"To Abraham and His Seed" 14   This is an edited version of the lecture titled, "To Abraham and His Seed," which was preached on February 2nd, 2008.       "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."    Genesis 22:18       God will provide for HimselfSo Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." Then he said, "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. (Genesis 22:6-9)   Earlier in Genesis chapter 22 verse 5 we read, "And Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you,'" and examined in the English Bible how this verse contains the meaning of "coming back together". Now, verse 6 states that "So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son." Here it says that the father accompanied his son.  In Second Corinthians chapter 5 verse 19 it says, "God was in Christ," and in verse 21, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." These events that took place in the family of Abraham, the man who was given the promise by God, allow us to see a glimpse of Jesus Christ who gave Himself to the cross as written in the Old Testament. This is the image of the great work of redemption that would take place in this world in the future.Isaac's question to his father in Genesis chapter 22 verse 7 has great significance.   "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"   In verse 6 it says, "So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together." We can see what fate befell us because of this event when we read in the Old Testament about trees. Reading through the Old Testament, you may have run into an incident when gathering sticks on the Sabbath day became a problem. There is a story of a man who was put to death because he gathered sticks on Sabbath (see Numbers 15:32-36).Genesis chapter 3 tells of two different kinds of trees. These are the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Earlier we studied that, as written, "I set before you the way of life and the way of death" (Jeremiah 21:8), there formed another power that clashed with the power of God in this world before man was created, before the earth's environment was created-that is, before the changes took place during the six days of creation. As is written, "God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night" (Genesis 1:4-5), there was already light and darkness in the Garden of Eden when our ancestor Adam was created. Both the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the garden. But Eve was deceived by the serpent and gave to Adam the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Adam's eating of the fruit created a problem for mankind. In the New Testament, Jesus alluded to trees when He spoke of our sins through the law. He taught people to "First remove the plank from your own eye" (Luke 6:42). Jesus Himself was a carpenter. He died on the cross made of wood. As people who firmly believe that Jesus forgave all of the sins we have committed, we must be able to reflect upon God who is suffering in His heart because of the sins of mankind when we see this image of Isaac carrying wood. Through these verses we can see how God tells mankind of their sins through the Old Testament and the Laws of Moses, and explains to us through the history of Israel  the incredible power of sin that works within mankind and within each one of us.We can see the judgements that manifest as the wages of sin in the Old Testament. Because Adam sinned, God said, "Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life (Genesis 3:17). As the law became codified and the history of the Israelites began to unfold, the Bible shows us what happens when man ignores and turns his back on the words of God, in verses like: "And they [all these curses] shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever" (Deuteronomy 28:46). The Bible illustrates that the disasters that befell the people of Israel throughout their history were directly linked to the sins that seeped in at the time of Adam. As if to show us this judgement to come, Abraham held in his hands fire and a knife. Isaac asks his father, "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" And Abraham says, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." What was going through Abraham's mind when he said this?  Did he really believe that God was going to provide? We have no way of knowing what was occurring in Abraham's mind when he said this. His personal feelings are not revealed clearly in the Bible. We find him more admirable because of Abraham's personal feelings which are not shown in the Bible. It is because of these hidden emotions that his acts of obedience shine more. Again Abraham only says that "God will provide". When Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and discovered that he was naked, God killed an animal and made clothes from its skin for Adam (see Genesis 3:21). When it began to rain during the Great Flood of Noah, it says in the Bible that God Himself closed the door of the ark (see Genesis 7:16). When we read these passages of the Bible, we learn about the path that is open to us; we discover how we can shed the burden of sin we carry and go before God. Jesus said that "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). Just as Abraham said that "God will provide for Himself", God provided the way for us to resolve our sins 2,000 years ago, and it was fulfilled. We can see the intricate planning for the history of God's salvation for mankind even in these conversations between people in the Bible.   Faith worked together in his acts.And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" So he said, "Here I am." And He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."  (Genesis 22:8-12)   There is something very strange here. It says, "Now I know that you fear God". Did God really discover this at this point? Then what about everything that comes before Genesis chapter 22? Abraham is shown obeying God before this chapter, in verses such as "And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness" (Genesis 15:6). There are other verses such as "And the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?" (Genesis 18:17-18). Why did God try to confirm Abraham's obedience, and have him sacrifice his son, when Abraham already obeyed God several times throughout Genesis before chapter 22?This part is hard to understand if we use our standards of ethics and morality. "Why does God dither back and forth like this? Is He trying to give me my salvation, and then take it away, too?" You might be tempted to make these wrong assumptions. When we read passages in the Bible such as these, we must think about how God manages the history of the world to take away sin instead of using our own thoughts or juxtaposing our own personal situations. We must also think about the process through which this Bible was written. We must change our viewpoint of the Bible. We are living in a time when 2,000 years have passed since Jesus was nailed on the cross. Jesus came to this world approximately 400 years after the last prophet of the Old Testament left his record, and was nailed on the cross. However, many people read about Jesus as revealed in the Old Testament, written long before Jesus was born, and experience being born again. How is this possible? The Old Testament had been written by the hands of people who lived before the prophesies were fulfilled, before Jesus came to this world and before he was put to death on the cross. We must remember that the words of God promised for long through the Old Testament have in fact taken place in our history. The prophesies of the Old Testament as foretold in passages such as "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins" (Isaiah 43:25), and "And by His stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5), were fulfilled when Jesus came to this world and died on the cross, giving us the way through which we come to believe that the blood shed by Jesus blotted out all of our sins. We can see clearly by reading the parts of Genesis preceding chapter 22 that God considered Abraham's faith as righteous. We can also see this in books of the New Testament such as Romans. We Gentiles, who pursue the way of faith that Abraham held before he was circumcised, look upon Jesus who is shown in the Bible. (see Romans 4:12) The New Testament provides us with the answer of being newly born through faith in what God recorded in the Bible about Jesus Christ. As we read about Abraham to whom God said, "Offer Isaac", we must first consider how the statemen

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