Being Tested

When I was a teenager, I used to deer hunt on a lease in Leakey, Texas. These are not mountains by any chance. But even in the Hill Country of Texas it can be challenging to get to a hunting spot on the side of one of those hills. I got the notion one time to climb to the top of the hill. What a physical challenge that was. It took a lot longer to get to the top then I thought it would. It was quite a test. But once I got there, it was worth the climb. The view of the surrounding area was beautiful.

Today I want to talk about being tested in life. Sometimes we can feel that we are tested to our limits in many different ways. Parenting a child is a test. With you it might be balancing a budget. Taking on and learning a new position at work is a test. Reconciling tension with a friend or a spouse or a family member is another test that we go through.

Life will always test us. We can't escape it. But in all of our tests in life we have to include the testing of our faith. In order for our faith to be strengthened it has to be stretched. In order to stretch and strengthen our faith, God will allow our faith to be tested. So how do we maintain trust and confidence in our faith when times of testing come? How do we keep on track in life when these spiritual tests seem to go beyond what we think we can handle? I want to use the life of Abraham once again to learn how he was able to pass his faith test.

Prayer

I'll be using Genesis 22 for our passage of scripture today. Abraham faced a lot of tests in his life, and as we have seen, he sometimes failed. But in our story today Abraham was going to face his most challenging test of all. In verse 1, it says very clearly that “God tested Abraham.” The Hebrew word for tested means that God was going to prove Abraham's character and show the strength of his faith. Now God already knew how Abraham would respond, but after the test, others, including us, would know of his character and faith.

Genesis 22:1-2 – “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered. 2 “Take your son,” he said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

God tested Abraham. The Bible doesn't say that God tempted Abraham. God will test us, but he will never tempt us. James wrote:

James 1:13 – “No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone.”

God wants us to grow spiritually and He will work in us to help us deepen our faith.

It is Satan that tempts us to sin in order to break us down and pull us away from God, but God tests us to build us up and pull us toward Himself. So, the next time you feel drawn to something, just wisely ask yourself, is this a test or a temptation? If I do this, will it strengthen my faith and bring me closer to God or will it pull me away from him?

Like Abraham, the longer we walk and fellowship with God, the more we'll recognize His voice. The call for Abraham to sacrifice his son may have seemed extreme, but Abraham knew well the One who was calling him.

If we didn't know the ending of this story, it would seem to us that God's instructions to Abraham were outlandish. Maybe even unimaginable. I think you would agree with me that if we were given instructions to sacrifice one of our children, there is no way we would be able to do it. This bold command from God has caused many people to scratch their head and wonder.

Here was God asking this 100 plus year old man to sacrifice the very son that the Lord had promised him for 25 years. This was the long-awaited Isaac, the heir that was promised by God. Now, after all that, God tells Abraham to sacrifice him like a lamb on an altar. Unimaginable!

As a side note here, many times we have believed that Isaac was a small boy when this occurred. But in the studies of the Bible scholars, it is believed that Isaac was somewhere around 25-37 years of age when this occurred. He was not a small boy.