So let's return to the story of Abraham. We're going to skip over to chapter 21 and finally see that the long-awaited son of the promise has arrived. He's born. Let's look at verse 1.
Says the Lord visited Sarah as he had said and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. So in the spring, right? Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah had born to him.
Notice the emphasis there. Sarah bore him, his son, his own wife, Isaac. And again, remember that's laughter, right? And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old as God had commanded him.
And Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. God has made Isaac for me. Everyone who hears will Isaac over me.
Will laugh over me. I love that verse. It's so redeeming for Sarah in my mind because she kind of embraces the whole story. In her joy and her exuberance, she kind of laughs at herself.
And she kind of invites everybody to laugh with her, right? Look what God has done in her life. In her old age, she's 90 years old and she bears a son in her old age. And everyone can just laugh with joy at the whole story.
I just really do love that verse 6 there. I find it beautiful for Sarah. Well, this is fantastic. Right.
25 years of waiting in the Promised Land. He's 100. But honestly, we should say, Abraham's been waiting for a son his whole life. He's just been in the Promised Land for 25 years waiting and waiting for a son and all of the things that have gone on, the ups and downs and victories and defeats and all this stuff, right?
By the way, it's one year since chapter 17, a year has gone by approximately. And he finally has his son who's circumcised on the eight day, unlike Ishmael who was circumcised on his 13th year. Right? We made that distinction before.
And you think this is going to go great. This is going to go wonderful. The boy has arrived, but unfortunately, no, because sin always has consequences, especially sexual sin, never turns out well. Consequences can be very long lasting.
And we find in verse, if we go to verse eight, there are problems in the family. It says the child grew, Isaac grew and was ween and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was ween. So that's approximately three years old. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian whom she had born to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac.
So she said to Abraham, cast out the slave woman with her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not be erred with my son Isaac. And you're like, Whoa, Sarah, calm down. Like, why are you freaking out here? Ishmael is probably 16, 17 at this time, right?
Isaac is three and they're playing together. And Sarah freaks out. Why? Well, again, you've got to look at the context.
You've got to look at other scripture and you have to look at the tradition. Apparently, they're not playing nicely and playing marbles or kick the can or whatever it might be, whatever games they played back then. Clearly, there's something more significant going on and Paul tells us as much in Galatians chapter four. He says, at that time, he who was born according to the flesh, that would be Ishmael, persecuted him who was born according to the flesh.
So Paul says Ishmael was persecuting Isaac. That's more significant than playing with him. In fact, the rabbi said that Ishmael was using his baby brother as target practice with his archery, right? Because, you know, if you think about it, you know, how too bad so sad if the newly arrived brat were to die, and then Ishmael becomes the one and only son again, right?
So if an accident were to happen to Isaac, that would go a lot better for Ishmael. So this is why Sarah freaks out because she sees hostility and violence in Ishmael. And so she convinces Abraham, get them out of here because one of these days they're going to bring harm to our son. And the story goes on and of course, Abraham obeys.
So that's the end of Ishmael and Hagar for that story. Then it gets, so time goes on here and we're into chapter 22. This is Abraham's final test of faith. This is specifically when the third promise is elevated to the level of a covenant oath.
Now, what I'd like to do here is spend a tiny bit of time and read the entire section, chapter 22 verses one through 19, because there's so many great details about this story. And I hope in another Bible study in Genesis we're going to be looking at these in much more detail, but I want to draw the big connections for you. And I think to do that better, to do that the best way is to actually read it. It's always a benefit to read in Procline Scripture anyway.
So let's read chapter 22 verses one through 19. It goes like this. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here am I. He said, take your son, your only begotten son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mariah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
So Abraham rose early in the morning, 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 afar off. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey, I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come back 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 the fire and the knife, so they went bolt with them together.
And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father, and he said, here am I, my son. He said, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide 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 an altar there, and he laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. Then Abraham put forth 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 am I. He said, do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him.
For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son. You are only begotten son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his thorns. 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. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, saying, by myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only begotten son. I will indeed bless you and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sandwiches on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.
And by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to bear Shavah. Wow, okay, that's so beautiful, that's so intense, right? This is definitely an ordeal for Abraham and as we're going to see for Isaac as well as you can imagine here.
So in verses one and two and three here, really the opening verses, you think things are going well, you know, Ishmael is taken care of, that's a whole other story we have to go into another time. And you think it's just going to end off, it's going to end well, right? And the sun's going to set and they have happily ever after. Well, not quite.
Right, God says, take your son, your only begotten son and sacrifice him as a whole burnt offering. A whole burnt offering, we'll talk a lot about that later on with Leviticus, but that's often used for you, the sin sacrifice. Right, so maybe God is saying, Hey, for all your sins, the sins that you've committed, it's time for you to offer a whole burnt offering, it's going to be your son, the thing that you love most. All right, this, by the way, the first time the word love is used in scripture.
And I find that very fascinating because the first time we use the word love is the love of a father for his son. And that's significant, I think, because it teaches us, as we're going to see in the story here, the love of the father, the heavenly father, our father in heaven, for his son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. But of course, for all of us, our heavenly father loves us deeply, passionately.
Okay, so Isaac's the long-awaited promise, right? He is the key to all the other blessings. Why would God do this? Why would God ask for this sacrifice?
It's turned many people off. Many people have been disgusted by the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Scriptures, because he asks for Isaac to be sacrificed. Well, what he wants is to see whether or not Abraham completely trusts and obeys God, right? Will Abraham hold nothing back?
The thing that he cherishes most his own son? Is he willing to give that up and put God first? That's what God is after. Of course, God is not after human sacrifices, as we clearly saw, right?
God stopped his hand. This is what's happening. Love must be tested. We talk about this a lot with Adam and Eve in the garden, right?
We are free creatures. We have a choice to love God, to obey him or not. And so God is testing Abraham here, right? Will you love God?
Obey him, follow him no matter what? You know, so we see a progression of sacrifices that Abraham has got to perform in the... improving his love and his obedience to God. In chapter 15, if you remember, he just had to sacrifice animals.
Not a big deal. He might have broken a sweat a little bit. It's a lot of work to cut a heifer in, too, of course. In chapter 17, and a little bit more intense.
He needed to sacrifice his own flesh now, spill his own blood in circumcision. But now, in chapter 22, he's asked to sacrifice his own son. That's the worst, right? Any parent would gladly spill their own blood in order to save their children from any pain.
So this is huge, right? This is so applicable to us as well. God does want to know whether or not we're willing to give him everything. Is there anything in our life that we're holding back that we're putting before him?
Is there anything that we love more than God? And so Abraham has to prove he loves God more than anything else, even his only begotten son. So Abraham obeys, he obeys without explanation, without seeking for explanations. It just says he gets up early in the morning settles his donkey, takes some servants with him, gathers the wood, and they take off.
No complaint, nothing. Right? No protest. This is a big deal for Abraham because in previous stories, and if you remember in chapter 15, verse 21, around 15 verse 8, he says, oh, how will I know that I will possess the land?
He says, how have a slave born in my house be my heir? He's really wrestling with this. How am I going to know this is going to happen? In chapter 17, with the whole story about the circumcision and all this stuff, he's like, oh, that ishmael might live in my sight.
Every time he's got something to say to God, but not this time. He just gets up and he obeys. And as they go along, you'll notice in verse 5, they said Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey, I and the lad will go, yonder and worship and come back to you again. That's interesting because it's still the first person plural.
We're both going to go worship and we're both going to come back to you. He believes somehow Isaac will be returned to him. And Paul tells us in Hebrews 11, it's because he believed in the resurrection. He believed that God would resurrect him if necessary.
Look at this, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 17 through 19. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only begotten son, of whom it was said through Isaac, shall your descendants be named. He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead. Hence, he did receive him back and this was a symbol.
You can circle the word symbol, it was a type and that's powerful because this whole thing truly is a type of crisis we're going to see later on. So this is dynamite. You know, Paul is saying that Abraham considered that God would raise men from the dead. What tremendous faith he had.
Tremendous faith. So he's motivated, he's encouraged and empowered by this faith in the resurrection to obey God. All right, so they're going along and you might have recognized Isaac. They're walking along.
It's like, hey, something's weird here. We've got the wood, we've got the knife. Where's the lamb? That?
And Abraham says, this is cool. This is crucial. He replies, God himself will provide the lamb and the Hebrew can also be, God will provide himself as the lamb. And both interpretations, renditions are correct.
God will himself provide the lamb, but he will also provide himself as the lamb. Because that's the first expression is God the Father, the second expression is God the Son being the lamb. So that's really, really interesting and keep that in mind. Put that in your back pocket for just a few more minutes.
Notice something else in verse six, Abraham took the wood of the burn offering and laid on his son Isaac. This tells us something important that Isaac is not like a toddler. You often see depicted in images and children's Bibles or, you know, even art pieces of artwork that Isaac is somehow a very young kid. But he's not because a young kid cannot carry the wood of the sacrifice on his back.
That is a lot of wood to burn a human person. So Isaac clearly is a young man, a strapping young man who can carry a lot of weight up the mountain, up Mount Mariah for the sacrifice. That's another key point to pay attention to. He's not a kid.
So he allowed what that means. And as an older, why should he say he's an older kid or a young man, really a young man who's strong, it means that he's fully cooperating with his father. When Abraham binds Isaac, that's by the way in Hebrew, that's the achadah, that's the official term for the story, the binding of Isaac. It's not the sacrifice of Isaac because Isaac wasn't sacrificed in the end.
It's the achadah, the binding of Isaac. Well, it means that he cooperated. Take about it. Abraham's probably 130ish, 130, 140.
Isaac is a strapping young man, probably around 30 years old, as I'm going to share with you in a moment. It's very easy. If Isaac didn't want to cooperate, he could have just punched out in the face, pushed him on the ground, and started running for the hills. It would have been that easy.
He could have easily overpowered old man Abraham, but he didn't. He got up on the wood himself. He allowed himself to be bound. So this means that this is just as much Isaac's test of faith as it is Abraham's.
Isaac must collaborate, cooperate with the command of God as well. His test of faith, his test of obedience is happening at the same time. It's not just Abraham.