Beginning of the End - Ellen G. White

would show him.
Abraham had reached the age of one hundred twenty years.
The strength of his youth had passed. In the health and energy of
manhood one may courageously meet difficulties and afflictions that
would cause the heart to fail later in life, but God had reserved His
most trying test for Abraham until the burden of many years was
heavy on him and he longed for rest.
Abraham was very rich and was honored as a mighty prince by
the rulers of the land. Heaven seemed to have crowned his life of
sacrifice and patient endurance with blessing.
Abraham Commanded to Offer Isaac
In faithful obedience, Abraham had left his native country and
had wandered as a stranger in the land he was to inherit. He had
waited long for the birth of the promised heir, and at the command
of God he had sent Ishmael away. And now, when it seemed his
hopes were about to come true, a trial greater than all others was
before him.
The command must have wrung that father's heart with
anguish: "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you
love, ... and offer him there as a burnt offering." Isaac was the light
of his home, the comfort of his old age, the inheritor of the promised
blessing, but he was commanded to shed the blood of that son with
his own hand. It seemed a fearful impossibility.
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