---

Chapter 6
Isaac

---

Click image above to watch video

 PLEASE SHARE

MORE MESSIANIC PROPHECY

God was not done controlling events in Abraham’s life for His prophetic purposes after the story of Abraham & Sarah escaping Egypt was over.  Next, He wanted to manipulate certain circumstances in Abraham’s life to focus in on secretly prophesying “things” about the very Messiah himself!  This would all be accomplished by divinely controlling the events encompassing the 21st Patriarch on the genealogical descent to the Messiah, Abraham & Sarah’s son Isaac

 

THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH

It all started when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90!  Thus, it was now mankind’s 2,048th year (or approximately 1924 BC) for those keeping track.  God spoke with Abraham and declared:

“Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son … and thou shalt call his name Isaac” (Genesis 17:19).

Abraham just laughed, snickering to God (and I am paraphrasing), “Are you kidding me?  She’s never been pregnant in her entire life!  And she’s stopped ovulating a long time ago.  But you say she’s going to have a baby … really?”

Do you see what’s going on here?  Abraham doesn’t know it, but God wants to secretly prophesy specific details about the coming Messiah!!!  And through this manner of an “impossible natural birth” God is foretelling to mankind the Messiah’s birth will be SUPERNATURAL.  In other words, God HIMSELF would have to birth this child for him to be able to carry out his sinless Messianic mission.  (God is actually verifying here that Isaac’s life will be a picture of Jesus … oh, and would it ever!)

Listen to what GOD did to Sarah:

“And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD DID UNTO SARAH as He had spoken.  For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a SON in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him” (Genesis 21:1-2).

Do you see it?  It was a supernatural birth!  Listen to how uncanny the above verses mirror what God (almost 2,000 years later through the angel Gabriel) told Mary He would do to her:

“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the SON of God”

 

THE LAMB CONCEPT

Before I go any farther in revealing what God was secretly prophesying through Isaac’s life concerning the Messiah, I must first take you back to the beginning of time (with Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden) and make you aware of another “concept” God invented immediately after Adam & Eve sinned, all for the purpose of secretly prophesying about the coming Messiah.  So, truth be told, God had actually already prophesied about mankind’s deliverer (Messiah) right from the very beginning by controlling an “event” in Adam & Eve’s life!  The Messianic concept was it would require a “blood sacrifice” to atone for mankind’s sin.

In the story of Adam & Eve, God clandestinely revealed this fact by “killing an animal” to make a covering for Adam & Eve’s nakedness:

“And the Lord GOD clothed Adam and his wife with garments made from SKINS of ANIMALS” (Genesis 3:21, Living Bible).

Isn’t that an odd passage of Scripture?  Adam & Eve had already sewed fig leaves together to make themselves a covering, after sinning and noticing their nakedness, so WHY would GOD want to do this?  Friend, because God wanted to prophesy about the coming Messiah!!!  And through this “happening” God was declaring (and I am paraphrasing), “I PERSONALLY will make available to you (my spirit children) one day a covering (or atonement) for your sins through a ‘blood sacrifice’!”

“Blessed are they whose iniquities (sins) are forgiven, and whose SINS are COVERED” (Romans 4:7).

So you see, God now had set in motion a way to continually prophesy to mankind about the coming Messiah, and it was through the act of “animal sacrifice”.  And every ancient culture performed these acts, proving God had established it from the beginning!

But God went one step farther with the “blood sacrifice” concept (right from the very beginning!) and put His prophetic stamp of approval on a very specific animal to represent the coming Messiah…A LAMB!

God managed this “prophetic detail” through the story of Cain and Abel, Adam & Eve’s children.  You’ll remember, Cain and Abel were both making sacrifices to God one day, but God only accepted Abel’s lamb offering, refusing Cain’s ground offering.  So that was it!  According to God, and how He would communicate to mankind about him, the Messiah would forever be likened to a “lamb”.  And sure enough, almost 4,000 years later, John the Baptist recognized him:

“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the LAMB of GOD, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Click image above to watch video

 

THE CRUCIFIXION

Alright, back to the story of Isaac … years passed and Isaac grew.  (Remember God is using Isaac’s life to prophetically speak about — or be picture of — the coming Messiah!)  Then, one day God appeared to Abraham and commanded:

“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” (Genesis 22:1).

Do you see what God is doing?  He now wants to prophesy to mankind that the “blood sacrifice” will not be an animal but a HUMAN BEING!!!   And in fact … a MAN!  But not only that, God also picked out a very specific place on Earth where He wanted Abraham to carry out the sacrifice of Isaac!  Why?  Because Moriah would be the place the city of Jerusalem would reside and thus very possibly the actual ground the Messiah would later be crucified on!

Well, needless to say, Abraham was very distraught, but he obeyed God’s wishes.  Watch now, on that fateful day, as God precisely controls — like a wise director knowing the value of foreshadowing in a movie! — every detail of the story of “Abraham sacrificing Isaac” to secretly and precisely PROPHESY about what the coming Messiah would go through one day!  (I will write the prophetic significance behind the “detail” in parentheses.)

• Abraham split and gathered wood for the sacrifice (God grew and cut down the tree in which Jesus would be crucified on).
  “And Abraham … clave (split) the wood for the burnt offering” (Genesis 22:3)
• Abraham took 2 young men with him, as well as Isaac (Two men died alongside of Jesus the day he was crucified).
  “And Abraham … took TWO of his young men with him, and Isaac his son” (Genesis 22:3).
• Abraham went to make the sacrifice early in the morning (Jesus was crucified in the early morning around 9am).
  “And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass …” (Genesis 22:3).
• Abraham went to the place God commanded (This was the very same place on Earth that Jesus went to be sacrificed almost 2,000 years later).
  “And Abraham … rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him” (Genesis 22:3).
• Abraham laid the wood on Isaac’s shoulder to carry up the hill (Jesus carried a wooden cross up most likely the same hill).
  “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” (Genesis 22:6).

What happened next (the short Biblically recorded dialogue that took place between Abraham and Isaac as they walked up the hill) will forever live as one of the most amazing prophetic utterances God ever spoke to mankind concerning the Messiah!  Surely, God was controlling the prophetic words that came from Abraham’s lips.

Isaac asked perplexedly:

“Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (Genesis 22:7).

Abraham replied prophetically:

“My son, GOD will provide HIMSELF a lamb for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:8).

Wow!!!  Are you kidding me?  Yes, one day GOD would provide the Lamb HIMSELF though His sinless son Jesus Christ!

• Abraham bound Isaac on top of the wood (Jesus was bound to a wooden cross).
  “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” (Genesis 22:9).

And you know the rest of the story!  An angel of the Lord called out to Abraham:

“Abraham, Abraham … Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him…” (Genesis 22:12).

Immediately, Abraham turned and beheld a lamb caught in some underbrush (I wonder who put that there?  You guessed it!)

“And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a RAM (a male sheep) caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:13).

 

CONCLUSION

So, there you have it: God clearly prophesied of the Messiah’s future work of redemption by controlling every detail of this story of Isaac.  And yet it was only around 1900 BC, almost 2,000 years before the Messiah would be crucified on Earth!