Daily Devotions based the Sermon from February 21, 2021
THIS WEEK: Lead Me to the Cross…Find the Ram…Find a Substitute!
Abraham was right. The Lord will provide the lamb.
We don’t know much about Isaac’s thoughts as he was bound and put on the altar. We don’t know what conversations Abraham had with Isaac about what God had asked him to do. It seems very little, as Isaac asked about the lamb for the sacrifice on the way up the mountain. But I can imagine none was more relieved than Isaac when the angel stopped his father from taking his life. None was more relieved than Isaac when the Lord provided a substitute in the thicket to be sacrificed instead of him.
Abraham was right. The Lord did provide a lamb.
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” (Genesis 22:13-14)
Abraham’s words weren’t just a statement of reality…they were prophetic.
The mountain of the Lord on which they were standing was Mount Moriah. Mount Moriah became the location of the temple of the Lord in the days of Solomon. On this mountain hundreds of thousands of lambs would be sacrificed again and again for the sin of people. People weren’t sacrificed for their own sin, animals were.
Hebrews 10:11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
The daily sacrifices were ineffective in filling the need of taking away sins.
So God provided a greater substitute, his Son, his beloved Son, Jesus.
Abraham was right, the Lord will provide the lamb.
This time it was the Lamb of God.
John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
The reality was, We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)
The Lord was willing to place our sins on Jesus so we would not have to be sacrificed for them…Jesus was, once for all.
Hebrews 7:26 Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
Abraham was right. “On the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.”
On this very mountain, where a ram was provided as a substitute for Isaac, a Lamb was provided as a substitute for us all.
Abraham was right. “The Lord will provide the Lamb.”
Apply: Visualize the transfer of your sins of this week to Jesus. See him on the cross as your substitute!
PRAYER: Lord, thank you for providing a substitute in Jesus to do the work of paying for our sin which we or any lamb or ram could never accomplish. AMEN.