TAKING A TEST

INTRODUCTION

{Genesis 22}

-We’re in the back half of the school year, and kids are studying hard either at home or in class. School is a part of life, and a part of school is taking tests. I’m sure all the youth and kids have taken several quizzes and tests already this semester.

~But I hope that the youth and kids have better study habits than I had. Too often I would cram all that info in my head a night or two before a test, spew it out on the test, and then by that evening most likely forget what it is I had studied. Don’t do that.

~But tests are a necessary evil to see if the student has grasped the material enough for it to sink in and utilize in life. Which you can’t do if you merely cram, so don’t do that.

-In a somewhat similar vein, we go through tests in life. Even we Christians are put to the test. In a sense we could say that we are tested to see if we’ve learned the lessons that God wants us to learn, and if we haven’t learned it the test comes to help us learn it. This is especially true of learning to live a life that is based not on trust in ourselves or other people, but trust in a God Who gave His Son for us.

~So, God puts us through tests not only to see if we have a grasp of the lessons He teaches, but to stretch us, grow us, and cause us to see our utter insufficiency so we can see His all-sufficiency

-We see that in the test that God gave Abraham—at the age of 75, God had called Abraham away from his household to go to a land that He promised, also promising many offspring—at about the age of 86 God renews the promises and makes a covenant with Abraham, solemnly swearing Himself to the promise—but nothing happened, so Abraham and Sarah take things into their own hands, and the result is Ishmael; but Ishmael is not a part of the promise—then at the age of 99 God visits Abraham and says that the following year the child of promise would come through Sarah

-So, at the ripe old age of 100 years old, Abraham is given the child of promise=Isaac----God’s promises have been fulfilled

-but just because the promise is fulfilled doesn’t mean that Abraham can take it easy and stop walking by faith in God—once the promise is fulfilled, we don’t say: THANKS GOD, BUT I GOT IT FROM HERE

-To see if the life lessons of faith have sunk into Abraham’s heart, God gives a test that involves Abraham’s most prized earthly treasure=Isaac (who is the son he had waited for)--and the same can go for us as well—God gives us tests in life, not to tear us down, but to strengthen our walk with Him; to allow us to see for ourselves what we are made of, and remind us to trust in God and nothing else----let’s look at Abraham’s:

READ Genesis 22:1-19

Genesis 22:1–19 ESV

1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He 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 of which I shall tell you.” 3 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. 4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5 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.” 6 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. So they went both of them together. 7 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?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 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 up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So 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.” 15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 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, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba.

I want to look at the way God tests us to lead us to a greater trust in Him. I believe there were several areas of testing involved here, and we may go through one or all of them. But I want to us to understand how God might test us. First, there is a:

1) Test of the Heart

-v. 1 says that God tested Abraham, and the word for testing there means to prove something, to learn the true nature of something—it is an evaluation of someone’s character

-Like if you were to make a claim that a certain piece of jewelry was made of a certain precious metal, they would run tests on it to prove it, to see if it really is what you say that it is

-God was giving Abraham an opportunity for him to know and to show what he is truly made of=what is truly within his own heart—if he really is all that he said or thought that he was

-We know that the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, so the heart is not something that we can easily know what is truly going on inside of it—we may really believe something about ourselves, but when it is put under trial, we learn that what we thought isn’t reality

-We may think that we are so on fire for Christ, and that we would have no problem sharing our faith with anybody—but then an opportunity presents itself to share with someone that maybe we don’t particularly care for, so we remain silent=we find out in our heart that we are not near as on fire for Christ as we thought we were

-You see, this test of the heart was so Abraham could understand himself better=to prove what Abraham’s character really was, so Abraham could make an honest evaluation about himself—God knows all things, so God knew what Abraham would do and what Abraham truly was inside—so this test was more so for Abraham’s sake than God’s

-We may have times in life when our pride gets the best of us and we think better of ourselves than we ought, so God puts us to the test so we can clearly see what is going on inside of us so we can do something about it in the power of the Holy Spirit

-Here is a dangerous prayer we all ought to pray:

Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. (Psalm 26:2 ESV)

~Pray that and God will put something into your life so you can see yourself for who you really are—someone, who although saved, is still in need of so much daily grace of God. But the test will then cause us to run to God for grace—so do not shy away from the test. There is another aspect of God’s testing, and it is:

2) Test of Understanding

-v. 2—Abraham was so enamored with his son, that his son became the center of his world (instead of God)—so God wanted to test Abraham to give Abraham an understanding about to Whom these affections really belong

-You see, even though Isaac was a direct answer to promise, Abraham went around as if saying, “Isaac is my son. He is all mine!”----but we know that the psalmist says: The earth is the LORD’S and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, (Psalm 24:1 ESV)

-Abraham needed to gain an understanding that Isaac may be his son, but Isaac belonged to God----so God tells him to give Isaac as a burnt offering

-The burnt offering was unique among any other offerings found in the Bible, in that most of the other offerings included portions or the sacrifice that were withheld from the fire on the altar and would go to the priest or person giving the offering—the burnt offering, however, was completely and utterly given to God, nothing held back==THAT WAS TO BE ISAAC

-It was as if God is saying: “Abraham, you call Isaac your own unique son, but you need to realize that Isaac, along with everything else on this earth, belongs to Me”—Isaac as a burnt offering meant Isaac belonged completely and wholly 100% to God, not Abraham

-We may be put to a test so that we come to the understanding that everything we have (EVERYTHING…) belongs to God and He can do with it what He pleases

-Cars? His! House? His! Job? His! Spouse? His! Children? His! Etc.----we may become so enamored with things of this world that God may test us in a way that may threaten its existence so we understand it belongs to Him, not us; as well as learning that these earthly things cannot give us what only God can give us, so for us to put things in their proper perspective and remember our reliance on God, He may test us in this area

-We then learn from this test that since it all belongs to God, we then submit to His plans for all these things----sure, we may make our own plans, but they are subordinate to the will of God

-So that means that we don’t set up parameters about how things are going to be----we don’t ever say that we absolutely will not allow this or that to happen, because that is not up to us—these things belong to God, so He is the one to make those determinations

-A while back, I made kind of a snide comment after seeing a news article or social media post or something going on in a certain city, saying MAN, I WOULD NEVER WANT TO LIVE THERE; and she was like: YOU BETTER HUSH YOUR MOUTH; THE SECOND YOU SAY YOU WON’T GO GOD WILL SEND YOU THERE

-God doesn’t necessarily work like that, when we say we won’t go somewhere He’ll send us there as punishment or something—but we do need to keep in the back of our minds we don’t make the rules or set the boundaries

-Abraham needed to come to that understanding—God gave Isaac, God can then use Isaac as He sees fit, even if it is as a burnt offering

-Parents, be careful to never say things like: My child will never be a missionary/preacher=who are you to dictate to God what He can or cannot do to your child; they belong to God------if you say I won’t do this or that==who are you to dictate to God what you will or will not do; you belong to God

-So that we understand all that, we might be put to the test. Then there is also:

3) Test of Obedience

-God tells Abraham to sacrifice the very child that He promised to give----Abraham had to be thinking within Himself: this does not make any sense; why would God give something only to take it away?

-Of course, as Job found out, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord----but to Abraham, it didn’t make sense

-But sometimes God gives us something that might seem so off the wall, that it makes no human sense—but God doesn’t work by human sense—His sense is quite higher than ours—His thoughts and ways are higher than the heavens

-So, when God tells us something that makes sense or not, we have a choice whether or not to obey----so this is a test of obedience, to see whether or not we actually will step out and do what He says

-I think of the OT story of Naaman, who was a Syrian captain with leprosy. He went to Elisha the prophet to be healed. God through Elisha told him to dip himself 7x in the Jordan River. Naaman thought that was the silliest thing he ever heard and wasn’t going to do it because it just didn’t make any sense. But he was finally persuaded, he obeyed and did it and was healed.

-Now we must realize that God doesn’t say off the wall things just to say off the wall things—there are plans and purposes behind what He does, even the tests we go through

-So, when we come to a command that seems off the wall, we remember that God is a God to be trusted, He does things for purposes and works them together for the good of those who love Him, those called according to His purposes. But then the question becomes will we obey?

-So, what God gives us may be a test of obedience. There is also a:

4) Test of Endurance

-Our passage tells us that in order to get to the mountain God had chosen, it was a like a 2 day or so journey—so think about this: God just told you to sacrifice your son and you have 2 or so days for it to weigh heavy on your mind and heart

-Who knows all the thoughts that ran through his head—there was at any point in those 3 days he could have finally given up and turned around and said forget the whole thing. But it would be a test of endurance, to see if he would give in to despair or if he would keep fighting on despite his feelings and emotions and despite the helplessness and hopelessness that he felt. Of course, he did not know what this endurance itself would build inside of him.

-There is an old Indian parable about two frogs who found themselves in a dairy. Hopping and jumping around as frogs do they both jumped into a milk pail half full of milk. After swimming around for some time they tried to get out. But the inside of the pail was too slippery and there was nothing on which they could rest so that they could jump out. One frog thought it was useless trying to swim on and just gave up hope and sunk and was drowned.

The other carried on swimming, hoping against hope that something would turn up. He swam and he swam until he began to feel tired. But by this time the milk, which was full of cream, had become thick. When the frog had swum some more the cream had been stirred so much that it became a solid lump of butter. On this the frog could scramble and rest. And from it he could easily jump out of the pail into safety.

-The endurance of walking those two days God could help to prepare Abraham for what was to come. So, even with everything so heavy on his mind, he endured and kept at it, not knowing the outcome, but trusting in the character of God—which leads:

5) Test of Belief

-It came to a point of whether he really believed God was Who He said He was and would do what He said He would do----did Abraham really believe the power and force behind God’s Words or not?

-Abraham knew God promised him the land and promised him descendants specifically through Isaac, and that through those descendants the world would be blessedà so, would God do it or not?

-How could God have Abraham sacrifice Isaac and still have descendants through him----Abraham chose to trust God, that God would figure out all those details, so Abraham told the servants that both he and Isaac would return to them after the sacrifice----Abraham did not know how, all he could do was believe God was Who He said He was and would do what He said He would do

The writer of Hebrews gives us a little bit of a peek into what Abraham was thinking at this point:

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. (Hebrews 11:17–19 ESV)

-so, this is Abraham’s thoughts: God gave the promise, I received the promise, my seed will be called through Isaac, so if I do sacrifice him, God must then be going to raise him from the dead somehow

-This is where all testing should lead us to—trust and belief in God, His character, and His Word

CONCLUSION

-Abraham came through the test—he passed==this led him to experience God’s provision in abundant ways that expanded his knowledge and experience of God

-but maybe you are going through tests right now—what is it that God is trying to teach you? Have you sought Him out to find if you need to see yourself for who you really are? Do you need a clearer understanding of what in your life belongs to God? Do you need a lesson in obedience or perseverance, or maybe you need your trust in God enhanced?

-Whatever it may be, these tests ought to drive you toward God, and not away from Him--and then through Him you will find your all-sufficiency in life—not only in this life, but also in the life to come==as much as Isaac was going to be a burnt offering wholly given to God, much more did God sacrifice His Son wholly for the forgiveness of sins

-Have you trusted in Him? Christians are put through tests, but if you are not a believer, all your experiences in life ought to cause you to realize your sinfulness before a holy God and your need of a Savior, so come to Him by faith today…