COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 58 - ABRAHAM FACES HIS HARDEST TEST

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

After these things, the scriptures say that God tested Abraham.  It happened just the same way that He tested Hagar.  First God called out his name:  “Abraham?”  And we all know the correct answer to this question.  Abraham said “Here I am.”

When I see this in my mind’s eye I picture Abraham praying all alone beside his altar at the old well.  God told Abraham to take his only son (remember that Abraham had legally disinherited Ishmael not so long ago) to the Land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that God would show him.  To make this very clear God also called out the name of Isaac.

Nothing could have ripped out Abraham’s heart more than this test.  He loved Isaac more than anything or anyone and God was asking him to offer him up as a burnt offering. 

We would do well to take a history lesson at this point.  Was it just a casual thing for a man to offer up his son as an offering to God in those days?  No!  It was a common thing for the pagans living in the land.  They would offer up their sons and daughters to the idols that they worshiped in exchange for prosperity, but The God of Abraham had never demanded such a thing of anyone. 

I wonder, did it cross Abraham’s mind to question this?  Isaac was the promised son.  Isaac was irreplaceable.  All of Abraham’s dreams and hopes were all wrapped up in what God would do with Isaac.  Yet, we see in the scriptures that Abraham did not question anything.   Abraham loved God enough to trust Him with his dreams and hopes.  Have you ever had to let go of your dreams and wait on God to give you His dream?  It happens sometimes.  In taking Isaac up to the altar Abraham would be giving up every dream he had ever hoped for.  This takes great faith.  

Why would Abraham not question this? 

One thought is that since Abraham was from the Godly line of Seth and Shem he would have believed in the promise from God of the coming “seed of the woman” who would be sent to reverse the curse on humanity.  Remember how Abraham had planted the Tamarisk tree?  There was so much deep significance in that one act.  Another aspect could have been that Abraham was also remembering The Tree of Life that originally grew in the Garden of God.  Did Abraham look at this tree and remember how God had promised to restore the world?  At the altar at the well so close to this tree, had he asked God about this very thing?  Did Abraham believe that Isaac was this redeemer who would restore the world?

This wasn’t the first time God had tested Abraham, but this was definitely the greatest test God had ever given to Abraham.  We can look back and see that there were ten tests altogether:

Test One:  When as a very young man God had asked Abraham to stand up to his father and deny his religion of idolatry.

Test Two:  When later God told Abraham to leave the country of his birth for an unknown destination.

Test Three:  When a famine came to the promised land after Abraham had moved there.

Test Four:  Sarah’s abductions by foreign kings.

Test Five:  Fighting against the four kings and interceding for Lot.

Test Six:  Seeing a vision of a future captivity just before the covenant was made with God.

Test Seven:  Circumcision at age 99. 

Test Eight:  Sarah’s years of infertility.

Test Nine:  Evicting Hagar and Ishmael.

Now Abraham comes to the test of his life that will affect everything and everyone all throughout humanity from the moment the testing is over.  This is the big one.  God had tested Abraham many times, but this one test was the BIG test, the final exam.  Abraham had done the undergraduate work, but now he had to pass the test that would assure full graduation into God’s good grace.  This was it!

It started out like all the others, with God calling him by name; “Abraham!  Abraham!” and with Abraham’s answer being:  “Here I am.”

This time the “Here I am” was extremely significant because it was the only sound that we hear from Abraham for the next three days as they journeyed to Moriah.  Other than to answer God with that one phrase, Abraham walked in silence.

We are told that Abraham rose early the next morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him.  Many think the two young men were Eliezer and Ishmael (both of them by now had lost all hopes of being the one to inherit Abraham’s wealth and had returned to being nothing but honored servants.)  Since Eliezer led the soldiers that guarded Abraham’s tents, it is easy to suppose that Ishmael had perhaps joined this group, but that is merely speculation.  At any rate, these two were probably the two chosen to go with Abraham and Isaac on this journey of agony. 

Many old sages have pointed out the progression of the spirituality of Abraham between the first test and the tenth test.  In the first test he is asked to leave things of the flesh, things of the earth, things that are material.  In the tenth test he is being tested on a much higher spiritual level, being asked to leave and go to a place of atonement and sacrifice, to attain something of significance in the spiritual realm.  Abraham has grasped the fact that God is Eternal, that He sees the beginning from the end and everything in between. 

Abraham has learned that God’s understanding of things is so much higher than his could ever be.  He has by this time in the process of all these tests gained the knowledge that you do not need to question God.  When God speaks you are only to obey.  Such a simple fact had been learned from so many complicated situations that God had led Abraham through.   This last test would require his greatest trust, his strongest faith.

This wasn’t the first trip to Moriah for Abraham, he had been there many times.  He understood that it was the place where God had created the universe.  It was the place from whence the dust had been taken when God created Adam.  It was the place where Adam and Eve and their sons had offered sacrifice to God.  It was the place that Noah had offered sacrifice after the flood.  Noah’s son, Shem, had been commissioned right at Moriah to be the family high priest after the Order of Melchizedek.  

How did Abraham know all of this?  He knew it directly through Shem.  Shem  had established a school in the land of Moriah for Torah study after the great flood.   Abraham had attended his teachings.  In the lineage of the geneology from Adam to Noah, Abraham was the next to be appointed after Shem as family high priest.  When Shem, representing The Order of Melchizedek, met Abraham in the valley after the Battle of The Kings, Shem had blessed Abraham with the blessing that passes the appointment from the serving family high priest to the next serving family high priest.  Melchizedek was the order of this family of high priests.  Shem had passed the order on to Abraham, who would in turn pass it on to Isaac.  

Yet, here they were walking to Moriah to offer Isaac up as a burnt offering.   What would Shem say about this?  Shem had called the place on Moriah where they were headed  Shalayim, which means “perfect.”  This spot later came to be known as Jerusalem.  Many people still do not realize that Shem, though much older than Abraham, actually out-lived Abraham.  Abraham had learned much from Shem.  Shem lived to be 602, and 35 years beyond the years of Abraham, which is pretty amazing.   

Abraham did not consult Shem.  He quickly followed God.  If he had consulted Shem, perhaps Shem would have suggested, like many others have thought over the years that Abraham misunderstood God’s words to take Isaac and “offer” him there.  Some think that God was only asking Abraham to take Isaac to Moriah and dedicate him to the work of THE LORD that was going on there.  The same words that describe a burnt offering also describe the act of ascending, or going up, as smoke rises.  If you trade the similar Hebrew words for each other the Hebrew words for “offer him up” could also translate to “cause him to ascend.” 

We all know how Abraham’s logic could be at times.  Perhaps he got it right, or perhaps he got it wrong, it does not matter, as God was in control of this whole event, and God called the shots.  The important thing was only for Abraham to follow to the very best of his ability whatever he understood God to be saying to him.  It was only important that he did this willingly and without a moment’s hesitation, showing great courage and bravery and with a totally pure desire to be used of God in any way that God saw fit.   By now the rules of Abraham's life had been reduced to two little words:  Follow God.  Abraham had come to know that all other things fell into place around those two little words.

Instead of questioning anything that God had asked of him, Abraham immediately began to prepare for this sacrifice.  He went to chop the wood for the altar.  Could this have been some of the wood from the Terebinth tree that he had planted at the grove of the trees that grew in Mamre, where he had lived so happily in his tent with Sarah and sat under when The Angel of The LORD came calling to tell him that Sarah would have a son?  We do not know. 

Perhaps the chopping of some of this tree for wood for this altar was Abraham’s way of saying to God, will you cut off this branch that we have planted together and you have promised me?   Once it is chopped and burned, it cannot be replaced.  This part of the tree can never be again.  Was it a prayer of action instead of words?  We have no way to know.   All we know is that Abraham chopped the wood himself and made sure that it was all kosher for the altar of God.

Abraham then saddled his own donkey.  He did not ask his servant to do this for him because he wanted to take all responsibility for this strange journey on his own shoulders.  He was taking Eliezer and Ishmael along; so he did not want anyone blaming them for whatever transpired.  They were easy suspects.  They had many reasons for wanting Isaac out of the way but had always been too noble to implement or exercise these reasons.  Abraham wanted no one taking the blame, so he saddled his own donkey in front of all the other servants as proof that he had not just been dragged along into a concocted scheme, but had taken this journey because he chose to do so of his own free will.

He said his goodbyes, probably allowing Sarah to believe that he was taking Isaac to visit Shem for schooling, and they all started on a long, three day journey, Abraham and the three who were like sons to him, the most beloved son, Isaac, carrying the wood for the sacrifice.