2 He 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 of which I shall tell you.”

A. Murder Commanded?

The temptation here is to say, look how absolutely Abraham trusted God, he was even willing to kill his own son to obey God’s commands. You should also obey God even if what he commands you to do is wrong and morally repugnant.

There are vast problems with that. Does God command us to do things that absolutely contradict every law he has given, as well as the laws of man, love and reason? No.

If God had commanded Abraham to sneak in her tent and kill Sarah would he have done it? If God commanded Abraham to sneak in Isaac’s tent and slit his throat would he have done it? No. If God commands you to kill your first born son, should you be like Abraham and do it? Absolutely not.

First, what was special about Isaac. God has promised to redeem the world through him and his seed. He is the beginning of Redemption. To this point, God has only judged the world because of sin, and established some order as a context for redemption. But he has not yet begun the work of healing. Now, he has promised Abraham, through your son Isaac, all of the world will be blessed. He made that abundantly clear, not through another son, but through Isaac. And God had promised without making Abraham sign the contract to do this work for him.

Second, Abraham has already received Isaac from the dead. Isaac was born from Abraham’s ancient age and through Sarah’s dead womb. She was barren in her best years, yet she conceived and bore Isaac at the age of 90. Hebrews 11 tells us Abraham knew he would have Isaac even if that meant God would raise him from the dead. How did he know that? God had already miraculously brought Isaac from the dead.

Finally, God did not say “kill him.” Rather he said, offer him to me. Give him to me as a burnt offering. Abraham already knew that Isaac belonged to God. Isaac had nothing natural about him, he came from God and he belonged to God.

Here God is hinting at something he would revisit through the Old Testament – your firstborn son belongs to me. Why? We will get to that in a minute.

B. Promises Broken?

So, do all these promises mean it was easy for Abraham to do this? Did he have no doubts? No, I am sure Abraham was filled with absolute horror. Why?

God was leading him down the road he never expected to go down. All of Abraham’s problems were supposed to be over by now. Honestly, to this point, following God had not been that easy for Abraham. He had to leave home, he never had a permanent dwelling or property. He had to fight wars, pilgrim among strange nations who wanted his money and his wife. But finally he had received the promised son.

Now God wants him to give up his son too? It is not supposed to be that way.

So maybe in this way Abraham is a model for you. Has God ever made clear to you that you were going to have to walk down the opposite path than you thought?

- Did you get married assuming you would have to follow God through divorce?

- Did you have children thinking you would have to walk through the valley of death?

- When you took those vows to support your spouse in sickness and health, did you really think chronic illness would be part of the bargain?

A lot of us, maybe all of us, honestly assumed that following God would be easy. As long as we stayed away from sin, we would be happy. Now he is calling us to forgive those who hurt us. He is calling us trust him when we cannot see him. He calls us to believe even when we are not sure He is there.