- So in our last lesson
we focused in on the beginnings of the two great cultures that the Jewish culture and the Arabian cultures from which the Muslim religion has come. And how their beginnings provided a key to future generations. So there was, I give you these little genealogies here. On the side of Hagar, who was Sarah's maid. Hagar, who was Sarah's slave, or maid, had a child first with Abraham
in order to try to fulfill God's promise through natural means. If we remember correctly,
Sarah's getting older, she figures we're supposed to have a son, maybe God wants us to do it the way that our society seems to do this. You know, by if the wife cannot have a child, then the concubine has a child, you know instead of the wife, still belongs to that family. So they go ahead and do that. Her son is Ishmael and from him came the 12 tribes that eventually formed the Arab nations. And from this nation also
came the Muslim religion, as I mentioned before,
which is widespread today and continues to honor
Hagar, and continues to honor Ishmael in their pilgrimages and in their rituals. So, they go back to her,
and they acknowledge that. Ishmael, however, was
not God's choice for the promised seed, and was not used to fulfill God's promise to bring
a savior into the world. Much as Muslims like to say that the line goes through Ishmael and eventually to Muhammad, and so on and so forth, this is
how they trace their history. But the problem there is
that there is no fulfilled promise, no fulfilled
prophesy in their writings and in their history, so
there are no miracles. There are fables, you know, someone going to heaven
on the winged horse and so on and so forth,
those type of things, you know what I'm saying. But there's no written prophesy from one century that looks forward
to two or three or seven centuries later and makes
a prediction and then seven centuries later that
prediction comes true. The Bible, the Old
Testament part of it, has hundreds of those things. And within the context of
Judaism, and then later on, of course, within the
context of Christianity. If someone says to you "Well how can you decide which one is more true, you know? Don't they have a billion followers?" Makes no difference. You don't base truth on
the number of followers. I've said that before. If that was the case, then the communist Chinese have the truth, because they had the most followers. So, we don't go by numbers. And then, of course, there's Sarah. Sarah was Abraham's wife and when she was 90 years old, through God's grace, she gave birth to Isaac, and Isaac and his descendants formed
the 12 tribes from which the Jewish nation was formed. And it was through this
people that the Lord promised that the Messiah would come. So, Ishmael and Isaac
were in conflict together because of this from the very beginning. They strived with each other from the very beginning, and their descendants in the Middle East continue
to be divided until this day, there's just no end to
the strife that goes on. I heard somebody on the
radio was talking about it. American intervention and the President said that he wanted to manage and organize the Middle East and that was he may want to do that, but we know that that's not gonna happen. Someone else, a commentator says "What the West doesn't seem to grasp is that this is not a war about politics, this is a war about religion. It's about religion and it's about who is the correct leader of which sect between the Shia and between
the Sunni and the others." This war, this fight has
been going on for centuries. And has only been kind of clamped down because many of these
countries were ruled by dictators and very strong people who could keep the people apart. But the moment we had a "general election" and we introduced "democracy", we see the result of that. They go back to the war that they've been fighting for centuries. I'm not making a political statement here, I'm just saying we see from the Bible, from the very beginning that they have been at war with each other and continue to do so even to this day. We also see how Hagar
and Sarah were types, you know what I'm talking
about when I say a type, right? Remember that? A preview, if you wish,
of something that's going to happen in the future. So we see how Hagar and Sarah are types that represented the relationship between those who seek
to justify themselves by the law and those who seek to justify themselves by faith. So, as Hagar was a
slave, she wasn't chosen to be the one to carry the promise. Those who try to justify
themselves by the law, they remain slaves. They do not profit from the promise, and can only call this earthly
city of Jerusalem home. So all this fighting about Jerusalem, the Palestinians and the
Jews, they're fighting over who controls Jerusalem. It don't matter. It doesn't matter who controls the city, it matters to them, but in the long run, it doesn't matter who controls that city. Because as Sarah was free, and she was the one who was
promised a blessing, not Hagar, those who are justified by faith in Jesus, are free from sin, they're
free, they're not slaves. And they receive the
blessings of the promise and they can aspire to be, not in the old Jerusalem, but in the new Jerusalem. And the new Jerusalem
isn't here on this earth, the new Jerusalem is in
heaven, the new heaven, the new earth. That's the new Jerusalem. And if you study Islam, you'll find that it is a religion of law. Absolutely. The word means surrender. So you surrender your will to Allah and you do the things that you must do. You must fast, you must give alms, you must the pilgrimage, you must pray five times a day, you
must, you must, you must. Women must cover themselves. You must. And so the goal is to impose
this law, this sharia, law, which comes out of their teachings, where people must do what they do in order to have a hope of going to heaven to be in paradise. And in their religion,
whether you go or not, [scoff], doesn't matter. Allah is great. You do all the things you
do and you still won't go. Oh well. Don't ask any questions. I mean, who would want
a religion like that? You know, the religion we have, God makes a promise, and His promise is based on His word, and
when you go through the Word you find out that
whatever God promises, He delivers no matter what. There's no, He's not fickle like that. And our religion is a
religion based on faith, we trust that God will give
us what He's promised us despite our weaknesses,
despite our failings. Okay, which religion do you want here? The must religion or
the religion of faith? And so Hagar and Sarah are types that reflect the kind of religions that would ultimately come into the world. I've said this before. Every other religion,
other than Christianity, is a religion based on
the principle of law. You must do things, whatever they are, in order to - The only sure thing in
Islam is if you die, if you die in Jihad, if
you die in protecting, if you die in the military, or the violent protection, or
dissemination of your faith, the promise is that you
will go to paradise. It's the only sure way to be in paradise, every other way is let's hope so. So that's very attractive in countries where the poverty level is very high, the education level is very low, the unemployment among young
men is 40 to 50 percent. They have no hope to marry, because in their society they have to, you can't just pick the girl and love will see us through, that's not the way it works in that society. So, think now, you're a 20 year old guy, no hope to marry, no access, no comfort, no job, no future. Somebody comes along and says, "You know, if you blow yourself up, not only will your family
be honored in our society. Not only will your family receive $2000, but you, my friend, will be
with the virgins in heaven. Well, he hasn't got a hope to get a virgin here on earth. You know what I'm saying. There's no hope for him to have marriage. I mean, I feel sorry for that young man. No hope. His only hope is violence. It's terrible. Anyways, we're far afield here, but the roots and the seeds of all of this thinking begin here. So the next chapters in Genesis will bring us to the climax of Abraham's life and recount the death of Sarah, the final days of Abraham's
amazing journey of faith. So let's go to chapter 22,
let's read versus one and two. It says
"Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Here I am. He said, Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains
of which I will tell you." So in the scheme of things, there's a long period of silence between
chapter 21 and chapter 22. There may be up to 20
years there of silence between one chapter and the other as we see Isaac grow into young manhood. In chapter 21, he's just a kid, in chapter 22, he's a young man. The silence is broken however with a chilling request that Abraham take his son and offer him as a sacrifice to God. Now there's some
interesting words here that we want to look at. The word tempted is used. The idea of tempted can mean different things depending on the context. For example, tempted could mean to seduce someone or to draw someone in to evil. It's what Satan does to draw us into sin and consequently cause our death. And so temptation can be an allurement to something that's weak,
an allurement that's weak within us, an
allurement to do something that's wrong but will
give us great pleasure, so on and so forth. And then there's another
meaning to the word, and that is to test. Not to seduce, but to test, or to try in order to determine
the worth of something. It's what engineers do to demonstrate the efficiency, or the
quality of a product or construction, you know? Quality control, you
know anybody who's worked in a factory for a big
company, quality control. If you manufacture a
product, it eventually goes through quality control because, whatever it is, it has standards. And the people in quality control test it to make sure that it adheres to the standards of the company or the government, so on and so forth. To test from godly perspective is what God does to demonstrate
to us or to the world that the quality, or the
strength of our faith, and the quality and the
strength of our character is acceptable, okay? So one idea of tempted
is to seduce someone, another idea of tested or
tempted is to try or to test, or to evaluate the value. So Jesus, for example, was tested by God. His faith was examined
through trials and through sufferings to demonstrate to others the quality of his character and the quality of his faith. So when it says "He was brought out to
the desert to be tested," it doesn't mean he was brought
out there to be seduced. There was no sin in hand,
there's nothing in hand that Satan could appeal to for seduction purposes. But he was tested, he was examined to see how his faith was. And so now Abraham is now being tested in the same way, not
seduced, tested, examined. Like you take a diamond,
you hold it up to the light, you examine it for color and
clarity and so on and so forth. So Abraham is now being
tested in order to show the quality of his faith
developed through a lifelong relationship with God. And so God wants to test,
wants to show the quality of his faith to himself, to Abraham. To confirm to himself
that he is a man of faith. To show the quality of
his faith to the nations around him as a witness. And also to show the quality of his faith to future generations, us for example. He's a type. He's a type for a man with faith. He's a type that projects
to us even today. Another word used is love. The first time that this word
is used in the Bible is here. Now, it's significant that the first time the word love is used, it refers not to man-woman type of love or
to friendship-type love, God-man love, not that type of love, but the love that a
father has for his son. You know take your son,
the son that you love. The first time the word love is mentioned and any man that has a son, nothing to say against daughters,
I've got daughters too, but any man who has a
son knows that there's something about that. Interesting to note that
the first time the word love is mentioned in the New Testament, it is mentioned in regard to the love that God has for His Son. Matthew 3:17, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22. So in the Old Testament, love, first time it's mentioned, the love
that Abraham has for his son. The first time love is
mentioned in the New Testament, the love that God has for His Son. Kind of an interesting parallel there. And so, the first time
it's mentioned in the fourth gospel of John, for example, it refers to the love that God has for us as our Father and we as His children. So this primary mention
and teaching on love in the Bible demonstrates the essence of that love, God's love
that exists in the God head. God's love extended to man. Now man's love for God and for man comes only after this. In other words, before a man loves God, God has loved man. That's the point I'm trying to make here. All right so let's take a
look at verse three, it says "So Abraham 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 wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place
of which God had told him." On the third day, Abraham
raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. Abraham said to his
young men, Stay here with the donkey, and I and the
lad will go over there, and we will worship and return to you. Abraham took the wood of
the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son,
and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his
father and said My father! And he said Here I am, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb
for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, God will provide for Himself the lamb for the
burnt offering, my son. So the two of them walked on together. So we see Abraham,
Isaac, two servants leave to go to Mount Moriah. Again a passage that contains a wealth of type imagery of
Jesus and His sacrifice. So Abraham is promised
that through his seed the savior will come. And in this scene, God makes him act out, as it were, the very thing
that the promise offered. Salvation through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Abraham didn't know this. We only see this through
hindsight as we look at this particular scene. I want you to note that Abraham is willing to obey God's will and does not hesitate, even leaving early the next day. Imagine if somebody asked you to go out and sacrifice your son,
would you set the alarm for real early? I might dawdle over coffee,
you know what I'm saying? Isaac and two slaves go along. They arrive at the place on the third day. Think now. On the third day. So this represents the three days that Jesus spent in the
tomb and somebody will say "Well, what do you mean? I mean, Isaac wasn't dead." But he was as good as dead. Because the minute Abraham said "Let's go to the mountain," you know he's going to do it. So Isaac is as good as dead the moment they leave on the way to the mountain. Isaac already dead the moment that God asks Abraham to sacrifice
and Abraham agrees. Good as done. So he was as good as dead for three days before they arrived at
the place of sacrifice. The servants are left behind and Isaac willingly goes with his father. There's no hesitation here as well. He is a willing sacrifice. I want you to note also that Abraham says to the servants that
they both will return. He doesn't say
"I'll be back," he said
"We'll be back." Now he's intending to kill him. But he says to the servants, we'll both be back. And it's here that we see
the great faith of Abraham. He is fully intending
to sacrifice his son. He is fully intending to
return with him alive. How do we answer that? Well we go to Hebrews 11, verse 17 to 19. It says "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, notice the word tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering
up his only begotten son." His only son. All the promises circled around him. In other words, remember now, Abraham at the point that he was at, culturally, socially, theologically, he didn't understand about eternal life. I come back as myself and
I'll be myself in heaven, he didn't understand that. He understood that he would come back, like he would live on through his son. And the promise that he would have his descendants would be
like the stars for him. "Wow, I will not only
live through my son, but I mean there's gonna be
countless generations that come after me." For him that's about the maximum of eternal life that he could think of. He didn't have the
revelation we have today of what eternal life is gonna be like. So by sacrificing his son, he's also sacrificing his own hope, if you wish, to live on. And so, when he says
they both will return, that's unusual. So it says here as I read "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and when he who had received the promises was offering up
his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, In Isaac your descendants
shall be called," So there's the promise. And for Abraham, that
was like eternal life. "He considered that God
is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type." And so Hebrews describes Abraham's faith as reaching the point where his only conclusion was that God could and would resurrect his son from the dead, if necessary to fulfill His promise. That's how far his faith
was getting stretched. His faith was getting stretched to a point beyond what he could imagine by himself. Or hope for himself. It was like God said
that I would have a son, so God cannot lie, I totally believe it, and if God wants me to offer my son, then He must be planning on bringing him back to life. It's the only answer, the only conclusion he could come to. He believed that through
Isaac, many generations would come, he was prepared to offer Him a sacrifice so his only
conclusion was that somehow, he didn't understand how,
somehow God would give him back his son from
death, he didn't know how. He didn't know how. But he believed that God would. And so Abraham crossed
an important frontier of faith and that was to
understand that God gave life, not just through his descendants, but could literally raise a
person back from the dead. Abraham's eureka moment. "Oh, wow, whoa I just had a thought that I've never had before." You know what I'm saying? Note also that Isaac carries the wood for sacrifice on his back, just like Jesus carried
his own cross on his back. And that Abraham carries the knife, which is the symbol of life and death, just like the Father in heaven had power of life and death over Jesus. Jesus could not have died
without God's permission. And also Isaac questions Abraham about the nature of the sacrifice
and Abraham assures him that God will provide, which
is what will ultimately - What they'll ultimately name the place where this will take place, Mount Moriah, it means God will provide, God will provide. This place there with Abraham, this place will ultimately
become the place where the temple will be built. And the sacrifices will
be offered by the priests. Foreshadowing, okay? Not only of the sacrificial
system of the Jews, but also a further
foreshadowing of the sacrifice that Jesus would ultimately make. Today, on that spot, this building there, the Dome of the Rock, the gold dome, the gold for the dome, was donated to the Palestinians, by the King of Jordan. Not the one that's there now, but his father, donated
the gold for the dome. This is what stands. I've been inside this building
when I was in Jerusalem. It stands exactly where the temple stood, exactly where the holy of holies stood. This now stands there. And if you go inside, you have to take off your shoes and that, nowadays foreigners can't go inside, they're too sensitive, but when I went, you know, there wasn't as much trouble. Took off my shoes, went inside, and inside it's just that building with carpets, people sitting around, there's a railing, a big railing, and in the middle there's this huge rock. I don't mean a boulder, but I mean an outgrowth of rock. And they believe that Mohammed went to heaven on the back of a
winged horse from this spot. Nobody saw it, we're just talking, this is what they believe. But this is a very holy site. But the connection with the Bible is this is Abraham, this
is where Abraham was. All right, let's keep going. So in verse nine, it says "Then they came to the place
of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar
there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac
and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay 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 stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God; since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered
him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide, as
it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord
it will be provided." So in this passage, we have several again, types, that project ahead a couple of important ideas. The first type is the sacrifice of Christ. The willingness of both
the father and the son to do the will of God
foreshadows the willingness of the heavenly Father and Son to offer the sacrifice of Christ. It's the mirror image of what took place in the new testament. Secondly, it also is a type
for vicarious atonement. At the last moment, a ram
is substituted for Isaac. He was as good as dead, but
God put a ram in his place. Something had to die because
God had commanded it. So the ram takes his place. The idea of substitution. One dying for another, this is introduced here. Someone says "Where do we get the idea that, you know, there's this business
of vicarious atonement, Jesus dying for us, who thought that up?" Well God thought that up. But where do we see it in the Bible? Well we see it from the
very beginning in Genesis where God slays an animal to provide animal skins to cover Adam and Eve. There's the first type right there. Something dies to provide
for the shame of man. And here that type is not only repeated, but it's clarified, much more clear. Of course, in reality a ram and not a lamb is offered because the lamb of God has yet to make an appearance. And then another type, the relationship between faith and works. If a person is considered right with God because he believes and trusts in God, what place does works
have in the equation? Someone says that, we're saved by faith, why am I bothering making an
effort to being a good person. Well the answer is in James. James says "You believe that God is one" There's your faith. "You do well, the demons also
believe, and they shudder." So what's the difference? They also believe. It says "But are you willing to
recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our
father justified by works when he offered up Isaac,
his son, on the altar?" So a person doesn't produce
saving faith through works. A person's faith naturally
produces works that demonstrate or justify his faith. It goes the other way around. I don't work to be saved,
I believe to be saved. And this faith in me produces
all kinds of good works. I am motivated to do what
is right because I believe. I don't do what is right
in order to save myself. I'm already saved. I do what is right, or I make
an attempt at it anyways. Because I love the Lord. I am so grateful for
what He's done for me. Abraham's offering of Isaac is a type to demonstrate, and my
whole lesson comes to this statement here, so if you've drifted, come back to me please, okay? Abraham's offering of Isaac is a type to demonstrate the degree of work a person could actually do if they believed to the
degree that Abraham believed. So I ask you which is harder to do, tell a mountain to move, or to offer up your only beloved son? To me, one thing would
be as hard as the other. With faith, a person could do either one, that's the point that
James is making here. He says "You see that faith was
working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected, and the Scripture
was fulfilled which says And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." And so with faith a person could do either and Abraham is the type
to show what faith can do. Not what faith must do. People read this and they say "Man, in order to have faith, do I have to give up my son, or do I have to give up something?" No, the point here is not - This isn't an example of what you must do. It's an example of what
you could actually do if you had Abraham's faith. It doesn't say you've
got to have Abraham's faith to be saved, it
just tells you the amount of things that you could do
if you had Abraham's faith. You could even go to
that level if you wanted. You could offer your own child and have confidence that God would take care of it. That's the point. So we don't have to do what
Abraham did to be saved. But if our faith grows
to be as great as his, we could do it if God asked us. And for some, God does ask, right? There's some of these people over in the Middle East who are Christians, you know maybe not
restoration era Christians, but believers in Jesus, and they have to make a choice. You either confess Allah
or you're a dead person. Sorry won't confess Allah,
okay bang, boom, next, next, next. You know, no big show, making a big show about cutting off the
head of the journalist, well that's a tragic thing for that man, ruthlessness, the point
is that's for show, that's for show. Because he's a journalist and because everybody's going to get up in arms about it. They haven't reported
about the hundred and two, three, four thousand
Christians that they've just murdered, one after another simply because they refused to convert to Islam or to confess that Muhammad
is Allah's prophet. That doesn't make the news,
but it gets God's attention. So their faith got them to the point where they could
actually give up their lives for their faith. They had that kind of faith. I know one thing, God doesn't ask us what our faith won't permit us to do. He won't ask. Don't ever be afraid of that. So after this experience, God once again, I'm not gonna read the next passages here. God once again confirms his promise to bless Abraham with
descendants to a great number. He'd been prepared to offer his only son and in return, God swears
that his descendants will be like the stars,
the sand on the seashore. The end has the same family history of Abraham's family back in the land of Ur. And then in chapter 23,
I'm not gonna read that. Chapter 23 describes the death of Sarah at the age of 127, which means that Isaac was 37 when she died, Abraham 137. Then there's a description also of Abraham buying the land
where she would be buried. Remember, God promised them all the land, but he didn't own any of it, so he had to buy a plot of land, a
cave, to bury his wife. Abraham then took another wife, at 137, her name was Keturah and he had six more sons in his remaining 38 years of life. So when God gave Abraham and Sarah the vitality to have a child naturally, he didn't just, how can I say this, he didn't just say "Okay, tomorrow night [laughs] you're both going to be feeling pretty good." He gave Abraham vitality and he kept that vitality for decades afterwards, to the point where he
had even more children. All right, a couple of lessons. If you enter a faith
relationship with God, here's what to expect. Abraham is a type that
shows what faith can do, and not what faith must do. Okay, remember that? If you enter a faith
relationship with God, here's what to expect. One, expect testing, expect it. Abraham entered a faith
relationship with God and was immediately considered righteous and thus, saved. His faith, however,
was continually tested. It was tested because it's through testing that faith grows. It is through maturing faith that we see God more clearly, and it is through a clear vision of God that we can experience hope and joy and peace. That's the relationship. Your faith is tested so it can grow. Your faith grows so your eyes open. Your eyes open so you can
see more clearly who God is. When you see more clearly
who God is, you gain strength and joy, which does what? Which strengthens your faith. And a stronger faith opens your eyes even wider, and your eyes
being open even wider makes you able to do things even greater, and you know, so on and so forth. So God tests our faith, not to destroy it, not to destroy us, not to prove us as hypocrites or unworthy. You know by testing, I mean allowing us to experience trials and sufferings and so on and so forth, even doubt. He tests faith in order to make it grow and through growing faith enable us to arrive at peace and joy. If you enter a faith relationship
with God, expect testing. Don't be angry, don't be afraid, don't be discouraged. Realize that God is just working on you. Lise used to say that. She'd be going through a
period of testing, you know and she'd say "God's got the yellow ribbon around me," you know, like the guys from the works, the guys from the city,
they put up the yellow tape because they're digging
in the ground, there's work going on. She'd say, "You know God's got the yellow tape around me, he's working on me." He works on all of us, if we let him. Number two, if you have
a relationship with God, expect quality. Don't consider it good luck or a fluke that you are growing in
your ability to serve the Lord or your ability to resist sin, your ability to be able
to love others more. The whole purpose of
salvation is to change us from sinners to saints. So let's rejoice when we see ourselves drawn upwards in what we're thinking and what we are doing. It's supposed to happen
because of your faith. If it isn't happening,
maybe your faith is dead and if so, it can't save you. So expect quality works
from living by faith. And then last thing,
expect God to provide. Abraham's faith was
summed up in his answer to Isaac when he asked
where the sacrifice was coming from, and Abraham said "The Lord will provide." That's what Moriah means in Hebrew. That's why they named the place that. The place where God will provide. So at one time or another, every Christian goes to their own Mount Moriah in the form of testing. Everybody's been to
Mount Moriah, everybody. I'm looking around and
I've known a lot of you for a long time, and
I know that all of you have been to Mount Moriah, you know, whether it's through
family issues or money issues, or emotion, or illness, or sin, or relationships, or bad things happening to you, or whatever. Everybody here, including me, we've all been to Mount Moriah at one time or another, in our lives. The thing that we have
to remember is that God will provide at your Mount Moriah whenever and wherever that takes place. God provides for the
flowers and the animals, even unbelievers have what they need. So for His own children, you
know, God will surely provide. If He provides for sinners,
why wouldn't He provide for me? Sometimes the greatest
test of our faith is to trust that when the time
comes, God will provide what we need. And like Abraham and Sarah, many times we kind of run ahead of him or try to solve it ourselves, or we quit,
we leave the mountain. All right, so that's it for this time. Thank you for your attention.