The Lord Will Provide
Jesus
said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was
glad” (John 8:56).
Jesus
made a startling statement stressing the fact that the ancient Jewish patriarch Abraham
placed his ultimate hope in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and he rejoiced in the
thought of Christ’s coming.
Jesus
points to the event as “My day”—the life of Jesus Christ. That is the event
that Abraham was reflecting upon and rejoicing about.
Something
happened to Abraham in his day to cause him to rejoice back then at the thought of the
coming of God’s redeemer. I believe Abraham’s vision of the coming of Christ as
our substitute is vividly portrayed in the near sacrifice of his son Isaac on Mount Moriah
(Genesis 22). There Abraham learned that “the Lord will provide,” and He did at
Calvary.
Abraham
had already experienced the reality that God is true to His Word, no matter how strange it
may seem. God told Abraham to kill Isaac, the son of the covenant, who had no children
at this time in his life. Abraham knew God would have to perform a miracle in Isaac’s
death. God would have to raise Isaac from the dead to accomplish His promise of producing
a great nation through Isaac. Since God had done a miracle at Isaac’s birth, He was
fully capable of performing a miracle in his sacrificial death. The context of Genesis
chapter 22 fully expects God to bring Isaac back down the mountain with his father Abraham
and the servants after the sacrifice (Gen. 22:5; Heb. 11:17-19).
Abraham trusted God to bring Isaac back from the dead.
This was precisely what God the Father did with His own Son Jesus
Christ.
Genesis
22:14 tells us Abraham rejoiced and called the place Jehovah Jireh meaning “the Lord
will provide.”
Could
Abraham have meant earlier, “the Lord will provide a resurrection of Isaac”?
The message in Genesis 22 is Jehovah Jireh who
provided a ram in substitution for the death of Isaac would one day
provide His own Son as the perfect substitute and sacrifice to cover the
sins of all who believe on Him.
At
that moment Abraham saw clearly the coming of Jesus including the meaning of His
substitutionary death and resurrection, and He rejoiced at the thought. He saw it and was
glad.
Do
you believe as Abraham did? He believed, and God provided.
Do
you believe God in spite of your present circumstances?
Do
you believe that Jesus Christ came and died as your substitute on the cross and rose from
the dead?
Do
you rejoice in His coming?
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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