Testing Of Faith

Analogy: blacksmith blacksmith doesn't heat and hammer steel in order to find out if the Steel can pull up to it. He does this to harden and temper the steel and make it stronger. He knows exactly what the process will produce.

Abraham

Direct communication with the Lord

Years of silence

Trying to fulfill his own promise from God through Hagar

Disappointment Sarah must have felt

Then the joy of realizing that Sarah was with a child. Probably laughing with joy. Thus the name, Isaac, which means laugh in Hebrew.

Years of raising Isaac and Ishmael. Silence from the Lord.

Finally, when Isaac is in his prime Lord returns to give a command to Abraham. Not just any command not just a command to kill his son since he had two sons but a specific command to kill the son Abraham in Sarah and waited so many years so overjoyed about.

Text says that Abraham Rose early in the morning to saddle his donkey and split Firewood for the burning offering. Probably Rose early in the morning because he had been up all night. Who could sleep through the night under that command?

Abraham was a wealthy man at this point with a number of servants. He did not have to go saddle up his own donkey or split his own firewood. Could have been probably was interesting to having one of these servants do these things. But in this case you do, he was preparing to give up his only son as it's described. The one who he loved. The one rested all of his hopes and plans associated with what God had promised.

Imagine just having to do this with your favorite pet of all time much less your own child

Then three days of traveling wrestling with why. And silence from the Lord.

This was no small test of faith. This was the blacksmith in the Forge with a big hammer pounding into shape.

But his faith was already seasoned with the history of what God already said and done. With years in between testing his faith, waiting on God to be good on his promise. And he did.

So once again, God never seems to expect a blind and unreasonable faith, but based on what the believer has already seen and heard. It is evidence based. Even though the next time in the Forge pushed the limits of that faith because we are not always given the expected outcome.