22 Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith. “Abraham!” God called.
“Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.”
2 “Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”
3 The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.”
6 So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked on together, 7 Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”
8 “God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.
9 When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. 11 At that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes,” Abraham replied. “Here I am!”
12 “Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”
13 Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14 Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
Genesis 22:1-14
Imagine how Isaac felt as he lay bound on that altar. There must have been terror as he realised Abraham was a holding a knife. Then more fear as Abraham lifted that knife to make the cut.
And God was breathing peace,… Be still, be still,…
“Be still, and know that I am God!
Psalm 46:10
I will be honored by every nation.
I will be honored throughout the world.”
As we read through the Old Testament this Advent examining the places where glimpses of Christ are caught, I wonder how this story impacted Jesus. I get the impression Isaac might have been a boy or a teenager when this happened. I imagine him as a boy helping his Dad out with the wood. “We have the fire. We have the wood. Where is the sheep?”
Abraham, with teeth gritted tightly said “The Lord will Provide”. Did that message bring peace to Isaac as he lay bound in rope on that altar? Was he still and calm, or terrified of what would happen next?
The price of sin is death and we should be the ones tied upon that altar,… but God has provided us with a substitute.
God is sovereign.
Be still and know Him.
When you know Him you will be able to trust him to provide for you just as every loving father does. Abraham was following the Lord’s command and, in faith, believing that God would provide a sacrificial lamb for that altar.
Abraham must have felt so much relief when the Angel called out to him and stopped him saying “Do not lay a hand on the boy”. The Angel of the Lord saw that Abraham feared God and did not withhold his only son, the child he and Sarah waited so long for. There was a ram caught in a thicket nearby. Abraham sacrificed the lamb instead of his son.
We can be still too, because God has provided a sacrificial Lamb on our behalf, his name is Jesus Christ.
Holy Father God,
On this second day of Advent I am in still and silent awe of you. For sin to cost so very much, you must be so perfectly pure.
I live in a stained and dirty world. I have no idea how clear and pure, holy and set apart you are. I will never see you with my physical eyes; but my heart, washed clean by the blood of Jesus, can sense your presence. I can be still and rest in your presence because I know that you are God.
Hallelujah and Amen!
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
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