WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.000 Please do turn back in your Bible to Genesis 22. And as you do, I'd like you to think back to the last time you watched an episode of Blue Peter. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:20.000 I promise there is a quote to this. If you grew up with British TV any time from around 1958, you would have seen Blue Peter, the BBC's flagship kids show. 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Please be located to another channel now. You may have entered one of its competitions, you might even have won a blue badge in which case I'm not going to be judged. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.000 But in Blue Peter there were a number of different sections, weren't there? It was a bit like a magazine that showed. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:41.000 And the sections, at least two of them, were distinguished by the catchphrases that accompanied them. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:49.000 One of those sections was the craft section, and you'd be presented with a complete jumble of items, almost always. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:55.000 A classic box would be told that you were making a pencil case, or a scale replica of a tracy island. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:03.000 And at some point, as you were looking at the associated bits and bobs laid out on the table, with Blue and the string and all the other junk, basically, 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:10.000 you'd be thinking, how does this edit look like anything? And at that point, the presenter would bring up the catchphrase, 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:17.000 and say, here's one I made earlier. And they'd present to you the finished article, an example for you to look at and to imitate. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:23.000 Something to aim for. So that was one of the sections on the show. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:29.000 But it was very important to distinguish the, here's one I made earlier, quite a lot, from another moment in the show. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:36.000 The, don't try this at home. Here's one I made earlier, but don't try these bits at home. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:42.000 There'd be a point in the show where, normally a professional of some sort, or sometimes if they were unlucky and presented themselves, 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:48.000 would have to perform a stunt, or do something that was amazing, which you could only do with professional assistance, 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:54.000 so you really shouldn't try them yourself. Fire weaving, or sword swallowing, or jumping out an air club, 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:59.000 quite a lot of Nelson's collar. The kind of thing you really shouldn't try at home. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:03.000 And the point of these spots was not to imitate them, very specifically not to imitate them, 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:10.000 but to just stand back and to be amazed. To be inspired and to be amazed, but not to imitate. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:16.000 What's the point of all this? Well, just as it's important to draw that distinction in the episode of Luke Peter, 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:20.000 it's important that we do the same as we come to Genesis 22. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:28.000 Genesis 22 is a difficult passage, but it's easier when we realise that there are two different items here on the agenda. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:36.000 Here's one I made earlier, as God holds out Abraham to us as an example of the man in the face. 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:41.000 An example for us to imitate, an example for us to aim for. 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:47.000 But the act which he's called to perform himself is a don't try this at home. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:56.000 Before you start thinking about it, there is definitely no way in which God is expecting parents to go home and try that at home. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:01.000 It's a one-time performance, and we're not meant to attempt it. 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:09.000 We're meant to stand back and be amazed by them. And what we'll see is that these two items, though they are distinct, they relate to each other. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:13.000 So, to understand the passage, I'm going to look at these, and we're going to look at these two in turn. 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:19.000 I suspect that here's one I made earlier, it's going to take significantly longer than the second one, so if we get halfway through this, it seems like this will go. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:25.000 It's not double the way. So, here's one I made earlier. 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:32.000 Well, Genesis chapter 22 begins with Abraham and his family living in the land of the Philistines. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:39.000 Abraham's made a peace treaty with the local king, and he's living in relative comfort, we assume. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:47.000 They've made wealth through their life, but now Abraham's an old man, somewhere between around 100 and 137 years old at this time. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:55.000 He's well established, he's wealthy, but the family's small. The family's small is just Abraham, Sarah, and their son Isaac. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:07.000 Isaac, the son who they were waiting for, weren't they, for years. The long-awaited son, who was ultimately born by a miracle when Sarah was 19. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:14.000 He's probably a young man now. And it's in this context that God speaks to Abraham. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.000 He speaks to Abraham and he gives him a shocking command. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:29.000 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 which I shall tell you. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:37.000 Take your son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, to offer him as a burnt offering. 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:42.000 The command is shocking, isn't it? It's a shocking command, and it's also precise. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:49.000 There's no wiggle room in this for Abraham. Isaac's picked out by name. 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:59.000 As if earlier in the book, we could have expected Abraham to try and struggle with this and replace Isaac with perhaps his hot brother Ishmael, 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:02.000 or perhaps with one of the higher servants in his family. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:08.000 But there's no space for Abraham to get around this. It must be Isaac, the son he loves. 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:18.000 It's specific and it's shocking, isn't it? You don't have to be a parent to feel the horror of what's been asked for. The shock of it. 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:25.000 There's a moment in our baptism services, isn't there, when infants are born to be baptized. 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:32.000 And I don't know if you're anything like that. It shocks you every time. There's a moment when a parent's child is presented for baptism, and they're asked, 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:39.000 Do you, with God's help, undertake not to complain against God, should your children die before you? 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:48.000 It's a gut-wrenching moment in the baptism service, as we're trying to consider the idea that a parent might lose their child before you. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:57.000 That's hard enough to consider. But there's no consideration there that we might be required to take the life of that child ourselves, is there? 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:04.000 That's what Abraham's asked to do. It's a horrifying, a gut-wrenching moment. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:10.000 And it's not only emotionally difficult for Abraham, emotionally difficult probably, I will say that. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:15.000 It's not just emotionally difficult, it's theologically difficult. 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:23.000 God's promised to Abraham that he will be blessed and a blessing through Isaac. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:26.000 He's to be the father of a great nation. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:36.000 And just as God's been specific about the subject of the sacrifice, he's been specific about how that promise is to be brought about. 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:39.000 Chapter 17, verse 19. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:45.000 Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:50.000 I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant with his offspring. 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:58.000 All of the promises that God's made to Abraham, the ones that have caused him to leave the land of his father, 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:05.000 the ones that have been his father, the ones that have been his life's work to try and make for his own. 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:10.000 All of those promises are to be fulfilled through idol. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:15.000 So what Abraham's been asked to do is not just emotionally difficult, it's theologically difficult. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:18.000 Frankly, it doesn't really make sense. 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:26.000 But the next day we went on. Abraham rose early, first to three in the morning. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:30.000 He sat on his donkey and took the two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:35.000 And he cut the wood for the bird off the road, arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:40.000 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place for a prophet. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:47.000 Unlike other passages we heard earlier, there's no mention here of Abraham debating with God, 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:51.000 or trying to bargain with him, or trying to find another way to do this. 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:54.000 He just seems to get up the next morning and obey. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:08:01.000 He takes Isaac, two servants, he saddles the donkey, he cuts the wood for the fire, and he sets off on a journey. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:05.000 It's a three day journey, you can imagine it, can't you? 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:14.000 If they were making a film of it, there'd be big pastiches of wider landscapes, and the music would be somber, wouldn't it? 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:22.000 Perhaps it began with some exciting chap, going on a journey, but it would pretty soon trail off into silence. 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:24.000 The sondra looms they walked. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:32.000 And it's not until that third day that Abraham looks up, he raises his eyes from that somber march, 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:35.000 and sees the mound where he's to make a sacrifice. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:38.000 The location here is significant. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:43.000 It wasn't just a three day march, it was a three day journey to the land of Moriah. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:51.000 We learn later in 1 Chronicles that the temple was to be built on Mount Moriah. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:57.000 Now, it's a mountainous region around there, so we don't know that this is exactly the same area, 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:02.000 but we know that it was to be a mountain here around Jerusalem, where the temple was to be built. 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:10.000 So perhaps this place where Abraham is built is a temple mountain, or perhaps it was another hill outside the city walls. 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:16.000 But they arrive at the foot of this mountain, where the sacrifice is to take place. 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:22.000 Abraham loads Isaac up with the woods, he takes the fire for himself down the night. 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:25.000 But there's something missing, isn't there? 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:27.000 It starts to twig. 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:36.000 My father, my father, behold the fire and the wood, where is the lamb? 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:39.000 Where is the lamb that we're going to operate? 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:44.000 Perhaps he's thinking his father's saying, forget for his old age, but perhaps he's getting junky. 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:46.000 What's going on here? 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:48.000 We're here to make a sacrifice. 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:50.000 Where is the lamb? 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:56.000 Abraham's answer, it's short here. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:59.000 His answer is short, but it explains his actions. 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:00.000 Verse 8. 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.000 God will provide for himself the lamb who have burnt off with his son. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:08.000 God will provide the lamb. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:12.000 I read from people who understand. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:13.000 He would better leave. 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:18.000 The word we have translated here, provide, is actually a broader meaning of that. 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:20.000 It has a right definition. 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:23.000 It's normal use in the Old Testament. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.000 It's something more like, the Lord sees. 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:27.000 The Lord will see. 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:30.000 But it's not seeing in a far off way. 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.000 It's seeing in a way that brings action. 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:35.000 The Lord will see or the Lord will choose. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:37.000 The Lord sees. 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:38.000 The Lord knows. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:41.000 He knows that he's not distant. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.000 He will take action. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:48.000 So what Abraham is saying here is, the Lord will see to him. 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:49.000 Don't worry, Isaac. 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:51.000 The Lord will see to him. 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:54.000 He doesn't know how. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:00.000 He doesn't exactly know what's going to happen, but somehow, God will make this right. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:10.000 The stereotype activity in a corporate away day is a trust exercise, isn't it? 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:24.000 A horrible, awkward thing where some poor individual has to stand on a chair and fall backwards into their arms of their colleagues who improbably are assumed to be strong enough to hold their weight from the airport from the height of the airport. 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.000 I suspect that there's, in some ways, this has been designed for a Zoom. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:29.000 I'm not sure. 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:33.000 Maybe you just have to carry on talking about the various videos on the op-ed, when you're 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:34.000 a person. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:35.000 I don't know. 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:37.000 But there are trust exercises on there. 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:38.000 And this is exactly one of those. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:40.000 It's a trust exercise. 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:46.000 Abraham has been called on to trust God, even though he can't quite see what's happening. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:56.000 And the writer to the Hebrews elucidates what's going on in Abraham's mind as he says this short phrase the Lord will provide. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:05.000 Hebrews 11, verse 17, by faith that Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:13.000 He who had received the promises was in fact the offering, in the end, offering up his only son. 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:18.000 Of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.000 The writer to the Hebrews acknowledges that theological puzzle, doesn't he? 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:28.000 He's being asked to do something logical, the promises to come through Isaac, but how's that to happen? 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:39.000 Verse 19, he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, for which, intuitively speaking, he did receive him back. 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:45.000 Abraham's a problem, the square needs to be circled, doesn't it, for the promises to be fulfilled. 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:48.000 He's also to carry up the command. 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:51.000 Abraham can't know how that's being done. 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:58.000 He can't know that he's learned from his experience of the God of the covenant over his 100, 140 year life. 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:01.000 He's learned that he can be trusted to keep those promises. 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:09.000 Even if it requires a miracle, even if it needs Isaac to be raised from the dead, he will keep that promise. 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:11.000 He'll keep his word. 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:16.000 So when that question is asked, the answer doesn't mean the Lord will provide. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:21.000 He knows, he sees, he will deal with it. 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:25.000 We can't hear the tone of Abraham's voice as he speaks to it. 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:27.000 It's Isaac and his. 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:31.000 How to lose calm, calm confidence. 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:36.000 Perhaps it's when the tremor is lost, we fear. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:39.000 But we know it's set with conviction. 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:44.000 Without the conviction in this, there's no way that Abraham would have ever left three days earlier, is there? 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:50.000 There's no day where he would have packed the wood and taken the fire to carry out his tubs. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:14:02.000 He doesn't know how, but somehow, God will reconcile that the circumstances he finds himself, that the commands he must obey, and the promise that God has found himself to. 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:23.000 John Calvin, commenting in this verse, helpfully says, applying to our Bible, when all avenues seem closed, when God's promises seem impossible, the only remedy against despondency is to leave the event to God in order that he may open a way for us where there is none. 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:33.000 That's what Abraham does here as well. 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:39.000 That's an invention that enabled him to get up early, and leave his hand and set off the ground on a journey. 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:44.000 God will see to him. Somehow, somehow the rule will provide. 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:53.000 See, in Genesis 22, Abraham's held out to his, isn't he, as a man of faith. He's an example. 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:58.000 This is a, here's one I made earlier. Here is Abraham. 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:02.000 But he has been working on a strong faith, has he? 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:08.000 In earlier passages, his confidence has failed him. His courage has failed him. 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:17.000 In particular, that's true of the very promise to give him a son through whom the one will be blessed. 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:29.000 When he remains a childless in his old age, first he suggests to God that perhaps any aster of Damascus, one of his servants, will be his heir in his place. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:36.000 When that is accepted, later he commits adultery to find an heir by another name. 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:42.000 But where Abraham was faithless through his life, God was faithful wasn't. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:48.000 And by a miracle at ninety, Sarah bore a child of Isaac. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:57.000 And Abraham, of this, will learn the lesson. The Lord can and will do the seemingly impossible if it's necessary to keep his promises. 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:04.000 He can be trusted. He will see. He will know. He will provide. 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:09.000 So, the situation that Abraham faced was emotionally traumatic, wasn't it? 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:12.000 And theologically difficult to make a sense of. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:15.000 The command he was given was hard to obey. 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:22.000 But the way he got through it was to remember God's promise and to remember his death possible. 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:29.000 If we'd learned anything from 2020, it was that Christians aren't immune from hard times, wasn't it? 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:32.000 We're not immune from hard times. 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:39.000 For most of us it was a vested year of frustration and disappointment and anxiety, wasn't it? 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:46.000 For many of us it was also your loneliness or isolation or loss as well. 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:50.000 It was emotionally difficult and frankly I don't think any of us would make sense of it. 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:56.000 We don't know why. I'm not going to pretend to know why. I'm not going to give any explanation. 00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:05.000 But like Abraham we find ourselves as 2020 shifts into 2021 not really understanding the circumstances. 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:12.000 But we're to say with Abraham, whether it's calmly or whether it's with a tremor in our voices, 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:20.000 we're to say with Abraham, the Lord will provide. Somehow he knows, he sees, he sees us in our circumstances, 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:25.000 and his policies are no less sure in spite of those circumstances. 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:34.000 But not only are Christians not immune to challenges, we're actually specifically called to them as well. 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:37.000 We're not just immune to them, we're called to challenge. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:43.000 Jesus teaches us to follow him as to lead a rampant health, cultural life, 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:51.000 which he summarizes as taking up your cross, taking up an instrument of execution, dying to save the day. 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:58.000 We're required and commanded, just as Abraham was, to give up and to sacrifice, 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:05.000 to give up unhelpful relationships, even if we enjoy them, to turn away from the pursuit of financial gain 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:16.000 when it obstructs the pursuit of going to kingdom, to speak up for Jesus, even when it could lead us to a mockery or persecution. 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:21.000 Perhaps you're trying to be January or dry January. 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:25.000 But these things that Jesus calls us to do aren't temporary fixes, aren't they? 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:34.000 They're not bans for their new year. They're not New Year's resolutions, they're a little toy, but they're new life resolutions. 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:39.000 Perhaps there are some of those that you know you're supposed to be making and you're not. 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:45.000 But how can we do these things? How can we be obedient when it's costly? 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:50.000 Like Abraham, we're to say we can trust in his promises. 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:55.000 We can trust in the Lord's promises, the promises of the Lord who calls us to do these hard things. 00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.000 We can trust in the promises even if we can't seek our children one day. 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:02.000 The Lord sees he will provide. 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:09.000 That's all we're all saying, sir. We don't have Abraham's miracles. 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:17.000 We haven't had for a hundred or so years of personal encounter with God, a personal revelation. 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:20.000 We've not seen the miracles he's seen. 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.000 How can we have the same confidence that Abraham has? 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:31.000 As long as he's been held out for us as he hears what I made earlier, that's why we need to don't try it at home. 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:43.000 We need to don't try it at home, and that's what we come to in the following verses. 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:46.000 The following verses of Genesis. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:47.000 Verse 1. 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:57.000 When they came to the place of which God had told them, Abraham brought him into bed, and laid the wood in the river, and bowed Isaac his son, and laid him on the water on top of the wood. 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:02.000 And Abraham reached out his hand, and took the knife and slaughtered his son. 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:06.000 And the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:07.000 He said, here I am. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:10.000 He said, do not lay your hand on the water. 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:11.000 I do nothing for him. 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:12.000 Do you? 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:13.000 And now I know that you cannot. 00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:17.000 So you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:20.000 And Abraham lifted up his eyes. 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:21.000 The second time he lifted up his eyes. 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:24.000 Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked in the hole. 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:27.000 The high-nield was around, a quarter-naked performance. 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:30.000 Abraham went over, took the ram, and opened it up. 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.000 He lifted up to blow the sacrifice instead of his son. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.000 Isaac is bound to the altar. 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:39.000 Abraham raises the knife. 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:41.000 He's about to deliver the blood. 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:44.000 And just in the last moment, God steps in. 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:46.000 God steps in. 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:54.000 Just as Abraham had told Isaac that he would, at the last moment, God has seen Abraham's faith. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:59.000 He's seen his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, and he steps in. 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:00.000 He steps in to provide. 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:10.000 You can imagine that even as the exemplar of faith, Abraham breathed a big-sided leaf when he saw that lamb. 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:11.000 And he looked up. 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:15.000 Just as Abraham told Isaac he would, God has provided a lamb. 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:20.000 God has chosen a lamb for the sacrifice, and another will take Isaac's place. 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:27.000 And that trial was not just a test of Abraham's faith, was it? 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:29.000 It was a test of his faith points. 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:32.000 I'll get back to our call for an away day. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:41.000 It's not just a trial of whether you are confident to fall into the arms of your own bullies, but as I said earlier, whether they could really hold you up when you fall. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:48.000 The writer to the Hebrews, when he remembers this event, holds out the example of Abraham's faith. 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.000 And that's an important part of this passage. 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:56.000 But what is it that Abraham wants us to remember in this moment? 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:58.000 Well, he renames the place, doesn't he? 00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:01.000 He renames the place, and he doesn't call it, I did a really good day. 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:08.000 He doesn't call it, this is where I was good and faithful, or this is where I sacrificed Isaac. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:11.000 He calls it, the Lord will provide. 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:16.000 The amount of the Lord that shall be provided. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:22.000 King James emphasizes the Hebrews there as Jehovah Jireh, and the son in hymns. 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:24.000 Jehovah Jireh, that's the name of this place. 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:27.000 And it's that same multifaceted word again. 00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:33.000 The Lord sees, the Lord chooses, the Lord knows, the Lord will provide. 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:36.000 That's what Abraham's faith points in. 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:45.000 It's not the faith of Abraham himself, it's the faithfulness of God who will see that his promises can be kept. 00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:51.000 And Moses' first readers, when they came to this, would be applying it to themselves, wouldn't they, as they heard that? 00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:55.000 Having just come out of Israel and experienced the first Passover, 00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:01.000 they'd be remembering a day when a lamb was slain for their sons, the sons who they are, wouldn't they? 00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:10.000 A generation of Jews, as they sacrificed Passover lambs, remembering the sacrifice of one for their sons, remember that too. 00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:15.000 We have the whole life of the New Testament scripture. 00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.000 And we think immediately of everyone, we think of every one of those lambs. 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:25.000 Every one of those lambs, we think of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:32.000 See, without the life of the New Testament, Genesis 2, the question is really difficult. 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:34.000 It seems cruel, but bad. 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:40.000 It's perhaps anachronistic, out of character, who God is. 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:49.000 One Jewish website I came across researching this, described the passages, problematic but has signs of hope. 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:52.000 And that was the best they could do there. 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:54.000 This is a problematic passage. 00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:02.000 How would God, who later clearly condemns human sacrifice, how would he ask Abraham to do this? 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:05.000 I think he'd find some other way to test Abraham. 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:08.000 I'm sure there were other things he could do. 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:20.000 But what we see in the light of the New Testament is that this story is not ultimately about what Abraham must do for God, but what God will do for us. 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:26.000 Abraham was called the sacrifice, Isaac was the only son whom he loves. 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:32.000 He says, this is my beloved sight, with whom my mom is. 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:42.000 Just as Isaac carries the word, the instrument of his execution, up a hill in the region of Jerusalem, Jesus carried to us on the prophet. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:51.000 Just as Isaac submitted to being bound on the altar, Jesus was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened up his mouth. 00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:58.000 Like a lamb that is meant to slaughter, and like a sheep that put all its shears as silent, so he opened up his mouth. 00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:02.000 The ram of Jehojah is a symbol, isn't it? 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:07.000 The ram of Jehojah is a symbol of Jesus, a token of him. 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:13.000 And though it's really unlikely that Abraham fully grasped the enormity of what's going on here, 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:20.000 what God is ultimately saying in this ram that he provides is, my son be yours. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:26.000 I will do this terrible thing, I will do this terrible thing, so you don't have to. 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.000 My son be yours. 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:36.000 The gravity of this is online in verse 16 when God reaffirms his promises to Abraham. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:40.000 By myself I have sworn it, says the Lord. 00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:42.000 By myself I have sworn it. 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:48.000 Even if it costs me my own son, I will keep my promise to you and to your offspring. 00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:55.000 So God says to Abraham, my son be yours. 00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:56.000 My son be yours. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.000 But if we understand our place in salvation history, through this picture he also speaks to us, doesn't he? 00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:11.000 Paul teaches the Galatians, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, and according to the promise. 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:17.000 He says elsewhere, it is those of faith who are sons of Abraham. 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:28.000 With the full logic of the New Testament we know that everyone who is a believer in Jesus is a spiritual descendant of Abraham, one of his offspring. 00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:31.000 A child of Isaac. 00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:39.000 So when God says to Abraham in this picture, my son be yours, he says to us, doesn't he, my son be you? 00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:41.000 My son be you. 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:46.000 John 3.16 is the most famous passage of the Bible, isn't it? 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:49.000 It's over-quoted and overused. 00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:54.000 You find it on bumper stickers, there's even a rassler somehow made an end-off room. 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:59.000 So, it's common to us that perhaps it doesn't have any impact on it. 00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:03.000 But that's more or less what's being said in this passage. 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:06.000 For God so loved the world, for he gave his only son. 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:11.000 Whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have a terrible life. 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:13.000 My son be you. 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:16.000 Perhaps it's lost his gravity. 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:26.000 But what Genesis 22 shows us in pictorial form is that these aren't just cold theological words in a group book a long time ago. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:29.000 It's not just a philosophical principle. 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:35.000 The sacrifice of Jesus is real and visceral and felt. 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:47.000 When we read John 3.16, that God being his only son, we're meant to have that same lurch in our stomachs that we have during those baptismal panels. 00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:57.000 Or at the beginning of this passage, when we hear that command of Abraham, it's that same gut-wrenching feel we should have while we read it. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:09.000 And when we sing, as we just did, how deep the Father's love for us, why we all measure that he should give his only son to make it a righteous pleasure. 00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:15.000 See, what we're meant to see here is that God the Father walked the road thinking Abraham did. 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.000 That awkward long walk we just saw. 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:21.000 That painful, horrifying walk. 00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:26.000 And we weren't ransomed because we were silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:29.000 God's own son, the Hela. 00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:32.000 That light out of a man, without a spot or blemish. 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:39.000 So returning to the analogy, that's why we need to don't try to pray with them. 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:42.000 God has made a sacrifice so we don't have to. 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:50.000 A once-for-all sacrifice that we're not meant to repeat or attempt, but to look at and marvel. 00:28:50.000 --> 00:29:01.000 Where Abraham did see the enormity of what God would do to keep his promises, we have it in Paul Teichon, that promise. 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:04.000 That's a little tweet. 00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:20.000 Whichever hill Abraham sacrificed around, wherever his Jehovah Jireh was, our Jehovah Jireh, the place where God provided for us, where he saw us and provided, is God of wisdom. 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:25.000 So how are we to follow Abraham's example? 00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:27.000 When life's hard? 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:32.000 When the circumstances make it difficult to believe God's promises? 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:35.000 Or when God requires costly obedience for us? 00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:36.000 How are we to carry on? 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:37.000 What are we to do? 00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:38.000 Or we to remember the cross? 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:39.000 That's what Abraham did. 00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:51.000 We're to remember the cross as we do, as we walk around at the Lord's table. 00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:56.000 And we're to see at the cross that though it cost him his son, the Lord has provided. 00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:58.000 He will keep his promises. 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:06.000 And if the circumstances, whatever we are called to do, he's swallowed by himself and he is made. 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:07.000 He died. 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:07.000 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:08.440 Amen.