The Lord Provides

December 18, 2011


Background Scripture: Genesis 22:1 – 19
Lesson Passage: Genesis 22:1 – 14

The title of our lesson is a testimony for all who have ever recognized the need for God to move on their behalf and have sought Him earnestly in prayer for the same. “The Lord provides.” Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say: The Lord provides __________ . You can feel free to fill in the blank for yourself. We even like to quote the Hebrew phrase “Jehovah-jireh” that Abraham used after the Lord came to his rescue in the nick of time. This was not an exclamation statement for Abraham as we often use it but instead it was a naming of the mountain in honor of God’s deliverance of his son Isaac. This was no doubt the greatest test of Abraham’s faith in God. Abraham was tested throughout his walk with the Lord from the land of his nativity to the mountain in the hills of Moriah. In the beginning Abraham’s faith tests were about giving up those people, places, and things that he had before he met the Lord. In this passage of scripture, his test is about giving up the greatest blessing God had bestowed on him since he began his journey with the Lord. Here, as at other crucial times in Abraham’s relationship with God, Abraham made the right choice. His choice or decision was to listen to God and obey Him in spite of the difficulty he faced in complying with the Lord’s request. There is no doubt that Isaac was indeed a blessing to Abraham from the Lord. Sarah, his barren wife was well pass her child-bearing years and Abraham was said to be as good as dead in terms of fathering a child. Yet, in the midst of these impossibilities God provided a baby from these two unlikely sources. The psychology of God’s request would never allow Abraham to rationalize God’s request to him. No, his decision had to be one of faith not logic. If he put this child to death at God’s request, all of God’s promises to him would become null and void. God had made a covenant with Abraham that declared that the promises could not become null and void as long as the Lord lived. What would Isaac’s death accomplish or even mean in light of God’s promises? There is no wonder that the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews had so much to say about Abraham as an example of one who demonstrated an unusual faith in God. That writer came to the only theological conclusion available to justify Abraham’s action. Abraham knew that even the death of Isaac could not prevent God from fulfilling His promises to him. The implication of this shows an amazing advancement in God’s revelation of Himself to mankind through his relationship with Abraham. Abraham believed that God could raise a person up from the dead. Human death then is not final but a transition of existence. There is no way to come to this conclusion through logic. God used Abraham’s faith to convey this message to mankind. If death is no match for God, then certainly nothing in life could be either. Regardless of circumstances or situations, all children of God eventually come to this same belief in the extraordinary power of God. For God’s children, whatever the need may be, the Lord provides.

Robert C. Hudson
December 9, 2011