Genesis 22:3-10 KJV
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.
Welcome to KJV Cafe. Thanks for taking time out of your day to listen. Each episode of the Cafe is dedicated to studying the Bible verse by verse from Genesis through Revelation. Your host here at the Cafe is Bible teacher Clark Covington. Looks like the coffee is hot and ready, so let's get started. Hey, man, glory to God. Welcome to the program. Welcome to Cafe Pastor Clark Covington here with another episode of KJV Cafe. So good to be with you. It's a verifiably beautiful day outside today as I record this. I don't know what it's like when you hear it, but as I record it, I went out this morning and took a drive got me a cup of coffee and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was real foggy here. I don't know if it's the foothills fog or what, but we had a little mountain type of fog where our house is. But just down in town, it was really pretty sunny out and just gorgeous. So I praise the Lord for another day. I said to myself, I need to get up real early and go for a drive more often. Oh, man, that is awesome. But if you're new to the program, we are not a weather program. I just I guess I just mentioned that just to mention it when I can, but we are a Bible study and we're going from Genesis to Revelation verse by verse in God's word 15 minutes a day every single day. Amen. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app or on Spotify iTunes. The one I put on my phone is literally called podcast app, I think, and it's a blue one and it seems to be pretty good. I just put it on there to kind of check that our stuff is going on. We also have a 30 minute episode that comes on Fridays and Saturdays called the weekend edition and you can look that up on your favorite podcast app as well. And we have a one hour program that comes on Friday mornings called the truck drivers hour and that's not just for truck drivers, but it is a longer format program. People that are on the road looking for encouraging news, encouraging, like literally encouraging news, but also, of course, the good news and, you know, gives us time yesterday. The episode, I think it was episode 12, 11 or 12, you know, I spent like 45, 50 minutes speaking to John six and this idea of the reward of being faithful to God when so many aren't. And, you know, he just gives you more time. So anyways, check those out online, check out kjv cafe.com. And now let's get to the regular scheduled program here. So Genesis 22, we spent a lot of time on the first two verses and now we're going to go from three to say 10 here. Okay. And this theme of Genesis 22, three to 10 would be the testing of Abraham's faith, right? Verse three, "In 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 claved the wood of the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abadi here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. 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. 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, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering." So they went both of them together and they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there and laid wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. Okay, so we'll take a break and we come back. We're going to dive into each verse here of this scripture. So stay tuned. You're listening to KJV Cafe. We encourage you to look us up on your favorite podcast app and subscribe to our channel on YouTube. Now let's get back to some more in-depth Bible study. The theme we see here with Abraham in this time is boldness in obedience, right? He's boldly obedient. He is, and Isaac and his young men are obedient to God's call in light of the fact that God's call was very challenging to them, right? And we spoke to this idea that oftentimes God will test us or allow us to be tested in challenging times. And there's been times, matter of fact, I think any time that's extra challenging in my life, one of my prayers to God will be, "Lord, is this a test or is this just a challenging time that I need to be patient and know that you are God or is this a test that I need to make sure there's something here I'm doing?" Right? And I think that's a good prayer to pray because Abraham, he understood this concept that it was a test and that if he passed the test, he might have some favor with God. And that is exactly what happens here. Wow, it says here. After all of this happens where God rescues Abraham from having to sacrifice his son, verse 16. Well, verse 15, "And the angel of the Lord called on Abraham out of heaven the second time, and verse 16, and said, 'By myself have I sworn, say it the Lord, for because thou has done this thing, and has not withheld thy son, not only son, verse 17, that in blessing, O bless thee, and multiplying, O multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven as the sand which's upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.'" So God says, "Because you did this thing, you're going to be incredibly blessed." And what was the thing that he did? He listened to God, and he didn't withhold his son. He did what many parents would find impossible to do. Impossible. And he did it. Out of faith. He was obedient. And so we see here in verse three, Abraham rose up early in the morning. Again, I was started the introduction, silly introduction, but it is applicable. It is good to get up early and do what God's calling us to do. And I'm not somebody that's going to sleep all morning, but I'm definitely not one of these folks that's getting up at 4.35 in the morning, not yet at least. And though I probably should. It is good to get up early in the morning. We speak to God through his word and through prayer, so he speaks to us through his word and we speak to him through prayer. And when is that oftentimes, or how is that oftentimes conveyed in a still small voice? Now can you spend time meditating on the things of God if everything is loud and there's a bunch of distractions and there's a bunch of stuff going on? Right. Let me tell you from experience at like five or six in the morning. For most, for most, there's not a whole lot going on. You know, it's early enough that it is quiet. We have kids in the house and I learned that after they were born. I said, man, how can I find a minute to get anything done because having young kids, this is even before they were homeschooled, just young kids. This is actually twins 10 and a half months apart. My wife set a record at work because she had already taken the leave. What is whatever that's called the medical leave and they said, you can't take it twice in the same year. Ooh, having those two young ones there? When can you catch a break? And I realized the time is after they go to bed or before they're up. Well, in the same concept there, which is any parent, I'm sure is nodding their head like that is the best time to do something, you know, other than take care of your kids. The other concept there is that's also a really good time to go and seek the Lord. As Abraham did there, rose up early in the morning. And I'm guessing that he prayed God is this really what you want me to do, right? And so oftentimes we can go to God for affirmation, right? We don't delay in doing what God wants us to do, but it's good to just pray and make sure. And any big decision I have in my life, whether it's in the ministry, whether it's in family life, whether it's in work, oftentimes I will pray. And then if I'm able to, I will sleep on it and then pray again, and that could go on for weeks or months, but at the very least a day, right? So then you at least make sure, okay, I'm not making a decision out of some kind of flash of emotion, you know, I didn't just have some big day and now I think this or that or some awful day and now I think this or that. But I'm being calculated, the biblical word would be like temperance, right? Moderation, understanding, you know, that God works in the details that God has a plan that God is working things each day. So Abraham gets up early. And then what does it say? He got on his donkey and took two of his young men with him. Okay, so two young men, the very least possible to help do this work, right? He Abraham at this point is very old, right? And so how old is Abraham? We may not know exactly, but we know he's well over a hundred because he had Isaac when he's a hundred. And we see in this passage, Isaac carrying the wood, Isaac talking to his dad. So Isaac wasn't like a tiny little boy. So Abraham was 110, 115, 120, somewhere there. So he's going to need help in this journey. It's a three day journey. And that's not a small distance. So he brings two young men. So again, I think significance there is he's bringing a couple of people that he trusts that are able to help, but no more. Okay. And you could really follow that down the line that God is able to do a lot with a little. So Genesis 22 is a very famous biblical account, biblical passage. It is a picture of the substitutionary death of Christ, the giving of God's son. So we don't have to give our son or ourselves that God does it for us. It is also a rebuke of the false God of Molech, the fire God there that many at the time worshiped who required the son or daughter of these individuals. So there's so much depth to this lesson. I mean, there's so much here, right? And if you really think about it, it'll move you. It can move you the tears. I remember a young man preaching on this years ago at camp, literally a camp meeting. We were at a camp meeting. And I was just moved to tears thinking about it, stewing on it, you know, very similar to Mary watching Christ being crucified. You know, you just absolutely tears you up. And yet God has just a few people involved. So God can do a lot with a little. And just in case you think you're too young to be used, it says he got two young men. Or just in case you think you don't have enough. Whatever people in your church and your group and your whatever family to do something for God. Remember this anecdote because it was not a lot of people that were involved in this incredible moment of sacrifice. It also came to mind the transfiguration, right? So at the transfiguration, there weren't that many people there either. And that's another example of God doing a lot with a little in a pivotal moment. And I'm going to see if I can look real quick. I think there were at the transfiguration. Let's see, yeah, so it was Jesus, Peter, James and John, right, and just them. So something like the four of them, something to that extent. And don't quote me on that. I just pulled it up as I'm preaching this. The idea is a small group encountering God. So one more example there. Oftentimes, and this is just the fallen world we live in, we go with the crowd, right? Do we not? What's popular? You know, we boast of what's popular. You go to church and hey, we have a hundred today. We have 500 today. Hey, we have 10,000. And somehow this number is associated with something holy or godly or successful just because it is in the world, right? The movie wants to know how many people bought tickets, right? Concert, did it sell out, you know? How many fans are at the game? I remember I played football for a year in college. And one thing I remember is our team wasn't very good. We didn't have a lot of fans. And it wasn't very fun. I would literally say, this team isn't a lot of fun. We don't have a lot of fans that we lose all the time. And then people would look at me like, well, we don't have a lot of fans because we lose all the time. That's for another day. And man, they take their football very serious in Ohio. That was a definitely a growing up moment. That was a no joke out there. But look, the crowd, right? In that instance, you know, Ohio State or Michigan, you know, they have the crowd. They're the big program. Look what God does with just a few people. You know, oftentimes God is not with the majority, right? God is not with the crowd, right? You could drive to a church. So there's a casino they put in Kings Mountain, unfortunately. And you could drive past that on the way to church. And there could be far more people at the casino than those at that church. Does that make that church not valid in God's eyes? Does that make the people there not holy? Of course not. Yet oftentimes when we think of the ministry, we think of doing something for God, we think we need all of these resources, all these people. And time and time again, whether it's Gideon in the 300 or any other example, time and time again, God shows us he can do a lot with a little. If you knew how little was behind our organization, you would say, "Wow, praise God." Because he has done incredible things here and not just with us, but with so many other ministries over the years and great men of God like Abraham as we see here in this passage. So what we'll do is we'll pick up here in the next episode as we go deeper into this passage of Scripture. Thank you for listening. Take care, God bless, and amen. Thanks for spending time with us today at the Cafe. We would love to hear from you. You can email Brother Clark directly at Clark@EnduringPromise.org. See you again tomorrow. Same time. Same place.
