The Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22) | Pastor Nate Kwak

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, well if we could make our way to our seats in the other rooms, we'll start in a minute. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Welcome back to our Wednesday night Bible study. Let's pray together to open the night. our god and father we thank you for the text that you allowed us to study this past week lord i pray that our worship our life would be so tied to your word what you teach us and what you show us a father that will cause in us great gratitude lord that we come before you with thankful hearts that would come with joy and and remembering that we serve a great god a good god one who cares so so much for his children and so i pray god that as we worship you we would come like that and we would give you the worship that you deserve in jesus name we pray amen All to Jesus.

All to Jesus I surrender All to Him I freely give I will ever love and trust Him In His presence daily live I surrender all, I surrender all, all to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender Howly at his feet I bow Worldly pleasures all forsaken Take me, Jesus, take me now.

I surrender all. I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior. I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender. Make me Savior wholly Thine. Let me feel the Holy Spirit Truly know that Thou art mine I surrender all I surrender all All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee. Fill me with Thy love and power, let Thy blessings fall on me. I surrender all, I surrender all, all to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. Oh, I surrender all, I surrender all, all to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

There's a place where mercy reigns And never dies There's a place Where streams of grace Flow deep and wide Where all the love I've ever found Comes like a flood Comes flowing down At the cross, at the cross I surrender my life I'm in awe of you I'm in awe of you Where your love ran red And my sin washed white I owe all to you I owe all to you Jesus There's a place Where sin and shame Are powerless Where my heart Has peace with God And forgiveness Where all the love I've ever found comes like a flood comes flowing down at the cross at the cross I surrender my life

I'm in awe of you I'm in awe of you where your love ran red and my sin washed white I owe all to you, I owe all to you Here my hope is found, here on holy ground Here I bow down, here I bow down Here, arms open wide, here you save my life Here I bow down, here I bow at the cross, at the cross, I surrender my life. I'm in awe of you, I'm in awe of you, where your love ran red, and my sin washed white, oh all to you, I owe all to you, at the cross, at the cross, I surrender my life.

I'm in awe of you, I'm in awe of you, where your love ran red and my sin washed white. I owe all to you, I owe all to you, Jesus. All right. Hello, everyone. Our announcements for today, we have our Berean men's softball tournament that's going to be happening on May 16th at Whittier Narrows. And so this is going to be in order to raise funds for our missions programs. And this is for all skill levels, but you must be a member to participate. Practices are going to begin this Sunday, So please be aware of that. But also, we're going to have our Women's Softball Fellowship. This won't be a tournament, but on June 14th at 2 p.m., all levels of experience and skill sets are welcome to this as well, even if you've never done it before.

Please sign up for this, as it should be a fun time. Practices will begin on May 3rd at 2 p.m. Locations will be announced a little bit later. And our last announcement here is for our all-church retreat. We've been giving regular announcements about redeeming our identity with our speaker coming in. So, Friday, August 7th to Sunday, August 9th at Renaissance Esmeralda in Indian Wells. Now, the important thing here is that the early registration has opened up. And there's going to be a $30 discount on regular registration. And so, please make sure to keep that. I honestly think you should just make sure to sign up by today. Make sure to sign up by today so you don't forget. And then there's going to be the end of the month.

That's going to be closing, and then it's going to be the regular fee. So please sign up as fast as you can, as this should be a really, really encouraging and edifying time for all of us. Okay.

Well, we are in session eight, meaning we have only two more sessions after this now in our Foundations of Redemptive History, part two. And we will be going into the sacrifice of Isaac today. So this is a big one, and so this will be chapter 22. Just some personal thoughts as we go into last week's session of chapter 20 through 21. So remember that these narratives, sometimes there's a lot of things packed in without many words being used to speak about it. So for example, just keep this in mind. Remember to put yourself in the shoes of the people so that you can think about the many, many things that they're feeling, the many ups and downs that they're going through. And so to this point in chapter 22, it's very important to remember that Abraham had so many ups and downs in faith. He's made many mistakes, there's been very very many redeeming times and then last week as we went to chapter 20 and 21 he was finally given his son isaac after years and years and years of waiting right with all of those blessings and so uh we've been waiting for isaac this child of promise for decades now and we've seen many pictures uh and stories pointing to jesus with abraham as a foreshadowing of jesus but now what's what we're going to be seeing today is that there's going to start to be this movement away from abraham's life into isaac's okay and so uh try to keep all of these things in mind try to keep the the bigger picture in mind keep in mind chapter 12 all the way to this

point and then you you want to kind of kind of keep in mind from there on the on the larger level what's been happening from chapter one all the way till now remember in chapter three and that promise of the coming messiah and how in the greater meta-narrative and the macro perspective of scripture we have all of these things pointing forward to christ at the center and then we'll see how that now the foreshadowing was in abraham is going to start moving towards isaac and another thing to remember is that we saw is hagar and ishmael as examples of people not included in god's covenant promise and yet they had a knowledge of god and by by way of uh being near abraham uh they they were able to receive some of the uh what we'll call the coattail blessings okay and but they are not a part of god's covenant promise and god made sure to keep that very clear very clear last week when he showed how ishmael though he was even given in a sense circumcision was not part of the messianic covenant line okay all right so here are the study questions we'll meet back here at eight o'clock Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Okay, if you're in the other room, if you can make your way back. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't know. All right. Well, as we head into Genesis chapter 22 here, the sacrifice of Isaac, We'll see here that we have a lot kind of going on in the actual text in terms of a narrative.

So I broke it down into six pieces. Remember, this is something that you kind of naturally do, but you can do it on your own as well. So there's usually a setting of some sort that happens. So we have the test of faith, and then we have Abraham's obedience. He travels to Mount Moriah, and then he travels up Mount Moriah. and then God intervenes and provides, and then God renews that covenant, and then the family line, it ends with genealogy. And so whenever we see a genealogy, it helps us to understand that there's something that it's pointing to, some transition that's trying to be made. Now before we begin, we'll look at some of the Isaac and Jesus parallels, because I don't think that was hidden.

I'm pretty sure most of us kind of saw things, but we see promised sons in the person of Isaac and Jesus, whom he's pointing forward to, they're both miraculous conceptions of some sort. Remember, angels come and says that you will name him, and then he says their names. Born after a period of delay, meaningfully named before birth at an appointed time. There was a fulfilled time when this was to happen. And so you can have questions even like, oh, I wonder if Abraham would have been able to actually pull down his hand to slay his own son, like, just five or ten years earlier, right? Like, what would that have looked like? We don't know those things, but we know that God is working these things out, and both of them were occasions for great joy. So we're going to see a lot more of these parallels as we move forward into the story today. So we'll start off here with the test of faith, verses one and two. Test of faith so isaac he's he has just been born but we see a passage of time that's occurred here and we know that because he's walking he's able to carry wood and things like that but as we see that he's just been born the fulfilling of of years and years of trial here in this passage of the waiting and struggling that's been happening up to this point and then it just takes us directly it doesn't even let us like like bask in the joy of isaac finally being born this is like all the years of struggle

that we've been going through from chapter 12 all the way through chapter 21 none of it can be enjoyed because as soon as we hit 20 chapter 22 we hit the ground running that god's going to test him and so we think of these things the very next thing that's commanded of abraham who's been so struggling with with his faithfulness to god is to sacrifice his son i mean it's one thing to sacrifice before you're given it now he's for the first time being asked to sacrifice something after he's been given it right and we can see why that can be so difficult and so it came about after these things that god tested abraham and said to said to him abraham and he said here i am there's a lot of echoes of that phrase into scripture which we won't get into and he says he said take now your son your only son whom you love and it feels like god you're mean that's what it feels like right because he's repeating this thing he's like take your son it's like oh just that alone abraham's finally able to say this is my son and he says your only son because you have no other right and he had him send away even ishmael his like backup plan like all of that he's like putting it on the table and he says if that's not enough the one that you really really love oh that's messed up guys this is this is really mean and this is the first time the word love is used in scripture he says whom you love now this should be evoking things in us again i'm

just going to be putting it all out there i'm not going to try to wrap this up in some beautiful grandiose way he's trying to show something right we see uh god using these uh these phrases these words these thoughts matthew 3 17 at the beginning of of christ's ministry says behold a voice out of the heavens said this is my beloved son in whom i am well pleased and then matthew chapter 17 verse 5 at the transfiguration the heavens break open again and it says behold a voice out of the cloud said this is my beloved son with whom i am well pleased listen to him so god is already trying to do something here and trying to use abraham as a foreshadowing of something he himself is going to do and he says take now your son your only son whom you love and go to the land of moriah moriah is a very very well-known place to the israelites now here's a map and in second chronicles chapter 3 verse 1 then solomon began to build the house of the lord in jerusalem on mount moriah what does this mean that when the kingdom was at its pinnacle in its heyday it was on this mount that the temple was built that's very very significant because that's god's presence that's where the sacrifices were and uh there's another instance you might have looked at where this is where David actually built an altar as well and he burned something and you would remember his phrase where he says, I will not give or offer

something that cost me nothing. And so here is Jerusalem and later Solomon's temple is built right where it's supposed to be on the temple mount, on the mount. So Mount Moriah is in Jerusalem. Now, there's differences as to where. Some people might say it's here or maybe shifted a little bit eastward, but we do know it's in Jerusalem. And so this is something maybe of what it might have looked like. Not exactly, because you will see some strange things here. I ran a picture through AI to try to get it a little bit cleaner, and it did weird things, and I don't want to change it after that. So but then whatever the case, like it's some kind of temple, right, that God has built. And then he says, like, this is where you are going to be going up this mountain.

And of course, Abraham and Isaac would know nothing about the fact that the temple is going to be built there. But here, at the top of this mount, in the land of Moriah, he has to offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, of which I will tell you. A lot of significance. We know that in that temple is where sacrifices for sin were given over and over and over again, day after day, year after year. And all of this is supposed to be a meaningful thing. And that's why Mount Moriah is probably where it was built in the first place. And we ask questions again. We haven't talked about mountains since like the first or second session. But mountains are very, very significant. High places are very, very significant because they would always build altars on the top of high places or mountains, mountaintops.

That's where people would sacrifice. Even pagans, even secular nations, that's where they would go. Even moon worshipers would do this. Canaanites would do this. And it's where they thought the gods would meet them, dine with them. A lot of sexual abominable, deviant practices were happening there. And also, interestingly enough, sacrifices of children to these false gods. So a lot of these things were happening on mountaintops. So we should be asking a very obvious question here when he says, offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. Because Abraham would be very, very well acquainted with this idea of what sacrifices were, right? Because he's already building altars and things like that.

But he's telling him to burn his son, to sacrifice his son. We ask that question of, is it okay that God is asking this of Abraham? It seems evil. Plus, we're thinking, what about the covenant line, right? Like, we know what's going to happen. We know that he's not going to allow Isaac to be killed. But these are the thoughts that ought to be running through our minds. Abraham should be thinking, but this is him. This is the promised one. If he dies, then there's nothing left. Here's an application to this part. Do I obey God only when his direction makes sense to me? Or also when it costs me something? Is there anything that I will obey God in only up until it comes to actual sacrifice? Think of examples where you saw this in your own life or maybe in examples outside of yours.

So when you go through these application questions, really try to dive deep into what Abraham must have been wrestling with. Two, Abraham's obedience. Now we're traveling to Mount Moriah in verses 3 to 5. And the craziest thing happens. It's not only that God says sacrifice him, Abraham immediately obeys. He just gets up the next morning and then just starts going. So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son. Okay, pictures are here just to help you guys just remember the setting and see what's going on. So he takes Isaac, two servants, grabs a donkey, and already this kind of stuff too. Don't go too far, but there can be thoughts of like donkey asking two servants to go and get this donkey.

Very interesting stuff that can have images or illusions. not positive. And so there's this party traveling now towards Mount Moriah. 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. Okay, so there's the wood and then they're traveling over and he strapped it onto this donkey. Abraham then said to his young men, stay here with a donkey and I and the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you. Now here's another question that should have come up somewhere down the line, which is how old is Isaac? He was just born. He's likely not a toddler because he's going to, in just the next part, strap wood onto him. And you don't do that to a toddler, right? And so Isaac, we think, we wonder what's, how old is he uh just real oh the picture the camera okay so if you look at young men and lad it's the same word okay so it's using the same word for these two young servants that are going along and isaac and and we're not positive but he was definitely at least a teenager he could have been into his 20s some people even say 30s i'm not sure about that but uh but he was he was probably a strong young man at this point that's kind of the point okay we take time and we think now he's taking three days to travel to this mountain and you're thinking like every single day he's going to sleep

and and he's having talks with his son this is the son his only son whom he loves right like this is this is like bonding time too right and there as they're going every night he's probably thinking what's God going to do? And God is silent. Every day he wakes up, God is silent. He continues to travel to this mountain, God is silent. And he's saying, well, I don't understand what's going on, but God is silent. Gets to the bottom of this mountain, God is still silent. And he tells his two servants, after strapping this wood to his son, we'll be back after worshiping. What might Abraham be thinking? What might he be feeling? Remember all the faith that took here to get to this point. I think everything under the sun is going on in his mind. God surely can't be serious about this. God's going to not let this happen. And so this is reverberating through his mind. Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac. Go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering. He's not just obeying the motions of like what needs to happen to get there that he's going to burn his son third now they're traveling up mount moriah verses 6 to 12 so abraham it says that he 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 and so again we see the picture of of jesus very clearly being pictured here as he takes the wood puts it on his own son and then they start to

travel up this mountain and he not only does that but he takes the instruments that are going to actually slay his son he takes a knife he takes the fire they have the wood and they start walking up this mountaintop and says the two of them walked on together now are they talking what's going on? Man, this is just a massively tense atmosphere here in this situation. It's very important to understand the heart of a father here. One of the guys in my table said that Isaac, it seems like his silence feels very loud. We have much more of Abraham's like kind of actions, Abraham's kind of moving around doing things. Isaac, there's not much going on with Isaac right but they're walking on together here I don't know I don't know if they're quiet I don't know if he's weeping I don't know what he's thinking and then verse 7 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 okay so this is after some time walking right now that's gonna break a father's heart can you imagine that like your son looking up at you and saying wait something's not adding up here you know like uh there's one thing missing right it says where is the lamb a very innocent question abraham answers by saying god will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering my son already we're starting to get inside into abraham's

thought process. He says, God's going to provide this lamb. And the two of them continue to walk on. Now, did Abraham believe that? We don't know, we don't know like what exactly he's thinking, but he had faith. And that's the point. Okay, so we move on. Then they came to the place of which God had told him, and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. And here it is. And then he, this is like, there's no turning back, right? He binds his son Isaac, lays him on the altar on top of this wood. Now, let's just say Isaac is 15 years old. Then Abraham would be 115. If Isaac is 20 years old, then Abraham would be 120 years old, right? The whole point is here, Isaac could very easily have gotten out of this situation, right?

can you imagine a 115 year old man trying to bind this 20 year old man you know you see what i'm saying i just i remember i remember a a season where um one of our kids were getting a flu shot and and it was just impossible to hold this child you know they're like no they don't want to do it you know it's just so hard like clearly isaac is just silently being bound by his father and at that point, you would think, Isaac must know. Isaac must know why, okay, dad is finding me right now. And we get this picture of Isaiah 53 where he says, like a silent lamb or a silent sheep led to slaughter. And he laid him on the altar on top of this wood. Isaac, was it struggling against his dad? There's so much unspoken tension here.

We think, what is Abraham thinking? What is Isaac thinking? Is he questioning in his mind? Is Abraham like weeping? I would imagine Abraham is weeping. I know it sounds crazy, but when we look at Deuteronomy 12.31, we see what societies, like even Canaanite societies and different other behavioral practices were very, very, this was very common for them. You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods. For they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. This wasn't an unknown practice. I know this is Deuteronomy, but this was common all throughout.

This was happening for years and years. They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into my mind. That's what they were doing. And they would sacrifice these two gods, and one very prominent god that they would sacrifice to was a god named Molech. We might think that we're so much better today, but there is so much of the sacrificing even of our children in today's culture. It exists. Did you know, like, for example, in India, when William Carey went to India, this is the 18th century, they were still sacrificing their children. They were throwing their children into the Ganges River for personal blessing.

And so we think here, how could God be telling Abraham to do something he so hates, that is so evil? and so our souls ought to be screaming something here this is not a good thing that's what we it's meant to evoke that kind of tension we can't just delete this away and say like god is asking it so it's okay we can't say that god is asking him to do an abominable thing it doesn't make sense how could god ask this every fiber of our being should be kicking against what we're seeing here As Abraham is tying up his son, as he's laying him on the altar, this is terrible. And then worse yet, in verse 10, Abraham stretches out his hand, took the knife to slay his son. His obedience goes all the way to the point of this submission and surrender to God, where his faith is birthed into action, and it says he stretches out his hand.

And we remember what faith looks like. we remember even so faith if it has no works is dead being by itself you can't just say like i just trust in god god commends it and we do and that's why when it says here but the angel of the lord called to him from heaven and said abraham abraham and he said here i am what god was asking abraham to do was in fact to kill him now Abraham here is flooded with a sense of relief because he was going to kill his son that's the point we get some insight into his thinking by faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac you see that past tense there he was offered, it was done in his mind the intention was fully, fully birthed it just wasn't completed in the action and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son that terminology is very very purposeful it was he to whom it was said in isaac your descendants shall be called he considered that god is able to raise people even from the dead from which he also received him back as a type that this was all obviously foreshadowing Jesus who was to come and it says that Abraham believed there in resurrection very interesting let's keep going and 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 now we ask who is this for why does it say for now I know did you not know

before of course god knew before this is a similar thing where are you where is sarah right though these are things god already knows why does he say these things is it for god it is not for god it's for us right always for us he commands these things for abraham abraham is already a man of faith in chapter 12 it was established that it was reckoned to him as righteousness that leaving his home home country and coming to a place that he knew nothing of he was already a man of faith but faith is always going to show and prove itself in obedience its fruit is always going to show its fruitfulness fruitfulness and so he commands these things of his children god already knew this is for him and this was for isaac isaac was on the receiving end of that can you man i just can't imagine as your father's hand goes up and then it stops and the generations that are to come afterwards i think it's for them too it's for us it's so that we can know what it looks like to fear god to be obedient to have faith and here he's already again doing the same thing repeating for you have not withheld your son and then he says your only son there's no need to do that but he does all of this to pen into scripture forever to be seen how this is going to show what's going to happen in jesus remember isaiah 53 for surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken smitten of god and afflicted

but this is what i want to kind of highlight here but the lord was pleased to crush him putting him to grief and the point here is when we see the story of abraham and isaac is that god does not or does stop abraham from killing his son but on the cross god does not stop himself from killing his own son and that's what it's supposed to show romans 5 8 says but god demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners christ died for us much more than much more than having been justified by his blood we shall be saved from the wrath of god through him for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to god through the death of his son much more having been reconciled we shall be saved by his life it's an amazing thing to see that god is showing jesus and what he's going to do as the father sends the son into the world to do this and the father is not going to hold back his hand from slaying his very own son in verse 8 31 chapter 8 verse 31 of romans what then shall we say to these things if god is for us who is against us he who did not spare his own son but delivered him over for us all how will he not also with him freely give us all things. It says that he did not spare his son. He told Abraham, spare your son. Do not strike your son. But God, he would not do that on the cross. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. His one and only son is the idea here, that

whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Who did God do this for? Was it for him it says because he so loved the world demonstrated in this that he gave his one and only son abraham and isaac was functioning as a picture and so our souls we have to come back to this have to be screaming this on the cross if in the story of abraham and isaac there's something inside of us that feels tense it's like there's something wrong with this this can't be right it's just i know god is good but this picture is wrong and and putting yourself into this position where abraham is supposed to slay his own kid is evil that tension cannot be erased on the cross this is not a good thing when you see the cross this is not good when we see the cross we say this doesn't make sense and when we see it we're saying how could god do this this is not right and so the cross is the only place where any of this can be reconciled that God's justice and God's love is going to be perfectly seen in conjunction on the cross and it can only make sense in a Trinitarian God where in one God we have the Father and in one God we have the Son.

And so, remember when you first saw your sin? Like when you were first, when you first saw it not as just like something to be guilty about or something that you know is a flaw or you're like, ah, that's not good, I know it's not good. When you first really saw your sin and it broke you, do you remember that time? And there's a time where you begin to have a shift of asking questions of questions like, how could a good God let anyone go to hell? And it really shifts as the spotlight is on me and my sin. How could you send your son to die for me? Do you remember that? That happens to every believer, right? To some degree. That's supposed to be happening. This doesn't make any sense. So we don't understand, but praise God that he didn't stop himself from striking his son.

We say, thank God. And so Abraham not killing his own son leaves us in tension until God actually accomplishes that heinous deed on the cross. That he somehow takes what is evil and he spins it around for good. Something that is terrible spins it around and only he is able to make it for his glory, for something of beauty. That's why we can look at a cross, which was an instrument of torture and death, and we worship, right? We don't worship the cross, but we stand in front of the cross and we worship our God. Application, how does Abraham's willingness to surrender Isaac challenge my view of worship and sacrifice? And now, one of the applications, we're going to take some time today to take some time to talk about how God's willingness to strike his own son shows his love for the believer.

And we can share some things today that God reminded you of during Passion Week. So we're going to take some, that's going to be in our application time. Okay, fourth, God's intervention and provision, verse 13 through 14. So then we see that 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. Now, we see eyes three times. I don't know if you noticed, but it says it raised his eyes, and he looked, and then behold. Basically, this came out of nowhere. All right, there's the ram. So he lifts up his eyes, and then he sees this ram with these big, thick horns.

And we're not going to go into too much of this, but there's a lot of imagery of like horns. It's a symbol of power. We'll just kind of leave it at that. And it was stuck in the thickets or in thistle, which is like very sharp. And so he looks up and then finally he sees that there is going to be some provision. This is where we get this idea of Jehovah Jireh. Okay, 2 Corinthians 5.21. And so this is obviously, again, a picture of Jesus. There's no hiding this. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. I don't have to die because something takes my place. Isaac did not have to die because someone took his place. And ultimately, it is not this ram, but it's going to be Jesus.

Jesus on the cross. And so the viewpoint of this story is from Abraham because we're supposed to be getting a sky view of the father who is looking down upon this situation, right, with Jesus. We have very, very little concerning Isaac here. We'll get some of Isaac soon. We get nothing of Sarah here. It's all Abraham. We're thinking, what is Abraham thinking? What is Abraham feeling? What is the tension that is going on in Abraham? What does his faithfulness look like? What does his obedience look like? How can he sacrifice his one and only child whom he loves? He submits, he surrenders, and he trusts. The ram points forth to Jesus, reminder that there must be a shedding of blood. These are passages, you'll get the PowerPoint, so you can look at them on your own, that show that we need shedding of blood.

Genesis 22, 14, 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. in the mount of the Lord, on Mount Moriah. Remember where Mount Moriah was. Now, again, there is some talk about just making sure exactly where it was, but there's Mount Moriah, there's the temple over there, and down here is Golgotha, where Jesus ends up being crucified. And we know that Jesus ends up not actually being crucified in the temple, where you would think, like, that would be a fitting place, but it's outside the camp. Hebrews 13 and 11, And for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp.

We have the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16.27. But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, now what's going to happen? They're going to be taken outside the camp. And they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. He was made into a curse for us. We have some names of God happening here that we've been traveling through in the book of Genesis. You can look at this on your own, but you can collect them and just see how he's very purposeful in all of this. And so we're on number eight, Jehovah Jireh, or Yahweh Jireh, the Lord will provide. Some application, where have I seen God provide at the right time, even if not in the way I expected?

How does remembering that God provides for my physical needs differ from remembering that he provides for my spiritual needs? Which kind of provision do I find myself asking him for more often? It takes some time to think through that. Okay, and then he renews the covenant. Then the angel of the Lord calls to Abraham a second time from heaven, and he says, by myself I have sworn. Remember, a unilateral idea of this. He declares the Lord, but look, he says, I have sworn myself, but remember there is something that is causal because you have done this thing and not withheld your son your only son because you have obeyed my voice the obedience doesn't earn salvation but it is the fruit of faith okay all right and so we've been seeing that all through abraham's story god says go forth from your country abraham went forth god says arise walk about the land through its length and breadth for I will give it to you. Then Abraham moved his tent. God says, this is my covenant. Circumcise everyone. Abraham circumcises everyone. In Genesis 21, God says, don't be distressed. Send out the lad.

Abraham sends out the lad. And so we know by faith, Abraham, when he was tested, he offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son that Abraham obeyed. And So this covenant is renewed right now. Indeed, I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. You are seeing all three elements, land, nation, and people, blessing. All of it promised yet again. Sixth. Lastly, we have the conclusion, the genealogy. So Abraham returns to his young men. They arose and went together to Beersheba.

And Abraham lives at Beersheba. And we're going to have next week's chapter is a lot shorter. So you can take some time. And so I'm going to be going into a little bit of tangents next week. But remember Beersheba. And then remember all the different places we're kind of collecting now. Shechem, if you remember Shechem, Bethel, Jerusalem, Hebron, Beersheba. So he's traveling from Mount Moriah back to Beersheba. So that's what's happening, okay? All right. So now we have this genealogy. And the whole point, just to boil it down, is Rebekah. That's the whole point. Just a real quick visual. Terah, he had three sons, Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. Do you remember them? And then we find out, oh, remember, in Abraham's half-truth lie thing?

terah had uh sarah and then through another wife but then or through another woman and then they get married abraham and sarah and then a heron has uh i'm just gonna i just put the people that matter okay the other people matter too but like uh milca and lot so uh we already know a lot he's kind of out of the picture now but milca is reintroduced here and milca actually marries Nahor. Interesting. And then they have many sons, but one is called Bethuel. Now we had Hagar and Abraham having Ishmael, but they're not it, okay? So it's Isaac, okay? So they're gone. They matter, okay? All right, but Bethuel, he has two kids that matter, Rebekah and Laban, or Rebekah's the one that is being circled here. And then Isaac and Rebekah have Esau, but Esau, uh-uh, it's Jacob, and then laban has two daughters named leah and rachel whom jacob marries now the whole point here what is the point of this he's going from taking a single individual and he's making a people with land something funny so um i get insecure about those things so don't laugh all right so um so the whole point is he's trying to get to israel right he's trying to get to israel so he's trying to keep this line pure he's trying to make sure that that uh there's no question that this is a people of his own possession that god has chosen and completely like uh kept safe from all other influences, and so everything is inside of the family. There are no outside people marrying in.

Does that make sense? That's the point of this genealogy that's happening here, which is why I took the time to make this crazy thing, okay? Because from this point on, what ends up happening is we're now going to baton pass to Isaac and Rebekah, okay? And from there, because Israel is going to come from Jacob. And start once Israel is set, Jacob's name is set as Israel. There's no longer any real need to protect the line in that manner because it's established. Israel is established. And now he's just going to continue to protect the genealogy. So next time we'll go through Genesis chapter 23. Sarah's death is a lot shorter, so you can take a little bit of a breather here. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would allow our time now to be fruitful. Help us to see your heart, the Father's heart. Help us to see a son who laid down his life silently, taking our place. Father, remind us, God, that though Abraham and Isaac did not need to go through with this death, with this heinous deed, God, you never withheld your hand, that this might cause in us a wonder as we talk about these things, that we would handle these things with reverence and awe and love for you, and that you would receive glory from every small group from every home group that's discussing now that we would worship you in our words as we lift them up thankful to our god in jesus name we pray amen Thank you.

Thank you.