Shall we pause for one moment's prayer as
we come to the word of scripture this
morning?
Will you turn to the Lord with me
to make one petition of his throne?
Let us pray.
Father in heaven, as we come to the
end of this series of meditation on the
life of your servant Abraham, we pray that
we shall not miss this concluding point and
its significance, but rather that by the Holy
Spirit working upon our minds and our consciences,
our wills and our hearts, we shall see
and hear and understand, and in so doing
be brought into perfect alignment with your purpose
and a place of equal dedication to yourself
with that of your ancient servant Abraham, our
Father in the face.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now, if you have your Bibles open at
Genesis chapter 22, I invite you to come
and meditate with me upon this concluding chapter
in the remarkable life of God's servant Abraham.
There are one or two things that are
necessary for us to remember as we come
to this chapter, otherwise we shall be perplexed
all the way through and may be so
absorbed with some of the problems that we
shall not see the principle that is blazing
through the scriptures.
The first thing that we need to remember
is that human sacrifices were commonly made in
the cause of religion among Abraham's contemporaries.
Men manifested the extent of their dedication to
their particular religious faith by bringing of their
offspring and offering them as their particular mode
of religion required, offering them to their supposed
deity.
That is one thing we need to remember.
The other thing we need to remember is
this.
God tested Abraham, but it was simply a
test.
God did not really require Abraham to offer
up Isaac.
God was not asking for Isaac's blood, but
for Abraham's heart.
What God was doing in this test was
something like this.
If I may put it in my own
language, he was saying something like this.
Abraham, you know that those around you who
worship other gods are prepared from time to
time to give of their sons and daughters
and sacrifice them in order to show that
they really are honest and sincere in their
profession.
Are you prepared to go as far as
those pagans, Abraham?
Will you offer your son Isaac back to
me?
And when God saw that Abraham was willing
to do so, God said, don't touch the
lad.
I don't want you to touch him.
I don't want him scarred.
I was only testing you, not tempting you.
There's a world of difference between temptation and
testing.
In temptation, someone is allured to do evil.
God never had evil in mind.
In being tested, Abraham was given the opportunity
of expressing the genuineness of his devotion to
his God.
There is a record extent of the then
emperor of Austria, the czar of Russia, and
the king of meeting somewhere in Europe for
a conference.
They met in the second story of this
particular building and they were discussing many things,
but at long last they came to discuss
the question of the allegiance of their own
soldiers to each of them.
And when they'd been discussing this for some
time, they decided that they would put some
of their soldiers to the test.
Now this was something quite spontaneous.
First of all, a Prussian was called in,
a Prussian soldier.
And the king of Prussia said to him,
look, he said, I want you to throw
yourself out of the window there.
The soldier looked at him and said, but
sir, that would mean death.
The emperor of Austria summoned one of his
troops into the room and he said, I
want you to throw yourself out of that
window there.
The soldier looked at him with considerable surprise
and said, sir, he says, if you mean
it, I'm happy to do it.
The Russian czar got his soldier in and
he offered that he issued the same command.
And without a word, the Russian soldier made
for the window and was in the act
of hurling himself out into the street below
when someone restrained him.
Now, something of that order took place on
Mount Moriah.
God had no intention that Isaac should be
harmed from the very beginning.
What he wanted was to know that he
had Abram's heart, all his heart, his total
dedication, his utter obedience, his whole being.
Now let's look at the picture and see
two or three things here that are very,
very, uh, eloquent.
I believe as they speak to us this
morning and as they have spoken to successive
generations of God-fearing men and women.
First of all, I want you to notice
that we have here the most challenging demand
that Abram has yet had to face.
And he's had to face some very challenging
requirements from his God.
The birth of the long-awaited child of
promise did not mark the end of trial
and trouble.
Far from it.
Indeed, the incident that we are now considering
must be seen as one of the most
painful in the entire experience of, of this
God-fearing man, Abraham.
First of all, it was a challenge that
called for the crucifixion of his paternal feelings.
Look at verse two.
Then God said, take your son, your only
son.
God is well aware of the fact that
Isaac was his only son.
Your only son whom you love.
God knew Isaac was now the object of
tremendous affection.
Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom
you love and go to the region of
Moriah, sacrificing there as a burnt offering on
one of the mountains that I will tell
you about.
Now, to offer up any child would be
a paralyzing experience for any normal parent.
But for Abraham to offer up Isaac was
surely the most difficult and the most painful
that any man could ever be asked to
do.
And you see, that is brought out here.
It is as if God is wanting to
press the point.
He knows it's hard.
Take your son.
At last, Abraham and Sarah have got their
own child, their own son.
They've waited so long.
This is the miracle child.
This is the child of promise.
This is the child of what was not
conceived naturally.
They were beyond years and it was impossible
for them, humanly speaking, to have a child,
but the child has appeared.
Take now your son.
You waited for him so long.
At last, you've received him.
Take this miracle child whom you love.
Take this one upon whom all the promises
depend for their fulfillment.
Take him and offer him.
But I think we must look a little
deeper still for the dagger point in that
demand.
Because you see, God did not simply ask
Abraham to hand Isaac over for someone else
to do the sacrifice, to perform the sacrifice.
God commanded the old saint to do it
himself.
And if ever there was an excruciating experience
envisaged by any man, surely this is the
most painful of all.
Here is the man asked himself to put
the knife into the body of his only
son.
Neither is that all.
I suppose if one were asked to do
that, blindfolded or on the spur of the
moment, with one fell stroke to get it
over and done with, it might be something.
But you notice the way God puts it.
He says, Isaac, I've appointed a place, and
it's four days away.
And because of that very choice of God
where Isaac was to be sacrificed, it meant
this.
First of all, Abraham and Sarai had to
make the decision in their hearts.
That was a big thing to do.
Then they've got to get the wood.
And then they've got to set out.
And then they've got to keep going for
three days, four days.
Knowing that at the end of those four
days journey, they are going to come to
a place where the father is expected, as
it would then seem, to slay his son.
This is nothing other than sheer self-crucifixion,
the slaying of all paternal feelings.
It was a challenge that called for the
crucifixion of the very self.
Along with that, Abraham was challenged to face
the costliness of an act that apparently meant
the cancellation of all that God had promised.
Now, this is the most anticlimactic moment in
the life of a man, so it would
appear from this vantage point.
Right up to this point, God has been
building this man up to expect something, and
that something, or should I say, many things,
emerging for Abraham himself and for his generations.
They are all hinging upon the life of
this one boy, Isaac.
Everything depends upon Isaac.
They have no other children.
And God has said that the child of
promise is to come from their own bodies.
Now God is asking that they would deliver
back Isaac and that in sacrifice.
It seems, you see, as if God has
changed his mind.
The whole of Abraham's faith, the whole of
Abraham's belief, and the whole of Abraham's obedience
has been related, right up to this point
in time, has been related to the fact
that God has promised certain things in Isaac.
Now God says, I want you to slay
Isaac.
And it would appear that in so doing,
he is going back upon his promises.
And it just doesn't make sense.
This was a massive demand.
It was the most challenging demand that Abraham
had yet met.
Involving, let us repeat, the crucifixion of his
paternal feelings and the cancellation of the divinely
promised future.
Would you be prepared for such a challenge?
That God should withdraw his promises for you?
How would you think of him?
How would you respond to him if he
said to you today, look my friend, you've
built upon this supposition.
Now I'm asking you to give me back
all that I've promised.
And I'm asking you to forego every promise
that relates to your future.
Would you still worship him?
Would you still adore him?
Would you still obey him?
That's what we have here.
Then that most challenging demand was met by
the most complete response that Abraham has yet
made.
I say as yet made because I think
we need to see, and I have no
time to develop it.
Those of you who've been with us on
previous Sunday mornings I'm sure will be familiar
now with the facts and you can fill
in the details.
But you see, Abraham's life has been one
of progressively growing in faith and in confidence
in God and in obedience to him.
It is a peculiar concoction of arrogance and
ignorance that creates the delusion in some people
today that when they've only walked with God
for a couple of days, or a couple
of weeks, or a couple of months, they
know everything there is to know.
They've experienced everything there is to experience.
There is no place beyond their present horizons.
They've come to the end.
I say it is nothing short of a
delusion.
This man kept on going on and this
brings him toward the end of his life
and toward the climax of his faith in
God which has already justified him and which
here brings out something of the qualities of
grace and of glory that are already resident
in his soul.
This was the crowning sacrifice that Abraham was
asked to make and did make.
Now I want to summarize a lot of
things here at this point.
If you read the life of Abraham you
will find that there is one simple principle
that operates all along.
Now it would oversimplify the case if we
were to say this is the secret of
Abraham's growth.
In grace and in faith.
So I only say it with that rider.
It is an oversimplification and yet it's very
near the truth.
If you ask what is the underlying principle
in Abraham's life, I guess one would have
to respond in this way.
It is this principle.
Giving on.
Giving up to go on.
There is no going on without giving up
something.
Now this is the life of Abraham.
Let me refer to some things without commenting.
In order to set out from Ur of
the Chaldees in the first place, Abraham had
to give up his home, his family associations,
his country and so forth.
That's the first thing.
Then he arrived in the land and you
remember there was a famine there and he
went down to Egypt and God said to
him, Abraham you've got to give up Egypt
and depending upon pagan human powers to support
you in my work and in my labor
you've got to give up that notion and
trust in me.
Come back to the land.
Come back to the famine.
Trust in me.
Give up that notion of depending upon other
powers.
Then Abraham had to give up all thoughts
of making lot his heir.
Chapter 13.
The child of promise was so long coming
and there was this nephew of his already
available and very often in Abraham's day a
nephew would in those circumstances be looked upon
as the natural heir and so Abraham said
Lord let Lot be the heir.
God said give up that notion.
I have something better for you.
I have a child of promise for you
who is going to come out of your
own flesh, out of your own body.
Next we see Abraham having to give up
the possibility of riches from the hand of
the king of Sodom.
You remember following the battle with the four
confederate kings.
The king of Sodom who was immensely rich.
Kings of Sodom generally are.
But you mustn't ask how they get their
riches and he had heaps of riches to
pour upon Abraham the man of faith.
Abraham said keep them.
I will not have you say that you
enriched the servant of the living God.
I don't want anything.
Give them up.
We next see Abraham having to give up
the idea that his servant Eliezer should be
the seed.
You see the child is so slow in
coming into the world.
God is so slow in fulfilling his promise.
Now last time it was it was Lot.
Now it is Eliezer his servant.
Later on Hagar's child Ishmael was born.
You remember we won't go back into all
the circumstances.
And Abraham doted on him and he said
to God oh that Ishmael might live before
you.
And it appears that the significance of that
is this.
That he wanted Ishmael to be the heir.
No this is good.
I've got something better for you.
Give up the notion.
Can you see the point?
Give up to go on.
If there is anything there is any testimony
that I can bear to the call of
God.
If I stand in this pulpit and come
to this communion table this morning with you
it is this.
I know of no other way to go
on that does not involve giving something up
for God.
And if you try it you live in
a dead end cul-de-sac.
And you'll never know the high peaks of
communion with God.
To go on there is always something to
give up.
And not only was this painful to the
feeling it was unreasonable to the natural mind.
It just did not make sense.
Yet Abram was assured of the command to
give up Isaac as he had been sure
of the command in the first place.
To leave Ur of the Chaldees and to
go out to a place he knew not
where.
But God was sending him there and promising
to go with him.
It did not make sense but he was
prepared to obey because he knew that God
was the God of glory.
That's not all we must note that the
crowning sacrifice was a confident one not a
grudging one.
Take a look at Abram as he sets
about to make this supreme sacrifice of his
life.
I don't I don't think we can really
enter into the ethos the atmosphere of it
at all.
It's very difficult you and I can hardly
get into this.
Just try to.
See the old man getting up early in
the morning and choosing two servants to go
with him.
And he gathers the wood together possibly to
make an altar or probably to set the
fire on the altar or both.
And then he takes the light the torch
or whatever there was the fire something with
fire in it and then a knife.
And they go and they march.
Or I shouldn't say much but they go
together like men going on a journey.
Now my question is this.
What was the spirit of Abram as he
set out and kept going?
Was it a grudging one?
Was it the spirit that says oh God
I don't understand what you're saying to me
or what you're requiring of me.
And I think you're a bit of a
fool.
I really wouldn't do this kind of thing
but I'm sure you're calling me to do
it.
And I'm sure it's going to be a
major blunder.
And I hate you because you're asking this
kind of thing of me.
Is that the spirit?
Would you like to turn to verse five?
See what Abram's mood was as he traveled.
I find this one of the most challenging
statements in the whole episode.
Now they've arrived at the bottom of Moriah.
Abram tells the young men that he'd brought
with him.
Stay here with a donkey while I and
the boy go over there.
This is a fairly literal translation from the
Hebrew.
We will worship and then we will come
back to you.
Now let me repeat that.
Did you really get it?
Let's please try and get this.
Here they are within sight of Moriah, the
place where the sacrifice is to be offered.
God said stay here with a donkey while
I and the boy go over there.
We will what?
Oh brothers and sisters in Christ get it.
Let's get it.
We will worship.
God is asking for Isaac.
Abram is going to sacrifice his son as
far as he knows in his intention, but
he's not doing it in a grudging spirit.
He's not doing it with a spleen in
his soul.
He's not doing it arguing against God.
He's not doing it in that way.
He is doing it out of confidence that
somehow or other God will make things plain
and will vindicate what he's doing.
He's going to worship and you can't worship
with a spleen in your soul.
Neither is that all.
The narrative even goes beyond that.
The latter part of verse 5 goes on,
then we will come back to you.
Now that verb we will come back to
you is in the plural, not in the
singular.
What does that mean you say?
Well it means this.
Abram and Isaac are going yonder to worship.
They were the only two that were going.
Abram knew in his own heart as far
as he could foresee he was going to
offer up Isaac.
He was going to sacrifice Isaac.
Isaac was going to be handed back to
God as a sacrifice just as the heathen
did.
They offered their children in sacrifices.
Now Abram is going to do the same.
He thinks as much of his God as
the pagans do of their petty deities that
are non-entities.
He's going to sacrifice.
But wait a moment.
Abram is going to sacrifice in faith.
He says you stay here.
I and the lad will go and worship
and then Mark we will come again to
you.
Abram what on earth are you talking about?
He can't understand you here.
No no you can't understand it save on
the supposition that Abram believed.
That if God required him to put the
knife in Abram's body and in Isaac's body
and shed his blood, God would raise him
from the dead to fulfill his purposes and
his promises.
That's the faith.
Now some of you may think that I've
gone too far and all that's my own.
I want to assure you it isn't.
Hebrews 11 verses 17 to 19 will tell
you this is the inspired commentary upon what
took place.
By faith Abram 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 said to him it is through
Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
Abram reasoned that God could raise the dead
and figuratively speaking he did receive Isaac back
from death.
Oh this is the climactic response of this
man of faith and it's such a magnificent
one.
Now that brings us lastly to the most
consequential discovery yet made.
What is the discovery that Abram made when
he responded in such faith and confidence and
with such wholeheartedness to God?
What was the discovery?
First of all he discovered that proven faith
discovered that the Lord will provide all the
needs of the obedient.
Something very simple about this and yet something
almost startlingly wonderful.
The voice of God came don't touch the
lad when the lad was already tied on
the altar and the knife was in Abram's
hand ready to come down.
Don't touch him says God.
Well then does not God require a sacrifice?
Yes God still requires a sacrifice and as
it were by some strange instinct Abram looked
behind him and he saw a ram caught
in a thicket and he said my here
it is again.
God will provide.
God will provide for himself the sacrifice that
he requires and he took the ram and
he sacrificed him in the place of Isaac
his son.
That's the first discovery.
God will provide.
Provide what?
Well you know the answer is simple but
profound.
Everything.
Everything necessary in the pathway of obedience.
Now it's as challenging but it's as real
and it's as daring as that.
The one thing necessary now was this but
God provided it Jehovah Jireh.
He's the Lord who provides.
The act and attitude of Abram served to
bring this to light.
God will provide.
Look at verse 12.
Do not lay a hand on the boy
he said.
Do not do anything to him.
Now I know that you fear God because
you have not withheld your only son and
in place of the son God provided another
sacrifice that would be pleasing in his sight.
You know this is the kind of discovery
that can only be made when you have
literally consecrated your all to the Lord.
You can't make it until then.
You can only discover the reality of God's
provision of everything necessary when your all is
on the altar and your life is one
of a progressive obedience to God at any
cost to yourself.
Second thing of course is this.
Proven faith discovered that God will provide all
the needs of his obedient children and practiced
faith discovered a yet renewed assurance that God
would perform all that he had promised.
I find this recurring note most comforting.
Let me read from verse 15.
The angel of the Lord called to Abram
from heaven a second time.
He'd called before to stop him putting the
knife in his son.
He calls again.
What's he saying this time?
Well this is what he says.
I swear by myself declares the Lord that
because you have done this and have not
withheld your son I will surely bless you
and make your descendants as numerous as the
stars in the sky and as the sand
on the seashore.
Your descendants will take possession of the cities
of their enemies and through your offspring all
nations on earth will be blessed because you
have obeyed me.
What's God doing?
He's coming back again to the man and
saying look man you've obeyed me you've honored
me I know you truly honor me as
God.
Now he says you don't need to worry
a thing every promise I've made I'll fulfill.
This is the umpteenth time that God is
saying that to Abram but this time he
is saying it in response to the totality
of Abram's self-giving and self-crucifixion.
But let me assure you Abram was crucified
on Moriah.
Now what has all this got to say
to us?
Well I suppose it has something to say
to those who are not committed to be
followers of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Over and over again I have heard people
say I'm afraid to set out upon the
Christian pathway because I just don't think I
can keep it up.
And if I take a first step and
I make a profession of faith what will
happen to me in the setting the circumstances
in which I'm called to be a Christian?
See where I work if you only knew
the circumstances of my home or where I
labor.
Here's the principle.
The Lord will provide.
The one thing he asks of us is
obedience even to the point of handing over
our Isaac.
Now many of us will have to pass
through some such crisis as this old Saint
Abram before we enter into the joyful experience
and realization of God's adequacy and faithfulness and
sufficiency and thus have peace in life and
peace in death.
The question is of course what is our
Isaac?
Some have to face undo face this issue
right at the beginning of their Christian lives.
And I think this is the proper this
is the ideal that in becoming a Christian
we should recognize that our Lord Jesus Christ
is Lord and that we should recognize his
lordship from the very moment of our of
our confessing him as our Savior.
Oftentimes however we we don't at that point
know what's involved in the lordship of Jesus
Christ.
And as we read the scriptures we find
that there are implications of his lordship that
we only discover as we progress in knowledge.
In that case we have to yield something
new every day.
There's always something to give up in order
to go on.
But there will come a point in our
lives when we have to give up Isaac.
Your Isaac may be your comforts.
The comforts that you've accumulated, the material success
of life or your own personal ideas and
hopes and wishes, the things you hope for
yourself, the things you dream about which are
oftentimes less than God's will.
There are those who have offered their Isaac
when they've handed in their resignation to a
board, to a company, to a president, to
whatever it perhaps whoever the person may be.
And they've had a hand in their resignation
because the Lord has called them away from
there to be somewhere else to do something
less lucrative.
But something significant in his will.
Your Isaac, of course, may be your own
child.
Not physically.
No, no, no.
God does not ask that of us.
But some of you parents here this morning
may be asked literally to make it possible
for your children to serve the Lord.
That without the hope of prestige, of becoming
rich in the things of this world and
in a materialistic age such as ours, I
know it is very difficult for some of
us to think of our children going anywhere
other than into a sphere where they can
make a lot of money and make it
fast.
I don't know exactly what your Isaac may
be, but I'm asking you this morning, are
you prepared to offer your Isaac, to put
the knife in Isaac, to go on with
God?
It is said that when Mahmud, the conqueror
of India, took the city of Gujarat, he
proceeded to destroy the idols in the city
and in the pagan temple there.
And he was very strongly urged by all
kinds of people to spare the idols.
And when he insisted that he could not
do that, particularly to spare one magnificent idol,
the most significant one in the whole pantheon,
in the temple, it was 15 feet high.
Mahmud said, no, give me a hammer, he
says, and I will use my own hand
to destroy this massive idol, glittering though it
may be.
And he got something like a hammer in
his own hand and he smashed it to
smithereens.
And I read, when forthwith there rained at
his feet a shower of gems and pearls
and diamonds, all treasures of centuries gone by
of immense value, that he only discovered when
he smashed the idol.
We sometimes sing that hymn of Isaac Watts's.
When I survey the wondrous cross on which
the prince of glory died, my richest gain
I count but loss, and poor contempt on
all my pride.
Then it comes, were the whole realm of
nature mine, man alive.
Have you ever sung that?
Have you ever sung those words?
Were the whole realms of nature mine, that
were an offering far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul,
my life, my all.
My Isaac.
Let us pray.
Shall we spend a moment in contemplation, each
man, each woman, old, young, middle-aged, single,
married, communing with our own hearts and our
own souls as to what this means for
us.
Willing to have the Lord show us what
is necessary to do in order to experience
sweetest, deepest, constant, progressive communion with himself, and
prove his faithfulness to his promises.
Will you
come to worship God by offering him
what he's asking of you today, offering it
as a sacrifice?
Lord grant us your grace, that as a
people we shall hear your voice and sense
the movement of your spirit, know your will,
and by your great grace do it.
Many of us are unable to go on
because we're clutching the things that bind us
to the spot.
But other gods have had dominion over us
and do we would denounce and renounce them.
For Jesus' sake, win us over our father,
win us over to yourself afresh today, as
we acknowledge our sins of spirit and attitude
and actions, and enable us to be as
loyal and as faithful as Abram, your servant,
through the grace of Abram's seed, Jesus, your
son.
Amen.