“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways obey him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3: 5-6)

The first reference to “love” in the Scriptures is “aha vah” and it occurs as a description of the love that Abraham had for his only son, Isaac. Abraham truly and deeply loved Isaac. Isaac was the fulfillment of all Abraham’s hopes and dreams and a tangible demonstration of the faithfulness of God in his life. All of Abraham’s life and future hopes were bound up in his son; the two things were irrevocably linked together.

Yet despite this love, Abraham was still wholly determined to offer his son’s life in obedience to God. Abraham was going to kill him. After receiving the frankly terrifying direction from God that he was to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham moved with singular intent.

There is not one word of protest from Abraham recorded in Scripture. To anybody who is a parent, it is almost unimaginable. There is not a single plea, not a single argument, not a word. Unlike Abraham’s earlier intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the case of his son, he remained utterly silent.

Jewish tradition even suggests that the biggest test, once the sacrifice of Isaac had begun, was not whether Abraham would offer his son to God, as commanded, but whether he would actually listen to and obey the voice of the angel instructing him to stop the execution, such was his unwavering determination to carry out the LORD’s will.

It is even possible to sense the urgency in the voice of the angel at the place of sacrifice,

“And he said, ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him.’ Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” (Genesis 22:12)

God stopped Abraham and provided the necessary sacrifice himself. It is an almost perfect foreshadowing of what God would do many thousands of years later in exactly that same spot with his very own, beloved son, Jesus.

Yet the next time there was to be a sacrifice, in 33 AD, God did hold back as he did with Abraham. This next time, God allowed His own son to be slaughtered on behalf of all who would come to believe (John 3:16-18). There was no ram caught in the thickets on this occasion. There was no other way out for the Son of God but deep humiliation, bloodshed, pain, immense suffering and ultimately death.

So significant a weight and burden was the knowledge of what was to come for Jesus, so massive was the physical, emotional and intellectual strain of what was going to happen to him, that Jesus actually sweat great drops of blood,

“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

This documented phenomenon is found only very rarely in people who are under the most extreme forms of anguish, duress or stress. In every possible sense, Jesus literally had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the anguish of this stress in the Garden of Gethsemane was physically breaking him. So great was the burden and so huge was the debt he was about to pay that Jesus’ body started to actually physiologically break down under the strain.

The sacrifice of Isaac on top of Mount Moriah is a perfect prophetic picture of what was to come when Messiah Jesus later took away the sins of the world as the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29). Isaac and Jesus were both miraculously born and conceived, Jesus of a virgin and Isaac of a mother long since barren through extreme old age. Both Jesus and Isaac were “only begotten sons,” both were intended to be sacrificed by their own fathers on Mount Moriah, both Jesus and Isaac willingly went to their places of execution.

Both were real demonstrations that one life can be exchanged for another, the ram for Isaac and Jesus for mankind.

Isaac, just like Jesus, also suffered intensely from his own unique “passion” experience. The passion that Isaac went through is rarely considered, nor is the sheer agony it must have meant for him, but it was nonetheless real.

In modern times we have grown up with the concept of Isaac being a child when he was to be sacrificed at the hands of his father. However, that is not how Judaism has always interpreted this scene. In Jewish tradition Isaac is about 37 years old when Abraham, an old man by this point, ties him down in order to sacrifice him to God.

Yet even though Isaac is potentially 37 years old, there is no voice of complaint from him, no physical protest recorded in scripture. Isaac knows full well what is going to happen to him and he willingly allows himself to be offered, even though it would have been easy for him to escape from the hands of an old, old man if he had wanted to.

Isaac willingly goes to his place of execution, as did Jesus Christ all those years later.

It was a three day journey for Isaac to make with His father Abraham, before they got to Mount Moriah. On this three day journey to the sacrifice the Bible is completely silent about any conversations that might have taken place between the two. Isaac doubtless knew what the plan was and he must have been horrified by it.

Yet Isaac did not say a word. He was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice that would later come, when Jesus Christ would also go to his death quietly and willingly,

“…he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7)

The attempt at sacrifice is then made, the Angel stops Abraham’s hand and the ram is offered in Isaac’s place. Abraham is lauded for his obedience and commitment to God,

“I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed,because you have obeyed me” (Genesis 22:18).

An immense triumph of faith, yet the repercussions of this one act of unceasing loyalty for Abraham’s family are absolutely huge. Devastating even. This one act of obedience had the most profound effect upon each member of Abraham’s family.

The text shows Abraham returning alone from the mountain. Where is Isaac? Jewish tradition holds that Isaac was so traumatized by the experience that he actually fled from his father off Moriah and sought refuge with Noah’s son Shem, a man widely regarded in Jewish tradition to be the man known as “Malki-Tzedek” or Malchizidek.

This event profoundly affected the relationship between father and son, but that is not the end of the matter. What of Sarah, Abraham’s beloved and aged wife? Sarah gave birth to Isaac when she was 91 years old, (Gen 17:17) and she died when she was 127 (Gen. 23:1). Sarah died when Isaac was about 36-37 years old, and although Scripture does not explicitly state it, the silent implication—Abraham’s later actions and Jewish tradition strongly suggest that the sacrifice of Isaac and the death of his mother are linked.

In Scripture the death of Sarah is placed directly after the attempted sacrifice of her son, Isaac. Within Judaism it is believed that Sarah died from shock after learning of Isaac’s ordeal on Mount Moriah. Just like Mary, the mother of Jesus who would later have a, “sword that will pierce your own heart” (Luke 2:35); so Sarah when discovering what had happened between her lifelong husband and her only child could not bear what had happened, and her own heart gave way because of it.

It was in returning directly from Moriah that Abraham learned of Sarah’s death and it left him bereft and devastated, “And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to cry out for her,” (Genesis 23;2).

This was no doubt a second and third major test for Abraham. Straight from the biggest challenge of faith in his entire life, Abraham now immediately faces two more. His son is gone and now his beloved wife is dead. Perhaps this final test of faith was an even greater one than sacrificing his son was.

Would he now doubt that he had done the right thing in obeying the LORD? Would he wish that he had not obeyed and instead interceded for mercy before the sacrifice took place? Would he curse God for his family now laying in ruins? Would he question the goodness of his God?

In Scripture the words used to describe Abraham’s grieving for Sarah indicate his grieving was somewhat tempered, like a silent inward groaning of deep private pain and suffering. Abraham controlled himself. Even in the midst of his greatest grief, he did not allow himself to utter words of condemnation or contempt for God’s command, nor did he question God. He still believed unquestioningly in the character of his God, even if he did not understand and was forced to endure terrible, terrible pain.

In this respect, Abraham is successful where another of his contemporaries would fail. Job, who would eventually come to question God and curse the day he was born for the tragedy brought upon his own life and family, in a very similar fashion failed, where Abraham succeeded.

Yet after Abraham’s greatest triumph comes soul destroying anguish and crushing pain. Isaac is gone and not mentioned again in scripture for some time and his beloved wife is also gone, taken by death. He is alone. Completely and utterly alone. Bereft, in pain and almost completely broken. What now of the promises made to him by God, with his son gone and his wife now dead? How would they be fulfilled?

All Abraham has left is his faith and it was his faith alone that got this man of God through. This is why Abraham is rightly known as, “…the father of faith.” (Romans 4:15)

How often in our spiritual lives do our own experiences mirror Abraham’s? After a great triumph, we come crashing down in some kind of sin or snare of the evil one, or our whole world seems to fall apart around us and we are left feeling wretched, abandoned and sometimes also very much alone?

God is refining you and me, just as he refined Abraham. The pain Christians feel today is no different or less real than the pain and suffering Abraham endured all those millennia ago.

At some point He will pass each of us through our own fire, one every bit as real as the fiery furnace Daniel’s friends were later to be thrown into in Babylon, (Daniel 3). These are our own wilderness experiences, times of profound loneliness and sometimes desperation.

They can be times of indescribable pain and suffering, times of overwhelming loss and grief. Times when we have no answers to give and no words to speak. They can be times of such profound pain and suffering that words will not suffice because other people simply will not understand what we are going through. Only time and the hand of God bring us out of such times, fueled by our own precious faith,

“These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:7)

This world is fallen. Utterly, irretrievably fallen and is hurtling towards a time known in the bible, for good reason, as “Jacob’s trouble.” Believers in Jesus Christ will escape this time but many who will later come to faith will feel its full weight and force. Many today who claim Christianity, but do not really know the Lord, will also experience the full horror of the Tribulation period.

Yet before that a time, a testing is coming. As the hand of restraint is increasingly removed, evil is seeping into the vacuum that is left. Persecution will likely be a consequence of it. If the Lord continues to tarry, and he loves humanity deeply wanting all to come to faith before it is too late, he may well tarry and real persecution will come to us in the West.

Its ominous shadows are already on our collective horizons. Soon persecution will become an increasing reality in all our lives and that may mean hardships and suffering the likes of which we have not ever seriously before considered.

The example given to us by Abraham shows us exactly how we must act in such times. With unquestioning loyalty and unswerving hope in the God of all creation. Only through our faith in our God will we overcome. Faith that all things work out for the good for those who love him (Romans 8:28).

So what eventually did happen to Isaac? Where did he go and what did he actually do after Moriah?

Although Jewish tradition provides suggestions, Scripture never explicitly tells us. But the next time we do see Isaac in Scripture, Isaac, this foreshadowing of the Messiah, is seen returning for and with his gentile Bride.

The next time this world experiences Jesus Christ, and it will be soon, he will be returning for His own gentile Bride. Jesus will be returning for you and me if you have repented and placed your faith in him. That day fast approaches.

“Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).

wardmatt1977@gmail.com

As President Barack Hussein Obama’s final term draws to a close, it is now time to take stock and reflect upon the impact of his presidency, specifically as it relates to foreign policy.

It will be the tangible results of Obama’s foreign policy, after all, that will dictate the immediate agenda for the next President of the United States of America.

Obama started well. In fact, it’s hard I imagine how it could have been any better. After mere months as president of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama was awarded the prestigious, and highly coveted Nobel Peace Prize.

This Peace Prize was given primarily for Obama’s attempts at “resetting” American international relations in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan. To this end, Obama had toured the world giving a number of benchmark speeches that he hoped would set a new tone in American international relations. For better or worse it seemed that change certainly had come to America.

He was lauded for these speeches and the “transformational” attitude they heralded, especially in the Islamic world. Little did those present realize quite how transformational Obama’s foreign policy would actually prove to be.

An illustrious beginning. But hindsight is an unhelpful friend for people looking to establish any kind of meaningful and lasting legacy. Aspirations mean nothing, neither do good intentions, results are what counts in the cold hard world of international relations.

With hindsight, the Nobel Peace Prize, this one crowning achievement at the very beginning of Obama’s first term, was perhaps the foreign policy high point of his entire presidency.

The following eight years have been characterized by utter failure. It would be no great exaggeration to say that US foreign policy under Obama has been an unmitigated disaster. Obama has left a trail of chaos all over the world with a foreign policy that lacks clarity and vision and has certainly set the stage for worse global conflicts to come.

Obama’s foreign policy adventure began in real terms by him announcing that all US troops would be gone from Afghanistan by late 2014, and that all troops would be out of Iraq by 2011. He later reversed course in Afghanistan, saying that troops would actually stay until 2017.

Obama withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 despite heavy criticism and concern, at home and abroad, that this withdrawal from Iraq was entirely premature and would lead to an explosion of terrorism and violence.

This is exactly what happened; almost every major Iraqi city erupted into the most horrific sectarian violence after the stabilizing presence of U.S. forces left. Iraq remains in a quagmire   of violence from which it seems completely unable to escape to this day.

Yet despite all this, Obama persisted in his belief that a withdrawal from Iraq was the correct course of action to take. He was never talked around by his military advisors, his own intelligence community or other international leaders, all of whom were asking him to slow down or pause the troop withdrawal.

Nothing swayed him, not even the dramatically rising Iraqi civilian body count.

Iraq was undoubtedly the first major foreign policy failure of Barack Obama’s presidency, and it came about primarily because of his own personal hubris. Obama simply believed that despite all the conflicting advice and information, he knew better.

Time proved him wrong.

The mishandling of Iraq led directly to the second major, and ongoing, foreign policy failure of his administration, the rise of ISIS.

Withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 left a huge vacuum in leadership. There was a vast, gapping chasm where traditional power structures had once been. The police force had been disbanded,  as had the Iraqi military after the allied invasion. In late 2011 there was simply no provision to ensure and provide for basic continued societal stability.

There was nobody left in Iraq to keep basic law and order. What there was though, we’re lots and lots of ex policemen and soldiers who were not getting paid and were increasingly resentful of the U.S. presence.

Many of them flocked towards sectarian violence and it was shortly after this point that ISIS really began to take control of Iraq, bringing these disaffected ex soldiers and policemen within their ranks. Unifying them, ISIS stormed the vast Iraqi land, took Mosul, grabbed the oil fields and rapidly declared a caliphate.

Today, in 2016, the Islamic State are the best funded, most heinous and violent transnational terrorist organization this world has ever seen. They are a direct result of poor policy and decision making from within this current White House.

ISIS have killed, kidnapped and raped their way across vast swathes of the Middle East. At this point, harsh rhetoric and a few token air strikes are not going to stop them.

And now, this new and very modern type of terrorism is morphing again. Not content to take Syria and Iraq, Islamic State fighters are now taking the fight to us, directly, in our streets, in our communities.

ISIS affiliates are spreading their terror from Paris to Brussels, Orlando to London. More future attacks in mainland America and Europe are an absolute certainty. It really is not a question of “if” but “when.”

Up until this point it could be argued that Barack Obama is just inept, that he is in completely over his head. The same cannot be said of his next foreign policy fail, the Iranian nuclear accord.

If ever there was an international agreement that illustrated the hubris of an administration and its foreign policy, it would be this nuclear deal.

If ever there was an international agreement that showcased an administration disregarding and ignoring obvious facts, it would be this deal.

If ever there was an international agreement that demonstrated how dangerous a rogue president really could be, it is this deal.

Obama, to this day and despite all the hard evidence to the contrary, regards this nuclear accord with Iran as one of the crowning achievements of his entire two term foreign policy effort.

And Iran still has not even signed it. Think about that, they haven’t even signed onto it. It is a deal made with the devil himself—it is that bad.

Nothing in the last seventy years, since the conclusion of the Jewish Holocaust when six million Jews lost their lives, has placed the tiny Jewish state of Israel in such utter peril.

This nuclear deal, of which Obama is so proud, represents a clear existential threat to the continued existence of the Jewish State, something Obama seems to care nothing about.

The international community, however, is under no illusion about the real state of Iran’s nuclear program. Many, many world leaders are deeply uneasy about Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program.

Speaking on August 4th, President Barack Obama said that the Iranian nuclear deal had, “worked exactly the way we said it would.” He even had the audacity to claim that Israel now supported the accord, something Tel Aviv hotly disputed.

World leaders and Israel are so uneasy about this accord because it is based on lies. President Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, both claim that the nuclear accord has put Iran’s nuclear capability back by 10 years. The facts on the ground tell a different story.

If Iran so desired, and likely they do, they could have a workable and deliverable nuclear weapon by the end of 2017. Everybody in the international community knows this. Everybody in the various scientific and military communities know this.

Ali Akbar Salehu, President of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, stated that if any party violates the nuclear record then Iran could go back to enriching Uranium within just 45 days. Salehu’s deputy has even suggested considerably less than 45 days.

It is against this backdrop that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has in the last six months on numerous occasions, publicly claimed that America itself has violated the accord, not Iran, this nullifying them of any obligations towards it.

The facts are stark and speak for themselves. This nuclear accord with Iran, which Obama views as such a crowning achievement, is actually an utter failure.

Worse than that, so obvious is Iran’s duplicity that one has to question Obama’s motivation in continuing to allow this status quo to stand. Iran are going to become a nuclear breakout state, soon. It will be too late then to do anything about it.

Whatever one personally feels about Obama, he is a highly intelligent man. He understands perhaps better than you or me, the true status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and the subterfuge and lengths they have gone to in order to hide the fact that they are still actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.

And they also continue to threaten the very existence of America’s greatest ally in the region, Israel.

The impression any impartial person looking in from the outside might get is that Obama actually wants Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

Iran has been consistently lying to the International Atomic Agency Committee, whose job it is to oversee compliance with the joint nuclear accord. They have hidden from the inspectors large quantities of second generation IR-2M centrifuges. These centrifuges cut, substantially, the amount of time required to enrich uranium to weapons grade levels.

Obama knows this.

Iran, in preparation for the nuclear accord, also stock piled huge quantities of other centrifuges. At Natanz alone there are believed to be 15,400, all capable of enriching uranium whenever required. This is a direct contravention of the nuclear accord.

Obama knows this.

Further more, Iran has been circumventing the nuclear accord, which under its terms allow Iran to hold about 300 kilograms of low grade enriched uranium. Iran have been covertly transporting some of this stock to Oman, where the uranium refinement process has been continuing.

This means that the U.S. estimate of “at least a year” before Iran could achieve a nuclear breakout is entirely flawed as it based on an estimate that assumes Iran only have low grade enriched uranium.

Again, Obama knows this, so why the constant charade? This nuclear accord is dead in the water and everybody knows it. It is an epic foreign policy fail.

This terrible accord, bad as it is may be, may yet pale into insignificance compared to the next potential foreign policy catastrophe. The last foreign policy disaster of Barack Obama’s two terms is slightly different though, because it hasn’t happened yet.

There are consistent rumblings in diplomatic circles that as a final, parting betrayal, Obama intends to deliver Israel up to the UN before the end of his presidency.

Obama obviously despises Israel and his foreign policy displays this clearly. That he might deliver Israel to her enemies at the United Nations before he leaves office is a realistic possibility.

Never in Israel’s short modern existence has there been a U.S. president so openly hostile to the Jewish State. Betraying Israel at the UN would be no great change of pace for Obama, he has a significant track record for it.

Obama’s entire foreign policy has been, some would say, a highly calculated disaster. Calculated to disempower America globally, alienate her amongst friends and embolden her enemies. The entire western world has become the victim of Obama’s foreign policy.

Obama has undermined American influence so much that the traditional balance of power, that has maintained a strained peace for so long, has now been destroyed. He has betrayed traditional allies and sought friendship with enemies who have thrown it back in Americas face. He has fundamentally destabilized Iraq and Syria and because of this allowed for the conditions necessary for the rise of ISIS.

The world is a without doubt a worse place for Barack Obama’s presidency.

Worse though, than all this, is his active and continued betrayal of Israel. It will be these acts alone that signal perilous times ahead for America.

Obama’s foreign policy has left Israel as a lamb amongst wolves in the Middle East. They are now totally alone. When the very last vestiges of American support for Israel finally do dry up, as it soon must, so will God’s cover and protection over America itself will finally end.

That is a fearful thing.

It might take decades, if that long were left, for the world to recover from Obama’s time in office. That is, of course, assuming that somebody even worse will not soon become president of the United States of America.

wardmatt1977@gmail.com