Genesis 22:1-14 The Message
22 After all this, God tested Abraham. God said, “Abraham!”
“Yes?” answered Abraham. “I’m listening.”
2 He said, “Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I’ll point out to you.”
3-5 Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants and his son Isaac. He had split wood for the burnt offering. He set out for the place God had directed him. On the third day he looked up and saw the place in the distance. Abraham told his two young servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac his son to carry. He carried the flint and the knife. The two of them went off together.
7 Isaac said to Abraham his father, “Father?”
“Yes, my son.”
“We have flint and wood, but where’s the sheep for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham said, “Son, God will see to it that there’s a sheep for the burnt offering.” And they kept on walking together.
9-10 They arrived at the place to which God had directed him. Abraham built an altar. He laid out the wood. Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the wood. Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son.
11 Just then an angel of God called to him out of Heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
12 “Don’t lay a hand on that boy! Don’t touch him! Now I know how fearlessly you fear God; you didn’t hesitate to place your son, your dear son, on the altar for me.”
13 Abraham looked up. He saw a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
14 Abraham named that place God-Yireh (God-Sees-to-It). That’s where we get the saying, “On the mountain of God, he sees to it.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Adeste Fideles! Laeti Triumphantes! Venite Adoremus! Dominum.
Pushed to the Limits: Faith, Trust, Obedience To God
Genesis 22:1-5 GOD’S WORD Translation
God Tests Abraham
22 Later God tested Abraham and called to him, “Abraham!”
“Yes, here I am!” he answered.
2 God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.”
3 Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place that God had told him about. 4 Two days later Abraham saw the place in the distance. 5 Then Abraham said to his servants, “You stay here with the donkey while the boy and I go over there. We’ll worship. After that we’ll come back to you.”
“Take Your Only Son and Sacrifice Him as a Burnt Offering Unto Me.”
The Word of God is silent about the strong, sudden, hugely private, emotional reaction of Abraham here – God had commanded him to Give Up His Own Son.
It was extraordinarily Private.
He could not tell anyone of this task.
The Ultimate Secret which if known, would surely ruin everything for everyone.
If known, no one would let him go anywhere near the mountain, he would be tied up, imprisoned – never to be let loose for fear of the lost life of the child.
Such a thought of sacrificing one’s own child in response to a “command from God” today is absolutely unthinkable truly meriting extensive legal protections.
But in those most ancient and primitive of times, “God Commanded Abraham.”
A most private of times to be hardcore struggling with ourselves, with our God.
A most unexpected command from God.
A most bizarre, head shaking, soul quaking, bone chilling command from God.
But from our text we find Abraham making all preparations to follow through.
What is going on here?
Has Abraham lost his sanity, his connections to all of reality?
He was hiding his emotions pretty well because we do not see nor hear nor read of anyone, including his wife Sarah, going crazy to stop Abraham from his task.
A very determined Abraham is expertly hiding his greatest anguish from all of his friends, his servants, his most trusted advisors, and especially, his wife.
God commands – Abraham Goes!
We read nowhere in the text from Genesis 22:1-14, Abraham arguing or debating with God as to the merits and the wisdom of this task – unless it’s subconscious.
But we are not privy to those thoughts, nor do we have any access to what is now undoubtedly going on deep within Father Abraham’s heart and his soul.
But we have only to put ourselves in his place to sense what he felt, how his heart was utterly and completely torn, how he hides, avoids telling Isaac, the fearful truth until the very last possible moment, how Abraham perhaps deeply trembles within when Isaac finally asks the One question, “Where is the lamb?”
Answer Jehovah Jireh: Trust God Will Provide
Genesis 22:8 Names of God Bible
8 Abraham answered, “Elohim will provide a lamb for the burnt offering, Son.”
The two of them went on together.
In the context of that exact moment of exchange between Father and Son,
A mysterious answer to be sure.
An evasive answer to be sure.
A very frightening and “is my life in danger?” scary answer to be certain.
“Just Trust Me, My Son! God will Provide!”
How well did Abraham, his tone of voice, his upright or slouched posture, his eye to eye contact, his averting his gaze, his obvious evasiveness, communicate the message of “Jehovah Jireh blessed assurance” to the soul of his only Son?
How well would our own tone of voice, our posture, our own eye to eye contact with our own children communicate or not communicate our maximum faith, our actually authentic, our beyond genuine reproach trust, in our “Jehovah Jireh?”
What do we know of Isaac’s faith and trust in his father, his assuring words?
What do we know of young Isaac’s personal belief system in his dad and God?
What do we know of Abraham’s education of his Son Isaac on trusting God?
What do we know of our own children’s education when it comes down to the critical issues of faith and trusting their fathers, faith and trusting their God?
We know there is no real answer to either Father Abraham’s, Isaac’s questions until we run through intervening centuries and read, listen, study of the New Testament and to John the Baptist standing before the people of Israel saying,
Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world
(John 1:29).
Where did this grief stricken father named Abraham find even the minimal strength to not argue and debate with God, carry through this fearsome task?
The answer is found in one brief phrase in verse 5.
Abraham said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.’
Abraham is not trying to outwardly deceive these men, but somewhere in the quiet meditations of that awful night when this word first came to him, there came the awareness, consciousness that God could do something to raise this boy from the dead, and Abraham trusted God and he believed in resurrection.
That is where he found the peace of faith and hope to follow God’s command.
In the undeniable struggles of that night, he began to reason, to reckon on God.
He must have thought something like this:
“God has given me promises, and I have lived with God long enough to know that when God gives a promise, He carries it through. God has said that in my son Isaac all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Isaac is necessary to the fulfillment of the promise. It can’t be any other; He has said this boy is the one who is going to be the fulfillment of the promise. Well then, if God has asked me now to offer him up as a sacrifice, there is only one response, one explanation. Choose Faith, God intends to bring His good from this act of obedience of mine and raise him from the dead.
“
Patriarch Abraham had never had, as we have today, the experience or the faith record of anyone witnessing nor testifying to having anyone rise from the dead.
Yet so firm is his faith and trust in the character of God that he comes to, he ascends unto, a clear and rational realization of the coming resurrection.
This is confirmed in Hebrews 11:
By faith Abraham offered Isaac. . . Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead…
(Hebrews 11:17,19).
Abraham risked everything he owned, most precious to him, and faith-filled, faithfully loved on the character of God, found Him to be a God of resurrection.
Because of this wonderful triumph in his life, Abraham calls this place, God will provide – Jehovah Jireh.
And based on this miracle there sprang up a little saying in Israel, a proverb: “When you get to the mount, it will be provided.”
God’s ways with people are such that even when all seems to be hopeless, yet still our hearts and our souls scream out “obedience unto God at all costs” and it seems as though deliverance and redemption and restoration will never come,
One truth will always and absolutely remain true: Jehovah Jireh is 100% ALIVE!
For us and our Children, for countless ages, generations, yet to be born of God.
Psalm 100 Names of God Bible
Psalm 100
A psalm of thanksgiving.
1 Shout happily to Yahweh, all the earth.
2 Serve Yahweh cheerfully.
Come into his presence with a joyful song.
3 Realize that Yahweh alone is Elohim.
He made us, and we are his.[a]
We are his people and the sheep in his care.
4 Enter his gates with a song of thanksgiving.
Come into his courtyards with a song of praise.
Give thanks to him; praise his name.
5 Yahweh is good.
His mercy endures forever.
His faithfulness endures throughout every generation.
Give all thanks unto God, unto Jehovah Jireh, God who provides even if it seems that you will never be delivered.
But, by learning from Abraham’s faith, his obedience to his God, as you go on, when you get to the mount, model Abraham’s trust in God, all will be provided.
People’s personal struggles with disappointments are all God’s appointments.
His divine appointments for our steadfast belief in Jireh’s divine anointing’s.
It is never too late for God.
It is never too late for us even as we mightily struggle, even as Abraham had been required to carry the bloody business through, his father’s heart was quiet in restful peace because he knew God would soon raise his son from the dead.
Abraham and Isaac: Our Faith, Trust and Obedience
Abraham must have been heartbroken.
We would be also.
God had told him to sacrifice his beloved son.
Through this only heir, Abraham and his descendants were to be blessed (Genesis 17:19).
It could not have made any amount or degree of sense to Abraham, but yet he trusted God and in an an impossible act of faith, he responded in obedience.
Isaac too, somewhere deep inside knew the love of his father, Abraham, and trusted him, obeyed his earthly father to enough to follow his instructions.
Abraham modeled obedience to God for Isaac to see.
If his father said that God would provide, that was enough.
They did not know God’s plan, but they trusted God to be in charge.
By faith “Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death” (Hebrews 11:19).
It is hard to trust God when we do not understand his plan, when we cannot make sense of what God is calling us to be steadfastly, immovably obedient to.
Rather, we long to preserve the illusion that we are in charge of our life.
We will always want God to work things out according to our plan, “our will be done,” but that is not the way God works. God asks us to trust him and to obey.
Can we model steadfast, immovable faith in God even as life makes no sense?
Can we model steadfast, immovable trust in God even as life makes no sense?
Can we model steadfast, immovable obedience even when life makes no sense?
Others, including our children will look to model their lives after our own, at our measure of integrity of our lives to see if we really live by the words we say.
Do we model lives of faith, trust and obedience for our spouses to see?
Do we model lives of faith, trust and obedience for our children to see?
Do we model lives of faith, trust and obedience for our neighbors to see?
Do we model lives of faith, trust and obedience for our co-workers to see?
And if we looked into a mirror at ourselves and saw God looking back at us?
In the name of God, the Father, and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Heavenly Father, I know we are called to live by faith and not by sight, signs, logic, or intuition. Lord, help me to know you more each day and to trust you to care for me. Let my life, as hard, difficult, as it might be for me in any moment, be characterized by a steadfast obedience to you so that others may be drawn to you. I believe Your Word and do not want anything or anyone in my life, to take Your place. Father, I want to offer You my life as a living sacrifice. I want to listen to Your voice and to obey all that I am called upon to do, and I pray that in the power of the Holy Spirit, I may die to my own desires and live for Christ alone, God, thank You that regardless of what You call me to lay on the altar in obedience to You, You always know what is good, better and best, and You always have a plan. This I ask in Jesus’ name, AMEN.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Adeste Fideles! Laeti Triumphantes! Venite Adoremus! Dominum.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 