PROVISION, POSSESSION, AND PROMISE
Genesis 22:1-19
In this sermon we will see the ways of God in His involvement with mankind and the testing of our faith.
Abraham is called the Father of Faith - His promise involved a place, a promised son, and God’s provision.
In Chapter 22 of Genesis after a life that was tested and tried God brought Abraham to Mt Moriah to offer up his only son Isaac. Imagine the thoughts of Abraham after all He had been through yet God was not finished with him yet.
The Test of Abraham
Sometimes God’s testing are designed to remove self-confidence, so that our faith will be in Him and in Him alone; others, like this testing of Abraham, are designed to reveal the reality of faith. The tempting that come from Satan (and what comes from him are always tempting, not testing) are designed for our harm. The testing that comes from God is always for our good.
The test of Abraham involved His knowledge of God. Abraham knew God in many different ways but the ultimate knowledge of God is that He is a God of Resurrection.
Heb 11:17-19 “By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure”.
Abraham’s faith was in the God of resurrection! Nothing apparently could shake Abraham’s faith in God’s word, so believing that God would keep His word, this great man of faith reasoned logically that since Isaac had been pointed out as the channel of blessing, then God must raise him up again out of death. And there can be no question that that faith was founded on the circumstances attending Isaac’s birth. He had come from two people, who as far as begetting or bearing children, were “as good as dead” (Heb 11:11-12). Abraham reasoned rightly that the God, who had brought this son out of two dead bodies, could just as easily bring that same son out of death again.
If we can believe that on a personal level then there is nothing that we can’t believe God for. He wants us to know whatever our life is like, no matter what the circumstances are, that He can turn dead things into living. This then becomes our test!
Three is the number of resurrection. It was a three day journey.
The Response to the Testing
We can’t even begin to measure the faith of the man, who in the face of all this, “rose up early in the morning” to render a speedy obedience.
If we understand that the testing of God is for our benefit then we will respond in immediate obedience.
”... and saddled his donkey.” The wild donkey represents the body as the servant of the old nature, given without restraint to the indulgence of the flesh, while the saddled or bridled ass portrays the body with some measure of restraint imposed. Abraham’s saddling his donkey, therefore, is the symbolic declaration of the truth that he refused to listen to the voice of nature. Natural affection for Isaac must not be permitted to beget disobedience of God.
Abraham also took two of his young men with him. The young man represents spiritual strength or maturity (Pr 20:29), and two is the number of witness or testimony. These two young men therefore, are the symbolic witness to Abraham’s spiritual strength. He was a man who knew how to overcome his flesh and walk in the Spirit.
At Moriah Abraham’s leaving the young men and the donkey, God would teach us something about worship. He who would worship “in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:23-24), must separate himself from everything that would distract. The two young men, representing spiritual strength, were left behind. He who would worship must be occupied, not with his own spiritual state, but with Christ. The donkey, too, was left behind. Again, the worshipper must be occupied, not with what he is as a man still in the body here on earth, but with Christ. “I and the lad will go....” Only Abraham and Isaac went to the mountain to worship. True worship requires the dismissal of everything except the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Place of Testing
The place where Isaac was to be offered was in “the land of Moriah,” which means my teacher is God: seen of God. When Abraham came into the land, the second-mentioned stopping place was Moreh, a word very similar to Moriah, and meaning teacher. This greatest test of Abraham’s life was also for his learning. In all of this God would teach us that earth is His school where every circumstance is a lesson designed to equip us for the eternal state. If the events making up our lives were viewed in this light, we would be found more often acknowledging that “All things (do) work together for good to them that love God” (Ro 8:28).
Here in Ge 22 Abraham was bidden to go into the land of Moriah, and to offer Isaac upon a mountain that God would show him. In 2 Chr 3:1 it is recorded that Solomon’s temple was built on mount Moriah. If this is correct, and there is every reason to believe that it is, then one lesson at least being taught is that just as God’s literal house rested on the place where Abraham offered his son, so does God’s spiritual house, the Church, rest upon the truth that Jesus was raised from the dead.
22:4 “Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.”
Hebrews 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
The Result of Testing
PROVISION
22:13,14 “And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.” 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.”
Jehovah-Jireh: = God is and will provide and does through Christ. Look at the type of Jesus in this scripture.
a. riding on a donkey
b. carrying the wood upon which he would be sacrificed
c. a father binding his son and placing him on the wood
d. a ram offered in place of a person
POSSESSION
22:17“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 sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.”
In Scripture the gate is synonymous with the place of government, and the assurance that Christ will possess the gate of His enemies is the symbolic declaration of His coming glorious universal reign, when “He shall rule them (the nations) with a rod of iron” (Re 19:15). That we shall share in that reign is assured in Re 2:26-27, “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my words unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron,” and 2 Tim 2:12, “If we suffer (endure), we shall also reign with him.”
Two thoughts connect themselves with the words “in thy seed.” The first is that the blessings will come through Christ; the other, that the blessings will come to those who are themselves in Christ.
PROMISE
22:17“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 sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.”
22:19 “So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba.”
Beer-sheba means well of the oath, so that Abraham’s going there, and his continued dwelling there, would speak of the believer’s living his life around the Word, for it is the true Beer-sheba. It is the unfailing well of God’s promises, His oath sealed with the blood of His Son. Not one of those promises will go unfulfilled, for it is written, “All the promises of God in him (Christ) are yea, and in him Amen ....” (2 Co 1:20).
CONCLUSION:
1. God will call your name what will be your response?
Verse 1 "Here am I". Trials are to see how I respond to what is asked of me. Will I obey God?
2. Your provision is in the place of your calling.
In the place He calls me to go and the purpose He calls me to walk in He will provide all that’s needed.
3. By surrendering myself I will experience a threefold blessing.
a. I will find fruitfulness
b. I will possess the gates of my enemies
c. I will bless nations
Possessed by God, the Christian is able to enjoy the benefits of his inheritance in Christ and become a blessing to the Nations.
