If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Genesis Chapter 22 as we will look at the life of Abraham. If you remember last week in our sermon on the “Timeline of Grace” from Romans 5, we talked about how in the 4 previous chapters of Romans, Paul had laid out his case for justification by faith alone before he spoke about the grace that covers our past, present, and future. Abraham was a key figure in Paul’s argument for justification specifically in Chapter 4. One of the reasons Paul used the life of Abraham was because his life was marked by many tests of his faith. Some of those tests he passed, such as the time when God first called Abraham and told him to leave his homeland. Another was when there was conflict between Abraham & Lot’s herdsmen and Abraham humbled himself and told Lot to take whatever land he wanted and he would take what was left. However, there were also times where Abraham failed these tests as well, like when famine came upon the land and his family was forced to go to Egypt to survive. Abraham was worried that the Egyptians might kill him to get to his wife so he called his wife his sister just to protect himself. Or when God had promised Abraham a child. Instead of waiting on God’s timing, Abraham and his wife went about it the wrong way and Abraham had a child with his wife’s servant. That’s a failure that we are still paying for today. This morning I want us to look at Abraham’s greatest test of faith and a brief question that was asked by his son that wasn’t ultimately answered for around 2,000 years.
The Question asked - Genesis 22:1-7
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
This test of faith sounded a lot like Abraham’s first test when God called him to go to a land that He would show him. However, this time God wasn’t calling him to just leave his homeland, the stakes were not just leaving familiarity and comfort, it was much more critical. God had called him to sacrifice his son on a mountain that He would show him. No details, no in-depth explanation of what God was going to do through Abraham's obedience, just a very tough command — take your son, that you love, and go. Now as we have said before, delayed obedience is disobedience. Abraham was obedient because we see in the very next verse that Abraham trusted God and followed through immediately in obedience the next morning. For three days he, his son, and two servants walked in the direction God had told him to with no more new information about what God was going to do, but despite this Abraham kept walking in obedience. This is a wonderful example to us because life is not like the movies, especially some Christian movies. It’s usually not in the moment of first obedience and faith during the storms in our lives that God reveals His total plan to us. It's usually not in those moments He immediately provides for our needs, or grants us total and immediate healing. Rather in real life, we see God move as we continue in constant obedience, as we patiently wait on God’s perfect timing, and God’s perfect plan. Abraham had seen this first hand in one of his greatest failures in life by fathering Ishmael and not waiting 14 years in anticipation of how God was going to fulfill His promise to Abraham by giving him Isaac. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. When they were able to see the mountain where God wanted them to make a sacrifice on, Abraham responded with amazing faith in his statement to his servants. “You both stay here and my son and I will go and worship and WE will return.” This was a very powerful statement of his faith and of His trust in God, but we will talk about it in more detail in a few moments. Before we get there, let’s consider Isaac, a young boy who was just following and trusting his father. Now the Mosaic law had not been presented yet, so the sacrificial system that was laid out in the Levitical law was not yet known in its entirety. However, the act of worshiping through sacrifice was known and had been since the beginning of creation. We see sacrifice as an act of worship in the lives of Adam & Eve’s children, we see Noah making an offering of sacrifice once the waters had receded after the flood, and we see Abraham’s multiple sacrifices that are recorded in the Book of Genesis before Chapter 22. Isaac would have been very familiar with worship through the offering of sacrifice, so when he and his father set off to the mountain he would have known something was a little off. On his back he was carrying the wood that was needed for the sacrifice, his father was carrying the fire and the dagger needed, but there was something missing. That’s when Isaac asked the very simple but very profound question, “Where is the lamb?”. The Hebrew word for sacrifice literally means “to draw close” and in order to draw close to God blood had to be shed. This is seen throughout the Old Testament sacrificial system, but even before the system was set up, this fact was still known to Isaac. He was asking — if we are to draw near to God and worship on this mountain, where is our sacrifice? This same question echoes all down through history. It was no doubt asked during the Passover in Egypt when the blood of the lamb spread on the doorframe would cause the first born to be spared. It was no doubt asked throughout the centuries in the tabernacle and temple as they celebrated, worshiped, and sacrificed each and every day to the living God as they were commanded to. They were always asking “Where is the lamb?” — the thing that once sacrificed would cover their sins and make them right with God, allowing them to draw close to Him. Isaac got an answer to his question right away, but the answer was much deeper than he knew.
The Prophetic Answer - Genesis 22:8
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
Abraham’s answer to Isaac’s question as well as Abraham’s response to his servants we mentioned earlier in which he said both would return from their trip to the mountain, were not only practical answers but they were answers packed with faith. You see there was a time when Abraham was not known as Abraham. God changed his name from Abram to Abraham and He also changed Abraham’s wife’s name as well. At that same time God gave him a promise that is recorded in Genesis 17. Abraham was going to have many descendants and it was going to be through Isaac and not Ishmael that God was going to fulfill His promise to Abraham. Abraham didn’t know how He was going to do it, but he knew the One who was going to do it and his faith was secure in God alone no matter what God had planned. He knew that even if it took God bringing Isaac back from the dead, nothing would keep God from fulfilling His promise to him. Therefore, he answers with the statement “God will provide”, and Isaac’s question is satisfied and they move on. However, if you remember I said that Isaac’s question was one which echoed throughout history as well and Abraham’s answer did the same. The sacrificial system that was set up in the Mosaic Law was not supposed to last forever, because it was not a perfect system, but it pointed toward the perfect sacrifice that was coming. As you look throughout the Old Testament, especially in the writings of the Prophets, you see hints to how God was going to ultimately answer the question that Isaac asked that day. However, it wasn’t until the Gospels that we see the ultimate answer given to this question — what we can still use as an answer today.
The God who Provides - Genesis 22:9-14
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided."
God’s timing is always perfect. We need to remind ourselves of that often for we might have to wait but God always comes through with His perfect plan. For Isaac it was literally at the last moment, but it was still the perfect moment. God stopped Abraham as he was preparing to follow through in total obedience to God and instead provided a ram for sacrifice that had gotten itself stuck in the thicket. The timing was perfect for the ram to be there and stuck. God provided exactly in His timing. They took the ram and sacrificed it and worshiped God and called God by a new name because of how God had met them there. They called Him, Jehovah Jireh, or the God who provides. God was right on time in His timing with His answer and He was right on time to the answer to the grander question as well. In Romans 5:6 (the very next verse after the text from last week's sermon), We are told, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” In Galatians 4:4 we are told “At the fullness of time, God sent His son…” Jesus is the ultimate answer to the question of “Where is the Lamb?” and this is why John the Baptist said in John 1:29 when He saw Jesus, “Look! It’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”. This was God’s answer to the question, where is the lamb? Behold the Lamb. It is Jesus who has come to take away the sins of the world once and for all. He fulfills the sacrificial system with the shedding of His blood for our sins so that we can draw near to God because of His shed blood that was shed on our behalf. The question is answered in the Lord’s Supper because it’s during the Lord’s Supper that we remember what Jesus has done for us — His body that was broken, and His blood that was shed for our sins. He is the perfect lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice that willingly laid down His life so that we might live in Him. This morning we will worship and remember what Jesus did for us on the cross.
