I am going to be sharing on the life—or the example—of faith in the life of Abraham. But when I was preparing this morning, I was reminded of these verses in John 12, beginning in verse 37.
These things Jesus spake, and He departed and hid Himself from them.
But though He had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on Him:
that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake,
Lord, who hath believed our report?
And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For this cause they could not believe, for that Isaiah said again,
He hath blinded their eyes, and He hardened their heart;
lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart,
and should turn, and I should heal them.
These things said Isaiah, because he saw His glory; and he spake of Him.
I was thinking of that this morning—how Isaiah says, “I beheld the King in His temple.” He saw the King on the throne, and His train filled the temple. He saw King Jesus.
And Abraham also saw Jesus. But before we get into that, I just want to start with prayer.
Father, we come before You, Lord, completely dependent upon You to speak to us. Lord, only the Holy Spirit can open the eyes of our hearts to see Jesus.
Lord, we want to see the King. We want to behold You this morning. We are reminded how You said Abraham longed to see Your day, and he saw it and was glad.
Lord, we want to see You this morning. Satisfy this desire of our hearts. We look to You as our Teacher. Only You can reveal Christ; only You can open the Scripture to us. Give us understanding to understand the Scripture. We look to You in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I have all my verses here, so I am not going to take time flipping through them.
But without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him.
In John 6:28, they said to Him, “What must we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them:
This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.
Apart from faith, it is impossible to please Him. We often think we must do this or that for God, and that will make God happy. But apart from faith, it is impossible to please Him.
Isaiah 51 tells us:
Hearken unto Me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord:
look unto the rock whence ye were hewn,
and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged.
Look unto Abraham your father.
That is what I wanted to do this morning: to look to Abraham. Romans 4 says that Abraham is the father of us all—we who are of the faith of Abraham.
I want us to remember two things as we go through this. First, Abraham saw Christ. When it says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad,” Abraham saw the Lord Jesus.
It is just like Job. Job was during the same time as Abraham. Job is the one who said, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and my eyes shall see Him.” Job saw the Lord Jesus.
When we look back and read these biographies, as it were, these men saw Christ. So we want to remember that.
We also want to remember that Abraham was looking to that city whose Builder and Maker is God. When he came out, remember that he was looking not at the earthly; he was looking at the heavenly.
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
for he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.
Further down, in Hebrews 11:13:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own.
And if indeed they had been mindful of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city.
Brothers and sisters, we too are strangers and sojourners in this world. Remember what the Lord told His disciples:
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
He is preparing that city for us, and He will come again. Abraham saw that, and that is what we must see in this life. We are sojourners in this world. We are passing through, just as Abraham was passing through.
But where does faith begin? It begins in Acts 7:2.
This was Stephen, the first martyr. He said:
Brethren and fathers, hearken. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran.
This is where faith starts: the God of glory appears. Faith, brothers and sisters, begins with God.
Remember, where was Abram when God appeared to him? We learn in Joshua that he served pagan gods with his father. In Ur of the Chaldees, they were pagan worshipers.
This is where God appeared to him—in Ur of the Chaldees, in Mesopotamia. There was nothing about Abraham, or about Abram, that would make God choose him or pick him out. There was nothing. The God of glory appeared to him while he was in paganism.
I was thinking that every single one of us—you know, the Lord may have appeared to Abraham in a special way, and I am not saying He did not—but in a spiritual sense, the God of glory has appeared to you. If you are the Lord’s, it is because it started with God Himself. The God of glory appeared to you, and you believed.
It reminds me of the apostle Paul. We know the story on the road to Damascus. How long would the apostle Paul have gone on persecuting the church, killing Christians, dragging them to the courts, having them blaspheme, and doing all these things?
How long would he have continued on that road had not the God of glory appeared to him? He would have never stopped. He would have never come to the Lord. It starts with God, brothers and sisters.
It is the same with Abraham. He would have never come. He was a pagan; they worshiped the moon. He would have never come to God had not the God of glory appeared to him.
The apostle Paul says in Galatians 1:13:
For ye have heard of my manner of life in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and made havoc of it:
and I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of mine own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace,
to reveal His Son in me.
That is where faith begins, brothers and sisters. God was pleased to reveal His Son in you. Do you realize that? Do you know that God was pleased to reveal His Son in you?
I was also reminded of Peter, when he confessed, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him:
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in heaven.
God the Father reveals Christ to us.
Faith itself is a gift from God. In Ephesians 2:8, the apostle is clear:
For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
I was thinking: if you remove “through faith” from there—if you say, “For by grace have ye been saved, and that not of yourselves”—we realize that does not make any sense, because we know grace does not come from us. Grace comes from God.
But faith we could confuse as coming from ourselves. So he puts it in here: “For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Faith itself is a grace. It is a gift of God.
I wanted to quote from Robert Govett’s commentary on Ephesians. He says:
Is it not then the merit of faith that saves us? There is no merit in faith. Faith is the means of salvation; it is not its price. It is not the full hand which pays God all His dues, but the empty hand that receives salvation from God against its deservings. Is there any merit in holding out the hand to take a ten-pound note? But may we not at least take to ourselves the credit of faith, as of something furnished at God’s call by ourselves? No. Unbelief is the only weed that springs by nature out of the barren soil of enmity against the Lord. Where can be the goodness of one dead toward God? Faith itself is the gift of God.
Darby, in his Synopsis on Ephesians, puts it this way:
It is by grace we are saved. Now we are not yet in the glory; it is by faith. Would anyone say that at least the faith is of man? No, it is not of ourselves in this respect either. All is the gift of God, not of works, in order that no one may boast.
Further on, he adds:
“By faith” might be supposed to be of ourselves, though grace cannot be of ourselves. Therefore the Spirit of God adds, “and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” That is, the believing is God’s gift, not of ourselves. And this is confirmed by what follows, “not of works.” But the object of the apostle is to show that the whole thing was of grace and of God—God’s workmanship, a new creation.
I was drawn to John 6 when thinking of this. In John 6, the Lord repeats this truth four times.
Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.
But I said unto you, that ye have seen Me, and yet believe not.
All that which the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.
For I am come down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.
And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that of all that which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
For this is the will of My Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on Him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
The Jews murmured because He said, “I am the bread which came down out of heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then doth He now say, I am come down out of heaven?”
Jesus answered:
Murmur not among yourselves.
No man can come to Me, except the Father that sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day.
Brothers and sisters, it is God the Father who draws us to Christ.
So we see the gift of faith. We also see repentance in the life of Abraham. Whenever you see faith, there is always repentance; whenever you see repentance, there is always faith.
The Reformers put it this way: salvation is like a coin. On one side there is faith; on the other side is repentance. The one cannot be without the other.
We see repentance in the fact that Abram was a pagan worshiper, and he turned from these things. This was in the beginning.
I was reminded how John the Baptist came preaching the baptism of repentance to prepare the way of the Lord. We cannot even come to the Lord apart from repentance. It is the beginning of it. It is the repentance that leads unto life.
In Luke 3:3:
And he came into all the region about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins;
as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Make ye ready the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
And every mountain and hill shall be brought low;
And the crooked shall become straight,
And the rough ways smooth;
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
John said to the crowds:
Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
When the Lord began His ministry, He came saying, “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He always preached repentance.
I think we get confused as to what repentance is. Apart from repentance, no one can be saved; Scripture makes that clear. I think the confusion is that we do not understand what it is.
I think the prodigal son is given to us as the best example of what repentance is. We remember that he took his father’s inheritance, went away, spent it all on harlots, and squandered all the money.
Then, when he was in the pit and wanted to eat the husks that the pigs were eating, it says he came to his senses. He said, “Even my father’s servants have food to eat, and I am sitting here starving.”
He came to his senses and said, “I know what I will do. I will go back, and I will say, ‘Father, I am not worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants.’”
He turned, got up, and went. And what does it say? While he was still a long way off, his father saw him. Repentance is not something where we come in sinless perfection. It is coming to your senses, getting up, turning, and coming to God.
While you are a long way off, the Father sees you. That is all He wants. He just wants you to turn to Him. That is repentance.
In Acts 17:30, Paul tells us:
The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now He commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent.
All men everywhere are commanded to repent. It is a command—an all-inclusive command.
But I remembered one whom Jesus gave as an example of someone who does not think he needs to repent. The Pharisees and scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, “Why do ye eat and drink with the publicans and sinners?”
Jesus answered:
They that are in health have no need of a physician; but they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
What is the Lord saying? We know that there is no one who is righteous. What He is saying is this: if you think you are well, if you think you are not a sinner, I have not called you. I cannot heal you. I can do nothing for you if you do not think you are a sinner.
I have come to call sinners to repentance, not those who think they are righteous.
Paul’s example of repentance is in Acts 26:12–20, where he gives the account again of his conversion.
Whereupon as I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,
at midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them that journeyed with me.
And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying unto me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.
And I said, Who art Thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
But arise, and stand upon thy feet: for to this end have I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a witness both of the things wherein thou hast seen Me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee;
delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee,
to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Me.
Then Paul says:
Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:
but declared both to them of Damascus first, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judaea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance.
In verse 18, Jesus tells Paul, “I am sending you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins.”
Paul interprets that and says, “I announced that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance.” That is repentance: turning from the power of Satan to God, turning from darkness to light.
Now, getting back to Abram: Abraham leaves Mesopotamia, but he stops halfway in Haran. So he does not obey fully. He comes out of Ur of the Chaldees, but he does not go all the way into the land of Canaan. He stops in Haran.
When he comes out of Haran, it says he has even more riches. Obviously, he was blessed while he was there, and you can see how he could have easily just stayed there. It was probably very comfortable for him, and he did not have to leave.
I thought of how many of us are in Haran. How many of us have obeyed partially? We have come out, but not fully. We have not come into the fullness of what the Lord wants. We are stuck in Haran; we have not come out of it.
But after his father Terah dies, he continues on and enters the land of Canaan. Genesis 12:1 says:
Now the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee.
The first six chapters of the Bible deal with more than two thousand years of history. Then you come to these chapters on Abraham—thirteen or fourteen chapters that span about 175 years, dedicated to the life of this man. That just struck me this morning.
And Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Hebrews 11:8 says:
By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
for he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.
Remember that when Abraham is going through this, he is looking to that city God is building. It is not just the earthly; he sees the heavenly.
In 1 Peter 1:17, we are told to pass the time of our sojourning in fear. We are to go through this life just like Abraham. We are sojourners; we are just passing through.
We need to see and remember that Christ has gone to prepare a place for us, and He is coming again to receive us. That is what we need to have before us. That is what Abraham saw.
The first thing Abram does when he comes into the land is build an altar.
And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.
This is the first mention of “seed”: “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” We need to remember how Paul said that seed is Christ. Abraham saw the Lord Jesus.
The first thing he did was build an altar. I thought of all the way back in Genesis—Cain and Abel. When man fell, God made a sacrifice and clothed them in the skins of the animal. God revealed to them that it was by the blood.
Cain brought of the works of the land; he brought of his own works. Abel brought the firstling of the flock. He brought the sacrifice, and God accepted Abel’s sacrifice. It is by the blood.
Abraham saw this. The first thing he does is build an altar. What is the altar? The altar is the Old Testament cross. It is the place of sacrifice. He saw the blood of Christ.
We can only approach the Lord by the blood, and Abraham saw that.
And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Ai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.
It is very interesting, the names given here. The Holy Spirit points out these names. Bethel was toward the west, and Ai was toward the east.
Further on in Genesis 28, when Jacob has his dream and the angels are coming and going on the ladder, he says, “This is the house of God,” and he called the place Bethel. Bethel means “house of God.”
I think Abraham, in seeing Christ, saw something of the house of God. I think that is what the Spirit is trying to show us. On the west there was the house of God; on the east there was Ai.
The east in Scripture often speaks of the world, the nations, and the Gentiles. Ai means “heap of ruin.”
I did not read a commentary on this, because certain things I want the Lord just to show me. I do not know that I see this entirely, but I thought of how Paul said, “I have been crucified unto the world, and the world unto me.”
It is like on this side we see the house of God. We see God’s heart, that He wants a house. Brothers and sisters, that is what the Lord is doing today: we are being built together, a holy habitation of God in the Spirit.
We have Bethel here. We have a heap of ruin—the east, the world—and we have the cross in the middle.
Is our heart going to be toward the house of God, or is our heart going to be going toward the things of the world? Are we crucified to the world, and is the world crucified to us? Those were the thoughts I had.
At this point, Abraham has obeyed fully. He has seen the blood, he has seen the house of God, he is in the land, and he has obeyed what God told him to do. You can see how he might think, “I have made it. I have done it. I have obeyed. I can just enjoy life now.”
One would think that when he was in Haran, when he had not obeyed fully, what is about to come upon him would have come then, because God would need to discipline him to get him to go on to Canaan. But we do not see that.
We see it when he has fully obeyed. It is as if the Lord is saying, “Your salvation is just the beginning. Now I can begin the work.” God is forming Christ in you.
When you come to the Lord, He begins this work of forming His Son in you. This is when He brings a trial to Abraham. God brought a famine into the land.
When the Lord brings a famine upon us, Abraham could have acted one way or another. He could have hardened himself. He could have said, “Lord, I have obeyed You. I have done nothing wrong. You have brought this severe drought upon me. You have brought me into this famine. Why did You have me do this? I have obeyed You. What is going on?”
He could have hardened himself against the Lord. It reminded me of John the Baptist. Remember, John the Baptist had said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” He said it twice. He knew Jesus was the Christ.
Yet when he was locked up in prison, he sent men to Jesus and had them ask the Lord, “Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?”
Why would he say that? He had said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” He knew Jesus was the Christ. Why would he say that?
The Lord told those men to go and tell John that the blind received their sight, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, and all these things He was doing. Then He said:
Blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in Me.
What is the Lord saying? We can easily be offended by what the Lord is doing. The Lord can bring a famine into our life, and we can be offended and say, “Forget it. I am not going on in the Lord.” Or we can continue on.
I remember when Tammy and Alan’s daughter was killed at Virginia Tech. I remember listening to their testimony, and I could not believe what he said was the first thing that crossed his mind.
They had come to Virginia Tech and were waiting in a room. They had not heard from their daughter. The families were separated while they waited to hear whether one of their children had been killed.
He said that when he saw the state policeman walk into the room, he hit the floor. The first thing he said was, “Lord, do not let me be bitter toward You.”
I cannot imagine going through a famine like that. But we can be bitter toward the Lord, or we can go on in the Lord.
But what did Abraham do? He panicked. He panicked, and he went down into Egypt.
That is what we can do. We can either cast ourselves on the Lord, or we can go down into Egypt. We can go to the world to try to get reprieve.
Genesis 12:10 says:
And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was sore in the land.
And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:
and it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but thee they will keep alive.
Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee.
We can see that he was full of fear in going down to Egypt.
And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.
And the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.
And he treated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels.
And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
Pharaoh called Abram and said:
What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
Why saidst thou, She is my sister, so that I took her to be my wife? Now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.
Obviously, Abraham slipped big time. He even gave his wife to Pharaoh. Yet the remarkable thing is that Hebrews says he “wavered not through unbelief.”
How encouraging is that to us? It is like the Holy Spirit does not even remember all the mess-ups and mishaps that Abraham did.
Even though he had sinned that grievously, even though Abraham slipped that far, the striking thing is that they came out exceedingly rich.
I think what the Holy Spirit is trying to say there is, “Where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly.” It is not, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” But this is what we see: a picture of God’s mercy upon Abraham. Even coming out of that, God blessed him exceedingly.
What is the first thing Abraham does?
And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the South.
And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai,
unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, when we fall as Abraham fell, he went right back to the place at the beginning. He went right back to the altar. He went right back to the cross.
The only thing that can cleanse our conscience from sin is the blood of Jesus. We come right back to the place at the beginning, where it all started: the blood of Christ. He goes back to the place at the beginning. He goes back to the altar.
The remainder of chapter 13 concerns Lot and Abraham dividing the land. I am not going to be able to go through all of Abraham’s life; we have ten minutes. But perhaps another time, Lord willing, we can continue.
They were exceedingly rich. Abraham told Lot, “Pick wherever you want.” Again, it is like the things of the world had no hold on Abraham. He could look out at the best of the land and tell Lot, “Pick whatever you want. You can have whatever you want.”
He was looking to that city whose Builder and Maker is God. He was not consumed by these things. Lot picked the best of the land.
And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the Plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou goest unto Zoar.
So Lot chose him all the Plain of the Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.
Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the Plain, and moved his tent as far as Sodom.
Now the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against the Lord exceedingly.
But we see Lot enticed by the world.
I am going to skip over chapters 14 through 18. When we come to chapter 19, we see that Lot is now dwelling at the gate of Sodom.
In ancient days, when someone dwelt at the gate, these were the people who were kind of the high-ups in the city. So we see that it had progressively worsened for Lot, as he had been drawn completely toward the world.
We know Lot was a believer. He is given to us as an example. Peter says, “Righteous Lot”—his righteous soul was tormented—yet he was consumed in the things of the world.
The angels came to Lot and said:
We are going to destroy this place, because the cry of them is great before the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.
Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy the city.” But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law.
As the morning arose, the angels hastened Lot, saying:
Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters that are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him. They brought him forth and set him outside the city.
Had not God grabbed Lot and pulled him out, Lot would have stayed in Sodom and Gomorrah. It says that he lingered. They had to take hold of him and pull him out.
Lot is given to us as an Old Testament example of what Paul refers to as one who is saved, but as through fire.
For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble;
each man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.
We see everything. Lot was exceedingly rich, but he lost everything. These are spiritual types for us. Everything was burned up, but he himself was saved.
I think it comes down to this with Lot and Abram: what has the affection of your heart? Who has the affections of your heart?
Lot’s affections, though he was a believer and though he was righteous, were not like Abraham’s. Abraham did not care about the world. He was looking to that city whose Builder and Maker is God.
Lot was looking at the things of the world. The affections of his heart were consumed with the world.
I wanted to skip all the way to chapter 20—or rather, chapters 20 through 21 would have to be another time. But I wanted to come to the sacrifice of Isaac, because it is such a key part in Abraham’s life.
This is Genesis 22:1:
And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
And He said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, 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.
He had already tried Abraham a number of times, but this was the ultimate trial. Notice how it says he rose early in the morning. It is like, at this point in his life, whatever God said, he just believed. He just did it.
And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.
And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship, and come again to you.
We know from Hebrews that when Abraham said, “I and the lad will return to you,” he believed that God would even raise Isaac from the dead. He believed God was going to raise Isaac from the dead because he knew Christ came through Isaac.
Hebrews 11:17 says:
By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac: yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son;
even he to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called:
accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead.
Genesis 22:6 says:
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife; and they went both of them together.
When Scripture refers to Isaac as a lad, it uses the same word used for the servants. We think of Isaac as a little boy, but he was likely much older, probably in his early twenties.
For one thing, he had the load of wood on his back. He had to carry it, and there was a lot of wood for a burnt offering. Also, the same word is used for the servants.
Certainly, his father—who was over 120 years old—could have been overpowered by Isaac, or Isaac could have run away. But this is a type. We see Christ in Isaac willingly laying down. Isaac willingly surrendered to the will of his father.
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, God will provide Himself the lamb for a burnt-offering: so they went both of them together.
That was a prophetic word: “God will provide for Himself the Lamb for the burnt offering.” We know that was Christ.
In Hebrews 10, this is a picture of Christ:
Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith,
Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not,
But a body didst Thou prepare for Me;
In whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hadst no pleasure:
Then said I, Lo, I am come
(In the roll of the book it is written of Me)
To do Thy will, O God.
The Lord Jesus was consumed with the Father’s will. The Father prepared a body for Him, and the Lord Jesus took on that body.
When Abraham said, “The Lord will provide for Himself the Lamb for a burnt offering,” this was the Lord Jesus taking on that body to be the Lamb for the burnt offering. He was consumed with doing His Father’s will.
I am almost done. Some may think that this was somehow a surprise to God, but I am going to read Acts 2.
Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by Him in the midst of you, even as ye yourselves know;
Him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay.
This was God’s predetermined plan. From the beginning, Jesus was going to come and take on the form of a man to be the sacrifice of the Lord.
There was no surprise when this happened to the Lord. It was God’s foreordained plan.
We read this morning from Isaiah 53. Someone read it:
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, yet He humbled Himself and opened not His mouth;
as a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb,
yea, He opened not His mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
and as for His generation, who among them considered
that He was cut off out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?
And they made His grave with the wicked,
and with a rich man in His death,
although He had done no violence,
neither was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief:
when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.
Lord, we want to thank You.
Who are we, the travail of Thy soul, that You would be satisfied with us?
Lord, we worship You. There are no words to express it.
We just say, “Thank You.” We pray, Lord, that You would open our eyes to see the depth, the width, the breadth, and the height of the love of Christ. In Jesus’ name. Amen.