# 204 Lift Up Your Eyes

The Book of Genesis

Day 204

Ge 22:13 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.  14 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 Lord will provide.” How often have we heard that phrase repeated, especially when someone is going through hard financial times! But this is not about finances! It is about the Lord’s provision for the sins of the world.  

What a picture! The substitute sacrifice, that would take the place of Isaac, a male sheep with his head caught in a thicket, foreshadowing the crown of thorns that our own substitute would one day wear on this very same mountain! 

Note too, that Abraham didn’t look behind him. He didn’t look to the left or to the right. He “lifted his eyes UP!  This is what we must do to be saved! We must look up on the cross of Calvary and see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

In Numbers chapter 21 we read of an incident where the people had sinned against the Lord, and the Lord sent a plague of deadly vipers among the people. These snakes represent sin, and here’s how God told Moses to handle the deadly sin problem in their midst!

Nu 21:8 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live."

A fiery serpent? Why not a lamb? Wouldn’t that be more fitting? Not really. God used this incident to show the people (and us) what He would one day do with all sin. The Holy Spirit speaks of it through Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians: 2Co 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Jesus became sin for us! He became the fiery serpent lifted high upon the pole, and all that looked up to it survived the plague of snakes, Survived the plague of sin!

As it is said to this day, In the Mount of the Lord (Calvary) it shall be provided.  We all know the words of Jn 3:16, but have you ever paid attention to what Jesus said right before it?

Joh 3:14 "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  15 "that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

 16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  17 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Look up brother! Look up sister! Join with Abraham and Moses and see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! Look up! Receive the gift and live!