Abraham's Faith

I had the AWANA large group time again and I related one of my favorite pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament. Gen 22

 22 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.

God is telling Abraham to take Isaac and sacrifice him. Take a closer look, God says “thine only son.” Just like Jesus is the only son of God. This makes Isaac a type of Christ. Type is a seminary word used to describe a foreshadowing of Jesus. On the other hand, another way of saying it is it parallels Isaac’s life to Jesus. 
Like wise, it tells us where he is going. To Moriah, and the mountain that God tells him. Moriah is where modern day Jerusalem is located. Now there are two schools of thought as to which mountain this is. I lean towards the thought that it is the temple mount where the temple and all the sacrifices the Jewish people made for hundreds of years, which are also a type of Christ. I have a pastor friend who believes that the mountain is Golgotha, the place Jesus was sacrificed on the cross. We have had some good-natured debates on this a couple of times. In addition, he makes some good arguments. Either way, it points to the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross.

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.

Here is where we see the faith of Abraham. It says the next morning he takes care of business and makes ready for the trip, no questions asked. He believes God at His word.  I will be honest; I am ashamed to admit that I do not think that I could have that kind of faith. 
Look in verse 5, Abraham says, “I and the lad will go worship and come again to you.” Therefore, Abraham believed if he sacrificed Isaac that God could and would resurrect Isaac because Abraham believed that they both would return to the men. This blows me away. God is foreshadowing the Resurrection two thousand years before He did it with Jesus. This is again another type of Christ.

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.

Abraham places the wood on Isaac’s back just as two thousand years later, Jesus carries his own wood to His sacrifice when he carries the cross on His own back, possibly up the same path. This is another type of Christ. It just gets me how God orchestrates this to be exactly like Jesus’ crucifixion.

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.

Here we again see Abraham’s faith that God will provide the lamb, through Abraham’s own son, or through a lamb later, which God did. However, this is just as Christ’s sacrifice, God provides the Sacrifice His own son Jesus. 

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.
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.

We see here that God did provide a lamb for Abraham, just as he provides a lamb for us. One more point is the word in Hebrew that is translated thicket means a thorny thicket. Therefore, the ram substituted for Isaac had a crown of thorns, just as Jesus did.  This shows God was doing a parallel of Isaac to Christ down to the smallest detail of even the crown of thorns. In addition, it points out again that Isaac is Abraham’s only son just as Jesus is God’s only son. This is an exact foreshadowing of what Jesus was going to do two thousand years later. It just kills me how the so many groups miss this, like the Jewish people and even the Muslims. They both have this story in there sacred books. The Muslims change it a little bit and say the son in there is Ishmael. 

The one other thing I would like to point out is that Abraham calls the place Jehovahjireh, which means God, will provide, which He did for Abraham and for us. 

St. Patrick

As most people know, it is time for another Christian Holiday, St. Patrick’s Day. Most people recognize that St. Patty’s day is a Christian Holiday, but many non-Christian things have been added, such as green beer. There are several myths about St. Patrick, but let me tell you what I was taught was true about the man.

            St. Patrick was born an English man. His father and grandfather were in the leadership of the church and there is some debate as to whether they were deacons or priests. According to his own writings, he was brought up in a Christian home, but he was not very devout until he was kidnapped. 

            His family lived in a coastal town. When he was in his early teens, Irish pirates kidnapped him, took him to Ireland and sold him as a slave. His job as a slave was a shepherd. This required him to stay out in the open on the very cold Irish moors. Again, from his own writings, he tells that his master was very mean and cruel to him. He was given very little to eat, and only a small scratchy tunic that had holes in it to wear for clothes. He had to endure the drunken beatings of his master. 

            It was during this time that Patrick became serious about his religion. In his books, he talks about how he would pray for hours and pray as many as a hundred times a day. This is where his faith was strengthened.  

            After about six years of this, he was told to go back to England in a dream. Therefore, he just walked off the job one day and walked 200 miles to a port. At the port, he earned his passage on a ship by tending animals. He finally made it back home. Almost immediately after arriving home, he started studying for the priesthood. It took him 15 more years to be ordained a priest. In another dream, he was told to return to Ireland, which the churches blessed. The first thing he did upon returning was to walk back to his master’s farm and pay the family for his freedom. 

            There are many other myths about him, such as that he rid Ireland of all the snakes, which is not true. Another myth, which I like, is that he used the three-leaf clover to teach about the trinity. Unfortunately, there is no proof of that. Nevertheless, this is the reason green is always associated with St. Patrick’s Day.

            One thing we do know is that Patrick was very successful as a missionary because he was able to convert most of Ireland to Christianity. Therefore, this year when you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, go in his tradition and tell someone about Christ. 

Conclusion of "Wearing Your Best to Church" (All of It)

Somehow, when I posted the conclusion of "Wearing Your Best to Church" last week, it was cut off in the middle of the blog post. Therefore, here is the conclusion of "Wearing Your Best to Church" in its entirety.

With all of the previous said, I must address something else about clothing and for good reason. The item is when women choose to wear clothing that is revealing. This is a tough subject for me as a man to discuss, but while I was a youth minister, this came up several times, especially with bathing suits around camp time. I normally would explain my concerns with the women councilors and let them take care of it, and I never had a problem. However, today, what is considered dress clothes for women is very revealing. I had a youth pastor friend that was doing a great job at getting youth from the neighborhood, but what some of the young women were wearing to youth group was just to revealing. His solution, which I love, was that he had a couple who owned a tee shirt shop in the congregation and he had them make nice tee shirts with the youth group logo on them and when a young lady came who needed extra coverage, he would give her a youth group tee shirt. Most of the other kids would have them on and he never had to ask a girl to put one on, they always immediately put them on. 

The last few years I have noticed these revealing clothes are showing up in the church service itself. Some of you are asking, what is the big deal, I just made a point of saying clothes do not matter. I will put it in simple terms; it is very hard to concentrate on God and preach when the women in the front row has almost her whole chest exposed to you. 

However, you say, I just made a great point about how God does not care what I wear to church. However, there is another Biblical principle at work here. You should not in your freedom in the Bible cause someone else to sin. 1 Cor. 8

⁴ As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.

⁵ For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)

⁶ But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

⁷ Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.

⁸ But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.

⁹ But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.

¹⁰ For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols;

¹¹ And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?

¹² But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.

¹³ Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

Again, I have not been talking about food or meat, but the Biblical principle that if in your freedom of the Bible you cause someone else to stumble; then you are the one who has sinned.  Thus, if by your clothing, you cause a man, who by the Bible’s own words is weak, stumble by looking at you rather than towards God, you have caused him to sin, and you have sinned.

Let me try to explain something about men and women. In seminary, I had to read a book in counseling class called, “Sex starts in the Kitchen”. This book was mainly written to men to help them understand and better appreciate there wives. You see, men are aroused by what they see and the effect is almost immediate. Women are aroused by romance. This difference is why the pornographic industry mainly uses pictures of women and not men. In addition, this is why romance novels are almost all sold to women. Therefore, men, if you want to have relations with your wife that night, you need to begin hours before, in the kitchen, and start romancing her there. That, in a few sentences, is the idea of the whole book. Now let us take this to our subject at hand. Clothes manufactures know that men are aroused by sight and therefore make clothes that attract attention. Women may not know this fact, but they enjoy the attention. Thus, I am hoping that by you knowing the Biblical principal and how men and women are aroused, that women would use more thought when choosing their clothing for church.

Wearing Your Best to Church - Conclusion

With everything that has previously been said about what to wear to church, I must address something else about clothing and for good reason. At issue is when women choose to wear clothing that is revealing. This is a tough subject for me as a man to discuss, but while I was a youth minister, this came up several times, especially with bathing suits around camp time. I normally would explain my concerns with the women counselors and let them take care of it, and I never had a problem. However, what is considered dress clothes for women today, is very revealing. I had a friend who is a youth pastor who was doing a great job at getting the neighborhood youth to come to the church, but what some of the young women were wearing to youth group was just too revealing. His solution, which I love, was that there was a couple who owned a tee shirt shop in the congregation, and he had them make nice tee shirts with the youth group logo on them and when a young lady came to the service who would benefit from extra coverage, he would give her a youth group tee shirt. Most of the other kids would already be wearing them, and he never had to ask a girl to put one on, they always immediately put them on. 

The last few years I have noticed that these revealing clothes are showing up in the church service itself. Some of you are asking, "What is the big deal, you just made a point of saying clothes do not matter." I will put it in simple terms; it is very hard to concentrate on God and preach when the woman in the front row has almost her whole chest exposed to you. 

You may say, "Hey Dr. Brad, you just made a great point about how God does not care what I wear to church." However, there is another Biblical principle at work here. You should not in your freedom in the Bible, cause someone else to sin. 1 Cor. 8

 

⁴ As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.
⁵ For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)
⁶ But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
⁷ Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.
⁸ But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.
⁹ But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.