Men of the Bible, Dwight L. Moody [epub read online books TXT] 📗

or Isaac. He doesn’t tell the servants, even the faithful servant Eliezer, what is to take place. About nine o’clock you might have seen those four men—Abraham, Isaac and the two young men with them—start off on the long journey. Once in a while Abraham turns his head aside and wipes away the tear. He doesn’t want Isaac to see what a terrible struggle is going on within. It is a hard battle to give up his will and to surrender that boy, the idol of his life. Oh, how he loved him!

I can imagine the first night. The boy soon falls asleep, tired and weary with the hot day’s journey, but the old man doesn’t sleep. I can see him look into the face of the innocent boy, and say:

“Soon my boy will be gone, and I will be returning without him.”

Perhaps most of the night his voice could have been heard in prayer, as he cries to God to help him; and as God had helped him in the past so God was helping him that night.

The next day they journeyed on, and again a terrible conflict goes on. Again he brushes away the tear. Perhaps Isaac sees it, and says:

“Father is going away to meet his God, and the angels may come down and talk with him as at Hebron. That is what he is so agitated about.”

The second night comes, and the old man looks into that face every hour of the night. He sleeps a little, but not much, and the next morning at family worship he breaks down. He cannot finish his prayer.

They journey on that day—it is a long day—and the old patriarch say: “This is the last day I am to have my boy with me. To-morrow I must offer him up; to-morrow I shall be without the son of my bosom.”

The third night comes, and what a night it must have been! I can imagine he didn’t eat or sleep that night. Nothing is going to break his fast, and every hour of the night he goes to look into the face of that boy, and once in a while he bends over and kisses him, and he says:

“O Isaac, how can I give thee up?”

Morning breaks. What a morning it must have been for that father! He doesn’t eat; he tries to pray, but his voice falters. After breakfast they start on their journey again. He has not gone a great way before he lifts up his eyes, and yonder is Mount Moriah. His heart begins to beat quickly. He says to the two young men:

“You stay here, and I will go yonder with my son.”

Then, as father and son went up Mount Moriah, with the wood, and the fire, and the knife, the boy turns suddenly to the father, and says:

“Father, where is the lamb? We haven’t any offering, father.”

It was a common thing for Isaac to see his father offer up a victim, but there is no lamb now.

Did you ever think

HOW PROPHETIC THAT ANSWER WAS

when Abraham turned and said to the son, “God will provide Himself a sacrifice?” I don’t know that Abraham understood the full meaning of it, but a few hundred years after God did provide a sacrifice right there. Mount Moriah and Mount Calvary are close together, and God’s Son was provided as a sacrifice for the world.

On Mount Moriah this father and son begin to roll up the stones, and together they build the altar; then they lay on the wood and everything is ready for the victim. Isaac looks around to see where the lamb is and then the father can keep it from the son no longer, and he says:

“My boy, sit down here close to the altar, and let me tell you something.”

Then perhaps that old, white-haired patriarch puts his arm around the lad, and tells how God came to him in the land of the Chaldeans, and the story of his whole life, and how, by one promise after another, God had kept enlarging the promised blessings, and that He would bless all the nations of the earth through him. Isaac was to be the heir. But he says:

“My son, the last night I was at home God came to me in the hours of the night and told me to bring you here and offer you up as a sacrifice. I don’t understand what it means, but I can tell you one thing: it is much harder for me to offer you up than it would be for me to be sacrificed myself.”

There was a time when I used to think more of the love of Jesus Christ than of God the Father. I used to think of God as a stern judge on the throne, from whose wrath Jesus Christ had saved me. It seems to me now I could not have

A FALSER IDEA OF GOD

than that. Since I have become a father I have made this discovery: that it takes more love and self-sacrifice for the father to give up the son than it does for the son to die. Is a father on earth a true father that would not rather suffer than to see his child suffer? Do you think that it did not cost God something to redeem this world? It cost God the most precious possession He ever had. When God gave His Son, He gave all, and yet He gave Him freely for you and me.

I can imagine that Abraham talks to Isaac and tells him how hard it is to offer him up. “But God has commanded it,” he says, “and I surrender my will to God’s will. I don’t understand it, but I believe that God will be able to raise you up, and maybe He will.”

They fell on their faces, and prayed together. After prayer I can see that old father take his boy to his bosom, and embrace him for the last time. He kisses and kisses him. Then he takes those hands that are so innocent, and binds them, and he binds the feet, and he ties him up, and lays him on the altar, and gives him a last kiss. Then he takes the knife, and raises his hand. No sooner is the hand lifted than a voice calls from heaven:

“Abraham, Abraham, spare thy son!”

You remember that Christ said, “Abraham saw my day, and was glad.” I have an idea that God then and there just

LIFTED THE CURTAIN OF TIME

for Abraham. He looked down into the future, saw God’s Son coming up Calvary, bearing his sins and the sins of all posterity. God gave him that secret, and told him how His Son was to come into the world and take away his sins.

Now, my friends, notice: whenever God has been calling me to higher service, there has always been a conflict with my will. I have fought against it, but God’s will has been done instead of mine. When I came to Jesus Christ, I had a terrible battle to surrender my will, and to take God’s will. When I gave up business, I had another battle for three months; I fought against it. It was a terrible battle. But oh! how many times I have thanked God that I gave up my will and took God’s will. Then there was another time when God was calling me into higher service, to go out and preach the gospel all over the land, instead of staying in Chicago. I fought against it for months; but the best thing I ever did was when I surrendered my will, and let the will of God be done in me. Because Abraham obeyed God and held back not even his only child, God enlarged his promises once again:

“And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”

If you take my advice, you will have no will other than God’s will. Make a full and complete surrender, and the sweet messages of heaven will come to you. God will whisper into your soul

THE SECRETS OF HEAVEN.

After Abraham did what God told him, then it was that God told His friend all about His Son. If we make a full surrender, God will give us something better than we have ever known before. We will get a new vision of Jesus Christ, and will thank God not only in this life but in the life to come. May God help each and every one of us to make a full and complete and unconditional surrender to God, fully and wholly, now and forever.

THE CALL OF MOSES

There is a great deal more room given in Scripture to the call of men to God’s work than there is to their end. For instance, we don’t know where Isaiah died, or how he died, but we know a great deal about the call God gave him, when he saw God on high and lifted up on His throne. I suppose that it is true to-day that hundreds of young men and women who are listening for a call and really want to know what their life’s mission is, perhaps find it the greatest problem they ever had. Some don’t know just what profession or work to take up, and so I should like to take the call of Moses, and see if we cannot draw some lessons from it.

You remember when God met Moses at the burning bush and called him to do as great a work as any man has ever been called to in this world, that

HE THOUGHT THE LORD HAD MADE A MISTAKE,

that he was not the man. He said, “Who am I?” He was very small in his own estimation. Forty years before he had started out as a good many others have started. He thought he was pretty well equipped for service. He had been in the schools of the Egyptians, he had been in the palaces of Egypt, he had moved in the bon ton society. He had had all the advantages any man could have when he started out, undoubtedly, without calling on the God of Abraham for wisdom and guidance, yet he broke down.

How many men have started out in some profession and made a failure of it! They haven’t heard the voice of God, they haven’t waited upon God for instruction.

I suppose Moses thought that the children of Israel would be greatly honored to know that a prince of the realm was going to take up their cause, but you remember how he lost his temper and killed the Egyptian, and next day, when he interfered in a quarrel between two Hebrews, they wanted to know who had made him judge and ruler over them, and he had to flee into the desert, and was there for forty years hidden away. He killed the Egyptian and lost his influence thereby. Murder for liberty; wrong for right; it was a poor way to reform abuses, and Moses needed training.

It was a long time for God to keep him in His school, a long time for a man to wait in the prime of his life, from forty to eighty. Moses