DAY 82 - Testing, 1-2-3

From Genesis 22 (NIV) ¹ Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. ² Then God said, "Take your 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." ⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" ⁸ Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." ^9b He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" ¹² "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." ¹³ 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. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide.

Why did God demand that Abraham take his son and offer him as a sacrifice? Though this testing of Abraham may not fit our image of a loving God, the reasons for the testing are clearly stated when the angel of God suddenly appeared and countermanded the command, "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." To fear God is an ancient idiom meaning to put God first. A relationship requires the expression of what we already know to be true. So Abraham gives expression of his devotion to God, something that God wanted from Abraham and wants from you and me, as well.

The test of Abraham also speaks to the human tendency to let other people and things sneak to the head of the line in what is important in our life. It can be anything that we believe we have worked for, earned for ourselves, and that no one, not even God, has the right to take it from us. The only way we ever know that someone or something has not taken first priority in our life is when we are tested by God to let go.

“God will provide” was what Abraham told Isaac on their trip toward Moriah. This is the faith spoken of in Hebrews, confidence in the things we hope for, certainty about things we cannot see. No provision from God was in sight, but faith is a way of seeing beneath the surface appearance of things to know that there is always the hidden agenda of God’s work. This is not mere optimism or wishful thinking, but a confidence based on the things we have seen and heard of the death and resurrection of Jesus, of the working of God in our own lives and the lives of others in surprising ways.

Preached by Henry Dobbs Pope, June 11, 1989

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles