Fontaine said, “Jerry, it’s been so long since we met, we ought to all introduce ourselves as visitors.” I thought that was pretty good.
Actually, between—I don’t know how many snows we’ve had since we got together—it has certainly been quite an unusual year for us.
As y’all know, I’ve been sharing on the life of Abraham in recent months, and we’ll continue that this morning. We’ll be sharing from Genesis 22, so you can go ahead and turn there if you like.
By the way, I’m speaking out of Darby this morning. Usually it’s King James.
As we look at the life of Abraham, we have come to Genesis 22, where the Lord asks Abraham to offer up his son Isaac on the altar. Since I’ve had three weeks to reflect on this Scripture, I have about four hours of messages—but I won’t do them all today.
This chapter really is full. It is full of the Lord. It is full of God revealing Who He is, and I do not want us to miss any of it. Certainly, even with all that I share, I will probably only scratch the surface of what God has to show us in His Word and in this chapter.
As I looked at this chapter, I said, “Here is God.” We see God the Father looking at His son Abraham, bringing him along in his life of faith.
What came to me is that we see in this chapter that God is the author and finisher of our faith, from beginning to end. He is the beginning of our faith, and He is the end of our faith. That is what I will be sharing on this morning: seeing God as the author and finisher of our faith.
Also in this chapter, we see God the Father, Who loves His Son Jesus so much. We see God the Son, Who loves God the Father so much. And we see God’s love for us—so much that He is determined to include us in His eternal purpose.
This is quite a full chapter. This morning, we are going to be sharing on this matter of the author and finisher of our faith.
Faith is a key issue for the Christian life. You know that Abraham is the father of all those who have faith. So, in the life of Abraham, God wants to reveal to us what faith is and the significance of faith in the Christian life. He uses Abraham’s life to demonstrate what faith is and the value that He places upon it.
Brothers and sisters, God puts great value on faith—so much so that He says that whosoever believes on His Son shall have eternal life.
The Word of God is very clear: there is no way to be righteous before God through your own deeds. All your goodness can never measure up to the point where you can overcome the sins in your life, overcome who you are, and become acceptable to God. You can create multitudes of good deeds and good works, and God says they are not acceptable.
That is the story of Cain and Abel. What was acceptable to God? It was that sacrificial lamb, was it not?
What does the Word say?
For by grace are ye saved through faith.
What did it say of Abraham? After God made the covenant with Abraham, Abraham believed God, and God reckoned it unto him as righteousness.
How do you gain righteousness before God that is acceptable? Since you cannot do it through good deeds, God says there is only one acceptable way to find righteousness before Him: through belief, through faith.
Faith is so critical, so fundamental. We know that not only do we gain righteousness before God by faith, but the Word says that once we have been justified by faith, the just shall live by faith.
Faith is absolutely critical to the life of a Christian. Often in our walk as Christians, sin and other things in our lives can put a hole in that boat of faith. Faith can wane, and we can lose the strength of faith, but it can be regained.
Faith is critical not only to the beginning of your Christian life and to becoming righteous before God, but it is critical all the way through your life, as it was in Abraham’s life.
So this morning, we look at God the Father, the One Who is so concerned with you and me. He wants us to learn to live by faith—not by sight, but by faith.
To me, there is a very simple definition for faith—and I am talking about Christians. It is simply to believe God. That is what faith is: that you believe God.
Not merely that you believe in God. Of course, we believe in God, but we also believe God. Many who are not Christians say that they believe in God.
I think real faith is there when we say that we believe God. When we say that we believe God, it means we have a relationship with Him, one in which He shares with us and speaks to us, and we are able to commune with one another.
We say, “Yes, Lord, I believe You. I read Your Word, and I believe what You have in Your Word.”
But the issue for us as Christians is this: Do we really believe?
I think we all believe, but our belief needs to be strengthened and encouraged in these days. May the Lord do that as we share this morning.
In the life of Abraham, we have seen how the Lord begins this life of faith and how He nurtures Abraham. He stays with Abraham. He encourages him. Abraham falls, and the Lord picks him back up and sends him on his way again. Abraham goes a little farther and falls again, and the Lord picks him up.
Finally, He brings Abraham to this great place in his life where God tests him and says, “I want you to give Me back that son I gave to you.”
What a test. What faith.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord is not just after children; He is after sons—mature Christians. A mature Christian has the testimony of faith.
But faith is something that you cannot work up. I want you to know that. Often, as Christians, we try to work it out. We say, “Well, if I believe and I believe and I believe,” and finally you get exhausted and nothing happens. You are trying to make it happen.
Faith is initiated by God. Faith comes from God. We see that in the life of Abraham. That is how his life of faith began.
It says that the God of glory appeared to Abraham. He revealed Himself to Abraham, and Abraham believed—he had faith.
How do we know that Abraham believed when God revealed Himself to him and told him to go out? We know because Abraham obeyed. Abraham went out not knowing where he was going. That is how we know he had faith: he obeyed what he saw, and that was a revelation from God Himself.
Real faith results in obedience.
That is one of the first lessons in Abraham’s life. Then we know from John 8:56 that Christ said of Abraham:
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad.
Christ was revealed to Abraham through this promised seed, Isaac. Isaac is but a shadow of the true promised Seed, which is Christ Who was to come. Christ was the One Who was going to bless the world, not Isaac.
But Isaac was a shadow, and Abraham, through revelation, saw past the shadow to the reality. He saw Christ. It was revelation. It had to come from God.
Then, in Hebrews, we know that Abraham was looking for a city whose foundations and Builder were God. What is that all about? It is about God’s purpose.
Where is this city? What is this city that he is talking about? Go to Revelation 21, and you see the city coming down from heaven, a bride adorned for the Lamb. He saw the bride. It was God’s revelation to Abraham.
In other words, Abraham’s faith was based on reality. Abraham’s faith was based on revelation that God had given him.
Christian faith exists because God works first in you. He has to give you revelation. In my life as a Christian, I have seen people who have become convinced of Christ but have never accepted Christ. They do not have that living revelation from God, and therefore they have no real faith.
Real faith is precious to God, but it is based on revelation from God.
This is very similar to Peter’s revelation. You remember in Matthew 16, when the Lord came to the disciples and said, “Who do men say that I am?”
They said, “Some say You are Elijah. Some say You are the great prophet.”
Then the Lord turned to them and asked one of the most pointed questions that every man and woman on this earth, I believe, God eventually challenges us with:
Who do ye say that I am?
That is the important question. In your heart, Who is Christ? Who do you say that He is?
Peter said:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
The Lord responded, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona.” Then He said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.”
In other words, the Father revealed the Son to Peter. We know this because Christ Himself said:
Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father Who is in heaven.
Brothers and sisters, those of us who have had that revelation from God—how we should cherish it. How precious it should always remain in our hearts. Every time we come to this table, it should be precious to us because God chose to speak to you.
God made that choice. He does not have to. He is God. But He loves you, and He makes that choice to reveal Himself to you.
You look around, and everybody ought to realize there is a God. But how many truly search for Him?
Oh, brothers and sisters, what a great day it is when Christ is able to touch your heart, when the Lord is revealed in your heart—the day in which you say, “Lord, I’m a sinner. I’m not acceptable. I never can be acceptable. I will never be righteous enough to come before You,” and you see that Christ is your righteousness, and you believe it.
Oh, what a day.
Our faith begins with God. He initiates it.
I think it was so telling when the Lord said, “Thou art Peter.” First, He said, “Simon Bar-jona, flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, Simon, but My Father in heaven.” Then He says, “Thou art Peter. I’m changing your name.”
Why did the Lord change his name from Simon Bar-jona to Peter? Brothers and sisters, He changed his name because Peter was a changed man. He was no longer Simon Bar-jona; he was Peter.
Revelation changes who you are. It changes what you are about. It changes your vocation in life. Previously, your vocation was for yourself and centered around yourself. Now your vocation is Christ.
That is why He changed his name at that point.
Then He said, “Upon this rock I will build My church.” In other words, upon this revelation of Who I am—the Christ, the Son of the living God—I will build My church.
The church is not built upon Peter. It is built upon the revelation that God gives you and me of His Son, Jesus Christ. That is what the church is built upon.
So we see in Peter’s life that God reveals Himself in His Son, Jesus Christ, and then He reveals to Peter His purpose: the church.
He does the same for us, brothers and sisters. God first touches our heart. Then we see the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and we can say that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Then, by His mercies, He begins to show us His purpose: for His Son to have a bride. Praise the Lord. It is all based on what God does.
Our place is to believe. Faith.
I am so grateful for that verse in Ephesians 2:8:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.
Brothers and sisters, you cannot have faith without God. It is impossible.
That is Abraham’s beginning. Now I want to look a little bit, I guess in review, at Abraham’s walk of faith. Faith is not only the beginning of our life; it is something that we need to learn to walk in.
His walk of faith was not perfect. He did not simply go from faith to faith and strength to strength. There were failures along the way.
Abraham obeyed the Lord, believed the Lord, and went out. But he got halfway there. He got to Haran, and they settled down there.
You remember why they settled down. Terah, his father, was really leading them. Abraham went out on the Lord’s command, but his father went with him and actually was leading. When they got to Haran, his father said, “This is a good place to take a rest.”
We do not know how many years they were in Haran, but it appears to have been quite a long time. They settled there. Their cattle grew there. Their families grew there. They became prosperous there in the land of Haran.
But they were only halfway to what God had wanted, halfway to what God had called them to. The sad part was that they became satisfied there.
The Lord blessed them. Well, if the Lord is blessing me, it must be right.
Brothers and sisters, I think we should always walk before the Lord with sensitivity. You need to realize how compassionate God is. Even in our failures, often the Lord blesses us. Oh, how merciful our Lord is.
What held Abraham back was natural affection. He had natural affection for his father. He respected his father, as he should. But unfortunately, that natural affection got in the way of God’s will for Abraham and his family.
It was God’s will that they go on, not that they stop there. But this natural affection held Abraham, and Abraham’s faith was not strong enough to overcome it.
So the Lord moved sovereignly. Terah, his father, died. When Terah died, the Lord spoke to Abraham once again and told him it was time to move on. Thank goodness, Abraham believed God, and he moved on toward the promised land.
Brothers and sisters, I think this is a great lesson in faith. The Lord always wants to increase our faith, and He is always dealing with things in our lives.
I have to say, the most difficult things are probably natural affections, because natural affections are good. They are good things. One of the warnings concerning the last days is that people will be without natural affection. So it is not a bad thing in itself.
But we cannot let natural affection get in the way of our affection for the Lord. It cannot take first place, no matter how precious those affections may be to us.
I do not know whether God has dealt with you in this area of natural affection. It may be with your children, your wife, your husband, or your family. Thank the Lord, in some cases the Lord is able to prevail in our lives.
But what I want you to get here is this: even when Abraham’s faith was not strong enough, God did not give up on him.
God held on to him all those years in Haran, and then He once again moved him out. Thank the Lord. God is sovereign, and He does it in love.
God gave Abraham the promise. He said, “Abraham, you are going to be the father of many nations, and the nations will be blessed through your seed”—as the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea. He encouraged Abraham’s faith and strengthened it by giving him promises.
Have you been strengthened by God’s promises? We have all these promises in this Book—promises that He will never leave us nor forsake us.
Have you ever been challenged by that promise? Have you ever been brought to the place where you thought you were forsaken, and then God revealed Himself to you and you realized that all along He was there?
You remember the story of the footprints in the sand. You see two tracks in the sand, side by side, and the man says, “This is God walking with me.” Then later there is only one set of footprints. He asks, “What happened here?” And the answer is, “That is when God was carrying me.”
God loves us. He carries us. He really wants us to be a people of faith and to believe Him.
Abraham, through the promise of God, was encouraged, and he went on to the promised land. Then this little matter of expectation wounded his faith a little bit.
When he got to the promised land, there were giants there. There was also famine in the land. It was not what Abraham expected, and it threw him a little bit.
When you think of the promised land, you think everything will be good, everything will be great: “I have become a Christian; my life will be easy the rest of my life. I will always be blessed. No trials, no tribulations.”
Well, there were giants. There was famine. Abraham decided to go down to Egypt. He did not ask God what he should do. He went to Egypt looking for food and help.
There he got into trouble with the king because he told the king that his wife was his sister. She was so beautiful that the king wanted her in his harem, and only the Lord prevented that from happening.
The king had to rebuke Abraham because he was disciplined by God. When he found out what was going on, he said, “Look, Abraham, you have got to get out of here.”
The Lord spared Abraham. Abraham could have been killed at that point in the fury of the king, but God intervened. God was merciful.
I think there is a lesson here for all of us: expectations. When the Lord does not seem to meet our expectations, our tendency is to turn to the world.
I have said this before, and I have to say it again this morning. I think more televisions are bought, more cars are bought, and more houses are bought when we are out of touch with the Lord than at any other time.
It is because we are seeking from the world what we expected from God. We are always trying to substitute something of the world, particularly if we are disappointed in what the Lord seems to be leading us into.
This is Abraham. This is his life of faith. His faith was wounded at this point, but the Lord once again did not give up on Abraham. He brought him back and took him back up into the land.
Then something happened to Abraham that was totally unexpected. There was a confederacy of kings in the area. I cannot remember whether it was four or five kings, but they came together and decided to take Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities around them. They captured the city, the king, and Lot, who was Abraham’s nephew.
Abraham heard about it, and with his servants, he went out, defeated the kings and their armies, and returned Lot, the king, and the people who had been captured.
This was a great triumph of faith. Melchizedek came and met him, and Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek.
The Lord encouraged Abraham at that point. The Lord said to Abraham:
Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
Abraham had captured those kings, and he was probably a little concerned about them seeking vengeance on him. The Lord strengthened his faith and said, “I am your shield.”
Is the Lord your shield? Have you made the Lord your shield? Do you really believe that the Lord can shield you?
And just as importantly, is the Lord your exceeding great reward in this life? Is He your exceeding great reward? Has your faith so latched on to the Lord that the things of this world are no longer necessary to you?
Even the things of the Lord—have you found that they are not sufficient, that it is really the Lord Himself Who is your exceeding great reward?
What a lesson in faith that is. How that strengthens our faith when it happens in our lives.
Then God made a covenant with Abraham. You remember the story: He took the birds and the animals, and they were parted in half. God told Abraham that he was going to have a son.
No longer was this merely a promise; it was a covenant by sacrifice. Animal sacrifices had been prepared, and at the end of those promises a cloud passed between those divided sacrifices.
In Old Testament times, that was a way of sealing a covenant. God was sealing a covenant.
In other words, God was saying, “I made promises to you, Abraham, but I want you to know now that I am making a covenant, and it depends totally on Me.”
Only the cloud passed through those sacrifices. Abraham did not go through them with Him. God was saying, “I am making a covenant, and it is totally dependent on Me. Abraham, all you need to do is believe. You are going to have a son. The nations are going to be blessed.”
Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that God has made a covenant with you by sacrifice. He put His only begotten Son on the cross of Calvary and crushed Him there. All the wrath that was due because of our sins came upon our Lord Jesus Christ from God’s own hand.
It is a covenant by sacrifice. It is the blood of God’s Son that has been sacrificed on your behalf. God has made a covenant with you.
And you know what that means? It means that it all depends on God.
I am not saying that we do not have responsibility, because we do have to respond to God. But God is saying, “I am committed. I am committed all the way, and I am going to make it happen in your life. I am the author and finisher of your faith, and I am going to bring you to that place.”
You may fail. You may falter. You may run away. But eventually, He will bring you to glory.
What an amazing covenant. It ought to make us fall on our knees and worship the Lord.
That covenant means that not only do you have salvation and eternal life, but you have an inheritance and a promised glory ahead. You are going to be the man or woman God intended you to be. Think of that.
It is a covenant—a covenant by sacrifice.
Abraham had been in the land for ten years, and still there was no son. He had the promises. He had the covenant of God. He said, “Well, I know God cannot be wrong, but I still do not have a son.”
Sarah was concerned, of course, as much as Abraham was. She came up with a brilliant plan. She said, “Abraham, obviously I cannot have a son, but you can. Take Hagar, my handmaid, and you can have a son with her. Then God’s promise will be fulfilled.”
So Abraham listened to Sarah. That was one time he should not have listened.
Instead of going back to the Lord and saying, “Lord, is this really Your way?” he followed that plan.
Brothers and sisters, this is a good application for the life of faith. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with you and me concerning our decisions. No matter how much we are influenced by those who love us, care for us, and want the best for us, they do not always know what is best. Only the Lord does. We really do need to seek the Lord.
Abraham had Ishmael. They were leaning to their own understanding instead of God. They figured it out, and they were doing it for the Lord—but it was the flesh.
God disciplined Abraham at this point. Do you remember how He disciplined him? He did not speak to him for thirteen years. That is a long time. There was no communion for thirteen years.
I get the sense—and I do not know this for sure—that after a while Abraham probably began to accept that this was just the way it was.
Sometimes in our Christian life, when we fail the Lord and do not hear His voice, after a while we begin to say, “That is just the way it is.” Brothers and sisters, that is not God’s heart.
God surely wanted Abraham to cry out to Him and say, “Lord, what is wrong? What have I done? Search me and try me, Lord. I do not know my own heart.”
The Lord knew Abraham’s heart, and He waited for thirteen years. We do not know why or how God chose that point in time, but I believe He had to get Abraham thoroughly purged of the thought of ever trying to do things for God in the flesh, in his own strength, or out of his own wisdom.
He had to learn a thorough lesson. When you operate in the flesh, it is not faith.
Finally, after thirteen years, God spoke to Abraham again and once more made His promise that Abraham would have a son. Ishmael was not the chosen one, He told him, but Abraham would have the chosen one.
Through the conflict between Hagar and Sarah, Hagar despised Sarah because she had borne a son while Sarah had not. Sarah wanted to put her away.
The Lord told Abraham, “Listen to your wife this time. Ishmael needs to go. He cannot inherit. The flesh can never inherit the things of God. He has to go.”
From a human perspective, this was extremely difficult for Abraham. He had tremendous natural affection for his son. I do not think that natural affection ever really left him, and that is okay.
But Abraham had to overcome his natural affection, obey the Lord, and let Ishmael go. And he did.
I wonder whether we have learned this lesson: the flesh can never do the things of God and is never acceptable. No confidence in the flesh—that was the lesson taught that day.
Some have confidence in themselves, and they set out to serve God in their own strength and confidence. The Lord rejects it. That is a lesson we have to learn.
Others have little or no confidence in their flesh or their ability to serve God. The problem is that they do not believe God can do it.
Have you ever been caught in that state where you get so down that you keep looking at yourself? You realize self cannot do it, and you keep looking and looking and looking. The more you look, the more discouraged and disappointed you become. You get so disappointed in yourself that it seems hopeless.
You forgot to believe in God. That is where faith comes in. Abraham had to learn that lesson.
There are some who, after many dealings, learn that they cannot have confidence in themselves, but they must always have confidence in God.
With Ishmael gone, the Lord once again promised Abraham that he would have a son, but He added something this time: “It is going to be by Sarah. You are going to have a son with Sarah.”
A year later, they did.
In other words, God waited until things were pretty hopeless, and then He moved.
I want to point that out because in our Christian lives, there can be many things that we wrestle with. We struggle, pray, cry, and cannot seem to overcome. We cannot seem to get through. Finally, we give up.
But somehow faith comes to believe that God can do it. Often, because God wants to strengthen your faith, He allows things to become hopeless, to where there is no other way but God to resolve the situation. Then He does it.
That is the lesson of faith we have to learn.
Now we finally get to Genesis 22—with fifteen minutes left. I told you that I have been meditating on this for many weeks, so just bear with me.
Let us turn to Genesis 22, verse 1:
And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham.
All these words are so poignant: “It came to pass after these things.” That is not merely marking time. It is not simply saying that after Genesis 21 comes Genesis 22.
The words “after these things” sum up Abraham’s life of faith to that point. Abraham had been through all of this. God was the beginning of his faith, and He had been strengthening his faith all along. Even when Abraham failed, he turned back to God, and God was able to strengthen his faith.
Now they had come to this point. “After these things” represents Abraham’s entire life of faith up to that very moment.
Abraham had learned many lessons. Even in his failures, he had learned because he kept seeing God’s hand. God kept coming back to him.
Our brothers shared this morning that the love of God constrains us. That is why, even in failure, God stayed with Abraham.
One of the great lessons Abraham had to learn from his failures was that he could not quit. He had to get his eyes back on the Lord. After his failures, he had to get his eyes back on the Lord, and when he did, he could go on. But he had to go on.
Sometimes in our Christian lives, we get to the place where we stop. We are not going on.
May we see that God is dealing with us. May we see that God deals with us in love and mercy. May we look unto Him. May we pick ourselves up by the grace of God, look at Him, and follow Him.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.
—Romans 8:28
Then it says that God tried Abraham. The King James says that He tempted Abraham, but James 1:12-13 makes it very clear that God does not tempt people. That is the enemy’s work.
James says that we are tempted when our lusts are drawn out. If we respond to the lusts in our hearts, then sin is brought forth.
We have been crucified with Christ, brothers and sisters, but the sin nature is still there. There is still that tendency toward sin and lust, but you have been crucified, so you do not have to respond. If you will just stay dead and not respond to the temptations.
The point is that there is a great difference between being tempted and being tested. God will test you. He does not tempt you, but He does test you, and He tests you for a purpose.
That purpose is to draw out the character of Christ that He has deposited in you. God had been working with Abraham on this matter of faith all his life. He brought him to this point, and He was going to test Abraham.
His purpose was to bring out that life of faith in Abraham to its full extent, to strengthen Abraham in faith. Not only that, when our faith is tested in this way, it glorifies God.
If need be, ye are put to grief by various trials,
that the proving of your faith, being more precious than gold which perisheth though it is proved by fire,
may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
—1 Peter 1:6-7
It is for glory. It brings God glory. Faith brings God glory.
God also wants to secure something in Abraham.
I think of concrete. When you first pour concrete, it is kind of slushy, and you work it for a while. How long does it take concrete to reach full strength? Many years.
Engineers work with twenty-seven days. In other words, after twenty-seven days there is enough strength to use it. Some of us pour stuff and use it the next day—I know that. But the life of faith is kind of like concrete.
The Lord is trying to bring the life of faith in Abraham to full maturity, to full strength, if you might say, just like concrete.
We are all God’s children—everyone who has accepted Christ. We are His children by spiritual birth. God loves His children, but just like our own children, He wants us to grow up and become sons.
Here we see Abraham coming into full, true sonship.
A true son of God is full of faith. A true son trusts God at any cost. A true son believes God. A true son obeys God without question.
A son no longer wavers and is tossed to and fro by the storms of life, but is steady and solid. A man of faith is a man standing for God’s will and purpose without wavering.
That is what God was doing in Abraham’s life.
Abraham’s life was really the way of the cross. Submitting to God’s will and learning God’s ways is the way of the cross.
Take up thy cross daily, and follow Me.
God was securing this in Abraham. He is the author and finisher of our faith, and He wants to secure that in us.
How did God test Abraham? He said:
Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, Isaac,
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.
—Genesis 22:2
Abraham went out to do this.
The test was that he had to offer Isaac as a burnt offering back to God. Isaac was Abraham’s heart. He was the apple of his eye.
God emphasizes this: “Take thy son, thine only son, the son that you love, Abraham.” God recognized all of these affections in Abraham’s heart for Isaac.
“Take Isaac, the one in whom I have made all My promises. All My promises are to come through Isaac, and that is the one I want you to sacrifice.”
“I want you to sacrifice what I have given to you. I gave Isaac to you. Now I want you to give him back to Me.
“I want you to sacrifice the son of the impossible. It was impossible for Isaac to be born except by the hand of God. There is no one who can take Isaac’s place in your heart, Abraham. I know it. That is the one I want—the one whom you love.”
There were unbreakable bonds of love. “That is the one I want. I gave him to you. Now you give him back.”
Abraham did not have to do that. It was his free will. He had to do it willingly. God would not allow Abraham to do this grudgingly. It had to be a freewill offering.
That is what a burnt offering is: free will out of your heart.
Not only did God want Abraham to offer his son; He wanted him to be a whole burnt offering.
That meant Abraham would have to lay him on an altar of wood, slay him with a knife as he would a lamb, light the fire that burned his body, and see his body become ashes—ashes offered back to God as a sweet savor.
What is this whole burnt offering? In Exodus, it is called a sweet-savor offering to God.
When you make a whole burnt offering to the Lord, it means that you love the Lord deeply more than anything else. You want to please God more than anything. You want to please God more than yourself. You want to please God at any cost.
You are willing to offer everything. That is what it means to give a whole burnt offering. That is what it meant to Abraham. Abraham wanted to please God more than anything else.
What a man of faith. What great change had occurred in this man who began as a worshiper of idols. Now he was willing to pay any cost to please God, offering everything—all for himself, his desires, and his loves.
We love many things that are precious and dear: our possessions, our dreams, our friends, our family, God’s spiritual gifts, God’s graces poured out upon us, and the promises He has given us.
The whole burnt offering means you put all of that on the altar. That is what Abraham was doing.
In Genesis 22:4, it says, “On the third day.” God did not allow Abraham simply to make a quick decision and do it. He gave him three days to think about it.
The point is that when you make a whole burnt offering, you have to consider the cost. God wants you to consider the cost, and He gave Abraham three days.
On the third day, they saw the mountain and left the two men who were accompanying them. Abraham took the fire, and he gave the wood to his son.
Then in Genesis 22:8:
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering:
so they went both of them together.
Abraham and his son went together.
Isaac was not alone. Abraham was with him.
I want you to understand that when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross, He did not do it on His own. He was not alone. The Father was with Him.
They loved one another dearly. The Father indeed suffered more than the Son, I think, because the Son trusted the Father so much.
We see that in Isaac. He did not resist. He was a twenty-five-year-old man at this point, and he did not resist.
Our Lord Jesus did not resist at Calvary. He went to Calvary, but the Father’s heart was totally united with Him in that sacrifice.
Oh, how the Father’s heart must have hurt.
This is just a personal story, and in some ways there is no comparison—you need to know that. But sometimes God gives you a little taste of something.
I experienced that when I had to put my dog down recently. I shared this on Wednesday night.
In doing that, I saw something of the Father’s heart—how wounded it must have been.
I had much more natural affection for my little dog than I realized. I had had him for about six years, but he developed a heart condition and a liver condition. Actually, he was doing fairly well and was still perky, but the veterinarian told me he would not be able to keep his food down, which he had not been able to do.
I was struggling with having to put him down.
One Sunday morning, Brother Jack shared, “At the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” I felt the Lord was telling me it was time, and I did.
Here is the point. What hurt me so much was the morning I was going to take him to the veterinarian. I got up, and he was just as perky and happy as ever. I had to put him in that truck—he loved to get in the truck—and take him to the vet.
He trusted me. That was what hurt me so much. I knew he trusted me to take care of him, to make him happy, because I had always done that. Now I was going to have to put him down.
I stayed there and watched him. When the lady put that needle in his leg, boy, I bawled. I was crushed. They almost had to give me a shot to console me.
I only say that because, in that, I saw something of the Father’s great love for His Son. He knew what He had to do on Calvary’s cross. He had to crush His Son for your sake and for my sake because He loves us so much.
I realized just a tiny bit of the pain in the Father’s heart to watch His Son.
Yet the Father knew not only that it needed to be done, but that it was the thing to do. It had to be done.
It was so hard for Abraham. I do not know, but Abraham’s faith was great.
It mentions the fire and the wood. I thought about that. The fire is God’s trial; the wood is humanity. Oh, how God sometimes tests the soul of man, as He did Abraham here.
But when He tests the soul of man, it is gold that comes out. He burns up the wood, the hay, and the stubble, and it is the gold that makes it through the fire.
Brothers and sisters, it is what comes through the fire that God is after. It is what comes through this crucible of death that God is after.
Abraham put his son on the altar and lifted the knife to slay him. I do not know whether you have ever thought about whether Abraham would really go through with it, but God believed that he would, because He had to stop him.
I am convinced Abraham was going to go through with it because God had to stop him.
How was Abraham able to do that? It was because he had grown in faith.
He had learned that God is fully trustworthy. He had learned that God was always faithful. He learned that God was a God of promise and a God of covenant, and that He never falters on His promises or His covenant.
He had learned all these things in his life of faith.
Hebrews 11:17-19 says:
By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac:
yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son;
even he to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called:
accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead;
from whence he did also in a figure receive him back.
Brothers and sisters, Abraham’s offering was an offering of faith. He fully believed in God’s promises. He knew, “I am going to slay my son, but God will raise him up because He said it would come through Isaac. He has to raise him up.”
He had that much faith.
He believed in resurrection life.
The application here is this: brothers and sisters, God wants everything on the altar. Everything has to go into death. What comes out of death is what God is after.
No matter what it is—your relationships, your natural affections, your loves, your passions, your gifts from God—everything goes on the altar to be tried by fire.
Some things are burned up. But other things come out in resurrection life. That is finally what God is after.
Put your gift on the altar, the gift you know God has given you. Let it be tried by fire, and what comes out is resurrection life. That is the life of faith. That is the way it has to be.
I guess the question has to be this morning, for all of us: Have you put your Isaac on the altar?
In your life of faith, has God brought you to a place where that thing is so precious to you that you are willing to lay it on the altar and say, “Lord, it is Yours. You do with it as You choose. It is up to You”?
Only you and the Holy Spirit know what Isaac is in your life—that thing which is so precious to you.
God is the author and finisher of your faith. I do not know whether you believe that or not, but He is determined. He was able to bring Abraham to this place. What a great testimony.
That was precious to God. It brought glory to God. That is what our lives are for.
God was not only committed to Abraham. He is committed to you. He is committed to me.
We look at ourselves and say, “Hopeless.” That is okay. But let us turn our eyes back to the Lord. Let us get our eyes on the Lord.
Everything is possible with God—even you.
Lord, we come to Thee this morning. We worship Thee because You are the author and finisher of our faith. Lord, if it were not for You, we would be left hopeless.
But Lord, You have prevailed in our lives to this point. You have brought us even to this place. Lord, we look to Thee now in this continued life of faith, that You would continue to work, to encourage us, and to strengthen us.
Lord, give us the grace to take up our cross daily and follow You, that we may consistently grow in Christ. Lord, do this because we came. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.