MELVIN NEWLAND, MINISTER
CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX
A. In Genesis 22 is a story that we need to consider this morning. It starts in vs. 1 & you can follow along in your Bibles if you wish. Here is how it begins:
“Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, & go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about’” [Genesis 22:1-2].
Now let’s stop for a moment. I presume you remember the story of Abraham & Sara & the birth of their son, Isaac. God had promised that despite their old age Sara would conceive & bear a son. So when Abraham was 100 & Sara was 90, their son was born. It was a miraculous birth, & they named him Isaac, which means “laughter.”
They named him “laughter” for a couple of reasons. First of all, it was laughable to think that Sara could have a child at this stage in her life. Secondly, they named him “laughter” because of the joy he brought into their lives. They had been childless for so long, but now God had blessed them with a son. So they called him Isaac.
It isn’t hard to love your children. There is something instinctive about it, & as you bond with them, you just automatically come to love your children. And it’s obvious that Abraham & Isaac loved each other very much.
B. Now at the time of this event, Isaac was probably about 12 years old. God appears to Abraham & says, “I want you to take your son & offer him as a sacrifice on the mountain that I will show you.” I can’t begin to imagine how Abraham felt inside when God asked him to do that.
Vs’s 3-5 tell us, “Early the next morning Abraham got up & saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants & his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up & saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey while I & the boy go over there. We will worship & then we will come back to you.”
And the story continues on in vs. 6, “Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering & placed in on his son Isaac, & he himself carried the fire & the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up & said to his father Abraham, ‘Father?’ ‘Yes, my son?’ Abraham replied. ‘The fire & the wood are here,’ Isaac said, ‘but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’” [Genesis 22:6-7]
That must have been one of the most difficult moments in Abraham’s life – to see his son carrying the wood that was going to be used to consume his son’s body, & to hear him ask, “We have the wood, we have the fire, but where is the sacrifice?”
Abraham answered, ‘God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ And the two of them went on together” [Genesis 22:8].
PROP. Now I want you to see in this story, first of all the principle, then an application of the principle, & finally, the promise that God gives.
I. THE PRINCIPLE
A. Now we need to remember that vs. 1 says, “God tested Abraham.” No, it wasn’t a test so that God could find out the extent of Abraham’s faith & devotion. God already knew. But Abraham didn’t.
You see, we never really know for sure what we’re capable of, how we’ll react, how tall we’ll stand, how faithful & true we will be until a moment of crisis arrives. Some of us may be able to talk a good talk, & put on a good front. But it is not until the moment of crisis & decision that our true self is evident.
God has given this command so that Abraham will have to examine his heart & decide what his priorities really are.
APPL. By the way, I wonder how well we would do if we were put to some kind of test today. As you well know, some Christian teenagers in Littleton, CO faced the ultimate test a few weeks ago & passed with flying colors.
B. Now back to Abraham & his test. You see, God did not desire the sacrifice of Isaac’s life. He desired Abraham’s heart, & Abraham was being asked, “Do you love Isaac more than you love me?” It is important for us to realize that God never asks us to love our children less. He always expects us to love God more.
So here is the principle: “Our love for God must take precedence over our love for other people, even our family.” We are to love God more than anyone or anything.
The first commandment in Exodus 20:2-3 says, “I am the Lord your God, … You shall have no other Gods before me.” In other words, God says, “I must come first.”
In Matthew 22:37, when Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment of all, He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart & with all your soul & with all your mind.” And in Matthew 10:37 Jesus said, “…anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
C. There are great stories throughout history that demonstrate how much people have loved God. And I’ve often wondered what I would do if my life were in danger for my faith. Perhaps you have asked yourself that same question.
ILL. In history, 160 years before the birth of Jesus, there is the story of the Maccabean revolt in Israel. Antiochus IV, King of Syria, had conquered Jerusalem, & he decided to destroy the Jewish religion & make the Jews deny their faith in God. Among the many things he did was to order the people to sacrifice pigs upon their altars built for the worship of God. Of course this was an abomination to the Jews.
History records the story of one Jewish mother with 7 sons. The soldiers came first to the oldest son & ordered him to offer a pig upon the altar. The son refused. So they cut out his tongue. Still he refused, so they scalped him. Since he still refused, they cut off his hands & feet & threw his mangled body into a pit of fire where it was consumed.
They went to the second son & ordered him to offer a pig upon the altar. When he refused, they fried him alive in a giant skillet. The third, the fourth, the fifth, & the sixth all refused & all died after a variety of horrible tortures.
Finally they came to the baby of the family, just a boy. Even the most hardened of the soldiers didn’t want to see him die. So they went to the mother & said, “If you’ll just ask him to place the pork to his lips, that will be enough, & we’ll spare his life.”
History records that the mother took her son, her youngest, & said to him, “Son, I carried you in my womb for 9 months. I nursed you for 3 years. I raised you for a moment like this. I encourage you to stand strong in your faith & follow in the steps of your brothers. And when you die, I will die to be with you.”
The young boy was executed too, & his mother after him, & that was the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt which issued in 100 years of freedom for the people of Israel.
ILL. Gary Ezzo says that one of the problems with families today is that the husband & wife join hands to form a family circle. Then a child comes along & they place the child in the center, with the husband & wife still forming the circle. But now everything revolves around the child.
Then a second child comes & that child is also placed inside the circle, with the husband & wife as the circle around them. And now everything revolves around the two children. As other children come along the center becomes so big that the hands of the father & mother are pulled apart & the family circle is broken.
Ezzo says that what we must do is form the circle, but with Christ in the center. Then as each child is born, it joins hands with mom & dad to make the circle bigger. And the result is that the circle is never broken as long as Christ is the center.
SUM. In other words, we must love God more than we love anyone, even our own family. God must come first. So that’s the principle. And when that truly happens, we love our children & our families even more.
II. THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE
A. Now secondly, let’s apply the principle. And it needs to be applied because excessive or misdirected love, can lead to costly mistakes in parenting.
ILL. About 1970, Dr. James Dobson wrote a book titled, “Dare to Discipline.” It was a good but controversial book because it came at a critical time in the history of parenting.
You see, almost a whole generation of parents had been sucked into the vortex of Dr. Spock & his philosophy of raising children. Basically, he said that we should never discipline, never spank our children. Instead, we should let them be free to express themselves or we’ll warp their little personalities & cause them to be filled with hostility.
But Dr. Dobson dared to go against the flow. He dared to say that the Bible teaches that we ought to discipline our children, & he was telling us to do the same thing. More than 3 million copies of that book were sold, & it has recently been revised & reissued.
It is now called “The New Dare to Discipline,” & every parent here of a young child should get that book as soon as you can & read it regularly. It will give you more solid advice on how to raise your children & how to discipline them than anything else you can buy.
Dr. Dobson says, “Excessive love can be unhealthy for a child, just as the absence of love can destroy it. Excessive love can cause a child to be spoiled by love. We are so child-oriented today,” he says, “that the child becomes the center of virtually everything that goes on in our families.”
B. “As a result,” he says, “we make 3 costly mistakes with excessive love.”
1. The first one is “overprotection.” When your child is born, the first thing you want
to do is hold it close & protect it from all the hurts & evil things out in the world. So whenever you see your child hurt, or someone being unfriendly, you want to protect him.
But sometimes that protection can be excessive. You See, the goal of good parenting is to raise your child so that you can release your child to become an adult who can take care of his or her own life.
Dr. Dobson says that we ought to release the child gradually. When they’re old enough, let them climb the tree in the back yard. They may fall out, but that’s a part of growing up. When they’re old enough, let them ride their tricycle. They may have a spill, but there are scabs in life & that’s okay.
When they’re old enough, let them spend the night with a friend. When they’re old enough, let them go to summer camp. And if they become homesick, don’t go get them.
When she’s mature enough you let her get her first part-time job. When he turns 16 you let him get a driver’s license & begin to drive. When she’s 22 you let her have her first date. You just let your child continue to grow until finally you can release the child & feel good about it.
ILL. I love the story about the mom & dad with a son who was a freshman in college. He blew off his freshman year. He wasn’t very responsible, didn’t make good grades, squandered his money, & finally came back home. His parents told him, “If you go back to school you’ll have to pay your own way.”
So he had to work that summer & not go on the family vacation. That was part of his punishment. The family went to Greece that year & the mom sent him a postcard, “Dear Son,” she wrote. “Today we stood on the mountains where ancient Spartan women sacrificed their defective children. Wish you were here.”
So don’t be an overprotective parent. Allow your child to grow up.
2. The second costly mistake is “overindulgence,” giving your child too much. Jesus said, “Watch out, be on guard against all kinds of greed, for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’
One of the important jobs we have as parents is to teach our children that there are more important things in life than just material things. If we constantly give them everything they want – if they have every toy, every article of clothing, get to go anyplace they want & do everything they can – they’ll never learn the value of things.
Think back to your childhood, to the time when you didn’t get the bicycle at Christmas that you had longed for. Remember how disappointed you were, & you decide, “I just don’t want my child to go through that kind of disappointment here.”
But you never stop to realize that maybe the waiting & the wanting & the longing developed character in you. And the same would be true of your children.
3. The third costly mistake is “over-permissiveness.” Listen to Proverbs 29:17,
“Discipline your son, & he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.” Proverbs 13:24 says, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.”
Now you have to choose whether you’re going to listen to what the world is saying, or to what God’s Word says. You must choose between the two. And they are very different.
The world’s philosophy says that you just love your child & eventually they will do the right thing. But it leaves out one very important ingredient - the sinfulness of man. It leaves out the fact that inside all of us there is a sinful nature.
And if your children, as sweet & innocent as they may be today, if they are left free to choose, eventually they will make some wrong choices. And they’ll never the difference between right & wrong unless you teach them. And sometimes you must teach them in a very direct & straightforward way so there is no confusion about it.
ILL. Ask any schoolteacher what his or her biggest problem is, & she’ll probably tell you that it is lack of discipline. We have kids who have never been disciplined at home, & the teachers don’t have the freedom to discipline them at school. So they cannot maintain order in the classroom. A world without discipline is a chaotic situation.
People, that is one of the reasons we have kids shooting other kids. They have never been taught what is right & what is wrong. And they have never been made to realize that when you do what is right you’re rewarded, & when you do what is wrong you’re punished. And sometimes that punishment brings pain.
Now I’m not suggesting that you abuse your child. Heaven forbid that we do that. God has created a special part of our anatomy for spanking. It’s padded, it’s all conditioned just exactly for that. So that is where you do the spanking.
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children,” Paul said. But the writer of Proverbs says, “Do not withhold discipline from your child… Punish him …& save his soul from death.”
ILL. Phil Yancy tells about an African safari he was on where he saw an old momma giraffe taking care of her offspring. Shortly after he was born she went over & kicked her offspring, & it looked like she was really hurting her baby. Then she did it again.
Each time, the little giraffe would get up on his wobbly legs & try to walk. Still she continued kicking him. Finally, he got up pretty rapidly & ran away from her kicks.
Phil turned to his guide & asked, “Why does the mother giraffe do that?” The guide answered, “The only defense the giraffe has is its ability to get up quickly & to out run its predator. If it can’t do that, it will soon die.”
Yancy said that while it looked like it was a cruel thing, it was really the most loving thing the mother could do for her offspring. And sometimes discipline is the same way.
4. The fourth costly mistake is “over-activity.” John Rossmon says that we have created a “frantic family syndrome.” We think our kids need to be involved in virtually everything.
They must have music & dance lessons. They must be involved in t-ball & soccer & hockey & karate all kinds of different activities in the athletic field. They become Cub Scouts & Boy Scouts & Girl Scouts & have tons of homework to do on top of all that. And we feel we’re neglecting our child if we do not involve them in all of these activities.
But Rossmon suggests that you ought to schedule with your family at least 5 meals every week that are completely uninterrupted – just 5 meals every week where you sit down with your family. No phones ringing, nothing interrupting you & you just look at each other & you talk & visit.
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home & when you walk along the road, when you lie down & when you get up.”
SUM. You get the impression there that it is just a way of life, don’t you? As this family relaxes together, as it lives together, it shares the things of God. When we sit down we talk about the things of God. When we lie down at night to rest we talk about the things of God. When we get up we talk about God. And God is a part of our everyday life as we spend time with each other.
III. THE PROMISE OF GOD
Then finally, there is a promised blessing. You know the rest of the story of Abraham & Isaac - how Abraham bound the hands & feet of Isaac & placed him on the altar. Then he took out his knife, & the blade must have glistened in the sun as he was ready to plunge it into the heart of his child. But just as he was ready to come down with the knife God stopped him. Abraham had passed the test.
God said to Abraham after that, “I swear by Myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this, & have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you & make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky & as the sand on the seashore” [Genesis 22:16-17].
God would always keep His promise to Abraham because Abraham did what God asked him to do. I think the promise is the same to us. If we raise our children in God’s admonition, then God will bless our families, too.
Abraham’s faith in God was so strong he believed that even if he killed Isaac God would raise him from the dead. Listen to Hebrews 11:19, “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, & figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”
CONCL. You realize, of course, that this story in the O.T. is an O.T. type of what happened to Jesus Christ. Isaac’s birth was a miraculous birth, & the birth of Jesus was a miraculous birth. He was born of a virgin. Isaac always tried to please his father, & Jesus came to do the will of His Father.
And as you see Isaac carrying the wood up the hill to be sacrificed, you see Jesus carrying the cross up Calvary’s hill to be nailed on it. As you watch Isaac laid down on the altar of sacrifice, you must watch Jesus as He is laid out on the cross.
There is one big difference in the story, of course. As Isaac was about to be sacrificed, as Abraham’s knife was about to come down, a voice from heaven stopped it. “Stop!” he said, “Don’t do this!’ But when the hammers came down on the nails that pierced the hands & feet of Jesus there was no voice from heaven. God’s Son died there for you & for me. And because of that this morning we have the promise of everlasting life.
This morning if you’re here & you’ve never accepted Jesus as your Savior we want to extend to you that invitation. We pray that you will come & accept Him as your Lord. Will you come as we stand & sing?
