Abraham’s Life of Faith Concluded

We come now to the end of the account of Abraham.  In our preaching through Genesis, we will yet hear about Genesis 24, which tells of Abraham sending his servant to find a wife for Isaac, but Genesis 25 is the end of his pilgrimage on earth.

Abraham was a great man, the father of believers, and the friend of God.  We have looked at many of the episodes of his life individually and seen their significance and application for us, but there is always the risk that we will miss the forest for the trees.  This morning I will speak about Abraham’s twilight years and his dying in the Lord, but I first want to survey his history and look at his life comprehensively.  In doing so, we will see that his whole life is the story of one test of faith after another.  This is the pattern set for us, and this is what shaped Abraham’s later years and even his death to be what they became.  This morning my three points are, first “The Trial of Faith”; second, “The Fullness of Faith”; and, third. “The Fulfillment of Faith.”

1. The Trial of Faith

The New Testament holds up Abraham as the model of faith.  It is especially the statement, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness” that is cited and expounded in the New Testament.  But when we look at the life of Abraham, we see that his whole life from the time of his calling onward was a long and varied trial of faith, and so shall it be for each of us.  Life in this world inevitably tests our faith, and God in his providence brings us through one trial after another.

For the purpose of looking at the trials of Abraham’s faith, I will use Robert Candlish’s division of Abraham’s life with God into two parts, the first part being chapters 12 through 15, and the second chapters 16 through 25.[1]

In the first part (Gen. 12–15), Abraham’s faith is chiefly exercised on the bare promise itself that God made to him.  This begins with his call and continues through the scene of the covenant transaction in Genesis 15.  God promised to make Abraham into a great nation, and a nation at a minimum requires people and generally it requires land as well.  God promised to bless Abraham and to make him a blessing.  But nothing Abraham saw could give him any hope of these things coming true. There were no resources and no paths. Nevertheless, he was to act on their truth.

Consider the various trials he went through during this time.  First, when God called him to leave his home, and he set out from Ur, he had to bury his father part way along the journey.  This was the beginning of his walk of faith and his walk of obedience. It would surely have been more comforting to leave his father either in his homeland or in the place God had promised, but he must go according to God’s word and not according to his own times or comforts.  Abraham would be a pilgrim on earth.

Second, he arrived not to a fine city or a settled habitation but to Canaan, a relative backwater, a land of minor and mostly sinful city states, and no city of his own.  He would continue to live in a tent, to move about from place to place, having obeyed God and yet thus far having obtained no land of his own.  It was here during a time of famine that he falters from relying on God and goes down to Egypt.  Having faltered from the principle of faith, he exposes his wife Sarah to harm in order to preserve his own safety, something he never would have done had he left all to the God in whom he believed.

Third, in the conflict with Lot, his faith was tried as to whether he would leave all his future to God, and this he did. In how courteously, humbly, and wisely he dealt with Lot, none could exceed him and very few could match him.  God’s grace alone enabled Abraham, as a stranger and pilgrim on earth, to let go of the attractions of earthly possessions and earthly privileges, and to have his treasure and his heart in heaven.  And God blessed him after they had parted ways with a fresh and expanded promise of a land for Abraham.  This land was prefigured by Canaan, but Abraham looked beyond Canaan to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Fourth in this period is the rescue of Lot.  The fertile plains of that region provided prosperity, and prosperity was accompanied then, as it so often is even now, with immorality and violence.  A war of petty kings broke out, resulting in Lot’s captivity.  Would Abraham rejoice in the calamity of one who sought his own interests at Abraham’s expense?  The answer is no, for Abraham laid hold by faith to the generosity of God to himself.  God had promised Abraham the land, and so by faith Abraham understood that he was entitled to wage war to liberate the people who worshiped God in this land.  And after the victory, by faith he expressed his subjection to great priest who Melchizedek prefigured in bringing the tithe and receiving the blessing.

Then, finally, in this period was the quiet midnight scene in Genesis 15 in which God came to Abraham with the word of promise again, while thus far there was no hint of how it would be fulfilled.  And it was in that circumstance that Abraham looked up in the highest degree of expectation.  He believed God. After years of following God, he was if anything further from the means by which these promises would be fulfilled because he had only gotten older, and yet here he rests in unhesitating confidence in the promises of God.  This is the triumph of Abraham’s faith thus far.

In the second part of Abraham’s life in his faith, his faith is tested in the manner in which God’s promise is to be fulfilled.  So this begins with his failure in the matter of Hagar and goes to the greatest trial and the greatest triumph in the sacrifice of his son on Mount Moriah and through the marriage of his son and the ordering of his affairs until death.  Here, again, the question is, how the son of promise, and ultimately the Messiah, would come into the world?  Can God be trusted, or, more precisely, will Abraham trust God?

Facing this new trial, Abraham’s faith appears at first to fail.  Abraham followed his exasperated wife’s counsel and had a son with Hagar, which is the way that they understood that human ability operating according to the prevailing culture could achieve the desired outcome.  Of course this was not the child of the promise, and while God had appeared and spoken to Abraham on several occasions over the previous eleven or twelve years from the time of his calling until then, we do not read of God speaking to Abraham for thirteen or fourteen years after this.  Perhaps that intimate fellowship that Abraham had enjoyed with God was interrupted because Abraham had turned aside to his own ways.

But, second, after a time, in Genesis 17, God did appear to Abraham and restored him to fellowship.  God would have him to be his friend again. The Lord gave Abraham the covenant sign of circumcision along with the promise that Sarah would bear a son.  This too was a test of faith, because he and Sarah were both old, and through all of the opportune years, there had been no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.  So in laying hold of the covenant sign of circumcision that God had given, Abraham was also expressing his faith that Sarah would indeed have a son, which he did immediately.

Third, in Genesis 18, Abraham faced a trial of his faith to intercede with the Lord.  Would the Lord remember his justice?  This was when the Lord came to him and spoke to him about the judgment he was about to pour out on Sodom and Gomorrah. Would the Lord listen to the one he had shown such love to?  Abraham believed that he would and demonstrated it by speaking freely with God.  And he received one of the highest honors that a man may received in being assured that it was for his sake that Lot was delivered because Abraham had prayed.

Fourth, within the same year and as Sarah’s youth and beauty were renewed and as she was being prepared to bear a son, Abraham ended up in a region that he feared was nearly as lawless as Sodom.  How would he escape in this situation?  In this time of anxiety, he took up his old carnal solution of saying Sarah was his sister, and it was only by God’s deliverance that the coming child of the promise was protected.  Even at Isaac’s birth, Abraham’s faith was tested as to whether he would send Ishmael away and commit his entire hope of descendants and even the world’s salvation on this one infant life.

Fifth, the call to Mount Moriah is the climax of this second part of Abraham’s trial of faith.  In the first part, Abraham had God’s word alone without any indication of how that word would be fulfilled, and Abraham believed God and was justified.  But now he has actually seen how God intends to fulfill his promise, and yet he must lay aside every support that sight and sense can provide and even go against his natural affection.  To believe before Isaac’s birth was not as hard as to continue to believe in spite of Isaac’s death.  Can he trust God to fulfill his promise even when the promised child is taken away?  The answer is that most gloriously Abraham trusted God and passed the test.

Abraham faced lesser trials in the remainder of his days, but I will not deal with them in detail.  The point is simply that from the beginning of his walk before God, Abraham’s faith was tried in many different ways. And having surveyed all these specific instances of the trial of his faith, we can now consider the essence of what the trial of faith is all about.

Hugh Martin, a brilliant minister in the Free Church of Scotland in the mid-1800s described the essence of what it means for our faith to be tested as follows.

Is not this the very trial of faith; namely to have circumstances to contend with which appear to extinguish hope, yea, which viewed in themselves, not only appear to, but actually do shut out all hope whatever?  Take the case of Abraham, and the character and commendation of his faith.  And do so, bearing in mind that he is the father of the faithful, and that all believers walk in the steps of our father Abraham.  And what is the brief view given of the nature and action of his faith?  It is as conquering and outliving the contradictory influence of sense.  “Against hope he believed in hope” (Rom. 4:18). Appearances were all against him.  Sensible realities all contradicted, and in themselves alone, destroyed his expectation.  Had his hope rested on sense, on reason, on nature, on time, it must have failed and sunk for ever.  But he did not rest on nature; he did not draw upon the region of sense; he did not lean on the power of reason.  He believed.  He did not perceive.  He did not argue.  He believed.  “He believed in hope.”  And so strongly did he believe in hope that his faith destroyed the hope-destroying power of sense.  For sense would have destroyed his hope; but this hope-destroying power of sense, his faith destroyed.  “Against hope he believed in hope.”

This is the true place and action of faith.  This is the victory which faith has to achieve.  Surrounded by incidents, events, circumstances, influences, and powers, all against to your deliverance and salvation; and with your hope, as far as this region of the things seen and temporal is concerned, utterly cut off; your faith discovers another region, a realm and kingdom unseen, “the heavenly places,” the sphere of “the things that are unseen and eternal,” and so your faith draws upon them.  Faith finds them all good and true, precious and powerful, suitable and superior.  For these unseen things are of God.  They are the promises and pledges of God and of His Word.  For their truth for their reality, for their reliability, you have no evidence of sense to help.  The evidence of sense is supposed to be all the other way.  But you have the evidence of your Creator’s word.  You receive that as good and sufficient, and as the very highest evidence possible.  You receive it as simply true.  God said it. You prove that you receive it as true, by actually proceeding on it, and hazarding what is most important on it.  You stake your hope and happiness and peace upon it.  You hazard your soul upon it forever.  You believe in hope, when you see no ground of hope.  You believe in hope, even when all you see is against your hope.  Circumstances, nature, creation, sight, and sense—all are for the giving up of all hope:  and their arguments are strong; their statements, in themselves, are true.  But over against all these you place, in solitary, unapproachable, surpassing majesty, God.  You say: “The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken.”  And inclining your ear and hearing Him, you believe Him, in opposition to all.  “You hear, and your soul does live.”  You outlive – you live down – your despair.  “Against hope you believe in hope.”

This common principle of the conflict between sense and faith, Paul states in a series of striking contrasts in 2 Corinthians 4:8–11: “We are hard pressed on every side (according to sense), yet (by faith) not crushed; (as to sense) we are perplexed, but (through faith) not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.  For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.”  Earlier in that same book, in 1:9, he says, “In our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”  Here everything that can be sensed and felt opposes all hope, and sense and feeling are designed to drive us to draw on the supports of faith.  When we can sense no hope at all, our souls flee into the realm of faith, the heavenly places, as its own and only secure home.[2]

This is the nature of the trial of faith, and this is the norm. This is the expectation for every believer. Thus it shall be all of life.

2. The Fullness of Faith: Abraham’s Last Days

As Abraham is a pattern for the life of faith, so he is a pattern for the last days of such a life.  Many tests and trials throughout the course of life do not mean the resolution of the great tension and conflict between faith and sight in the last part of life.  When you get to the end, everything is not resolved. (GMW) As long as life endures, in some measure the trial of faith continues.  In the middle of the section of Hebrew 11 that speaks about Abraham’s faith, verse 13 says, “All these people were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.”  That was the case for Abraham. The land of Canaan did not belong to Abraham.  Isaac his son was married and had twin teenage boys, but that was a far cry from the nation that God had promised to make him, and the Son, the Seed in whom all would be blessed, had not yet appeared.  Abraham did not yet have the sight of things hoped for.  He continued to live under the tension that Habakkuk described starting in Habakkuk 3:17:  “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls . . .”  You see, that is the circumstance. And without faith, that is enough to drive any of us into frustration, anxiety, depression, and despair.  But faith still lays hold of God and says, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.”

Although Abraham could not yet see and touch the things he hoped for, he was not abandoned.  He was not left utterly deprived, starving and helpless.  God was still faithful to him.  God had given Abraham a promise many years earlier in Genesis 15:15, where he said, “You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.”  That is exactly what happened.  Abraham’s life extended to a hundred and seventy-five years, and his later years were free from threats from foreign kings, or conflicts with the surrounding people, or even from strife in his home.  God was faithfully carrying out the promise that he had made to Abraham in Abraham’s later years.

Now, God has not given this promise to all of us.  Many faithful believers did not die in peace.  Stephen died a violent death while he was still young.  John the Baptist languished in prison until he was executed at the demand of Herodias.  Most of the apostles were executed.  Yet God remains faithful; he does not abandon his people.

This is a great comfort in the later part of life.  It is often said that as you get old, the first thing to go is the mind.  You know the term “senior moment,” a description of when you cannot  remember.  But suppose your memory and mental energy decline, and you begin to forget even the promises of God.  That may happen, but God will not forget. He will be faithful to carry them through and to uphold his saints through to the end.

Now in Abraham’s case, he aged, but we are not told whether  there was any failing of his mind.  So the faith of Habakkuk 3 is the lively faith that he continued to exercise.  And in his old age, he continued to demonstrate that by his deeds.  God’s promise centered on Isaac, so by faith Abraham ordered his affairs accordingly.

Abraham had long been a responsible head of his household.  Back in Genesis 15, when  he had no children, he named Eliezer of Damascus as the man who would inherit his estate.  Now Abraham had several sons aside from Isaac, and as a righteous father with the means to do it, he saw to it that they were all provided for, but he sent them away.  He would, as far as it depended on him, protect and promote the promised blessing, and ensure peace between his sons.  All other things being equal, parents surely like to have their children near them and they like to see their children having the sense that everything is fair and they are each getting a fair share of the estate.  But Abraham laid hold of what God had promised as real and as being of incomparable value, so that he did not act according to natural affections but according to faith.

This lively faith expressed itself not only in Abraham’s deeds, but it registered in his soul.  Verse 8 in the New International Version says Abraham was “an old man and full of years.”  In that verse, the words “of years” do not appear in the original text.  They are supplied by the translators to give what the translators believe is the intended sense, and it is reasonable to understand these words in this way.  The Scripture says something similar about Isaac, David, Jehoiada the priest, and Job, where, in each case, it says they were “full of days.”  That is what  is says in the original Hebrew. Here it is simply “full.” All of them died at the end of a long life.  But even if Abraham’s days are in view here, the text says, Abraham was “an old man and full.”  Young’s Literal Translation uses the word “satisfied.”  If you eat a meal to the point that you are full, you are also satisfied.

What is it that makes a man full?  Psalm 91:16 uses two parallel statements to illuminate the meaning of being full or satisfied.  It says, “With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”  It is not the number of his days, nor was it seeing the change of the seasons seventy times or eighty times or a hundred and seventy-five times that satisfied him.  It was not seeing the sights or participating in the experiences the world had to offer.  He had not made it his goal to travel to enough destinations or enjoy enough of the pleasures and experiences of life to be able to say, “I have seen them all.”  He did not indulge himself in building projects ad  ornamentation and pleasures and delights. Faithful Abraham was full of good things, because he had walked with the Lord.  The Lord had opened his eyes to the heavenly places, to the redemption of God for sinners.  Abraham had served God with faithfulness, and he desired to see another and a better world.

Some people look back on the years behind them and they have nothing to say except, “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.”  It is all empty.  For some, it has only been full of weary disappointments and frustrated plans.  For some, it has been years of failure and backsliding, all years that the locusts have eaten.  For some, it has been years of angry relationships and bitter words with friends and family, or perhaps jealous feelings and bitter resentment.  Some have wandered and lived for the pleasures of this world.  This is the story of many in the church. We do not expect anything better from those who are outside, who have no time for God. But  this is the story even of some who are where God is proclaimed and his word is taught.

When I come to the end of my life, I want to die like Abraham did.  I want to die satisfied, knowing that I have walked with the Lord, obeyed his will, submitted to his providence, maintained right relationships with my family and friends, that I conducted my affairs with uprightness and honesty, that I have treated everyone with courtesy and grace.  I want to be able to say that I trusted in God’s word, and that I acted according to it when there was no other encouragement to go in that way.  I want to be able to look back then upon God’s mercies that attend the faithful, on those times when after the heat of the trial God comes with his smile and assures me that I am his and he is mine.  That is how the Lord came to Abraham time and time again after Abraham had passed the test. And if that’s how we live, we will be satisfied.[3]

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones told a story of a time when he was going to speak in some sort of a conference setting to a group of young people.  I’m going to paraphrase here, because I’m recounting it from memory.  But there were several speakers, and the man who spoke before Lloyd-Jones got up and said to these young people, “Ah, what I wouldn’t give to trade places with you young people.  You have the world of possibilities before you, and you have the strength and optimism of youth to pursue them.”  Lloyd-Jones had had some idea of what this man was going to say, so he prepared his thoughts accordingly.  And when it was his turn to speak, he got up and said, “I thank God that I am not back in your position.  Not for all the world would I lose the experiences of God that I have had over the years of walking with him.”

There is nothing like the fullness of an aged and faithful believer.  For you who are young and are serving the Lord, the prospect of the future is bright, because all of life is meaningful, and God will reveal himself in times and ways you do not expect.

Now even if age makes the cup of the knowledge of the Lord deeper, young people too can be full.  Some of you who are young have just recently begun to know the Lord and have just  found peace with him.  You found that God is real.  Prayer used to be a dry duty, but now it is a lively delight.  If that is true, then even though you may be young in years, you are old enough in the measure of eternity to depart in peace to your heavenly home because your eyes have seen the salvation of your God.

That is what makes all the difference.  If you have never trusted in Christ, if you have not tasted of the heavenly gift and shared in the Holy Spirit, no years will be enough.  See to it that you trust in the Lord.

If, on the other hand, your life is long in the service of the Lord, the added years are not meaningless.  Some will grow weary in old age.  Some will see their longtime friends depart from this world one by one while they themselves live on.  If this proves to be the case for you, if you are walking with God, you can still say that you have seen and continue to see the salvation of your God.  The old man or the old woman who departs in faith still speaks the language of faith: “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Ps. 23:6).

3. The Fulfillment of Faith

We have looked at Abraham’s life before God, we have looked at his last years, and now we come to his departure from this world.  Genesis 25:8 says, “Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.”  That last phrase, “he was gathered to his people,” is significant.  It is not simply another way of saying that he died, because the verse already said that he died.  There is no reason for meaningless repetition.  “He was gathered to his people” also does not mean that he was buried in the family tomb or the ancestral tomb.  He was buried in the cave of Machpelah, and only Sarah was buried there with him.  The rest of Abraham’s kinsmen and ancestors were buried in Ur, or in Haran, as in the case of his father.  Abraham “was gathered to his people” means that he passed into the realm of just men made perfect.  He joined with those who had gone before him in the faith.  He went to be with Sarah and Noah and Enoch and Abel and many, many others.

While Abraham lived, he endured the tests and trials of faith one after another.  What was accessible to his sight and human understanding went very much against the word of God and the heavenly realities he believed in.  In many cases, he endured deprivation that he would not otherwise have had to endure because of his walk of faith.  He could have returned to the city he had come from and had a home there.  He could have laid claim to as much land as he had power to conquer on earthly terms.  He could have built up his household in the culturally acceptable way.  He could have held on to Ishmael.  But he did none of these things.  He went without the comforts he could have gotten with them.

But when Abraham breathed his last and was gathered to his people, the conflict between faith and sense was done.  He rested from his labors.  He came to his heavenly home, where he would never again be forced to roam.  The inhabitants of that place are holy.  No longer would there be any hint of the wickedness of Sodom that had tainted what could otherwise have been good.  He would not be harassed by hostile princes or forced to watch as those he cared for departed from him for something more attractive.  He could see what he had long believed.  But best of all, he met his Lord, and the Lord welcomed him in.  Genesis 26:5 gives God’s epitaph for Abraham.  God said, “Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws.”  This like the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.  Come and share your master’s happiness.”  There is an end to the testing of faith.

Application

I want to conclude with three points of application.

1. Know that your faith will be tested. In a sense, all of life is a test of faith, but throughout life, you will experience particular times, seasons, crossroads of testing.  You will face times when it is fully within your ability to do according to your own understanding.  The opportunity will be there.  The means will be there—perhaps means you had not even recognized before. But once that way makes sense, everything appears to be lined up, everything is there for you.  You will be able to see the clear path to whatever it is you want, whether it is safety or prosperity or companions or something else.  And  if you choose to go with what you can see and with what makes sense from a human point of view, you may get what you sought, just like Abraham got a son by Hagar and he was not killed by Abimelech, but it will come with trouble, because God will be angry.  Now, does it seem unjust or that God is dealing harshly when, in his own providence, everything that is needed to go in the way of sight and sense is at hand while there appear to be no viable alternatives?  Shouldn’t God reward those who believe in him by making the way of righteousness and blessing the easy, direct, and natural way to go?  We may think that way, but if God were to do that, how would faith be tested?  What would faith mean?  Why would there be a reward for those who believe God and follow his word if no alternative made sense to us?  Know that it is precisely those times when the outcome of living for God is dark and hidden, that God is testing your faith.  Do not be surprised as though something strange were happening to you.  It is those times when there is nothing to buoy up your spirits in the path of obedience that an unexpected irritation will come.  A Lot, a person close to you, will come quarreling and wanting his best at your expense.  This is a test of faith.  If you have confidence that the Lord will provide so that you can have godliness with contentment, you will be able to respond humbly and graciously.  If, on the other hand, your eyes are on the world and on the worries of life, you will stumble and respond with fleshly anger. Know that your faith will be tested as long as you live.
2. Pass the test. Simply knowing that your faith will be tested is not good enough.  You must live by faith and by faith pass the test.  How are you to do that?  It starts with knowing that you will be tested, so that you will not grow complacent during times when things seem to be easy.  But having understood that, know that there will always be a way to pass the test.  First Corinthians 10:13 says, “When you are tested, [God] will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”  There is always a way to pass the test. Then, stir up your faith.  The Lord Jesus said, “Watch and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation,” or it could be translated, “Watch and pray, so that you will not fall into testing.”  It is not by taking a break from holy things that we become refreshed and ready to pass the test, but by driving into them, by immersing ourselves in them.  The bread of God strengthens your appetite for heaven, so eat the bread of God.  Similarly, the best preparation to pass the next test is to pass the current test.  James 1:3 says, “The testing of your faith develops perseverance.” As you pass one test, you will be stronger to pass the next test.  So when the test comes, do what is good and right in the Lord’s sight, according  to the word of God, though you have nothing else to recommend that way to you.
3. Finally, do not rest until the day of rest comes. Abraham was still living by faith when he died, and so shall it be for every saint today.  Now is not the time to slow down or stop.  Abraham has joined the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, all testifying that God is faithful, all shouting to us through the pages of Scripture to keep on running the race.  But they are surrounding us because they have entered rest, and one day we who persevere will join them in that rest.  One day faith will be sight.  Lazarus died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side, where he was comforted.  So may God give us all a view of the realities that await us in glory, and may we each reach that glory with a faith that has been proved genuine.

[1] Robert Candlish, Commentary on Genesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956), 422.

[2] Hugh Martin, A Commentary on Jonah (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1958), 189–191 (paraphrased).

[3] Rev. David Park, “The Home-Calling of the Man of Faith,” SermonAudio, October 26, 2014, https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer/playpopup.asp?SID=102614144713, (accessed August 13, 2022).