(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, so we're just continuing our series here in Genesis. Of course, normally we cover this on Sundays, but because of Father's Day, our Father's Day message, and so we're just catching up now during the midweek service as we look at Genesis chapter 22. This is an amazing chapter of the Bible, I believe. In Genesis 22, look at Genesis 22 verse 1. Genesis 22 verse 1. 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. The title for the sermon tonight is Here I Am. Here I Am. And I love this chapter because Abraham is asked to do something that I don't know if I could do. Something so difficult. And when the Lord calls unto Abraham, he says these words, Here I Am. And the lesson that I want to take from Abraham tonight is, you know, as an example of the Father of faith, as an example of someone that was willing to sacrifice his own son by the command that was issued out of God, that we would see the commandments of God here in the Scriptures, that we would know the way that God wants us to walk in our lives, and that we too would be able to say to the Lord, Here I Am. You know, when the Lord calls unto us, I don't want to be like Adam and Eve were when they went hiding at the voice of the Lord that was walking in the garden. I don't want to be someone that's ashamed when I hear the Lord's voice calling to me to walk in his paths, to do a certain task, to do a certain job. No, when I hear the voice of the Lord, I want to be able to say, Yes, Lord, here I am. You know, what is it that you want me to do? That's what I want for my life, and I know it's hard. It's a hard calling. So hard, I don't think Abraham was expecting. Maybe he was. I'm not sure. I'll cover this soon. But I don't know. If he was really truly expecting, how difficult this would be, the task that God would give him. And some people would struggle with this because God's going to ask Abraham, You know, I need you to sacrifice Isaac. You know, Isaac has now grown up. He's no longer a little child. The Bible calls him a young lad, so maybe he's like a teenager. Some people think maybe he's somewhere like between 13 to 15 years old. We don't know exactly his age, but he's a young man. Obviously, you know, Abraham has had time to be his father, to raise this young man. He's the promised son that he's been waiting for for so long. And God says, Well, now I need you to sacrifice him. Wow. What an issue. What a command. And look at verse number one there again. Genesis 22, verse one. It says here, And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham. What did God do to Abraham according to the Bible? He tempted Abraham. Now I want to show you one thing that some people find that what they believe is inconsistent in the Bible. This is why I've asked you to go to the book of James. Go to James chapter one, please. James chapter one, verse 13. James chapter one, verse 13. Because can we say that God tempted Abraham? Well, I believe the King James Bible is a perfect translation of the word of God in English. I believe when I read there that God did tempt Abraham, that God tempted Abraham. But then some would turn to James chapter one, verse 13, and it says here, Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. Well, that sounds like a bit of a contradiction. It says here we should never say that we're tempted by God. But didn't the book of Genesis just say that God did tempt Abraham? Well, let's keep reading there in James chapter one. Let's understand this because the book of James, especially chapter one, chapter one of the book of James gives the best definition of temptation that we're going to find in the Bible. And in fact, if you look at Genesis chapter one, you'll notice there are two definitions that are given to us within the same chapter of James chapter one. Let's continue verse number 13. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. It says, For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. Verse 14, But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. And when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. So the temptation that we're seeing here in the book of James, James chapter one, verse 13, is this the same kind of temptation that God is tempting Abraham with? It's a totally different temptation. The temptation that's been defined here in James chapter one, verse 13, is a temptation to sin. When you have the lust in your heart to commit sin, we can't turn around and say to God, well God, you're tempting me to commit sin. Did God tempt Abraham to commit sin? Was sacrificing Isaac a sin? No, if he sacrificed Isaac, he would be accomplishing the command which God gave. And what is sin? Sin is the transgression of the law. It is the breaking of God's commandments. So the first temptation here, the end of the book of James chapter one, is a temptation to sin. We cannot say to God, God, you have put this sin in my life. You are trying to cause me to sin. We cannot say that about God. But look at James chapter one, verse two. Let's go all the way up there. James chapter one, verse two. This speaks of another temptation, a different type of temptation. And we use the same words, but they mean slightly different things, and yet overcoming these things is kind of the same process. James chapter one, verse two. It says, my brethren, look at this, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. That sounds a bit different. The first temptation is a temptation to sin. Should we be joyful when we're tempted to sin? No. What you'll soon see here at the beginning of the book of James, this temptation which we should find joy in is going through trials and difficulties in our lives. These things the Bible also calls temptations. So you've got to rightly divide. Well, we're doing a rightly divided series. Here we go, a little bit of rightly dividing. We've got to rightly divide between this word temptation and understand the context which it is given. More often than not, yes, temptation has to do with being tempted to sin. But sometimes temptation is just going through trials and difficulties. Look at what it says, let's keep reading. Verse number two, or verse number three. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. There it is, it's being defined. What is temptation at the beginning of James? It is the trying of your faith. It worketh patience. But let patience have a perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. So God may very well allow trials, challenges, difficulties in your life to try your faith, to test your faith. How strong is your faith? To make you grow, to make you mature in the Lord. But then there's other temptation which does not come from the Lord. It comes from the lust of your own hearts. That's the temptation to sin. That is not a temptation that God puts us in. That's a temptation that's upon ourselves. It comes from our own hearts. It comes from our sinful nature. So I hope you see that in the book of James chapter one as you're reading that. You know, some people scratch their heads, they're kind of confused. You know, I find they're all joy, but I'm being tempted to sin. No, no, no. There's two different temptations that are being defined for us in the same chapter. And of course now that we understand that we go back to Genesis 22. Genesis 22 verse one. And it says that God did tempt Abraham. What do you think God is tempting Abraham with? What is God trying to do to Abraham here? He's trying the faith of Abraham. And you'll soon see in what way. Why is he trying the faith of Abraham? Let's look at verse number two. And he said, God said to Abraham, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest. And look, he loves the son Isaac. God recognizes how much you love 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. And Abraham rose up. What a command, fathers. Imagine you got that command from God. What would you think? I'd be like, I don't think I can do this, God. You know, I'd be like, I don't know, Lord. But here's the thing. One thing that you'll notice, of course, Abraham was a safe man. We know that the gospel was preached unto Abraham prior to this. Abraham already understood the gospel, which is why he's able to do this. Nevertheless, even though he understands the gospel, and we'll soon see how this ties in, nevertheless, I still think it's extremely difficult to offer your son up as a sacrifice. And verse number three. 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, look at this, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. Now, before I keep reading, this is obviously a picture of God the Father offering the son, Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, whom he loves, you know, to be our sacrifice, right? This is a picture of that. And this is one reason I hate the oneness theology, the teaching of oneness, where they teach that Jesus Christ is literally God the Father. It's not just God. That's not enough for them to say that Jesus' son is God, but they go one step further in saying that Jesus is God the Father. Well, if Jesus is God the Father, we're losing the picture of the Father sacrificing the son. I mean, it's the same guy. You know, I mean, if oneness theology is right, Jesus is just sacrificing himself, okay? No, no, the Father is giving away his son. And what I love about this chapter, it just shows me a little bit of the heart of God. You know, would I be willing to sacrifice my own son? I already told you, probably not. What about, you know, sacrifice my son, you know, for my enemies, for those that are breaking my laws, for those that, you know, hate my commandments and my laws or have broken it, sacrifice my son for those people? No way. But then I think about, well, hold on, God sacrificed his only begotten son. You know, how much love, you know, did he have for his son, but yet how much love did he have for us in order to offer that sacrifice unto us? What a beautiful picture of this. You know, and as a father of children, I realize that would be such a difficult task. And then that makes me appreciate, the sacrifice of Christ makes me appreciate the love of God the Father more than I have before when I've had children, when I can reflect upon that. And the oneness theology, that takes it all away. You know, what a disaster of a theology when it takes away, you know, the picture that God gives us so we can relate a little bit to how, you know, he sacrificed his son. Look at verse number four. 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. Look, pay attention to the next words. And I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. Okay. Says, look, me and Isaac, we're going to go and worship and we'll come back. This shows me that Abraham knew already, knew that even though he's going to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, that he was going to return back with Isaac. Okay. So how's that? He was expecting, we'll soon see this, he was expecting Isaac. If he had to put him to death as a command that was issued by God, he was expecting Isaac to be resurrected from the dead. Okay. Don't worry, we'll be back. We'll be back, he's telling the men. So we start to see the faith of Abraham here in play. Verse number six, and Abraham took the wood. And again, this is now a picture of Christ. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, look at this, and laid it upon Isaac his son. So Isaac's carrying the very wood that he would be sacrificed upon. What does that remind you of? Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, who would be sacrificed on that wooden cross, that would be sacrificed upon the tree. And it says here, and he took the fire in his hand and a knife and they went both of them together. 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 is the lamb for a burnt offering? He says, look, we've got the wood, we've got the fire, we've got the knife, we're going to offer, but where's the animal? Where's the lamb? And again, this is so important that Isaac's asking the question about the lamb. Okay. Because who is the lamb of God? Again, it's Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ came to this world, John the Baptist pointed him out and said, you know, behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. What an amazing thing for John the Baptist to say. And of course, when Isaac's asking about the lamb, he's thinking about the physical, you know, little creature. But of course, this is again the picture of Jesus Christ who would be crucified for us, he being the lamb of God. And then verse number eight. And Abraham said, my son. And these words are captured for us only in the King James Bible. Okay. When it comes to an English translation, these next words are so important. We can't overlook it. And the modern Bible is messing up. Guys, be thankful for the King James Bible that you have. Let's keep reading. Verse number eight. And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. What did Abraham say? God will provide who a lamb? Himself a lamb. God will be the lamb. God will provide himself the lamb. What does this teach us? When we look at Christ as the lamb of God, this tells us that God himself will be the lamb. And this reinforces the deity of Jesus Christ. Not only was Jesus Christ the lamb of God, Jesus Christ was the God that provided himself to be the lamb. Okay. And this is a great truth that we see in our King James Bible. Let me show you how the other translations mess this up. I'll just read to you from the NIV. The NIV says, Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb. So it says God himself will provide the lamb rather than God will provide himself a lamb. So instead of it being God being the lamb that's been provided for, God will just find a lamb himself according to the NIV. Totally removing this fantastic passage about the deity of Christ. What about the New Living Translation? The New Living Translation really messes that up. Really messes this one up. It says God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son. A sheep. Now we can't even relate it back to Jesus Christ as the lamb of God. Because I had a look at the New Living Translation when we go to John chapter 1, when John the Baptist calls Jesus Christ the lamb of God. In the New Living Translation it calls him the lamb again there. But within the same translation here it's calling him a sheep. So you can't even link them together. You can't even see the correlation there. It removes that correlation between the sacrifice of the son of God with the lamb that took away our sins. What about the ESV? Now the ESV and the New King James... Now the reason I'm choosing these Bibles is because they're the most famous English translations besides the King James Bible. But the ESV and the New King James just teach blasphemy now. Now they both say the same thing basically. I'll just read the ESV. It says, Abraham said God will provide for himself a lamb for a burnt offering. What? God needs an offering? God needs a lamb himself? What is this? What it's saying there by extension is that God is a sinner and needs himself a lamb. What blasphemy according to these modern translations. That's the ESV. The New King James says the same thing. And Abraham said, my son, God will provide for himself the lamb. For himself? Why does God need a lamb to be sacrificed? No, no, no. God would be the lamb. God will be our sacrifice. Jesus Christ the son of God is God manifest in the flesh. So I really know you guys don't read your modern Bible translations. I hope you don't. Now you have another reason why you need to avoid those translations. The King James Bible is 100% perfect and preserved for us. Verse number 9 guys, Genesis 22 verse 9. And they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son. So he ties up Isaac onto the altar. And laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. Wow. You know, wow. What a thing. He literally has the knife now. He's about to just kill his son, sacrifice his son. Now I want you guys to keep your finger there and go to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 17. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 17. I just want to prove to you that one reason Abraham was able to have this great faith is because he was expecting Isaac to be resurrected. If he had to go ahead and sacrifice him. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 17. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 17. The Bible reads, by faith. Remember? Why did God tempt Abraham? What does it mean to try his faith? It says by faith Abraham, when he was tried, there's a trying of the faith, offered up Isaac. And when he had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. Of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Look at this. Verse 19. Abraham knew that Isaac was a figure. Abraham knew that Isaac was a type. I've been using that term a lot lately. A type, a figure, a foreshadowing of a greater truth. Now if you guys go to Acts chapter 3. Go to Acts chapter 3 verse 25. Of course that greater truth which Isaac represented was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And while you're turning to Acts chapter 3, I'm going to read to you from Galatians 3 verse 8. The Bible says, and the scripture, for seeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. We see that Abraham was saved because he had the gospel preached unto him. What is the gospel in the New Testament? It's the death, the burial and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when he knew Isaac is a type, Isaac is a figure, Isaac is a shadow of this lamb of God that will come. The lamb that God himself will be. You know he said well if Isaac's a picture, and I know that picture is going to be resurrected, or the anti-type, we use that term, is going to be resurrected, then I know the type of the figure, my son, will be resurrected from the dead. What great faith he would have to know if I kill my son, he was going to be raised from the dead. You guys are in Acts chapter 3 verse 25. And I've already preached this before, but just to cover it again, Acts chapter 3 verse 25, just as a confirmation with what we saw there in Galatians 3. It says, ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, and in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Was he speaking of Isaac? Kind of, as a figure of Jesus Christ. Verse number 26, unto you first God, having raised up his son Jesus, sent him to bless you, there's the blessing, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. That's the blessing. Jesus Christ has come to bless all of us, every nation can be blessed through the seed of Abraham, yes, as a picture, Isaac, in this sacrifice here, but ultimately a picture of Jesus Christ, who will take away the sins of the world, who will be resurrected from the dead, and we can have our iniquities, our sins removed from us, forgiven of our sins. What a great promise we see there. All the way back in Genesis 22, I love how the Bible is so consistent, it's like a perfect puzzle, just all comes together perfectly. It's fun to start, you know, I'm thankful that God has these passages in different places, because it's kind of fun, right, to find the passages and put them together, and then there's great satisfaction when you're able to uncover certain things in the Bible. Anyway, Genesis 22, verse 11, Genesis 22, verse 11. And so this was a trying of the faith of Abraham. So Abraham's about to slay his son Isaac, but does God truly want a human sacrifice? Was Isaac really going to picture or even be a sufficient sacrifice? Not at all, okay, not at all. You know, Isaac, again, you know, is a man of a sinful nature. You know, he's not going to fulfill this promise. It's always going to be a picture of Christ. But verse number 11, And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham! Look at this. And he said, Here am I. So I love how he says, Abraham, Abraham! You know, tries to stop him. Hey, before you kill your son Abraham, pay attention. Abraham's always ready to hear from the Lord. You know, at least hear the angel of the Lord. And again, he says, you know, here am I. I love it because he's about to make such an emotional decision, such a difficult decision, and he still has that heart. Yes, Lord, what do you want me to do? Yes, Lord, I'm willing to listen to you. You know, and, you know, we need to see this faith of Abraham. You know, how can we improve in our faith when we're going through that trial, when our faith is being tried and the difficulty, you know, we don't even have to do something like this, but the difficulties that we go through, you know, when we hear the Lord speaking, are we listening? Are we paying attention to the Lord speaking to us? And when he does in our trials, are we able to say, Yes, Lord, here am I, or here I am is the title for the sermon. We see that Abraham's in touch with the Lord God, and is able to listen, pay attention, and do according to the Word of God. Verse number 12, And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him, for now, look at this, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. Okay, this was the test, Abraham. I wanted to know whether you would sacrifice your son. I wanted to know whether you feared God enough that you would even, you know, fear him so much that you wouldn't even withhold your son from such an activity. Wow, you know, do we have that faith? You know, can God look down and say, you know what, you know, Pastor Kevin or, you know, other people in the church, you know, I can see that your faith in God is so great that you wouldn't even withhold your own children. You fear God so much, you would put God as your priority. You know, this was the trial of faith of Abraham. You know, who did he love more? We know he loved Isaac, you know, he loved him so much, but he loved God even more. You know, he had God as his priority. You know, even if it's a difficult thing for my family to go through, I'm going to listen to God first. This is the lesson, the main lesson from this chapter. You know, who's highest in your priority? Is it the Lord God? I think many times the highest person on our priority list is ourselves. You know, it's me first, often, you know. I remember there was a commercial on TV, I used to go, how was that? There was some insurance company for help, and it said something like, you know, the most important person in the world is you. You know, it's like, what? And it's basically saying, yes, you are the most important person to yourself. Not if you're a Christian, not if you're a Bible-believing Christian, not if you're saved. You need to put the Lord God first in your life, and you need to realize if I'm going through trials, maybe God is testing my faith. Maybe I haven't put God first in my life. Maybe the reason I'm going through this difficulty is because I've got to learn to put these other things, these wasted time. I need to put my pride lower. I need to humble myself. I need to raise God first and listen to his commands, put him first in my life, give him my time, give him the best time of my day to open his word and to pray and speak to the Lord God through Jesus Christ. We need to reexamine our priorities many times, many times in our lives, and God just may very allow you to be put through some difficulty trials. You know, I have a personal story. I call it my Abraham moment, just because when I was going through this trial, I could relate to this story. Now, again, God never asked me to sacrifice my son or anything difficult like that, but I remember a time, and I've already shared many of you guys' story, but it was this chapter that helped me understand what I'm going through. I was doing what I needed to do as a husband, working a job, working hard. I said God first. I said, no, God, you're my boss. I'm going to work hard for you. It's not about the money. It wasn't so much about that. I just want to make sure I put you first. I'm going to work as hard as I can, and whatever promotions, whatever pay rises come away, praise God. I can do it for the Lord Jesus Christ. I was working hard. I was getting promotions. I was working longer hours, and I started to climb in an international business, started to climb the career ladder. I was making a name for myself. Not that it was my goal. It was just happening naturally by being a good worker. I was given positions of leadership, positions of management, and I started to be able to call the shots myself. I had an influence within not just my company, but influence. People were hearing about my name in Asia and other places in the world, and many people said, man, you've got a good future ahead of you. You're going to be able to go all the way up the top and be someone important in the business. I didn't care about those things. I'm just trying to provide for my family and just trying to work hard. This is when I realized that promotion comes from the Lord. I'm not trying to promote myself. It was always the Lord that gave me opportunities to promote myself. I wasn't chasing money either. I didn't care, but at the time I was earning the most money I've ever earned. I was earning great money. I was doing, you know, pay for the mortgage, or they put more toward the church, those kinds of things. Always making sure I had God important in my life. I didn't want to replace my family time. I didn't want to replace my church time with work. I just wanted to work to be able to work. You provide my needs, the money for me to do certain things. Then I realized it's kind of like Isaac. Abraham loved Isaac. There's nothing wrong with loving Isaac. Nothing wrong with working hard. Nothing wrong with making a lot of money. Nothing wrong with those kinds of things. But there came a point in my life when I was desiring to be a pastor, I was desiring, you know, asking, Lord, Lord, where do you want me to go? Because I'm not really satisfied in this job. I feel like you're leading me. You're training me. You're guiding me to one day start a church and be a pastor. I was given opportunities to preach. The opportunities kept coming my way. I remember once when my pastor said, Hey, Kevin, can you preach this coming Sunday? I already made a commitment to the Lord. I said to the Lord, you know what, Lord? If I'm ever asked to preach, I'm just going to say yes. Just all the time. That's my commitment to you. You know, if someone, I'm not going to go and beg for a time to preach. But if someone comes and asks me, I'm just always going to say yes. Even if it's going to be super hard for me to do it. I'm just going to find a way to do it. And so I was asked, you know, can you come and preach this Sunday? I was like, yep, absolutely, I'll do that. And I remember later in the week, I would say, hey, we need you in, where was it? Maybe Japan. You know, we need you in Japan. You know, we need you over there. We need you there. And you need to fly out on Sunday because we need you first thing Monday over there to, whatever, training or whatever it was, you know. And I remember just thinking, oh, man, you know, I'm so frustrated because, you know, I'm trying to work hard, I'm trying to do the best I can and they need me over there. You know, I guess, Lord, you know, I can't preach this Sunday. I remember ringing my pastor and saying, look, pastor, my pastor was good to me. He understood, you know, okay, you know, that's fine. You know, I'll cover. And I felt, but I felt really bad. I felt really dirty. I was like, man, I put this job before preaching, you know. But I just put it down to coincidence. And then I told my pastor, but maybe in a few weeks, maybe in a couple weeks I can preach if you want me to. And later on, he came up to me and gave me, you know, a few weeks later, he said to me, I want you to preach, you know, this coming Sunday. I was like, yeah, you know, check my calendar. Yeah, of course, I'm free. I'll be there. I'll be preaching. And then again, a few days later, you know, now we need you in Singapore. I think it was Singapore. We need you in Singapore. And I'm like, oh, Lord, what's going on? Two times in a row? Two times in a row? Exactly. And again, they needed me to fly out, you know, on the weekend so I can be ready to go on Monday. And I remember thinking, I'm at a crossroads, God. I think you're trying my faith. And I remember reading through this chapter. I can't remember if I just went to it or if it was just during my normal daily reading. And I just started to read about Abraham and go, God, I think I'm having an Abraham moment here, you know. I think you're asking me, you know, what am I going to prioritize in my life? Is it going to be you and the institution of church that you put for me, you know, these opportunities to preach? Am I going to put that first? Am I going to put my job first? And again, it's not that the job was evil or wrong, you know. It's just that I'm just trying to do my work. I'm just trying to provide for my family. Nothing wrong with love in Isaac. And I realized, God, you're asking me to put you first, aren't you? You know. And I had to make that decision. I said, you know, I can't see my job where I currently am. I can't see my work dwindling down. Probably they're going to need me more and more in other places, you know. And I frustrated me leaving my family for a week and those kinds of things. I'll never go for more than a week because I didn't want to be away from my family that long, you know. But I remember just saying, Lord, I'm going to quit my job, you know. And I've never made that much money ever again. I've never had a position, prominent position like that again. But I truly believe if I didn't quit that job and put my church and the opportunities that I had to serve, I truly believe this church would not exist. I truly believe I would not be a pastor today of New Life Baptist Church or a pastor of New Life Baptist Church Sydney today if I didn't make that decision at that point in time where God was trying my faith but I had to put that aside and say, no, Lord, you come first. You come first. Now, I don't know if you're all going to go for this Abraham moment. That's what I call it, the Abraham moment. But at the end of the day, we need to still examine, you know, what are the priorities that we have in our life, you know. What are we putting first? Before we read the Bible, are we reading other books? What are we reading? Are we reading the newspaper? It's not always sinful things, you know. It's not always wrong things but you might be putting those things before the Lord God. Please, you know, use your time wisely in the morning when you get up. Read your Bible. Pray to the Lord. You know, give those early minutes, just a few minutes to the Lord first. Say, Lord, these are the first moments of my morning. I'm going to give them to you. I want to spend some time with you, Lord, so you can now help me throughout the rest of my day. You know, whenever you're most alert, some people are more morning people. Some people are more evening people. Whenever you're most alert, whenever you can study most, that's the best time again to pick up the Word of God and dig in deep and say, no, God, I'm going to put you first. You know, church attendance, God, I'm going to put you first. I'm going to make sure that I'm in church every time I get the opportunity to be in the house of the Lord. You know, make sure you put your priority, God, first before anything else. Let's look at verse number 13 now. Verse number 13, Genesis 22, verse 13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in a thick by its horns, and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up a burnt offering in the stead of his son. So Abraham does offer a burnt offering at the end of it, and this time he finds a ram that was caught there, obviously provided by the Lord God, and he sacrificed that animal. Now just to, some people think this is the fulfilment of God providing the lamb. You know, there's a reason why it's called a ram here, okay. Now the difference between a ram, a ram is a fully grown male sheep, and a lamb, of course, is a young, a young sheep. So it's not the same kind of animal, but it's not the same type of creature, and that's why the Bible gives us the differentiation there between the lamb and the ram. Okay, yes, God provided the ram here, but that's not the lamb, ultimately, that would be provided by God, or God himself would provide of himself, that would be the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse number 14. And Abraham called the name of that place, Jehovah-jireh, as it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord. It's interesting he says these words, these are the words of God. He says, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord. You know, we'll look at this soon, I'll keep reading. For because thou hast done this thing, and hast 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 I've already covered this multiple times, of course, the multitudes of the seed here are all the multitudes that are in Christ, all the multitudes that are saved by grace through faith by the shedding of blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse number 18, And in thy seed, and we already saw this is a reference to not Isaac, but of Jesus Christ, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. Now, let's go back to the book of James, James chapter 2. James chapter 2, please, verse 14. James chapter 2, verse 14. How many chapters have we gone through Abraham's life? Quite a lot now, haven't we? I think it was at verse 14 that we started knowing about Abraham and following his life. We're now at chapter 22, and there's a major false doctrine, major, major false doctrine out there, and they use James chapter 2 as the basis of their false doctrine. And it's not just a false doctrine. I've said it before, I'm sure we all believe something wrong. That would be false. But this is a damnable heresy, that if you believe this, you believe in a works-based salvation, and you're not even saved. You don't even understand the gift of God. You don't even understand the grace of God if you make this major mistake. Look at verse 14. The Bible says in James 2.14, What doth it profit my brethren? Though a man say he have faith and have not works, can faith save him? So they say, well, see, the question is, can faith truly save someone if they don't have the works? Now, is this chapter, is it saying you must be saved by faith and by works? No, it's a question. It makes you think, what is this about, you know? And people say, see, this proves that faith alone cannot save, you know? And they say, well, let's keep reading, look at verse number 21. Verse number 21. Because they'll point to this event that we just read about Abraham here. And it says, Was not Abraham our father justified by works? When he had, when? When was he justified by works? When he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar. See? Abraham was saved by or justified by works, right? When he offered Isaac on the altar. And that's what they'll say. They'll say, see, this is the point when Abraham was justified. Justified by works and when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar. This is the most ridiculous teaching I've heard. Because this is so much longer since Abraham was first saved. When was Abraham first saved? When he was still in the land of the Ur of the Chaldees, remember that? I mean, I proved that pretty, you know, it was Genesis 12. Genesis 12 looked at that, you know, where we saw that Abraham was saved even before God called him out of the land into the land of Canaan. That's about, I'm not sure exactly, but it's over 40 years now. Over 40 years have transpired. Okay? Abraham's already been circumcised. Abraham's already had the promised son. Abraham has already multiple times called upon the name of the Lord. If you want to name one of those the salvation experience. You know, no, no. There's been at least 40 years that have gone by when he now sacrifices his son Isaac. Are you going to now tell me this is the point that Abraham was saved and he was saved by faith and by works? It's so ridiculous, such a ridiculous teaching. And you guys, I'm not going to get you to turn there, but Romans 4 verse 1. How do we answer this? What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, have found, for if Abraham was justified by works, he have we're off to glory, but not before God. Not before God. Listen, if you're trying to be justified by works, you're not justified before God. Okay? You're just justifying yourself. You're justifying your sinful flesh. You're justifying yourself by your works. That's not how Abraham was saved. Abraham was saved by grace through faith. Forty years ago, more than 40 years ago, before he offered Isaac on the sacrifice. I don't want to go too much because this requires a bit of a detailed study. One day maybe we'll go through that again. But right now, I just want to show you the difference. Forty years later, is that how we judge a Christian's life? All right, brother, you got saved, what, 2019? Anyone got saved this year from here? Johnny, you got saved this year? Johnny got saved by grace through faith, but now we have to watch him for 40 years. All right? To see if he's willing to do something amazing like sacrifice his son. And now we know he's truly saved. Now he is truly saved. No, that's not what it's teaching. Okay? The fact that he was able to do this, you know, that he was justified by his faith and by his works, is so we as a reader of the Word of God can look at Abraham and say, well, Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son. Wow! Look at his faith! Look how great his faith is! Look how he was able to accomplish great works for God! Look how he was able to do this, which pictured the sacrifice of God the Father, sacrificing God the Son, his only begotten Son. That's for us to look at the faith and his works and go, wow! And he's being justified in our minds, justified in our hearts as we read the Bible. Look at this man of faith. Look what he's able to accomplish. Look if we have great faith, we can accomplish great works for God as well. Faith should not be alone. You should be alone for salvation, but once you're saved, you should mix it with works. So you can do great works for God through the faith that God calls you to do, the works that he calls you to do. But that's got nothing to do with salvation. If I'm able to do great works, other people are able to say, wow, look at Pastor Kevin, look at the works he's able to do. I'm being justified in their eyes. But I'm not being justified before God because the only thing that justifies me before God is salvation by grace through faith, and not of works, not of works. Such ridiculous teaching. Man, if you have a pastor, you have a preacher that teaches junk like this, you've got to get out of that church. Straight away, that's a false prophet. Okay? Verse number 19. Verse number 19. Genesis 22, verse 19. 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, Milchah, she have also borne children unto thy brother Nahor. Haz, his firstborn, and Baz, his brother, and Chemuel, the father of Aram. Now we're going to have a bunch of names here, another chronology of Abraham's nephews and nieces. And we don't know a lot about these people, but just look at verse 21, just out of interest, out of interest. Haz, his firstborn. That has to do with Job, the book of Job. Job lived in which land? You guys remember? The land of? Haz. Okay, so Haz and Haz, it's basically the same thing. So this was Haz's land where Job, I don't know if Job was a descendant of Haz or not, if he just happened to live on that land. And then it says, and Baz, his brother. And Baz is, well, one of Baz's descendants was one of those three friends of Abraham that went to talk to him. I'll just quickly read to you from Job 32, verse 6. It says, and Elihu, the son of Barachel, the Buzzites, answered. So one of Job's three friends was a Buzzite. He was a descendant of Buzz. So you can see these names have something to do with Job and the descendants here and his story. So that's why a lot of people believe Job is a contemporary, lived around the same time as Abraham, for various reasons, but this is another reason why. Anyway, verse number 22. And Chesed and Hazo and Pildash and Jepleth and Bethuel. And so we don't really know much about those people. But then verse 23. And Bethuel begat Rebekah. Now, Rebekah's an important lady. Let's keep reading. These eight, Milka did bear to Nahor Abraham's son and his concubine, whose name was Rumah, she also bared Tiba and Gaham and Thahash and Maakach. All right, so just the key name there that gets brought up. The only lady, I believe, oh no, there's Rumah, there's another lady, but the only daughter of one of the sons that's named there is Rebekah. And of course, Rebekah would eventually become Isaac's future wife. So Isaac marries his cousin's daughter, just to give you the idea there. But what I want to finish up on, guys, is just go back to verse number 16. Go back to verse number 16 and also turn to Hebrews chapter 6. Turn to Hebrews chapter 6. We'll end on this. Hebrews chapter 6 as well, as we look at verse number 16 there in Genesis 22. Go to Hebrews chapter 6. Hebrews 22 verse 16 said these words and said, these are the words of God, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord. So the Lord swears to himself. He makes a promise to himself. Now, often when we swear, we'll say, I swear on my mother's grave, or cross my heart, hope to die, or something like that. You make a promise, and it's not good to do those things, by the way. But we do kind of make those silly statements sometimes as children, even as adult people do these things. And we swear on things that are greater, the idea is. Something that's precious to us, something that's greater than us, we often make these sworn statements. And there's nothing greater than God. And so what does God swear by? According to God, he swears to himself. He swears to himself. And again, this just reminds us of his word. There's nothing greater than God. There's nothing greater than his sworn promises, his word. It's amazing that we can hold those great words. There's nothing greater than this book that we hold in our hands. These are the words that God has said. These are the words that God has promised. And we can stand sure on those words. He can't swear by anything greater. Therefore we know these words will never change. The promises are always true. But look at Hebrews chapter 6. And let's just look at verse number 13 for a moment. Hebrews chapter 6 verse 13. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself. That's what we just read there, right? Saying, surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. To see that God had promised this descendancy, the seed, Jesus Christ, we can look back now in history and say, yes, God swore and he was able to deliver on that promise. He sent Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, to die for our sins. But I want us to backtrack to verse number 9 because what should be our response to this? Look at verse number 9, Hebrews chapter 6 verse 9. Hebrews chapter 6 verse 9, look at this. But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. So you have salvation, we expect things from you. We expect things to accompany your salvation. What are those things? Verse number 10. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. You see, what should accompany our salvation is work and labor of love. Now often we think about, you know, a door to the soul winning, and yes, that's part of it, but let's just draw our attention to what it says here in this chapter. It says, You know what God expects from us? He's kept his promises. He's sent his son to die for us. He's given us salvation, full and free. What are we required to do? What kind of work is he expecting us to accompany what we've received? That we should minister to the saints, to the brethren, to our brothers and sisters in the Lord, that we should love them, that we need to serve one another. Keep that in your mind. That's God's expectation upon you. Do you love your brethren? Are you caring for your brethren? Are you serving your brethren? That should be expected with our salvation. Verse number 11. It says, You know, we should not be slothful in our ministry. We should not be slothful in our work. When we do things for the Lord, we should give it everything we've got. We should give the best we can to the brethren. And this is why I'm always fearful when I come to preach before the brethren, because I have to give you the best. This is my ministry. I'm a minister of the word of God. I need to, according to this, do the best I can not be a slothful person. You know, I'd hate to come up here and give you slothful sermons. That's not what I want. I want you guys to get rich sermons, things that you can learn from, things that you can apply to life and grow from. So just in conclusion, guys, you know, it's a good reflection for us to see the sacrifice, the great love of God. Send His Son to die for us. But now that we've received salvation, the call on us, guys, is that we serve the brethren. How well are you serving your brothers and sisters in this church? This is the opportunity, you know, within this church to serve one another. Let's pray.