God Will Provide The Lamb

Scripture Reading: Genesis 22: 1-15

Good Morning Church of God and what a glorious morning it is to be God’s people. Amen? A loud Amen! We are blessed to be living in the time of great uncertainty. Now, you’ll want to correct me. “Pastor! How, in these troubling days that seem like the end of the world can you say we’re blessed to be living? How is it a blessing when everybody seems to have lost their marbles?” We are blessed to live in this time, because God has called us to be his obedient people, the example to the world of how His faithful act and live in a miserable, godless age. As Solomon rightly stated in Ecclesiastes, it’s all been done before. Abraham lived in the Godless heathen times at the beginning of the people of Israel. He lived in the cloud of ashes that was Sodom and Gomorrah. He lived in the age when every king went to war to claim riches for himself. Just like now, as a matter of fact. YET, Abraham was obedient before God. He lived a life that honored God’s covenant with the people.

The Story So Far: Abram to Abraham

God called father Abraham to be the founder of the nation of Israel, His

beloved chosen people. He had to repeatedly tell Abraham and Sarah that Isaac would be the child from whom all the people sprung, because sometimes they only saw as far as satan told them to and looked at Ishmael as the blessed child. Now, finally, in Abraham’s heart and mind it is established that the Covenant offspring of the Lord our God is Isaac. Abraham grew to love the boy. There he is, Abraham the honorary grandfather of the people of the tents, with his own little boy toddling along after him. Now the boy Isaac is old enough to help tend the sheep and carry things for his mother and father. He is the apple of his father’s eye, a delight to his parents. When we have children, they are our delight. We may have trouble admitting we’re old enough to be parents to another human being and keep them fed and clothed, but we love them. We parents find out we not only are able to keep them growing and thriving physically, but they become like us. The children take on our best and worst traits. They are a reflection of us. I remember a day out with Asher when they were about 3 and half. First we went to walmart and I picked up a case of cokes and pointed to it. “What’s that say?” I asked. The child looked at me and said. “I don’t know daddy, but if you read the words on the side of the box, it tells you.” I said, Lord that’s my child. Later that same day, we were in the car and I had nice, clean all American country music playing. All of the sudden from the back seat I hear this baritone singing “Baby, pull the shades and lock them doors...” I can laugh, but the point is that the kids God gives us reflect our every trait. They are a light in our world and we grow to love them in a way that is protective and nurturing. This was no more true than with Isaac. Abraham knew that God was keeping His promises to Him and the nation to come in this young Isaac.

How Old Was Isaac?

Before I get deep into this Scripture, I want to talk over one thing that

perplexes everybody who reads this passage. How old was this child of Abraham and Sarah’s that he just went off with his dad and willing let himself be bound to God’s altar? The tradition of the Jewish Rabbi’s holds that Isaac was 37 years of age. Other Bible scholars who spend their lives trying to answer these questions and are a lot more knowledgeable than me put Isaac’s age in his twenties. Part of the 37 comes from the fact that mother Sarah had the boy at 90 and died at 127 and tradition holds that she died shortly after her menfolk returned from Mt. Moriah. Because young Isaac could walk three days with Abraham and carry a load of wood, Isaac is thought to be somewhere between the ages of 12 and 37. The age of Isaac is not so important as the example of his trust in his earthly father and his Heavenly Father. His response was one of faith. Of course Isaac was scared. He dutifully went to the altar and was bound, but he was a human. He knew at some point that he was the sacrifice to God. He had to be terrified when Abraham held the butchering knife above him and didn’t hesitate in bringing it’s blade to the sacrifice. Abraham was scared, too, but both trusted that God would provide. Whether Isaac was a little boy or a middle aged man is not the point. The point is that he was obedient to Abraham’s teaching and to God’s will and didn’t hesitate to do as he was called to do.

THE TEST

In the very first verse of chapter 22, God tests Abraham’s faith. “Take

your only son, the son you love, to the land of Moriah and offer him to Me (that is God) as a burnt sacrifice.” Now…when you and I read that, it sounds cruel. People will use this passage as a club to beat Christians over the head with. SEE! Those evil Christians worship a God who demands child sacrifice! Fortunately, it is not so. I wrestled with this passage of Scripture for years until I chose to look at it through the eyes of God who loves and cares for his people and through the eyes of Abraham who faithfully went to the mountain with his only son and prepared to sacrifice him to God.

God Will Test the Faith of Every True Believer

There is not a true child of God that doesn’t face the decision to obey

God, or go on about their way as not truly believing that He is Lord. Adam was tested. God said you can have anything, but the fruit of that one tree. Abraham was tested and his great-grandson Joseph was tested, thrown in a well, enslaved, thrown in prison. Moses was tested and showed out before His God. David was tested and fled Saul while the spears were flying at his head. Job was tested beyond the limits of what we can imagine, with grief so profound any human would give up and die. Daniel, Shadrach, Mesh-ac and Abendigo were tested sorely yet triumphed over evil. Jesus was tested in the wilderness and found to be without blemish and again tested on his road to Calvary and again found perfect in His faith, Peter-the rock of the church was tested three times as his Lord predicted on the night of his capture and failed. Stephen was tested with rock and loved his accusers. Paul was shipwrecked, snake-bit, beat nearly to death, left to rot in jail, cold, hungry, mocked. Abraham and his son Isaac were not alone in their testing by God. The thing about testing is what you do with it.

Let it be known that these were not child sacrificers. God abhors child sacrifice. That is the work of pagans and idol worshippers. We see those who despise God throwing their babies to molech

Leviticus 18:21: You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.

Scripture tells us from Leviticus to Ezekiel that God’s people do

not sacrifice their children to him or to any other gods. This is detestable to Him. So why does he test Abraham in this way. First, this is not a means to see how good Abraham can prepare a sacrifice, it’s a test of Abraham’s abiding faith in God. Our Lord knows that the one thing that means everything to Abraham is his only son Isaac. He knows the grief and pain that Abraham will have to endure to prepare for this test. God knows that Abraham wants nothing more out of life than to serve Him and to love and care for his one offspring. This is a tremendously difficult test for Abraham. He passes the faith portion of the test better than any man or woman ever could. He gets up early in the morning and takes his most trusted servants. We know he’s grieving, because Abraham does abnormal things. As careful readers of the Bible point out, Abraham does everything out of order that morning. He first saddles the animals, then retrieves his men, gathers the wood and finally get himself and Isaac going. We know he has great faith in God, because in verse 5, Abraham tells his men that they will see them again, not “I” will return to you alone. Abraham, of all of God’s believers is a mighty example of hope in the face of testing. He and Isaac go off and Abraham says nothing. Young Isaac breaks the silence.

English Standard Version Chapter 22

Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

Whether Isaac was a child or a very adult man, he knew that this was not the way a sacrifice normally went. When you go camping with kids or grandkids and you don’t bring anything for the cookout, they’re going to ask where the hot dogs are. The people of the Old Testament, including the children were highly intelligent and Isaac was of an age to know that he was to be the burnt offering. The Bible does not record him whimpering or protesting, but of course the young man was scared. The Bible also doesn’t record Abraham having to put Isaac in restraints. Young Isaac, with the faith of a child took his father’s word and His heavenly father’s word and laid down on the altar with the wood and watched his elderly father get ready to plunge a knife into him. You know, not to make light of this, but I once had some so-so anesthesia in a third world hospital and I think I passed out when I saw the saws and drills coming at me. Isaac is a picture of trust. God will provide the lamb for the sacrifice.

The Faith of Children

In Matthew 18:1–4 Jesus tells his disciples that those who

have the faith of little children are the greatest people in God’s Kingdom. “At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Isaac was Jesus model of faith. He may very well have been

37, but he had the faith of a child. God said it, his earthly father confirmed it, so it must be true. Nobody wants to imagine Abraham’s test from God in our modern world, because it’s bloody and brutal, but we don’t have that kind of childlike faith in God anyway. None of us, child or adult in our age of information would get on that altar, because we’ve replaced the faith of children with the faith of skepticism. We’ve replaced trust in God with trust in our own scientific achievement. By golly, if we can land a capsule the size of a Chevy on the mood sideways, we don’t need to need to have faith in God. That’s why we don’t pass the tests of life that God brings us into, because we’ve replaced the faith of children like Isaac and fathers like Abraham with faith in our own creativity.

The Test is Real and Abraham Passes

In verse 10 of Genesis 22, Abraham readies the knife and is about to slaughter his only son to offer up to the Lord God when the angel, the servant of God stops him. Notice something in this passage. When God calls on Abraham the first time, the old man says “Here I am.” When the angel of the Lord calls on him, Abraham again answers “Here I am.” He waits on God’s instruction. This man loves and trusts the Lord his God so much that he always answers him the first time with “Here I am.” Unless you’re in the military, you generally don’t answer that quickly. Even when we feel the tug of God’s call on our hearts we give a half-hearted “yes, Lord, what is it?” Abraham always gives God his first fruits of love and loyalty. He immediately allows Isaac off the altar and finds the ram God has provided caught in the scrubby bushes. Abraham’s first thought is always on what God wants and that is always followed by his offering to the Lord.

In Hebrews 11:17, the author touches on Abraham’s test from God and his faithful response. He knew that whatever God’s plan was, it would be good and would bear the fruit of righteousness. He’d taught this to his son. Father and child were completely faithful to God’s commands and God was faithful to them.

The Lamb and Easter

We know that God did indeed provide the lamb on that

dark Friday at Calvary’s cross. The Lord our God sacrificed His only son, the unblemished lamb of God, for the sins of mankind. Abraham reflected his Father God’s nature in that he gave up his only son to the Heavenly Father in order to cover the cost of sin. That is what God demands. In Christ, we find one sacrifice for all of mankind. Like Isaac, Jesus faithfully withstood being the sacrificial lamb. Unlike Isaac, God didn’t spare him. Both, however, as Hebrews so rightly says in chapter 11 were raised-Isaac from the altar Abraham had made on which he was as good as dead, and Jesus the Christ from the tomb. For each father, Abraham and the Lord God, the sacrifice was heartbreaking, it was grieving, but it was the only way price high enough to pay for man’s sin and faithlessness. Abraham may have passed the test, but Jesus Christ was God’s ultimate test of faithfulness to humanity, His love and His righteousness.

You Will Be Tested

The fact is that you as believers in the eternal, loving and

just God will be tested. The Christ-following, God-fearing, faithful Christian will be tested by God. Physical pain, death of loved ones, grief, lost relationships, broken hearts, children who go a different path in life than us, money woes, aches, pains, blindness, hearing loss…the list goes on and on, but the point remains the same. When we repent of the evil that’s been in our hearts and when we get in that baptizing water, God will test our faith and it is our daily faith challenge to be found as true believers.

The fact is that when God tests you, this is not punishment.

That’s the world’s thinking. Every time something happens, folks will say “Oh, that’s God punishing us!” Everything from floods to hang nails seems to be a punishment to folks who don’t know or don’t trust our Lord. I would go through the hospital or the hospice house and that’s the first thing people tell me. “Well, I got this cancer, so God must be punishing me.” I remind folks that God loves them. He loved them enough to have sacrificed His only Son Jesus Christ on the cross. He gave up His son to death for people who can’t bring themselves to acknowledge Him because He loves us. People who drive that punishment wagon that they blame on God tend to not have walked with God for some time, or never. It’s like saying. I never met this person, but he wrecked my life. God isn’t in heaven zapping believers and unbelievers for fun. Punishment is reserved for God’s day of judgement. He tests us during our lives because that’s His way of calling on our hearts. If we’re like Abraham, saying “Here I am” in the midst of pain and anguish, then we are counted faithful to Him who created us.

One of the most telling things about people is when they

are severely tested by God and they say that it brought them back to their knees. That is exactly why God tests us. He is bringing us back to reverent, right relationships with Himself. Abraham was worthy because he stayed by the Lord’s side the entire journey and always sacrificed and prayed before God as soon as he’d come through a trial or test. Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 18 tried to test the master and were found less than faithful. “Okay teacher, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” “Ha ha! now he’ll tell us it’s us!” Jesus points out that it’s the faithful man or woman who humbles themselves to the point of having childlike faith in God. It’s the people who say “I believe in God because He is God, because His Word tells me to believe in Him.”

How Do You Face Your Tests?

James in his letter begins with a powerful lesson on God’s testing and our faith journey:

James 1:2–18 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has st…”

(Read 2-8 and pick up again at 12)

Abraham did all of those things and taught his son to. He

counted it as joy when he faced God’s calling and said “Here I am, Lord!” As we’ve said when God made His covenant with Abraham, that the old man grew in faith and that his belief in God grew stronger year by year. He was not a doubter tossed around by the storms of life, but one who believed in God’s goodness and mercy so much that he put his own son on the altar when commanded to. God was faithful to him, as well, for no test passed is without it’s being completed with God. He was told in Genesis 22:15 “And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba.”

A father’s love for his children never wavers and God’s love

for you, his child will never waver and never diminish. Yes, there will be tests of your faith and yes-like Abraham-you are to remain faithful and steadfast. God has provided the lamb of salvation in Jesus Christ and in these coming days of Easter, you will see the blessing and gift of grace and eternal life through the sacrifice of God’s son Jesus. That is better, greater and more precious than anything we endure on this earth and makes all the testing and trials of belief in the one true God all the more worthwhile.

Let us Pray: