. He has faith that God will come through him this promise, even if it takes resurrection. So he's trusting God. Verse 4. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. And 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. So after a three-day journey of coming to Moriah, they finally see the place from afar. He sees it. They're getting closer. He tells the two young men, he says, you guys stay behind. It's just going to be Isaac and I.
Now, y'all, it's been three days. Three days. Every day. Every night. One step closer to this happening. One step closer to where he's being called to bring the knife down on his son.
Now, while Abraham is clinging to the promise and he's trusting that God can even raise him for the dead, the weightiness of this obedience is growing closer. But he's still trusting the promise of God and he ends this conversation. It's telling how he says it. He says, I and the boy will go over there and worship and come back again to you. He's saying, we're coming back. Isaac and I were going to the mount, but we're coming back again.
Verse 6. It says, And 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. And he said, Here am I, my son. He said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went, both of them, together. So Abraham, he gets the wood, he hands it to Isaac to carry, and Isaac starts to carry the wood, which tells us a little bit that Isaac, he's a young boy, but he's old enough and he's big enough to at least carry this wood. So he puts the wood on his back. They start to go towards the hill. And that shows us a little bit of what Isaac is doing here.
Isaac's being obedient. He's being obedient to his father as his father is trusting the Lord. And then Isaac, in the midst of this, he asks the obvious question. Dad, I see, I see the fire. I see the wood. You've brought a knife.
Where's the lamb? They didn't bring one with them. They didn't stop and buy one along the way. They haven't taken one. See, Isaac realizes that something's up. This isn't normal.
That something is out here. But he's going to trust his father as his father trusts God. Abraham looks at him. He says, God will provide. Abraham knows that God is going to provide. That he's even capable of raising the dead.
He just has to be prepared to go through with this. He has to be prepared to bring the knife down on his beloved boy. And the intensity is building even further. Abraham and Isaac, both being obedient to what they are called to. Abraham now has the knife and he now has the flame. And these are both visual representations of what is about to be called of him.
But he believes Isaac is ultimately going to be okay. But that still doesn't take away from the horror of this situation of what he's being called to. That in the midst of testing, Abraham is still trusting the promises of God. And then the scene finally arrives. Verse 9. When they came to the place of which God had told them, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.
So they finally get to this place, this place of sacrifice. And I want you to picture this scene with me. Abraham at this point, he's well over 100. He starts to build the altar. And this is going to take some time. He's older.
He's building the altar. And piece by piece, as he's building this altar, there's a question that's still lingering in the back. Where is the lamb? And then he gets the wood. He takes the wood from Isaac. Isaac is watching this.
He grabs the wood. He starts to stack the wood. And the question still remains, where is the lamb? And he takes his son. Y'all, his son that he loves. And he starts to bind him.
He starts to tie him up. And Isaac doesn't struggle. Doesn't say that he ran off. He could have. He starts to tie him up. And he takes his son, this son he waited so long for, and he places him on the altar.
Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. So he reaches out the knife. He has the knife. He's getting ready to bring the knife down on his son. And it's at this point in this story that something screams within us, where is the lamb? Like, what is happening here?
How? Is this gone far enough? You see that he trusts you. What is happening? This does not seem fair. He has the knife, and he's ready to bring it down on his son.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. He said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and he looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in the 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. So in the midst of him holding the knife, an angel intervenes and intercedes and says, Abraham, stop. Don't touch him. You've proven yourself. It's clear that you fear the Lord.
Step away. It's over. And Abraham can take his son. He can unbind him. He can do what every father would want to do in that moment. He can hold him.
He can hug him. He can tell him everything is going to be okay, that he was always the promised son. He can tell them what this was. It was never in doubt. You were always going to be the promised son. And then he picks up his head, and he sees the ram.
He sees the ram in the thicket. God provides the lamb, and then he takes it, and this is the sacrifice that was going to be there all along. He takes this ram, and he slaughters it as a substitute in Isaac's place. And Abraham can say, I knew it. I knew that God was going to come through with his promises. And they call this place, The Lord Will Provide.
That this place, Moriah, will forever be remembered as the place that God intervened, that God made a substitute, that God kept his promise, and the line of Abraham was preserved. And the rest of this chapter is that working of this blessing, declaring this blessing that is going to be, and you get to the end of it, and it's over. The story's done. And there's this lingering question, I think, that we still have when we read this. What was the point? What was the point of this story?
I mean, I get it. I'll concede. God tests his people. But calling a father to sacrifice his son, that seems a little too far. Calling him to take his innocent son. I mean, Abraham's old.
Couldn't God see his heart? Couldn't he see the faith that was in it? Why put an old man through that kind of grief? Why put Isaac through that kind of terror? Why? What is the point?
Because ultimately, this story is pointing to something else. The location of this place, Moriah, is significant. Later on in 2 Chronicles 3, we learn that Moriah is the place where Solomon built the temple. This is Jerusalem. This is not an accident. God could have chosen any place.
He could have chosen any mountain, but he chooses this hill. Why? Because this story was going to play out centuries later. That years down the line, there was going to be a son. There is going to be a son whom the Father loved deeply. The kind of love that is eternal.
The kind of love that stretches back into eternity past that is unbroken and perfect and pure and good. And out of this love, he's going to send his son. And out of this love, the son is going to obey the will of the Father. And he's going to travel on the same path that Isaac and Abraham took. The son is going to obey and he's going to put wood on his back. He's going to carry the wood up the hill.
The same path that Abraham and Isaac took. And this wood is going to be a wooden cross. And he's going to carry the wooden cross to a place that they called Moriah, a place that we as Christians now look at and call Calvary. And after being beaten and mocked and spit upon and abandoned and tortured, he's going to take that cross as far as he can go. He's going to need help just to get it up the hill. And when he gets to the top, there's going to be no need to ask the question, where is the lamb?
Because Jesus knew all along, he was the lamb. He was the ram and the thicket. He is the substitute. And he gets to the top and they bind him to the cross on the altar. They raise him up. And as, what's different from Abraham and Isaac now is as the knife is coming down and the angel stops, that doesn't happen here.
The spear pierces his side. The blood and the water pour out like an offering. And unlike Abraham and Isaac where Isaac is unbound, he can tell him everything's going to be okay. God the Father who's perfectly been in relationship and in love with his son is going to turn his back on him. This story in Genesis 22 is ultimately looking forward to the cross. That God spared Isaac.
He does not spare Christ. Jesus is the better Isaac. The one who carried the wood up the hill. And Abraham was right. The lamb would be provided. Jesus is our ram whose blood was spilled to take away our sins.
And the feeling that you have when you read this that says this isn't right that an innocent one should die, that is correct. We deserve wrath. Jesus dies in our place. Why? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. That's the hope of the gospel.
Why? Because you and me we need a sacrifice. We need someone to stand in our place because we have sinned and rebelled against the creator of God. We have trampled on his commands. We pursued flesh. We pursued the world.
We need a sacrifice. We are like hopeless sheep without a shepherd and Jesus comes from heaven and he seeks us and he claims us because the father loves you so much that he did not leave you here in sin but he sent Jesus to die for you so that he might carry you home. You are correct. It is not fair. We deserve wrath but Jesus obeyed the will of the father that he might become the ram that thicketh for us. He is the fulfillment of Genesis 22 and as Christians y'all we get to look at this story look at this picture of the gospel and respond in worship.
We get to respond in repentance.