Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus
In the last chapter, Lesson 6, we finished learning on what it means to trust to God, through Abraham's life. We learned that trusting God meant not just merely intellectual belief, but also being emptied of self-sufficiency and self-dependence. We learned to depend on the Holy Spirit in an area which is usually not much looked into - the area of prayer. In the end we learned that dependence upon God is an end to ourselves, an end to our self-sufficiency and self-dependence.
We now start with the second lesson we learn from Abraham's life - Worshiping God. Hope you all are enlightened by the lessons that are taught by some of our fathers in the Holy Bible.
WORSHIPING GOD
The second lesson that Abraham had to learn was the true meaning of worship. If trusting God means to be emptied of self-confidence and self-sufficiency, worshiping God means to be emptied of everything (including one's possessions).
As in Genesis 15, in Genesis 22 also, the paragraph begins with the phrase, "After these things...." Here too, as we look at the circumstances that immediately precede this hour of testing, we find Abraham in a triumphant position. The heathen had come to him and said, "Abraham, we've been watching your life and we know that God is with you in all that you do" (Gen. 21:22). No doubt they had heard of the miraculous way in which Sarah conceived and were convinced that God was with this family. Ishmael had been sent away. Isaac was now the darling of Abraham's heart. Abraham stood in grave danger, at this time, of losing his first love and devotion for God. And so God tested him again, and told him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice.
Sacrifice and worship
Have we heard God calling us to hard and difficult tasks like that? Or do we only hear Him comforting us with promises all the time? Oswald Chambers has said that if we have never heard God speaking a hard word to us, it is doubtful whether we have ever really heard God at all.
It is easy for our carnal minds to imagine that God is speaking to us with comforting promises all the time. Because we do not like the hard way, we can be deaf to God's voice when He calls us to a difficult task.
But Abraham had ears to hear, and a heart that was willing to obey anything that God commanded. He rose up early the next morning and went forth to obey God (v. 3). The record does not tell us what the old patriarch went through, during the previous time, after God had spoken to him. I am sure he did not sleep that night. He must have kept awake and gone and looked at his beloved son again and again; and the tears must have rolled down his eyes as he thought of what he had to do to him. How difficult it must have been for Abraham to offer up the son of his old age. But he was willing to obey God at any cost. Fifty years or so, earlier, he had put his hand to the plough when God called him to Ur; and he would not now look back. In the words of another, what Abraham was saying was:
"Keep me from looking back -
The handles of my plough with tears are wet,
The shears with rust are spoiled, and yet, and yet,
My God! My God! Keep me from turning back"
There were no complaints and no questions. Abraham did not say, "Lord, I have been so faithful already. Why do you ask this hard thing also?" Neither did he say, "Lord, I have already sacrificed so much - much more than all those around me. Why do you call me to sacrifice more?" Many believers compare the sacrifices they have made with those that others have made. And they hesitate when God calls them to go further than others around them. But not so Abraham. There was no limit to hs obedience and no end to his willingness to sacrifice for his God. No wonder he became the friend of God.
There was faith in Abraham's heart as he went up to sacrifice Isaac, that God would somehow raise hs son from the dead. Hebrews 11:19 tells us that. God had already given Abraham a foretaste of resurrection-power in his own body and in Sarah's, through the birth of Isaac. Surely it would be np problem for such a God to bring back to life an Isaac who was slain on the altar. And so Abraham tells his servants when leaving them at the foot of Mount Moriah, "I and the lad will go yonder and worship and (we will both) come (back) again to you" (v. 5). That was a word of faith. He believed that Isaac would come back with him.
Notice too that he tells his servants, "We are going to worship God". He is not complaining that God is requiring too much from him, neither is he boasting about the marvelous sacrifice that he is about to make for God. No. Abraham did not belong to the category of those who subtly inform others about the sacrifices they make for God. Abraham said he was going to worship his God. And there we understand something of the real meaning of worship.
Remember how Jesus once said, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56). Surely it must have been here on Mount Moriah that Abraham saw the day of Christ. In prophetic vision, the aged patriarch saw in his own action, a picture (faint though it be) of that day when God the Father Himself would lead His only begotten Son up Calvary's hill and offer Him up as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. And that day on Mount Moriah, Abraham knew something of what it would cost the heart of God to save a wayward world. He came to a place of intimate fellowship with the heart of God that morning. Yes, he worshiped God - not just with beautiful words and hymns, but through costly obedience and sacrifice.
A deep and intimate knowledge of God can only come through such obedience. We may accumulate plenty of accurate theological information in our minds; but real spiritual knowledge can come only when we give up everything to God. There is no other way.
Dear brothers and sisters, the above extract has been taken from the book "Beauty for Ashes" by Zac Poonen. Please keep me, a sinful servant of our Lord Jesus in your prayers for His guidance and enlightenment to know more about Him and to be obedient to His will.
Your brother in Christ
No comments:
Post a Comment