Genesis 22:1-14 • God Will Provide
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
the message of how God rescues us by His provision is so important that sometimes the Bible says to us in shocking ways, "You must listen. You are not your Redeemer. God must rescue you." That message comes to us in Genesis 22, the account of Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice his son in an account that is shocking. So much so that it said that when Martin Luther once read Genesis 22 in his own family devotions that his wife Katie, hearing about Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, said, "I don't believe it." God would not treat his son that way, to which Luther replied, "Oh, Katie, don't you understand? God did treat his son just that way." Let's stand as we honor God's word, Genesis 22, verses 1 through 14. God has already said to Abraham, "I will count as righteousness your faith." Abraham is struggling to get that. So we read after these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham," and he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take 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." So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son, Isaac, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you."
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father, "Abraham, my father," and he said, "Here I am, my son." He said, "Behold the fire in the wood,
but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham," and he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son,
your only son, from me." Abraham lifted up his eyes and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering
instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, "The Lord will provide, as it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided." Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, take us deep into the grace of your gospel this day
by reminding us not only of what you had to provide, but your willingness to do so,
that we might by your grace know the goodness of one who claims us forever. Grant this blessing, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.
For most of the years that our kids were growing up, we spent summer vacations in the Rocky Mountains, which means driving from St. Louis to Denver, pretty much a straight shot, and our children over time got in competition to see who could see the Rockies first as they were traveling across Missouri and Kansas and then Colorado. We weren't the first family to be in such competition. After all, if you go on old Highway 40 from St. Louis west toward Colorado, you will actually come in eastern Colorado to the little town known as First View, and you can imagine how the town got its name. Pioneers crossing the plains, egged to see Pike's Peak, the mountain over 14,000 feet tall, that was really the sign that they had gotten to at least one critical signpost in their destination.
And so even though Pike's Peak is 110 miles to the west of First View, the pioneers would hope for a clear day because they knew even though Pike's Peak 14,000 feet plus high is still just a needle of a sign off in the distance, just the the glimpse of it was enough to ignite faith that we're gonna make it, that we can get there. It would put light in your eyes, strength in your feet, and something similar is happening right here in Genesis 22. After all, in so many ways this is First View of the gospel. What happens is Abraham saddles up his donkey, puts his son on it, and they travel to a mountain. Two thousand years later, Jesus
at the behest of his father will saddle up on a donkey and will go up this same mountain. It is the path to his provision. Different trip, same mountain, as God is giving us First View of what he intends. But we struggle, even as Abraham did. Abraham's struggle was that the mountain was so far distant from his experience that he did not fully understand. Our difficulty
is that we are so far distant from Christ's experience that we sometimes struggle to make it real to us. After all, we rejoice in the children that come down with the palm fronds, and we love celebrating Palm Sunday. But after all, we're really adults, and the faith that may send children up a mountain is a little different than the faith that gets us through the world. If you've got to come down the mountain and live in the real world, what kind of faith do you need then? And it's that faith the Bible is willing to examine in terms shocking and important to us. The Bible is first willing to examine the nature of faith that is nothing but ordinary expectation. That ordinary expectation is actually apparently in the life of Abraham himself. After all, verse 1, we read, "After these things, God tested Abraham." These things God has already made clear to Abraham, "I'm going to justify you credit as righteousness your status before me on the basis of faith, not your achievement." Does Abraham get it? God tests him. Now some of your older translations actually have not the word "test," but God tempted Abraham, which is unfortunate wording. After all, the New Testament, James, the brother of Jesus, says to us, "God doesn't tempt anyone. He cannot be tempted. He tempts no one. If we are tempted, we are tempted by our own lust and desires. God cannot be tempted. He does not tempt, but he does test." And even though they may be almost exactly the same circumstance, there's a difference between a test and a temptation. A test is meant to reveal something. A temptation is meant to destroy someone. By a test, we are revealing what we rely upon. A temptation is Satan using perhaps exactly the same circumstances to tell us that we cannot rely upon God. God is saying, "I am your provider. I will make the way. Abraham, I need to test you." Not just to test your mettle, not just to see if you're adequate, not just to see if your faith is appropriate. After all, why do we ultimately test? What are you relying upon? God is going to make sure that we are relying upon Him properly. It's not just revealing the mettle of Abraham's faith, but the worthiness of his God when the father stands in the pool and says to the three-year-old, "Jump!" He's not just testing the courage of the three-year-old. He is proving the faithfulness of the Father. And so God in this test of Abraham is proving, as it were, his own worthiness to a man who is struggling to get it.
To understand the struggle, just the ordinary expectation that Abraham has despite God saying he believed God and it was credited Him for righteousness is how Abraham is responding now to the commands of God. It's almost as though God is saying, "Jump!" And Abraham is saying, "How high?"
Is it faith? Or is it just selfish fear? God says, "Leave your father's house." Abraham says,
"How soon?" "To go where?" God says, "Did you laugh at my promise of a son, old man?"
And Abraham says, "Well, whatever you're talking about, Lord." And he evades the answer. God says, "I'll make you a father of many nations."
And Abraham says, "I'll sleep with my wife's maid, just in case you forget." God says, "Make your way to safety in a time of famine."
Abraham says, "I'll do it. And if that requires turning over my wife to other men, that's okay with me." God says, "Sacrifice your son to me." And Abraham says, "We'll do."
Is it faith? Or is it just selfish fear? Is it just ordinary expectation that everybody else in the world has? If you mess up before a holy God, you got a couple of options. First, cover up your mess or pay your dues. Cover up your mess. Oh God, you didn't really hear me laugh. And if you did, it really wasn't that big a laugh. The sacrifice of my wife to other men, what else was I to do? The adultery against my wife, the doubt of God's word, the abandonment of my mistress and my biological son to die in the desert. Well, what else did you expect? I had to survive. I had to make it. Forget about it. Hide it. Cover it over. Or if you can't, pay your dues. Make it up to God. Take care of it. Do what he requires. God says to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son." We read past the word so quickly in verse 2, and don't recognize what's actually happening. "Take your son, your only son." You have waited 25 years after an adulthood of childlessness in a culture of patriarchy with no legacy because you have no son. And now he comes, and he's not just your son, but you love him. "Take your son, your only son whom you love." And just so that we will get the impact, it is said 10 times in these 14 verses. "Take your son, your son." We should hear pre-echoing the lament of David when he lost his son, Absalom. "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son! What that I had died instead of you." And now God is saying to a man who loves this longed-for son, "Take your son and give him up. Pay the price. You messed up."
Now you got to measure up, so I'll take care of you.
There should be all kinds of objection. There should be all kinds of concern. If Abraham is actually hearing from God the message, "Take your son and sacrifice him." We should hear the message. Verse 2, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love. Go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering." You know what the biblical word for burnt offering is? "Holocaust."
Make your son a holocaust for God. Abraham ought to be saying, "God, you called me to this pagan land because you said the sin of the Amorites was not yet full. What was their sin? They sacrificed their children to appease their gods. You're supposed to be Yahweh. You're supposed to be a different kind of God. God, how could you ask me to do this with my
son? I thought you said I would be right with you on the basis of my faith,
not the basis of my sacrifice of what is most precious to me, the life of my own son." The high price we have to sense, not only from the language of Abraham, but the language of the prophets themselves as they over and over are challenging us, is this what you think makes you right with God? Your sacrifice, your payment, pay your dues, measure up and then God will pay up.
The Old Testament prophets ask, "With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high?" Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? It's the common expectation. You mess up, you pay up. You make it right with God. You sacrifice what's precious to you and you hope you can do enough that he will be satisfied. But you must know that when the scriptures are asking the question, "God, should I give my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" the answer is no! God will provide. It's the message that runs through the scriptures so that we would recognize this ordinary expectation of humanity is not the expectation of those who have counted upon the God of the scriptures. And yet despite our saying it over and over in the church, our understanding of the gospel thread that runs through the scriptures, it is just so instinctive enough that we can give our firstborn to believe that the way that you're going to appease God to make things right with him is your own sacrifice of what is most precious to you. As we tend to believe if we don't provide it, God will. He will provide our sacrifice for his happiness.
Because my wife has been in the hospital this past week, she's doing great. Thank you for asking all thousand and twenty of you know. She's doing great.
But being in hospitals brings back scarring memories. I think of being a young pastor and visiting a family in the hospital where the father and elder in my church stepped out into the hallway with me and after his son was lying there between life and death because of a freak accident in a gym class, the father took me aside to say I know what God is doing.
He's punishing my son for my sin. Shocked me. Scared me. Not just because I recognize how tender is the moment, how if I answer wrong, if I don't come up with some great answer that could do so much damage. It's not just that. It's because I recognize the question comes over and over and over in the church regardless of the fact that we can sing to. We are blue in the face. Jesus paid it all. It's not what we think. It's not what we struggle with. Is God requiring the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Is that what God is now doing? I see it in the tears of a mom who questions if the birth of a special needs child is retribution for an affair long ago. I hear it in the questions of parents of adult children who are wondering if the divorce of their child is a consequence of the flaws in their marriage as they were raising that child.
I hear it in the anger of a dad that is fanned into rage by the guilt of whether the weakness of the rebellion of a child is caused by his own absences from home that his boss requires.
I hear the question in my own heart when my children struggle and I question is the struggle because of my inadequacy as a parent or a preacher or even my inconsistencies as a Christian. Is God requiring
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Are my children being punished for my sin? Is this payback until I pay up? And to all those questions we need to hear echoing again and again God saying I will provide. I will provide the sacrifice. I will provide what is needed for your sin. I am the rescuer. You are not your Redeemer. Are there consequences to sin? Of course there are consequences. But if we have trusted in Christ and and we have been counted as righteous before God because of our faith in what Christ has done, nothing is happening in the realm of our existence but God is using it to bring us closer to his own heart, closer to dependence, closer to seeking him for eternal consequences and eternal closeness to him. God is working because He needs to have us understand what the Holy Spirit gave me. Words I could not have myself derive but said to that man so long ago, "No, God is not punishing your Son for your sin because God punished his Son for your sin.
He paid it all and now what whatever comes is God's working for His glory but also for our good." Turning us back again and again into closeness to dependence to leaning upon to seeking which in itself becomes the example that our children need.
Because the expectation of I gotta provide so God will do his part is so common among us.
The writers of Scripture do not merely deal with our ordinary expectations but come right into the life of the church to make us consider even extraordinary expectations that are not true faith at all despite what we may think. Extraordinary expectation verses four and five. "On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.
Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come back to you again. Not just me, Abraham. I and the boy will come back to you." As though Abraham going to sacrifice his Son is expecting the Son still to come back. Commentators through the ages have said what Abraham was doing was expressing extraordinary faith that God would resurrect Isaac. And if that sounds far-fetched, remember that the writer of Hebrews in chapter 11 says this, "By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac. And he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead." Extraordinary expectation. My God is able. My God is going to resurrect my Son as long as I kill him first.
Wait, what? I have an extraordinary expectation but the expectation is God can do amazing things. God can do extraordinary things as long as I do it first. When you recognize what is being said here, it's the message that is frequent in the church.
God will do his job if I do my job.
Oh, you know what? I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin. I celebrate with children. They bring palm fronds down the aisles at Palm Sunday knowing that it's Easter week knowing that Christ is going to die on the cross. I even believe that God can and did raise him from the dead.
God is merciful and God is powerful.
And we can get his mercy and his power.
If we pay for it. You gotta earn it. After all, the resurrection here is believed. But Abraham believes he's got to earn it by the sacrifice of Isaac. We can believe the same even in the church. I believe in the resurrection. And I believe that the eternal promises are mine as long as I measure up enough to deserve the mercy of God. We're captured by the wording of a classic ad by Smith Barney. Now some of you remember, remember John Houseman in his serious suit and bow tie explaining how can you gain family security. Security. Will Smith Barney does it the old-fashioned way. We earn it.
And because he says it with such earnestness and seriousness, we tend to believe it not just for financial security but eternal security. How do we gain eternal security? We earn it. Now I can't myself bring eternal security. But I have to do enough that God will be pleased with me. We in essence seem to believe that God can do amazing things. That's my faith. God can do amazing things. He can raise Jesus from the dead. And it applies to me as long as I do enough to activate his mercy in my behalf. As long as I reach some threshold of human goodness, then God is going to provide the rest. In a recent Gospel Coalition meeting that a number of us attended, we discerned how common is that understanding in the church.
Tim Keller was preaching and he told the unusual experience of being on a church council where people were evaluating young ministers who were going to consider planting new churches. And as these young ministers were being examined one after another, one after another they said, "You know, I was raised in the church but I never heard the gospel. I was raised in the church but I never heard the gospel. I was raised in the church and I never..." And they said, "After a while, the ministers and the councilists were like, "Well, how horrible, all those terrible churches that they could raise all these kids and never preach the gospel." But then there was an older minister among them who said, "Let's be real. I was raised in the church and I never heard the gospel."
It wasn't until I was in the military and a military chaplain began to minister to me and in my life care for me in such a way that I finally understood, as though the penny dropped almost to my surprise to say that we are saved by faith in the grace of God provided through Jesus Christ. Faith alone, in grace alone, by Christ alone.
And when that penny dropped, he said, "It just surprised... I'd never heard it before. I never understood it. It's by what God provides. It's faith in that, not anything I do or accomplish. It's faith alone, in the grace of God alone, provided by Christ alone." And when the young man who'd been converted now by the chaplain went back to the chaplain, he actually said at the time, "Why didn't anybody preach this to me?" He said, "I grew up in the Lutheran church. Why didn't anybody preach the gospel to me?" He said, "What I really don't understand is why Martin Luther didn't understand the gospel." And the chaplain scratched and said, "What do you mean Martin Luther didn't understand the gospel?" He said, "Well listen, when I was in college, I read Luther's commentary on Galatians and there wasn't any gospel in it." Now you must understand that apart from the Bible itself, Luther's commentary on Galatians is the most important book in the history of the world to explain that our salvation is by faith alone and grace alone by Christ alone. But what had happened? He was so caught in the expectation that you have to measure up to some level in order for God to then give his mercy to you that he couldn't read it. He couldn't hear it. It was just the common expectation that you're extraordinary measuring up is what makes God provide his mercy to you. It's not just the young man who missed it. What the older minister on the council had to say was, "You know what? We've heard all these young ministers say, "I grew up in the church but nobody preached the gospel." The older minister said, "I have to recognize there's all kinds of young people growing up in my church who will say the same thing. I never heard the gospel." Why? Because it is so contrary to the human instinct. It is so contrary what we expect. Abraham missed it. He was believing, "Still, I gotta do this stuff to ultimately be okay with God."
It's the standard Christianity of extraordinary expectation in what we do. We believe that what we have to do is do a little bit more than other people, a little bit better than we did last week, honor the Sunday school lesson a bit more, go to prayer meeting a little bit longer, and when you reach some threshold of goodness, then grace is God providing the rest.
I'm not perfect. I know that. But if I live this good, then God in his mercy will top her off, and he'll provide the extra holiness that I need. And if that is your perspective, you would make a wonderful Muslim. People don't know, Muslims believe in grace. We believe in grace. Muslims believe in grace. But precisely what they believe is that you would follow and honor the pillars of Islam, which they would say nobody can do perfectly. But as long as I've done sufficient, then the mercy of God is finishing off the rest. If I've lived this well, then God will top her off. He will finish the rest. And that Islamic Christianity appears over and over in the church. It's almost impossible. It's almost impossible to be a 14-year-old in the church getting approval and acceptance by meeting the expectations of your parents and your teachers and your peers without believing in Islamic Christianity. You measure up and hopefully somebody will be merciful with what you mess up. It's almost impossible to be an adult attending a church that focuses on issues of politics and prosperity and moral behavior without believing in Islamic Christianity. I'm basically a good person, not perfect, but good enough that God will receive me and He'll top her off. He'll be merciful for what I cannot accomplish. It's almost impossible to be human in a church that emphasizes community service or compassionate sacrifice or radical lifestyles that bring numbers and evangelism into the church without believing that you earn grace by being just a little bit better or doing just a little bit more than the next guy. And that Islamic Christianity is what the Bible is determined to undo. Do you recognize it is shock therapy where Abraham is coming with what would seem to be the greatest sacrifice he can offer. I'll give my own son, my own son, my love, I'll do the best I can. I'll give you all. I'll give you the most precious. I'll give you what I waited years for. I'll give it away to you, God. Will it be enough? And God is saying, "That is not the point for you or anybody else, the generations that will follow you. What is going to make you write with God? It is not your extraordinary faith that God can do extraordinary things as long as you meet some extraordinary standard. Know what God has pointed to is an extraordinary provision of an entirely gracious God. It comes to us in language we can't miss if we'll put on the gospel glasses to perceive what God intends to say just beyond being a better person. Verses seven and eight, Isaac the boy says to his father, Abraham, my father, and he said, "Here I am, my son."
He said, "Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering for the Holocaust?" Verse eight, Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb."
Abraham is saying more than he understands and precisely what we need to understand. God will provide the lamb. It is not our sacrifice. It's not our measuring up so God will pay up. It is God ultimately providing all that is needed. It is God providing the lamb, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It's God saying, "I must provide." Not, "You're measuring up," not, "You're extraordinary works." God ultimately will provide what He requires. Do you understand that is the core definition of what grace is? God will provide what He requires. What does He require? Not just a measured up holiness. He requires holiness. "Be holy for I am holy." There's no measurement in there. That is entirety. You be holy to be with a holy God. How can I do that? You can't. But God provides the way. By providing the sacrifice and saying to Abraham, you believe in what God provides and He counts it to you for righteousness. You hide behind the lamb. You put yourself behind the provision of God. You recognize Jesus paid it all. And when that is your perspective, then you're not trying to measure up or look down at anybody else.
You are understanding how wondrous and amazing is the gift of God. Verse 13, "And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behind them there was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son." You just have to visualize it. They have been on this three-day journey. All along Abraham is thinking, "I got to kill my son. The language of the Texas, I have to slaughter my son." And now he is so close to trying to appease God by doing this. He binds his son the way that you would a burnt offering, ties him up. He has the fire, the coals in his hand. He has the knife ready to strike. Can you imagine the pain, the hurt, the fear that is driving him? And then from heaven you hear the words, "Stay your hand." "God will provide the sacrifice, and more than that, instead of your son."
The great Old Testament theologian Bruce Waltke says this is the first explicit mention of substitutionary sacrifice in the Bible, where it is not, "You measure up and God tops it off," where God is saying, "Not you, but me. I will provide the sacrifice, not you provide the sacrifice. I will put something in your place. I will put someone in your place." It is ultimately God's provision of the sacrifice so that we now, knowing what is being said, understand with full meaning, so Abraham called the name of that place, "The Lord will provide." As it is said, "To this day, on the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided." Do you understand the first view that we're getting here? Here is Abraham going with Isaac to Mount Moriah to the place where the temple of God would be built in centuries to come, where Christ himself would go on that donkey ride, the days before his own sacrificial giving of himself for you and for me. And what we are to perceive is that what happened was Abraham would take his son, his only son whom he loved, and at the will of his father, that son would go to his death and he would go with the wood upon his back to be slain by his father. And just as Abraham was about to do it, God says, "I will provide." And two thousand years later, Jesus gets on the donkey and he goes to the same mountain and he carries the wood on his back of a cross and at the will of his father, he offers himself for your sin and mine. And God said, "I told you I would provide." And so it is called to this day and so it is said in the church, "God will provide." It is the great message of the gospel that God says to you and to me. It's not your doing, it's not your achieving. It is ultimately God saying, "Trust me. I have paid the price in full." Because what I ultimately did was not requiring Abraham provide his son, his only son whom he loved, but God so loved the world that he gave his son, his only son, whom he loved that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. This is the provision of God. This is the message of salvation. This is the grace of God. God has provided. Praise God he gave his son. Amen. Heavenly Father, make it not ordinary expectation of compensation, not extraordinary expectation that we have to measure up for you to do extraordinary things, but faith in an extraordinary provision. You let Jesus pay it all, the fruit of your own family for the sin of our souls. And when we trust that, you not only hide us in his provision, but now every step of the way provide what is best for our eternity and the eternity of those that we love. So teach us the gospel. We confess that we trust ourselves too often. Trust our achievement to make us right. Trust payback to make you love us. Father, teach us instead that when we bow before you and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner," he will still say, "I provided my son and he paid it all. Come now child of God into the kingdom that he has prepared for you." It is the blessing of the gospel offered in Jesus name. Amen.