Testing 1, 2, 3. This is a test… only a test.

My Today’s Devotional: Thursday 1-8-15 (Quality Inn Portland)  

Scripture reading:   Gen 20-22        Luke 8

S. Gen 22:9-12  When they arrived at the place where God had told Abraham to go, he built an altar and placed the wood on it. Then he tied Isaac up and laid him on the altar over the wood.  And Abraham took the knife and lifted it up to kill his son as a sacrifice to the LORD.  At that moment the angel of the LORD shouted to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"  "Yes," he answered. "I'm listening." "Lay down the knife," the angel said. "Do not hurt the boy in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld even your beloved son from me." NLT

O. “Testing 1, 2, 3 testing.  This is a test… only a test.” We all have heard these words.  But in this case, although this was indeed a test, Abraham had no such warning. He had first heard God’s voice when He called him to leave Ur of the Chaldees… a place rampant with idolatry.  He obeyed and moved away from his relatives not knowing where he was going. Since that time he had heard the voice of God many times.  He was getting acquainted with Jehovah God.  He had not flinched when God said, “Take your son, your beloved son.  Pack up for a week’s journey, take wood and fire and meet me at the top of Mount Moriah. There I am asking you to sacrifice your dear son.” Three days later, climbing up the slopes of Mount Moriah, Isaac, probably now a teenager, interrupts the silence, “Daddy, we’ve got the wood and the fire, but where is the sacrificial lamb?”  Obviously Isaac had witnessed his father sacrifice animals to God before.  His father trudges on, but certainly with a heavy heart, he answers, “God will provide a lamb, my boy.”  At the top Isaac helps his daddy find the large stones to build an altar.  When his dad produces the rope and approaches him, he had to capture the look in his daddy’s eyes.  He could have run for his life, but he surrenders to being tied up for the sacrifice.  Now he is stretched out uncomfortably on a pile of wood.  Did he squirm and scream?  Apparently he did not resist, but had total trust in his father.  Then he sees the knife lifted high and ready to plunge into his heart. 

I wonder if that voice from heaven was audible to Isaac, too, or only to Abraham.  “Abraham!  Abraham!  Lay down that knife!  This is a test, only a test!  Now I know that you revere and obey me.” 

At a later date God’s Only Begotten Son was on the mountain of sacrifice.  “Father is this perhaps just a test?  Could we change the plan and settle for a test? Maybe again You will supply another lamb.  Oh! I hear You, Father. I hear You. This is for real! Then I surrender to You. Not my will, but Yours be done.”  And now I know that my Heavenly Father loves me, an unworthy sinner, because He has not withheld His Son, His only Begotten Son from me.  And this time it was not a test.

A.  I was just a little child responding to a missionary’s challenge.  The country might have been China or India or Africa… it made no difference.  Tears were flowing as I said, “Yes, God, I will go!”  I was sure that God was calling me, but then I rose from my knees and ran outside the church to play with other boys and forgot all about China, or wherever.  This same scene repeated itself in almost every missionary service… and there were many.  By the time I was a teenager it was easier.  I had gotten the picture.  This is a test, only a test.  I’m not going anywhere.  It’s just a test.  

Then one day a little, aged missionary lady, Ruth Couchman, visited my church.  At the close of the service I was going through my routine.  God seemed to be saying, “Ralph, I know you love this place where you are serving as pastor of the little church.  But I am calling you far away to Argentina.”  I quickly responded, “Yes, Lord I will go.  I will go.”  

And after 20 minutes of weeping for the lost souls of Argentina… I was asking, “This is only a test like all of the other times, no?” “No!  Not a test!  Oh God, just a minute!  Please let me start over!”  And finally in a flood of tears I was saying, “God, I will pick up my wife and three boys and go to Argentina on one condition… if You prove to me without a doubt that this is Your plan for my life.”  And the rest is history.

P.  Lord God of Heaven speak again to this weeping soul.  Let me hear Your tender voice calling me and may my answer always be, like the prophet Isaiah, “Here I am!  Send me!”  Maybe to only cross the street…or  maybe to cross the ocean.”  Amen.