13Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. 14 Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.”
Genesis 22 tells what is certainly one of the most bizarre, dramatic stories in the Bible. Abraham is told by the Lord to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice on a mountain top in ancient Canaan—and he obeys. Setting out early in the morning with his son, they climbed the mountain, carefully arranging the wood for a fire of burnt sacrifice, and then bound Isaac to be slain by his own father. Abraham is stopped by the very voice of God from completing the sacrifice. As dramatic as this story is, it is the underlying truths that have the most to do with us, for Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. God Himself had provided the lamb for the burnt offering. Just to hammer home that point, and prepare his nation for the eventual sacrifice of their own King their sins, Moses explains what was to his readers the meaning of their own idiom, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.”
Isaacs’s life was spared because God provided a substitute. In the mount of the LORD—at the place and time of His choosing, it will be provided. Two-thousand years afterward, the right time arrived for this Son to be presented to the LORD as a sacrifice, and place was again chosen where a promised son would die; in the mountain range of Moriah, on a hilltop the locals and Romans called The Skull. The Son climbed the hill that day, with His Father looking on but not interceding to stop the murder. No rams caught in the thicket. No voice from heaven saying, “Stop! I’ve found another way to accomplish this. He doesn’t have to die!” The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for our sin IS the other way. He is the lamb provided. But He was not found caught in a thicket, unable to escape—instead He walked up that hill, presenting Himself to the Father as the sacrifice. He is our Lamb! We were caught in sin and guilt—and escaped. He was free—and yet submitted Himself to die on a cross for our sake.
Father, thank you for the death of Your Son Jesus in my place. Please lead me today, and for the rest of my life, into a deeper understanding and appreciation of what He did for me on that hill-top, the day you chose to provide the Substitute for my sins, and set me free. Amen.
downtownpastor