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Abraham was an experienced listener. Perhaps once or twice he had listened too well. In the matter of Sarah's servant woman, he listened to his wife on at least two occasions when his listening created some really serious problems. But let's leave that detail right there, and go on to things of greater importance.

Seriously, listening must have been among Abraham's finer achievements; apparently he was quite good at it. Throughout his lifetime, he had been remarkably attentive to the voice of God. He had listened in Haran when God told him to leave his country and kindred; he had listened as God had guided him step by step and day by day all the way to the land of Canaan.

Then, after years in Canaan, came the day when he was convinced that God was asking him to do a strange, strange thing. So he took his young son Isaac and went on a three-day journey into the mountains of Moriah. There he built an altar of stone, and upon it placed fuel for a sacrificial fire. He bound his son with leather thongs and laid him there, and then unsheathed his knife and was poised to strike.

"Abraham! Abraham!" The voice came clearly to him and clearly he heard: "Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy, or do anything to him" (Genesis 22:12). By use of the knife by which he was about to kill his son, he severed the thongs that bound him, and father and son went home.

I will never know, although I would like to know, about the conversation between the two of them on that homeward trek. If they talked, what a conversation that must have been!

Well, there are mysteries in this story, and questions arise that remain unanswered after nearly 4,000 years of time. But this much we know: That mountain in Moriah was for Abraham a place of testing and that time a decision time.

Would he or would he not? -- this was the question. His answer would not only determine the fate of his son, but also his own. This was crisis; the man had come to a point of diverging ways. Everything of importance in his life from that moment forward would depend upon the way he decided the issue before him there.

Like Abraham, you and I come also now and again to our decision times, and sometimes these are as critical for us as that one was for him.

Somewhere in the Moriah of your life and mine, there probably stands such a mountain, a mount to which we must one day come, and if you haven't reached yours yet, you sometime will. Therefore, I would like us now, if we may, to think together about this.

Theology professor Frank Paul Morris of Asbury Theological Seminary didn't always limit his teaching to theology; sometimes in quite untheological ways, he dealt with life, especially the lives of the ministerial students who sat in his classes.

On occasion, Dr. Morris was wont to say something like this: "You are here in school preparing for something somewhere out there in your future. But you do not know what is out there, and you do not know what you are preparing for. You may think you are preparing for the church with the tallest steeple; but not so; actually, you are preparing for the day when your great test will come."

In saying this, the professor wasn't speaking of examinations taken in school; he was speaking of life, and of the testing times to which we all sometimes come. Specifically, he was speaking of one great test, more critical and more decisive than all the others.

In other words, somewhere along the journey of life, a way is taken, a course is charted, we make choices of what we shall be. Among all the forces that pull and tug, we select that to which we will yield, or will not. James Russell Lowell put it this way, "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide...."

With Abraham, the question was: Would he take up the knife to slay his son and would he then withhold the slaying? It had to be one way or the other, the choice had to be made, a direction taken. That was when he came to his Mount Moriah. But what about us when we come to ours?

I offer four suggestions I hope you will consider, for I think they may be helpful.

First: Recognize the mount when you come to it. Abraham knew the place when he saw it; I fear that sometimes we don't. Let me illustrate: You are driving along a good road, absorbed with what you see along the way, and you are making good time. Suddenly your attention is drawn to the road up ahead, and somehow something isn't right, and you say, "I think I may have passed an important intersection back there somewhere, and didn't know it."

Preoccupied or distracted, or both, you missed your turn. Involved with roadside trivia, you failed to see yourself in the big picture. Two roads diverged, and you passed right by, and now you don't know where you are. This happens in human lives, as well as on highways.

Several years ago, a ship's crew on an Arctic map-making expedition for the Macmillan Company found themselves lost amid the ice floes of the frozen North. Coming upon an Eskimo hunting party, the captain called out to them, "Where are we?" The answer came back, gleefully, "We don't know; we live here!"

This may be a keyhole view of our life as it is sometimes; we don't know where we are in relation to anything specific; we are here, wherever this is, and this is all we know. It helps a lot in our life to have been to the mountain, a summit to have taken direction from, and always afterward to remember that we have been there.

Although I have never seen it, I have somewhere read about a most impressive painting that would surely carry a powerful message to any viewer. It portrayed a young man in a chess game against the devil. Whether such a painting actually exists, I do not know, but if it doesn't it should.

The youth in this scene is deeply pondering in great perplexity, near checkmate apparently. The devil's smug expression indicates he is sure he has already won the game. It appears to be the young man's play, but he cannot decide what to do. Behind, and looming somewhat above him, is the figure of an angelic person, the eyes on the chessboard, a finger pointing, and this person is obviously saying, "Young man, make that move!"

For the youth in this scene, it is Mount Moriah time, time to move, time to get a fix on his future, and one hopes he knows it is.

No, I cannot tell you for sure how to identify your mountain, but I can suggest this: Lift your eyes above the trivia, look beyond the trifles, see yourself as somewhere between the wide horizons. Else, with downcast gaze, you may see only the pebbles at your feet, and so pass your mountain by.

Now, in the second place, having come to your mountain, accept the fact that you must face it. You cannot turn and run. Abraham would probably have preferred that; he had an awful decision to make, but he made it, and you and I must make ours.

In the issues of right and wrong, for instance, not to decide is to decide for the wrong, always. So often, even if we elect not to choose, we actually make a choice. If we refuse to choose the high ground, this means that we will walk the low. This is simply the way things are.

We deal with a moral equivalent of the physical law of gravitation; release your grasp on an object and it falls; it will stay up only if sustained. So when you come to your Mount Moriah, face it; not to do so is to default on life, at least on life at its best and as it is designed to be.

In the third place, be aware that afterward things will be different. Whatever we may make of Abraham at his Moriah, the man settled some things that day; these were issues he would never have to settle again. Consider his journey home: How different it must have been from the spirit and mood in which he came to that place.

We are told that after those "wise men" of the East had seen the infant Jesus, they went home another way. As we read the gospel stories, apparently nobody, having once met Christ, was ever the same again. For some, like Mary of Magdala, life was changed in one direction, and for others, such as "the rich young ruler," their life was changed in another, but in both instances changed.

When we encounter Christ, he becomes the issue; try as we may, we cannot ignore him. He who died for all will not be person-of-no-consequence to any.

Once, he came into our world as the Great Interceptor, and now, on whatever path we walk, he is there to intercept us, one by one, person by person, and he will not step aside to accommodate our indifference. Sooner or later, one way or another, we must, each of us, reckon with him.

Truly, as we contemplate all possible Moriahs, the encounter with Christ is most critical; but in one way it is also quite typical. Afterward, things will be different.

As we think about coming to our Mount Moriah, let me suggest a fourth thing we just must do: Listen! Listen! Deep within, hear what God may have to say. Be tuned in to receive whatever communication the Spirit would bring. For this is a juncture of critical decision, and you need to see every road sign in the clearest light possible.

However, listening is not always easy at a critical time, for then, and especially then, you are beset by a din of many voices calling,demanding. A chaos of conflicting claims is upon you, tugging and pulling this way and that. Storm winds of uncertainty may howl and scream around you; frightful clouds of dread or fear may roll and roil about you; and it will not be easy to be still and listen.

But listen you must; for through it all, you must hear what God is saying to you. Despite the bombardment of all other voices, you must hear God's word whispered softly in your heart, for this is the way he usually speaks. It is only with the most careful precision that you can tune in to hear the "still, small voice" or "a sound of sheer silence" (1 Kings 19:12). And, without tuning God out, tune in also upon the wisdom of the ages.

An important reason for listening at life's critical times is that here especially you need up-to-date information. Whatever you thought before, and whatever you thought you heard before, listen now; God may have something new to tell you. Suppose, when he stood on that mountain in Moriah, Abraham had not listened! Suppose that, having listened once, he had concluded that he had now heard it all, and God had nothing more to say? Suppose he had already made up his mind and closed it off? How tragic for his son and for him!

All around in his community, Abraham's Canaanite neighbors often made sacrifices of their children. This was their way of being religious; and with full knowledge of what they were doing, Abraham was sure he had heard his God tell him to go and do likewise.

He must have been terribly troubled about it; but he went. And he came within a breath of slaying the son he loved so much; but there on that remote mountain on that crisis day, he heard God speak again; he was sure of it. Fortunately, when God spoke, the man was listening.

And the life of Isaac was spared -- and a nation could come into being -- and from that nation the Christ would come.

Abraham, thank you for listening! And, Lord, help me also to listen, and may I listen so well all my journey along, that when I come at length to my mount of great decision, I may clearly hear you speak, for I shall need especially to hear you then.