INDOMITABLE ABRAHAM

 

Imagine being raised in a family where your parents had become entrenched in idolatry and believed in human sacrifice yet in your heart deeply burnt your testimony of the one true and living God. This was the childhood of a young man called Abraham from the land of Ur in the Chaldees (Abraham 1:1), what is now modern-day Iraq.

From the very beginning of his life, Abraham had an acute spiritual sensitivity to the reality of the one true and living God.  Consider these insights from his early life:

"At just three years of age, as one source has it, the boy already 'began to understand the nature of God', so that the next year he resisted when his grandfather tried to teach him to worship idols.  Nor could Abraham's father, despite long and persistent effort, persuade his son to revere the statues." (E. Douglas Clark, The Blessings of Abraham, Becoming A Zion People, p. 40)

"An ancient and widespread legend tells of bold action taken by the young Abraham.  The story is not found in the Bible, but it is the most oft-repeated Abrahamic narrative in the Qur'an, is found in numerous ancient Jewish sources, and was repeated by Brigham Young, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff.  

“As recounted by Jewish sources, it began when the young Abraham found himself alone in a room full of idols….. The event was a major religious festival called by King Nimrod himself and was centred at Nimrod's pagan temple.  Abraham had been urged to attend by his father but declined to go and was instructed to stay behind to guard the idols.

When Abraham was all alone, he acted boldly and decisively.  Some sources report that 'the Spirit of God came upon him'.  As recounted by the Maaseh Avraham Avinu, 'He took an axe in his hand, and as he saw the idols of the king sitting, he said, 'The Eternal, He is God', and he 'pushed them off their thrones to the ground, and he smote them mightily…..' until 'all of them were broken'.  Then, placing 'the axe in the hand of the largest idol', Abraham left.

When his father and the king returned and discovered the wreckage, they were wroth.  'The king commanded that Abraham be brought before him.  And they brought him.  The king and his ministers said to him, 'Why did you shatter our gods?'  He said to them, 'I didn't break them, no.  Rather, the large one of them smashed them.  Don't you see that the axe is in his hand? And if you won't believe it, ask him and he will tell'.  And as the king heard his words, he became angry to the point of killing him."  (E. Douglas Clark, The Blessings of Abraham, Becoming A Zion People, p. 47)

And so the God of Abraham would not allow Abraham to forget Him and He would not allow him to forget who HE was. He would be with him always through this reminder: “When I organised all the intelligences, I saw there were noble and great ones, and I stood in the midst of them and chose my rulers and Abraham you were one of them. I will whisper it to you every minute of your mortal life so you will never forget me and you will never forget who YOU are.” (see Abraham 2:22,23)

We are likewise noble and great ones possessing the indomitable spirit of our father Abraham, ‘the father of the faithful’. God is whispering and we must never forget…..”The Eternal, He is God”.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Clouds of Glory by Greg Sargent)