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Have you observed, as I have, that the trials of life have different definitions depending

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upon the stage of maturity that you happen to be in?

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There was a time when a trial of life to you was the denial of a piece of candy.

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I would guess some of you may have stomped your feet and cried in a store with your

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mama just like I did.

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Then there was the time of life when the trial was having an especially big pimple just

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before the big date.

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You know the kind that come with not out but by prayer and fasting.

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The older you get, the more serious trials become.

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I wonder what is the most difficult trial that you ever had in your life?

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What would be the definition of the most severe trial that you have faced?

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It wouldn't take Abraham two seconds to answer that question.

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Seeing the comfort and civilization of the Caldees living as a pilgrim in the promised

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land that he never really possessed in his lifetime, waiting 25 years for the promised

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son to be born, all of these paled compared to what we read about today in the offering

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of the beloved son in Genesis chapter 22.

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I invite you to turn there with me as we think about this trial in Abraham's life.

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Let me remind you that God sends us trials according to the measure of our faith.

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God never forges trials to devastate us or to break us, but he forges our trials for

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our good, that he might prove the quality of our faith to be sure we can devastate ourselves

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or we can be broken by our own foolishness in the midst of trials.

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But we cannot lay that to God's blame.

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God forges our trials for our good.

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God will take care of what we go through, but it's up to us to take care of how we

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go through them.

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What I want you to look at this morning are the responses of Abraham to this experience

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with God, three responses that I see in this trial of Abraham's life.

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In this culminating trial of his life, in the first place, Abraham obeys.

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Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham,

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and he said, here I am, and he said, take now your son, your only son whom you love,

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Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the

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mountains of which I will tell you.

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And so Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young

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men with him and Isaac his son, and he split wood for the burnt offering and arose and

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went to the place of which God had told him.

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Abraham obeys.

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Moses immediately tells us that this was a test for Abraham.

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He does this because what God tells Abraham to do is so totally out of character and so

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bizarre that he wanted us to understand before we read about it that this was a test for

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Abraham.

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What God orders Abraham to do here is not only bizarre, it is irrational, because Isaac

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was the son through whom God had promised to bless not only Abraham's family but the

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whole world.

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How could this be that he should be offered as a burnt offering?

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Abraham had sent away Ishmael reluctantly and sadly, but he had sent him away.

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But would he kill the son of the promise?

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Because Abraham loved Isaac.

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To be genuine, a test has to defy logic and it has to plumb the depths of our resistance

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in life.

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To be a genuine test, it has to defy what we think is rational and it has to measure

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out the resistance that challenges God's will in us.

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The point of this test is, would Abraham cling to his son now that God had given him to him?

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Or would Abraham give his son back to God at God's command?

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I am glad that I was not in the place of Abraham.

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God knew what he was doing when he tested this man.

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I want you to notice that Abraham immediately, immediately obeyed God.

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I am not saying to you it was easy.

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I believe it was the most difficult thing Abraham had faced in all of his life.

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But early the next morning he arose.

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I don't know about you, I would have put it off until later in the day or the next week.

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But Abraham early the next morning made the preparations and left.

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No questions.

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He doesn't ask God why.

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There are no objections to it.

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He simply does it.

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Yet in the way that Moses writes the narrative here you see that he is underscoring that

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this was not easy for Abraham.

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Moses knew the pain in Abraham's heart as he journeyed toward Moriah.

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It was agony for him.

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It was an arduous and perhaps even a silent three-day journey.

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God called Abraham to sacrifice the very dearest thing to his heart.

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It might have been easier for Abraham to think of offering Sarah than it was for him to think

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of offering Isaac.

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What is God calling you to sacrifice?

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What is the dearest thing to your heart?

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What do you cling to for security?

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What is the promise that God has given to you that he may well now say to you, will

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you give it back to me?

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There is nothing and there is no one that can be more important in our lives than the

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Lord.

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This was Abraham's test.

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Is Isaac now more important to Abraham than God himself?

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The purpose of a test is to see whether we will obey God.

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But everything within our being resists the very thing that God wants us to do.

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That can be the ultimate trial of our lives as it was for Abraham.

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How is Abraham able to obey?

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Because of his second response in the culminating trial of his life, Abraham believes obedience

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you see springs from faith that God is God and that because he is God, he is worthy of

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our trust.

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We pick up the narrative in verse 4.

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On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.

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And Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey and I in the lad will go yonder.

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And we will worship and we will return to you.

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Please notice that.

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And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son.

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And he took in his hand the fire and the knife.

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So the two of them walked on together.

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And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, my father.

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And he said, here I am, my son.

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And he said, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

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And Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.

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And so the two of them walked on together.

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Abraham had a deep faith in the Lord.

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I must confess to you a deeper faith than I possessed this morning.

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As he spoke to the young men who had accompanied them, he said, we are going to go, my son

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and I.

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And we, my son and I, are going to return.

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Now we know from our perspective that God never intended for Abraham to complete the

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deed.

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Abraham did not know that, keep that in mind.

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Abraham was going to go to that mountaintop and kill his son as a sacrifice to God.

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And he said, God will provide the lamb, Isaac.

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God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.

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Do you see the faith in this man?

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Because as far as he knew, his son was to be that lamb, that burnt offering.

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And yet he had confidence that the son was going to come back with him from this experience.

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He had seen Isaac come from the dead once before, so to speak.

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And he came from the dead womb of his mother.

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And somehow Abraham grasped the fact that this God who gave him his son from a dead

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womb could bring his son back from the dead.

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There was no precedence for this.

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There was no promise that we know of for this.

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But Abraham's faith went into that invisible, into the unknown, and it latched onto this

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concept, this notion that God is able to raise the dead.

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And we know this from Hebrews chapter 11, where I invite you to turn to this New Testament

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commentary on what we're reading in Genesis.

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Verse 17 of Hebrews 11, by faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac, and he who

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had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

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It was he to whom it was said in Isaac, your descendants shall be called.

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Verse 19 explains, he considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead, from

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which he also received him back as a type, that is, as a picture of resurrection.

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God had made promises to Abraham regarding his son, and now the patriarch trusted what

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God had said to him.

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And God had said in Isaac, your descendants will be called.

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And so Abraham prepares for the sacrifice.

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He prepares the altar, and he actually intended to go through with this deed.

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But as we speak of Abraham's faith, let's not overlook Isaac's faith.

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I wonder how long it was before it dawned upon Isaac what was taking place.

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But certainly when he was bound and placed upon that altar, Isaac began to get a picture

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here.

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And yet Isaac too trusted his father and trusted the Lord.

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Isaac is not a young boy here.

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He is called a lad, but the word can mean a variety of ages.

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It's anyone who's not married.

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He is a young man, sturdy, easy.

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It would have been for him to overcome his father.

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And yet he submitted himself to what his father was doing.

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And then God provided a substitute.

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Let's read about that.

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They came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and arranged

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the wood, bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on the top of the wood.

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And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

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But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham!

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And he said, here I am.

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And he said, do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him.

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For now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son.

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And Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket

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by his thorns.

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And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him for a burnt offering in the place of his

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son.

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Abraham obeys.

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Abraham believes.

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And now we see that Abraham, in his third response, worships in this culminating trial

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of his life.

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He built an altar.

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He placed the wood.

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And now he offers the substitute ram on that altar.

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And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide.

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As it is said to this day, says Moses, in the mount of the Lord it will be provided.

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Abraham worships.

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Abraham knew God.

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I believe Abraham knew God in a more profound way than anyone here this morning, including

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myself.

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It is one thing for you and me to know about God, to be able to recite theology or to read

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fine books that tell us of God's nature.

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But it is quite another thing, isn't it, for all of us to experience God personally?

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To have that intimate relationship with God that Abraham had.

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Does your experience with God lead you to worship?

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I'll tell you something, theology won't lead you to worship.

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Having lots of head knowledge about God will not stir your heart to worship, but an experience

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with God will.

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And folks, that's part of what trials are about.

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God wants to move us beyond our head knowledge to where we have a heart knowledge of God.

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He wants to get us beyond the theological ideas and concepts that we learn, which are

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very important to the place that we have an intimate relationship with Him.

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Is your knowledge of God growing and is the intimacy of that relationship with Him deepening?

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In Moses' generation, this mountain, Moriah, was known as the Mount of the Lord.

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Where it is said, it will be provided.

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When I ask myself the question, what will be provided?

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Jehovah Jireh, it will be provided.

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What will be provided?

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Well, those of you who know your Bible know that at this very place is where God provided

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another substitute.

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God provided a human sacrifice for you and for me.

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For it is on this very mountain where centuries later the temple of Solomon was built, according

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to 2 Chronicles 3, 1, over this very stone where this took place.

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That is where Solomon built his temple.

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And geologists tell us it is on that same strata of rock, on that mountain that Jerusalem

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sits on, where Calvary stood as well.

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It was not in the temple compound, but in the same area, on the same strata of rock that

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jutted out of the ground, something a query perhaps in that day, where the Son of God

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was sacrificed and He was provided.

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It was there on the same mountain that God's only begotten Son, the Son that He loved,

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was sacrificed.

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My friend of Abraham loved his son Isaac.

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How much more does God the Father love his son?

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And so how filled with wonder is this statement from Romans that reminds us that the God of

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Abraham did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all.

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And that's what we remember as we come to the Lord's table this morning.

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And as we enter into this most holiest of weeks, that on that mount of the Lord it was

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provided what is necessary for our redemption.

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There the substitute was slain, God's beloved Son, and will not this God who freely gave

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us his Son, not with him, but give us all things freely.

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This God of Abraham is able to prove himself in the trials of your life.

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And if this morning you are in the midst of a trial that seems severe and as difficult

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as what Abraham was going through, remember that God proved himself in the midst of that

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trial.

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Abraham obeyed, he believed, and he worshiped.

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And that's the response that needs to come from our hearts as well.

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And so as we come to the Lord's table this morning, let's look at our hearts, see where

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we are, and obey, and believe, and worship the God of Abraham, and the God who gave us

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his beloved Son.

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Let's pray.

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Fathers, we come to this table this morning to perform this ordinance that we have done

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hundreds of times in our lives.

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May it be with a fresh meaning that we partake of this cup and eat this bread.

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Break our hearts over our sin.

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Our convictus of our lack of belief in the midst of trials, and show us this morning the

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value of surrender, of worship, of believing, of obeying.

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Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you believed and you obeyed.