The Mountaintop of Testing

Genesis 22:1–8 KJV 1900

1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. 2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. 3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. 5 And 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. 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. 7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

One of the paradoxes of life is that testing times are transforming times. We don’t like them, we dread them, we wish they would go away, but testing times are transforming times.

Think for a moment of a brook passing through a wooded hillside. Take away the rocks and small ledges that the water must pass through and clash against, and the brook will lose all its character.

Pilots in training: first simple situations, progressively they go through a series of tests that lead up to absolute disaster.

Testing times are transforming times, and if you fail them, you will remain trapped in the cocoon of mediocrity.

Some would be sorry to see a little cocoon being jostled and shaken by the insect inside fighting its way outside, yet of you take the cocoon and in trying to help it, open it so the caterpillar can emerge without the struggle, you’ll find the butterfly cannot fly. He lacks the strength he would have gained by the breakthrough.

Genesis 22 brings us to the mountaintop of the testing of faith. The Jewish writer’s say that in an amazing way the Shekinah glory of God settled on Mount Moriah. It would be the very mount on which Solomon would later build his temple so that every day sacrifices could be made.

And there we find the question that has rung down through the ages: where is the lamb?

In Genesis 8, the first lamb was slain on behalf of the people that God might look down and forgive their sin, and it was a lamb provided by God.

From Noah to Calvary, the question would arise again and again’ “Where is the lamb?” Ultimately it would be fulfilled as John the Baptizer, with the Jordan River running past his feet, answered:

John 1:29 KJV 1900

29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

The testing of our faith brings transformation in our lives.

I’d like to share four principles about the testing of our faith.

1. Since your faith is going to be tested, it is critical that your faith be placed in the proper object.

No faith in life is greater than the object in which it is placed. Perhaps the reason we see such little faith in American today is because of the understanding of God we have. It is too often watered down to a God who is pitifully small.

For instance, some people see God as an authoritarian policeman whose job is to make laws and then enforce them. They imagine God watching them, waiting to see some transgression of the law, so He can pull them over and slap them with some type of divine punishment.

Other people see God as a cosmic killjoy who wants people to remain serious, and humorless, and never experience any joy in their lives.

Still others see God as a divine cruise director whose job, in their perspective, is the keep them comfortable, contented and happy. On their cruise, they don’t want the water to get too rough or the winds to blow too hard. They want the sun overhead, the wind at their back, so they might always be happy.

There is a major dilemma: God is more concerned with your holiness than He is with your happiness. He’s more concerned with the person you are than the possessions you have, He’s also more concerned with your response to circumstances than the circumstances themselves. Thus, those who hold any of these views inadequately experience who God really is.

Many of us form a view of God that we carry into adulthood which unfortunately, isn’t the same God who spoke to Abraham. We might be compared to the little girl who was found coloring by her mother.

The mother asks, Honey what are you doing. Coloring a picture. A picture of what? The mother asks. It’s a picture of God. But honey no one knows what God looks like. They will in a minute.

As the little girl, there are many people who picture God from their experience, rather than experience God from the self-portrait He has painted in Scripture. As a result, they get a distorted view of the God of Abraham.

Patrick Morley wrote a book especially for men entitled Man in the Mirror. He contrasts biblical Christianity with cultural Christianity saying:

“Cultural Christianity means to pursue the God we want rather than the God who is. It is the tendency to be shallow in our understanding of God, wanting Him to be more gentle grandfather than royal God, a grandfather who spoils us and lets us have our own way. It is sensing the need for God, but on our own terms.”

Have you ever been in those shoes, wanting God, but wanting Him on your own terms?

Where is the object of your faith? Is it in a God that you have made up or is it in the God who made you?

Is it in a God who loves you with an everlasting love? Is it in a God who created a plan for your live from the beginning of eternity?

Is it in a God who loved you so much that He gave His son to die on a cross for you? It is in a God who sees everything you’ve ever done, or ever will do, and is willing to forgive it all? That’s the God who molds us and shapes us to be more like His Son.

2. Testing is Not the Same as Tempting

Genesis 22:1

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham.

The NIV renders this as “And sometime later God tested Abraham.” Tested rather than tempted. I think tested really fits the passage better than tempted.

The Hebrew word is nacah, naw-saw, whose primary root means to test, to attempt, to assess. In most Old Testament passages the word is translated as “prove.”

Alexander McClaren, a great preacher and orator from years gone by said:

“In temptation we are told, do this pleasant thing and do not be hindered by the fact that it is wrong. But in testing, we are told, do this difficult thing and do not be hindered by the fact that it’s tough.”

Abraham was tested to the limit. Abraham had waited twenty-five years for that son, his only son, the son of promise, he was 100 years old when his son was born. He had named him Isaac, meaning “laughter.”

Then God came saying, “Abraham, take you son, your only son, take him to a mountain I will show you and there sacrifice him.”

Isaac must have been in his late teens at the time. Imagine how Abraham’s heart must have raced as he thought about his son, the promised blessings, the precious memories, now to be sacrificed on an altar.

I wonder if he told Sara what he was going to do. I would expect not. He knew the overwhelming response that would have come is Sara knew.

So, the next morning the blankets were put on the donkey, the wood was loaded, his teenage son called alongside. Most likely they had done sacrifices together before, so when they stared off on that three-day journey maybe Isaac didn’t even question the purpose of the trip. But the heart of Abraham trembled inside.

For three days and at least two nights they walked. Forty-two miles to the north to a place called Moriah. It was the very place on which the temple of Jerusalem would be built (900) and Solomon would dedicate. It would be there at that sacrificial mountain that they would stop, and Abraham would say “you servants stay here, Isaac, you come with me.”

Abraham took the wood and put it on his sons back. With every step he took, the sacrificial knife slapped against his thigh. With every crunching of the rock beneath his feel his mind raced to what was only a short walk ahead.

Then Abraham hears that question, “Father, the fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb?”

Imagine how difficult it must have been for Abraham to answer. I can image the words hung in his throat for a moment, before in a raspy voice he said “God will provide the lamb.”

James 1:2–4 KJV 1900

2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

It means keeping on when the load is heavy. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything.

In the next book of 1 Peter, the impulsive, dynamic Peter who, having been broken by the hand of God says:

1 Peter 1:6–7 KJV 1900

6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

Many of us feel like God’s job is to provide power, peace and provision in our lives, and He has promised all three of these. But He promised one other thing, tests. It is in these tests that the peace that passes all understanding is truly found. Amid the tests we find God’s provision is sufficient. Through the tests the power of God is fully experienced.

Paul would pray years later:

Philippians 3:10 KJV 1900

10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

I find in my world it’s not on the mountaintops that the greatest growth occurs, it’s in the valleys of the trials that the mettle of faith is put in place. You cannon know the power of His resurrection without the fellowship of His sufferings.

Real faith is strengthened by tests; superficial faith is destroyed by tests. If you want the faith that only God can give, you need to understand that trials, tribulations and tests are the food of faith.

3. Faith’s Testing Involved a Demand

V2. ….Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest…..

The Lord did not want the son; He wanted to know if Abraham’s will was submitted to His. And God was asking, “Am I the Lord of your life?” it’s the same question God asks you today. Do you love most the God who gives the gifts, or do you love most the gifts God gives? Did Abraham love Isaac, the gift, more than he loved the Giver?

God instructed, “Take you son, your only son, Isaac, and sacrifice him.” Our temptation is to hold God loosely and hold things lightly. Do you understand that it is hard to hold closely the hand of God when it is full of other things?

There comes times when God says, “What do you love most; do you love Me or do you love things I give you?” The demand of the faith was, “let go.” What is it today which God is challenging you to let go?

What is it today that could be short-circuiting the relationship between you and God. It could be He’s saying to you through the megaphone of pain or loss, or adversity, “Hold Me closely, hold things loosely.”

4. The Testing of Faith is Followed by Reward

As the hand was poised to plunge the knife, the angel of the Lord said, “Abraham, Abraham.” This was not the first time Abraham had walked by faith. In test after test, God had been bringing him along, so that when he arrived his faith would be ready.

One of the rewards of faith is an ear that is tuned to the voice of God. When you walk with Him through trial after trail, and test after test, one of the things you learn is to hear His voice when He speaks.

What would have happened that morning had the hand been poised when the voice rand and Abraham had not recognized God’s voice? As that knife blade glistened in the sun, God’s voice called, “Abraham” and he heard.

Proverbs 8: 34 says:

Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.

Furthermore, Abraham had committed himself to the will of God. “Abraham, take you son.” He was willing to do it even if it meant plunging the knife. But don’t overlook the faith.

Go back to verse 5

And 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.

But hadn’t God said, sacrifice Isaac? Jumping ahead to Romans 4, you will find it says”

20) He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

21) And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

Abraham thought, “If God tells me to plunge the knife and I do, it’s okay, because He who make the promise will keep the promise and bring it to fruition. So even if the knife falls, God will just bring more glory by raising him from the dead.” That’s faith.

So Abraham proclaimed in verse 14:

And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. (God will provide)

I have found an interesting pattern in my own life. When I go through points of testing, I usually am tempted not to call those places “God Will Provide.” Rather, I’m usually tempted to call them “Here I got tested.”

But notice Abraham’s perspective. Rather than focusing on the challenge through which he had gone and the emotional turmoil he suffered, his focus is on God who provided.

This epic story was a dim foreshadowing of what would happen 2000 years later when One greater than Isaac stepped onto the scene. Listen to the Scripture again “Abraham, take you son, your only son.”

Recall John the Apostle as he would later say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” Abraham loved his son. Remember 2000 years later, following His Son’s baptism that God would say, “This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Did you notice also in Genesis 22:6 it says Abraham put the wood on Isaac’s back, just like 2000 years later on the Via de la Rosa where Jesus Christ would bear a wooden cross on His back, to another mount, one called Calvary.

And did you hear Abraham say “God will provide the lamb.” The only sacrifice acceptable to God is the sacrifice He Himself provides.

Finally, “And he bound Isaac and laid him on the alter.” A young man in his late teens could have easily resisted a man some one hundred years his senior, but willingly Isaac laid his life on the line.

Two thousand years later, one greater than Isaac would say, (John 10:18) “I have the power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”

What a picture Isaac portrays of the true Son who would lay down His life on a mountain called Calvary.

Perhaps today God has you on the way to your own mountaintop of testing. Maybe you’re already there. Remember, it is on the mountaintop of testing that the true quality of our faith is revealed.