Saturday, April 1, 2006
Genesis 22:3a, c So Abraham rose early . . . and went to the place of which God had told him.
FATHER ABRAHAM
So, what do you do when it appears as if God has become your own worst enemy? That was the challenge faced by Abraham. And our text tells us just what he did: "Abraham rose early . . . and went to the place of which God had told him."
Every time I read through the account of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 I'm amazed at the events recorded there. God was asking Abraham to do the most unthinkable thing imaginable: to take the son he loved and offer him as a burnt offering. This son, this son who had brought laughter into the hearts and lives of Abraham and Sarah. This was not a laughing matter!
No matter how you look at it, everything about this seems contrary to God's nature and Word. It was against everything God had promised Abraham -- descendants as numerous as the sand on the seashore -- and that through this child Abraham would be the father of many nations.
So what do you do? I'll tell you what Abraham did, he clung tenaciously to God's promise. That's why Abraham is called the "father of all believers." In faith he hung on to God's promise even when everything else testified against doing that.
Is this not the way God would have us respond when He tests us -- when He, for example, challenges us to believe His Word is sure and true? Such tests are the means whereby God purifies and refines our faith, tempering it through suffering and the cross.
Always remember that through each and every test God is working toward your salvation. He's working toward the goal of raising you to eternal life on the last day. He's using the test to awakening your faith in Christ.
Jesus is our Confidence and our Hope. He's God's sure Word to us that through all the circumstances of life, through all the testing and temptation, we will be more than conquers through Him. No matter how things might seem to our sight, the fact is that God will provide.
