On Mount  Zion

Greetings in the name of Jesus! This is Rob Haymes. This is 15 Minutes With Jesus. Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, Jesus said, there am I in the midst of them. To those of you who love Him in truth: mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. (Jude 1:2)

Thank you Father; we thank you for this day. This is the day that you have made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Thank you Father. Let’s turn to Psalm 48, verse 1, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in His holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole Earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is in her palaces; He is known as her refuge. For behold, the kings assembled, they passed by together. They saw it, and so they marveled; they were troubled, they hastened away. Fear took hold of them there, and pain, as of a woman in birth pangs, as when You break the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it forever. Selah We have thought, O God, on Your lovingkindness, in the midst of Your temple. According to Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the Earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness. Let Mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of Your judgments. Walk about Zion, and go all around her. Count her towers; mark well her bulwarks; consider her palaces; that you may tell it to the generation following. For this is God, our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to death. 

Today’s program is called, On Mount Zion. Let’s turn to Gen 22:1, Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Here I am. Then He said, Take now 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. So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you. So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, My father! And he said, Here I am, my son. Then he said, Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering. So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the Angel of the Lord called to him from Heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham! So he said, Here I am. 

And He said, Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided. Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of Heaven, and said: By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice. So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.

It all started on Mount Moriah, when God tested Abraham and told him to go to the mountains of Moriah and offer his son upon one of the mountains that He would tell him of: his only son whom he loved. God also offered His only Son, whom He loved, upon the same mountain, in the same place, a living sacrifice for us. And there He raised Him from the dead; there He raised us with Him. Let’s turn to Hosea 6:1, Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight-Abraham’s seed, through whom all the nations have been blessed. That is the Gospel; that is where it began and was fulfilled in Jesus. Abraham said, My son, God will provide Himself a lamb. John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It all happened on Mount Zion. 

Mount Moriah extends from the junction of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys to the south all the way to Calvary to the north. The Temple Mount is at a height of approximately 2,430 feet. Calvary was originally at 2,549 feet before it was excavated for stone. The stone at Calvary was found to be too soft, so they left off the quarrying, and left the soft stone face, where the face of a skull was formed through natural erosion. Then it was called Golgotha, which means the place of a skull. It is most likely that Abraham offered Isaac at that location, as it was the highest point on Mount Moriah. The actual geological Mount Zion is another mountain just to the west of Mount Moriah. However, Jerusalem and Mount Moriah are often referred to in scripture as Mount Zion. Psalm 48 says,  The Lord is great and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole Earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. Jerusalem is the city of our Great King Jesus Christ. He will be establishing His throne in Jerusalem, and He will reign over all the Earth for a thousand years, until all His enemies are put under His feet. Isa 24:23, Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously. 

The Temple Mount is located where King David purchased the threshing floor of Ornan

to offer a sacrifice at the Word of the Lord, spoken to him by Gad the prophet, to appease the wrath of the Lord which was being executed against Jerusalem. When the Lord answered by fire and consumed his sacrifice, David said, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel. And he began to prepare for the construction of the first Temple. It is the place where the first and second Temples were constructed. This was most likely at a lower elevation than the sacrifice of Isaac and the prophecy of Jesus’ sacrifice. With the Temple was the first covenant, the Law of Moses, a shadow of things to come. Heb 10:1, For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 

For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. Then I said, Behold I come-in the volume of the Book it is written of Me-to do your will, O God. Previously saying, Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin you did not desire, nor had pleasure in them, which are offered according to the Law, then He said, Behold, I come to do your will O God. He takes away the first that He may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.

My wife Darlene and I traveled to Israel in 2015; we were there upon the mountains of Zion. When we saw Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives for the first time, our hearts were greatly moved. This is the city of our Great King. This is the place, Mount Zion, where God worked His great salvation through His beloved Son Jesus, and where He will some day reign over all the Earth in His glory. When we were at Calvary, our British guide preached to all of us the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a great blessing. He also said, at that time, that the geological formation of Mount Moriah extends from south of Jerusalem, all the way to Calvary or Golgotha. There were many blessings on that trip to Israel, but the greatest blessing for me was being there in Jerusalem, the place where so much has taken place, and so much will soon be taking place, as prophesied in the Psalms and in the Prophets and in the Apostles’ doctrine, the New Testament.  

Psalm 48, verse 1, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole Earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. 

Prophecy:

I am the God of all flesh; I have chosen Mount Zion; it is the place where I dwell, says the Lord. It is the place where My Son was sacrificed for your sins. All of you who are listening to My servant Rob this day: turn to Me with all your heart; hearken unto My Words, for I love you, and that’s why I gave My Son for you. Turn to Me, and you shall be saved, says the Lord.

Thank you for reading this message from 15 Minutes With Jesus at roberthaymes.com . May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you who love Him in truth, Amen. (2 Cor 13:14)