Sacrifice Today

I had a friend recently send me a question that one of their friends asked them, here it is:
You look over your fence, only to see that your neighbor has his son tied down on a table, and is standing over him with a knife. You ask the neighbor what he is doing, to which he replies, "God told me to sacrifice my child."

1.     What would you think, say, and/or do?
2.     Would the neighbor's religion change your answer to #1? How would you respond if you knew he was Jewish/Christian/Muslim etc...?"


My friend answered the question and it went further into details about today's world verses the world of Abraham. The person they were talking to asked "if God never changes, why wouldn't He ask someone to do this today." In the end she asked me what I thought and this is what I said, I hope it helps if anyone ever asks you this question:
 
God doesn't change, but people do. He grows us each and every day.

The scriptures are all about Jesus, the story of Abraham sacrificing his son is all about Jesus. Did God ever have any intent to let Abraham kill his boy? No. Did Abraham think for a moment he would not come back down from mount Moriah with his boy? No. He wasn't lying to his men when he says (Gen 22:5) “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” And Abraham wasn't lying to his son when he said (Gen 22:8) "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

And, on the mountain, God did provide a sacrifice.

 
Would Abraham have sacrificed his son? Yes...but I think he believed no matter what, God would have raised his son from the dead because God had been true to His promises of THIS promised boy all along. AND IT WAS ON THAT MOUNTAIN THAT THE TEMPLE WAS EVENTUALLY BUILT! All of it was pointing to God's son who would actually die, and be resurrected, for His people.

It is not a random event, all of it has purpose, because all of it is about Jesus.

The problem comes when we think of ourselves as sophisticated moderns and the scriptures, and the people in them, as idiots who blindly followed a voice in their head they called "god." We think we are so much smarter and yet there is no outcry that 1/3 of all conceptions in America today are aborted...no one is jumping over a fence to hold back the knife from those kids. Today we worship at the altar of comfort, security, and our own (over-inflated) opinion of our intellect. If only we were as trusting as Abraham, things could be much different.

And, as far as God asking someone to do this today...it's not a valid question. OF COURSE God would not have someone do this today, the point was Jesus, and Jesus came just as God foreshadowed and promised throughout the scriptures. It is why there is no sacrificial system today (or a temple), Jesus was the sacrifice, He was the temple.

It's all about Jesu
s (I think it is appropriate to add a "WOOT WOOT" right here).