After Isaac was born and weaned, Abraham was asked to send his first son, Ishmael, and his mother, Hagar, away. This grieved him greatly because Ishmael was his only son for fourteen years. God told Abraham that his seed would be passed on through Isaac and not Ishmael. Now God was asking him to sacrifice Isaac. What were Abraham's thoughts at this critical time? My dream god explained to me this way.
I decided to test Abraham's faith a second time. I told him to take his son, Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you about. Early n the morning Abraham saddled his donkey, took Isaac and two of his young men, some wood for the burnt-offering, and went to the place I told him.
Three days later, when he saw the place in the distance, Abraham told the young men to stay there with the donkey while he and Isaac went further to worship, and then return. They both went off together, Isaac with the wood and Abraham with the fire and a knife.
Isaac said, "I see the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?"
Abraham answered, "God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering, my son." So they went both of them together.
When they came to the place, Abraham built an altar, laid out the wood, bound Isaac, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. Then Abraham took the knife to slay his son.
My dream god then said that Abraham was wise and his brain was always working. Before he raised the knife, he wondered if I, his God, was a great deceiver or if I was testing him. After all, he thought, God had promised me that He would multiply my seed greatly through Isaac, but now He is asking me to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham felt that a good and truthful God would have to stop his sacrifice of Isaac at some time. He was a God-fearing man, but he was not willing to sacrifice his son on the altar of an untruthful God. Abraham's dilemma was: if he raised his knife and struck Isaac, he would, indeed, have lost his son in the service of an untruthful God; but if this was a test that God was planning to stop, and he hesitated, then he would have proved himself lacking in faith. I was monitoring Abraham's thoughts all the while, and when he picked up the knife, because it grieved him greatly, he was unsure of what he would do. I stopped him then because he had done enough to prove himself. At the same time, I proved to him that I was a good and truthful God, worthy of his loyalty.
At that moment I called to him out of heaven and said, "Lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do you any thing to him; for now I know that you are a God-fearing man, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in a thicket. He took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering.
While this incident was a test of Abraham's faith, it also was, in part, a test of Isaac's faith. Isaac was a young man when he allowed his father to bind him and lie him on the altar with the wood. To see his father raise the knife without resisting and trying to get away was sure proof that Isaac was as God-fearing as his father.
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