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Winter 2006
Dear Truth Encounter Family:
Our Midlothian students have just finished a week of midterms and our college students never escape the grind of a pop quiz or a comprehensive final. Who likes to study for these days of reckoning when our teachers and professors try to determine whether we have learned anything at all? Most of us dread these times of evaluation whether it comes in school, in business, or in life. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we never had to face times of testing? As much as I hate to say it, the answer to this question is “No!” It so happens that the living God has designed life so that in order for us to grow there must be times of testing. Genesis 22 contains the severest test faced by a believer in the Old Testament, and this test raises difficult questions about the God of the Bible:
-Why did He ask a father to take the life of his son?
-Why did God put one of his most trusted servants to such a test?
-How could God expect any human father to follow through on this murderous command?
-How does the sacrifice of Isaac fit in to the story of redemption God tells us in His Word?
-Wouldn’t the sacrifice of Isaac have terminated everything that God had promised to Adam, Noah, and to Abraham and to us?
As Abraham and Isaac hiked up Mount Moriah that day hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, they could never have guessed that there would be another Father who would walk up another mountain near this place of sacrifice in Jerusalem. This time there would be no voice from heaven. The first born, beloved Son would die as a sacrifice for sin.
Genesis 22 is far more than a Jewish tract designed to prohibit human sacrifice as practiced by the idolatrous Canaanites. It is a crucial piece in the puzzle that doesn’t fit the rest of our picture of God in the Old Testament until Jesus comes in the New Testament as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Abraham didn’t have all the puzzle together, but he had God’s word, and he obeyed. The attempted sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 was the climactic moment in his journey of faith—a journey that all of us need to begin.
The writer of Hebrews reveals to us that Abraham had put the pieces together.
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death. (Hebrews 11:17-9)
God promised that Abraham would become a great nation through Isaac. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice this son. Therefore, Abraham reasoned, God will raise Isaac from the dead because God will fulfill his promise to me.
You are not going to have all the pieces together in the puzzle called your life. Our family knows the loss of children and parents, the struggle of genetic defects, and the hurt of being betrayed by close friends. Like you, we have been tempted to reject God’s goodness when He faces us with times of testing. But we always look back to Calvary and the empty tomb. Abraham believed in bodily resurrection and so do we. Abraham looked for a city whose architect and builder was God, and so do we. How about you?
These thoughts on the "Sacrifice of a Son" are part of a new series we just started at our home church, called "HisStory—Discovering God’s Glory and Grace in the Old and the New." If you have ever picked up a Bible and wondered how to put it all together this is the series that will give you the big picture. You will get to know the main characters and the plot of the most important book anyone could ever read.
My biggest challenge coming up in March is teaching all of Solomon’s writings at the Word of Life Bible Institute in Hungary and also bringing encouragement to our son, Jonathan, and his family as he studies in Morocco. Pray that the Lord Jesus through His Spirit will guide me in fulfilling these strategic assignments, and if some of you would like to help with travel expenses for this trip, just designate your gift—Hungary Trip.
Your conversations with God about our ministry through Midlothian Bible Church and Truth Encounter keep us going when we get discouraged. Your financial gifts help us buy up more of the opportunities God gives to help others to encounter the truth in Jesus. If you can help us this month with a financial gift, Mary would like to send you the CD message titled, "Sacrifice a Son," on Genesis 22. Let me also encourage you to tell your friends to check out our web site, truthencounter.com, and listen to our broadcast at OnePlace.com. The entire series, HisStory will be available later in the year- but right now you can download the free mp3 or listen each week as we walk through the Bible.
Dave and Mary Wyrtzen
For your FREE copy of the “Sacrifice a Son” CD just fill out the online order form.
If you want to support this ministry, send your gift to:
Truth Encounter
Box 580
Midlothian, TX 76065