_Abraham_’s offering up his Son _Isaac_.
GENESIS xxii. 12.
_And he said, Lay not thine Hand upon the Lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy Son, thine only Son from me._
THE great Apostle _Paul_, in one of his epistles, informs us, that “whatsoever was written aforetime was written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the holy scripture might have hope.” And as without faith it is impossible to please GOD, or be accepted in JESUS, the Son of his love; we may be assured, that whatever instances of a more than common faith are recorded in the book of GOD, they were more immediately designed by the holy Spirit for our learning and imitation, upon whom the ends of the world are come. For this reason, the author of the epistle to the _Hebrews_, in the xith chapter, mentions such a noble catalogue of Old Testament saints and martyrs, “who subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions, &c. and are gone before us to inherit the promises.” A sufficient confutation, I think, of their error, who lightly esteem the Old Testament saints, and would not have them mentioned to christians, as persons whose faith and patience we are called upon more immediately to follow. If this was true, the apostle would never have produced such a cloud of witnesses out of the Old Testament, to excite the christians of the first, and consequently purest age of the church, to continue stedfast and unmoveable in the profession of their faith. Amidst this catalogue of saints, methinks the patriarch _Abraham_ shines the brightest, and differs from the others, as one star differeth from another star in glory; for he shone with such distinguished lustre, that he was called the “friend of GOD,” the “father of the faithful;” and those who believe on CHRIST, are said to be “sons and daughters of, and to be blessed with, faithful _Abraham_.” Many trials of his faith did GOD send this great and good man, after he had commanded him to get out from his country, and from his kindred, unto a land which he should shew him; but the last was the most severe of all, I mean, that of offering up his only son. This, by the divine assistance, I propose to make the subject of your present meditation, and, by way of conclusion, to draw some practical inferences, as GOD shall enable me, from this instructive story.
The sacred penman begins the narrative thus; verse 1. “And it came to pass, after these things, GOD did tempt _Abraham_.” After these things, that is, after he had underwent many severe trials before, after he was old, full of days, and might flatter himself perhaps that the troubles and toils of life were now finished; “after these things, GOD did tempt _Abraham_.” Christians, you know not what trials you may meet with before you die: notwithstanding you may have suffered, and been tried much already, yet, it may be, a greater measure is still behind, which you are to fill up. “Be not high-minded, but fear.” Our last trials, in all probability, will be the greatest: and we can never say our warfare is accomplished, or our trials finished, till we bow down our heads, and give up the ghost. “And it came to pass, after these things, that GOD did tempt _Abraham_.”
“GOD did tempt _Abraham_.” But can the scripture contradict itself? Does not the apostle _James_ tell us, “that GOD tempts no man;” and GOD does tempt no man to evil, or on purpose to draw him into sin; for, when a man is thus tempted, he is drawn away of his own heart’s lust, and enticed. But in another sense, GOD may be said to tempt, I mean, to try his servants; and in this sense we are to understand that passage of _Matthew_, where we are told, that, “JESUS was led up by the Spirit (the good Spirit) into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil.” And our LORD, in that excellent form of prayer which he has been pleased to give us, does not require us to pray that we may not absolutely be led into temptation, but delivered from the evil of it; whence we may plainly infer, that GOD sees it fit sometimes to lead us into temptation, that is, to bring us into such circumstances as will try our faith and other christian graces. In this sense we are to understand the expression before us; “GOD did tempt or try _Abraham_.”