A Sacrificed Son

[00:00:00] Come to your word, read and preached. [00:00:06] We pray, Father, that you would open our hearts and minds to the truth of what's written there. [00:00:16] Your word is open and very clear in what it teaches. [00:00:23] There are deep mysteries and things that we do not understand from it. [00:00:29] But yet, Father, the way of salvation is so perfectly clear that even a small child can embrace the reality that Jesus Christ has died for his sins. [00:00:51] So, Father, let us have that childlike faith, trusting your word, as Abraham did and as Isaac did as well, that it might be said of us that by faith we received the wonderful gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. [00:01:20] In his name we pray. [00:01:22] Amen. [00:01:25] Then turn in your bibles to Hebrews, chapter eleven and verses 17 through 20, where we are told that 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 only son, of whom, it was said, through Isaac, shall your offspring be named. [00:02:02] He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back by faith. Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. [00:02:28] Please be seated. It notice what our text here speaks, speaking of that sacrifice that Abraham made, that Abraham's faith in God was being tested. [00:03:15] God ever tested your faith? [00:03:22] I think about tests, the nightmares that I used to have when I was in seminary and in college and high school. And I'm not sure it was so much in grade school, but I'd have nightmares that somehow I had overslept and not shown up and found myself stumbling into the room. And all the other students are there doing their tests. [00:03:50] And those teachers that gave me tests, they were trying to find out what I had learned, if anything, or what I remembered of what I had learned. [00:04:16] But when God tests, he's not testing to find something out for himself. [00:04:26] The test really is on the student. [00:04:36] And I must say that there were times when tests I took revealed a lot to me about how much effort I had put into something and what I had actually learned. [00:04:52] When our faith is tested, it is strengthened. God knows our faith because he gave it to us. [00:05:01] But when he tests that, it is to strengthen us. [00:05:12] Abraham offered up his son, the one that was promised. [00:05:22] It was a little different than if he had just simply asked him to offer up. [00:05:29] Well, Esau, for instance. [00:05:32] Esau had been sent away. He wasn't around at this time. But Esau was not the son of promise. [00:05:40] This was the son of promise. And God had told him that it was through him. [00:05:45] And I don't see any evidence from scripture that Abraham had ever witnessed the raising of the dead. We see that in the Old Testament. [00:05:56] We see that in the New Testament as well. [00:06:03] But even though he had never seen that, he was convinced that God was able to raise this child from the dead. [00:06:16] And our text tells us here that, speaking figuratively, he did receive him back from the dead. [00:06:30] Let's turn again to that passage in chapter 22. [00:06:43] Notice how Abraham here, when God says to him, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell not. We see nothing in the text about some struggle on Abraham's part. [00:07:03] I'm not saying there wasn't any. I'm just saying that that's not told to us about. What we're told about is his obedience. [00:07:13] That he rose early in the morning and he saddled his donkey and he took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. [00:07:24] And he cut the wood of the burnt offering and arose and went to the place which God had told him. [00:07:31] And he saw that place, and he said to his young men, notice what he says to his young men here in verse five. [00:07:44] You stay here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. [00:07:58] That was an expression of his faith. He knew at that point, his knowledge was such that in his mind, he knew that he was going to sacrifice his son. [00:08:13] But he also knew that his son was going to come back with him. Had to, because God had promised it. [00:08:21] There was no way around. It refers to him as the boy. [00:08:32] Now, I know that the rabbis speculate that he was 30 some years old at this time. [00:08:41] And the reason they do that is they have this. And there are a lot of jewish myths. Beware of jewish myths. We're told that in the New Testament and be aware of that, that there are many jewish myths that are not based in God's word. And one of them is that when Sarah found out, because in their view of it, this 30 some year old man comes back from this experience and complains to Mama about what daddy was going to do to him, and his mother dies soon thereafter. [00:09:22] That's not in the text, is it? [00:09:29] The fact that he refers to him as the boy? [00:09:32] I really believe that he was a young man. [00:09:37] He wasn't some little kid. [00:09:40] Because notice what occurs here. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac. [00:09:51] Some of you here have sons. [00:09:53] How old would your son be before he was big enough to carry the wood that would be necessary for a burnt offering. A burnt offering is a whole burnt offering. A holocaust. [00:10:08] That's the hebrew word for it. That's what we get, the word for the Holocaust, whole burnt offering. You'd have to have quite a bit of wood to do that. It wasn't just a small amount, but notice the parallel here with Christ. [00:10:32] Isaac carries the wood for his own sacrifice. He doesn't realize it at the time, though, but he carries the wood for his own sacrifice to the place of sacrifice. [00:10:43] Jesus carries the wood that he is to be sacrificed on knowingly and willingly. [00:10:58] And someone who had a lot of knowledge about the history of crucifixion and how it was carried out by the Romans pointed out that normally what was done to the prisoner who was going to be crucified was that they would tie the cross to them, to force them to carry it to the place of execution. [00:11:22] And that those roman soldiers who were there would have been shocked when Jesus walked over and picked up that piece of wood deliberately. [00:11:39] The same one who had said to his own disciples, if you're going to follow me, you need to take up your cross. [00:11:59] They go on towards the mountain. And Isaac says to his father, you have the fire there. I'm carrying the wood here. [00:12:11] Where's the lamb for the offering? [00:12:14] Natural question. I'm sure this wasn't the first time that Isaac and Abraham had offered sacrifice to God before. And there was always a lamb involved. [00:12:39] And Abraham's reply is, God will provide for lamb for a burnt offering. [00:12:51] So both of them went on together. When they came to the place, they build the altar, put the wood on it, and Abraham binds his son. [00:13:07] Now, Abraham's getting quite a few years up in age at this point, older than I am. [00:13:18] I don't think there's a teenage boy alive today that I could bind against his will. [00:13:30] From what's here in the text, I cannot help but believe that Isaac was willing, that Isaac shared that faith that Abraham had. And he trusted God, but he also trusted his father. [00:14:05] And of course, we know how the story ends here with Jesus. [00:14:19] Jesus was trusting God. [00:14:24] Jesus was trusting his heavenly father. [00:14:31] Jesus willingly became that sacrifice, the angel of the Lord, which I believe often in the Old Testament. It's sort of inescapable that this is a pre incarnate appearance of Jesus, the one who would be Jesus, the eternal son of God. [00:15:02] And he says to Abraham, because you have done this and not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you because you've obeyed my voice. [00:15:21] God, the father, blesses this same one, his eternal son, because he was willing, willing to die for you and for me. [00:15:49] And Jesus was raised from the dead because it could not be otherwise, because he indeed is the son of promise and he is to live forever. [00:16:12] And so he could not remain. His body, even could not remain in that grave beyond that third day. [00:16:33] Isaac, he becomes the father of two sons, and he really plays favoritism to the elder, the one that was born first. [00:16:51] I have as yet to run into a set of twins that do not know who was born first. [00:16:57] My daughters have criticized me of going up to little toddlers who are twins. And sometimes it's really obvious they're identical. [00:17:06] And I always ask them, which one of you was born first? [00:17:12] And one will point to themselves and the other will point to them, very much aware of that. [00:17:19] And in that culture, being the first born son who was an outdoorsman and didn't admire so much, the son who hung around in the tent. [00:17:59] Isaac had been told of what the Lord had said to Rebecca concerning the two sons. [00:18:09] And when he becomes quite old and thinks that he's on death's door, he's not. If you look at the account, he lives quite a few years after this, but he's. He's blind, can't see well. [00:18:27] The two boys look very different. [00:18:31] I've seen twins that were so identical, I couldn't tell them apart. These two guys were very different. [00:18:42] And Rebecca hears Isaac speaking to his son Esau, planning to bless him, and Rebecca goes to Jacob and says, this is what we're going to do. [00:18:56] And the two of them connive together to deceive Isaac. [00:19:04] He's dead set on doing something he shouldn't ever been guilty of that even as believers, even as christians, tempted to do something that I counsel. The young woman who was dead set on marrying a young man that she knew was not a believer. She herself is a believer. [00:19:36] And she was so headstrong, she married him, had three children with him. [00:19:44] They are no longer living together. [00:19:49] She's been raising those three children more or less on her own. Now, there are consequences to being stubborn, but God has a purpose here, and he is not going to let Isaac's stubbornness and disobedience get in the way of his purpose. [00:20:15] Well, we read about how the deception occurs, and you notice that Isaac is not willing to change the blessing because he realized at that point that that's what God wanted. [00:20:36] But we see his faith expressed here so clearly in chapter 28 when he sends his son away to find a wife from among the family. [00:20:55] To not marry a Canaanite like Ishmael does, marries the people. He marries an Ishmaelite, actually, but he does not want that for his son. [00:21:14] God almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham. [00:21:39] And Isaac sends Jacob away. [00:21:45] And there are consequences to that because Jacob never sees his mother in this life again. [00:22:03] I qualified that in this life because I believe the two of them are together now in the presence of Jesus Christ. [00:22:11] But there were consequences to that kind of insistence on doing it my way and not God's way. [00:22:22] But when it comes down to the final matter, there he is doing it God's way by faith. He is giving the blessing to Jacob that God wanted for Jacob. [00:22:39] Jesus has blessings for you. [00:22:49] I remember telling the congregation that I served for a number of years and there were quite a few elderly people in that congregation. And I would remind them, some of them, they felt kind of worthless. And why am I still here? I have a foster mom back in Kansas. She'll be 99 years old in August. [00:23:09] And sometimes she asks me, why am I still here? [00:23:15] And I remind her of what I always told the congregation. If you wake up tomorrow morning, God has some purpose for you. [00:23:26] I'm not saying what it is. [00:23:31] When God comes to the end of his purposes for me, I won't be here anymore to preach for you folks. [00:23:43] That's in his hands, trusting in him, because how could we but trust the one who was willing to give his only begotten son that we might not perish? [00:24:02] It's not we don't die. We're all going to die physically unless the Lord returns before that's, let's look to God in prayer. [00:24:37] Father, we thank you for the examples that we have in the Old Testament of saints who would, like faith, trusted in you, trusted in your promises. [00:24:54] And they, without seeing the ministry and the work of Jesus Christ, we are privileged to see these things in the New Testament, the things that Jesus did, the miracles he performed and the things that he taught, and that all these things are for our sake, that we might learn from them. Help us, Father, to follow the example of Father Abraham and also to follow Isaac. When we find ourselves in situations where we have done wrong, to repent and to proceed to seek your will. [00:25:49] We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. [00:25:56] Please turn once again in your hymn books to 118 B, number 572, the Gloria. Patrick will sing this and receive God's blessing. [00:30:54] The Lord bless you and keep you. [00:30:58] The Lord cause his face to shine upon you and give you his peace. [00:31:04] Amen.