Hello and welcome to our broadcast. We're going to be looking in Genesis chapter 22. Have your Bible ready. you Well, as we've been looking at the life of Abraham, we see something that is extremely important for us to understand, and that is the doctrine that has to do with the two natures. When you get saved, God doesn't rework the old nature, but rather He gives us a new nature. One is called the old man, and one is called the new man. And so we see that Abraham, as he travels along here, he's living by faith at one day, and then another time he's living by the flesh. And most of the time, thankfully, he's living by faith. We see this in all of the people in the Bible. Noah, for instance, a great man of faith. He worked for 120 years. Then we see him in the flesh. He's drunk after he got off the ark. Elijah, a great man of God, up there on that mountain, standing by himself. A little bit later we find him in the flesh, hiding in a mountain. afraid of what's going on around him. Peter, a great man of God, but we find him later in the flesh denying the Lord. And then there was David, the man after God's own heart, who turned out to be David, the man after somebody else's wife. And so we have this problem that we have to face as we go through life as Christians, and that is the two natures, the faith and the flesh. And the lack of understanding this has brought a lot of confusion into the life many Christians. Paul the Apostle had this problem in Romans chapter 7 he said, for that which I do I allow not verse 15 for what I would that do I not but what I hate that I do he said in verse 18 for I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For the will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. He said in verse 21, I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. He said in verse 24, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And then he goes on to say, I thank God that Jesus can deliver me, and we do not have to live a life of defeat, we can live a life of victory, and it all comes down to what we're going to be talking about here in a minute, whether we know anything about worshipping God, or whether we don't know anything about worshipping God. So in Genesis chapter 20 and verse number 2, we see Abraham reverting back to the flesh, when he said that his wife was his sister? Was that an act of faith? No, that was an act of the flesh. But in Genesis 20 and verse number 3, thank God we read these words, but God, and once again, God in His mercy delivered Abraham from the mess that he was making of things in that chapter. When we get into chapter 21, we found that we have the birth of Isaac and that Hagar and Ishmael were sent away. Then as we get into chapter 22, we come to the greatest test that Abraham had ever faced in his entire life. That God did tempt, or test, Abraham and said unto him, Abraham? And he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. Well, that's certainly not what God, what Abraham would want to hear from God that day. What did he do? Verse 3, And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and claimed the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass? and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you." He said, I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you. Now we have some tremendous lessons here and some great insights into this subject of worship First of all, in verse number one, we read that Abraham said, Here I am. Here I am. I'm here. I'm here. What do you want me to do? I'm ready to do whatever you want me to do. In verse number two, you'll notice it says, Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac. Now we have a problem here. It's not his only son. He has another son named Ishmael. So if you look at the verse carefully, and this is why I say if it's possible for these studies, have your Bible ready with you. You need to look at these things. He says, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah. Now notice the word son is in italics. What that means is it's not in the original, and the translators have put it in there to help it make more sense. Well, it does just the opposite in this case. He said, take now thy son, thine only Isaac, whom thou lovest. The word son is not there. He has another son. Now, why does it say, take now thy son, thy only Isaac? It says that because in John chapter 3 and verse number 16, it says, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life and Isaac here is a type of Christ in the Old Testament and the word only begotten son means unique one well of course we know that Jesus was very unique he was born of a virgin and so Isaac is also very unique when Abraham and Sarah were far too old to have children They had this son named Isaac. He's a type of Christ here. And so when it says here again in verse number two, take now thy son, thine only Isaac, thy unique Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. He said, now take now thy son, thine only Isaac, whom thou lovest. And what does it say? God so loved the world, it says in John 3.16, that he gave his only begotten son. Now he's saying, Abraham, we're testing the love factor here. Do you love God more than you love Isaac? Do you love God more than you love your son? Or where do you stand on this? Whom thou lovest. Will you get out of your bed today and take that boy and go a three day journey and do what I tell you to do? And Abraham passed this awesome test that he had. He had to travel three days. You know, maybe Abraham could have said, no, I'm willing to do this, but why can't we do it in the backyard? I got to travel three days to some particular mountain and then three days back again. He said in verse three, go to one of the mountains that I will tell you of. Well, if you check it out geographically, where he traveled to was the same place where Jesus Christ was crucified. Then in verse number three it says, Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son claimed the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place which God had Now, it says, Isaac carried the wood. Concerning Jesus, we read in John chapter 19, verse number 17, and he bearing his cross went forth unto the place. Very interesting word there. He went forward unto the place. In verse number 3 in Genesis 22 we read that Abraham rose up early and went unto the place which God had told him. Are you at the place where God has told you to be or have you been listening to God at all? Well, we said that Abraham had two natures, faith and the flesh, and he is certainly living by the faith now. Abraham had obviously been feeding the new nature, thereby getting the victory over the old nature, and we find him passing this test, the greatest test of his life. Now, in verse number four we read, then on the third day, and of course, you know, third day, that's very, very important in the type with Christ as well. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Very interesting. It does not just mean here, well, oh, there's a mountain over there, I see that mountain. But this word, saw the place, the word saw has been translated perception five times. It's not just a hill. What he did was he perceived the place. He perceived, he had discernment as to what God was doing here. And there is so little discernment today. That's one reason why there's so much confusion among Christians. Well in verse number five, and Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again." Now, he says we're going over there to worship. That is the perception that he had. Abraham understood that God was doing something here. Very few people would have this understanding. But Abraham had been feeding that new nature. If you study the timeline here in this portion of scripture, we said before there was times when he was feeding the old nature and he went south. He went down into Egypt and he lied about things. But now we see as a result of his communication with God that he has learned what God is doing. He has perception. He saw the place. And so we see in verse number one that worship, he said we're going to go yonder and worship. In verse number one, worship begins with communication with the Lord. Now what is communication? Communication is the Exchanging of information. If you're going to exchange something, you're giving one thing and receiving another. Communication with God. The exchanging of information. Information, that's facts that are provided. Obviously, information is learning about something. And so we have this communication with his Lord. In verse number one, Abraham said, Here I am. Here I am. I'm right here. And so we see that he has lived a life of communication off and on, more on than off, where he is talking with God. We read in Genesis chapter 12 and verse number 7, he built an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. Appeared, that is a very interesting word. It is the exact same Hebrew word as we see back here in Genesis 22 and 4 when it says that Abraham saw the place. That is, when the Lord was communicating with Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 and verse number 7, it says the Lord gave him perception. He appeared unto him. And this is part of worship. The altar. Then you get into Genesis 12 and verse 8, and again it says he built an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. Now, in verse 7, it says he built an altar and the Lord appeared unto him. He gave him perception. Well, he wanted some more of that. In verse 8, he built an altar under the Lord and called on the name of the Lord this time. In verse 7, the Lord gave. In verse 8, he said, I need to learn some more. I need some more communication. And he calls on the name of the Lord. I need to know what you're doing, Lord, is basically what is happening here. And that is what God is talking about when God talks about communication, talks about worship. So in Genesis 12, 7, 12, 8, 13, and 4, Genesis 13 and 18, and Genesis 22 and verse 9, we find that Abraham has got an altar that he's built under the Lord, and he is getting information from God. There is the first premise of what God calls Worship. Now we're out of time again. Tune in again tomorrow. We'll continue from here. We'll try to make it plain, and we'll try to make it simple.