"Examples of Faith: Abraham – Offering" Hebrews 11:17-19
- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on October 29, 2023.
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Audio Transcript
Foreign.
If you take your Bibles, we’ll turn to Hebrews chapter 11 today as we’re continuing to look examples of faith, looking at Abraham and in this part, the journey of his faith. We’re going to be looking at the offering or the, the sacrifice that God asked him to make. Hebrews 11:17, 19.
By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, he received the promises, and yet he was offering his one and only son, the one to whom it had been said, you offspring will be traced through Isaac. He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead. Therefore he received him back, figuratively speaking. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for the examples of faith that you have given us, that we might learn from them, that we might see the grace and the mercy that you have bestowed upon your servants, Father, through their ordinary lives and their ups and their downs, that you still love them.
And we can know that as we go through our journey of faith, Father, and our ups and downs, even questioning you, Father, doubting you, that you still are all loving and all merciful and all gracious, reaching out to us at our lowest points. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. With Abel, we looked at the sacrifice of faith. With Enoch, we looked at the walk of faith.
With Noah, we looked at a work of faith. And with Abraham, we’re seeing this more extended journey of faith where he’s had ups and downs, he’s had victories and he’s had failures, he’s been obedient to the Lord, he had moving experience all the way from Ur to Canaan. He’s told half truths, he’s at times he’s not trusted God. He’s even questioned God. But in all of this, God always comes back with the same gracious promise to Abraham that I will bless you and I’m going to bless the world through you.
You know, the Bible leaves much unwritten about this episode in the life of Abraham. It just gives the obvious facts, but by our own understanding of what our human nature is like, by the feelings that we know we have and the thoughts as we go through the story today, it shouldn’t be hard to put ourselves into Abraham’s situation. And even though it doesn’t say what he was thinking and what he was feeling, we know in our lives what he was feeling possibly, if not probably going through. So we want to fill in the gaps with the thoughts, the emotions, the conversations that aren’t mentioned there, even the actions that he took. And in all of this, we need to remember that Abraham and Sarah were human, just like us.
They’re heroes of the faith, but they weren’t super people. They struggled with a lot of things. We need to consider also the emotion that God experienced, experienced when he put Abraham through this test. You know, think about something as simple as taking your baby, that you’ve protected from pain, to get their first shots at the doctor, and all of a sudden you’re comforting the baby and they get the stick and they start crying. What does it do to mom and dad?
It makes you cry, too. And I’m certain that God was seeing the pain and the difficulty that Abraham went through, and it was difficult for him.
God only tests us when it is necessary not to prove anything to him, but he’s doing it to prove something to us. He knew what Abraham was going to do, but Abraham didn’t know what he was going to do until he actually went through it. So God allows tests in our life to show us something about ourselves and to strengthen us. He knows how we’re going to respond. But we don’t benefit from the test until we’ve been through it.
You know, we do the same thing with our children. We encourage them to run a difficult race. And unlike God, we don’t know whether they’re going to win or not. But encouraging them to go through that difficult thing is a good thing to help them to grow. Maybe you encouraged your children to take AP classes in high school, or maybe you wanted them to play in a recital and they went kicking and screaming up to the piano or the mic to do something.
But you’re doing that because you know that it’s going to be good for them. Our oldest child, she was very shy. You wouldn’t know it today, but it came the time where we said, okay, you have to walk up to the counter and pay for the candy yourself. She was not kicking and screaming, but she did not want to do that. She was just like, no, I can’t do that.
I can’t do that. But we’re giving her the dollar bill. You take this up, you pay for your favorite piece of candy. Imagine a little kid that can’t even walk to the counter to pay for their favorite candy. But we forced her to do that.
And as painful as it was for her and for us to watch, you know what she was able to do from that day on, she could go to the counter and buy a piece of candy. It was important to her. We were putting her through a test that would help her. You know, Abraham has been so faithful on this entire journey from Leaving ur all the way up until now. And we would stop and think, maybe, well, hasn’t he been tested enough?
Everything that he’s given up? How much more testing is God going to allow in his life? We also need to think here that this testing is not a testing to temptation. It’s a testing like you would do on metal to show how pure and valuable it is. Mary had some necklaces one time that were broken, so we took them to the jeweler to sell them before the jeweler was going to give us money for the necklaces.
What do you think he wanted to know? Is it real gold? Right. He wasn’t depending on what we said. So he took this emery cloth, it’s like this really fine sandpaper, and he’s starting to rub it on this jewelry.
And we’re thinking, no, no, don’t. Don’t ruin the jewelry. That’s a painful thing to watch. And then he said, no, I’m just taking off a little. And then he added some acid or some chemical on it.
And then it showed him whether it was 14 karat or 18 karat or whatever it was. That’s what tests do for us. It’s God is scratching us with this emery paper. And he may put things in our life, like acid, that hurt, but it’s going to make us show to ourself what we really are. So God continues to sand Abraham even at this advanced age in his life, and apply chemicals.
He wants to show Abraham his face, but he also wants to set an example for us today because we can learn from the tests that Abraham went through without having to go through the same test ourselves. Were any of you asked by God to sacrifice your children? Did you ever feel like sacrificing your children? I mean, there’s a difference there, you know. But we can see what Abraham did and we can learn from that.
We don’t have to all jump off of a building to learn what gravity is. We can just watch some other fool do that and get hurt, right? And learn from it. But not only was he proving something to Abraham and setting example for us, but we also see here in the text that he’s providing a picture of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ in a way. So we’re going to be looking at the biblical account today.
We’re going to be looking at the Christological allegory. That’s just a fancy way of saying that there’s something here that we can learn about Jesus. And we’re going to be looking at how we can apply that to Our life. I just want to get some scripture to back up why this is okay to do this. Why is it that we can look for something in the text that isn’t explicitly written there?
I go to First Corinthians 10, 11. It says these things happened to them as examples, talking about these in the Old Testament. And they were written for our instruction on whom the ends of the age have come. So those of us that are living in these end times, we’re supposed to get instruction out of these Old Testament writings, not just to read and say, oh, that’s great, that was Abraham, but to look, how does it apply to us? And as far as looking for Jesus, we read in Luke 24 where Jesus was on the road to Emmaus, walking with the disciples after his resurrection that did not recognize him.
And this is what he told them, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures. So all of the Old Testament, all of the Bible that they had at that time, Jesus said, it’s all about me, and you should be able to look for me and find me as you read through all the passages. So that’s what we’re doing today. We’re looking at the biblical account. We’re looking for Jesus in it, and we’re also looking how to apply it to ourselves.
Let’s go back to Genesis chapter 22, 1:19. And we’re going to be looking at characteristics of Abraham’s faith. And the first thing is that he had unquestioning obedience, unquestioning obedience. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, abraham, here I am. He answered.
Imagine what he felt when God answered this way. Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains. I will tell you about my guess. That morning when God said Abraham, and he said, here I am, that was probably the very last thing that he thought that God was going to be talking to him about. Imagine the immediate feelings and thoughts that went through his mind.
But he doesn’t ask God any questions about it. You know, sacrificing children to idols was a common thing in Abraham’s day among the Canaanite people. The God Molech, I believe, was the one that they would sacrifice their children to. And he would have the idol, its arms outstretched, made out of metal, and they would have a fire going that would heat that idol so much that they would come and set the babies on the idol’s hands. And it would just fry them to a crisp immediately.
So it wasn’t unheard of for a God, especially a false God, to ask this of their followers. It was awful. But it was common in those days. But God was asking Abraham, are you willing to do the same thing for, for me that all of these other people are willing to do in following their false idols? I just also want to mention here that in God’s eyes, all life is valuable.
And without God, people don’t place value in all life because in these days, they were sacrificing their children. In the times of the Romans, if you didn’t want your child, you would just take it outside the city and leave it for the elements or the animals or whatever to dispose of your child. And it was even against the law for somebody to go and rescue those children. But because the early Christians valued life because of their Lord Jesus Christ, they would sneak out at night, risking being in prison by rescuing those children and raising them. That’s why we are against abortion, we’re against euthanasia, because we.
We value life. I just wanted to throw that in today. Would Abraham’s God require any less of him? Would Abraham be as willing to worship his God with his greatest prize as the Canaanites were willing with their children? There could have been a lot of questions that day.
Abraham’s history is that he questioned God in the past. When God had come and told him, I’m going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham wasn’t unquestioning then. He was kind of arguing with God. Do you really want to do that?
What if there are this many people living there that love you? What if there are this many people? Abraham questioned God nine times on that day. In other words, he was saying, God, I don’t think you’re thinking this through. I don’t think you’ve made the right choice here.
At that point in Abraham’s journey, he was questioning God. But we find him here today. He’s not questioning God. In Genesis 17:18, Abraham had asked another question. He had said, if only Ishmael were acceptable to you, hoping that God would accept Ishmael.
But Ishmael was sent away. Ishmael is no longer in the picture. Ishmael’s not like a spare. So I don’t know if y’ all keep up with royalty in England, but Prince Henry has written a book, and the title of it is what Spare? Because William is to be King.
But they needed a what? A spare. In this case, Ishmael’s already been sent away. Abraham doesn’t have a spare. If God doesn’t bring Isaac back to life or intervene, there will be no one else.
Would Abram believe that God would keep his promise that he made to bless through the descendants of Isaac? Was God’s word really enough for him that God had made these promises that it was going to give him strength in his face faith? And were the many situations that God had brought him through be enough so that he would see how God had continued to work? Now in the New Testament, it doesn’t say it here, but what we find out in his mind was that God can even raise Isaac from the dead if I go through this. Abraham went into this completely trusting God and unquestioning him in his obedience.
But still, there must have been a great deal of emotion and distraughtness in him that day. Going on to verse three, not only was he unquestioning in his obedience, but he was unhesitating in his obedience.
Abraham got up early in the morning. I mean, if God had asked me to give up the most prized thing in my life, I think I would have slept in late. Would you not have? Or said, let’s have a second breakfast before we have to leave today. But I’m hesitating.
Abraham got up early in the morning and he went right out. He saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his young men and his son Isaac. And this man that’s over 100 years old. It says he actually split the wood himself for a burnt offering and set out to go to the place God had told him about.
Just think about splitting wood that you expect you’re about to offer your son on as a burnt sacrifice to the Lord. Every swing of the ax must have been painful to him.
He split the wood for a burnt offering and he set out to go to the place that God had told him about.
Started wondering this week, did he tell Sarah where he was going or did he not tell her, we’re going camping, dear, we’ll be back in three days? Or did he tell her, God asked me to take Isaac and sacrifice him? Either way, whether he told her or not, it must have been a very difficult parting with her that day as they prayed together. And either she was able to support him or she wasn’t, or she was telling him not to go, or he just had to go completely alone without her to even be supporting him from home. Either way, it was a difficult parting that they had that morning.
Next we see that his faith was unfaltering obedience. He was Steady, he was resolute. It was a three day journey. And on the third day, Abram looked up and saw the place in the distance. For three days he had the opportunity to turn back.
I imagine every morning, if it had been me, I would have thought, well, we just had breakfast, let’s not go forward, let’s turn back. And at lunch I would have thought, no, I can’t do this, let’s go back. I probably would have been awake all night long thinking, do I really do do this and obey the Lord or do I turn back? Don’t underestimate the difficulty that he was going through because it was the difficulty of it that was strengthening his faith. But he was unfaltering.
Day after day, step after step, he continued with his eyes looking forward to the place that God had sent him to. Verse 5. We find that he’s undoubting and he’s unflappable. I thought that was a good word. Unflappable means having or showing calmness in a crisis.
Abraham said to his young man, stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there to worship and then we’ll come back to you. Doesn’t sound like a great deal emotion in what he’s sharing with people. He’s, he’s not fighting against us. He just seems to be calm because he’s placing his faith in the Lord.
And Abraham also didn’t take the men along to do what God had asked him to do. He could have said, I just can’t do it. Would you please take Isaac and sacrifice him for me? He did not do that. He left the men behind so that he could do it himself as God had commanded.
But this is the one statement where we see his faith. He said, the boy and I will go over there to you. And then it doesn’t say I will come back to you. What does it say? We’ll come back to you.
In Abraham’s mind, whatever happened that day, he was expecting that God would allow he and Isaac to come back because he trusted in the promises that God had made, that through Isaac the world would be blessed.
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, laid it on his son Isaac. In his hand. He took the fire and the knife and the two of them walked on together again. Just seeming to be very calm about the situation doesn’t record a lot of dialogue. As they walked on to Mount Moriah, this is what we read in verse seven.
Isaac spoke to his father and said, my father. And he replied, here I am, my son. And Isaac said, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham answered, God himself will provide the land for the burnt offering, my son. And then the two of them walked on together.
Unparalleled obedience. Nothing equal to it. Completely exceptional that God would ask Abraham to give his very son as a sacrifice. But here we have Abraham trusting God completely setting an example for us of what complete obedience in the Lord looks like in verse nine. Have unabated obedience.
That means that there’s no reduction in intensity or strength. In other words, Abraham is not dragging his feet. When they arrived at the place that God had told them about, Abraham built the altar there. He arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.
And Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son. Isaac wasn’t a little boy at this point. He was probably a teenager. And here he had the strength to run. He would have had the strength to disagree, but there’s something going on here, that Isaac understands the faith of his father, that he’s doing the right thing.
But Abram goes through each of these steps. And even in his faith, we have to imagine the emotion, the thoughts that he’s going through. Can I do this? Am I supposed to do this? Did I hear God wrong?
All of these questions would have arisen in his mind if I had been there in his situation, and probably for you too. And just as he was about to kill Isaac, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, abraham, Abraham, here I am. Abram replied. Then he said, do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me.
And Abram looked up and saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. And then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself, I have sworn this is the Lord’s declaration. Because you have done this thing and have not withheld your only son, I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the city gates of their enemies.
And all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring, because you have obeyed my command. And Abraham went back to his young men. They got up and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham settled in Beersheba. The angel was waiting to see what Abraham would do.
He didn’t have God’s knowledge and God told the angel to stop him. And at the last minute. And then the Abraham showed his faith to the angel and the other angels in heaven as well. Think about the trip back. Emotions completely different than what they had been for three days.
It’s going to be three days of happiness and joy in their return as they went back and whether Sarah had known before. When Abraham told her the story. I imagine if he hadn’t told her what was going to happen, she was going to be upset. But if he had told her what was going to happen, then she was also greatly rejoicing with him.
Let’s look now at the Christological allegory. And whenever we look in the Old Testament, we can’t make everything fit to picture Christ, but we see little bits and evidences him there. And Here in verse 14 it says Abraham named that place the Lord will provide. Now what’s strange about the tense of that verb, it’s saying he will provide. Looking to the future.
But what did God do there? He did provide. So we have this prophetic utterance from Abraham that this isn’t just about what God did today, but it’s picturing what God is going to do in the future that he is going to provide for us.
So today it is said when Moses wrote this, again the verb is future. It doesn’t say it was provided on the Lord’s mountain to the time of Moses. They were still saying that this looks forward to the time that it will be provided on the Lord’s mountain, this very mountain, one day that God will provide the need for a sacrifice. And then in verse 18, and the reason why God is going to do this is so that all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring, meaning Jesus Christ, because you, you have obeyed my command. The passage is related to Christ prophetically and it’s also related to him allegorically.
We should always look for ourselves in Scripture. How does it apply to me? How does it apply to my faith? What do I need to do or learn in light of the passage? But we need to do like Jesus did, always look for Christ in the passage.
Just some of the things that we can see here is that Abraham gave his one and only son. God the Father did what he gave his one and only son for our sins. His death on the cross provided for us what we call the atonement, meaning that we’re covered. His blood covers our sin. So that when God looks at it he doesn’t see it anymore.
We also see that Isaac had to carry the wood for his own sacrifice. What does that remind us of? That Jesus carried his own wooden cross upon which he was sacrificed. You know, we don’t have to make a blood sacrifice for our sins today because God has already provided that through his son, Jesus Christ. That’s in these words.
It will provide, it be provided. Well, now we look back and say that it was provided and it continues to be provided to anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This very place, Moriah, is believed by the Muslims to be the place where Abraham sacrificed his son. It’s in Jerusalem. It’s on the Temple Mount.
And because they believe that Abraham sacrificed his son there on the Mount, they had built the Dome of the Rock. Well, that Dome of the Rock is built over the place where the Jews believe that they had the temple where the sacrifices were made. So to the Jews and to the Muslims both, they look back to this place as a holy place where Abram sacrificed willingly his son. But Abram said, in this place, God will provide. Looking for forward to Jesus Christ’s death on the cross.
So where is God taking you today? Is there some test in your life where he’s asking you to give up the most precious thing in your life or just to give up anything? He asked you to give up something to you that’s dear to you, that means possibly too much to you. Or maybe he’s asking you to give up some sin in your life through reading God’s word. Maybe he’s pointed out to you that this is something in your life that you need to deal with and you need to give it up to me.
So wherever you are in your journey of faith, you need to know that if God is allowing you to go through a test, that it hurts him as he allows you to go through that test. Just as Abraham hurt to think about what he was going to do to Isaac, but God also knows that it has a purpose, that it’s going to strengthen you. And more important than it’s strengthening you is he wants you to be an example to others in your life of what faith and grace look like. As you go through a test and you exhibit the qualities that Abraham did, your children, your grandchildren, your friends, people are going to look at you and say, how are you going through that? And you’re able to say, it’s by God’s grace he provides and he will provide.
So we have to ask ourselves, do these words describe our level of obedience? Are we Unquestioning. When God shows us something, you might read something in the scripture and your thought is, and it’s coming from Satan. Well, maybe God didn’t really mean that. Or maybe what he said then doesn’t mean the same thing today.
Or maybe God was wrong about that. And maybe it is okay. We see that in the world all the time. That what is right is being called wrong. And what is wrong is being called right.
Because people are questioning God’s word instead of obeying it. Is your obedience unhesitating? Or when God asks you to do something or to give up something in your life, do you drag your feet? Maybe there’s some sin in your life and God is pointing out you need to get rid of this. And your thought is, well, just one more time, or just one more week, or just one more month and then I’ll give it up.
God doesn’t want you to be hesitating there. Or maybe God has asked you to give a gift of money to somebody and he says, you need to give this money. And your thought is, well, if I leave it in there three more weeks, I’ll get all my interest on my cd. God doesn’t want you to hesitate in being obedient, and he will bless you for not hesitating in your obedience. Are you unfaltering?
Meaning that once you start to obey, you’re steady and you’re resolute. Instead of turning and looking back, you continue forward in your obedience. Are you undoubting? Do you really trust that God is going to take you through it? That he’s going to fulfill his promises?
Are you unflappable? Meaning that in the midst of the crisis, you’re showing this great calmness that that can only come from the Lord Almighty, that you can tell people, I don’t know how I’m making this through this, and I’m not that upset about it. I just know that God is in this and he’s going to take care of me. Is your obedience unparalleled? Meaning if there’s something exceptionally difficult that you’re going through, each difficulty that you go through makes you more and more like Jesus Christ.
And is it unabated? Meaning as you’re being obedient to the Lord, there’s no reduction in intensity, that you’re going full force and you’re doing everything that you need to do to be obedient to Him. Now, none of these things can we stir up in our own strength. It all has to come by trusting God and asking him, God, help me to have faith that’s unquestioning or God help me not to doubt you. We have his Holy Spirit.
We need to ask him to provide the power for each of these things. And I would ask you today to look down that list. Which one of these things is something in your faith that you could be growing in and ask God to help you to grow in that so that you can see your faith being strengthened, so other people can see faith and grace in you and come to know the Lord. And most importantly, so that God will be glorified because this all comes from him. To help us have this personal faith like Abraham’s.
May we pray.
Heavenly Father, you are so gracious and good to us in our ups and our downs, in our questioning, in our doubts, in dragging our feet. Father, you still come back each time and say I love you and I’m going to bless you. Father, it should be that love and blessing that you so steadily give to us that causes us to grow in our faith. And we ask that you would help us to do that. In Jesus name, amen.