We turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter 21. Genesis chapter 21, and there we'll read verses 22 through 34. That actually might not be correct. I've been getting into this very bad habit of leaving the last sermon text on here. So let me see just a moment. It won't be far. That's right, it's chapter 22. I invite you to stand and respect for the reading of God's word as we read Genesis 22, one through 19. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham. And he said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on 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 rose and went to the place of which God had told him, On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come 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 both went, both of 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 for 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 the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter 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 boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. 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 and said, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gates of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to Beersheba. and Abraham lived at Beersheba. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Amen. You may be seated. Genesis 22 is a provocative passage, a scandalous portion of scripture. It is a passage that you will either stumble over and discuss or surrender to its beauty. That's Genesis chapter 22. And you see both of these things, either a reaction of disgust and detest, or you see this warm beauty that receives it for what it is. The atheist Richard Dawkins scoffs at this passage. He calls it a disgraceful example of child abuse and divine bullying. And he says it's one of the texts that turned him away from the Bible and from Christianity, the Christianity he was raised in. He sees this passage as a scandal, a scandal to which bring a charge against God. How dare you test Abraham in this way? Will we join him? No, no. This passage is a scandal, but not one to bring a charge against God, but a scandal of remarkable grace, a scandal of how wonderfully merciful God is. This passage is not about cruelty, but mercy, not about abuse, but blessing. And when we really understand what's happening here, we come to the very heart of the gospel, to the very core of the message of Scripture. Good news. If we really understand this passage, what we walk away from is this. We walk away seeing God as the God who tests and also as the God who provides. The same God who tests is the same God who provides. And nowhere do we see this more clearly than in the Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel. We need to see all of this brought before us, brought before our very eyes this morning. First, we need to see this test, God's test, Abraham's test. And then we need to see the Lord's wonderful provision, God's test and God's provision. And you'll see the test here begins the moment that God calls to Abraham, Abraham, Abraham. He says, here am I Lord, what you have to say to me? And the next words he hears are life-changing, because Abraham's faith had been put to test many times throughout his life, but nothing like this. I want you to think about all the ways he'd been tested up to this point. He left his hometown to go to a land of promise because God said, go. And Abraham said, okay, I will. And then I want you to think of one of the next hardest thing that Abraham had to do. Through his foolishness, he had a son through Hagar, a slave woman, and God says you need to send them away. You need to tell them to go. I'll provide for them, but they can't live with you any longer. The reason why is simple. Through Isaac, through your very own child with Sarah, shall the covenant be. shall my promises be fulfilled. Send out the slave woman and her son. And that must've been one of the hardest things that Abraham had to do. To say goodbye to Ishmael, to say goodbye to Hagar, to see them walk away into the wilderness. And yet Abraham said, okay, Lord, if you say it, I'll do it. But now comes this, and nothing compares to this, the supreme test. Take your son, your only son, whom you love, take Isaac, and sacrifice him. It doesn't make any sense. God is just, throughout Abraham's whole life has said, you're gonna have a boy. And Abraham said, yeah, right. You're gonna have a boy through Sarah. It's true. God, I'm having a hard time believing that. It's really going to happen. And he will be the one through whom the head crusher comes. He will be your offspring. He will fill the world with your descendants. And more than that, through him, I will establish prosperity and a spiritual inheritance. more than anyone in the whole world will have Abraham. And Abraham says, okay. He says, now I want you to take that same son. Do you see him? A boy who you've come to know and love, who you've come to enjoy. You've started to know his personality. You've started to look forward to all that the Lord is going to do with him and through him. And Abraham, I want you to kill him. What? It doesn't make sense. Child sacrifice is the kind of thing that the pagan gods said to do. It's what Moloch said. Take your children and sacrifice them. The God of Israel would never command such a thing, except he says, here, Abraham, go, take him, sacrifice him. Isaac, take. Sacrifice, the voice of Yahweh, clear as day. Confusing but clear to Abraham. And the command is not confusing. It's the why question that Abraham would go, why? Why would he have me do this? This is a test that touched Abraham's closest relationship. Listen again. Take Isaac, your son, whom you love. Your only son. Each one of those phrases, It's like a punch to the gut. There are some things that I've read before becoming a father, and they're different after I become a father. I don't know if you've ever read Cormac McCarthy's The Story of the Road. Before that, I really enjoyed it. Now I can't read it because I think of my boys. I think of them being in danger. I don't wanna go there. Genesis chapter 22 is one that feels different after having a son of my own. It's one thing to step up to a test when you're the only one affected, right? I'd gladly storm into some heroic scene if it just meant that my life was on the line, not my family. Don't mess with my family. Don't mess with my boys. And so for Abraham to be told to take his only son to the place of sacrifice, it's a different field reading this passage with sons of my own and knowing what this means. It's a test that also involves one through whom the promise was to come. Every time Abraham looked to shortcuts to shore up the future, God redirected him and said, no, not that, back to the child. No, not that, back to Isaac. And now God says, yeah, that one through whom the promise is guaranteed, sacrifice him. Killing Isaac meant kissing God's promises goodbye. At least that's what it looks like on the surface of things. Cut off the one to whom the promise is to come? How? Why? It's the ultimate test because God is essentially saying to Abraham, Abraham, will you trust me even when it doesn't make sense? Will you still follow me if it means you have to give up what you love most in this life? Will you still find in me your blessing if I take away all the other blessings? It's a little bit like Job, isn't it? Will he still praise me if I take away everything else except for myself? Pressing question for us too this morning. Are you willing to follow God's calling even if it costs you your dearest personal relationships? Your house, your friendships, your job, your family. Is there anything you wouldn't be willing to place on that altar of obedience? It's not some philosophical game. There are times throughout our lives, even every day, in which we must sacrifice that which we love in obedience to God. And thank God, I don't think any of us will be in this situation where we're being asked to do precisely what God is asking Abraham to do. But there are times when we will be asked to do things like unto it. There will be times in which we have fallen into scandalous sin, shameful ways of living, and God says, you have to turn away from that. And we say, but God, I love it. And he says, you have to put it on the altar. And there are times in which we love our children so much, but we see them going astray, and we want to affirm them, and yet God says, but you can't. And there are times in which we have to let go of dear friendships, close relationships. We have to put them on the altar to burn them, to say goodbye to them, to see them change forever. What would be the hardest thing for you to put on the altar this morning? If you identify that thing, that person, that relationship, you may be getting close to where you're most tempted to have idols in your life. Anything in your life that you are not willing to release your grip from when God says give it up is an idol. And one of the scandalous things about this passage is it's not just the bad stuff that we know we ought to give up. Sometimes it's good things that we've made into gods and we have to let go of our grip on them and we have to change. We have to stop looking to these things as our satisfaction, our hope, our all in all, and God says you have to be willing to give them up. Are you there? Brothers and sisters, I know that each one of us would struggle. I know, I know I'm bringing a hard thing before you this morning, but it's necessary from our passage. What is it that you need to be prepared to let go of in obedience to God? For three long days, Abraham thinks about what he is about to have to give up. And those days, think about that, three days of journey, they must have felt excruciatingly long. Like eternity, like a descent into hell. We don't get a glimpse in this passage of of all of the workings of his mind, but he does some strange things here which make us think he's clearly disturbed and unsettled by what he has to do. First he puts the saddle on the donkey and then he goes and starts cutting wood. The order of his day, the things he's doing, they're strange and unsettled. He's disturbed, he's thinking about what's about to come on the horizon. He's thinking about what's about to happen upon that mountain. And then comes the time for Abraham and Isaac to ascend that mountain of sacrifice. And I want you to picture the scene. Picture Abraham leading his son up to the peak of the mountain and Isaac carrying the wood for the fire on his shoulders, strapped on his back like a cross. This is discipleship. This is a picture of what it means to take up our cross and follow Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this, when God calls a man, he bids him come and die. And that's right, what does it look like to follow God's voice? Each one of us would hope it would be sunshine and rainbows, but it often looks like going up a mountain with a cross on your back. Sacrificing that which you love most in obedience to God, when all the while you're saying, I don't understand. This is true discipleship. And yet, I want you to notice how Abraham never falters. Obedience carries him step by step up the mountain. And look at what he does. He binds his prized possession, his own son, to the altar. He lifts the knife. He prepares to plunge it fast and deep. And you pause at this very moment, this moment of the ultimate test with his knife raised, prepared to plunge. He's going to do it, he's ready to do it. even though it cost him, is very heartbreaking. What an example to us. What an example of obedience. Difficult, challenging, scandalous even, but yeah, it's an example nonetheless. How does he do it? How does he bring himself to this point? He trusts God. More than anything, he trusts God. He believes in God's unchanging goodness. Remember what we saw last week, how the roots of his faith, like that tree of Psalm 1, is planted deep into the wells of God's ever-flowing water. He believes in God's goodness. He taps down deep into it and says, he is the everlasting God, him I worship, him I praise. More than anything in the world, I want God. And here we see something very useful to us, very practical to us. When we struggle with God's particular commands, we must lean into what we know of his character. Now there's times every day in which I feel this. I don't understand why God would command this. You ever felt that way? I don't know why God would say this. Give up this relationship. Do this this way. Turn away from this sin. Suffer like Jesus. There's all these kinds of commands in which I say, if I wrote the Bible, I wouldn't have written that. And I want to talk to him when I get to heaven. I want to ask God why he did things this way. Why did he command things this way? But when push comes to shove, why must we nevertheless, even though we're confused, even though we have a long list of questions for God, why do we nonetheless say, yet I will obey? Well, it's because we know that He's good. That He's good. And that if He says it, if He commands it, it must be for a reason, even though our feeble and finite minds can't figure it out. I don't understand why God would command this, but I do trust him. Abraham trusts in God's unchanging goodness. He also hopes in the God of the resurrection. And I want you to notice this here. Notice what Abraham says to his servant when he and Isaac begin to ascend the mountain. We're gonna go away, but I will return shortly. No, he says, we will return shortly. I will return shortly with the boy. Abraham knows he's going to go and sacrifice Isaac up on the mountain as God has commanded and yet what? He says, you'll see both of us come back. And Hebrews 11 makes a really big deal about this. Did you hear it? Hebrews 11 says that Abraham believed with all his heart that even though he should slay his own son and commit his body to the fire, that God would still fulfill his promise through Isaac by raising the boy again from the dead. That's amazing. Abraham says, God, you're telling me that Isaac is the one through whom the promise is to come. You're also telling me to sacrifice this same Isaac. It must be somehow, some way, that there's life for Isaac beyond the grave. It must be that you're going to bring him back to me. It must be that whatever you take away, you give back even better. Amazing faith and the resurrection. Do you have the same resurrection hope? Do you believe that when it looks like you're throwing everything away, every chance of blessing, everything that you put your hope in and you're cutting it off, that God is powerful enough to transform that very thing you give up into something so much more meaningful and wonderful than you've ever imagined? Do you believe that that which you give up in this life, in obedience to God, he can supply tenfold, a hundredfold, a millionfold in the world to come, in the life, in the new heavens and new earth? Do you believe that that which you give away, he gives back even better? That's how Abraham is prepared to give up his only son, his Isaac, the one whom he loves. because he believes in the end that that which he gives up, that which God takes away, will somehow, will someway be provided to him. There he is, his knife raised, about to plunge, when God demonstrates the way he does provide for his people. He does provide for those who are willing to give up to him. Seconds before the knife cuts into the sacrifice, a voice interrupts Abraham, Abraham, Abraham, stop! Don't slay the boy. I see your heart, Abraham. I see what you're willing to do. Don't do this thing. And then Abraham looks and what does he see out of the corner of his eye? A lamb with its horns caught in the thicket, wrestling around in some tree. God himself provides the lamb for a sacrifice just in the nick of time. And I want you to think of Abraham's relief. I mean, it just must have washed over him, tears. could have poured from his eyes. Lord, how can this be that in the moment which I was about to give him up, you provided? I mean, you think of relief, think of Isaac's relief as he feels the ropes that abound him cut free and he jumps up. And then together, he and Isaac bind this ram and tie it. And now the knife plunges and there is no stop. Now it sinks deep and the blood runs. Is there any wonder that Abraham names this place God will provide? And I want you to think about what a profound insight that name is for this place. Abraham doesn't name it God has provided. He names it God will provide, why? Because by faith, Abraham sees that this is not just some point. about what God has done for him, but he sees that this thing that's happened on this mountain is a point that will be made for all human history. When has God provided more than anything for his people? It was in the ultimate test of God's own love for us. He offered his own son, his beloved son, on Mount Calvary for our sins. Where is the lamb? Isaac asks for the sacrifice. And what does Abraham said? God will provide for himself a lamb. Who would have thought that God himself would be the lamb that would be provided for his people. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Like a lamb that was led to the slaughter, the Son of God carried the wood for his own sacrifice on his back up Mount Calvary. Blood trickled down from the head of the Lamb of God, caught as it were in a crown of thorns. On the cross, there was no interruption as he was bound there, bound in place. There was no stop. The knife of God's justice plunged deep into the son of God. Why? Because he was dying for our sins. He was dying instead of us. Each of us deserves the knife of God's justice for our sins. Each of us deserves the eternal consequences of our rebellion against God. Each of us deserves death. The wages of sin is death. But what we get is a substitute. One who steps in our place, one who is bound for us. Again, you can imagine the feeling, the relief of Abraham and Isaac now being ours saying, when I get to go free, the chains are off, I'm no longer bound by my sin to the tree. That's right, but look to the Son of God who is bound there in your place. And he dies for you. Romans 8.32, he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all thanks? The Lord will provide. The Lord has provided. Our God provided a lamb to bear the curse for you, for me. Let us therefore lay everything on the altar of obedience and follow him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you did not spare your own son, your beloved son, the eternal reflection of your own glory. You gave him up in scandalous grace, out of love for us. Lord, teach our hearts to be so full of gratitude, so full of relief, that we go free while he suffers and dies that we live in newness of life because of this, not holding anything back, but putting it on the altar, sacrificing everything for you, knowing that you will return it a hundredfold in the life to come. And Lord, we see even a glimpse of that now because this son who was sacrificed did not die, but he rose, after dying, he rose again. Though he died, he returned on the third day. Your son slayed, your son resurrected, and the hope of glory for us now. We pray that we would be grateful and obedient. It's in Christ's name we pray.