Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Genesis 22:13-14 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."
THE RAM CAUGHT IN THE THICKET
Do you like being tested? If you were to ask 10 students if they like tests most (if not all) would say NO. I suppose that we tolerate tests when we expect them and can prepare for them.
Abraham didn't expect the test that came his way from God. God called upon Abraham to take his son, His only son Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice. Abraham trusted God's promise to send the Seed of the Woman through Isaac (even if it meant raising Isaac from the dead, cf. Hebrews 11:17), so He took his son and journeyed to Mount Moriah.
Isaac carried the wood and seemed confused about the omission of an animal for sacrifice. When Abraham took in hand the knife to sacrifice his son, the Angel of the LORD stopped him. Abraham, by God's grace, passed the test. So some people look at Isaac's willingness and the fact that He was Abraham's Only Son--and think of the Lord Jesus. After all, Jesus was the "only begotten Son of God." But I want you to notice that Isaac wasn't offered up. The ram caught in the thicket was. Abraham believed that the LORD would provide the sacrifice, and He did, in a ram.
God provided the sacrifice then, and when it came time for the ultimate sacrifice, the one that all the others pictured, He provided again. Jesus is the Ram offered instead of us. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. He willingly went the way of the Cross and died instead of us.
The LORD has provided!
