And it is only through faith that we can approach God. Faith is the most important commodity in life. By faith, we do everything that we do. We go to a doctor we've never seen before. He gives us a prescription we cannot read. We take it to a druggist whose name we cannot pronounce. He gives us a medicine about which we know nothing, and we swallow it down. That's faith. Our hope and confidence in the future is one of faith. It is that single commodity which is the most universal to all mankind. When our God would devise a scheme of redemption for the entire world and would make it an inclusive one, he realized that there must be a common denominator equal to all men. All are not wise. All are not rich. All are not educated and informed. But there is one thing that every man has and possesses a superabundance of and practices whether he is religious or not. And that is faith. And so our God, who is very fair, has given the divine mandate that through that medium alone, men would be saved. Through that medium, they would believe the Word of God. If we do not have faith in the Scripture and faith in what God says, then we do not go forward. We do not advance. We do not act. We hesitate and falter and delay and die. A church without faith, like a man without faith, or a nation without faith, is doomed to failure. Faith pleases God because it merely believes he will do what he said he will do. The only thing that God has equated with himself is his Word. When God says he will do something, it is firmly established forever. And when it is not done, that will be the day that God ceases to exist. This, of course, is an impossibility. For the very fact that God is God means that he cannot cease to exist, else he never would have been God in the first place, for God is eternal. From Genesis to Revelation, as we survey the rest of the books of the Old Testament this summer, and then I preach a several year program beginning in September through the New Testament, we will find to be the heart of all the scripture, the key word about which all of our scripture and religion evolves is the word faith. What an important word it is, how fair it is, how it encourages man, and how it honors the Lord. Remember, without faith, God cannot be pleased. In the realm of action, it merely means that when God has said he will do something, he will do it. And many times he tests us, he tries us to see whether we really believe that he will do what he says he will do, because his word equated with himself is law, is irrevocable and unequivocable, and God will not take back what he has spoken. He had promised a son to this couple. It seemed impossible, but at last, though God had said through this boy, all of the nations of the earth shall be blessed, and indeed the Savior shall come, though it seemed impossible, God would now test him almost beyond the realm of human endurance, surely with the removal of that son while he was yet a mere boy. But the God who is both Alpha and Omega of our faith, who sees and knows and plans the end from the beginning, knew exactly how to take this man, who would be called the father of the faithful, who would be called the father of faith, and the most faithful, perfect example in all the word of God, of merely believing God, that he must yet go from the kindergarten of a superficial faith to the raw testing, where a PhD that believed God in the school of hard knocks, where his faith would be tested and made genuine, was to be observed. And so God puts this man to the supreme test of his faith. At age 100 approximately, the lad was born. And now God does something in the life of Abraham that he never dreamed he would do in commanding him to destroy his own son. Not only were all of the emotions of his heart surely welling up with the inside of him, with a love for the boy, as God seems to be set against God, and faith against faith, and promise against promise, and love against love, but God would try and test him one last time. With most who live a life of self -denial in the word of God, the trial of their faith comes early in life. The storms that arise in early in life usually bring life to a calm setting at the end of that experience, but not so with Abraham. Here in the very sunset of life, he must yet face the final test of his faith. It is recorded in Genesis chapter 22, beginning in verse number one. I invite your attention thereto. And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham. Now let me pause here and say that it is unfortunate that the word tempt has the connotation of enticing to do evil, for such is not always the case. The word tempt merely means to invite to a course of action. It need not necessarily be evil. It may be good or for our good. But I think in the context of what we know, it would probably be best for us to understand this word as try Abraham. And said unto Abraham, Abraham, 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. And 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 clave the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place to 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 S, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. Mark those words, they are a key. 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. 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 the thicket by his thorns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah -Jireh, as it is said, To this day, in the mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. There are several things that I want us to consider briefly tonight. The first is the meaning of the trial. What was the purpose of the trial of God in the life of this man? It almost is a cruel experience. It almost seems to go too far. It almost seems that God takes unfair advantage of a man, and asks him to prove his fidelity and his faithfulness in the promise and the word of God by sacrificing his only son. I can imagine that there must have been a thought in the mind of Abraham to reason thusly. And incidentally, this is the very point at which the Southern Baptist Convention in Denver took issue over the new Broadman commentary. On this passage of Scripture, the liberal rendition is that, and that commentary stated, that Abraham probably really didn't hear God say that at all. That he either had a nightmare or a vision or a dream or an epileptic fit or something, and he just thought that he heard it. Because God really wouldn't want him to have done it. Well, we can conjecture all that we will, but the Bible says God told him to do it. Now, I do not know, but what there is theological license to speculate as to why he thought he did it. Perhaps he thought he would delay, and perhaps he thought he knew more than God. Perhaps a thousand things, but the point of the thing is that God told him to do it. Now, there is a difference in the word tempt in the usual sense of the meaning to induce to do wrong and to try. To tempt is to appeal to the worst in man. But to try the man is to appeal to the best. To tempt him, in the usual sense of the word, is to drag him down. But when God tries a man, it is to lift him up. We may be sure that when we are in the will of God, even the unpleasant things, the reverses, the awful things that happen, are God making veterans, is God making veterans out of us. God allows them for our best. To tempt a man is to induce him to do wrong. It is to get him to act and not be hindered by the fact that it may be wrong. To try a man is to try to get him to do the noble thing and not be hindered by the fact that it may be unpleasant and that it may hurt. To tempt a man is the beguiling sound of the melody to relaxation and ease. But to try the man is to bring the man by the trumpet charge to stand at attention and to call him to high achievement. Satan's only interest in man is to get him to go down. God's only interest in man is to get him to go up. To lift him is always the high and holy purpose of God. And God had one last test, the ultimate test, the ultimate awful experience that might come into his life. It is the common lot of all of us to believe that when something bad happens, that we get mad at God. We resent God. Why did God let that happen? Haven't I tithed? Haven't I served God? Haven't I gone to church? Haven't I done this and that? Why is God allowing this? But oh, the Christian, always living in the will of God, will look to the Lord and see every trial as a high and holy opportunity to glorify God. The Lord lifting man and not dragging him down. I am impressed with the simplicity of the trial. And the almost staccato -like rending of the sequence of events as the Spirit of God here records them for us. Not a word of the emotion that must have raged in the heart of Abram. Not a word of his speaking to his wife. For there are some roads down which a man must travel by himself. But in immediate response, as God spoke to him, the absence of emotion, as not a syllable of Abraham's feelings is recorded. It seems that Abraham had so brought himself to a position that he would act immediately upon the will of God without design or without question. Like the falling of a star or the dropping of blood from an injured body or the tolling of the bell with such staccato -like rapidity. The Bible says God called. He took the sticks. He put them on the donkey. He took the trip. He made the fire. He raised the sword. Not one word of delay. Not one moment of the emotional entanglement. Such was the dedication of the man to the will of God. Consider, if you will, the loneliness of the trial. The Bible tells him that he had no confidant but God himself. He said not a word to the boy. Not a word, said he to Sarah. Not a word to those who made the pilgrimage with him. They perhaps noticed that there were extra offerings that they were taking. Perhaps there were more sticks than usual. Perhaps the company was larger. Perhaps a hundred things. But although they might have wondered and whispered among themselves. Not one spoke a word to the man of God whom they followed. Believing that in faith in God he would know and do the will of God. And so it is that many times in the high emotion of an exciting experience. When God appeals to our emotions, we may pledge a hundred dollars or pledge to die or surrender to preach or pledge to turn a city upside down or even to sacrifice a son. But such was not the case. In cold, cool, calculated terms, without delay, without hesitation, Abraham responded to the will of God. When he did so, the Bible tells us that God acted with him. He does not stand aside alone. I can imagine that as he walked step after step, the conversation that broke forth into joyous praise at the beginning was but that that was welling up deep inside of his heart as he knew and believed that God was with him. Have faith in God when your way is lonely and your prayers unanswered and a thousand things might have coursed through his mind. He was a lonely man but he was not alone because he knew God was faithful. There is one lesson and I think only one that you and I as Christians need to know. It deals in solving with temptation, it deals with death, it deals with divorce, It deals with disease. It deals with sickness. It deals with financial reverse. It deals with problems. It deals with rebellion. It deals with tithing. It deals with preaching. It deals with war. It deals with mortgage. It deals with tomorrow. And that's have faith in God. We're not men walking through the wilderness of darkness. Groping like a maze. Like a mouse in a maze for the solution. We've read the last book in the Bible. We know where our God is going. He makes no mistakes. All things do work together for good. And all that he asks in this world of his children is merely that we believe him. That we trust him enough to say, dear God, you've said it. I believe it and that settles it. And my course of action is resolved because God is faithful. All of these things must have gone in to his heart and in to his mind and through his soul as every lonely step upside of yon mountain coursed a new battle anew through his soul. Day after day, would he or would he not trust God? But the soul, but the steps that he took unfalteringly, unhesitatingly said to me that it was a foregone conclusion, that he had resolved it and with a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step, that he must have known something about the future because he had been tested before and he knew something about God. Did it seem to be an unfair test? I think not. I think not at all. If God puts him in the gymnasium of experience there to be tested and tried, he does not stand helplessly by. He walks in with him. He goes with him. He is his sufficiency. And if he stands the test, and if he is victorious, then he is strengthened. And if he fails, then he learns never to mistrust God again and never to depend on himself. And he learns to cling the closer to his heavenly father. Notice, if you will please, the obedience of the trial, God called and he responded, I am impressed. I do not believe that there's a man in this world that would not have hesitated just a little bit. Lord, are you sure I heard you right? And it was at this point where reason overrode faith, yes, faith, in the scripture that our own denomination almost split yonder in Denver. There's no way in this world you can reason a thing like this happening and a man reacting this immediately. It seems to be totally unreasonable. And it is because thank God, while reason may be first grade, then faith is 12th grade. It's a step above. It's a step beyond. There's no way in the longest day that you ever live that you can figure out how 90 % of your money will pay more bills than 100%. It can't be done. Nine and one doesn't make 10. You can't figure it out. It is totally impossible. The only difference is it works. It works. That's where the faith comes in. There's no way in this world that a man dying on a cross 2 ,000 years ago, a carpenter hanging naked before 2 ,000 people could be crucified and shed his blood. And that fact transformed my life and changed my life and transformed society. But it does. That's faith. I don't understand it. There's no way you can figure it out. And when the man who comes to the word of God does so in reason, he's a dead duck to begin with. Whether he has a PhD or has never been to the first grade. When you come to the scriptures, as when you come to the cross, when you come to the word of God and all of God's claims for our life, they are to be understood, relegated to, comprehended by, and experienced in the arena of faith. It is in faith that God is pleased. It is through faith the Bible says we believe he framed the world out of that which is not. It is in faith we believe he is coming. It is in faith that I believe he's preparing a home for me in heaven. It is by faith I know my sins are washed away. It is by faith I sing Sunday morning. Praise God Jesus is coming again. All in faith. It's the Christian faith. And I pray this morning as we start tonight, it's tonight, yes, tonight as we start this new year on both of these messages from the word of God that the Lord shall bless and trust and strengthen our faith. It is ridiculous for you to try to reason it out. You say, I can't understand in faith how God could keep me a no good sinner saved. I'll tell you something harder than that to figure out, and that's how he could have ever saved us in the first place. I can't understand that either. I can't understand what makes a brown cow eat blue water and eat green grass and give yellow butter and white milk. I can't figure that out either. But in faith, I believe it. I've seen it. I don't know in all this world how those Dallas Cowboys won today, but they did it. That's faith. All right. And don't tell me you didn't know because I saw half of you getting here late too. All right. Now, the next word is the confirmation. The confidence. I got to read my own writing. That's what I give for preaching and notes. Every time I do that, I get stuck. Confidence. Confidence in the trial. Confidence in the trial. Now, what happened? I think this is one of the choice things and all the word of God. Go back to the fifth verse, would you please? And Abraham said unto his young men, to the associates. Now, get the picture. God had called him. He said, go to a mountain, slay your boy. He took the fire. He took the boy. He took the sticks. He took the team. He took the donkey. He took it all. They got to the base of the mountain and he and the lad started up there for the sacrifice. And he got the young men together. And Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with the donkey. And I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. He said, man, we're coming back. He knew something they didn't know. And he knew something that a lot of Christians don't know today. And that is simply that God is to be believed in faith. I read that a hundred times before I saw it, that when God called him and he believed God, he never had a moment's doubt in his mind that he was going to slay that boy. The Bible tells us that I believe it was in the faith in the resurrection. Listen. Over in Hebrews, by faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that received the promise offered up his only begotten son, of whom it is said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from whence also he received him, so to speak, or in a figure, or that is to say. In other words, God was going to bring that boy back if he had to resurrect him on the dead on the mountain top. Boy, that's faith. Nobody had ever been resurrected before. You say, oh, if I could see a man raised from the dead, I'd have faith in God. Well, Paul said the same thing to some men in the New Testament, and he said, Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, and you still don't believe. I don't know if he really thought. I guess he did. He must have. That's what the Hebrew writer knew, and he surely knows more than I do. So that must be what he thought. He must have really thought that God would raise him from the dead. But one way or other, one way or other, he knew that there were two going up, and he was going to kill that boy, and there were two coming back. Now that is faith. And I want you to know that when God finds a people or a man or a church that believes him like that. Let me ask you a question. Just suppose some terrible financial reverse would come along, and tomorrow morning the stock market would crash, and every man in our church be broke, and the hundred thousand dollars we owe on these buildings we couldn't pay. Oh, there'd be a lot of folks in the world quitting and pulling out and singing the blues and boarding up the windows. Now me, you know what I'd do? I'd come down here and start shouting, rejoicing, praising the Lord, because if we go broke, the Methodists go broke too, and we'll take over their building. We'll have us a new auditorium, one way or the other. You see, when God does something bad, Christian, rejoice! Rejoice in faith. I've talked to three young men this week going to seminary. I said, you've only got one thing in the world to worry about, and that is the call to preach. God's called you, and you do it. That's all that counts. Now there are a hundred roads by which you can get there through this school or that seminary. No, but however you get there is not the important thing, and it does not matter how God does what he wants to do. The question is, has he saved us? Has he challenged us? Has he called us? Has he promised us? And if he has, church, then the worst things come. The more we ought to praise God, it may just be a shortcut for God to hurry up and do what he wants to do anyway. Believe him in faith. He didn't know what was going to happen, but he knew if God had to raise that boy from the dead, if those ashes burned and that sacrifice had to come mysteriously together, that one way or the other, there were two going up, and praise God, there were two coming back. He believed it. And so what happens? Well, I've got a hundred more points. I'm going to quit. He went up there to the top of the mountain, and the Bible says he took that thing in his hand, and the boy, he began to tie him up. The lad said, Dad, I see the fire, and I see the altar, and here are the sticks, but where, where, where is the sacrifice? There's no way you can add two and two and get four out of that. It cannot be reasoned, but faith went beyond reason. He said, Son, it isn't for ours to do the figuring. It's up to God. Our job is to do the believing. Let's believe him. God will provide the sacrifice. God will take care of that. Let's just go up here and have us a good old slaying. Well, I imagine poor old Isaac, he was a lad. He didn't have the faith Dad had. He wasn't so sure about this Baptist preacher or daddy he is. He's about ready to become a Presbyterian right about there. There he was, all stretched out. And Abraham took that thing, and about that time, the angel of the Lord spoke. And he said, Wait a minute. Touch not the lad. He said, Now I know thou art a righteous man, and thou fearest God. Abraham, I didn't want you to do it all the time. I just wanted to know you would do it. About that time. Is that how a lamb goes? I don't know. Anyway, whatever lambs do, one did. And he looked over there, and there he was caught in the thicket. And there was God's provision. But he did not see the lamb. God did not stay his hand. God did not reward his faith until he had raised his hand and was ready to strike. You see, the boy in Abraham's mind was just as good as dead. And so God didn't need the act. He didn't have to do it. It was as good as done. God knew he would have done it and never would have stopped. And I believe that the hand of God, the angel of the Lord, must have physically stopped his hand. And Abraham must have been as surprised as any because he didn't know how God was going to do it. He didn't care how God did it, but he believed God would give him seed through that boy as he had promised. When God saw that he meant it, when God saw that he loved him, that he would trust him regardless of what happened. With Job of all who said those incomparable words, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. God may say to me, give me a promise. I'll do this for you or that for you. God may say, I'll give you the ability to see three miles. He says it and I believe it. Though he blind me, though he remove my eyes from their sockets, I'll die. I'll go to the grave saying praise God. I'm going to see. And when God sees that kind of faith, he'll give you new eyes. One way or the other. I don't know how he does it, but I know that God is waiting to see what people will do when they believe him. Oh, believe God. Believe God. Most of us go as far as we can by reason. And then when faith comes in, we say, I just can't figure that out. I just cannot understand that. I can't reason that. Listen, where reason stops, faith begins. And where faith begins, God moves in. And the miraculous, the impossible begins to happen. I could not mean more when I say that it is imperative that a church or a man live and operate on faith in the things of God. Without faith, God cannot be pleased. God will not be pleased. The gymnologists say that, I don't even think that's the right word. There's a fancy word for it, but the gym cutter -uppers, whatever that is, they say that you can tell the difference in a real diamond and a fake like this. When you look at it under a brilliant light, they're almost the same. A little hard to, pretty hard to differentiate between. You can tell the diamond sparkles a little bit more brightly than the imitation. Ah, but they have what they call the water test. and when they place both of them beneath water, and the sun shines through that water, the imitation will be 90 % impossible to see, almost fading completely from view. But when the diamond is placed beneath the water, it shines through as clearly, if not more so than it did, out of the water. Sometimes God takes the diamond of our lives and places it beneath the overwhelming flood of difficulty and the swift waters of problems and trials that come. But then it is that the Christian's light and life is able to shine more brilliantly as a jewel in the master's crown because the waters of adversity have made the difference in the genuine article and the imitation. Welcome the problems. Welcome the adversities. Welcome the trials. It is then that we and our faith are made to shine to perfection, to the glory of God. It's easy enough to be happy when the world goes by with a song. The man who's worthwhile is the man who can smile when everything goes dead wrong. When you can smile and praise God from the family as well, the world expects it. But only when there are adversities and reason has gone as far as far as it can go and a man in faith still believes and honors and trusts God, then is God honored and glorified. And I believe that one of the more important lessons of this is that most of the time, if not just about all of the time, God really doesn't want to give that reverse. He may not want that last ounce of sacrifice. He just wants to know that we're really willing to do it. I believe it's scripture. For he said in John 7 17, if any man do my will, then he shall know whether it be of God or myself. In other words, if you're willing to do God's will, then you'll know God's will. He may not want you to do the unpleasant thing, but he wants you to be willing to trust him with your life. Let the waters of difficulty roll, for then it is that the diamond of your experience can sparkle the most brilliantly to the glory of God as a jewel in the beautiful, beautiful crown of the King of Kings. Shall we pray? Our Father, we confess to thee that not one of us really earnestly can pray, dear Lord, give me sickness or death or problems or difficulty, hurt me, give me adversities so that through this I can honor thee. The flesh cries out against it and there's nothing in us that really wants it. But oh God, we just simply pray that you'll have mercy on us and see us where we are and start with us with as much faith as we do have. For we pray with the disciples of old, I believe, help thou mine unbelief and acknowledge that we do not believe and trust as we ought to. But Lord, you will help us to realize that it is the natural man, the flesh, the carnal man, the self -man that holds back in disbelief and disdains discomfort. But there is a spirit within us which, Lord, we know in contradiction to what the flesh wants really does want to be tried and tested for thy glory. Help us to remember the words of James when he said in tribulation, rejoice, for the trial of your faith is sweet. And Lord, help us to know that God will not try us above that we are able, but will with the trial give us a way of escape. Help us, Lord, to know that there is victory in Jesus. And trust thee daily that our lives may shine and show in a darkened city that needs men and women of sparkling, sterling, full -carat testimony to the glory of God that Jesus Christ is trustworthy and God is to be believed in faith. For we pray in his name. Amen.