good morning and welcome. This is Pastor lucy painter with your daily insights and we continue with our episodes. Yesterday we read the story of Abraham when his faith was tested and we saw how he was willing to obey the Lord and ready to sacrifice his own son. You know, this is a story that portrays the faithfulness of the Lord and Abraham's willingness to give everything up for God. That story demonstrates the rewards of obedience to the Lord and it also demonstrate faith as both believing and doing. There is however, a character in this story who is not talked about except in reference to Abraham. Isaac is very talked about independently perhaps because the text seems to focus primarily on Abraham.

But this young man, this son was a part of this story as was his father and we are going to see why today. So in the same text we read yesterday. Don't be tired, just go with me. We're gonna read it again. But now we start from us. For Or they were to nine, Genesis 22 4 - nine. The Bible says that only that day. Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off and Abraham said to his young man, stay here with the donkey, the lad and I will go yonder and worship and we'll come back to you. So, Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son and he took the fire in his hand and a knife and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father and said, my father and he said, here I am my son.

Then he said, look the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb For a burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide for himself, the lamp for a band offering. So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him and Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. Mhm. So I said, we're going to read it again because yesterday I focused so much on Abraham. But I want us to go through this divine experience that Isaac is going through the bible presents us with a scene of tired group of men After the three day journey. And then they get to the place of sacrifice.

And Abraham tells the young men that had accompanied them to stay behind because where they're headed, it's only he and his son who will move a little further to worship and and he makes a promise and says they will both come back. And I just want you to visualize this. So Abraham lays the wood of the sacrifice on Isaak and he takes the fire in the knife. I'm thinking the reason why I brought him here to leave the young man was because he knew if there was Spectators in whatever I'm going to do, they will intervene and they will stop it. So he had to leave this young man down here with the donkeys. So you see we have here a young man whose eyes are taking reeling me the wood for his own sacrifice. I don't know whether Isaac knew when he was carrying this would that he is the sacrifice and he knew the way of sacrificing to the law, the way of worshipping because he knew they did have a lamp for the sacrifice.

But I imagine that being a young man and having had of his father's relationship with God, he had grown to believe in the same God. He had grown trusting the God of his father and the bible says that they went together which literally means that Isaac followed his father wheeling with he went knowing me, he and his father were in agreement about where they were going and the business they were going to conduct and I think as they are going, Isaac is contemplating and looking, I think he's just checking his checklist is like I got the wood, daddy got a fire, he got he got he got a knife, something is missing and he decides to speak up and he asked where is the lamp for the offering and his father tells him the Lord will provide.

Isaac doesn't object, he doesn't ask how the Lord is going to do it. He believed with his father, the Lord will provide and like his father, he did not stop trusting because he didn't understand how God was going to provide. And then as we progress they came to the place of which God had told Abraham and I'm sure that as Abraham is building the altar, I'm sure Isaac is not just standing there watching his dad do it because later on in life we find that Isaac was also an altar builders. So he must have learned how to build ultra from his father. So I believe they're building this altar together. Barbara, he build a delta and place the wood in order. And I can't stop wondering how it was that he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the world.

You know, some jewish commentators put ISA At around the age of 20 or 25 at the time this was happening and Abraham had to be well over 100 years and something old. So given that um We have this understanding that if he was at the age of 20-25 and his dad is 100 and something years then Isaac would have easily escaped if he wanted to. But we see him some meeting, we see him laying down on the wood letting his father buying him with a rope, Isaac realized that he was the land that the Lord had promised and agreed with his father and and therefore his father's and therefore God's purpose. He demonstrated his faith in the divine commandment and I believe Isaac at that age also knew he was the promised son.

I'm trying to figure out the confusion that is going on in his mind. He knew that he was the hope in which the promise of a nation was hinged. He knew he was the promised air. Yet he laid down ready to bleed, ready to die by his father's hand because the Lord had wielded. So he was willing to suffer. He was willing to die to part with his father and his family because he took it upon himself as his duty to follow in the steps of his father's faith. He was willing to let go of everything even as his father had done to lay down his life and everything he had imagined about upon God's providence, this experience, I call it an act of faith. This I can even call it an act of obedience. I don't think there could be a greater demonstration of faith than to stand at the edge of your life to see the end and still believe in the beginning to have the same God who promised you tomorrow command that you must lay everything down today and still believe in the tomorrow.

He promised to be asked of such a great commitment and still do it with cheer for submission. Not to have seen his father prepared the would bide him lay him on the wood and raised the knife now ready to slay him and still hold on to the words of his father to the young men that they would come back. This was faith at its highest and this is the kind of faith a level that we are called to the self giving kind of faith. The unwavering kind of faith that makes you rely on God. Even when it doesn't make sense to anyone. You know that kind of faith that makes us trust the Lord in the Mideast of trials, that seems too great for human endurance. The kind of faith that can only be sustained by full consciousness to the will of God. The kind of thing that makes you submit to the will of God. Even when you have sufficient strength and enough reasons to resist the bible says that Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

But the angel of the Lord called from heaven, look at this divine experience. Oh! The Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And so he said, Here I am and he said, do not lay your hand on the land or do anything to him. For now I know that if he got since you have not withheld your son and your only son from me. Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by it's horns. So Abraham went and took the ram offer it up for about offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place the Lord will provide as it is said to this day in the mount of the Lord. It shall be provided. Imagine the relief and the joy in Isaac on realizing that he had been right in the trusting the god of his father that his faith in God's faithfulness and power to restore his life had been rightly placed.

Imagine the relief experience, imagine that relief and I just want to pause there because there is no way of explaining this. You know, laying down at the altar and knowing that this is your end and just being an obedient child and the Lord speaks and says no no no no don't do it contouring. Don't do it. Yeah. And I'm sure that every time inasmuch as this name the Lord shall provide was memorial to Abraham. It was small memorial to Isaac because he knew if the law didn't provide, I'll be the one who was slain the alpha and Omega.

He knows the beginning and the air that he shall provide is all we need to know that he shall see us through to the end is all we need to know. Yeah, only remember his promises. If you're in such a situation. I don't know how I can quit a situation or circumstance that you're going through to what Isaac was going through in humble submission in willingness, not because you've seen, but because of faith, but because you trust, but still you find yourself laid down on the altar ready to be straight to be slain. Do not stop trusting in him because you do not understand how he is going to deliver. You do not let your faith be shaken because you do not understand how he will fulfill his word. Just hold on to this. His words are yes and amen.

You shall have a comeback. You shall have that deliverance in jesus mighty name, just like he delivered Isaac, you shall be delivered in jesus name, this is divine experience. Day 22 along. Mhm.