Touching Sacrifice
By D. James Kennedy
As believers, our great goal in life should be to become like God; to become like Christ. We have to learn to give if we want to be like the One who gave His only Son, like that One who gives the gift of eternal life, like that One who giveth all things freely, like that One who continually gives and gives, and gives again.Genesis 22:1-18 If we are to become like Him, we must learn not only just to give, but we must learn to give sacrificially. There is a great deal of difference between just giving and giving sacrificially. The God we worship is the God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It was the greatest sacrifice the world has even known.
I would like to discuss with you what it means to try to touch sacrifice in our lives. I would like to do this through the experience of the man who made what I believe to be the second greatest sacrifice that the world has seenthe tremendous incident where Abraham was called upon to kill his own son Isaac.
Familiar story. In the whole compass of sacred writ, there are few scenes with which we are more familiar than the story of Abraham trudging his way toward Mount Moriah with Isaac, there to offer him upon the altar of sacrifice. We learned it as children and we recur to it again and again. Unlike other stories which, with developing maturity on our part, seem to become stale and shallow,
this narrative is one that we can never plumb the depths of. It always has that same power and pathos which arrested us and grasped us when we first heard it. There is nothing like it in life or in literature.The Call to Sacrifice
The story begins in Chapter 22 of the Book of Genesis:And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, 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.In the incredible story that follows, one thing stands out: there is not a word of feeling about the incident. There are no descriptions of emotions. How did Abraham feel about giving up his son? We are not told. How did Isaac feel when he discovered that he was to be the sacrifice that was to be offered up? We are not told. What did Sarah think about losing her one and only son? How did Abraham feel about the prospect of informing his wife that he had just killed their only son (if he had not told her what was going to happen before he left)? These and a hundred other questions immediately rise in our minds, and they are all unanswered.There is an art which is totally artless, and yet in its artlessness it rises to the very pinnacle of art. And that is what we have herethe bare statement of the facts.
God Tries, Satan Tempts. God did tempt Abraham, we read here. Those of you who are familiar with the Bible know that the words "tempt" and "try" are used interchangeably in the New Testament. Derived from the Greek word peirazo, its meaning usually depends on who is doing it and for what reason.
Similarly, the Hebrew word nacah from which the word "tempt" in this verse comes can also be translated "to prove" or "to try". The difference between temptation and trial is that temptation says, "Do this pleasant thing and do not let yourself be hindered by the fact that it is wrong," whereas trial says, "Do this good and noble thing, and do not let yourself be hindered by the fact that it is painful."
Temptation is a siren song leading us down into the swampy mire of sin and death. But trial is a clarion bugle call leading us upward to a higher and nobler life. Simply defined: Satan tempts us to get us to fall; God tries us to strengthen us. God tries; the Devil tempts.
God was trying Abraham's faith. This appalling ordeal through which he was to go was appointed for him by God. It later became the source of his great blessing and of his indestructible fame down through the millennium. For four thousand years the faith of Abraham has been a byword for both Israel and Christianity.
Truths about Trials
What can we learn from this testing of Abraham? For one thing, our faith needs to be tried and tested just as gold needs to be tried and refined in order to remove the impurities. If
we succeed in the trial, then our faith is strengthened and we are blessed. Even if we fail, though, at least we'll have learned not to rely on ourselves, but to cling more closely to God.Second, trials go on throughout life. Abraham is now a very old man; he is over a hundred years old. When he was a young man, he was called to leave his homeland and go he knew not where. At the age of ninety, he was challenged to believe that God would give him a son. Now at this great age, Abraham is asked to pass a most difficult test.
In so doing, he is to gain a blessing not only for himself but for all the world. Tremendous consequences are wrapped up in this act of faith on his part, for God told some time earlier: "in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (12:3b). His faith has since been tried over and over again.
We can thus see that trials are not something that happen only in the beginning of our faithin the youth of our Christian lives. They continue throughout all the years of our life.
Third, we note that God prepares us for different trials. This, the most difficult trial that Abraham was to face, came last in his life. It came after he had been schooled in other things.
God teaches us to climb the lower peaks before He calls us to scale the loftiest summit. God teaches us to wade in the shallows of the beach before He calls upon us to plunge into the depths of the swells of the ocean. There are lessons that are tied to each level of our faith as we go along, and God enables us to endure through every one of these trials.
Two Conflicts
But Abraham's test of faith was unique. It was, of course, a matter of sacrifice. Sacrifice is giving up that which we love and cherish for something that we love and cherish even more. As we think about sacrifice in our own lives, may we think about this sacrifice of Abraham'sthe sacrifice of one who had already sacrificed his homeland, his native country, one who had already sacrificed his future, his security, and one who is now called to sacrifice the most precious thing on earth to him: his only beloved son. Abraham was facing the very pinnacle of such a sacrifice.In deciding what to do, Abraham had to face two major conflicts:
There was, of course, the conflict between a father's love for his child and a believer's obedience to his heavenly Father. When God calls Abraham to sacrifice, He Himself stresses the difficulty of obedience. He says, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest," He emphasized the hard choice that Abraham must make. Time after time it seems that the knife pierces the heart of Abraham.
Command vs. Promise. But there is a second, even more difficult conflict herea conflict in Abraham's mind between the promise of God and the command of God. It is as though God were set against God Himself, because God had promised Abraham that it was in this miraculously-born child that all of the earth would be blessed; that it was through this son Isaac that his seed would be multiplied. And now God is commanding him, as it were, to take a sledge hammer and to smash that promise to dust!
For most people, this would seem to be a conflict impossible that is to
resolve. We would say: "Let's see what is practical, what is expedient. We must be circumspect. We must not be hasty. We must be able to see how it will come out. We must see what God will do."But Abraham, with clearer sight and perception, saw what so many of us could not see. He saw that it was his responsibility, as a human being, to obey, and that it was God's responsibility to fulfill the promise. He believed, as Hebrews 11:19 tells us, that somehow God was able to raise Isaac up, even from the dead. He cast himself upon the naked word of God when everything else told him that it was impossible. And thus Abraham became the father of all of the faithful.
This was no sudden emotional decision for Abraham. For three days, morning, noon and night, that decision had laid upon him. Still Abraham was resolute in his decision. Finally, as he leaves the servants behind and goes with his son up Mount Moriah, the young boy says, "My father...Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt [sacrifice]?" (v. 7)
How those words must have rent his father's very soul. Abraham replied, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering" (v. 8).
There is a double meaning in those words. It of course means that God Himself will provide a lamb. But more than that, it says God will provide Himself as a lamb. And so he did on that great day when He gave His own Son up as the Lamb of God killed on the cross.
Reality of faith. We see in all of this narrative that the obedience was complete. There was the inward surrender of the will. Abraham made the altar, laid out the wood, bound his unresisting son with cords, laid him upon the altar, then took the knife, flashing in the sun, lifted it up and was about to plunge it into the heart of his boy. Then there came again the voice from Heaven saying, "Abraham, Abraham...Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him" (vv. 11,12). For God had seen Abraham's heart.
There was then found the ram with his horns caught in the thicket! God provided the sacrifice and Isaac was spared there on Mount Moriah. We now know it as Mount Calvary. There today where the temple used to stand, is a great rock. Supposedly, it was on that same rock that Abraham offered his son. There the faith of Abraham was realized. Abraham discovered the reality of his own commitment.
So often our faith needs to be tested so that we might see its reality. It is easy to mouth the words "I believe." Yet when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty, where the "rubber meets the road" of our lives, how often that "I believe" turns into nothing more substantial than shaving foam which disappears in a few moments.
Blessings Follow Sacrifice
Then there were the blessings that were multiplied. Verses 16-18:By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon theWhen God saw the perfectness of Abraham's faith and the completeness of his self-sacrifice, God revealed the blessing.
sea shore...And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.Meawhile, we read this remarkable statement of faith in verse 14:
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.Jehovahjireh can mean both "the Lord will provide" and "the Lord sees" as the words "see" and "provide" are from the same root. Provision means to see beforehand and then to provide the needs for. Thus, Abraham proclaims there that God's provision shall be seen in the mount of the Lord.May I point out that it is not far from the mount, by the mount or near the mount that the provision of God shall be seen. Rather, it is in the mount of the Lord, at the every place of sacrifice, that God provides.
Blessings Missed. Can you now see why many people never see the hand of God opened in incredible blessings? They never come to the place of sacrifice in their own lives. They never give sacrificicially. They are busily holding on to what they have because they cannot believe that if they let it go, God can bless it and multiply it exceedingly.
My friends, today many of you are being called upon to sacrifice. Many will pass that test and discover the blessings of God. They will discover Jehovahjireh, "the Lord will provide." Others, I am afraid, will fail the test.
Finally, in Abrahamís offer of his son, there is an adumbration of the great sacrifice that God made when He gave His Son Jesus Christ. Almost the same words are used in the New Testament: ěHe [God] that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?î (Rom. 8:32) God who spared not. There was no voice that said, ěStay thy hand,î and the knife of Godís wrath was plunged into Christís heart.Out of that great sacrifice we have all received the blessings of GodóJehovahjireh. It is interesting that Abraham did not name that mountain: ěAbraham sacrificeth.î He named it, rather, ěJehovah provides.î o
Dr. D. James Kennedy is the Senior Minister of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, 5555 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308.