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Read Genesis 22

The aligning of Abraham’s heart to God’s heart.  This story foreshadows much of what God will do in full. 

Foreshadowing the cost of love. 

• Is there a love greater than the love for a child? Equal perhaps, but greater?
  
  
• How much more might your love be for a child if that child was truly a miraculous gift?
  • Isaac was born to Abraham at age 100 and Sarah at almost 91.
  • Isaac was a child that arrived with the promise from God for becoming a great nation.        

“Your son, your only son, whom you love…” (2)  “…your son, your only son…” (16) 

            “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son…”  John 3:16

• Sacrifice him as a burnt offering on an assigned mountain.
  • Burnt offerings could be done as a special offering of thanks, honor, or for restoration/purification with God regarding a sin or defilement.
  • Various animals were used, often based on the means a person had. It was always to be a perfect animal with a perfect lamb being the most precious of value.

Foreshadowing the mountain of sacrifice—Moriah.

• Moriah was a region and a particular mountain.
  
  
• Moriah is the hill that Jerusalem sits upon. There are many small peaks on that single hill. 
  
  
• The high point is where David bought a threshing floor to build a temple for worship—Solomons Temple.
  
  
• Likely the very place Abraham and Isaac were sent to do a burnt offering. 2 Chronicles 3:1
  
  
• The same hill and vicinity of Golgotha/Calvary—about a 19 minute walk away where God did bring a sacrifice of his only son for restoration of those who will receive him by faith.

What is the difference between testing or tempting someone?

“Temptations are meant to draw out the worst in us. Trials [tests] are meant to draw out the best in us.” Wiersbe

James 1:2-3 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,^[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

James 1:13 “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.”

This was not a tempting of Abraham.  It was a testing of his faith with the motive to draw out a stronger faith. This was not a test to see if he makes it. 

Abraham’s test: Is the gift more valuable than the gift-giver?

Why Isaac?

Anything can become an idol, especially precious gifts from God.

• Our provisions—careers, houses, clothes, cars, food.
• Our passions—leisures, skills, successes, adrenaline.
• Our family—parents, spouse, children.

“If God would ask one thing of you to test you for your faith, what might that one thing be?”  For Abraham it was Isaac.

Abraham’s response.

• Immediate departure—early the next morning.
  • 50 mile hike, a three day journey. (4)
  • Region understood, but the exact place will be shown by God. (2b, 4)
• Confidence in both he and Isaac returning. (5)
  
  
• Faith that God will provide a lamb. (8)
  
  
• Held up the knife to strike Isaac.
  • Child sacrifice is strictly forbidden by God. Leviticus 18:21, 20:3; Deut. 12:30-31; 18:10

• Belief that God can raise the dead.
  

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, ¹⁸ even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”^[c] 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.”

When God tests you.  Example: Kyra, leaving Hershey. Coming to LEFC. My wife’s cancer.

            The test brings you to a better place.

Lesson Learned—God Provides.

• By faith you operate that God will provide. (8)
  
  
• By experience you see God’s provision. (13-14)

Passing the test

1. Account for God—his promises and his character.
   
   
2. Don’t cut corners, simply do as God would have you to do.
   
   
3. Trust God will provide.
   
   
4. Name the Hill! Identify and declare God’s provision. 

• Kyra- The journey to healing. Unexpected Joy.
• Hershey- God’s way is better.
• LEFC- “Even if He doesn’t.”
• Cancer- Paying grace forward.

God provides!  After hundreds of years and hundreds of prophetic descriptions faith could not fathom how God would once and for all reconcile mankind back to himself, he does so with his only son Jesus—the Lamb of God.  Faith simply hoped from afar.