If you want to take your Bibles and turn, we're going to be in Genesis chapter 22. There is nothing, nothing more precious to God in your life than your faith. There's nothing that matters in your life to God more than your trust and your confidence in him.
In the book of first Peter, the apostle writes these words in chapter one, verses six and seven in this, you rejoice though. Now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And so what Peter is saying there is that the thing that we consider most precious gold, it's, it's smelted, it's passed through the fire so that all the dross is taken away.
And it's this pure metal that has lasting value. Just ask all those commercials on TV. The gold has this lasting value in our perception in this life.
And, and Peter says it's worth nothing compared to the tested genuineness of your faith. Your faith passes through trials, which are like the smelting fire that God uses to get rid of the dross, to get rid of all of the things that hinder our faith. And at the end, what is left is something more precious in God's sight than anything else in this world.
One of the most common tests God uses, one of the most common fires, which he passes us through is for us to lose for him to remove something or someone that we love. Be that a job or a parent, a spouse or a child, your health. The question that comes to us in these moments, when we lose that which we love or which we depend on is, can you lose this thing or this person and still trust God? Abraham in Genesis 22 is going to face an extreme form of this test as he is called not only to be okay with losing, but to himself sacrifice literally that which is most beloved to him, his beloved son.
In verses one and two of Genesis 22, we see this test of faith. Genesis 22, beginning in verse one says, after these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham. And he said, here I am.
He, God said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I shall tell you. There at the beginning of verse one, it says after these things, and we don't know what the time period is, but based on other things we see in this story, a number of years have passed since chapter 21. Isaac is no longer an infant.
He's at least a boy of enough age that he can carry the wood for a sacrifice up a mountain. So probably bare minimum, we're looking at an eight or nine-year-old kid, very likely a teenager. And in these years, remember Abraham, this is the child of his old age.
Isaac is a hundred years old, or Abraham is a hundred years old when Isaac is born. And Abraham, who thought he was never going to have a son by Sarah, has now been able to watch this young boy, this young man, grow and mature. And they assuredly have a deep and warm relationship.
He's been able to watch his wife, who I'm sure Abraham loved Sarah before, but to watch his wife become a mother, and that changes a relationship. And he's been able to watch this, and his family, it goes from the waiting expectation of, will God ever give us a son, to now they've had a decade plus of enjoying this good gift, this taste of the fulfillment of the promises that God made to Abraham to make him into a great nation. All of that hope is wrapped up in this boy.
All of the hope, not just for Abraham's own happiness, but for the fulfillment of God's promises to him, is tied up in Isaac's life. And here, God speaks to Abraham and he says, take your son, your only son, whom you love, and sacrifice him. Now, a question that often arises when people read this verse, especially in the last 200 years, has been, is God doing something morally unacceptable in this request? Is God being just like the gods of the Canaanites, the gods like Molech, who are demanding blood sacrifice? And we know that the answer to that is no, because God himself condemns child sacrifice.
In Leviticus 18 and verse 21, God prohibits the people of Israel from sacrificing their children like the gods of the nations do. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of God. I am the Lord.
God says to sacrifice children, to offer a blood sacrifice to mollify the anger of a deity, is offensive to God. Some of the kings of Israel fall into this sin. Manasseh, most notoriously in 2 Kings chapter 21 and verse 6, he offers his children as a sacrifice to these pagan gods.
And that's used by the author as like the capstone of his argument about what a horrible king this man was. So is God asking for that? No. Two things are happening here.
First, God is not asking for child sacrifice to satisfy his anger against Abraham or his family. What he's asking Abraham to do, he says, sacrifice him, offer him as a burnt offering. But what he's asking Abraham to do is to trust him with the gift that God himself has given.
God saying, Abraham, trust me. I gave you Isaac in the first place, and now I'm asking you to trust me with his life again. The second thing that God is doing is setting in motion one of the clearest parables of what is necessary for salvation.
Now, back in Genesis chapter 3, when Adam and Eve sin, God speaks to the serpent, and when he curses the serpent, he says that there's going to arise one who would crush his head, though the serpent would bruise the heel of the savior. Now, that's the clearest indication we have in Genesis 3 through 21 of what the nature of salvation is going to be. But here, when we come to Genesis chapter 22, we see a living picture of what it requires for God to save us.
And I think one of the principles that we learn from this is that when you're looking at your own life, God is up to more than you see. In Ephesians chapter 3, the apostle Paul says that in the saving of individuals and the formation of the church, God is putting on display his power and his majesty for the angels, even the demonic powers, the rulers and the principalities. He's not talking there in Ephesians 3 about he's showing how great he is to earthly powers.
He's saying that God, through his working in saving human beings and forming the church, what God is doing is showing the angels how powerful he is. And then, what we also see is that God is at work in Abraham's life teaching us. First Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 11 says that these things are written down for our instruction.
So, Abraham can't see all of this. Abraham doesn't know that 4,000 years later, we're going to be reading about his life and seeing how did he respond when God called him to offer this sacrifice. He has no idea what's going on, but God does.
God knows how Abraham is going to respond. God knows what he is. He knows the picture that he's about to set in place, and we'll talk about that picture here shortly.
God tested Abraham's faith, his confidence that God really knows best. How would Abraham respond? We see that in verses 3 through 8. So, Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.
On the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. And they went both of them together.
And Isaac said to his father Abraham, my father. And he said, here I am, my son. He said, behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.
So they went both of them together. I think we should probably sit for a minute just with the drama of that story. Here they immediately, it's worth knowing, immediately, Abraham obeys God.
We always tell our kids, and we borrowed this phrase from someone else, but delayed obedience is disobedience. That's exactly right. And Abraham does not delay his obedience to God.
It says, first thing the next morning, he gets up, he gets his servants ready. They saddle the donkeys, they load up all they need, and they head off to obey God. And as they travel, they come to the place that God shows Abraham.
And he leaves the servants, and he says, the boy and I are going to go offer sacrifice to the Lord, and we will return together to you. But as they start marching up the mountain, Isaac is putting two and two together going, okay, we've got wood. We've got fire.
You've got a knife to kill a lamb. Where's the lamb, dad? Where's the lamb? And here is Abraham who for 25 years has waited for the lamb. And I imagine he probably can't even look at his son.
And he says, God will provide the lamb for the sacrifice. Abraham's faithful action, his obedience in this scenario flows from his confident trust. That's what faith is.
It's a confident trust that God could provide everything that was needed here. In verse five, notice that he tells the servants he and the boy will both return to them. I don't think Abraham's just putting them on.
I firmly believe that Abraham believes that they are both coming back down this mountain. In the book of Hebrews chapter 11, when the author there recounts this story, he tells us how that's possible. Hebrews 11 verses 17 through 19 says, by faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.
And he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son of whom it was said through Isaac shall your offspring be named. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. When Abraham takes Isaac up this mountain, he has confidence that either God's going to provide a sacrifice up there, though he does not seem to be looking for that.
He believes that the same God who miraculously provided him a son in the first place would be able to raise him from the dead. Abraham's expectation seems to be that God is asking me to sacrifice my son, but he will bring him back from the dead. That is a striking faith.
The core of Abraham's faith was a confidence in the promises of God. Even if for God to fulfill his promise, it meant Isaac must be resurrected. That's astounding.
We remember Genesis chapter 15 and verse 6, where God had promised Abraham to make his descendants as numerous as the stars. He's going to make his descendants like the sands on the seashore. And it says there in Genesis 15 and 6, that Abraham believed the Lord and it was counted to him as righteousness.
He believed that promise from God. And just in the previous chapter we read in Genesis 21, that through Isaac will your offspring be named. So Abraham is marching up this mountain, believing not only that God will provide descendants for him, but that he will do so through the son whom God has just asked him to sacrifice.
All the way Abraham is having to step by step trust, God will make a way, God will provide, God will bring resurrection. What we see in verses 9 through 14 then is the act of faith. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.
When Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.
For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
And Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide as it is said to this day on the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided. Abraham's obedience in this picture is comprehensive. He is literally taking the knife to slaughter his son, but God speaks to him again in verses one and two.
God had spoken to give him a test, but here in verses 11 and 12, God speaks, bringing salvation. God gives a substitute, provides the ram. Now there's a question here when it says verse 12, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.
For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your only son from me. What does it mean that God now knows? Did God not know before how Abraham was going to respond? This was a big theological controversy. Like 25 years ago, there was this set of very prominent teachers, including one guy up at Bethel seminary in Minneapolis, who were teaching a view of God known as open theism, that God knows all the possibilities in the future, but he doesn't actually know what's going to happen.
And one of the verses that they would point to is this here, where he tells Abraham, now I know. But if we look everywhere else in the Bible for like an understanding of what God knows, God knew before the foundations of the world, that man would sin, that he would be sending his son as a savior for our sin, who he would choose to save from their salvation, and who would be standing before his throne at the end of time, crying out, holy, holy, holy. God planned our salvation before the foundations of the world.
That's not possible if he's just got all of these scenarios out there and he's got to wait to see what happens and play it out as it comes to him. God's not working with whatever hand he was dealt. He's the dealer and he was looking at the cards as he dealt them.
That's not a real great analogy, but there is nonetheless a difference between God knowing something because he is God. He's standing in, we have to remember, like this is looking a little philosophical for a sermon, but God stands outside of time. He created time and space and history.
He's not bound by it. So God already knows what Abraham's going to do because God is just as present in Abraham's day as he was before the foundation of the world as he is right now. All of God is there all the time.
He's not bound by our understanding of linear time, but nonetheless, as he interacts with us in history, there is a sense in which he knows experientially Abraham's trust in a way that he didn't before after Abraham obeys. And the analogy that I would point to here is in the book of Hebrews chapter five, it says that Jesus learned obedience. Now, God, the son, Jesus is two, two natures in one person, God, the son, and a true human nature.
And God, the son has eternally been obedient to the father. There's no conflict between the father and the son, but when Jesus added to his divinity, humanity, and he had a human will, it was not in opposition to the father, but there were things that Jesus did not want to do as a human being. He didn't want to suffer and die.
He didn't want to face God's wrath. And yet he submitted his human will to the divine will, the will of the father, and he learned obedience experientially. Though for in eternity past, the father and the son had never been in conflict.
There would be no need to submit his will to the will of the father. In his humanity, Christ had to learn that. And here, I think there's an analogy where God knows how Abraham is going to respond.
And yet God is experiencing his friendship with Abraham as Abraham actually obeys him. And I remember towards the end of last year, we talked about that the friendship with God is a genuine friendship. God calls Abraham his friend.
And God is not, he's unlike us in the distinction between creator and creature. There's this what would seem to us an infinite gap. And yet he has chosen to, in making us in his image, make us capable of genuine friendship with him.
And so here, Abraham obeys, submits his will to the will of the father. And God recognizes that and says, now I know experientially what it is for you to walk in faith, even in this greatest of tests. The faith of Isaac is also on display.
We see that in verse nine, when they came to the place of which God told them, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar. Now, Abraham is well over a hundred years old, and even a 10-year-old boy could probably resist a 110-year-old man, right? Certainly, if he's a teenager, he would have far more physical strength than his father and would be able to resist if he felt that was what he should do. And yet we see Isaac's faith on display.
And I think it should draw our mind to the book of Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53 and verse seven says, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep that before its shearers is silent. So he opened not his mouth.
And Isaac has asked his father, where is the lamb? And Abraham says to Isaac that God will provide a lamb. And we don't know what's going on in Isaac's head, but surely Isaac knows how unusual it is for his parents to be so old. And surely they have told him the story over and over of how God provided for them when there seemed to be no way, when they could not comprehend how God would provide a son for them.
He did it. And I would think as Isaac is allowing his father to bind him and as he lays there on the wood for the burnt offering, and as he sees his father raise the knife, Isaac too is having to consciously trust God will give life. God will give life.
And God again, as we said, provides the substitute there in verses 13 and 14. Isaac and Abraham somehow noticed this ram caught in the thicket that they hadn't noticed before. This sheep is there and Abraham takes it and sacrifices that in the stead of Isaac.
This is one of those passages that is so intimidating to try to preach because there's so much drama in it that I can't do justice to, but it comes down to this. Will God provide? Abraham and Isaac have to be asking this question the whole way. Will God provide? Will he save? And this is not just the drama of Abraham's life.
This is the drama that is taking place in each of our lives. Will God provide everything we need? Can you trust God? Can you have a firm confidence, a faith that no matter what happens, no matter what he asks of you, no matter what you have to let go of, he will be there and he will be enough. He will provide everything you need.
And again, I said, this story should draw our mind to another young man who carried the wood for his sacrifice up the hill, the son, the only son whom God the father loved. And yet he loved the world so much that he sent that son into the world. And as John 19 and verse 17 tells us, Jesus carried the wood of his sacrifice, the cross up the hill of Golgotha until because he had been beaten so badly, they had to find someone else to carry it the rest of the way.
But he carried that cross up the hill. Well, when Jesus arrived at the top of Mount Calvary on the top of the Lord, top of the mountain of the Lord, where the Lord would provide, there was no sacrifice. There was no substitute rather for him.
There was no substitute for the son of God when he got to the top of the hill because he was the substitute. He was the one who was there to die in our place. On the mountain of the Lord, salvation was provided when the obedient son died in our place and for our sins.
Isaiah 53 again, verses four through six says, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yeah, we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. The perfect lamb of God walked up that hill and died in our place, took our sins.
God crushed him. The father crushed the son. It says later in Isaiah 53, it was the will of the Lord to crush him so that we might be saved.
Jesus was our substitute. Friends, Abraham acted on faith and so was in a position to see God's provision. We too are called to live in faith based on what we have already seen of God's provision in Christ.
Will you trust him in trusting him? Psalm 19 and verse 11 tells us there is great reward. That's what we see in verses 15 to 24 here of Genesis as well. Genesis 22.
And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said by myself, I have sworn declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.
So Abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to Beersheba and Abraham lived at Beersheba. Now, after these things, it was told to Abraham, behold, Milcah has born children to your brother Nahor, Uz, his first born, Buz, his brother, Kemuel, the father of Aram, Hesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaf, and Bethuel. And Bethuel fathered Rebekah.
These eight, Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother. Moreover, his concubine, whose name was Rauma bore Tebah, Gamah, Gaham rather, Tehash, and Mekah. In response to Abraham's faith, we see a repeat, essentially, of the promise of Genesis chapter 12 and verse 3, that God is going to bless and prosper Abraham and he's going to bless all of the nations through him.
And we know that God is responding to Abraham's faith. Again, 15 and verse 6 of Genesis, Abraham believed the Lord and it was counted to him as righteousness. But we have to understand, as we read the Bible, that true faith always acts.
We are saved, as the reformers said, by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. Faith in the scriptural understanding is not just something that you hold in your heart. It's not just something that sits up in here in your head, where you agree to a certain set of facts.
It is a trust, a confident trust in God that acts on his promises and obeys his commands. That's what faith does. Faith itself is the trust, but what faith does is act in obedience to God.
Abraham could not have claimed to believe God in this scenario if he were unwilling to obey what God had called him to do. If when God came to Abraham and said, take your son, your only son whom you love, and take him to Mount Moriah to offer him as a burnt offering, and Abraham said, you know what, God, that's a bridge too far. I love you a lot.
You know, I have faith that you're going to provide for me in the future, but I can't do this thing that you're asking of me. That would not be faith. It would not.
It would be a disobedience that's expressing a lack of trust in God's ability and power to provide. True faith always acts. Now we know we're still sinful.
We fail and we stumble in many ways, but the pattern of faith is obedience. God blesses. He rewards such obedience, and that's not because our obedience somehow earns us favor with God or makes him owe us anything, but God has promised to reward obedience, to bless those who follow him and those who follow him.
In this lecture, I'm going to talk to you about faith, and I'm going to talk to you about obedience. And that's not because our obedience somehow earns us favor with God or makes him owe us anything, but God has promised to reward obedience, to bless those who follow him faithfully. That's what, that's the point, part of the point of verses 20 to 24.
It seems like, why is there this random list of names about Abraham's brothers, kids, like what does that have to do? But you notice in verse 23, that Bethuel fathered Rebekah. And if God is going to provide children for Isaac, descendants for Abraham, Isaac is going to need a wife. And what we'll find out two chapters later is that Rebekah is that wife.
So as Moses is constructing this narrative here of Genesis, he's reminding us, even in this little genealogy at the end of the chapter, that God is in action providing for the fulfillment of his promises to Abraham. What are you tempted to withhold from God? What seems too precious to entrust to him? Brothers and sisters, we should trust in the kindness and the wisdom and the power of God to provide everything that we need. Everything that is good for us to have, he will give.
We are trusting in him. The psalmist says, no good thing does he withhold from those who walk the right way. And so if you are seeking to honor the Lord with your life and to obey his commands, and you don't have something you think you need, or you feel like you might lose something that you need, either he's teaching you patience and he will give it in time, or he will restore it to you.
Or he's teaching you that you don't actually need that, and that he is enough. That kind of confidence in the wise and powerful provision of God should embolden us to trust him in every circumstance. It should embolden us towards faithful obedience in every day life.
If you question his generosity, I would remind you of Romans chapter 8, and verse 31 and 32. Paul has just walked through the golden chain of salvation. Verse 30, those whom he predestined, he also called.
Those whom he called, he also justified. Those whom he justified, he also glorified. Verse 31, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Literally everything you need, God will provide, and you can see that because he gave you his only son.
God has nothing more precious, nothing more important that he could give than salvation through his son, and he's already given that for all of those who trust in him. I want to finish by reading Hebrews 11 and verse 6. I think this is one of the most important verses in the Bible that I've basically never heard here talked about. I never heard it taught growing up.
I take that back. I heard the first part of the verse talked about, but the whole verse is important. Verse 6 of Hebrews 11 says, without faith it is impossible to please him.
That's the part that I heard. We need faith to please God. Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would ever draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who see him.
Friends, we don't just believe that God is out there. We don't just believe that there's some people say pie in the sky when we die. We believe in a God who is faithful and who rewards those who seek him.
And so obedience, even when it is hard, obedience even when it is scary, is always worth it because we're trusting that our loving heavenly father who knows all is going to give us more, abundantly more than we could ask or think. He is a rewarder of those who seek him. Friends, Father God, prone to wander, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, prone to distrust the God I love.
So Lord, we need your help. We need your help to cling by faith to the promises that you have given us, and we need your help to believe that you are a rewarder of those who seek him. Give us the eyes of faith, we ask in the precious name of your only son, the son whom you love, Jesus Christ, amen.
