The Story of God: The Moriah Test

Life is full of tests. By the time I finished of 6 years of elementary school, 3 years of middle school, 3 years of high school, 4 years of college and 3 years of Seminary, between all the pop quizzes, math tests, history exams, English tests, Greek and Hebrew Exams, mid-terms and finals, I came up with a rough estimate that during my school years I’ve studied for and taken over 1000 tests. Each one of those tests had one purpose: to see if I had in me that which was required to pass the course – to see if I had the right stuff in me to qualify for a passing grade. Now, most of us are familiar with educational tests. And we are all glad we are done with those. But life is made up of all kinds of other tests as well: drivers tests, hearing tests, eye tests, and my personal favorite: blood tests. Then there are IQ tests, personality tests and spiritual gifts tests. I’ve also taken a strengths finder test – to assess my where my natural God given talents are. But none of these tests compare with what we would all call: “life tests.”

For it’s in the school of hard knocks where our LOYALTY is tested, our PATIENCE is tested, and yes, even our FAITH is tested. Because every time we are tested, these “life tests” reveal what is in us: Do we stay loyal when our spouse lets us down? Do we keep our cool when the air conditioner goes belly up? Do we have the faith to trust God when life is hard… when life doesn’t make sense?

This last question is where we find ourselves today in the story of God. For in Abraham’s journey of faith, it seems that he had passed all of God’s tests of faith: He had left family, father and country behind. He refused to worship in the ways of the pagan culture around him. He put his life in God’s hands to rescue Lot. He obeyed the demands of God’s covenant by circumcising every male. He even interceded for the righteous of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he believed God would give him a Son through Sarah. And then God finally rewarded his faith with the birth of Isaac, the child of promise.   So as we return to his journey of faith in Genesis 22, it’s been about 14 to 15 years since the birth of Isaac, and life’s been pretty good. But its here where all is well that God gives Abraham the hardest test of his life. He tests his faith to see what he is really trusting in. Is Abraham truly trusting in God or is he trusting in what he can get from God? Is Abraham’s faith genuine? That’s the purpose of the Moriah Test.

We must ask ourselves the same question. Are we really trusting in God or are we trusting in what we can get from Him? How we answer that question will determine how we handle life’s tests. That’s what we are going see as Abraham faces the Moriah Test.

1. The Moriah Test Reveals What’s Most Important to You

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”                                                                 “Here I am,” he replied.                                                                                                                                         Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” Genesis 22:1-2

God tested Abraham with the most important thing in Abraham’s life: his Son. Abraham had waited 25 years for God to deliver on His promise. This promised child was born to Sarah when she was well past child-bearing age: when she was old and worn-out. She was 90, Abraham was 100 when he was born. This was a miraculous birth. God gave them a son when it was no longer physically possible to even conceive a child. And so what does God do? God commands him to sacrifice his son. Make no mistake. God gets very specific here. He says, Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. And once you get there, sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.

Again, God commands Abraham to go to a place He will show Him. How reminiscent of his original command – to go and leave family, father and country behind, and go to a place I will show you. But with that first command, God promised to give Him land, seed, and a blessing. This time God commands Abraham to go – but there’s NOTHING to gain. Just go. Go sacrifice your son there as a burnt offering. A burnt offering! If Abraham does this there will be nothing left of what God promised – nothing but ashes. This command makes no sense. Isaac is the child God gave him. Blessing to the nations is to come through Him. Not only that, but Abraham loved him. This was his precious boy.

Do you see what God is doing here? God is testing Abraham’s ultimate motivation in life: What’s more important to him, God or the child that God gave him? That’s our test too!  What’s more important to you? God or the gifts God gives you?

Think about what’s most important to you? What’s most valuable to you? Are you like Abraham and PEOPLE are most important to you? Is your spouse the most valuable thing in your life? Are your children the most valuable thing in your life? Are you able to let them go and trust God with him/her/them? That’s the Moriah Test.

But it’s not just people who are valuable to us. Sometimes our POSSESSIONS matter more to us than God. The way you can tell if they matter more to you is by asking yourself, “Can I let them go?” “Can I live without them?” “Can I be content without my possessions?” Sometimes its our EXPERIENCES that matter more to us than God. Sometimes it’s our DREAMS that matter more to us than God.   “Can I have joy without accomplishing my bucket list?” There’s a reason I ask these questions. And it’s the same reason why God tests what we hold near and dear… And the reason is this: Anything that becomes more important to you than God becomes an idol. And if that happens to you, whether it’s people, possessions, pleasures or dreams… your faith is not in God, but in the things you get from God. That’s why God gave Abraham the Moriah Test.

It’s easy to say you trust God when life is good, when everything is going your way. But there’s really no need for faith when you have everything you’ve ever wanted. That’s what Abraham had. At 75, he didn’t have an heir. Now at 100 plus, he’s got an heir, wealth, all the land he could ever want and all the blessings of God wrapped up neatly in the Son of promise. God had really come through for him. But now, God wants to see if FAITH is really “IN” Abraham.   Does he has faith in God or is his faith in what God has given him. So God gives him the Moriah test: give up the one thing you love the most – your Son.

That’s the first thing we see in the Moriah Test:  The Moriah Test will Reveal What is Most Important to You. But that’s just the first part of the test. Now let’s see the second:

2. The Moriah Test Requires Radical Obedience

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.  On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.  He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Genesis 22:3-5

I love how God doesn’t give us a definition of faith. Instead he gives us a story, a picture of what faith looks like. With Abraham, there’s no debating God. He doesn’t ask: “Isn’t there another way?” He simply obeys. He rises early. He saddles his donkey, cuts the firewood, takes two servants and Isaac and sets off toward Moriah. This will be a journey of some 50 miles… Three days on a tough road. We are not told if he talks with his servants about what God has told him to do. I’m almost certain he doesn’t. He simply travels in silence. When he finally arrives at his destination, he leaves his servants and donkey behind and he says to his servants before he leaves them: “We will worship there, and then we will come back to you.”

Here’s what this picture communicates for us: Sometimes your journey of faith will be a lonely journey. Abraham has no companions to encourage him; no friends who understood what God was asking of him.  All he had to go on was a lifetime of God’s faithfulness to him. And sometimes that’s all we will have. Sometimes God may put you in a place where you’ve got no one to trust but Him. Sometimes you may find yourself having to leave everything and everyone behind.

That’s how the Moriah Test works: When God calls you to live by faith, He calls you to obey. No questions. Just action, even if no one else understands. Even if people think what you are doing is foolish. And sometimes you will feel like you’re in it alone.

Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt like your faith journey is a lonely journey? Have you ever felt that no one understands why you live the way you do? If you have, you are not alone… because anyone whose ever obeyed God’s Word has acted on their faith. And those who don’t have faith – well, they just think we are weird. That’s what the Moraih test reveals. It shows the world that we trust in God’s Word. It shows the world that we believe God’s ways are best, even if sometimes we don’t completely understand what He’s up to. The Moriah Test requires radical obedience.

That’s what reveals that Faith is IN Us.

And that leads us to the next part of the test, the most important part of the test. For now that Abraham has arrived at Moriah, God’s test gets very real. So now what we see is that 3. The Moriah Test Reveals Who You are Trusting In

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”                                                                                                                                                                      “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.                                                                                                                               “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”                   Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

Even though things were getting very real for Abraham. Things were also getting a little too real for Isaac. Abraham has placed the wood for the offering on his back. He himself is carrying the fire and the knife for the sacrifice. But something’s missing. “Where’s the lamb for the sacrifice?” Notice now Abraham’s answer: He says, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” The Hebrew is literally, “God will see to it that we will have what we need.” Here Abraham expresses utmost confidence that God will provide. God has provided in the past. God will provide now. That’s faith!

Listen to the definition of faith from Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Abraham was certain that God would see to it that they would have what they needed. That God would provide what they currently do not see.

What about you? Do you have this kind of faith? Do you believe God will see to it that you have what you need? We don’t usually go through life this way. We are taught from an early age that we are to provide what we need, and if we don’t have what we need, we need to work harder or smarter to get what we need. And if that’s worked once, we do it again and again and again… until we develop this pattern in life: If we need something, then its up to us to make it happen: We call the shots, we do the work, we figure it out, we make it happen. So, this kind of faith revealed here by Abraham is tough for us. Why? Because what it reveals who we are trusting in. And for the average person, who we are trusting in is ourselves… not God.

So how did Abraham arrive at this kind of faith? To have a faith where He trusted in God alone to provide? To have a faith where he trusted in God to see to it that they would have what they needed? Well, Abraham didn’t start his journey with God with this kind of faith. Remember, he failed time and time again to trust God. But finally, after 25 years of learning to walk with God and seeing God rescue him in Egypt, provide for him in Canaan, prevail for him in battle, and finally give Him a Son… this 25 year journey of faith built in him a confidence that God would be there for him no matter what. And with that confidence, Abraham put his trust in God to provide the lamb for the sacrifice.

I think this should give us hope. God took an ordinary man with a feeble faith, and over time helped him become a man of extraordinary faith. And now we see his faith lived out on Moriah. Look now at verse 9, When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.  Now was the moment of truth. As Abraham placed his son on the altar and reached for his knife we see that Abraham was fully committed to sacrificing his son. If God does not intervene, The Bible tells us that he would have gone through with it. How do we know this? Hebrews 11:19 tells us: “Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again.”

That’s an unshakable faith. Not a wishful hope. It’s a faith on God’s terms, not our own. You could not raise this knife and cast it down and hope the sacrifice would survive. The blade in Abraham’s hand was meant to kill, and the fire was meant to consume. This was to be a whole sacrifice. There’d be nothing left but ashes. This kind of sacrifice required total obedience. And Abraham was willing to give it. Abraham was willing to do life totally on God’s terms. He trusted in God completely. He passed the Moriah Test. And at that very moment God stepped in and delivered: But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”                                                                                                  “Here I am,” he replied.                                                                                                                                              “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.  So Abraham called that place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “The Lord Will Provide”). And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

Abraham trusted in God alone. His faith was not in the gift but in the Giver. His confidence was not in himself but in God. He passed the test of faith. He believed in the One who would see to it… the One who would provide; Yahweh-Yireh!

What about you? Do you believe that God can provide what you need? Do you believe God will see to anything you are facing? Think about this: What do you really need from the Lord? I’m not talking about some luxury or bucket list item – but something you really need. Then, follow Abraham’s example. Don’t presume to tell God what you need. Don’t even tell Him how to accomplish it. Just put your trust in Him. Expect Him to intervene. Expect him to see to it for you. Then give to Him and see what happens.

Because there’s one more part of the test. And it’s the best part:

4. The Moriah Test Rewards Those Who Pass the Test

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” Genesis 22:15-18

God rewards those who pass the Moriah Test. Why? The Bible puts it this way: It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him. Hebrews 11:6

Abraham believed that God would provide. And Abraham confessed that God saw his dilemma and came through for him. That’s what “Yireh” means. God sees. Abraham knew that without a doubt that God saw everything about him. His relationship with God was that solid. And so when God saw his faith was genuine – He not only provided for him, but He also rewarded him.

And that’s it. That’s the point of the Moriah Test. The Moriah Test will always reveal what you are trusting in. Do we trust in God or something other than Him? Remember, God tests us to see what is in us.  So the next time you face a difficult test in life… a health test, a financial test, even a relational test… remember who sees what you need… and trust in Him.

This is what He is trying to build in you – a faith that trusts in the God who sees.