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so uh welcome back to Sunday school um we are currently on the Patriarchs of the promise series and for the past couple of lessons we’ve been looking at the life of Abraham and we’ve seen how God has been growing his faith through the various circumstances that um God has placed Abraham through we’ve seen how he interacted with lot and how he waited patiently together with Sarah for the promise of his son and finally last week we saw that excuse me I’m sorry sorry give uh God gave Abraham and Sarah their son Isaac and in this week’s lesson so this is lesson six of our series we’re going to talk about Abraham’s test and this comes from uh Genesis 22: 1-19 and this is arguably the greatest test that Abraham has faced in his life and this is the test that God has placed him through where he’s asked to sacrifice the son of Promise Isaac and in fact this test is referenced in other parts of the Bible for example Hebrews 11 verse 17 to 19 and here on the screen I have uh verses 17 and 18 and it reads 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 was said in Isaac your descendant shall be called so before we begin let me pray for us father father thank you for your word um thank you for including this account in your word to teach us and to um teach us about Abraham’s faith and his Reliance on you and how you were faithful to him help us to have understanding and to understand your word correctly and may it transform our lives in Christ’s name I pray amen so this will be the outline of today’s lesson first I’ll talk about some introduction to the lesson and some background information that might be helpful as we look at the passage today and then we’ll move on to look at the passage which is Genesis 22 and applying the inductive Bible study method that we have been looking at for the past couple of lessons as well where we make observations about the text and then move on to interpret the text in other words we try to understand the meaning of the text and then of course the most important step of applying what we’ve learned into our lives and pray that the Lord would use that to transform uh the way we think the way we act in our daily lives yeah so um let’s get started with some introduction so what did we learn last week so we’re going to see how what we learned last week connects to what we’re going to see in today’s passage so in last week’s lesson taught by Pastor Dave we saw that God gave Abraham and Sarah a son Isaac in their old age and can anyone remember how old Abra Abraham and Sarah was when they had Isaac 90 and 100 right so Abraham was 90 and Sarah was 100 and how long yeah so Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 good he and how long did they have to wait for um Isaac since the first time God gave the promise in Genesis uh 12 right so they had to wait 25 years for their son Isaac to be born right so this is a sign significant amount of time that they had to wait for the promise to be fulfilled but in God’s perfect timing he brought this promise to pass right he fulfilled his promise that he made to Abraham but and this was not the end of the story right so we would see this week that Abraham is put to the greatest test that he’s faced thus far now that the the promised son is finally arrived um you you would think that all is well but um now God commands Abraham to sacrifice the Sun that he has waited for for 25 years you can imagine the kind of Agony [Music] and and yeah the the the emotions that was probably going through Abraham’s mind when he received the command from God to sacrifice Isaac whom he has waited for for a long time and so when we read about this account we would learn about Abraham’s faith faith and also how he what he knew about God’s character as he trusted God through this uh trial but furthermore it also foreshadows uh Christ sacrifice on the cross so as we look through this passage we would be U cross referencing other passages from uh the new testament which gives us greater clarity as to the meaning and the significance of what the Lord put Abraham through in this particular passage so uh more background um M Moriah is the site at which um Abraham was called to sacrifice Isaac and here I have a map of uh the journey that Abraham took from where he was living in bosba to Moriah and this was about a distance of 50 miles and during that time they had to travel by foot right so this is a significant Journey it’s a significant um distance that they had to to travel in order to get to the place of of the sacrifice and later In this passage we will learn that Abraham took three days to get from BBA to Mariah and furthermore Mount Mariah is a significant location in the Bible we’ve seen it um referen in uh later parts of the Bible for example um it’s where the trashing floor of ARA or Oran the jebusite is located and this is where King David built an altar to the Lord so that the plague may be held back from the people and we also know that this is the site of King Solomon’s Temple as referenced in 2 Chronicles 3:1 and later on this is also the site of King herod’s Temple and this is the temple that Jesus cleansed during his Earthly Ministry so this is indeed a significant place that we see reference throughout the Bible and uh we will also talk more about U the distance that Abraham had to travel in as we look at the text later okay so yeah with now that we’re done with introduction and background Let’s uh look at the passage that we have today and I’ll read from Genesis 22: 119 so please take your Bibles and turn there with me so starting at verse one now it came about after these things that 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 his burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you 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 burnt offering and arose and went to the place which God had told him on the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance Abraham said to his young men stay here with a donkey and I and the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you Abraham took the wood of the burn offering and laid it on Isaac his son and he took his in his hand the fire and knife so the two of them walked on 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 the burnt offering Abraham said God will provide himself the lamb for the burnt offering my son so the two of them walked on together then 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 but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said Abraham Abraham and he said here I am he saido not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son your only son from me then Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by its horns and Abraham went and took the RAM and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son Abraham called the name of that place the Lord will provide as it is said to this day in the Mount of the Lord it will be be provided then 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 thing and have not withheld your son your only son indeed I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seat as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore and your seat shall possess the gates of your en of their enemies in your seat all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice so Abraham returned to his young man and they arose and went together to basiba and Abraham lived at basiba so right so now that we’ve read the passage let’s make some observations um in the text so in in this part we would go verse by verse and look at some questions that we may ask about the text and see any interest interesting observations that we might have so first what did Abraham what did God ask Abraham to do so this is like at the start of the chapter to offer his son right so this is in verse two it says he said take now your son your only son whom you love Isaac and go to the land of Moriah and offer him them there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I tell you so it’s clear that God wanted Abraham to offer Isaac and he made this really explicit that this is the son that I’m asking you to offer right to notice here that God refers to Isaac as Abraham’s son his only son and if you remember what we’ve learned in previous lessons Abraham had another son right which he had with Hagar the handmaiden of Sarah so why is Isaac here referred to as Abraham’s only son because he was the promise MH right so Isaac was Abraham’s promised son and in in in this sense he is um Abraham’s only son and only rightful son of of of the promise right and I think if got we can we can speak of some hypotheticals here right if God told Abraham to offer up his son it it would be obvious which sign Abraham would pick right he would rather sacrifice Ishmael than Isaac because Isaac was the one in which God promised all the blessings to come through the the line of Isaac is where the Messiah will eventually come from and but God still chose to make it very explicit here which son he was asking Abraham to offer it was Isaac the son whom you love that you shall offer as a burnt offering in the land of Mariah and this makes it uh extremely difficult I can imagine for Abraham to process given that as as we talked about earlier that he waited 25 years for this child of promised to be born and now that the child is born he has to face this um trial of having to offer him as sacrifice and this brings us to our next question what was the purpose of God’s command and I think we’ve talked about this that this is a test that Abraham has to face and this is also mentioned in verse one of our chapter here right that God was the one who tested Abraham how interesting right so it’s it was God who brought about this promise this miraculous um birth of Isaac that Sarah was Barren for a long time and she was 90 when she had Isaac and now that this child is finally born God himself the one who brought about this miracle tested Abraham and asked him to offer up the child that he has given to Abraham back and we talked about how challenging this test is because of the fact that Abraham had to wait a long time for Isaac and also that all the promises that God has given to Abraham was going to come through the line of Isaac and God made it explicit that ishma would not be the one that uh the line of ishma would not be the one that would bring about the the blessings and if we keep reading on in the text uh what do we know about um when did Abraham act on this command to offer up his son next morning right the next morning right so in verse three it says that Abraham Rose early in the morning so the next day settle his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son and he split the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him um I’ve heard two different interpretations as to why um Abraham Rose early one being that Abraham trusted God completely he was ready to obey God whatever the command was he had come to such a point in his faith where it was easy to just obey God and even though it was such a challenging test for him as we talked about and there’s a different interpretation where um people say that Abraham Rose early because he just simply could not sleep the night before he had to sacrifice his child Isaac and I think whichever view you take the point is Abraham acted promptly right for whatever reason he got up early that morning he did not hesitate any further he acted on the command that God gave to him and you you can see here that he made necessary preparations for this journey as well uh we saw earlier the map from from BBA to Mariah this is not a short Journey he took necessary preparations for both the journey and the sacrifice that was eventually to be made to be made right he split wood for the burnt offering took a donkey with him and took two young men with him so we know that Abraham was an influential man of the time so he had servants and so these two young men were servants that Abraham had and and he took Isaac with them as well so yeah we so who traveled with Abraham we saw this in the same verse right so he took two of his young men these are two servants and also his son Isaac with him how long did the did the journey take so we learn about this in verse four so how long did the journey take yeah so on on the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the the place from a distance so this place is M Mariah where Isaac was to be sacrificed and we looked at the map earlier this is a j of about 50 miles so and when I was reading this passage before and also this time when preparing for this 3 days journey is not a short time to contemplate that at the end of this journey you would possibly see the death of your son and especially the son Isaac whom Abraham loved for I cannot imagine being in that same position and just thinking about how you would feel and kn knowing that you would have to obeying God would mean that you would have to kill your son I think I’ve heard stories of people having to uh put down their pet that is extremely ill so and even that is really difficult right so um there are some some cases where um a Pat is ill and you have to take the pat to the vet to get them to be put down so that you don’t prolong the suffering and even in those situations people find it very difficult emotionally to travel to make that Journey to the vet to to get to get that done what more if this is your son and the son that you really love so putting ourselves in Abraham’s shoes would help to understand the the magnitude of of this test and and understand the challenge that Abraham faced that very and yet we saw that he acted very promptly which is telling about his view of who God is and that he trusted that God would fulfill his promise of um blessing of of blessing to uh the line of Isaac somehow he did not know the details it it it’s going to be clear from this passage but he still trusted that God would be faithful to his promise and faithful to his word so as they arrived at Mariah what did Abraham say to his servants so this is in verse five yeah so he said here stay here with the donkey and I and the lad so lad being Isaac will go over there we will worship and return to you so think about it for a second were so if Abraham were to obey God and carry out the command this would imply that Isaac would be dead by the end of it right so this interesting that Abraham replied spoke to the servants in this way that wait here for for for a bit we’ll go over worship God and the two of us would come back return to you after we done worshiping right so he expect he expected that both Isaac and him would somehow return to the servants so just just keep that in mind and we will talk more about that as we interpret the text so what was taken to the sacrifice so now Isaac and Abraham have left the servants behind and they on their way to Mariah just just the two of them and we see that Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son so Isaac was carrying the wood and Abraham himself took in his hand the fire and the knife so if you know anything about burnt offerings the knife was just meant to kill the animal that was meant to be sacrificed and the fire was meant to light the wood which was used as fuel to burn up the dead animal and this is just what was done for um for the burn offering and this is very peculiar because during this journey there was no animal that they took with them and this is exactly what Isaac noticed was missing and Isaac brought this up to his father Abraham so Isaac spoke to spoke to Abraham his father and said father and he said here I am my son and he said behold the fire and the wood but where is the Lamb for the burnt offering so every I’m sure every single time that um a burnt offering was offered and Isaac was there to witness it there was always an an animal that was present for the burn offering but this one specific time there is no animal that they brought with them so Isaac was probably confused and was just wondering what was going on and it was right for him to raise this question and then Abraham responded in a very interesting way once again Abraham told Isaac God himself will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering my son so yeah we once again see that Abraham knew that God would intervene in some way he had faith in how God would provide he did not know the exact details I’m pretty sure he did not know the exact details of how God would intervene but he had faith in who God was it was the object of his faith that was important here right not uh not knowing the exact details and then God eventually intervene as Abraham expected and at what point did he intervene so this was like at the very last minute uh Abraham had Isaac bound to The Altar and Abraham stretched out his hand took the knife to slay his son and at this point the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven and said Abraham Abraham and he said here I am he saido not stretch out your hand against lad and do not to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son your only son from me so the Lord chose to intervene at the very last point where Abraham was committed to sacrificing his son like if the Lord did not stop Abraham at this at that point Isaac would have died but the Lord chose in in his wisdom to stop the sacrifice at the very last minute and not only that God provided a replacement for the sacrifice so uh does anyone know what did God do to right so at this point Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the RAM and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son so notice here that this is not a ram that Abraham had to go out to look for it was given to him by God himself and then the ram was taken as a replacement for Isaac so instead of Isaac being sacrificed you have the ram provided by God that is sacrificed on the in in the place of Isaac and as a result of this whole encounter what did Abraham name the place of the sacrifice um no so right yes so Abraham called the place the Lord will provide all Jehovah Gyra and it said to this day in the Mount of the Lord it will be provided so a lot of things were unpacked here and so just keep keep just keep that in mind as we as we look at um in in the text what phrase is repeated three times in verses 12 22 and 16 yeah I think it’s interesting that um Isaac is repeatedly referenced as Abraham’s son Abraham’s only son uh so this here is in verse 12 and it’s also repeated in verse 2 and 16 and we we see that this has um the ultimate meaning is is fulfilled in Christ and we look at some verses later so what did the angel of the Lord say to Abraham a second time so the first time was when he stopped uh Abraham from from killing Isaac and once that was over and um God provided the Ram uh what did the angel of the Lord say to Abraham this second time yeah and then and then and after that he went on to reaffirm the the Covenant promise that he has with Abraham right so it says here in vers 15 to 18 then 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 thing have not withheld your son your only son indeed I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your SE as the stars of the heaven and as the sandwi which is on the seash shore and your seed shall possess the Gate of their enemies in your seed all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice so the the Covenant that God has made with Abraham and the promise that he’s uh and the promise of blessing that he has given to Abraham in the past got repeated here and even expanded and we will look at some details later okay so now that we’ve done looking at some key points in the passage are there any observations that you have made that has not been listed here oh Arthur is that close Okay um all I wanted to go back to uh one of the questions that you asked in the beginning and point out the fact that and I think I’ve mentioned this before in a Sunday School uh message that here we find the word love mentioned for the first time and what that does for me it immediately takes me to Matthew chapter 10 I think being a senior where where it’s mentioned and Jesus says to uh his followers that if anyone loves their father and mother more than me they are not worthy then he says if um then he expanded even more and he said son or daughter is not worthy of me and here we see we we we we get into the more complicated explanations for um this what’s going on between Abraham and his son but when we look at it from the perspective of the New Testament we see the for the first time um the story of the Gospel um especially when you mentioned about Isaac what was Isaac doing he was carrying the wood Jesus in the New Testament mentions about bearing your cross so um again we we see that picture uh a preview of that picture of uh when God would offer his only begotten son the word son being mentioned in the Old Testament and here it being mentioned and then uh the other thing I forgot because I was talking so long but the the the other thing that I wanted to mention is when we talked about three days journey MH and we know um 3 days again is mentioned in the New Testament so for me it seems like this is again a a sort of preview of what would occur thousands of years later yeah thank you arur yeah exactly and and some of that we will we will talk about as we interpret um yeah hi if you go back to the picture with the Ram oh you okay yeah um this is just to highlight the the goodness and the details of God because he was caught in the thicket by his Thorn his his horns he was already restrained because we have goats and you can’t restrain them they’re very difficult so God provided that as well yeah oh thank you yeah it’s interesting l oh um you know I had heard a sermon a while back and it was on having degrees of faith of weakness and strong and strength and um the emphasis was that when we and I’m I’m just thinking of personal application when I see a problem happening that I think Jack has to take care of I’m going to be ear in him like Sarah did right and that’s a danger because he has to be led by the Lord and now Abraham had all this time to think about his God okay and the application is is that when you’re looking at the temporal circumstances when you’re looking at okay God gave this promise and now we’re going to help them along we’re going to misinterpret scripture we’re going to help provide and he knew that that was weak Faith he was focusing on the circumstance listening to his wife wanting to please his wife and um this time all these years later he had all these years to think about that like I’ve made that mistake and he just had confidence in God because his focus at this point not that he didn’t sin again but at this point This Promise was given he was going to be a nation and his confidence was so strong that God has he going to give him a nation and when he knows you know ishmail is not the one and I can remember a specific time when Jack kind of um derailed me because I was in panic mode and saying you know this I think this has to be done and he just cracked me up honestly he looked at me and he goes now you don’t want two of you in this marriage do you and he was absolutely right right and you have to want them to follow God’s lead and not try to please their wife you know to get directly from God and I just I just saw all these applications of when is their weak when is their strength it’s when we’re really taking God at his word his Holiness his unchangeability his promises that we don’t know how it’s going to turn out whatever the issue is but he is faithful to us even when we’re Unfaithful and when you’ve made wrong choices it should teach us like I don’t want to go there again yeah so that’s how I saw the application oh amen yeah uh Glenda oh I I’m looking at um at Abraham all along Abraham God’s promise to him to the son he was in and out doubting would I have a son and I’m so old and everything but then we see after the sun came and God said this son you are going to offer him up to me and I look at the statement he said you and the L you and the servant and the donkey stay here but myself and the lad is going and we are coming back so right there I saw Abraham said this is I’m going we are both going to come back so I saw Abraham faith in that all all along he was doubting would I have a son would I have a son she’s so old I’m so old but at the point the son came with that statement but I see myself and the lad is going we are coming back so and go Abraham God is not God don’t want human sacrifices so all of this thing coming up in his mind so now we coming back we don’t know how it’s going to work out but we coming back so I saw his strength and his faith in God there amen yeah yeah I think that’s a good um way to enter this um segment of interpretation because we’ve covered some of the things that I plan to to talk about but yeah let’s keep going so why do you think God tested Abraham in this in this way in this particular way author I’m glad you asked that question because I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to say what it was I forgot I was going to say before um this may not sound like it’s the answer but I I wanted to put this in our mind we focus on Abraham we focus on what he did and we apply that to how we should relate to God but there’s a bigger picture in this story and I I I tried to point this out in one of the messages that I gave um way back and it has has to do with that expression God said or the angel said to Abraham for now I know this is one of those expressions that um those who want to um deny the the word of God or to find ways to find fault with God’s word when when they talk about this expression for now I know what does that mean if God knows everything why would he say that this is the problem with human language when it comes to understanding eternity we get we think of we think of words like this from a temporal point of view whereas God uses language human language to to lay out his story for us which was um already decided on God even before he created time yeah so um I I I wanted to say that um because if we look at the bigger picture God is revealing to us his character the fact that he watched Abraham he was with Abraham throughout the entire trip when God said to him to go he was with Abraham when he said do because he was going to offer his son he was with Abraham he was there the entire time and um if we look at the bigger picture here um when we’re going through trials um we how can I say it like Abraham it will give us to do this to give us the strength to do things that um are like what Abraham did yeah thanks out thanks out yeah exactly and I I think that um um yeah you you touched on a couple of good points and things that I’ve thought of as well right so um Abraham’s Faith was grown and matured by by God through this entire time during this day where he was I guess three days where he was traveling to Mariah and also before right and as as you mentioned God already knew the faith that Abraham had and even though it’s spoken of in the temporal sense that now I know that you fear Lord which is mentioned later on in this chapter there was nothing that God did not already know yet the testing of Abraham’s Faith revealed strengthen and prooved the reality of the faith that he had and was in fact given to him by God through this entire the entirety of his life and we know from uh the New Testament from book of James right that um knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance having it have its perfect results so that you may be be perfect complete lacking in nothing so we know that trials and um testing helps us to grow and mature in our faith having a more accurate and biblical view of who God is and we can trust in his character and furthermore this test of Abraham foreshadows what Christ eventually experienced and in the ultimate sense right and we’ll look at more of that as we keep going in this section okay so the next question that is related to this was God’s command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac unjust or cruel and how does this align with God’s nature so there would be some people who would accuse God of being unjust or cruel for giving Abraham this command how do we um answer and respond to such an accusation oh Mark about ABR I love what Glenda said Abraham’s Faith had grown to the point where knew as Hebrews 11:19 says that God was able to raise the dead so he knew that even if he did slay his son God would somehow find a way to fulfill his it says God will provide for himself right so that that could have been what what we saw how it played out right so it was really um an extreme um if you may put if we can put it that way Act of Faith full trust in God thank you yeah so there a couple points that I that I thought of and one of them is exactly what you pointed out Mark in from Hebrews 11:1 17- 19 we know that Abraham trusted God to preserve Isaac by some means even if he had to raise Isaac from the dead and he would he could do that right and we know from the Mosaic law which wasn’t given at this point but we know that God’s character is unchanging that God does not endal child sacrifice right the there was Pagan practice um around Israel that um carried out child sacrifice but it was against the character of God to um carry out such um such acts so we know that um this was not according to the will of God that um that yeah that you sacrifice your child and I think the third point is that God is The Giver of Life right and we know that Isaac like the rest of us is a sinner and deserving of death so the fact that God gives us life and Spares us from Eternal death is God’s mercy so it’s not him being unjust for for him to take life right and we will see that um as a response to other accusations accusations about God in other parts of the Bible where he commands um the killing of people who were the enemies of Israel as well okay so moving on so what does Abraham’s Readiness to obey reveal about his faith and particularly about his faith in who God is so this is a specific pack passage I’m talking about right so he rose early in the morning so what does it say about how he viewed God Mike just just that it’s real it’s a real faith and alluding to what jod said it uh it could be faith in U degrees in a sense that two times God told Abraham to go and he did not know where he was going he did not know what the result would be but he went yeah so it’s a real Faith um and what was the other question revealed about his faith yeah so that that’s basically what I wanted to say I’m sure I had something else but it’s enough yeah okay yeah yeah and and it does foreshadow Jesus’s submission to God’s will as well right so uh included this passage here from Luke uh 9:51 so when the days Drew near for him to be taken up so this is referring to Jesus being uh crucified he set his face towards Jerusalem right he was Resolute in his mission he knew the mission that was set out to him by the father and there was no hesitation he knew where he was going to go and even though at times like like in the Garden of Gethsemane for example it was uh struggle right that Jesus was fully man and fully God so there was real struggle that Jesus had to experience and so here and I read uh and he went a little Beyond them them being the disciple and fell on his face and prayed saying my father if it’s possible let this cup pass for me yet not as I will but as you will he was completely aligned to the agenda of the father and was Resolute in accomplish ing that mission so this was how this is I guess some parallel to uh Abraham’s Readiness to obey God in this particular instance and okay so moving on what did Abraham say both to his servants uh why why did he say to his servants that he would return and with Isaac after they worshiped and why did he say to Isaac that God would provide for himself lamb for the burnt offering I think we did talk about this uh earlier when we when some of you brought up some points that you’ve thought of uh regarding the observations that we made we made so Abraham had clear faith in God’s promise right that God would bring about the blessings as he promised through the lion of Isaac he didn’t know exactly how God would preserve Isaac but he knew that God would somehow intervene in the way he spoke about uh how both Isaac and him would go worship and return Isaac being alive right and when he spoke to Isaac about God providing a lamb for himself he somehow knew the doctrine or the concept of substit substitutionary sacrifice something like God would provide a lamb that would take the place of Isaac and therefore he would not die and it’s not mentioned explicitly how he knew about this perhaps he heard about the account of the Fall with uh Adam and and Eve where got killed an animal to clothe them in their nakedness perhaps this is why he knew of this concept where an animal would provide a sacri a substitutionary sacrifice for sin yeah right so so Isaac was with Abraham through this entire Journey right so and looking at how he spoke about the um the lamb being missing and things like that how do you think he might have felt I think the Bible does not record Isaac’s emotion explicitly but from the evidence that we see in the text he was probably very confused and fearful as well I think when Abraham bound Isaac to The Altar and was holding up his knife ready to kill him he Isaac was probably very fearful and for for good reason yet he did not appear to resist resist there’s no record of Isaac resisting um this um being bound to The Altar and almost being killed by his father and Isaac was probably a young adult at this time and if you know Abraham was above 100 years old right so Isaac had the means of resisting and stopping this Sacrifice from being carried out yet he didn’t appear to do so so I think this is very interesting and how does this willingness to being to be sacrificed um parallel the way Jesus approached uh his own uh sacrifice uh Magda I was just going to say as a lamb to the slaughter I I think that um Isaac heard his father say we’re both coming back yeah and I think he believed and um I I think just as you know Christ was um you know on his mission and he knew the end um I think Isaac had a feeling that this was this was going to turn out for God’s purpose yeah right so Isaac trusted his father uh yeah yeah one just one more I guess uh I was going to say the same thing that you were saying about the nature of his relationship with his father yeah and it shows what has been going on for the past you know 16 or however many years and his trust in his father yeah he had such a deep trust in his father that that also parallels Christ and God yeah you know Jesus said they don’t take my life he gave it up willingly yeah exactly right so I have couple of passages here that talks about this right so from first Peter 2 21 to 23 for you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you leaving you as an example to follow in his steps who committed no sin nor was any deceit found in his mouth and while being revaled he did not Revol in return while suffering he uttered no threats but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously so he did not retaliate even though he had the power to and as magd pointed out he was like a lamb to slaughter Isaiah 53 right he was oppressed he was afflicted yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before it sharers he did not open his mouth and we know like Isaac Jesus had even more power and more authority to retaliate if he wanted to right yet he and trusted himself to the father just as how Isaac trusted Abraham throughout this entire process so here is uh during the arrest of Jesus when um the disciples retaliated Jesus said to him him Peter put your sword back in this place for all who have taken up the take up the sword Shall Perish by the sword or do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he would once put at my disposal more than 12 Legions of angels so Jesus had all the power at his disposal to retaliate yet similar to Isaac and even in a even greater way he did not retaliate because he was focus on the mission at hand he knew what had to be done for the Redemption of his people and yeah so uh next question is how does Hebrews 111 17-19 give insight into Abraham’s faith and I think we talked about this a bit already about how Abraham had complete trust in the character of God that he would be faithful to his promise God cannot lie and God promised Abraham that is through Isaac that his uh promise of of blessing will be fulfilled and if it would if it takes God to raise Isaac from the dead in order to fulfill This Promise then then that’s what would be done God would do whatever he has to do to fulfill This Promise so this was the kind of faith that Abraham had and given to him by God I guess through his through the the entirety of his life the things that God has put Abraham through it that matured his faith to this point that he trusted God even to raise Isaac from the dead if necessary and yeah so the next question is um interesting one right so how does the L the ram caught in the thicket point to God’s provision we’ve also talked a bit about this up to this point but um does anyone have any comment about this author well I I have a comment um if I can jump back I I was itching to say this is that um previously when you had asked a question um about Isaac and how he um even though the scripture doesn’t give us any information um on his part of resisting his father what I wanted to say is is that when we talk about faith faith and we talk about the faith that Abraham had we how can I say many of us think this faith that that God had given to Abraham had some Supernatural um uh explanation but if we go to Paul’s writings in Romans when he’s criticizing the evil that was done um in Rome and he talked about they had no excuse but because the things that can be known by God are plainly seen and the things he’s made so I submit this for us to think about this is one of the problems I always say that with America today we’ve been separated from the land we’ve been separated from nature if we go back in the time of Abraham he watched the flowers bloom he watched caterpillars turn into butterflies he witnessed nature at its best and because he believed it’s obvious he believed that God was the one that created all these things the answer to his having faith seeing if you ever watched a calber caliper turn into a butterfly what does that caliper have to do because before it becomes a butterfly it has to die it’s in a shell it’s held in that shell until the time the butterfly um or well however it works um appears so what I’m saying is that we don’t understand the concept of death the way I believe the way that Abraham and um the progenitors um of that time how they understood it because they saw death in terms of what was happening around them so when people say it was cruel for God to tell Abraham to offer his son or it was cruel for God to sacrifice his son we don’t realize that death was the consequence of sin in other words death was something that God brought on mankind so however God chose for people to die whether it be an accident from a tree falling or from just age or what other we can we can watch the news and get an idea of how many ways people can die yeah we have to realize that that death is something that God allows to happen in the world so if we could understand death better we could understand um better the question that you’re asking I’ll let someone else answer that yeah I think we’re running out of time so I just yeah thank you for your answer I just keep moving um yeah so uh uh you talked about how Abraham was familiar with death and like the significance of death more than um us today perhaps and here yeah with the example of of the ram CAU in the thicket it points to God’s provision in the sense that it um captures the Ence of substitutionary ement which we talked about in the previous slide as well where you have Isaac who was supposed to be sacrificed and now instead of Isaac God provides a ram that was um caught in the thicket and now the ram is taken on behalf of Isaac as as the sacrifice to God right and this is the heart of the Gospel so um and Jesus is himself referred to as the Lamb of God by John the Baptist here in in the Gospel of John and um the essence of the the meaning of substitutionary at atonement is captured here in this verse as well right in 1 Peter 2:24 he said he himself so this being Jesus bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by his wounds we are healed so Jesus Christ Bears the sin of those who place their trust in him in Repentance and faith and there is this other Passage from 2 Corinthians 5:21 it says he he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him so Jesus Christ himself did not commit any sin but God made him who KN knew no sin to become sin on our behalf so there’s this replacement the idea of replacement where Jesus Christ took our place and bore the wrath of God due to sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him this does not mean that it’s easy belie believism but it’s it means that uh when we place our trust in Jesus Christ he takes our sin and this allows us to live a life of righteousness that a life that U is continuously being conformed to the image of Christ right and then the last question what is the significance of the repeated phrase your son your only son and our for the sake of time I’ll just um point that out so um I think God knew how precious Isaac was to Abraham and um by stressing that this is the son of the promise and this is also how um the New Testament speaks of Jesus right so in John 3:16 for example for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life so we KN we know how much God loves the father loves the son and this is to a smaller degree how Abraham loved Isaac so when we reflect on um this the way Isaac is being referenced we get a picture we have a window into how um big of a sacrifice was made when um the Son of God himself was sacrificed on the cross and I G I guess it gives us a sense of The Wonder of our own salvation for those of us who have placed our trust in Jesus Christ right the extent at which the the father had to go in order to save um his people and to redeem Sinners for himself and also in uh 1 John 4:9 right by this love by this the love of God was manifested to us this is how God showed his love to us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him all right so why does Abraham name the place the Lord will provide and uh Mike pointed out this is Jehovah Gyra one of the names of God and the reason why he named the place the Lord would provide is because God provided a substitute for Isaac right just like how how uh God eventually sent Jesus in the fullness of time to die for Sinners and notice here that he says the Lord will provide not that the Lord did provide at this point in time and this anticipates future action as well which points forward to the ultimate fulfillment of this very name of God right that God is indeed our provider he provides for our daily needs and ultimately he provides our Salvation through Jesus Christ and is also mentioned here in verse 14 that in the Mount of the law it will be provided so this is a prophetic declaration that this will ultimately be fulfilled in Christ um so and why does God reaffirmed his Covenant with Abraham in verse 15 to 18 I think there are multiple reasons uh so this uh listed here on the slide um in verse 15 to 16 we see that uh then 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 thing and not withheld your son your only son so we’ve talked about how Abraham’s obedience confirmed his faith that God has uh matured in him to his his life and this was one of the reasons why God reaffirmed his promise to Abraham and we also see that um the Lord swore by himself in in this uh reaffirmation of the Covenant and we read about it in Hebrews 6 and it says when God made his promise to Abraham since there was no greater no one greater for him to swear by he swore by himself saying that I will surely bless you and give you many descendants so God’s overemphasizes the certainty of his promise it’s not that God could possibly lie but he was going to assure Abraham that you have seen my faithfulness in giving you Isaac and preserving Isaac through this entire um experience so you can keep continuing to trust me and we see in verses 17 and 18 that uh there’s an expansion of the Covenant blessings from what uh was spoken to Abraham before as well so here uh we see that um it’s spoken um Abraham is spoken was told about his seed and that his seed will possess the Gate of their enemies and we know that this seed is Jesus right we read about that in Galatians now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed he does not say to seeds as referring to many but rather to one and to your seed that is Christ so this um promise is ultimately fulfilled in Christ as we seen so yeah I We’ve ran out of time but here are some application questions for us to consider the Lord will provide so how does knowing this about God affect the way we live trusting God involves surrendering what we hold de do you struggle with this and what has helped you trust God more how does being reminder of Christ substitutionary atonement give you peace and Assurance of Salvation if you have trusted in Christ finished World um yeah we will not be able to discuss it uh during our time here but uh I hope that we would just take some time to consider it as we reflect on what we’ve learned about today and so let me close us in prayer father thank you for your word thank you for showing us how you’ve grown Abraham’s Faith through um his different life circumstances and how you were faithful to him to the promise that you made to Abraham and how the promise um eventually culminated in Christ and in our Salvation Lord I pray that you would help us to be assured in our Salvation not because of what we’ve done or because of what you’ve done and help us to keep trusting you in the week ahead in Christ’s name I pray amen amen