"God Will Provide a Lamb"
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Gen. 22:1-10
August 1, 2010

          In Genesis 22 we come to one of the best-known examples of radical faith in all the Bible, the story of God’s command to Abraham to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice.  It is a chilling story, complete with drama, adventure, and things simply beyond our understanding.  The first time I preached on this passage, I told my daughter the night before that I would be preaching on this text the next morning.  Her encouraging response was, “Gee, Dad.  It would be really sad if you messed that one up!”  Daughters!
          We’re going to work our way through the story, verse by verse, trying to understand what is going on and seeing how it applies to us.  I’ll do my best not to mess it up!  You might want to turn in your Bibles to Gen. 22 which is found on page 15 of your pew Bible, and keep it open throughout the sermon.  We begin in Gen. 22:1.
          After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ 2He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’   Say what?  Larry King cites this story as a reason he is unsure about the God of the Bible.  As a child he heard the story and remembers asking, “Why would God do that to Abraham?  As a test?  I just don’t know.”  The text tells us that this is a test.  But, why?  Abraham had already demonstrated deep faith when he left his home for God-knew-where, when he submitted to circumcision at the age of 99, and when he sent away his other son, Ishmael, all in obedience to God’s command.  Why was there a need to test Abraham again?
          And let’s consider the enormity of what God was asking Abraham to do.  Many years before (maybe 50!) God had entered into a covenant with Abraham promising him and his wife Sarah many descendants, and that through them all the world would be blessed.  But no child was born to him and Sarah for 25 years!  They had long ago given up hope, so Abraham had fathered a child through Sarah’s servant, Hagar.  But, when Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah was about 90, God re-iterated his promise that a child would come through Sarah.  (Gen 17:19) And a miracle occurred!  Sarah became pregnant and Isaac was born!  God was faithful to his promise.  This long-awaited child was deeply loved by his parents.  But now God asks him to take this child and sacrifice him.
          What should Abraham do?  It was bad enough that Abraham was going to lose his beloved, long-awaited son.  But God’s promise- to give Abraham many descendants through Isaac- was contradicted by God’s command to kill Isaac.  If Isaac were dead it would be impossible for God’s promise to be fulfilled.  And if God’s word and promise can’t be trusted, then what can?  We can see how this would have been a deep crisis of faith for Abraham.
          Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Col. Jimmy Doolittle was asked to plan a mission that seemed impossible, a bombing raid on Tokyo.  He began recruiting pilots for the mission.  It was so secret that even the pilots couldn’t be told what they were being trained for, although they were told it would be extremely dangerous and there was a good chance they wouldn’t survive it.  Still, many men, trusting that those in command wouldn’t unnecessarily risk the lives of good pilots, agreed to serve.  The mission succeeded.  Tokyo was bombed, and the Japanese were forced to devote critical resources from that point on to defend their homeland.  Most of the pilots were killed or captured.
          That’s the kind of mission God appeared to have for Abraham.  It appeared horribly costly and made no sense to him.  And God sometimes has that kind of mission for us.  Sometimes God asks us to do very hard things that we don’t understand.  It may be simply to obey his Word.  To avoid sexual relations outside of marriage, to refrain from gossip, to refuse to take revenge when someone has deeply wounded us, to honor our parents, to persist in a troubled marriage.  Sometimes God commands us to do hard things.  And we struggle to trust God enough to do them, just like Abraham did.  That becomes our crisis of faith.  (verse 3)
          3So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt-offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. 4On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away.(Verses 3-4) I am impressed with a couple things in these verses.  The first is that Abraham’s obedience to God’s command was immediate. He began preparation for the trip early the very next morning.  Perhaps he knew that if he waited and thought it over, he would never start the trip!  But he does start, immediately.  He cuts the wood for the burnt offering, he saddles the donkey, he selects the servants, and he sets out on the three-day journey. 
And amazingly, Abraham’s faith and obedience lasted through that trip to Mt. Moriah.  What was he thinking about during this interminable three-day journey?  How many times did he start to turn around and head home?  It must have been a time of absolute agony.  Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, pointed out how lonely Abraham must have been, unable to talk with anyone about what he was going through.  And yet, he presses on, obeying God.
          Verse 5.  5Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.’ This is a remarkable verse.  Abraham leaves the servants behind saying, “the boy and I...will worship, and then we will come back to you.”  This gives us a clue as to how Abraham had resolved his inner conflict and questions.  He believed that the two of them would somehow return.  He had faith that God would honor his promise to give him descendants through Isaac.  The author of the New Testament book of Hebrews said that Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead.  Abraham fully expected to have to put his son to death, but he trusted that God was able to bring him back to life!
          Also notice that Abraham planned to worship God up on the mountain!  This is truly astonishing, isn’t it?  How could Abraham worship a God who has asked this of him, when Abraham had been nothing but faithful to God from the start?
          Some of us can relate to this.  We have may have experienced a major disappointment in life- the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or a marriage, a chronic illness, the divorce of our parents.  Or maybe our life just hasn’t turned out the way we had hoped or dreamed.  And we are deeply discouraged.  Truth be told, we are angry with God.  We find it hard to worship, to love, to serve the God who allowed these things to happen to us.  Abraham’s example invites us to trust and worship God, even in the midst of circumstances that threaten to sink us.
          Verses 6-8.  6Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. 7Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, 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 walked on together.
I think these are the most poignant verses of the story.  “‘Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ asks Isaac.”  What could Abraham say?  This is his son asking the question!  “God himself will provide the lamb...my son.”  God will provide.  That could serve as the motto for Abraham’s life!  He has utter trust and confidence in God.  He believes that God has his back, so to speak.  He has no idea how God will do it, but he trusts that God will provide.  He trusts God even more than his own reason and judgment.
          Verse 9.  9 When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.Now Isaac was not a little boy.  Most Bible scholars believe he was a young man, probably in his early twenties.  So he would have had to cooperate in order to be bound and laid on the wood for the burnt offering.  He must have had astounding trust in his father and in the Lord.  Where do you suppose he learned that?  From his father, of course.
          Are your children learning that kind of faith from you?  That kind of faith is learned not just from words, but from action.  Faith is not just intellectual assent to a list of doctrines.  This story teaches clearly that faith involves risk and action.  How have your children seen you trust in God?
They need to see your faith in action.  I realize that it is possible to do everything right and still have your kids choose to abandon the faith.  God gives them that choice!  But parents do have a strong influence on the spiritual development of their kids.  How are you doing in communicating and demonstrating your faith to your children?
          Verse 10.  10Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill* his son. 11But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ 12He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ Thank God, he intervenes and spares Isaac.  And we finally get a clue as to what this test was about.  We’re told that God now knows that Abraham fears him.  I don’t think he only feared God in terms of being afraid of him, although after seeing what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah, a little fear would be natural!  He also feared God in that he respected and reverenced him and obeyed him to the point of being willing to sacrifice what was most precious to him.
          You may not like the implications of this, but it seems clear that God can and does demand all we have.  Why is that?  Because our willingness to give all we have to the Lord- even that which is most precious to us- shows we have a proper understanding of our relationship to our Creator.  It shows we accept the fact that all we have is on loan from God, simply entrusted to us so we can accomplish the purpose for which God has placed us here.
          Do we really understand that?  Are we willing to give all that we have to the Lord for his service?  Our family, our money, our leisure time, our homes, those things we lean on for love, hope, meaning, and security?   God wants us to be willing to sacrifice them all.
          Verse 13. 13And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of his son. 14So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’  God provided, just like Abraham promised Isaac that he would.  And in the verses which follow, God re-states his covenant promises to Abraham.  It is almost as if this test has convinced God that Abraham indeed has the “right stuff” to be the patriarch of the people through whom God will redeem the entire human race.
          So what do we do with this horrible, wonderful story?  We can take a look at what hard thing God might be asking us to do.  We can examine our own attitude toward God in the light of major disappointments.  We can check on how we’re doing in demonstrating our faith to our children.  And we can ask ourselves if we’re willing to give up everything for the sake of the Lord.

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