as brother Ben's stated We're we're planning a church in Newbridge now. Newbridge is not that big. It's like I don't know even if it's 200 homes, I'd be shocked but Surrounding Newbridge you have South Queensferry Kirkliston Broxburn up Paul Ratho Ratho station Winchboro So what we're doing is we're going to all those little villages. South Queens Ferry is not a little village, but we're putting flyers through doors just now. I've already done all of New Bridge, didn't take me very long. But God blessed, a lady texted me on my phone before I got my backpack off my back and said, I'm interested in meeting for a Bible study. So last Sunday was our first meeting. It's totally by faith. It's not me that's going to do it. I'm just one of God's messengers. It's God. There are no Baptist churches in that area at all. No brethren assemblies. There's a couple of community churches that I'm investigating. They have joint meetings with the Church of Scotland. So that bothers me, okay? So, no, just preaching the gospel and we'll see what God does. Totally up to God. Totally up to God. Last Sunday we had a young couple from Canada, okay? They're here. He's working as a French interpreter. Him and his wife are total brainwaves. You know, they're real intelligent. So, you know, opposites attract, don't they? Chris and I were just normal folks. We're just average. So they came, and then the lady that texted me, she came. So we had five people. Our house is a mess. I'm knocking down a wall. trying to modify the house so it's more livable and usable. So we'd covet your prayers. Pastor Ben's coming over to help me pass out literature. The next step is knocking on doors like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and saying, you know, we're playing a church in the area, do you attend the church? And they'll say no, and then carrying on the conversation from that point. and see if the Lord works in their hearts. My theme for the next two weeks is how do we live this new year that God's given us? Today we're gonna look at, this morning we looked at our thought life. Right now we're going to look at what do we love? What do we love? And we're gonna go through this familiar story about Abraham and Isaac. It's interesting where God wants him to offer Isaac is in Jerusalem. Okay? And you're going to be on Mount Moriah. Okay? So I thought I'd mention that before we get going. But take your Bibles again. Go to Genesis chapter 22. Genesis chapter 22. Genesis chapter 22. My question today is, what means everything to you? What means everything to you? My three boys, we have twin boys, they're going to be married this summer. I was talking to both of them last night. I miss my boys. My other son, my younger son, he's already married to a good godly red-headed. Christian girl, and they're coming this summer for a couple of weeks. I'm trying to get them to stay longer than a couple of weeks. I'm hoping God works on his heart that they get burdened for Scotland, but it's totally up to God. But I miss my family. Of all the stuff I owned, I give all of it up just so I could be with my family. So when I read Genesis 22, and all my wife and I have are boys, I see a father asked by God to sacrifice one of his boys to God. It gets my heart, okay? And God worked on my heart to choose this message. But our proposition here this morning is God must be everything to you. God must be everything to you. And as Christians, we know this. We know the Shema. We know the Shema. that God is, there's one God, okay? And we know Deuteronomy 6, 5, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. and with all your soul and with all your might. That's what we're commanded as Christians to do. And we know this. So when I read Genesis chapter 22, first of all, we see point number one, God's test of Abraham's obedience in verses one and two. And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham. In the Hebrew language, that could be try, test. God did tempt 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. That means you light it on fire, okay? like cooked meat, okay, burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. Okay? So, this comes after years of Abraham and Sarah being barren and not having kids. My wife and I went through this. We had a miscarriage. We were older when we got married, okay? So we were praying, It's totally up to you, but if you and your grace would give us kids, we'd sure be grateful. And we'd pray every night. Okay? We'd pray. Not messing around. Praying to our God. Okay? If He wants us to have kids, totally up to Him. God's sovereign. You know? Chris got pregnant. I worked at a meat packing plant. I worked on an assembly line. I was what's called a floater. I'd do every job. I knew all the jobs on the line. Somebody was sick, I'd replace them, like assembling bacon. running a bacon slicing machine. You know the bacon that you fry up in your pan? I'd slice that up. Wonderful. I'd cook the bacon on the casing of the motor. The whole place would smell like fried bacon because it'd cook on the motor. Never hungry. Never hungry. Really good job. But my wife and I, we are barren. So I identify with Abraham. I identify with Sarah. Chris got pregnant. She fell pregnant again. You know, if you've had a miscarriage, you go, I'm not gonna get excited, because she might lose that baby. She got bigger and bigger, and the midwife checked her blood, and something was wrong. I go, oh, great. I don't remember all the options, but one was that our child was gonna be born spina bifida. Second option, they got the due date totally wrong. Third option was twins. We went to Philadelphia Osteopathic Hospital on City Line Avenue. And the doctor is from India, couldn't speak English very well. He thought he was communicating with me. There was no communication going on. And he said something to me. He thought he was communicating. And I said, huh, what? And he goes, He was exasperated because he thought I should be comprehending his English. He goes, two heads! Instant communication! Instant clarity! I backed up against the wall. I came back to work. I told all the girls on my line, you know, we're having this test. We're going to get an ultrasound. And we're going to find out if the child has spina bifida. What's going on? I'll never forget. I hit the red button on the stainless steel door and it slid across. No work was going on. No work was going on. And the girls, they just looked at me. I didn't even say a thing. They just started laughing. They knew, twins, twin boys. So when I look at Abraham here with his wife, they'd prayed, prayed, prayed year after year, prayed year after year, prayed year after year, barren. And now God says, Abraham, I want you to offer your son as a burnt offering. And Abraham's thinking in his mind, well, you mean like the heathen? The heathen sacrifice their children. I'm totally in shock of Abraham's obedience. His faith in God is so powerful here. A lot of things were going on in Abraham's life. His son Ishmael had been banished Hagar had been banished because Ishmael was not the child of promise No, the one that was the child of promise was Isaac the one that God was going to have Abraham sacrifice on Mount Moriah and Abraham I can't imagine, I'm just an average guy, but I can't imagine what must have been going on in Abraham's head. So we have God's instruction. God knows all. God knows all. So why did he have to test Abraham? It wasn't for God to figure out how Abraham would react. It was for Abraham to see what was in his inner heart and his inner character. He was going to test Abraham's faith. You know, to be a true test of faith, the test had to defy logic, or it wouldn't take any faith, right? This definitely defies logic. I want you to offer your son as a burnt sacrifice. Totally defies logic. It had to be something that Abraham wanted to resist. He definitely wanted to resist this commandment by God. Secondly, earlier God had told Abraham to send away Isaac's older brother Ishmael. He had been told by God to do this. Now Abraham is going to be tested to his very core. Probably the hardest test for a Christian is when God has already answered the prayer request and then he wants us to do something with the answer. God knew how Abraham would respond. Abraham needed to see himself, what he really valued. This new year, 2017, I want you to ask yourself, what means everything to me? What do I value above all else? Abraham needed to see himself, who he was before God. Secondly, we see Abraham's response, and I'm in shock. We see his response in verses 3-10. Verse 3, and Abraham rose up early in the morning. He then got up early. He got up early to obey this command by God. And I'm thinking, if it's my son, I wouldn't be getting up early. And I'd be slowly going to get my donkey. Okay? And Abraham rose up early. Let's read the verses. Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him. So he took two servants with him and Isaac, his son, and claved the wood. What does clave mean? It means split. You ever split wood? We had a wood-burning furnace in Indiana. I spent hours splitting wood. So I know this word, clave. split, and split the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went up into the place which God had told him. Then on the third day, did you know it's 50 miles from Beersheba, where Abraham's at, to get to Mount Moriah? 50 miles. 50 miles in three days. That's a long, arduous journey. No cars. Up and down hills. I've been to Israel. The Shvei La, that's the word for valleys. Up and down the valleys, you know, it's not easy. After three days, they made it to Mount Moriah. Verse four, 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 am the lad. Now lad, Lad in our mind would mean young boy, maybe a teenager, okay, up to 13 maybe. We'd say that's a lad. Flavius Josephus, the Roman historian, said that at this point in time, he figured out that Isaac was probably around 25 years of age. So not a little lad, like we're thinking, okay? When I was 25 years of age, I was moving screens of meat that weighed almost 60 pounds. Probably the strongest I ever was in my whole life, because I did that every day. Now it's different, isn't it? Now when we read this passage, it's different. I am the lad, this kind of lad, okay? This kind of lad. Not this kind of lad, you know. I am the lad will go yonder and worship. And look at this word of faith. You see that the faith of Abraham shining through this next phrase. And come again to you. Now didn't God tell him to sacrifice his son? So why is Abraham saying, when we come back? That's faith, that's faith. He's saying, I don't know what God has planned, but will not the judge of all earth do right? He will do right. Somehow, someway. I know I'm being tested here, but God will work it out. We'll come back after we worship. Verse 6. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son. And that makes more sense. You think, what a cruel father, put all this firewood on his little boy. Well, but if the little boy's 25, it's a whole different thing, eh? Puts the firewood on him, and laid it upon his son and took the fire in his hand and the knife. And they both went, both of them together, climbing up the mountain. What do they have? They have wood. They have fire to light the wood on fire. They have a knife to kill the sacrifice. But Isaac's gonna ask the obvious question. In verse seven, Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said, my father, And he said, here am I, my son. And he said, behold the fire and the wood. And he probably said wood like this, wood. Have you ever carried something heavy up a hill? It decreases your lung capacity. Wood. Here's the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb? Where's the lamb? Where's the sacrifice, dad? You see that Isaac's figuring things out. And you see that he really respected his dad because what he allows his dad to do to him in the following verses. Verse eight, and Abraham said, my son, I don't know if he could say this without crying. I know I couldn't, I'd be crying at this point. Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering. Abraham could compartmentalize. If you can't compartmentalize, you'll go crazy, won't you? Because you'll be thinking, well, what about this worry and that worry and that other worry? It's like a snowball. But if we can compartmentalize like Abraham, That's God's part. It's nothing to do with me. That's another office. I put that need in a folder. I fold the folder and I send that up to a higher department. It's not my department. That's God's department. You see Abraham's faith here. God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering. So they went, both of them together, and they came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there. Can't you see Isaac helping him? Oh, here's a good stone. That's a good stone. Building an altar, still no offering. And he laid the wood in order, and bound, and bound his son. Oh, it's a whole different thing if your son isn't a little boy here, 25 years old. And bound his son and laid him on the alder upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. He's following God's instructions. He is. We don't know if he had a steel knife. I collect knives, but I didn't bring my collection to Scotland. They're all in the States. But took his knife, probably made out of flint. Okay. He's getting ready to bring down the knife. Okay. An angel Lord called out of, from where? called out from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. He knew him by name. Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. All the relief that must have been in his voice. And he said, lay not thy hand upon the lad. Neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. So we see Abraham's response to God's command. He prepared to obey God. He got up early in the morning. He got the firewood, got the donkey, got the two servants, got his GPS. No, he didn't have a GPS. 50-mile journey to get to Mount Moriah, up and down through the Shefei La, through the valleys. He prepared his animal to carry the wood. We don't know if that animal had some kind of special saddle. He instructed his servants to aid him in his service to God. And they obeyed him. It was a three-day journey. It was probably silent. Just the enormity. God wants me to offer my son as a burnt offering. My journey would be silent. I wouldn't be chatting. I'd be praying. Be praying the entire time. Lord, please, provide an offering. I don't want to have to offer my son as a burnt offering. So he carried the materials to carry out God's command. It was a three-day journey. He also displayed his trust in God. We said the first time, when was the first time he displayed his trust in God? Besides gathering all the materials to go to Mount Moriah, the first time was when he said, you two stay here at the donkey. Me and my 25-year-old boy are gonna go up there and worship. and then return to you. God will work it out. God is pure. God is holy. I don't know what God's up to here, but I trust in God. What must have been going through Abraham's mind as he made that journey? Well, that God had told him that he planned his entire future through Isaac. You know, he had told him before, you know, I'm gonna multiply your descendants as the stars, as the grains of sand on the Portobello beach, you know? And now, in his mind, God wants me to sacrifice my son. I don't know how those two go together. They're totally the opposite. Isaac needs to be alive so that he can have descendants. God tells me to offer him as a burnt offering. This was milling through his mind as he made the journey. He begins to climb up Mount Moriah. He has the wood, he has his son, he has the fire, he has a knife in his hand. So we see Abraham's example of faith to his child forever. For the rest of Isaac's life, he'll say, my dad doesn't mess around. My dad is obedient to God. Nobody could tell Isaac, you know, your dad's unfaithful in following God. He'd say, wait a minute, pal. You don't know what I know. He was an example of faith to his child. He was an example of faith to his servants. And we see his answer of faith to his son. His son said, we have the knife, we have the wood, we have the fire, we're at the right geographical place, we've built the altar, where's the sacrifice? God will provide. God will provide a sacrifice. He's displaying faith again. There's some possibilities. Maybe God wants me to kill my son, but then he'll raise him back from the dead, okay? Or a better possibility is maybe God will stop me at the last minute and provide a substitute lamb, and that's exactly what God did. It says in verse 11, the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven. Where's heaven? It could be on another dimension. We can't see heaven with a telescope. Okay? I believe in angels. I was on a motorcycle doing about 80 miles an hour when I was young and dumb. and I hit a patch of oil on my motorcycle, which wasn't my motorcycle, it was a borrowed motorcycle. I saw it sliding ahead of me. I'd slowed down on a hill trying to stop, so by then I wasn't doing 80 miles an hour. I had no idea how fast I was going. I've always had good balance. I ride a unicycle. Ben and I share that. We can both ride unicycles. And I've been on motorcycles before, but not on motorcycles quite as powerful as the one I was on. The motorcycle slid out in front of me, sparks, grinding that foot peg. And I was thinking, man, I'm going to owe somebody some money. And the motorcycle's sliding out in front of me, and I'm sliding on my feet. I'm sliding. I don't know how fast. I'm in church clothes. We just went to a fancy dinner, and I'm sliding. I heard a voice in my head, tuck in your arms. I'd broken my wrist in college playing soccer, football, because a guy, I was a winger, left wing, and I'd run as fast as I could with the soccer ball down on the sideline, and then I'd hook it in to Lucho Gutierrez. Lucho would score. That was my only job. Get the ball to Lucho. I wasn't a great soccer player. Lucho was from Spain. He was a bad man bajamba. He could really play football. I'd get the ball to Lucho. Lucho would fake this way. The American guy would go, and Lucho would go the other way. And he'd score. Go, Lucho. So I knew you don't stick out your hand. Because I'd broken my wrist, drove myself to the emergency room to get my arm in a cast. I believe that that voice I heard in my head was God. Because if I would have stuck out my arm, you know, that could have cartwheeled my body, broke my neck, who knows? You know, you don't know. This voice was from heaven, Abraham, Abraham, specifically called Abraham by name. Here am I. And then he gave him some wonderful instruction, verse 12, and he said, lay not thy hand upon the lad. He's looking down at his lad that he's tied to the altar. Okay. Neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God. Is life sacred? Yes, it's sacred. Do we sacrifice our children? Does God require us to sacrifice our children physically to God? No. Life's precious. We're created in the image and likeness of God. That's why I'm for capital punishment. When somebody takes a life, it's a serious thing. I want justice, okay? I'm totally against abortion because children, at the point of conception, they become a human being. created in an image and likeness of God. God teaches us. That's why he created sanctuary cities, cities of refuge, right? If someone killed someone accidentally, they'd run. But there was an avenger of the blood. His job wasn't to thank. His job was to go get him. Okay? Because you couldn't have innocent blood polluting the land. And if they made it to the city of refuge and it really was an accident, they could stay there until the high priest died. So God teaches us in the Bible the sanctity of human life. God used this as a test of a test of Abraham and Abraham's faith. We see Abraham's character as a parent. Forever his son will say, I know my dad follows the Lord. I know he's not messing around. I know he's not a phony. I know he's the real thing. God help me to be like my dad. Help me to be like my dad. He reached out his hand, he took the knife and prepared to slaughter his son, but God stopped him. Third point, God concludes the task, he rescues Isaac. This is a familiar story, isn't it? We have the voice of rescue in verse 11. What did the voice of rescue say? Do not harm the 25 year old son, okay? Do not do anything to him, don't even nick him. Because now I know that you fear God, because you did not withhold your son, your only son from me." What does fear mean? What does he mean there in the passage? I know you fear God. Well, it's not this terror, you know. If God wanted to smash us with his big hammer, he could have done that a long time ago. Now God's long-suffering. God's long-suffering with us. Fear here means, to fear God means to reverence Him as sovereign. To trust Him implicitly. We see this. We see that Abraham trusted God implicitly. He prayed for this son. God gave him and Sarah this boy. What does his name mean? Laughter. They couldn't believe it. I can't believe it. God answered our prayer. Sarah, here I am an old woman and she's starting to show because she's pregnant because God chose that family to have Isaac. We see in verse 13, as we go on, and Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. If you've seen This Farming Life on BBC, really a good show about farmers in the Highlands, Isla Luis, up by Perth even, and by Aberdeen. Farmers, but I liked looking at the black-faced sheep, their curly horns. You know, they have a particular look on their face. But if those curly horns get caught in the heather, not the heather, the gorse, the gorsebush. I hate gorse. As a golfer, if my golf ball is in the gorsebush, it's not a good day. But it's even worse for a ram that has curly horns that can get his horn stuck there. Why did that ram get his horn stuck there? Because God wanted him to get his horn stuck there. This ram became the substitute offering. The substitute offering. Let's read about it. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering. So he killed that ram, laid it on the wood, set the wood on fire, and that fire ascended up. That fire ascended up. Had that ram done anything to Abraham? No. Totally innocent. Hadn't done anything to Abraham, hadn't even butted him. You ever been butted by a goat? It hurts. He offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of, or in the place of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place, what? What do you call it? Verse 14. What do you call it? What does that mean? We know Jehovah means God. What does Jehovah mean? God will provide. Is that an accurate depiction of God's character? Yes or no? God takes care of His children. I just shake my head the way God's taking care of Chris and I, taking care of our boys. They're through college, they don't know anything. That's all God. It's all God. That's God taking care of my boys. God takes care of his own. We have here, we have a substitute, okay? And Abraham here, he called the name of that place, so he's gonna call Mount Moriah. Jehovah Jireh, God will provide, or God has provided, as it is unto this day. In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And an angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time. I mean, what a blessing, not only to hear an angel's voice once, but to hear it again. Okay, what does he say this time? And he said, by myself I have sworn, saith the Lord, For because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, in multiplying I will multiply thy seed, as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed, or your descendants, your children, shall possess the gates of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Why? Because Jesus came through Abraham's line A. In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his young men. And they rose up and went together back to Beersheba, right? To Beersheba, and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. So we see that God's blessing was upon Abraham. He named the place Jehovah-Jireh. It was a place of severe testing. Of that place, that's the place where God provided. And it was called that in following Abraham's example, even after he died. And Brother Ben gets to see Mount Moriah. Okay, he gets to see it. Okay, so we're praising the Lord for God's blessing in that area. So God's promised blessings, I will bless you. God speaking, I will multiply your descendants like the stars, like the grains of sand, and you will take possession of the strongholds of your enemies. People in times to come will pronounce blessings on one another using The name of your descendants, I think that's neat, okay? They bless each other in names of some of Abraham's descendants. But what's our Monday morning significance? All this happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago. What does it mean to us? What does this passage mean to us? Well, quite a bit actually. It makes us ask ourselves the important question, the diagnostic question, what do I value above all else? Do I love God more than I love anything? Does God mean everything to me? Do I love him with my heart, soul, body, and mind? Let me ask you a question. If God tested Abraham, is there even the remotest possibility that he might test you? You're right, you're right. The book of James says, count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various types of temptation. It could be translated trials, okay? Who allows those trials to come? Well, God does. God does, not because God needs to learn anything. Nothing has ever occurred to God. He knows everything. But we get to see what we're like. We get to see how we're doing in our Christian life. And some lessons are only learned by the two by four of trials on the side of our head. We see the substitutionary atonement here, don't we? We see, what did John say about Jesus? He said, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. This was John the Baptist's statement about Jesus' atonement. Someone else paying for our sin. We didn't have the ability to pay for our sin. We needed someone to be our atonement. And that person was Jesus Christ. And he opened not as a lamb before his shears were done, so he opened not his mouth. He was silent on purpose so that he could take the punishment that you and I deserve. But the main point of this passage is that of the obedient servant of God, worshiping God in faith, even at a great cost, but after God's testing, receiving God's provision and God's blessing. If you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, Paul wrote, who did not spare his own son in the book of Romans, but gave him up, or, but gave, delivered him up for us all. That's what God was willing to do for you and I. He gave his lovely, wonderful, pure, noble, dignified, virtuous son, to die on Mount Calvary outside of Jerusalem for your sin and mine. Today, if you're here and you don't know Jesus as your Savior, hell is open 24 hours, seven days a week. The entryway is wide. There's no obstacles. But Jesus provided the only way. He said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. Jesus stretched out his hands. The last thing he said was, it is finished. He had paid for all sins. that have ever been committed that will ever be committed because He's the very Son of God. He's the only perfect sacrifice that could ever cover sins of that magnitude. But it doesn't do us any good unless we individually put our faith and trust in Christ, and become a born-again Christian, and say, God, be merciful unto me, a sinner. I believe. I believe you died for me. I don't deserve it, but I thank you for sending your son to be the atonement for my sin. That person goes away justified. The person that comes to God as a little child, not with all their intellectual arguments. They come to God as a little child with faith, saying, God, if you don't save me, no one else is capable of saving me. That person goes away justified. If you're here as a Christian, our word to you today, or God's word to you, what do you value? in your very core. Do you value God with all your heart? Do you love God with all your heart, body, and mind? You can improve your love for God by reading God's Word. You can improve your love for God by telling Him your inadequacies and asking for His help. And He can build up Your inner man, he can help you build up your inner man so that you can love him more and serve him better. We would say that today, but our message today is there was a substitute. There was a substitute, but the difference between us and Isaac was we were sinful and we were guilty. Isaac was innocent, he hadn't done anything. But the substitute died so that Isaac wouldn't have to die, okay? Jesus died so that we don't have to spend eternity in a place called hell, a place of separation from God. Is anything worth more than knowing for sure that when we die that we're going to heaven? Nothing that we own, nothing. It's the most valuable possession that anyone could ever have. That innate knowledge that Jesus is mine and I belong to Jesus. Let's have every head bowed and every eye closed.