Genesis 22:1-18 Rethinking Tests
Genesis 22:1-18 (Evangelical Heritage Version)
The text for today is the First Reading for the day, from Genesis 22. The verses will be read throughout the sermon as we get to them.
Genesis 22:1-2
1Some time later God tested Abraham. He called to him, “Abraham!” Abraham answered, “I am here.”
2God said, “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains there, the one to which I direct you.”
Rethinking Tests
I.
What God says to Abraham is shocking. But to be fair, Abraham had heard some shocking commands from God in the past.
When he was a younger man, Abraham was told to leave the comfort of the place where he grew up. Not only was he to pick everything up and move, God didn’t tell him where he was to go. Just pack everything on the moving camels and start going, Abraham. I’ll let you know when you get there. That was shocking, too. It was a test of Abraham’s faith in God. He packed up his wife and all his belongings and moved. Abraham didn’t ask for a Garmin to be put on his camel; or for way points and rest stops to be highlighted. He didn’t really ask any questions at all. He just obeyed and started his unusual move.
God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. That one doesn’t sound so shocking, but years went by without Abraham and Sarah having any children at all. How could God keep his promise? Abraham and Sarah figured there must be some trick to this test, so they cooked up a scheme by which Abraham would father a child through Sarah’s maid. That wasn’t the child of promise, God told Abraham. It would be one that his wife Sarah would give birth to. 25 years they waited. Shockingly, when they were both well past the ability to have children, Isaac was born.
Now that very son—Isaac, the son born to Sarah—was about 15 years old. Abraham was over 100. After 25 years of waiting and 15 of marveling over God’s goodness in keeping his promises, God comes to Abraham with this command.
I can’t imagine any father not recoiling in horror at God’s command to Abraham. Sacrifice your son? Unthinkable! Fathers—good fathers, at least—want the best for their children. They don’t want to see them harmed. Their children are to grow and prosper—they want them to do well in life.
Abraham thought that way about Isaac. I can only imagine how Isaac might have rejuvenated an older man and given him a new lease on life. But there was more going on here than just a father’s love for his child. This son was the fulfillment of God’s promises; not just the promise that Abraham and Sarah would have a child together, but that this child would be the ultimate grandfather of the promised Savior.
Abraham, saddle up and go make a burnt offering of the great-great-grandfather of your Savior. One more part of God’s command: “go” is a little bit more specific. In Hebrew, God says: “go for yourself” to the land of Moriah. The burden of God’s command to Abraham was not to be shared with others; he had to work through the whole thing by himself. He wasn’t to talk with Sarah about it, or the servants who would accompany him, or even Isaac. Just go, do what I told you, Abraham.
Genesis 22:3-4
3Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, along with Isaac his son. Abraham split the wood for the burnt offering. Then he set out to go to the place that God had told him about. 4On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.
II.
“Rethinking tests” is the theme under which we consider this account of Abraham and Isaac. It’s also part of the Theme of the Day, which said in the first part: Rethinking religion: Rethinking trials, tests, and temptations.
I wonder how the night went for Abraham after God gave his command about the sacrifice and before he saddled up his donkey. I wonder if Sarah noticed he was a bit distracted through the rest of that day. I wonder what Abraham told Sarah when he was about to set off—without her, but with Isaac—to go someplace to make some sacrifice.
Perhaps Abraham was thinking about some of those past tests he had faced from God. He remembered the time God told him to move without further instructions and he had. He thought about the promises concerning Isaac and all the twists and turns those promises took over many years before God fulfilled his promise—just as he had said he would.
Maybe he thought about some of the other tests, too. He had pleaded that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah would be spared for the sake of the believers who lived there. While the cities were destroyed, God did bring all the believers—Lot and his daughters—out alive. He might have remembered his trips to Egypt when he didn’t fully trust God to help and preserve him and tried to pass Sarah off as his sister, rather than his wife.
He had over 100 years of God’s grace to look back on. One thing was clear: time after time, God had been faithful. Even when Abraham was a little weak-kneed as he attempted to pass the tests, God had still remained faithful. That thought strengthened his resolve.
Three days he and Isaac and the servants were on the road. Three more days for his thoughts to bombard him. Three days for him to mull this test over in his mind. Three days for him to rethink the test God had put before him.
How lonely would you feel as you made this three-day journey? How would you keep the tears from flowing? How would you mask all the turmoil you felt from Isaac as you traveled along?
III.
It’s time to read more from today’s reading, but this time we read only one verse. It’s significant. Listen to the words of Scripture and note carefully what Abraham says.
Genesis 22:5
5Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go on over there. We will worship, and then we will come back to you.”
One word, repeated twice, really stands out: “We.” We will worship and we will come back.
Did he really believe that? God had commanded that Abraham offer Isaac as a “burnt offering.” We didn’t dwell on that earlier. A burnt offering was one in which the whole sacrifice was dedicated completely to the Lord—burned up, in other words; burned to nothing but a pile of ashes.
“We will worship, and then we will come back.” 100 years and more of promises kept had their influence on Abraham as he rethought all his tests. God had been faithful. God had always been faithful. God had been faithful when it was impossible by any human logic for him to keep his promises.
“We will come back.” Abraham fully intended to carry out God’s instructions to the letter. At the same time, he was completely convinced that Isaac, the child of the promise, the great-great-grandfather of his—Abraham’s—Savior, would come back down that mountain with him and join the servants for the return trip to Sarah.
Now...I often say, “let Scripture interpret Scripture.” I’m not putting my own thought-bubbles in Abraham’s mind when I say he was convinced Isaac would come back down the mountain with him. The book of Hebrews says: “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered Isaac. This man, who received the promises, was ready to offer his only son, 18about whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac your offspring will be traced.’ 19He reasoned that God also had the ability to raise him from the dead, and in a figurative sense, Abraham did receive him back from the dead” (Hebrews 11:17-19, EHV). By inspiration, the writer to the Hebrews verifies that this was what Abraham was thinking. If God could permit an old woman to give birth and an old man to be the father of this special child, God could do anything—even raising Isaac back from the dead after Abraham had carried out the sacrifice God had commanded. There is a man who was rethinking tests.
Genesis 22:6-8
6Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and loaded it on Isaac his son. He took the firepot and the knife in his hand. The two of them went on together.
7Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father?”
He said, “I am here, my son.”
He said, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
8Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them went on together.
IV.
Even in the middle of this shocking test, Abraham is not duplicitous. The young man, Isaac, is loaded with wood for the sacrifice. He carried the knife and the firepot as they climbed the hill.
Isaac was, perhaps, rethinking some tests, too. “Where’s the lamb?” he wondered. No doubt he had been with Abraham before as sacrifices were made. There had always been an animal to sacrifice. How was this sacrifice going to work? Isaac just climbed the hill, carrying the wood for the fire. But his wondering thoughts turned into words and he asked his father the question: “Where’s the lamb?”
“God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” Was Abraham finally lying? God himself will provide the lamb? What was he thinking? The writer to the Hebrews already assured us that Abraham reasoned that God would raise Isaac up from the dead. Isaac was the lamb Abraham figured God would provide, but he would be alive again in due course to walk back to the donkey with Abraham.
Just one verse again:
Genesis 22:9
9They came to the place that God had told him about. Abraham built the altar there. He arranged the wood, tied up Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.
V.
I don’t care how rejuvenated old man Abraham had become with the birth of this child of promise, I can’t imagine a man over 100-years-old tying up a teenager to put him on the altar of sacrifice.
Though it hadn’t been all that long since Isaac had asked the question about the lamb, maybe he had been rethinking tests himself. The Bible doesn’t specify Isaac’s thoughts about this, but I can’t imagine a 15-year-old would have much trouble overpowering an elderly man—or at least, running away rather than let yourself be tied up on an altar.
Genesis 22:10-12
10Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
11The Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!”
Abraham said, “I am here.”
12He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”
VI.
Abraham had to rethink his test again. This test wasn’t really so that God could see what was really in Abraham’s heart; God already knew. When he raised that knife in his hand, Abraham knew he was completely ready to do absolutely anything God told him to do, even if it didn’t make human, logical, mathematical sense. God would take care of it.
Rethink the tests that come your way. Rather than question “Why me?” trust the God who has told you: “Surely I am with you always until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, EHV). Rather than groan over the heavy load of problems you face in life, think of God’s response to Paul about his own thorn in the flesh. God told him: “My grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9, EHV). Or think of other words of the Apostle Paul: “All things work together for the good of those who love God” (Romans 8:28, EHV). Or perhaps what Paul said a few verses later at the end of today’s Second Reading: “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, EHV).
Rethink tests. God will use them all, no matter how difficult, to serve your good—to strengthen your faith, just as he strengthened the faith of Abraham.
Genesis 22:13-14
13Abraham looked around and saw that behind him there was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14Abraham called the name of that place “The Lord Will Provide.” So it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
VII.
Just as Abraham had promised Isaac, God himself provided the sacrifice. The ram in the thicket took Isaac’s place on the altar of sacrifice.
Rethinking tests means remembering the real sacrifice. The real sacrifice wasn’t even the ram whose horns were caught in the thicket. The real sacrifice was Jesus.
It was shocking when God suggested to Abraham—commanded Abraham—to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. That’s nothing compared to the shock of God offering his own Son as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He didn’t have to do it; he could have left us to wallow in our sins for all eternity. But God loved us so much that he offered his One and only Son to be the sacrifice the world so desperately needed—and needs.
Rethinking tests means remembering again and again the test that God took for us. Jesus’ tempting in the wilderness that we heard in today’s Gospel was all part of what God did for us. Jesus had to be completely perfect and holy before he could ever serve as the substitute who would be sacrificed for us.
Genesis 22:13-18
15The Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16and said, “I have sworn by myself, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your descendants greatly, like the stars of the sky and like the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the city gates of their enemies. 18In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
VIII.
Every time the Angel of the Lord is mentioned in the Old Testament it is Jesus. You can tell that it is God himself speaking to Abraham when the Angel says: “I have sworn by myself.”
God’s promises are always sure and certain. All the nations of the earth truly have been blessed by the ultimate Seed of Abraham—Jesus.
Abraham believed by faith, even though he couldn’t see exactly how the end result would play out. It’s the same thing that saves us, all these millennia later—faith in the Seed of Abraham. Faith in Jesus.
Rethinking tests. That’s the theme of this sermon. But it’s part of the Theme of the Day. In it’s entirety, this is what was on the screen earlier today for that theme: Rethinking religion: Rethinking trials, tests, and temptations. In the hands of a loving God, these things are tools by which he refines our faith. God wants us to realize this broken world is not our true home.
It’s Christian education Sunday. Today is a day we have invited people to come and hear about why choosing Holy Trinity as the school for your children is such a great idea. This theme is why. Look at the last line. “God wants us to realize this broken world is not our true home.” As valuable as education is for a child’s future, Christian education is so valuable for a child’s eternal future.
God wants to refine our faith in Jesus—to make it even stronger. Sometimes that means trials, tests, and temptations. But as he promises, he will always be there; he will never leave us or forsake us; he will even make the bad things that happen to us in this life serve our good.
God bless you as you rethink his tests. Amen.