This week, we delve into the final seven trials of Abraham and Sarah. These chapters illustrate ancient patterns of testing, and how trials are meant to refine our character. We learn how God’s promises are fulfilled not in spite of our trials, but through our faithful endurance of them.
Segment 1
Scriptures:
Genesis 22:1: After these things, God did tempt Abraham.
Words of the General Authorities:
"You will have all kinds of trials to pass through. And it is quite as necessary for you to be tried as it was for Abraham and other men of God, and God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God." (Joseph Smith, relayed by John Taylor, recorded in Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, Chapter 19) .
Hebrew Translations:
Nasah = Tempt — To try, to prove, or to test.
Segment 2
Scriptures:
Genesis 18:1–8: The custom of hospitality and Abraham meeting the three men.
Genesis 18:10, 14: Sarah will have a son "according to the time of life".
Genesis 18:12–15: Sarah laughs at the promise of a child in her old age.
Genesis 18:14: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?".
Hebrew Translations:
Malakhim = Three men/Angels — Angels or messengers.
“According to the time of life” (Hebrew phrase) — Quite literally, one year from now.
Segment 3
Scriptures:
Genesis 18:16–20: The Lord speaks with Abraham about the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis 18:23–33: Abraham's dialogue/bartering with the Lord to save the city if righteous people are found.
Ezekiel 16:49–50: The actual sins of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness, and failing to strengthen the poor and needy.
Words of the General Authorities:
"Apparently what was wrong with Lot's wife was that she wasn't just looking back; in her heart, she wanted to go back... she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her." (Jeffrey R. Holland, "Remember Lot’s Wife," BYU Devotional, Jan. 13, 2009) .
Segment 4
Scriptures:
Genesis 19: The trial where Lot’s family must be saved and Sodom is destroyed.
Genesis 20: The trial where Sarah is taken by Abimelech because of her beauty.
Segment 5
Scriptures:
Genesis 21:1–7: The birth of Isaac.
Genesis 21:9–14: Sarah asks Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael.
Genesis 21:17–20: God hears Ishmael's voice in the wilderness and comforts Hagar.
Genesis 16:13–14: (Cross-reference) Hagar names God and the well.
Hebrew Translations:
Isaac = Yitzhak — To laugh or to rejoice.
Beer-lahai-roi = "The well of the living one who sees me"
Ishmael = "God hears"
Segment 6
Scriptures:
Genesis 22: Abraham's final test—the sacrifice of Isaac.
Genesis 22:4: Abraham sees the place for sacrifice on the third day.
Genesis 22:13: The Lord provides a ram in the thicket.
Words of the General Authorities:
“The submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we ‘give,’ … are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!” (Neal A. Maxwell, “Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father”, Oct. 1995)
Read the transcript here.