"By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death." Hebrews 11:17-19

So far in our study of Abraham, we have seen how Abraham's faith shined as he trusted God even though God's promises were not yet fulfilled. Here in our third and final look at the Abraham exhibit in the Bible's Hall of Faith, we see Abraham's faith in action under even more extreme circumstances--when the God's promises defy human reason.

Do you remember what Abraham and his wife Sarah went through to have their son Isaac? They lived in tents and moved around from place to place for 25 years from the time the LORD called Abraham in Genesis 12. They had put their trust in God even though both of them were too old to have children. They had even tried to help God's promise along by having Abraham father a child through Sarah's maidservant Hagar. Eventually all their years of waiting and trusting paid off when Sarah gave birth to Isaac--Abraham's first legitimate son, the one through whom God would keep the promise of the Savior. What joy and relief Abraham felt when he held his son in his arms. The LORD had kept his promise! It must have been a high point in Abraham's faith.

But then one day God told Abraham to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice.

Would we have blamed Abraham if he had started to second-guess God? The logic would have been simple: How could God keep his promise of a great nation if the son through whom that nation would come was dead? Certainly God didn't expect Abraham to do what he was told and sacrifice Isaac, did he?

The account of Abraham in Genesis 22 records no hesitation by Abraham. The day after he received his orders from God, Abraham gathered his donkey and his supplies and took Isaac off to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him.

Who of us could have done that? Our children are some of our dearest blessings. What parent worthy of the name wouldn't die rather than see harm come to his or her own child? And what would we have done if God told us to take any of our most prized blessings and part with them? Would we have the faith to trust that God would help us even if his orders suggested just the opposite?

At times when we can't see how God can keep a promise, what do we do? Take matters into our own hands--as Abraham once did with Hagar? Trust ourselves or something other than God for help? We have those moments in life. A terminal illness strikes. A marriage struggles to survive. Economic downturn sends our employment and finances into a spin. In our heads we know that God has made promises to help us at all times. But when it's my problem suddenly it's hard to believe that God could make the problem turn into something good, isn't it?

But Abraham learned that an impossible situation is not at all impossible for God. God did want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but not by killing him. The sacrifice of Isaac took place not on an altar but in Abraham's heart. Even though Abraham in the end didn't kill Isaac, Abraham was willing to part with Isaac and to love no one more than God. Abraham had the faith to make such a sacrifice because he looked forward by faith to God's promise of the offspring in whom all nations would be blessed--our Savior Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews gives us a glimpse inside Abraham's head and tells us that Abraham reasoned God could raise Isaac from the dead if it was necessary to keep his promise. The resurrection of Christ shows that Abraham's faith was not misplaced. God does do the impossible. He provided an innocent sacrifice for all of us when Abraham's descendant Jesus died on the cross for us. God did what seemed impossible to save Isaac. God did what seemed impossible to save us for eternity!

So why not trust God to deal with impossible situations? He did it with Isaac. He did it with your sins and mine. Our own solutions and our own reason will fail us. God's hand at work in the life of Abraham assures us that he won't fail to keep his promises--no matter how unbelievable they seem.