CHILDREN'S STORY (I used a flannel graph display on the overhead) In the days of Abraham, one of the ways people showed their love for God by offering Him a sacrifice. A sacrifice is like a gift. It’s something you give to God to show Him you are willing to obey Him, even when it costs you something. Usually, it was something like a sheep or a lamb. But when Isaac was still a young boy, God asked Abraham for a different kind of a sacrifice. God said “This year, instead of killing an animal and giving it to me, I want you to give me your only son, Isaac.”
Abraham was shocked. He thought to himself “NO, not Isaac. He’s my only son, how could I possibly kill my only son?” But then he remembered God’s promise that Isaac would be the father of many nations, and he realized God would not have lied to him. He reasoned – if God has asked me to sacrifice my only son, it must be that he will raise him from the dead.”
The next morning, he took Isaac and went to the place of sacrifice. Isaac had been on these trips several times before… and he began to realize that something was missing. “Father,” he said, “we’ve forgotten to bring something to sacrifice.”
And Abraham replied “Don’t worry son… God will supply the sacrifice.”
When they reached the place of the sacrifice, Abraham tied his son and placed him on the altar. He raised the knife to kill his son as God had asked… and SUDDENLY – an angel appeared and shouted “STOP!!!! Now I know that you love me. You were willing to give your only son to me as a sacrifice… that’s all I wanted to know.”
And Abraham looked, and there in the bushes was a big male sheep, caught by its horns. And Abraham went and took that big sheep and offered it up as a burnt offering to God.”
And then Abraham and Isaac walked home together.
PRAYER
TEXT: Hebrews 11:17-19 “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
SERMON: About 35 years ago, I was reading a copy of “Biblical Archeological Review” (Biblical Archaeology Review 10:1, January/February 1984 “Child Sacrifice at Carthage—Religious Rite or Population Control?”) and they were discussing the city of Carthage in northern Africa. Carthage was where Hannibal came from, and it was a major military power that challenged the might of Rome.
Archeologists had been doing some digging around the city Carthage and they were surprised at what they’d found. You see, many archeologists view religion as something that has evolved. The thinking is that early religion was crude and barbaric, and human sacrifices were the norm. But as religion evolved (they say) people became more “humane” and offered animals. But that’s not what they found at Carthage. It seems that the early sacrifices were animals, and as time went on human sacrifice became more common (replacing animal sacrifices). Now, that puzzled the “experts” and led them to speculate as to why that happened. The explanation from the authors of this article was that when Carthage was first founded animals were plentiful, and children – not so much. If the city was to grow, they had to keep the children alive and thus, animals were less important – and were sacrificed to their gods. But as the city grew, animals grew scarce. and children weren’t (scarce). So human sacrifice replaced animal sacrifice.
In the Old Testament, there were a lot of nations who sacrificed their children to their pagan gods, and often their child sacrifices came after a defeat and a great disaster.
In Deuteronomy God told Israel “When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? — that I also may do the same.’ “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.” Deuteronomy 12:29-31
And in Leviticus 20:2 God hammered it home: “Say to the people of Israel, ‘Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones.’”
Human sacrifice was a great evil that God would NOT tolerate.
But now… wait a minute. God hated human sacrifice; He despised it; He called it an abomination; in fact, God drove numerous nations out of Canaan specifically because they offered their children as burnt offerings to their gods. But, here in Gen 22 God asked Abraham to offer up his son as a burnt offering to Him! WHAT’S GOING ON???
Well, the answer is found right there in the story. Abraham is about to drive the knife home, and God stops him, and says “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for NOW I KNOW that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Genesis 22:12
You see, the purpose of an altar was to have a place where you could surrender something valuable to God. And at THIS altar, God asked Abraham to surrender the most valuable thing in his life - HIS ONLY SON!
Now, throughout his life, Abraham had built numerous altars. It seems that everywhere he went, he built an altar and made a sacrifice. But Abraham was a rich man. He had many sheep and cattle and camels and donkeys and numerous servants. Up until this point, the sacrifices he made hadn’t cost him that much. But with the offering up of his son Abraham was laying EVERYTHING on the altar. So, God asked Abraham to do the unthinkable to see if Abraham LOVED HIM more than his son.
Jesus challenges us in much the same way: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10:37-38
So, the question this morning, have you laid all on the altar? Is there anything you love more than Jesus?
There’s an old Christian hymn called "Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?" (you have the 1st verse & chorus in bulletin) and it goes like this: “Have you longed for sweet peace, and for faith to increase and have earnestly, fervently prayed? But you cannot have rest, or be perfectly blest,
until all on the altar is laid. (Chorus) Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid? Your heart does the Spirit control? You can only be blest, and have peace and sweet rest, as you yield Him your body and soul.”
I’m convinced that that hymn was inspired by the story we read about Abraham and Isaac. Abraham’s ALL was literally laid on the altar of sacrifice.
(PAUSE) Now, God let him keep his son, and (as the that song says) Abraham was “perfectly blessed.” God said: “Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” Genesis 22:16-18
“Abraham, you laid it all on the altar and so I will bless you!
ILLUS: At the last church I served, a man came down at the invitation time, and I thought – “What’s he coming down front for? We baptized him 1 year ago!” But as he approached I was surprised as he walked right past me and went to kneel at the stage and pray. Now, why did he do that? Well, he’d been raised in a church where the stage was called the ALTAR and he’d been taught that when you wanted to lay something before God you needed to come up front and kneel at the stage/altar and prayerfully give God whatever you’d been holding back on
In fact, because there are many churches that call the stage an altar, the invitation is called an “ALTAR CALL.”
But now, let’s be clear here: this is NOT an altar. It’s just a platform/stage. There’s nothing SACRED about this stage. But if someone wanted to treat it like an altar… that’s OK. In fact, you treat your car as an altar, or your dining room table, or you can kneel down beside your bed and call that an altar. An ALTAR is anyplace you make a decision to surrender a part of your life to God.
ILLUS: When someone decides to become a Christian I’ll talk to them about Romans 10:9 where we’re told “if you CONFESS WITH YOUR MOUTH THAT JESUS IS LORD and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” I’ll explain that, in the days of Jesus, if you called someone your “lord” it meant they owned you. You were the slave, they were your master. I then ask “does a slave own anything?” Answer: no. The master owns you and all that your possess. Then I pull out my wallet and explain that when we become Christians we turn everything we have and own over to Jesus. I point to whatever money is in the wallet and say “whatever money I have here, or in the bank, or in my IRA… it’s all His. Thus, if I spend money on a movie or a book or anything else, I’m spending God’s money. So, I don’t want to waste it or spend it on something that would dishonor my master. My house, my car, my children – they all belong to Jesus. It’s not like He needs my car or house… it’s just that, since these belong now to Him, I want to treat them as if they belonged to Him and use them for His purposes. To become a Christian is to “lay it all on the altar.”
But even the best of Christians can get lazy when it comes to stuff like this. Even the best of Christians can get caught up in holding out on God. In the book of Revelation, Jesus confronts a lukewarm church and He told them “Behold I stand at the door and knock.” (Revelation 3:20) He wanted to get in and take TOTAL ownership of that congregation
ILLUS: That prompted someone to come up with a story about a guy who was surprised when Jesus came to his home and knocked on the front door. Jesus wanted to come in. The man gladly let Jesus in, and offered Him a chair at the kitchen table. But instead of sitting down, Jesus walked over to the living room door and knocked on that closed door. The owner of the house wasn’t sure He wanted Jesus in THAT room, and so… he hesitated. But Jesus kept on knocking. So, reluctantly, the man opened that door too. But then Jesus went over to the bedroom door - knocked on it. Again, the man hesitated, but because Jesus was so determined, the man finally opened that door as well. But as soon as Jesus went into the bedroom, He walked over to the closet door… and knocked on it.
The point of the illustration is this: Jesus doesn’t want PART ownership of your life. He wants the whole thing… every single room. And that is where it comes down to for US. We need to place it ALL on the altar of sacrifice.
(SING) "Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid? Your heart does the Spirit control? You can only be blest, and have peace and sweet rest, as you yield Him your body and soul.”
But now why? Why would God want us to lay it all on the altar?
(pause) Well, because when we surrender our entire lives to God, then God can begin to do some powerful things THROUGH us. I mean, that’s what God did with Abraham and Isaac. Think about this – because Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son to God, God used that story to tell us about the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
Isaac is referred to as Abraham’s “son, his only son” (Genesis 22:12); John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that He gave us His ONLY begotten Son”
Isaac asked “where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (Genesis 22:7); When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29)
Isaac traveled for 3 days on the way to the altar (Genesis 22:4); Jesus was raised from the tomb on the 3rd day (Luke 24:46)
The wood for the sacrifice was “placed upon Isaac” (Genesis 22:6); The wooden cross was placed upon Jesus’ shoulders (John 19:16-17)
Isaac was taken to Mount Moriah to be sacrificed (Genesis 22:2); Jesus was sacrificed at Golgotha – believed to be on the Mt. of Moriah (Mark 15:22)
God supplied the sacrifice to be offered in place of Isaac (Genesis 22:12-14); God supplied Jesus as a sacrifice to be offered in OUR place for our sins (Romans 3:25)
Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead (Hebrews 11:19); Jesus came to die for our sins… and God raised Him from the dead (I Corinthians 6:14)
And it’s possible that Isaac was about 33 years old at the time his father offered him up; And Jesus was about 33 years old when He died on the cross.
NOW, ISN’T THAT COOL????
Because Abraham was willing to surrender his most precious possession to God, God used Isaac to tell the story of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and assure us that the DETAILS of Jesus sacrifice on the cross had all been planned out centuries ahead of time - way back in the of Isaac. Seemingly every aspect of the story of Isaac being sacrificed pointed to the death/ burial and resurrection of Christ.
But Wait… There’s More!!! Do you remember the part of the story where Isaac looks around and says to his father: “Behold, the fire and the wood, but WHERE IS THE LAMB…?” I don’t know if Isaac realized what Abraham had planned, but here’s the deal - if there was no lamb… Isaac had to die. Isaac might not have known that fact but you and I - the readers - WE know THAT because God wanted us to know. God wanted us to get caught up in the drama of what is written. God wanted to understand – that if He did not supply the lamb… there was no hope for Isaac.
But then God gives away the plot to this story when God tells us that Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” (Genesis 22:8) Without that lamb – Isaac had no hope. But once God supplied the sacrifice, Isaac was saved. And without the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world we’d have no hope either!!! But once Jesus came we could be saved.
INVITATION
