A Walk of Faith
Genesis 22:1-14
By Harold Dinsmore, M.Div
© 2008 Harold Dinsmore.

A group of tourists were visiting a tiny picturesque village in the hills of Tennessee.  They walked by an old man sitting beside a fence near the edge of town.  In a rather patronizing way, one tourist asked, “Were any great men born in this village?”  The old man replied, “Nope, only babies.”  The simple question brought a profound answer.  There are no instant heroes.  Whether in this world or in the Kingdom of God, growth takes time.

And so this leads us to a man named Abraham in Genesis 12.  In this chapter, we discover a man commanded by God to load up everything he had – lock stock and barrel – and move from his homeland.  He was from Ur of the Chaldeans in the Mesopotamian Valley and he had moved to Horan which was to the south of what we call modern-day Turkey or Asia Minor.¹

But now we see God instructing him to move, with no idea of a destination.  His age was 75.  When we move to chapter 17, Abraham was 99.  God establishes a covenant with Abraham to make a great nation out of his descendants.  In chapter 18, God gives him the promise of a son.  In chapter 21, Sarah conceives and bears a son – Isaac, the promised one.  In verse 5, the Bible tells us that Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born.

Now we come to our feature chapter, number 22.  God has witnessed Abraham’s belief and commitment.  But even the righteous are tested from time to time and Abraham was no exception.  God asks Abraham to do something which was totally out of character with God.