Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #12 of Genesis, chapter 22. We are continuing to read the first two verses there, in Genesis 22:1-2:
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. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
I will stop reading there. We have spent a lot of time looking at the word “tempt” and “temptation.” In our last study, we looked at the number patterns and how the number “40” continues to come up, again, and again, pointing to the time span between 1994 and 2033.
I do not think I mentioned this, but there is also the 40 days when Jonah went to Nineveh. He was commanded to go “the second time.” His name means “dove” and the dove relates the Holy Spirit in the Bible. So, Jonah was a picture of the Holy Spirit going to Nineveh at the command of God the second time, pointing to the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which we have seen is pinpointing the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit in September 1994, the beginning of the Latter Rain. So, it was “yet forty days” from the point that Jonah was sent to Nineveh. This would go along with all those other time paths we have looked at concerning “forty stripes,” and so forth. I just wanted to mention that, but we are going to move on now and look at the “temptation” itself, regarding what God was tempting Abraham with, as God says to Abraham in Genesis 22:2:
Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
Of course, if he were going to offer up a burnt offering, the burnt offering must be dead – it must be killed. No animal – or especially a person – could be a burnt offering without first being slain. Once slain, the body is consumed by the fire. That is what a burnt offering entails, so it is very clear what God said to Abraham. He was to take his son Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and kill him there in a sacrificial way to offer his body as a burnt offering, just as one would do with a sacrificial animal. And, of course, regarding a sacrificial animal, it would not be such a shock, but this is no sacrificial animal. God told Abraham to take his long-awaited son, the promised seed and to sacrifice him. This was the son God had promised Abraham decades before, and then He made Abraham wait. Abraham was 75 or 76 years old when the Lord first made this promise, and then Abraham waited and waited. Then when Abraham was 86 he and his wife Sarai (Sarah) took things into their own hand, and she gave her handmaid Hagar to Abraham to wife, so they could have a son. They had Ishmael and, yet, he was not the promised seed. Then God reiterated the promise. Nonetheless, Abraham still had to wait from aged 86 until he was 99 years old. Then the Lord came to him and told him he would have the promised son at the set time in the next year when Abraham would be 100 and Sarah would be 90. Sarah was an aged and barren woman, but she bore a son and gave birth in her old age to their son Isaac.
We have gone through these chapters and discussed these things. God made a big deal about Isaac’s weaning. At this point we are given the rest of the account here in Genesis 22, and we see that Abraham will go with his son, as it says in Genesis 22:6-8:
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. 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? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
We are not told how old Isaac was at this point, but we can see that he was old enough to carry some wood. He was old enough to reason and figure things out: “Well, here is the wood and the knife, but where is the animal for the burnt offering?” He had already been weaned, and we know a child is probably weaned by the age of three, so he could be eight or nine or 10, or older than that.
So, God had made the promise to Abraham, and Abraham has raised his boy up to this point. And now God comes once again to visit Abraham. God wants us to know that He tempted Abraham (and there is no doubt) because we were told about it in verse 1. We understand that God was trying him and testing his obedience. Will Abraham obey? We would think, “Of course, God should know if he would obey, or not.” And God did know. Abraham had already given much evidence of obedience. However, that does not mean that God stops testing. If someone thinks, “Well, you know, I have passed some tests in my life. I have gone through some very difficult and grievous tests.” Many of us could probably say that because we have gone through the Great Tribulation and we have lived several years into the Day of Judgment. There has been non-stop testing, with doctrine after doctrine as the Lord has opened them up. If anyone thinks, “I have passed these tests and, therefore, I will not be tested any more. God will not test me anymore because He knows I am faithful. He knows I will pass.” You are kidding yourself, because God will continue to test (man) from the beginning of time to the end of time when time will be no more.
God tests His people and the testing ground are His commandments. This is the commandment God is giving to Abraham. In verse 2, God said, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
God told him to offer his son that He loved, and Abraham certainly loved his son. God was giving him the hardest test imaginable for a father who loved his son, especially under these circumstances. Abraham was a father that had waited so long to receive this son, and this was the son God gave him. How else could an old woman of 90 and a man of 100 years old have a child? It was of God. And, yet, now God was commanding him. It was not a request. There were no options of doing this thing or some other thing. The Lord gave no alternatives. “This is what you are to do.” Ver significantly, God pointed out that Abraham loved his son. Why was that so significant? Let us look at what Christ said in the New Testament in Matthew 10:37:
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Therefore, God did point out that Abraham loved his son. That is a good thing – a father should love his son and his daughter. We should love our children. God commands fathers to love their children and to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. If rightly done, it is a work of love toward the children, showing that we care for them. Nonetheless, the Lord commanded Abraham to take the son that he loved and to kill him and offer him up as a burnt offering. It is a commandment. In the Bible, what do we know about commandments? What did Jesus say? The Lord Jesus Christ said in John 14:15:
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
This was the “temptation” with which God did tempt Abraham. What was the test? The test was a matter of “love.” It is a question of “love.” Whom do you love more? Do you love your son? You know, Abraham probably loved this boy tremendously. He was the son of his old age, the boy he had always wanted. And, yet, God comes with the test: “Does he love him so much that he loves him more than he loves me?” You see, this set the stage for the entire test. Who did he love? Jesus is God, and He is the same God that spoke to Abraham in Genesis 22, and He said, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Basically, God is setting that test before Abraham. “Do you love your son more than me, Abraham? The evidence of who you love more will be discovered by how you react to this commandment to take your only son Isaac and offer him for a burnt offering.” If Abraham had responded, “Wait, Lord, you know I am a faithful man. I have followed you. I came out of the land of Haran.” We could read in Hebrews 11 that Abraham did this of faith. “You know I dwelt in tents, sojourning in a strange land at your Word, wandering about this land. I have no property.” (He would buy a burial ground for Sarah later on, but other than that he never owned any property.) So Abraham could have said, “You know I am faithful. You know I love you, but I cannot do this.”
You know, if a man is to speak back to God and argue and dispute with God, Abraham would certainly have the situation to do so. “Lord, this is my son. This is a human being – he is not a sacrificial animal. You cannot be seriously commanding me to go and offer up my son for a burnt offering. That is unheard of, and I have never heard in the history of the world that a man is commanded to do such a thing. Lord, it is more than I can bear. Lord, I will do anything else and I will obey, but do not ask me to sacrifice the son you have given me.” He could have gone back and forth, and back and forth, disputing with God. “Did I hear you correctly?”
He could have gone through the whole spectrum of what we find people doing when the Lord opens up a doctrine.
The Lord opens up a doctrine, especially during this time of the end in the Great Tribulation and now in the Day of Judgment, and the doctrine comes forth as a result of comparison of Scripture with Scripture. It is revealed, and it has been seriously vetted and checked out. We have checked the Bible and the Bible itself is what has brought forth the teaching through God’s methodology. We compare it with everything else the Bible has to say, and we find it is in harmony and does not violate any other Scripture. Then we dare to say, “The Bible teaches this…” It may be regarding Hell, annihilation, the atonement of Christ at the foundation of the world, the timeline for the Great Tribulation, or the spiritual judgment on May 21, 2011 and the shut door heaven. We proclaim it, but it is really the Holy Ghost, according to 1Corinthians 2:13: “…but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” It is coming forth from God Himself. And when everyone hears it, does everyone act like Abraham does here in Genesis 22? When he heard the command, Abraham went and obeyed. God does not tell us how he felt. We can be sure he was troubled in mind. We can be sure he was grieved and probably shed some tears, and so forth. The Lord does not get into any of that. All we see is the action:
and he goes about to do it. In doing so, Abraham shows forth love to God the Father: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” And Abraham did keep the commandment of God, and we will see how that worked out.
It is no different for us. People may say, “Well, if God spoke to me directly from heaven as He did with Abraham, and He broke the barrier of the supernatural and came to me and told me to do something tremendous or great as He did to Abraham, then I would obey.” But I say of them, “You are a liar.” Of course, I am not speaking of God’s elect because God’s elect do obey, but I am speaking to those that only profess to be believers and would say, “Oh, I would obey God if I were in Abraham’s shoes.” Well, we are in Abraham’s shoes every time the Bible, the Word of God, opens up a hidden truth and reveals it, and it is confirmed by the Bible. It is produced by the Bible, developed by the Bible through comparison of Scripture, and confirmed by the Bible through harmonization, and here it is, a new glorious “jewel,” a new truth coming down from heaven like the manna. God reveals a doctrine like the fact we are saved by the faith of Christ; the true meaning of Sunday the Sabbath; and the true meaning of baptism as the washing away of sin; God reveals that Christ died for sin at the foundation of the world making payment for sin; God reveals there is no place of eternal torment, but Hell is the grave, and He will annihilate the sinner, finally; God reveals that He shut the door of heaven and ended His salvation program, and He has saved everyone that was to be saved. With each new revelation from the Scriptures (and it must be the Scriptures revealing the truth and not in the sense of adding or subtracting from the Bible), we see these professed true believers disputing with God, arguing with God and speaking back to God. They are hesitating and postponing, saying, “Well, I do not know. Let us look at this.” And they look and look, in some cases for years, and they still do not come to the knowledge or recognition of the truth. They are not admitting it as true or obeying it as true, so are they acting like Abraham? In no way are they acting like Abraham. Abraham heard, and he was sure. He was sure it was the voice of God. He was sure because the Bible says, “My sheep hear my voice.” God’s elect today are sure and confident, and we know it is the voice of God because, again, “My people hear my voice. They know my voice.” We are able to recognize the voice of God through the proper Biblical methodology. It is not an audible voice; we are not hearing that. We are hearing the voice of God coming through the teaching of the Bible, comparing Scripture with Scripture, and the Holy Ghost teaches. We hear the teaching. We know this is true; this is of God. And God’s people go about to obey.
The end of the church age was a good example. “Depart out of the midst. Flee to the mountains,” God commanded, and many people hesitated and failed to hearken. To hearken is to hear with the added element of doing it. When someone hearkens to the voice of God, they confirm they heard it through taking obedient action to perform the doing of it. Others hear with their physical ears, but they do hot hearken because they fail to act.
Abraham took action – he trusted God. I know how it sounds. We all know how it sounds when the Bible says at this time that the door of heaven is shut, and God has ended His salvation program. There are no more to be saved, so God is no longer saving people. Immediately we say, “But what about the children, because time is continuing? What about these children, the young boys and girls, and we may have to go 22 years through this prolonged judgment period.” It will just get increasingly more grievous. Now they are young children. Soon they will be teenagers, and soon they will be young adults. But we would have to say (because the Bible insists), “God shut the door, and what He has shut, no man can open. We are only doorkeepers – we cannot open the door of heaven. We cannot convey salvation to anyone. We are just messengers of the Gospel. God commands and we share whatever it is He has commanded. We cannot go further or lesser; we can only tell you what the Bible says.”
Is the idea that God has ended His salvation program any more far-fetched than God coming to Abraham, tempting him and saying, “Abraham, Abraham, take your son and offer him for a burnt offering”? Did God come to Abraham in this way? Absolutely. Did God command him to do this? Absolutely.
Likewise, we could look at many commands in the Bible where God commanded His servants, the prophets, to do things. We just stand amazed and, sometimes, we are stunned. Remember God commanded the prophet Isaiah to walk naked and barefoot for three years as a sign to the people. Three years – and he obeyed. It is the nature of an elect child of God to obey and to do the will of God in whatever God says, because our will is broken. Our will has been brought low, and we are no longer upon the throne in our own lives. We are no longer trying to rule our own lives, and we do not follow our own dictates. We do not do what we want to do. We do what God wants us to do, whatever it is. “O, Lord, you command, and we will do it.” And God makes sure we do it because God works in His people to will and to do of His good pleasure.
That is the reason God’s people will continue to obey these teachings that the Lord is opening up during this testing program. This last test has to do with love in a great way concerning our children. Just as Abraham loved his son, God is testing parents today with the shut door of heaven. But we will have to get into this more in our next Bible study.