If God Is For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?

Good Morning Friends,

Today we return to a story that has always unsettled me, the binding of Isaac. It carries that same heavy silence you feel before a test, when everything familiar goes quiet. After years of noise in Abraham’s household, the laughter of Isaac, the bitterness of Sarah, the cries of Hagar, the weeping of Ishmael, the clatter of human attempts to force God’s promise, God finally speaks.

“Abraham.” “Here I am.” “Take your son… your only son… whom you love…”

The words hang like a sword suspended by a thread. Not because God is cruel, but because Abraham has reached the moment when the gift must be offered back. And into this drama rises the deeper question of trust: If God is for us, who can be against us?

Scripture Summary

Genesis 22 — God tests Abraham by commanding him to offer Isaac, the son of promise, on Mount Moriah. Abraham obeys without protest. When Isaac asks where the lamb is, Abraham answers, “God will provide.” At the decisive moment, God stops Abraham and provides a ram caught in a thicket. Abraham names the place, “The LORD will provide,” and God renews the covenant.

Leviticus 18:21 — Israel is forbidden to imitate the nations by offering children to Molech. Child sacrifice is condemned as a violation of God’s holiness.

Jeremiah 32:35 — Judah’s fall is tied to practices God never commanded—child sacrifice in the Valley of Hinnom.

2 Kings 23:10 — Josiah destroys Topheth to end child sacrifice.

2 Kings 3:27 — The king of Moab sacrifices his son in desperation, revealing how deeply rooted such practices were in the ancient world.

Romans 8:31–32 — Paul reaches the summit of his argument: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” He intentionally echoes Genesis 22: “He who did not spare His own Son…” Abraham offered his son but was stopped. God offered His Son and was not.

Message: Genesis 22 and Romans 8 stand like two mountains—Moriah and Calvary. On one, a father carries wood with his beloved son. On the other, the Beloved Son carries His own cross. Paul isn’t making a clever analogy; he is reading Abraham the way the early church did: as a foreshadowing of the gospel. Abraham walked up Moriah with trembling trust. Paul invites us to walk our lives with the same confidence in the God who has already given His Son. I won’t sanitize the Abraham story. The household was a tangle of faith and failure: Sarah’s desperation, Abraham’s half‑truths, Hagar’s exploitation, Ishmael’s exile. They were not paragons of virtue. They were fearful, flawed, and often wrong. And yet, God stayed with them. The question beneath the test is simple and searching: Does Abraham trust God Himself, or only the gifts God gives? The test is not cruelty. It is about attachment. The whole story turns on a quiet exchange: Isaac: “Father?” Abraham: “Yes, my son.” Isaac: “Where is the lamb?” Abraham: “God will see to it.” This is not stoic resignation. It is Abraham’s trembling conviction that God is still merciful, even when the command feels merciless. He binds Isaac. He raises the knife. He waits for the divine interruption. And it comes. A voice from heaven. A ram in the thicket. A father and son walk down the mountain together meeting their servants just like Abraham said they would. “Now I know,” God says, not that Abraham is merely obedient, but that Abraham finally trusts the God who has been trustworthy all along. Abraham names the place: “The LORD will provide.” Not “The LORD demands.” Not “The LORD tests.” But “The LORD sees to it.” God’s provision arrives before Abraham’s fear reaches its peak. The knife never falls because mercy was already waiting in the thicket. This is not a tyrant demanding blood, but a God who refuses to let His children be destroyed by their fears. Every believer eventually reaches a Moriah, a moment when God asks for the thing we cling to most: A dream. A relationship. A calling. A future we scripted for ourselves. Not because God wants to take it, but because He wants to give it back free from fear. Isaac is returned. The promise was renewed. The covenant moves forward. Abraham walks down the mountain knowing something he did not know before: God is trustworthy even when the script terrifies us.

And So, Romans 8 completes the picture. What Abraham trusted God to provide, God has now provided fully. Abraham believed God would provide a lamb. Paul declares God has provided the Lamb. Abraham trusted God with Isaac’s life. Paul says we can trust God with our lives, our future, our salvation. Where Abraham said, “The LORD will provide,” Paul says, “He has provided—and will continue to provide.”

Pray to the Lord of the ram in the thicket, trusting that He sees our fears before we speak and provides mercy before we ask. Pray that God loosens our grip on the gifts we clutch too tightly and returns them with freedom. Pray for the courage to trust His character even when His commands bewilder us. Pray that we walk down our mountains with renewed faith, knowing the Lord has seen to it. Amen.

Blessings,

John Lawson