Abraham had to admit it. God said it and God came through.
He said a year after that encounter, Sarah would give him a son. Sure enough a year later and at his advanced age in life, he welcomed his son into the world. Isaac was a fitting name for someone who would bring laughter to those who heard the story of how he came about.
There was some initial tensions between Ishmael and Isaac. Sarah wanted the other boy to go and on the word of the Lord who kept His promise, Abraham let Ishmael and his Mum go. It wasn’t an easy decision, but the God who promised had come through. Now on the basis of that promise He could trust God.
All that had happened quite some time ago. And now Abraham heard something very challenging. Isaac. This son that he loved. The son of the promise. The one through whom Abraham’s seed would be blessed. This son was to be sacrificed. That was the instruction. the instruction from the One who had made the promise in the first place.
Was God now telling Him to let go of the promise?
Yet the next day, Abraham was on the journey to the set location with some servants and the son. Three days’ journey was sufficient time for him to change his mind. Three days was good enough for him to turn back and not go through. Yet three days later they reached the point where he and his son could go on ahead. Although Isaac was talking to him, Abraham was talking to someone who was going to be taken from him. Isaac was as good as dead to Abraham.
Although he was dead, he had to live. He had to live because there was a promise to be kept and the same one who had kept the promise from the start of the journey had to be be trusted to keep the promise now. Somehow. Some way. Even though the son was to be sacrificed. Somehow he had to come back. He had a promise to fulfil.
That didn’t make the task of taking him up the mountain any easier. It didn’t make putting the wood on his son any easier – that wood that would be the final resting place for his son, laid on his back. It didn’t make the task of binding him up ready for the sacrifice any easier. It certainly didn’t make going for the knife to commit the necessary act any easier.
Then the voice. then the command. Then the reassurance. His son who was lost had now been recovered. His son who was as good as dead to him had been returned to life. He got his son back. The promise would indeed be fulfilled. Even look at the ram in the bush that God provided. The set up for the sacrifice would not be wasted. God would be offered a worthy sacrifice indeed. Father and restored son could now commit the sacrifice unto the Lord.
Abraham never let go of the promise. He never let go, because he trusted the one who had made the promise. Even at the point of sacrifice, he held onto the promise. He never let go only because of his trust in the One who came through on His promises.
Oh that our faith in the One who promises can be that deep.
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. (Hebrews 11:17-19)
(Photo by Arto Marttinen on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 