Abraham’s Crucial Test of Faith

The sacrifice of Isaac put Abraham to his most agonizing test, a trial which he passed completely because of his total faith in God.

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." (Genesis 22:2)

Abraham took Isaac, two servants and a donkey and set off on the 50 mile journey.  When they arrived, Abraham ordered the servants to wait with the donkey while he and Isaac went up the mountain.  He told the men, "We will worship and then we will come back to you." (Genesis 22:5b)

Isaac asked his father where the lamb was for the sacrifice, and Abraham answered that the Lord would provide the lamb.  Saddened and confused, Abraham bound Isaac with ropes and placed him on the stone altar.  Just as Abraham raised the knife to slay his son, the angel of the Lord called out to Abraham to stop and not harm the boy.  The angel said he knew that Abraham feared the Lord because he had not withheld his only son.

When Abraham looked up, he saw a ram caught in a thicket by its horns.  He sacrificed the animal, provided by God, instead of his son.

Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 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." (Genesis 22:16-18)

God had earlier promised Abraham that He would make a great nation of him through Isaac, which forced Abraham to either trust God with what mattered most to him or to distrust God.  Abraham chose to trust and obey. 

Abraham told his servants "we" will come back to you, meaning both he and Isaac.  Abraham must have believed God would either provide a substitute sacrifice or would raise Isaac from the dead.  This incident foreshadows God's sacrifice of His only son, Jesus Christ, on the cross at Calvary, for the sin of the world.  God's great love required of Himself what He did not require of Abraham.

Mount Moriah, where this event took place, means "God will provide."  King Solomon later built the first Temple there.  Today, the Muslim shrine The Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem, stands on the site of the sacrifice of Isaac.  The author of the book of Hebrews cites Abraham in his "Faith Hall of Fame," and James says Abraham's obedience, “…was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend.” (James 2:23)

Sacrificing one's own child is the ultimate test of faith.  Whenever God allows our faith to be tested, we can trust that it is for a good purpose.  Trials and tests reveal our obedience to God and the genuineness of our faith and trust in Him.  Tests also produce commitment, strength of character, and equip us to weather the storms of life because they bring us closer to the Lord.

What do I need to sacrifice in my own life to follow God more closely?

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change in your own life.

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In the Beginning God….

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

This statement without question staggers the human mind.  When you and I as finite human beings bring our minds to that statement, it is like bringing a teacup to God's ocean of truth. This opening verse of the Bible is the foundational truth of the whole Bible. God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all that is within them.  And He gives meaning and purpose and value to life.

The existence of God is the basic assumption of the Bible.  It begins simply by saying, "In the beginning God...."  But it is a reasonable assumption.  And anyone who does not believe this first verse in the Bible will have great difficulty believing anything else that the Holy Scriptures have to say.

Creation itself is one of God's great missionaries.  In Psalm 19:1 we read, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."  His fingerprints are all over His creation.  He has revealed Himself as "…the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth." (Isaiah 40:28) 

The creation account in Genesis gives atheists no peace.  They deny the existence of God. And they hide behind the wall of evolution, a pseudo-intellectual hiding place.  Evolutionists believe that in the beginning life spontaneously appeared. 

Consider the following statement, addressing this issue, by Dr. George Wald, a Nobel Prize winner of Harvard University, who said, "One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible.  Yet here we are, as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation."[1]  He believes what he himself says is impossible. 

Theistic evolutionists fare no better.  At the other end of the evolutionary time line they find that they have evolved from the image and likeness of monkeys.  Compare Genesis 1:26, 27, where man is created in the image and likeness of God.  There really is a difference, isn't there?

Genesis 1:1 has no room for pantheism.  The God of creation is separate from His creation.  Polytheism, the belief in many gods, has no factual basis.  Atheistic Communism used to teach materialism, the mistaken belief that matter is eternal.  The heavens and the earth had a beginning.  They began with God.

This God is our Creator.  He isn't seeking scholarly opinions that deny His Word.  He is seeking true worshippers, those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. (See John 4:24)

In a way it is a very simple verse. When you think about it the complexity of what is dealt with here and you think about the vastness of creation. You look through the microscope and you see a world so infinitely small the human eye cannot see it.

Then you look at a telescope and you see a world that is so marvelously large, man has never been able to go to its outer limits and yet God puts it all together in these words, In the beginning God...

The psalmist calls out, " Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care."  (Psalm 95:6-7)

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[1] “The Origin of Life,” Scientific American, Vol. 190, August 1954, p. 46.

Can God change your life?

God has made it possible for you to know Him, and experience an amazing
change in your own life.

Discover how you can find peace with God.