This chapter tells of a very, very hard trial that God gave Abraham before he had had that boy Isaac very long. But Abraham didn’t really have to give his boy up to die, though God didn’t tell him he would not, until the very last. And while we read and think of this story today, let us try to think of that God Who gave His only begotten Son really to die, and not as. people die in this world, but to die for sinners, bearing the dreadful punishment of our sins on the cross of Calvary.
God doesn’t take pleasure in telling of bad things, but He has to tell them, because He tells what is true, and what we need to know. But I think He loved to tell in the Bible the stories we come to again and again of men and women, and children too, who did what pleased Him. There was Abel, you remember, the young man who brought the kind of offering to God that He could accept, and there was Enoch who “walked with God,” and Noah who did “according to all that God commanded him, so did he.” And we have read quite a little about Abraham that shows that he too pleased God. There are many more stories like these we have been reading, and everyone is different. God is taking notice of us all, everyone and none of us can say I’m too little, or too poor, or too something else. Perhaps some little colored boy will read this and say God doesn’t see or care about me, but it isn’t so. God cares about and loves everyone. And if you have really believed in Jesus so you are saved, He has something to say about you.
This is a story about how Abraham pleased God when it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do what God asked him.
In our ordinary Bibles the word in the first verse is “tempted,” but that is not quite the right word. It should be “tried” or “tested”, for God does not tempt any one to do wrong.
“Abraham, take now ‘thy son; thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest”—you see God knew how Abraham loved that boy—”and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Never was a harder thing asked of anybody in this world than that! That he should have to give up that dearly loved son, for whom he had waited so many years, and actually have to lift the knife to kill his own child, must have been fearfully hard for Abraham to face. But he had learned to obey God, and we can say too, that he knew God, and by this time was willing to trust Him altogether. There is an old hymn which says
“Behind a frowning providence
God hides a smiling face”
and Abraham knew that all would be well at the end of the journey, though the way there might be a hard one.
Had we been at Abraham’s house very early that morning we should have found him up, at least as early as usual, and getting ready to go away with Isaac, and the two men servants. The wood was soon split and the donkey they took along was saddled, and away the little party went. It was enough for Abraham that God had spoken; it was better to please Him than to please himself.
Perhaps someone will say, “Why doesn’t .the Bible tell us about Isaac’s mother, Sarah, and how she felt about giving up her boy?” Well, there isn’t any doubt in my mind that Sarah loved Isaac, loved him as much as Abraham did. But in very few cases in the Bible has God told us all the story. And there is a reason every time. The reason why we only read about the father in this story is, I think, because God wants us to think of Him giving up His Son while we read about Abraham and Isaac, It wasn’t an easy thing, a little thing, for God to give up that only and beloved Son to die the dreadful death of the cross. John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) says “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” and in the twelfth chapter of Mark, verses 6 to 8 we are told of God that having sent a lot of servants, but “having yet therefore one Son, His well-beloved, He sent Him also last unto them saying ‘They will reverence My Son. But they took Him and killed Him, and cast Him out of the vineyard.” Yes, Jesus was willing to come. O how thankful you and I ought to be that Jesus took the place of us guilty ones on the cross so we, if we believe in Him as our very own Saviour, might not be sent to hell.
Now let us follow our story closely. The men servants didn’t know what Abraham was thinking of, nor did Isaac as they walked on until the third day. On that day Abraham saw the place (Mount Moriah) far away, that God had spoken to him of, and then he took Isaac and the wood and went away from the men, saying to them that they were going over there to worship, and would come again to them. Every step on the journey must have been harder, one would think, than the last one, for Abraham, and when Isaac asked that question in the seventh verse it must have made it harder than ever to go on to the place where Isaac was to be offered. But still trusting in God Abraham quietly answered “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering,” so they went both of them together. Isaac didn’t understand though he quietly went along but the Lord Jesus knew all that was before Him from the beginning, so about Him we are told not only that God gave Him, but that the Son of God loved us and gave Himself for us. (Galatians 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20).)
After a while father and son got to the place and Abraham set to work to build an altar, I suppose of either earth or stones, and when he had that made, laid the firewood in place. Next he fastened his boy’s arms and legs so that Isaac couldn’t move, and laid him on the wood, and now there was nothing more to be done until the boy was dead. Abraham therefore reached out his hand to take the knife he had brought along to wound his dear son to death, when—O, hear that shout from heaven,—”Abraham! Abraham!” It is God that is speaking. “Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou halt not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me.” How gratefully must those words have been heard by Abraham, and just at the last moment, too, for I don’t doubt at all that the father would have obeyed to the very last, even in the heartrending act of killing the child he loved!
Abraham now looked behind him and saw there in the bushes a sheep caught by his horns. God had provided a lamb as Abraham had said to Isaac. So he took the sheep and put it instead of his boy on the altar, offering it to God, and called the name of the place “Jehovah-jireh,” which in our language is “The Lord will provide.” But we who live in this day can say more than that,—”The Lord has provided,” for Jesus had died on the cross as God’s Lamb for everyone that will believe in Him. Let us not forget our verse in John 3:16,16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, though He pitied Abraham and would not let him suffer long.
Do you know that the Lord Jesus is spoken of as a lamb in a good many places in the Bible? In Isaiah 53:77He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7) it is “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.” At the beginning of the gospel of John “Behold the Lamb of God” is John the Baptist’s word about Jesus (John 1:3636And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! (John 1:36)), and in 1 Peter 1:1919But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: (1 Peter 1:19) “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” is what the Holy Spirit has caused to be written. One more verse is in Revelation 5:6,6And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. (Revelation 5:6) where the Lord Jesus is seen in heaven going to be the great Judge and the King of kings, and there it is “a Lamb as it had been slain.” Surely God wants everyone to know what Jesus has done.
We have been talking about Jesus, and mentioning some verses that tell about Him, but let me ask you, Is He your Saviour? I hope you can truthfully say “Yes, He is.” Nothing else will count in that moment when the Lord comes in the sky and calls on all that belong to Him to meet Him in the air.
As we close for today let us notice verses 15 to 18 of our chapter in Genesis where God promised Abraham what before He had said to him, only now it was “because thou hast done this thing.” How He must be pleased when one boy or girl gives his or her heart to the Lord and sets out on the road to heaven.
Messages of God’s Love 5/1/1921