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#5.
The Ram caught in a Thicket (Gen. 22: 13).
pp. 158, 159
Not a few of the readers of The Berean Expositor are passing through seasons of trial
owing to the growing problems in the industrial and commercial world. For their
encouragement we draw attention to a well-known passage, which in a time of difficulty
came with new force.
Gen. 22: must ever remain pre-eminently prophetic of the great act of Calvary, yet
this does not prevent its light and blessing radiating into the lesser corners of our private
lives. Scripture itself gives us the argument:--
"He that spared not His Own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not
WITH HIM also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8: 32).
We are told that Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ (John 8: 56), and if, as
we may reasonably suppose, he understood in some degree the prophetic import of the
trial through which he passed, that would by no means lessen the personal and practical
effects of the provision of the Lord in the "ram caught by his horns in a thicket". Indeed,
Abraham does not name the place "Jehovah-Jireh" until after he had seen the ram and
had offered it instead of Isaac his son.
Some of our everyday trials and experiences, resulting, as they may do, from the
chaotic state of finance and commerce, may nevertheless be permitted in order that the
Lord may be able to say "Now I know that thou fearest God . . . . ." (Gen. 22: 12). In
such hours and places of trial look out for the ram caught by his horns in a thicket. The
ram was "behind" Abraham, and unobserved until the critical moment had come, but all
the same it was seen at that moment, and gratefully accepted as a provision of love.
While we therefore in stedfast faith would "lift up our eyes, and see the place afar off"
(Gen. 22: 4), let us, by the same undoubting faith, lift up our eyes to see what
providence the Lord may send to deliver us at the time of crisis. "In the mount of the
Lord it shall be seen" (Gen. 22: 14), not while we are "afar off". We may have to
stretch forth the hand and take the knife, before the ram caught by his horns is revealed to
us.
It is rather suggestive that in the preceding chapter we have a parallel with the ram
caught in the thicket. Hagar took her son also:--
"And wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. And the water was spent in the
bottle" (Gen. 21: 14, 15).
Hagar felt that the end had come. She cast the child under one of the shrubs and went
about a bowshot away, for she said, "Let me not see the death of the child" (verse 16).