Hebrews 11:17
Reading the account of God testing Abraham’s faith, is one
of the most frightening things a dad could read in the Bible. I must insert, that I have some
understanding about God’s attributes, He is all knowing, He is always present,
and He is infinite, and men are foolish when they act as if they have total
understanding of Him. In fact,
this past Sunday my pastor used this verse from Deuteronomy 29:29 in his
sermon; “The secret things belong to the Lord our
God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever,
that we may do all the words of this law.” For me the prophet Isaiah proclaimed a truth that
has great comfort; “For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” (Isaiah
55:8) From heavens view, or God’s,
there was never any question of the outcome of Abraham’s faith, so why put him
through such a horrible experience?
God did it for you and for me, and He did it for Abraham and
Isaac and all that came after them. The apostle Peter gives this account, beginning in 1Peter
1:10-12, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets,
who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the
greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the
Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the suffering of Christ
and the glories that would follow.
It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you
when they spoke of the things that
have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy
Spirit sent from heaven. Even
angels long to look into these things.”
For many this command from God to make a burnt offering of
Isaac would have been the end of any relationship with God. Abraham and Sarah had waited and
waited, and waited, for this promised one, and God had promised that through
Isaac His promised people would come.
What would you have done?
Real faith comes to the surface often in the middle of our worst
nightmare, when our world is turned upside down. That is when me must go back to the basic belief that God is
all knowing, that He is not like us, that His ways are higher than ours and His
thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and that He loves us beyond our
understanding.
I believe that is where Abraham and Isaac found
themselves. They had a promise,
and that is all they had, but they had found that the One who made the promise
was faithful; so they by faith believed, and this is the rest of the
story. “By
faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was
about to sacrifice his one and only son, even thought God had said to him, “It
is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise
the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from the dead.” (Hebrews 11:17-19) My prayer is that Abraham’s faith in
God’s promises will be of great help to you and me in our crises of faith.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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