Chapter

32

The Faith of Abraham,

Our Example—

What Made It So Special

     Make no mistake about it.  This journey along the Road to Immortality is a walk of faith/belief.  Almost every facet of the walk of faith is tied in scripture to the faith of Abraham.  Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and Yahshua Himself—they all mention him and hold him up as our example of what true faith and belief in God should be.

     The apostle Paul stresses in many places the importance of Abraham’s example.  Paul confirms that his belief in Yah is the absolute cornerstone of the true faith. He brings more light to this faith in Hebrews 11.  There is something about his belief system that lifts him above the billions of people who have lived.  Abraham had something in his belief system that set him apart in God’s eyes; that something is what we need.

     Abraham simply believed Yah’s promises to him.  He did not doubt His word.  In essence he said, “Okay, my Creator.  You said it; I believe it.”  And he believed Him when He had promised some extremely difficult things to take in.

     First, Yahweh told Abraham to leave his family, his friends, his neighborhood, his city where he was raised, his country—and go into a country far, far away.  He could have said, “But I don’t know anything about this country, this land of the Canaanites.  They don’t know us.  How are we going to make it?  How will we survive?”  But he did not doubt.

     And then Yah told Him, “You shall be a stranger in a strange land dwelling in tents, but I will give that very land to you and your offspring for an everlasting possession and inheritance.”  He could have doubted and told his Maker, “I appreciate that, but I’ve got two major problems.  How are we going to give it to our children and grandchildren when we don’t even have a son yet?  My wife Sara is barren, has never gotten pregnant, and I am too old.  We both are way passed the age of having children.”  He could have doubted in the impossibility of the situation, but he did not.

Abraham’s faith/belief is

counted as righteousness

     And this belief Yahweh saw and appreciated, and because of it He counted his belief as being right with Him.  Abraham would become righteous in God’s eyes because he just believed Him. And he believed in Yahweh, and He counted it to him for righteousness. Gen. 15:6. 

     And it was through this belief in his word (even though they could not see the fruit yet) that Sarah received strength to conceive, and she, in her nineties,  bore Isaac, the son that Yah had promised to them.  And Isaac became their miracle child of faith/belief—the son of promise.  Isaac was the actual living, breathing proof of their faith walk.  He, walking and talking, was the heir and progenitor of future heirs of the promise Yah had made to his father.  And they sojourned in the land of Canaan, the land that god had promised to Abraham and his heir Isaac.

Abraham’s faith is tested

     And then one day Abraham’s belief was tried and tested.  He would be put into the ultimate “catch-22.”  After the miracle of belief had brought forth a son out of the coldness  and deadness of Sarh’s ancient womb, after loving the precious little Isaac, the one who would carry on the seed line of righteousness in the earth, God would now require the ultimate test of Abraham’s faith.  Yahweh would now ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac unto Himself!

     Abraham could have looked at himself as the butt of the biggest cosmic joke of all time.  He could have seen this command to kill his son as the bitterest twist of fate, the cruelest irony ever imposed upon a man.  Or he could have imagined that this request of Yah was not God at all, but rather the voice of the enemy Satan disguised as Yah’s voice.  “After all,” Abraham could have reasoned, “Yahweh would not want me to kill Isaac.  He’s the one that promised him to us and made it happen.  It is the devil who seeks to kill and destroy.”  Abraham could have leaned to his own understanding.

     He could have argued with Yahweh and said, “Please, I don’t get it.  I believed You to leave my country and to come into a strange hostile land.  I believed Your promises about how You would give this land to me and my heirs.  I believed You for the miracle of Isaac’s birth.  And now You want him to die?  Your word is at stake here, Master.  If I obey You and kill him, then I will not have an heir to inherit the land that You promised to me.  Surely You don’t mean for me to take Isaac’s life!  That would block you own plan from coming to pass!  You are the one who said it, who promised it!  You can’t mean this!”  If there had been any shred of doubt about Yahweh in his heart, then he surely would have harbored thoughts similar to these.

Doubting did not deliver

him from his dilemma

     This was a great dilemma.  But doubting His word does not deliver us from our dilemmas.  Faith does.  How?  Instead of doubting, Abraham said in his heart, “Although heartbreaking, I am going to obey Him, for I know that He will raise Isaac from the dead. For Yah has already promised that it will be in Isaac that my seed will be called.  So Yah has to raise him from the dead.  I may not fully comprehend His purpose in all of this, but I don’t have to.  He has a reason why He is having me sacrifice Isaac.  But I know that He will raise him from the dead, for His word is good and cannot be broken.  Isaac will be my heir, and if he dies by the edge of my blade, then God will raise him from the dead!”

     So we see that Abraham believed in the ultimate thing that anyone can believe in: the resurrection.  That is the faith/belief of our father Abraham.  His trust in God was so complete that he knew without a doubt that if Yahweh wanted Isaac dead at that particular point in time for some reason, then He would raise him up.  That is the faith that pleases Yah.  And through this kind of faith/belief Yahweh will count us right with Him along with our father of the faith, Abraham.

     It was ultimately Abraham’s belief in the Savior’s resurrection that anchored his walk with Yah-Is-Savior.  Yahshua said as much about Abraham, honoring his faith in Him.  And Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad…Before Abraham was, I am. John 8:56-58.

     The goodness of God leads us to repentance.  Repentance is to make an about-face in life and to stop doing what we were doing.  And we were sinning.  “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  He has called us to repent of our sins, for His kingdom is at hand. 

     There seems to be some confusion as to what sin is.  Sin is the breaking of the ten commandment law, which has not been done away with.  Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the dlaw: for sin is the transgression of the law.  And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. I John 3:4-5.  Which law is he talking about here? The ten commandment law. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loves another has fulfilled the law.  For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neigh-bor as thyself. Rom.13:8-9.

     But someone cannot repent and change if they are not sorry for what they have done.  It must be a sorrow toward God for the evil that we have done, for our selfish ways and ego-centric service of the god of self, which cannot love others.  Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance.  For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us.  Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation. II Cor. 7: 9-10, NIV.