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Abraham

When the God of Heaven refers to a man as His friend, calls him a rock, and commands the rest of us to look to Him and be like Him, we should listen. Such a man was Abraham. And his wife Sarah was not a whit behind him for she, too, has been held up to us as an example of faith (Hebrews 11:11) and of proper conduct (1 Peter 3:5-6).

Abraham and Sarah married and wanted children, but children did not come. For decades, the Lord repeatedly promised them children and that their posterity would become as the stars of heaven. Yet, no child came. It would have been so easy to reject those promises when forty years passed without fulfillment.

Then, it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women, making the promises of the Lord even more a bitter mockery. And yet, the Lord continued to promise that Sarah would bear a son. Finally, when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah 90, Isaac was born. Can you imagine how time and want had made him so precious to them? They had this miracle boy only a few years, and then came the voice of the Lord.

“Abraham,” And he said, “”Here I am.

“Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him up there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I shall tell thee of.”

Could God have asked of Abraham anything more heartrending than to kill the son of his bosom, a son for whom Abraham had such a love that even God mentions it? And to kill him as a human sacrifice would have been especially repugnant to Abraham who, himself, had once been laid upon an altar and nearly sacrificed because of his idolatrous father.

But Abraham raises the knife without hesitation. How could he do that? Long before that knife stood poised to pierce Isaac’s heart, Abraham had pierced and broken his own heart. He trusted God more than himself, believed God when it seemed impossible, and obeyed God when he didn’t want to. And now, was willing to give God the most precious thing he possessed if God wanted it, even if the pain in his heart at that moment was worse than that of any knife could ever inflict.

But he was willing. Hence, forever and ever, beyond all doubt by any soul here or in eternity, Abraham proved his greatest love and loyalty.

The angel intervened, Isaac was spared, and Abraham was exalted.

“Now I know,” the Lord said, “that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me” (Genesis. 22:12).

The Lord has declared that we must be chastened and tried even as Abraham (D&C 101:4). Most of us live in fear of that day, but remember, long before God asked Abraham to kill Isaac, he asked him to believe. Before God ever commanded him to go to Mount Moriah, He commanded him to leave his home and go to Canaan. Abraham was prepared for that momentous moment when it seemed all eternity was at stake, by a lifetime of little choices and silent surrenders when it seemed little was at stake. I declare with soberness, what you do with your heart now will make all the difference in what God can do with you later.

See Genesis 22