Now I want you to turn in your
Bibles, if you haven't already closed them or looking for them,
back to Genesis 22. Now my text this morning is in
Hebrews chapter 11. Just a few verses there, beginning
at verse 17 about Abraham going on this mountain to offer his
son Isaac up for an offering. Of course, as you heard Brother
Mark just read there, that didn't happen. But what I have here
for you, I want us to go back to Genesis 22 to start with. And I have three things I want
to bring out this morning from this great example of saving
faith. And the first thing I want to
bring out is the test Abraham's faith that's what in the book
of Hebrews chapter 11 verse 17 it says by faith Abraham when
he was tried it means tested and then it says here in verse
1 of Genesis 22 it came to pass after these things that God did
tempt Abraham that's not the same kind of temptation that
we think of in our lives when we're tempted of our own flesh
or tempted of the devil, tempted to do evil, because the book
of James tells us that God doesn't tempt anyone for evil. It's a
test. Saving faith will be tested. The Bible teaches that. And that's
what that means. So the first point that I want
to bring out here from Genesis 22 is the test of Abraham's faith. The test of Abraham's faith. And then I wanna, we'll turn
to Hebrews chapter 11, the main text, and I wanna bring out there
the teaching of Abraham's faith. What does it teach us? And I'll
make some comments as we look at some passages here, or verses
here in Genesis 22. And then we're gonna go to the
book of James. James chapter two, we're gonna talk about the
testimony of Abraham's faith. You got the test, the teaching,
and the testimony. of his faith. Well, this is a
remarkable story, isn't it? Genesis 22, Abraham, the man
of God, called the friend of God, a sinner saved by grace,
justified before God based upon Christ's righteousness imputed.
We read about him in Romans chapter 4 there. God promised Abraham
and Sarah that they would have a child, the seed of Abraham,
named Isaac, They were almost a hundred years old when that
happened, when they had that child. That certainly gives us
a lesson that this child was the child of promise. He wasn't
the result of Abraham or Sarah's strength or abilities. It was
totally of God, a miracle child. It was all according to a covenant
that God made with Abraham. Before this, after he brought
him out of idolatry, He taught him the gospel. People are always
asking about some of the Old Testament saints. When did they
hear the gospel? Where did they hear it? We don't
know, but we know Abraham knew it. Christ said that in John
chapter 8. He said, Abraham saw my day and
he rejoiced. He was glad. He looked to Christ. The future promise of the Messiah
to come in and take Abraham's place and die in his place for
the sins for his sins in Adam and his own personal sins, and
bring forth righteousness, whereby Abraham could stand justified
before God. And so here he is with his son
Isaac. We don't know exactly how old Isaac was at this time.
I expect he was a young man, I don't know, maybe teenager
or what, but scholars debate that, I don't. I guess that means
I'm not a scholar. So, but that's okay. Here it
is, Abraham. God said, Abraham. Abraham said
in verse one, behold, I, here I am. And he says, take verse
two, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac. And we know
Abraham had another son. He had his son Ishmael by the
bond woman, Hagar. But God said, take now thy son,
thine only son, Isaac. Isaac is really the only one.
As Brother Mark said when he was reading this, the promise
of Isaac, the child of promise, does not end with Isaac. It's a greater promise of one
who was coming through Isaac according to the flesh, and that
one is the Lord of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know
what? That's what this story's all
about. He's what this story's all about. Most people, when
they read this, they think it's a testimony to the greatness
of Abraham. And what a shining example of
humanity Abraham was. And faith. Well, do you know
the kind of faith that's displayed here is not of any man or woman
naturally? Now I'm not talking about just
the faith that enabled him to take his son Isaac up on that
mount and draw a knife and seek to plunge it into Isaac to kill
him. First of all, just to give you some, Abraham wasn't probably
at this time the only one who had engaged in human sacrifice. False religion's done that. since
the beginning. And there was a time even in
Israel, in one of their lowest points of their history, they
brought their children to a false god called Molech and burnt their
children alive. Even the Israelites. So it's
not just faith that causes a person to sacrifice their children,
because humans are capable of that. We are. You say, well,
I can never do that. You know, we have the potential
to commit every known sin known to man, but for the grace of God. I'm
sure some of those Israelites who did sacrifice their children,
there were probably times in their life they said they would
never do anything like that, but it got so bad in Israel.
So it's not just human sacrifice. Another thing, too, is human
sacrifice could never take away sin as far as sinful human beings
are concerned. You say, well, Christ was a human
sacrifice. He's the God-man. He's the sinless sacrifice. That's why when we talk about
him being made sin, we need to keep in our minds he was a sinless
person and he died for sin imputed. Sin charged to him, accounted
to him, the debt. He did not become a sinner, he
was not made a sinner, and sin was not transferred into him
in any way that corrupted his human nature, his mind, his affections. He was the perfect God-man on
that cross. And he died under the justice
of God, rightly so, based on the debt of sin imputed, charged
to him. When you get down here, let's
look at it. He says in verse eight, God told Abraham to take
his only son Isaac up to the mountain and burn him as a burnt
offering. Abraham knew that God can only be worshiped through
burnt offerings. That had been established back
in Genesis chapter three. But the burnt offering had to
be an animal appointed by God who had no spot or no blemish. A sinless animal. A sinful human
being couldn't do that. But God said to do it. And so
Abraham, he rose up early. He satted his ass and he took
his two young men with him. They went up there. He says in
verse four, look, on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes.
He saw the place afar off. Preachers make a lot about Abraham's
thoughts going through all this. I don't know what Abraham thought
going through this. I'm sure he probably broke his
heart. But I can't get, the word doesn't tell us these things. Now listen to what he says in
verse five. This is significant. This tells you something about
Abraham's thoughts. Abraham said unto his young men,
abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder
and worship and come again to you. Do you notice what he said
there? Me and him, we're going up there to worship. Me and him are coming back again. Abraham believed that Isaac was
coming back with him. You say, well, what does that
mean? Well, hold on here. He took the wood of the burnt
offering and they went up there. And this is something too, look
at verse seven. What did Abraham teach his son? Verse seven, Isaac
spoke unto Abraham, his father said, my father, he said, here
am I, my son. And he said, behold, the fire
and the wood, but where's the lamb for a burnt offering? Isaac knew that God could only
be worshiped through sacrifice of a lamb. Where's the lamb? You can't go to God without a
lamb, spotless lamb. What's that teaching? Sinners,
me too, We can't go to God without Christ. We can't go to God without the
blood washing us clean from all of our sins. We can't go to God
without a righteousness imputed to us where we can stand justified
before God. How can God not charge me with
sin? There's got to be a just foundation,
a just ground. How can God say, I'm righteous?
You know better, I know better. Has to be a just ground. There's
only one ground, the Lamb that was slain. He's my righteousness. Isaac knew that. Now, when did
Abraham teach him that? I don't know. I always lie. Just
like we who believe teach our children. We want them to know
Christ, don't we? That's my biggest and greatest
prayer for my children and my grandchildren. I want them to
be successful. I want them to be happy. I want them to get
good jobs. I want them to do all these things, but the greatest
desire I have for my children and my grandchildren, I want
them to know Christ. And that's what Isaac knew. Verse
eight, Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb
for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together.
Some scholars say, I don't know if it's this language that when
God made this statement, or when Abraham made this statement,
God will provide himself. That's a good testimony of God
saying he will provide himself a lamb, talking about Christ.
I don't know if that's the intention here, but he certainly did do
that, didn't he? God provided himself. The Lord
Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, and he is our lamb. So they went up there and they
built an altar. Incidentally, you know, the Bible says, whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And that's
true, isn't it? But what is it to call upon the
name of the Lord? How can a sinner call upon the
name of the Lord and find salvation? It's not just looking up in the
air and saying, Lord, or P-T-L, or whatever some idiot does. Or just repeating a sinner's
prayer. Now Abraham is not the first
example of a sinner calling upon the name of the Lord. But the
first time in the Bible that that phrase is used in the Bible,
call upon the name of the Lord, is with Abraham in Genesis 12.
And you know what it says? Abraham did what? He built an
altar for sacrifice and called upon the name of the Lord. My
friend, that's no way a sinner's gonna call upon the name of the
Lord, through the sacrificial lamb, through Christ, his glorious
person, his finished work, as he's identified and pictured
and typified and distinguished in the word. So Abraham built
an altar. Well, there he is, verse 10,
he stretched forth his hand, took the knife to slay his son,
and the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven. Abraham,
Abraham, he said. Abraham said, here am I. He said,
lay, verse 12, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither to
do thou anything unto him, for now I know that thou fearest
God. That's what all this was for.
Test of Abraham's faith. And it wasn't as if God's saying,
well, I'm gonna see if Abraham really believes me. No. No, this
is an example of faith, a test of faith. that points sinners
to Christ. Look at verse 13, Abraham lifted
up his eyes, behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by
his horns. Now here's the type of Christ
here in this passage, in this story. Isaac's not the type of
Christ in this story. This ram is, this spotless ram. Male sheep, that's what that
is. Abraham went and took the ram, offering him up for a burnt
offering in the stead of his son. That's what God did with
his son for his people, for his sheep, for his elect. He offered
up his only begotten son for the sins of his people charged
to him. He that spared not his own son,
how shall he not with him freely give us all things? And Abraham
named the place Jehovah-Jireh. That means the Lord shall be
seen. Here's the glory of the Lord in this sacrifice. The glory
of the Lord. That's a picture. The glory of
the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what it is. You want to see the Shekinah
glory. The greatest glory of God. Look to Christ on that cross
dying for the sins of His people and establishing righteousness
for us. Here's the glory of God. And then he gives us, here's
the lesson, here's the teaching, we've seen the test of faith,
that's God-given faith. Well, how do we know? It's not
just the sincere or the diligent believing of Abraham
necessarily because nobody's going to sacrifice their children.
who's in their right mind. But what's the, there's the test,
but what's the teaching of it? Well it begins here, look at
verse 15 of Genesis 22. The angel of the Lord called
unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and said, by myself
I have sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this
thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in
blessing I will bless thee. Now what's he doing? He's going
back to the covenant that God already made with Abraham, the
promise He said I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the
heaven and the sand which is upon the seashore Thy seed shall
possess the gate of the end. There's victory and in thy seed
shall all nations be blessed of the earth be blessed. That's
Christ Abraham knew that Christ was coming through this boy that
he was going to slay And he says because thou hast obeyed my voice
and so Abraham returned now look over at Hebrews chapter 11 the
teaching of Abraham's faith. And look at it, verse 17, he
says, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, he offered up
Isaac, Hebrews 11, 17, and he that received the promises, there's
the foundation, faith has a foundation, the word of God. Here's what
God said. God promised Abraham some things.
We talked about that in another message. And had received the
promises, offered up his only begotten son. You see, Abraham's
faith is God-given faith because his faith was based upon promises
that he'd already received from God. And it says in verse 18,
of whom it was said that his only begotten son, of whom it
was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, verse 19.
Now look at it, accounting that God was able to raise him up. Our God is able. Even from the
dead, who Isaac. From whence also he received
him in a figure. You see that? In other words,
what that means is this. In Abraham's mind, Isaac was
as good as dead. He was going to kill that boy
because God told him to. That was the test. But here's
the teaching of his faith. God had already promised that
through Isaac, Not only should Abraham have a physical seed,
but all nations of the earth would be blessed. How? In the
salvation of God's sheep, God's elect, all over this world, out
of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, through the Lord
Jesus Christ. You see, the Bible says in Romans
chapter 4 and verse 21 that Abraham was fully persuaded that what
God had promised, God was able to perform. Now how was Abraham persuaded
of that? If somebody came to you and said,
now I'm gonna, some eloquent preacher, and said, now I'm gonna
try to persuade you to sacrifice one of your children, you think
I could persuade you to do that or any eloquent preacher could
do that? Even if the organ's playing low and every head bowed
and every eye closed? How could Abraham be persuaded
of something like that? There's only one who can persuade
a man like Abraham. That's God. That's the power of the Holy
Spirit in bringing a sinner to faith in Christ. That's what
this is all about. Abraham was persuaded that what
God had said was going to be right. And God was able to perform. God is able. He believed God
is faithful. He knew salvations of the Lord.
It's all about God's power. It's all about God's ability. Christ said it. He said, my sheep
hear my voice. I know them. They follow me.
I give unto them eternal life. They'll never perish. Neither
shall anyone pluck them out of my hand. My father, which gave
them me is greater than all. And no man is able to pluck them
out of my father's hand. I and my Father are one. Hebrews 7.25, Wherefore Christ
is able to save them to the othermost that come unto God by him, seeing
he ever liveth to make an intercession for you. It's his ability. See,
this thing about salvation, it's not about our goodness or our
ability or our decisions or whatever, our knowledge. It's about God's
ability. God is able. Christ is able.
Christ is the only one able to put away my sins. Christ is the
only one able to conquer death. Christ is the only one able to
establish righteousness whereby a sinner, a sinner can stand
before God and be accepted. Think about it. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Are you able to do that? No. Not in the court of God. Now you can accuse me before
men and you may get a big following. I've been accused and I know
a lot of people believe those accusations. Some of them may
be true, some of them are false. But I'll tell you somewhere where
you or the devil in hell cannot accuse me and that's before God
in His court. Because I have an advocate with
the Father. Jesus Christ the Righteousness.
And He's able to stand in my place and plead my cause, he's able to save me completely. That's the teaching. Who can
condemn us? It's Christ that died. He rather
is risen again. What ability? You want to talk
about abilities, you want to talk about power, you want to
talk about goodness, let's talk about Christ. Because that's
where it is. It's not in us. You say, well,
God has enabled me to do a lot of great things. Well, I'll tell you something.
There's a Pharisee who said the same thing, Luke 18. He said, I thank God that I'm
not like other men. I'm no extortioner. I'm no thief. I'm not like that old publican
over there. God's enabled me to give twice what I should give
or what I could give or what I want to give or what I don't.
God's enabled me to do this. And here's that old publican
who's bound his head down, and he says, God hadn't enabled me
to do anything except grovel in the dirt and cry, God be merciful
to me, the sinner. You see, this is not about our
abilities. That's the teaching. This teaching
is all about the glory of God in Christ and God's ability to
save those whom he will save. He said, I'll be merciful to
whom I'll be merciful, I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious.
Now turn over to James chapter two. Now here's the testimony of Abraham's
faith, his faith. There's a lot of people who look
at a passage like this and they say, well, there's contradictions
in the Bible. You look at James chapter two,
verse 20. He says, James writes this by
inspiration of the spirit, and this is God's word. He says,
but wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified
by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
Genesis 22. Seest thou how faith wrought
or worked with his works and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled,
which saith Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto
him for righteousness, for he was called the friend of God.
You see then how by works a man is justified and not by faith
only. What's going on there? Didn't
we read last week about Abraham over in Romans chapter four? Are you not justified by works?
justified by grace through a righteousness imputed just like David said
and here James saying we're justified by well here's what now here's
we talk about scriptural interpretation and the rules of interpretation
and one of the rules is context What's James talking about here?
He's not talking about, now listen, his subject is not how sinners
are justified before God. That's not James' subject. Now Paul, when he wrote in Romans
4, that's what he's talking about. He's talking about how a sinner
is justified before holy God. And it's not by works, works
doesn't even, The works of men and women do not enter the picture.
In fact, they are totally excluded. In fact, if you interject works
into the justification of a sinner before holy God, it's evil works. The Bible calls it evil deeds.
It's wicked because they're the product of unbelief. They deny
Christ. They're the product of self-righteousness.
Well, that's not what James is talking about. What James is
talking about is what we might say it this way. What proves
to you that I really believe what I say I believe? That's
what James is talking about. What James is talking about is
the proof, the vindication of our God-given faith as a testimony
to others. Do I really believe this? Do
I really believe God? Or am I just trying to be religious. Am I a hypocrite? That's what
James is talking about. Back over there in verse 14 of
James 2, he says, What doth it profit, my brethren, though a
man say he hath faith and hath not works? What are these works? Well, he's just talking about
the service and the obedience of a believer that's motivated
by grace. He's talking about the fruit
of God's power and grace and salvation. He's not talking about
works aimed at saving me. Because that would be against
faith, wouldn't it? If I'm working in order to be saved, then that's
unbelief. Do you understand that? If I'm
working to make myself righteous, to be acceptable before God,
then I'm denying Christ, who is my righteousness. That's not
faith. But if I truly believe, by God-given
faith, that Christ is my hope, my all in all, that I love Christ,
Do I really believe that? And that's what James is talking
about. Look at it. He says in verse 14, though a
man say he hath faith and have not works, can faith save him?
Can that kind of faith, is that saving faith? If a brother or
sister be naked or destitute of daily food, and one of you
say unto them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled, notwithstanding
you give them not those things which are needful to the body,
what doth it profit? That's what he's talking about.
Even so, faith, if it hath not worked, is dead, being alone.
There's the key. Faith that has no fruit. Well, what was the testimony
of Abraham's faith? Did Abraham really believe God?
That's the question. Did he really believe that what
God promised, God was able to perform? Yes, he did. How do
you know? He took that boy up on that mountain. He laid him
on that altar and he raised that knife and fully intended to plunge
that knife into that boy. And what was the teaching of
it? Christ is coming to do that great
work. If that boy dies, God's going
to raise him from the dead. You know how I know that, Abraham
said? Because God made a promise and I'm fully persuaded. of that
promise. I believe God. That's the testimony
of Abraham's faith. How do we know? How do we know
that we truly believe the gospel? That we're really convinced of
God's promise to us in salvation by Christ? It's by believing
in Christ and repenting of our dead works. Think about it. When Saul of
Tarsus was converted on the Damascus Road, did he come out of that experience
just having a profession of faith and stay with his old religion?
Or did it change his life? Did it turn his life upside down? Well, I want to tell you something.
If God ever brings any of us to saving faith, which I believe
he has, that's exactly what it'll do. It'll turn our worlds upside
down. We won't look at things the same
way as we did. It'll all be in the light of
the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ because
we'll be persuaded by the Holy Spirit in regeneration and conversion
that what God promises, God is able to perform. just like Abraham. That's the same kind of faith.
We'll live our lives to the praise of the glory of His grace in
Christ.