Abraham - Faith in Times of Sorrow

How grateful we are, Father, that Your word indeed is a light, a lamp, in this dark world. How we need direction, and Your word is there to guide us. And now may the unfolding of Your word produce light, and may this light shine in our minds and hearts, and may we be filled with the light, and then may we share that light with others, I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

When you live the life of faith, when you are moving in the school of faith, life always brings something new. There’s variety and vitality. Sin has a sameness about it. Sin is boring. But the life of faith is challenging; there’s always a new experience. When you follow the life of Abraham, you see how true this is. One minute he’s in Ur of the Chaldees, and then God calls him to go to Canaan. He comes to Canaan, there’s a famine. Goes down to Egypt, he shouldn’t have done that. Comes back, gets re-established with the Lord again. Then he has some family problems, and then there are some international problems. Then he has some difficulty with the family again. Then the baby boy is born; Isaac comes into the family. What joy! And that joy is followed by the sorrow of having Hagar and Ishmael leave the family. And then there are some problems with the neighbors. And then God calls Abraham to his greatest test of all, offering Isaac upon the altar. 

Well, they come back from the mountain and they go down into the valley because Genesis 23 says Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. So Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. This is the first funeral, the first burial we find in the Bible. Abraham is connected with a number of firsts in his life. The first time you find "fear not," Genesis 15:1, it’s in connection with Abraham. The words "believe" and "righteousness" and "lamb" are appearing the first time in the record of the life of Abraham. And the word "love," Genesis 22:2. These are great words in the Bible: fear not, believe, righteousness, lamb, love. And Abraham had these as his firsts. 

Now here we have the first mourning and the first funeral in the Bible. Now of course death had been on the scene ever since the fall of man, and where there’s death there is mourning and sorrow, but here we have the first record of it. By the way, Sarah is the first woman in the Bible whose age is given to us at her death. Rather interesting. 

Now the thing that really challenges me is the way Abraham reveals his faith. Now faith is fine for fighting battles out on the battlefield, that’s Genesis 14. Faith is wonderful when it comes to solving your family problems and even making great sacrifices, but the last enemy is death. Death is an enemy. And when death comes into a home, that is a test of our faith. Let’s notice in Genesis 23 the evidences of Abraham’s faith as he goes through this time of sorrow. You see, oftentimes Christians fall apart when sorrow, bereavement come to the home. Some people have the idea that Christians are not supposed to weep, they aren’t supposed to show any emotion. That’s foolish. God made us to weep. Bereavement is God’s gift for the healing of broken hearts. Don’t ever forget that. 

And the first evidence I see of Abraham’s faith is his tears, verses one and two. He came and he mourned for Sarah and he wept for her. By the way, here are the first tears in the Bible. It’s rather interesting, here in Genesis 23 we have a funeral, Genesis 24 we’re going to have a wedding. Life is this way. If you’re going through a dark period of life today, just keep in mind God paints the pictures with bright colors and also with sober, somber colors. And God balances our lives. One day a wedding, the next day a funeral. One day a birth, the next day a death. God knows how to balance our lives. He came and he wept. 

Now, aren’t tears a sign of unbelief? Of course not. I have been in funeral homes when friends have come in to pay their respects and to share their sympathy, and sometimes even good Christian people don’t know what to say. I can recall some of the most heartbreaking situations we’ve had, when fathers have been taken from their children, mothers taken from their little children, when little children have been taken. And there we are, and somebody comes in and says to the grieving relatives, "Now don’t weep." That’s a foolish thing to say. You’re supposed to weep. 

Now we don’t sorrow as those who have no hope. Paul talks about that, doesn’t he, in 1 Thessalonians 4:13. He said, "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep," that is, those who have died in Christ, "lest you sorrow as others who have no hope." Now those who have no hope ought to sorrow in a hopeless way because they’re not going to see each other again. Those who sorrow without hope ought to weep; they ought to weep tears of bitter regret because if you have no hope, you have no future, you have no heaven, and you’re not going to see those loved ones again. But those who sorrow in hope, oh, that’s beautiful. Even though there are tears, even though there’s a broken heart, there is the sense of the presence of the Lord. Tears are not a sign of unbelief. Even Jesus wept. Tears are not a sign of weakness. No, these are not the hopeless tears of the world; these are the holy tears of the saint. And God sees our tears. The psalmist said He keeps our tears in His bottle, and He writes down in His book that we have wept. 

You see, faith and hope and love go together. Abraham and Sarah were people of faith. They loved each other. They loved the Lord. They had hope. Their hope was that God would one day take them to the city. They looked for that city whose builder and maker is God. You know, if Abraham had not been sure that Sarah had gone to be with her God, he would have hidden those tears. He was being watched by a lot of pagan people. Here’s a great pagan crowd watching this man, this wealthy man, this powerful man. And if Abraham had not really been sure, he would have hidden his tears and said, "Well, we who are believers, we don’t weep because we know what our future is." No, the Christian can afford to weep because he does know what his future is. Sarah died in faith, Hebrews 11:13. "These all died in faith." If you live in faith, you die in faith. You live in your sin, you die in your sin. You live walking with God, you’ll die walking with God. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me." 

Sarah died in faith. She also died in faithfulness. Now Sarah made some mistakes, so did Abraham, so have you, so have I. But Sarah died a woman of faith leaving behind a good testimony. 1 Peter 3, Peter uses Sarah as an example of a godly woman, a woman who walked by faith, who trusted God to do the impossible. She died in fellowship, verse two of Genesis 23. The word "Hebron." Hebron means fellowship. She died in fellowship. It’s good to die in fellowship with the Lord. It’s good to be able to pillow your head and look up and say, "Lord, I’m ready." 

Now if you haven’t trusted Christ as your Savior, I am asking you now to trust Him because death is coming. The death of the believer is an experience of life; the death of an unbeliever is an experience of terror and horror. Job 18 is a description of what happens when an unsaved person dies. Let me read some of these verses to you from Job 18. Job 18:5: "The light of the wicked indeed goes out, and the flame of his fire does not shine. The light is dark in his tent; his lamp beside him is put out. He’s cast into a net; he walks into a snare. The net takes him by the heel; a snare lays hold of him. A noose is hidden for him on the ground, a trap for him in the road." Tries to run away, but death traps him anyway. "Terrors frighten him on every side and drive him to his feet. His strength is starved; destruction is ready at his side. He’s uprooted from the shelter of his tent; they parade him before the king of terrors." 

Do you know who the king of terrors is? Death. You say, "I didn’t know death was a king." Read Romans 5. Several times Paul says death reigned. Death reigns right now; King Death is reigning. And Job 18 tells me he is the king of terrors, Job 18:14. "His roots are dried out below, his branch withers above. He’s driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world." That’s not a very pretty picture, is it? But it’s a picture of what happens when unsaved people die. 

Sarah died in faith because she lived in faith. And Abraham came and said, "I believe in God. I believe He’s the God of the living, not the God of the dead. He’s the God of the living. And though her body is empty, her spirit has gone to be with the Lord." And Abraham wept. Your tears are evidence of your faith. 

There’s going to come a day when there will be no more tears. We’ll never again weep. We shall be in the presence of the Lord, and He is going to wipe away every tear. I have so often read these verses from Revelation 21 when I have been conducting funeral services. Revelation 21:1: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. Revelation 21:2: And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Revelation 21:3: And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. Revelation 21:4: And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.'" 

Secondly, I see Abraham’s faith evidenced by his testimony, Genesis 23:3-4. "Then Abraham stood up from before the dead and spoke to the sons of Heth," these are the Hittites, "saying, 'I am a foreigner and a sojourner among you. Give me property for a burial place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.'" Abraham didn’t take her back to Ur of the Chaldees. That’s not where his home was. He was a stranger and a pilgrim and a sojourner and a foreigner. He had no citizenship on earth; his citizenship was in heaven. He had no ownership on earth. All Abraham ever owned was a tomb. Isn’t that interesting? The whole land belonged to him; God gave that land to him and to his descendants. But all he had on this earth was a tomb. That’s all he wanted. Why? Because he looked for a city whose builder and maker was God. 

He lived in a tent. He was a sojourner, a stranger. Now you and I live in a tent. As you get older, you find out that that tent gets weaker and weaker, doesn’t it? Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, "And we know that if this earthly house of our tabernacle is taken down, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Now he’s not talking about a heavenly mansion; he’s talking about a heavenly body. A new body for a new world. And oh, some of us are groaning, groaning that God might give us that new body. Not that we would be un-clothed, that’s death, but that we would be clothed upon. That’s life. That Jesus would return and we would receive glorified bodies. 

Here is Abraham saying, "I want to bury my dead." Why? Because they have a future. They have a future. You see, if there’s no future for this body, then why worry about it? Ah, but there is a future for the body. Christians care for the bodies of the dead. Not because we live in the past or worship the past; we do so because we know there is a future for them. This body belongs to God; this body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has sealed your body to the day of redemption. And the Holy Spirit of God is in charge of taking care of your body. 

So Abraham is a testimony of faith by his tears and by his testimony. Thirdly, by his tomb. He bargains here with Ephron. Typical Eastern Oriental bargaining, where he says, "Oh no, take it, I’ll give it to you free." And Abraham says, "No, I’ll buy the whole thing." Well, he said, "You can't just buy the cave, you have to buy the whole field." And he charged him 400 shekels. That is an exorbitant price to pay, but Abraham paid it. Abraham bought the whole field and the cave. 

And when you get to the end of the book of Genesis, Genesis 49, you discover that that tomb is getting rather full. Sarah was buried there, Abraham was buried there, then Isaac and then Rebekah, then Leah and then Jacob. Here are six people. Genesis ends with a full tomb. And if that’s all we had in this life, we’d certainly be miserable. We as Christians are grateful for an empty tomb. You see, Abraham, like all of us, is filling up a tomb. I don’t know if you have a grave site picked out or not. I recall when I was a lad, my parents went out to a cemetery and bought six different lots, six different grave sites at the graveyard there. And it wasn’t long before it started to fill up, and now it is filled up. That’s what we’re doing in this life, you see; we are filling up tombs. But the Lord Jesus Christ emptied His tomb, didn’t He? And now in Jesus Christ we have eternal life. 

We don’t worry about death. We don’t joke about it. Death is an enemy and death is very real. Death hurts those who are left behind. Those of us who go on to be with the Lord, we enter into the fullness of life, but those who are left behind, they feel it. Abraham wept. Nothing wrong with weeping, as long as our sorrow doesn’t get out of control and start controlling us. Abraham ended up with a full tomb and Jesus ended up with an empty tomb. And all that Abraham had was a grave. But that’s all he was worried about. He wasn’t concerned about that land; that land belonged to him, it was going to belong to his descendants. 

And by the way, may I remind you that all you’re going to end up with on this earth is a grave. When you die, the only thing that’s going to be yours is that grave. I trust nobody’s going to bother it; most people are pretty respectful of graves. But you won’t have your house, you won’t have your car, you won’t have your money, you won’t have your checkbook, you won’t be getting any mail. Everything is going to be left behind, and all you’re going to have when you leave this world is your grave. You’ll go on to be with the Lord if you’re saved. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. 

Which says to me, the best thing for us to do is to start sending things on ahead. Witnessing to the lost so that when we get to heaven, we’ll meet people who were saved because like Abraham we walked by faith, we had a good testimony. Using your finances, using your resources to serve the Lord so that when you do die, you’ve already sent it ahead. Someone has well said there are no pockets in shrouds. Well, we don’t use shrouds; some nationalities do, we don’t. But the point is well taken: there are no pockets in shrouds. We don’t take our bankbooks with us when we go to glory, but we can send our treasures on ahead. That’s why Jesus said don’t lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, Matthew 6:19. Rather lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, Matthew 6:20. How do you do that? By using all of your resources to the glory of God. Your car, your home, money, whatever you have, use it to the full to the glory of God. Then if God calls you home, you go home to see that your resources have been used to serve Him. 

Well, if you’re going through a time of trial now, you’re just like Abraham. Do it by faith. Be a good testimony to others. Nothing wrong with weeping, but in your weeping don’t forget witnessing. And in your weeping and your witnessing, don’t forget worshipping. Just thank the Lord for what He has given to you and what He has done for you. We don’t have to be afraid of death because Jesus left behind an empty tomb. It's good to know that you are on resurrection ground. It's good to know that come what may, Jesus Christ is alive and you share in the power of His resurrection. He looked for a city whose builder and maker was God. It’s what’s beyond that enables us to endure what is ahead. Don’t forget that. It’s what’s beyond that enables you to do what’s ahead. The Lord Jesus Christ, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. It is what goes beyond. And when you look by faith to the heavenly city that is beyond, it makes it possible for us to carry our burdens today and to go through the difficult experiences of life.