Faith Put to the Test — Part Two

Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 22. And we’re going to read this morning from verse 9 to verse 19. Genesis 22:9:

“When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’

“‘Here I am,’ he replied.

“‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’

“Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’

“The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, ‘I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.’

“Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.”

Just turn forward in your Bible into chapter 25, and we’ll read from verse 8. From 7:

“Altogether, Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years. Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.”

Amen.

Let’s bow for a moment in prayer together, shall we?

O Lord our God, in light of the words that we’ve just been singing, we ponder their significance as we think of all that Abraham went through as you molded his character and guided his future. And we pray that you will be pleased to use this, our final study, this morning, in the life of Abraham, to call some of us into the venture of faith for the first time, to call others of us back central on the pathway, and to quicken the footsteps of others as we walk behind the Lord Jesus Christ. For we pray in his precious name. Amen.

Well, with our Bibles still open, then, at Genesis 22, may I just remind you that last time, as we looked at verses 1–8, we noted two particular factors?

First of all, we considered the test which God designed. You will recall that we said that this test was unlike any of the others which Abraham had faced. This test was the ultimate. And in the light of all that we considered last time, everything else in Abraham’s life seemed preparatory in relation to it. It was a reminder to us, I’m sure, that we prepare for the crises of life on the relatively humdrum track of our everyday activity. None of us knows what tomorrow will bring. None of us knows when it will be our turn to face what may prove to be that ultimate test. And what we are right now, this morning, at 9:35, is the key to how we will respond to the tests of tomorrow. So we have no time; we only have now to become the people that God desires for us to be.

We noted also that the test which God had designed was matched by the trust which Abraham displayed. And just as we’ve seen in his life that as his faltering hindered people, so his faith was a great encouragement to them, and not least of all of deep significance in the life of his son Isaac. We concluded last time with the phrase in our minds—and therefore something of a picture, I trust, of father and son—as we read the words in the verse 8, “And the two of them went on together.” Perhaps you’ve held that picture in your mind this week, especially if you are a parent. Perhaps you’ve held that moment of challenge as you’ve thought whether this week you have taken your children on adventures of faith—whether, seven days on from where we left it, we are further along the pathway of God’s appointing for us.

Well, with that picture in our minds, we move on. And the awesomeness of the statement contained there comes to our hearts when we realize where they were going on to. “The two of them went on together.” To where? To “the place”—verse 9—“God had told [them] about.” And so, this morning, I want us to summarize these verses by noticing three things: the place to which they went, the provision that God made, and the picture which this study provides for us of something in the New Testament.

The Place to Which They Went

First of all, then, let’s look at this place. It was mentioned first of all in verse 4, where we read that “on the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place.” He saw it in the distance, and still he moved towards it. By the time we reach verse 9, not only has he seen the place, but now he has reached the place. I think there’s a place called “The Place” just down the road from here, isn’t there? La Place. Kind of French-sounding for some reason—to make it sound better than “The Place.” I mean, it doesn’t sound as cool to go shopping at “The Place,” but it’s nicer to go shopping at La Place. Well, whether you want to call it La Place or “The Place,” that’s just the place that he arrived at. And all of us have got places that are etched indelibly on our minds.

I think it was in 1965 that one of the songs that I recall—the sentimental side of one of the poets of the day wrote these words:

There are places I remember in my life;
Some have gone, and some remain.
Some have changed,
Some for good, and some for better.[1]

And it’s true, isn’t it? There are places in all of our minds that we think of right now—maybe the place where we committed our life to Christ; maybe the place where God spoke to us in a peculiar way and set us up on the pathway of his appointing. Well, I can assure you that this place was etched indelibly on the mind of this father-and-son team.

And its significance may be summarized in two statements. What was this place? What was it that marked it? What makes it important for our study this morning? Two things.

First of all, it was the place of obedience. The place of obedience. It wasn’t so much its geographical context, even although Calvary was eventually located within the immediate vicinity of this exact place. Where Christ died, Isaac was sacrificed. But the geography of it is not ultimately as important as the significance that is contained in the fact that it was “the place God had told him about”—verse 9. He was in “the place God … told him about.” He was not in the place that he took for himself. As a man, he would never have gone here. Who would take his youngster on such an adventure as this? Who would go gladly to the sacrifice of your only son? Abraham isn’t a hero, the more I read these verses. Abraham is an obedient man of faith. As we’ve gone through the chapters, he’s blown it nearly as many times as he got it right. And so we’re confronted by an inevitable truth: Abraham is an example to us primarily because eventually, he came to the place of obedience.

How much more would we discover of the abundance of God’s love and of the adequacy of God’s provision if only we would daily ensure one thing: that we are walking on the pathway of obedience?

Now, the instruction as to what he was to do was recorded in verse 2, and we noted it last time. God had said to him, “Take your [only] son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Now, it’s interesting—and I never noticed it last week, but I noticed it this, and maybe you noticed it a long time ago, in which case, you might have told me. But it is interesting that he instructed him first to go to the region, and when he reached the region, then he would give him the specifics of the place. To that we’ll return in a moment or two.

Abraham is an example to us of all who would follow on the path of faith. How much more, my dear friends this morning, would we discover of the abundance of God’s love and of the adequacy of God’s provision if only we would daily ensure one thing: that we are walking on the pathway of obedience? As I thought of God’s call to obedience, my mind went forward, and then I read again John 14 and 15. I commend it to you. At your earliest convenience, take John 14 and 15 and read it through again. And you will find the reiteration of this central truth: Jesus says again and again, “Fellows, you need to obey me.”

Let me give you a couple of examples. John 14:15: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” He does not say, “If you love me, you will have a very funny feeling in the pit of your stomach.” He does not say, “If you love me, you will be caught up in wonder and in all kinds of things.” We may well. But he said, “If you love me, you will know you love me because of your obedience.” Now, that’s not the thing that, by and large, we want to hear. We want to have some other criteria for judging our love. Jesus says, “No.”

Again he says in John 15, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love …. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and … your joy may be complete.”[2] Do you want to be a joyful believer? Do you want the joy of the Lord Jesus to be your strength this week? Do you know the key? The place of obedience. Christianity, you see, is not a glandular condition. It is not a case of whether we feel like it—“I feel like praying,” or “I feel like worshipping,” or “I don’t feel like doing any of it.” Christ said, “I don’t care how you feel. Do it! Obey me, and your joy will be full.” It’s hardly surprising, then, that when Christ sent out his disciples—when he gave them the Great Commission, sending them into “all the world”[3]—you remember that central to it, he said, “[Teach] them to obey everything I have commanded you.”[4]

See, this is the key, my friends this morning, as to why some of us can have a great deal of head knowledge—we may be versed in theology, we may know our Bibles back to front—and we may amount to nothing for God, because we have not settled the matter of obedience, because we are not in the place that God has told us about, because we have decided that plan B of our making is far better than plan A of God’s appointing.

Some of us, also, are holding back on God because we want the details: “I want to know specifically, God, what you have for me, and then I’ll start obeying you.” The Lord says, “No chance! You start obeying me, and then I’ll let you know what I have specifically for you.” Can I ask you this morning: Are you in the region of obedience? Are you in the place where God may speak to your heart and lead you forward? Or are you waiting for God’s will, let down from heaven like a big Christmas box, where you’re going to open it up and discover the whole package from now till the day you see Christ? I’ve got news for you: the package isn’t coming. God’s purpose for our lives unrolls from day to day, as a scroll, as we go to the place that he tells us about. You see, the Bible gives to us principles to be applied and parameters to frame our activity. And when we apply those principles and live within those parameters, then God will speak to us concerning the details.

If I may use a personal illustration—lest you think in the vagueness, it has no relevance at all—I remember when I went first to study at London Bible College, I knew, was sure of, only one thing: that God had spoken to me about getting myself into the place of preparation for usefulness. If someone had asked me then, “What are you going to do at the end of three years?” I would have said, “I couldn’t tell you. But I do want to be useful for God.” And at the end of three years—and, in fact, within a month of graduation—it was only then that the specific leading came. “You go,” he said, “to the region, and then to the mountain that I will tell you about.” It struck me forcibly this week that many of us have never scaled our mountains because we never made it into the region.

Secondly, it was the place not only of obedience, but it was the place of sacrifice—the place where Abraham was going to sacrifice his son. And as we reminded ourselves last time—verse 6—with “Abraham [taking] the wood for the burnt offering and [placing] it on his son Isaac,” and then “he himself [carrying] the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together…” What a picture! A father and a son embraced in conversation, embraced in one another’s love, and carrying between them the materials for a sacrifice. Both the offerer and the victim walk together.

It seems to me that obedience and sacrifice, on the path of faith, cannot be separated. If you know nothing of sacrifice, you know nothing of faith. Sacrifice is at faith’s beginning. Jesus said, “If you want to be my disciple”—Luke 9:[23]—said, “If you want to be my disciple, take up your cross every day and follow me.”[5] And when he said that, he said it to crowds and crowds of people. And gradually, his crowd got smaller and smaller. Jesus wasn’t in the business of trying to draw the biggest crowd he could possibly draw. He was in the business of trying to create the smallest, most useful nucleus that he could possibly use. So he didn’t call people to the lowest common denominator. He made it as difficult as possible for them to get on the pathway of faith. He said, “If you want to come die, then come. If you want to live in obedience, then you live in sacrifice.” And he taught it, and he applied it.

And he applied it very forcibly, on one occasion, in the life of a young man who came to see him—the life of a young man who would probably have made it as a deacon in many churches, or as an elder, the reason being that he was a very qualified young fellow: very upright, had a good background, plenty of cash, and by and large, he was a useful fellow to have around. And he came to Jesus—Luke chapter 18—and he was asking all the right questions.

He said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

And the conversation continues, and then Jesus says this to him: “You still lack one thing.”[6]

“Oh?” said the young man. “Wonder what that is? It’s pretty good, you know. Just one? Should be able to take care of this fairly quickly. Just one thing? ‘You still lack one thing’?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Okay, and what’s that?”

“Sell everything you have…”

“Hmm.”

“… and give to the poor…”

“Uh-huh?”

“… and you will have treasure in heaven. [And] then come, follow me.”[7]

“When he heard this, he became very sad.”[8] Somebody phoned me up and said, “You know, sometimes your preaching makes me feel guilty. I don’t feel joyful. I don’t always feel happy.” I said, “I’m terribly sorry.” I am. I don’t want you to come in here, have a bad trip every Sunday, and go out like this, you know? Get beaten and beaten down. But listen: this sermon that Jesus gave in a few words didn’t exactly have this guy jumping three feet up in the air, did it? Why? Because he laid his finger on the point of obedience. He said to him, “If you would live on my pathway, if you would walk in my footsteps, then here is the prerequisite: sell what you have, and give it to the poor.” People have used that as a doctrine to try and create the fact that everybody ought to live in total abject poverty, which is a dreadful misunderstanding of the text.

He might have just as well said to somebody else, as he said to the woman at the well—remember? He said, “And how about your husband?” She said, “I haven’t got a husband.” He said, “You’re dead right you haven’t got a husband. You’ve had five, and the one you’re living with now isn’t your husband.” And it was like, “Uph!” Right there! He got her. And she went back, and she dealt with all of that. And then she said, “Come and see the man who told me everything I ever did.”[9] But there was sacrifice. There was a revolution. There was a transformation. There was a cost involved in following Jesus.

What does it cost us to follow Jesus Christ? What does it cost us to walk the pathway of faith in middle-class America? What difference do we bring to our lifestyle that people say, “That man, that woman, is different.” It’s not because, my friends, the cost is not here to confront us. It is because we have become excellent at evading its challenges and applying it to others. I say again: that man would have been signed up by many a church, and Jesus sent him away sad. If you go away sad because of this, then I’ll be quite happy.

Can I ask you this morning—and we need not evade the challenge: Are we in the place of sacrifice? Don’t let’s just talk vaguely about faith. Life is too short. Some of us have lived more than half of it, probably. And some of us have lived more of it than we know we’ve lived. Are we on the track? Are our lives a living sacrifice offered to God?[10] Are you prepared to change your job? Are you prepared to quit being an accountant and become a preacher? Are you prepared to leave your clinic and go to Ethiopia? Are you prepared to turn it upside down and go for God on the place of obedience or sacrifice if that’s what he asks you to do? Now, if he doesn’t, that’s fine. But are we ready for the ultimate test? Are we going to reach our world for Jesus Christ? I’d like to clear this place, and fill it up again, and clear it, and fill it up again. You know where I’d clear it to? To all the places where the voice of Jesus Christ has never been heard. Then we’ll fill it up again, and then we’ll send more.

Little chorus we used to sing years ago went like this:

Only to be what he wants me to be
Every moment of every day,
Yielded completely to Jesus alone
Every step of this pilgrim way.

Just to be clay in the Potter’s hands,
Ready to do what his [will] commands,
Only to be what he wants me to be,
Every moment of every day.[11]

Are you sure that you’re being what he wants you to be? And if you are, then God bless you, and let’s get on with it. And if you’re not, then let’s be sure. Because I say again: life’s too short to fiddle around spending it doing that which God never intended for us.

The Provision that God Made

Secondly, notice the provision that God made.

The place was the place of obedience and the place of sacrifice. Verses 9 and 10 seem to indicate very strongly that for these events to take place as they did, Isaac must have embraced not just his father’s faith but his father’s God. You remember we said last time that he was doubtless a sturdy youth. As I researched it more this week, I discovered that the oldest age that somebody suggested Isaac was was thirty-seven years of age. Now, I don’t know how they work all their chronology out, but the age is going up. Just as well we don’t have a third week to come back to it. We’d probably find out that he was older than his father. But anyway, he was an upright guy.

Life’s too short to fiddle around spending it doing that which God never intended for us.

And as I thought about it more and more, I said, “Now, what in the world happened up there on Moriah? I mean, did his father thump him around? Beat him about?” Do you think that’s what happened? Do you think he stood on his chest and tied his hands behind his back? You’re smiling. How did he get him on the altar? That’s the question I’m asking. There’s only two possibilities, it seems: either he wrestled him on there, or Isaac went on himself. And if Isaac went on by himself, then it is clear that Abraham had communicated effectively to his son the great faith that welled up in his heart. He was able to say to him, “The Lord will provide. I don’t know how he’s going to do it, but I’m sure he’s going to do it, son, because you are the very central part of his purposes for the future.” And verses 9 and 10 give to us a picture not of resignation but a picture of consecration. And there’s all the difference in the world between the two.

Oh, I tell you, I cannot evade the challenge of this father-son thing here this morning. Stephen Olford, on one occasion, he used an illustration—I think in one of his books; I don’t recall. He told the story of a young man who had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison. And he said this before he left the courtroom: “I pardon the judge. He had to act in accord with justice. I pardon the police, who did well to bring me to conviction. I pardon the jury, who decided on the evidence. But there are two people in the court that I will not forgive, and they are my mother and my father, who brought me up without God.” Young person, listen to me this morning: when your mom and dad drag you on the pathway of faith and the pathway of obedience and you resent it, don’t make their life a misery. For one day you will “arise and call [them] blessed.”[12]

I wonder: Have we as strong a conviction this morning of God’s ability to provide as Abraham had? Whether he would provide by substitution or by resurrection he was in no doubt. And in verse 11 and following, as the angel intervenes, we discover that the provision of the ram was appropriate in its timing, and it was adequate for the task. That obviously had significance for them as it ceased the sacrifice of Isaac, as it saw him released and the ram put in its place. It’s small wonder that Abraham called the place—verse 14—“The Lord Will Provide,” so that “to this day,” the writer says, “‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’” What do you think they said to one another then? “Whew, that was a close one. Boy!”

Do you know, it’s an interesting thing—and I wouldn’t want to build a doctrine on it—but in verse 19, all it says is “Then Abraham returned to his servants.” You remember he said, “We’ll go and worship, and then we will return. We will come back to you.”[13] Now, it may well be that they did return, and the writer says, “When Abraham got there, Isaac was with him.” But maybe Isaac wasn’t with him. Maybe Isaac wanted to sit up there a while and ponder the wonder of the provision of God, let it settle into his heart and into his mind and into his being. Maybe he said to him, “Dad, you go on yourself. I need to stay and think this through.” I wonder this morning: Have we thought through the wonder of God’s provision?

The Picture These Verses Provide

That brings us, finally, to the picture that is contained with these verses. It was Augustine who said the New—referring to the Old and New Testaments—he said the New is in the Old contained, and the Old is in the New explained.[14] I’m not wishing to cause confusion this morning either by vague generalizations or by seeking out detailed and tenuous parallels. I want just to say, simply and boldly, that this incident here in Genesis 22 points us forward to the sacrifice of Jesus upon Calvary—that contained within this event, there is the foreshadowing of what one day would happen between God the Father and God the Son. To those of you to whom that is no surprise, then let me reiterate it. To those of you who have never thought of it, possibly, in that way before, let me give you one or two reasons as to why this picture is contained.

First of all, if you think of verse 6, with Abraham taking the wood and placing it on his son Isaac, those of you who are familiar with the story of Christ, you will think forward to the event that John records for us in John 19, when he says of Jesus that he “went out,” and as he walked up Calvary, what did he do? He carried “his own cross,”[15] so that he went out bearing on his back the wood which would be used for the sacrifice he was about to make. And as Isaac moves forward, bearing this wood, he foreshadows one who, at a much later time, would bear upon himself that which would be the symbol of his sacrifice.

In the same verse, you have the combination of Isaac bearing the wood and Abraham, the father, carrying the fire and the knife. You say to yourself, “Surely this cannot be a picture of God and his Son?” Yes, it is. Turn forward to Isaiah 53, and notice the way in which the events are described there. Isaiah 53:7. First of all, in verse 7, speaking of Jesus as he offered himself up, it says,

He was oppressed and afflicted,
 yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
 and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
 so he did not open his mouth.

So we have the picture there of the submission of the Son. But in verse 10, we have an awesome picture of the activity of the Father. Notice what it says:

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
 and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
 and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

The atonement—what Christ accomplished on the cross—was not something brought into history to supply a defect in the system. The atonement was written into the eternal purposes of God, so that as we see the offering up of Jesus submissively, by the same token we see the activity of God the Father in those awesome words: “It was the will of God to crush him.”

We might go this morning as far as to say that the picture provided here foreshadows the meaning of Christmas. “Oh,” you say, “wait a minute. Surely not! I mean, you had to finish Genesis 22, and you’re not trying to tie it into Christmas as well? This is a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” No, it isn’t really at all. Do you remember the question there that Isaac asked? “The wood is here. The fire is here. But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Can you hear the words of John the Baptist reverberating down through the ages as he looks on Christ and says what? “[Behold], the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”[16] “Well,” you say, “but that was Jesus in his manhood as he walked the streets. We’re thinking about Jesus in his infancy. Surely there’s a great gap between the two.” My friends, there is no gap between the two. There is no significance in that cradle in Bethlehem without that cross on Calvary—and without that crown in glory. And the significance of Christmas, of the Bethlehem narrative, is only seen in the steps from that which led Jesus Christ to become for sin the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world.

So, as we said, the provision was adequate, and so it is here. As we think of Christ, was his sacrifice sufficient? Peter writes, and he says, “Christ also suffered for sin, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”[17] How can unrighteous people come to know a righteous God? Why should someone who is totally righteous die such a cruel death for that which he never did? So that the Great Exchange may take place! So that I, who in my sin and in my rebellion, may come and be accepted before that holy God because the Christ of Bethlehem became the Christ of Calvary, because he is today seated at God’s right hand, signaling his return, when, in his second advent, the package will be opened once again, and we will sing, “The Lord will provide.”

We said that the sacrifice, the provision of the ram, was adequate. We said that the timing was appropriate. So, too, was the timing of Christ’s offering up. When Paul writes to the Romans, he says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”[18] Not a moment too soon and not a moment too late, the angel voice sounded in the heavens, and the child was brought forth. And not a moment too soon and not a moment too late, the sky was covered in darkness. The cry went up from that wee baby, now a thirty-three-year-old man, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[19] And not a moment too soon and not a moment too late, the trumpet sound will pierce the sky, and he will come for those who are ready to meet him.

Can I ask you this morning: Have you discovered the place that God has for you? Do you rejoice in the provision God has made for you? Are you a part of the picture that is painted here in these verses?

In a sense, the narrative runs out with two further things happening to Abraham: God’s promise was declared, and God’s presence was discovered. That’s why I read from Genesis 25. It says that he died an old man, “a good old age.” I’d say! A hundred and seventy-five! And notice what it says: “He was gathered to his people.” It’s a lovely picture of death, isn’t it? To be gathered up amongst those who love you and who share your faith.

Coming right down to it, what good is a faith that deserts us at the moment of ultimate challenge? And the real test of real faith is to say whether our faith can withstand the dark night of death. For some of us in church this morning, we would be saying with Shakespeare’s Claudio, “Death is a fearful thing. … To die, and go we know not where.”[20] But Abraham died and was “gathered to his people.”

When the blessed, who sleep in Jesus, at his bidding shall arise
From the silence of the grave and from the sea,
And with bodies all celestial they [will] meet him in the skies,
What a gathering [of the ransomed that] will be!

The chorus goes,

What a gathering, what a gathering,
What a gathering of the ransomed in the summer land of love!
What a gathering, what a gathering,
[What a gathering] in that happy home above![21]

Where’s Abraham today? Where will you and I be when there’s no journey left to take, no promise left to obey, no possibility of another Sunday to come and hear the Word? How I long that we might all be on the pathway of faith!

Let’s just bow in prayer together:

God, I pray that in these final moments of our time together this morning, that you will open our eyes to see the truth. I pray for the young people here who sit with their moms and dads, and they’ve never committed their lives to you, and they think that because they keep coming to church, that’s fine, or because of their father or their mother’s faith, that’ll do. Lord God, I pray this morning that for them, theirs may be the discovery of Isaac—that they may lay hold upon God for themselves, may trust in him fully. And Father, I pray for each one of us, that you will bring us to the place that you have spoken to us about, the place of purity and of truth, the place of obedience and of love. We thank you for your provision in so many ways, and most of all for that in Christ. And we praise him today as the Lamb upon the throne, high and lifted up, worthy of our adoration. We “crown him Lord of all!”[22] And we pray for grace that we may crown him the Lord and Savior of our lives. For we ask it in his precious name. Amen.

[1] John Lennon and Paul McCartney, “In My Life” (1965). Lyrics lightly altered.

[2] John 15:10–11 (NIV 1984).

[3] Mark 16:15 (NIV 1984).

[4] Matthew 28:20 (NIV 1984).

[5] Luke 9:23 (paraphrased).

[6] Luke 18:18, 22 (NIV 1984).

[7] Luke 18:22 (NIV 1984).

[8] Luke 18:23 (NIV 1984).

[9] John 4:16–18, 29 (paraphrased).

[10] See Romans 12:1.

[11] Norman J. Clayton, “Every Moment of Every Day” (1938).

[12] Proverbs 31:28 (NIV 1984).

[13] Genesis 22:5 (paraphrased).

[14] Augustine, Questions on the Heptateuch 2.73.

[15] John 19:17 (NIV 1984).

[16] John 1:29 (NIV 1984).

[17] 1 Peter 3:18 (paraphrased).

[18] Romans 5:6 (NIV 1984).

[19] Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34 (NIV 1984).

[20] William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, 3.1.

[21] Fanny Jane Crosby, “What a Gathering!” (1887).

[22] Edward Perronet, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (1780).