Trusting God’s Provision: Lessons from Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22

Kent Hughes discusses Genesis 22:1–19, focusing on the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. Hughes emphasizes God’s provision and faithfulness, demonstrating that God ultimately provides the necessary sacrifice, foreshadowing the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The sermon encourages believers to trust in God’s provision and faithfulness in their own lives.

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

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Our scripture reading this morning is taken from the book of Genesis, chapter 22, verses 1 to 19.

¹ After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” ³ So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴ On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. ⁵ Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” ⁶ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. ⁷ And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” ⁸ Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. ⁹ When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹² He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” ¹³ And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” ¹⁵ And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven ¹⁶ and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, ¹⁸ and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” ¹⁹ So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba. (Genesis 22:1-19, ESV)

This is God’s word. As Pastor Nielsen read the Scripture this morning, I realized it was, I think, the third time or third service that he’s participated in today. And I’m sure he’s thinking, they’re trying to get all they can get out of me before I leave. Appreciated the reading of God’s word.

We’re back in our regular study of Genesis this morning, and you want to keep your eyes on this magnificent passage that’s so full of necessary, essential truths. Abraham’s life of faith was launched when he left Ur in obedience to God’s promise that He would make Abraham into a great nation, that He would bless him, and that all the peoples of the earth would be blessed through him. He left Ur on that basis, and over the years that great promise was repeated and reiterated with remarkable drama and even greater specificity.

Now on the onset, as Abraham, fresh from Ur, traveled through central Canaan, that is through the promised land, the Lord appeared to him, promising him the land, and he built an altar, worshiped God. Next, after Lot appeared, separated from Abraham, taking the best part of the land, God took Abraham to a hilltop, and He said, “Look, north and south and east and west, I’m giving it all to you.” And so the promise was reiterated, and He said it would be His forever, and His children would number like the dust of the earth.

Then sometime later, after Abraham had rescued Lot from the four kings of the north, and he was recuperating from that, and he was thinking about the fact that he did not yet have an heir, the fact that he and his wife were barren, God took him outside under the stars and He said, “Look up at the stars, if you can count them.” And then God said, “So shall your offspring be.” Humbled under the stars, Abraham was speechless, silent, but the scripture speaks for him. Abraham believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.

⁵ And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” ⁶ And he believed the Lord , and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:5-6, ESV)

There had been a silent Amen inside of him as he really did believe, barren as he and Sarah were, that he would have an heir, a son. The next day Abraham obeyed God’s directives as God told him to derange the parts of slain animals for a covenantal sacrifice. And when the sun had set, God appeared as a flaming furnace radiating orange in the darkness, and then that glowing furnace of God’s presence moved, gliding down the macabre path lined with glistening animal parts.

Abraham saw that God alone had passed down that path, that he hadn’t been asked to, that it was then a unilateral, unconditional covenant which God announced that if he did not fulfill his word in giving him the land, he would be sundered himself. So in two consecutive days under the stars, he understood he was going to have an heir on the land with the presence of God, that he was going to have the land. Years pass. Abraham was 99 years old, and God was preparing him for the covenant of circumcision.

And God changed on that day Abram’s name to Abraham, father of a multitude, because kings were going to issue from him. The whole world was going to be blessed through him. And he changed Sarah’s name, Sarai’s name, to Sarah, reaffirming that she is a princess, as king’s royalty will come for her in the book of Genesis 49:10, the lion of the tribe of Judah. The unborn yet-to-be-conceived son was given a name, Isaac, laughter, all in that day. “Well, Sarah would laugh about this, but laughter was coming.”

So Abraham circumcised all of his household, a sign of belief and trust in the covenantal promise of God. You see, during those long years, the great promise of a people and a land and a blessing were being reiterated. As it was going on, Abraham’s faith is uneven. Faced mountaintops, as you read it, are always lodged against the edge of dark valleys, such as those identical sins of lying to Pharaoh and then of Bemelech about his wife.

Or the great lapse of faith in the affair with Hagar, not trusting God, which then brought on 15 years of domestic misery. Great valleys. But with the birth of Isaac, that’s the last chapter, verse 21, that we looked at last week, and the necessary departure of Ishmael and the treaty of Beersheba, Abraham was, through Isaac, assured of a people and assured of a land as he put a well down in Beersheba, in the promised land. And so his faith soared.

When you come to the close of that account in chapter 21, he calls the Lord Elohim, the Eternal God. Now that designation of the Lord as Eternal God or Enduring God says it all. Because as he spent some time in the land, it was a sense of security, in a sense, that it was happening and it was going to be completed. And so this is the name that he gave to God, celebrating that.

The landmark statements of God’s promise, first when He set out from Ur, then the promise that He heard when He was in the land, then the promise that was reiterated with the departure of Lot, and fourthly when He heard the renamings Father, Multitude, Isaac, Princess, Laughter, and finally when He held baby Laughter in His arms and He called God, Eloham, Eternal God. These restatements of the promise initiated Abraham’s long secure stay in the land of the Philistines, the land of the promise, until the test, which is where we take up the story this morning.

Now, the announcement in the opening line of the story that God was testing Abraham serves to cushion the reader from the shock of what follows, because it is traumatic. And imagine how painful this story would be to read for the first time with no knowledge of its outcome, without that warning. It’s a test, an excruciating story. Also, the knowledge that this is a test alerts us to the truth that growth in faith involves testing. That God tests our faith, and then it’s stretched, whereby then it grows.

And here, Abraham’s faith is being stretched to the utter limit, and because he held firm, his faith became the grand example in world history. There is no other greater example. This morning, you’re hearing about the greatest example of faith in all the history of the world. This man, with his mountaintops and his dark valleys, you’re going to see it.

You also note that this test came after substantial spiritual growth and blessing in chapter 21 with the birth of Isaac, the well in Beersheba, and calling God El Olam.

That his recent successes and growth became the ground for yet greater testing and growth, which is something that we need to take to heart because that’s the way God does, and he’ll always do it. That is the process, as we’ll see. Now we know it was a test, but Abraham doesn’t have a clue. And so, you have to understand that he heard those excruciating words and experienced that excruciating pain because they began with terms of family endearment.

² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:2, ESV)

You see, he was Abraham’s only son in the sense of what we’re talking about here because of the departure of Ishmael, and he was evidently about the same age as Ishmael was when Ishmael departed because he’s called a boy or a lad, same word that’s used for Ishmael. So he’s a teenager, 14, 15, 16 years old. And over that decade and more, he had become Abraham’s laughter, his joy, his reason to smile, and indeed he did.

And everything in the promise was focused on Isaac, this laughter, this love of his life, this lovely boy, and he loved him with the kind of love you parents know about, which is an age-aching parental love that actually loves so much that it hurts. Now those enduring terms, “your son, your only son, Isaac, who you love,” issues in unmitigated horror. “Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Three bare imperatives: take, go, sacrifice him.

And to an ancient mind, like Abraham’s recently come out of Mesopotamia, a burnt offering suggested this, first cutting the offering’s throat, bleeding it out, dividing the offering into sections, dismembering it, placing it upon the altar and burning the offering until there are only ashes left, a holocaust offering, a burnt offering. And that is what Abraham heard and that is what he saw. Even more, understand it wasn’t beyond the range of his experience or his credulity. He’d come from Ur. They did human sacrifice in Ur. He was in Canaan.

They did human sacrifice in Canaan and up and down the coast. So human sacrifice was familiar to his conceptual worldview, however dumbfounding and repulsive it may have been to him. And remember, he didn’t have the yet to be written Torah, which would indicate God’s character, inform his worldview, inform his doctrine of God that Abraham quite possibly would have.

I simply didn’t doubt it for a moment. We wouldn’t believe it today because we have the Scriptures. We have the Bible. We have the character of God.

But he did not have those things, as he had come down from Mesopotamia, and God was asking him to act against his common sense, against every genuine, filial feeling that he had, against his lifelong hope. It’s really interesting. Do you know the text doesn’t tell you anywhere how he feels? I mean, that’s the art of this. This is minimalist. That’s the art of this because you can fill in the lines, can’t you, parents? How it was. Abraham was told to do it with his own two hands. Unbelievable. The light’s gone out.

Laughter is only a memory. And if we’re astounded by the command to Abraham, we’re even more astounded by his immediate obedience. Verse 3, early the next morning, Abraham got up and saddled 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. He’s up at the crack of dawn, no hesitation whatsoever. There is a little bit of a hint that the trauma of all of this had sort of dulled his mind.

As the eminent Old Testament scholar Gordon Winnum notes, he says, “The order of the action, first saddling his donkey and then cutting wood, is illogical. Men, likely oriented, Abraham nevertheless obeyed immediately.” Now, the wonders of this increase in this initial obedience, because after three days’ journey, he looks up and he sees the place indicated by God in the distance.

³ So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴ On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. ⁵ Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” (Genesis 22:3-5, ESV)

Now worship is a little vague because he’s going to do a holocaust offering, a burnt offering. They may have wondered about where he was going to get the offering if he used the word, but he didn’t use the word. But there’s also something else, very intentional. He says, we will come back to you. Now he believed it. He was totally sincere and convinced that after offering Isaac that the two of them would return. Now it’s not left up to me to decide this interpretation because it’s already decided in the New Testament.

I’d like you to turn to Hebrews 11:17. The Holy Spirit speaking: “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offering will be reckoned.’ Offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. And then he adds a little aside; he says, “And figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”

You see, he so believed God’s promise that Isaac’s children would carry on the bloodline, God had given that promise, that he reasoned that God was going to have to raise them from the dead. And so Abraham envisioned the doctrine of the resurrection when there had been nothing in history to suggest it. In John 8:56, it says, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day,” Jesus speaking, “saw my day and rejoiced in it.”

⁵⁶ Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” (John 8:56, ESV)

And I wonder if that John 8:56 is perhaps a little bit of what he’s talking about here. Whatever you have is bold, original, informing faith. Now, the ascent up the mount to the place of sacrifice was evidently too steep for the donkey. So, in verse six, we read, “Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.”

Now, what an image, as he carries the wood up the mount. I think it’s very significant that the Genesis Rabbah, that is a Midrash, a pre-Christian Midrash on Genesis, a Jewish Midrash commentary, says this: that Isaac, with the wood on his back, was like a condemned man carrying the cross.

And indeed it was. It was truly prophetic of Jesus, whom John’s gospel describes as carrying his own cross. He went out to the place of the skull, John 19:17.

¹⁷ and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. (John 19:17, ESV)

Now, that ascent up that mount with the son carrying the wood, the father, the implementer, and sacrifice evidently went on in silence because the account indicates, as was read this morning, as the two of them went up together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father, “Abraham, Father.” “Yes, my son,” Abraham replied.

The fire and the water here, Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Now, Isaac’s breaking that silence emphasizes his father’s mute, excruciating grief. And the literal Hebrew parallels are, my father, my son, emphasizing tender affection. And Isaac’s question, where is the lamb, indicates not only naivety, but his absolute trust in his father. He has no hint this could happen. How could he conceive it? How could he think it? He had no idea. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t think of that.

Well, Isaac’s trust also foreshadows the greater partnership of the cross expressed in Isaiah 53, and these familiar phrases from Isaiah 53:7 and 10:

⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7, ESV)

Verse 10, “and yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and to cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days.”

And the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. And here in our story, the descriptive, the two of them went up together twice repeated in verses 6 and 8, emphasized the victim and the offeror willfully ascending the hill together. Again, a shadow of the cross. Well, there’s an immortal answer to Isaac. And Abraham answers, and note it well in verse 8, because it is a turning point in this narrative.

⁸ Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. (Genesis 22:8, ESV)

God Himself will provide, states his absolute trust in God. God will provide.

I’m trusting God. God will provide. But when he says it, it also allows for God to be God. He cannot tell Isaac all that’s going to happen, because he doesn’t know himself what’s going to happen. God will provide is at the same time a declaration of trust. It is an expression of His deepest hope. It is a prophecy of the future, and He does it all in the Spirit of submissive prayer.

And what you’re going to see is that God will provide is going to bring a mighty echo which informs the doctrine of God and puts the whole text in full understanding of who God is and how God works. Now, this is about Abraham, but more than that, it’s about God. As John Calvin wisely observed, he said, this example is for imitation. In such difficulties, the only remedy is to leave the event to God in order that it may open a way for us when there is none.

That the great glory to God is in situations like this to say, God will provide. I don’t know how, but God will provide. Now we’ll return to this. One thing is very clear, is that Abraham could not have offered Isaac unless Isaac cooperated. That’s obvious. Who’s carrying the wood? Who’s the old man? I mean really an old man. Who’s quickest? Who’s fastest? Who’s strongest? You see, apparently Isaac had decided to obey his father whatever the cost in the very way that Abraham had decided to obey God the father whatever the cost.

Now this is miraculous, and it is stupendous, and it pushes the edges of our own credulity. You have to say what happened. The text doesn’t say what happened. I’ll surmise, I think it’s probably a pretty good thing, is that as they walked along and talked he rehearsed all of those five reiterations of the promises.

He rehearsed what amounts to his miraculous conception and birth, and he rehearsed the fact that through Isaac the whole world was going to be blessed, therefore Isaac had to continue on, and Isaac believed him, and they were both heroes in their souls. So in quick order, Abraham built an altar. He arranged the wood. He bound his beloved son, lest in the last moments in fear he would flee, he hoisted him up on the altar, and then he reached for the blade. I can’t imagine being able to hold on to the blade.

Fingers convulsing, loathing the whole thing as he tightens for the sacrificial cut. But true faith produces amazing work. Real faith is a faith that works. Just as the Apostle James said in referencing his sacrifice. This is James, the second chapter, verses 21-24.

²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:21-24, ESV)

James says about this, he comments on this, he says that true faith, faith that is real, works. A real faith is a faith that works. He’d been believing on all those revelations. He’d gone up and down, but now his faith is peaking in the greatest work possible. And Abraham’s will was in motion.

In a split second, the sacrifice would be done, and his son’s dear blood would be pouring out on the ground. But the angel of the Lord called 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, and because you’ve not withheld from me, your son, your only son,” never was a voice more welcome. And Abraham’s heart, that had been so throbbing, soared, and his sons that had been racing in fear likewise soared.

And the hearing and the seeing of a substitute evidently took place at the same instance because the account says in verse 13,

¹³ And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. (Genesis 22:13, ESV)

Never was there a more joyous or eager holocaust offering given. As the flames consumed the ram, Abraham and Isaac were offering their hearts to God.

You see, the sacrifice declared what burnt offerings declared: all we have and all we are is yours, God. Consume our lives to your glory, joyous father and son. It’s a sacrifice of that lamb. In Ecstasy 14, Abraham called the place, “The Lord will provide.” Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. And to this day, it is said on the mountaintop of the Lord, it will be provided. His initially ambiguous “God will provide” has now been fulfilled more perfectly and completely than he could ever have dreamed.

Abraham’s declaration of faith, “God will provide,” the turning point of the narrative as he and Isaac ascended toward the sacrifice, has now become the story’s end. God will provide. And so we see that the Lord who tests is a Lord who provides. That’s what you want to see about God, that God who tests is a God who provides. That our doctrine of God is that God is a God who provides. And so, as we go through the tests of growing a greater faith, God tests us, stretches us, we believe, He provides.

God tests, He stretches us, we believe, He provides. He always has provided. He has provided for every believer. He always has. So when we’re called to give our Isaacs, those things that are most precious to us, understand that when we do it, Jehovah Jireh, God provides.

So we learn about God and we learn about Abraham. Now, this is extraordinary. This is a mind-boggling act of faith. I couldn’t do it. You couldn’t do it. We wouldn’t be called to do it because we know what the Scriptures say. But He did it.

And it is so amazing that God did something He’d never done before. He swore an oath in His own name. Verses 15 through 18,

¹⁵ And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven ¹⁶ and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord , because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, ¹⁸ and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” (Genesis 22:15-18, ESV)

Now, with this oath, Abraham had every possible assurance from God. He had the initial promise in Ur. He had the promise made to him when he first visited Canaan. He had the promise made to him when Lot took advantage of him. He had the promise that he believed under the stars. He had the promise of a unilateral covenant.

He had the promise of the names Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, the new names. He had the promise in the person of Isaac, and now God swore it by Himself. Again, the New Testament provides indispensable commentary. Turn to Hebrews, the sixth chapter, Hebrews 6:13, page 1370, I think. Hebrews 6:13, this is essential.

¹³ For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, ¹⁴ saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” ¹⁵ And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. ¹⁶ For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. ¹⁷ So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, ¹⁸ so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. (Hebrews 6:13-18, ESV)

The great encouragement is God always keeps His word. He keeps every word. Every word of God is kept. Every word. Every promise. Every promise you can think of. Every promise that is, yes, in Christ, He keeps. God has sworn it.

He keeps it. He’s made a unilateral covenant. He’ll be flayed before His Word is not carried out. And from here on, it is only necessary to look back to the oath to say all that needs to be said about the promises of God, and that is what the Old Testament does on repeated times. And when you look at this, it is all so simple. We grow in faith as we believe the very Word of God. The process is this. God comes to us with His Word, His promise, His challenge, and we’re challenged to believe.

And when we believe it, He tests us by stretching our faith so it can grow to greater dimensions than ever before. There are always valleys next to the hilltops. We are the same human compost of Abraham. There are ups and downs, but He grows us incrementally so that we can give our Isaacs to God, to the glory of God. And may it be so.

Let us pray. Father, these are strange and terrifying things. We resist these kinds of challenges, but your Word is true. you’ve sworn it. You will provide. You test and you provide. You test and you provide. You test and you provide. Because your name is Jehovah Jireh. The Lord provides, and we believe it, and we rest in it to your glory. Amen.