The Test of Faith: Abraham's Sacrifice

In our small group study on Sunday morning, we're talking for this whole quarter about the idea of atonement. We don't use that word very much in our vocabularies. We're talking to people around us. But it's a very important word, or the concept is a very important concept. You probably have had people sometime in your life that you got at odds with, or they got at odds with you. It may have been something you did, or something they thought you did. It may have been something that they did, or you thought they did, and there was kind of a wall between you. You didn't know that you could trust them for sure. You weren't sure what they thought about you. You sort of heard rumors that maybe they were mad at you or didn't like you. And so when you saw them, you didn't know quite how to talk, or you didn't know quite what to say. You felt there was a wall, a separation, a distance between you and them. Whenever that distance is all cleared away, and you can walk up to that person and not feel any hesitance, or any uncertainty, or any insecurity, then atonement has come. The two of you are now one. There's no barrier. There's no wall between you. A study of this in the Bible is a description of how we relate to God. Because all of us have offended God in some way or other. And some of us do it every day. Most of us do it several times a day. So you have this great ruler of the universe who looks down on this world and says, my goodness, how these people have built walls between me and them. How in the world can I get through that wall so that they will feel that I'm their best friend, and I can feel that they really care for me? How is this wall broken down? We're going to be looking at this for the whole quarter, about what the Bible teaches about this particular subject. The text that you've used today, or today that I want to use, is a text about Abraham, a very powerful figure in the Bible. Abraham wasn't a man who was a Hebrew person to begin with. He was really of the, what we would call the Arab, Arabian lineage. His family lived in a place sort of near Kuwait City, down in that area, which is now Iraq. They moved up to a place which would be in Syria, what we call Syria today. And it was there that Abraham came face to face with God. God met him and, for the first time, spoke to him in a way that he knew God was talking to him. God said to him, Abraham, I want you to follow me. If you will do what I ask you to do, I'm going to take you to a place and give you a wonderful land that will be able to provide for you. I'm going to make sure that your friends are my friends and your enemies are my enemies. And I want to promise you that though you're a single man, 75 years old, no children, not single, and since he didn't have a wife, he had a wife, but has no family, you will have descendants like the sands of the sea, like the sands of the shore, millions of descendants. Abraham believed God, and he started out following God where he wanted him to be, led him to the land of Canaan, and then said to him, all of this is going to be yours, I'm going to give this to you. This will be the place that you can live. And I want to promise you that all the people who are kind to you, I'll be kind to them. And all the people who are your enemies, they're my enemies, I'll stand beside you. All I ask is that you do faithfully what I ask you to do. 75 years old, Abraham started out with a great promise that God would give him descendants as numerous as the sands on the seashore. Time went by, no children came to Abraham and his wife. They waited and waited and waited. God came again and said to Abraham, the second time he confronted him, and said, I want to make a contract with you. I want you to make a promise to me, I've watched you and you're a faithful man, and I want to make a contract. And so they cut animals in half, and Abraham walked down the middle of those animals and he said, may you do to me what we've done to these animals if I don't live in obedience to you. That was a promise he made to God. God said, I want to make a mark for you, and he ordered circumcision for Abraham. The mark that he belonged to God, the promise from him to God. Still no children came. Sarah got tired of waiting for a grandchild, for a child for herself, and so they decided to have a surrogate child, what we would call it today. Ishmael was born. He was a pride of Abraham's life. They raised him and he loved him. And then, as often happens, God came again with a promise. Abraham was 99 years old, his wife Sarah was 89 years old, and God came and said, I'm going to give you in the next year a child. Sure enough, a child came. The children began to grow up together and Sarah noticed something that Ishmael was picking on her son. He was the older of the two, as kids do. Then she began to think what would happen as they grew up and they died. All the inheritance would go to the oldest child, the first child. So she began to nag at her husband and say, Abraham, we've got to get rid of that woman and that child because our own son will not be able to have the inheritance he should. So Abraham resisted. Then God now, for another time, came to him and said, listen to your wife, get rid of Ishmael and his mother. So Abraham watched as his son, his oldest son, was taken away from him. Now that event had just passed for Abraham and this is the story that comes next. Sometime later, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, hear my reply. Then God said, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about. Early the next morning, Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son, Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out to the place God had told him about. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to the servants, stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you. Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and placed it on his son, Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father, Abraham, father, yes, my son, Abraham replied, the fire and wood are here, Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And the two of them went on together. When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham, here I am, he replied. Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said. Do not do anything to him. Now I know you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. Abraham looked up and there in the thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the place the Lord will provide. And to this day it is said on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, I swear by myself declares the Lord that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. Make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies. And through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me. This is a rather distressing story when you begin it. You can only imagine what it actually did to Abraham as he heard God speak to him. He had been used to God coming to him not very often, only four times in his whole life, years between them. Now he's older, over a hundred, and now he's lost his son, the oldest son, and he now only has the son of promise. And to hear the words of God to say, I want you to take your son and I want you to offer him as a burnt offering. It just doesn't sound like God to us when we read this passage. It sounds so foreign and so difficult and so difficult to see God even mention this. Many people who read this story think it must be some kind of strange thing placed here sort of to confuse us. God had a purpose in this story. What he was trying to help us with is to understand what is it like for a person to live in this world and be at peace with God. What is it like to be able to look God in the face and say, there is nothing of ill will between you and me? You'll notice the story starts out with God saying, sometime later, God tested Abraham. Now you know what it means to test something. If you find a piece of metal and you think it might be gold, you take it to an assayer and he tests it to make sure the percentage of it is either rocks or gold or full gold or whatever it is. But they test it to make sure they know what's inside of it. You know what it's like if you're going to buy a car, you go to the car dealership and you say, I'd like to drive this car around and you test drive it so that you might know if it really drives the way you want it to. God had asked Abraham years before, I want you to follow me and I make this great promise to you and he waited a long time before he came back to Abraham and said, now I want to say to you, I see what you've done and I want to make a contract with you. A lot of time between that first and second visit and then a lot of time between that second visit and this one. God now says, I'm ready to give you that son and I'm ready to fulfill the promise I have in you, but I want to see if you're really the person that I thought you were. All of us have discovered in our relationships with people that not everybody we meet turns out to be the person we thought they were. Many a person has married only to find out the person they're married to is really not the person they thought they were in the beginning. Many people have tried to do business with someone they thought was an honest person only to discover that you have to be careful because people are not what they appear to be. God wanted to test Abraham to see what he was really like. What would happen in the times when it was difficult to obey God? Could he count on Abraham to do what he was supposed to do? Now the taking of a life of a child is rather strange for us. We see it in our culture as a terrible, heinous thing. Abraham didn't see it any more pleasantly than we do and God certainly never intended to take this child's life through his father. But all around Abraham there were people who offered their children as sacrifices because they thought it would please the gods and that God would be happy with them. So God kind of comes in a disguise in this situation and begins to act like the God that he's really not and says, I want to test you so I'm going to ask you to do something that is far beyond anything that you would ever expect I would ask you to do. I want to see how much you trust me. And then he makes it even harder. Take your son. That's a hard enough word, isn't it? Your only son, Isaac. And so it gets harder. The one whom you love. And so it gets harder. God did not make it easy for Abraham. He reminded him that what he was asking was painful and difficult and looked like on the surface that it would be the end of Abraham's family and life. It even was so difficult that he thought, you know, God promised that my children would be like the sands on the seashore. And then he gave me this son in a miraculous way. And now he is asking me to destroy the son he gave me. He looked to Abraham in this situation like he was being asked to do the very thing that would be the opposite of what God wanted him to do. The fact is that sometimes in our process of living for God, he does ask us to do things that are very, very difficult. He asks us to do things that seem dangerous to us, sometimes dangerous because we lose our friendship, sometimes dangerous because we may lose our jobs, sometimes dangerous because we might die. There are missionaries around the world serving in places. We see them in our bulletins where we can't even tell their name. For if the people who were living in those places knew their name, their lives would be in danger. I remember a young lady who came and spoke to our church one time, and she was called to be a missionary to Iraq during the time when we were kind of at war with them. They had captured some of our people and held them for captives for a long time. And someone in the congregation said, Aren't you afraid to go to Iraq? It's dangerous. She said, I think the most dangerous thing I could ever do was to refuse to do what God asked me to do. She was saying, I know it's dangerous over there and I might die, but I think if I said no to God, I would place myself at even greater risks. What Abraham discovered was that sometimes God asks us to do things that are unreasonable, that seem dangerous to us, seem destructive to us, and actually cause us to think that we're going to destroy everything that we've worked for. God was trying to see if Abraham believed in his own judgment or if Abraham trusted him. Abraham says nothing in reply to all of this. He didn't argue with God. He didn't ask for an explanation. He simply began to pack his stuff and make ready for the trip. God said, Go to Moriah and I'll show you where I want this to take place. Walk they did. Two servants are with them. He gets inside of the place where the sacrifice is to take place. He leaves his servants behind, starts with his son. The son asks them the question, you have things for the fire, it's good. What about the sacrifice? Where is the lamb going to come from? We don't know what Abraham thought. He said the Lord will provide the lamb. We don't know if he thought that there would be a lamb provided other than his son. When he got there, there was no lamb. He didn't seem to complain about that. In the New Testament, in a couple of the writings there, the authors say that Abraham did this because he believed in the power of God. He believed that God could actually raise the dead and if he were to kill his own son, that God would raise his son from the dead. God never promised that. Abraham never says it in the story, but that's what's said in the New Testament. Perhaps that's exactly the truth. We don't know. What we find in Abraham was the quality that allows a person to be very, very close to God. He believed that in the end, God was going to do what was best and right. If you don't believe that in your life, you will often times find yourself in a place of despair because you look around you and see that in spite of the fact that you've tried to live the way God wants you to, in spite of the fact that you've read the Bible and you've talked to God about the issues in your life, in spite of the fact that you've done the things that you think you should, your future looks absolutely black. Sometimes it can be because of family circumstances, alienations within the family. Sometimes it can be because of financial circumstances, loss of a job or inability to pay your bills. Sometimes it's just because it seems everything you try to do seems to end up backwards. But there are, for sure, times in your life when you get to a place where you think, what I'm facing now seems absolutely hopeless. If there was anyone in the world who ever faced a circumstance that seemed that way, it was this man, Abraham. But even when his son asked him, what about the lamb? He said, the Lord will provide. It was this absolute confidence in God that removed any barrier between Abraham and God. You see, when we get in places where circumstances don't end up the way we want them to, we get mad at God. I mean, so many people are mad at God. They don't want to go to church. They don't want to believe in God because somewhere, somehow, something was done contrary to what they wanted. Maybe they lost a job or maybe somebody in their family died or maybe they had a car accident or something that took place and life was not exactly the way they wanted it to be. And so they said to God, I do not trust you anymore. Abraham was at the place where he could have thought that. God has put me in an impossible situation. He made this wild promise to me and now he asked me to destroy any possibility of it. Except that he believed in some way, even though he didn't know and even though it hadn't been promised by God, that the promise God made that he would have descendants so numerous to be more than the sand on the seashores, that God was good for his word. The faith that Abraham had, the Bible says, is what changed his life and what saved him. It made him a different kind of person because he could live under the most difficult circumstances like this with confidence that the future was not black. What kind of person lives in the world where there's no barrier between them and God? It's the kind of person with that kind of radical confidence in God. Now whenever you read this story, immediately you see God as an enemy. And Abraham could have seen God in the same way, but he didn't. He didn't because in spite of the circumstance that he was in, he remembered in the beginning that God had made him a promise. Your descendants will be as numerous as the sand on the seashore. He came back another time and said to him, your descendants will be as numerous as the sand on the seashore. The word of God spoken twice. He believed that more than the picture in front of him. He could see with his own eyes, touch with his own hand. That's why all the way through the scriptures, Abraham is held up as a man of great trust. He believed the promise of God. And so when you come to give your life to Christ and you say to God, I place my life in your hands. I pledge from this moment on to live my life in obedience to what the Bible tells me is the right thing. And God says you do that and I will take care of you. I will help you with all the decisions you have in your life. I will provide your material needs. I will protect you from the things that will crush you. And I will promise you that when your life is over, you will have been a great benefit to the world. Four powerful promises. I will help you with your decisions and then when we make a decision that appears to us as if it's going to be bad, we get angry with God. Give him time, let it work out. You will find many, many people who say there was a time in my life when I made a decision asking God what to do and I thought I did what he wanted and it looked like disaster was coming to me. But you know, I discovered later that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life. That's the way life is, living with God. Sometimes in the middle of all this stuff you say to God, I give you my life and I'm going to do what you ask me to do as best I know how. And you try. And you discover that sometimes the material provision for you is not quite what you'd hoped it would be. Not enough money comes in to pay for what's going out. You get in despair about that and you begin to think God is not keeping his promise. And then if somebody helps you and you sit down and begin to make out your budget as to what you're doing, you're saying, well, you know, I don't really have to do this and I don't really require that and I don't really require this and when you sit down in stewardship you discover God has provided everything you need. Or you discover that pretty soon your physical, your financial circumstance changes. Something happens. Different job, raise, whatever it is, and God takes care of you. God doesn't promise that everybody's going to be wealthy. What he promises is, I will take care of you. I remember looking at a fellow one time, he was a member of this church, he didn't have very much money, but he was a very faithful guy. Always at church, always praying, always doing everything God wanted. I was thinking about him praying saying, God, why don't you bless this guy more than that? He doesn't have very much. And then it occurred to me he was one of the most content and happy people that I knew. God said, what is it that makes a person happy? A lot of money or a contented spirit? I know a lot of people with a lot of money who are not very content. I know some with a little bit that are not content either. What I really have promised you is, if you will listen to me, I will give you what you need in your life to find contentment and fulfillment. And sometimes you find people in life who are angry because things have happened to them. Somebody did something bad to them years ago. I met people who have been carrying grudges for 50 years. They're mad at someone who did something to them when they were 20 years old. They can't forget it, and they can't forgive, and they're bitter, and they're resentful, and they're angry. Why did God allow this to happen to me? Well, he was testing you to see if you could forgive. And you know what he's found out? You can't. All you have to do is to say, that was a terrible thing that happened to me when I was 20. And you know what, God? I'm going to forgive that person, and I'm not going to think about it anymore. And you're set free. God protects us from the things that would destroy us if we let him. And he ends up by saying, I'm going to make your life meaningful and worthwhile. And I know a lot of people that have worked in church, and they've taught Sunday school, and they've did things around in the church with their whole life, and they start out and nobody knows their name, and when their life is over, nobody knows their name. But there are scores and scores of people who know who they were, and their lives were touched by them, and they never knew it. There's a story in the Bible. A woman comes into the temple. She's going to make her offering. She has a penny. She goes and puts it in the box. Jesus is looking at her, and he says, this woman doesn't know it, but from now until the end of time, people will know her because she gave generously to God. And people still know that story about her. When they read the Bible, there she is. You don't know the influence your life is going to have. Don't gauge it by your birth and death. God has far more in store for you. So what do you do when you have these situations that look impossible? You trust the promise of God. I will guide you to make your decisions. If it looks wrong today, forget that. Remember my promise. I will provide for you. If it looks like it's not enough, forget what it looks like and remember the promise. I tell you right now that I'll make sure that you won't be destroyed. If it looks like you are, forget it. I will take care of you. If it looks like your life hasn't counted for anything, if you've obeyed me, I will promise you after it's over, you will not ever know the number of people your life has touched. The promise of God believed. What kind of man lives in such close connection to God that he and God are just one, drawn together? It's this kind of man. The man who believes the promise of God regardless of what the circumstances look like. That is what faith is. So all through the Bible, people point back to Abraham and said, Abraham trusted God and God said, a man who does that is my kind of guy. He was tested and found to be genuine, the real thing. At the end of this story, the angel says to Abraham, speaks up to him, you really have been the person God wanted you to be. I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you've done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashores. Your descendants will take possession of the cities, of their enemies. And through your offsprings, all the nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me. In this group listening, you are being blessed by Abraham. He never heard of our city. He never heard of this country. He never knew of you. But God's promise to Abraham has been fulfilled. God has been proven faithful. You don't have to do anything now, the angel said. Now I know you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. What God asks is that you say to him, My life is yours. Whatever you ask of me, I will do. You become at one with God when you say to God, I've been living the way I want to, doing what I want to do, the way I want to do it, when I want to do it. And I can see now that as the ruler of this universe, that's a mistake. I make a promise to you today as Abraham did, to do whatever you ask me to do, let you guide my life. I make a promise to you as Abraham did, that I will trust you for my provision. I will trust you to protect me. And I trust that if I live my life the way you tell me in the Bible, and the way you direct me, that my life will make a great difference in this world. I believe that. So today I want to say to you, I give myself to you as this man Abraham thousands of years ago did also. And when you think about that promise, you're going to think about the things you have to give up. You're going to think about the things that changes in your life that you don't want to lose. There'll be a lot of reasons why you shouldn't do that. And what that is, is the angel pointing out to you, Remember, this is your only son. Remember, it's the son you loved. You don't want to give this one up. And you have to decide, if you trust God, or the thoughts that are placed in your head. Life with God comes from those who trust Him. What God asks of us is to say, I believe that living in obedience to what you tell me in this book is the right way to live. I believe that reading this book is the way to find life. I believe that doing what this book tells me to do will guide me in a way that nothing in this world can. And I want to commit myself to live in submission and obedience to you. And then you start that life at one with God. He will test you to see if you're the real thing. He will watch your life to guide you so you'll miss some things. And He'll also guide you in circumstances that prove and test whether or not you mean what you say. But the Bible tells us the story of Abraham, the man who believed God and changed the whole course of the world. Would you bow your heads please for a moment.