Genesis 22:10

Genesis 22:10

A temptation had come upon Abraham; he thought that it was the right thing to do, and that he was called to do it; so after brooding over it intensely for several days, he was irresistibly drawn to take the knife for the purpose of slaying his son.

I. Since the child of promise had been born to him, his natural tendency had been to repose on Isaac rather than on God. After a while he would awake to the troubled consciousness that it was not with him as in other days; that he had sunk from the serene summit on which he once stood. Brooding thus from day to day he came to feel as if a voice were calling him to prove himself by voluntarily renouncingthe son that had been given him. He was driven wild, fevered into madness, through the fervour of his desire to maintain trust in the great Father, even as now men sometimes are by the lurid burning of distrust.

II. But did not Godtempt him? you say. Is it not so recorded? Yes, undoubtedly; in the Patriarch's mind it wasGod tempting him. The narrative is a narrative of what took place in his mind; the whole is a subjective scene, portrayed objectively. The old Canaanite practice of offering human sacrifices suggested to Abraham the cultivation and manifestation of trust by immolating his son.

III. Although God did not suggest the crime, yet He was in the trial the trial of maintaining and fostering trust without allowing it to lead him by perversion into crime. He spoke at length to the heart of Abraham with irresistible force, bidding him stay his hand. The Lord could not contradict Himself in the Patriarch's breast, bidding him one day kill, and another day crying out "Thou shalt not kill"; and the historian means us to understand that the latter was the true voice of God, contradicting and prevailing against the voice that had been mistaken for His.

IV. We see God penetrating and disengaging the gracein Abraham which lay behind the wrongness. He divided between the true motive of the heart and the false conclusion of the weak brain. He notes and treasures every bit of good that blushes amidst our badness.

S. A. Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words,p. 213. Reference: Outline Sermons to Children,p. 8.