Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Genesis. The main subject of the sermon is how Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice Isaac and God’s intervention depicts the Gospel.
– sermon transcript –
Introduction
If you were a high ranking official in the Pentagon working on top secret intelligence data, you would work behind a door accessible only with an iris scan. The camera designated for this purpose would be connected to a database, and through that process, your unique identity would be detectable. More and more, the issue of identity is pushing to the fore. That is especially true after the September 11th terrorist attacks. The United States government has a quandary of balancing a free and open society with screening and vetting people who come across our borders for business or pleasure or even to immigrate.
Agencies, corporations, and others use technology known as biometrics, the measurement of some physical attribute of the human body. Unique identity is one application among several. Law enforcement agencies have used fingerprints for a long time; the FBI has millions and millions of fingerprints stored in their database to help identify people for various purposes.
According to a CBS 60 Minutes recent report, fingerprints are not foolproof. A Japanese man proved with Crazy glue that he could get fingerprints off of a drinking glass and use it to fail some fingerprint tests. So more and more law enforcement agencies are looking to other biometrics such as DNA, taking a sample from one who is accused of a crime, in order to be more accurate. DNA samples do not solve the need for quick identification, such as opening the door at the Pentagon or boarding an airplane.
An iris scan is by far the easiest and the most accurate means of biometric identification to date. According to the information from Iris Scan, a company that makes these machines, only one in 1078 times will there be a match from one eye to the next. There are about 5.8 billion people on earth. Given that probability, with 5.8 billion planets with the same number of people, there would not be two identical irises. With two seconds of scan, an individual can be identified and matched.
Individuals must be able to maintain identity across the internet to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft when conducting e-commerce with a credit card, protected with a password. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials must be able to identify a person who presents a passport. The Pentagon must be able to limit access into top secret rooms to those who have clearance. Swiss banks operating with numbered accounts must be able to know that the person withdrawing from an account is the same French industrialist who put the millions of francs into the bank.
As important as all of these things are, they pale in comparison with the importance of your soul. For what would it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Of the approximately 10 billion plus people that have ever lived (impossible to know the exact number), God must identify for us the one man who is the Son of Man and the Son of God, the Savior of the world. In that one man, we must put our faith. We must trust in Him for the salvation of our souls. How will God identify Christ for us? The answer is in Scripture: He has given us prophecy, which targets and triangulates one individual, the only one who could fulfill all of the prophetic pictures of the Christ.
There are two different categories of prophecy. One is verbally predictive prophecy, such as Isaiah 53: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” speaking of the life of Christ, how he would be our substitute at the cross. Isaiah 9 is another: “For to us a son is born, to us a child is given, and the government will be on His shoulders… He will reign on David’s throne…” The Son of David would be the king of the world.
The second category of prophecy is typically predictive prophecy. In other words, elements of Christ’s life and ministry were acted out by others in space and time as a type, prior to his incarnation, and recorded for us in the words of Scripture. All of them together give us a picture of what Jesus came to do. Of all of the typically predictive prophecies, one of the clearest is in Genesis 22.
Review of the First Eight Types
We previously considered the first eight of fifteen elements laid out in the story in Genesis 22 between Abraham and Isaac which are a type, or prophetic picture, of the Gospel. Genesis 22:2 says, “Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.’”
Father/son relationship: Abraham was Isaac’s father. God the Father gave His only begotten Son for us.
Pre-determined deliberate choice on the part of the father: Abraham had time to think about what he was doing — a three-day journey preceded by tasks of preparation such as chopping firewood. This showed a great deliberate choice on the part of the father to sacrifice his son, Isaac. That is nothing compared to the eternal foreknowledge of God the Father — from before the foundation of the world, God had determined to sacrifice His only begotten Son for the sins of the world.
The father and the son were alone: Abraham and Isaac left the servants behind and went alone up on Mount Moriah. The heavenly Father and the only begotten Son alone worked salvation. There was no other human involved; there could be none. The transaction from the Father and the Son won our salvation.
Isaac carried his own wood: This was fulfilled in Christ as he carried the cross himself. The Gospel of John states in the Greek in the intensive: “He, bearing His own cross himself, went out.” That was also borne out in a spiritual sense — Jesus was the sin bearer for the world. He physically bore the cross, but he also carried our sins on himself.
The fire of judgment: Abraham had the fire ready to consume Isaac. God had commanded that he be offered as a burnt offering. Fire is a picture of God’s judgment and wrath. While God ordained for Christ to be the blood sacrifice, he was not to be burned up. He did have the fire of zeal in his heart for the temple of God that led him to cleanse the temple at least twice, into immediate problems with the powers that be at the time, and immediately to his death. John 2 says, “Zeal for your house will consume me” which means literally “burned me up, is burning within me.” And Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath spiritually at the cross.
The death penalty was required: Abraham was not commanded to sell his son Isaac into slavery or to wound him, but rather he was commanded to kill Isaac. He had to be put to death. “For the wages of sin is death.”From the very beginning, there has been a link between sin and death, and so Isaac had to die. So also Jesus gave himself up unto death; He died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for sin.
The moment of revelation to the son was shocking: At one point, Isaac did not know that he was to be the sacrifice. He asked, “Here’s wood and fire, but where is the sacrifice?” Abraham spoke to his son and said, “God will provide the sacrifice.” At some point, Isaac realized he was the sacrifice. That must have been an amazing moment of revelation for him. Jesus Christ in His deity was omniscient, but during his incarnation, he limited himself in space and time. He could only be one place at one time. That did not mean he was no longer God, but that was something he took on himself. In some way, he was also limited in his knowledge. It makes sense in that he was born an infant, and wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.
Luke 2:52 says, “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” At some point, the Heavenly Father revealed to the earthly Son who had taken on a human body: “You will die for sin.” That revelation continued until, on the night before he was crucified, it came to a peak in the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark’s Gospel says that Jesus was astonished and he fell to the ground. As he prayed, great drops of blood were falling to the ground. God had in some way opened up his mind and showed him what it would be like to drink the cup of God’s wrath, which Jesus drank it to the bottom.
The son willingly yielded to death: This detail is coupled with the previous one. Reading between the lines, we assume that a young man strong enough to carry all the wood of the offering is strong enough to fight off an aged father if he had wanted to, or certainly strong enough to run away, but Isaac wanted to do neither. He willingly submitted to death. In the same way, Jesus, in the greatest, most courageous act of heroism in history, said, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” He desired to drink the cup. Our salvation is based on that deliberate act of obedience.
Romans 5:19 says, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” That was Jesus’ obedience.
List of Types Continued
The Son Was Bound
The ninth type is in Genesis 22:9: “When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.” It should not trouble us that Abraham bound Isaac as though he was trying to get away, or there was some kind of struggle. If there had been any kind of struggle, Isaac would have won.
Luther says it was not because Isaac was trying to get away or was weak in any way, but because Abraham was following the pattern for sacrifices. The sacrifice was bound, so he was going to bind his son as he was about to slay him. Perhaps also it might have been an act of mercy to help Isaac physically to stay on the altar. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for him to bind up his own son, to lash his hands and feet with a cord. What grief must have filled his mind with every knot. Abraham laid Isaac on the altar in a picture of total submission to the will of God, but an incredible act of courage and faith for Abraham.
This prophecy, this binding of Isaac, was fulfilled in a number of ways in Christ. First and foremost is the spiritual binding of Jesus. Jesus was hemmed in, or bound, by the will of God and the Scripture. He could do no other than die on the cross, and he knew it. He says this in Luke 12:50, rendered from the Greek most accurately in the KJV: “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” He is saying in effect, “I am in a strait jacket until it is done, bound by the word of God.”
The baptism he must endure clearly refers to his death. Later, John uses the same Greek word, speaking of Jerusalem being surrounded and hemmed in from every side by his opponents. Jesus said he felt that way by the will of God, surrounded, hemmed in, having no other place to go. In a crowd of people, a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years came up behind him unnoticed and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. Luke 8:45 says, “‘Who touched me?’ Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.’” The same Greek word is used to refer to the press of the crowd.
Jesus felt bound by the will of God, and this really comes down to the moment when he was being arrested. When Peter drew his sword to fight for Jesus, Jesus told Peter, “Put your sword away, for all who live by the sword will die by the sword.” In Matthew 26:53-54, he said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” Jesus was bound in by the scripture, and there was no other way for his life to end. He had to die on the cross. He rebuked Peter for trying to disrupt the scripture path that God had laid out for him. Jesus was bound in by it.
He gives glimpses of what it must have been like for him. John 12:27 says, “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” You can see the sense of the straitjacket in a way, the binding of Jesus, not against his will, but just hemmed by the word of God.
There was also a physical fulfillment. Isaac was bound by cords, and Jesus was physically bound by cords. All four gospels mention it. Matthew 27:1-2 says, “When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.”
The Father Was to Strike the Son Himself
The tenth picture of the Gospel is that Abraham was commanded to strike Isaac himself, to put his own son to death. I mentioned Patrick Morley’s account of the father on the fishing trip with his son in Alaska when their float plane leaked and sank. The father did not want to leave his son to die in the cold waters of Alaska. Though he probably could have saved himself, he did not want to leave his son to die alone in the cold Alaskan waters. Instead, he stayed and died with his son. It would be an equally difficult, horrible experience for a father to watch his son die and be powerless to save him, as with leukemia or some other disease.
It would be even more horrible and difficult to watch your son die and choose not to save him though you could. What kind of father would have the power to save his son but choose not to? Pastor Florescu, a Romanian pastor during the time of the communist oppression in Romania, was arrested for his faith. During his imprisonment, he was beaten every day. At night he was kept in a horrible prison cell. They forced large starving rats through the drainage pipe which would harass him all night. He had to stay awake and vigilant all night to keep the rats at bay, to keep them from biting and eating at his bleeding wounds. And then the next morning, his oppressors would begin again.
This went on for three weeks. They wanted him to reveal the list of all of his congregation members to arrest them for torture as well. He refused; he would rather die than betray his brothers and sisters in Christ. However, when they brought in his 14-year-old son and started to beat him with the clear intention of killing him, this man, broken down by lack of sleep, physical pain, and torture, wavered and said to his son, “I cannot watch any longer. I must tell them what they want to know.”
The son said, “Father, do not do me the injustice of having a traitor as a father. Stand firm. I will die with the words Jesus and my fatherland on my lips.” This incited the communists to anger. They killed the 14-year-old son. The father had the ability to deliver his son and chose not to because his son exhorted him not to, knowing it would lead to more suffering and death of more Christians.
Harder still would be for a father to put his own son to death, the very thing that Abraham was commanded to do. He was not simply powerless to save his son, nor had the power to save him and chose not. He was commanded to be the one to do it himself, which, in a very small way, mirrored what our heavenly Father did to his own Son at the cross. This is an astonishing thing. God the Father gave to his Son the cup of His own wrath. Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer…” The Father poured out His own wrath on His Son.
You could think that God the Father did it for the joy that was set before him, as the Son did. That is true, but it was not easy. We are emotional beings. The feelings we have for our children is a dim reflection, being created in the image of God, of how the Father feels for His own Son. Our Heavenly Father is an emotional being. It was not a light thing for Him to put His own Son to death.
There are at least two indications of what the heavenly Father was feeling at that moment. First, Luke 23:44-45 says, “It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining.” Second, at the moment of death, Matthew 27:50-54 says, “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, ‘Surely he was the Son of God!’” It was not a light thing emotionally for the Father to do this to his own Son, but it is precisely what he did. What Abraham was asked to do, he did, he crushed his only son, but it still would not have compared because it was a spiritual crushing, it was the wrath of hell that the Son experienced on the cross, and the Father gave him the cup.
The Shedding of Blood
Eleven, we see the shedding of blood. Abraham was set to slay his son. He was ready to take the knife, to plunge it into his son’s body, to shed his son’s blood, because the sacrifice required it. Sacrifices in the Old Covenant were blood sacrifices, the only acceptable gift to God for our sin. Later, the Mosaic Law says in Leviticus 17:11, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” Hebrews 9:22 says, “…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Abraham was commanded to shed his son’s blood.
So also Jesus shed his blood on the cross. He would not be suffocated or drowned or stoned to death. He was to die a bloody death. His blood would be shed. Ephesians 1:7 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” Find your significance, your lasting joy in that God the Father shed his own Son’s blood for our sins. It is enough. He does not ask anything more of us. Our works cannot add anything to the finished work of Christ on the cross. The blood of Christ is sufficient for all of our sins, past, present and future. That blood was shed at Calvary.
The Angel of the Lord
Twelve, the angel of the Lord appeared just as Abraham reached out his hand to take the knife to slay his son. Genesis 22:11-12: “But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’”
Who is the angel of the Lord? Angels are spiritual beings created by God to serve Him. Psalm 103:20-21 says, “Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.” Angels are created servants who do God’s will. Angel is the Greek word for “messenger”, somebody sent to bring a message or act as a representative for the king. Angels are now assigned to minister to we who are being saved. Hebrews 1:14 says, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Angels appeared regularly in the Old Testament in various ways.
But the angel of the Lord is different. He speaks and acts differently. He takes a different role than other angels do. He is treated differently in the accounts. The angel of the Lord is none other than the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. Before he took on a human body, the angel of the Lord — Jesus Christ — spoke to Abraham and stopped him from killing his son, Isaac.
In Genesis 16:10, the angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar and said, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.” Angels usually say things like, “The Lord will increase your descendants.” But the angel of the Lord says, “I will increase your descendants.” After the angel of the Lord departed from Hagar, Genesis 16:13 says, “She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’”
In Exodus 3, the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush. Two verses later, the Lord spoke to Moses from within the bush. The angel of the Lord spoke to Moses, and the angel was God Himself who sent Moses to Egypt. Even more striking, God spoke to the Israelites through Moses in Exodus 23:20-21: “Behold, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him [the angel of the Lord] and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him.” No other angel would be described that way — My name is in him, he will not forgive your rebellion. Who are angels to forgive or not? That is not their job. God alone can forgive sins. But the angel of the Lord is God, because God’s name is in him.
Genesis 22:11-12 gives the strongest account of the angel of the Lord. “But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’” Now I know. The angel spoke as though he was watching, assessing, trying to determine whether Abraham loves God and will obey and follow Him. He was watching and assessing, because He is God. The angel of the Lord watches and assesses. The angel of the Lord became later the Son of Man, and because he is the Son of Man, he will judge the entire human race. So he has the right to sit and decide whether we fear God or not. He is the judge of all the earth.
The angel of the Lord said “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” The Lord told Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham was thinking of the Lord when he was going to offer Isaac up as a sacrifice. How is it that the angel of the Lord gets to say “you have not withheld from me your son, your only son”? The heavenly Father is not jealous of the angel of the Lord, because he is His beloved Son. It is perfect that Jesus stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, as though he was saying, “Let me do it. You do not need to kill your son. I will take his place.” The voice of the Lord that calls out to stop Abraham is the angel of the Lord.
Redemption and Resurrection
Thirteen, Isaac was released, giving a picture of redemption and of resurrection. After the angel of the Lord called to Abraham and stopped him, Abraham set his son Isaac free. The time of Isaac’s suffering, of being bound, was over. Perhaps Abraham used the same knife that he would have used to kill his son to set him free. Walking down the mountain must have been one of Abraham’s happiest moments after what must have been one of his most miserable and difficult, walking up the mountain. What a test, what a trial, what an incredible moment — but what joy! Did they walk? Or did they float? What an encounter with God as they came down. What must that have felt like to cut him free! He is released from his bondage.
This is a picture of our salvation in three ways. First, Isaac represents Christ. Christ was released from the grave through his resurrection. Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost, said in Acts 2:24, “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Death is bondage, chains which no one is strong enough to break, but Jesus was. It was impossible for death to keep Jesus in bondage. He broke the chains of the grave, he is set free. Romans 6:9 says, “We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” He has broken the bonds of death.
Second, Isaac represents us, humans who are set free because Jesus will die in our place. The angel of the Lord called down and Isaac did not have to die. Neither do we who have trusted in Christ. Jesus will take our place. When he was set free, so are we also were set free. We are pictured in Isaac. He is the sinner who was released. Jesus says as he began his preaching ministry in the temple in Capernaum, Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners…” Jesus proclaims freedom for those who are held in bondage, in sin.
In John 8:34-36, he says, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus has come to set us free from sin’s penalty and power and from everything that sin has ever done to us. Hebrews 2:15 says he has come to “… free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Isaac being set free is a picture of us who are saved through faith in Christ. Amen.
Third, Isaac represents physical creation. Physical creation is in a kind of bondage now to decay. Physical creation is enslaved because there is a link between man and the world around us, so that the ground was cursed when Adam sinned, so that Noah took a bunch of animals on the ark. God established and makes clear that link between us and the world. The world is groaning under a kind of bondage because of our sin. Romans 8:20-21 says,“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Amen and Amen.
Creation is in bondage right now. Fall is a beautiful time, but represents decay. Leaves fall and decompose. Creation is in bondage, and it will be in until we are raised from the grave. When we are raised, there will be a New Heaven and a New Earth, home of righteousness.
Temporary Substitution
Fourteen, Genesis 22:13 says, “Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.” The ram was also a type or picture of Christ, and so was every animal offered in the Old Covenant. All of those animal sacrifices were types or pictures of Christ, they were substitutes.
Animal sacrifice had been around a long time. The first instance was in Genesis 3, when God covered naked Adam and Eve with the skins of animals. He got those from the animals. They did not give their lives up willingly. They died so that Adam and Eve might be covered. What a picture of what Christ did. Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did, for he offered an animal sacrifice. Noah got off the ark and offered some of the clean animals he had brought as a burnt offering. The Lord smelled the aroma of that sacrifice. Abraham himself had done it many times, but here the substitutionary aspect of animal sacrifice is clear.
Verse 13, [NASB] “…and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.” The substitute, the ram, dies and the son lives. I cannot imagine what Isaac must have felt as he looked at that ram, being killed as his father was going to kill him. He may have thought, “That could have been me. The ram is my substitute. I am not dead, I’m alive. I can walk down the mountain with my father.” But something was amiss. Perhaps never before or again will the inadequacy of animal sacrifice be so clear. Isaac, a living breathing son of Abraham, the promised child, a human being, ready to die, was released by an animal, a ram that happens to be caught in a thicket. It was a clear step down.
David says in Psalm 51:16, “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.” Hebrews 10:4 say about the sacrifice: “…it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” The ram in the thicket was a type waiting fulfillment. An animal took the place of a human sinner, who was set free just as David was from the death penalty, even though he committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered the husband Uriah. Nathan the prophet told David, “You will not die.” The death penalty was waiting for the moment when John the Baptist pointed at Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus is the fulfillment of every animal sacrifice ever offered.
Application
Worship God
More than anything, wonder, and worship God at the depths of the riches of His wisdom and knowledge. I have shown you fourteen of fifteen types, and you could probably find fifteen more. These patterns are set out so that you, a sinner, 4000 years after Abraham and Moriah, 2000 years after Christ, can identify Jesus as your personal Savior — God’s iris scan. Nobody else in history fits this pattern. He is the only one. Worship God for that.
Trust in Christ for Salvation
You may not know much about the Gospel. Or you may know all of these things have never committed yourself to Christ, never yielded to the claim of God on your life, never come to grips with the fact that you are a sinner and that you deserve to die and go to hell. If you do not want to go to hell, you need a substitute to drink the cup of God’s wrath in your place. There is one available. For God made him, Christ, who knew no sin to be sin for you, so that in him, Christ, you might become the righteousness of God. Meditate on these things. Think about them. Deepen your sense of the Gospel.
Do You Identify With Any of These Situations?
Are you discouraged? Renew the joy of your salvation by thinking what God has done for you.
Is your faith weak or shaken? Renew your faith by hearing the message again. Let it be strong again.
Are you struggling with besetting sin? If the Son sets you free, you are truly free. You are no longer a slave to sin if you are a child of God. Shake off the cords and walk as a free man, a free woman. You do not need to do that sin ever again. Stand firm in the day of temptation.
Are you afraid to obey God in some difficult path of obedience? Follow in the footsteps of your father, Abraham, who was willing to lay down his son Isaac in obedience to God.
Are you skeptical about the truth of Scripture? Let skepticism be dispelled when you see these kinds of patterns woven throughout a document like the Old Testament.
Finally, are you fearful of sickness and death? Be liberated from fear of sickness and death through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
– sermon transcript –
Introduction
If you were a high ranking official in the Pentagon working on top secret intelligence data, you would work behind a door accessible only with an iris scan. The camera designated for this purpose would be connected to a database, and through that process, your unique identity would be detectable. More and more, the issue of identity is pushing to the fore. That is especially true after the September 11th terrorist attacks. The United States government has a quandary of balancing a free and open society with screening and vetting people who come across our borders for business or pleasure or even to immigrate.
Agencies, corporations, and others use technology known as biometrics, the measurement of some physical attribute of the human body. Unique identity is one application among several. Law enforcement agencies have used fingerprints for a long time; the FBI has millions and millions of fingerprints stored in their database to help identify people for various purposes.
According to a CBS 60 Minutes recent report, fingerprints are not foolproof. A Japanese man proved with Crazy glue that he could get fingerprints off of a drinking glass and use it to fail some fingerprint tests. So more and more law enforcement agencies are looking to other biometrics such as DNA, taking a sample from one who is accused of a crime, in order to be more accurate. DNA samples do not solve the need for quick identification, such as opening the door at the Pentagon or boarding an airplane.
An iris scan is by far the easiest and the most accurate means of biometric identification to date. According to the information from Iris Scan, a company that makes these machines, only one in 1078 times will there be a match from one eye to the next. There are about 5.8 billion people on earth. Given that probability, with 5.8 billion planets with the same number of people, there would not be two identical irises. With two seconds of scan, an individual can be identified and matched.
Individuals must be able to maintain identity across the internet to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft when conducting e-commerce with a credit card, protected with a password. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials must be able to identify a person who presents a passport. The Pentagon must be able to limit access into top secret rooms to those who have clearance. Swiss banks operating with numbered accounts must be able to know that the person withdrawing from an account is the same French industrialist who put the millions of francs into the bank.
As important as all of these things are, they pale in comparison with the importance of your soul. For what would it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Of the approximately 10 billion plus people that have ever lived (impossible to know the exact number), God must identify for us the one man who is the Son of Man and the Son of God, the Savior of the world. In that one man, we must put our faith. We must trust in Him for the salvation of our souls. How will God identify Christ for us? The answer is in Scripture: He has given us prophecy, which targets and triangulates one individual, the only one who could fulfill all of the prophetic pictures of the Christ.
There are two different categories of prophecy. One is verbally predictive prophecy, such as Isaiah 53: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” speaking of the life of Christ, how he would be our substitute at the cross. Isaiah 9 is another: “For to us a son is born, to us a child is given, and the government will be on His shoulders… He will reign on David’s throne…” The Son of David would be the king of the world.
The second category of prophecy is typically predictive prophecy. In other words, elements of Christ’s life and ministry were acted out by others in space and time as a type, prior to his incarnation, and recorded for us in the words of Scripture. All of them together give us a picture of what Jesus came to do. Of all of the typically predictive prophecies, one of the clearest is in Genesis 22.
Review of the First Eight Types
We previously considered the first eight of fifteen elements laid out in the story in Genesis 22 between Abraham and Isaac which are a type, or prophetic picture, of the Gospel. Genesis 22:2 says, “Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.’”
Father/son relationship: Abraham was Isaac’s father. God the Father gave His only begotten Son for us.
Pre-determined deliberate choice on the part of the father: Abraham had time to think about what he was doing — a three-day journey preceded by tasks of preparation such as chopping firewood. This showed a great deliberate choice on the part of the father to sacrifice his son, Isaac. That is nothing compared to the eternal foreknowledge of God the Father — from before the foundation of the world, God had determined to sacrifice His only begotten Son for the sins of the world.
The father and the son were alone: Abraham and Isaac left the servants behind and went alone up on Mount Moriah. The heavenly Father and the only begotten Son alone worked salvation. There was no other human involved; there could be none. The transaction from the Father and the Son won our salvation.
Isaac carried his own wood: This was fulfilled in Christ as he carried the cross himself. The Gospel of John states in the Greek in the intensive: “He, bearing His own cross himself, went out.” That was also borne out in a spiritual sense — Jesus was the sin bearer for the world. He physically bore the cross, but he also carried our sins on himself.
The fire of judgment: Abraham had the fire ready to consume Isaac. God had commanded that he be offered as a burnt offering. Fire is a picture of God’s judgment and wrath. While God ordained for Christ to be the blood sacrifice, he was not to be burned up. He did have the fire of zeal in his heart for the temple of God that led him to cleanse the temple at least twice, into immediate problems with the powers that be at the time, and immediately to his death. John 2 says, “Zeal for your house will consume me” which means literally “burned me up, is burning within me.” And Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath spiritually at the cross.
The death penalty was required: Abraham was not commanded to sell his son Isaac into slavery or to wound him, but rather he was commanded to kill Isaac. He had to be put to death. “For the wages of sin is death.”From the very beginning, there has been a link between sin and death, and so Isaac had to die. So also Jesus gave himself up unto death; He died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for sin.
The moment of revelation to the son was shocking: At one point, Isaac did not know that he was to be the sacrifice. He asked, “Here’s wood and fire, but where is the sacrifice?” Abraham spoke to his son and said, “God will provide the sacrifice.” At some point, Isaac realized he was the sacrifice. That must have been an amazing moment of revelation for him. Jesus Christ in His deity was omniscient, but during his incarnation, he limited himself in space and time. He could only be one place at one time. That did not mean he was no longer God, but that was something he took on himself. In some way, he was also limited in his knowledge. It makes sense in that he was born an infant, and wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.
Luke 2:52 says, “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” At some point, the Heavenly Father revealed to the earthly Son who had taken on a human body: “You will die for sin.” That revelation continued until, on the night before he was crucified, it came to a peak in the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark’s Gospel says that Jesus was astonished and he fell to the ground. As he prayed, great drops of blood were falling to the ground. God had in some way opened up his mind and showed him what it would be like to drink the cup of God’s wrath, which Jesus drank it to the bottom.
The son willingly yielded to death: This detail is coupled with the previous one. Reading between the lines, we assume that a young man strong enough to carry all the wood of the offering is strong enough to fight off an aged father if he had wanted to, or certainly strong enough to run away, but Isaac wanted to do neither. He willingly submitted to death. In the same way, Jesus, in the greatest, most courageous act of heroism in history, said, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” He desired to drink the cup. Our salvation is based on that deliberate act of obedience.
Romans 5:19 says, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” That was Jesus’ obedience.
List of Types Continued
The Son Was Bound
The ninth type is in Genesis 22:9: “When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.” It should not trouble us that Abraham bound Isaac as though he was trying to get away, or there was some kind of struggle. If there had been any kind of struggle, Isaac would have won.
Luther says it was not because Isaac was trying to get away or was weak in any way, but because Abraham was following the pattern for sacrifices. The sacrifice was bound, so he was going to bind his son as he was about to slay him. Perhaps also it might have been an act of mercy to help Isaac physically to stay on the altar. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for him to bind up his own son, to lash his hands and feet with a cord. What grief must have filled his mind with every knot. Abraham laid Isaac on the altar in a picture of total submission to the will of God, but an incredible act of courage and faith for Abraham.
This prophecy, this binding of Isaac, was fulfilled in a number of ways in Christ. First and foremost is the spiritual binding of Jesus. Jesus was hemmed in, or bound, by the will of God and the Scripture. He could do no other than die on the cross, and he knew it. He says this in Luke 12:50, rendered from the Greek most accurately in the KJV: “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” He is saying in effect, “I am in a strait jacket until it is done, bound by the word of God.”
The baptism he must endure clearly refers to his death. Later, John uses the same Greek word, speaking of Jerusalem being surrounded and hemmed in from every side by his opponents. Jesus said he felt that way by the will of God, surrounded, hemmed in, having no other place to go. In a crowd of people, a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years came up behind him unnoticed and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. Luke 8:45 says, “‘Who touched me?’ Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.’” The same Greek word is used to refer to the press of the crowd.
Jesus felt bound by the will of God, and this really comes down to the moment when he was being arrested. When Peter drew his sword to fight for Jesus, Jesus told Peter, “Put your sword away, for all who live by the sword will die by the sword.” In Matthew 26:53-54, he said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” Jesus was bound in by the scripture, and there was no other way for his life to end. He had to die on the cross. He rebuked Peter for trying to disrupt the scripture path that God had laid out for him. Jesus was bound in by it.
He gives glimpses of what it must have been like for him. John 12:27 says, “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” You can see the sense of the straitjacket in a way, the binding of Jesus, not against his will, but just hemmed by the word of God.
There was also a physical fulfillment. Isaac was bound by cords, and Jesus was physically bound by cords. All four gospels mention it. Matthew 27:1-2 says, “When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.”
The Father Was to Strike the Son Himself
The tenth picture of the Gospel is that Abraham was commanded to strike Isaac himself, to put his own son to death. I mentioned Patrick Morley’s account of the father on the fishing trip with his son in Alaska when their float plane leaked and sank. The father did not want to leave his son to die in the cold waters of Alaska. Though he probably could have saved himself, he did not want to leave his son to die alone in the cold Alaskan waters. Instead, he stayed and died with his son. It would be an equally difficult, horrible experience for a father to watch his son die and be powerless to save him, as with leukemia or some other disease.
It would be even more horrible and difficult to watch your son die and choose not to save him though you could. What kind of father would have the power to save his son but choose not to? Pastor Florescu, a Romanian pastor during the time of the communist oppression in Romania, was arrested for his faith. During his imprisonment, he was beaten every day. At night he was kept in a horrible prison cell. They forced large starving rats through the drainage pipe which would harass him all night. He had to stay awake and vigilant all night to keep the rats at bay, to keep them from biting and eating at his bleeding wounds. And then the next morning, his oppressors would begin again.
This went on for three weeks. They wanted him to reveal the list of all of his congregation members to arrest them for torture as well. He refused; he would rather die than betray his brothers and sisters in Christ. However, when they brought in his 14-year-old son and started to beat him with the clear intention of killing him, this man, broken down by lack of sleep, physical pain, and torture, wavered and said to his son, “I cannot watch any longer. I must tell them what they want to know.”
The son said, “Father, do not do me the injustice of having a traitor as a father. Stand firm. I will die with the words Jesus and my fatherland on my lips.” This incited the communists to anger. They killed the 14-year-old son. The father had the ability to deliver his son and chose not to because his son exhorted him not to, knowing it would lead to more suffering and death of more Christians.
Harder still would be for a father to put his own son to death, the very thing that Abraham was commanded to do. He was not simply powerless to save his son, nor had the power to save him and chose not. He was commanded to be the one to do it himself, which, in a very small way, mirrored what our heavenly Father did to his own Son at the cross. This is an astonishing thing. God the Father gave to his Son the cup of His own wrath. Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer…” The Father poured out His own wrath on His Son.
You could think that God the Father did it for the joy that was set before him, as the Son did. That is true, but it was not easy. We are emotional beings. The feelings we have for our children is a dim reflection, being created in the image of God, of how the Father feels for His own Son. Our Heavenly Father is an emotional being. It was not a light thing for Him to put His own Son to death.
There are at least two indications of what the heavenly Father was feeling at that moment. First, Luke 23:44-45 says, “It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining.” Second, at the moment of death, Matthew 27:50-54 says, “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, ‘Surely he was the Son of God!’” It was not a light thing emotionally for the Father to do this to his own Son, but it is precisely what he did. What Abraham was asked to do, he did, he crushed his only son, but it still would not have compared because it was a spiritual crushing, it was the wrath of hell that the Son experienced on the cross, and the Father gave him the cup.
The Shedding of Blood
Eleven, we see the shedding of blood. Abraham was set to slay his son. He was ready to take the knife, to plunge it into his son’s body, to shed his son’s blood, because the sacrifice required it. Sacrifices in the Old Covenant were blood sacrifices, the only acceptable gift to God for our sin. Later, the Mosaic Law says in Leviticus 17:11, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” Hebrews 9:22 says, “…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Abraham was commanded to shed his son’s blood.
So also Jesus shed his blood on the cross. He would not be suffocated or drowned or stoned to death. He was to die a bloody death. His blood would be shed. Ephesians 1:7 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” Find your significance, your lasting joy in that God the Father shed his own Son’s blood for our sins. It is enough. He does not ask anything more of us. Our works cannot add anything to the finished work of Christ on the cross. The blood of Christ is sufficient for all of our sins, past, present and future. That blood was shed at Calvary.
The Angel of the Lord
Twelve, the angel of the Lord appeared just as Abraham reached out his hand to take the knife to slay his son. Genesis 22:11-12: “But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’”
Who is the angel of the Lord? Angels are spiritual beings created by God to serve Him. Psalm 103:20-21 says, “Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.” Angels are created servants who do God’s will. Angel is the Greek word for “messenger”, somebody sent to bring a message or act as a representative for the king. Angels are now assigned to minister to we who are being saved. Hebrews 1:14 says, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Angels appeared regularly in the Old Testament in various ways.
But the angel of the Lord is different. He speaks and acts differently. He takes a different role than other angels do. He is treated differently in the accounts. The angel of the Lord is none other than the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. Before he took on a human body, the angel of the Lord — Jesus Christ — spoke to Abraham and stopped him from killing his son, Isaac.
In Genesis 16:10, the angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar and said, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.” Angels usually say things like, “The Lord will increase your descendants.” But the angel of the Lord says, “I will increase your descendants.” After the angel of the Lord departed from Hagar, Genesis 16:13 says, “She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’”
In Exodus 3, the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush. Two verses later, the Lord spoke to Moses from within the bush. The angel of the Lord spoke to Moses, and the angel was God Himself who sent Moses to Egypt. Even more striking, God spoke to the Israelites through Moses in Exodus 23:20-21: “Behold, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him [the angel of the Lord] and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him.” No other angel would be described that way — My name is in him, he will not forgive your rebellion. Who are angels to forgive or not? That is not their job. God alone can forgive sins. But the angel of the Lord is God, because God’s name is in him.
Genesis 22:11-12 gives the strongest account of the angel of the Lord. “But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’” Now I know. The angel spoke as though he was watching, assessing, trying to determine whether Abraham loves God and will obey and follow Him. He was watching and assessing, because He is God. The angel of the Lord watches and assesses. The angel of the Lord became later the Son of Man, and because he is the Son of Man, he will judge the entire human race. So he has the right to sit and decide whether we fear God or not. He is the judge of all the earth.
The angel of the Lord said “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” The Lord told Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham was thinking of the Lord when he was going to offer Isaac up as a sacrifice. How is it that the angel of the Lord gets to say “you have not withheld from me your son, your only son”? The heavenly Father is not jealous of the angel of the Lord, because he is His beloved Son. It is perfect that Jesus stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, as though he was saying, “Let me do it. You do not need to kill your son. I will take his place.” The voice of the Lord that calls out to stop Abraham is the angel of the Lord.
Redemption and Resurrection
Thirteen, Isaac was released, giving a picture of redemption and of resurrection. After the angel of the Lord called to Abraham and stopped him, Abraham set his son Isaac free. The time of Isaac’s suffering, of being bound, was over. Perhaps Abraham used the same knife that he would have used to kill his son to set him free. Walking down the mountain must have been one of Abraham’s happiest moments after what must have been one of his most miserable and difficult, walking up the mountain. What a test, what a trial, what an incredible moment — but what joy! Did they walk? Or did they float? What an encounter with God as they came down. What must that have felt like to cut him free! He is released from his bondage.
This is a picture of our salvation in three ways. First, Isaac represents Christ. Christ was released from the grave through his resurrection. Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost, said in Acts 2:24, “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Death is bondage, chains which no one is strong enough to break, but Jesus was. It was impossible for death to keep Jesus in bondage. He broke the chains of the grave, he is set free. Romans 6:9 says, “We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” He has broken the bonds of death.
Second, Isaac represents us, humans who are set free because Jesus will die in our place. The angel of the Lord called down and Isaac did not have to die. Neither do we who have trusted in Christ. Jesus will take our place. When he was set free, so are we also were set free. We are pictured in Isaac. He is the sinner who was released. Jesus says as he began his preaching ministry in the temple in Capernaum, Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners…” Jesus proclaims freedom for those who are held in bondage, in sin.
In John 8:34-36, he says, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus has come to set us free from sin’s penalty and power and from everything that sin has ever done to us. Hebrews 2:15 says he has come to “… free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Isaac being set free is a picture of us who are saved through faith in Christ. Amen.
Third, Isaac represents physical creation. Physical creation is in a kind of bondage now to decay. Physical creation is enslaved because there is a link between man and the world around us, so that the ground was cursed when Adam sinned, so that Noah took a bunch of animals on the ark. God established and makes clear that link between us and the world. The world is groaning under a kind of bondage because of our sin. Romans 8:20-21 says,“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Amen and Amen.
Creation is in bondage right now. Fall is a beautiful time, but represents decay. Leaves fall and decompose. Creation is in bondage, and it will be in until we are raised from the grave. When we are raised, there will be a New Heaven and a New Earth, home of righteousness.
Temporary Substitution
Fourteen, Genesis 22:13 says, “Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.” The ram was also a type or picture of Christ, and so was every animal offered in the Old Covenant. All of those animal sacrifices were types or pictures of Christ, they were substitutes.
Animal sacrifice had been around a long time. The first instance was in Genesis 3, when God covered naked Adam and Eve with the skins of animals. He got those from the animals. They did not give their lives up willingly. They died so that Adam and Eve might be covered. What a picture of what Christ did. Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did, for he offered an animal sacrifice. Noah got off the ark and offered some of the clean animals he had brought as a burnt offering. The Lord smelled the aroma of that sacrifice. Abraham himself had done it many times, but here the substitutionary aspect of animal sacrifice is clear.
Verse 13, [NASB] “…and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.” The substitute, the ram, dies and the son lives. I cannot imagine what Isaac must have felt as he looked at that ram, being killed as his father was going to kill him. He may have thought, “That could have been me. The ram is my substitute. I am not dead, I’m alive. I can walk down the mountain with my father.” But something was amiss. Perhaps never before or again will the inadequacy of animal sacrifice be so clear. Isaac, a living breathing son of Abraham, the promised child, a human being, ready to die, was released by an animal, a ram that happens to be caught in a thicket. It was a clear step down.
David says in Psalm 51:16, “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.” Hebrews 10:4 say about the sacrifice: “…it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” The ram in the thicket was a type waiting fulfillment. An animal took the place of a human sinner, who was set free just as David was from the death penalty, even though he committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered the husband Uriah. Nathan the prophet told David, “You will not die.” The death penalty was waiting for the moment when John the Baptist pointed at Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus is the fulfillment of every animal sacrifice ever offered.
Application
Worship God
More than anything, wonder, and worship God at the depths of the riches of His wisdom and knowledge. I have shown you fourteen of fifteen types, and you could probably find fifteen more. These patterns are set out so that you, a sinner, 4000 years after Abraham and Moriah, 2000 years after Christ, can identify Jesus as your personal Savior — God’s iris scan. Nobody else in history fits this pattern. He is the only one. Worship God for that.
Trust in Christ for Salvation
You may not know much about the Gospel. Or you may know all of these things have never committed yourself to Christ, never yielded to the claim of God on your life, never come to grips with the fact that you are a sinner and that you deserve to die and go to hell. If you do not want to go to hell, you need a substitute to drink the cup of God’s wrath in your place. There is one available. For God made him, Christ, who knew no sin to be sin for you, so that in him, Christ, you might become the righteousness of God. Meditate on these things. Think about them. Deepen your sense of the Gospel.
Do You Identify With Any of These Situations?
Are you discouraged? Renew the joy of your salvation by thinking what God has done for you.
Is your faith weak or shaken? Renew your faith by hearing the message again. Let it be strong again.
Are you struggling with besetting sin? If the Son sets you free, you are truly free. You are no longer a slave to sin if you are a child of God. Shake off the cords and walk as a free man, a free woman. You do not need to do that sin ever again. Stand firm in the day of temptation.
Are you afraid to obey God in some difficult path of obedience? Follow in the footsteps of your father, Abraham, who was willing to lay down his son Isaac in obedience to God.
Are you skeptical about the truth of Scripture? Let skepticism be dispelled when you see these kinds of patterns woven throughout a document like the Old Testament.
Finally, are you fearful of sickness and death? Be liberated from fear of sickness and death through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
