Feeding Lambs Father Abraham

Today we want to talk about faith. Faith is really just a word describing someone who believes. For example, the Bible commands us to believe everything that it says. We might not understand it, or understand why God tells us to do certain things, but we are to trust and obey it no matter what. Yet our nature is to not trust God, but to instead trust our own understanding. This is because we are born in sin. It must be God who gives us faith so that we can trust and obey Him. We see this especially with Abraham.

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after recieve for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went"

Abraham lived in a city called Haran. Then God told him to go to another land that he was going to give him, and to his children. Even though Abraham's wife Sarah was not able to have children, Abraham believed God and went to this land that he had never been to, and where he was a stranger. Yet God kept testing Abraham, just as God constantly tests His people. The way God tested Abraham was by waiting a very long time before giving Sarah a child, to see if Abraham really trusted God. We can start to see Abraham's doubt when he and Sarah visited Egypt. Before they entered Abraham gave Sarah special instructions.

“[Abraham said] Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee”

There was a famine in the land that God promised Abraham (the land of Canaan), so Abraham temporarily went to Egypt. But before they entered Egypt, Abraham told Sarah to say that she was his sister, which was a half lie. She was really his half sister, yet she was also his wife. Abraham feared, however, that the Egyptians would kill him and take Sarah, because she was beautiful. Abraham did not need to fear because God had already promised him that he was going to children, yet Abraham was beginning to doubt God. Yet God mercifully and faithfully protected Abraham and his wife so that not even the king of Egypt could hurt him or his wife. Yet even though Abraham had such little faith, God allowed him to grow from that experience, just as God allows all the believers to grow as he chastises them.

After Abraham and Sarah returned to the promise land (Canaan), some time went by and there was a war. The kings of the east fought with the kings of the west and took Abraham's nephew and family prisoners.

“And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan”

Even though Abraham could have died by going to war, he went anyway indicating that Abraham learned from his expereince in Egypt. He knows that he is going to become a great nation and so he trusts that God will deliver him. Yet we can see how Abraham does not God completely because formulates his own idea of what God meant when God said that he would have children.

“And Abram said, Lord JEHOVAH, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?. And Abraham said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.”

God had already indicated to Abraham that he was going to have a son, and that the son would be the heir, yet Abraham did not understand because he did not trust God completely. But God corrects Abraham and says that the servant will not be the heir, but that Abraham will have his own son.

Then, after ten years had gone by since he originally left Haran, God again tests Abraham. Sarah tells Abraham to take their maid Hagar to be his wife, so that Hagar could have children instead of Sarah. Now God had already told Abraham that he was going to have a son, yet because it had been ten years since God first promised children to Abraham, he begins to take matters into his own hands. Instead of listening to God, he listens to his wife. The is just like what happened between Adam and Eve.

“…And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and di eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat”

Just as Eve convinced Adam to disobey God, so Sarah convinces Abraham to disobey God. Yet God still gave Hagar a child anyway, whose name was Ishmael. Abraham thought that the only way for God's promise to come to pass was if he sinned, by marrying Hagar also. And for the next thirteen years, Abraham was deceived thinking that Ishmael was the heir. Yet God finally corrects Abraham after all those years and says no, Sarah is going to have a child. Then we see how little of faith Abraham has, because even while God was correcting him, Abraham insisted that Hagar's son Ishmael was the heir.

“…Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him”

Even though Abraham has a false idea because he doubts God's Word, God mercifully corrects Abraham and explains very carefully that Sarah will have a son. And then we see how God again allows Abraham to grow from that expereince, even though he had failed God's test. We see that Abraham that very day does everything that God tells him to do.

A short time later, we then see God present yet another test. God visits Abraham in the form of three strangers, yet Abraham is very hospitable towards them. The three men again tell Abraham that Sarah is going to have a son and also that God is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Then Abraham goes on to plead with God that He would spare these cities, indicating that Abraham trusted that God would do as He said. Then the next day Abraham learns what happened.

“…And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD: And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace”

What a huge test for Abraham. Here Abraham probably thought that God would spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, including his nephew Lot who lived there. Yet Abraham awoke only to see Sodom and Gomorrah go up in smoke. What a temptation it would have been to start doubting everything that God had promised and to return to his own land. Up to that point, Sarah hadn't had a child, and it had been twenty-three years since God first promised that she would. Abraham's had lived a hard life in tents in a strange land, and now it appears that Abraham's relatives had been killed in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet God mercifully allowed Lot and his two daughters escape the destruction of Sodom and Isaac is conceived, even though Abraham does not know any of this.

This is what may 21 was like. God gave us His word. He told us again and again and again in many different ways that it was the beginning of judgment and that His people would be saved. Yet because we understood so little because of our unbelief, the temptation was to throw out everything in the Bible, to ignore God's Promise, and to return back to the world. On the surface it looks like God forgot about us, yet God is very faithful and absolutely did not forget about His people. The only question is do we trust in the promise of God? Do we trust the Bible with all our heart?