Sermons
God Will Provide
GOD WILL PROVIDE
Sermon Outline By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / December 06, 2015
Our Sunday morning auditorium Bible class is engaged in a study of “Words of Life”.
This morning’s class looked at the word providence and we will continue that study and discussion next Sunday.
For this morning’s sermon I want to highlight one of the texts from our class study.
Please open your Bibles to Genesis chapter twenty-two.
One cannot search the Scriptures on the topic of providence and not be impressed.
God’s providence is like the song says about God Himself,
(its) here & there & everywhere in all the ways (we’ve) trod. (We’ve) never passed beyond the sphere of the providence of God.
We have a number in our congregation who are experiencing some trying times right now.
Mike & Belinda Collier, in particular, are facing some difficult days.
I don’t mean to imply that their faith is weak or crumbling. Sometimes traumatic events can work to enhance faith.
When we are flat on our backs it often causes us to spend a lot of time looking up (to God).
Bad things are happening every day in our world and we can’t seem to escape from hearing about them.
In the aftermath of the California attack, The NY Daily News ran the headline, “God Isn’t Fixing This.”
It was a finger in the eye to all who were PRAYING and it was there way of promoting stricter gun control laws.
We just finished a lengthy sermon series on prayer. And now we’ve thinking together about providence.
We must not attempt to put God in a box and make demands on how HE must respond to our petitions.
What we can do is trust that our prayers are being heard and that
“the Lord of all the earth will do what is right” (Gen.18:25).
Read from Gen.22:1-18
The event detailed in Gen.22 took place some place in time (over a span of 35 years) - - sometime between Isaac’s birth (when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 / Gen.17:17) and Sarah’s death at the age of 127 / Gen.23:1.
Abraham is told by God, “take now you son, you only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah;
And offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you” (Gen.22:2).
Vss.3, 5 & 12 uses the same Hebrew word (naar) to describe both Abraham’s servants and his son, Isaac.
That word is flexible can be rendered by either a “lad/child” or “a young man”.
One scholar argues that Isaac was at least in his teens and quite possibly 25 or 35 years old.
We know little about these intervening, in-between years.
This story foreshadows of the life of Jesus - - the sacrificial offering of God’s only-begotten and dearly beloved Son.
These in-between years (or hidden years) might well be intended to parallel those of Jesus.
Other than the incident recorded in Lk.2:41f, the Scriptures reveal almost nothing about the early life of Jesus.
But then, at the age of about 30 (Lk.3:23), Jesus begins His ministry and 3½ later, He is offered up on the cross.
It seems safe to conclude that these hidden years were happy times for Abraham & Sarah and Isaac.
They waited so long to receive him and we can only imagine that these years including making up for lost time.
But then, from a human point of view, the blow fell.
The Scriptures provide us with no record of additional revelations from God during these intervening years.
Yet even in the absence of any direct communication from God, Abraham appears to remain faithful.
No doubt Abraham was basking in the sunlight of God’s fulfilled promise - - to give him a son.
The literary structure of the Genesis account provides a linkage between Gen.12 and Gen.22.
Gen.12 is the first time God speaks to Abraham (at least recorded) and Gen.22 is the last.
In Gen.12, God calls Abraham to “go forth…to the land I will show you”.
In Gen.22, God calls Abraham to “go forth…to the land of Moriah.”
In Gen.12, Abraham is called to leave his homeland and his father; In Gen.22, Abraham is called to take his son.
At Haran (Gen.12) Abraham left his father forever, but with the promise of great future.
At Moriah (Gen.22), Abraham seems to be on the brink of losing his son forever, but there is no promise of a reward.
The drama is intensified in that it comes on the heels of the expulsion of Hagar & Ishmael from Abraham’s house.
Bread & water are placed on Hagar’s back and she & Ishmael were sent away into the desert (Gen.21:14).
Now, in Gen.22:6, a wood for the offering is placed on Isaac’s back and they head for the mountain.
(The above thoughts are borrowed from Embracing The Call Of God, by Rick Marrs, pgs.106-107).
But now, in Gen.22, the silence is broken and God speaks. As Henry Morris (The Genesis Record, pg.373) points out,
(God) did not speak as He had done in former days. Instead, He seemed to speak in judgment and even cruelty.
It seemed as though every word was calculated to hurt Abraham as deeply as possible.
‘Abraham,’ He said, ‘I want you to take your son, you only son, Isaac, your beloved son.’
Each word was like a knife sinking deeper and deeper. ‘Take him, Abraham and travel with him for three days
into the land of Moriah, to a certain mountain as a sacrifice, as an offering made by fire to the Lord.’
Such a turn of events causes our souls to quake and we can only shudder to ponder what Abraham was thinking.
How can one unravel the mystery of this juxtaposition of God’s bright promise and God’s dark command?
In his book Fear And Trembling, Kierkegaard speaks of this as an instance of “paradox” in which there is
a “teleological suspension of the ethical” that forces Abraham to act “by virtue of the absurd”.
(cf. Genesis: The Beginnings Of Faith, by Rubel Shelly, pg.87)
Had you been Abraham what might you have said back to the Lord?
“But, Lord”, this doesn’t sound like You.”
Did You not promise to make of Isaac a great nation - - yet he is not even married yet.
Yes, the gods of the nations around us are sometimes worshipped by offering up their sons and daughters,
And I love YOU every bit as much as these people love their false gods, but this surely can’t be pleasing to You.
What will happen to Your promise to make Isaac’s seed as numerous as the stars of the sky & sands of the seashore?
And what about Sarah? To sacrifice Isaac will surely be her death knell.
Actually, we’re not told what Abraham may have been thinking. All we’re told is that he obeyed God (cf. Gen.22:3ff).
Heb.11:17 simply states, “by FAITH Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac…”
YOU HAVE OBEYED MY VOICE (Gen.22:18).
In this story, the only thing more incredible than the command was Abraham’s obedient response to it.
Three days into the journey, Abraham spied the mountain in the distance.
He directed his young servants to “stay here with the donkey…Isaac & I will worship and return to you” (vs.5).
Abraham put wood on Isaac’s back and he took a fire-starter and his knife and the two of them walked together.
On the way, Isaac asked his father (vs.7), “we have fire & wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?.
To which Abraham responded (vs.8), “GOD WILL PROVIDE for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”
We cannot help but ask ourselves, was this just wishful thinking on the part of Abraham or did he really believe this?
Abraham built the altar, arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac, and laid him upon the altar (vs.9).
Furthermore, Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slay his son (vs.10).
But then, when all hope seems about to vanish (vss.10-11), the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said,
‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said to him, ‘Here I am.” And he said, ‘Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and
do nothing to him; FOR NOW I KNOW that you fear God, since you have not withheld you son, your only son from Me.’
Abraham raised his eyes and saw a ram and he took the ram and offered him in the place of his son.
And Abraham named that spot on mount Moriah, “The Lord Will Provide”.
This story is an utterly amazing on so many levels.
Not only does this sacrificial scene foreshadow the sacrifice of God’s only-begotten & dearly beloved Son.
It takes place 1,500 years before the cross of Christ at the very sight that will later be known as Golgotha.
2 Chron.3:1 specifies that Solomon, as directed, built the temple on Mount Moriah.
Notice, too, there is no indication of resistance on the part of Isaac.
Isaac prefigures Jesus in this instance, who by virtue of His own trust in God was a willing participant.
Heb.11:19 states that “(Abraham) considered that God is able to raise men even back from the dead”.
So here we see that three days after Abraham deemed Isaac to be dead, he received him back from the dead.
I don’t need to remind us that Jesus “was raised from the dead on the third day” (1Cor.15:4).
Let me close by making just one final admonition.
Whatever is troubling God’s faithful ones, somehow, someway, at some point in time, GOD WILL PROVIDE.
And while God provisions for us may not always be comprehended and apprehended (grasped) in our lifetime,
we must continue to trust that The Lord Will Provide.
The word providence derives from the word “provide”.
The word “providence” only occurs once in the Bible and that in the NIV (and perhaps other modern translations).
Job 10:12 / You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in Your providence watched over my spirit.
YET IN EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY OF THE BIBLE WE SEE GOD’S LOVING PROVIDENCE.
I want to close with a verse (Rom.8:32) that I want you to post your fridge or somewhere where you’ll see it often.
HE WHO DID NOT SPARE HIS OWN SON, BUT DELIVERED HIM UP FOR US ALL,
HOW WILL HE NOT ALSO WITH HIM FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS?
