The Greatest Test Genesis 22:1-8

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You know, before I became your pastor, I had a fairly lengthy competitive running career.
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I started when I was 14 and I winded my running career down when I was 29. I ran as short as a half mile all the way up to a marathon.
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The sport of running is an interesting sport. It's a sport of pain tolerance as you put one foot in front of the other.
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The Lord used running to teach me to push through pain when things get difficult. Earlier on in my running career, my tolerance pain was not very high.
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When things started to hurt, I would not be able to maintain the pace that I had at the beginning of the race. But as time went on and as I ran more and gained more experience,
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I was able to tolerate more pain. I would push through the pain and maintain a fast pace throughout the race.
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That was when I started to see more success in my running. The life of faith is like running.
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It should be no surprise to us that Scripture uses a lot of images related to running.
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When you become a Christian, you are unable to handle very many trials. If trials do come your way, the response is typically not great trust in the
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Lord. This is why God may not send much your way early on. But as you grow in your faith, you become more prepared to face the challenges that may come your way.
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James 1 .2 says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds, because the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
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And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
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As you persevere, you mature and are more able to handle the hardships the
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Lord sends your way. We are going to see the greatest trial of Abraham's life today.
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It's a test from the Lord. What we will see is that he was ready for this test because of the turbulent path the
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Lord had already taken him down that prepared him for this. So we'll begin Genesis chapter 22, verses 1 -8.
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If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 19. This sermon is titled, The Most Severe Test.
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And our big idea, our proposition, is the Lord has a specific road map for the life of faith.
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And we're going to see two plans for this road map for the life of faith in this text. The first plan is that he will test you.
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He will test you. And we'll see this in verses 1 -2. But before we jump into our text today,
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I want to give a little recap of last week's sermon. We looked at the treaty between Abraham and Abimelech.
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We saw three lessons that we can take from the interaction between these two powerful men in this region.
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We saw that King Abimelech respected Abraham because God was with him. And he experienced firsthand how powerful
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God was. The first lesson for us was that some unbelievers will respect you. And we should be surprised when that happens.
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Secondly, we saw that Abraham aimed for peace with King Abimelech. He set a great model for us.
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We should not only aim for peace with fellow believers, but we should also aim for peace with unbelievers as well.
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Thirdly, we saw that after a hectic time, Abraham slowed down and took time to thank and honor
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God. And he sets a great model for us. We must slow down and take time to reflect on the
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Lord's works in our lives and give honor to him. Sometime after these events with King Abimelech, Abraham is about to face the greatest test of his life.
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The Lord called Abraham and gave him specific instructions in verses 1 and 2.
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This is how it went. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him,
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Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only son
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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
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I shall tell you. Right from the get -go, in verse 1, we see the mention of the phrase, after these things.
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This is important to note because this indicates that quite a bit of time has passed in the life of Abraham's son,
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Isaac. Three weeks ago, we saw a great feast that was thrown for Isaac when he was weaned.
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He would have been about two or three years old when this took place. In verse 5 of our passage here today,
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Isaac is called a boy. We do not know his exact age in this narrative, but he was at least a grown child and possibly a teenager.
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Verse 1 makes it clear that God is testing Abraham. As you read this, the word test, in association with God, may catch you by surprise.
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Does the Lord test his people? And the answer is yes, he does.
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And he does it for the good of his people and for his glory. This is where an important distinction needs to be made between testing and tempting.
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Of course, the devil tempts us to sin, our own flesh tempts us to sin.
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God does not do that. And James helps us understand this.
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He says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God.
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For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
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So when we sin, it's not because God dangled a sin out there and wanted us to fall into it.
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No, we sin because we want to. We go after it ourselves. And as I mentioned, Satan also is involved with tempting us to sin.
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But the Lord does test his people to see what they will do in certain situations.
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This is a holy thing that he does. It's a good thing that he does. He does it for our good. He tests to see if his children will exercise faith in a given situation so that he can help them in times of trouble and be glorified through it.
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If you read the book of Job, one thing you will see is a man who was greatly tested by the Lord. In the end, it turned out good for him, even though the experience was miserable.
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He grew through it. But there's no question that he faced tremendous testing from the
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Lord. In this specific verse, the Lord tests Abraham. This specific test is detailed in verse 2.
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What we need to highlight is how the Lord describes Isaac in verse 2. The author
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Moses does this to show how great this test is, as the Lord addresses him here.
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With each passing description of Isaac, the test becomes more painful.
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You notice this? First the Lord says, take your son. Then he says, take your only son,
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Isaac. And then the last description the Lord says of Isaac is that he is the one whom you love.
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And of course, Abraham already had a son, right? He had Ishmael. So when it says your only son, it doesn't mean the only son you have.
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It has in mind, this is the chosen child. This is the promised child that has finally come to you.
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Abraham loved Isaac deeply. He waited decade after decade for this child to be born.
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Now that he has arrived, Abraham has been able to enjoy about a dozen years with Isaac.
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Now, the future is at risk. The Lord gives him instructions to go to the land of Moriah.
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Now, the word Moriah, that might pop out at you. The only other time in scripture the word
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Moriah is used is in 2 Chronicles 3 .1. Moriah would be the site where the temple was built during King Solomon's reign.
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So this is in Jerusalem. The Lord instructs him to offer him there as a burnt offering.
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We can see the seriousness of this. Abraham understands what the Lord is asking of him.
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He understands that the Lord is commanding him to put his son Isaac to death.
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This may jump out at you that this is immoral. What we must understand is that God is the author of morality.
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What he says goes. God is incapable of ever doing anything wrong. In this instance, the
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Lord telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is well within his right. The Lord is the giver of life and he is the taker of life.
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The Lord gives him the command to take his son's life. So this is not murder. Abraham is simply to obey the command that the
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Lord has given him. Abraham knows God. He knows that God cannot sin.
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He knows that God has promised that offspring would come from Isaac. So Isaac has to live for the
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Lord to keep his promise. The Lord tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering.
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We've already seen a burnt offering offered in Genesis. After the flood, Noah offered a burnt offering in Genesis 8 .20.
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And these offerings, known as burnt offerings, would later be set up for the sacrificial system in Israel through Moses.
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One of the purposes in the burnt offerings for Israel was worship. These were meant as praise to God.
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Another purpose of burnt offerings was to pay for sins. An animal would be offered by a sinner to wipe away his sins and satisfy
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God's wrath. Leviticus 1 .4 says the offering shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
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There are examples of both types of these burnt offerings in Scripture. None of these
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Old Testament sacrifices would actually take away sins. We need to understand that. These were meant as symbols to show that there needed to be a payment for sins.
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Hebrews 10 .1 -10 explains this well. And of course, Jesus, the one for all sacrifice, he is the one that all these sacrifices were pointed ahead to.
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And Jesus alone is the one who pays for all sins. So we see here the Lord is testing
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Abraham. And this is the most severe test. He's telling him to offer up your son
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Isaac. Think about a serious test in your life.
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What if God did something in your life that was unthinkable? Last Sunday, we had the
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Myron family visit us. And of course, they're going to the mission field, going to Ireland.
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And they explained to us what persuaded them to go to the mission field in the first place.
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And that is that their good friends, the Pals family, Jameson and Catherine Pals, died in a tragic accident.
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They were going to be missionaries who were going to Japan. And they did all the preparation to go to the mission field.
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And as they were traveling to a conference in Colorado, I'm not sure if they were traveling there or traveling back, but they were in Nebraska, and a drunk driver, a semi -driver, rammed into their vehicle and killed the entire family, both parents and all three children.
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And this is obviously an enormous tragedy. It was covered by the news. And so the
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Myron family, they were persuaded, well, if one missionary family was lost, well, we want to go to the mission field.
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And not only them, but many other missionaries have been produced through this great tragedy.
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They're saying, you know what? This family was lost. We want to go to the mission field. And think about the great test this was for the family, for the parents of Jameson and Catherine.
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A few months back, there was a story on the news, on Care 11, about the family going to the trial of this man who rammed into them with a drunk driver.
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Going to this trial, the parents went there of both sides to plead with the judge that they would be lenient on this man's sentence.
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Think about that. That's not how an unbeliever would operate. They would say, you know what?
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Send this person to jail forever. No. This family, these parents, endured a tremendous test.
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And they passed the test. Think about this. They want the grace of God to be seen in this man.
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Of course, it wasn't his intent. It wasn't premeditated to take the lives of this family.
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But the goal was, we want the grace of God to be seen in this. And they were tested, and they have certainly passed the test.
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What if the Lord brings a great test across your path? What if he brings a small test? How will you respond?
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How will I respond? What we need to do is trust him through it and be obedient.
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What we are going to see in point two is that Abraham responds rightly by being obedient to the
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Lord. And that is what we must do when we are tested. Faithfully respond the right way.
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What we just saw was the first plan in the Lord's roadmap for the life of faith in this text. And that plan is that he will test you.
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So when it comes, do not be surprised. The second plan in the Lord's roadmap for the life of faith in this text that we see here is that he will strengthen your faith to endure more.
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He will strengthen your faith to endure more. We'll see this in verses three through eight.
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The author Moses highlights Abraham's exemplary faithfulness in the following verses. So let's first look at verse three.
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So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son
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Isaac, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.
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What Moses writes at the beginning of verse three is significant. He says that Abraham arose early in the morning.
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Abraham did not sleep in and delay his action of obedience to the Lord. Rather, he gets up early because he desires to obey
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God. You see his willingness, you see his earnestness to be obedient to the
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Lord. He saddles up a donkey, takes two young men with him, he and his son
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Isaac. They gather wood for the burnt offering and set out on their journey. The journey they are taking is from Beersheba, which would have been the southern border of the land of Canaan, to where modern
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Jerusalem would be built in the future. This journey was about a 45 -mile trip.
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As they travel 45 miles, verse four tells us how long the journey took. On the third day,
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Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. So they arrived close to their destination on day three.
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The text says that he saw the place from afar. The end of verse two told us that the sacrifice would take place on one of the mountains of the land of Moriah.
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Jerusalem eventually came to be a military fortress. This was first occupied by the
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Jebusites in the Old Testament, and then later on David and his men captured it and made it the capital of Israel.
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This is how this location became famous, and then it would later become more famous.
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As they look up on the mountain, Abraham gives these instructions in verse five.
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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.
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Abraham continues his obedience by going to the mountain to which the Lord had told him to offer his son as a sacrifice.
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We see Abraham's strong faith here. He tells the young men that they are going to go up and worship the
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Lord, and then they will return to them. Did you notice that?
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He didn't say, All right, my son's going to die, and I'm going to come back alone. No, he says, with confidence here, we will return to you.
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That's significant. We see faith here. We see strong faith demonstrated here.
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You ever have those moments in your life where you're going through a difficult circumstance, and you say, the Lord is going to get me through.
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You're showing faith when you do that. That's what a true believer does. They grab tightly, and they say, the
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Lord is going to carry me through. The author of Hebrews explains the significance of this in Hebrews 11, 17 -19.
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I read this for the call to worship. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.
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And he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
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Abraham knew the promises that God made to him. He knew that the offspring, as many as the stars in the heavens and the sand of the sea, would come through this son.
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Of course, this is going to happen, right? He needs to live. He needs to be alive so he can have these children in the future.
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And so he's thinking here, okay, well, if God has me sacrifice him, and if he dies, then
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God's going to raise him from the dead, because this child needs to live. So he's holding on to the promises of God here as he takes him.
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So we see Abraham's faith demonstrated here. And the author of Hebrews highlights this.
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After telling the young men that they would return, they started on their trek up to the mountain, in verse 6.
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And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife, so they went both of them together.
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As they head up to the mountain, they take everything they need. They take wood, fire, and the knife as they walk up together.
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And you might be wondering what is on Isaac's mind as they go up on the mountain, and he notices that there isn't an animal with them for this burnt offering.
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Isaac would have understood what a burnt offering was. He understood that an animal would be offered to God.
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This is why Isaac says what he does in verse 7. And Isaac said to his father
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Abraham, My father, and he said, Here I am, my son. He said,
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Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
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Isaac knows that they have everything that they need for a burnt offering except for one important item, the animal.
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He's not there. And you can see the pain in Isaac's voice when he addresses
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Abraham. He says, My father. You can imagine the concern in his voice. It's at this point that Isaac might realize that he is going to be the sacrifice.
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And not only should we admire Abraham's faithfulness here, but we should also admire Isaac's faithfulness.
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He didn't try to run. He is obeying his father here. He's saying,
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My dad, Abraham, is a God -fearing man, and I am trusting him that he knows what he's doing.
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And he is trusting him here. And so it's great to see Isaac's faith demonstrated as well. And Isaac asked his beloved father,
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Where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham responds in verse 8, showing his great faith in the
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Lord. And this is significant, by the way, because we've seen some really low points in Abraham's life. And so it's like, Yes, this is who
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God designed him to be. This was God's plan for him to grow. And this is where he is today. So here's what he says in verse 8.
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And Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering and my son.
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So they went, both of them, together. Abraham had already experienced the
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Lord's wonderful provision throughout his life. Everywhere he has been, the Lord has provided for him.
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Every pickle he has gotten himself in, every self -inflicted wound included in there, the
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Lord has rescued him out of it. One of the great joys of parenting is that you get to watch a lot of Disney movies.
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And I'm about to use a Disney illustration here, so I figured why not. Aletheia's favorite movie is
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Barbie. And so every movie we watch is Barbie. Barbie is Barbie. Mulan is
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Barbie. Rapunzel is Barbie. Pocahontas is Barbie. And so we say,
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You want to watch Barbie? She says, Yes. And we were watching Pocahontas. And, of course,
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John Smith has this great reputation of being a man who gets out of trouble, right?
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He's a man's man. He's an adventurer. And he always seems to escape death. He always seems to get himself out of sticky situations.
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And, of course, at this point in the movie, the Native Americans have captured John Smith, and they're going to execute him that night.
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And Pocahontas visits him in the tent, and he tells her, I've been in worse situations.
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I'm going to get out of this. Okay, and the reason I say that is because that's how the life of faith is like sometimes.
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When we look back at our journey through the life of faith, we look through difficult trials that we endured in the past.
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Where the Lord has taken us. And, of course, through time, the Lord, our faith in Him increases, right?
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And he says, You know what? He delivered me from that, and the Lord was faithful then. And He's going to be faithful in this present trial that I'm facing as well.
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You are able to trust the Lord in this way because your faith has been strengthened over time. The Lord has brought you to a point where you can handle difficult trials because your trust in God has increased.
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Think about Abraham's journey with the Lord that has strengthened his faith. We've been with Abraham a long time.
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The Lord enabled Abraham to defeat powerful armies that no one else was able to defeat. The Lord delivered him from the self -inflicted deception with Pharaoh and King Abimelech.
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The Lord solved the messy domestic situation with Hagar and Ishmael. The Lord finally fulfilled
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His promise of offspring by providing Abraham a son, Isaac. And now, the
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Lord has brought him to this location to sacrifice this son that they waited so long for.
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And I didn't even mention, too, that, remember, his calling in the first place, he was to leave his homeland to go to a place he'd never been before.
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And that was a difficult trial the Lord took him through. If the Lord brought him through all of that, then surely
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Abraham knows that God will do the same here. Through each situation, the Lord made Abraham trust
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Him more and more. And as you go through the journey of the life of faith,
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God's plan for you is that your faith in Him would increase. That is why there are all these instructions written in Scripture to believers, because God has a plan that you're going to grow as you go on this journey with Him, that you're going to become more like Christ, slowly, little by little, day by day.
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In Sunday school, we've seen a good example of this. We looked at the life of Peter as we've gone through Acts.
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And think about Peter's life. Earlier on in his journey, when Jesus was going through his ministry and Peter was one of his disciples, when
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Jesus was arrested, Peter denied Him three times.
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He says, I don't even know the man. And Peter was a believer at that time.
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I believe he was. And what church tradition tells us is that about 30 years later,
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Peter was martyred. He was killed because of his faith in Jesus Christ.
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He didn't deny Him 30 years later. And actually, Peter was crucified upside down.
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Eusebius, a church historian, has recorded that he was crucified upside down. Abraham's faith has increased and he was prepared for this moment on Mount Moriah.
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The Lord did not give him this great trial early on in his faith journey. The Lord's timing was right on.
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The Lord tested him greatly at a time when his faith was very strong. He had walked with the
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Lord for decades at this point. The Lord is wise in the ways that He governs the circumstances of our lives.
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As you walk closely with the Lord over a long period of time, your faith in the Lord should increase. That should be your goal.
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You do not want to be old in years, yet immature in faith. I think that's one of the great tragedies that I see.
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You see someone who's old in years, but they're not where they should be spiritually. And if you're new to the faith and you are old, it's okay.
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Praise God that He brought you to Him. And so now it's the time to mature in the faith and become more like Christ.
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That's God's design for us. This is how the Apostle Paul describes this faith.
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This faith of genuine believers. This faith of Abraham in 1 Peter 1, 6 -8.
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He says, at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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You see what Peter said? He says, And what happens is that it stands the test as you mature in the faith.
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And that's the goal of Eureka Baptist. Our mission statement is that we would grow together in Christ.
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We desire to have a church full of people who will one day receive praise, glory, and honor from Jesus Christ.
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What could be greater than that? To hear a well done from Jesus to say, You know what?
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You were faithful during your lifetime. Well done. This is the second plan revealed in this text from the roadmap of the life of faith.
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He will strengthen your faith to endure more. So to summarize, The Lord has a specific roadmap for the life of faith.
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And we've seen two plans that he has for believers in this text that he did in the life of Abraham.
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Number one is that he will test you. That's the first plan. Number two is that he will strengthen your faith to endure more.
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The Bible tells us that we should expect this from the life of faith. Sometimes people think that the
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Christian life is supposed to be just a life of blessing. Everything is going to go well. That's it. There's no trials. Everything is just going to be...
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Is there peaches and roses? Everything is just going to be wonderful. But that's not... And the thing is, there are blessings.
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There's enormous blessings in the life of faith. And there's times of great joy. There is. But there will be times of difficulty.
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And so we must be ready for them when they come. And the Lord is going to prepare you to face it when they do come.
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1 Peter 4 .12 says, No. It says,
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It says, So you can rejoice in knowing that God has these designs for the life of faith for your good.
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He's doing this to make you more like Him. He's bringing you to a finish line where you will be perfect forever.
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Where you will sin no more and have undivided devotion to Him. So that sums up the first part of the narrative that we looked at today.
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Next week, we're going to finish this narrative on the sacrifice of Isaac. And what we will see is that the sacrifice is stopped.
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But there's another sacrifice that goes in its place. And we'll see the spiritual significance of this event.
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Let's pray. Father in heaven,
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I thank you, Lord, for your design in the life of faith. I thank you that we can look at the life of Abraham and pull things out of here.
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That we so desperately need to know what a treasure it is,
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Lord. What a treasure Genesis is. We've learned so much through this book. All scripture is breathed out by God.
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And profitable for teaching, reproof, rebuke, and training in righteousness.
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That the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. I thank you for the word of God. That it has that sufficiency to prepare us for every part of the life of faith.
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What a treasure it is. And may we learn from this, Lord. May Eureka Baptist Church be full of mature believers in Christ.
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May we add to our number. May unbelievers become believers and then grow into maturity. We want to be a healthy church,
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Lord. And I pray, Lord, that Jesus would accomplish that here as He builds this church.