WHEN STABILITY IS SHATTERED


A Sermon On:

GENESIS 22.1-19


PREPARED BY

KEN GEHRELS

PASTOR

CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH

NEPEAN, ONTARIO



A. INTRODUCTION
It's the sort of thing that makes every sane parent shudder. A report comes over the radio of someone who has mistreated, neglected, or murdered his or her own child. We are revolted by such incidents and cannot even begin to comprehend how someone can do that to their own flesh and blood.
Then we come to Genesis 22. God calls out of the blue for Abraham to engage in precisely that kind of an act. Shocking, heart-stopping, a revolting outrage. What on earth is happening in this bizarre passage of scripture?

B. THE SCENE REPLAYED
Try to imagine what it must have been like for Abraham. Close your eyes and put yourself in his shoes for a moment.
Twice his wife had been ripped away from his grasp; his nephew had separated from him; he had engaged in warfare to rescue Lot when he was taken hostage, risking his own life in the process; famine had driven him out of Canaan, the land God had promised to him; After many years of being childless he gets a son, Ishmael, but because of family tensions he is forced to send that precious boy away into the desert. All he had left was Isaac. But at least he had Isaac and God's promise that through Isaac, Abraham's family would become a source of blessing for the entire world.

Now, as he was in the twilight of life, growing old, it seemed as if he were finally getting a few years of peace and contentment. Finally he would be able to relax a little and enjoy life. But it wasn't to be.
He no sooner is resting than he is, so to speak, hammered again. As Calvin puts it, God suddenly thunders out of heaven and delivers a sentence of death onto this boy.
Take your son - wam!
Your only son - wam!
Isaac - wam!
whom you love - wam!
Take him and sacrifice him.
It is not enough that God merely announces the death of his precious and only remaining son, the son in whom his whole future is contained. God also demands that Abraham be the executioner.
The bible doesn't reveal to us the agony that went on inside his soul, either that night or all during his journey. All it does is give us a hint of the atmosphere - short, tense, almost irritable, the way a person would be when staggering under a tremendous load, unable to say much, unable to concentrate on anything else except the problem at hand.
Notice also that God doesn't say, "Hurry up and get it over with." Instead it is, "go into those far-off mountains and I will give you further instructions when you get there."
Three days he is forced to allow these agonising thoughts to revolve around inside his head. Three days he carries the hot coals in their container, knowing that the gentle warmth they now emit will be destined to cremate his son. Three days he feels the weight of the dagger on his belt, the dagger to kill the animal of the sacrifice. Three long, long days.
Abraham's soul is in agony. The command of God and the promise of God seem to be in direct conflict. Here is his precious son Isaac. Isaac, the curly-haired boy with the name meaning "He laughs" - but there is none of that now. Isaac, the one in whom lays all of Abraham's future, his hopes and dreams. Isaac, the miracle child of 90 year Sarah and 100 year old Abraham.
One person I used to work with, Regina, brought up this incident in a conversation. "Why on earth would God do such a horrible thing to someone he says he loved? What kind of a God is that? This is crazy!"
Indeed, what kind of a God would do that? Why on earth did he do that?
How can butchering the promised one lead to any blessing?

Yet, Abraham obeys. swallowing the pain that kept rising to the top of his throat, hoping desperately that somehow God would change his mind. Then, at the very end it comes.
The word of the angel.
And the ram is offered up instead.

C. WHY GOD TESTED ABRAHAM THIS WAY
Still Regina's question remains. Why did God have to go through this absurd exercise? The answer lies in the personality of Abraham. Throughout the pages of scripture he is looked at as the Father of all the faithful followers of the Lord God Almighty. In Galatians, Hebrews, James and elsewhere the faith of Abraham is held up as an example for us all.

So what kind of a faith was that? Genesis provides us the candid answer. Twice he tried to pass his wife off as a sister in a bid to save his skin. Another time he took a slave woman and went to bed with her in order to get a son and try to fulfil God's promise of a sin by himself.

Oh, there are other times when he does believe and obey, but through all of it, these incidents stand as signals of his compromising nature. Abraham, man of faith, but also the man of unswerving logic, common sense and a desire to make sure things came out ok, who played it safe and hedged his bets.

"Sure I believe," he would say, "but God also gave me a brain to think with and I'm going to use it all the way. Common sense, man. Use your reason."
Now all that comes to a screaming halt. Abraham is forced onto a road from which there is no escape, where no other options than total trust in God or total rejection of him are possible.
God, as it were, had to take Abraham, turn him upside down, and shake every last nickel of self-reliance and self- determination and self-ambition out of his pockets. He is now out of tricks. There are no resources left. The bank is broke.

He has to literally tear Isaac out of Abraham's grasp before he can give the little boy back again. And when he does, things are never the same.

This is not, first of all, a story about Isaac's close call.
It is not the story of a God cruelly toying with one of his subjects.
It is, in every way, the story of the death of Abraham's reliance on his own wisdom and cunning and strength to make his way forward in life.
It is the story of the tempering of the faith of the Father of all believers.
Abraham passes the test. We know Abraham got the message by the name he gave to that place: "The Lord will provide."

D. THE TEMPERING OF OUR FAITH
Abraham's self-made stability is shattered. Shattered by God.
How about us? What kind of stability have we built for ourselves;
what props have we erected?
"The LORD will provide" is the theme of this passage and of the entire scriptures. Indeed He has. Jesus has come. And no angel stopped the cold steel from puncturing his body.
No animal took his place.
Instead HE took OUR place.
Basic, oh so basic and central to the Christian faith. When our relationship with God was a dismal failure, when all our spiritual resources were totally depleted, when we had no possible avenue to heaven's gates, no claim to eternal life, the LORD provided, completely.
And that we will celebrate at the communion table in a moment.

"Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul" we sing. And yet -- inside of us all there is something that rebels, something that chafes at having to receive God's acceptance of us totally freely.
Free admission through heaven's gates, free meals at his banquet table, free transportation into God's presence ---
We feel an inner need to contribute, to pay something for what we get.
We want to balance the scales somehow.
We want a say in the matter, a voice in the outcome,
We want, in sometimes subtle ways, to be partners with God.

I dare say one of the most difficult tasks in the church when properly done, certainly the task demanding the most tact and wisdom is that of deacon when they are called upon to investigate possible need in a certain home. People have their self-esteem and their pride, and as such have great difficulty being brought to the point where they have to rely completely on the handouts of another. That's simply human nature. Deacons have to be careful that they don't step on toes as they do their work of benevolence.

That pride is a part of us right to the core of our being. And it affects our faith life, as well. We preach salvation by grace alone, but because of pride, and perhaps because of our Protestant work ethic, we manage to smuggle justification by works into the picture somewhere. I'm justified in claiming God's time and attention because of my work.

God is willing to have me around, God is pleased with me because of - my intelligence, my social graces, my spotlessly clean house, my ability to work hard and make a buck, my physical stamina... or whatever.

Sometimes God has to cut us loose from these things in a traumatic way, to send us back to him. Perhaps through a loss of job, or public humiliation, or allowing us to wallow in the fallout of some sin for a while, or the stinging rebuke of another person.
Bringing us to see ourselves realistically once more - people totally dependent on Jesus for acceptance into God's presence, having no claim of our own.
In the basic matter of our eternal security.
And in our day to day walk.

On whom do we depend?

We could spend more time exploring this.
We won't.
I'd like you to simply put yourself in Abraham's place. If that were you, what would God ask YOU to place on the altar; to give up; to give completely to Him?
To what do you grasp? A tradition? A grudge? A job or career plan? One of your children? A reputation? Free time and hobbies?

Then, as you receive the elements of Communion, recognize in there all that God has given to you --
the body and blood of His son.

The full sacrifice! Nothing we can add!!
Accept His gift. Let's not minimize it.

Genesis 22 is the call of God to everyone who follows in the path of faith blazed by Father Abraham to make a firm decision of the will.
As one person put it, "I will to will the will of God."

To go God's way, to do God's thing in life, to keep him first and foremost, is a difficult thing and a thing that we have to do very deliberately. We have to turn our will in that direction. It won't happen any other way.
Come - to the sacrifice of Christ.
Come - His gift is ready for you.