A Cup of Trembling by Dave Hunt

Author:Dave Hunt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-01-24T19:29:56+00:00

14

Altars, Temples, and a Cross

Neither Christian, Muslim, Jew, nor atheist can deny that numerous Scriptures in the Old Testament (some of which we have previously quoted) plainly declare that God promised the land of Israel (and much more territory than Israel occupies today) to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Mideast crisis confronting the world arises from the fact that both Jews (who are undoubtedly descended from Isaac and Jacob) and Arabs (who ignore the qualification that descent must be through Isaac and Jacob) claim Abraham as their father. It is this common claim which creates an impasse concerning Jerusalem and the land of Israel that threatens the world with its most destructive war to date.

History and Scripture record that Abraham had two sons during his wife Sarah's lifetime: Ishmael and Isaac. The second son God had promised, while the first one He had not. God's solemn promise seemed hopeless because Sarah, Abraham's wife, was barren. Therefore, to help fulfill the promise, Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands. Sarah suggested that Abraham have a child through her Egyptian maid, Hagar, in order to provide the heir who would inherit God's promises. The result of that act of unbelief, one of the very few of which Abraham, "the father of all them that believe" (Romans 4:11), was guilty, was the birth of Ishmael. From him the Arabs, in spite of evidence to the contrary, claim to be descended.

Isaac, the promised son, was born by a miracle to Sarah and Abraham 14 years after Ishmael's birth. At that time, in addition to being barren all her life, it had "ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women" (Genesis 18:11). Only then, when it was physically too late for her to have a child, and thus seemingly impossible for God's promise to be fulfilled, was Isaac born. Here was another indication that the birth of the Messiah, who would be descended from Abraham, would be miraculous, though in an even more remarkable and meaningful way than Isaac's birth. As the prophets declared, the Messiah would be born of a virgin.

A Strange Altar

After the birth of Isaac, we have one of the strangest stories in the Bible. In order to test Abraham's faith, God commanded him to offer Isaac in blood sacrifice upon an altar at a special site in the Promised Land. Again it was an indication that the Messiah, who would be God's Son as Isaac was Abraham's, would be sacrificed at His Father's hand for mankind:

It came to pass... that God did tempt [test] Abraham and said unto him... Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took... Isaac his son... [and] wood for the burnt offering, and... went unto the place of which God had told him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.