01-66 The Testing of Your Faith--Part 2
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Genesis 22:9-24
Genesis 22:9-24
How do you grow as a Xn? How do you come from being a “babe in Christ” (1 Cor 3:1)—one who has just become part of God’s family (having been saved from your futile way of life) to a fully mature believer? There are plenty of ideas and suggestions as to how that process takes place—books promise spiritual power, higher energy, and success that will have you growing quickly. Unfortunately, many methods leave Xns weak, undiscerning, and immature. And much of this teaching leaves people confused—having a wrong conception of spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is not about your position in Christ, has nothing to do with God’s favor, has nothing to do with time, with knowledge, with activity, or even prosperity.
It is however a process by which you take the principles of God’s Word, truths that have been richly and deeply mined, and skilfully applying them to your life as you walk with God day-by-day.
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.
2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
The Bible is indispensible when it comes to your spiritual growth. There is no shortcut—but there are examples that we are admonished to follow.
4 For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
What was written in earlier times? The OT (39 books, Law, history, poetry, prophets)—in its entirety.
Written for our instruction (for their own times—but has come to us to instruct us).
6 Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.
11 Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
Purpose: so that thru “perseverance” (means to bear up under pressure): and encouragement (comfort, strengthen) of the Scriptures (plural OT & NT) we might have hope.
Paul is teaching that the path to hope is paved with suffering and endurance. This is where trials/testing of your faith comes to light. There are so many examples of bearing up under pressure: Noah, Moses in wilderness, Jospeh sold into slavery, Job lost 10 children, David chased by own son, Judah in Babylon 70 years. And the example of of vv today—Abraham and the test of his faith—ready to offer up his son. I’ve divided the chapter into 7 parts and we’re looking at these so that we can understand the nature of tests/trials (same thing) and thru them growth with respect to salvation.
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James is teaching that trials will result in spiritual maturity—endurance means “to stay in place, to stand against opposition—to stand firm” Trials confirm your faith and strengthen the steadfastness that makes faith complete. That’s one of the benefits to your trials.
I set before you a brief theology of testing as we closed last time:
God is completely sovereign in your testing
Nothing is out of place. The same thing Abraham believed is true of you. The sovereign God who is testing you (to prove the quality of your faith/walk with Him) is governing the total universe (including your trials)—directing them to the ultimate end of bringing glory to Himself and eternal good to you. This is probably the thing we most quickly forget when life’s circumstances begin to overwhelm us—where is God? Does He see me? Does He love me and care what I’m going thru? The answer is always a resounding yes (Heb 13:5-6). He is still on His throne—and His sovereignty rules over all (Ps 103:19).
God is eternally good
68 You are good and do good; Teach me Your statutes.
God does not test us to make us fail but to strengthen what is already there—namely faith and obedience.
28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
God is Infinite in Wisdom
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
God’s wisdom is his perfect knowledge of how to act skillfully so that he will accomplish all his good pleasure—to glorify himself
Perfect in Love
35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
1) The Divine Test
1) The Divine Test
God tested Abraham. The term means to putting something (or someone) under scrutiny, usually to determine its value or usefulness. For example, David decided not to use Saul’s armor because he hadn’t tested it (1 Sam 17:39). God often tests our faith for a positive purpose (Exod 20:20; Deut 8:16); He tested the Israelites to determine whether they fully trusted in God alone (Deut 13:3). The righteous invite such testing (Psa 26:2), while the wicked are punished for testing God (Num 14:22).
God’s test of Abraham to refine his character as a believer that he might walk more closely with the Lord. The test demanded Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac (only son, whom he loves).
2) The Devoted Response
2) The Devoted Response
There was no hint of complaining, no negotiating—just simple, first time obedience. Early in the morning he set off to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. It was nothing short of devotion to YHWH.
3) The Dependent Faith
3) The Dependent Faith
By its nature faith is dependency, reliance, trust in the Lord. Abraham doesn’t have the full picture but when Isaac asks “where is the lamb?” Abraham responds “God will provide for Himself.” That’s a dependent faith. Trusting the Lord to supply what He demands—waiting upon Him.
4) The Docile Child
4) The Docile Child
vv 9-10
Jewish tradition calls Gen 22 “the binding of Isaac” which is of course what Abraham does after he builds the altar and arranged the wood on it. It means to bind the legs of an animal for sacrifice. At this point, Abraham binds his beloved son and its almost like we’re reading these vv in slow motion. And thru it, Isaac is seen as totally passive, dependent, and trusting. He is not unaware of what is happening. He has already put the pieces together (fire, wood—where’s the lamb—vs 7). In all of this, there is no altercation. No resistance, no fighting, no struggling.
This non-resistance seen in Isaac is; only amplified in vs 10…Abraham took the knife intending to sacrifice his son. Moses writes that he was ready to “slay” Isaac. That is the normal terms to describe an animal being slaughtered for a sacrifice. This is even the same term that is used to speak of the pagans which sacrifice their children to false gods (Is 57:5; Ezek 16:21; 23:39).
No reaction is recorded of Isaac from the moment the wood is placed on him. I mentioned last time how an ancient commentary on the OT (before the NT) saw the act of putting wood on Isaac was like a condemned man, carrying his own cross. Moses is not writing to draw our attention to the greater sacrifice of God’s Son…but to show us what faith does in the man who loves the Lord.
That’s how James describes it:
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;
Not a contradiction with Paul but to show that faith without works is a dead, non-saving faith (like the demons). But Abraham shows his justification (which took place many years earlier) by willingness to offer up his son.
There are a great number of parallels, however, to the sacrifice of LJC (God’s only-begotten Son). The wood on Isaac is like LJC carrying His cross:
17 They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.
Isaac did not resist what his father was intending to do to him. In like manner we are told of LJC:
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.
23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;
As Isaac is bound…so too of Jesus:
2 and they bound Him, and led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate the governor.
But perhaps the most clear connection is the question Isaac asked… “where is the lamb?” Abraham says “God will provide for Himself...” That is the question that is seemingly asked by all the prophets and the godly men—where is the lamb? Then one day—a man fro Galilee came to the Jordan to be baptized by a prophet that was turning the world upside down. That prophet’s name was John the Baptist and when Jesus appeared to him he points to him and says to the people around him:
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
So many parallels b/t this and God offering his own Son…Paul might have had this in mind when he wrote:
32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
5) The Demonstrated Obedience
5) The Demonstrated Obedience
vv11-12
Right at the moment Abraham was ready to thrust the knife into the heart of his son…the Angel of the Lord speaks from heaven (as He did in the deliverance of Hagar and Ishmael (21:17)). He is speaking with a sense of urgency to arrest Abraham’s attention (calls his name 2x). Abraham is responsive “Here I am”—just a readiness to live in obedience to whatever God would command.
There is strong support in Scripture for seeing this divine messenger as the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. Before His birth into humanity, He is revealed in the OT—appearing as the Angel of the Lord. We know this messenger is divine bc of what He says in vs 12 “now I know…not withheld your son from ME.”
This is not to suggest that God is an active learner—b/c the one who is omniscient cannot learn. His knowledge is perfect, His understanding is infinite. This was merely to reveal to Abraham that this was indeed a test (something not revealed at the beginning). But Abraham has passed the test. He demonstrated obedience to God—and nothing—not even his most cherished son would stand between him and the Lord God.
God is not asking you to sacrifice your children. He does want total devotion from you. If there is something on this earth that you think you could never give up, or surrender—God would have you know that He wants to sit on the throne of your heart. Nothing should take away from giving Him His proper place of authority and supremacy in your life.
That was the problem for Israel—too many things were taking God off the throne for them. This is why Paul told the Corinthians that what happened in the OT is for us:
7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.” 8 Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. 9 Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. 10 Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. 14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
Abraham passed the test…make sure you would too, if God asked you to give up something that you cherish.
6) The Discovered Sacrifice
6) The Discovered Sacrifice
vv 13-14
Just to have you note that when Abraham heard the voice of God and then discovering the substitute offering—this took place in an instant b/c Moses tells us that Abraham “raised his eyes and looked, and behold...” This is the precursor of what would become the Levitical sacrificial system—substitutionary atonement—a sacrifice stands in place of the one offering it. This is the comment in the text that the ram stood in place of Abraham’s son.
It is at this moment—Abraham’s faith that God would provide for Himself was evidenced to Isaac who had just been spared. The provision of the Lord would become a forever-memorial that centers around this account and one which foreshadows a much greater provision that we have partaken of if you have trusted in LJC for salvation.
Abraham names this place “The Lord will Provide”—the Heb is YHWH Yireh (Jehovah Jireh KJV). I’m going to spend some time next week (outdoor service) looking this deeper with you. For today—remember last week, God told Abraham to go to Moriah and He would show him the place where this offering was to be made. The only other place Moriah is mentioned is in 2 Ch 32 where Solomon is building the temple on Mt Moriah. Where Abraham offered this ram in place of his son would later become the temple mount where the OT sacrificial system would take place and the place where the LJC would become the final, once-for-all-time substitute bearing our sin in His own body.
It is a precious provision of the Lord—foretold 2000 years before Jesus would offer Himself on our behalf.
7) The Definitive Promise
7) The Definitive Promise
vv 15-19
For a 2nd time Angel of the Lord calls to Abraham from heaven. And here, Abraham’s magnificent display of faith prompted God to do something He had never done before. He swore an oath by His own name. It was the reiteration of the promise of God that Abraham’s seed would multiply and that even their enemies would not become an obstacle to the fulfillment of this promise—and the next 38 books would detail a great number of enemies that would stand in Israel’s way—but God’s promise would not fail.
Abraham had every assurance b/c God swore by Himself. Heb offers a commentary on when God does this:
13 For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14 saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.” 15 And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. 16 For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. 17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, 20 where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
The point is that God always keeps His word. Every promise He makes—He always keeps. We’re going to go thru tests that grow in us a greater faith. We grow in faith as we believe the Word God has spoken.
Kent Hughes, explaining the simplicity of the process:
Genesis—Beginning and Blessing Divine Response (vv. 11–18)
The process is this: God comes to us with his word, and we are challenged to believe. When we believe his word, he tests us by stretching our faith so it can grow to greater dimensions than before. There are always valleys next to the hilltops of faith. There are ups and downs. But God grows our faith incrementally, so that we are enabled to give our “Isaacs” to God.
Whatever the HS is pressing on your spirit—do not resist Him b/c He is taking the word of God and applying it to your heart. Respond by faith in obedience to Him. And if you’re presently undergoing a trial/testing of your faith—be encouraged by God’s promise that the testing of your faith produces endurance that you may grow stronger in your faith.