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CONNIE: What do you do when you find yourself in a position where “it’s all downhill from here”? Come to the top of Mt. Moriah with us today, as we conclude our series on the life of Abraham.

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 70 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko. You know, Connie, we sometimes talk about life and midlife crisis and 40th or 50th birthdays in terms of going “over the hill,” as though life has been all uphill progress up to that point, but now we’re about to start sliding downhill.

CONNIE: It’s a metaphor we use a lot—but do you think it applied to Abraham’s life?

LONNIE: Well, certainly not on his 40th or 50th birthday! It seems like he didn’t really start living till after he was 75—that’s when he set out to follow the Lord whole heartedly.

CONNIE: Well, today we’re going to be talking about his experience on Mt. Moriah. Was that kind of the pinnacle of his life?

LONNIE: It certainly was—because there God tested his faith in a very deep way. And life was no soap box derby, coasting downhill after that, but this was where Abraham’s true spiritual mettle showed through. And as we think about the test of faith he faced there, a personal friend’s story comes to mind. Dr. David Wilkins has recently written a book about the experience he and his family went through in the loss of a son.

CONNIE: Lonnie spoke with Dr. Wilkins—seeking understanding of what it must have been like for Abraham to answer God’s call to give up his son. Let’s listen in:

LONNIE: Dr. David Wilkins, welcome to the Voice of Prophecy.

DAVE: It’s good to be with you, Lonnie.

LONNIE: We are so pleased that you are here to share your story, which really is the testimony of a life turned upside down just over five years ago, September 2, 1998. Swiss air flight #111, your son Monte was on board.

DAVE: That’s right. The flight departed from New York in the evening and 90 minutes later it plunged into the North Atlantic off the coast of Nova Scotia killing 229 people including my son.

LONNIE: I have goose bumps as I talk to you David, I’m almost in tears. How does anybody manage life after losing a child?
DAVE: Our ability to manage these kinds of things occurs long before the accident, and it’s sort of in that walk with the Lord ahead of time that you realize how much you were loved, how much you have been forgiven, and how much He cares. When that relationship is intact and these things happen, then we have to step into the idea that we can trust His heart when we don’t understand.

LONNIE: When you and your precious wife were scrambling to get to Nova Scotia, you had somewhat mixed feelings whether you should even go there and make some sense…and something happened there with all kinds of people who were thrown together into your life not by choice but by your common grief. Talk about that expression in your book the “Reluctant Fraternity”.

DAVE: What I realized is that even through this terrible tragedy God never left us alone, even in a strange place. The strangers in that area surrounded us with love and concern, and it became a part of our experience, and I chose to call this sense of community that developed the “Reluctant Fraternity.” People who had a common experience they didn’t even choose, but in the context of that experience found an enormous capacity to connect with each other to even develop a responsibility to step into the worlds of other people who were having a similar hurt, and that’s where the expression the “ Reluctant Fraternity” came from.

LONNIE: Your experiences here are so powerful, so poignant…I found myself weeping many times, David. When you were sitting there on the shore singing “Nearer To Thee”, and “Amazing Grace”, you were touching the Red Cross, The Salvation Army, firemen, policemen, they were all just breaking down weeping, but you said that there are some things in life worse in life than the death of a child.

DAVE: When a child of God is laid to rest by whatever means, his purpose driven life is now in the hands of God, and He’ll take care of their eternal future. People who experience other types of losses such as the loss of a relationship, a divorce, a job, whatever the loss is for that person, it is deeply profound and for them it is overwhelming. What I was trying to say in the book, that as a person draws near to God’s heart and has placed his life in God’s hands and is living a life of his purpose, the length of life becomes less important then living the life of his purpose. I think that the best illustration that I can give in Monte’s case being 19 years old…He had committed himself to the Lord at age 18. He was baptized at his high school graduation with his senior class there, and decided that Jesus was important to him and 15 months later he perished. In 15 months, the walk of this young man was a joy to his parents, and we celebrate his short but purpose driven life. That’s an accident, it’s over, and he’s in God’s hands. Some people’s types of losses such as the one I cited, the mother who had a son who was molesting children…I would much rather have my son resting in the hands of God than have to struggle with this terrible problem with this young man, who needs more time so his heart can change.

LONNIE: God gave His Son and now perhaps more profoundly than ever before you and Janet can empathize, and you can understand that expression.

DAVE: He has asked us all to give our children, whether there 80, 9, 10, or whatever age; what He really says is trust me with your children. He says, you may not always trust your eyes, or your ears, or your circumstances, but you can always trust My heart, that something of redemptive value is involved in every experience that touches those who you love and yourself, can you trust Me with that? That’s why I mentioned on the outset that coping or managing with the loss of a child really begins with that walk with the Lord before it ever happens. Then you begin to lean on that relationship, and cling on to it with your fingernails when you just can’t believe what’s going on…and you say I know that God never lets anything touch me or the ones I love unless there is redemption value, I choose to call it redemption equity in that experience, and that his kingdom will be enlarged and that even in death this person may continue to touch people’s lives.

LONNIE: Dave Wilkins, Thank you so much for sharing your very touching story wit us here today.

“Now Look Away”, King’s Heralds, from The King’s Heralds Collection

CONNIE: Amen! That was the King’s Heralds with “Now Look Away—and you know, that’s good advice—sometimes we just have to look away from the way things are going in the world and remember that it’s in the kingdom of heaven where things will all be put right.

LONNIE: I’m so thankful that we have that hope—that David has that hope when he thinks about his son Monte and the tragedy that enveloped their family.

CONNIE: If you’d like to read more of their story, please give us a call at our toll free number, 1-800-872-0055, and request a copy of the book United by Tragedy, which tells the story. We’re asking that you make a donation of $15.00 or more when you request this book, but I know you’ll find it well worth the investment.

LONNIE: And do consider it an investment, because your gift will be a real blessing to us here at Voice of Prophecy investment in the future of our programs.

CONNIE: We’re finishing our series on Abraham, and his journey to Mt. Moriah today, and we want to remind you as well of the book Journey to Moriah that we mentioned on an earlier broadcast. You can also request this book for a minimum donation of $15.00 when you call us at 1-800-872-0055. We’ll give the mailing address later, too, but right now, let’s listen as Lonnie shares his message, “With God on the Mountain Top.”

With God on the Mountain Top

A man stood on a mountain top with nowhere to go but down.

You know, it’s not easy to get to the top of a mountain. Especially if your name is Abraham, and you’re about 115 years old, and there’s no funicular to take you to the top. You have to walk there one slow, painful, pains-taking step at a time, accompanied by your son—the son you have loved more than anything else in life. The son you have cherished and held, bouncing on your knee. The son you’ve taken around and showed to your neighbors who worship other gods and said “See how my God has blessed me! See how my God fulfills His promises. See how my God works miracles! He took me, an old man, and he took my wife, an old woman past the years of childbearing, and He’s given us a son!”

This boy Isaac is the son of promise—the son that God told you would be born—and when He made the promise it so astounded you that you fell right down on your face laughing in delight and amazement.

Friend, were you with us last week when I spoke about the Laughter of Heaven? If you weren’t please stop by our web page at VOP.COM and listen to that message—because we talked about one of the most wonderful days in Abraham’s life—the day that God announced the birth of a son—the day that Abraham and God shared in the joy, and the day that God said “Name that boy ‘He Laughs’ (that’s literally what the name Isaac means) so that you’ll always remember this moment of joy we shared together!”

But now everything has changed. God is no longer laughing when He comes to Abraham and says; take that son—“He Laughs” on a trip. A three-day journey with your son beside you, but with an awful secret hidden deep in your soul. A terrible secret that tears at your heart and steals all the laughter from your life and weighs on your feet like buckets full of stones with each step you take.

Because God has come to you now with a new message. Not a message you can laugh about. No, it’s a message that any father living would weep about. Let’s read it in Genesis 22:1-2 “After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you’ ” (NRSV).

“Sacrifice my son? How can you ask me to sacrifice this child that I have prayed and hoped and believed for? This child of promise—this joy—this laughter of my life?” Can’t you hear Abraham responding that way to his God?

But no, the Bible never says that Abraham argued with God or questioned God in any way when the Lord made this most demanding of requests. What did Abraham do? Here it is in verse 3: “So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him” (NRSV).

This has to be one of the most amazing aspects of this story! Here is Abraham, a man who has walked and talked and pled with God and laughed and even bargained with God over the past 40 years. And now God comes to him and asks him to do what’s got to be the hardest thing a man could ever do, and Abraham doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t hem-haw around. He doesn’t sleep in late in the morning, trying to convince himself that it’s all just a bad dream. No. He gets up early in the morning and gets everything ready to go, and heads out on the hardest journey of his life.

How can this be? We ask. It is the most natural thing in the world for a man to defend his children—to fight to the death to save their lives. But Abraham doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t resist in any way. Why?

I’d like to phrase the answer in one word, and then explore it. The answer is: Growth.

Spiritual Growth.

Abraham has done a lot of spiritual growing in the past 40 years since he answered the call of God to leave his ancestral family behind in Mesopotamia and move to Canaan.

This is a key part of Abraham’s story, yet many people miss it. We tend to set up these great spiritual patriarchs like Abraham as some sort of paramount saints from the get-go. We think that somehow they had a sense of God’s presence and an abiding faith in God’s leading and provision for their lives from the day they first opened their eyes . . .
And frankly, it can be a bit discouraging to see things that way, because I know that in dealing with myself, faith doesn’t always come that naturally to me. Obedience and faithfulness to the Lord haven’t always been my first reaction when faced with challenges. And if I look at the Bible characters and think that they somehow had it easier—somehow they were genetically programmed to faithfulness and never had to struggle, then when I encounter temptations and trials, or when I mess up and fail my Lord, it’s easy to get discouraged and throw up my hands and say “I’m never going to make it—I guess I’m just not cut out for this walking with God business” and to go off the deep end and abandon faith altogether.

Can I just say this, if you’ve headed down that road—the Discouragement Road as I like to call it: Don’t go there!

You may not have the faith of Abraham—the faith that could take his son He Laughs to the base of the mountain and look up to the top knowing God has called you there to sacrifice him—to lay him on an altar and burn him up—and yet to turn to your servants and say, as is recorded in Genesis 22:5, “ ‘Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you’ ” (NRSV).

How could Abraham say that, knowing the terrible secret he held deep down in his heart?

Growth.

Abraham has grown in his relationship to the Lord to the point where he trusts his God with everything. It wasn’t always that way, though. Many many times Abraham tried to work things out his own way. There was the time down in Egypt when—instead of trusting God to protect him from the lustful and lascivious leader of that land, Abraham contrived a little lie and abandoned the love of his life to that leader’s lechery. God had to work miracles to rescue Sarah, and Abraham, from that foolish detour off the path of faith.

And speaking of Egyptian escapades—how about his little adventure with Handmaid Hagar?

Many failings and foibles plagued Abraham along the way on his journey. And God often had had to intervene in some miraculous way to extricate Abraham from the bad results of his best human efforts.

And I believe, friend, that it was precisely because of those failings and foibles that Abraham grew to be the great man of faith that he was on that day when God came to him and tested him one last time.

He had had to learn through hard, bitter experience that whenever he tried to run ahead of God, or whenever he tried to do things his own way, it never paid off.

But more than that, he had had to learn that God is a trustworthy God. He had had to observe throughout a long life of walking with God that the Lord never let him down. That the Lord was true to His promises.

And so now, he could fall back on those promises. The promise that Isaac would be the father of children—Abraham’s grandchildren.

And so, somehow, by the time God called Abraham to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice on Mt. Moriah, Abraham had resolved all the questions in his heart, all the questions about God’s trustworthiness, all the questions about God’s provision for the future and for descendants, and now he was at last able to leave all of that in God’s hands.

What else can you do with the future, Abraham? You can’t grasp it, you can’t hold it in your hands. You have to leave it in God’s capable hands.

And so he and the young man set out on their long climb up Mt. Moriah. It was a mountain Abraham had been climbing every day of his life, in a sense. Because he’d been encountering and getting over challenges to his faith all along the way, and this was just one last mountain to climb.

And half way up the mountain Isaac asked the question: “Dad—didn’t you forget something?” Here it is in Genesis 22:7 “ ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ ”

And what does Abraham say? Here it is, in verse 8: “ ‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’ ”

At this point in the story it seems, from all appearances, that God is a taker, not a provider. He’s asked Abraham to give back—in sacrifice—the son He’s provided.

And yet Abraham knows God as a provider.

Because Abraham has walked with God.

And Abraham has strayed from the path with God.

But in every instance he has discovered that God is far more able to provide for him than he is to provide for himself.

That’s what truly walking with God is all about. Sometimes you may fail. Sometimes you may feel you have to try it your own way. But if you’ll stay tuned in to the Lord’s voice, you’ll discover that no matter how far off the path you get, He’s still there for you.

And so, Abraham finds himself on top of a mountain. There’s no place to go but down from here. And he lays his son on the altar, as God has instructed. And he looks down into his son’s eyes, wondering if this will be the last time—or just what God’s plan is here.

And it’s there on that mountain top—as he offers up the dearest thing in his life—that he hears a voice from above. Above the top of the mountain. Genesis 22:11-12 tells us “But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me’ ” (NRSV).

And now Abraham looks up.

It’s something he’s had to learn to do through a long life of walking with God. When we look down, all we can see is our own hands and what they can do to solve a problem. It’s when we look up that we see God’s hand. Genesis 22:13 says “Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son” (NRSV).

Oh, friend, have you been there on the mountain top with God—in a time of severe trial, when you wondered whether you could possibly go on in your walk with God? Are you there now, perhaps? Are you wondering whether God is still leading—whether He’s still your shepherd to bring you safely home?

Are you looking down? Or are you looking up?

Remember this: No matter how high the mountain, there’s always a heaven above.
Look up!

“I Look to the Shepherd”, Jennifer LaMountain, from The Great Storm is Over CD.