Does God Accept Human Sacrifice?

00:00 - Speaker 1
Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

00:09 - Speaker 2
Faith founded upon fact. Do you know what it's like to live like that? Is the Christian exercising a blind faith? Are we ignorant? Are we knuckle-dragging buffoons who have religion? Or are we part of a family of God from the beginning that are quite educated, like the fathers of science, like the greats of old? How could that be true? Faith founded upon fact is who we are. Does that define who you are?

00:41 - Speaker 1
You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbscom slash podcast Today. If this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five-star ratings. To us that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.

01:10 - Speaker 2
Well, hey, everybody, welcome to this podcast, and we are going to take a little bit of time right now to unpack something that I have recently actually been teaching at this particular time in the book of Hebrews. That, of course, launches you out into various areas of the Old Testament, and you might ask, well, why is that important? Well, because you can never, never, understand the New Testament whatsoever without Old Testament knowledge. You know what's amazing about God designing his word the way that he did, is that it's as though you're putting together a puzzle and you could put together the puzzle of the boat that is on the water. You can assemble that, but you don't have a context. You have a boat. You can see that on your table, the puzzles being assembled, and you can tell that it is set within a landscape or a palette of water, but you have neglected the other pieces to the puzzle. There's no shoreline, there's no skyline, there's no atmospherics, there's no clouds or sunrise or sunset or blue, but you have a boat and you could say this puzzle is about a boat, and you would be correct, and you could say this boat is a boat that is floating in the water. There's nobody in the boat. You can give details. There's two oars, but it is floating on the water, and you'd be correct. But your account is not full, and when we read only the New Testament, we're looking at a boat that is on the water and we're giving details. But when you just read or study only the New Testament, you are limiting yourselves to the entire palette of what has been produced, and so when you assemble the entire puzzle on your table, you have this much more full understanding and view of what you're looking at. You couldn't tell that the boat that you were looking at was in any other landscape than what you began to assume with your mind. Here's the reason why it wasn't until the puzzle was complete that you realized I thought it was on a lake. Here it is floating out in the ocean. I saw that it was probably in a mountainous setting when in reality, once the puzzle was complete, it was a boat that was out in the harbor of an island landscape. You thought it was a boat that was in a setting where it's mountainous, perhaps pine trees. You find out, once the puzzle is complete, that it is in fact in a tropical island, and that changes the whole dynamic. When you look at it, it even changes the temperature of the beautiful puzzle that you're assembling. Now it's tropical, now it's.

04:35
Roll up your sleeves, put on your board shorts. You've got flip-flops on where before you were even beginning to entertain that you would put your rubber fishing gear on, because that was the setting. You say, jack, you're nuts. No, I mean, I might be nuts, but what I'm telling you is exactly how I just articulated to you in graphic terms what the disciplines are of studying the Bible in a homiletic way are hermeneutics. These are sciences that you must apply to the study of the Bible. There are things, laws of Bible study, like expositional constancy, the law of first mention, things like this, where, if you apply them, you will never go astray in your reading. But the New Testament must be viewed in light of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament must be viewed in light of the fulfillment that is to be found in the new. Old sets you up to receive the new, and the new gives an account of confidence in what was prophesied in the old.

05:40
Having said that, this would be a good time for us to look at what the Bible says in Hebrews, chapter 11. In Hebrews, chapter 11, it's the great, famous chapter of those of faith, it's the chapter of those of the lifestyles of the righteous and faithful are found in the book of Hebrews 11. The biblical definition of faith, proper faith, actual faith, biblically acceptable faith is found in Hebrews 11. It's defined there and you need to know, by the way, if you really have true faith. If you're saying that you have oh, I have so much faith, I have so much faith that I'm going to go down, go down to the local convenience store and I'm going to win the lotto because I have so much faith. That's not Bible faith, that's insane, that's wishful thinking, at best gambling. Most certainly, biblical faith is defined in scripture and it is not the magnitude of faith that you possess. It's the revelation of the object of faith that you are focusing on. In other words, you can have little faith in Jesus Christ and that can be enough. You see, because faith focuses on the object. Faith is never the object itself. The object faith is never the object itself.

07:04
When somebody says just have faith in faith, that's honestly an irreconcilable, really dumb statement. You're not even saying anything when you say that you have faith in faith, because faith must be defined by its object and faith, by nature, is something that you know to be true. Watch, you know it's true, that it's worthy of you putting faith in it. Look, there is coffee in this cup. The cup contains what I'm interested in. I'm not interested in the cup. The cup is the faith that contains what's my pursuit. Faith takes you to Christ. It's the faith that you put in Christ, it's Him, it's the Word of God. You don't put faith in faith, you don't put belief in faith. That's why it's really bad for some people to say you just need to have more faith, brother, you're still sick because you don't have enough faith.

08:23
Okay, that is an abuse regarding the biblical definition of faith, and so I thank God, I pray that you do too, that your faith is strong because you have placed your faith in the strong one. I have a very strong cup of coffee here and I've put my faith in this cup of coffee to bring me certain benefits. Right now, at this time, don't please spare me the medical dangers of strong coffee. I'm saying this as an analogy that I had a long. I had a rough night. It's morning now. I need this to help me along and I could eat the cup and that's not going to do anything. When the coffee went into the cup, that was done by faith. It was instilling faith within the cup. The cup is the vehicle by which I partake of the coffee. The cup is like faith. Okay.

09:25
So, having said that book of Hebrews, the Bible tells us that, by faith, abraham obeyed while he was called to go out to a place that he would later receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. Not knowing where he was going, how do you do that? He had faith in God Watch. Did Abraham have faith in his sandals? Nope. Did he have faith in the GPS that he had on his donkey? Nope. Did Abraham have faith in the destination? Nope. As lofty as that was the promised land, that's not what he put faith in. What did he put faith in? He put faith in the God who told him come and follow me right now. And so Abraham set his eyes on God and followed him. And then Hebrews 11 goes on. By the way, that was verse eight, hebrews 11, eight.

10:23
But as you go on to this, if you come to verses like verse 17, for example, the Bible says by faith, abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promise offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said in Isaac, your seed shall be called so. Concluding then verse 19, that God was able to raise up Isaac, even from the dead, if necessary, so that he might receive in him, in a figurative sense, the promise. What is that? What are we talking about here? And this is a very good thing for us. You can't understand this until you go to the book of Genesis, and the first promise given to this is in verse 17. God is telling Abraham I'm going to bless you with a descendant from you, from you and Sarah. I'm going to bless you with a child, and that child will be for the making of nations plural that will cover the entire globe. So, from you, abraham, I will make of you many nations.

11:36
And you want to read Genesis 17, and you want to read Genesis 21. Because it's in Genesis 21, starting there, that God begins to live out in advance the fulfillment he lived out. God showed, he started to put together the pieces of a puzzle, and in this puzzle we have a landscape down here, near the bottom of the puzzle. That's where we're starting, and so we've got the bushes and the shrubs and the trees and the hills, and we've got a set of legs. And it's interesting because as we're putting this together, we start to see four sets of legs. Okay, we've got two, four, six, eight feet going along, and on top of that we've got a donkey. We've got four legs forming of a donkey and as we're building the model building, I should say, the puzzle we're in Genesis, chapter 21 and 22,. Puzzle we're in Genesis, chapter 21 and 22, and we're looking at what is turning out to be a long journey in the far, distant hills. As I'm looking, the landscape begins to ascend. We are going through the desert and we are now ascending up the slopes of hillsides, up and down through areas, but the terrain is taking us upward as we assemble the puzzle.

13:09
Every time we assemble the puzzle example read more and more of the Bible, in this case Genesis 17, all the way to 22, we're starting to see that this trail, this trail, is taking Abraham to a place called Moriah. We are none other than in the land of promise. Listen, especially some of you who claim to be Palestinians, listen carefully. In this area there are no Palestinians, there are no Philistines. Yet we're talking Abraham. He's traversing his way to a very specific place he's about. It's hard to say right now, but from the Mediterranean it's a 45-minute Uber ride. I know that To Jerusalem it's a 45 minute Uber ride, I know that to Jerusalem. So let's, let's say it's a day's journey, maybe a two day's journey from the Mediterranean. But Abraham's coming from, he's coming from the east, so he's coming from where the Syrian, jordanian wasteland is at, deserts are at. He starts to make an ascension up.

14:29
It's very dramatic, by the way, you go from the Jordan River Valley. Heading west, you go from an area well below sea level. I mean, think about that. Here's the Mediterranean Sea and here's the Jordanian wilderness and the Judean wilderness. You're down here and you cross the Jordan River down here. Isn't that amazing? You cross the Jordan River here and then you ascend up, passing sea level. You get up to the region, what is today Mount Scopus, and that part over to the left, the eastern side and southern side, would be the Mount of Olives. You crest that point and there's a valley that surrounds this hilltop and there is the Kidron Valley that separates you from this vantage point that you have. It separates you from this mount. There's this mountaintop, kind of like a plateau, but it's shifted. Okay, it's like this. It's angled of, like a plateau, but it's shifted. Okay, it's like it's. It's like this, it's angled, but it's surrounded by valleys. It's remarkable.

15:51
So, no matter how high you come from, you've got to go down, to go back up, and you wouldn't have known this unless you complete the puzzle. And so, as they're making their way, they come to this top, and this top is Mount Scopus. And they're looking and they go oh boy, oh boy, there it is. They're looking down at a hilltop. Does it make sense? The hilltop they're on is higher. They got to cross a valley to go up.

16:13
By the way, the Bible always says, always, without exception. The Bible always says let us ascend to the mount of the Lord. That's not only in Psalms, that's not only in scripture, but it's in many, many accurate Christian hymns. It's beautiful and it's a fact. You've got to ascend to the mountain of the Lord. What is the mountain of the Lord? What is the mountain of the Lord? The mountain of the Lord is called Moriah, mount Moriah.

16:54
Now watch everybody this, from one elbow to the other elbow I hope I'm not out of frame From this elbow to this elbow. Okay, is all of Mount Moriah, you've got to go down a valley, mount Moriah, you've got to go down a valley. If it's Kidron, you still got to go down and go up. If it's the Tyropian Valley, you still got to go down to go up. If it's Akeldama, you got to go down, you got to go up. Whatever the, you got to go up. So they're making their way up. Now watch this. They make their way up and as you make your way up, you come to this and this end. I'm trying to think of how you're seeing this. So I should actually do it. Actually, I think I'm correct. I happen to have done that by accident.

17:37
From your vantage point, on your end of this lens, this is what is called the city of David. Became, later called the city of David, became later called the city of David. This is known as Zion. Zion is a part of Moriah In modern day eyes.

17:59
You know where the Dome of the Rock Mosque is at. Used to be, by the way, a Byzantine church until the Muslims took it over and turned it into a mosque. All Byzantine churches are made five-sided. The Dome of the Rock Mosque was not a mosque originally. It was a church originally. That's over here.

18:23
Then you have the Temple Mount, which is quite a few acres of land vacant today. Go Google earth it. It's just a blank piece of land, but it's the most volatile piece of land on the face of the earth. If a Jew walks out there and praises God, he's going to get killed. An intifada is going to begin. A war is going to begin. Listen, we as Christians, we cannot walk onto the temple mount and open up our Bibles and teach a sermon. We used to be able to do that many years ago, can't do that anymore. The Muslims forbid that. That's basically in the middle. Keep going to the top of my elbow. This is all Moriah. From here to here is Moriah.

19:07
The high ground, the sacrificial ground of Moriah is called Golgotha. You ever heard that term before in your gospels, golgotha? Golgotha is the top high ground of Moriah. It's also known to the Greek or modern day person in English, calvary, c-a-l-v-a-r-y Calvary, mount Calvary, mount Golgotha. Golgotha is the place of the skull. Lo and behold, when you look at Mount Moriah, at Golgotha. Why do they call it the place of the skull? You might say, well, because there was a bunch of skulls there, because people were killed there. That is true, but the place of the skull. It's actually a mountainside, a hillside that looks like a skull, and it was known back in Jesus's day it was even known back in the days of Jeremiah as the place of the skull. Isn't that amazing?

20:10
So, be that as it may, here's the deal is that Abraham makes his way with Isaac. What do we know? God tells Abraham take your son, your only son, your only begotten son, take him to a place that I will show you and there offer up your son as a burnt sacrifice. Stop right there. Does the God of the Bible accept human sacrifices? I'm going to pause because I want my coffee for you to think Right. Think about that. Does the God of the Bible accept human sacrifice? Answer Nope, you say. Well, isn't that a contradiction in the Bible? That wasn't Jesus offered up and didn't he die? Yeah, I said God doesn't accept human sacrifice. We'll get to that in a moment.

21:11
So God tells Abraham take your son, isaac, your only son, and offer him up on a hill that I will show you. And so, how long of a journey was it From the moment God told Abraham go kill your son, offer him up for me? How long of a journey. Three days journey. How long in Abraham's heart and mind was his son dead? Three days? Did Abraham tell his son? Nope. Did Abraham tell the two attendants that went with them, nope. Did Abraham tell the donkeyants that went with them? Nope. Did Abraham tell the donkey Not that we're aware of?

21:48
Abraham ponders this in his heart. This old man is taking the very promise of God to a hilltop that God will show him. And how's this going to work out? The book of Hebrews tells us chapter 11, that Abraham did the math out. The book of Hebrews tells us, chapter 11, that Abraham did the math. The word actually means that he concluded that God will have to raise his son from the dead if Abraham sacrifices him. But here's what's amazing. It's even worse than that. When he says I want you to offer your son as a burnt sacrifice, that means, after you kill him, you got to burn him. You've got to burn him completely to ashes and present him to me Ashes.

22:27
What does Abraham believe? If this is going to happen, god's going to raise my son from the dead, because this is the only way the Jewish state will come about in the future, the Jewish people will come about in the future, and this is the only way that all the sons and daughters of humanity who will trust in Messiah will be saved. He's going to raise my son. So God takes Isaac and says to the two attendants stay here, wait at the bottom of the mountaintop. My son and I are going to go worship God and when we're done the two of us are going to return back to you.

23:10
Guys, I want you to ponder that. That is intense faith. I want to believe I have that kind of faith. I don't know if I do or not. I've not been put to that depth of a fiery trial yet. And don't be quick to blab to me that you've got that kind of faith. That would have to be examined.

23:38
Abraham did not have Bible promise cards. He didn't have. He couldn't Google. There wasn't an app on the promises of God. It was sheer, pure, raw obedience to God. I don't know if I have that level of faith. Abraham did. Abraham did up the mountaintop.

24:03
They get to the area and Isaac now is carrying the wood for the sacrifice. Isaac says to his father father, here's the wood, but where's the sacrifice? Abraham says my son by the way, read in the old King James, but where's the sacrifice? Abraham says my son. By the way, read in the old King James, it is the most accurate in the old King James my son, god will provide himself as a sacrifice. That's what God said to Abraham. Say this, abraham God will provide himself a lamb, a sacrifice.

24:47
Isaac builds the altar and then Abraham says son, I need you to lay down on the altar. And the Bible says that Abraham bound up his son. Isaac lays on the altar. How old is he? People argue it doesn't matter. Some people will say he's as young as 13. I don't care, he's as old as 30. I don't care, abraham is over a hundred years old. Don't you think a 13 year old could take out a hundred year old? Think about this. Abraham could have I mean, isaac could have taken up and run away. He lays down Amos 3.3 says how can two go together unless they agree? They were in complete agreement.

25:34
Abraham takes up the knife to plunge into his son's chest and the angel of the Lord stops him and says now I know that you love me. Well, that's a weird thing to say. The angel of the Lord is a theophanies. It's Christ, angel of the Lord, in capital letters. Read it in your Bible. Now I know you love me. Wait a minute. I thought God knows everything. He does know everything. God knows everything, he does know everything. Abraham loved Isaac so much that it is obvious, by the request of God to offer up your son, that the son had become an idol in Abraham's life. When God says now, I know you love me, god knows all things. Translation Abraham, I know you love me, but you've got a little bit off course here. You love your son. You think more of your son than you do of me. You are more preoccupied with your son's future than you are of our future. Your son, abraham, is in the way of you and I growing along further and, for that matter, even your son is being handicapped by this misplaced love. But now I know that I can tell you, abraham. See what you just did a moment ago. You were willing to follow through and I had to stop you. You've done good, abraham. What's the point to this?

27:07
2,000 years before Jesus Christ carried the wood up Moriah to the high ground called Golgotha, he was in full agreement with the Father to willingly lay down his life. Jesus willingly was bound. He was willingly nailed to the cross. He willingly didn't defend himself. He willingly said Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. Himself he willingly said Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. You see, but, jack, you still have the problem of the God of the Bible does not accept human sacrifice, and that is absolutely true. He doesn't. When Jesus laid down his life, the whole entire process was Jesus willingly laying down his life. The father didn't make him.

28:11
But what of Jesus died? When we say Jesus died, we need to be specific. Well, doesn't the Bible say he died? Of course it says he died because he died. His body died. If Jesus is the Son of God and part of the Holy Trinity that makes up one God manifest in three persons, all co-equal, co-eternal. One God in three, just like you and I are body, soul and spirit in one, but three, three in one. Wouldn't the universe fall apart if Jesus died? No, listen, jesus' body, his body died. His body was subject to the ramifications and the penalty of sin. His spirit didn't die. Jesus himself said with his mouth I dismiss my spirit. And then he died. His soul, which is his thinking, that didn't die, my friend. All of this was a Bible prophecy being lived out by Abraham and Isaac on the exact same spot that Jesus and the Father fulfilled the prophecy of our salvation. That is an amazing thing. Hey, I want to interrupt myself right now. We'll jump back to the conclusion of this.

29:29
Listen, we really, really want you to get this book by Ken Ham. Ken Ham wrote this great book. I'm going to give you the subtitle Parenting Kids to Face the Giants. This is the giants of the culture that your kids are having to deal with, the giants that are out to destroy your child's life. And, of course, the title Will they Stand? It's this Will your Children Stand? Well, listen, this great book, it's an excellent book. It's a very, very powerful book. I want you to get this by simply going to jackhibbscom. Get your own copy of Will they Stand by our good friend, dr Ken Ham. Brilliant, powerful and so practical. Listen, mom and dad, you need to save your kids. You need to save them by getting them the truth, and so it's a tremendous book. It's our offer. We encourage you to get a hold of it. Will they stand by Ken Ham?

30:28
Everything Ken Ham puts out is amazing, and so here's the punchline God always reveals to us what he's going to do in advance. He says and it's true, through the prophets. In fact, the Bible says will not God reveal to the prophets what he's about to do? The answer is yes, he does. Why? So that our faith will be built up. Why? Because we need strong faith. How does that happen? Because God makes a promise and then he fulfills it and we can trust him.

30:59
So Jesus Christ did not die by accident. He died by the engineering of God. He didn't rise from the dead because it was some sort of a planned swoon theory where Jesus fainted but the cold, damp tomb revived him. He didn't really die, he just looked dead. Nope, the Bible says God, the Holy Spirit, raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Isn't that awesome.

31:26
So, friends, listen, your faith is founded upon fact. That's the punchline. Faith founded upon fact, that's what it means to be a Christian. We do not have blind faith. If you want blind faith, or if you want some sort of an example of blind faith, you would have to go find an evolutionist. That's blind faith, that's misguided faith, that is poorly appropriated faith. No, the believer, we believe in the facts, and the facts come from God, and God has given us facts in advance so that, when they come to pass, we might believe that he is God. It's called Bible prophecy. We just got a little bit of a baptism into it just now.

32:18
I hope this is meaningful to you. Listen, if you are getting anything out of this, the best thing you can do you don't have to. Don't send us money. Send us a thumbs up, send us a like. Share this with other people. Grow this podcast. That's how you can say thanks, jack. Grow the podcast. And, like always, we really, really, really believe that it's time for you and I to live out what we believe in. It's time for real life and that's what we're doing. So until next time, we'll see you right back here. Stand strong, be in the word of God, stay up to date with us, by the way, on various platforms, and you can do that by simply going to jackhibbscom, and we look forward. You know, listen, I don't know what you're doing on Sundays or Wednesday nights, but you know, listen, we are broadcasting live on Sundays and Wednesdays and have church with us, no matter where you are in the world. So God bless you guys.

33:12 - Speaker 1
We'll see you next time. This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbscom to learn more and stay connected.