Part Five: Jehovah-Jireh, My Provider.
So far we have looked at:
Elohim: Creator, Covenant Making Father, Character of Trinity
Jehovah: Revealed Revelation, Promise of Real Relationship, Redeemer
El Shaddai: the Almighty over Nature, Almighty to Nourish, Almighty to Nurture
Adonai: Right Relationship of Slave and Master; Right Relationship with the
Lord: Our Rights to Relinquish
Today we are going to look at Jehovah-Jireh.
Use of the Word in the OT.
The names of God that we are going to look at from now are given to Him (mostly) in response to an event that shows His righteousness, compassion, love and so on.
Remember Jehovah (Yahweh) means self-existent, life giving, eternal One. “I am!”
Jehovah-Jireh literally means Jehovah “sees” or “provides”, or the One Who Sees and Provides.
Jehovah Jireh is connected to an event in Genesis 22, when Abraham was told by God to go and sacrifice his son, Isaac.
Genesis 22:1-15
Everything in Abraham’s life had been to prepare him for this moment! The great promise over his life had been fulfilled; he had a son and heir who would carry on the dynasty promised to him. All hope was vested in Isaac.
In this instance Elohim appears to Abraham with this incredible command – to offer Isaac as a burnt offering to God. Now to those of us who have read this account on many occasions we gloss over the gravity of this command – we’re familiar with it. To those of us who are new believers we might think, “How cruel!”
But the Word records no anguish on Abraham’s part – only obedience! What a change for the earlier days of his life! Abraham has reached a place of spiritual maturity that is nothing to do with age.
“Maturity does not come with age but with the acceptance of responsibility” – Ed Cole.
It seems that God provides when we step out, not when we shrink back!
Let’s walk through this passage together. In this we are going to learn more about God our provider and when He provides!
1. There Must Be the Refiner's Fire
Does God test? Is there a difference between tempting and testing?
What do we learn from the following?
Ex 20:20: Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning."
Deut 8:2: Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.
Deut 8:16: He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.
What is the purpose of the test in these passages from Exodus & Deuteronomy?
To humble us, that we know our heart. For our good
1 Peter 1:6-7: In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Illustration: when a silversmith refines silver that keep exposing it to heat, scraping off the dross, and repeat until they can see their face clearly in it!
Psalm 66:10: For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver.
In Genesis 22:2: Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
“Sacrifice him….” Or “Offer him…”
“Only son” parallels the NT phrase "only begotten" the Greek word monogeneses which describes Jesus in John 1:14 and Isaac in Hebrews 11:17.
“Whom you love” ('ahab) (definition) – this is the first use of "love" in Scripture!
You see my friends; the refining of God’s fire on us is most intense when we are willing to sacrifice that which we love. It’s easy to give up something we don’t love! But that is not sacrifice, that’s offloading!
“Burnt offering”: again the Hebrew here is very significant. Hebrew 'olah = burnt sacrifice. The key feature of an 'olah appears to be that among the Israelite sacrifices only 'olah is wholly burned, rather than partially burned and eaten by the worshipers and/or the priest.
Thus, the whole animal is brought up to the altar and the whole is offered as a gift in homage to Jehovah. It is indeed burned, but the burning is essentially secondary to the giving of the whole creature to Yahweh.
Thus this offering symbolised total surrender of the heart and life of the worshiper to God!
You see the real fire of sacrifice here was not going to be on the alter, but in the heart of Abraham!
Gen 22:4: On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.
The place! But it took three days to even get sight of it!
Think of what Abraham must have been thinking as he walks along! Remember that in Gen 21:12b God had promised him that: “…it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”
This would have been about 15 years earlier (estimate based on fact that Isaac now a young lad capable of carrying wood on back). So now the son of promise is to be sacrificed!
The dilemma? How will God fulfil His covenant promise that through Isaac the line of Abraham would come?
Gen 22:11-12a: But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy,"
BUT!
Our problem as Christians is that we can think that God is always going to provide at just before midnight! You know, just before the knife falls. But the truth is often He does not! Often He Does want us to follow through on the sacrifice of our Isaac!
John 12:24-25: I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Do we really believe this?
2. There Must Be a Response
Gen 22:1: Here I am
How immediate and complete was his surrender? Some people surrender like a fish on a hook – they struggle, fight, and wonder why they feel yanked by God!
Gen 22:3: Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.
Rose early> Saddle> Took> Split Wood > Arose > Went to the place told
What kind of attitude did he have to this? He does it out of a worshipping heart!
Gen 22:5: He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."
- What will they do at Moriah? We will Worship
The Hebrew word for "worship" here is shachah ( LXX translates with the Greek verb proskuneo) which means to “bow self-down, crouch, fall down flat, humbly beseech.”
Abraham when tested testified to his young men accompanying them that he and Isaac were going to "bow down". They were submitting their will to God's sweet, good and perfect will.
They exercised real faith which does not believe in spite of evidence but is obeying in spite of consequences!
- What does this express about his faith? We will come back to you
The fact that they will return is clearly an indication Abraham believed God's promise that through Isaac his descendants would be named and that God's promise would not be thwarted.
Remember that Abraham is about 115-130 years old (one cannot be dogmatic) so he has walked with Jehovah for at least 40 years and has grown to know and trust God's character and His Faithfulness
Abraham by this stage in his life has a complete trust in God – but it has taken him years of struggling to get there. Sometimes struggling to get Father’s promises actually delays the blessing!
We only struggle with what God requires of us when we don’t want to do it!
Delayed obedience equates with disobedience
Abraham understands that covenant means withholding nothing from God!
There is a picture here of Jesus and the cross!
Gen 22:6: “Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.”
The wood is carried by Isaac (not child) is a picture of Jesus bearing His own cross in Jn 19:17 and bearing our sins in His body on the cross in 1 Pet 2:24.
Gen 22:8: Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.
Note the future tense of this. Sometimes we want Father God to provide today, but we have not walked to the place of provision yet!
Where is Abraham's trust and confidence?
Gen 22:9: When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
“The Place!” The Temple Mount today is in the approximate site of Mt Moriah and means ‘the place where Yhwh sees’) where Abraham offered Isaac his "only son" whom he loved.
Gen 22:10: Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
If we are to "worship" we must come to Him with total, unconditional surrender & obedience. This is the foundation for genuine worship.
Meeting God as Jehovah-Jireh is not to do with sowing or reaping or thinking He will stay our hand over that which we would offer Him. It is complete abandonment to Him!
Rom 12:1-2: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship.
You see it’s not someone else we should be laying on the altar- it’s us!
3. There Must Be a Revelation
This all takes place a Moriah (Gen 22:2).
Moriah was the place where the Temple was eventually built (2 Sam 24: 24; 2 Chr 3:1)
It means the “place God sees”
What did Abraham believe?
Heb 11:17-19: By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. "Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
No death, no resurrection.
Jehovah ("I Am"... everything you will ever need) sees our needs & provides for those needs. The greatest gift ensures all the rest.
Gen 22:7: Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.
Where is the Lamb?
Abraham trusting wholly in his Covenant Partner explains that God will provide the lamb. This clearly foreshadows God's provision of the "Lamb of God" some 2000 years after Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.
What did God "know"?
Gen 22:12: “Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."
Abraham feared God. Not withheld your son, your only son from Me
Fear of God is manifest in obedience to His commands, which also equates with faith. To fear God means to believe his word fully and absolutely, and to be loyal to his directives. Fear God here means to reverence Him as sovereign, trust Him implicitly & obey Him w/o question.
God does not delight in the external acts and the ritual of worship. God always inspects the giver, before he inspects the gift.
Gen 22:13: Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
Clearly we see the pattern of a substitutionary sacrifice.
The ram was God’s provision in place of Isaac, and Jesus Christ is God’s substitutionary provision for the whole world. In this experience, Abraham saw Christ by faith (or because of his faith and obedience).
Gen 22:14: So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."
Named the place Jehovah-Jireh meaning “Jehovah will provide” or "Jehovah sees.” We take this as a name for God also for it was He who provided.
As we look back in our lives we probably have those Jehovah Jireh places, where the Lord has provided too!
4. There Must Be a Time of Reflection
Faith is not shown to be real until it is tested
God's ways are so much higher than man's ways -- we tend to look at the temporal when we need to focus on the eternal!
Delayed obedience = immediate disobedience
Partial obedience = complete disobedience
Real faith is not believing in spite of the evidence but obeying in spite of the consequences!
Need to understand the Core Principle and the General Principle.
What we tend to is see the General principle and apply that as though it is a Core principle!
Core principles create the General principle, but the General principle is only discovered by realising the Core principle!
E.G.: “for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29 – NKJV).
As a General principle we see this in people –they can be called and gifted yet at times waiver and backslide, yet are still called and gifted, bringing about frustration. That’s the General principle.
The Core principle – where it was first applied – is concerning Israel and God’s heart towards her as a nation. They too are away from God as a nation right now, but God has still called them!
- Core Principle: Jehovah-Jireh, my provider, is seen on Moriah and is a Core principle built over many years of trust and faith in God! In the Core Principle we see the provision of Jesus as a substitutionary sacrifice for us all!
- General Principle: Philippians 4:19: And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. All of our needs, not all our "greeds."
This means that every believer can access this promise, this General principle, from day one of their salvation. But the Core principle is only realised and fully understood by those who are willing to sacrifice everything for Jehovah-Jireh.
Illustration: Strengthening the core: One of this things that helps with posture is strengthening the core muscles in the torso. There are several exercises that do this but the most strenuous is called the plank! Sam is going to demonstrate this. The plank strengthens the core area (abdominals, back and hips). But by strengthening the core we actually develop good posture and walk upright!
We need to strengthen the Core of our faith in the same way. When we do our walk with Him is more upright!
For us to understand this we will face Moriah’s in our life – mountains that we climb that are to do with God seeing our walk.
Moriah is from the same root as Jireh in the Hebrew, and means “He sees!”
Sometimes we’ll be going up the mountain of Moriah in our lives, the mountain of sacrifice, and we wonder what we’re doing, but God is watching and seeing our hearts!
Moriah is not a mountain of conquering problems or difficulties. It is a mountain of sacrifice. A mountain of surrender!
Wrapping it up:
The Christian life is surrendering of all we are to God. It is holding nothing back. It is obediently giving Him what He wants and trusting Him to supply whatever we might need.
God did not want Isaac's life, He wanted Abraham's heart.
What is your "Isaac" that you dearly love and you would rather God not ask you to release to Him?
How would you answer God's question...
"Do you love Me more than ___________?"
Can you honestly say..."Whatever you want God"? Are you afraid of what the Almighty might do?
Dearly beloved, remember that Jehovah stands behind His name and is forever the Covenant keeping God!
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