Faith in God is demonstrated through Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, a test designed by God to reveal the depth of Abraham's trust and obedience. The sermon highlights God's command in Genesis 22, emphasizing that Abraham's faith was not blind but grounded in the belief that God could raise Isaac from the dead to fulfill His promises. This profound act of surrender teaches that true faith involves loving God above all else, even our dearest loved ones, and trusting His provision and purposes even when they are not fully understood. Ultimately, Abraham's obedience led to a deeper fellowship with God and the provision of a ram as a substitute sacrifice, illustrating that God desires a surrendered heart over literal sacrifice.
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Good evening. Once again, I would like you to turn to Hebrews chapter eleven as we begin our scripture reading this evening. Last night we looked at the faith of Abraham. God had promised Abraham that he would give him a land as his own personal inheritance. And we saw how God tested Abraham and Abraham had to walk by faith believing God's promise even though that promise was never fulfilled in his own lifetime. Now Hebrews mentions another aspect of Abraham's walk by faith.
And there was another aspect of the promise of God that was given to Abraham and that was particularly relating to the promise of a son. a child that would be born to him. And verses seventeen to nineteen of Hebrews chapter eleven deal with that aspect of Abraham's walk by faith. And I would like us to look at that tonight. By faith it says, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten Son, of whom it was said, in Isaac your seed shall be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
Now here the writer of Hebrews is referring to that well-known chapter in Genesis Genesis chapter twenty-two where Abraham was called to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. I'd like you to turn back to that chapter also. Here we have a chapter in Genesis twenty-two where God tested the faith of Abraham. Have you ever been in a situation where God has put your faith Really, to its ultimate test? I think that that was the kind of experience that Abraham had here in Genesis chapter twenty-two.
He was called on by God to offer up his son as a sacrifice. If you go through the book of Genesis, God had promised Abraham a son. And for many years, actually it was for twenty-five years, he waited for that promise to be fulfilled. He waited until he reached the point where it was no longer possible because of age. We saw that last night for that promise to be fulfilled. And now finally, after that son has been born, Isaac, Abraham's son, has come upon the scene.
God tested Abraham's faith in a way that is probably a greater test than any other he could have given Abraham. He told him to offer up that son as a sacrifice. Look at verses one and two of Genesis chapter twenty-two. It says, Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here am I. And he said, Take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I shall tell you.
Go and offer your son as a sacrifice, a burnt offering, on one of the mountains which I shall tell you. Now that was a very strange command for God to give to Abraham. God was asking here for a human sacrifice. How could God do that? This is really contrary to all that we know about God in Scripture. If you go back to Leviticus chapter eighteen and chapter twenty, Moses is referring to the fact that they are going to go into the land of the Canaanites where they offer up their children to Moloch, to cause their children to pass through fire.
They offer their children up in human sacrifice. Moses is saying when you go into that land you are not to adopt these Canaanite practices because this is an abomination to God. This is an abomination to God. A number of years ago there was an article in the National Geographic on the Aztecs and as I read that article one of the things that was brought out is how they offered up their children as human sacrifice. And when I read that article, it made me cringe, and it made me shudder, and it caused me to pity such a people that could think that God, the God whom we know of in Scripture, The God that so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that we should not perish but have everlasting life.
That the God of this universe, the God of grace and mercy, that they would think, that they would think that God would want human sacrifice. What delusion. What darkness men were living in. And yet we come to Genesis chapter twenty-two and here God is calling upon Abraham to sacrifice his son. How could he do that? How can this command even be justified in Scripture? I might say in answer to that, this is one of those passages where at least some of the commentators will give you absolutely no help.
It's strange to me that some of the commentators, a number of the commentators, when they have come to this passage, have dealt with the problem by saying that God was calling on Abraham to offer up his son as a spiritual sacrifice. Like what we have in Romans, chapter Chapter twelve in verses one and two, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as an offering, a holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
There we are called to present ourselves to God as an offering, a spiritual sacrifice. And so what some of the commentators say is that Abraham was here called to dedicate, to present his son as a living sacrifice to God. Abraham, give your son to me. I suppose that that would be the kind of thing that Hannah did when she gave Samuel to the Lord and presented him in the temple. And then they say that it was Abraham who misunderstood the command of God and then tried to work it out in terms of a literal sacrifice.
Well, when I read verse two, when God tells him to go to the land of Mariah, you don't have to travel down to Mariah or up to Mariah. to offer up your son as a spiritual sacrifice to dedicate him to the Lord. And then when it says offer him there as a burnt offering, that seems to me language that is very, very specific. So the commentators may be looking for an easy way to explain the problem, but it doesn't satisfy Now, I think to understand how God could ask this of Abraham, we have to go back and try to put ourselves in Abraham's shoes.
We have to try to start with Abraham and what he knew about God, not with what we know about God. We have the full revelation of God in Scripture. We know much more of God in His character than Abraham ever did at this point. Remember, Abraham grew up as an idol worshiper in Ur of the Chaldees. He was surrounded by people who offered up children and even adults as human sacrifices. I do not think that Abraham would have been offended by this practice near as much as we would be.
And Abraham did not know the character of God as we know him revealed in Scripture. It might even seem that Abraham could look around at the pagans surrounding him, and they seemed to be more dedicated to their idol gods than he was to the true God. They were even willing to sacrifice their children. Now I think God wanted to teach in Abraham a very important lesson here. And Abraham needed to learn from God that it was not human sacrifice that was pleasing to God.
What was pleasing to God was a heart that was surrendered and dedicated to him. And so God to teach Abraham this lesson adapted himself to where Abraham was. He accommodated himself to where Abraham was in order to take Abraham to where he wanted him to be. And he could do this because he never meant for Abraham to sacrifice his son literally. He never meant for Abraham to kill his son. And in fact, he wanted to show Abraham that human sacrifice was not something that pleased him.
What was pleasing was a surrender of the heart. In fact, for the rest of the Old Testament period, Israel could look back at this incident. They could look back to Genesis twenty-two. as God's once-for-all declaration that it was not human sacrifice that he wanted, but a surrendered heart. And so I think God was using this command and taking Abraham in his own personal circumstances to teach him a very important lesson that he did not want human sacrifice, but a surrendered heart.
Now look at verse one, and we see the test here. It says, after these things, God tested Abraham. I'm reading the new King James. If you have the old King James, it says here that God tempted Abraham. The word that is translated here, tempt or test, can have both of those meanings. But the word tempt, And the translation, tempt, is not a good translation in this passage. James chapter one and verse thirteen says, 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. God does not tempt us. Temptation is a temptation to sin. And God does not tempt us in the sense of trying to get us to fall. God does not ever try to get us to sin. But He does test us. He does bring testings into our lives. Life is a series of tests. and trials.
And the reason for that is that it is in the midst of adversity and in the midst of trial that our faith, when it is put to the test, grows and we develop character. It is in the heat of the furnace that the iron is made strong and it is in the heat of trials that our test, that our faith develops. and is made strong. James also in chapter one, verses two and three, says, Count it all joy. Brothers, when you encounter various kinds of testings, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
So God tested Abraham. Notice how each experience is built up here in verses one and two and he said to Abraham and Abraham said here am I and he said take now your son take your son take your son your only son Isaac your only son take your son your only son Isaac whom you love, whom you love.
And take that son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mariah and offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall tell you. This was a command that put Abraham's faith to the test. Notice when it says here, take now your son, your only son?
Isaac was not Abraham's only son. Sixteen years older than Isaac, or fourteen years older than Isaac, was Abraham's son Ishmael. Go back to verse twelve of chapter twenty-one. God said to Abraham, Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman. The lad here is Ishmael and the bondwoman is his mother Hagar. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice, for in Isaac your seed shall be called.
This is referring to the promise of God, that Abraham would have a seed, a number of descendants, and Isaac was the one through whom that promise would be fulfilled. Isaac was the son of promise. He was the only son of promise. God had promised through Isaac Abraham would have innumerable descendants and through him all of the nations of the earth would be blessed. Isaac was the fulfillment of that promise to Abraham and God is here putting Abraham's faith to the test.
What is going to become of God's promise? if Abraham or if Isaac is slain. We've got to look, I think, at that more specifically, at that promise to see clearly what is involved in this test of Abraham. Go back to Genesis chapter twelve and verse two. Remember, Abraham is a seventy-five-year-old man. Sarah, his wife, is ten years younger. She is sixty-five, and they had no children.
And in Genesis chapter twelve, God said to Abraham, I will make you a great nation. I will make you a great nation. Right now, you had a family that consisted of a husband and a wife. Two of them For Abraham to become a great nation, God is saying that he is going to give them children. And that had not happened yet. And he furthermore says that I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. And in you all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. God is not only promising Abraham a son, but through Abraham's seed, through Abraham's descendants, all of the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. So here the promise to Abraham begins in Genesis chapter twelve. Go down to verse seven. Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, To your descendants, to your seed, I will give this land.
I will give this land. Abraham didn't have any descendants. And yet God is promising them the land. In Genesis chapter fifteen, a number of years had gone by and Abraham began began to wonder about God's promise. If you are seventy-five years old when you are told that you are going to have your first child, you would expect that that child is going to come along pretty quickly.
If your wife is sixty-five, you're sure that that promise is going to come along quickly. But here in Genesis fifteen, a number of years had passed. And the promise was not yet fulfilled. Abraham began to doubt. In fact, Abraham began to become an amillennialist in the way he interpreted Scripture or interpreted the promises of God. He began to wonder if the promise of God... instead of being a literal promise, was going to be fulfilled figuratively.
He says, now, I have a household servant by the name of Eleazar of Damascus. Perhaps he is the one who is through whom this promise is going to be fulfilled. And so God... took Abraham outside and gave him an object lesson. And in Genesis chapter fifteen and verse four, God said to him, This one, this Eleazar, shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.
Then he brought him outside and said, Now look, toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. And he said, so shall your descendants be. He not only promises him a descendant, a son, he says you are going to have innumerable offspring. In Genesis chapter sixteen, again Abraham gets impatient. He tries to hurry up the process or the fulfillment of God's promise. And he has a child through Sarah's handmaid and the son was Ishmael.
And Abraham thought that Ishmael would be the one through whom this promise is going to be fulfilled. In Genesis God came to Abraham again, and he said that it was not going to be through Ishmael, that the promise was going to be fulfilled. In verse sixteen it says that I will bless her, I will bless Sarah, and I will give you a son by her, and I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations.
Kings of people, peoples shall be from her. Here he is telling Abraham that Sarah is going to be the mother through whom the promise is fulfilled, that she is going to have a child. In verse eighteen, Abraham says to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. God, I have a son. Let Ishmael be the one through whom that promise will be fulfilled. And God said, verse nineteen, no, Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his descendants after him.
God has specifically and clearly shown Abraham. that this promise of having innumerable descendants through whom all of the nations of the earth will be blessed is going to be fulfilled through Isaac. And so Isaac is born and God, after a number of years, comes to Abraham and he says, I'm going to put your faith to the test. I want you to go and I want you to sacrifice Isaac. Do you see how that puts his faith to the test? How can the promise be fulfilled if Isaac is slain?
How would Abraham have innumerable descendants when Isaac, the promised seed, is slain? What becomes of God's faithfulness? What becomes of God's promise? Human reasoning is really put to the test here. Human reasoning says that there are only two alternatives. Human reasoning says, one, either the test, either the promise of God is false. God is not going to keep His Word.
Or human reasoning says, The only other alternative is that the command cannot be from God. This must be a command from the devil because it is in contradiction to God's word. So God is really putting his faith to the test. Take your son, your only son, the son of the promise. Isaac, take your son whom you love. This was the son of Abraham's old age, the son that he had waited for for twenty-five years, the son that he loved with all of his heart.
And he says, go and sacrifice him. You remember the story of the rich young ruler, the one whom Christ told to sell all that he had and give it to the poor and come and follow him? You remember He went away from the Lord Jesus sad because He loved His money more than He loved Christ. The love of money crowded God out of His life. Human love. Love for a wife. Love for a husband.
Love for a child. can crowd the love of God out of our hearts. That is why Christ says in Matthew chapter ten in verse thirty-seven, He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. I've seen a lot of Christian parents. who have loved their children more than they love the Lord. At least that's the way it appears.
You know where I see it? I see it in areas of divorce. I see it in areas where your children get divorced. There was a couple in our assembly in Illinois, young couple, both parents both families in the assembly. The children were married. One of them was guilty of marital infidelity. The young man's parents supported him. The woman's parents supported her.
And eventually one of them left the assembly. I know of another couple. Here was a young woman who secretly had been carrying on an affair before her marriage, married a young man, continued in that affair. When it came out, her parents left the meeting or supported her and left the meeting, even though the elders fully supported him. Rarely. Rarely in these kinds of situations have I ever seen a parent, Christian parents, say my son was wrong or my daughter was wrong.
Blood seems to be thicker than Christian truth. I can tell you in my experience, I only know of two Christian parents, two Christian parents, two families. who have ever said in a situation like that, my son was wrong, my daughter was wrong. Christ said that the first command is to love God with all of our heart. And our love for God needs to be greater than any other, the love for any other human being, even a love for our wife or our love for our husband or our love for our children.
Abraham was here put to the test. Do you love me more than you love your only son whom I know you love? Now how would you respond to a command like that? I don't think we really can answer that question. How would I respond if God told me to offer up one of my children as a human sacrifice? I can't answer that because I know. That kind of command is not only abhorrent to me, I know that human sacrifice is abhorrent to God.
So I can't put myself in Abraham's shoes in this situation. What I can see with Abraham is that he was faced with a clear commandment of God on the one hand and a great love for his Son on the other hand. And that was the tension. that was facing him. You'll notice how Abraham responded in verse three. It says that Abraham rose early in the morning and he saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son and he split the wood for the burnt offering and he rose and went to the place of which God had told him.
You notice Abraham's prompt obedience The verse doesn't say anything about Abraham's emotions. It just tells of his obedience. In fact, he rose early. If ever there was a morning that you would want to sleep in, this would be the morning. He rose early and he went to the place where God told him. The command was not questioned. It was not disobeyed. It was not rationalized. It was simply obeyed. When God speaks, I must obey.
Now there are a lot of things in the Bible that I do not understand. There are commands of God that I do not understand. But God doesn't ask me to obey if I understand or if I agree with the value of one of his commandments. He simply tells me to do things. Abraham is seeing his channel of blessing drying up. But his eye is still on the blesser. He is saying like Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. And though he calls on me to slay my son, yet will I trust him. Not only did we see Abraham's immediate obedience, look at verse four, we see his continued, his sustained obedience.
It says, then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. The place that he is referring to in verse two is said to be in the land of Mariah. If you go back to Second Chronicles chapter three and verse one, it says there that Solomon built the temple on Mount Moriah. So Abraham in Beersheba, when he was given this command by God, had to travel up to where Jerusalem was on Mount Moriah.
It took him over three days. Three days where this sacrifice of his son is looming over him. I would have been a nervous wreck by the end of that time. Three days. that I wouldn't have been able to sleep in any way. In other words, this was not just a simple test. Do it, Abraham, and it is over with. The thought of three of Isaac's death filled his journey for three days. There was a sustained obedience with Abraham. Now, why was it?
that Abraham was so steadfast in his faith and so unswerving in his obedience. What verses five to eight show us that what sustained Abraham was his faith in God. It was his faith in God. This is an example again of Abraham walking by faith. Look at verse five. I think that verse five is one of the most important statements in the whole passage. It says, Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey. The lad and I will go yonder and worship.
And we will come back to you. We will come back to you. What does it mean by we? Abraham is going up onto the mountain to sacrifice his son and offer him up as a burnt offering. If you go down in the passage by the time you get to verse ten, you see Abraham with a knife raised ready to plunge it into the heart of his son. He was prepared to fully obey this command. And yet he says, we...
will return. There have been some people who look at this passage and say that Abraham was lying to his servants or he was being deceitful to his servants. He didn't want to admit to them that he was going to take his son and offer him up as a sacrifice. Perhaps they would have stopped him or tried to stop him and he didn't tell them the truth to say that. is to miss the whole message of the passage and to miss the lesson of faith as it is seen in the right life of Abraham. Abraham said this in faith.
Now his faith was not a blind faith where he believed without reason. When I was in college, Our inner varsity group was invited to a Bible study with another Christian group on campus. And this was the passage that they wanted to study, Genesis twenty-two. And as the students from this other group were talking about this passage, I found out what they were saying seemed very strange because their view of Abraham's faith was that this was just a blind, unreasoning faith.
Faith was, they were using this to say that faith is a leap in the dark. It's like jumping off a cliff. And without any basis believing that there's a safety net below that is going to catch you. I found out later that they were getting this teaching from a very influential nineteenth century Danish philosopher. Soaring Kierkegaard. That was his definition of faith, a leap in the dark. Faith is believing without any basis for believing.
Faith, faith according to this definition would be General Custer leading out his troops saying, don't worry men, there's nothing to fear, we're going to beat them. That's not faith. That's not biblical faith. That is not what Abraham's faith was. If Abraham's faith was nothing more than a blind leap, then that faith was fanaticism, not real faith, not biblical faith. Abraham's faith had a sure foundation. It's what we just read earlier. Abraham's faith was based upon the promise of God. God had told him that in Isaac your seed shall be called.
This is the child of promise. You are going to have innumerable descendants through him. Now God tells him to kill Isaac before Isaac had any children. If Isaac was slain, what would become of the promise of God? Here was Abraham's faith. He believed God. He believed what God had told him. He believed that God was bound to keep His word. How would God keep His word if Isaac was slain? Abraham didn't know the detail. But he believed that if God called him to kill his son, God would have to raise that son from the dead in order to fulfill that promise.
That is why he says, we will return. He knew that ultimately Isaac would be restored to life, and he expected that he would not have to walk down that mountain alone. He was going to hold God to his word. Okay, God, I'll do what you say. I'll do what you say. But you are going to have to do what you said. you are going to have to bring him back to life in order to fulfill your promise. And this is not what we are saying here is not just our guess.
We read that in Hebrews chapter eleven. It says that... Abraham, he who had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead. God was, he accounted, he reckoned that God was able to raise him from the dead. Now this is a tremendous faith in Abraham's part. Remember, as far as the Bible is concerned, no one had ever, ever witnessed the resurrection or even heard of the resurrection of a human being before, the restoration of a human being to life.
You didn't have the resurrection of Lazarus before Abraham's life or Elijah raising up the widow's son or any others. This was something unknown. But Abraham believed that God would do it. because he believed God, that God would keep his promise. That is what faith is, not a leap in the dark, believing something because God is the one who promised it. You notice that Abraham had absolute promise, confidence in God's way.
The two of them walked together up the mountain, and Isaac asked in verse seven, He says, look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Verse eight, my son, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering. And the two of them went together. God will work it out. How? Abraham did not know, but he still trusted God. Now, we saw that Abraham was fully prepared to complete this command. One thing that I think is often overlooked in this passage when we talk about the faith of Abraham, have you considered Isaac in this passage?
Sometimes, how do you picture Isaac? A lot of people picture Isaac as maybe a four or five-year-old little boy? Did you notice back in verse six, it says that Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son. It was Isaac who carried up this wood up on the mountain. How much wood does it require to consume as a burnt offering, to burn up? a whole lamb.
How much wood does it take? This isn't just a little cookout fire. You require a fair amount of wood. And for Isaac to be able to carry all of that wood up the mountain, I assume that Isaac had to be at least in his mid-teens or older. Now, how is a a hundred and fifteen-year-old man going to forcibly subdue a fifteen-year-old teenager and bind him to the altar. It seems to me that this passage also indicates or assumes not only the faith of Abraham but also Isaac was a man of faith and he was willing to submit What we see in verse ten, Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
This was Abraham's total surrender. He was ready to do it. It was at the last possible moment that God intervened. Wait, Abraham! No! I do not want your son. You have shown me your faith. God provided a ram caught in the thickets. Because what God wanted was not human sacrifice. What God wanted from Abraham. Now look, this is what He wants from you and me. He wants absolute surrender. He wants absolute obedience.
He wants us to take Him at His word, believe His promises, and walk by faith. For Abraham, this test led to fellowship with God. And this test led to the great blessing of fellowship with God. God wants our heart. Does he have it? The lesson of Abraham is to walk by faith. and to love God more than any other thing or more than any other person that we are related to in this life.
May He enable us to do that. Father, we come to you tonight and we have to recognize and confess our own weakness, perhaps our own sinfulness. that we have loved others more than you. We know that it is right to love those who are related to us, wife, husband, children, but it is not right to love them more than you. We pray that we would love you with all of our hearts. with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength.
We pray that we might believe you and walk by faith as Abraham did in Jesus' name.