These two virtues, faith and obedience, are very closely related. Each one is incomplete without the other. In Abraham’s life and work, he illustrates these virtues admirably. When God called him to leave his home where he had lived for 70 years and go out to another land, the land of Canaan, many miles away, "by faith he obeyed." (Genesis 11:9)

And when God told Abraham to offer up his dearly beloved Son, Isaac, as a human sacrifice, that seemed terribly unreasonable, since it would cancel out God’s promise that through Isaac a great number of his descendents would come into existence. But "by faith he obeyed." He had enough faith in God’s honesty in keeping his promise that God would restore Isaac to life again in case he really had to obey the command of God to slay Isaac and offer him…