Before we move on in Chapter 22, there is one more thing we need to look at from God's instructions in verse 2. He tells Abraham to go to the region of Moriah. Why is this significant?
The Lord told King David that Mount Moriah in Jerusalem was the place that He had chosen for His temple. This was the place where He would accept offerings and sacrifices from His people Israel. Though the Lord does not intend for Abraham to go through with sacrificing Isaac at this location which will later become Jerusalem, hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of substitutionary sacrifices (animal sacrifices) were made at this site from about 516 BC until 70 AD. The perfect and eternal substitutionary sacrifice was made here when the Lord Jesus Christ gave His life on the cross at Jerusalem. The significance of Mount Moriah is that it is where the Lord will do the thing He has asked Abraham to do: offer up his one and only son whom he loves. But in contrast to what happens with Abraham and Isaac on this site, the Lord will endure what He will keep Abraham from having to experience.
Abraham has walked with the Lord for enough years now that he obeys Him at the first opportunity. After the Lord makes His request, Abraham sets about obeying Him at morning light. "Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance." (Genesis 22:3-4) Abraham has three days in which to struggle with what he's been asked to do. He has three days in which to become overwhelmed with doubts and turn back. But he doesn't. As we discussed yesterday, he doesn't expect to be returning home from this adventure without his son. He's expecting to see a miracle. He believes that the Lord will raise Isaac from the dead and that the two of them, along with the two servants, will return home together.
When they reach the spot he leaves the servants at a distance behind him. "He said to his servants, 'Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.'" (Genesis 22:5) Abraham's word hasn't always been trustworthy in the past, but he's not lying to these men. He's not assuring him that both he and Isaac will come back just so the servants won't suspect anything is amiss. He's fully persuaded that he will have his son with him when he returns.
"Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, 'Father?' 'Yes, my son?' Abraham replied. 'The fire and wood are here, 'Isaac said, 'but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?'" (Genesis 22:6-7) Abraham ties the stack of wood together with cords and then ties the stack to his son in a backpack fashion. This is the safest and most practical way to carry the load and to allow Isaac's hands to remain free as they climb upwards. As we said the other day, we can't be sure how old Isaac is at this time, but he's old enough to know exactly how a burnt offering is to be made. He takes inventory of what they're carrying with them and realizes they are missing the most important part: the lamb. Without the lamb a burnt offering (an offering of complete submission and surrender to God and an offering of atonement) can't be made. Without the lamb as a substitute for the shed blood of man, atonement for sin can't be accessed. Without the lamb, Abraham and Isaac would be doing nothing more than building a campfire on a mountain. They would not be submitting anything to God, or worshiping God, or receiving anything from God.
Abraham answers his son's question with a statement that thrills my soul. "Abraham answered, 'God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.'" (Genesis 22:8a) Amen! God will indeed provide the Lamb, and on a day hundreds of years after the death of Abraham, a man named John will look up from his work of baptizing repentant sinners at the Jordan River and will see the promised Lamb approaching and will exclaim to the crowd, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29b)
We can learn a lot by what Isaac asks his father in our passage today. Isaac knows that he and his father are accomplishing nothing by going up on the mountain if there is no lamb involved. They might as well have stayed home. Friends, if we don't have the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives, what are we accomplishing? If we don't love Him, and if we don't recognize Him as the Lord of our lives, we might as well stay home from religious services. The Lord doesn't want us merely going through the motions by doing and saying all the right things on the outside while our hearts are far from Him on the inside. This is a thing He criticized the people of Israel for in the Bible, when time and time again they'd fall out of closeness with Him and run after false gods and worldly pleasures. We don't want to be the people who sit on a church pew this Sunday morning without the Lamb. We don't want to be the people who talk the talk in our communities and in our jobs while we are not walking the walk with the Lamb. We can perform all the religious rituals we want, and we can do all the good deeds we want, but without the Lamb in our lives we aren't pleasing the Lord and we aren't accomplishing anything of eternal significance. We can't earn salvation through good works. We must accept salvation from the Lamb whom the Lord provided. Isaac, who is not old enough yet to be considered a young man, easily understands this, so he asks his father, "Where is the lamb?"
If the Lamb is not as dear to you as He once was, there's no better time than today to draw closer to Him, for we are promised, "Come near to God and He will come near to you." (James 4:8a) If the Lamb has never been a part of your life, there's no better time than right now to make Him your Lord and Redeemer.
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