Well, today we return to the book of Hebrews and to the Hall of Faith in chapter 11 and we return to the life of Abraham, a man of remarkable faith. The first introduction of Abraham and his faith goes back to verse 8. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of the place which he would receive as an inheritance and went out not knowing where he was going.
And all of the section from verse 8 through verse 19 either pertains directly to Abraham or to his wife Sarah or to his children Isaac and Jacob. It's all talking about Abraham in a general way and it comes back specifically again to Abraham and his faith in our text for today in verses 17, 18, and 19. The writings of the Jewish fathers reveal to us that the Jewish people generally focused more on Abraham's obedience and what they viewed as his righteousness in the way of his living a righteous life more than upon his faith. And seemed not to understand at least as clearly and fully as they should have that his obedience, the righteousness however much or little there was in his life, but whenever there was obedience, whenever there was something that could be called righteousness, it always was a result of his faith and faith was the root.
And faith was the issue and the Bible tells us clearly even in the Old Testament scriptures, we might call them the Jewish scriptures, that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. And so it's no wonder that in the days of Christ in the first century with this kind of wandering from the foundation of faith, which is truly found in the Old Testament scriptures, but seemed to dissipate in the minds of God's people over the centuries. And it's no wonder that nearly everyone in the Jewish nation that we encounter in the Gospels and in the early chapters of the book of Acts seems to be endeavoring to earn righteousness by works.
But it always came by faith. Yet it is always a faith that produces works, otherwise as James reveals to us, it is a dead faith. Living faith produces works. A faith which does not produce good works is truly dead and is not a saving faith, but it is not the works that save, it is the faith.
But the evidence of genuine faith is our works. And we see that so clearly in the life of Abraham. His obedience was commended by God because it is the result of his faith. And it is his faith, not his obedience that obtained righteousness from God. And that was true in the life of Abraham, and that was true in the life of the Hebrews to whom this epistle is being written, who have at one time professed to have embraced Christ for righteousness, but now seems to be tempted to turn back to the old covenant, a covenant which in the minds of the Jews of that first century was based upon works.
And the writer of Hebrews says, no, no, no, no, don't you dare do that. That's not what Abraham did. Abraham believed God by faith, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Abraham continued to live by faith, and God was pleased with him, not because of his obedience, though in a sense it was, it's all how you understand it, but it was because of a genuine living faith that produced obedience, and that's what pleased God. So let's look at it here in Hebrews 11, 7 through 19, but we're going to first refer back to the passage we read earlier in the book of Genesis.
And so our approach today is very simple. First of all, the Old Testament account reviewed, and secondly, the New Testament analysis examined. So we start with that Old Testament account that I read earlier in Genesis chapter 22, and I'll just review it quickly, but it's very important that we understand what is going on here so that we can understand how this information is analyzed by the writer of Hebrews. The chapter opens by telling us that God is testing Abraham.
Chapter 22, verse 1 of Genesis, Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here I am. And this teaches us something about faith. Faith must be tempted.
Why? Well, first of all, to demonstrate to us that it is genuine. We sometimes profess a faith which is not saving faith. It is not genuine faith. It is not the faith that lays hold upon Christ, but we think it is. In our day and time, there are myriads, myriads, myriads of people calling themselves Christians who base their claim to Christianity on the fact that they walked an aisle, raised a hand, did something of this nature as they were instructed to do, and told that if they would do that, they were saved. And that is pointed to as their faith, but think that through. That's not their faith necessarily.
Those things may have resulted from faith. Some people walk an aisle because trusting Christ by faith and now instructed to do that as a demonstration of their faith, they obey. So walking an aisle can be a result of faith. Raising a hand to be prayed for can be as a result of faith. Being baptized can certainly be as a result of faith, but not necessarily so.
Because you can do all of those things without saving faith. In the strength of the flesh, you can walk an aisle. In the strength of the flesh, you can pray a prayer.
In the strength of the flesh, you can submit to water baptism. But if it is not growing out of a heart of faith, genuine faith, then it is of no avail whatsoever. And so it's important, isn't it, that our faith be tested? Is it real?
Is it genuine? Is it saving faith? And God is now testing Abraham in this way.
God knows. God doesn't need to be informed as to the nature of Abraham's faith. But Abraham needs to know for certain that his faith is the real thing, the living faith that produces works in obedience. And so God is testing Abraham so that he may know that his faith is genuine and so that his faith, which is present, in his case it certainly was, but the faith which is present but never fully developed, always weaker than it ought to be, it is testing which strengthens it and develops it and makes it stronger. And so God is testing Abraham.
And therefore, this is the nature of the test. We read about it. In verse 2, God commands Abraham, Take your son Isaac, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him as a burnt offering. What?
You heard me. Take your son Isaac, take him to the land of Moriah, which apparently was about a three days journey from where Abraham was at the time. And it seems that Moriah was a general area and which resides today the city of Jerusalem, and which resides today the location of the cross of Christ. God said take him there. It took Abraham three days to take Isaac to that location. And Abraham obeyed what God said. Abraham took his son.
He took everything necessary. He took a couple of servants. He took an animal, a beast of burden, in which he could lay the wood for the sacrifice. And then when they got close to the place of the sacrifice, he told the servants, You stay here with the donkey. And he laid the wood of sacrifice on the shoulders of his son.
And they walked on further to that place of the sacrifice. And there, remember, Isaac said, Father, here's the wood. Here's the fire. Apparently Abraham was carrying some coals in a container, a sensor for that purpose. Here's the wood.
Here's the fire. But where's the lamb? Where's the sacrifice?
I don't see any animal to sacrifice. And Abraham just simply said, By faith, God will provide himself a sacrifice. And as far as Abraham knew, he was going to sacrifice his son. It doesn't seem to have ever occurred to him that God would stop him at the last moment from this event. And so on they go.
They come to the place. Abraham builds an altar, presumably out of the stones that are available in that place. And then we read, He bound his son and laid him on the altar.
Now think about that. How old is Isaac at this time? We don't know exactly, but he's old enough to carry the wood of the sacrifice. He's called a ladd, but he's obviously a strong ladd. My guess is he must have been at least in his middle or later teen years, so what's my point?
He's a strong, no doubt, strong young man, and his father's past 100 years old. Don't you think Isaac could have freed himself from that situation? Wait a minute. I'm not going to let you do this.
What? You're tying me up? You're laying me on the altar? But we also get a glimpse here of Isaac's faith. He didn't know what in the world is happening here, but it looks like my father's getting ready to make me the sacrifice. And Abraham said, Let me tie you up, son. And he submitted, Let me lay you on the altar, son. And he submitted a remarkable example of obedience to his father and undoubtedly faith in God. And then Abraham raised his knife to plunge it into his son, and just moments, seconds before he plunged that knife, the voice from heaven came, Abraham, Abraham!
Same response as before. Here I am. That's what he'd said at the beginning when God said Abraham. Abraham said, Here I am. Now, once again, this time it's not Abraham, but Abraham, Abraham!
It's urgent! And Abraham says, Here I am. Now think about this. If Abraham had been in the custom of dilly-dallying before he obeyed a command of God like many of us do, he would have killed his son. Abraham, Abraham! Stop what you're doing! Here I am. Don't kill your son.
Now I know you're willing to. And of course, God knew that all along, but this is a demonstration to Abraham of the genuineness of his faith. And Abraham looked up and there was a ram in the thicket that he hadn't noticed before, and he took that. He recognized that that was the designated sacrifice, and he killed that animal on the altar.
And that became such a wonderful demonstration of the gospel. The substitutionary death of someone, in this case, something else in the place of the one who deserved to die. And you say, Well, why did Isaac deserve to die? Because he was a sinner, just like you and I deserve to die. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth it shall die. Well, I don't see that he deserved to die a death like this. It's not a matter of deserving.
We all deserve it. Very few are called upon to die in a manner like this. But the point is that though he, like all of us, deserved to die, God in his grace provided a substitute to take his place. And that's the gospel. There's so many things about the account that remind us of the gospel. I couldn't even go into all of them now. I didn't even try to record them all now. I've seen a number of them suggested in various commentaries that I examined.
But, for example, let me see how many I can remember. It took them three days to get to Mount Moriah. In other words, Isaac was under the sentence of death for three days. How long was Jesus in the tomb after he died under the sentence of death?
Three days. And then up from the grave he arose on the third day. That's a parallel, not an exact duplicate, but a reminder, a parallel.
And on and on it goes. Isaac was required to take the wood upon his own shoulders. The cross of Christ was placed upon the shoulders of Jesus, wasn't it? And he carried that cross to the place of his execution. But nobody stayed the hand of the executioner there. He died on the cross in the place of those who trust in him. There are other parallels.
I'll not try to recall them all. But what a wonderful illustration of the gospel of grace, the gospel of substitution, the gospel that God will provide. God will provide a sacrifice in the place of believing sinners.
I deserve to die eternally. God has given his own son in my place and in the place of all who trust in him. So God stopped Abraham. God provided a substitute for Isaac. God commends Abraham for what he did and repeats the promises that he made to Abraham about his seed being like the stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea. And Abraham goes back to the servants. I don't know if he said, I told you we're coming back.
Remember that? He said to the servants when he left them, he said, you stay here. I and the lad will go farther to worship and we'll come back again. Here they come.
I told you we'd be back. And he continues on back to the land of Canaan. That's the Old Testament account. Now let's look more carefully at what Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews, by the inspiration of God's Spirit wants us to know about this account. In Hebrews 11, 17, we find the command in verse 18, the conflict, and in verse 19, the consideration. The command, verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.
What was the purpose of this command? To test Abraham. Exactly what we were told in Genesis chapter 22, and that's repeated now in Hebrews. By faith Abraham, when he was tested. What is the requirement of this testing of Abraham?
It is that he's required to offer up Isaac. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. As far as Abraham was concerned, it was done. As far as Abraham was concerned, he was going to do exactly what God told him to do. God stopped him, but it's clear that Abraham was willing. He wasn't hesitant. He didn't object. He didn't justify disobedience.
He didn't try to find a way that this could not possibly be what God wanted. He obeyed to the point that he was willing to plunge that knife into his son. He was tested, and the testing was an enormous test. Probably, I don't know how you compare these things, but I can't think of another test of anyone in the Bible that would be this great, that would be this severe. What a test, offered up Isaac. And it was Abraham who had received the promises who was required to do this. God told him, verse 17, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, he who had received the promises. What promises he had received, and this is important. That will be elaborated upon in the next verse, but this is important. Abraham had a lot of promises that God had given him, not only about the land to which God would direct him, but about the effect of his life and of his descendants upon the whole world. And those promises had been made to Abraham, and they all depended upon the life of Isaac and his continuing to live and to get married and produce children. God said to Abraham, put him to death.
And Abraham did not hesitate at all. Here I am, Lord. Yes, sir, Lord. And early in the morning, he started out with everything necessary for the sacrifice. What an obedient servant of God. What a remarkable obedience resulting from his faith.
The magnitude of this command is beyond comprehension. He offered up his only begotten son. Where have we heard that phrase before? There's another parallel. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
And here I think we see some help in explaining that phrase. Was Isaac Abraham's only son? Well, no. He'd had Ishmael before him. Would Isaac and Ishmael be Abraham's only sons?
No. In the passing of time, he would have, I think it was six more sons, from his next wife, Keturah, after Sarah died. So why is he called his only begotten son? Well, obviously, begotten and particularly only begotten doesn't mean what we probably think it means. It doesn't mean the only son that he produced, but that it's a special place of position.
Your most beloved son. That's what it means in the case of Christ. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Jesus Christ didn't become the begotten son of God when he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. That was not the begetting that is referred to in John 3 16. That refers to the eternal begetting of the son, and that gets us into the mystery of the Trinity.
We don't have time for that. But you see, God didn't give his son to become begotten in the womb of Mary. God gave the son who was already the only begotten son of God that is the most greatly beloved son of God. And here, Abraham, likewise, is willing to offer up his only begotten son that is his most greatly beloved son.
Nobody could doubt that statement. That's what he's required by God's command to sacrifice. He who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.
That's the command. What's the conflict? Verse 18. Of whom, this only begotten son, of whom it was said, In Isaac your seed shall be called.
The conflict is described. It involves a specific person, namely Isaac, in whom it was said in Isaac, not in Ishmael, not in the sons of Keturah, not in anyone else, but in Isaac shall your seed be called. A specific person, Isaac, and that person is tied to a specific promise. In Isaac your seed shall be called. And that takes us back actually to Genesis 21 prior to the chapter I read or most of the chapter that I read earlier in Genesis 22. But you remember when Ishmael, who was now a young teenager, was bullying Isaac. And finally, and there was conflict between Sarah and Hagar, and Hagar, Sarah said, I need to get rid of this woman and her son, and Abraham didn't want to do that. He loved Ishmael. He was his son.
But God came to him and said, Listen to your wife. Send them away. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of them. I'll take care of the situation.
You go ahead and send them away. Verse 12 of Chapter 21. But God said to Abraham, Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman, Hagar.
Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice. And then this, For in Isaac your seed shall be called. Now, up until now, this has been implied, but it has not been so clearly stated that Isaac was the designated person through whom God will fulfill these promises to Abraham about the multiplication of his descendants and of his blessing to the whole world. It was implied, but now it's stated so clearly. In other words, God's word, God's revelation to Abraham said, I'm going to fulfill these promises through Isaac.
He's the one. And so you can see why this creates a conflict or should have, would have created a conflict in Abraham's mind. It would have, I'm sure, in most of our minds. And let's examine this conflict for a moment. We can look at it as a test of human affections. We can look at it as a test of conflicting circumstances. We can understand it as a test of conflicting revelations.
And in all of this, there is something to be learned. It is certainly a test of human affections. He who had received the promises offered up his most greatly beloved son, namely Isaac, and whom the promises had been given.
In Isaac, your seed shall be called. A test of human affections. Give up your only begotten son, your greatly beloved son, because the test is always who comes first in your affections, God or your wife or husband or your beloved partner? Who comes first in your affections, God or your beloved brother or sister or mother or father or other members of your family? Who comes first in your affections, God or some other individual?
That's always a conflict that we have to resolve, don't we? The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. He must be first in our affections. And that's what God is demanding of Abraham.
Demonstrate to me that I truly come first in your heart's affections. I know you love Isaac. I know you love Isaac probably more than your own life. But do you love Isaac more than me? No, Lord.
I love you more. And as hard as it is, I'm willing to give up this beloved relationship out of my greater love for you. It's a test of human affections. It's a test of conflicting circumstances, because as we have seen, Isaac is the one that God has designated as the son of promise. Surely God doesn't mean for me to sacrifice this one. I understand what you're saying, God, but wait a minute, this cannot be. That violates the circumstances into which I find myself the son of promise that I waited for and waited for and waited for and waited for and waited for until I was 100 years old.
And you gave him. What a wonderful fulfillment of a promise that Sarah truly thought would never happen. At least so she thought for a while. She laughed when the messenger told Abraham that this time next year, Sarah, your wife is going to have a son. She laughed.
She thought that was impossible. Later she came to faith, as we find in the book of Hebrews in the same section and a few preceding verses. But how do you how do you reconcile these circumstances? I mean, this has happened in a miraculous way. Isaac has been given in a miraculous way. Isaac is my son.
Now I see that your promise of a son is being being fulfilled in Isaac and now you're telling me to sacrifice him. I can't I can't reconcile this in my mind. These are conflicting circumstances that don't make sense to me. But God didn't say, understand what I'm saying so that you can obey. God didn't say, if this makes sense to you, you may obey or you should obey. God said, do it.
Because I said so. A test of human affections, a test of conflicting circumstances, a test of conflicting revelations. These are closely related, but this even takes it a step further. This is not just a circumstance that seems to be something that God has done. And therefore we interpret the circumstance that the son has been born and he's grown, he's healthy and he's approaching adulthood. And so everything seems to be in place.
The circumstances are right. Now you're coming along and telling me to to offer up, to sacrifice this son. But no, we've got here two conflicting divine revelations. God said in Isaac, shall your seed be called? God said, take your son, your only son, and sacrifice him in the place that I tell you. Two words from God that are as much in conflict one with another as we could possibly ever imagine. So what is Abraham going to do?
He's going to say, well, I've got this divine revelation about Isaac being the one in whom my seed will be a blessing to the earth. And so I can't possibly obey this command, even though it's very clear that God made it. It is God's command.
I can't deny that, but I can't possibly obey that command because it conflicts with this command. This revelation from God conflicts with this revelation from God or so it seems. And we have conflicts like this in our life, don't we? Most of the tests that we have are pitting the word of God against the circumstances of our life. This doesn't seem to make sense with what's going on in my life right now.
Surely this can't be what this passage means. It can't be what this test, what this requirement means, this command means, because that doesn't seem to fit in with the circumstances of my life. Well, when it comes down to that, which are you going to obey? The revelation of God or how you interpret the circumstances of your life. And in those cases where it even rises to a bit higher level and you are called upon to obey a command that in your mind conflicts with another command. You're called upon to obey a revelation from God that conflicts another revelation from God.
What shall you do? Well, may God give us the grace, may God give us the faith to do what Abraham did and say, I'm going to obey what is clearly God's command. He told me to sacrifice Isaac. I don't know how, if I do that, he can fulfill the other promise about Isaac being the one through whom my seed shall bless the earth. I don't know how God can reconcile these, but that's not my problem. That's God's problem, not mine. Mine is to obey.
Yes. And Abraham did obey, though it seemed to contradict the promises of God. If Isaac died, how can God's promise be fulfilled? That's not your concern, Abraham. You obey, and if you do what God tells you to do, God will work it out.
You don't know how, you don't need to know how. All you need to know is that if God clearly said it, you must do it, and it's God's responsibility to make it all work out. Abraham obeyed an apparently unreasonable command.
Kill your son, the son of promise. It seemed unreasonable. It would to me. It would to most of us. I'm sure it seemed unreasonable to Abraham, but there was no question in Abraham's mind that God said it, and therefore he obeyed it.
Wow. And it's as if the author of Hebrews, who's writing to Hebrew-professing Christians, is as if he's saying to them, are your trials greater than Abraham's? Some of them were tempted to turn back because of the trials of life.
They were being persecuted because as followers of Jesus Christ, their friends and neighbors, unbelieving Jews who didn't accept Jesus as the Messiah, were persecuting them. That was a grievous and sore trial, and it could be so easily avoided just by turning back from Jesus and going back to Abraham and Moses and the old covenant scriptures. And what's wrong with that? Our forefathers have worshiped this way all of these years.
Ah, here's what's wrong with that. God has revealed more to you. God has given his son to you. God has revealed to you the promises that were only promises to the Old Testament people, but they are a reality to you. It's clear that God has given his son. It's clear that Jesus is the promised Messiah, and you don't dare turn away from him, or you are disobeying a revelation of God.
Don't do that. And for us, it's the same. We must constantly be examining our relationship to the Word of God. Are we obeying what God has said, or have we justified in some reasonable way to us why we don't need to obey it? Have we followed some path of religion which allows us to sidestep this revelation from God and ease our own conscience in the process?
But that's a dangerous path to tread. And so we have the command in verse 17, the conflict in verse 18, and the consideration in verse 19, considering, or concluding rather, that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from which he also received him in a figurative sense. This consideration that Abraham weighed in his wrestling with this conflict, his consideration involved, number one, the power of God, and number two, the purposes of God. He concluded that God is able to raise Isaac from the dead if necessary to fulfill the promise he made that had to be fulfilled in Isaac. God tells me to slay Isaac, then God will raise him from the dead.
Now think about that. In Abraham's day, as far as we know, nobody had ever been raised from the dead. There had not been a resurrection.
So what made Abraham think that God might and surely would raise Isaac from the dead? Well, he didn't need to know that it had been done. He just needed to know that God was able to do it.
And that wasn't hard to figure out. If you know who God is, if you understand his power, his omnipotence, his wisdom, his might, his omnipresence, his grace, all the things that the Bible reveals about him, then what is difficult to consider God raising someone from the dead? Like Paul said to either Felix or Festus, I tend to get those two guys mixed up in the book of Acts when he was on trial. And Felix was questioning him and he said, I'm on trial for the hope of the resurrection. And because as a Pharisee, he had actually believed in the resurrection, though he didn't believe in Jesus until he met him on the Damascus road. But he believed in the doctrine of the resurrection. The Sadducees denied that. And some other comment was made and Paul said something like, Why should it be thought impossible that God can raise somebody from the dead?
What's so hard about that? You know, I think Felix has said, Paul, Paul, your great learning has made you mad. It's made you crazy, insane talking about resurrections from the dead.
Wait, wait, wait, O King. If you understand who God is, why would it be thought impossible? Why would it be thought difficult that God is able to raise somebody from the dead?
That's not difficult to conceive if you know who God is and believe who God is. God is able to do what needs to be done. God is able to raise Isaac from the dead.
Even though he'd never seen a resurrection, he didn't need to see one. All he needed was to know the power of God and the trustworthiness of God. God's promised it will be through Isaac.
If I slay my sin, then surely God is going to raise him from the dead. What other conclusion could Abraham draw? And so this consideration of the power of God led him to such believing obedience and his consideration of the purposes of God. God has already stated it is his purpose to fulfill his promises in Isaac. I have a hard time figuring out how he's going to do it unless he raises Isaac from the dead. So if that's what needs to be done, God will do it. Again, I don't need to worry about how God is going to fulfill his promises. All I need to do is obey him and know that in some way or another he will fulfill his promises. And so we're told in Hebrews 11.19 that he did receive Isaac from the dead in, my translation says, in a figurative sense. Some translations just say in a figure, in a figurative sense. And I was quite surprised at how many, not all, but how many of the commentators that I read on this passage concluded that that's what Jesus was talking about in John chapter 8.
Remember that? This back and forth with the Pharisees and the issue of Father Abraham and who is Abraham's seed and all of this business. And Jesus said in verse 56 of John 8, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and saw it and was glad. And a lot of Bible scholars have concluded that what this means about receiving Isaac back from the dead in a figure was he understood this typology, the not actual resurrection of Isaac, but it was as good as that to Abraham. In his mind he'd committed him to death and in his mind he received him back again.
It's a good illustration. It's a good typology of resurrection. And some think he thereby at that point understood that the promised Messiah must die and rise from the dead. And he saw Jesus' day, especially the day of his resurrection when he understood this. This is what F.F. Bruce says probably means in a manner that prefigured the resurrection of Christ.
All right. What lessons can we draw from this passage before we conclude? Well, I think we've already covered God's purposes for trials. They are to test our faith.
They are to purify our faith. Dear friend, if you're going through a trial, most of us are a good deal of the time, some kind or another of trial. Don't be pouty. Oh, dear Lord, why are you letting this happen to me?
You don't need to know why. All you need to know is that if God has allowed it, God has a purpose for it, God has a good purpose for it, God is testing your faith. Is it real?
Is it genuine? God is purifying your faith. He's making it stronger like the gold ore put to the fire to remove the impurities and make it more pure. So God puts our faith to the test to see if it's real.
We need to know it's real and to make it stronger. A lot of people who claim to be Christians, when they get into a severe test, they give it all up. I can't serve God anymore. He let my child die. Well, that shows you.
What does it show me? It shows you your faith wasn't genuine. It wasn't saving faith because it's not persevering faith.
Good to know that before you die. So you can come to God for genuine saving faith and not step out into eternity thinking that you are ready for heaven when you're not. Nice of God, wonderful of God to show us this through trials, God's purpose for trials. Number two, there's a great lesson here in the priority of our affections. God must come first before the ones we love, before our family, before anything else. This is a great difficulty for some of God's people. We know how much we are to love and to work within our family according to the assignments that God has given to the father and to the mother, to the arrangement that God has given to the family, the responsibilities we have to our children.
All of that is very clear. But like so many things, if we're not careful, we'll get this out of balance and we won't realize what we're doing, but we'll start making our family the greatest object of our affections instead of God Almighty. But if anyone comes after me and Jesus said, hate's not father, mother, brother, sister, son, or daughter, he cannot be my disciple.
Hate them? We understand. That's a relative term. He means the magnitude of difference between our love for God and our love for others almost seems like hate because the love for God is so much greater that the contrast makes a genuine love for our family almost seem like hate in comparison. It's not actually hate. It's just that we better be careful that we love God the most and that our love for our family isn't even close to the love that we have for God, but it falls a distant second. It is a wonderful second, but it is a distant second. And if it is not, then we have probably exalted our love for our family in a place above where God tells us to love him.
I've struggled with this. Have you ever thought about the apostles of Christ? What did Christ require of them to leave everything and follow him?
Well, we recognize what that means in regard to leaving their fishing nets and their business, their tax collector's seat and so forth to follow him. Have you ever thought about what that probably meant in regard to their family, their wives and children? Well, nothing's ever said about their wives and children. Yeah, and therefore we can't be dogmatic about it, but in all probability they had wives and children.
Why would I say that? Knowing what we know about Jewish culture, that was expected of every Jewish man to marry. We know that Peter had a mother-in-law, presumably had a wife. We know that Jesus committed Mary to John and then tells us in the Bible that he took her into his home.
He must have had a home. And we know on one occasion when Jesus was illustrating prayer and how our Heavenly Father gives us only good gifts in answer to prayer, he said if you, talking to his apostles, his disciples, if you, what did he say, being evil because you are fallen sons of Adam, evil in that sense, we're all evil in that sense. If you then, being sinners, you then being fallen sons of Adam, know how to give good gifts unto your children, what sense does that make if they didn't have any children? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to those that ask him? You mean that Jesus required these twelve men to leave their wives and children and follow him for three years?
Evidently, again I can't be dogmatic, but all the evidence points in that direction. Now how do you reconcile that with the requirements that are given to fathers and husbands in regard to their families? Be careful that you don't make your family an idol when you think you are honoring God. This also tells us a lesson about conflicting concepts.
A lot of people struggle with this. On the one hand the sovereignty of God, on the other hand the responsibility of men. How do we reconcile these two things? Well folks, I'm not saying that there's no way to make progress toward reconciliation, but I will tell you honestly there's no way to completely and fully reconcile that at every point, but that's not our responsibility. God didn't say believe it if you can reconcile it, believe it if you can understand it, believe it if it makes sense, believe it if it seems reasonable.
No, believe it because God said it. It's his revelation. He's the one that teaches us the doctrine of unconditional election.
He's the one that teaches us the doctrine of man's responsibility to repent and believe and obey. I can't reconcile those two things. You don't need to be able to reconcile them, but you must believe them.
Why? Because they clearly are something that God revealed. Faith is believing the revelation of God.
And that's the whole point of this passage, isn't it? This whole chapter is to teach us about biblical faith. What is biblical faith like? Well, here's what it's like by faith Abel, by faith Enoch, by faith Noah, by faith Abraham, but coming back to Abraham, by faith Abraham again, not only by faith Abraham left the Ur of the Chaldees, but by faith Abraham offered his son upon the altar. We've got to understand what biblical faith is. Biblical faith is believing the revelation of God and acting accordingly. And if we're not willing to act accordingly, let's be honest with ourselves and with Scripture and say, evidently, I don't really believe it because if I believed it, I'd act in accordance with that revelation.
That's the main point of this passage. Let's pray. Father, oh, Father, thank you for giving us your word. Father, thank you for making us uncomfortable in the careful consideration of your word. Oh, Father, call us to a faith that honors you in everything, so obediently as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
