Volume 45, No. 25
Genesis 22:1-19
Sermon prepared by Rev. Ray Vander Kooij, Simcoe, Ont.
Proposed Order of Service
Welcome and Announcements
Hymn #47, “Nations Clap Your Hands”
Call to Worship: Revelation 4:11-14
Silent Personal Prayer, concluded with #629, “Worthy
is Christ”
Greeting: May grace, mercy and peace be ours, from
the God who is and who was and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ,
the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the Lamb on
the throne ruling over all things. Amen.
Hymn #621:1,2,5, “The God of Abraham Praise”
Commitment and Dedication
Our call to commitment and dedication, through which we find freedom
in Christ, comes in these words from John 8:31-40, 56-58
Sin enslaves, Jesus Christ saves.
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed, and if you hold
to the truth of Jesus’ teachings, you will continue to live
in the freedom of the truth. Let’s sing of how our freedom
comes through nothing else and in no other way than through the
Son of God, who sets us free.
Hymn #374, “No Weight of Gold or Silver”
Receiving God’s Word
Prayer for Illumination
Scripture: Genesis 22:1-19
Sermon: "The View from Mount Moriah"
Responding to The Word
Hymn #446, “If You But Trust in God to Guide You”
Congregational Prayer
Offering
Going Forth to Serve
Hymn #285: 1,3,4, “O Jesus, I Have Promised”
Blessing: May the God of all hope fill us with
joy and peace in believing that our hearts and lives might
overflow with hope, through the power and presence of the Holy
Spirit.
Communal Amen.
Sermon
Tests. Those of you in school are well aware of that word
and the whole mix of emotions it can stir up inside of us. But
tests aren’t limited to school, for good or for ill. There
are driving tests, mostly also for those who are young, but also
again when
some reach an older age. There are tests when we apply for a job,
tests jump up here and there all through life.
We tend to have an aversion to tests. They cause stress in our
lives. There is always the possibility of succeeding or passing,
or of failing. If there isn’t, it’s not a test —
it’s a game and nothing of significance rides on it. Tests
have significance and cause stress because they have consequences
— you can pass or fail.
All our tests, no matter what their potential consequences, pale
in comparison to God’s test of Abraham. Did you notice that
in the first few words of our text this whole account is called
a test?
God is testing Abraham. A very horrible and repulsive test to
our sensibilities — even just imagining God commending a human
sacrifice.
Beyond being horrible and repulsive to us, this test may be awkward
and disturbing for another reason. Because the test suggests, and
not just subtly, that God did not know something and then became
aware of it. This may be awkward and disturbing to some of our images
and understanding of God, but it’s something this test faces
us with.
In verse 1 it says that God tested Abraham. In verse 12, after
Abraham has passed the test, God says, “Now I know.”
There is definitely a flow from something God doesn’t know
to something He does know. If God can’t know something and
then become aware of it, all you have left here is a game, with
Abraham as the pawn.
This is not a game God is playing. This is a matter of life and
death. And not only of human life and death, but the life and death
of promises — God’s promises.
And it’s an absolutely staggering test — the astounding
demand and command that he must offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice
to God. Isaac, miraculously born in Abraham’s old age, the
son of promise — the son through whom God’s promise
to Abraham were to begin to be fulfilled — the promise that
all nations would be blessed through Abraham and that his descendants
would number like the stars in the sky and like the sand on the
seashore.
Abraham is asked, no, he is commanded to destroy the
last hope he has for fulfilling God’s promises. He is commanded
to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering on a mountain in the region
of Moriah.
For three days, Abraham and Isaac and his servants journey to
this region — three days to sweat it out — intense agonizing,
aversion, stress. Then the servants are left behind.
Abraham loads the wood for the sacrifice on Isaac, and together
they continue up the mountain. Then comes the critical moment of
the test, long before the knife is lifted — Isaac says, “The
fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt
offering? (pause)
A question that cuts deep into Abraham’s heart. His response
marks the pivotal point of the test: “God himself will provide
the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Abraham believes
that this lamb may be Isaac, his son. He doesn’t know about
the ram, like we do.
He has an unwavering trust that God will provide, that He will
somehow make a way for his promises to be fulfilled. He doesn’t
know the details of the outcome but he trusts the certainty and
faithfulness of God and is open to the details.
Abraham’s trust that God will provide doesn’t for
a moment though reduce his agony — agony grips his every step
up the mountain. At the altar he and Isaac build together, Abraham
tells Isaac that he will be the sacrificial lamb. Trust amazingly
continues to mark the test — against all human desires and
even common sense — as Isaac is bound to the altar and Abraham
picks up the knife, to plunge it into the son he loves.
An angel of the Lord intervenes: “Do not lay a hand on the
boy. Do not do anything to him. Now I know... now I know that you
fear God because you have not withheld from Me your son, your only
son.” And God provides a ram to sacrifice instead of Isaac
— the promises will continue through Abraham and Isaac.
Abraham passes the test. Why exactly God tests Abraham, we don’t
know precisely. Why God provides a substitute we don’t know
precisely. But we do know what stands between these two unknowns
of the test and the provision, because it comes from our side, from
the human side.
It’s the deepest mystery of human faith. “God himself
will provide.”
In the face of the test Abraham trusts that God will provide.
Abraham is a Psalm 37:5 man: “Commit your ways to the Lord,
trust in him and He will act.” Between the test and the provision
stands trust.
Against all common sense, human desires, life-long ambitions stand
unqualified trust that God provides. Abraham called the place “The
Lord Will Provide.” Not in the past tense or the present tense,
but in the future tense. The Lord Will Provide.
“On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided”
became a motto, a saying in Israel. Again and again Israel literally
experienced the Lord providing on a mountain. On Mt. Sinai with
Moses, Mt. Carmel with Elijah, Mt. Zion with the worshiping pilgrims
— on Mt. Calvary where we stand at the foot of the cross.
In the view from Mt. Moriah no other mountains of provision stand
so starkly and clearly as Calvary. The most distant in time, but
the closest in proximity or geography. You see, Mt. Moriah may have
been the very same place as Mt. Calvary, or very near by.
And in the provision on Mount Moriah we see a view of the provision
on Mt. Calvary. Jesus, the one and dearly loved Son of God, carries
the wood for his sacrifice — the cross on his back. Like the
ram, the ticket of thorns is twisted together and thrust on his
head, and He is tied and nailed to the altar of the cross as a substitute
sacrificial death. (pause)
Jesus’ death on the cross on Mt. Calvary brings its own
test to us. That Jesus Christ died on the cross is an undisputed
fact of history. The significance of Jesus’ death on Mt. Calvary
is a promise, and standing between that promise and its provision
is faith that trusts. How do we know our sins are taken away, are
covered in Christ’s death? How do we know that we will live
eternally because Christ took the death penalty we deserved? These
are promises.
And our own certain human death, our coming face to face with
our own mortality, tests our trust that God will provide, that He
will be faithful to his promises. Because we will not know beyond
a shadow of a doubt that the provision has actually been made for
us until after we die.
Between now and then, even between Christ’s death and our
death, stands faith that trusts. As the writer of the Hebrews says
it, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of
what we do not see.” The testing of our faith drives us to
find out whether we mean what we say about our faith being grounded
solely in the gospel, or if we’re hedging our bets, just in
case the provision really isn’t there from the gospel message.
It’s the faith challenge of Mark 8:35: “Whoever would
save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake
and the gospel, will save it.” God tests. He’s the one
and only God and He insists on undivided loyalty. He doesn’t
tolerate hedging bets in case the provision isn’t really there.
God is looking for totally devoted followers.
God tests to identify his people, to discern who is serious about
faith, and to know in whose life He is fully God. To know through
whom his promises to bless the world, his mission to demonstrate
his love to the world, can be fulfilled.
He’s testing to know who trusts that their sins are forgiven
in Jesus’ death and who trusts that they have eternal life,
and who therefore don’t try to wring everything out of this
life.
Testing to find those who don’t turn to luck and lotteries,
to the rat race, to entertaining escapes. Testing to find people
who don’t hedge and hoard their money but instead give the
first part back to the Lord, trusting that God will provide for
every need. Testing to find people who follow him, surrender to
him, rest in him. People who trust that God can bring good even
out of heart-wrenching, agonizing experiences of life.
Our testing ground of discipleship is how we respond to the pressures
of life and society, how much weight we give to our desires and
lifelong ambitions and even to so-called common sense, over against
how we respond to the promises of God and trust his provision.
Between the test and the provision stood Abraham’s unshakable
trust in God’s promises and that He would provide, and he
looked up and saw the ram, the substitute. Between our test and
God’s provision, we are called to trust in God’s promises,
his promises of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus’
death, and that no matter what, he will provide — and look
up and see the Lamb, the substitute. The Lamb of Mt. Calvary, Savior
divine — who died for our sins — so that you too can
live eternally.
“On the mountain of the Lord He will provide.”
The deepest mystery of human faith — unqualified trust.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of
what we cannot see.”
Are you a Psalm 37:5 person? “Commit your ways to the Lord,
trust in him and He will act.”
God tests. God provides. Do you trust God? Do you stand between
his promises and his provision?
Amen.
