Part 29
servants are in darkness because they have neglected known duties.
The windows of Christ's palace are many, and He would not have
one of them blocked up. And if you block up one window, it may
be that He will say, "I will never show My face at any but that. I
will make My servants take down that shutter, that the Light of
God may shine through." There is nothing in any ordinance of
itself, but there may be much sin in your neglecting it. There is
nothing, for instance, in the ordinance of Believers' Baptism, and
yet, knowing it to be a prescribed duty in God's Word, it may be
that the Lord will never give you a comfortable sense of His
Presence till you yield to your conscience in that matter. But,
waiving all that point, what you want is to see Him! Faith alone can
bring you to see Him. Make it your prayer this morning, "Lord,
open my eyes that I may see my Savior present with me. And after
once seeing Him may I never let Him go. From this day forth may I
begin, like Enoch, to walk with You, and may I continue walking
with You till I die, that I may then dwell with You forever."
I find it very easy to get near to God compared with what it is to
keep near. Enoch walked with God 400 years! What a long walk
that was! What a splendid journey through life! Why should you
not begin, dear Christian Brothers and Sisters, today, if you have
not begun, and walk with God through the few years which
remain? What if God should spare you for 40 years? I do not see
that there is any necessity that your communion with God should
be broken from now till death or the Lord's coming. "Yes," you
say, "you talk in a Utopian fashion!" Perhaps I do, but I believe that
high-toned Christian experience is, to a great extent, what common
Christians think to be out of their reach.
Oh to get up above yon mists which dim the valley! Oh to climb
the mountain's top which laughs in the sunlight! Oh to get away
from the heavy atmosphere of worldliness and doubt, of fear, of
care, of fretfulness–to soar away from the worldlings who are
always earth-hunting, digging into its mines and prying after its
treasures–and to get up there where God dwells in the innermost
circle of heavenly seclusion–to get where none can live but men
who have been quickened from among the dead! Where none can
walk but men who are crucified with Christ, and who live only in
Him! Oh to get up there where no more question concerning our
security can molest us! Where no carking care can disturb because
all is cast upon the Lord and rests wholly with Him! Oh to live in
such an entireness of confidence and child-like faith that we will
have nothing to do with anything except with serving Him and
showing forth the gratitude we owe to Him who has done so much
for us!
Get up, Believers! Get up to your high mountain! Leave your
dunghills and assume your thrones! Cast off your sackcloth! Throw
away your ashes and put on your scarlet apparel! Christ has called
you to fellowship with Himself, and He is no longer in the grave–
He is risen! Rise! He is ascended! Ascend with Him and learn what
this means, "He has raised us up together and made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus!
I know you will say you cannot see this. However, it is there–
most surely there! It is just the same as in Hagar's case, with you–
the same but with a difference. The fullness of fellowship with
Christ is attainable! It is close to you and if you have your eyes
opened to see it, as it has been given you to see Jesus as your
Savior, you may rejoice w with a joy unspeakable and full of glory!
God do so to you and more, also, according to His Covenant
goodness in Christ Jesus. Amen and Amen. PORTIONS SOF
SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–GENESIS 21:9-19;
LIKE 24:13-31
Ge 22:1 • Abraham's Trial: A Lesson for Believers
ERMON 2223
Abraham's Trial—A Lesson For Believers
"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."
Genesis 22:1
WE may regard the father of the faithful as being a pattern of his
children. As God dealt with Abraham, so will He deal in measure
with all those who, as Believers, are the children of believing
Abraham. Everything that will abide the fire shall go through the
fire, that it may be both proved and improved. We clearly
understand that when God is said to "tempt" Abraham, the word
used does not carry its ordinary meaning. "Let no man say when he
is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempts He any man." But Jehovah is accustomed to try
and test His people and this is what we are here to understand. The
Revised Version renders the words, "God did prove Abraham" and,
as I have said, God works by the same method with all His saints.
Of course, we shall not all attain to the same stature that Abraham
reached, neither shall we all be tried by the same tests that were
applied to him, but every one of us shall be tested, like Abraham, if,
indeed, we are Believers in God. He was the Columbus who, by
faith, went out and discovered a better country, that is, a heavenly–
and his track has been followed by many other voyagers. Not
without storms did he cross the sea and we, too, who venture after
him on the voyage of faith, must expect to meet with contrary
winds and waves sweeping high. We may look for a considerable
measure of conformity in our lives to the life of the great Patriarch
and we must not be astonished, as though some strange thing had
happened to us, if great and severe tests should be put upon us
before the chapter of life is over.
None of us ought to object to this. Shall the child of faith be
otherwise than the father of the faithful? I may say of Abraham
what our Lord said of Himself–"The disciple is not above his
master, nor the servant above his lord." Shall the Believer, saved
and justified by faith, as Abraham was, rebel against sharing in
Abraham's lot? We shall sit down, byand-by, at the same table with
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of our God. Surely we
may be content to fare on the road as they fared. In fact, I hope you
will say, concerning Abraham, "Where you go, I will go, and where
you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your
God my God." We are willing to take the portion of the righteous.
We will not say, with wretched Balaam, "Let me die the death of
the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" We would have a far
better desire than that–"May my way be the way of the righteous,
that my end may be like his! May I have a portion with Your
people, O God: and do You deal with me as You do with all those
who love Your name!"
Let us look at our text. It is a kind of preface to this unique, this
unparalleled story of Abraham's test. First, "It came to pass after
these things, that God did tempt (or "prove") Abraham"–here we
see the Lord's way with Believers. And, secondly, when God, "said
unto him, Abraham," the Patriarch instantly answered, "Behold,
here I am"–here we learn the Believer's way with the Lord. These
two heads will not be difficult to remember–the Lord's way with
Believers and the Believer's way with the Lord.
First, THE LORD'S WAY WITH BELIEVERS. He deals with
His own people as He does not with the world. To be loved by God
with the love He bears to His chosen is a wonderful honor, but it
carries with it the Father's authority. "Whom the Lord loves He
chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." All disciples
are subject to this blessed discipline.
First of all, then, let us notice that God does deal with His people,
He is never far away from them. He leaves them not to themselves,
but is always near those who are truly His. God did test Abraham.
It is a great thing that God should take any notice of us, poor
creatures that we are. "When I consider Your heavens, the work of
Your fingers, the noon and the stars which You have ordained; what
is man, that You are mindful of him? And the son of man, that You
visit him?" Job wondered that God dealt with him in the way of
affliction, for he says, "Am I a sea, or a whale, that You set a watch
over me?" We are so insignificant that it is a great wonder that God
should come to deal with us at all. If you saw some tall archangel,
whose wand might make a mast for some great man-of-war,
bending down over an ant's hill, or talking with an ant, you might
wonder at his stoop. But this would be nothing compared with the
infinite God, the Maker of all things, condescending to deal with us
worms of the earth! Yet He does so. We are precious in His sight,
therefore, as the goldsmith assays the metal, as the silversmith
refines the silver again and again in a furnace of earth, so does God
test, purify and try us–He sets a high value upon us and, therefore,
He tests us. O child of God, be glad that God comes near you! I
would sooner feel His hand heavy upon me than be forgotten of
Him! I would rather see His face wreathed in frowns than never see
Him at all! Oh, what an awful thing it will be for those who will be
cast away from Him! To hear Him say, "Depart," will be like an
infinity of wretchedness. But if He even calls us to Him that He
may chasten us, His voice has music in it! Lord, blessed be Your
name, You think upon Your servants! You think upon them even
when You chasten them and when You test them–for this we would
bless Your holy name.
Notice, next, that God not only deals with Believers very
intimately, but He tests them. "God did tempt Abraham." "God did
prove Abraham." Abraham was a man whose life gave good
evidence of his faith in Jehovah, but the Lord is a jealous God and
He loves to have still more evidence of the fidelity of His people.
He hungers after clear proofs from them that they really are His–
and He works in them, by His Grace, until He casts out all other
loves and all other confidences that He may have the whole of their
hearts–and that they may love Him and trust Him supremely.
Some of you have nothing to do with my text tonight. God does
not test you because He knows very well what you are and He
knows that you are not precious metal. The spurious coin is nailed
down on the counter, or cast into the fire–and they that are not true
people of God and have none of the silver of Grace in them will
come to such an end one day and be, with shame and everlasting
contempt–nailed down on the counter as counterfeits, or thrown
into the fire that never shall be quenched! "Reprobate silver shall
men call them because the Lord has rejected them." It is the true
coin that we try and test–and God, because He loved Abraham,
valued him and saw His Grace in him, tested him.
He tested, first of all, his fear of God. That was the main point, as
you will see in the 12 th verse–"Now I know thatyou fear God."
The Lord delights in a man who has a holy reverence for his God. I
do not hesitate to say that this is a very scarce article nowadays.
When I hear of one saying that he has received "a straight tip" from
God, I feel that a man capable of speaking in such a manner was
never spoken to by the Infinite Jehovah! Communion with God
bows a man to the dust and causes him to use lowly and reverent
language. No, God never comes near to us and then leaves us in a
frame of mind in which we could speak flippantly or irreverently of
Him!
When I hear professing Christians arraigning God's conduct and
setting up to criticize God's Word, I stand in doubt of them. O Sirs,
God's true children tremble at His Word–they never question Him!
"Why do you strive against Him? For He gives not account of any
of His matters." "Who are you that replies against God?" The spirit
of criticism is altogether alien to the spirit of the child of God! It is
not what they say in their criticism that I care about. It is the spirit
that dares to say it that is the evil thing. The Lord will try each one
of us whether we really fear Him or not–and if the test is not so
severe as that which Abraham was called to endure, still the test
will come. If we say, "No, I cannot do that. I am afraid of the
consequences," that shows that we do not fear God enough, for the
man who fears God fears nothing else. The path of duty made clear,
he says, "I must do it, cost what it may, for it would be infinitely
more costly not to do it." His fear of God ejects all fear of men and
all fear of consequences–it is the backbone of all real holiness and
all true godliness. And God tries us to see whether we have this
holy awe of Him and leads us to follow in the steps of Abraham,
His friend.
God also tried Abraham's faith. Could he believe that God was
right when He commanded him to slay his son? All the promises
were wrapped up in Isaac! If Isaac dies, how can Abraham have a
seed? He had been told, "In Isaac shall your seed be called," not in
Ishmael! What, then, if Isaac shall die? All hope of a seed must
pass away. How can it be? But it was not any matter of question
with Abraham. "He staggered not at the promise of God through
unbelief." You know what a man does when he staggers. Perhaps
he does not go quite down, but he can hardly keep his feet.
Abraham was never in that condition. He believed God and,
therefore, he stood firm. His faith was able to face difficulties and
to surmount them. When the promise of the birth of Isaac was
given, we read that, "being not weak in faith, he considered not his
own body now dead."
This was, indeed, a triumph of trust–but he went further than that.
The Revised Version shows that he fully faced the difficulty and
yet believed as much as ever. "Without being weakened in faith he
considered his own body now as good as dead." The faith that was
undismayed when the promise of a son was uttered was still
undaunted when the Lord demanded the life that He had so
strangely given. Perhaps God gave such a supreme test because of
its very grandeur. The trial was terrible, but still, Abraham believed.
Possibly he did not understand the trial–he did not need to
understand. He believed and he took God at His word and he would
do what God bade him do, whatever that might be. He would leave
the Lord to extricate him out of any difficulties into which his
obedience might bring him. Thus God tried his faith.
Above all, God tried Abraham's love. It may be that Isaac, though
a gift from God, began to usurp God's place. An Isaac may became
an idol. The dearest thing we have, the most precious, the most
beloved, may still become an abomination by being made an idol to
keep us away from God. Some of the heathen worship gods of
mud, others worship gods of gold, but there is no difference in the
idolatry, whether the image is made of mud or of the most precious
metal. Have you any idols, dear Friends? I will not press the
question too closely, but whatever your idols may be, they will
bring you a world of trouble, for you must love nothing in
comparison with God. He must be first and everything else far
away in the background. He will endure no rivals. He will permit
no Dagon to stand in the place where the Ark of the Covenant
abides. So God tests Abraham to see which has most of his heart's
love–Jehovah who gave Him Isaac–or Isaac whom Jehovah asked
from him back again.
Thus God deals with Believers and tests them.
But the next point here is that, in some cases, God Himself tests
Believers. "It came to pass after those things, that God"–"Elohim,"
that is the word–"Elohim did tempt Abraham." This does not
always occur. Job is tried by the devil and the devil tests him,
though even then God is permitting the devil to be His instrument.
But God Himself was here, He, Himself, testing His servant,
Abraham. I never read that He tested Lot. Poor Lot! He was a poor
"lot," indeed! There was just enough Grace in him to keep him
alive and no more–but he could not stand any tests. Lot failed
wretchedly in Sodom. He was a righteous man and proved that he
was so by being grieved with the filthy conversation of those round
about him, but still, God did not test him. There was not enough
true metal in him for God to try him–He left the Sodomites to do
that. They were quite good enough to test Lot, but Abraham was a
man of very different metal, or, at least, there was a much larger
percentage of gold in Abraham than was to be found in Lot.
Therefore God tested Abraham.
O Friends, there is something here to think of! Here is a peculiar
character whom God, Himself, deals with. Here is a special honor
put upon the servant when Elohim, Himself, tests Abraham. Have
you ever prayed, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me,
and know my thoughts: and see if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting"? Invite Divine inspection and,
if God shall come and by some extraordinary trial, test you, be not
cast down on that account, but rather take it as a very choice favor
that the King, Himself, should put you to the proof to know
whether you are, indeed, His!
Further, I want you to notice that, in God's dealings with
Believers, He tests them again and again. Read the text through, "It
came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham." After
all his life of holy obedience, he was still not free from trials! God
still tested him. He had received great and precious promises, more
than any other man of his time–and He believed them and sucked
the sweetness out of them–but after these things God did try
Abraham! He had had rare enjoyments. Did not angels come and
sit at his table? Did not the great Melchizedek, himself, come forth
with bread and wine to feast him? But after these things God tested
Abraham. He had been tested before. He had left his country. He
had sent away Ishmael, whom he loved, when the command came,
"Cast out this bondwoman and her son." He had been tested, but,
after all this, he must still be tested!
These things are an example to all the people of God. We are not
yet out of the wilderness and we may, even at the very last, have
our highest test yet to come. "After these things, God did tempt
Abraham." Abraham had reached a very high point of faith and,
after a time, he had enjoyed great quiet of spirit. Everything went
well with him. By faith he had fought four kings and led captivity
captive. By faith he had trampled on the riches of the world and
told the king of Sodom that he would "not take from a thread even
to a shoelace" of him. By faith he had become great with God and
God had put part of His own name into Abram's name, and made
Him Abraham, blending the name of God with the name of His
servant! And yet God tested Abraham–not Abram only–but even
Abraham!
Note here, that God did not try Abraham like this at the
beginning. It is "after these things" God tried Abraham. There was
a course of education to prepare him for this great testing time and
the Lord knows how to educate you up to such a point that you can
endure, in years to come, what you could not endure today–just as
today He may make you to stand firm under a burden, which, ten
years ago, would have crushed you into the dust! After all the
tuition that God had given to him–after close communion with
God, receiving the Spirit of God into his soul in rich abundance–
"after these things" God tested Abraham.
And here I go further and say that God tests His people by actual
experience. He did not test Abraham only by words. He did not say
to him, "Will you do this? Are you willing to do that?" It is always
easy to say that we will do a thing if we do not expect to be
compelled to do it. We can make large promises when we think we
shall never be called upon to fulfill them. We can even think large
things today about what we intend to do tomorrow. It is always
easy to rise up early overnight. But God does not prove His people
in only word, but in deed and in truth. The plain command came to
Abraham which must at once be obeyed. He must go into the land
of Moriah and he must offer his son there for a burnt offering. It
must come to real action. How big you and I are in words! How
great some people are in profession! "Oh," they say, "we will never
fail our Lord!" Like Peter they swear that, "Though all men shall
be offended because of You, yet will we never be offended." They
become bold in their boasts and proud in their own conceit,
"professing themselves to be wise, they become as fools." They
may even turn the very Grace of God, which has enriched them,
into an occasion of vainglory. "I am perfect," says one, "and
completely dead to the world. Therefore there is no fear that I shall
fall. In time of trial I shall be strong–if only the martyr times were
here, again, how gloriously would I testify for God!" But, after all,
it is the test of real life, the test of actual experience that will show
what a man is. When God comes to real filing and hammering–and
puts us into the crucible, then it is that He proves how much is
dross and how much is true metal!
Some Believers are tested more thoroughly than others. In this
case, the Lord tried Abraham most severely. I cannot imagine a
greater test than that which the Lord applied to Abraham. The Jews
usually say that Abraham was tried 10 times. Surely on this
occasion he was tried 10 times in one. Here you have trial carried
to the 10 th degree. Here the furnace is made 10 times hotter than it
was known to be heated. There was no other in the whole universe
that ever, by Divine command, offered up his only son, save One,
and that One was He who commanded this sacrifice and who
consummated such a sacrifice, Himself, for He will never ask of us
what He will not Himself do! He gave freely for us His
onlybegotten Son and Abraham stands alone, the only one of
woman born, that in this was called to be a close imitator of his
God. God tried him because he could bear it. He tried him in this
way because of him it was said, he was the friend of God. He was
the father of the believing family and, because of his high position,
he must have the very greatest of troubles, trials and tests!
My last thought, under this head, shall be that if God does thus try
Believers, He blesses them greatly thereby. All this testing was
meant to be a great blessing to Abraham. Do I see you start back?
Do you seem to say that I have used terrible language in speaking
thus about God's testing His people? Oh, but, Beloved, the tests
and trials of God's servants, though they rumble a little in our ears,
as did the wagons that Joseph sent from Egypt to fetch Jacob, bring
blessings to us! Those wagons came to take Jacob down to a land
where he would behold the face of his Beloved and should be with
him all his life! And our trials come to prepare us for the glorious
meeting with our Lord. God sends us letters in black-edged
envelopes, but they are all love letters! And the blacker the letters
look outside, the brighter they are inside! The Lord paints the
galleons of His Grace with dark colors and we dream that they bear
us evil–but they are loaded down to the water's brim with gold and
rare and precious things! Therefore, be confident, tried Believers–
"Trials make the promise sweet.
Trials give new life to prayer.
Trials bring me to His feet,
Lay me low and keep me there."
The first blessed effect of God's test of Abraham was that thus he
avoided evil. This trial prevented him from thinkand God saw it–
and He sent this test in order to put Isaac into his right place, that
Isaac might not die. He would have Abraham offer him up that he
might keep him. He would have him offer Isaac up to God, that he
might receive him back, for he was not Abraham's son in a spiritual
sense, until that day. Isaac was his son after the flesh, but, when he
received him back, again, by faith, he became his son in the new
Covenant of Grace, one of the seed of Abraham after the Spirit. He
received his son that day in the highest sense from God.
Do you not think, also, that it did Abraham great good in assuring
his own heart and enabling him to know, beyond the shadow of a
doubt, that he really did fear and love God? Some of you get to
doubting whether you really do fear God. Would it not be worth
while to pass through some tremendous trouble, to get that settled
once and for all? I think that the Lord gives some of His people
full-assuring tribulations so that when once these are past, all
doubts and fears are at an end. I spoke to a child of God the other
day, who said, "I do not know that, for 20 years, I have had the
slightest hesitation in saying that I know whom I have believed.
But," he said, "I had an awful fight just before that time." It is good
to kill the lion and have done with him and then go and find honey
in his carcass! It is an ordinary lion, however, that only needs
killing once, for some lions I have met with have been killed a
good many times, but they seem to come to life again very quickly!
This test, however, Abraham needed only once and, after that, since
God Himself said, "Now I know that you fear God," He doubtless
enabled Abraham to say, "Now I know that I fear God."
The trial blessed him further in revealing Christ. Do you not think
that, on this occasion, Abraham had a clearer view of Christ than he
ever had before? Our Savior says, "Abraham rejoiced to see My
day: and he saw it, and was glad." When did Abraham see Christ?
He may have seen Him at other times, but on the top of Moriah,
when his own son was on the wood and his own hand was lifted up,
he must have seen the Son of God and the uplifted hand of God
offering the Great Sacrifice. When He took the ram from the
thicket and so saved the life of his son, how clearly he must have
understood that blessed doctrine of Substitution which is the very
center of the Gospel! I have no other hope than this. Nor can I
conceive anything else that would be good news to me but the fact,
"that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures," that there
was offered another Life instead of mine through which I live! By a
life I do not live and by a death I do not die, I am saved! So it was
with Isaac when he was saved by the ram taken in the thicket. It
was worth while for Abraham thus to be tested to have a view of
Christ!
And, lastly, Abraham was blessed by the test in communing with
the Father. To this day, perhaps, Abraham enters more into the heart
of God than any other man in Heaven. I will not speculate, but it
seems to me that none of us can ever know such fellowship with
the great Father as Abraham has known, now, these thousands of
years–for when he thinks of the great Father who surrendered His
Son for the salvation of men, he humbly adores the infinite mind.
But he seems to say, "And I, too, was helped in my little way, as
small things may be compared with great, to stand and offer up my
son as a burnt offering unto the Most High." I think that he is still
the father of the faithful. I think that Abraham still holds wonderful
pre-eminence. I do not wonder that we read of being in Abraham's
bosom–to get as near to Abraham as we can is one of the things to
be desired–that we may have sympathy and fellowship with the
eternal Father forever.
I notice that some of the old translators render the passage, "It
came to pass, after these things that God did lift up Abraham." It is
a strange translation and probably inaccurate, but it is wonderfully
true, for all that–for God did lift up Abraham to a higher platform,
altogether, and brought him into a greater nearness to Himself than
he could have known in any other way.
So far, I have occupied your mind on a grand subject, the Lord's
way with Believers.
II. My second subject is a very practical one. THE BELIEVER'S
WAY WITH THE LORD–for if God has dealings with the
Believer, the Believer also has communion with the Lord.
It takes two to make communion and fellowship. Is it not a
wonderful thing that men can thus meet God and commune with
Him face to face? This is the glory of faith, for, "he that comes to
God must believe that He is." This is not an arbitrary condition, but
arises from the nature of things. Just as in a map of the two
hemispheres, the circles only touch and only can touch at one point,
so God can only meet men by faith. Thus, to be a Believer in God
is to have a faculty by which we can touch the Eternal.
It is not enough, however, merely to know God as the Creator.
"You believe in God, believe also in Me," says the Lord Jesus. "No
man comes unto the Father, but by Me." Better be a Believer in
Christ than have all the wealth of the Indies rolled to your feet and
all the thrones of the world at your disposal, for you then possess
the unsearchable riches of Christ and will, one day, share His
Throne of Glory! Oh, that all who now hear my words were,
indeed, among those who believe! Why should you not venture at
this moment to launch out on the ocean of Divine Truth? It is no
venture, for a Believer in Christ is one who cannot be lost! God
deals with those who believe as He dealt with Abraham and only
those who believe can have dealings with Him. How, then, does the
Believer act towards God? Let us look at the case before us.
God said to the Patriarch, "Abraham," and he said, "Behold, here
I am." When God speaks to the Believer, he, on his part, is honored
by the call. Have you ever heard God speak to you? I do not mean
that with your ears you have heard any audible voice, but has He
not spoken to your heart in such a way that, if there were no other
men alive, God could not have spoken more pointedly and
definitely to you? God called Abraham. It is the way with Him to
say, "Samuel, Samuel." It is the way with Him to call, "Saul, Saul."
"I have called you by your name; you are Mine." "He calls His
own sheep by name and leads them out." What greater honor can
we have than this? The King knows our name and addresses us! In
a law court, one day, a man who was quite at the back began to
struggle and press his way forward. And the people angrily told
him to be quiet. "Did you not hear?" he said, "I am called."
Instantly they opened a way for him to the front and admired his
prompt action. How much readier we should be to reply to the
voice of God, recognizing the privilege and honor thus bestowed
upon us! Have you not had such a call and responded to it?
Next, the Believer shows himself ready to be taught. As soon as
God said, "Abraham," he answered, "Here I am." He seemed to
say, "Here I am, Lord, all attentive. Master, say on! Speak, Lord,
for Your servant hears." Are you always in that condition, ready to
be taught of God? Is His Word precious to you? Is His Holy Spirit
greatly reverenced by you, so that the moment you hear Him call,
you wait to hear what God the Lord will speak to you, knowing
that "He will speak peace unto His people and to His saints"?
Happy is the man who is thus ready to be taught!
Moreover, the Believer must be ready to obey as well as ready to
be taught. He must be willing to say, "Here I stand as Your servant.
I know not what the orders are going to be, but here I am. Send me
where You will with what burden You will, as long as You will.
Here I am." If you are not willing to obey, you may be quite sure
you are not a Believer, for obedience is the natural outcome of
belief. You remember the last verse of the third of John–"he that
believes on the Son has everlasting life. "And then, immediately,
another word is used which bears a stronger sense and may be
rendered, "He that obeys not the Son shall not see life." For, truly,
if we believe on Christ, we shall also obey Him. Are you, dear
Friend, willing to say to God, "Here I am. Send me–let me be
actively engaged in Your service. Or, if it pleases You better, bid
me go up to my bed, lie there and suffer sickness and pain. I am
ready to obey, just as You will"? Abraham was ready to be taught
and ready to obey.
And, more than that, the Believer will be equally ready to
surrender. "Abraham." "Here I am." He does not know what God is
going to ask of him. It may be Sarah. It may be Isaac. I dare say
that Isaac was the last person that he expected would be asked of
him, seeing that all his hopes were bound up in him and he was the
child of promise. God often does the unexpected with His servants.
However, there was no reserve about it. Abraham said, "Here I
am"–
"Yes, should You take them all away,
Yet will I not repine.
Before they were possessed by me
They were entirely Thine."
And they are still entirely Yours! Oh, what a glorious state of
mind–to be ready to learn, ready to obey and ready to surrender!
And Abraham was also ready to be inspected. He says, "Here I
am." Adam went and hid himself in the garden and God had to call
after him, "Where are you?" Abraham was ready when God called
him. It will be well if you can say, when you kneel at your bedside
tonight, "Lord, I have nothing to conceal. I am sincere before You.
I would have You acquainted with all my faults and sins, that You
may wash them away. I would have You know all my mistakes and
errors, that You may correct them all. You know all things. You
know that I love You. I am no hypocrite. I have made no pretence
of being Your servant while I have been serving self and sin." O
blessed man, that dares to open his bosom, to lay bare his very
heart and say, "Shine into me, O Lord, and let Your searching light
go through and through me, for in truth I am Your servant!"
The Believer who is prepared to respond to the Lord in such a
way has much cause to praise, for he has been made education of
Divine Grace that had brought him up to it. Beloved, you may
think yourself ready for any service or any trial, but you are not
unless Divine Grace has done great things for you. Then every act
performed by Grace becomes, through Grace, an apprenticeship for
a greater one!
For God's sake, Abraham had left his country and his father's
house. Have you come out from the world? If you have not, you
cannot say, "Here I am." Poor Soul, still siding with the world, you
are where you ought not to be! "Come out from among them, and
be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing;
and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall
be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." Abraham had
boldly obeyed God's command and separated himself from his old
companions.
Next, Abraham had yielded to Lot. He let him take his choice of
the best part of the land, even the well-watered plain of Sodom. He
had not disputed with him. Are you willing to let the worldling
have the best of it here, below, and to take your portion, by-and-by,
in the Promised Land? If not, you cannot say, "Here I am," because
you will probably be up to your neck in worldliness and as greedy
after gain as anybody else! You are taking your portion among the
men of Sodom and Gomorrah–how can you say, "Here I am"? Lot
could not have said it, but Abraham could.
Moreover, Abraham had defied foes. Four kings came into the
country and he had only a handful of servants and friends, yet he
went after them like a flash of lightning and smote the four kings.
Well, now, if you are a cowardly fellow and have never dared to,
"Stand up, stand up for Jesus," you cannot say, "Here I am." Where
are you? Hiding away, trying to save your precious skin and to
avoid being laughed at for Christ? You will not be ready for the
Lord's call till you come out and "fight the good fight of faith."
But God had trained His servant Abraham to do yet more. He had
despised the world when he told the king of Sodom that he would
not take anything of his, "from a thread even to a shoelace." And
now he can say, "Here I am." Until we get free from all worldly
entanglements and cease, even in the least thing, to rely on an arm
of flesh, or to resort to worldly expedients, we shall not be prepared
to respond instantly to the call of God!
Abraham had gone even further. He had cast out the bondwoman
and her son and now he could say, "Here I am." As long as you
hold on to legalism and trust in your own good works, you dare not
rise to meet God, for you are under the Law and not under Grace!
But when that is all gone, you can say, "Here I am, in the Covenant
of Grace, standing in Christ Jesus, ready for anything."
Again, Abraham had prevailed with God in prayer. You remember
how he had pleaded for the wicked cities of the plain and God had
allowed him to continue his intercessions with great boldness? O
Beloved, you cannot say, "Here I am," if God has never known you
as a suppliant at His Throne of Grace! Sometimes I have said to
myself, "The Lord Jesus Christ can never say to me at the last, 'I
never knew you: depart from Me,' for He has known me as I know
a poor man in the street who has begged of me every day." 1 am
always begging of my Lord, clamoring at Him for one thing or
another. He knows me well enough. Why, when I was but a youth, I
trusted Him for my eternal salvation! He called me to Himself and
blessed me. I know that He will never be able to say to me, "I never
knew you." Beloved, this is why Abraham was so quick in
responding to God's call, because he was God's friend who was on
such intimate terms with his Lord that he could intercede with Him
on the behalf of guilty men!
My last thought is most precious. Since the Believer is thus
prepared by Grace to respond to the Lord's call, as Abraham did,
when he said, "Here I am," he will be kept ready to the end. My
great desire is that you and I should be ready for anything that the
Lord wills and keep always ready for it, so that if Christ should
come at cock-crowing, or should come at midday, or midnight, we
would be ready! And if death should come, we would be ready.
And if we should lose our dearest friend, our choicest treasure, our
health–anything or everything–yet still we would, each one, say,
"Lord, I never made any bargain with You. I never had anything
reserved from You. If it is Your will, it is my will. If You say it, so
be it, for who am I, and what is Your servant, that I should dare to
dispute with the Infinite Wisdom of Infallible Love?"
Happy is the man who can say, "Here I am." The Lord put you
into that frame of mind and then it shall be said of you, "He shall
not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord."
You shall go merrily through life and joyfully to death–and you
shall rise triumphantly in the glad morning–for when God shall call
you, then you will each one answer, "Here I am, for You did call
me."–"From beds of dust and silent clay,"we shall arise with songs
in our mouths to answer to the Resurrection trumpet and so shall
we be forever with the Lord. Thus shall all the children of faith be
blessed with faithful Abraham! God bless these words to you, dear
Friends, for Jesus' sake! Amen. PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ
BEFORE SERMON–Genesis 22.HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
HYMN BOOK"–208, 750, 703.MR. SPURGEON UPDATE:
The following letter, written by MR. SPURGEON to the
congregation at the Tabernacle last Lord's-Day, will give the latest
information as to his progress towards recovery–Westwood, Beulah
Hill, Upper Norwood, September 20, 1891.
"BELOVED FRIENDS–May this Sabbath be a high day with
you! May this be a day wherein the Good Shepherd shall find His
lost sheep and lay them, rejoicing, on His shoulders! Mr. Fullerton,
whom I greatly love in the Lord, has won many souls abroad–may
he again have many gracious captives among us at home!
"I would not write of myself, only you need to know, and you
desire to know all that I can tell. I am sitting up this morning to
write you before the doctor comes at 8:30 and so I cannot tell what
he will say of me. The affectionate and effectual prayers of the
saints dragged me back to life and only by the same means shall I
recover strength. I will not touch upon my present affliction. You
will guess at it when I say that, although the stairs to my bedroom
are very easy, I cannot ascend them, but have to be carried up by
others. The heart as yet will not endure even that small climb,
therefore I still need your prayers and I know I shall have them, for
your love never ceases.
"You have kept together most lovingly during the four months
now nearly over. Can you abide my further absence, which is
painful to me, and yet absolutely needed? The Lord grant it, I shall
come among you fit for service, but it cannot be for months. The
Lord does not give half-mercies. He will perfect that which
concerns us. How He has heard prayer! Had I died, all infidelity
would have noted it as a proof that prayer was useless–we have a
right, now, to score one on the other side. You would have been
much discouraged if prayer had not been answered and it is fair
that now you should be equally encouraged and established in your
confidence in the prayer-hearing Jehovah!
"The Lord bless every one of you! Let our love continue in all
patience of hope. "Yours ever heartily, C. H. SPURGEON."
Ge 22:2 • Mature Faith — Illustrated by Abraham's
ERMON 0868
Mature Faith—Illustrated By Abraham's Offering Up
Isaac
"And He said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom
you love, and get you into the land of Moriah; and offer him there
for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you
of."
Genesis 22:2
I DO not intend to enter into this narrative in its bearing upon our
Lord, although we have here one of the most famous types of the
Only-Begotten, whom the Great Father offered up for the sins of
His people. Perhaps that may be the subject this evening. But as I
have, in the recollection of some of you, already given you three
sermons upon the life of Abraham, [See Metropolitan Tabernacle
Pulpit–Volume 14–Nos. 843, 844, 845–"Effectual Calling–
Illustrated by the Call of Abram." "Justification by Faith–Illustrated
by Abram's Righteousness." "Consecration to God–Illustrated by
Abraham's Circumcision."] illustrating his effectual calling, his
justification and his consecration to the Lord, we will now
complete the series by dwelling upon the triumph of Abraham's
faith when his spiritual life had come to the highest point of
maturity.
Opening your Bibles at this chapter, you will please observe the
time when God tried Abraham with the severest of his many
ordeals. It was "after these things," that is to say, after nine great
trials, each of them most searching and remarkable. After he had
passed through a great flight of affliction and had through the
process been strengthened and sanctified, he was called to endure a
still sterner test. From which fact it is well to learn that God does
not put heavy burdens upon weak shoulders and He does not allot
ordeals fit only for full-grown men to those who are but babes. He
educates our faith, testing it by trials which increase little by little
in proportion as our faith has increased.
He only expects us to do man's work and to endure man's
afflictions when we have passed through the childhood state and
have arrived at the stature of men in Christ Jesus. Expect then,
Beloved, your trials to multiply as you proceed towards Heaven!
Do not think that as you grow in Divine Grace the path will
become smoother beneath your feet and the heavens serener above
your heads. On the contrary, reckon that as God gives you greater
skill as a soldier, He will send you upon more arduous enterprises.
And as He more fully fits your boat to brave the tempest and the
storm, so will He send you out upon more boisterous seas and upon
longer voyages, that you may honor Him and still further increase
in holy confidence.
You would have thought that Abraham had now come to the land
Beulah, that in his old age, after the birth of Isaac and especially
after the expulsion of Ishmael, he would have had a time of perfect
rest. Let this warn us that we are never to reckon upon rest from
tribulation this side of the grave. No, the trumpet still sounds the
note of war. You may not yet sit down and bind the wreath of
victory about your brow–no garlands of laurel and songs of victory
for you, yet–you have still to wear the helmet and bear the sword.
You must still watch and pray, and fight, expecting that, perhaps,
your last battle will be the worst and that the fiercest charge of the
foe may be reserved for the end of the day.
Having thus observed the time when God was pleased to try the
great pattern of Believers, we shall now look at the trial itself. We
shall next see Abraham's behavior under it, and shall, in
conclusion, spend a little time in noting the reward which came to
him as the result of his endurance.
And first, THE TRIAL ITSELF. Every syllable of the text is
significant. If George Herbert were speaking of it, he would say the
words are all a case of knives cutting at Abraham's soul. There is
scarcely a single syllable of God's address to him, in the opening of
this trial, but seems intended to pierce the Patriarch to the quick.
Look. "Take now your son." What? A father slay his son! Was there
nothing in Abraham's tent that God would have but his son? He
would cheerfully have given Him sacrifices of bullocks and flocks
of sheep! All the silver and the gold he possessed he would have
lavished from the bag with eager cheerfulness!
Will nothing content the Lord but Abraham's son? If one must be
offered of humankind, why not Eliezer of Damascus, the steward of
his house? Must it be his son? How this tugs at the father's
heartstrings! His son, the offspring of his own loins, must be made
a burnt offering! Will not God be content with any proof of his
obedience but the surrender of the fruit of his body? The word only
is made particularly emphatic by the fact that Ishmael had been
exiled at the command of God. Very much to Abraham's grief
Hagar's child had been driven out. "Cast out this bondwoman and
her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my
son, even with Isaac." So said Sarah–and God bade the Patriarch
regard the voice of his wife, so that now Isaac was his only son.
If Isaac shall die, there is no other descendant left and no
probabilities of any other to succeed him. The light of Abraham
will be quenched and his name forgotten. Sarah is very old, as he
himself is also–no infant's cry will again gladden the tent–and
Isaac is his only son, a lone star of the night, the only son, the lamp
of his father's old age. Nor is that all–"Your only son, Isaac." What
a multitude of memories that word, "Isaac," awoke in Abraham's
mind! This was the child of promise, of a promise graciously given,
of a promise, the fulfillment of which was anxiously expected, but
long, long, long delayed.
Isaac, who had made his parents' hearts to laugh–the child of the
Covenant–the child in whom the father's hopes all centered, for he
had been assured, "In Isaac shall your seed be called." What? After
all must the gift of God be retracted? Must the Covenant of God be
nullified, and the channel of the promised blessings be dried up
forever? Oh, trial of trials! "Your son." "Your only son." "Your
only son, Isaac." And it was added, "whom you love." Must he be
reminded of his love to his heir at the very time when he is to lose
him? Oh, stern word that seems to have no heart of compassion in
it! Was it not enough to take away the loved one, without at the
same instant awakening the affections which were so rudely to be
shocked?
Isaac was very rightly beloved of his father, for in addition to the
ties of nature and his being the gift of God's Divine Grace, Isaac's
character was most lovely. His behavior on the occasion of his
sacrifice proves that in his spirit there was an abundance of
humility, obedience, resignation and gentleness–indeed, of
everything which can make up the beauty of holiness! And such a
character was quite sure to have won the admiration of his father,
Abraham, whose spiritual eyes were well qualified to discern the
excellences which shone in his beloved son. Ah, why must Isaac
die? And die, too, by his father's hand! Oh, trial of trials!
Contemplative imagination and sympathetic emotion can better
depict the father's grief than any words which it is in my power to
use. I cast a veil where I cannot paint a picture! But note, not only
was this tender father to lose the best of sons, but he was to lose
him in the direst way. He must be sacrificed–he must be sacrificed
by the father himself! If the Lord had said, "Speak with Eliezer and
charge him to offer up your son," it would have softened the trial.
But so far as Abraham could understand the command, it seemed to
say, you Abraham, you must be the priest. Your own hand must
grasp the sacrificial knife and you must stand there with breaking
heart to drive the knife into the breast of your son and see him
consumed, even to ashes, upon the altar.
All this appeared to him to be involved in God's word, although
the Lord meant not so, but meant to accept the will for the deed.
Everything was designed to make the trial severe. The friend of
God was tried in such a way as probably never fell to the lot of man
before or since. In addition to the sacrifice, Abraham was
commanded to go to a mountain which God would show him. It is
easy, on the spur of the moment, and under the influence of sacred
impulse, to hastily perform an heroic deed of self-sacrifice. But it is
not so easy for men of passions, such as ours, to deliberate over the
sacrifices demanded of us.
But Abraham must have three days to chew this bitter pill which
was, indeed, hard enough, merely, to swallow and all the more
unpalatable when a man is made to learn in detail the wormwood
and the gall–he must journey on with that dear son before his eyes
all day–listening to that voice so soon to be silent and gazing into
those bright eyes so soon to swim with tears and to be dimmed in
death. Abraham would have to remember in him his mother's joy
and his own delight, and all the while meditating upon that fatal
stroke which, so far as he knew, God required of him. Oh, this
laying siege to us by long and careful barricade is that which tries
us! A sharp assault we might far better bear!
To be burnt to death quickly upon the blazing firewood is
comparatively an easy martyrdom. But to hang in chains roasting at
a slow fire–to have the heart, hour by hour, pressed as in a vice–
this it is that which tries faith! And this it was that Abraham
endured through three long days! Only faith, mighty faith, could
have assisted him to look in the face the grim trial which now
assailed him. The Patriarch was, no doubt, moved and tried and
exercised not merely by the words which God pronounced in his
hearing, but by natural and painful suggestions which, however
readily they may have been disposed of, were, it would appear to
us, certain to arise.
He might have said, "I am called upon to perform an act which
violates every instinct of my nature, I am to offer up my child!
Horrible! Murderous! I am to burn my slaughtered child as a
religious act–terrible, barbarous, detestable! I am, myself, to offer
him upon the altar deliberately. How can I do it? How can God ask
me to do that which tears up by the roots every one of the
affections which He Himself has implanted–which runs counter to
the whole of my noblest humanity? How can I do this?"
Brothers and Sisters, coming home to ourselves and trying to
make a personal application of this, we may be called by the Word
of God to acts of obedience which may seem to us to do violence to
all our natural affections. Christians are sometimes commanded to
come out from the world by decided acts which provoke the hatred
of those who are nearest and dearest. Now, if they love God, they
will not love father nor mother, nor husband, nor brother, nor sister
in comparison with Him. And though Christians will ever be
among the most tender-hearted of men, they will count their
allegiance to God to be such that they must give up all for His sake,
and deny every natural affection sooner than violate the Divine
Law.
Perhaps today you are suffering under an affliction which is
grieving all the powers of your nature. Perhaps the Lord has been
pleased to take away from you one dearer than life–for whom you
could have been well content to die. Oh, learn with Abraham to
kiss the rod! Let not Isaac stand before God! Let Isaac be dear, but
let Isaac die sooner than God should be distrusted! Bow your head
and say, "Take what You will, my God. Slay me, or take all I have,
but I will still bless Your holy name." This was a main part of
Abraham's trial–that it appeared to crush rudely all the tender
outgrowths of the heart. And it may have suggested itself to
Abraham that he would in this way, by the slaughter of his son, be
rendering all the promises of God futile.
A very severe trial, that, for in proportion as a man believes the
promise and values it, will be his fear to do anything which might
render it of no effect. Brethren, there are times with us when we are
called to a course of action which looks as though it would
jeopardize our highest hopes. A Christian man is sometimes bound
by duty to perform an action which, to all appearances, will destroy
his future usefulness. I have often heard men urge, as a plea for
remaining in a corrupt Church, that they would lose the influence
they had obtained in its midst by reason of their position if they
followed their conscience and were true to God. But they are bound
to lose all their supposed influence and renounce their apparent
vantage ground sooner than commit the least trespass upon their
conscience! As much bound to do so as Abraham was bound to
offer up Isaac–in whom all the promises of God were centered.
It is neither your business nor mine to fulfill God's promise, nor
to do the least wrong to produce the greatest good. To do evil that
good may come is false morality and wicked policy! For us is
duty–for God is the fulfillment of His own promise and the
preservation of our usefulness. Though He dash my reputation into
shivers and cast my usefulness to the four winds, yet if duty calls
me, I must not hesitate a single second–for in that hesitation I shall
be disobedient to my God! At the behest of God, Isaac must be
offered though the heavens fall! And faith must answer all polite
suggestions by the assurance that what God ordains can never, in
its ultimate issue, produce anything but good! Obedience can never
endanger blessings, for commands are never in real conflict with
promises–God can raise up Isaac and fulfill His own decree.
Further, Abraham may have felt–one would think must have felt–
the thought that the death of Isaac was the destruction of all his
comfort. The tent shall be darkened for Sarah and the plain of
Mamre barren as a wilderness for her lamenting heart. Alas for the
wretched parent who has lost the hope of his old age and the stay of
his decrepitude! The sun grows black at noon and the moon is
eclipsed in darkness if Isaac dies. Better that all calamities should
have happened than this dear child be taken away! He must have
felt thus, but it did not make him hesitate. Sometimes the course of
duty may lie right over the dead body of our dearest comfort and
our brightest hope. It may be our duty to do that which will involve
a succession of sorrows all but endless.
But you must do right come what may. If the Lord bids you, you
must seek faith to do it, though from that moment never should
another joy make glad your heart until you are fully compensated
for the loss of all by entering into the joy of your Lord at the last. It
must also, I should think, have occurred to Abraham, though he did
not let it weigh with him, that from that time forth he would make
himself many enemies. Many would distrust his character. Many
would count him a perfect wretch–he would find wherever he went
that he was shunned as a murderer of his own child. How should he
bear to meet Sarah again? "Where is my son? Surely a bloody
husband are you to me," she would say, with far greater truth than
Zipporah to Moses.
How could he meet his servants again? How could he bear their
looks which would say to him, "You have slain your son!
Embraced our hands in the blood of your own offspring!" How
could he face Abimelech and the Philistines? How would the
wandering tribes which roamed about his tent all hear of this
strange massacre and shudder at the thought of the monster who
defiled the earth on which he trod! And yet observe the holy
carelessness of this godlike man as to what might be thought or
said of him. What mattered it to him? Let them count him a devil–
let a universal hiss consign him to the lowest Hell of hatred and
contempt–he reckons not of it. God's will must be done! God will
take care of His servant's character, or if He does not, His servant
must suffer the consequences for his Lord's sake.
Abraham must obey! No second course is open to him. He will
not think of disobedience. He knows that God is right and he must
do God's will, come what may. This, mark you, is one of the most
grand points about the faith of the father of the faithful–and if you
and I shall be called to exhibit it, may we never be found lacking–
but brave calumny and reproach with cheerfulness, through the
power of the Holy Spirit.
How Luther's lips must at first have trembled when he ventured
to say that the Pope was Antichrist! Why, Man, how can you dare
to say such a thing? Millions bow down before him! He is the vicar
of God on earth! Do they not worship our Lord God the Pope? "Yet
he is Antichrist and a very devil," said Luther. And at first he must
have felt his ears burn and his cheeks grow red at such a piece of
apparent wickedness. And when he found himself shunned by the
ecclesiastics who once had courted Doctor Martin Luther's
company, think of what emptiness he must have felt!
And when he heard the common howl that went up–even from
the refuse of mankind–that the monk was a drunkard and, inasmuch
as he chose to marry a nun, was filled with lust and sold to Satan
and I know not what beside, it must have been a grand thing when
Luther could feel, "They may call me what they will, but I know
that God has spoken unto my soul the great Truth that man is to be
saved by faith in Jesus Christ and not by ceremonies which the
Pope ordains, nor the indulgences which he grants. And if my name
is consigned to the limbo of the infernal, yet will I speak out the
Truth of God which I know, and in God's name I will not hold my
tongue." We must be brought to this–to be willing to put aside the
verdict of our times and of all times past or future and to stand
alone, if need be, in the midst of a howling and infuriated world, to
do honor to the command of God which is the only necessity to us.
It is imperative for us to obey, even though it should bring shame
or death itself.
Here, then, was Abraham's faith made perfect, that, inasmuch as
the outward circumstances were severe and the suggestions arising
out of the circumstances were peculiarly perplexing, he put aside
both and dared the ills of all in order that he might, without delay
or objection, fulfill his Master's will to the full extent–firmly
believing that no hurt would come of it, but rather he, himself,
should be more blessed and God more glorified.
II. We shall now notice THE PATRIARCH UNDER THE TRIAL.
In Abraham's bearing during this test everything is delightful. In
trying to mention each detail, I fear that I may mar the effect of the
whole. His obedience is a picture of all the virtues in one, blended
in marvelous harmony! It is not so much in one point that the great
Patriarch excels as in the whole of his sacred deed.
First notice the submission of Abraham under this temptation. His
submission, I say, because you will observe that there is no record
kept of any answer which Abraham gave to God, verbally, or in any
other form. I suppose, therefore, that there was none. Strange and
startling command, "Take your only son and offer him for a burnt
sacrifice!" But Abraham does not argue the point. It is natural to
expect that he should have said, "But, Lord, do You really mean it?
Can a human sacrifice ever be acceptable to You? I know it cannot.
You are love and kindness–can You take delight, therefore, in the
blood of my dear son? It cannot be."
But there is not a word of argument! Not one solitary question
that even looks like hesitation. "God is God," he seems to say and
it is not for me to ask Him why, or seek a reason for His bidding.
He has said it. "I will do it." There does not appear to have been a
word of entreaty or prayer. Prayer against so dread a trial might not
have been sinful. If the man had been less a man it might have been
not only natural, but right for him to say, "O my God, spare my
child! Put me on some other trial, but not on this, so strange, so
mysterious. My Lord, for Sarah's sake and for Your promise sake,
test me not so."
I say that such a prayer as that might not have been sinful from an
ordinary man. It might have been, perhaps, even virtuous and
commendable–but from this grand soul there is no such prayer! He
does not ask to escape. He does not pray to be delivered when he
once knows God's will. Much less is there the semblance of
murmuring. The man goes about the whole business as if he had
been only ordered to sacrifice a lamb ordinarily taken from the
flock. There is a coolness of deliberation about it which does not
prove that he was a stoic, but which does prove that he was
gigantic in his faith! "Not staggering," says the Apostle–and that is
just the word.
You and I, if we had done right, would have done it in a
staggering, hesitating manner–but Abraham–not a nerve quivers,
not a muscle is paralyzed. He knows that God commands him and
with awful sternness, and yet with childlike simplicity, he sets
about the sacrifice. The lesson I gather from this (and we may as
well collect these lessons as we go, as gleaners who gather the ears
as they walk down the furrows)–the lesson is this–when you know
a duty, never pray to be excused but go and do it in God's name in
the power of faith. If ever you clearly see your Master's will, do
not begin to argue it or wait for better opportunities and so on–do it
at once!
I know not how much of joy and honor some of you may have
missed by the evil habit of beating around the bush with your
consciences. It is a very terrible thing to begin to let conscience
grow hard, for it soon sears as with a hot iron. It is like the freezing
of a pond. The first film of ice is scarcely perceptible–keep the
waters stirring and you will prevent the ice from hardening it. But
once let it film over and remain so, it thickens over the surface and
it thickens still and at last it is so solid that a wagon might be drawn
over the solid water. So with conscience. It films over gradually
and at last it becomes hard, unfeeling–and it can bear up with a
weight of iniquity. Ah, it is not for us to delay obedience under the
pretense of prayer, but to yield prompt service.
I have been sometimes surprised and staggered with Christian
people who have said in the matter of Baptism, for instance, "I am
persuaded that it is my duty as a Believer to be baptized, but it has
never been laid home to my conscience." Never laid home to your
conscience?! You know that God commands and yet you dare
confess your conscience has become so base that you do not feel it
your duty to obey?! "Oh, but I have not felt that it is impressed on
me." Felt! And is feeling to be the measure of your allegiance to