Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 868
Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, MAY 2, 1869, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“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.
I. 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.