Genesis Chapter 22.
In the Gospel of Mark we read at Chapter 12 and verse 33, "To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." It is with this thought firmly in our minds coupled with the well known command, "to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."that we must tackle Genesis Chapter 22. The chapter opens with these words, "Some time later God tested Abraham." And the Lord is testing Abraham's love and commitment and trust.
So let us begin with a quote from John Calvin's commentary on this Chapter, "Abraham had passed an unsettled life in continued exile up to his eightieth year; having been harassed with many problems, he had endured a miserable existence, in continual trepidation; famine had driven him out of the land he had gone to by the command of God. He had gone to Egypt. Twice his wife had been torn from his bosom; he had been separated from his nephew; he had delivered this nephew when captured in war at the peril of his own life. He had lived childless with his wife when yet all his hopes were suspended upon his having offspring. having at length obtained a son, he was compelled to disinherit him, and to drive him far from home. Isaac alone remained, his special and only consolation; he was enjoying peace at home, but now God suddenly thundered out of heaven, denouncing the sentence of death upon his son."
This then is the situation in which Abraham finds himself. We may marvel as we read this passage at the apparent calmness with which Abraham obeys the command of God. This is after all the man who had argued for the saving of Sodom. He was no stranger to disobeying God or arguing with him. We have seen in Genesis, Abraham fall many times from grace. We have also seen of course his tremendous faith. This is to be the final test of Abraham's love for and trust of God. It seems that as we read this story his devotion to God, that is loving him with all his heart, mind and soul has at last come to fruition.
But what does Abraham expect? What is going through his head? To sacrifice his son appears to be folly...it will negate everything that the Lord has promised will happen through Isaac. It is the writer to the Hebrews who places this is perspective in Chapter 11. There we read, "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned".Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead and figuratively speaking he did receive Isaac back from death."
And that sets it all in its proper perspective. Abraham had total faith in the power of God. He had at last learned to trust God totally. It had been a hard lesson for him to learn, but at last he was prepared to do it. That is why he can at with apparent calmness and why at verse 5 he can say with such confidence, "the boy and I will go over there and worship and then we will come back to you." We are talking here of the kind of faith and trust that Jesus was encouraging when he said, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "move from here to there" and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." The end result of this whole well known episode in scripture is that Abraham has the blessing confirmed and the promise renewed and Abraham called the place where it happened, "The Lord will provide."
Now we may ask ourselves what practical applications does this passage have for us in our daily living. Well let me endeavour to place it in that context by relating a fairly well known story concerning Cliff Richard, Those of you old enough to remember Cliff Richard in his early days will remember the publicity surrounding his conversion to Christianity. It was announced in the press that Cliff would give up show business and devote his life to teaching and social work. Now we know that this did not happen. Cliff Richard calls this time his Isaac experience. God he says quite clearly said to him that he must give up his music and everything to do with it if he wanted to serve Jesus. After a great struggle Cliff realised that loving Jesus was more important than anything else in his life and that if God wanted him to give up his career he would gladly do so. And that's what he did - only like Abraham just as he was on the point of no return God made it plain that he was not to sacrifice his career at all but rather use it in the service of the Kingdom.
Having experienced a similar situation in my own life where I had to choose and having chosen was told I didn't need to do it, I have become convinced that this "Isaac" experience is fundamental to the experience of many Christians. God tests us all. And the really big test is whether or not we love
" the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength." It is a test we have to pass. And it is a point to which the Lord will surely bring us. Do you remember the rich young man who came to Jesus. How he wanted to have eternal life, how he wanted to be good and blessed. Do you remember how he had faithfully followed all the commandments. And then Jesus looked into his heart an loved him we are told. Jesus saw that there was something there in his heart that he loved more that God and so he said to him, "one thing you lack, GO, sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, and follow me." But the young man went away a sad man because he couldn't do it. Because when as they say push came to shove he loved his money and his home and his status more than he loved the Lord his God.
And that's the question we all have to face isn't? What we must regularly do in our spiritual journey is too examine our lives our souls and our commitment. Do we love God absolutely and above all else? Do we? If not what is in the way? What is it that must be cut ruthlessly our of our lives of we are to know the blessings of heaven? Did we once love God this way? Over the years have other concerns crept in and God been relegated to the back burner of our lives? Where are we on our spiritual journey? Could we today with our hands on our hearts say that we love God more than anything else in the world? In other words are we being obedient to God?
The catalogue of things that can get in the way are legion. How easily anything can creep into an unlawful position in our lives: it can be our careers or our gardens or our cars or other people......the list is endless...but it is ordinary things and ambitions that get in the way. The mature Christian will constantly be on guard against this and will constantly monitor the quality and nature of his soul's relationship to God. Bear this in mind, and think of the test with which we began,
"To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."