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R.C. Sproul
God requires that we place our trust in Christ. Without that trust, without that faith, the benefits of his death are not yours.
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Sam
But a Christian man is a man who trusts. For the just shall live by faith.
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Lee Webb
Trust. We trust in Christ. But trust is also a defining characteristic of a Christian. Hello and welcome to Renewing youg Mind. And it's good to have you with us on this Tuesday. I'm Lee Webb. The message you're about to hear goes back to the early days of R.C. sproul's ministry. He delivered it to a small group of men, and it was part of a series he titled Meaning for Men. Let's join RC now as he teaches on the trust of a man.
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R.C. Sproul
God made a promise to Abraham.
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Sam
You remember the story how that in
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R.C. Sproul
his old age, when Abraham's wife was well beyond the years of childbearing, how that God called to this man and took him out into the darkness of the night. And he said, abraham, look to the stars in the sky and count them if you can, for God says, your descendants will be more than the stars of the sky, more than the sand along the seashore. And Abraham said, but God, how can
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Sam
this be,
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R.C. Sproul
since I have no son and my heir is my servant, Eleazar. It was on that occasion that God said that out of Abraham's own loins
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Sam
would come a child of promise.
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R.C. Sproul
And that through this child, not only would Abraham be blessed, but that all of the nations of the world would also be blessed. Now, after the promise, Abraham had to wait. And as you know the story, he grew impatient and tried to take things into his own hands to make sure that this promise was fulfilled. And so he entered into his wife's handmaiden, and the fruit of their union brought forth the son, whose name was Ishmael. But as Scripture declares, Ishmael was not the son of promise.
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Sam
That child had to be born.
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R.C. Sproul
Sarah. And then the Scriptures say that Abraham
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Sam
knew his wife, and she conceived and she brought forth a son whose name was Isaac. Now think of it, gentlemen.
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R.C. Sproul
In Isaac
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Sam
was the world to be blessed. Through Isaac was to come the promise of the Messiah.
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R.C. Sproul
Through Isaac comes the promise, not only of a great nation, but of all, of redemption of the world.
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Sam
Can you imagine the hope and the joy that Abraham invested in that young man? Then the Bible says there came a time of testing.
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R.C. Sproul
And it is that time of testing that I want to consider this morning. And so I'll ask you to open your bibles to the 22nd chapter of the book of Genesis. Beginning at verse one, we read this and it came to pass after these things that God did test Abraham and said unto him, abraham. And he said, behold, here I am. And God said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest. And get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass. And took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son. And clave the wood for the burnt offering. And rose up and went unto the place which God had told him. And then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son. And he took the fire in his hand and a knife and. And they went both of them together. Now Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father.
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Sam
And he said, my father, he said,
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R.C. Sproul
here am I, my son. And Isaac said, behold the fire in the wood.
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Sam
But where is the lamb
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R.C. Sproul
for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. And so they went, both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there. And he laid the wood in order. And bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and he took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that you fear God saying that you have not withheld
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Sam
your son, your only son, for me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold behind him a ram caught
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R.C. Sproul
in the thicket by his horn. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering
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Sam
in the place of his son. He who has ears to hear the word of God, let him hear it well. This text tells us that God put Abraham to the test.
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R.C. Sproul
He put him to the kind of test that I hope to God I never have to endure. It's one thing when God asks us to give of ourselves, to give of our finances, to give of our time as a measure of living sacrifice to him. But on this day in human history, God did something that he had never done in the history of the world he called Abraham. And he said, okay, Abraham, here's what I want. Take now your son, and I want
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Sam
you to offer him to me as a sacrifice. Now, men, that's not exactly what God said to Abraham.
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R.C. Sproul
Because had God come to Abraham and said, okay, Abraham, give me your son, if that's all God would have said, then Abraham would have marched directly to the tent of Ishmael, and he would have taken Ishmael, and he would have offered Ishmael there upon the altar. But God was far more specific than that. He said, abraham, take now your son. Your only son.
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Sam
You know who I mean. The one whom you love.
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R.C. Sproul
Isaac.
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Sam
Abraham can't believe his ears. No, no, no. Not.
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R.C. Sproul
Not Isaac. Oh, God, you can't be serious. Can you imagine what was going through the mind of Abraham saying, wait, I have known this God. I have followed this God. I left the land of my fathers to follow after this God. I know his character. I know his integrity. He doesn't ask parents to commit murder.
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Sam
This can't be. We read in verse three these words, typical understatement of sacred scripture. And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took
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R.C. Sproul
two of his young men and Isaac
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Sam
his son, and he clave the wood
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R.C. Sproul
for the burnt offering and rose up
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Sam
and went to the place of which God had told him.
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R.C. Sproul
The Danish philosopher Sren Kierkegaard wrote an
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Sam
entire book on this verse entitled Fear and Trembling,
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R.C. Sproul
where Kierkegaard mused on the significance of these words. And Abraham rose up early in the morning. As Kierkegaard read this text over and over and over again and. And looked at it from this perspective and then from that perspective and turned the thoughts over in his mind. He. He said, what is scripture telling us here? Why did Abraham rise up early in the morning?
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Sam
And Kierkegaard considered different possibilities for that.
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R.C. Sproul
He said, perhaps the scripture is trying to say here that Abraham was such a man of confidence and trust in God that when God came to him and said, all right, Abraham, your orders for tomorrow are to take your son to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there for me. And Abraham responded, clicking his heels and says, aye, aye, sir, first thing in the morning, I'll get at us. And so Abraham, not flinching, not worrying, got up with a smile on his face and said, good morning, God, and went over and set out to be obedient. That's how it happens, gentlemen, in fairy tales, but not in real life.
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Sam
And this book is about real life
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R.C. Sproul
and about real men, where even the
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Sam
son of God sweats blood in the garden of Gethsemane. Abraham understood the command of God. And when he put his head on his pillow that night, he thought, wait
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R.C. Sproul
a minute, this must only be a test. He's only going to see how far I'm willing to go. But he certainly is not going to make me go all the way. Because if I kill my son, that's the end of the promise. That's the end of the whole history of redemption. He can't be serious.
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Sam
And maybe he really wants me to do it. Maybe he wants me to kill him to see where my heart is, to see whether I've invested my identity, my
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R.C. Sproul
future,
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Sam
in my son or in my heavenly father.
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R.C. Sproul
And Abraham rose up early in the
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Sam
morning because it was futile to try to sleep. Look what it says that he did.
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R.C. Sproul
I can hardly believe this, that he
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Sam
rose up early in the morning and by himself he went, pulled the saddle down from the wall and the stable and put the saddle on the donkey, prepared this beast of burden for the journey. Now, let's stop for a second. Abraham was one of the wealthiest men of the entire ancient world. Abraham's house was filled with servants.
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R.C. Sproul
Abraham didn't go around and put the saddle on his mule. If Abraham needed the use of a mule for the day, he would call his chauffeur, he would call the butler, he would call the rest of the servants and say, get the mule ready for the journey. And they would drop what they were doing and they would go out and they would saddle the donkey. And Abraham could give orders to the rest of his servants, and I need some firewood. And so bundle up some sticks and put those on the back of the beast so that we can go to make our offering into the wilderness. But the Bible says Abraham rose up early in the morning, personally went out and saddled that donkey. And then he went to the side of the barn and he grabbed an axe.
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Sam
He went out and he began to chop the wood himself from the sacrificial fire.
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R.C. Sproul
Why he did that, I can only guess that all of the pain and the frustration was going out of his arm and out of his hand and into the axe with every stroke
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Sam
as
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R.C. Sproul
he was muttering under his breath, God, you can't mean this.
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Sam
The axe would fly and the wood was reduced to kindling, which he bound and placed upon the back of the dock. And then we read that he took two of his young men and he took Isaac, and he rose up and he went to the place of which God had told him, Listen to this.
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R.C. Sproul
Then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the mountain afar off. Abraham is not only expected to go and kill his son, but he's expected to escort his son on a journey that goes for more than three days. One of the most grim, hopeless portraits of the desperation of humanity is found in the picture that we've seen in the movies or in the newspapers of what is described as the last mile, that corridor that connects death row to
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Sam
the electric chair in the state penitentiary. And we remember the tradition of the man walking not for a mile, but
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R.C. Sproul
for the last few feet, being led
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Sam
to his execution while a priest or a minister read the words of scripture. Can you imagine the drama of those few moments? But this isn't just a connecting corridor from a cell to an electric chair. This is three days journey and then some.
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R.C. Sproul
Abraham is walking beside his son. I can't conceive of what that was like
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Sam
your own
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R.C. Sproul
the son whom thou lovest, Isaac. And as they saw Mount Moriah in the distance, Isaac turned to his father and he said, my father? Abraham said, yes, what is it? He said, well, dad, there's the mountain, we brought the fire, there's the wood.
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Sam
But Father, didn't you forget something? We've come all this way and we forgot to bring a lamb. Dad, where's the lamb that we're going to use for the offering? And what does Abraham say?
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R.C. Sproul
Hey, Isaac, don't worry about it. God will take care of it. God will provide a sacrifice for us. Oh, how we can look at this as if Abraham just smiled and said, don't worry about it, God will provide.
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Sam
What do you want him to say? When Isaac said, father, where is the
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R.C. Sproul
lamb for the offering?
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Sam
Was Abraham going to say, hey, relax, you're it. They came to the place which God
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R.C. Sproul
had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there. And he laid the wood in order.
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Sam
And he bound Isaac, his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
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R.C. Sproul
Mercifully, the Bible doesn't tell us about any conversation that took place
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Sam
when Abraham took the ropes and went over to Isaac and said, lie still.
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R.C. Sproul
And he took his son's hands and put them together and he bound his wrists and. And he bound his feet. And he didn't even want to look into the eyes of his son as Isaac would look tearfully, questionably in disbelief that his father would ever do anything like this. And then Abraham walked over and picked him up and laid him on the altar. And as Isaac is frozen in terror lying on the altar of sacrifice, Abraham reaches over and he takes the knife. He said, oh my God, this is what you want. This is what you command. And he raised the knife. And at the last possible second, as he's ready to drive the knife into the heart of his son, God screamed from heaven. Philip. Abraham. Abraham. Lay not your aim
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Sam
upon your son, for now I know that you trust me. Abraham threw away the knife before he even untied him. He put his arms around his son. And together they worship God. Gentlemen, 2,000 years late, the name of the mountain called Moriah was changed. It was called Mount Zion. Was now inhabited by people. Would become a major city first of the Jebusites and then the capital city of the Israelites. The name of Moriah was called Jerusalem. And 2,000 years later, God took his son, his only son. The son whom you love, Jesus. He took him to the mountain
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Lee Webb
and
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Sam
he placed him on the altar and he bound him for the sacrifice.
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R.C. Sproul
And God Almighty raised the knight and nobody collared. Stop. Took his life.
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Sam
That whosoever puts his trust in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The scriptures tell us God withheld not his only begotten son and he killed him. But men, the salvation that flows from
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R.C. Sproul
that, the redemption that is given to us from that does not come to us automatically. God requires faith. God requires that we place our trust in Christ. Without that trust, without that faith, the benefits of his death are not yours.
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Sam
But a Christian man is a man who trusts for the just shall live by faith.
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Lee Webb
That was R.C. sproul on this Tuesday edition of Renewing youg Mind. I'm glad you're with us. Meaning for Men. That's the name of this series with Dr. Sproul. And if you'd like Lifetime digital access to this six part series, simply respond before midnight tonight with a donation at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. In addition to the series, we'll send you a copy of Richard Phillips popular book, the Masculine Mandate. Discover what the Bible teaches about biblical masculinity. So call us now again. Our number is 800-435-4343 or use the link in the podcast Show Notes. But be quick as this offer ends in just a few hours. In the 16th century, Protestants were protesting. What was all the fuss about when it came to the Roman Catholic Church? And what are the points of disagreement today? RC Sproul will be with us tomorrow to begin a series on Roman Catholicism. So I hope you'll join us Wednesday here on Renewing youg mind,
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Sam
Sam.