God Will Provide (part 3), Genesis 22:9-10

Abraham’s preparation

In our recent studies of this passage, which is part of our series on "The Church in the Time of the Patriarchs,” we considered how Abraham listened without raising an objection to God’s command and made preparation to obey him in the greatest trial of his life. This trial, of course, was the sacrifice of Isaac his only remaining son and heir to the promises that Abraham had been given. We remember that Abraham faced the trial, with intention, with preparation, with faith and with perseverance.

We had reached roughly the beginning of verse 9 when we paused at the end our last study.

The time of trial

Genesis 22:9–10, “And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.”

Up until now, Abraham has heard God’s command, he digested what it meant, he made all the preparation to do what God asked, and he and his servants, with Isaac, started out on their journey to Mount Moriah, Abraham meditating all along the way on what was about to happen.

Now the time has come to do the most difficult part—the execution of the deed. And, in this case, it was to be—as far as Abraham knew—a literal execution of his own son.

There are certain critical points in a trial at which men are prone to pull back and refuse to obey God:

• Some people don’t even go so far as to listen to what God says at all, and they extricate themselves from obedience that way. This is the way with the unbelieving world. These people are those, in Jesus’ parable, on whom the word of God falls as by the wayside, where the birds of the air devour it and the Devil snatches it away.

• Others listen to as much as they are comfortable with, but at the suggestion of something difficult or controversial, they tune out. They won’t labor to study and understand God’s word if it doesn’t immediately meet with their own preconceived ideas. Their understanding of God’s word is limited, their obedience is minimal, and this is largely a matter of their own doing. Their minds and hearts are full of the thorns they themselves have sown, and the little of God’s word that they do know is choked out, bearing little fruit.

• Another sort of person, though, listens and understands at an intellectual level. He thinks he is obeying simply by learning. This, alas, is the case with many Reformed people like us. This person, however, does not take his duty seriously. He doesn’t do the kind of preparation that Abraham did to carry out God’s commands and so he never reaches the level of execution. He’s the kind of person, to use the imagery of this passage that we discussed last time we studied it, that doesn’t carry the wood for the sacrifice with him and really hopes there won’t be any wood there when he gets to the place of sacrifice. He doesn’t prepare and take the first steps, and then he offers that as an excuse for why his obedience is impossible. There is a sort of dishonesty in this kind of person that undermines his testimony and his fellowship with God.

• Finally, we have men of faith who purpose to follow through in their covenant commitments to the Lord. They truly mean well. Spiritual dishonesty is not the flaw in their characters. They are listening, they are prepared. They fully intend to obey. Where they fail is in the final execution of their duty because of simple cowardice and weakness. They study apologetics, they plan and maybe even begin to speak a word in season to a friend or colleague, but they never say it because they think they’ll be rejected and lose the friendship, or their respectable status, or their job. They begin a labor for God, but grow weary and do not finish it. They have the means to do God’s will, but they finally do not have the will and strength to accomplish it.

Abraham’s execution

This is the stage at which we find Abraham tonight, but in Abraham’s case, as distinct from these others, he follows through on his commitment and obeys. There are many examples of spiritual and moral failure in the narrative portions of the Bible, and in our own Christian experience. These include some failures that we have considered in this great man of faith himself, our father Abraham. But here we find something different, indeed an outstanding example of obedience in this man of God. It is as refreshing as it is astonishing.

Can you imagine the situation? Abraham builds the altar and lays the wood on it. Isaac is standing by, or is perhaps helping his father prepare for the sacrifice. And then Abraham turns to Isaac, taking him by the arm. He must have told Isaac then what God had said. Perhaps Abraham reassures Isaac that he believes God will raise him from the dead. We don’t know exactly how this remarkable transaction occurs. There is a veil of silence drawn across the scene, but in the end, Isaac is bound and laid on the wood, ready to be pierced by Abraham’s knife and burned.

There is another thing that we should understand as we consider this: Even though Isaac had less time to think about the whole matter, this act of faith belongs to him as much as it does to Abraham. I don’t think we have a situation where Abraham overpowers his unwilling son and heaves him up onto the altar. Abraham, we think, is around 115 years old and Isaac is a teenager. Isaac, being stronger, carried the wood up Mount Moriah for the sacrifice. Isaac had to have been a cooperative participant in this drama. He lies on the altar, probably with his eyes closed, and, no doubt, with fear in his heart, awaiting the stoke that will take his life.

Let’s read verse 10 again. Genesis 22:10, “And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.”

This is where we stop this evening. We don’t yet have the happy ending. We know, because we have read the story before, that there is a happy ending. Abraham, who had not read the story, by faith believed there would be some kind of a happy ending, but he wasn’t exactly sure how it would take place. His best guess, as we now know, was wrong.

But it’s a fitting place to stop for two reasons: 1) We are out of time, and 2) Our focus has been on the necessity of finally executing our duty to God and bringing our work across the finish line. We have reached what might be called “the last full measure” of Abraham’s faith and obedience. He crosses the finish line. Praise be to God! Abraham did not fail in what God called him to do, and to which he had answered at the beginning, “Here I am.”

Our duty

I want to make one simple application of Abraham’s example to the situation of our church plant and what God has called us to do in praying for it and laboring for it.

We could, at this point, confess our weakness and give up. We have been at this for a couple of years now. There have been some disappointments along the way. Some of our fellow laborers have turned back. We find we have been marching in the wrong direction as some of our options have proved unworkable. Carrying the wood for the sacrifice has become burdensome.

Where would we have been if Abraham had stopped short? We won’t go so far as to say that our salvation would be in jeopardy, but we would have lacked a great example in the struggle of the saints to bring glory to our heavenly Father. It would have been another disappointment rather than a triumph in the hall of faith.

It would mean the same thing to our children if we were to throw in the towel without giving our work in planting this church our very greatest effort. It may be that the Lord will eventually close all the doors and turn us back from our purpose, but I have a hard time, after the events that have brought us so far, in thinking that will be the case. I want to encourage us to keep going all the way through to the end, to fully execute the task that the Lord has led us to begin in trying to start a faithful Reformed church in Indianapolis—God helping us.

Amen.