{"id":15861,"date":"2021-05-26T22:00:26","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T05:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/genesis_21_17-34-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-05-23T15:48:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T22:48:42","slug":"genesis_22_1-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/genesis_22_1-12\/","title":{"rendered":"When God Puts You to the Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Genesis 22:1-12\u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Genesis 22:1-12.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Genesis 22:1-12 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together,
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But the angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-12:\u00a0\u00a0In one of the most shocking and powerful scenes in the Bible, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar.\u00a0\u00a0This does not appear to be a spur of the moment, spontaneous event.\u00a0\u00a0It would take Abraham, Isaac and their servant more than a day to travel to the place where God would tell Abraham to conduct the sacrifice (v4).<\/p>\n

Why would God tell Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac after promising that Abraham\u2019s line of descendants would be born through Isaac (see Genesis 21:12)?\u00a0\u00a0How could God tell Abraham to sacrifice his only son whom he loves?\u00a0\u00a0When I read this passage today, the sense I get is that, though Isaac had no idea, deep down Abraham sensed that somehow God was up to something special and that God would come through in a powerful way.<\/p>\n

Does God ask for and approve of human beings sacrificing their children?\u00a0\u00a0No, this was a test of Abraham\u2019s faith.\u00a0\u00a0In a way you might even say that in Genesis 20 Abraham put God to the test by allowing Sarah to become Abimelech\u2019s concubine. Now God was putting Abraham to the test by seeing if Abraham would follow through with obeying God\u2019s every word.\u00a0\u00a0Abraham passed the test.\u00a0\u00a0As Hebrews 11:17-19 says,<\/p>\n

Hebrews 11:17-19 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0By 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,
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”
\n19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0From time to time God will allow us to be in circumstances where our faith will be tested.\u00a0\u00a0He may ask us to do something that we don\u2019t want to do or that doesn\u2019t make sense to us.\u00a0\u00a0At that point the test is:<\/strong>\u00a0will we trust and obey God or will we trust in ourselves?\u00a0\u00a0Will we place God\u2019s will above our own will?\u00a0\u00a0Will we obey God no matter what the cost?\u00a0\u00a0It is through testing that our faith grows and gets refined.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also, I believe Abraham being willing to sacrifice his only son Isaac for God is pointing us forward to the day when God would sacrifice His only Son Jesus for us.\u00a0\u00a0Likewise, Isaac\u2019s coming back from the dead figuratively (as Hebrews 11:19 describes) points us forward to the day when Jesus Christ would come back from the dead.\u00a0\u00a0When God tells Abraham to sacrifice \u201cyour only son, Isaac, whom you love\u201d (v2), God is clearly drawing a parallel with what God Himself would later do in the New Testament: take His own only Son (John 3:16) whom He loves (Matthew 17:5) and sacrifice him.\u00a0\u00a0Genesis 22 points us forward figuratively to what God would do for all of us in reality by sacrificing His Son Jesus Christ.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You that You so loved the world that You gave Your only Son, Jesus Christ, whom You love.\u00a0\u00a0May I trust You and place Your will above my own, knowing that You have a greater plan than anything I could imagine.\u00a0\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Genesis 22:1-12.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Genesis 22:1-12 (NIV)
\n1\u00a0\u00a0Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.
\n2\u00a0\u00a0Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
\n3\u00a0\u00a0Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about…….<\/p>\n

On verses 1-12:\u00a0\u00a0In one of the most shocking and powerful scenes in the Bible, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar.\u00a0\u00a0This does not appear to be a spur of the moment, spontaneous event.\u00a0\u00a0It would take Abraham, Isaac and their servant more than a day to travel to the place where God would tell Abraham to conduct the sacrifice (v4).<\/p>\n

Why would God tell Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac after promising that Abraham\u2019s line of descendants would be born through Isaac (see Genesis 21:12)?\u00a0\u00a0How could God tell Abraham to sacrifice his only son whom he loves?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15862,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15861\/revisions\/15862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}