This is just as true as that God called him, and blessed him, and comforted him. Of course the word “tempt” in the text must not be understood in any sense which the New Testament forbids to be associated with the action of God. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man,” is a counsel which must not be forgotten. God tempted no man to do evil, but there is no man to whom He has given grace whom he does not subject to trial; and what the text teaches us is that “God did try Abraham” — did subject him to a testing trial of his faith.
In directing your attention to this subject, I propose — I. To consider the circumstances of Abraham when this trial came upon him; II. The connection of God with this trial; and III. Abraham under and after the trial.
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF ABRAHAM WHEN THE TRIAL CAME.
“The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee.” This call was effectual. Why was it addressed to Abraham? and why did the power of God operate to make it effectual? To these questions no answer can be given except the reason assigned by Christ for the sovereign exercise of divine grace, when He said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. EVEN SO, FATHER, FOR SO IT SEEMED GOOD IN THY SIGHT.” Why should that idolater have been singled out to be a partaker of faith in Messiah, to be brought nigh through Him unto God, to be the father of the “peculiar people,” to be the father according to the flesh of “the man Christ Jesus,” to be “a father of many nations,” being the father of all, in all nations, who should be partakers of his faith in the promised Messiah? “It seemed good” in the Lord’s “sight” thus to distinguish Abraham, and not yet has Abraham found another reason, and another he shall never find, why the Lord thus dealt with him.
To Abraham thus effectually and graciously called the Lord gave the promise of Messiah as his seed. That promise Abraham believed, trusting in Him in whom the Lord declared that “all the families of the earth” should “be blessed.” And he believed God when He told him that the promised Messiah would, “according to the flesh,” be his seed. How wonderful to him this double promise must have appeared. He who was the Lord, the Messiah, his seed! He to be the father of Him whom he knew to be Jehovah, his Saviour!
But many years had passed, and he had no offspring. The prospect of having a son seemed to have been hopelessly clouded. Losing hope Sarai suggested a method of securing, “by her” handmaid, the fulfilment of the promise of a seed. Abraham adopted the suggestion, and an Ishmael, “the son of the bondwoman,” appeared in his household. Sarai, who urged her husband to adopt her proposal, becomes now quite as urgent to remove Hagar from their home. She fled to the wilderness from her offended mistress; but the Lord met her there and sends her back. In course of time, Ishmael is born, and the hope of Abraham seemed to be resting on him, as the prospect of a son by Sarah seemed one that could never be realised. “O that Ishmael might live before Thee” he cried unto the Lord. But the Lord forbids him to expect through the bondwoman’s son the fulfilment of the promise, renews His promise of a son by Sarah, and year is added to year, till his life is almost a century. At last there is the miraculous birth of the son of promise, and Abraham and Sarah rejoice in their Isaac. Hagar and her son are cast out, and they see them no more, and with Isaac, and with him alone, is now associated the fulfilment in due time of the great promise of the Lord. Isaac has grown up through infancy and boyhood into a youth, and then it was that “God did tempt Abraham.” Just when Abraham’s hope was not only set on Isaac as the one medium through whom the promise of Messiah, as his seed, could be fulfilled, but was encouraged by observing him year after year rising to the age and stature of manhood — then it was that this his only son of promise was commanded to be sacrificed. These were the circumstances in which Abraham was placed when his faith was subjected to the test of the trial referred to in the text.
II. GOD’S CONNECTION WITH THIS TRIAL.
The text directly traces the trial up to God — “God did tempt Abraham” is its declaration. It is too plain a statement to admit of its meaning being mistaken. And why should we desire to make the connection of the trial with God a more remote one? or why should we endeavour to ignore it altogether? or why should we trace to some other source than the divine will the origination of this test?
Enemies of the Bible have attempted to show that to connect this trial with God, as imposing it, is to represent His character in a light which does not admit of its being regarded with respect. And there is a certain class of professed defenders of the Scripture record who do no less harm to the cause of truth, by treating groundless objections with undue respect, and by adopting a course which indicates more fear of differing from the sceptic than of irreverently treating the word of God. A remarkable specimen of such hurtful defence has recently appeared in a production of one of the theological professors of our own church. To him, it is said, it seems to be the right thing to assign to the region of the mythical all in the Old Testament which precedes the call of Abraham, but if he places Abraham at the head of all historical personages of the Bible, he grossly abuses his character and attainments and misrepresents God’s way of dealing with him. According to his account of him, Abraham had scarcely at all risen above the level of the heathenism by which he was surrounded — so very little that he was influenced by the example of the worshippers of Moloch, who “caused their children to pass through the fire.” His aspirations and hopes are represented as scarcely if at all rising to what was spiritual in the promise given to him by God, and his conceptions of God not elevated beyond the ideas of His being the Almighty Creator, and of His being the moral governor of man. To him, it is said, appeared in the light of the promise of One in whom “all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” only “the humanity of the divine character,” and “God’s delight in self-sacrifice.” Beyond this nothing was clear, it is affirmed, to the mind of Abraham except what suggested possibilities of sacrifice on the part of God, of which, however, no definite instance could he at all realise. And with this man there was not, according to this rationalistic view of his history, any real communication on the part of heaven beyond what might be implied in suggestions which reached him through the measure of natural religion of which he was possessed. And yet this was the man of whom Christ said, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day” — the day of my being in the flesh on the earth as his seed — “and he saw it and was glad.” It was not “the humanity of the divine character,” but the humanity in which God was to be manifested that Abraham saw — Jehovah, as “the man Christ Jesus.” And is it to be borne that a man of his vows should thus degrade the revelation of God’s grace in Old Testament times, cast suspicion on the truthfulness of Old Testament history, place the conjectures, baseless and ill-designed, of graceless critics, instead of the plain statement of the word of God, within a “Church which” must profess to be “the pillar and ground of the truth,” and while occupying a chair of theology, intended for conducting a reverent study of the Scriptures, and for training the rising ministry to preach the doctrines of our Confession, and not the speculations of rationalism? What can the Church intend that ignores such flagrant departures from dutifulness, and that allows her theological halls to become nurseries of unbelief? Her chosen function seems to be to tolerate all conceivable deviation from sound teaching, and to occupy herself in furnishing amusement to carnal worshippers, who are utter strangers to all enjoyment in the spiritual service which God, who is a Spirit, requires.
According to the author to whom I have referred, the trial of Abraham ought not to be associated with God. An influence from hell, brought to bear on the patriarch through the example of the worshippers of Moloch, in his view, originated the temptation. What matters it to those who choose to make a Bible for themselves instead of receiving in reverent faith that which is given by God, though there is a declaration so express as that which we have in the words “God did tempt Abraham,” and though we read that God spake to Abraham regarding the trial, and gave him specific directions as to how he was to act in sacrificing his son. To what do men reduce the authority of the word of God who refuse to receive this account of the origin of the trial? How direct the communication is between God and Abraham — “God did tempt Abraham, and He 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.” What can be more explicit than such words as these? And if there be aught of respect for the word in the heart of a man, what approach to reasonableness can there be in his representing the action of God in connection with this trial as exhausted in His allowing a temptation to offer his son as a burnt-offering to assail the patriarch, and in preventing the execution of the purpose which, through yielding to a temptation to sin, he had formed? How can this possibly consist with the commendation given from heaven by Jehovah of Abraham’s conduct in not withholding his son, his only son? (Gen. 22: 16). And is it not expressly said in the New Testament that it was by faith Abraham “offered up Isaac,” and how could it be so unless he acted under divine direction? And who that represents the conduct of Abraham as the result of yielding to a temptation to sin can face the questions, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered his son Isaac upon the altar. Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”
And there is not the shadow of a good reason why we should shrink from attaching its manifest meaning to the declaration of the text. “God did try Abraham.” For what was involved in His doing so? He subjected him to a testing trial in order to its being proved that he both feared and trusted in the Lord. The command to offer up his son as a burnt-offering was a trial both of his fear and of his faith — a test by which to discover whether he was willing at any cost to obey, and would in all circumstances trust in the Lord. And to impose, with that view, such a test as was involved in the command to offer up his son as a burnt-offering was not inconsistent with any attribute rightly assigned to God, or with any revelation given to us of the divine will.
1. There was no attempt in the action of God, bearing upon Abraham, in the least to diminish the patriarch’s affection for his son.
On the contrary, pains seemed to have been taken to intensify that affection. In the command to offer up Isaac, God refers to him, in speaking to Abraham, as “thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.” As such he would have Abraham still think of Isaac, and be affected towards him. He will not allow his fatherly love to abate. No such immoral state of feeling will Jehovah tolerate in the breast of Abraham. And all the details of the trial tend to deepen his attachment to the son of his old age, the son of promise. They are to travel three days together on to the place appointed for the sacrifice. He then leaves behind the young men who accompanied them so far, and he and Isaac alone ascend to the summit of Moriah. He has to listen to the touching question of his darling son — “My father; and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And till “they came to the place which God had told them of,” Abraham had to look on his love, one bearing “the wood of the burnt offering,” and never did his heart cleave to him with more of a fond father’s love than when he thought of how he would soon have to lay him as a victim on that which he now bore as a burden, while there was in his own hand the knife wherewith he was required to slay him, and the fire that was to kindle into flame the wood intended to burn him. In this way of dealing with Abraham, how careful the Lord was that his affection for Isaac should not decline, and that all the details of his service should keep on his heart the words — “TAKE NOW THY SON, THINE ONLY SON ISAAC, WHOM THOU LOVEST.”
2. In the command binding Abraham to offer up his son, there was an assertion of Jehovah’s right to be regarded as the supreme object of His creature’s love.
Whatever aspect the command to slay Isaac may bear to other minds, to that of Abraham it presented a claim which it became God to press, and which it was an act of dutifulness on his part to yield. Is Jehovah not supreme? Is not the commandment to love Him the first and great commandment of the law? Can we wonder therefore if Abraham is required to prove that he so regards it? It was a trying proof of this which he was required to give, but is there any reason why he should not be subjected to a test so severe? He was not required to hate his son, though he was commanded to offer him up in sacrifice. The terms of the command required him to regard Isaac as his son, his only son, his loved son, and so prescribed the details of the service required, as to secure that his affection was to become more fervent, while Abraham knew that his Isaac must yet be what, as the son of promise, the Lord intended him to be. There could therefore be nothing before the mind of Abraham, in the aspect which God presented to him in connection with this transaction, that could cause him to regard His character with suspicion, or produce any hesitation whatever as to what it was dutiful to do. All love, besides, must be subordinated to the love of God, and whatever Jehovah demanded as homage to His supremacy, it could be nothing else than his imperative duty to concede.
How many dark clouds are dispelled by the shining of Jehovah’s glory into the heart, and how beautiful are the buds of true love to Him when they open up under that light from heaven! It is because of the want of that light that men are able to read the Old Testament history as it is becoming the fashion to read it. Jehovah’s greatness hidden from their view, men will labour to remove all impressions of His activity in the course of that providence of whose movements the ancient Scriptures are a record; no necessity for an atoning sacrifice is felt, or is regarded as taught, sin as against God being ignored, or appearing to be but a pardonable offence; not conscious of any felt need of an atonement, they will not allow that the doctrine of substitution and that of atonement for sin by blood were, to any definable extent, learned by the men of pre-Mosaic times; desirous to ignore any aspect of the divine character except that of benignity, they desire to explain away all reference to the absolute sovereignty and the infinite righteousness of God; and they approach such a scene as that of the sacrifice on Mount Moriah with the set purpose to hide from their eyes all that exhibits the glory of divine supremacy, and all that it is intended to prefigure of the great sacrifice on Calvary. How true it is that ignorance of God, and consequently of sin, accounts for all aberrations from the truth, be they nascent or mature. This is the only way of accounting for the attempt to ascribe to some other source than to the will of God the trial of Abraham’s faith.
But what objection can be taken against the connection of God with this trial that is not equally valid against the doctrine of Christ, when He said, “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” That teaching cannot mean that there is to be any suspension of the binding obligation of a commandment of the moral law. Is there not, however, a commandment requiring us to love our relations in all the connections in which they stand to us? And is there an obligation to hate them imposed by Christ? But there is no inconsistency between the statute of Sinai and the doctrine of Christ. It is not hatred of our relations that Christ here really requires, but such action, in meeting His supreme claims, as appears to be expressive of hatred towards our relatives and our life. It is the duty of fathers and children, husbands and wives, and brethren and sisters to remain, so far as possible, associated together and to be mutually helpful, unless by acting thus they are undutiful to Christ, and neglect His cause. But if we so regard these in our hearts as to be indisposed to subordinate our love to them to love to Christ, then these are idols in the place of our regard which belongs to Christ, and as such are to be hated and sacrificed. Not they, but the idol into which we have fashioned them, are to be hated; and notwithstanding our affection for themselves, all that we enjoy in their aid and intercourse, and all that we owe them, in other circumstances, of kindly assistance — all this must be abandoned and sacrificed when required by the higher claims of Christ, whom, in service and through suffering, we are required implicitly to follow.
There is no force in the objection to this parallel, that in Abraham’s case there was the very extreme step, commanded to be taken, of offering up his son as a sacrifice, which involved the taking away of his life, and the turning into ashes his slain body on the altar. But the token of the patriarch’s love, required by the command of God, though extreme, is not generically different from that required by Christ from His disciples. And is there really any extremeness attaching to the one that does not attach to the other? I am under the same obligation to preserve my own life which requires me not to take away another’s, and if I am required by Christ, for His sake, to hate and sacrifice my own life, is that really less than what was required of Abraham when commanded to sacrifice the life of Isaac? Thus no objection is valid, against the commandment of God to Abraham, that is not of equal force against the claims of Christ as presented to His disciples. But against neither is the objection of any force, for all that, in both the prescribed actions, is demanded is a practical acknowledgment, by the willing endurance of trial in self-sacrifice, of Jehovah’s right to our supreme regard.
III. ABRAHAM UNDER, AND AFTER THE TRIAL.
When we think of Abraham going under the trial we must not think of him as going alone. Never was the Lord nearer him than then. He does not say “I will send my third through the fire,” but “I will bring them through the fire.” Nor is it “I will bring them to it, and there leave them,” but “I will bring them through.” Abraham went to meet the trial with the felt weight of the burden which had been laid upon him, and in conscious weakness, but leaning on the Lord’s everlasting strength.”
Throughout the whole service terminating in the scene on Mount Moriah the Lord was with him. If Abraham gets from the Lord a burden to bear, His gracious presence is with him to sustain him under it. Imagine not that only in seasons of felt comfort is the Lord graciously present with His people. In order that their faith may not fail in seasons of trial, they need more grace than they require to fill the cup of their enjoyment when troubles pass away. The Lord was as surely near him when he started on the journey to Moriah, as when his hand was stayed from smiting his Isaac dead, and he saw the victim provided as a substitute for his beloved.
But in order to appreciate how the Lord was sustaining him, we must consider how the trial bore on him — what were the special feelings in Abraham on which it bore. It is very evident that he shared none of the difficulties of the sapient critics of our day. He had no doubt as to his having a revelation from heaven of the will of God requiring him to act as he did. His fellowship with God was too real to admit of any such difficulty. He knew that the Lord spoke to him, and he knew what He said. He was assured of both the one and the other of these things. Could he have met on his way to Moriah one of these impertinent triflers, who ascribe his journey to a suggestion of evil, neither his hoary head, nor his character as a man of God, would have kept the conceited creature from charging him foolishly. He would have stretched his tiny self to such a height of proud presumption as to look down on the man of God, and he would venture to speak scornfully to him of his professed devotion to the service of God. But in vain would he remonstrate with Abraham. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” would have been his fitting reply to the rude impudence of the irreverent meddler, and the patriarch would be quite disposed to leave him “with the ass” at the base of the mountain.
Nor had he any difficulty as to the kind of service he was called to perform, being such as it became God to prescribe. Regarding that matter his mind was free of all doubt — all dubiety as to his duty, and all difficulty in reconciling the prescription of that duty with the character of God were quite away from his heart. Enough to him as to both these it was that God spake to him, and told him distinctly what to do. The command of God lay on his heart and stilled all such misgiving. Well was it for Abraham that such was his state of mind, and much did he owe for this attainment to the rich grace of God. It was not on either of these two accounts that Abraham felt the pressure of his trial.
There were just two ways in which it bore upon him. 1. As it was a test requiring him so to fear God as willingly to sacrifice his son whom he loved, and, 2. As it was a test requiring him to trust in God, and yet to expect the fulfilment of His promise, even after sacrificing his “only son,” through whom alone the promise could be fulfilled. His love to God and his faith in God were thus tested together. And if these were together under trial, how mutually helpful they were! His faith kept his love fervent, and his love preserved him from such suspicions as would weaken his faith.
1. His fear of God was tested by this trial
He was required to “offer up as a burnt offering” his son at the command of God. The true fear of God could be expressed only in instant willing obedience. But he greatly loved his Isaac, and he was his only son. And he could not complete his sacrifice by a summary act. He must take three days’ journey to Moriah, and have all that time his loved one near him, and during part of that time he must be alone with him, his fatherly heart having to endure the sight of him, bearing on his shoulder the fuel, to be used in consuming him on the altar, and to be pierced by the question addressed to him by his darling — “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” But he must sacrifice him, for this the Lord requires at his hand, and he goes on with no hesitating step to the place which the Lord had told him of. And at last Isaac is bound, laid on the wood lying on the altar, and the knife is raised to slay him. But enough, his hand is arrested, and Isaac is spared. “Now I know,” saith the angel of the Lord, “that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.”
And how was it that his love to God thus triumphed over his love to Isaac? Only because the Lord sustained him. A triumph such as this could only be attained through Jehovah’s grace. Who can tell what views of His glory He was pleased to give him during those days of trial to keep his soul in a reverent submissive frame of spirit? Who can tell what new glimpses of divine grace were given to him through a believing contemplation of the promise of Messiah? And as the wondrous fulness of grace in that promise was unfolded to his faith, how his “heart did burn within” him, till his love, thus kept fervent, reached the climax of its exercise when Abraham’s hand was at last uplifted to slay his son. But Abraham’s triumph was due to the grace of Abraham’s covenant God — it was the fruit of divine love to him rather than of his love to God — primarily and efficiently it is the fruit of the former, only mediatelv, though actually it is the fruit of the latter.
2. His faith in God was tested by this trial.
We must endeavour to appreciate the severity of the test applied to his faith, not that we may admire the steadfastness of Abraham, but that we may be moved to praise “the God of all grace,” who so wondrously sustained him.
In giving the promise of Messiah, and of salvation in Him, to Abraham, the Lord shut him up to the coming One, as the only object of his own soul’s hope, and declared that only through Isaac could the promise of Messiah, as Abraham’s seed “according to the flesh,” be fulfilled. How much, therefore, seemed to depend on the life of Isaac! Through him, and through him alone, could the great promise be fulfilled, and all, apart from “the son of promise,” miraculously given to him, was removed out of Abraham’s sight. And yet he must slay his Isaac! From this sacrifice he must not turn aside. What test of his faith could be severer than this? To see Isaac die, and to have to slay him with his own hand! O, did it not seem as if that would be to part with all hope of salvation for himself, and for all besides, who were included in the promise?
But Abraham’s faith failed not, because the Lord sustained it. In view of receiving Isaac as the son of his old age, Abraham “considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb; he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being persuaded that what He had promised he was able also to perform.” It was not the grace which was given to him then that bore him through the trial on Mount Moriah. He needed to receive a new communication from the store of all grace, and this was given to him. Utterly unaccountable in any other way is the continued exercise of the patriarch’s faith till it attained its triumph. It is because the Spirit of the Lord was keeping his hold fast on the promise, revealing to him more and still more of the glory of Him who gave it, and bringing His omnipotent power to bear on the unbelief of the old heart within him, and against the assaults of the powers of darkness. Who can conceive how much was done in the secrecy of Abraham’s soul in order to the triumph of Abraham’s faith. And it is because of all this gracious visitation of his soul, that “by faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said — That in Isaac shall thy seed be called; accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.” By a miracle God gave him the son of promise, and Abraham believed that He could restore him after he was slain. He might often have felt impatient because of the long delay in fulfilling the promise of his having Isaac, but he was not now disposed to regret the tarrying, for, as it furnished God with an opportunity of giving him, as from the dead, the remembrance of this was helpful to Abraham under the severer trial which followed. He murmured not, his eye was kept resting on the glorious faithfulness and power, and he leant on the grace, of his covenant God.
Let us now look at Abraham after the trial.
How blessed to him was the result of it. For — (1.) He obtained an attestation from heaven of his fear and of his faith; (2.) He obtained a new revelation of Messiah as the atoning Surety; (3.) He brought back with him alive his only son, whom he loved; and (4.) He held “Jehovah Jireh” in the grasp of his faith, and had Him pledged to care for him alway.
1. He received an attestation from heaven of his fear and of his faith.
Who that are true believers would not desire to have this? How many doubts it dispels, how many bonds it breaks, how many weakening fears it dissipates, what freeness in service it secures, what courage in conflict it infuses, what boldness in wrestling with God for the fulfilment of His promise, what brokenness of heart and humility are the fruit of it! O yes, it was much that Abraham received in a God-given attestation of his faith, and it would be much to you, Friend, if you received it.
There is a kind of faith of which no divine attestation is desired by those who have it. Enough to them it is that they themselves are pleased with it. They are conscious of no trials to test it, and the strong carnal thing which is reared on the lap of ease needs not power from above to strengthen it, and no light from heaven can it endure. It is nursed in a perpetual sleep in the dark. But true faith is a tested faith, and they who have it desire to have help to enable them to exercise it, and an attestation from heaven to persuade them that it is genuine.
2. He obtained a new revelation of Messiah as the atoning substitute of a guilty people.
This was given him when, after his hand was arrested so that it should not smite his son, he saw a substitute to take Isaac’s place on the altar provided by God and ready to be offered. I pity the men who cannot see in this any typical representation of the Lamb of God. It is rather a strange thing that men should endeavour to uphold their credit as enlightened by proclaiming themselves blind to what was clearly seen by the Church of God in the ages that are gone — who claim to be very advanced because they cannot see what was clear to Abraham, and even to Abel. Of course, they cannot bear to allow that the very earliest of the fathers was more enlightened than their very wise selves. They, therefore, labour to make out that there could be no glimpse of light from Calvary shining in Abraham’s view on the top of Mount Moriah. They are not afraid to limit the Holy One of Israel, and to conceive of His Spirit as bound. But if we have an epitome of the whole revelation of redemption given in the first promise in Eden, and if the Spirit was thereafter with the Church in all ages, what can be more unreasonable than to confine one’s conceptions of the Old Testament saints to the crudest ideas of God, and of the scheme and grace of redemption. But, if we be guided by the teaching of Scripture, Abel knew more of the way of salvation through an atoning sacrifice than the most enlightened of all the graceless professors of this nineteenth century, however great their intellect, and however comprehensive and advanced their learning. And must not Abraham on Mount Moriah have seen through the type of the victim substitute for his Isaac, the Lamb of God, because of providing whom “Jehovah Jireh” is the name of God? What a feast to Abraham was this new revelation of Messiah as an Atoner!
3. He brought back with him alive his “only son” whom he loved — the son of promise.
How wonderful was this to Abraham. He did expect that God would raise his Isaac from the dead, but he had no reason to hope that He would have stayed his own hand from smiting him. But here he is, untouched by his father’s knife, in his place as the son through whom he great promise of Messiah was to be fulfilled. He may enjoy his son now, if he does not cease to lean on “Jehovah Jireh.” Let him seek grace to keep him devoted to the fear, and strong in the faith, of his God, and there is no reason why he should not pour out the love of his heart on his Isaac.
4. He leaves Mount Moriah grasping, because grasped by, “Jehovah Jireh.”
O what on earth can be beyond this! To have God pledged to supply every want, to heal every ailment, to guide through all perplexities and snares, to help in every time of need, and to comfort in every hour of sorrow — graciously, and at all times, to care for one during all his wilderness life, and finally to introduce him in perfect holiness into the rest and blessedness of the eternal home. Leaning on the bosom of “Jehovah Jireh” Abraham was far from being disposed to take exception to the trial through which he had reached it.
APPLICATION.
1. Learn from this text that true faith is sure to be tested faith.
And why should it not? Imagine not that trial imposed by God is cruelty either to the child or to the faith which has been begotten in his heart. The truth as to the mind of God in relation to such a trial is just the reverse. He loves the faith, and He loves the believer, and it is because both are precious in His sight that the trial is imposed. He prizes the grace which He has imparted, and delights to exhibit the difference between it and all besides. His people are precious in His sight, and therefore He has a fire for their dross, and as the dross is within them, they themselves must pass through the burning. If they meantime suffer there is an eternal rest before them and very nigh, and it is wise, and holy, and rich grace to “bring them through the fire,” that they may therein be purged from all that would break the Sabbath which awaits them. And He Himself goes with His people into all the trials to which they are subjected. He supplies them with strength to endure when they are called to suffer. In flood and furnace He has promised to be with them, yea, He will never leave nor forsake them. Well then may we look on a trial of faith without any doubt as to the grace and faithfulness of Israel’s God.
Friends, if yours is an untested faith, it is because it is not genuine. In one sense it is true that a test shall sooner or later be applied to all faith true and false. But a test imposed by God, as it was imposed on Abraham, only true faith is subjected to. There is nothing in others to be elicited into an exercise that would be evidence of its being of God, and there is nothing in their faith to offend the world and to provoke the rage of hell. Men are allowed to cherish it at their ease, and to pamper it up into a stature and strength that makes it quite independent of aid from heaven.
2. The text teaches us that all love must be subordinated to love to God.
This is a frequent lesson in both testaments, and it would be wise to as’ grace from God to learn it. How often do our affections to our friends and relatives become snares. How much of the place due to God they take up in our hearts. How often do the bonds which bind us to our families keep us back from a duty to which the Lord calls us. How often in our intercourse with them do we lose all the keenness of our desire for fellowship with God. How often do we go away from them with “a divided heart” to a work to which the Lord is calling us. And how often do we allow our feeling towards them, and their influence over us, to weaken the exercise of our faith in God. But all must be sacrificed, that interferes with unreserved devotion to the doing of the will of God, and that would hamper our movements in a life of faith. At whatever cost this must be done, if we would receive from heaven an attestation of our having in our hearts the true fear of God, and of being genuine in our profession of faith.
3. Learn from this passage that the only way to be truly strong is to have faith in God.
There was a time, believer, when you imagined that you could be strong while independent of promised grace. You had your Ishmael then, the son of the bondwoman, your self-righteous hope, and you felt as if you could be independent of what only a miracle could give you — of all the fruit that is produced by New Covenant grace. But you were compelled to “cast out the bondwoman and her son,” even when in your case there was no trace of the son of promise. But you attained to faith in Christ and through Him in God, and sweet to your experience was the fruit of that faith in love and in brokenness of heart. But this you were called to abandon as an object of trust. You had to sacrifice your Isaac, in so far as he interfered with your faith in God. You were required to cease to lean on grace received and to rest on grace provided — to cease trying to “be strong” except “in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Don’t rebel against the discipline that tends to wean you more and more from all self-confidence, and be more and more dependent on the teaching that can train you to “live by the faith of the Son of God.”
4. Learn from this text that God will never fail under the leanings of faith.
No, whatever burdens it brings to lay on the arm of God, with whatever weaknesses, and ailments, and wants, and cares, it comes. The God of Abraham is faithful, gracious, and omnipotent. He cannot lie, He cannot err, He cannot grudge, He cannot weary, He will never cast a poor and needy soul away. And learn to trust Him, and not your own faith — to have such a view of Him as will make you forget whether you have faith or not — and so to fix your thoughts on Him as to have His glory lie between you and an inroad of unbelief. It is by being drawn out to Him, and by being drawn in through the light of His glory shining from the face of Jesus to His infinite grace, that you will leave the weakness arising from pride and unbelief behind you, and you will be “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” Be afraid of substituting your own strength for His, and be afraid of not being trustful towards Him; but never fear that He will fail if you lean all your weight upon Him. Rank with “the poor and needy,” who have “no help of man at all,” and leave yourself on Him to sustain and save you, and you will be another witness who can testify that the Lord hateth putting away.
5. Learn from this text that no one need expect an attestation of his fear and faith except when these are revived and exercised.
This is clear from the case of Abraham, as well as from much besides that we meet with in Scripture. Many desire to know that they believed, when it would be wiser to be asking grace that they may. Do not expect to enjoy the comfort of assurance while your soul is in a state of spiritual decay. There must be present fruit in order to the Spirit having what He could use as evidence of your having passed from death to life. “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure” by seeking grace to produce the fruit which evidences the calling of the elect of God.
Assurance is the fruit that grows out of the root of faith.
— Stephen Charnock.