All right, good morning again, everyone. Young folks are making their way down for junior church for the first time in 2025. And here you and I are to begin our time together in the Word of God. And I invite you to turn with me this morning in your Bible to Genesis 22. Genesis 22. I should probably ask this question first just to see if you were, especially after being given a heads up by Brother Randall, if anyone came to a conclusion about what the theme of 2025 is for First Baptist West Seneca. Anyone wanna take a chance and hazard a guess about what the theme is? probably part of it you can figure out pretty easily. Trust, yes, trust. Now, here's the actual theme. Only trust Him. That is our theme for 2025. It is not yet on the wall. It did not get completed as quickly as we thought it would be, but Lord willing, it will be up next week. We're going to do something a little bit differently this year as far as what is hanging on the wall. Typically, we have one of the wooden plaques. This year, we're gonna have a banner. three foot by three foot banner that says, only trust him. It's a little more colorful than just the light brown wooden plaque that sometimes you can read and sometimes you can't depending on how deep or how dark the lettering is. So we're gonna try that this year and hopefully it'll be something that will catch your attention and you can see it when you walk in and just be reminded, only trust him. That is a theme that we're going to be following, especially here early in the year. We'll have a series of messages on this idea of only trust Him. Now let me, before we pray this morning, let me say a couple of things about that theme. We'll be pursuing our study of it, our thought process on this theme. But just very generally, only simply means there is no other option. Singular choice. There is no choice. Only. Only. Trust. Lean on. Believe the promises. We can trust Him. We can believe what He says. Trust. And then Him, He is the only one. There is no other. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by Him. He is the only way the only truth and therefore you put those together only Trust him now I'm excited about that theme Of course from my view one of the first things that I do when we're discussing these and this was this was but this was one of those suggestions that you gave last month and then the deacons talked about it and maybe Modified it just a little bit But I get excited when we talk about these themes, but obviously I have to also be thinking about the other side. Okay, here we have a theme. How will I approach preaching on this theme? Because, you know, I now have to think about how do we have messages that fit this theme. And frankly, when I sat down the day after we decided this and began to work through it, I thought, wow, you know, there are There's a lot that I can do from this theme, only trust Him. So I'm excitedly looking forward to it. In fact, one of the first passages that jumped into my mind was this particular passage in Genesis 22. The theme is only trust Him, and in this passage, if you remember your Hebrew history and you're reading through the book of Genesis, then you'll know what is happening here in Genesis 22 is a very real demonstration of someone who only had one choice, and that was trust Him. He had to trust God in a very real way, and we're going to talk about that here in just a moment. So I'm looking forward to our time in this. I think this is a foundational truth in Scripture. We'll pursue our study of it here in these first few weeks, and then of course we'll revisit it over the course of the year. But frankly, only trust Him is a theme that Whether we have ever made that the theme or not, it is always a theme, isn't it? Because that is the challenge we have in Scripture, to trust the Lord, to trust Him with all of our hearts, to lean not unto our own understanding and all of our ways to acknowledge Him. See, all of these verses just pop right to mind that fit this theme. So I'm looking forward to it. We want to read some of the verses here in Genesis 22. We're not gonna read the entire chapter. And then we'll ask the Lord to bless our time Today in this particular portion of scripture, but of course. as a church, as we think about only trusting Him, that the Lord will use this in a very beneficial way in each of our hearts. So follow with me. If you haven't already put the pieces together in Genesis 22, listen as I read through the first 10 verses here, and we will be reminded of a circumstance that very clearly is demonstrating this theme, only trust Him. Genesis 22, 1, and it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, behold, here I am. And he said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, 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. Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and claimed the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then 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 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 the fire in his hand, and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father, and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went, both of them, together. And they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son." Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you for the promises of Scripture. We thank you, Father, for this theme, Only Trust Him. Trust, Father, that as we think about trust, as we think about how we can only trust you, only trust our Savior. Father, may this be an encouragement to our hearts both today and in the weeks to come as we pursue this theme, as we think about different aspects of it. My prayer is that it truly will be a blessing to this church family. That Father, as our hearts are warmed by these promises, as we are encouraged by them, Lord, as we are fortified against tests such as Abraham is facing here, I trust, Father, that by your grace, it will bear positive fruit within our lives, that we will give a positive demonstration of our faith and our trust in you. Whatever 2025 may bring, Lord, this is a new year, new chapters that we are writing. But Father, whatever this year brings our way, we can all face it with this very real sense of trust, trusting you, trusting you alone and realizing that we can trust none other. So Lord, bless us as we consider this theme and bless us in this passage as we think about Abraham, as we think about this test as we think about the issues that he is facing and the demonstration of his trust, the demonstration of his faith that is so clearly shown in these verses. So Father, may you use this to encourage our hearts to strengthen our walk with you both today and in the days to come. And we'll give you the glory as we pray and ask this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. So three contestants were on a game show, and the winner of the last question would receive a free trip to Europe. The host said, please fill in the missing word and spell it correctly, and you will win. Here's the phrase they had to supply the missing word and spell it. Old MacDonald had a blank. The first contestant thoughtfully looked at the host and said, Old MacDonald had a house, H-O-U-S-E. Nope, sorry, you missed it. Second contestant, not a house, Old MacDonald had a ranch, R-A-N-C-H. No, sorry, you missed it too. So he looks at the third contestant and said, all right, last chance. And he said, oh, everybody knows this one. Old MacDonald had a farm. All right, we have someone who knew the missing word. All you need to do now is spell it correctly, and you win the prize. And the third contestant looks at him and smiles and says, oh, everybody knows this. It's E-I-E-I-O. All right. Now that's a humorous way of trying to make a point about how sometimes we fail tests. Maybe tests that we are so confident about that we don't really think it through. This gentleman clearly failed the test. And I'm sure if this was a true story for the rest of his life, he would not live down the fact that he didn't understand the question evidently. The reality is this. In life, you and I face tests. When we look at the word here in chapter 22 of Genesis verse 1, your Bible may say temptation or tempted. God tempted him. That word tempt here is test. God gave Abraham a test. The reality is that God gives us tests. On a spiritual level, we need to understand not only does God give us tests, but sometimes they are Pop quizzes. Do you remember pop quizzes? Now, we have teachers here today. Maybe you give pop quizzes to your students. I can only imagine that if you walked into class tomorrow and said, all right, take out a piece of paper, we have a pop quiz, you probably would not be looked upon very kindly by your students, right? We've been away from school for two weeks, and you're throwing a pop quiz? Now, students, I'm not trying to put any thought in your teacher's brain. If they do this tomorrow, don't blame me, all right? I'm trying to mitigate against it. But the reality is, Pop quizzes are a real thing, right? And we've all been, if you're a teacher, you've been on both sides of that, but all of us have been students. And I'm sure at some point in your academic life you had a teacher who said, alright, here is a pop quiz. Sometimes God gives us tests when we're unprepared when we're caught off guard, when we're not looking for it, but He gives us a test. He does so to see if in private we are what we say we are to the public. To see if we truly believe what we say that we believe. And sometimes those tests are circumstances or challenges that really make no sense to us. And the idea is Do we really love Him in the way that we say that we love Him? Or to put it another way, do we really trust Him in the way that we say we trust Him? The fact is, it's easy to sing these songs this morning. It's easy to say, oh, I trust the Lord. I only trust the Lord, right? But how do we demonstrate that trust? How is that trust shown? Well, it isn't really through the words that we say, it is through the life that we live and how can we more powerfully demonstrate that trust in our lives than the way we face circumstances, the way we face tests. And so God sometimes brings these questions into our lives to authenticate, to demonstrate our faith, our love for him. Sometimes they're hard. Some tests are harder than others. Sometimes we pass them and sometimes we fail them. And sometimes they make no sense to us at all. And that brings us to Abraham. I want you to notice verse one begins, and it came to pass after these things. So, this particular test in Abraham's life was not simply thrown out at a random time for no real purpose. The Lord very strategically put this test into Abraham's life at this very junction, after these things. Now, what are the things that Verse 1 is referring to after what things? Well, after the miraculous birth of the promised child Isaac. Remember, it was 25 years after God had told a 75-year-old Abraham, you will have a son. 25 years later, at a hundred years old, he finally has that son. After God has delivered this promise following a a time of testing in itself, right? After the banishment of Ishmael and Hagar into the wilderness. Ishmael, of course, being the eldest son of Abraham, but not the son of promise by Hagar, who was Sarah's handmaid. They have now been banished to the wilderness. This is all in the previous chapters. After the restoration of relationships and family, after finally finding peace with God about God's promise, to put it another way, just when Abraham thought that everything had finally settled down, The past is finally in the past. I can finally look forward to a glorious future. You know, I'm an old man. Abraham here would have been 120, roughly, give or take a handful of years. So he's lived a long life. He has now been in Canaan a long time. He finally has his son of promise. Isaac here is in his late teens, early 20s, somewhere in that age range. And so, finally, after all of everything he has experienced, now I can relax. Everything is figured out. Everything is settled. It's great when we find ourselves in those seasons of life, right? And at that very junction, after these things, God tested Abraham, and he said, Abraham, and Abraham said, here I am. Folks, to put it another way, to try to set this in context, I think, God is a jealous God. He demands our absolute affection and loyalty. If we love something or someone more than we love God, what would we call that thing that we love? What has it become to us? It's an idol. And an idol doesn't have to be something made of stone or something made of wood. It isn't necessarily an image. It can be a person. It can be some other thing. Anything that we have put into our hearts as having a higher place that we assign a greater degree of love to than our love for God is an idol. And God will not tolerate idols in our lives. Even things that are good can become idols to us. So here he tests Abraham to see if Abraham Loves God more than he loves Isaac. Now, let me set this into a larger context because I think this is important for our benefit, for our encouragement. This is not the first test that Abraham has faced, is it? In fact, Abraham, we can look at three other tests that he took and failed. This is the encouragement. We think we have to be perfect. Well, we should strive to please God in our lives and everything we do, but let's also be very honest with the reality that none of us will be perfect until we are in His presence. And so I may strive to honor Him with my life, but there will be times when I fail the pop quiz. But I can't give up. Just like we would counsel a student who failed a pop quiz, what should that student do when they fail that pop quiz? Quit the class! I mean, you failed the pop quiz, that's it? You've lost all hope? Is that what a parent would say to a child? Is that what a teacher would counsel a student? No. We would say, hey, you know what that means? That means you've got to study a little bit harder, right? You've got to be a little more prepared. You've got to take the class a little more seriously. So when God allows tests into our lives and we sometimes fail them, they're not advocating that, well, you should just quit. Why even try to live a life that honors God because all you do is fail? No. Thank God for his wonderful grace and the mercy that he has bestowed upon us. And by his grace and through the empowering of the Spirit of God, let's set out to do better on the next test. What are the three tests that he failed? Well, God tested Abraham's obedience with a famine in Genesis 12. And Abraham failed because he went to Egypt. He tested Abraham's faith with the birth of Isaac, Genesis 16. And what did Abraham do when God did not immediately, or in short order, give Isaac to Abraham and Sarah? Remember what Abraham did? He took Hagar, who was a servant to Sarah, and with her he had a child, Ishmael. You see how he failed the test? Was he trusting God or did he think he could take matters into his own hand to provide this son through whom the blessing would come? And then God tested him with Abimelech. And when Abimelech took Sarah and Abraham failed to say, hey, that's my wife, he failed his fear of God by lying and saying, oh, she's just my sister. Three occasions when this great man Abraham failed God. And let me share this with you. Abraham is called a what of God? A friend of God. This is before failure. He is a friend of God, but he didn't always pass every test. Now, here's the reality as we come to Genesis 22. Having failed three big tests, what is the hope that he will pass this one? Again, put yourself in a student's shoes. If you fail the first test, then you fail the second test, then you fail the third test, how are you going to fail when the fourth test comes? Why even try? Well, that isn't the challenge of Scripture. The challenge of scripture is God's grace was evident in the other three tests. In spite of Abraham, God was there to undertake on his behalf. God is good that way, isn't he? And so too, when he comes to the fourth test, here is not an opportunity, well, it's an opportunity, but here's not a time for Abraham to fail the test because he didn't try. Here's an opportunity for Abraham to show that he's getting it. He's learning. So notice with me, just very quickly, there are three points of this message. I'll just go ahead and tell you up front how we're going to face this passage today. We're going to look at points one and two in our service this morning. And then in the afternoon service, we're going to look at the third point. Little enticement on my part. Stay for Sunday school, stay for the meal, and then come back for the afternoon service, and we'll conclude this passage, right? In Sunday school, we're still gonna talk about the same theme. We're gonna look at it from a New Testament perspective, all right? So this is the theme for the day, and I hope that the Lord will use this to be a blessing. So the first point of the message this morning is simply this. God's tests frequently defy our logic. God's tests sometimes don't make a lot of sense to us, because after all, we're not God. Now, I'm gonna date myself a little bit here with this illustration. But I'm hoping that most of us know what a card catalog is. You know what a card catalog is in the library? Some of you are like, wait, what? Well, if you've gone to college, even today, you know, there are libraries. I mean, we have a library here in town. So, you know, this isn't something that should be too outdated, right? Here's the illustration. A brochure was put out several years ago. So this is, this really happened. A brochure was put out several years ago by the Durham, North Carolina County Public Library. It explained the use of the card catalog. But in explaining it, the brochure acknowledged that sometimes the card catalog can be a little mystifying. There are times it can be a little confusing, right? So the brochure gave an illustration of this confusion. It talked about one patron of the library who, when he read, see main entry on a catalog card, he went to the front of the library, to the front door. Now, see main entry. Okay, I don't know what this has got to do with my study of rocks, but okay. Clearly, he was confused. He didn't get the point. Well, I use that to simply illustrate this. Abraham would have had every reason to experience confusion and not really understand what God was doing when he gave him this test. Now, you're familiar with this passage, and I just read it to you a few moments ago, so we all know what's happening here. Abraham is told to take his son Isaac, his son of promise, who is late teens, early twenties, so he's not a baby, he's not a child, he's a young man, to take him to a particular place that God would show him. And when he gets there, to do something horrific, to offer his son as a burnt offering to the Lord. I can only imagine how a father especially after all of these circumstances and all of this time, how a father would be thinking at this point. God's threefold instruction would have made very little sense to Abraham very quickly. God's instructions defy logic about who to take. So, as the passage says, God tested him and said, Abraham, behold, here I am. Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get to the land of Moriah. Notice how the instruction gets progressively more intense. Take your son, your only son. Now, he had another son, but only one son of promise. So take your son, the only son of promise, the only son, Isaac, whom you love. It gets more intense with every step. And here's the issue. This child clearly over about two decades now would have been growing in affection. That would be natural, right? That a father's affection for his child would grow, especially over time as he sees his son growing into a young man. But here's the question. Was his love for Isaac competing with his love for God? Who, whom, who, whom, Did Abraham love more God or his son Isaac? Now, Isaac, Abraham has seen him grow up and his love is being intensified. I'm sure that for 25 years, he loved the baby who was not yet born, right? I mean, there was a promise from God, I'm going to give you a son. And I can only imagine for 25 years, every day, Abraham's thinking about that boy. He's never met him. He knows he's coming. I can only imagine the love he would have had in his heart. But then the son is born in his old age. I can only imagine a hundred year old Abraham holding his newborn child Isaac in his arms. This is my son. Now, here we are, 20 roughly years later, and he's seen him grow. And over the course of time, seeing him grow into a strapping young man, here is God's promise through him. My children will have children who will have children until the number is the stars in the sky. I can only imagine the affection he would have had. So why would God now ask Abraham to take this special child of promise from him and to give him as a sacrifice? It doesn't make sense. Number two, his instructions, God's instructions, defy logic about where to go. Go to the land of Moriah. And he said, I will show you the place in verse three in the land of Moriah. Abraham had followed God's instructions once before. Years before, in Ur of the Chaldees, the Euphrates, Tigris River Valley, God had spoken to a 75-year-old Abraham and said, I want you to go from here and go to a land that you know nothing of, the unknown land of Canaan. And he obeyed God and he went to that place. Now, once again, he has to travel from his home in Beersheba to an unknown land of Moriah, and God would show him a particular mountain in that place. Why would God ask him to go to an unknown place? If he has to do this deed, why go somewhere else? And then thirdly, God's instructions defy logic about what to do. Because, as he says, offer him therefore a burnt offering. A burnt offering. A burnt offering was a sacrificial offering. It cost the worshipper something. It made atonement for the sins of the worshipper. It produced a sweet aroma to God. It signified a total commitment. This is the only offering that was consumed in its entirety on the altar. The burnt offering. It is totally consumed. That's the kind of offering that God wanted from Abraham here, offer your son, have him be consumed totally upon the altar, on the mountain in Moriah that I will point out to you. It was going to cost him something. Just like when you and I are living sacrifices, we are offering everything to God and holding nothing back. That's the New Testament echo of what we would see in the Old Testament. Two important questions are begged here. Will Abraham obey God and offer his son, knowing full well that Isaac is the only person who can perpetuate the promise of God? I mean, think about the circumstances. See, we read this and we all know the rest of the story, right? So it's like, I know what's gonna happen, you know, we know, it works out, right? But try to put yourself in Abraham's shoes for a moment. Yeah, God finally gave him a son in his old age. And not just any son, but a son through whom the promise of God, the covenant that God had made with Abraham would be fulfilled through this son, not through Ishmael, but through Isaac. He is the son of promise. And we can only imagine the pride that Abraham had as he saw him grow up, and as I've already mentioned, the love and affection that would grow in his heart. And this son of promise, the only one through whom the promise of God could be fulfilled, God says, I want you to take him and I want you to burn him utterly on the altar. Well, how is God going to fulfill his promise if I kill my son? How will God's promise happen? Can you see the wheels that would have been turning in his head? I mean, we read the passage and we know, Abraham, it's going to be okay. But do you think for three days when Abraham is walking along with that donkey, with his son, with those young men who were helpers, carrying all that they needed, carrying the very wood that he would use for this offering, can you imagine he's walking along saying, It's going to be great. It's going to be fine. I know God's just playing a trick on me. Is that what he's thinking? No, he sincerely is thinking this is what God asked. This is what he wants. This is what I'm going to do. I can't imagine for three days looking at my son and thinking about what I'm planning on doing. When we get to Mariah. That's the situation that Abraham was in. Will God protect and provide? This is the second question. Will God protect and provide for Isaac as he did for Ishmael? God met Ishmael's needs even in the wilderness. God took care of Ishmael. He wasn't the son of promise, but he was a son of Abraham. And it raises an additional corollary question. It's one that we have to address. Why a child sacrifice? I mean, isn't this abhorrent? I mean, we don't practice burnt offerings anyway in our 21st century lives, right? I mean, I don't know if I should ask this question or not. Have any of us ever actually seen a burnt offering being given? We read about it. We read descriptions of it. We know it was an Old Testament thing. Really, it's conceptually something that we can only know intellectually. We really don't know by experience, right? But think about it. What is it, according to Leviticus 20 and Deuteronomy 18, what was one of the things that the people in Canaan were guilty of doing, the Amorites were guilty of doing, as Moses and the children of Israel coming out of Egypt were getting ready to move into the Holy Land. What were they guilty of doing? Child sacrifice. I mean, it was a practice of those pagan peoples to take their firstborn and offer their firstborn child as a burnt offering to Molech, a pagan god. Isaac would have known that this was a practice of those who did not serve the one true God of Abraham and eventually of Isaac and Jacob, right? He would have known this was a practice of those other peoples, but not the practice of his dad. We don't do that. Perhaps God is demanding this of Abraham to make the test even harder to understand and obey. I mean, this is the ultimate test, isn't it? What's going to happen to the promise and how can I do this? But the question, just for the sake of our encouragement in this, the question resolves itself when we focus on the whole narrative, because the command is to go and offer your son And we read through verse 10, and is Abraham in the process of offering his son? Yes. But ultimately, does God demand that Isaac be burned? Does He demand that Abraham take his life? No, right up to the very point when he's raising the knife and getting ready to do the deed, then God speaks to him. and resolves the situation. So, it was never really a test that would culminate in Isaac's death and being burnt. It was a question of what is the heart response of Abraham. So, taking a step back, we realize, yes, he is demanding of Abraham the highest cost But in the end, he isn't really expecting Abraham to do the deed because he's going to stay the hand of Abraham. It's not a question of actually taking Isaac's life. It's a question of the heart of Abraham. That is the test. But that doesn't mitigate. It didn't make any sense to Abraham. It was contradictory. It was inconsistent. to Sarah's miraculous conception, the banishment of Ishmael, God's promises of descendants through Isaac, and now God is telling him to sacrifice his promised son. It makes no sense from Abraham's standpoint, from all that Abraham knew in that three-day journey, It made no sense. And here's the point. When God tests our faith, He often defies our logic. Perhaps your own life makes no sense sometimes. Perhaps your future seems to hinge on one momentous test or decision. Should I marry this person? Take this job? Go on this mission trip? Take this course of action which could change my life forever? Perhaps you've suffered great sorrow and your life goes into turmoil. You can't figure out what to do or where to turn. Perhaps you feel the direction of God so strongly in your life, but it makes no sense. You thought you knew where your life was headed and now it's taking a completely different course. Some of us know what that's like. I've shared before, and I hope you don't. Take offense, but if you had told me 25 years ago that I would have spent nearly 23 years pastoring a church in West Seneca, New York, I'd have laughed in your face. As a Southern boy, first of all, there's nothing above the Mason-Dixon line. I mean, you know, the South shall rise again. That's to Tim, so Julie can take that to Tim. Tim Heath, another Southern boy. Now, I'm being a little bit facetious, and I didn't hear any amens or anything, so it's like, oh yeah, that's right, I'm in the North, I'm with the Yankees, what can I say? But the point I'm making is this. I never saw it coming. In fact, and I've told this story before, the first time I got a letter from this church saying, hey, we're looking for a pastor, I just sort of chuckled and just sort of, you know, threw it in a drawer. You know, it's sort of like, yeah. The second time I got a letter, it's like, these people are persistent, aren't they? Third time I got a letter, it's like, Lord, what's going on here? This isn't, and with the third letter, there was a 10 foot snow on the national news being recorded from West Seneca, New York. Now, my wife and I sitting in our brand new living room in the house that we had just moved into a month before, saw that news report, looked at each other, laughed and said, there's no way we'd ever go to a place like that. Seven months later, guess where we were? And we've been here ever since. And I'm not begrudging God's direction to do that. What I'm saying is, God sometimes gives us those kinds of tests. And we don't understand it. And it's not something we would do naturally. But it's a question of our heart. That brings me to my second point. God's tests repeatedly reveal our hearts. This is verses 3 through 11. We read through verse 10. God's tests reveal our heart. Abraham's heart is revealed here in three ways. Number one, God reveals our hearts by testing our obedience to him. Verses three and four, what will Abraham do? Well, verse three, he rose up early in the morning. He saddled his donkey. He took two of his young men with him. He took Isaac. He claved the wood. I want you to think about what he's doing when he claves the wood. There's a good modern English word, right? Have you claved any wood today? Now, if you have a fireplace, you might have. Because claving the wood basically means, you know, you're taking the wood and you're You're cutting it into pieces that will fit on the fire. So it's making firewood. That's what he's doing here. He's cutting the wood and making firewood. But why is he doing that? Can you imagine? Have you ever done this? Have you ever split wood to make fire, to make wood for fire? Every one of those, taking the wedge or the ax or whatever he's using, every one of those blows, when he takes that and he stacks it over here, This is to burn my son. This is to burn my son. This is to burn my son. I mean, think about all the steps he went through. Here is an act of obedience on his part. He reacted in true obedience. He took God at his word. He split the wood, even though he knew what the circumstances were. And here's the challenge. God demands unwavering faith in His Word. That's the bottom line. Do you believe God's Word or not? Did Abraham believe God's Word? And what was God's Word ultimately about Isaac? That through Isaac, not through another son that he could have after Isaac, but through Isaac, he would have all of these children. This is The New Testament speaking to this very time, talking about Abraham, of whom it was said, this is chapter 11 verse 18, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, Abraham accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead. When Abraham takes his son to Moriah, what is his confidence? I believe the word of God. And I know what God said about Isaac. And I know if God says that I'm supposed to offer him on the altar, that God will somehow raise him from the dead and fulfill the promise that he made. As nonsensical as it may seem to the human mind, here was a test of his heart. Did he believe God enough to obey him? Even if it didn't make sense. So, he did. He reacted in obedience to God. Secondly, God reveals our hearts by testing our faith. Verses 5 and following, again, he takes him, he takes the young men, they get to the bottom of Mount Moriah. And by the way, Mount Moriah is actually famous for something else. So we don't see it here in the text. But do you know what eventually is on Mount Moriah? the temple. So this would be what would later become Jerusalem. So there's significance in Mount Moriah. Jesus died on Mount Moriah. So there is significance of this mountain. Abraham knew none of that. He only knew that God said, this is what I want you to do. But this is a promise I've made, and Abraham believed God. And so he obeyed. He had faith. He said to the young men, you guys wait here. And notice what he said. When he said, you wait here, he said, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. What did he just say to those young men? We are going up that mountain and we are coming back down again. Faith. It didn't make sense from a human perspective, but he believed God. Faith gives us the right determination. So verse 6, And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son, and took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. So Abraham said, Hey, Isaac, come here. And he put the wood on Isaac's back. I mean, after all, Isaac's about roughly 20 and Abraham's roughly 120. I can understand that. Here, Andrew, you carry this. But he's carrying the wood that his dad is going to use from his dad's perspective for a burnt offering of his very son who's carrying the wood. But he had the right perspective. He believed that God would carry this out. Isaac was big enough, strong enough, he could carry the wood. The point is this, when tough questions are asked, true faith has the right answer. See, true faith on Abraham's part was, I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense. I don't really know what's going on here. I don't know why God would have me do this. But I know God made a promise and I know that promise will be fulfilled. And if God has to raise him from the dead, then God will do just that. True faith has the right answer. We can't explain everything, but we respond out of deep faith to God. The truth is, in my life and your life, there will be those times when we face those kinds of questions that we struggle because we want a definitive answer, right now, clear, you know, the finger riding in the sky. But what God requires of us is simply to trust Him. to trust him, only trust him. Even in those times of life when it seems absolutely beyond our imagination how this could be, trust him. Abraham's faith had complete trust in Isaac and Isaac here trusted his dad. So we don't often think about Isaac's side of this, do we? But Isaac, I mean, you take a 20-year-old young man Living in an agrarian society, it's not like he was brought up in the lap of luxury from our viewpoint where he had to do nothing for himself. He has spent 20 years learning how to take care of animals, to take up a tent and move it from place to place to place. Physically, he would have been a strapping, strong young man. Abraham's 120. Do you think that Abraham could really wrestle his son to the ground and tie him up to make him an offering? No, this was an act of faith on Isaac's part, wasn't it? I trust Dad. And if Dad said this is what God wants, all right. And if Dad believes that God can do something miraculous in this, fine. He willingly allowed his dad to tie him up and place him on that altar and get the wood spread around him. It boggles my mind, but that's faith. A person's true character comes out when the chips are down. That's the reality. What we do in the most difficult times of life, here's a barometer. Here is God and His grace and mercy. Isn't this the point of a pop quiz? I mean, a pop quiz is going to have two purposes. The teacher might give a pop quiz not because they really want to give the kids a failing grade, because they may throw that grade out, but they need to give the pop quiz because they need to see if the kids are getting it. Does that make sense? Does that help you students a little bit to understand teachers' mindset? Maybe they just need to know if they're doing well enough in teaching, but then they're going to hold it against you. Let me ask you a question. Does God need to test us for His benefit so He knows? Did God already know Abraham's heart? Absolutely. This test was not for God's benefit. It isn't so that God can learn something He didn't know, because God knows everything. This is for Abraham's benefit. This is so that Abraham can learn something about his own heart. And this is through Abraham for our benefit because the New Testament says these things happen to them for an example to us. So that's why we have this passage in Scripture. God gave us this lesson from Abraham for our benefit. We may not be asked to do this, but there will be tests in our lives that we find illogical. Why am I facing this? Why would God allow this in my life? Why did God let this happen to me? Have you ever felt that way? I wish I could tell you that 15 years ago, when Jan first got her cancer diagnosis, that I was a rock of faith. Bless God, when we got the diagnosis, I said, Lord, you are in control and I'm fine. Now, I'm going to tell you, we got that diagnosis just a couple of days before Christmas. And that was a memorable Christmas, not because of gifts, because I have no memory of any gift. It was memorable because that was a Christmas where a lot of tears. We couldn't understand why did God let this happen After all the years and sacrifices my wife made, why is she suffering this and why is he doing this to me? Human nature, right? But that was not a test for God to learn something about us. It was a test for us to learn something about ourselves. You know, we have learned that we can trust God. in the darkest of time. Let me give you a little heads up here. If you do get some kind of major illness, don't go to the Internet. Don't think that somehow you can be your own doctor because you read it on the Internet. So you know it's got to be true, right? One of the reasons we cried is because we went to the Internet and it said two, maybe three years, five max, and she would be gone. Well, we're here 15 years later, and this is as healthy as she's ever been for 15 plus years. So God can take us through the trials we don't understand. The question is, will we trust him? So that was a lesson for for she and myself and for our children. We can only trust him. That's all we can do is trust him. We don't know where this is going, but we can trust him and God did well by us. Now let me ask you this, if God had chosen to take Janice in those first five or ten years, would God have failed? No, it would simply have been that in that additional trial she got the blessing of she graduated to heaven. She's in a better place. It would have been a lesson for me and my children, for our friends to say, isn't God good? Because this life is not the end, it is simply a stepping stone to a place far better. And so, what do we do when the chips are down? God allows these tests into our lives to teach us these lessons. Number three, and we're nearly finished, so we'll have a break, God reveals our hearts by testing our fear of him." Verses 9 and 10. And they came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay him. If you truly fear God, then your life is going to give evidence. It took faith to get the donkey, the servants of the wood, to travel three days, to build an altar, arrange the wood, bind Isaac. And that's why the angel of the Lord in verse 12 says, now I know that you fear God. God knew that, but here's an opportunity for Abraham to learn something very important. His life, his obedience gave demonstration that God was in his rightful place, but through Abraham to be a challenge for us. It means to reverence him totally, trust him implicitly, obey him unquestioningly, to fear offending him by sinning against him. Do you fear offending God by sinning against him? You know, a child, and we talked briefly about this in the Sunday school class that we just finished, a child has to learn, a young child, that there are consequences to disobedience, right? That's where the swat on the rear comes in. As that child gets older, what you're hoping to instill in that child is a real respect for mom and dad, where they are offended if they sin against mom and dad. Isn't that what we want as parents? For our 15 year old or 16 year old who is tempted to do something they shouldn't do, especially today when they can do it on the internet so easily, that they will choose to do the right thing because they don't want to, they wouldn't want mom and dad to find out and be displeased. I don't want to hurt mom and dad. We want our kids to have that kind of respect for us. And let's turn that around. Shouldn't we have that kind of respect for God? And the difference is we can pull the wool over our parents' eyes. We can't pull our wool over God's eyes. So God knows anyway. So how important is it that we say, you know, I do not want to dishonor God and disappoint him. I want to please God. So when God tests our faith, it frequently defies our logic. but it is a barometer to reveal our hearts, and thirdly, and this is where we'll be after lunch, God's tests confirm his faithfulness. Now, I already touched on that, but beginning in verse 11, we're going to find God's faithfulness. Even in that test, God is faithful. Only trust him. Only trust him. Now, we're going to take a break here in just a moment, then we'll come back in a little bit for Sunday school and we're going to talk about only trust Him from a New Testament perspective. And then we'll come back after lunch. God's tests confirm His faithfulness. God doesn't give us a test and forget us in the test. Even in that test, we see the faithful hand of God. So, the challenge this morning, yes, We don't always understand why God gives us tests, but they're an opportunity for us to reveal our heart for Him this afternoon and for us to experience His wonderful grace. God is good all the time. And you and I, who love God, who are called according to His purpose, we have this promise, don't we? All things work together for good. Even in those tests. Even in, a little preview for Sunday school, even when we face a storm. And we'll pick that up in Sunday school. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for our opportunity to begin looking at Abraham, to begin thinking about this theme of only trust him. Father, by your grace. Help us to have our thinking solidified around this challenge. We know this. This isn't something new. It can't be something new if it's biblical. But it is something we need to be reminded of. And we don't know what 2025 might bring by way of tests. But we know that in the face of all the tests, in the face of the storms of life, we can trust you. And Father, I look forward to this afternoon when we see how even in this circumstance that Abraham did not understand, it was an opportunity for you to demonstrate your grace to him. May that be an encouragement to us. So Lord, bless us. Help us to honor you in our conversations and our fellowship here in the next little bit. And then as we come back for Sunday school, Lord, may you continue, may the Holy Spirit continue to impact our hearts with your word. And I pray that it would become ever more true of us that we believe and trust your word and trust you and that we experience your marvelous grace. So help us, Lord, bless us, and use us to bring glory to yourself. We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.