After these things God tested Abraham and 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 of which I shall tell you.” Genesis 22:1-2.
One of the most dramatic events in the Old Testament was God asking Abraham to take his one and only son and sacrifice him on Mount Moriah. While we would see this as a prophetic type foreshadowing to the sacrifice God would make of His One and Only Son, Jesus, on the cross. Foreshadow or not, this is pretty extreme.
Certainly it helps to see the whole narrative and the fact that God stops Abraham before he actually sacrifices him on an altar. That being said, if we were Abraham, this would have been a massively difficult journey. His faith is more than remarkable, it is far beyond anything I can imagine. Think of the resolution he came to and why he was actually willing to sacrifice Isaac.
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. Hebrews 11:17-19.
This is a faith that I am unfamiliar with. To come to the conclusion, based on God’s promise that all of his descendants would come from Isaac, that God would literally have to raise Isaac back from the dead in order to keep His promise is mind-boggling. Of course, the fact that God gave them a child when he was 100 years old probably helped him cross the mental barrier to accept the idea that God does impossible things, but to sacrifice your own son not only sounds barbaric but completely unnecessary.
This was not blind faith; it is a bold and courageous faith that believed the integrity of God to the extent that Abraham had the faith to carry out this act of sacrifice for the Lord. It was clearly based on God’s Word, or His promises to Abraham. Abraham did not just make this up or decide to demonstrate his faith by thinking of a wild and crazy act to prove something.
From a human perspective, God redeems His credibility by stopping Abraham from such an act that was typical of some foreign nations and their religious practices. But it give us a powerful picture of how believing in God and living by faith can look like. As I said earlier, this is a demonstration of faith that I am unfamiliar with, and it provided an interesting challenge.
First, is there anything that you would not give up for the Lord? Abraham had to resolve that in himself and sometimes we theorize that if God actually would ask me to do something like that, I would do it. But theory is theory until that moment when God actually does ask us to sacrifice something or even someone.
Secondly, genuine faith means that God’s Word takes precedent over my logic or common sense. Nothing about this test would fit any level of common sense of normal people. We would, in fact, say this would be the actions of pagans or a cult, but not about true followers of God. But the question arises, how unfamiliar are you with this kind of faith? We often create boundaries around our life, and we can end up dictating what we will do for the Lord and what we will not do. Faith with conditions is not the same kind of faith as Abraham.
Pastor Brad
