Lesson 1.4 The Lord Will Provide: Abraham and Isaac

Getting Ready for Sunday, September 22, 2013

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Coloring Book Pages

Memory Verse Help

          Key Verse: Psalm 90:2

          Bonus Verse: Genesis 22:14b

          Bonus Verse: Philippians 4:12-13

Thoughts about Abraham and Isaac

Coloring Book Pages

Birth of Isaac

Notice how old Abraham and Sarah are.  They look much older than parents of new babies usually are.  That's because they were. Sarah was 90 years old and Abraham was 100 years old.

Abraham and Isaac went to Mt. Moriah, the Mountain God showed Abraham 

Abraham and Isaac looking ahead.  It took 3 days to walk to the right mountain.

We don't know how old Isaac was at this time (maybe a lot older than in the picture) but he was old enough to carry a lot of wood.





Building an altar together on the mountain top.

Abraham started to sacrifice Isaac but God sent an angel to stop him.

God provided an animal for the sacrifice. In the end, anything we give to God is something that we got from God to begin with.

A long time later, God sent his own son, Jesus, to be a perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

Help with Memory Verses

Key verse:  (Everyone should memorize this one).

Before the mountains were born

Or you brought forth the whole world

From everlasting to everlasting

You are God.  -- Psalm 90:2

This is a short and simple song.  I think you will find that if you listen to it a few times you will have the verse memorized in no time at all.

Bonus Verses:

Learn these after you have memorized the key verse.  Everyone should memorize that one.  These bonus verses are extra, but I hope you'll try to memorize at least one.

"On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided." 

-- Genesis 22:14b

This is a very short verse from the text of the lesson.  You may not even need the song, but listen to it once anyway and see if it helps.  Notice that the song has some extra words that aren't in the verse.  I put them in parentheses so that you wouldn't get tricked into thinking that they were part of the verse.  (If you want to hear the whole song, see the very end of this post.)

This is a much longer verse, about the idea of God providing the things that we need. It may look way too long to memorize, but  I think that the song could help you memorize it pretty quickly:

I know what it is to be in need, 

and I know what it is to have plenty. 

I have learned the secret of being content 

in any and every situation, 

whether well fed or hungry, 

whether living in plenty or in want. 

I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

— Philippians 4:12-13

Some Thoughts About Abraham and Isaac

(Mostly for the Grown-ups and Very Good Readers)

This is a very disturbing story.  Would God actually want a father to kill his own son? How could that possibly be?  Especially when God had told Abraham that he would have very many children who would also be children of Isaac?

For me, there are several keys to the story.  A big one is that in the end God did NOT require Abraham to kill Isaac.  He stopped him, and that's been something people have looked back to in order to say, "No!  Human sacrifice is not a part of the way the true God wants to be worshiped."  In the New Testament, the book of Hebrews (11:9) suggests that Abraham figured that God could raise Isaac from the dead if he had to in order to fulfill the promises that he had made. It's also important to realize that what God stopped Abraham from doing (sacrificing his son) is something that God himself did, allowing Jesus to die on a cross, God's one and only son, as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

We are told that Abraham is our father in faith and to me one of the things that means is that sometimes we may have to walk out with God something that seems a little tiny bit like this (but not EVER to kill our own child).  But sometimes we have to be willing to give up to God something that seems very important to us.

This story came to have a lot of meaning for me personally at a time when I was waiting for my husband (well, the man who ended up becoming my husband) to propose to me.  I felt a little like my life would be over if he didn't decide that he wanted to marry me.  I knew that wasn't true, but I also couldn't clearly imagine what my life would be like if we didn't end up married.  By the way, if any of you get into this situation, I recommend talking about it.  To each other.  Which is something we had done.  There had been some confusion between us, and we'd gotten to a point where all I could do was to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  During that time of waiting I began to think about Abraham.  It took him three days to get to Mount Moriah.  Three days of walking, wondering what was going to happen, with Isaac by his side.  Isaac was not only his son (and remember that he was at least old enough to carry a substantial load of wood) but he was the way God had told him that he would fulfill the promise to give him as many descendants as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand.  Was God really going to ask him to kill Isaac?  What a terrible thought.  As I was waiting and trying to hold before God my willingness to sacrifice this hope for the future that meant so much to me, I thought about those three long days for Abraham.  Eventually, for me it turned out just as it did for Abraham--God did not require me to sacrifice my dreams, and my husband proposed.  There are days when God calls you up your own Mt. Moriah, with a willingness to let go of everything that you care most about in the whole world.  On those days, you do not know until you get there what is going to happen.  You can always know that God will be faithful to you, but you do not know what shape that faithfulness will take until you actually make the trip up the mountain and build that altar and lay your heart's desire at His feet.  (Kids: These are metaphors.  Talk to your parents if you don't understand it.) Here's the song that came:

On the mountain of the LORD

It will be provided

All that you want me to give

On the mountain of the LORD

It will be provided

The strength and the courage to live

I'll go walking up that mountain

With my hopes and my dreams in my hand

I'll go walking up that mountain

Knowing you will allow me to stand

Isaac was Abraham's deep delight

A hope that was too good to lose

And God spoke to Abraham in the night

Saying, "Come to the mountain I choose.

Will you lay down your son there?

Will you hand the child over to Me?

Will you give up his life there

As a sign that you're trusting in Me?

Abraham left for the mountains that day

Leading his son by the hand

I think tears filled his eyes as he tried to pray

As he watched his dreams crumble to sand

He took wood and he took fire

And he carefully guarded the knife

And he wondered how he'd do it--

Would you ask him to take his son's life?

Abraham knew that he had to do it--

Whatever You asked him to do.

And somehow he knew You would see him through it

And still make your promises true

He bound Isaac to the altar

He was willing to go all the way.

And then you sent an angel 

You provided the ram there that day.

Now through faith, we're the children of Abraham

And sometimes we'll walk in his shoes.

I believe there are times we will hear Your voice calling

To come to the mountain you choose

To lay down there what we cherish

Without knowing just what we'll get back

We must trust that you are faithful

And that you will supply every lack.

On the Mountain of the LORD

It will be provided--

All that you want me to give.

On the Mountain of the LORD

It will be provided--

The strength and the courage to live

I'll go walking up that mountain

With my hopes and my dreams in my hand

I'll go walking up that mountain

Knowing you will allow me to stand.