Now will you take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter eleven, and we are going to read from verse eight. Verse eight. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out not knowing whether he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Thus seventeen. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac. And he that received the promises offered up his only begotten Son, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure. Now this morning we are going to look at the outstanding scholar of the in the school of faith. One who went right through to his finals and graduated with the choicest degrees. I'm going to call him, in contrast to the other boys we have met this week, the boy who obeyed. Some of you will remember that we spoke of Abel as the boy who was right. We spoke of Enoch as the boy who pleased God. We spoke of Noah as the boy who prepared. But this morning we are going to think of the boy who obeyed. Now do you know one of the greatest lessons in the school of faith is to learn obedience. It's one thing to know that the old man was crucified. It's another thing to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God. It's yet another thing to yield instruments, whole being to his service and glad using. That the final issue is obedience. To step out in glad obedience in the will of God. In other words, boiling it down for the children, that little chorus is tremendously deep, and yet so simple. Trust and obey. For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. You come with the first look of trust, and you look into his face and say, Thank you for dying for me, and pardon comes to your heart. The first attitude of faith begins this moment by moment, day by day, attitude of trust and faith in Christ, and gladly, all that He reveals to you, you obey, you obey. This is the secret of victory, abiding constant victory. There's no other way to be happy in Jesus. Now, God loves to be trusted. and in the school of faith again and again he allows the trial of faith. I wonder if you would just turn the pages over to Peter. One Peter chapter one verse seven, and I want even the youngest to see it. One Peter chapter one verse seven. He says that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold to perish it, though it be tried with fire might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. The trial of your faith. Now this introduces us to our subject this morning. We've got to have examinations of schools. You can't go lazily on through your term's work and then just say, close your books and go home. No, at the end of the term, there must come the examination papers. And Abraham, the friend of God, he was one who passed through the whole school of faith. And if you follow his story in the Bible, you'll see deepening lessons, growing, as it were, in difficulty. until at last he faces his supreme test. Now we have been meeting certain boys and we are going to meet many boys and girls later in this chapter as the days go by. We shall meet strong boys, difficult girls, beautiful girls. We shall meet sneaks. We shall meet all sorts of folks, singers, sportsmen, even harlots. And yet they're in the school of faith, and God is training them, and bringing them through to a good report. But do you know this man, Abram, has more room in this chapter than anybody else? And if you go back to Genesis, you'll find that fifteen long chapters in the Book of Beginnings are given to Abraham and his partner Sarah. This man died at the age of a hundred and seventy-five, and he died with a beautiful title, The Friend of God. You remember in James, two twenty-three, it speaks of Abram as the friend of God, one who was the friend of the great headmaster. The one who watched him come in as a little boy to the prep and move through the grades, and somehow there was a growing confidence and understanding and friendship. And Abraham, the outstanding scholar, is the friend of God. Now, I brought with me something this morning, and I want the young people to have a look at it. This is a pencil that I hold in my hand, and this side of the pencil is red, and this side of the pencil is blue. And would you believe me that that old double-coloured pencil reminds me of the old schoolhouse where I went as a boy? We had a master called Mr. Rhodes. He was a Christian man. I didn't know it at the time. When he died some years ago in Madrid in Dublin, I'm sorry, Madrid in Spain as a servant of God, his last words on earth were these. The gates are open. I see him. Hallelujah. And he died as he lived in the presence of the Lord. Through the opening gates he went into the Lord's presence. But I can see him now up on the desk correcting our homework and our books. And he had one of these pencils. And if he ever used the red side and put a big kick, it was all right. But when he turned the pencil round and he used the blue side, he nearly always put a flashing cross. So much depended on that pencil and his findings on our pathetic papers as we brought them up to him. Now I'm going to ask you to let me do something in the life of Abram. I believe that there are seven distinct examinations that God put Abram through. And in some of those examinations the big headmaster took the pencil and he put against it a big red tick. He had passed. And in others he had to put with a blue pencil, a big cross. He failed. The friend of God, the greatest scholar in the school, failed some of his exams, but at last he graduated with the highest honors. Now will you turn in the book of Genesis please with me to chapter twelve and will you read verse four? And against this verse four in chapter twelve I'm going to put a big red tick There is no doubt about it this scholar pleased God in glad obedience, and God said he passed that exam. Verse four, so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. Now if you will take the trouble to look back over the story, you will find that his father, Tira, with Abraham and Sarah and the nephew Lot had left the Mount of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia, and they had gone right up the great big river to the headwaters, and they had settled down at Haran. And then Kira died, leaving Abraham, the leader of this party, with Sarah, his wife, and his nephew, And the Lord says, Don't settle down here. I uprooted you and your loved ones from the old city, the Earl of the Chaldees. But I am going to get you down into a promised land of Canaan. And, verse four, Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. Now, if you are taking notes, you can put it down. This is the test of separation. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but there are teachings on separation today abroad in the world that are disastrous, that are cruel, that are unnatural. But that doesn't go to the fact that every one of God's dear men and women and boys and girls in the school of faith is called to a path of separation. come ye out and be separate, separate from sin, separate from sinners very often. And in that pathway Abraham clearly pleased God. Well, we've got to break with the past if we're in God's family. If we've been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, if instead of the Spirit that now works in the children of disobedience the Holy Spirit of God has come in new, created life, there must be a separation from the old things. Sometimes when I'm talking to the young people and I'm telling them that you've simply got to make a clean cut if you're going to be a real Christian and out and out for Christ, I say to them, You know if I got one of those old tin baths. You know a tin bath, the sort of bath your granny used to use on washing day before she got the washing machine. And if you put it down on the ground and you stepped into it and you're standing in the middle of a bath, it's all around you like this, and I say to you now, will you please lift the bath? And you catch hold of the sides and try to lift. And you can't. It's impossible. No one can do it. I say to you, get out of the bath, and you step out of the bath, and I say, now lift it. And on the outside you put out your hands and lift the bath. Now, let's face this, you can never lift anything till you get out of it. And that's why God says, Come ye out and be ye separate, said the Lord. And when you are clean cut to the Lord, then you've got the leverage to lift. And men who can go into this world with all its need, and women who can go out into their spheres of service and lift to sobbing humanity for God are separated men and women. And of course the weakness today, even in the Church of Jesus Christ, is the lack of separation that leads to just impotence and weakness. And so I'm putting, I'm sure the great headmaster put the great red kick of pleasure against that verse four. Now look down the chapter to verse ten. Genesis twelve, verse ten, and there was famine in the land, and Abraham went down into Egypt. Now look at the pencil. It's turning from the red to the blue now. And a big blue cross must be put against that verse ten. This is the test of providence. The test of providing food. There was famine in the land. And surely God could have met the need of his children. They wouldn't have gone to bed hungry. If he had wanted them to go somewhere else, he would have told them. But no. As the famine increases, Abraham packs his bag and takes his loved one and goes down into Egypt. God never sent him there. Verse ten, Abraham went. He was not sent. And he failed. And as you read the next verses, write down, there's no voice of God speaking to Abram. There's no altar where he worships his God in Egypt. He's acting a lie in the presence of the Egyptians. And you've just got to face the fact he is backsliding. And this backsliding hurts his nebule lot, far more than it hurts Abram. And of course, the only solution is get out of Egypt and get back to Bethel. Now we've got one pick with red and one cross with blue. And now I want you to turn to chapter thirteen and verse seven. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle. Verse eight, and they have been said to not, let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, between my herdsmen and thine, for we are brethren. Now I am going to call this the test of prosperity. Their flocks are increasing, their cattle are increasing, and as they move over the country the herdsmen are having squabbles about the feeding places. And I tell you, Abraham shines out here. He looks at the younger man, his nephew, and he says, Let there be no strife between me and thee. We are brethren, and he gives way. There's no doubt about it. That pencil must be taken, and a nice little red tick they put against that verse. In the test of prosperity, this man proves he's not courageous. He's not grasping. He doesn't want it all to himself. He's considerate of his young nephew, and he gives way to him. Now this is a great point. Dear old Spurgeon put it like this, it takes more grace than I can tell to what? Play the second fiddle well. And it's lovely to see so many Christians today who give place to others. And again and again that's a lovely spirit in the school of God that God appreciates. Now let's look at the fourth test in chapter fourteen and verse fourteen. And Abraham heard that his brother Lot was taken captive, and he armed and trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued unto Dan. Now, this is the story of how poor Lot has been captured in Sodom. And the king of Sodom has been defeated. And Abraham, it seems, is faced with a test of partnership. What shall he do? Shall he say serve him right? Or shall he get together his own armed forces and go and pursue and try and capture him back again? And the whole story as it develops, this test of partnership, is one that you can only take the red pencil and put a big kick against it. He came through with flying colors. Actually, when the King of Solomon came to him and said, How can we reward you for what you've done? He said, I don't want a thing. I won't even take a bootlace. And it's a wonderful story of how, in the test of partnership, he considered Lot and rescued his backsliding nephew in the hour of peril. Now turn a page to chapter fifteen in verse six of Genesis. Chapter fifteen and verse six. And God brought him forth abroad and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars, If thou be able to number them, and he said, So shall thy seed be. And he believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now turn a page, chapter sixteen and verse fifteen. and Hagar bear Abraham a son, and Abraham called his son's name, which Hagar bear Ishmael. Oh dear, oh dear, here's the test of delay. God said, I'll give you a son, a promised son, and he believed God. But sadly enough, a little boy is growing up in the camp called Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman Hagar. Instead of waiting God's time, instead of patiently saying, if God delays there's some reason for it, he'd seek to use human energy to fulfill the promises of God. And I tell you, that pencil has got to turn, and against this story, against verse sixteen, a chapter sixteen, you can put a great big blue cross. Abraham has failed in the test of delay. Now turn the page to chapter twenty-one of Genesis. Verse fourteen. And you see him doing a striking thing. Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child and sent her away, and she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. The test of duty. Cast out the bond woman. And for thirteen years he had seen this boy, this lovely boy Ishmael growing up in the camp. But he did it. It was the right thing. It was duty. And he did it. And you can take the pencil now and turn it again and put that lovely red tick against it. And after six tests, four red ticks... and two blue crosses. Now when you turn to chapter twenty-two and verse one, and it came to pass after these things, these tests, that God did tempt test, Abram. The supreme test has come. And you know the chapter all of you, even the youngsters know it, how God said, Take your son, your darling son, laughter, the son of promise to a lonely mountain and offer him. And Abraham went with a fire, with a knife, with a boy, with a bundle of wood on the boy's shoulders. And out on that lonely mountain side he built the altar in the presence of God. He stretched his son upon it. He lifted the knife into the sky and God stopped it. The voice said, Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from thee. Now I know. Now my brothers, my sisters, my young friends, I want you to learn the lesson in the closing moment of that test on Mount Moriah. Don't get shot. When I say this, God didn't want Isaac. He asked for him, but God didn't want Isaac. God wanted Abram. And came in the years. It's been testing in the years. But now it's the supreme test. Is there anything between the heart of God and his friend? And he put his finger upon the thing that's nearest and dearest in Abram's life. And he says, Take now. not a sheep or a goat or a bullock, not your fortune or your servants, but the miracle darling boy called laughter that changed your laugh of doubt into a laugh of faith. Take him and offer him. They doubt it. No questioning. Hebrews eleven tells us accounting if ever he had gone into business he would have been a chartered accountant accounting he weighed it all up in the presence of God accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead if he struck the blow if the fire burnt him to ashes God who made Adam out of the dust could raise up that boy out of those ashes to fulfill his promises that through Abraham's seed all nations will be blessed. And standing there that old man lifts the knife and it's just about to come down when God stops it. Now I know that thou fearest God seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. Listen. And in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed, because... What? Verse eighteen, Genesis twenty two. Because thou hast obeyed my voice. The boy who obeyed. Trust and obey. There is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. And as the tests come, yes, Lord, I can't understand it, I can't explain it, but you've said it, and faith rests in the Word of God and steps forward and finds the rock beneath. For faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, and over the school of God the great schoolmaster watches, and without faith it's impossible to please him. And Abraham pleased God and graduated out with the highest honors. And what a title, the Friend of God. The Friend of God. Shall we pray for a moment? Lord, forgive our failure to obey. Help us in all simplicity, in every test that comes, to step out in glad obedience. May our faith be so simple and childlike that we may whisper again and again, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus. May our loved Lord, as he spoke to both disciples after three long years of discipleship, I have not called you my friends before, but ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you, if you obey me, I shall call you by the lovely name friends. May we be friends of the Lord Jesus, the friends of God, for his name's sake.