Summary of passage: God calls Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac as a burnt offering in the mountains of Moriah. So Abraham faithfully takes Isaac to where God calls him, bounds his son, and prepares to kill him. On the journey, Abraham tells Isaac that God will provide the burnt offering.
Questions:
3a) God tests everyone but I think God had to be sure Abraham trusted Him after all the wishy-washyness from before. Abraham does not trust God to provide for him so he flees to Egypt. He sleeps with his maidservant to have an heir. And he laughs at God when God says Sarah will have a son.
God has to be sure Abraham finally has faith and trust in Him.
b) Personal Question. My answer: We never know what we will do in a situation until it arises. We say we will give it all up to follow Jesus but when the time comes, do we? We say we would lay down our life for another but would we if the situation actually presents itself?
Thus, tests are necessary to grow our faith. Here, God had to be sure of Abraham’s heart and this was the ultimate test.
4a) Verse 2 “Take your son, your only son, whom you love”
b) Verse 1: Abraham says “Here I am” when called by God. Remember Adam and Eve hid from God in the garden when called. Abraham never questions (at least that is recorded like when he did for Sodom). The very next day (verse 3) early in the morning Abraham sets out for where God said to go. He follows God’s instructions exactly. He answers Isaac with faith, saying God will provide the sacrifice in verse 8. He has the knife, ready to strike, when the angel stops him (verse 10).
5a) Obeying His voice pleases God more than burnt offerings. This verse doesn’t say what kinds He rejects for He didn’t reject burnt offerings in the Old Testament; He, in fact, required them. So not sure about what He rejects except maybe the opposite of obeying: disobeying Him.
b) Personal Question. My answer: He is asking me to have faith in what my husband is doing with his job. Personally, not sure. I got a lot going on right now and my novel has been put on the back-burner once again. My heart is just not in it right now. Not sure if that’s God or the devil. Also, I am really struggling to exercise. And I haven’t been sleeping really well either.
So I’m trying to support my husband in his job search. I’m still trying to figure out my novel thing for I still feel it’s God’s work somewhere in there. And just continue writing in general.
Conclusions: Great emphasis on testing for we are all tested and most of the time none of us like it because it’s hard. But everything works together for our good and we must walk through the fire and grow with Him. Never easy to do.
No one is exempt. Even though we think people are such as rich people or celebrities we know they are all tested as well just in different ways. Thankfully, we aren’t asked to sacrifice our kids like Abraham was because that’s one I’m not sure I’d pass. But each of our tests are just as significant and meaningful and important to God. We would do well to remember that.
Abraham is trusting even when he doesn’t understand or doesn’t feel like it. It’s about faith and obeying God and doing it, not how we feel about it.
Abraham believes God will raise his son from the dead once killed. He is prepared to kill him but he knows anything is possible with God.
It is thought Isaac is in his thirties at this time and he hasn’t had any kids yet. Isaac is just as trusting in God because he willingly lied down on the altar. He could have overpowered his elderly father and ran but he didn’t. He was just as faithful as Abraham here.
This is the difference between trusting in the promise versus trusting in the Promiser (God). If we trust the Promiser, then the promise will be taken care of.
Map of Moriah: http://bibleatlas.org/mount_moriah.htm
This same mountain where Abraham takes Isaac later becomes Jerusalem, the place where God provides His only son as a sacrifice for all.
Fun Facts: This is the first mention of love in the Bible and significantly it’s between a father and son, foreshadowing God’s love for His son.
This is also the first use of the word “worship” in terms of worshipping God. The Hebrew word here means “to bow down”.
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