FROM INSPIRATION POINT

#7 THE MOUNT OF SACRIFICE

If any mountaintop could truly be called "the mount of inspiration" it would be Mount Moriah. This mountain is the present location of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem over which the Mosque of Omar stands today. This was the Mount where God directed Abraham to take his son, Isaac, and offer him in sacrifice to God. God gave him no promise that he was going to spare Isaac at the last moment. No promise that another son would be given in his place. This was the son that was to inherit the promise and carry on the seed of Abraham. Yet, by faith he was willing to offer him.

There is no way to describe the feeling in the pit of Abraham's stomach when he went to Isaac, a grown boy at the time, and said to him, "We must go and make sacrifice to the Lord." It speaks well for Isaac that he went without question. As they approached Mt. Moriah, Isaac did ask his father, "We have the fire and the wood, but where is the sacrifice?"

Abraham's answer speaks for the ages. "My son, the Lord will provide the sacrifice." He did not know how, and he did not know when, but nothing Abraham said was more prophetic. Less than a half-mile away, 2000 years later, God did provide the sacrifice on Calvary. The blood from that sacrifice has trickled down through the ages to every soul living today. It was not only the sacrifice for us today but covers every soul from Adam to the end of the world.

The inspiration for God to offer his Son came from the willingness of Abraham to give his son. True, as Abraham raised the knife to kill his son Isaac, God stayed his hand and provided a ram whose horns were caught in a nearby bush. God has never required any human sacrifice, except for his own sacrifice of giving his son, Jesus.

How beautiful is the picture Paul paints in Galatians 3:26-29 "For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

-John Young