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I always loved bicycles from my youth to the point where I taught myself to ride but on someone else’ s bike. I remember one summer, while staying by my cousin’ s, we discovered my older cousin’ s bike locked away. He was grown up and not living at home anymore. Though that bike had no tires on its rims we rode it day after day on the dirt path that extended along the half acre backyard. I was about nine years old then but as I grew older and lived in different places I would have friends with bikes that I would borrow to ride and keep my skills up. It was a bit difficult and even embarrassing at times, to be always borrowing and especially in a country where bicycles were a novelty and expensive.
I was an only child living with a single parent, my mother. She could not easily afford a bicycle but at about 10 years of age my mother told me that she had contacted my father and months before the national exam agreed to buy me a bicycle if I passed. This was a major exam taken by all primary school students who would either move on to high school, or if they failed be transferred to the local secondary school. This news made me very happy and I dreamt about my promised bicycle everyday. I wanted what was then the‘ Chopper bicycle’ complete with a padded seat that had a back rest. Like hippy bikes, it had raised‘ v’ type handles, a smaller front tire and a larger, broader rear tire. I rode a friend’ s once and was just totally elated by the experience. My hopes were sky high.
Having taken the exam I could not wait to hear the results. However, the marking process of that national exam took a couple of months, so we finally received our results months later. I passed, and what a glorious day that was. Hurray!! I had done my part, now it was time for my parents to do their part to fulfil their promise and deliver my Chopper Bicycle.
IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME
Like earthly parents our Heavenly Father has also given many great and precious promises. The greatest of these was the promise of His son Jesus Christ. As a mother’ s pregnancy promises new birth so time was pregnant with the promise of Jesus, and in the fullness of time He was born. The coming of Jesus was no secret. Thousands of years before His birth in Bethlehem, His coming was prophesied.
There is overwhelming evidence to support the fact that from the very fall of Adam and Eve God had communicated through prophecy and symbolism, the coming of a Redeemer that would set right what Adam had lost. Jesus’ coming was prophesied in the garden of Eden, when God told the devil that the Seed of the woman would crush his head. The first animal killed was killed by God and it’ s skin was used to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve. This was very symbolic of Jesus as the Lamb of God shedding His blood to cover our sins.
THE LAMB SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD
When Abraham took his son, Isaac, up the mountain to sacrifice him as God commanded, Isaac asked;“‘ Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ And Abraham said,‘ My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.’” Abraham knew this by revelation and through relationship with God, and so was assured that God would send His own lamb to die in place of Isaac. With this knowledge, Abraham was confident that either he would not die, or God would raise him from the dead.
Jesus was,“... the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”( Rev 13:8.). Many symbolisms and prophecies in the scriptures point to the coming of Jesus. In fact, the entire Old Testament scripture was about Jesus. So great was the expectation of Jesus’ arrival on earth that when He was born angels sang. As John the Baptist saw what Abraham spoke of thousands of years before, he exclaimed,“ Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”( John 1:29). When Simeon saw Him he exclaimed,“ My eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of
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