Sermon Tone Analysis

LIFE LESSONS FROM ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

(SERMON #85 ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS)

by Dr. R. L. Hymers, Jr.

A sermon preached at the Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles

Lord's Day Evening, November 29, 2015

“Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (, ).

Christ told His Disciples that Moses and all the prophets spoke of Him.

The Old Testament gives many pictures of Christ.

They are word pictures of Jesus, and of God.

The greatest preaching in all history occurred in the time of the Book of Acts – before the New Testament was written.

What did they preach?

They preached of God and Christ from the Old Testament!

Some of the greatest sermons I have ever heard were from the Old Testament.

My long-time pastor Dr. Timothy Lin was a great Old Testament scholar.

After fifty years, I can still remember his sermon on , his sermon on , , , on , and on .

One of the greatest sermons I have ever heard was Dr. R. G. Lee’s “Payday Someday” – on the judgment of Ahab and Jezebel – which was preached from the Old Testament book of I Kings.

And I will never forget personally hearing Dr. M. R. DeHaan preach a series of sermons from to 39.

I also heard a recording of portions of Dr. W. A. Criswell’s five-hour sermon, “The Scarlet Thread Through the Bible,” preached on New Year’s Eve, 1961, at the great First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.

When you have five hours some time, you can hear a recording of it at www.wacriswell.org.

More than half of that powerful sermon is an exposition of the entire Old Testament!

I also heard Dr. J. Vernon McGee almost every day for about ten years, as he taught the entire Old Testament on the radio.

From these great men of God I learned to trust and to love the Old Testament.

And I learned that Jesus Christ is foretold on nearly every page of the Old Testament.

Sometimes He is foretold in specific words, such as, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” ().

At other times He is spoken of by pictures or types.

As we saw this morning, a type is a person, place or thing in the Old Testament that pictures a person, place or thing in the New Testament.

The 22nd chapter of Genesis is very rich in types of God the Father, and Christ the Son.

I want you to turn there in your Bible.

Please keep your Bible open there throughout this sermon.

is one of the greatest Christological passages in the Old Testament.

In and , we read the prophecy of Christ’s suffering for our sin.

But in we learn clearly that Jesus Christ is the substitutionary sacrifice.

And we are also given a picture of God the Father and man in sin.

I have read this great chapter over and over, and I think we can safely say that it

pictures Abraham as a type of the true Christian,

pictures Abraham as a type of God the Father.

That it

pictures his son, Isaac as a type of Christ,

and it pictures Isaac as a type of a lost sinner, as well.

Here then are those pictures or types.

I. First, the passage pictures the testing of Christians.

Look at , ,

“And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of” (, ).

The word translated “tempt” is too strong.

It is translated as “tested” in the NASV.

Dr. Ryrie said, “God does not tempt anyone with evil (), but...He does test, try, or prove us, as in the case of Abraham” (Ryrie Study Bible; note on ).

I remember when I was strongly rebuked many years ago for giving exactly the translation of the NASV, and exactly the explanation of Dr. Ryrie.

But I was right then, and I am right tonight, over fifty years later.

tells us that God does not tempt us to sin.

But does show us that God tests us in our Christian life.

Abraham, here, is a type of the Christian who is tested, as we all are tested.

The Scofield note correctly says, “The spiritual experience of Abraham was marked by four great crises, each of which involved a surrender of something naturally most dear.”

These were,

1. Abraham had to give up his country and his relatives ().

I am convinced that Abraham would never have been saved if he had not obeyed God on this point.

A great many people (especially the young) never experience salvation because they will not give up worldly friends.

They hang onto them – and thus they are never saved.

2. Abraham had to give up his nephew Lot, who was very close to him, and a possible heir, .

3. Abraham had to give up his plan for his other son, Ishmael, , .

4. Abraham had to give up the son that he loved in the depths of his heart, , .

“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of” ().

Give up Isaac!

Give up Isaac!

Give up Isaac!

Why, Abraham had waited all his life for this boy!

And God now says to offer him up as a burned offering!

That is the test!

God asks you, “What will you give up for me?”

I wanted to be a foreign missionary.

And then God took that away.

I built a church of over 1,000 in attendance, and then God took that away.

Though the way seems straight and narrow,

All I claimed was swept away;

My ambitions, plans and wishes,

At my feet in ashes lay.

(“I Will Praise Him” by Mrs. Margaret J. Harris, 1865-1919).

Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?

Your heart does the Spirit control?

You can only be blest and have peace and sweet rest,

As you yield Him your body and soul.

(“Is Your All on the Altar?” by Elisha A. Hoffman, 1839-1929).

All of the truly great Christians in history had to give up their plans and hopes.

All of them had to go through sacrifices to please God.

John Chrysostom was exiled by the empress Eudoxia.

Martin Luther was excommunicated by the Catholic Church.

Richard Baxter was locked in the Tower of London.

John Bunyan was sent to prison for twelve years.

John Wesley was driven from the Anglican Church.

George Whitefield was banished from every church in London.

Jonathan Edwards was fired by his own church.

Spurgeon was censured by the Baptist Union.

J. Gresham Machen was defrocked by the Presbyterian Church.

John R. Rice was shut out by the Southern Baptists.

Jim Elliot was murdered by the Auca Indians.

Richard Wurmbrand was put in prison for 14 years.

The Apostle Paul was beaten and stoned, imprisoned,

and had his head chopped off.

Every one of the Apostles but John was executed.

They died horrible deaths rather than deny Christ.