Way back in history a man hitherto unremarkable was called by God, by the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. This man – Abraham – then became a man of faith. He placed his faith in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is recorded in the over-3,000-year-old book of Genesis in the Jewish (and now Christian) Bible. The record continues in this way.
After these things [c. BC 2000] God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” He said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
The land of Moriah? Where is it?
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So Abraham rose early in the morning, bound his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. He…. went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” ….. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” He said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and look and see, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide.”
Where is this Mount Moriah? First, here is another incident which took place on that very spot. A thousand years later God’s people Israel had sinned grievously and the LORD God send a plague causing the death of 70,000 men in Israel. The record continues in this way.
But when the angel [c. BC 970] stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, “It is enough; now stay your hand.” The angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. ….. David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.
Where was it that God’s wrath ceased? Where is this threshing floor? Here’s the answer – from the Jewish (and now Christian) Bible. It’s known as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Today it’s still there inside the Dome of the Rock.
Then [c. BC 966] Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
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MORIAH BC 970: the place where one punishment of sin in Israel was brought to an end......MORIAH BC 966: the place where the Jerusalem Temple was built – where God’s mercy should be found......MORIAH AD 30: the place towards which Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God, came so as to make one final atonement for sin by giving his life......
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