The Lost Sheep

Story Two: Abraham and Isaac

(Genesis 22:1-14)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.” 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He 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.” 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 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.” And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. 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!” “Here I am,” he replied. 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. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” 

The second story is a famous one of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham and Sarah had long since wanted a child but unfortunately hadn’t had one in their many years of marriage. And God then promised them that they would have a child. But not just a child but a legacy,

(Genesis 15) 15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, [a]your exceedingly great reward.” 2 But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I [b]go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one[c] born in my house is my heir!” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” 5 Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. 7 Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” 8 And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” 9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 Now as for you, you shall [d]go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” 17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

Now this is very important and will be the hinge of everything that comes later so it’s best to note it but the fact is Abraham didn’t have children and God made a promise with him. Then we know later that Sarah tried to fulfill the promise in her own way. Genesis 16 shows the tale of Hagar and Ishmael. Which we see later was not the way God had intended and had its own consequences. But after years of waiting and wanting Sarah finally was able to have a son of her own. Abraham had an heir. And then…

“Some time later God tested Abraham.”

I always found this to be strange growing up. Why did God test Abraham? God who knows everything, from the past, to the future and every outcome; why test Abraham? And this brings us back to the age-old question of the garden and all the other trials that come round in the bible of people we struggle or are ‘tested’ by God. But that’s what’s interesting because the bible says, 

(Psalm 66:10)For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined.

When we investigate Abraham we can come to four reasons as to why God tested Abraham. 

1. Abraham’s faith had grown but it had also stumbled.

Genesis 12:10–20, Genesis 20:1–18 Both of these examples Abraham didn’t just lie but he told the same lie. Which means even though he knew it was wrong instead of trusting in God he ended up defaulting back into his old ways of solving problems through his own means. This makes Genesis 16 with Hagar infinitely clearer. It wasn’t just that Sarah was a bad wife and she didn’t trust God but both of them participated in trying to solve their problems with their own hands instead of trusting God. 

2. Isaac had become the promise.

Abraham and Sarah had wanted a child for who knows how long but imagine the joy they felt when he arrived. His birth carried a promise far greater than they could ever imagine. It’s almost enough to make you want to put all your expectations forward. I’ve seen this a lot in Asian cultures or second generations where parents and families will count on a child to lift them up whether through education, status, value. But that’s a lot of pressure and the more concerning part is that while the gift is great it doesn’t replace the giver. God was the one who gave the promise so while Isaac was the beginning it is only through God that the promise would be fulfilled. 

3. Test reveal; They don’t inform God.

God is all knowing. There isn’t anything God doesn’t know, on this foundation we can conclude that any ‘test’ God gives he already knows the answer to. But that’s the thing right, God isn’t testing us because he doesn’t know but rather… for our sake.

(Proverbs 17:3)The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the Lord tests the hearts. 

(1 Peter 1:7) that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,

Tests aren’t fun. In fact I’m not a great test taker, it makes me nervous and anxious and… well I just hate them. But ironically when I began to teach I found that tests are a great way to see if knowledge is being understood. Something like a quick quiz, or a fun assignment can test if what I’ve been teaching over and over is being absorbed. But that doesn’t mean that I now love tests. I just understand them a bit better. I can see now what these statements mean, how tests can be for the takers and not just the givers. It’s not that God’s going to grade us and mark us down but it becomes something that we learn for ourselves to refine. And if you’ve ever taken a test and then a midterm I’ve found that reviewing past tests and what I struggled on helped me pass those larger tests that brought them back up. Again no one says it’s fun and even Abraham in his test of trust failed three times (his two lies and hagar)…. Abraham, a forefather of faith and a friend of God failed… So I have hope that no matter the test I still have a chance even if I fail or ‘miss the mark’ God doesn’t give up on us. Even with those mistakes God made a promise, a covenant with Abraham for greatness. Tests reveal things about us, even if they don’t make sense or seem contradictory (as we’ll see) but they also help us grow. 

4. The story becomes a prophet picture. 

God sees more than we do. Often times we remember God sees the future when it feels like our choices were inevitable. But we forget he sees beyond those choices and outcomes. God’s test to Abraham was not just a test for him in that moment but it was a picture of a promise that began in Eden. 

When God started his plan for salvation, redemption and reunion that plan was never forgotten and in fact we see that plan reflected in a moment like this. A situation that seemed probably crazy in the moment, unfair to others, and cruel to some, becomes a blueprint and whisper of the greatest gift and sacrifice that would essentially save the world…. And Abraham had no idea. 

But let’s move back to the story. In this story God after years and years of waiting fulfills his promise to give Abraham an heir; Isaac. And then he says something strange, 

(Genesis 22:2) 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.”

Now… This is insane. We know God promised to make Abraham the father of a nation, that this child was a promise given to him and fulfilled after years of waiting in his now old age. And that same God who made such a promise is basically asking him to destroy it. Some have said that Abraham knew God would stop him before it was too late. Like he had faith that this was all just a test and that God was messing with him and he would get to the mountain and God would say sike and they would keekee. I won’t lie, I also thought this. In my head Abraham had to trust God that he wasn’t lying when he made that promise so despite the command he would stop it but this is where the bible is funny because it surprisingly shatters these ideas.

(Hebrews 11:17-19) 17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 [a]of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” 19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

In this Abraham isn’t thinking God’s waiting at the top to laugh at this prank he pulled. He is committed, he’s reached a point in his life that now he is willing to trust God no matter what. No lies, no trying to solve the issue himself, he hears the command and… just does it. I love children and I love God but I don’t know what I would do if God told me to kill a child, especially if it was my own child, a child I raised and loved and prayed for and hoped for. Just thinking about people who have lost children in this world and life breaks my heart. And it’s funny because the God I serve doesn’t indulge in child sacrifices but in this story that’s what God asks for and in this story… Abraham obeys. I don’t think this makes Abraham a terrible father, in fact we don’t see or hear the emotional heartbreak that he must have felt at the words. But his faith in God was greater than anything given and he actually believed that God could even raise Isaac from death if he wanted and was willing and it was that faith that no matter what he was willing to do what God asks that changed the story from another tale of failed faith into something more miraculous. 

I will say though that I can’t imagine what Isaac was thinking, or the servants. Or heaven forbid Sarah when she heard the tale later. But Isaac willingly followed his father obediently as Abraham followed God obediently. 

And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. 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.

The climax of the story. The gasp, the scream, the rising of the blade to a willing sacrifice and the sturdiness of a hand to fulfill the demand. Stopped.

11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 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.”

It makes you smile. In that moment where Abraham was fully committed, then God stepped in. Because like I said the God I serve has never wanted death. Death was the consequence of sin from the beginning. God saw that after years and years of life, choices, struggles, families splitting, women fighting, wealth and war, Abraham finally put all his trust and faith in God. 

Some might say that’s a lot. But actually who doesn’t want trust in friendship. I want my best friend to trust me, to believe me. That if I say I’m innocent and I didn’t do it that they would know me and trust no matter what the world says. God is the same. From the beginning of earth Satan had whispered that God is a liar, and that he isn’t good, kind, honest, or loving. God doesn’t force us to believe him, he asks us to, to choose and make choices everyday and the more that trust grows the more he can refine it. 

But this lesson is also about Substitutionary Sacrifice. And so as in the garden where God sacrifices for Adam and Eve here God provides a sacrifice in place of Isaac,

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. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” 

Abraham didn’t have to sacrifice his son but later in the story life we will see a son that was sacrificed. A son that obediently followed the will of his father and was willing to die not at the command of a divine order but because of something far greater and meaningful. 

For love.