WE have now looked at the life of the father of the faithful, and have traced the steps of his faith from the time God called him by His grace to leave an idolatrous home and land for a country which he should afterwards receive as an inheritance, through years of faith and patience, until he received his beloved Isaac, in the land God had promised him. We come now to the great and final trial of his faith, and of his obedience to his God, who had so abounded to him in His goodness and truth.
Genesis 22 gives us this thrilling story, and doubtless it is to my young readers one of the favorite chapters in Genesis.
The faith and obedience of Abraham when God tried him in so painful a way, to prove if Abraham loved the blessed Giver more than his precious gift the meek subjection to God and to his father in his son Isaac; the sorrowful three days’ journey, and the happy end to Abraham’s trail are so interesting and instructive, and are types, too, of Gospel truths so forcible and clear, that my short letter cannot contain even a sketch of so wonderful a history. But two practical lessons I desire you may learn from this closing scene in our patriarch’s life of faith. The first is that God sooner or later tries the faith He gives His children, and the second is that He is a jealous God, and will not let us rest in His gifts, however blessed, nor allow us to give them the place in our affections that belongs to God Himself.
What a happy home was Abraham’s during Isaac’s childhood. How he with Sarah must have delighted in “his only Isaac, whom he loved,” verse 2. How they must have rejoiced during those fifteen years in God’s precious gift, and in that covenant of blessing, which God had declared should be established with Isaac. Genesis 17:2121But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. (Genesis 17:21).
What a blow, then, must that unexpected word of Goa have been to Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only 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.” verse 2. And yet the anguish of heart is not dwell upon. This was between. himself and God, and all that was seen in the tent and before Isaac and the servants was prompt and unquestioning obedience. If we pour out our sorrows in faith to God alone, He will give us grace to be calm and trusting before men. When the blessed Lord took the sinner’s place before God, all was calmness and meekness before men. His anguish had been alone with His Father in sad Gethsemane, when He sweat as it were great drops of blood, and when He went forth to suffer and die for sinners. “As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so opened He not His mouth.”
The Apostle James, in speaking of true and living faith always bearing fruit in works of faith, by which faith is perfected, warns us against the delusion of saying we believe, without possessing a faith like Abraham’s, which, when it was tried, carried him through his deep sorrow, and wrought with His actions during those three days of anguish, and enabled him to obey God and offer up Isaac his son upon the altar. In the Hebrews we read that it was by faith that 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.” Heb. 11:17-1917By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: 19Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. (Hebrews 11:17‑19).
And now, my dear young friends, let me close my letter by calling your thoughts to the Antitype of Abraham and Isaac. God has given us more than Abraham gave God. Abraham yielded up in obedience to God his loved Isaac, but God gave in His own free love, unasked by sinful men, His Son, that by His death, all who believe may be saved through Him. See the greater than Isaac in His own free love and obedience unto death going to Calvary to be the Lamb God needed for the sacrifice. See Him stretched upon the shameful cross, and nailed and hanging there to save sinners! Hear His cry, ere He bows His head and dies, “It is finished.” And as Abraham’s eyes were opened to see the ram caught in a thicket to take the place of his son upon the altar, to be offered there instead of Isaac, may your eyes be opened to see the sacrifice for your individual sins, in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, without the shedding of whose blood in your stead your sins can never be forgiven.
Your affectionate friend,
UNCLE R.