Good evening. Running a few minutes
behind.
Apologize for that.
Yes, it does. Time and chance happens to
them all,
I believe, is what Solomon wrote.
Take your Bibles, if you will,
and open them to the book of Genesis.
We’ve been going through some of the
occasions of worship that
are found in the Old Testament.
We’re going to continue that this evening.
But let’s begin with a word of prayer as
we get into our study.
A gracious Father in heaven, we bow before
your throne,
grateful for the day you’ve given to us,
grateful for the cooler weather and for
the opportunity that we have
to enjoy the day. Lord, we pray that you
be with those who are reliant upon
the weather for their income and pray that
they have the blessings that they need.
In their daily lives. And Lord,
we pray that you be with this world,
with its leaders. May they make choices
and decisions that promote peace
and the ability for the gospel to be
spread throughout the world.
Lord, we pray that we might boldly speak
the truth no matter whether
we find ourselves in a place of peace and
comfort or whether we find ourselves
in a time of persecution and hardship.
And Lord, we pray that we might always be
bold to proclaim your word and your truth.
Lord, we seek that you give comfort to
those who are struggling because of
illness,
those who are caretakers for those who are
struggling,
those who have loved ones that are having
difficulties and illnesses.
And Lord, we pray that you give them the
diffic ~ pray that you give them
the strength through those difficult
times.
We pray that you forgive us when we sin
and fall short of your glory.
And all this we ask in Jesus’ name,
amen.
Take your Bibles if you will and open them
to Genesis twenty two.
In the life of Abram,
also known as Abraham, one of
the signal promises of God
to Abram was that God would bless him with
a son and a seed and descendants,
and from those descendants would come many
nations,
and through that seed.
All nations of the earth would be blessed.
And so God made a series of promises
to Abram that he expected Abram to trust
in,
to live by, to have enough confidence in
those promises to be able
to go from place to place to place,
following God’s instructions,
God’s direction, and choosing.
To do that instead of remaining in the
comfort,
the familiarity of Abram’s own homeland.
Well, then Isaac is born.
And having received the
son that was promised him,
God is now going to test Abraham.
As to whether or not Abraham will choose
the son over the Lord.
And this is something that again comes
back to worship.
When we have a choice,
do we choose this world or
do we choose eternity? And God is going
to test Abram in,
or Abraham by this point, not in just the
will you have
a son or not, but
Utilizing the central function in
Abraham’s life
of worship. He’s going to use the worship
that Abraham offers
as the test of Abraham’s faith.
So Genesis 22. Now it came to pass after
these things that
God tested Abraham and said to him,
Abraham, and he said, Here I am.
Then he said, Take now 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 of which I shall tell
you.
Now Notice in the text in Genesis
twenty-two that
the instruction comes from who?
From the Lord. The same Lord that had been
telling
him concerning the covenant, the same Lord
that had been confirming
the things that he was doing, the same
Lord that brought destruction
on Sodom and Gomorrah, the same Lord that
had promised him that
in the generations to come, when the
iniquity of the Amorites was full,
his descendants through Isaac,
note it.
through Isaac, not through Ishmael,
not through another son. God had made it
clear that it would
be this son that these promises would be
fulfilled through.
So there’s no equivocating, and there’s no
point in Abraham’s mind,
and no point in the text where someone can
say,
well, maybe Abraham’s supposed to
understand that Isaac isn’t the
one through whom these blessings are going
to flow.
Nope. God was clear on it.
So you already have a premise in this
environment where God
has been incredibly clear about the fact
that these promises would come through
Isaac.
And now God is telling Abraham,
you take that son that you have,
and you go take him to Mount Moriah,
and there in the mountains of Moriah you
offer worship.
And you offer your son as a burnt
sacrifice to me.
Now, just for a mental exercise for a
moment,
what are some of the arguments that
we would have if we were given that
instruction?
My only son, through Sarah.
Can I can I substitute? ~ Lord?
~ Can I ~ can
~ how many lambs would you like?
I’ve got a I’ve got an abundance.
You can have every one of them.
Can I substitute? Is there a replacement?
Okay, what else?
What what about your law about murdering
innocent people?
you you said that this this was wrong.
As a matter of fact, is it not one of the
things that God is going
to condemn the land of the Amorites for
and the Canaanites of the Perizzites,
the Jebusites, and the Hivites?
All because they were not only worshiping
idols,
but they were sacrificing their children
as offerings to these idols?
So what about, Lord? This is an immoral
act.
And you said so yourself. How about that?
That that’s a fact. That was pretty hard
to argue with.
H it it and you know, in Abraham’s prior ~
occasions that that we’re having
gone through for the sake of this study,
but Abraham will test the Lord.
He prove that you’re going to do this.
Show me a sign and and the Lord will do
that.
But Abraham
there we go. Yeah. by the way,
Lord, you do remember that it is through
this seed that all the people
of all the earth are supposed to be
blessed.
How’s that gonna happen if he’s dead?
~ okay. ~ it I while I I don’t know about
that
one simply because Abraham built the the
altars where he went,
so a difference in the ordinances there
was no ordinance at that point
in time about not building an altar where
you were.
~ but all of these things are things we
go,
wait a minute. What a and and I’ve had
discussions with people and teachers.
~
Well this this demonstrates that that ~
human sacrifice
is not inherently wrong. Hold on.
You that’s not what the text is about.
And Abraham knows it. Okay?
It’s one of the things that we’re supposed
to realize as we go through
the text is what you don’t see from
Abraham is what you would have,
what you saw from Moses. Moses,
when God tells Moses to go down into Egypt
and deliver his people
out of Pharaoh’s hand, Moses has excuse
after excuse after excuse as
to why God should go use somebody else.
Lord, if you need a human sacrifice,
could you find somebody else’s child?
Right? But how about this one?
How about God? I won’t all I won’t
sacrifice him,
but you can have me.
But here’s here’s all these things.
And Abraham doesn’t,
by record of the text, Abraham doesn’t
mention any of them.
And that is a challenge to us,
isn’t it? That level of trust.
Sometimes and it’s it’s always been
interesting with James and Isaiah and
Micah,
there are times where as they’re younger
especially,
you say do this.
And there stages in life where they have
no fear and they just do it.
And then certain ages you see the
development process,
they’re like they they understand
consequences.
No, no, no, no, no, I’m not
As we look at Abraham in this moment.
Abraham is not in the infancy of his
faith.
Abraham is not a novice when it comes to
the Lord.
Abraham is not in a period
of questioning whether or not God can
provide.
Bear in mind, and the Hebrew writer will
draw this out in Hebrews chapter 11,
God has already provided.
Isaac out of a body, Abraham’s body,
that was dead and no longer capable of
producing children.
The Hebrew writer in Hebrews chapter 11
makes that point incredibly clear that
Abraham could not father children out of
his body unless God did it.
So understand that as far as Abraham was
concerned,
from what the Hebrew writer tells us,
God had already brought about Isaac from
the dead.
The fact that Isaac was born brought up
was Isaac being brought about from the
dead.
So the Hebrew writer in Hebrews chapter 11
tells us that Abraham surmised that
if the Lord could bring Isaac from a body
that was already dead,
in other words, incapable of producing
offspring.
Then God could bring him back from the
dead.
That’s what Abraham understood.
Which is absolutely true. There’s no
equivocating on the fact that ~
the text is clear, God is capable of doing
that.
Now, Abraham did not get a promise ahead
of time that
God would. He didn’t say,
Lord, I’ll do it.
But here’s what you’re gonna have to
promise me first.
But then again Abraham didn’t have to,
did he? Because God had already promised
him.
See turnover if you will
To Peter.
In second Pieter chapter three.
2 Peter chapter 3, verse 1. Beloved,
I now write to you this second epistle in
which both I stir up your pure minds
by way of reminder reminder, that you may
be mindful of the words which were spoken
before by the holy prophets, and of the
commandments of us,
the apostles of the Lord and Savior.
Peter begins this section by saying,
I am going to remind you.
of what God spoke in the prophets and by
the apostles.
Knowing this first, that scoffers will
come in the last days walking according
to their own lusts, and saying,
Where is the promise of his coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the
beginning of creation.
Peter’s going to tell the Christians,
listen, you you need to understand before
I tell you what I’m about to tell you,
that you’re going to meet people,
you’re going to come into contact with
scoffers who are going to take,
~ don’t worry about it. You can discount
that promise.
You don’t need to live in view of that
promise because nothing’s ever changed.
And Peter will say, For this they
willfully forget.
That by the word of God the heavens were
of old,
and the earth standing out of the water
and in the wor ~ in the water.
First thing Peter says is, you do realize
there was a time when
the universe didn’t exist, right?
So if there was a time when the universe
didn’t exist,
then all things have not remained as they
always have been.
Because there was a point in which God
created this.
But then he goes on to say but the heavens
and the earth,
which are now preserved by the same word,
sorry, verse six, he says, by which the
world that then existed perished,
being flooded with water.
Peter says, not only was there a time
where the universe didn’t exist
and then God made it, there’s a change.
But there was a time in which the world
that God made,
he destroyed with the flood in Genesis
chapter 6,
7, and 8. Now there’s a change.
You want to argue that everything’s just
continued the way that it has been
for all time? Sorry, Peter says,
you don’t get to argue that.
You’re just ignorant.
Or you’re willfully forgetful.
In other you’re liar.
He says, but the heavens and the earth
which are now preserved
by the same word. Now notice Peter’s
emphasis:
God said, and creation happened.
God said, and the flood happened.
And now Peter points out, God said,
and now we’re in a point of being
preserved because he said.
The fact that nothing’s happening is not
evidence that God isn’t doing something.
It’s evidence that He is doing something.
He says, but the heavens and the earth,
which are now preserved by the same word,
are reserved for fire until the day of
judgment and perdition
of ungodly men. He says, the same word
that created the universe is
the same word that commanded the flood to
occur.
Is the same word that is causing us to be
preserved for the moment in time
is the same word that reserves us for
judgment.
Says there’s a time where this world is
coming to an end.
But the only word they’re questioning is
that one.
The only promise they’re questioning is
the judgment one.
The only doubt they have about the Lord
and his promises.
Deals with the future, not with the past.
But the past with the Lord
is the assurance that you can count on the
future.
Now there’s a there’s a saying in the
investing world past
performance does not dictate future
returns.
And you want to know why that is?
It’s because humans aren’t in control.
You may have somebody who’s been
incredibly successful in the past and they
make
a wrong choice in the future. You may have
somebody who’s incredibly successful
in the past, and ~ you know, much like one
of the most successful investors who’s
ever been, they eventually get to be 96
years old and they’re done.
They’re retired, they’re walking away.
It’s somebody else’s turn. Well,
guess what? You don’t have the same
assurance from
The next generation and the next
generation that you had from that one.
Now Peter’s going to say, but beloved,
do not forget this one thing that with the
Lord one day
is as a thousand years and a thousand
years as one day.
A note about what this passage doesn’t
mean.
This is not a mathematical calculation of
how you’re supposed to understand time
in some passages of scripture.
There are people in the old who who will
talk about the Old Testament,
they’ll say, see, the in in day one of
creation,
what Peter’s saying is day one of creation
was a thousand years,
and day two of creation was a thousand.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
This is not a mathematical formula.
This is an anologi.
Raise your hand if you know essentially
where you’re going
to be tomorrow because you’ve already made
the plans.
Michael’s got nowhere to be, he’ll be at
the house.
My wife, I guarantee you,
she knows where she’s gonna be tomorrow.
She has made the plans. Because she is a
planner.
Generally speaking, we operate in our
daily lives as though we can make
a commitment for tomorrow. Somebody says,
Hey, can you do this tomorrow?
It’s not as though we don’t know that
there’s some risk that something might
happen
and cause it, but we can say, Yes,
I promise.
I will show up at your house and I will
help help you do X tomorrow.
All right, we can make that assurance
because it’s a day away.
That’s correct.
But what about a year from now?
What about ten years from now?
I remember when I was working at GBN,
one of the congregations that supported us
in the school of preaching came to me.
I was there at at Polishing the Pulpit and
one of the elders came by and
saw me and then he came up to me and he
said,
Aaron, yeah. What are you gonna be doing
in twenty twenty-three?
It was twenty thirteen at the time.
Like, I have no idea. I I I didn’t even
know I’d
be working at GBN at the time.
And now I’m at Polishing the Pulpit and
you’re asking me what I’m gonna
be doing in twenty twenty three?
I have no idea. He said, Well,
I I’m putting you down for a gospel
meeting.
Okay. Just FYI. I’m scheduled to speak
there again in 2033.
Okay? Because I showed up for the gospel
meeting in 2023.
But you want to know how many times I had
to call him over the course
of 10 years and verify the dates that I
was supposed to be there?
Because I had changed calendars,
I had changed phones, I had changed out
like I I couldn’t remember what year
or what the dates were. Because he asked
me 10 years before.
I my answer to him was I hope I’m not
dead.
Yeah.
That’s ten years. That’s a struggle for
us.
We all recognize it. Being able to make a
commitment ten years out.
What about twenty? What about fifty?
What about a thousand?
Won’t live to see it.
But the Lord makes covenant to a thousand
generations,
we’re told in Exodus. Not a thousand
years,
a thousand generations.
And Peter’s point is you can make a
commitment for tomorrow.
And the Lord can just as easily make
a commitment for tomorrow or a thousand
years from now.
And the difference between the two of you
is he’s going to keep his commitment.
And you may or may not, even if your
commitment was only for a day away.
So then notice what Peter says.
He says, The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise,
as some count slackness, but is
long-suffering toward us,
not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
Now what does Second Peter chapter 3 have
to do with Abraham?
What Abraham knew and
why Abraham spent twenty-five years
wandering around Canaan waiting
for a child.
Was that the Lord’s word was good?
That if God made a promise, God would keep
the promise.
That didn’t mean that Abraham never had
any doubts,
Abraham never sought any assurances,
Abraham never questioned the Lord.
Those things were all in the book of
Genesis.
But now here’s the child. Abraham doesn’t
doubt the Lord’s promise.
So when the Lord says, Go take your son to
Moriah and offer him
as a burnt sacrifice, here’s why Abraham
doesn’t argue.
Abraham already knows the promise.
Abraham didn’t have need to negotiate.
Abraham already knew the outcome.
He just didn’t know how the Lord was going
to do it.
He knew the outcome was God’s committed to
me that I’m going to have a son,
and through that son, I’m going to have
many nations,
and through that, and through that son,
I’m going to be able to have a blessing
that blesses the whole earth.
I don’t know how. I just know he’s
committed to doing it.
The Lord keeps his promises.
This is also part of the test.
Abraham was willing to trust the Lord
enough to leave home.
Abraham was willing to trust the Lord
enough to leave his father’s house
and his family. Abraham was willing to
live in a tent
as a sojourner because he trusted that the
Lord was going to give
his descendants a land.
And Abraham was willing to trust the Lord
that the Lord would deliver
on the promise of his son. So Abraham,
verse 3 of chapter 22, rose early in the
morning and saddled his donkey,
and took two of his young men with him,
and Isaac his son, and he split the wood
for the burnt offering,
and arose and went to the place of which
God had told him.
Then on the third day,
Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place
far off.
Notice this is not like a just an hour’s
journey.
Abraham gets the servants, the sun,
the wood, and now we’re traveling for
three days.
In modern terms, that’s starting at one
side of Texas and ending up
at the other side of Texas.
Abraham goes on this journey for three
days.
He lifted his eyes and saw the place afar
off.
You get to day three and he can see it.
Doesn’t mean he’s there yet.
And Abraham said to his young men,
Stay here with the donkey, the lad,
and I will go yonder and worship,
and we will come back to you. So Abraham
took the wood of the burnt offering
and laid it on Isaac his son. He took the
fire in his hand and a knife,
and the two of them went together.
But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and
said,
My father, and he said, Here I am,
my son. Then he said, Look, the fire.
And the wood, but where is the lamb for
the burnt offering?
Now, before we go any further,
since our discussion is worship,
notice something.
We’re not told exactly how old Isaac is.
We are given some indicators that Isaac is
young.
We are given some indicators that Isaac
was yet young enough that
he was in the control of his father.
But Isaac is not three or four,
right? Because he can carry the wood.
So he’s of an age at which he can travel.
He’s of an age that he can do some manual
labor.
He is also of the age to be knowledgeable
enough about worship.
And what does Isaac know?
That if you’re gonna go to worship,
there’s gotta be a sacrifice. And he knows
what the sacrifice
is normally supposed to be.
We do ourselves a disservice
if we withhold worship and sitting
in worship and participating in worship
and observing worship and being
a part of worship if we withhold that from
children.
There are some churches that have a really
bad practice of taking
the children out of the assembly during
worship.
And they generally do so because they have
parents who refuse
to actually parent their children during
worship.
It seems as though Abraham had taught his
son how to worship.
It seems as though that Isaac had observed
firsthand how to worship.
And there is nothing that can replace a
child growing up,
watching, and learning as worship occurs.
Those are indelible images in their mind.
That is very much the idea of the
Proverbs.
When the Proverbs writer says,
Train up a child in the way they shall go,
and when they are old, they will not
depart from it.
When you are old, you will remember the
things you saw when you were
six and seven and eight. You may not
remember what you ate for breakfast.
You may not remember what you did
yesterday,
but you’ll remember the things from age
six,
seven, eight, and nine.
Isaac knew how to worship. Isaac had been
taught
how to worship. And Isaac can tell there
is something missing.
Abraham said to his young men,
Stay here with the donkey, the lad and I
will go yonder and worship.
We will come back to you. So Abraham took
the wood of the burnt offering,
laid it on Isaac his son, he took the fire
in his hand and a knife,
and the two of them went together.
But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and
said,
My father, and he said, Here I am,
my son. Then he said, Look the fire,
the wood, but where is the lamb for a
burnt offering?
And Abraham said,
My son, God will provide for himself.
The lamb for a burnt offering.
So the two of them went together.
Abraham
doesn’t lie to Isaac.
Abraham describes his trust in God.
That no matter how this works out,
God’s providing the sacrifice.
So then notice.
Then they came to the place of which God
had told him.
Abraham built an altar there, placed the
wood in order,
and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on
the altar upon the wood.
Question. Let’s say Isaac’s ten years old.
How old is Abraham? Hundred and ten.
No spring chicken.
He was old enough that way back there,
you know, eleven years before,
if we’re just using the age 10 as an
example,
eleven years before that, in the heat of
the day,
he was sitting in the cool of the tent
because he’s old.
That was eleven years ago. You still feel
like you felt eleven years ago?
I don’t.
Mm-hmm. So yeah, he’s old. He’s old.
And yet he’s still building the altars
himself.
Have you ever seen cultures where there’s
activities that a person
has done since they were a child and they
do them every day?
And it wouldn’t matter what happened,
they were gonna get up and they were going
to do those activities every day.
And no matter how old they got,
how unlimbered they got, they were gonna
do those activities every day.
Well that’s Abraham when it comes to
building altars.
Abraham’s a hundred and ten,
hundred and whatever. And Abraham will
still build an altar himself.
Probably couldn’t.
They came to the place where God had told
him.
Abraham built an altar there and placed
the wood in order,
and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on
the altar upon the wood,
and Abraham stretched out his hand and
took the knife to slay his son.
But the angel Lord called to him from
heaven and said,
Abraham, Abraham. So he said, Here I am.
And he said, Do not lay your hand on the
lad or do anything to him,
for now I know that you fear God.
Since you have not withheld your son,
your only son, from me.
What is this pre figure?
What is this a type of?
Christ.
Isaac here is a type of Christ.
God is the Father.
that allowed his son to be sacrificed for
someone else.
God is the Father.
That would hear.
The cry from the lips of Christ,
Eli Eli Lama Sabakhtanai.
My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?
We don’t read of anything else that Isaac
says during this event.
But we also don’t read of Isaac forever
hating his father,
either, do we?
As a matter of fact, we read when Moses is
told to go down into Egypt
and to tell them who God was.
That God says, I am the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
Isaac does not hold this against his
father or the Lord.
And he’s clearly old enough to understand
what’s going on.
You and I woo I don’t know.
If our parent gets that close to killing
us,
I think we might hold it against the
parent and the Lord.
Isaac doesn’t.
But God had said something about his
relationship with Abraham.
Go back to Genesis chapter eighteen.
This is when Abraham is ninety-nine years
old.
And he has been told in a within a year he
is going to have this son.
And we read in verse 16 of chapter 18,
then the men rose from there and looked
toward Sodom,
and Abraham went with them to send them on
their way.
And the Lord said, Shall I hide from
Abraham what I am doing?
Since Abraham shall surely become a great
and mighty nation,
and all the nations of the earth shall be
blessed in him.
For I have known him, in order that he may
command
his children and his household after him,
that they keep.
The way of the Lord, to do righteousness
and justice,
and that the Lord may bring to Abraham
what he has spoken to him.
God says of Abraham, when Abraham still
has not yet received the son that
God has promised him, I know exactly how
Abraham is going to raise his children.
So Abraham is stopped by the angel.
And the explanation is given. I now know.
That the single most valuable thing you’ll
ever
possess.
You won’t withhold from me.
So here’s the other lesson we have to
learn about worship.
Worship is a commitment.
That there is nothing that
we have that doesn’t belong to the Lord.
And when we give on the first day of the
week,
it’s not a commitment that w a portion of
what we have belongs to the Lord.
That’s not what giving is. Giving is,
First Corinthians chapter 16, 1 and 2,
let’s go over there and read it.
First Corinthians chapter sixteen,
verse one. Now concerning the collection
for the saints,
as I have given order to the churches of
Galatia,
so you must do also. On the first day of
the week,
let each one of you lay something aside,
storing up as he may prosper, that there
be no collections when I come.
First day of the week, the giving that we
participate in is a convenient time.
To participate in an act that has a
specific purpose in the work
of the church, but it is a demonstration.
through that convenient time and
convenient act in a commanded environment,
that everything we have belongs to the
Lord.
That if he said give all of it,
we would.
When you go to the book of Acts
You turn to Acts chapter two, and as we
close,
close with this thought.
Verse 40 says, and with many other words
he testified and exhorted them,
saying, Be saved from this perverse
generation.
Then those who gladly received his word
were baptized,
and that day about three thousand souls
were added to them.
And they continued steadfastly in the
apostles’ doctrine and fellowship,
and in breaking of bread and in prayers.
Then fear came upon every soul,
and many wonders and signs were done
through the apostles.
Now all who believed.
were together and had all things in
common,
and sold their possessions and goods,
and divided them among all as any one had
need.
The church, when they began to exist there
in Jerusalem,
when the when the kingdom was founded and
the doors were opened
and they received the opportunity to
be saved from Israelite historical
Old Testament religion.
When they received this salvation and had
the remission of their sins,
they said, listen, if our souls are right
with God,
it doesn’t matter what happens to our
possessions.
Somebody needs something, let me know.
That was their attitude. In worship,
in fellowship with one another was,
I don’t have anything that belongs to me,
it all belongs to the Lord.
And it’s day one that they in in in
essence,
that their mentality was
It’s his. It’s not mine.
Abraham, through worship, demonstrates
it’s the Lord’s. It’s not mine.
And while he allows us to be responsible
stewards of what he’s given
and entrusted into our hands, it’s clear
it’s his,
not ours.
And Abraham still believed that even about
his son.
It’s the Lord’s, not mine. Okay?
Thank you for your attention.
