WHERE IS THE LAMB?
Genesis 22:1 ¶ 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. 2 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.
Genesis 22:3 ¶ And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. 6 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. 7 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? 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. 9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
Genesis 22:11 ¶ And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. 12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.
The Lord God now tries his servant Abraham concerning a second loss of a son. That English word, “tempt” is an unfortunate choice, for we have it in Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: And in James 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: And this time the voice of Sarah is not involved as it was in the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael. (See Genesis 21:12).
Therefore neither Sarah, nor any other of the family camp are informed. And the two young men, and even Isaac are not told the purpose of their journey. Everyone in this little foursome are all proceeding by faith in their master, in complete submission. The servants are in submission to their master Abraham. Isaac is in submission to his father. And Abraham is in submission to the Lord God. And the ass is in submission to everyone!
For when one is seeking to accomplish the will of God in their personal lives, all who would hinder, or try to dissuade must be left out. Romans 14:22 Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. And even those who may be necessarily involved must be told Abide ye here when the time of explicit obedience is come! That is exactly what the Lord Jesus did concerning Peter’s attempt to keep him from the cross! Mark 8:33 But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest (to be mindful), not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. For if you are to accomplish God’s will for yourself, those who have not the mind of the Spirit concerning his specific revelation to you, must be left behind!
And the Lord Jesus Christ had to again rebuke Peter to guard the personal directing of the Apostle John. John 21:21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? 22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
In many ways the community of faith is a glorious benefit to the individual believer. But each individual must express his faith according to his identity in the Lord! 1 Corinthians 12:11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? 19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?
We would do well to remember that it is not always the Lord speaking unto us through other believers, no matter how convinced they seemed to be concerning God’s will for us. But it is always the Lord speaking to us with the inner voice of the Holy Spirit! Carefully consider the case of the young prophet who was eaten of a lion for obeying the voice of an older prophet in 1 Kings chapter thirteen! For to obey the voice of the older, lying prophet, was to disobey the earlier voice of God!
1 Kings 13:18 He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. 19 So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water. 23 And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back. 24 And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcase was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcase.
Even the destination for this little foursome is a matter of personal revelation and faith to Abraham! Take note that in verses three and nine, we are informed that it was the place which God told him of. For both the time and the place of our lives are provided sovereignly by the Lord God for us to seek and find him! Acts 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
And we must take notice that upon leaving everyone else behind except Isaac, God even then leads Abraham to a place in a thicket. (verse 13). For if the giving of our charitable gifts and our prayers are to be done in secret, without our one hand knowing what the other is doing, (Matthew 6:1-6), surely in these dealings of ourselves in the matter of the fellowship of his sufferings, (Philippians 3:10), we must guard against all fleshly curiosity! But sadly there does not seem to be a shred of the guarding of personal faith today! Everything is ‘testified’ of! Every syllable is exposed on our ‘blogs!’ Noah walked with God. Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him! But there is no possibility of finding such characters amongst us today. For we all seem to want, even pine for, the approval of each other, with no thought of self-sacrificing devotion to the I AM!
But when the female Church-Bride, seeks fellowship exclusively with the others in the church, would that not be considered spiritual homosexuality? Where are those who seek only the Bridegroom, Christ Jesus?
They were at the right place. And something did die on that mount that day. But it was not Isaac. For you cannot kill sonship! Isaac went up, appointed to death. But Isaac came back down at the expense of a ram caught in the privacy-providing thicket! And he was caught by his horns! For it was the entangling of his sovereign power in the thicket of God’s revelation of faith which brought Christ forth as substitute.
His horns represent his power! John 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. But it was not his ability alone which provided our substitute! It was his willingness which entangled him, affording us salvation!
There may be many who are able to help you, to relieve you in times of need. But only those who are also willing will be those who offer you relief from your sufferings! 2 Corinthians 8:12 For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.
This place was the place of the temple in Jerusalem! 1 Chronicles 21:15 And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. 22:1 Then David said, This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel.
2 Chronicles 3:1 Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.
God had directed Abraham by faith to the very site of the mount upon which God the Father, and God the Son would go up together, as he and Isaac did, in order to accomplish eternal redemption! As Isaac had the wood on his back, so the Lord Jesus would have the cross on his! And as Abraham had the fire and knife, so the Father would sacrifice his only begotten son. There was no ram, nor thousands of oxen or sheep to take his place! The fire of the Father’s holy wrath and the knife of his justice would most assuredly fall upon the holy, and innocent body of Christ, our Savior!
For the knife of Abraham was stopped from the shedding of Isaac’s blood by the angel. And the shedding of more of the Israelites blood, (whom David called, these sheep in 1 Chronicles 21:17), was spared. 1 Chronicles 21:27 And the LORD commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof. But it was not to be so with the shedding of the Holy Son of God’s blood! John 19:34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
Abraham knew that the line of Messiah would come through Isaac. Therefore to slay Isaac was to destroy his own eternal redemption. So he informed the two young men at the foot of the mountain, I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. He believed in the resurrection of Isaac which caused him to envision the resurrection of God’s Lamb!
Hebrews 11:18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: 19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
Solomon had sacrificed huge numbers of lambs in order to dedicate the temple he had built at Jerusalem. 1 Kings 8:62 And the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the LORD. 63 And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the LORD, two and twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD.
But all of these did not atone for one single sin! Micah 6:6 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Hebrews 10:4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. 5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: 6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Where is the Lamb? He comes walking on Solomon’s porch at the feast of the dedication of the temple. One Lamb to do that which all Solomon’s lambs could never do! John 10:22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.
Where is the Lamb? The Baptist was made aware that this man was indeed the very Lord of glory! He was Creator – Redeemer God! John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Where is the Lamb? He was upon his cross accomplishing eternal redemption and finishing the work which no other lamb could do! John 19:30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
Where is the Lamb? He is ruling in his eternal glory! Revelation 5:6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. 7 And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. 8 And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
Pastor Gene Breed
January 29, 2016
