They burned their children alive.
                                                                                                                                                                                            
Not from war. Not from disease or desperate hunger. From devotion. Ancient parents fed their firstborn to flames. They believed divine favor required the ultimate sacrifice. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence spanning centuries. Thousands of tiny urns, each holding the charred remains of a child, buried in soil darkened with ash and bone.

This truth lingers at Carthage, where ancient stones whisper horror beneath modern Tunis. It reaches further back in time, winding through the ruins of Gezer, Lachish, and Megiddo. These ancient Canaanite cities hold stories of desperate faith preserved in layers of ash. Parents believed cosmic order depended on their children's blood. The gods hungered, and their appetite knew no bounds.

Now consider these words with fresh horror: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and sacrifice him as a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:2).

These commands don’t come from Molech or Chemosh. They come from Yahweh. The God who claims to be love. These words cut deeper than an archaeologist’s spade, uncovering not just ancient history but the raw edge of human faith.

Ancient truths carve paths through present pain. I’ve walked them myself.

Years ago, every Sunday afternoon, the steering wheel bore witness to minutes racing too fast. Time pulled my firstborn son and me toward another goodbye. The leather grip couldn’t steady the weight in my chest. Those drives eventually gave way to healing through full custody. But the season left its mark. First sons carry something sacred in their bones. Dreams crystallize in flesh and blood. Separation teaches love’s deeper costs in empty passenger seats and quiet drives home.

I picture Abraham climbing Moriah’s steep path. His beloved son walks beside him. He carries the wood for the sacrifice on his young shoulders. Isaac’s silence spans centuries. This boy, strong enough to bear the wood, wise enough to sense what’s coming, speaks only once: “Where is the lamb?” (Genesis 22:7). Then the silence falls again. Trust wrapped in surrender. Love bound in faith.

In Abraham’s world, no one would have flinched at God’s command. Ancient clay tablets tell stories of such sacrifices in fragments and ash. Phoenician writings describe offerings as cosmic maintenance. Ugaritic texts detail ritual sacrifices to Baal during crises, where human blood secured divine favor. The Mesha Stele recounts a Moabite king sacrificing his son on a city wall to ensure victory. These were not acts of madness. They were religious practices carved in stone.

Yet Yahweh needs no such sustenance. He declares, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine” (Psalm 50:12).

“God tested Abraham” (Genesis 22:1). The Hebrew word "nissah" means more than an examination. Like fire purifying gold, this test revealed something profound about Abraham’s faith and God’s character. Faith, like gold, emerges stronger from testing (1 Peter 1:7). This test wasn’t arbitrary. It served Abraham’s growth and bore witness to the world. It pointed forward to the ultimate act of obedience. Christ becoming “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

The story unfolds with devastating precision. Abraham rises early. He carries the weight of sleepless revelation. For three days, they journey together (Genesis 22:4). It is a foreshadowing of another span when death would lose its grip (1 Corinthians 15:4). Isaac carries the wood up the mountain, just as Jesus would carry His cross centuries later (John 19:17). Abraham tells his servants, “We will worship and return.” Hebrews reveals the meaning behind these words. Abraham believed God could raise the dead (Hebrews 11:19).

Then comes the moment that splits history. Abraham raises the knife. God’s voice shatters the silence. “Do not lay your hand on the boy. Now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (Genesis 22:12).

Everything changes in that breath between blade and voice.

Where other gods demanded death, Yahweh provides life. Where ancient deities consumed children, the true God offers a substitute. The ram caught in thorns is a protest against the age’s brutal theology. Like the Passover lamb that would spare Israel’s firstborn (Exodus 12:13), it points to the ultimate Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sins (John 1:29).

This test wasn’t to demand death. It was to declare God’s rejection of child sacrifice. He provides the offering instead of demanding it from trembling human hands.

I remember hearing about my young cousins’ deaths. Too soon. Too young. Questions crashed over me like waves against a silent shore. Why? Where was God in their final moments? The waves didn’t stop. Each one carried fragments of faith and doubt. Answers didn’t come quickly. But like Abraham, I found faith in the spaces between questions and trust. Between letting go and holding on. Between fearing what God might be and discovering who He truly is.

The Bible speaks to this tension. In Leviticus, God warns, “You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech” (Leviticus 18:21). Jeremiah stands in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, where children’s bones mingle with altar ash. He declares God’s heartbreak: “They built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire... a thing I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind” (Jeremiah 7:31).

My own season of separation from my firstborn carried smaller shadows of Abraham’s journey. Each goodbye carved new lines of grief. Yet even in dark spaces, God provides. Sometimes it’s a friend bringing coffee.

Sometimes it’s silence. Sometimes it’s just enough strength for the next step. “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

Two mountains stand forever. Moriah, where the Temple would rise, and Golgotha. Two fathers walk paths of sacrifice. Two sons carry wood upon their shoulders. Isaac in trusting silence. Jesus, praying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

For Isaac, God provides a substitute. For Jesus, no substitute comes. He becomes the substitute. He was “made to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The ram in thorns foreshadows the Lamb who takes away the world’s sins.

When God stayed Abraham’s hand, He wasn’t just sparing one child. He was declaring Himself different from all other gods. Not a taker of life but a giver. Not a deity demanding appeasement but a Father providing redemption.

The horror of the opening command transforms into hope.

The God of Abraham stays the knife. He catches the ram. He gives His Son. He transforms fear into trust and death into life.

In a world still haunted by demanding deities and bloodthirsty beliefs, this truth rises like dawn. God is not cruel. He provides. He has already given everything for us in Christ.

Will you trust this God?