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Guest (Female): Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham. Jesus is not just somebody you add to your life. He is someone who is your life if you're a follower of Jesus. Jesus is not just another friend on your Facebook. Jesus is the one and only if you're going to follow him. On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about how God's heart beats passionately for you. Now here's Dr. Graham with his message, The Drama of Redemption.

Jack Graham: Take your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Genesis, chapter 22. A drama can be a powerful tool to teach us, especially when it is a real-life drama. A drama is so powerful when it is not just read in a book but when it is lived in flesh and blood. And that's what we have in the book of Genesis, chapter 22.

Abraham was the man called of God to be the father of the faithful. He is called the friend of God by James in the New Testament. Now, that's a great name to be called, the friend of God. It's one thing to say God is my friend, but for God to call you his friend as he called Abraham, that would be a good thing to put on your gravestone. He was the friend of God.

Abraham was the friend of God. It wasn't always that way. Abraham lived in the early years of his life in an ancient city, a very powerful city of Ur of the Chaldees, which is now in modern-day Iraq near the Persian Gulf. The ruins are still there. It was a great city in antiquity and an enormity, and it was a city that was filled with pagan worship and idolatry. Abram, as he was known then, and his family were idol worshippers. They did not know the one true God.

But God, in his grace and in his sovereignty, chose Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees and called him by faith to follow him, and he did. And he became the great man of faith. God gave him a promise that he would bless him and bless the nations through Abraham. And then he gave him the promise of a son in his old age. This son would come who would be his successor and a patriarch himself and would carry the message of hope and redemption to the world.

And what we have here in Genesis chapter 22 is what you might call the final examination of Abraham's life as he is called upon to give the ultimate sacrifice, an extreme act of devotion to God. And let me just say parenthetically there, and just getting started, that the gospel always at the very heart, at the very center of the gospel, is sacrifice. A cross. You can't have the gospel without sacrifice and surrender.

So often in contemporary, especially Western-style Christianity, we have so few demands upon our discipleship and fellowship of Christ. But let me remind you, Jesus is not just somebody you add to your life. He is someone who is your life if you're a follower of Jesus. Jesus is not just another friend on your Facebook, just another part of your life. Jesus is the one and only if you're going to follow him.

It's all about taking your cross and following Christ. And today we're going to see the ultimate sacrifice fleshed out in the life of Abraham and in it see the story of the gospel. Look in Genesis chapter 22 and verse one. And after these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham," and he said, "Here am I." He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, 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 shall tell you."

So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. And on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. And then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you."

Every drama has scenes or chapters, so let's call this first scene in this drama of redemption, The Loving Father. God asked the unthinkable, the unbearable, the unimaginable of Abraham, his friend. Abraham could have been thinking, "God, if you're my friend, why would you ask me to do something like this? To take my son, my only son, the son that he loved with all of his heart."

So we need to deal with this question of why would God demand, command human sacrifice? This is what the pagans did. When we go to Israel near Mount Carmel there, where Elijah called down fire from heaven and slew the prophets of Baal, there is beneath the surface there an archaeological dig, a Canaanite altar of sacrifice. And you can go down and look at it today. There these pagan deities were worshipped with the offerings of children and of women and of families on this very altar there.

And in Ur of the Chaldees, similar altars would be erected in order to enact this kind of deplorable sacrifice to these gods. This is so contrary to the character of God. What happened? Was Abraham just in the desert too long? Did he imagine this that God told him to do this? Was Abraham reverting back to his old ways of idolatry and sacrifice of children?

There can be only one explanation because the scripture clearly tells us that God demanded, and this is the only time that a human sacrifice is commanded in the Bible. In fact, in the law of God as it came along, it was explicitly and totally forbidden. So there can be only one reason that God said to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son, the son that you love and sacrifice him."

And that is that God is teaching through this drama the most important lesson that Abraham and any of us could ever learn, and that is the sovereignty of his purpose in life and the certainty of his promise to redeem us. On the same mountain called Mount Moriah in Genesis chapter 22, on this same mountain in Jerusalem, nearly 2,000 years later, another father, the heavenly Father, would sacrifice his only and beloved son, Jesus, as the ultimate and final sacrifice.

And what God is doing here through the life of Abraham and his son Isaac is teaching us this indispensable lesson that redemption and salvation comes by substitution. The shocking, stunning, seemingly senseless command of God points out the awful price that God would ultimately pay for our sin. Have you ever stared in disbelief at some test or some trial that you're going through and wonder how could this happen to be?

Is this God's will for my life? How could we be going through this? And life can be so difficult and so hard, especially when we don't understand why we're in the middle of that test. Abraham didn't understand why. He could have never understood it. And yet Jesus would say of Abraham, "Abraham saw my day and he was glad" in the eighth chapter of John. On this day and in these days leading up to the day of sacrifice, Abraham looked into the heart and into the face of God.

It says that he got up early the next morning. There was no equivocation, there was no debate, there was no allowance made, no argument. There seemed to be no question as his faith is being put to this ultimate test. Now, of course, we know that Abraham would have been devastated by this. Abraham loved this son of promise like life itself. He'd watched him grow up as a baby and as a toddler and his whole world was invested in this child.

And can you imagine what the old man, now probably near 100 years of age, is going through and his son by now is 16 to 20, a teenager in his late teenage years? Can you imagine what he was going through as he was taking his son on this mission of death to Mount Moriah? A 50-mile journey that took them three days and every day he was contemplating the loss of his son. His world was caving in.

Why God? Why wouldn't you take me? I'm old. I've lived my life. Take me, not my son. God, could I be missing your will here? Or God, are you punishing me for something? Isaac's name means laughter, but there was no laughter that day. Only tears. So before we go a little farther in this journey, let me ask you if God put you to the test and asked for your most precious and prized possession of life, your Isaac. Whether it's a wife or a husband, a child, perhaps your career, or your health, your future, your talent, your goals, your dreams, your friends, your freedom. What if God said, "Lay it down. Give it to me."

Guest (Female): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, The Drama of Redemption. Be sure to sign up to receive Dr. Graham's daily video devotional on the Seven Words from the Cross. This powerful study will remind you of the sacrifice Jesus made so that we can be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God.

Dr. Graham will share a short devotional about the final words that Jesus spoke from the cross and what they mean to us today. To sign up, text CROSS to 59789. It's absolutely free to join, so text CROSS to 59789. Right now you have an incredible opportunity to help someone experience the hope and truth of Jesus Christ.

And thanks to an exciting $150,000 matching grant, your gifts this month will be doubled to help proclaim God's word even farther through PowerPoint Ministries. And as our way of saying thank you, we'd love to send you Dr. Graham's book, Help, a powerful resource showing you how Jesus meets you in your struggles with strength, comfort, and hope. Text MAR to 59789 to give today. Again, that's MAR, M-A-R, to 59789. Now, let's get back to today's message, The Drama of Redemption.

Jack Graham: Abraham, who had everything to dream about with this boy and everything to hope for, and now he's told to give him up. And he did what God told him to do. He obeyed God and he trusted God. How did he do this? Somehow he knew that God had a plan beyond what he could see. By faith, he was willing to do what God had told him to do because he knew in verse five, "The boy and I will go over there and worship and come again to you."

It must have been in those times of worship that Abraham, knowing the heart of God, would discover in a test like this that God had a plan and a future for him, not to harm him or his son, but to give him a future and a hope. I know in my own life, my worship is stronger, my dependence is deeper, my life is better even in the midst of trials when I take my eyes off the situation and I put them on the Lord.

That I surrender the crisis and the trial to God rather than trying to figure it out and reason it out. I give it to him and keep on worshipping. That's what Abraham did. Abraham knew somehow in the midst of his worship and his prayer and his praise, the sacrifice of his praise. He certainly didn't feel like praising God. But he did. He obeyed God, he trusted God, and he feared God.

And this brings us to the second scene, which is what I'm going to call A Submissive Son. The submissive son. Isaac is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ who willingly, obediently laid down his life for us in salvation. And what we see in the life of Isaac here is the submissive son. A powerful portrait, a type, an illustration, a prefigure of Jesus himself.

And you can compare Isaac with Jesus in a number of phenomenal ways. For example, both Isaac and Jesus's birth were prophesied and promised by God. Both Isaac and Jesus were named before their births. Both Isaac and Jesus were born as a result of a miracle, conceived by a miracle. Abraham and his wife Sarah were way past childbearing year, but God gave them a promise.

Sarah laughed when she heard it. Thus the name Isaac was given. But the question was asked regarding the birth of Isaac, "Is there anything too hard for God?" And the same question was raised regarding the supernatural birth of Jesus when she said, "I'm but a virgin and this is impossible with men," and the Bible says with God all things are possible. Both Isaac and Jesus are described as only sons and beloved sons.

Isaac was the only son of promise in that Ishmael had been banished from the family out of the will of God. Both Isaac and Jesus surrendered their wills to the wills of the Father. Now go with me now with the young man and Abraham up the side of this mountain, Mount Moriah. And at some point, Isaac realized that there was no sacrifice. Look in your Bibles down at verse six.

And Isaac took the wood and the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they both of them went together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father," and he said, "Here am I, son." And he said, "Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together.

Now I don't know about you, but if I'm Isaac at this point and I figure out I'm the sacrifice, I'm either outrunning this old man or overcoming this old man in some way. But amazingly, they both went together up the side of this mountain and this son submitted himself to the will of the Father and the promise of God and laid down on that sacrifice, and the Father tied him there to that altar. Having said to these servants, "Stay here," they went farther along.

To me, that's a picture of Gethsemane. Jesus said to his disciples, "Stay here while I go and pray." Just as Abraham and Isaac said, "Stay here, we're going to worship together." And it was there in Gethsemane that Jesus settled the issue of the will of God. Jesus leaves his disciples and surrendered his will to the will of the Father. "Not my will but your will be done."

And somehow, some way, in a human sense, this is what Isaac did. He submitted his will, surrendered his life to the will of his father. Genesis 22, when you look at it, is as near to the heart of God as any human can be. Abraham saw the day of Jesus and he was glad. Paul said in the book of Galatians that the scriptures preached the gospel to Abraham. It happened right here.

Because when Isaac was there on the altar, the final scene is A Promised Savior. As Abraham lifts his knife to drive it into the flesh, the quivering flesh of his son, prepared to ignite him as a burnt offering to God, and then came the voice of the angel of the Lord. I believe the Lord himself, described here as the angel of the Lord. "Abraham!" He heard that voice again. "Abraham!"

The same voice that called him out of Ur of the Chaldee. The same whisper that spoke to him all the days of his life in both faith and in failure. That same voice that spoke to him and promised him a child that would bless the nations. That same voice that said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac and sacrifice him." He heard that voice again and the voice said, "Stay your hand, Abraham. It's enough. The picture is taken. The drama now is complete."

And when they looked, there was a ram caught in the thicket. And when you see that ram in the thicket, you cannot help but think of the thicket, the crown of thorns that was laid upon the Lamb of God's head. And that ram caught in the thicket provided by God himself became the substitute for Isaac. They cut Isaac loose and the ram was slaughtered. His blood was spilt and his body was burned as a substitutionary sacrifice on that altar.

Can you imagine the tears streaming down the face of Isaac and of the Father as this innocent animal died in the place of the son? This is what the story changes dramatically for Jesus because for Jesus there was no substitute. He is the substitute. Turn the pages through the centuries, hundreds and hundreds of years, and hear the voice of John the Baptist say, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

Listen to the scripture that says, "For God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us in our place." God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. As this is translated here, the Lord himself will provide himself the lamb. Some Hebrew scholars indicate that this literally means the Lord himself is the lamb, and that's exactly what happened at Calvary, at Mount Moriah centuries later.

God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Jesus willingly died. When the mockers and the haters and the betrayers mocked him on the cross saying, "He saved others; he himself he could not save." What a farce that was. Jesus could have marshalled the angelic armies of eternity to destroy them all. He could have ignited fires of judgment that day to destroy his enemies. As the old gospel song says, "He could have called 10,000 angels."

But he bled and he died for you and for me. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God. The ram is the lamb of God. And oh yes, just as in a figure, Isaac was raised from the dead and came back as it were from death. Not in a figure but in a fact, on the third day, Jesus came out of that grave and he is alive forevermore.

And in the case of Isaac, the next time we see Isaac in the book of Genesis is two chapters later at the marriage of Isaac and the celebration of his marriage to Rebekah. And the next time we see Jesus, it will be when he comes again, our heavenly bridegroom to claim his bride, that we may celebrate his marriage forever. And that's the gospel. Abraham saw it and he was glad.

Are you so glad for this gospel? Abraham and the patriarchs and all who believed in the Old Testament were saved by looking forward to the coming of Christ, the Messiah. We are saved now with much more information, the gospel, by looking back to Christ and his gospel. And I want to invite you today to turn to the one who will be your provider, your provision. They named this mountain, Abraham named this mountain Mount Moriah, which means the Lord will provide, and he has provided for us everything we need for life and eternity at the cross.

Guest (Female): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, The Drama of Redemption. I want you to know that right now your support goes even farther to help share the hope of Jesus with people around the world. Thanks to a generous $150,000 matching grant, every gift this month will be doubled to help proclaim God's word through PowerPoint Ministries.

That means you'll help reach even more people who desperately need truth, encouragement, and the gospel. And as a heartfelt thank you for your generous gift this month, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book, Help, to remind you that you are not alone, your pain is not unseen, and God's peace is real. Text MAR to 59789 to have your gift doubled and request your copy today. Again, text MAR, M-A-R, to 59789.

Be sure to sign up to receive Dr. Graham's daily video devotional on the Seven Words from the Cross. This powerful study will remind you of the sacrifice Jesus made so that we can be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God. Dr. Graham will share a short devotional about the final words that Jesus spoke from the cross and what they mean to us today. To sign up, just text CROSS to 59789. It's absolutely free to join, so text CROSS to 59789. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today?

Jack Graham: When it comes right down to it, the gospel message is the cross. You simply can't have the gospel without sacrifice and surrender, the message of the cross. And in today's message, we see the ultimate sacrifice, the message of Jesus who came to live and die on the cross for our sins. And it was played out centuries before in three key scenes of Abraham and his son Isaac.

The first scene in the drama of redemption portrays the story of the loving father. And in this scene, Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice his precious son Isaac, whom he loved with all of his heart. The second scene is the story of the submissive son. And Isaac is a powerful picture of the Lord Jesus who willingly and obediently laid down his life on the sacrifice of an altar.

And in the final scene of the drama of redemption, we meet the promised savior. Just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son's life, he heard the voice of the angel of the Lord. It was the same voice that called him out of Ur of the Chaldee and that had spoken to him throughout the days of his faith and failure. It was the same voice that promised him a child and that said, "Now take your only son Isaac and sacrifice him." Now Abraham heard that voice saying, "Stay your hand, Abraham. Enough."

Abraham and Isaac saw a ram caught in the thicket that was provided by God himself to take Isaac's place. Abraham cut Isaac loose and the ram was slaughtered. His blood was spilled and his body burned as a substitute sacrifice on the altar. This amazing episode in the lives of Abraham and Isaac perfectly portrays the story of the gospel, the gospel of God the Father sacrificing his own son for all mankind.

You see, Jesus isn't someone you add to your life. If you're going to be his follower, then Jesus is your life. And that life will require sacrifice on your part, but it is a sacrifice that will bless your life like nothing else on earth. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto God. Take up your cross and follow after him today.

Guest (Female): And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book, Help. Just text MAR to 59789. And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about the lengths to which God went so you could find healing. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.