The Summit of Sacrifice
Those of you who have children or grand-children will find todays message a challenge and an inspiration. Do you remember being a child and being asked by your mother or father that universal question? How much do you love me? Most of us can remember demonstrating our answer by spreading our arms out wide apart and saying I love you this much. Its a simple maybe silly little expression that is often used to communicate the depth and breadth of our love for our parents or our children.
We often did it in our home almost like a little game. I expanded the game for my children as they got older and the outstretched arm thing no longer invoked the same interest. I came up with a little phrase which I posed as a question. Did I tell you today? I would ask. The children would look back at me and ask tell me what? I love you would always be my response. They would respond with a smile.
In todays bible passage we see God asking Abraham to demonstrate his love with a test. God says Abraham take the son, your only son the one you waited and waited for and even though he represents the fulfillment of the promise I made to you I want you to offer him to me as a burnt sacrifice.
Wow! What brought all this on one might wonder? Why now? Had Abraham done something to displease God? Do you ever wonder why God tests you from time to time? Do you ever wonder, why now, why today, why this issue, why this person? Those are all good questions that can help you find the answers.
This is the same Abraham that had previously negotiated with God over the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and we know how that turned out. There are just some things you dont negotiate with God. In the case of those two cities it was sin but in this circumstance it is a promise that we are concerned with.
You see God promised to make Abraham the father of many nations. He made that promise to Abraham and he and his wife had no evidence from God that the promise would be fulfilled. All they had was Gods word. Abraham was 99 years old when God made this promise so you can understand why Sarah laughed when she heard it.
She was about 89 and well past child bearing years. Still Abraham believed God. He had good reason to after all he witnessed the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah Abraham realized God was all powerful.
But why at the end of his life was this gift from God about to be taken away and why was he to be the one to end his treasured sons life?
What I learn from this story is that God seeks our obedience not for fear of Him but for his love. Just as a child opens their arms wide to demonstrate their love we too need to open our entire life, past, present and future to the will of God. We need to make our life wide open and that is what Abraham did. For his hopes and dreams at this point in his life were focused on his son not on his God.
Seeing the miracle that was Isaac must have been amazing all by itself. Both Abraham and Sarah must have marveled at it all.
Abraham was to inherit a promise a very great promise. God would not go back on his word. Abraham realized or reasoned that God could raise his son back to life or somehow fulfill the promise through some miraculous way. Abraham was willing to surrender his future to God.
This week I had to address something I had been holding on to for about eight years. You see back in 1999 they had this big hype about computers not being able to roll over to the year 2000. They called it The Millennium Bug. They predicted all kinds of chaos as a result.
Im embarrassed to admit it but I bought into the hype and fear and started to take what I thought were reasonable measures for my future and the future of my family. Many authors had predicted near biblical scenarios like Sodom and Gomorrah type destruction as a result of a global computer meltdown.
I decided one of the things I needed to do was to buy precious metals since money was going to be hard to come by and people would be forced to barter. Well the infamous bug came and went without as much as a hiccup from the global computer systems. I had turned from my trust in God to protect me and took matters into my own hands.
I wonder if Abraham also did the same thing. Did he take his eyes off God and look at Isaac as the substance of the fulfilled promise rather than Gods word? It could be that was part of it. Isaac was growing strong as Abraham was getting older. Maybe Abraham took pride in his sons strength and stature and forgot where and how his son came to be a part of his life. Im not sure and maybe Im entirely wrong.
But do we substitute our own devices for Gods plans. We certainly need to plan for the future but do we put more trust in our own ability and knowledge of that future than we would in Gods ability and knowledge? Do we fail to exercise obedience in order to receive Gods promises?
I think God wanted to see Abrahams level of obedience demonstrated by something of great value. For him nothing was more valuable than his son. God does not want us to hold onto the things or people he has given us so tightly that we fail to hold on to Him. I believe God is genuinely pleased to see us enjoy the things and the people he blesses us with in our lives. Yet we are not to let any human relationship separate us from our divine relationship with God.
God must be first in our lives over everything else.
I had been caught up in holding my collection of precious metals like an insurance policy of sorts. Now its not wrong to own precious metals or have a coin collection but it is wrong to trust their ability to protect you over that of Gods ability to protect you.
You see I had become a kind of Ebenezer Scrooge with my little stash of gold and silver. I started getting convicted of it after I returned from Africa last year and saw the great need of so many people. Here I was living in relative comfort with a small treasure that I was keeping back just in case the world fell apart financially.
I had stopped looking to God as my protector and provider and I reasoned since I had means I could protect myself and I started to rely less and less on God and His promises.
God may ask us to sacrifice the things we put trust in, in order to realize it is His word we must cleave to.
Lets see what else is here for us in this account. Abraham is very old yet he somehow finds the strength to make a three day journey and climb up a mountain side with his son. It takes a lot out of you to climb a mountain when your young and even more when your 125 years old. But Abraham did it, out of obedience.
Matthew Henry Commentary:
Note, True believers, by virtue of Gods promises, are enabled to do that which is above the power of human nature, for by them they partake of a divine nature, 2 Pet. i. 4.
He took the fire and the knife and then his son Isaac took the wood and placed it on his back and went up the hillside. We see here a picture of Jesus, obeying the father and offering himself as a sacrifice. Jesus took up the wooden cross and went up another hillside called Golgotha. Isaac stops and asks his father where the sacrifice is. He realizes that everything is there except the lamb.
Genesis 22:8 NIV
Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.
Once again we see Jesus as the Lamb of God and Isaac as the lamb of sacrifice. Both are promised sons. Both will bring a people to God and both will surrender to their fathers will.
The mountain that they climb is significant for it is Mount Moriah. You may not recognize it from this story but it is the place in Jerusalem where the Dome of the rock sits today.
Mount Moriah (pronounced in Hebrew as moe-ree-yaw) in Jerusalem, now popularly known as the Temple Mount, has been a focal point of Bible History right from very early times. It was the place where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac. It was the place where Solomon built the original Temple of God. It was the location of many of the events during the ministry of Jesus Christ.
Moriah refers to the highest peak of the mountainous ridge on which Jerusalem is built, which would place the location not at the Temple Mount, nor the hill now called Zion, but at the hill of Golgotha (777m elevation).
Could it be that what we see Abraham and Isaac act out is a preview of the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us in the very same location. Seven is the number of perfection in the bible and when God repeats something it is usually for emphasis.
Numbers with symbolic significance figure prominently in Genesis. The number ten, in addition to being the number of sections into which Genesis is divided, is also the number of names appearing in the genealogies of chs. 5 and 11 (see note on 5:5). The number seven also occurs frequently. The Hebrew text of 1:1 consists of exactly seven words and that of 1:2 of exactly 14 (twice seven). There are seven days of creation, seven names in the genealogy of ch. 4 (see note on 4:17-18; see also 4:15,24; 5:31), various sevens in the flood story, 70 descendants of Noahs sons (ch. 10), a sevenfold promise to Abram (12:2-3), seven years of abundance and then seven of famine in Egypt (ch. 41), and 70 descendants of Jacob (ch. 46). Other significant numbers, such as 12 and 40, are used with similar frequency.
It is not the numerical significance of the height of the mountain that draws us to this sacrificial scene but it is the height of faithfulness and obedience that hold us in awe. How could a father become a murderer of his promised precious son? Still Abraham the friend of God commits to complete the act when suddenly a voice cries out.
, 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
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 from me your son, your only son."
Friendship with God is tested by obedience and a willingness to sacrifice the most treasured thing we have received from him knowing that our God can restore it to us. We come to know and understand that what we have is not our own but all we have is Gods alone.
This week I gave up something I held out as precious. Something I was reluctant to let go. But in letting go I have a peace that passes all understanding.
Philippians 4:7 NIV
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
In letting go I can trust God to provide for me and my family. In letting go I have found the true treasure in life is trusting God with the whole of my life, my families life, my wifes life, my daughters life and my sons life. I am not vulnerable to the waves of fear and despair that the world creates for my God has created a future for me that I can step into with confidence and peace and in friendship knowing my God will provide the lamb. If only I surrender that which I hold on to.
What is it that you are holding on to today? Give it to God as you would a sacrifice, surrender it to Him wholly and you will reap a blessing that can not be measured. Let God provide for you today.
Let us pray.
Genesis 22 NIV
Genesis 21 Viewing Chapter 22 Genesis 23
Abraham Tested
1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
2 Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac and him himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?"
"Yes, my son?" Abraham replied.
"The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
8 Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.
9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
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 from me your son, your only son."
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram [a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."
15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 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, 18 and through your offspring [b] all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."
19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.
