8th February 2026

Message 08/02/26 – Abraham 12 – Martin Mowat

Readings: Genesis 22:1-8, Genesis 22:9-18

Last week I said that Abraham’s life wasn’t a bed of roses, and I listed a few of the difficulties he had.  One of them was the painful experience of parting with his eldest son, Ishmael, and Ishmael’s Egyptian mother, Hagar, an experience that none of us would ever want to go through.

But that pails into insignificance compared to what we see him having to face in our two readings today.  

It’s a Sunday School story, isn’t it? But at Sunday School they don’t even scratch the surface. And that’s all we’re going to be able to do today, if I’m honest, to scratch the surface.

This was to be the ultimate test of Abraham’s faith. 

"Some time later God tested Abraham” the passage told us.  But why on earth would he do that? Why would he decide to test Abraham, AGAIN, after all that he’d already gone through??? That’s not an easy question to answer, but let’s have a go.

Remember that sons were vital for family survival. That’s why Lot’s daughters behaved the way they did. But, as we’ve been hearing, Abraham had lost hope of ever having one, despite God repeatedly promising him that he would. 

Then finally he had Ishmael, and so he poured himself into him, as I said last week. But then baby Isaac arrives, and there’s a sort of exchange as Ishmael is banished, along with his mother, to fend for themselves in the desert. 

So Abraham started from scratch and poured himself, heart, body, and soul into this little chap as he grew from a baby to a toddler, from a toddler to a child, from a child, to an adolescent, and from an adolescent to a young man. 

I had always thought of Isaac as being 7 or 8 when this fateful instruction was issued, but I discovered that many comentators think that he wasn’t a child at all, but rather somewhere between 25 and 37 years old. 

I was shocked, and I had to rethink the whole episode.  No longer the picture of Abraham climbing the mountain with a child asking innocent questions, “Daddy, why didn’t we bring a lamb for the sacrifice, we’ve got hundreds at home after all?”  And then Abraham easily tying him up, and lifting him bodily onto the alter that they had built together.  

But no, it seems that it wasn’t like that. Not at all. This was a healthy, fit adult who could have easily overpowered his 130-year-old father with no problem whatsoever. 

At what point in the proceedings, I wonder, did Abraham spill the beans? How on earth would he have managed to talk Isaac into doing this, or did he employ some other tactic? Was Isaac not really worried because he implicitly believed that God would intervene?  We have absolutely no idea. 

But I’m running ahead, let’s go back a step.  What was it that God had said?

“Take your son - your only begotten son - whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there - as a burnt offering - on a mountain that I will show you.”  That mountain, by the way, is thought to have been have been the one on which Solomon later built the Temple and where a huge Muslim mosque stands today, in Jerusalem.  It’s a place of huge, huge Biblical significance. 

There was no mistake about who it was that was speaking to him. Abraham had heard God's voice many times during his lifetime. He knew it all too well. But he also knew that it wasn’tthe voice of an enemy, but that of his friend. 

Nevertheless, the message can only have brought agony to Abraham's heart.  Isaac wasn’t just a precious “only” son, in the sense that he was the only one born to him in wedlock, he was “the seed of promise”. ALL God’s promises, some of them repeated over and over, were concentrated in Isaac. Becoming a great nation, possessing the land, and so on. Their fulfilment depended on his survival.  Was God withdrawing those promises?  Had he changed his mind? 

“Why God? - Why God? – Why? – Why?”

But to Abraham's credit, after what can only have been a totally sleepless night, he didn't put it off. He got up "early the next morning" and began his journey, as we just heard.  Did he tell Sarah before he set off, what he was about to do? Or did he decide to leave it until he got back? Which would you have done? 

It was a journey of about 50 miles, so it probably took 2 or 3 days.  Imagine what was going over, and over, and around, and around in Abraham’s mind. And imagine, too, his prayers.  “Please God, do I REALLY have to do this?” “Isn’t there any other way?”  “Can’t we just turn round and go home?”

Imagine the conversations between Abraham and Isaac along the way.  It’s all just inconceivable, unthinkable. 

Of course, as we all know, the story has a happy ending, but let’s go back to my question at the beginning, “WHY? Why would God decide to test Abraham again after all that he’d gone through?”

I think that the answer may have been to teach a valuable lesson, not so much to Abraham, but to Isaac, about trusting God and being obedient to him, learning from the example of his father’s faith. To show him, that as the apostle James said, Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

But let me read to you what the author of the epistle to the Hebrews says about it, and with this, sadly, because there is so much more that could be said about Abraham, I conclude this series. 

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he (Abraham) was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

13 … these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

What does that tell us? 

Abraham was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 

Sarah considered him faithful who had made the promise.

Together they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one.

Are WE? 

Are we looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God? 

Do we consider him faithful who had made the promise?

Because if we are, then God is not ashamed to be called OUR God, for he has prepared a city for US.