The story about Abraham and Isaac and their sacrifice is a favorite one that many of us learned from our parents and Sunday School teachers.  This is the story in Genesis 22, when God told Abraham, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah.  Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you."

Abraham faced an extremely difficult decision, but he finally was willing to obey God.  At the last second, God stopped Abraham from killing his son, telling him that it was only a test.  God said, "Do not lay a hand on the boy.  Do not do anything to him.  Now I know that you fear God, because you did not hold back your son, your only son."  Then Abraham saw a wild mountain sheep caught by its horns in the bushes nearby.  So Abraham offered the ram that God had provided in place of his son.

There are three important lessons we can learn from this story.  The first lesson is about Abraham's faith and obedience.  He was willing to give up one thing that was most precious to him out of his greater love for God -- as we also must often do.

The second lesson is that this story is a prophetic picture of Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross, which was near or even possibly at the exact place were Abraham and Isaac built their stone altar.  When Abraham and Isaac climbed the hill to the place God had told them to go, Isaac asked his father, "We have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?"   While Isaac was carrying the firewood, he was not aware yet that he was the sacrifice.  Abraham still did not tell him the plan.  Abraham answered, "God Himself will give us the lamb for the sacrifice, my son."   Two thousand years later, the Son of God climbed that same hill, to become a sacrifice -- the lamb that God has given for us.

We learn the third lesson from the ancient Jewish rabbis, who say that this story teaches that God absolutely forbids human sacrifice.  Remember that Abraham came out of paganism, which allowed neglect, abuse, or even sacrifice of children.  (God is the author of life, which is why His enemy, Satan, wants to destroy life.)  The rabbis tell us that this event in Genesis 22 was God's way to emphatically teach Abraham and all his descendents that God forever forbids child sacrifice, and that human sacrifice is contrary to God's character.

Today, when non-Christian people hear the Isaac story, they are shocked that Abraham would actually consider killing his son as an act of worship.  They say that God's command to Abraham only proves that the God of the Old Testament is a cruel barbarian.  Yet every day pagan America sacrifices 3,700 children in the worship of the gods of convenience, self-gratification, sensuality, and "financial and emotional well-being" (see Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackman's defense of abortion in Roe v. Wade).

The old Jewish rabbis were right.  God's message to us is the same as His message to the formerly pagan Abraham and his descendants:  Stop! Don't harm your child!  If it was wrong for Abraham to kill his son on a stone altar, it is just as wrong for us to kill our children who are still in their mothers' wombs.