And again, I'll just draw your attention back to Genesis chapter 22 as we once again are looking at Abraham and this portion of the scripture that we talked about this morning. So we're just gonna pick back up on that as soon as I get there. Alright, we're picking up again on our theme and I understand and one of the reasons I wanted to do it this way is after a full meal like you've had and It's coming up on one o'clock and many of us now know the blood is rushing away from our brains to take care of the food that we've eaten. So your attention span is a little shorter. I understand that. So I don't want to just prolong this afternoon, but I do want us to end our afternoon together by once again thinking about this theme of only trust Him. So only trusting Him. and service and Sunday school and now we're hitting this particular theme. I do think it is worthwhile to pursue this theme for many reasons, not the least of which is it is foundational to our lives, to our walk with Christ. And it's a recognition, as we come here to Genesis 22, that even though we may not like tests, as we discussed this morning, God gives us tests, and often they're in the form of a pop quiz. Something that we should be ready for, not for Him to learn anything about us, but for ourselves, for our benefit, so that we might learn our own weaknesses, we might see areas in our lives that We need to give attention to so that he might strengthen us and indeed James chapter 1 says that we should count it all joy when we fall into different kinds of testings because ultimately God uses those testings to mature us in Christ and we want to grow in Christ, right? We want to become more mature believers. We want to please Him more fully every day, and it is inevitable that if we're going to grow in the Lord, if we're going to become more useful, if we're going to grow in Christ, one of the processes that God uses to do that is trials. So it is inevitable that we will undergo trials. Sometimes they're hard. Sometimes we pass. Sometimes we fail. touched upon three failures of Abraham this morning prior to Genesis chapter 22. Sometimes they don't make sense and we have Abraham as an example. So here in chapter 22 verse 1, we noted after these things, after the miraculous birth of Isaac, after waiting 25 years, now after waiting roughly 20 more years after his birth, after the banishment of Ishmael and Hagar, Finally, Abraham could be thinking, I'm sure we would be tempted to think in his shoes, all right, we can settle down, all that is in the past, we can now look forward to a glorious future. And it's in that context when he could begin lowering his guard, if you will, and there's a lesson in that for us, that sometimes when life gets easy and when there seems to be no pressure, no issues. We tend to lower our guard just a little bit, don't we? Spiritually speaking. And it's in those occasions that we provide for the devil an opportunity to trip us up. And the Lord will use those occasions to teach us lessons. So after these things, he tests Abraham to see if Abraham's life, in Abraham's life, whether Isaac was more important to him or God. So where is his heart? And that's where we were this morning. God uses tests, though we may not always understand them, to reveal our hearts And now point number three, God's tests confirm his faithfulness. So in these tests we see the faithfulness of God. I want to begin reading here in verse 11 and we'll read down through verse 19 so we can see the remainder of this narrative. So verse 11, 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 thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that 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 a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah-Jireh, as it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast 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 heaven, and as the sand is upon the seashore, 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. So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba, and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba." So here we have, at the end of the narrative, after he has obeyed the Lord, in doing what would have been very difficult, in preparing for a sacrifice, taking his son and all he would need for the sacrifice, three days journey, So it wasn't easy, the journey itself, and then of course climbing Mount Moriah, preparing the offering, preparing his son to be the offering, lifting up the knife, ready to plunge it, and then we see the faithfulness of God. So when we talk about this faithfulness, there are a few observations. God confirms his faithfulness by withdrawing the penalty. Now think with me for a minute on this. What a relief it must have been for Abraham to hear God's voice. We tried to convey this morning something of what he must have been feeling as this was all taking place. But can you imagine with all of that angst and confusion and I want to please God and I don't understand and how can I do this? And just imagine the emotional turmoil of the moment when he raises that knife to plunge it into his son's heart to hear the voice of God, Abraham, Abraham. I can almost, in my mind's eye, I can almost see Abraham Relax. Take a deep breath. Here am I. I'm right here, Lord. God speaks from heaven at just the right time. And there's a lesson in that too, isn't there, for us? Is God ever late? You know, sometimes we kind of live our lives with a sense that is God going to be on time? Now, we wouldn't voice it that way, right? I mean, we're not going to stand up at a testimony service at church and say, you know, I just want you to know I'm afraid God's going to be late this time. We all know better, but that doesn't change what we feel in our hearts that we might guardedly hold within our thoughts. Is God going to be on time? When is God going to send relief? Abraham, no matter how confused he may have been, in obedience, he was following through to the very end of what God expected him to do and at the very right time. Not a moment too early, not a moment late, God spoke to him and stayed his hand. The God who would one day slay his own son in whose hand no one would withhold, now withdraws the penalty." Yeah, this was going to be some price to pay for obedience, but God confirms His faithfulness by withdrawing this from Him. Now, what am I saying? Well, the penalty of sin is withdrawn when we trust Christ as our Savior. Is that true? When we trust Christ as Savior, there is therefore now, what, in Romans 8, 1? No condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Because of what our Savior accomplished for us on that same Mount of Moriah, Mount Zion, as we may later refer to it, in that same place, maybe it was the same spot, I mean, we really don't know. There's conjecture about whether it was a particular stone on the Temple Mount where this took place, but we only know it was on the mountain. But it could have been the very spot where Jesus was crucified. It wouldn't surprise me, but it's in the vicinity for sure. But through the death of Christ, God saved us. And we are washed from our sins. The penalty of testing So we see the penalty of our sin was dealt with at the cross. Penalty may be a strong word to use here, but the consequences of the test, the seemingly end result of the test, which would have been the death of Isaac, God removes that now as we see Abraham passing the test of trust. He trusted God, as we saw in Hebrews 11, 19. He believed that God was going to fulfill the promise even if that meant that Isaac would be raised from the dead. And so, as he trusts in God, as he is shown to us, God knew this ahead of time. But as he demonstrated for our benefit that he indeed did trust God, God now removes that requirement. No longer does he need to worry about taking the life of his son. In other words, as one commentator put it, he turns our night time of testing into the dawn of relief. Now, I hope I'm not stretching this too far, but I'm just trying to think what Abraham must have been feeling in that moment. And I can't imagine the anguish of heart that he would have felt. Yes, he loves God more than anyone, even Isaac, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't love Isaac. So can you imagine the relief that would wash over his soul as God stays his hand? This is the faithfulness of God that we're talking about. God confirms his faithfulness. He takes that nighttime of testing, the darkness of the storm, and he turns it into the dawn of relief. He brings relief. Secondly, God confirms his faithfulness by providing a substitute. And we saw that in verses 13 and 14. Abraham lifted up his eyes. He saw the ram caught in the thickets. He, in verse 14, acknowledges that this is Jehovah-Jireh the Lord will provide. God confirms his faithfulness by providing a substitute. Just as Abraham was assured that Just as Abraham had assured Isaac, remember, God will provide himself a sacrifice, so God now provides that substitute. I don't think that Abraham had any imagination when he said that to Isaac, that there would be a ram caught in the thickets. I mean, if you think about it, wouldn't he have heard the ram in the thickets already? I mean, if that ram had been there for how long, he would have heard the ram with it. It's stuck. It's going to be trying to get out. It had to have been something. There it is, there's the ram. Of course, we also see in those words of Abraham, the Lord will provide himself a sacrifice. You can kind of say that in such a way that we realize, oh, wait a minute. What did we just celebrate at Christmas? That God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God provided a sacrifice. He provided Himself, God the Son, to be a sacrifice for us. So we can see connections in this story that remind us of how God has provided for us. So, Abraham's part of the story is completely subordinate to God's part. Abraham's faith is not memorialized. It's really God's faithfulness that is on view here. We see this from a human-centric view, and that's what we did this morning looking at Abraham and how Abraham thought and what Abraham did. But this is really a lesson that God is faithful, that even when He requires of us something that does not make sense by way of a test, that God is still faithful. His promises will be fulfilled, whether we can understand in the moment how that would be true or not. Through all of this, Abraham came to know God in increasingly more precious ways. So think with me very quickly. I mean, we could take each one of these. These are sermons in themselves, all right? First, in Genesis chapter 12, he knew God as Jehovah. We might say Yahweh. I am that I am. Then, in chapter 14, he knew him as El Elyon, the Most High God, Possessor of Heaven and Earth. Then, in chapter 17, El Shaddai, God Almighty, the One who can do what is impossible with men. And now here in chapter 22, Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. You can see there's this growing knowledge Abraham, over time, is getting to know God better over the succeeding years. Now, we look at it and say, okay, chapter 12, chapter... We see it like, what, 12 days later? But we're covering decades of time. This isn't that he, in a month or in a year, came to know God in all of these ways, but it is over the course of his trusting God that God increasingly revealed Himself. to Abraham. Abraham grew in his knowledge. And isn't that parallel for you and me in our walk with Christ today? It would be wonderful if at the very moment that you become a child of God, you're born again into the family of God, wouldn't it be great if at that very moment you knew everything that you could possibly know about the Lord? And you would walk a perfect walk from that point on. Wouldn't that be great? What lessons would you learn? I mean, it would be wonderful to skip to the end, but if I could use that analogy of a test again. I think that a student who has had to labor and work and study and burn the midnight oil and pay a price so that he can do well and pass a class and get a degree is going to be far more successful in life than somebody who could just simply somehow download all that knowledge into his brain overnight and never have paid a price for the knowledge. It's not going to mean as much to that person. We say, oh, but wouldn't it be nice to have that shortcut? But it's the process of gaining that knowledge, of growing in that you know, that academic knowledge and vocational knowledge that gives us life experience that far surpasses the head knowledge. Does that make sense? Or to put it another way, you know, I went and I spent six years of study and then I became a pastor. Now, after six years, I knew everything I needed to know. Just ask me. I thought I knew everything I needed to know. I was proud of much of what I knew. But you know what I didn't know? I know this sounds odd to say it this way. I didn't know what I didn't know. And what I didn't know was what couldn't be taught in a classroom. Because no matter how many guys stood in front of us preacher boys and shared their war stories with us, they were their war stories. They weren't my war stories. So I could share some of the stories they told about when they were preparing for the ministry, and yeah, I could intellectually say, oh yeah, I see that. But when I was in the same situation, I didn't respond based on what I heard from that guy. I had to make my own mistakes. I had to learn the hard way, the school of hard knocks, if you will. And the point I'm trying to make is, All that knowledge gave me tools, but I had to exercise those tools. So when we think about growing in our knowledge of the Lord and how God uses these tests in our lives, it is for our benefit. I'll give you one example. I will make reference to Greek. But I don't really major on any of the Greek stuff that I learned when I was in college in the sense of standing up here and oohing and aahing about all the different aspects. But when I was a young preacher boy, young pastor, I remember standing in front of people, and though I would have said at the time it wasn't a matter of pride, it was a matter of precision, using my Greek skills, to talk about words and parsing those words and breaking it down so that people could hear it. You know what I learned after just, it really didn't take me long to learn? They could care less. Bunch of West Virginians, Greek, it's all Greek to me. It was more about me making myself feel like I was so smart than it was about me actually connecting with and being able to in some way benefit the people listening. My point is this. I had been told that, but I had to learn it the hard way to realize that those people could care less about how much Greek I knew or didn't know. They just needed to be fed the Word of God. And so I've had to grow over time in that area and many other areas. I'm still learning how to be the better pastor. That should be true until the Lord takes me out. But what I'm saying is it is through testing. God has taught me so many lessons through testing. I've learned lessons through testing in this church. I don't need to go back and give a list of them, but the point I'm making is every one of those tests was an opportunity for me to learn. I could say it would be so much better if I had all that knowledge and never had to learn it the hard way. But it means so much more and it's so much more valuable because I did learn it through God taking me through those tests. All things work together for good. So what I'm saying is Jehovah Jireh, God provides in the darkest circumstances of our lives. When faith triumphs, God confirms his power, his love, and his trustworthiness. He is the God who provides. He provided a Savior as our substitute. He provides for us our ability to overcome temptations, to endure tests, to carry burdens, to go on when we feel like quitting, to trust Him at all costs. If you're passing through a deep test of your faith, remember, He is Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord will provide. And your dark place will become a memorial to His faithfulness. You will recognize that God is faithful. And He uses those difficulties to grow you. to help you to become better. Thirdly, God confirms his faithfulness by renewing his promise. This is verses 15 and following. The voice from heaven comes a second time to finish the story. First, God attributes praise to Abraham for his faithfulness, because you have done, in verse 16, and have not withheld your son, your only son. Verse 18, because you have obeyed my voice. Now God confirms his faithfulness by renewing his promise to make Abraham's ascendance plentiful. That's the first part of verse 17. Powerful and successful, that's the second half of verse 17. And then influential throughout the earth, verse 18, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. In thy seed, singular. The grammar is important there, because who is that a reference to? The ultimate child of Abraham is Jesus. And through Jesus, all the nations of the earth are blessed. So you and I may not be physically descendants of Abraham. We come through some other line. And so we are European for the most part in our descent, right? We come from Germany, or France, or England, or Spain, or Italy, or Greece. But at the end of the day, we are blessed through the covenant God made with Abraham, that through him a child would be born. And through that child, all the earth would be blessed. God is faithful. The ultimate consequence of this test is not the sparing of Isaac. That's what we see. But the ultimate consequence is the renewal of God's promise about Abraham's descendants. I mean, that's really the culmination of the chapter. Hey, here's a test, Abraham. God already knew Abraham's heart. But when the test was over and God had made provision and the heart of Abraham has been revealed, God says, now, let me remind you the promise I've made. Because I want to highlight it once again. It is the renewal of God's promise about Abraham's descendants. So they will prosper because Abraham was obedient and faithful. He passed this test. You will never know, and this is really, as we're trying to wrap this up, you will never know the impact you will have on future generations because of your obedience and faithfulness. You really don't know. I mean, we see life in our little bubble of time, right? I mean, we've all heard about the dash. And so you have the day you were born and the day you die, and then the dash, and the dash is where everything in your life takes place between that first day and that last day. What will your dash contain? There's a poem to that effect. But the reality is, you don't know in that little dash of time that goes by very quickly. For those of you who are young, cherish the days you have because you'll turn around and suddenly, where? Where did the last four decades go? That's how quickly time flies. But here's the real question. In the next decade, two decades, three decades, how many decades of life do you have left before you reach the end of a normal lifespan? Whatever that is, What impact will your life leave? Now your children are your primary means of impact, right? So what kind of impact will you have upon your children? But what about your children's children? The Sunday school class that we just finished was how to raise a godly grandchild. And the first thing I said to the class when we started, this was back in October, was you may be wondering why am I teaching a class to that particular group of people about raising a godly grandchild when at that point I was the only person in the room that had a grandchild. Because the real test of raising your children is how they will raise their children. So you want to raise your children in such a way that they will raise godly grandchildren. What kind of impact will your life have on your grandchildren? And what about their children? I know my grandchildren. I probably will not get to know their children. If I do, it'll just be very early in their lives, right? But what about their grandchildren? My grandchildren's grandchildren if the Lord doesn't return. Well, I didn't share it with you. I should have brought that illustration. In that class, I gave an illustration of two families. I wish I'd brought that, so I'm just going to have to give you a quick overview. Here was the gist of it. There was one man and a woman that got married back in the 1600s. And then we gave a listing of all of their descendants over the next couple of hundred years. They were people of ill repute. Nice way of saying they were guilty of some grave sin, that husband and wife. And their children for generations were robbers and murderers and cheaters. And then there was a godly couple, Jonathan Edwards and his wife. And you go over the next couple of hundred years from their lives, And their children were doctors and lawyers and senators and congressmen. Their children and children's children and children's children's children were not guilty of the same dissipation of life as the other couple. What's the difference? How do you raise your children? What impact are you going to leave in the world? And it may be that you don't have children, but you have other people that you can impact. through your life, through your friendships with their mom and dad. The point I'm making is we can leave a lasting impact in this world, and that's really, ultimately, what we're talking about. We might not know our impact, but Abraham's life had a great impact, didn't it? I mean, think about his life from nearly 4,000 years ago. And we're still talking about him. Now, the Lord may not tarry another 4,000 years. I hope not. But whatever time you and I have, the wonderful truth is, by God's grace, we can, through the testings of life, grow and mature and gain the spiritual clarity that we need to have a lasting impact on the lives of others. And we don't know what that means. After all, one guy talks to a shoe salesman, a young guy selling shoes, really didn't seem like anybody important or significant, and yet that little shoe repair salesman kid becomes Dwight L. Moody. And how many multiple thousands of people came to Christ through his ministry. Who knows, but that one of these young folks in here could be the Dwight L. Moody of their generation. Or maybe their children. The point I'm making is. Let God. Give you the tests. And face them. With a proper spirit and outlook. Trust him in the test. Trust his promises. Don't get lost in the dark clouds or the wind blowing through your ears, and God will show his faithfulness to us. And we may not see what that means this side of heaven, but I guarantee you there will come a day in heaven itself when we will be able to see our impact. I'll close with this illustration on that. Many, many years ago, somebody, and I've shared this with you before, but it's significant to me, Many, many years ago in the area of Columbus, Ohio, somebody had lunch. Not a very significant event, right? Happens all the time. Only they laid a gospel track down on the table. It was a Chick track. This was your life. Some of you may be familiar with that particular one. My mother was a waitress. The busboy handed it to her. She brought it home. I don't know why. Not a Christian. She stuck it in a drawer. You know, a junk drawer. You have a junk drawer in your house? She put it in the junk drawer. I can see this as clearly in my mind as if it happened this morning. In a moment of idleness and boredness, Her 12-year-old boy, me, rifled through that drawer trying to find something to do. You ever been there? And, wait, what is this? I've never seen a chick track. I don't know what a chick, you know, chick, what is he, chickens? I don't know what this is. But I read it. And really, for the first time in my life, I came face to face with this idea, one day I'm going to stand before a holy God and I'm going to have to answer for my sin. I was old enough to understand what sin was and now I came face to face with the idea that I'm going to have to stand before God one day. I didn't get saved that day, I didn't quite understand that part of the track, but it brought me under conviction and about two years, two and a half years later, in a small church in Chapmanville, West Virginia, and the Lord brought me in contact with some folks who cleared up some of the fog, and I came to know Christ as my Savior. Here's the point I'm making. Who is this anonymous person that left that tract on a table that God used to begin the conviction that eventually drew me to Christ? I have no idea. It could have been a child. It could have been someone in their 80s who died a long time ago. It could have been a teenager. I have no idea, but one day, one day, it has been my desire, and I believe God will do this. One day, I'm looking forward in heaven to being able to walk up to another redeemed child of God and say, hey, you left a tract on a table at the Scotts Inn in Columbus, Ohio. And you had no idea how God would direct that track and what he would do. That person left a lasting impact on my life and all the lives that God has used me to touch down through the decades, male or female, young or old, that person is responsible. That's on their account. And they have no idea. What am I trying to say in closing? You don't know what impact your life will have. And you may not know this side of heaven. That's part of the test. He is faithful. He will always be faithful. Just obey. It's just like the song, trust and obey. Just trust him. and do what we know His Word tells us to do. And someday in heaven, you might be standing on the streets of gold, and somebody might walk up to you and say, hey, you don't know me, but you left a gospel tract on a table, or I was watching you from afar in a classroom in college, or at work. You worked in the cubicle across the room from me, but I watched your life every day. I never spoke to you, but your life spoke volumes to me." Could that happen? It absolutely could. So God sends trials. Sometimes I don't understand. But here's the point. Only trust Him. Trust Him. And do right. And obey His Word. And one day, We'll be in his presence and we'll hear him say, well done, well done, faithful servant. Isn't that what you want to hear? I hope we all do. Let's bow our heads. Father, I thank you for the opportunity we've had this afternoon to finish up the message from this morning. Lord, we thank you that even though we may not always understand the testings that come into our lives, that they're vehicles through which our hearts are revealed. And sometimes what we see isn't good when we fail the test. But even in the failing of the test, there are lessons for us to learn. And ultimately, through these testings, we have an opportunity to see your faithfulness to us. Thank you, Father, for all that you have done and all that you continue to do in each of our lives as we are your redeemed children. And Father, whatever 2025 has for us, help us to live every day in faith, trusting you and giving you the glory as we pray this in Christ's name and for his sake.