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[0:00] Well, Father, we thank you again, Lord, just to come into your presence, to take this time and set it aside, Lord, to recognize that apart from you, we can do nothing. But Lord, you've also designed it that apart from the body, we lack so much of what you want to equip us with and edify us with and prepare us for so that we can be lights in this world, so that we can live effectual lives. And Lord, so we can live free from sin in the flesh. And Lord, we thank you so much as we see in this chapter what we just read, Lord, that there is a seed that was promised to Abraham.

[0:35] And Lord, that seed that was planted, it took fruition and it grew into the resurrection that we experience today. Thank you, Jesus, for going to the mountain for us. And as we look at your word this morning, just ask that you would illuminate this text, that you'd open our eyes, open our hearts, that we would have seeing eyes and hearing ears. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so if you remember, Abraham had been called by God to leave Beersheba, the well of the oath, and to travel up to Moriah.

[1:08] Moriah is where today's Jerusalem, right? The Jebusites were, and eventually David went and he took that and it became Jerusalem. Mount Moriah is also, it's where the temple is. Remember, it's where David went and he purchased the threshing floor of Onan the Jebusite, and eventually that's where Solomon built his temple. Jesus would have been crucified just outside the walls of Jerusalem, still on Mount Moriah. The exact location we don't know, but my guess is it was somewhere very near this altar. Either this altar is the place Jesus was actually crucified, or this altar is the place where the temple has sat. Just knowing God, knowing the way he puts patterns in scripture, and the way he loves to put pictures there, you know that where Abraham built this altar. My guess is it was Golgotha. But anyway, you can see he would have traveled back through Hebron, and you think of that traveling with

[2:09] Isaac those three days, and going back through Hebron, back where he had made the altar, back where he had met with the Lord, and pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah, back where he had seen the smoke rising from Sodom and Gomorrah, and as he heads to Moriah, and then he offers Isaac. And then the Lord tells him, and the voice comes to him, and he says to him, Abraham, stop. Abraham, it is enough. You have shown to me what I already knew, but now you've experienced. And Abraham's love and appreciation for Isaac, it now reached a whole new level, didn't it? Because he had received the son of promise in birth, and now he had received him a second time, in a sense, in second birth. He received him in resurrection, back from the dead. What he thought was the death that Isaac would have to experience at his own hands, God said, no, stop. I was thinking of in Luke 17 33.

[3:09] Oh, still got that background on. Hang on. Where Jesus said, whoever will seek to save his life shall lose it. Whoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. The idea that whenever we, in our own effort or strength, seek to retain something, we end up losing it, because we don't have the capacity to rightly hold on to something apart from the Lord's intervention, apart from his direction. And through scripture, you know, the Bible is progressive revelation. Abraham, we're going to see today, is going to have a revelation. He's going to have something revealed to him that to us makes so much sense. But to him didn't make as much sense, because it's progressive revelation. What you see in scripture is over and over, the Lord says, essentially, what I've placed into your hands is meant to be given back to me.

[3:57] And then when you give it back to me, you will then understand its true purpose. It's never meant to be just hoarded and squirreled away, right? It's like the gifts within the church. God gives gifts for edification. It's never meant just to, like, consume upon ourselves. It's meant to be used to give. It's more blessed to give than receive. So Abraham, he has this mountaintop view, and that's the title for today's message, a mountaintop view, that from God's mountaintop, we see things with a whole different perspective. We can see things from a much higher perspective when we allow God to give us his view of things. And Abraham has come into the mountain of the Lord, and he's brought his son Isaac.

[4:36] And Abraham has just offered his son, and God tells him to stop, right? He says, for now I know that you fear God, or you reverence God, verse 12, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son.

[4:50] Then we pick up in verse 13, and Abraham, in this amazing moment where he's heard God's voice, his ears are still open to God's voice, he lifts up his eyes and looks. So God speaks to him. He says, Abraham, Abraham, here I am. And he lifts up his head, and God speaks to him. And he looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. So Abraham now sees something that appears to be there. The way the wording is here, that Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, the way they put behold in there, it's kind of like, whoa, Isaac, did you see this ram over here? I didn't see it when we came up. Abraham was given vision to look and see what he'd never seen before in the mount of the Lord. The ram was there the whole time, but Abraham was not able to see it until he had obeyed the voice of the Lord. He could not see this ram. Proverbs 20, verse 12 says, the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made even both of them. And then Matthew, a parallel passage to that in the

[6:02] New Testament, where Jesus says, Matthew 13, 16, speaking to his disciples about parables, he said, but blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. And so Abraham's eyes have been opened at this point. And what does he see? He sees a ram. He sees that it's caught by his horns.

[6:24] The word caught there means to grasp and snare and to take hold of. It's something that's grasped, it's caught. And so he turned and essentially, he saw a ram ensnared by a crown of thorns, by its horns around its head. In scripture, horns represent strength. They represent power. You see that again in Revelation, where the horns that represent power. In Psalm 18, verse 2, it says, the Lord, David says, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. That's not like, it's not like he's just tooting his horn of salvation. He's saying the strength of his salvation. And so here, Abraham turns and he looks and he sees a ram caught and snared in this thicket, in this thorn bush, caught. His power, his strength, representing his strength, completely ensnared by these thorns. Think of the New Testament, Philippians, where it says that Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but took him upon himself the form of a servant and being made found in the, and being found in the fashion of man, he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That the Lord allowed his power, this prefigure of Jesus, Jesus, the ram, a ram is just a male adult sheep. He allowed himself to be ensnared with sin on our behalf. This crown of thorns around his head.

[7:59] And here on the Mount of the Lord, Abraham looks and he sees this ram ensnared by this crown of thorns. And he takes the ram and he offers it up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. The word there, stead, it just means, you know, instead, but for the sake of, right? But also has this other idea of meaning underneath or beneath. It's like, what? What does that mean? He offered this ram underneath Isaac? Deuteronomy 33, 27 says, the eternal God is their refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.

[8:33] And he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee and shall say, destroy them. The idea is that he came in underneath and gave Isaac a place on which to stand, took the place of kind of like removed one footing and replaced it with another. That now Abraham offered up this burnt offering in the stead, the place where Isaac stood now stands the sacrifice. And so we, like Abraham, we have the opportunity when we're at the Mount of the Lord, what do we see? We see a ram. We see the Lamb of God.

[9:12] When Isaac said to Abraham back in verse seven, he said, where's the Lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a Lamb. Well, here is the Lamb. Here he is in prefigured. And so when we turn and look behind, what do we see? What do you turn when you look behind?

[9:33] What do you turn and see when you, when you turn around and you see your past? What's there? Where you see a ram caught by his strength, caught by his horns with this crown of thorns. We look back and we see Jesus in our stead, right? Abraham looks forward and what's he going to see? Well, we're going to find out he's going to see blessing upon blessing and multiplication upon multiplication.

[9:56] But when he looks back, it says he turned and he looked behind him and he saw something that was offered in his stead. And it's the same with us. We turn and look back. Do you see sin and failure when you look back? Do you see frustration? What do you see in your past? Do you see abuse and hurt?

[10:14] Well, instead of that, God would put his Lamb, the Lamb of God. So that when we look back, that's all covered, covered by the blood. And he comes instead. And we turn and we look forward. So Abraham goes and he takes this ram and he offers it instead of his son. And this must have been one of the most amazing moments in his life and Isaac's. I just picture them both weeping and worshiping God and hugging and just like, this is amazing. And I think of where the prodigal, when he comes home and the father says to him, you know, my son who was lost is now found. I think of the father of Abraham saying, my son who was dead is now alive. Think of when Jesus taking the blood of the eternal sacrifice of his own blood entered into heaven after the crucifixion, after resurrection. You imagine the father going, this is my son who was dead. And now he lives and all of heaven rejoicing as he enters in.

[11:09] And Abraham now makes this proclamation in verse 14. And he called the name of the place Jehovah Jireh. As it is said to this day in the Mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. Jehovah Jireh literally means the Lord will see or to provide the Lord, my provider. So it's like the Lord will see to our provision. The Lord will see our need and we'll provide. So when it's the Lord will see it's to provide the Lord sees, sees what's needed. And he provides. Abraham is essentially saying, man, my God, he saw the situation. He provided himself a sacrifice for the sake of my son.

[11:51] In the Mount of the Lord, God's provision is seen. And in the Mount of the Lord, God's provision is still seen and experienced today. What is the Mount of the Lord for us? Well, Hebrews tells us, Hebrews 12 verse 22, But you are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, to the blood of the sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. We come to the Mount of the Lord. We come to the place of sacrifice, of surrender, of death. Come to the place where Jesus did that for us. And it's the same for us.

[12:43] When we come to the Mount of the Lord, it's a place of sacrifice, surrender, and death. We don't come in pride. We don't come on our own authority. We don't come demanding. We come and surrender. But it's also the place of provision, blessing, and resurrection. Abraham, when he came to Mount Moriah, he came and surrender. He came with a sacrifice, and he came with Isaac already dead in his heart, expecting to fulfill that. When he leaves there in obedience to what God has asked him to do, he leaves with provision, with blessing, and with resurrection. So he gains a whole new perspective from this higher view on God's mountain.

[13:26] And Abraham called the place Jehovah-Jireh, as it said, to this day, I like that, in the Mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And to this day, we have the same assurance that we can go to the Mount of the Lord. We can go to the Lord.

[13:37] We can go, like it says there in Hebrews, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. And we can have that same experience of provision. We can have the same experience Abraham did, where that thing that was so precious to us, Isaac, like, Lord, it's, it's, it's, and the Lord said, just give it to me, and I'll give it back to you in a way you will never have experienced or never would have thought you were able to experience. And so we come in the same way, whether it's our sin, Lord, how can I give this up? How can I let this go to you? Am I going to be exposed? You know, it's going to hurt. This is who I am. How's this going to work? And the Lord just says, just, just give that to me. I can make all things new. And he does. Man, I tell you, the, if you've not experienced, and I'm sure you have, if you're in Christ, the feeling of knowing you are wrong, you are under condemnation, you deserve the punishment, then to have the word of God come to your heart, to confess your sins, and he's faithful just to forgive us and to know you should be under punishment. You should have consequences and have the Lord go, I've released you. It's over. Just go and sin no more. It's amazing. And it's ridiculous because it doesn't make sense. It's like, well, Lord, I should probably do something to try and, you know, make things right. I should probably do something to try and go back in there.

[15:02] Sure. Between relationships, we need to, but there's nothing you can do to atone for it. You can't undo what you did, right? You, you stole a candy bar when you were a kid. And at this point, no, you're convicted now. I'm going to go back and I'm going to pay back the candy. What would it be in inflation today? All right. Well, you go back in the stores torn down. Oh, and it's not even there anymore. What are you, how are you going to do that? How are you going to go back and make right everything? But man, to go to Christ and to have him just release you, to look back and see something in your stead and as Jesus with his crown of thorns hanging on that tree so that you can walk away free.

[15:39] There's nothing like it. Psalm 24 verse three to five says, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart who's not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. The Mount of the Lord, the hill of the Lord, that place, you know, just as the horns in scripture represent power and strength, the hill or the mountain represents a place of safety because you had the high ground, right? The high ground is very important.

[16:19] We didn't have airplanes, didn't have artillery. You fought by hand and most by spear and bow. So if you have the high ground, you're pretty safe, right? It's why you see in scripture, you know, God is my high tower. He's my defense. As the mountains are about Jerusalem, so is the Lord around his people.

[16:36] You see in Nehemiah, why it was so important for him to get back there and build the wall around Jerusalem and why his enemies didn't want him to because once you built a wall, it's really hard to get through it or over it with the abilities they had back then.

[16:51] So who shall ascend into this place to the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart. My hands aren't clean. Are yours? I don't have a pure heart.

[17:05] Who's not lifted up his soul into vanity? I've done that. I've sworn deceitfully. So how do we enter into the hill of the Lord? How do we do that? We have somebody who's done it in our stead, right? Like we read, Jesus is gone, the mediator of the new covenant. Jesus's hands were clean.

[17:20] His heart was pure. He had not lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. And then in our place, right, he took our sin and our punishment. So then he could ascend into the hill and we get to go with him, right? You know, it's an amazing thing that for all of eternity, we'll be in Christ.

[17:40] Don't think like, well, when I get to heaven, you know, as we just talked about, prayer and faith won't be needed in heaven. But you know what will still be needed in heaven? Redemption. Outside of Christ, there's no redemption. We're not going to show up and then all of a sudden be like, well, man, I'm so glad to be done with earth life. Now I'm perfect. Now I'm sinless. I'm amazingly perfect.

[17:59] No, we're in Christ for all of eternity. We are in him because apart from him, we have nothing. And so for all of eternity is because of the lamb that we are there, that he has allowed us to essentially enter into his clean hands, his pure heart, his soul of humility and his truth so that we can receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness and salvation.

[18:28] So Abraham, in some sense, understands this because we know from Matthew, Jesus says to the Pharisees, he says, Abraham saw my day and was glad. And they said, you're not yet 50 years old and you claim to know our father Abraham, right? And they get all mad at him because they can't understand anything he says.

[18:46] But Abraham, in some sense, understood this. He understood what's going on here because God's going to further give him further revelation here. And he's grasping this to a certain extent. But God's voice now comes a second time in verse 15. It says, the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time.

[19:06] Why is that verse there? It's one of those verses that you think, why doesn't it just say in verse 16, and God said, by myself have I sworn, sayeth the Lord, for because thou has done this thing and has not withheld thy son, thine only son, and in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, as the sand which is upon the seashore. My seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. Why didn't he just say that? Why does it have to tell us that this voice came a second time? Why is it pointing this out? I think because it wants us to point back to the voice that came the first time. So if you look, when the voice came the first time out of heaven, when Abraham's on the mount, and the angel of the Lord called him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here I am, he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him, for now I know. The voice that came the first time was one of finality, of declaration. Good job, Abraham. It's done, Abraham. It's finished. He did it. The son has been sacrificed. In John 19, 30, when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it's finished.

[20:20] The voice of finality, the first voice had to take place before the second voice. The voice of accomplishment came before the voice of blessing. So when the son was sacrificed on the mountain, and when he was raised again from the dead, essentially, then came this second voice. And what does God say to him? By myself have I sworn, said the Lord, in verse 17, that in blessing, I will bless you, and in multiplying, I'll multiply you. And so in this happiest of moments of Abraham's life, we just had two moments for Abraham. The lowest point of his life, when he had to sacrifice Isaac, and took the knife, and thought he's gonna have to kill him. And now most likely the happiest moment of his life, when Isaac is up off the altar, and they've just sacrificed the ram. In both of these moments, Abraham's ears and heart is open to the voice of the Lord. In both of these moments, he's ready to receive the word of God. In his lowest moment, in his highest moment, his ears are open to the Lord. Because the Lord comes to speak to him again. And he's not, he's not like, oh Isaac, I'm so excited, let's go home, we're out of here, whoo, we're done with this, and get out of there. His ears were still open. God, what do you want to speak? What more do you have, Lord? And his ears were open.

[21:35] And then God said this remarkable thing to him. He says, I've sworn by myself that because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son. Very specific, this one thing. Not just like some kind of esoteric, like, good job, Abraham, you have some faith out there somewhere.

[21:56] And I read this quote in this book I'm reading. It's on preaching and sermons and stuff like that. But it was talking about love, that you cannot have love. And we've said something similar, I've said like this before. You can't have love by itself. You have to have an object for your love.

[22:15] It doesn't just exist. You know, you can't say to someone, well, I'm a very loving person. Well, do you love anybody? No. Well, you're not loving. But it kind of reversed it and said, well, you can't have, you have, there's no such thing as love. There's only lovers. And I like that. There's, there's no such thing as love by itself. There's only people that love. You know, God is love. It has to be expressed. And so you, here you have this very specific thing. God says, because you've done this thing, the response to, the response to faith is specific. Your response to God and faith is very specific in your life. It can't just be kind of like, oh, I kind of have faith, right? It'll be specific. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. John 3, 16. For God, very specifically, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son in your stead. Very specific that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. What specific thing must I do to enter into everlasting life? Well, we just read it. Believe. It's very specific. It's very specific in the way God leads us. God told Abraham, go to Mount Moriah. There'll be more to come,

[23:28] Abraham. There's more I'm going to show you as you go through this process. It'll be specific. He didn't just pick a mountain. And in our lives, God wants us to respond in faith to the very specific things he speaks to us. But amazingly, the response of faith here is disproportionate, way disproportionate. God's blessing is hugely, vastly disproportionate to this little act that Abraham did. And so it is with us. You put your faith in Christ. So, well, I believe in you, Jesus.

[24:00] Disproportionate to that very small act of faith, all of eternity is opened up to you. All of blessing is now yours. God asked us to do very specific things. And disproportionate to that, he blesses us beyond measure. Paul gives us some insight into what's happening here when God says, by myself have I sworn that because you've done this thing, has not withheld your son, your only son, that in blessing I will bless you. Well, I actually don't know if sure it's Paul. The writer of Hebrews, right? I'm just assuming it's Paul. Hebrews chapter 6, verses 13 through 18, we have the scripture commentating on itself. It says, for when God made promise to Abraham, which he's doing right here, in Genesis 22, he said, because he could swear by no greater, he swear by himself, saying, surely I will bless you. In blessing I will bless you. In multiplying I will multiply you.

[24:57] And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, just means he wanted you to know that what he said is not going to change, cannot change. He confirmed it by an oath, right? We call them contracts today. You go and get a mortgage, you go and get a loan, you sign, and you sign, and you sign, and you sign, and that now is the end of all strife. In other words, I'm not going to go to your house and declare it as mine and get in a big argument with you because I know you have this document that just says, no, it's under contract to you. Like, oh, well, that's kind of an end of all strife, isn't it? And so God, wanting to show that, wanting to confirm it, he confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, and we said before, what are those two things? His promise and his word.

[25:57] The oath God gives, he gave his promise. He backs it up with his word. In which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before us. So Abraham right here is being told by God, in blessing I'll bless you, and in multiplying I'll multiply you. I'll multiply your seed beyond the sand of the sea and the stars in the sky. Abraham recognizes that this means, hey, I'm going to have a lot of kids. Israel will come into existence. But he also recognizes beyond this that there's something even greater, and it's a spiritual application for us, that we enter into the seed of Abraham. If you look in verse 17, he says, In multiplying, I'll multiply thy seed, singular, as the stars of the heaven, as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed, singular, shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed, singular, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The seed, the Messiah, all nations of the earth were blessed. And so you have here the two pictures. Abraham receiving this blessing, which will result in the Jewish people, and also the blessing of the seed of the Messiah, which will come.

[27:19] But blessing upon blessing and fruit upon fruit came only after what? Only after the Son of Promise had risen from off the altar. And our blessing, and our fruitfulness, God wants to bless us upon blessing.

[27:34] He wants us to be fruitful beyond our capacity and our own flesh and our own ability. But that only comes after we enter in to salvation.

[27:44] We enter in to the substitute in our stead into Christ, right? The Son of Promise has to come up off the altar. Jesus was risen again so that we could enter into the blessing and fruitfulness that he has received in his new life that he wants us to be a part of.

[28:04] And so Abraham, he's receiving a double blessing, but there's some interesting things to note about that as we've looked at this Son of Promise, as we've looked at the the ram being sacrificed in our stead, as we see a picture of Jesus, we see Abraham's blessing.

[28:17] We're like, man, I want to be blessed. I want a double blessing. Remember when Elijah goes to heaven in the whirlwind and before he goes, Elisha's still with him. He's trying to get rid of Elisha. You know, he's like, go, go. And Elisha's like, I am not taking my eyes off you.

[28:29] I know God's taking you today and I'm not taking my eyes off you. And he says, what do you want, Elisha? He said, I want a double portion. I want a double blessing for what you have. Well, Elisha, that was all kind of, you know, a little full of yourself there.

[28:43] It's a little kind of like, you know, taking matters into your own. No, he recognized that without God's blessing, he had no ability to do anything. Man, I hope God gives me a quadruple blessing times 10.

[28:54] Not so I can be blessed, but man, so I can hear him say one day, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. I'll make you ruler over many.

[29:05] You know, I have to have God's blessing. I have to have the empowerment of his spirit to do that. But it came only after the sun had risen off the altar and Abraham, he received a double blessing. But what were those conditions?

[29:19] It was only after obedience that he'd received that blessing. I want a blessing in my life. I want God to be able to bless my life, but it has to be in obedience. He's not going to bless me outside of obedience and surrender.

[29:32] Abraham received a double blessing after sacrifice, didn't he? I was like, okay, well, what do I got to sacrifice? What do I got to give up in my life? Remember what we said last week.

[29:42] It wasn't something voluntarily given. Like, okay, I really like my car. It's served me well, but you know, just to give it up to the Lord, to gain his favor so I can get a blessing.

[29:54] Oh, it doesn't work that way. What did he say? He said, because you've not withheld. So something very specific that God had put his finger on and said, Abraham, this is what I'm asking of you. And Abraham didn't withhold that.

[30:06] He released it, that sacrifice. It was in surrender. It was after surrender. Yielding to the Lord. And it was after the son of promise had risen. The son of promise had risen up off the altar.

[30:18] It was only after that. And it's the same for us in our life as we enter into the sacrifice of our son of promise, Jesus. Psalm 51, verse 16 and 17 says, For thou desired not sacrifice, else would I give it.

[30:36] Thou delighted not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart of God thou wilt not despise. This is David speaking repentance of his sin to God.

[30:48] You know, David recognizing he'd been let off. Punishment for what David did, murder and adultery, was death. And God did not allow those consequences to come to pass.

[31:02] And he realized there's no sacrifice I can give. There's no burnt offering I can give to you, God, that in any way would please you instead of my sin. What can I do? And he recognizes the sacrifices of God are what?

[31:15] A broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart of God thou wilt not despise. That's what Abraham had. A broken heart, a yielded heart, a heart that was in surrender. And because of that, he's in this place where God can turn and say, now Abraham, now I can bless you.

[31:30] Now I can make your life fruitful because you've gone through this place of sacrifice, of surrender, and of death. It seemed like you were losing something. Man, but we never lose in Christ.

[31:41] We only gain. I was reading in Isaiah this last week on vacation and where Sennacherib, the captain of the host for the Assyrians, he comes and he comes outside the wall and he's yelling up to the men on the wall and Hezekiah is the king.

[31:58] And he's saying, don't trust in the Lord, don't trust in Hezekiah. And he says these things that sound kind of true, but they're not. There's a little twist to them. You know, he says, don't trust in Hezekiah, he can't save you.

[32:10] That's true. But then he says, don't trust in the Lord either, for he won't save you. And he's saying, he's telling them to judge God based on the weakness of God's servants. We should never do that.

[32:21] Never judge God based off of somebody else's weakness, right? And then he says to him, he says, you're God. These are the ones that Hezekiah tore down his altars because Hezekiah tore down all the high places.

[32:35] Now they would worship Yahweh, they would worship Jehovah in the high places, but it was not the prescribed way that God said to worship him. It was at the temple. But they took on the pagan practices and mixed it with their religion.

[32:46] And so this Sennacherib, this captain of the host, is saying, well, don't think your God's going to rescue you when you just tore down all His altars. Well, he was wrong, right?

[32:57] But he didn't understand. He didn't understand God. He didn't understand the Lord Jehovah that Israel served. And it hit me, I realized, the enemy doesn't understand God.

[33:08] Our enemy, the enemy of our souls, Satan and his minions, he doesn't understand God. He doesn't get it at all. Remember when he came before Job? I mean, before the Lord and Job, Satan came with the sons of God to present themselves before Job.

[33:20] And God says, hey, Satan, have you considered my servant Job? And he's like, yeah, well, it's because of all his stuff. He just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand God.

[33:31] And the Lord's like, no, not at all. Go ahead, touch his stuff. Well, it's because of his health. Go ahead, touch his health. And Job never turns on his God. The enemy doesn't understand God.

[33:42] He doesn't have a clue. He thinks it's in that God's blessing is because of, well, you know, it's because you have a lot of stuff or God will only bless you if you sacrifice that.

[33:58] God's trying to take from you. So whenever that thought comes, when God's asking of you to do something or walk in a way that perhaps you're not expecting, like when he says to Abraham here to sacrifice your son, the enemy will come and he'll tell you God's trying to take from you.

[34:15] God wants to remove something from your life because he wants to hurt you. And that's not true. It's only gain. There's only gain when we yield up to the Lord the things he's asking for us.

[34:26] All right. That was a long tangent on that. So as Abraham then receives this word from the Lord, blessing, I'll bless you. Multiplying, I'll multiply you. I'll multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven and the sand which is upon the seashore.

[34:40] I was just at the beach. I love going at night. You can see like the curvature of the earth. You can see all the stars and then to see all that sand and to realize that not only has God multiplied Abraham's descendants, I don't just mean Israel.

[34:53] I mean those who have joined in through their belief in Christ. But man, scripture tells us that God's thoughts towards us are more numbered than the sand of the sea. I was thinking of that because I don't think I can think, I was trying to think, I didn't get a chance to look it up.

[35:08] Can you think of more than one thought at a time? I think I could do two. I could get about two in my head. But I can't do much more than that. But then I was thinking that God's thoughts are more in number towards me alone than the sand on the sea.

[35:20] And if you're standing there, it was very windy watching the sand go. Well, that means he's thinking of that many thoughts about you and you and you. God has to be able to think of multiple thoughts at the same time. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who could write a letter with his right and his left hand at the same time.

[35:34] So obviously, there's people who have great capacity to think great thoughts. But thinking that God thinks more thoughts towards you than the sand which is on the sea, that's amazing.

[35:45] And it's not like, well, he thought about them in eternity past, in eternity. No, now, God's thoughts towards you are so great. And so God is promising this to Abraham that his seed will be blessed.

[35:57] And 18, And in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed because you've obeyed my voice. Again, so simple yet so impossible except for God giving us the capacity to do that.

[36:09] So Abraham returned unto his young men. They rose up and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. And then briefly, it will give us the genealogy here.

[36:21] And it came to pass after these things it was told to Abraham saying, Behold, Milcah, she's born also, children unto your brother Nahor. The genealogy of his older brother Nahor, Milcah, which means queen, right?

[36:32] Sarah meant princess and Nahor had a wife meant queen. And to his brother Nahor, Nahor meant snorting or breathing heavy. They named people back then according to characteristics.

[36:47] We kind of name them more today just because we like the sound of the name sometime according to the meaning. But we don't, we don't do what they did where they would wait to name their kids until after they saw some of their characteristics.

[37:02] Esau was, you know, red and hairy. That's what they named him. Right? And Jacob, he came out clutching his brother's heel. So they named him Jacob, heel catcher. And so here it gives the genealogy and we're not going to look at all these names.

[37:16] The interesting thing is right here in verse 23, it says, And Bethuel begat Rebekah. Who's Rebekah? It's going to be Isaac's wife.

[37:27] Her name means ensnarer or a rope with a noose. Puts perspective, doesn't it? When she has a son named Heel Catcher who eventually, when they're going to trick Isaac into giving Jacob the birthright, he goes to his mom and she says, I got an idea.

[37:45] Right? So there's some traits here that I carry on. That's what her name means. But who did we see very glaringly left out from the mountain?

[38:01] Who didn't come down with Abraham? Who's not mentioned? Isaac. Where's Isaac? Where'd he go? We lost him. And Abraham returned to his young men and they rose up.

[38:15] You know the next time we're going to see Isaac? We're going to see Isaac over in Genesis 24. If you turn there real quick. Genesis 24, verse 63.

[38:27] That's a long one. It'll probably take us three months to get through that. Genesis 24, verse 63. It says, And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at evening time and lifted up his eyes and saw and behold the camels were coming that Rebecca was being carried on.

[38:45] And Rebecca lifted up her eyes and when she saw Isaac she lighted off the camel for she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walks in the field to meet us? And the servant has said it is my master.

[38:56] Next time we see Isaac, he's leaving his father's house going into the field to meet his bride to bring her back to his father's house. It's the next time we see him. When Jesus rose from the grave, the world didn't see Jesus again, did they?

[39:11] Now, the disciples did. He appeared to some of the apostles and the disciples. But for the world, for all intents and purposes, they never saw him again. And the next time Jesus will be seen will be when he returns for his bride.

[39:23] And where did he find his bride? Where was he? She looked and said he's walking in the field. Where did Jesus find you? In the field. The world is the field. The whole world, right?

[39:37] Is the field because it says in the parables that he sold, he went and sold everything he had and bought the world to gain the prize that is in it. The prize is you and me.

[39:47] That's the next time we see the son. The son is with the father. It's assumed the son is with the father, but he's not going to be mentioned until he leaves his father's house to go and get his bride. And that is going to happen, Lord willing, very soon.

[40:03] Jesus told us, as we wrap this up in John 14, he said, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. That where I am, there you may be also. And the way you know, and whither I go, you know in the way you know.

[40:17] Thomas said unto him, Lord, we know not where you're going. How can we know the way? Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. If no man comes to the father, but by me, excuse me, if you'd known me, you should have known my father also.

[40:32] And from henceforth, you know him and have seen him. So here you have the oneness of the father and the son. You know one, you know the other. And Jesus is saying, I've gone and prepared a place. I'm with my father.

[40:43] And the next time you see me, it will be to come and get you. And so it was with Isaac. Few things to note. In verse 20, where it says, after these things, it was told Abraham, God knows when we're best ready to receive news that will affect our future.

[41:01] Abraham now hears, oh, Nahor and Milcah, they had a daughter. Interesting. Or they had, sorry, Bethuel and Bethuel begat Rebekah.

[41:12] So it's his granddaughter. He's like, oh, good to know. Right? God knows when we're best ready to receive the news that's going to shape our future. Abraham, that wouldn't have done anything for him before the mountain.

[41:25] But now was the time for him to be apprised of this. Also, this is the first time in verse 24, you see the word concubine. No reason to go too great into that.

[41:35] But concubine, it was, we see eventually Abraham will have a concubine as well. When he gets married again, he marries Keturah. Then he's a concubine.

[41:47] The concubine was essentially just a wife of lower stature and their children would not inherit. Their children would be given gifts and sent away so that they wouldn't mar the gifts of the son of the wife.

[42:01] And that's what you see with Isaac. Abraham will eventually send away all his other children so that Isaac receives the inheritance. In the Mount of the Lord, so what did Abraham see in the Mount of the Lord?

[42:15] In the Mount of the Lord, the word of God caused Abraham to look up, didn't it? And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a ram. In the Mount of the Lord, Abraham was able to see what he had never seen before.

[42:27] He was able to see this ram caught in the thicket to be used instead of his son Isaac to stand in place of. God provided himself a substitutionary sacrifice just as he promised.

[42:40] Just as Abraham said to the son, my son, God will provide himself a sacrifice. Well, in the Mount of the Lord, that was seen. In the Mount of the Lord, the word of God spoke double blessing and limitless growth to Abraham.

[42:52] And in the Mount of the Lord, the Father received the son back from the dead. We have the same thing in Christ. Jesus, when he went to the mountain, when he took upon himself our sin and stood in our stead on the cross, we can now look up.

[43:09] We can now see with new eyes. We can now live a new life because of substitutionary sacrifice. And the word of God speaks limitless growth and amazing blessing over our life.