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Isaac was about 16 when Abraham, tested by God, took him on a journey to sacrifice him “as a burnt offering on one of the mountains” (Gen. 22:2) that God would point out to him.  You cannot help but wonder what Abraham was thinking then.  Did he argue with the Almighty?  If Abraham had disagreed, the Bible would have recorded it.  Abraham was 100 when Isaac, which means laughter, was born.  For any parent, 16 years is but a brief moment to enjoy that laughter.  Did God appear to be trifling with Abraham’s affection for his son and even with Himself – bestowing a gift to him only to take it away?

But there was no record of debate or doubt.  What are recorded are these actions: That “early the next morning” Abraham was ready with the necessary – donkey, firewood and son.  That he went on a three-day journey before even seeing the mountain and that from afar.  That father and son trudged up the mountain and Abraham “himself carried the fire and the knife”.  That when they reached the spot, he bound up his son, laid him on the wood and “reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son”.  You have to gasp at this.

Importantly, the Bible records these words from Abraham.  To his servants whom he asked to wait at base camp, he said: “We will worship and then we will come back”.  Note the pronoun “we”.  He believed that two would go and two would return.  Also, his answer to Isaac’s question on where the sacrifice was: “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering”.  Here was a man for whom the hymn, “All the way my Saviour leads me” is most apt.  God had led him out of the Ur of the Chaldees, away from his family.  Though he “did not know where he was going” (Heb 11:8), God had told him He would provide him a son, though that son would take 24 years in coming.  So, in crisis, he must have remembered God’s rebuke after Sarah laughed at the promise of a son: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen 18:14).  If nothing was too “hiphil” (Hebrew word denoting wondrously extraordinary) for Jehovah, He could create life – and recreate it.  Take life and resurrect it.  So, Abraham’s secret to obedience is remembering who he worships.  In our darkest moments, we should too.