The Trial and Triumph of Abraham’s Faith (Hebrews 11:17-19)

Kootenai Church

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And let's pray together before we begin. Oh Father, we have expressed to you the sentiments of our hearts in worship and adoration and our praise, and now we pray that you would speak to our hearts in and through your word, which is where we find the revelation that you have given to us, by which we may live, by which we may be saved, by which we may inherit eternal life.

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And we pray that our hearts and minds may be encouraged together, and that you would open our hearts and our minds to receive your truth and to love your truth, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

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Well today we're back in Hebrews chapter 11, each of the examples that we find here of these heroes of the faith, that are mentioned in this chapter, men and women from different time periods and different eras of church history, and sorry, not church history,

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Old Testament history. Each of these examples tells us something a little bit different about faith, it's just looking at faith from another perspective, from another angle, and we see faith demonstrated in the lives of these people.

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In Abraham's life, we see faith over the long haul, we see somebody who had faith, and who lived faithfully for 100 years in the land of promise, and so we see the long term, the longevity of faith in Abraham's life, that's what's on display with him.

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The great trial of Abraham's faith, when he was commanded to offer Isaac on the altar as a burnt offering, that came relatively later in Abraham's life.

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When he was called by God in Genesis 12, he was 75 years old, when a son was finally born to him, he was 100 years old, and if we have the math right on Isaac's age, and he was in his late teens at the least, probably early 20s, then

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Abraham would have been somewhere around 120 years old by the time the Lord commanded him to offer

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Isaac on an altar. Which means that the Lord did not give Abraham that command when he first called him.

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The Lord prepared Abraham for that test, for that trial, the Lord didn't give that to him in Genesis 12, oh, go to a land that I'm gonna give you,

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I'm gonna give you a son, and then I'm gonna ask you to kill your son for me. That was not how that fleshed out.

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Abraham was not aware that that was what the Lord was gonna command him to do until the Lord actually said something to him in Genesis 22.

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Which means that Abraham would have been 45 years into his walk with the Lord by the time you get to that penultimate test of his faith, that trial of his faith, didn't come early, and throughout

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Abraham's life, we see how the Lord prepared him and promised things to him and encouraged him and strengthened his faith and brought

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Abraham along to bring him to the point where he would be willing and able to do something like that and to pass that test of faith.

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We should not assume that Abraham never struggled or never wavered in his faith.

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Because we call him the penultimate example of faith does not mean that Abraham never wavered or never doubted or never questioned or never struggled or wrestled through anything in his life.

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You see the failures of Abraham's faith quite plainly in various episodes in his life.

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He laughed when he was promised a son. He chuckled just like Sarah chuckled. The promise at first kind of seemed a little unbelievable, just as it did to Sarah.

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Then Abraham doubted or at least to some degree he doubted when he took Hagar as his wife, as Sarah's request or Sarah's suggestion, rather than just believing that if that's what

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God wanted him to do, God would reveal that. He doubted at least enough to try and take matters into his own hand and to fulfill the word of God with a promise, at least through Hagar and at Sarah's suggestion so there's a little bit of a doubt or wrestling there.

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We see Abraham at some point lying. We see Abraham suggesting to the

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Lord that maybe it would just be easier, Lord, if you just fulfilled all the promises through Ishmael and not through Isaac. There's no need to give me another son.

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I have a perfectly good one here. Just pour out everything through this son. Abraham wrestled through these things but the

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Lord encourages him and ultimately develops his faith all the way up to the point where he can pass and face this trial that he does that we looked at in Genesis chapter 22.

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We learn through the failures of our faith, don't we? I mean, it's just not the victories or the successes of our faith when every time that we obey the

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Lord, it prepares us for a later obedience that is even greater and sometimes more monumental.

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Every act of failure, we should learn from acts of failure and our sin and our doubts and disbelief.

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We should learn from those things and grow in grace and call out to the Lord for more grace to strengthen us in our faith and encourage us in our walk so that we might be capable of even greater acts of obedience and greater acts of faith in the future.

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So all of the victories and triumphs of faith, they educate us and encourage us and strengthen us for even greater acts of faith.

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And even the trials and the failures, I should say, of our faith, even those we should learn from and even those are used by God to strengthen us and to encourage us and to embolden us for even future works of faith.

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So everything is intended in our lives to bring us along from one degree of faith to another, as it were, so that ultimately, we could please the

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Lord. Ultimately, we might pass the test like Abraham does. If the Lord should try our faith or test our faith, that we would pass and we would be pleasing to him.

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And this brings us to chapter 11, verses 17 through 19. That is what we have looked at.

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We looked at the previous episodes of faith in Abraham's life. Chapter 11 in Hebrews, verse 17, let's read it together.

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By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

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It was he to whom it was said, in Isaac your descendants shall be called. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which also he received him back as a type.

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Two weeks ago, we looked at Genesis 22 and we just noted a number of features there of that narrative, the full explanation of Abraham's offering of Isaac.

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We noted a few things that sort of helped set the table or frame our conversation here this morning. First, Abraham's faith, though it is not mentioned, and this is just by way of review,

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Abraham's faith, though it's not mentioned in Genesis 22, is in fact on display in Genesis 22.

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We see it in his obedience. And for all of these heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, there's no way that we can know of somebody's faith unless it is outwardly displayed in obedience, right?

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Isn't that what James says when he says, "'You say you have faith, but show me your works.'" It's the works which demonstrate the faith.

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So it is with all of these Hebrews heroes in chapter 11. We wouldn't have known of Abraham's faith because it is hidden from us unless it is somehow manifested externally in his life or in his obedience.

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Show me the one who says he has faith but does not obey the commands of God, and I will show you a one who has faith that cannot save him, does not save him, because saving faith always manifests itself in obedience, and that's what we see with Abraham.

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Second, we noted multiple references to Abraham's belief that God would provide. When Abraham was commanded to offer his son

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Isaac on the altar, Abraham was convinced, and we saw a number of references to this in Genesis 22, he was convinced that God would provide either a sacrifice as a substitute for Isaac or God would provide a resurrection for Isaac because Abraham was convinced that the promises of God cannot fail.

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So he believed that God would provide one of those two things. Third, there are multiple parallels in that narrative to the death of Christ, the self -giving sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

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And you don't need to go off into the deep, dark, subjective waters of allegories and typological imaginations and fascinations in order to see the picture that is intended by the

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Holy Spirit in Genesis 22. We see the son who willingly gives himself at the command of the

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Father. We see the son who carries the wood for his own sacrifice on his shoulders to the mountain where he would be offered, and then

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God provides a substitute on that mountain. The substitute dies in the place of Isaac on the very mountain where temple sacrifices, that is, animal substitutes, would later die.

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And those things, those parallels are in the mind of the author of Hebrews as he's writing Hebrews 11.

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As he reflects upon the example of Abraham, these are the things that come to the surface, and you're gonna see a number of references in verses 17 to 19 to that parallel with the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So the author of Hebrews has those things in mind as he reflects upon the trial of Abraham's faith and the triumph of Abraham's faith, and that's your outline for this morning.

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Verses 17 and 18 describe the trial of Abraham's faith, and then in verse 19, the triumph of Abraham's faith.

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Notice verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

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It was he to whom it was said, in Isaac your descendants shall be called. Now the author describes what

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God commanded Abraham to do in Genesis 22. He describes that as a test. By faith

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Abraham, when he was tested, some translations have translated that tempted. It's not the idea of an elicitation, or what was that, elicitation, is that a word?

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Not trying to elicit sin out of Abraham, that's the idea. The Lord is not trying to lure Abraham into a trap to make

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Abraham sin, or to try and get Abraham to fail. That's not the intention of the

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Lord. The Lord did not test Abraham's faith in the sense of tempting him to do evil for the sake of doing evil, because God delights when people do evil.

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That's not what the point of that was. The point of that was to test or to prove, and that's really the definition of that word there.

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The word translated test means to put to the test, to prove or to make proof, to examine. Yet the word has the idea of bringing to the surface something to reveal something.

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You test something to show whether it is going to fail or pass, not for the purpose of making it fail, but for the purpose of demonstrating that it can pass the test.

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That's the idea of that word. So it's not a temptation to sin, because then God would be trying to cause a breach in Abraham's faith.

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That's not what the Lord was trying to do. The Lord, I use the word Lord trying to do that. I'm writing a book right now, God Doesn't Try, and I just used the phrase, that's not what the

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Lord was trying to do. The Lord doesn't try to do anything. That's not what the Lord was intending to do. The Lord was not intending to cause a breach in Abraham's faith.

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The Lord was intending to put Abraham's faith to the test so as to reveal the genuineness of his faith, not just to Abraham, but to you and I, and to a watching world.

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James says in James 1 .13, let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone.

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And what James is describing there is the fact that God does not lure us into sin and tempt us to do evil for the sake of getting us to do evil.

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Sin, the temptation to evil, comes from within the human heart. That's where sin comes from. Not God eliciting that type of behavior from us.

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So this shows God's motive in testing his faith, not to lure him into sin, but to reveal the genuineness of his faith.

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Isn't that what God did with Job? We looked at him last week. Say, who did that to Job? The devil did that to Job, right?

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Well, would the devil have done that if God had not said, have you considered my servant Job? Who did that to Job?

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The Lord did that to Job. Now, the devil was the immediate cause of the things that happened to Job.

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But who is the ultimate cause of what happened to Job? The Lord is. The Lord did that to Job, not to make

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Job sin, not to harm Job, not to just cause

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Job pain. The purpose of the Lord behind all of that was to put Job's faith on display.

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This is the nature of Abraham's faith, or the nature of Abraham's test is explained and described in all of the phrases in verse 17.

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By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, look at these phrases, he offered up Isaac, he had received the promises, it was his only begotten son, it was he of whom it was said, in Isaac your descendants shall be called.

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Each one of those phrases shows you the vexing nature of the command that God gave to Abraham. The author does not recite all of the details of the event in Genesis 22.

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He recites to us the specific aspects of those events in order to show just how vexing, how difficult this trial was for Abraham and for his faith.

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He had received the promises, that's the first phrase that describes that, he was to offer up Isaac, he had received the promises, meaning he is the one to whom all of those promises had been given.

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And that just calls back to your mind that when God said to Abraham, you are to do this, Abraham, God said that to the one, the very one to whom the promises had been made concerning the land and concerning the descendants and concerning the future blessings and all that was to come from that, it was

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Abraham to whom these things were said. And that just highlights the difficulty of this entire episode in Genesis 22.

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Abraham saw this conflict between what God had promised him and what God was commanding him to do. God had commanded him to do this, and this was the man to whom the promises had been given, which means that Abraham had to wrestle over exactly how those promises would be fulfilled if he was to obey the word of God.

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Now verse 13 says that Abraham had received the promises, or sorry, had not received the promises.

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Verse 17 says he was the one who had received the promises. Look at verse 13, back up there to what we looked at a couple of weeks ago.

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All these died in faith without receiving the promises. Then verse 17 says he had received the promises. So had he received the promises or not received the promises?

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That a contradiction? It's not. Verse 13 is describing the land promises. Abraham did not receive the land promises.

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Verse 17 is describing the son promise. He had received the son promise, right? And there's also a different way in which we receive promises.

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Abraham had received the promises in the sense that God had given him those promises, but Abraham had not received the promises in the sense that he had received what was promised.

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Now he did receive Isaac. So when it says that he died, all of these died without receiving the promises, it means that they died without receiving all of the things that were promised in their lifetime, and yet they were faithful.

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But when it says that he had received the promise, he's talking there of the son promise, he had not just received the promise of a son, but Abraham had also received the son.

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Isaac had been given to him. God had fulfilled that part of his word. So here's a man who had received the son, and now he is offered, told to sacrifice the son.

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And Isaac was his only son. Notice the language of verse 17. He was offering up his only begotten son.

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Familiar language, isn't it? And it's interesting language too. It is as if the author is trying to call to our mind somebody else who is described as the only begotten son.

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You would think that his language was intentional, wouldn't you? This is why I say that the author of Hebrews here is intending to show us the parallels, to highlight these parallels, between Isaac being offered by Abraham and Christ being offered to satisfy the wrath of the

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Father at the command of the Father. Abraham was offering up his only begotten son. It's curious language because there are all kinds of other ways that the author could have expressed what he was trying to say here.

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He could have said he's offering up the only son of promise, or he could have said he's offering up the only covenant son, or the only promised son, or the only son of Sarah, or he was offering up the heir of the covenant, or he was offering up the only heir.

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All kinds of ways the author could have described Isaac there that would have communicated what he was intending, but he intentionally chooses language that calls to our mind another who is called the only begotten son.

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In fact, John calls Jesus that in John 1 .14, John 3 .16. You know that one by heart. John 3 .18.

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But here's what's curious. Isaac was not Abraham's only son, was he?

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He had Ishmael. So he wasn't the only son, which suggests that the author means something different here by only begotten than just he was the only son of Abraham.

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Now that word, the word monogenes in Greek is translated in Scripture as only begotten, and it can refer to somebody who was born from parents.

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Right, my children are begotten. You were begotten by your parents. They were begotten by their parents.

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It can describe the offspring or children born to parents. The term is used of Jesus, but when it's used of Jesus, it cannot mean somebody who was begotten or came into being or someone who was sired physically by parents.

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It can't mean that because the author who uses that in John, particularly John 1 .14, 3 .16, 3 .18,

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the author who uses that specifically tells us that this one had no beginning. He existed with God as God from eternity past.

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So when he describes Jesus as the only begotten, he's not describing Jesus as the physical product of procreation in any sense whatsoever.

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So though the word can be used to describe the physical product of procreation, it's not used of Jesus in that way.

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It is used of Isaac in that way here, but it's translated as only begotten, but Isaac wasn't the only begotten.

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Isaac, Abraham begot other children as well. So in what sense is Isaac the only begotten? This is an interesting

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Greek word and truckloads of ink have been spilt trying to explain what only begotten, monogenes, means.

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It basically means not the only one begotten, and it doesn't mean one literally physically begotten.

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It means the only and unique one of a certain kind. That's what it describes. The only and unique one of a certain kind.

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Abraham was a kind of son. He was an only and unique son. What made him only and unique?

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What was it that made Isaac unique? He was the only son of promise. He was the only son that Sarah had.

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He was the only son who was to be the heir of these promises. So he was unique in that sense. He was the only one to whom these promises, all of them, would be given, and through whom all of these promises would be fulfilled.

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That could not be said of Ishmael, and it could not be said of any of Abraham's later descendants or sons. Notice the quotation at the end of verse 18.

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It was he, that is Abraham, to whom it was said, in Isaac your descendants shall be called. That is a quotation from Genesis 21.

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Now the offering of Isaac is in Genesis 22, and you remember a couple of weeks ago when we went through Genesis 22, we began with a little bit of context.

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We went back to Genesis 21. There's something that happens in Genesis 21 that sheds a little bit of light on what's going on in Genesis 22.

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What happened in Genesis 21 was that conflict between Ishmael and Isaac and between Sarah and Hagar.

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And do you remember what the Lord said to Abraham? When Sarah said, I wanna drive out the handmaid and her child, the

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Lord said, do as Sarah has said. Send the child off because he will not be heir with Isaac.

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In Isaac, your descendants shall be named. God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid, whatever

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Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac, your descendants will be named. So God promised in Genesis 21 that Isaac would be the heir.

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It would not come through Ishmael. Ishmael was to be driven out and sent away, and Abraham did that, and the assumption is that Abraham didn't see

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Ishmael after he sent him out with Hagar. Had no contact with Ishmael after that. So before Abraham was told to offer

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Isaac, the last thing that the Lord told him was that through Isaac, your descendants shall be named. That phrase in verse 18, that was the last phrase that Abraham heard before God said, now offer

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Isaac. Now these were years apart, but this is the order of them. In Isaac, your descendants shall be named.

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Abraham, I want you to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. Those two statements are back to back in terms of what

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Abraham heard from the Lord. Now, I know there are some new people here.

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I wanna briefly, just for a moment, talk about does God talk to us in the way that God spoke to Abraham?

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Because I have used this language that the Lord spoke to Abraham, Abraham heard the voice of God, the word of the

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Lord came to Abraham, et cetera. And I know that we have some new people here. You haven't been here for a while. And so you may be wondering, does

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God still speak like that to us today? Should I expect to hear from God like that today? Is that what God does to all

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Christians or all Christians hearing the voice of God? And should we expect it? How does God lead us? Should we wait to hear that type of language or that type of command from God?

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Short answer to that is no. The long answer to that is, I have a book on that subject that is out in the foyer.

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Listen, don't laugh, because you think I'm trying to shill something. But I want you to know, if you are new here and you do not have a copy of that book and this is a question that you have, you can take a free copy of that book out in the library.

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Just go to the rack that is there. It's called God Doesn't Whisper and take it. It's yours for free. Autographs are $50, but the book is free.

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Now, unfortunately, all of them out there are autographed. No, none of them are.

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Take the book, and if that's something you struggle with or you wonder with about that, the book is yours for free. Now, every part of this in verse 17 and 18 is intended to show us how difficult the trial was for Abraham.

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It was his son. It was his only son. It was the son of his old age. It was the son who caused him great laughter and joy. It was the son of Sarah, the only son of Sarah.

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And he had to see, and it was the son of promise. Abraham had to see this conflict between what

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God was commanding him to do and what God had promised for him. There was a palpable conflict between these two things that Abraham, in his mind and in his heart, had to wrestle through and come to a conclusion on these issues.

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I wanna offer just a couple of points of application before we move on to the triumph of Abraham's faith.

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Part of the stunning problem, one of the stunning aspects of Genesis 22 and that command that God gave to Abraham is the fact that God was asking something so precious of Abraham.

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In fact, we could say that God was asking Abraham to give up and to sacrifice what, assuming

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Sarah was first place, would have been his most precious thing in his life, the one son of promise.

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And yet God was commanding Abraham to give that up. Isaac was the son of his old age, and this would not have been easy for Abraham.

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And it shows that what God is intending to do in Abraham's life is to remove anything that might be a competition for Abraham's affections in his heart for God.

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In other words, God is willing and he is certainly able to take from us that which is most precious to us.

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And it is best for us to learn to hold the things that are most precious to us very loosely in our hands.

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Because the minute we begin to hold onto those and those take precedence and preference in our hearts and in our affections over God, then we give to him a motive and a reason to take those things from us.

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So we should hold them loosely. And we should never question God's willingness to destroy idols in our lives and to remove anything in our lives or in our hearts that challenges him for the first place of affection.

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God wants our love and he does this. He takes precious things from us, not to harm us.

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It's never to cause us pain. That's not the goal, the motive. It's not pain in itself as an end in itself, but it is to destroy things in our lives that keep us from finding our satisfaction and fulfillment in him.

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That's God's goal in those things so that he might have the first place. And it's not, as I said, to harm us, it's actually to help us.

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It is always for our best. However it is that he disciplines us and brings rods of correction into our life to strike us and to smite us and to remove things from us, it's always with the aim of improving in our hearts his place and our affection for him.

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It's always for the goal of causing us to put off sin and to put off the flesh and to strive after him.

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This trial of Abraham's faith demonstrates that in the life of Abraham, when God commanded him to do that, that in the life of Abraham, God had the first place in his affections.

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Abraham was willing to give up what was for him probably his most precious thing on this planet other than Sarah.

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God does this so we might love him more, never to harm us, never to hurt us, but always to help us, always for our good, always for his glory, always for the sake of disciplining us and sanctifying us and encouraging us and bringing us along from one degree of faith to another.

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Second, as I mentioned earlier, Abraham could see the conflict between what God had promised and what

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God had commanded. If God's promises are to be fulfilled, then

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Isaac must live. If God's word is to be obeyed, Isaac must die. Promise is fulfilled, he must live.

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Word obeyed, he must die. Those two things are in Abraham's mind. Those two things are right in front of him.

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Abraham could not see how both of those things could be true. Without faith, you cannot see how both of those things can be true.

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Sometimes it is true that the providence of God, providences of God eclipsed the promises of God.

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Sometimes the promises of God are eclipsed by the providences of God. That is, God's way of working out all of the details in this life and in this world sometimes overshadow his promises so that as things happen in our lives, we can't see how it is that God will eventually fulfill the promise that he has given to us.

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And this is what Abraham was struggling with. God's providence had commanded Abraham to do something that began to eclipse the promises.

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Abraham has been promised something and he has commanded to do something that has eclipsed that. And sometimes that is exactly how

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God works. We can't see how God would fulfill his word in those situations. And this happens all the time.

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You see multiple examples of this in scripture. King David was anointed king and then spent the next, what, 20, 25 years being hunted by Saul.

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You don't think that there's some point in David's life when he's sitting in the back of a cave and Saul comes in to relieve himself, that David thinks to himself, this is my opportunity, this is my opportunity to fulfill the promise and purpose of God.

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I've been promised to be king and yet I've got to deal with this father -in -law who is hunting me and throwing spears at me and would destroy me in a moment's notice if he could get his hands on me.

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In the providences of God, David would have had a hard time understanding how it is that he could eventually replace

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Saul and be king of Israel. And then David is promised a kingdom and then his son Absalom usurps the throne.

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David has to run out of Jerusalem and he lives outside of Jerusalem for seven years in hiding from his own son.

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So having fleed from his father -in -law who had the throne, he now has a son who has illegitimately taken the throne from him and he spends another seven years fleeing from his son

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Absalom because Absalom was being used by God to discipline David. David would have had a hard time seeing how it is that the promise of a kingdom and the promise of a descendants and an intergenerational eternal kingdom would have been fulfilled by God because the providences of God began to overshadow the promises of God.

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Israel was promised a kingdom through David and yet the Davidic throne today is destroyed. It is no more. There is no kingdom of David.

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You can't go to Jerusalem, see David's throne. You can't see a king sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem. And yet for 2000 years of world history or more than that actually, the promise of God establishing a

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Davidic kingdom has been overshadowed by the providences of God in all of the nations raging as they do today.

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The Messiah was promised and when he finally arrives, he was rejected by the nation, crucified and buried. I think the disciples would have sat around for about three days roughly, two and a half days asking themselves, how is it that the promises of God are gonna be fulfilled when the providence of God has determined this?

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And then Paul is told that he would stand before Nero but then there is a plot to take his life. He's left in prison for two years in Caesarea.

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He finally embarks on a ship thinking, okay, this is it, I get to go to Rome now, I'm gonna stand before Nero and they shipwrecked on an island, spends a few months there.

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Then he goes to Rome, spends two years in Rome, never stands before Caesar. Years after that he would.

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There's that song that we sing, God works in a mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. It's based upon the poem by William Cowper.

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The third verse of it, it's a little bit of a revision of Cowper's words but the third verse of it that we sing reads this way,

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O fearful saints, new courage take. The clouds that you now dread are big with mercy and will break with blessings on your head.

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Judge not the Lord by feeble sense but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face.

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Abraham had to wrestle with the providence of God and the promises of God and sometimes when you and I begin to examine the providences of God, we lose sight of the promises of God and we begin to question

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God's ability to keep his promises and Abraham did not. This naturally leads us to Abraham's faith, his triumph of faith in verse 19.

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He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead from which also he received back Isaac, received him back as a type.

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The triumph of Abraham's faith, he had received this promise and he had received the command. Abraham eventually came to the conclusion, he considered

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God is able to raise people from the dead. Now this in one sense is a very logical thing that Abraham came to and it's logical in this sense.

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He had to assess the command of God and say if God's command is this and I must obey this and God's promise is this, then there must be some way that if I fulfill the command of God, he will fulfill his promises to me.

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So there's only one way that this could happen and Abraham would have had to have reasoned that God if he is able to make life come from a barren womb and he is able to make life come from a barren womb in a woman who is past childbearing age and if God is the one who has created all life and if God has commanded me to kill

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Isaac, then God who is sovereign over all of life and the giver of all of life, he must, if his promises cannot fail, he must raise

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Isaac from the dead. That seems quite logical, doesn't it? Now you might even say to yourself,

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I don't even really then need faith to believe something that logical. I mean, if you lay it out like that, then where is the role of faith?

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We might even suggest that Abraham really didn't need that much faith to believe that. But faith is not believing something that is illogical.

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Faith is not believing something that is irrational. Faith is taking God at his word. You and I, we believe that God is the giver of all life.

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We believe that God is able to do all things. We believe that God is sovereign. Where our faith fails is where we fail to trust that those things are true.

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All Abraham was doing was going by exactly what it was that he knew was true of God. His word cannot fail.

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He can give life to the dead and if his word cannot fail and he can give life to the dead, then resurrection must be the key.

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And I would suggest to you as I did weeks ago, Abraham had already come to the conclusion that resurrection was the key because that's why he lived in the promised land for 100 years.

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He knew that he would live there and he would die there and in resurrection he would be given that land. Abraham already believed in the

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God who raises the dead. So when God came to him and said, offer up your son Isaac, Abraham was not a logician who said, okay,

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A, B, C, therefore D, I will in an emotionless, apathetic way go ahead in a stoic sense, just do what

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God has commanded me to do and trust that logically this is going to work out. Abraham would have had to have wrestled with this issue.

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Do I really believe that God can give life to the dead? Do I really believe that?

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So you can say that you believe something but until Abraham picked up that knife to offer

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Isaac, whether or not he really believed it in his heart, that remained to be seen, didn't it?

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At the only point at which you are convinced that Abraham believed that God could raise the dead is when he reached over and grabbed that sacrificial knife.

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So when the author says that it is from dead by which he received back Isaac, what does he mean that he received him back?

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Isaac never went anywhere, did he? Or did he? Well, he did go somewhere.

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He went somewhere in Abraham's affections. He went somewhere in Abraham's heart. So in verse 17, when it says he offered up Isaac, the author uses that language even though he never actually offered up Isaac.

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But he did offer up Isaac when? When God said, you give your son to me, Abraham said, okay.

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And he split the wood and he loaded it onto the donkey and he gathered up his son and his two servants and the knife and everything necessary for the sacrifice and he started that three -day journey to Mount Moriah.

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Now at any time between when Abraham started splitting the wood for the burnt offering, at any time between that and picking up that sacrificial knife,

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God could have stopped Abraham, right? He could have stopped. When Abraham went out the next morning and started splitting the wood, the

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Lord could have stopped him and said, okay Abraham, now it's obvious to me that you would have offered up your son, your only begotten son, no need to go anywhere.

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Or before he loaded the wood onto the donkey or after day one of traveling or after day two of traveling or when he got to the destination and he saw the sight from afar off, when he unloaded everything and put the wood on Isaac, the

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Lord could have at that point said, Isaac, there's no need or Abraham, there's no need to go through with this. Now I know that you would not withhold your son, your only begotten son from me.

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The Lord could have stopped him then or at any time on the way up Mount Moriah or when he got up to the top of Mount Moriah or before he built the altar or before he bound his son or before he put his son on the altar.

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But when did the Lord stop him? At the last possible minute. And if the Lord had not stopped him at the last possible minute, then for all of time in eternity, we might say, well, you never know, if the

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Lord had let it go on just a little bit further, Abraham might have backed out. But he let it go on to the point where it was obvious that Abraham was not going to back out.

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There was no backing out of this. Abraham offered Isaac when? When he picked up the sacrificial knife?

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No, when he started splitting the wood for the sacrifice. And three days later, he received him back as if from the dead.

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No, he didn't really receive him back from the dead. But in Abraham's mind, in Abraham's heart, in his affections,

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Isaac was as good as dead. So when he picked up that sacrificial knife and the Lord said, Abraham, stop.

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Don't lay a hand on the lad. Now I know that you will not withhold your son, your only begotten son. It was revealed in those actions.

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And at that moment, the gravity of Abraham's faith, the reality of it, the sincerity of it was put on full display.

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So he received him back, verse 19 says, as a type or as a parable. Interesting, the word that is used there that is often translated in scripture typos, or type is typos, and it's not used here.

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It's a different word that's used, the word for parable. He received him back as a parable, meaning a figure or an illustration or an object blessing.

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It does not mean that what is recorded in Genesis 22 is not historical.

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It simply means that it is more than just historical. The author, with the phrase, only begotten son, and this word parable is indicating that what was happening in Genesis 22, with Abraham offering

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Isaac on that offering as a burnt offering, what was happening there was not just a historical example of something that was just happening historically, but it was an example of something beyond that.

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Something more was going on than just Abraham obeying the command. And this is where all of the symbolism of that event comes in.

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It's an illustration of something bigger, namely the father in heaven offering his only begotten son as a sacrifice here on earth.

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The son willingly going to the cross in order to die as a substitute for those who will repent of their sins and trust him for salvation.

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And to those he gives eternal life. That is the cosmic picture that is on display with Abraham and Isaac.

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And that is what the author means when he says he received him back from the dead as a parable. There's an object lesson going on.

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There's something beyond just Genesis 22 happening here. This is a cosmic play that is being laid out in front of us.

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We see in graphic terms exactly what it is that Christ has done. So the triumph of Abraham's faith is manifested in his obedience to God.

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He believed that God would raise the dead. He believed that God could raise the dead. And he believed that the promises of God cannot fail.

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This is what makes his faith so remarkable. This is what we are called. This is what we are called to mimic, to imitate.

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I want you to put yourself back in the original audience of Hebrews for a moment. We've gone to Genesis 22. We've talked about Abraham going on with Isaac.

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Now think of what the example of Hebrews 11 and Abraham would have meant to those who originally read the book of Hebrews.

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These were people who had been promised the blessings of the new covenant. Salvation blessings, kingdom blessings, land blessings, they're all part of the new covenant.

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Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31. They had been promised a reward. And in the immediate context, which we read at the beginning of the service, there are all those references to a reward, receiving what was promised.

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Hebrews 10, 34, for you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourself a better possession and a lasting one.

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Hebrews 10, 35, therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. Hebrews 10, 36, for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

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See, the original audience is trusting God for a great reward, for a better possession, for a lasting one, that they would receive what was promised.

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They're believing all of that by faith. All of those phrases could be used to describe Abraham. He was promised something great, a better possession, a lasting one, a great reward.

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And how did Abraham respond to those promises? By faith. And here's where the example of Abraham becomes even more poignant for the original audience.

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The original audience had endured all, by providence, all things that did not seem at all to lend themselves to the fulfillment of those promises.

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The original audience is enduring a great conflict of suffering. They had accepted or had to accept the seizure of their property joyfully.

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They had been ostracized from their family and their community. They had been hated by the world. And now, like aliens and strangers, they are living in a world that is hostile to everything that they believe and everything that they worship and everything that they practice.

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And the benefit that they are getting in the world, in this earth, is what? Great conflict of sufferings, trials and tribulations, reproaches, your name is being slandered, you're hated by your family, you're ostracized from society.

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Hold on a second. I've been promised great blessing, great reward. I've been promised the kingdom.

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And what am I getting? Trials, tribulations, temptations, afflictions, suffering. And it might even be that I have to die before I receive any of the promises.

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That's exactly what Abraham reckoned. You see, if you and I are promised something, and then the providence of God says, but you're going to suffer all of this affliction between now and what you are promised, the only way to reconcile that and to live by faith is to say, well, then

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I must believe in a God who raises the dead so that on the other side, with Abraham, I will inherit what

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I've been promised. Because you are not going to receive in this life everything you're promised. If you think that you are or that you are entitled to it or that God has promised you that, that you receive it in this life, you are going to be sorely disappointed and you're going to live your entire

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Christian life frustrated, myopically focused on your circumstances, thinking about your suffering and your afflictions and all of the things that could have gone better, that you wanted to go better and it didn't turn out the way that you expected it.

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But when you understand that God has appointed all of these providences that come into our life, that he allows for a time to eclipse the promises that he has given to us, then the only way through those providences is death, burial, and resurrection.

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And we serve and worship one who has died, been buried, and risen again, and he promises to take us with us.

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He has entered behind the veil as God's anchor in that place and he promises to bring us all safely through to his eternal glory.

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You have to believe in resurrection if you are going to live under the providences of God in the light of the promises of God.

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So like Abraham, we have been promised great things. And like Abraham, we must die to possess them.

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So get ready. Some of you, it's gonna be sooner than others. But all of you should get ready because none of us has a lease on this life that is guaranteed to last us even another moment.

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What we've been promised, God will fulfill. And when circumstances cause us to question

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God's promises, then we simply look to Abraham and we say, we realize that God is going to raise us on the last day, and thus

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God will fulfill all of his good word toward us. And on that day, we will look back at this time and say, it was all worth it.

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I would not have it any other way. Let's pray. Father, we rejoice in your goodness and we trust in your providence and your grace.

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We thank you that we have encouragements and examples from your word and we pray that these would serve to strengthen our hearts, our resolve, our faith, that we may see your good hand that we may believe with Abraham in a

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God who raises the dead and we may look forward to that final day, that eschatological day when we receive all that has been promised to us, to Abraham in all of your covenants, by your grace.