Genesis 22:7-13 And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. Then he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and placed the wood in order, and he bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And He said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. Then Abraham lifted up 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.
One of the major themes of Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets) is called Akedat Yitzchak, which means the Binding of Isaac. According to Jewish tradition, God told Abraham that the ram’s horn – otherwise known as a shofar – should be blown on Feast of Trumpets to remind people of the sacrifice that God provided Himself when Abraham was about to offer Isaac on Mount Moriah. It’s abundantly clear that this event in the life of Abraham and Isaac foreshadowed God the Father’s offering of His Son, providing Yeshua (Jesus) as a sacrifice for all men.
As we now are in the midst of the “Days of Awe” – traditionally, a time of repentance between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur – let us take the time to examine ourselves, turning from sin again, toward our loving Creator, as we celebrate the fact that our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Through His perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God, Yeshua, God’s forgiveness is eternal and His love, everlasting.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]The Moravian revival, our current subject, began in the little community of Herrnhut on August 13, 1727, with a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit likened to that of Acts 2. It was a work of God that would transform this group of splintered Christian settlers into a unified missionary endeavor committed to reaching the unsaved around the world.
As we discussed last week, the word for “sign” in ancient Hebrew is “oht”. It was used in Genesis to designate God’s covenant sign with Noah, (the rainbow). And we see now the same word again, in Exodus, identified with the deliverance of the Jewish people from the tenth plague, when the angel of death passed through all Egypt to strike the firstborn. Anyone under the “sign” of the blood was spared.
This is one of my favorite promises in the Bible — that God turns mourning into dancing! He takes away the anguish of being clothed in sadness and replaces it with gladness. However, notice what God doesn’t do — simply stop your mourning and make it disappear. No, He transforms it…into joy!
With war drums beating even more intensely in Iran and Syria, we’ve received numerous phone calls and emails expressing their concerns — and understandably so! Nevertheless, even in this climate of anxiety, we are preparing to enter into Shabbat (the Hebrew word for Sabbath) this afternoon. And as we do, we are remembering again, the deep lesson of God’s entering into His rest following the six creation days.
A sailor who was shipwrecked on a desert island was captured by some of the natives of that island. They carried him off on their shoulders to their village, where he was sure he would end up being the main course. But instead, they put a crown on his head and made him king. He was enjoying all the attention he was receiving but was growing a little suspicious. He started making inquiries and discovered that their custom was to crown a stranger king for a year and at the end of that year the crowned king would be sent to a deserted island where he was allowed to starve to death.
Some of the wealthiest individuals in the United States are real estate developers. They make their money by buying a piece of property that is terribly run down, seemingly useless, without any value to the naked eye and reforming it completely, making it look brand new! These businessmen are not as much interested in what is on the property as they are interested in the land it’s on!
For those of you who didn’t get that title, it’s a well known children’s Suzuki violin rhythm.
Not long ago, I came across an old issue of Homemade, where Dr. Ernest Mellor writes on fostering good relationships. This is so good I had to share.