Man, in Genesis chapter 22 here, we have the famous story of the offering of Isaac, which
is one of the most powerful Old Testament passages pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And of course, this is mentioned in the New Testament a few different times, and
you'd pretty much have to be blind not to see Christ in this passage.
Of course, there are people out there who read this passage without seeing Christ.
They're called Jews, but if you're a Christian, obviously, and you're looking at Genesis chapter
22, Christ is all over this passage.
And so it's a powerful prophecy about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So the Bible reads in verse number one, Genesis 22, and it came to pass after these
things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, behold, here
I am.
Now, the first thing I want to point out is that when the Bible says that God did
tempt Abraham here, this is not the kind of temptation as in putting something evil
in front of someone in order to try to get them to do something wrong or trying
to tempt someone to sin or something like that, because the Bible tells us in James
chapter one, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God for God cannot
be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.
So some people would point at something like this and say, well, it's a contradiction
in the Bible because James says, God does not tempt any man.
And then Genesis says, God tempted Abraham.
But again, this is just showing their ignorance of the context because in James
it says, God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man, obviously,
he doesn't tempt any man with evil, okay?
So there's two kinds of tempting.
There's tempting with evil, putting something evil in front of someone, dangling it before
them trying to get them to do wrong.
God would never do that to us.
God does not lead us into sin or show us something sinful to try to get us to do it.
But what this is referring to is attesting.
And it's sort of like our English word attempt.
An attempt is when you make a try at something.
So God is trying Abraham, he's testing him.
That's what it means when it says that he is tempting him, okay?
So it says in verse number two, 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 you.
Now of course, reading this without knowing the story of Jesus Christ or without knowing
how the story is going to end, this is a really bizarre thing to ask, isn't it?
To say, hey, you know, you've waited for so many decades to have this son and now that
you finally have your beloved son and now he's your only son that you have left because
Ishmael was sent away in Genesis chapter 21.
Now your son that you love, go take him and offer him for a burnt offering.
Now there are so many things right away with this that would just seem so wrong.
First of all, Isaac has been promised to be the seed that would carry on Abraham's lineage.
In chapter one, he said, cast out the bond woman and her son because in Isaac shall
thy seed be called.
You're going to be a great nation through Isaac.
Well, how can that happen if Isaac is killed?
Okay, number one, but number two, God does not ever have anyone in the Bible performing
human sacrifices, right?
Human sacrifices are something that pagans and heathen and wicked people do throughout
the Bible, but never do God's people perform a human sacrifice.
And so it's very strange.
But of course we know that this is a great picture of Jesus Christ, that the father
of course loved the son.
And Jesus said in John chapter 17 that the father loved him before the world even began.
So Jesus is the beloved son of God, the father that he gave to be an offering for sin.
He is our burnt offering.
He's the only human sacrifice that God has ever required is of one person and that's
Jesus.
Okay.
And so that's what this pictures.
And so he says, take your son Isaac and offer him.
And it says, offer him there for a burnt offering.
And here's the key thing, upon one of the mountains, which I will tell you, and it's
in the land of Moriah.
So the place where this is supposed to happen is a very specific place.
So Abraham is leaving Beersheba, which is at the very extreme southern most part
of Israel.
And he's heading north to the land of Moriah to a specific mountain where this is going
to take place.
Now, what's the significance of Moriah?
Well, Moriah is mentioned one of the time in the Old Testament when it talks about
Solomon building the temple.
And it says that Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount
Moriah.
So Mount Moriah is at Jerusalem.
And so that's where the temple is being built.
So probably the place where God is going to have Abraham offer Isaac is probably the
temple site.
Now, the reason I say probably is because it just vaguely says the land of Moriah upon
one of the mountains, which I will tell the of and the temples built in Mount Moriah.
So it seemed like the exact same place.
But because we can't be one hundred percent, another possibility is that he's basically
being offered on Mount Calvary because Jesus is crucified on a mountain at Jerusalem.
And that's also the land of Moriah.
So it could be a double meaning or it could be either or.
But as far as physically, obviously, these aren't the same place because the temple
is built on one mount and Jesus crucified on a different mount.
So as far as the text goes, it's ambiguous, it could be a double meaning.
But as far as where this sacrifice actually took place, it was either the temple site
or the site of Christ's crucifixion.
And either way, it's significant.
Either way, it's a mountain at Jerusalem and it pictures Christ dying for us, of course.
So look down, if you would, at verse number three, it says, And Abraham rose up early
in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him.
Then Isaac, his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went
unto the place which God had told him.
So he goes to that specific place that God indicated.
Then on the third day, and we'll come back to that, Abraham lifted up his eyes
and saw the place afar off.
And Abraham said unto his young man, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad
will go yonder in worship and come again to you.
Now, this is the next kind of shocking thing in the story, is that we're reading along.
And in verse two, he's told to go offer Isaac his son for a burnt offering upon the
mountain.
But look at what he says in verse number five.
He says, I and the lad will go yonder in worship.
Notice same subject.
And I and the lad will come again to you.
So he's predicting that both he and Isaac will return.
And that's, of course, exactly what's going to happen, because both Abraham and Isaac
are going to come down from this mountain unscathed.
Now if you would go to Hebrews chapter 11, and let's get the New Testament take
on this, because obviously the New Testament is always going to be the best commentary
on the Old Testament.
The New Testament interprets for us the Old Testament.
And since the New Testament is the infallible, perfect Word of God, we know that that interpretation
is always going to be correct.
And so it says in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tried.
Now notice, we see what tempted means.
The New Testament defines it for us.
He was tried.
When Abraham was tried, he offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered
up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, you know, in chapter 21, that in Isaac
shall thy seed be called.
But here is the interesting part, accounting that God was able to raise him up even
from the dead.
And so Abraham had so much faith in the promise of God, that he believed that if
he were to kill Isaac, that Isaac would have to be resurrected from the dead, because
God had promised that an Isaac would his seed be called.
And so this is the interpretation from the New Testament saying, look, he knew that
Isaac was going to be the one who would carry on his lineage.
And so he accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead.
That's one of the reasons why he's willing to go through with it in Genesis chapter 22.
He doesn't believe that he's actually going to lose Isaac because he has faith in the promises
of God.
But then it goes on to say something very interesting, from whence, which just means
from where, also, he received him in a figure.
Now when something is figurative, it means that it's not literal.
It's just symbolic, right?
So what the Bible is saying here is that Abraham believed that God could raise up Abraham
or that Abraham believed that God could raise up Isaac from the dead.
And in fact, he kind of received him from the dead, figuratively speaking.
It says from whence he also received him in a figure.
Why?
Because if you stop and think about it, in Genesis 22, one, when God first appears
to Abraham and tells him, go offer Isaac your son upon the altar, you know, he made
the decision that he's going to obey God and he's going to go do it.
So in that sense, Isaac is as good as dead in that sense, because he's taking him to
go die.
But then on the third day, because it says in Genesis that they arrived to Mount
Moriah on the third day, he figuratively receives him from the dead because he receives
him safe and sound because he doesn't end up dying because there's a substitution made
and we're going to get to that in a moment.
So I hope you understand what I just said, but in verse 19, that's what he's getting
at there.
And that's where the on the third day comes in because of course, Jesus Christ died
and he was buried and then he rose again on the third day.
Well, Abraham received Isaac, his son from the dead, figuratively speaking, on the
third day.
And so back if you would to Genesis chapter 22, and here's the other thing about that
is that in Galatians, the Bible says the gospel was preached unto Abraham.
And so therefore, we could see how he accounted that God was able to raise up Isaac, even
from the dead.
So look at Genesis 22 verse six now, it says, and Abraham took the wood of the burnt
offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son, and he took the fire in his hand and a
knife and they went both of them together.
So as Abraham and Isaac are going up to Mount Moriah, he puts the wood onto Isaac, he took
the wood for the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son.
Like here, son, you carry this.
Now the Bible does not give us unnecessary details.
I was just preaching about this on Thursday night down in Tucson.
If you get a modern day novel, you go to the store and just buy a fictional book,
they walk into a building, and there'll just be pages describing that building pages
describing the forest pages describing the garden pages describing the weather that
day, when a new character comes on the scene, you'll have a whole paragraph telling
you what color their hair is, what color their eyes are, the shape of their jaw,
the shape of their nose.
This is not how the Bible operates.
When we read the Bible, we don't get physical descriptions of any character unless
the physical description is moving the story forward.
So for example, we learn about Absalom's long, beautiful hair.
Why?
Because it matters to the story.
It has to do with his pride, his ego, his vanity, and eventually his hair is going
to get stuck in a tree and he's going to be hanging by his hair from the tree.
Therefore, it wasn't just, oh, by the way, he has some cool hair.
The Bible doesn't do that, which is why there's no physical description of Jesus.
There aren't physical descriptions of Moses.
Many things that matter to the story are mentioned in the Bible.
Nothing's ever wasted.
Everything is significant.
So when the Bible says he laid the wood on Isaac, it all has meaning or wouldn't
be there.
And of course, this is a picture of the cross, the wooden cross being laid on Jesus
as he ascended Mount Calvary, which again is why I think that there's a good chance
that it's not necessarily happening at the temple site, whereas an Old Testament reader
living back then would have thought, oh, Mount Moriah, special mountain, Solomon built
the temple there.
It's likely that it's actually happening on Mount Calvary of a deeper significance,
okay?
But again, it could be either one, you know, we're left to wonder.
So Isaac is heading up the hill to his supposed death and he's got the wood on his back.
This is just like Jesus, the Bible says in John 19, you don't have to turn there,
but it says, then delivered him therefore to be crucified unto them.
And they took Jesus and led him away and he bearing his cross, so that's where we
see Jesus carrying his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull,
which is called in the Hebrew, Golgotha, right?
So he goes to that mountain that's in the shape of a skull where Jesus is crucified.
Now we get the term Calvary also from that because of the word skull.
How do you say skull in Spanish again?
Somebody, Spanish speaker, help me out.
Skull in Spanish.
There's a word called calvarium.
Does anybody, oh, we have a medical doctor here telling us about the calvarium.
Is that about the skull, medical anatomy?
Does anybody in this room speak Spanish?
I mean, we have 300 some people here.
We're in Phoenix, Arizona and nobody will tell me, cause I want to say it's calavera.
Am I wrong?
Am I right?
Can I get a witness?
All right, it's calavera.
And so again, you can see how Calvary calavera is the place of the skull, right?
Finally somebody was willing to help me.
Thank you.
Muchas gracias.
So and then of course, a lot of medical terms come from Latin, so it makes perfect
sense.
So he's led up to Calvary.
Without Calvary carrying the cross, Isaac's carrying the wood for the offering, okay?
Nothing's an accident.
Look down in Genesis 22 at verse seven, and 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, but where's the lamb for a burnt offering?
Good question.
So apparently he hasn't told his son what's going on.
But Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
So they went both of them together.
Now here's the thing about this is that, you know, spoiler alert, what's actually
going to end up being sacrificed is not a lamb.
It is a ram, okay?
We're going to get to that in a moment.
So when the Bible says God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering, he's actually
talking about Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, that's going to be provided as the burnt
offering for our sins, okay?
And it says, so they went up, both of them together, verse nine, and they came
to a place which God had told him of and Abraham built an altar there and laid
the wood in order and bound to Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the
wood and Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
I mean, he's ready to go through with it.
So there's an incredible amount of faith to do this, uh, this, uh, strange request.
And the angel of the Lord called on him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.
Now I love how it's mentioned twice, which makes it seem like Abraham's not hesitating
at all.
So the angel has to yell twice to make sure that he stops because if he was kind
of looking for a reason to stop, he's kind of like, and it's like, Abraham, he'd be like,
yes.
You know, he'd be like, ready, ready.
It's like, Abraham, Abraham, you know, cause he's like, whoa, buddy.
So again, everything in the text is significant.
So he says, Abraham, Abraham.
And he said, here am I.
And he said, lay not on hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him for now
I know that thou fear is God seeing thou has not withheld thy son, thine only son from
me.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a Ram caught in a thicket
by his horns.
Now the Ram pictures Jesus, but the Ram is not Jesus.
The Ram is an animal.
It's a Ram, but the Ram pictures Jesus, right?
Now here's the thing about prophecies of the old Testament.
They usually have a double meaning or dual fulfillment.
This is like prophecy 101.
When you're reading the old Testament, virtually all the prophecies of the old Testament have
a dual or even triple fulfillment.
And typically the way this works is that there's an immediate fulfillment that's not
quite literal, but then later you have a real fulfillment that's more literal in
the future.
Okay.
Going all the way back to the beginning, Garden of Eden, God tells them that in the day that
they eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Okay.
And of course the devil comes along and says, well, you should not surely die.
Well, when they eat the fruit, do they die physically that same day?
No, because Adam lives, you know, to be 930 years old.
There is an immediate fulfillment because he died spiritually.
He spiritually died right then and there.
So in the day he ate thereof, he did surely die, but not literally physically, but spiritually
he died.
His spirit is dead.
Okay.
And so this could, you know, this could cause the devil to come along and say, well, see,
I was right, but the devil is not right because he did die that day.
He died spiritually when he was in a state of innocence in the Garden of Eden before
he ate the fruit.
He was alive.
You know, it's funny, I was just, I was actually just talking to my brother on the
phone last night and we were talking about Romans chapter seven.
Somehow that came up in the story where Paul said, you know, that I was alive once
without the law, but then the commandment came and sin revived and I died and we're
talking about how babies and young toddlers and children, they're innocent.
That's why they don't know they're naked and they'll run around naked and they don't
even care.
Whoa, put some clothes on and they're, you know, they, once they get to all the way
down the street.
No, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, the point is that they're in that state of innocence.
That's why if a baby dies, it's going to go to heaven no matter what, cause it
is a state of innocence.
Okay.
And Paul said, Hey, I was alive without the law once, but then the commandment came,
sin revived and I died.
So just as Adam and Eve were innocent and then they ate the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
And then all of a sudden they're no longer innocent.
Now they're dead spiritually.
You know, when we were born, our spirit was alive.
Paul said, I was alive once, but then when, when we, uh, became old enough to understand
right and wrong and when we're no longer innocent, then now all of a sudden we're
dead in trespasses and sins.
Our spirit is dead.
And then when we believe on Jesus, our spirit is quickened or brought to life.
But this was so, this is what was so much was so funny about what my brother told
me.
This is back a while back.
He was going to a church.
This is a church he went to a while back and he had never told me the story before,
but he had, he went to the pastor and he was, uh, he brought up Romans seven to
the pastor and he showed him like, Hey, look, Romans seven, Paul's saying, you know,
I was alive without the law once.
And he kind of just was, um, putting forth to his pastor the possibility that what I
just explained to you, he kind of put that forth as a possibility.
This was a really long time ago and it was something he just noticed in the Bible.
Himself.
And so he brought it to his pastor like, is that am I, you know, is this is what it
looks like.
It's saying, and of course he was right.
That is what it's saying.
But a lot of people are stuck on this tradition where they have this thing called
original sin, where they believe that, you know, even babies are sinning or in the,
and that it's a Catholic thing.
That's why I got to baptize the babies cause they're, they're sinning or something,
you know, whatever.
That's a whole nother story.
Cause baptism doesn't save you anyway.
Believing in Jesus saves you.
Okay.
It's not water that saves you.
It's the faith that saves you.
It's Christ that saves you.
It's the blood that saves.
But anyway, so, so my brother just, you know, rationally articulated that teaching
from Roman seven and this was the pastor's response to him.
He's like, uh, Clint, are you okay?
I mean, is, is everything okay?
Like he literally started acting like he was mentally ill.
Like like is everything okay?
Like are you going through anything right now?
You know, did I, and my brother's just like, I mean, I'm fine.
It's pretty sad when, you know, studying the Bible or, or trying to understand scripture
or maybe questioning some tradition, uh, you know, is a sign of mental illness in churches
now where they, it's like, it's just shut up and just believe what we, what we
told you, you know, Hey, uh, and by the way, he was right anyway.
That is what Roman seven is saying.
Okay.
And so that was a little bit of a tangent, but I wanted to tell that funny story about
how, uh, you know, his sanity was questioned for asking a doctrinal question that was perfectly
reasonable and in fact, correct.
Okay.
So dual fulfillment, that's how I got off on that tangent.
You know, they died spiritually, but here's the thing.
Did wasn't there a literal fulfillment 930 years later when Adam physically died, would
Adam have died?
Had he not sinned?
No, because he could have eaten that tree of life and live forever.
That's what the Bible says in Genesis three, that if they stayed in the garden and had
eaten of the tree of life and had not violated God's command, they'd live forever.
So you have the immediate fulfillment that's not quite literal.
And then you have the future fulfillment.
That's very literal.
Okay.
So here's the thing.
You have the not quite literal fulfillment where instead of a lamb, it's a Ram showing us that
there's a future fulfillment still coming of Jesus, the lamb of God, which take it away
the sin of the world.
Okay.
That's God providing himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
That's providing Jesus as a lamb for a burnt offering.
Okay.
And so we could go through literally a hundred other examples of dual fulfillment.
I've done a whole sermon about dual fulfillment, but you get the idea here.
Okay.
So here's the cool thing about the Ram is caught in the thicket by his horns.
Again, nothing in the Bible is wasted.
This picture is the crown of thorns around Jesus shortly before he's crucified, right?
His head is caught in the thorns.
The Ram is in the thorns.
That picture is the crown of thorns.
And so Abraham went and took the Ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the
stead of his son.
Look at verse 14 and Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh as it is said
to this day in the mountain of the Lord, it shall be seen.
An angel of Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and said, by myself
have I sworn say at the Lord for because thou has done this thing and not withheld
thy son, thine only son that in blessing I will bless thee and 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 shall possess the gate of his enemies.
And here's the key verse 18 and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed because thou has obeyed my voice.
Now why will all nations of the earth be blessed in the seed of Abraham?
What is the fulfillment?
It's Jesus.
Some people would say, oh, it's the nation of Israel.
But hold on a second, Galatians flat out tells us in verse eight, the scripture
foreseeing that God would justify they heathen through faith, preached before the gospel
unto Abraham saying, and these shall all nations be blessed.
So the reason that all nations are blessed through Abraham is that Jesus comes from Abraham
and that there are people who are saved by Jesus in every single nation on this planet.
There is not a nation on this planet where someone is not saved by Jesus.
Every country, every nation, every kindred, every time.
And this is emphasized in the book of Revelation when they get to heaven.
Every family, kindred, nation, tongue is represented.
Jesus is the savior of the whole world, not just a certain nationality or ethnicity.
You know, Hinduism is pretty much just for the Indians.
You know, Islam is, you know, certain nationalities more than others.
Whereas Christianity is everywhere, Asia, Africa, Europe, North, South America, Australia,
every nation is filled with Christians because all nations are blessed through Christ through
believing in Christ.
And Christ is the seed singular of Abraham according to Galatians chapter three.
And that's what it's talking about.
So then we get to verse 19.
It says, so Abraham returned unto his young men and they rose up and went together to
Beersheba and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.
And it came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham saying, behold Melchiah,
she had also born children under thy brother Nahor.
Now again, it's easy when you're reading the Bible to say, well what's this got to
do with anything?
Like okay, so Isaac just came down from the mount, he didn't get killed, he's swapped
out for the ram at the last minute, Abraham gets the blessing, and oh, by the way, Abraham
finds out that his brother has a bunch of kids.
Well but keep reading and you'll see the significance.
So this is kind of the hillbilly side of the family.
So you got, you know, huzz and buzz.
So we got huzz and buzz and Camuel, the father of Aram and Kesed and Hazo and Pildash
and Jidlap and Bethuel.
And here's why it matters.
Here's why it's significant.
Verse 23, and Bethuel begat Rebekah.
Who's Rebekah?
That's Isaac's future wife, okay?
And so those eight, Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother, and his concubine whose
name was Ruma.
And if you want to learn more about what a concubine is, I preached about that on
Thursday in Tucson.
She bear also Teba and Gaham and Theash and Maacah.
Now let me just show you how amazing the Bible is, okay?
Because the Bible is so deep and there's so much going on, and like I said, everything
in the Bible is there for a reason in that way.
So go back to Genesis 21 and I'm going to show you the similarities between Genesis
21 and Genesis 22.
So we already saw how Genesis 22 is this powerful prophecy of Christ coming and dying
for our sins.
And, you know, we're kind of like Isaac where we're slated to die and then we get
swapped out for Jesus.
We're all like Isaac.
And that's why the Bible in the New Testament says, we brethren as Isaac was are the children
of promise.
Spiritually, we as Christians are Isaac, okay?
And so we are substituted by Christ.
So that's already really cool on its own just to read Genesis 22 and understand that.
But now let's see how deep the Bible is that even Genesis 21 ties in with Genesis
22 because Genesis 21 is about Ishmael.
Now what are the similarities?
I found six really good similarities between these two chapters.
I'm sure there are way more that I didn't find, but I just want to show you how
amazing the Bible is.
Number one, in both chapters, Abraham is asked to give up a son as it were because
in chapter 21, he's told to let Ishmael go.
And then in Genesis 22, he's told to offer up Isaac, okay?
So look what the Bible says there in Genesis 21, 12, and God said unto Abraham, let it
not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad and because of the bond woman in
all that Sarah has said unto thee, hearken unto her voice for in Isaac shall thy seed
be called.
And also of the son of the bond woman will I make a nation because he is thy seed.
Also in both chapters, God promises to make a great nation of his son, Ishmael versus
Isaac.
Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave
it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder and the child and sent her away and she departed
and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
Similarity number two is that in both cases, his son is in danger of dying, okay?
Isaac, you know, is possibly going to be sacrificed on the mountain, but look at verse
15, the water was spent in the bottle and she, Hagar, cast the child, Ishmael, under
one of the shrubs and she went and sat down over against him a good way off as it were
a bow shot and she said, let me not see the death of the child.
And she sat over against him and lift up her voice and wept.
So that's a similarity.
Number three, similarity.
God's angel in both cases speaks from heaven to intervene and save the boy's life, both
to save Ishmael and to save Isaac because in verse 17 it says, and God heard the
voice of the lad and angel of God called Hagar out of heaven and said unto her, what
aleth the Hagar fear not for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.
Number four, I stole my own thunder, but there was the promise to make of the sun
a great nation.
Verse 18 arise, lift up the lad, hold him in thine hand for I'll make him a great
nation.
Similarity number five is that in both stories, salvation was there all along, but
they just didn't see it.
Okay.
Because if you remember, the Ram was stuck in the thicket, but Abraham had to see it.
The angel had to tell him and then his eyes are open and he lifts up his eyes.
He sees the Ram that was there already caught in the thicket.
We'll look now at verse number 19 and God opened her, that's Hagar's eyes and she
saw a well of water, you know, so water was right there.
You're dying of thirst and she just didn't see that there was a well there.
And so, uh, her eyes are open.
She saw a well of water.
She went and filled the bottle with water and gave the lad drink.
Okay.
And of course, both the burnt offering is a picture of Christ and salvation.
Well, a well of water is a picture of salvation because salvation is often pictured as drinking
of the water of life and that salvation is a well springing up onto everlasting life.
And then, uh, in, and then here's the other thing that's interesting.
Both stories, number six, both stories end with a wife for that son because in Genesis
21 verse 21 it says, and he dwelt in the wilderness of Peron and his mother took
a wife, took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
So now the dimension of Rebecca makes even more sense in chapter 22 because it's following
the pattern from Genesis 21, same pattern in Genesis 22.
They both, and so you see how intricate the Bible is, how sophisticated the Bible
is, how it's so deep and there's so many layers and so many things going on.
One last thing before I make a few applications and be done.
What about this little interlude about Abimelech?
There's this little between the Ishmael story in chapter 21 and Isaac story in chapter 22.
There's this little interlude about Abimelech, which seems totally unrelated, but again,
there's some symbolism going on because the Abimelech story starts out talking about
a well in verse 25, then it resolves by talking about lambs in verse 28.
So it kind of like connects the well story with Isaac with the lambs story, or sorry,
the well story about Ishmael with the lambs story about Isaac.
It's like a bridge thematically.
And then also it says Abraham verse 33 planted a grove in Beersheba and called there on
the name of the Lord, the everlasting God, which is again a picture of salvation because
when it comes to salvation, we also call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.
I mean, talk about depth.
I mean, there's just, there's so much and you can read this story again and come up
with a whole bunch of other stuff that I didn't even talk about because there's
just so much there.
The Bible is so amazing and this is why, you know, we need to be reading our Bibles.
There's so much treasure there to be gleaned from the word of God.
But the key thing to see here is that salvation is pictured as what?
The well of water calling upon the name of the Lord and it's pictured by the lamb
of God sacrificed for us.
You see, we, as just sinful human beings, we're slated for death because the Bible
says for all of sin and comes short of the glory of God and the Bible says that
the wages of sin is death and so we have an appointment with death.
But Christ has stepped in and been made the substitute and he has taken our place so
that we might live, right?
And so we survive, we have eternal life.
Also when it comes to the Ishmael story, right?
Ishmael's at the point of death, but yet he's saved by that well of water that's
there all along, but God's got to open our eyes so that we can see it.
And you know, when we go out preaching the gospel to every creature, we're out witnessing
about Christ, what are we doing?
We're trying to get people to open their eyes to see salvation that's right there
in front of them for the taking.
You know, here they are, they're dying of thirst and the well of water is right there
the whole time.
The well of water is right there.
And the Bible tells in Romans chapter 10 that you don't have to go over the sea to get
it.
You don't have to descend up into heaven to get it, you don't have to descend into
hell to get it.
But the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is the word
of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and
shalt believe in thy heart that God is raised from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
And so it's right there, it's nigh you, nigh means near.
The ram was near, the well was near, but people don't see it.
We are like that angel from heaven telling people, look, it's here, you know, we're showing
people that salvation is close, it's available, it's near, it's easy, all they have to do
is look and live.
Look and live.
And notice, it's not like, hey, there's a water and ice store right here, we can
go buy some water.
It's free.
Salvation is a free gift, it's not purchased, it's not like, hey, there's a guy coming
through selling rams, hey, there's a water vendor, you know, it's like when you're in
Mexico and those cars drive around with the megaphone, they're like, ah-wah, bata dias,
and they're like, they're just like driving around selling stuff.
It's like the ice cream man except it's selling everything, water, batteries, like
household goods, matches, you know.
It's not like that guy pulled up and, you know, Abraham, or his male's dying of thirst
and it's like, ah-wah, you know.
No, what happened was, the well was there and it was free because salvation's free.
It had already been provided.
The well had been dug a long time ago, just as the well of eternal life was dug a long
time ago, right?
God promised us eternal life before the world began, Jesus died on the cross 2,000
years ago, and so everything's ready, it's a free gift, all we have to do is believe
and we express our faith, we express that belief by just calling upon the name of the
Lord.
If you just confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that
God is raised from the dead, you shall be saved.
And so what a powerful picture of salvation in Genesis 22, yes, but then you grab onto
chapter 21 and combine it with chapter 22 and you get even more.
And obviously we could just keep going, we could grab hold of chapter 20, you know,
we could grab chapter 24 and we could just keep going with this thing and just go all
the way back to Genesis 1 this way and all the way to Malachi chapter 4 this way and
we're going to find that to him give all the prophets witness that through his
name whosoever believeth in him shall receive the remission of sins.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful picture of salvation in your word, Lord,
and dear God, I pray that all of us would continue to marvel at your word.
That we would never become bored with it or that we would never think it was just
commonplace or ordinary, but that we would always stand in awe of your word.
That we would always magnify your word and that we would always marvel at the free
gift of salvation, Lord.
Help us to share that gift with as many people as we possibly can and show them that
well of water before they die of thirst, Lord.
Help us to be able to understand these things so that we can communicate them to others,
Lord, and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.