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[00:00:00] Genesis, chapter 22, from verse one.
[00:00:05] And it came to pass after these things that God did prove Abraham. And said unto him, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he said, take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even 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.
[00:00:37] And Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. And he clave the wood for the burnt offering. And rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him.
[00:00:56] On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with the ass. And I and the lad will go yonder and we will worship and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. And they went, both of them together.
[00:01:28] And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, my father. And he said, here am I, my son.
[00:01:38] And he said, behold the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
[00:01:45] And Abraham said, God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.
[00:01:54] So they went, both of them together.
[00:01:58] And they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son son. And laid him on the altar upon the wood.
[00:02:15] And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
[00:02:22] And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he said, lay not thy hand upon the lady, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
[00:03:08] And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh. As it is said to this day in the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, by myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou has done this thing and has not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee. And in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is upon the seashore.
[00:03:53] And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice.
[00:04:08] So Abraham returned unto his young men and they rose up and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.
[00:04:23] What I just want to speak about finally, then this evening, is the trial of faith and the promised seed. The trial of faith and the promised seed in Genesis 13 and verse 15.
[00:04:39] For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever.
[00:04:50] Then Genesis twelve two I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great. Now, obviously, when the Lord said this to Abraham when he was still in ur of the Chaldees, it could mean only one thing. If the Lord said to him, I will make of thee a great nation, it meant he was going to have a big family, just like Jacob had twelve sons who became the fathers of the twelve tribes of the house of Israel. So Abraham, I suppose, thought, well, I'm going to have a large family in some way. This is it again in Genesis 1315 as we've read. And then we have it again in Genesis 15 four, five. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, this man shall not be nine heir. That was Eleazar of Damascus. But he that shall come forth out of thine own bowel shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad and said, look now toward heaven and number the stars if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be.
[00:06:03] It was a remarkable word of God.
[00:06:10] Put yourself in Abraham's shoes for a moment if you can think that God could give you such a clear cut, unequivocal promise.
[00:06:26] Do you see the stars?
[00:06:30] Can you number them? No.
[00:06:34] So shall your seed be in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
[00:06:48] God never tries anything that does not originate with himself.
[00:07:00] In one of the psalms it says, the word of the Lord is tried.
[00:07:09] Most of the tragedies in christian lives are because we in some emotional way have got some, generally by our souls, some idea about ourselves.
[00:07:26] And later on those big ideas about ourselves begin to crack up.
[00:07:36] It is not fulfilled when it really begins with God.
[00:07:46] Then there comes the trial or proving of faith.
[00:07:52] Abraham was childless indeed, it seems that Eleazar, this marvelous steward that he had in the home, who was like a son to Abraham was, in Abrahams eyes, his heir.
[00:08:12] And thats why the Lord had to say in Genesis 15, no, no, no.
[00:08:16] Someone that shall come out of thine own bowels shall be thyre.
[00:08:23] Not this dear man, Eleazar of Damascus, however good he is and however much he means to you.
[00:08:34] And so we see the trial of Abraham's faith.
[00:08:39] He waited for ten years. Now, I would have thought that to wait for ten years reveals an amount of patience that I myself do not possess.
[00:08:54] Ten years.
[00:08:58] Ten years. Think of it.
[00:09:02] From 1966 to 1976.
[00:09:07] Ten whole years waiting for some word from the Lord to be fulfilled.
[00:09:15] I dont blame in one sense, knowing my own, the wickedness of my own heart. I don't blame Abraham for beginning to wonder, have I misunderstood?
[00:09:27] And if in his heart he felt clear that God had said it, then even more subtle, is there some way that the Lord is going to fulfil this which I have not understood?
[00:09:41] I have naturally thought it should be Sarah.
[00:09:45] But could it be? Is there some other way?
[00:09:50] The Lord said, he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels, so it cant be an adopted son.
[00:09:59] And the Lord expressly said that it wasnt Eleazar.
[00:10:03] So thats out.
[00:10:06] And then it was dear Sarah.
[00:10:09] And I will say no more about it.
[00:10:13] Who said to Abraham, well, now look here, dear God has given us all common sense.
[00:10:24] And it seems quite clear to me that I'm beyond childbearing.
[00:10:31] But there is, of course, in the home the egyptian hega.
[00:10:39] And it seems quite clear to me, as I've been thinking about the problem, dear.
[00:10:45] I don't know why it didn't occur to us a few years ago that it's quite obvious you're meant to take Hagar now.
[00:10:56] I will not go into all the customs of those days.
[00:11:00] It is not quite so outlandish as it might appear to us.
[00:11:06] But anyway, Abraham said, oh, my goodness, fancy not thinking of that before.
[00:11:14] And the result was that Hagar conceived and she bore a son and his name was Ishmael, to this day, the father of the arab peoples.
[00:11:39] It was, of course, a mistake.
[00:11:44] When we have made a mistake, we generally try to obliterate our mistakes largely because of our pride.
[00:11:54] But God never plays ball without pride.
[00:12:02] Dear Sarah couldn't bear Hagar nor her wretched son.
[00:12:09] The sight of him was enough to make her sick. It irritated her. And the fact that Hagar looked down her egyptian nose at Sarah only made what matters infinitely worse.
[00:12:29] And she drove Hagar and Ishmael out.
[00:12:37] But God would not play ball with Sarah or with Abraham, who was obviously privy to it.
[00:12:45] For it says that the Lord met. This is, by the way, before.
[00:12:49] Before Ishmael was born. And the Lord met with Hagar.
[00:12:57] And he said, don't fear Hagar.
[00:13:01] The one who is in your womb will be a warrior, wild, like a wild ass of the desert.
[00:13:12] He will be a father of a great nation.
[00:13:16] Go back and submit yourself to Sarah and call the boy Ishmael.
[00:13:25] God hears a very beautiful name.
[00:13:34] How many of us would like to get rid of our mistakes?
[00:13:39] Iron the mount somehow or other obliterate them, eradicate them.
[00:13:51] It is sometimes some unrighteousness in us that brought us to make the mistake.
[00:13:57] And often the eradication of the mistake is an even greater unrighteousness.
[00:14:05] I must say sometimes I wonder, when I hear about children being seeded away that were born as a mistake whether it really is so right. But that's another matter.
[00:14:21] The fact is this, that God always does the right thing. The loving thing, the merciful thing and the just thing. And he stood by Hagar and by Ishmael. But don't let us be sentimental.
[00:14:40] Whatever God said about Yema el, whatever he may have said about that wonderful meaning of his name he said quite clearly, he is not the son of promise. Nor is he the one with whom I make the covenant.
[00:15:01] 14 years went by which, if my mathematics are correct, mean something like 24 years from when God first spoke to Abraham.
[00:15:16] 24 years. Another 14 years before the Lord again spoke to Abraham. He was 99 years old of age and Sarah nearly also 99 years of age. And then God appeared to Abraham again in Genesis 17. And when Abraham was 90 years old and nine the Lord appeared to Abraham and said unto him, I am God almighty. Walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee and will multiply thee exceedingly fell on his face. And God talked with him, saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with thee. And thou shalt be the father of a multitude of nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram. But thy name shall be called Abraham. For the father of a multitude of nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful. And I will make nations of thee. And kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee unto thy seed after thee the land of thy sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. And I will be their goddamn wonderful willie.
[00:16:55] 24 years. It's a long time to wait, isn't it? I call that the trial of faith and the promised seed.
[00:17:05] Surely the word of the Lord was tried in Abraham. I imagine by the time after another 14 years after his mistake with Hagar, he thought, goodness, it's ridiculous.
[00:17:18] I mean, for Sarah to have a child when she's 80 is a miracle, but to have it when she's 99, it's impossible.
[00:17:29] Although maybe he thought, well, I suppose there's not much difference between 80 and 99. I don't know.
[00:17:38] All that seems pretty impossible by natural standards.
[00:17:42] But knowing how our minds work over time when we're being tried, I imagine he thought, surely now's the time for the law to act. Shes 80, or whatever it was.
[00:17:55] But the Lord did not.
[00:17:58] And he instituted the covenant of circumcision, not that which makes a child of God, but that which is the evidence that a person is a child of God.
[00:18:21] We know, of course, in the book of Galatians, the letter to Galatians, that we are told that it answers to baptism.
[00:18:30] Eight days after birth, you are circumcised.
[00:18:35] You must first be born and then you are circumcised.
[00:18:43] Your circumcision isn't your birth, as if by baptism you can get saved.
[00:18:50] It comes afterwards. And it is the indication that you are in the covenant, that you are related to God and to his people. Even more wonderful, of course, you know, in Galatians it says that it. And I'm sorry, not Galatians. In Colossians it says that it is the putting away. Let's just read it in Colossians and chapter two, verse eleven, in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands. In the putting off of the body of the flesh. In the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, wherein you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
[00:19:42] Putting off of the body of the flesh. Dear Abraham, he had gone through some deep, deep waters.
[00:19:51] He had listened many, many a time to the wisdom of his flesh.
[00:19:58] He had used the energy of his flesh and the resources of his flesh.
[00:20:04] And now, as Moses later was to discover, he was a dried up old thorn bush with not a spark of life in him. It was as if the whole thing was now over. And that's when God again appeared to him and said, abraham, I change you your name from Avram, which means far exalted father to Avraham, which means father of a multitude.
[00:20:37] And he instituted circumcision.
[00:20:44] If only we all understood what really, spiritually circumcision meant.
[00:20:51] Putting away the deeds of the body by the spirit. Putting to death the deeds of the body by the spirit. Knowing what it is that the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus should make us free from the law of sin and death.
[00:21:08] Baptism.
[00:21:10] An old man crucified and buried out of sight.
[00:21:17] And a new man in Christ to walk in newness of life.
[00:21:27] God has to deal with all of us pretty deeply.
[00:21:31] It is, of course, inherent in our conversion, in our new birth. But generally speaking, most of us, it takes us years to come to the place in experience where we know that what we are, that well, let me put it in the words of our Lord Jesus. That of ourselves apart from him, we can do nothing.
[00:21:55] That is what circumcision means.
[00:21:58] The energy of the flesh, the strength of the flesh, the dynamic of the flesh.
[00:22:10] So the Lord spoke to him again in Genesis 17 after circumcision.
[00:22:21] And from verse 15, God said unto Abraham, as for Sarai, thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her. And moreover, I will give thee a son of her. Yea, I will bless her. And she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed and said in his heart, shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old and shows Sarah that he is 90 years old? Bear. And Abraham said unto God, o, that Ishmael might live before thee. And God said, nay, but Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son. And thou shalt call his name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac whom Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.
[00:23:32] It's a beautiful story.
[00:23:35] All the more beautiful because it's true.
[00:23:39] When God spoke to Abraham that second time and said, Sarah shall bear this son of thine, dear Abraham, he must have been for the first moment full of exhilaration and fell down before the Lord and began to laugh.
[00:24:04] It shows something of the honesty of the relationship between these old saints and the Lord.
[00:24:10] That sometimes without any sort of wrong familiarity or crudeness.
[00:24:16] They could just be themselves.
[00:24:19] No wonder God called Abraham his friend.
[00:24:24] He laughed.
[00:24:27] And God entered into the joke.
[00:24:33] Some people think God cannot laugh except in derision.
[00:24:37] I once heard a sermon by someone who said that God never laughs only in derision.
[00:24:42] Because it says in psalm two.
[00:24:45] He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh. He will hold them in division.
[00:24:49] But I think God laughs many times. He has to, I think of some of his queer people.
[00:25:03] And I should think he has to laugh sometimes at our antics. On what we get up to, on what we do.
[00:25:12] You move around like I do. You see the most extraordinary things and hear the most extraordinary things.
[00:25:22] God entered into this joke.
[00:25:28] Its not the right word for it.
[00:25:32] And he said to Abraham while he was on the ground laughing, saying, how can I, a hundred years of age, have a son? And Sarah, who's 90, she also.
[00:25:44] And the lord said, but Sarah shall.
[00:25:47] And you shall call his name Yitzhak.
[00:25:51] And Yitzhak means in Hebrew, laughter.
[00:25:59] Call his name.
[00:26:03] And then, of course, we have later the story in the nine months, the year that followed. When the three angels, two angels. And the lord himself came to where Abraham had his tents pitched at Mamre. At the oaks at Mamre.
[00:26:21] And began to speak with him. And it says in chapter 18, in verse nine. The lord said unto him, where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, behold, in the tent. And he said, I will certainly return unto thee when the season cometh round. And lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard in the tent door which was behind him.
[00:26:48] Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age. It had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. And Sarah laughed within herself, saying. After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? And the lord said unto Abraham, wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying. Shall I of a surety bear a child who am old?
[00:27:11] Is anything too hard for the Lord at the set time? I will return unto thee when the season cometh round. And Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not, for she was afraid. And he said, nay, but thou didst laugh. What amuses me about this story is it all went on between a closed door, you understand?
[00:27:38] The tent flap was down. Sarah was behind the tent flap. And any of those who had so little to do with yeast. Will know the kind of scene where a meal has been provided. And the ladies are kept. Keep themselves a little in the background. Sometimes they hover around the door many, many a time. I remember in Egypt where you were talking away without any realization in the early days before you rumbled it, that behind the doors were four or five women all listening to every word.
[00:28:12] Sarah was no stranger.
[00:28:15] The temp flap was down but she was right behind it listening avidly to every word that was being said by her husband and the visitors that she had made the meal for.
[00:28:36] And then suddenly the Lord said to Abraham where Sarah. And he said, sarah was in the tent and then he said, well, it was that time she shall bear a son. And Sarah didn't even laugh outwardly, but inwardly I suppose you.
[00:28:53] What a laugh ever can he be talking about? And then suddenly the Lord said through the tent lamp, why did you laugh?
[00:29:07] And Sarah suddenly sort of freezes and says, back through the 10th flap I didn't.
[00:29:18] And the Lord says back again to the 10th flap, you did.
[00:29:23] But there must have been a twinkle in the eye of the Lord.
[00:29:28] I think it is in the living Bible that it is so beautifully put that when later Sarah bore a son and called him his name Isaac. Laughter it's rendered in our old version it says, abraham began to be merry.
[00:29:50] But in the living Bible it puts it like Abraham threw a party.
[00:29:57] Oh, what a party it was. 25 years after the promise was given, God fulfilled it.
[00:30:07] It is a wonderful story. It was a party. What a party it must have been. And what. Laughter if I know anything about the people of God there must have been a recounting of the whole story. Abraham must have said what he felt like when first the Lord spoke to him. And Sarah must have said what she felt like. And now forever afterwards they would be reminded by the name of Isaac. Laughter it is, I think, very interesting for us to understand the trial of faith and the promised seed. You see, may I put it this way, the whole meaning of Abraham's life was tied up with that one boy.
[00:31:04] He had nothing else to show for his life.
[00:31:08] No great theological seminary, no great church centre, no great buildings, no great philosophy, nothing.
[00:31:22] If we had Abraham here he might feel by this world's standards he was a failure. Well Abraham, you have been all these years following the Lord. You say that you've heard God, that you saw the God of glory, that you've seen something on the purpose of God. But what have you got to show for it, Abraham?
[00:31:45] Nothing.
[00:31:47] But if God said to you that he was going to give you a land, where is the land? Well its all around me.
[00:31:54] But Abraham, its not yours.
[00:31:59] You even had to buy the plot of ground you were going to bury Sarah in.
[00:32:06] He had nothing to show. The only thing that Abraham had to show in a concrete manner for his life and the work of God in his life was this one boy, Isaac.
[00:32:24] Even Ishmael was. A continual rebuke to him.
[00:32:31] Says something for Abraham, that he really loved Ishmael.
[00:32:36] And when finally he had to send Hagar Ishmael away, it broke his heart, which is a little window into the kind of person Abraham was.
[00:32:48] And God had to say to him, dont worry, I shall look after Ishmael in Romans chapter four.
[00:33:00] The whole thing is explained in these words.
[00:33:05] Romans, chapter four, verse 19.
[00:33:08] And without being weakened in faith, Abraham considered his own body now as good as dead, he being about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb.
[00:33:19] Yet looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith. Isn't that lovely? Listen again. He wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith. You always waxed strong through faith.
[00:33:42] And you always waver through unbelief. Is there any life here thats wavering?
[00:33:49] You can be sure theres some unbelief somewhere.
[00:33:52] Thats what he does to us. Knocks us off balance somehow or others it starts to make us tremulous, unsure.
[00:34:04] Living faith causes us to wax strong. Wax strong through faith, giving glory to God and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform.
[00:34:23] I find that a very, very wonderful commentary upon the trial of faith and the promised seed. Has God got a purpose for your life?
[00:34:36] Has God said something about your life that is related to his purpose?
[00:34:44] That he will fully conform you to the image of his son? That what he has begun in you, he will also complete, that there shall be works that follow you.
[00:35:01] Has God spoken to you? Be sure there will be a trial of your faith.
[00:35:09] But the wonderful thing about the proving of our faith is that what is not of God gets burnt out.
[00:35:19] And what is of God comes through untarnished and unscathed, no more, more beautiful than ever.
[00:35:31] Every time Satan gets permission to sift us as wheat, he gets the chaff and God gets the wheat.
[00:35:44] Then again, in Hebrews chapter eleven and verse eleven and twelve, we read these lovely words about Sarah.
[00:35:59] She, after all, seemed to have been at least the one who suggested the idea about Hagar. It is all the more beautiful, therefore, that she finds her name in the great list of the heroes and heroines of faith. By faith, even Sarah herself received power to conceive seed when she was past age. Since she counted him faithful, who had promised.
[00:36:27] Wherefore also there sprang of one. And him as good as dead. I think that's a wonderful phrase. And him as good as dead. So many as the stars of heaven in multitude. And as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable.
[00:36:47] Of course we have all the wisdom of hindsight. Today we see the seed of Abraham.
[00:36:57] It cannot be numbered.
[00:37:01] But when Abraham was alive, there was only one.
[00:37:08] I don't know whether he thought to himself, the Lord is being sweet to me, and in his grace he's exaggerating like the stars the heaven for number or the sands of the seashore innumerable.
[00:37:27] But it all came to pass.
[00:37:30] And it is lovely that Sarah, who laughed in the tent, must have from that moment trusted the Lord.
[00:37:41] For it says she received strength to conceive.
[00:37:50] Now, I would have thought that that was the end of the matter.
[00:37:54] And that the Lord, having tried his beloved servant for 25 years. And put him through the mill to such a degree. Would now leave him to the blissful enjoyment of his one son, Isaac. After all, he didnt get twelve.
[00:38:10] He didnt get one after another.
[00:38:15] He only got one son.
[00:38:18] That was the son of Thomas, but not the Lord. You make a great mistake if you think that you have waited a long time. And finally seen the fulfillment of God's word to you. And that's the end of the matter. Now you can sit down and enjoy yourself and relax and preen your feathers a little. And feel that somehow or other you're one of those who, through faith and patience, have inherited the promise. And seen something of its outworking and its fulfillment. For there came a day. We don't know quite what age Isaac was. Jewish tradition says he was 39 years of age. Which seems a rather strange thing to say that he was a lad.
[00:38:58] But in those days, of course, remarkable things happened.
[00:39:04] I cannot find it in the word itself.
[00:39:07] We don't quite know how old Isaac was. But there came a day when the Lord said. And the Lord was quite explicit.
[00:39:19] Abraham. Yes. He said, I'm here, Abraham. He said, take your son.
[00:39:26] Your only son has rather interesting. The Lord said, your only son. Since he had two.
[00:39:37] Your only son. And offer him as a burnt offering.
[00:39:52] I would have thought the normal common sense thing to do. Would be to react straight away and say, well, I'm quite clear where that came from.
[00:40:02] It wasn't the Lord, my son burnt offering. Good gracious.
[00:40:12] I've waited 25 years for the boy.
[00:40:16] Gone through deep waters over this whole matter.
[00:40:21] And the Lord said, in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
[00:40:27] And said, so shall thy seed be.
[00:40:30] The Lord doesn't contradict himself.
[00:40:34] If he said so much about my seed now tells me to take the seed that I have one only son. And offer him as a burnt offering. Thats the end of the whole thing.
[00:40:47] But Abraham was the friend of God. And one of the most wonderful things about having soul and spirit divided within us by that deep spiritual surgery. The spirit of God is that you learn to know the voice of God.
[00:41:09] Abraham must have had some doubts. It wouldn't have been faith otherwise. For as Norman Grubb has so often said, there can be no living faith without doubt.
[00:41:21] I have no doubt at all that dear Abraham had a number of doubts.
[00:41:28] But in his heart he knew God had spoken. And so he saddled the ants and took Isaac and the wood and the knife and two young men, and off they went. And when they got within sight of Mount Moriah, Abraham said to the men, stay here with the ass. I and the boy will go up.
[00:41:54] And they went up together. And he made. He said one beautiful thing. He said, we will go yonder and we will worship.
[00:42:08] Worship, doctor, was a word to describe it.
[00:42:18] On the WAy Up, Isaac said to his father, father, I see the wood, and I see the fire, and I see the knife. But where is the lamb?
[00:42:27] And AbrahaM said, God himself will provide the lamb.
[00:42:36] Now, what we learn by the spirit of God about this whole affair. Is that Abraham had faced the whole thing squarely, recognized that it was the voice of God. And because he recognized that it was the voice of God, believed that even if Isaac was slain, God would give him back from the dead.
[00:43:02] Now, it's one thing to believe that in theory, it's another thing to be involved.
[00:43:10] For after all, the whole doubt must come to you. The temptation would be, once I've slain Isaac, supposing he doesn't come back?
[00:43:19] Then my whole life means nothing.
[00:43:28] But he laid the wood in order, put bound IsAaC, laid him on it. And was just about to slay him. When the Lord said, don't, AbrahaM.
[00:43:46] And he saw a ram caught in the thicket. Well, you know the Story, and slew it. Now, what is the lesson? It is simply this, that when God gives us a promise and we see it fulfilled, and we see a real outworking of that promise, we can start to get the clammy hands of our flesh life on it again. Many a work of God has died because a servant of the Lord has held on to it.
[00:44:17] Having seen something born of God, conceived of God, and born of God and grow by the grace of God, they, in the end, have become proud of it and governed it and mastered it and held onto it.
[00:44:36] It doesnt matter whether its your own christian life, whether its your precious theology or some precious tradition that is a genuine one, or some life that God has put in your care or the work of God in which he has given you responsibility.
[00:45:04] There comes to all of us a time when we have to offer it to God, not expecting that God will give it back until it has gone through death.
[00:45:21] Because you see, can I try to explain, explain it this way.
[00:45:29] What happened with Abraham was that he died.
[00:45:39] Do you understand?
[00:45:42] He died.
[00:45:45] He died to his own son.
[00:45:48] And he died even to the revelation God had given him.
[00:45:55] And it's outworking.
[00:45:59] In other words, he surrendered it all, as if to say, I'm helpless.
[00:46:05] Even though I've been partly instrumental in bringing this child into being, I am once again helpless.
[00:46:19] That is the only safe thing in the work of God and the service of God.
[00:46:26] That is why in the history of gods, people, we find work after work after work which began in life and grew in life, finally die.
[00:46:42] That's why we find some lives that were so gloriously converted, born of God and blessed by God, finally become stale.
[00:46:54] Oh, dead.
[00:47:01] The last time God spoke to them was a decade ago.
[00:47:10] The last time they had dealings with God was years ago.
[00:47:18] It's not that there never was anything. It is that somehow or other, the hands of that insidious and subtle flesh life have again got hold of even the work of God.
[00:47:35] That is a lesson, I say, which all of us find the hardest.
[00:47:40] But it is the highest.
[00:47:46] There is a brazen altar, that there used to be a brazen altar outside the sanctuary.
[00:47:53] And you would have thought that once you got past the brazen altar, there would be no need of any more altars.
[00:47:59] For there on that altar was offered up that sin offering and trespass offering and peace offering, burnt offering and meal offering.
[00:48:12] But when you have come to the holy of holies, you will find another altar, the golden altar of incense.
[00:48:26] Same principle, living thing, bark of trees, plants broken, ground dried and burnt.
[00:48:47] It is the principle that lies at the root of the whole kingdom of God that no one can know the fruitfulness of a harvest unless they are prepared to fall into the ground and die.
[00:49:09] So Abraham's life, no wonder he's called the father of all who believe, for he is the very illustration of faith. Which leads to fulfillment.
[00:49:30] We see in him a faith and a patience inheriting the promise.
[00:49:39] One of the loveliest phrases concerning Abraham is an inclusive one.
[00:49:46] It says in Hebrews 1112, these all died in faith.
[00:49:58] So dear Abraham, he not only lived by faith, he died in faith.
[00:50:07] When he died, he had only the one son of promise, Isaac, and one little parcel of land that he could call his own in what God said was his land.
[00:50:27] Abraham, of course, now waits to receive all of us.
[00:50:33] For the Lord Jesus said, they shall come from east and west and north and south, and shall sit down with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob in the kingdom of God. Now he sees the fulfillment of God's word not only in material that's gone into that city which has the foundations, whose builder and architect is God, but he has seen that he has become the father of a multitude of nations. From every tongue and kindred and people of nation have come. Those who have, through the Messiah, been brought into the commonwealth of Israel and have found that Abraham is the father of all who believe.
[00:51:23] May we all learn the lessons of that life.
[00:51:28] Shall we pray?
[00:51:35] Dear Lord, we thank thee together for this life of Abraham, and we ask thee that thou wilt write upon our hearts and in our lives something, Lord, of these lessons.
[00:51:49] Dear Lord, every one of us has something to learn, whether it is the need of vision or the need of everything being of thyself, or whether it is law to really be pilgrims instead of trying to settle down, or whether it is this whole matter of the trial and triumph of faith.
[00:52:12] Father, we praise thee for those wonderful words of the apostle Peter, that the trial of our faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it is tried by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
[00:52:37] Father, we thank thee for those other words also of Peter and the God of all grace who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus. After that ye have suffered a little while himself perfect establish, strengthen you.
[00:52:59] Dear Lord, we pray that we may learn the lessons, be amenable, Lord, to thy education and discipline, and may grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus, being conformed to his image change.
[00:53:16] We ask it together in his name. Amen.
