The sacrifice of Isaac was the supreme act of Abraham's life. The faith which had been schooled by so singular an experience and by so many minor trials was here perfected and exhibited as perfect. The strength which he had been slowly gathering during a long and trying life was here acquired and used. This is the act which shines like a star out of those dark ages, and has served, for many storm-tossed souls over whom God's billows have gone, as a mark by which they could still shape their course when all else was dark. The devotedness that made the sacrifice, the trust in God that endured when even such a sacrifice was demanded, the justification of this trust by the event, and the affectionate fatherly acknowledgment with which God gloried in the man's loyalty and strength of character-all so legibly written here-come home to every heart in the time of its need.
1. Abraham has here shown the way to the highest reach of human devotedness and to the heartiest submission to the Divine will in the most heart-rending circumstances. Men and women living our modern life are brought into situations which seem as torturing and overwhelming as those of Abraham, and all who are in such conditions find, in his loyal trust in God, sympathetic and effectual aid.
The Scripture narrative gives dramatic grandeur to the weird and pathetic realism of the tragic story. The demand was stern and absolute. The response was prompt and immediate. There was no hesitation, or remonstrance, or needless delay. He started early and arranged the details, and with almost unnatural calmness hurried forward the awful consummation. A sword was piercing his paternal heart, and yet it seemed as if that heart was hard and cold. No one who saw him start on his fateful journey that morning would have guessed his melancholy errand. There was in his attitude a strange silence and reserve. He was unnaturally self-possessed, and seemingly wanting in heart and soul and human sympathy. We are reminded of the Howgate carrier, of whom John Brown tells his exquisite and thrilling story. The old man brings his wife to the hospital. The old mare, Jess, and the dog Rab are there. After an operation for cancer, Ailie sinks and dies. When all is over the carrier goes hurriedly off, and speedily returns with Jess, and wraps his dead wife in blankets and carries her out and lays her gently in his cart, and takes her home. It is all in silence and loneliness. There is no word for any, save only grateful thanks. He bears his own burden, and bravely completes his allotted task. But it is more than heart and flesh can bear. The snow has not had time to melt on Ailie's grave till he is laid beside her. He went through it like a man, and bore up like a Christian, but it crushed and killed him under the strain of a great lonesome sorrow. And if Abraham survived the unmeasured bitterness of that experience in the life of sacrifice, it could only have been because God stayed his hand at the last moment, and acknowledged and rewarded the faith that dared to respond to the Divine appeal-“accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”1 [Note: J. Morgan, The Sacrament of Pain, 165.]
2. Of the things contained in this record, this is the sum. The more completely and really we give ourselves to God, and for Him, and for His work in this needy and suffering world, the more do we share the “pleasures” and powers of faith, and partake of the fulness of His strength, and grace for grace. God gives His best and most to the spirit of self-sacrifice. It is the test to which He submitted Himself, and the way He took to secure His perfect and undimmed blessedness. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Jesus gave Himself to a real and painful death in a spirit of obedience and self-denial, “wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.” If our Master went that way to joy and glory, surely we, His disciples, must listen for the words: “Offer it for an offering”; offer work, play, home, business, pleasure, trouble, patience, faith or hope,-offer him or her, son, daughter, husband, wife, friend, as an offering.
We make no real sacrifices to God. We enjoy His gifts, stock our homes with treasures, feast our hearts on His bounties, but we withhold our full, well-trained, and fire-filled personality from His altar. God asks for your child to be a missionary. He is ordained from birth to go forth, not to make a fortune, or build an everlasting name, but to be the real friend of the lost, the brotherly-helper of the needy; and you say, “No! it is too much! What have I been building this business for? I should have left it years ago, only I wanted it for him! The thought that he would carry it on has been my delight. I cannot.” And so you thrust your mammon-sharpened knife through the youth's spiritual nature, and slay him in the name of wealth. Oh! if only we would take each new joy, every fresh delight, as a demand for more actual, real giving-up to God, our progress in holiness would be secured, our pleasures “would flow as a river, and our joys as the waves of the sea.”1 [Note: J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, 35.]
