“1 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.”
15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I 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, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”
19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.”
Some of you have had hip replacements. If you have, I want to ask you a question: when did you actually trust your new hip? You knew that you trusted your new hip when you were finally willing to put weight on it.
Some of you have been to the Skydeck at the Willis Tower in Chicago. You’ve stood on a glass ledge on the 103rdfloor of the second tallest building in the country. If you have, I want to ask you a question: when did you actually trust that glass floor? You trusted that glass when you were finally willing to put weight on it.
My hope is that everyone here either has or one day will trust God’s promises. That is a necessary part of saving faith. If you do trust God’s promises, I want to ask you a question: when did you actually trust God’s promises? You trusted God’s promises when you were finally willing to put weight on them. Faith puts weight on the promises. That’s what we will study this morning and that’s the claim of this sermon: Faith puts weight on the promises.
We will study this in three points. First: the Lord tests. Second: the Lord provides. Third: the Lord promises even more. First, in verses 1-12, we see the Lord test Abraham. Second, in verses 13-14, we see the Lord provide the sacrifice. Third, in verses 15-19, we see the Lord make even bigger promises to Abraham.
First: the Lord tests. When we last saw Abraham, he was enjoying a season of relative tranquility. He had acquired water rights. He expressed His continuing trust in the Lord as the eternal God because God had kept His promises in the past, was doing so in the present, and could be trusted to do so in the future. That is the background for verse 1, “Some time later God tested Abraham.”
If you have faith like Abraham, you have been and will be tested like Abraham. If you are reading this story with the sense, “I’m glad that God doesn’t do that sort of thing today,” you are missing the point. Proverbs 17:3 is clear, “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart.” If you have faith like Abraham, you can count on being tested like Abraham. It’s just the specifics that will be different.
Since God does test us, we have to ask, “why?” These tests are very uncomfortable—Abraham’s certainly was—so we need to ask, “why would God do this? God tests to push us out of our comfort zones in order to pull us nearer His heart. God was pushing Abraham out of his comfort zone to pull him nearer His heart. Keep that in mind as we study this test. Keep that in mind when you are tested.
Abraham’s test was well outside any sane person’s comfort zone; verse 2, ‘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.”’ Those words haunt parents. We parents wonder if we have it in us to do what Abraham did. We wonder whether we even should have it in us to do what Abraham did.
Now, we must remember that, as the old broadcast tests put it, “this is a test; this is only a test.” God hated the child sacrifices of the Canaanites. This command wasn’t a sign that God has it in Him to be demonic. It was only a test. Verse 1 tells you that upfront so that you will keep that in mind.
Abraham didn’t know this was a test. He took it as a command and a command that was actually a bit familiar. There are echoes of Genesis 12:1 here, “Go from your country, your people, your father’s household to the land I will show you.” That progression hit increasingly closer to home—“your country, your people, your father’s household.” The progression of verse 2 hits increasingly closer to home, “your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.” God continued and continues to ask for what hits closer to home. He does that to take our security off what we fear we might lose and to pull us nearer His heart.
God pulled Abraham nearer His heart by forcing him to decide if he would put all his weight on the promises. This was all about the promises. Abraham had been promised that, “it is through Isaac that his offspring would be reckoned.” This command to sacrifice Isaac was an invitation to display his trust in the promise that Isaac would have children.
Abraham thought through this command from God in exactly the way Sherlock Holmes would have; “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Abraham knew it was impossible for God to lie and so the promise, “it is through Isaac that his offspring would be reckoned,” stood—Isaac would have children. Abraham also knew that God had told him to sacrifice Isaac. So if God told Abraham to kill Isaac and if God promised Abraham that Isaac would one day have children, that left Abraham with only one conclusion: if Isaac did die on the mountain, God would have to resurrect him; that’s Hebrews 11:17-19, “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.’
That’s why Abraham did what he did. Faith puts weight on the promises. Now this faith is often tried. Abraham had three days to ponder what he was about to do; that’s a reminder that even when we decide to trust and obey we must still contend with fears and questions. Imagine the fear and faith in Abraham’s heart when he told 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.” He said that in fear; “what if I’m wrong?” He said that in faith, “I’m not wrong; God promised.” When Isaac asked him, “The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” and Abraham told his son, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” He said that in fear; “what if I’m wrong?” He said that in faith, “I’m not wrong; God promised.”
Søren Kierkegaard wrote a book imagining what those three days were like for Abraham. He called it Fear and Trembling from Philippians 2:12, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” That’s an apt description of what living by the promises sometimes looks like. Maybe that’s where you are this morning. You are in good company. You are in the company of Abraham.
It seems that Isaac was at least a teenager by this point. This means that he must have been bound and laid on that altar willingly. It seems that Isaac, “was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” You are to watch this son of the promise and think of that other son of promise. You are supposed to think of Jesus as you see Isaac bound willingly. You are supposed to think of Jesus carrying his cross as you watch Isaac walking up that mountain with wood on his back. The Old Testament is, after all, a preparation for Jesus.
Now God spared Isaac in fulfillment of His promise; verse 10, ‘[Abraham] reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy.” God spared Abraham’s promised son. God did not spare His own. Genesis 22 was doubtlessly on Paul’s mind when, in Romans 8, he referred to God as, “He who did not spare His own Son.” There would be no last-minute rescue for Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus knew that in Gethsemane. The Father knew that in Gethsemane. The Son knew that at the cross. The Father knew that at the cross.
This means that Father gave what He didn’t take. He gave Jesus. He didn’t take Isaac. That would be good to remember the next time you think that God is asking you to do what He would never do. That would be good to remember the next time you think that God has only His own best interests at heart. That’s the rest of Paul’s words, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will He not also… graciously give us all things?”
That is the God whom Abraham trusted and now God knew that Abraham trusted Him; verse 12, “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” You might be thinking, “well, God knew what was in Abraham’s heart before Moriah. He knows everything. Why test to know what you already know?” John Walton explains, “we all know that as much as our parents, spouses, and children know that we love them it is important that it be said and demonstrated… There is ample evidence throughout Scripture that God desires us to act out our faith and worship regardless of the fact that He knows our hearts.” God knew what was in Abraham’s heart, but it was important to Him that it be demonstrated.
God knows what is in your heart, and it is necessary that you demonstrate it. That’s how Jesus’ half-brother James read this story; he asked, “do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.”
Faith is what putting weight on the promises looks like on the inside. Obedience is what putting weight on the promises looks like on the outside. Sharing with those in need is what faith in the promise, “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all that is needful will be given to you,” looks like on the outside. Contentedness is what faith in the promise, “He who did not spare his own Son… will graciously give us all things,” looks like on the outside. That’s faith like Abraham’s—growing willingness to put weight on the promises.
That’s our first point: the Lord tests. Now, let’s see how the Lord provides. God provided a sacrifice in the place of Isaac; verse 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.”
No one who is at all familiar with Scripture can read those words and say, “well, that was a lucky coincidence. They needed an offering in the place of Isaac and there just happened to be a ram there.” No, anyone who is familiar with Scripture will recognize that the God who is in charge of all things, even the movement of animals, brought that ram into that thicket on that mountain for that moment. That is what it means to live in a world of providence.
God gave that ram as a replacement burnt offering. We need to consider the meaning of burnt offerings in the law of Moses because Moses wrote Genesis with eyes that looked forward to Exodus. Throughout the law of Moses burnt offerings carried two meanings. First, they were signs of offering one’s self totally to God. The whole animal is offered—the whole person is offered. Now it is obvious that in his willingness to offer Isaac, Abraham was offering himself totally to God. Secondly, burnt offerings were substitutes—the animal died so that the condemned sinner might live. You see that in the death of this ram to save the life of Isaac. We’ve seen the Lord acknowledge that Abraham had offered his whole self; now, in this ram, we see that the Lord provided a substitute; that’s what’s going on in verse 14, “Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide.”
What’s interesting is that this provision doesn’t merely look backward at what happened on Moriah that day; it also looks forward; that’s the rest of verse 14, ‘to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”’ The Jews were apparently looking forward to another provision on the mountain of the Lord just as God had provided a substitute for Isaac on this mountain in Moriah. There is another reference to what is likely the same region called Moriah in 2 Chronicles 3, “Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah.” Just as there was a whole burned offering in place of Isaac at Moriah so there continued to be whole burned offering in place of sinners. Outside the city on the slope of this same Mount Moriah on which the temple was built, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Just as Abraham at Moriah could say, “On the mountain of the Lord it has been provided,” and repentant Jews offering sacrifices at the temple could say, “On the mountain of the Lord it has been provided, so we who have been cleansed by Jesus’ blood can say, “On the mountain of the Lord it has been provided.”
Consider how badly Abraham must have longed for a substitute to replace his son. You needed a substitute for your sinful self even worse than Abraham needed that ram. Imagine Abraham’s relief when that substitute was provided. Do you have any relief when you consider Jesus’ sacrifice on your behalf? People with saving faith do.
That’s the Lord provides. Now to close, the Lord promises even more; that’s our third point. The Lord often combined His commands to Abraham with promises. He gave promises to motivate commandment keeping; “Go from your country… I will make you into a great nation.” That’s not how it worked this time around. This time Abraham received a command without a promise. This time he obeyed and then unexpectedly received the new promises.
These new promises were notable for their empathic certainty. That’s what’s going on with verse 16’s, ‘“I swear by myself,” declares the Lord…’ This is the only time in the book of Genesis that God swears by Himself, which is the height of promise. This is also what’s going on with verse 17’s, “I will surely bless you.” That is phrased in the most emphatic Hebrew form available.
What’s fascinating is that this emphatic certainty comes in response to Abraham already having put weight on earlier promises. Abraham demonstrated his certainty and so God underlined the certainty of the promises. That’s Frances Havergal’s hymn, “We may trust Him fully all for us to do; they who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.”
Abraham trusted the promises, and God augmented them. Here is the content of these augmented promises. Abraham was promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Now he was promised descendants as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore. That’s a bigger promise. Abraham was promised that his descendants would inherit the land. Now he was promised that his descendants would conquer the land. That’s a bigger promise.
Abraham enjoyed the bigger promises because he offered his son; “because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son.” Abraham enjoyed augmented promises because he had put weight on the earlier promises. That’s how it goes for you too. If you put your weight on the promises, you will receive even more. That’s 1 Corinthians 2:9, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love Him.”
Abraham received augmented promises; he also received his son. As Hebrews puts it, “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice… Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.”
Abraham reasoned that a resurrection would be necessary for God to keep His promises and he received Isaac back. Resurrection is necessary for God to keep His promises to you—Jesus’ resurrection and yours. Your faith is no different from Abraham’s in that regard. It requires resurrection.
Is that your faith? If so, put weight on the promise of the resurrection. You put weight on a new hip. You might put weight on that glass ledge in Chicago. Put weight on God’s promises. They will hold. They will hold even if you put your weight on them with fear and trembling. That’s faith like Abraham’s. Amen.