Sermon Cloud

Biblical Faith is a Tested Faith

Hebrews 11:17-19

Grace Fellowship Church

August 10, 2008

Series 3 Sermon 52

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, ¹⁸ of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” ¹⁹ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Introduction

Testing is a part of the Christian life.  If life were easy all the time then our faith would not be proven.  But God is in the business of testing His people.  We see in our text this morning that God tested Abraham and even the Lord Jesus was tested in the wilderness by Satan.  But did you ever wonder why the Lord Jesus went to the wilderness?  He was led there by the Lord.  Listen to Matthew 4:1.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

Adam and Eve were tested and they failed.  They failed because they did not by faith endure the test.  If we are going to see and appreciate the testing brought on us by our Lord then we have to first get our theology of testing straight. 

The problem is we are too much in the world.  And the world has a terrible understanding of the Lord and this includes His ways.  What the world thinks is that people who are loved by God will never have to endure a season of testing only constant blessings are to be poured out on them.  But this is not the teaching of the Word.  Think about the Lord’s prayer that we all just prayed.  What did you pray?  “And lead us not into temptation?”  Greek word “payrasmos” which means a temptation or a trial.  Who were you praying to?  “Our Father which art in Heaven…” So in the Lord’s prayer we are asking the Lord not to lead us into trial or temptation.  Why?  Because trials or temptations or testing are difficult and demanding.  They are stretching to our Christian experience. 

You see most people who call themselves Christians have the Lord in this box.  He acts a certain way, He does certain things and He does not do others.  But that is just not the case. 

I just read through 1^st and 2^nd Samuel in my own personal reading and one of the truths that struck me about those books that I have never heard anyone say anything about is the trials of David.  Most people talk about how God had Samuel anoint David who was the least likely of all his brothers to be king and how the Lord looks on the heart instead of the outward appearance of a man.  But did you ever read all of the story?  Most people believe that David was a teenager when he was anointed king by Samuel.  Do you know how old he was when he assumed the throne of Israel?  Thirty years old.  When God had David anointed king over Israel he took him through about 15 years of trial or testing.  Saul was trying to kill him.  There was rebellion after Saul’s death.  The anointed king of Israel had to hide in caves and in the villages of the pagans to keep Saul from taking his life.  Saul’s son Ishbosheth pronounced himself king over Israel after Saul’s death and David had to hide out from him.  Finally he gets to take the throne and of course it was smooth sailing after that right?  Of course not.  I can imagine there were times in David’s life he wished to be back on those hills near Bethlehem tending his father’s sheep rather than leading the flock of God in Israel.  Think about it this way.  Did David ask to be king?  No, but when God anointed him with the oil of gladness he also anointed him with the oil of testing.  Think about this for a moment.  If God had not thrown David into this season of testing we would be missing quite few Psalms out of the Bible and also much of the story of the life of David.  God has great purpose for our testing. 

If we get our heads and hearts out of the world and into the Word what we soon discover is that God is a God who tests His people.  This testing is the driving force of our sanctification.  What is sanctification?  It is the killing off of the flesh.  It is taking up your cross.  It is dying to yourself.  It is the refusal of your own will and desire for the Lord’s will and desire.  It is living the life of the Son of God by faith.  And when sin has its dominion over you God will allow testing to the point that you are sifted like wheat. 

Remember what the Lord Jesus said to Peter in Luke 22:31-32?  "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; ³² but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers."

God’s testing is always for a purpose.  And the inevitability of testing in the Christian life is obvious.  If our Lord was tested then we can expect to be tested as well.  Let me give you some Scripture passages.

Listen to 1 Peter 4:12-14.

¹² Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; ¹³ but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. ¹⁴ If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

Peter tells us we should expect testing and James tells us how to react to it in James 1:2-4.

² Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials , ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance . ⁴ And let endurance have its perfect result , so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Context

Let’s get the whole story on our passage this morning.  Abraham has a test to take.  As you remember Abraham and Sarah were promised a son.  He would be the one through whom Abraham would be the father of many people.  He was the child of their old age and the Lord had given Sarah power to conceive long after the age of bearing children had passed her by.  Abraham was a wealthy man whom God had blessed abundantly.  He was called by God out of the Ur of the Chaldees to a land that God was going to give his children as an inheritance.  He takes his barren wife Sarah and his nephew Lot with him and off they go.  God pays him a visit and makes the pronouncement that they will have a son.  The big day comes and the boy Isaac is born.  According to Genesis 21 Abraham threw Isaac a huge party when he was weaned.  To this only son I am sure everyday was a special day.  There is no doubt that Abraham loved his son.  And then the call of God comes to Abraham.  Do the unthinkable.  Genesis 22:1 and 2 is the call.  Listen as I read. 

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” ² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

The text says that Abraham got up, loaded up, and went up to Moriah with the intention of sacrificing his son, his only son, the one that he loved to the Lord as the Lord commanded him to do.  And this was no short walk.  It took three days to get to the place.  You know what happened.  Abraham built the alter, he bundled up the limbs for the fire and then he tied up his son, placed him on the alter and raised the knife to kill his only son just as God had told him to do.  And the Lord intervened and provided another sacrifice. 

This is a very familiar story but have you ever thought about the mindset of Abraham?  What would make him willing to slaughter his own son at the single command of the Lord?  What would make him without questioning the Lord pick up a knife and have to be stopped before he took his son’s life?  How could Abraham endure a test like this?

Hebrews 11:17 answers that question for us.  Look at the verse.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son,

What kind of faith is this?  It is exactly the kind of faith that we have been looking at in Hebrews 11 these past weeks.  It is biblical saving faith.  It is the type of faith that does not shrink back.  It is the type of faith that endures to the end.   It is the faith that God plants in the heart of His people. 

So far, if you will permit me to give you a short review of Hebrews 11 we have seen that biblical, saving faith is nothing at all like the idea of mental assent that is so prevalent in our day.  It is not some one time agreement between you and God where you choose to believe Christ for salvation.  It is a life changing, world shaking, world forsaking trust in the promises of God that are rooted in what God has shown us about himself.  As we saw in Hebrews 11:3 it is a theologically driven faith.  Verse 4 taught us that real faith worships according to what God has ordained for worship and not out of the imaginations of our own heart.  Verse 5 taught us that this faith is a faith that walks with God while verse 6 summarized all of this by showing us that those who would draw near to God must know that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. In the examples of Noah and Abraham we saw that Biblical faith is both an obedient faith and last week we saw that it is a radical faith. 

PNP

This week from our text I want you to understand that Biblical, saving faith is a tested faith.  If you go through this life thinking you will never be tested then you will be greatly disappointed when you are. But when you have a proper biblical perspective of testing then you will reap the greatest benefit from walking through the fires of testing.  And that is the point.  The Lord is going to mold and shape us into the image of Christ and if He was tested who was perfect and knew no sin how much more do we need to be tested? 

These tests could come in the form of illness or sickness.  They could come in the loss of a child.  The testing could come in the death of a spouse.  The test could come in the loss of a job or career.  The test could come in some sort of temptation where you have to run to the throne of grace.  God has tests for all of us and he has them custom made for our sanctification, His glory, and our ultimate good. 

But what is it that will help us get our hearts and our heads right for testing?  What is it about the character of God that we need to understand in order to not only endure testing but to actually benefit from it?  It really boils down to a trust in the sovereignty of God. 

This morning, from Hebrews 11:17-19, I want you to see two aspects of God’s sovereignty that will help us to not only endure testing but also to benefit from it.

1.  The first aspect of God’s sovereignty that we must understand in order to benefit from testing is that God is sovereign over our future.

2.  The second aspect of God’s sovereignty that we must understand in order to benefit from testing is that God is sovereign over how He chooses to fulfill His promises. 

Purpose

My purpose in preaching this passage is to fortify you with the needed tools to hold fast in times of testing.  If you deny the sovereignty of God then you have a foundation of sand when the winds of testing come.  If you do not understand that the sovereignty of God bleeds over into all aspects of our lives then you will never appreciate and learn fully from what our Lord allows us to go through. 

You will miss the whole reason He allows you to be sick.  You will miss the whole reason He allows you to suffer.  You will not gain any benefit from the temptation or the pain that you have to walk through. So let’s dive right in this morning.

RPNP

Look with me at these two aspects of God’s sovereignty that will help us to not only endure testing but also to benefit from it.

1.  The first aspect of God’s sovereignty that we must understand in order to benefit from testing is that God is sovereign over our future.

Look with me at verses 17 and 18.

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, ¹⁸ of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 

Notice what is being said here in verses 17 and 18.  It does not say simply that Abraham was tested when he offered up Isaac.  Look at the descriptions the writer of Hebrews flowers his statement with.  It wasn’t just Isaac.  It was his only son.  It was his only son through whom Abraham’s lineage would go. It was the son of his old age that he loved and cared for and through whom the name of Abraham would be a blessing to the whole world and the generations that sprang from Isaac would inherit the land where Abraham was a sojourner. 

Notice verse 18 again.

¹⁸ of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 

We have to get the story behind the verse here.  The story is from Genesis 17.  God appears to Abram, changed his name to Abraham, changes Sarai to Sarah and promises him a son again through whom Abraham’s lineage would be named.  At this time Abraham had Ishmael.  Listen as I read Genesis 17:15-22.

¹⁵ Then God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. ¹⁶ "I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her." ¹⁷ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, "Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" ¹⁸ And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before You!" ¹⁹ But God said, "No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac ; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. ²⁰ "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. ²¹ "But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year." ²² When He finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.

When God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac Abraham understood that at this point he had no heir to fall back on.  He knew from a visit from God that Isaac would be the one and yet now God was calling him to sacrifice the son of the promise. 

Here is what we need to understand and what Abraham understood.  When God calls you He not only calls you to cut ties with your past, God also calls you to place your future on the alter as well. 

Let that sink in for a moment.  Your future, your plans, your dreams, your aspirations, everything that your parents planned and everything that you have planned and everything that your spouse has planned…. Its all dead on the alter of submission to Christ. 

I am not telling you this morning that you should not plan for the future.  I am not telling you that long range planning is a bad thing.  I am not telling you this morning that having dreams and aspirations and goals are wrong.  What I am telling you is when called upon to place that on the alter of God and kill them then those who have faith willingly and happily part with their future hope for what God has planned for them. 

How can you do this?  Because you know the character of God from the Scriptures.  The Lord said to Jeremiah, “I know the plans that I have for you…” 

We know that the Apostle Paul sacrificed his future as a Pharisee in order to serve Christ.  We know that Peter left the fishing business in order to be an Apostle and die crucified upside down.  We know that James and John left their father’s boat to follow the Lord. 

At this point the whole chapter is coming together for us.  Abraham is able to place Isaac on the alter and is willing to destroy his future because he understands that God is the creator of all things and He is sovereign over all things.  He understands that God has called him to worship how He is commanded to worship and this time the offering is his son.  He understands that if he is going to walk with the Lord in obedience and exemplify this radical faith that will be held up as the prototype for generations of believers then he must have a different perspective than his father or his nephew or his brother or any other human. 

What was Abraham looking for?  Was he looking for earthly fame and wealth and comfort?  No.  He was looking for a city that is built by God that has lasting foundations not foundations that will deteriorate.  Abraham had an eternal perspective and that is why he could lay his future hope on the alter and willingly sacrifice it to God. 

What about you?  Do you have that kind of faith?  If called upon to part with your 401k could you do it?  If called upon to sell all that you have and give it to the poor and follow Christ could you do it?  Do you have your possessions or do they have you?  If God was to take one of your children or grandchildren do you have the faith to let them go and not be angry and resentful toward God? 

I am not saying it won’t hurt.  I am not saying that there won’t be pain.  I am not saying that there won’t be questions.  What I am saying is that if you have the proper perspective then you will lay down whatever it is that God calls you to lay down knowing that He is in sovereign control over your future.

So what about the promise?  What about the lineage that would come through Isaac? How did Abraham handle that and how can we learn from Abraham?  We have seen that the first aspect of God’s sovereignty that we must understand in order to benefit from testing is that God is sovereign over our future.  Now I want you to see:

2.  The second aspect of God’s sovereignty that we must understand in order to benefit from testing is that God is sovereign over how He chooses to fulfill His promises. 

Look with me at verse 19.

¹⁹ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Notice the word considered.  Abraham considered that God was able to bring about the promise however He intended to do it.  After all, it was God who called him out of idolatry.  It was God who initiated the move from Ur to Palestine.  It was God who had promised Abraham he would be the father of a multitude.  It was God who had promised Abraham this son even in his old age.  And now it was God who told Abraham to kill the son of the promise. 

Abraham considered that because of the character of God in fulfilling His promises he could trust in the Lord in this situation.  If he did kill the boy and burn his body to a heap of ash and the wind scatter it all over, he knew that God was perfectly capable of bringing all that ash back together, undoing what the fire and the knife had done and raising Isaac up to fulfill the promise.  That is the testing of a real and biblical saving faith. 

It is saying at times in your life, “Lord I have no idea why You are taking me through this situation and why I am having to endure this but I know that You are able to deliver me in a moment.  But until you do I trust You.” 

Not for a few hours, but for three days Abraham had to journey to Mt. Moriah and every step of the way Abraham must have been rehearsing that scene in his mind of sacrificing his son.  And then he gets to the spot and the moment of truth comes.  And the Lord intervenes. 

Do you know why Abraham could raise that knife?  Do you know why Abraham could tie his son up and build an alter and place him on it?  Because he believed the promises of God in spite of what his flesh told him. 

Can you imagine the war with the flesh at that moment?  “Don’t do it!  Have you ever seen someone raised from the dead?”

Do you have that type of faith that walks through great difficulty and pain and still trusts in the Lord? 

Do you know what our problem is?  Our problem is that for the most part we have been fed lies our whole lives by well meaning people who just did not understand the character of God.  You have been told in many ways and often very subtly that God is a good God and He would never intentionally cause His children pain.  You have been told that like Joseph you will be elevated to greatness because of the blessing of God.  You have been told that persecution won’t come your way because before it does you will be zapped out of this earth taken to the safe confines of heaven.  You have been taught that when you do have an illness or you do not get healed or when a child causes you grief or when the womb does not open or when the jobs dry up and your bank account is empty that God is angry with you and you have done something wrong that you need to repent of. 

That could be true but it probably is not.  What did Joseph do wrong before his brothers threw him into a cistern and then sold him as a slave to Egypt?  What did he do wrong before he was put into Pharaoh’s prison to sit and wait and wait and wait for God’s deliverance?  What did Joseph understand that many of us fail to get in times of testing?

Sure Joseph’s brothers were wicked in their hearts toward Joseph and they meant to get rid of him but what did he say to them that showed the type of faith that had been bestowed upon Joseph.  “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” 

Now the modern mind that does not understand the ways of God will say.  “You mean that God allowed Joseph to almost be killed by his own brother, to be sold into slavery, and to spend time in prison just to fulfill promises?”  And the answer to that is absolutely He did.  It takes a wisdom granted from above to grasp that. 

Let me give you some Scripture to latch on to.  Listen to 2 Corinthians 1:3-11.

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. ⁶ But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; ⁷ and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort. ⁸ For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia , that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; ⁹ indeed , we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; ¹⁰ who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us, ¹¹ you also joining in helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many.

Get that this morning.  Paul says the suffering, the affliction, the nearness of death that he has endured is for the comfort and salvation of the Corinthians.

Do you wonder why the Lord allows things to happen in your life?  Do you ever wonder why the Lord lets you suffer physical pain and emotional pain?  Have you ever just passed through a dry season spiritually where it was emotionally draining to read your Bible and it was difficult to pray and you even wondered if you were really a believer?  Have you ever lost everything?  Has God ever left you asking why?  And then not answer you. 

The problem for us is we don’t often see past our circumstances.  We only look at what is right in front of us.  But faith sees past the present circumstances and focuses on the ability of God to do all things that He has promised.  Look at verse 19 again.

¹⁹ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

I think I know what the writer means when he says at the end of the verse, “figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.”  I think the reason the writer of Hebrews says this is because Abraham understood that he may not always understand what God is doing or why he did understand that God is faithful to see His promises through and in Abraham’s heart and mind while they were journeying to Mt. Moriah Isaac was already dead.  The knife had already slit his throat and the blood had already drained out.  The ashes were already in the wind and the fire of the offering had already gone out.  “God you say kill him, I put him in Your hands.” 

Here is what Abraham understood and what we need to understand.  It comes from John 11:25.  

²⁵ Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,

Whatever your struggle is this morning God is able to deliver you from all sorts of things but he may choose to not do so yet nor in this life.  Great men and women of God who made marks on the world and on the kingdom of God suffered greatly many times in this life.  But they held on knowing that God is able to exactly what will be for our eternal good and His eternal glory in us. 

As I close this morning let me remind you that we all have Isaacs.  We all have dreams and aspirations and future plans and hopes and not always but sometimes God commands us to kill those.  And when He does tell us to put those to death then He always correctly redeems the situation.  Maybe not the way we think it ought to be but He does it perfectly.

This morning, is your faith tested?  Have you walked through the fires of testing and come out the other side?  Are you ready to walk through them again?  Maybe you are in the middle of the fire right now and you wonder what God is doing and you were thinking as I read James 1 about how in the world can we count it all joy when the world is caving in around us?  Let me read James 1:2-4 for you one more time.

² Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials , ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance . ⁴ And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Let’s pray.