Behold No.2 Jehovah Jireh

VINYANKA PRADHANA PRAJALUDDHAM KUANG NOI KLAI HANA Just sit down, will you, and let's still keep those thoughts in our mind. And Lord, as we stand before you, we thank you again for your goodness and for your grace. Your mercies, they're new every morning.

Your faithfulness is utterly flawless. And your compassions, they don't fail. Be with those here who mourn.

We thank you for every sweet remembrance of Harry Binner. Thank you for the beauty of his life and the beauty of this floral arrangement, which reminds us of the creator who does all things well. We pray for family and friends, and not only for the Binner family, but for those for whom these last few days have brought back special memories of loved ones now with you.

We pray for all who are going through difficult circumstances and ask for your great grace. We pray for ourselves as a congregation that you'll make us have a spirit of empathy and concern, the one for the other. In the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen.

We'll turn to the NIV and read from Genesis 22. Sometime later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham, here I am, he replied.

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 the mountains I will tell you about. 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. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

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. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac.

And he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, Father, yes my son, Abraham replied. The fire and the 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. 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.

Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 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, he said. Don't do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.

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. 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. The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me.

Then Abraham returned to his servants and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba. The Lord will bless the public reading of his word.

Let's keep our Bibles open at that passage please. Have you ever noticed how the Bible deals in such a dismissive way with atheists? It doesn't give any room whatsoever for that position. In fact, we're told that the heavens declare the glory of God.

The moon and the sun, the existence of the planets, they show his handiwork. The apostle Paul, when he's writing to the Christians at Rome in that great letter that he directed to them, he speaks about the creation of the world, revealing the invisible qualities of God's nature, his eternal power, his divinity. It's clearly seen, says the apostle, being understood from what has been made so that men who don't take God into their reckoning are without excuse.

Indeed of atheism, the Bible says quite bluntly, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Around the world today, apart from certain enclaves within the Western world, the question is not that God is, but who God is. Because the vast majority of people give no truck whatsoever to atheism.

And when you come to the Bible, well, you discover that the full revelation of God is, of course, given through our Lord Jesus Christ. He comes as the exegesis of God. All that God is, he is.

All that he is, God is. He illustrates God. But that revelation, you have to wait until you get two-thirds the way through this holy book before you're given all the full revelation.

What does that mean then about the first two-thirds? Well, listen to the writer of the Hebrew epistle, because the author there says something quite interesting in regard to the revelation of God in the first part of Scripture. In the past, this is Hebrews 1, 1, in the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and so on and so forth.

In other words, the writer to the Hebrews is saying this, that in the Old Testament, there are fragments of information that are given to us about the character of God. The full display, you'll have to wait until the Lord Jesus comes. But here in the first part of this book, there is evidence as to the nature of the Lord.

And that's one of the reasons why we're starting with the Old Testament in this series that we've called Behold Your God. And last week, I brought you to the expression found earlier in Genesis, that God is El Shaddai, El, God, Sa, Hu, Sadai, Almighty, the Lord who is Almighty. And today, we're coming to another piece of information that's given to us about God.

We were singing that chorus, and rightly so, Jehovah Jireh. If you put together all the Hebrew that you have learned from the Old Testament, it will probably run into about 40 or 50 words, actually. Because there are times in the scriptures when the Old Testament Hebrew is not translated.

It's just depicted as the Jews would have pronounced it. And if you pronounce it, then obviously, you're speaking Hebrew. If El Shaddai means the Lord who is enough, what does Jehovah Jireh mean? Well, the Lord will provide.

But I like Charles Spurgeon's rendering. He says, Jehovah will do it. Jehovah will do it.

And it seems to me that if you went away with that crumb of information, if that was exciting your faith for this coming week, then your appearance here as a member of our congregation will not be in vain. Your circumstances are obviously varied. Hundreds of people, they represent differing problems, differing challenges.

And I want you to step out into Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday with the thought of Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will do it. The Hebrew there has got the connotation of the God who sees and the God who does.

It's not too easy, actually, to differentiate between the two in the original Hebrew. So, Spurgeon's rendering is very good. Jehovah will do it.

He will respond instinctively to that which he sees as a need in our experience. Though the way he responds and the way we want may be completely different. F.B. Meyer, a preacher from the earlier part of this century who was based in Leicester for a long time before he came to London, says this.

So long as men live in the world, they will turn to this great story with unwaning interest. Surpassed only when the great father gave his Isaac to a death from which there was no deliverance. It is a great story in Genesis 22.

And yet it's a difficult story. It's a story that brings some great ethical problems. My wife, Rowena, was telling me that one of her children articulated the difficulty.

And rightly so, from the perspective of a child just a few weeks ago. How could God test a man to the point of lifting a knife and almost plunging it into his heart? How could this God, who is a loving God, do that? Isn't it somewhat improper? Don't we on first reading of Genesis 22 shout out foul? That's not the way to play the game. A.J. Gordon says this.

God's providence is like the Hebrew Bible. We must begin at the end and read backwards in order to understand. Now, the familiarity with which you are virtually all acquainted with these Old Testament stories perhaps takes the shocking character of the first reading away from you.

And many of you have taken a sneak look at the last chapter of the Bible. I told you before that I can never tolerate Agatha Christie or detective stories because I always read the last chapter of any book first. And it ruins the book.

I always read the last paragraph in an article in a newspaper first because if they've got anything to say, they'll summarize it in the last paragraph. Now, in the book of Revelation, we know about this God and his triumph and his entry into this world through our Lord Jesus. And, of course, we get further information in the rest of the New Testament.

But Abraham didn't have this information. And Abraham is a child of his time. The day in which he lived was a crude day.

Ideas of God were sometimes quite brutal. For example, let's go to the prophecy of Micah just for a moment. Here is the prophet shedding a little bit of information that will help us as we come to this story in Genesis 22.

He's talking in terms of how to present himself before the Lord. Micah 6 and verse 6. With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You see, that was a practice in those days. And Micah is living eight centuries on from Abraham.

It was part of the tradition of the Canaanites that one did offer one's own child, the fruit of one's body, to this God to appease anything that might have caused him to look down on you in anger. And when the divine voice comes to Abraham, take your son. Your only son.

The son whom you love. And sacrifice him. It doesn't quite hit Abraham in the same way in which affects you and me.

It was part of the culture of that day, which God will exploit. And in the exploitation, he will correct. And in the correction, he will set for those who have sensitive eyes an even greater and more horrific scene.

When someone will allow a spear to be plunged into the heart of their beloved. And there will be no substitute. There will be no alternative whatsoever.

For here in Genesis 22 is something of an anticipation of the day when God spared not his own son. And on the basis of that, certain glorious consequences follow. One of the things I don't like about airplanes is the process of coming down.

Now, I like the thing down. And I like the engine stopped. But the last two minutes or so, you hit the ground, hopefully fairly kindly, the wheels just kissing the tarmac.

And then they reverse the engine. The whole thing is put in a backward thrust. And this is the reason why you need to wear your safety belt because otherwise you could be catapulted forward.

And it seems to me that when you get to Genesis 22, God seems to reverse the engines. As he says, take your son, your only son. But you gave me that son.

Well, you see, God has got this whole situation in his control. He's going to teach Abraham something. And he's going to teach you and me something because what is here is timeless.

And the first thing that I want to say about this great proclamation that Abraham makes when he calls this place, verse 14, the Lord will provide. And to this day, it is said on the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided. The first thing that I want to say is this, that Abraham's proclamation has more to do with deduction than revelation.

Did you hear? Our understanding of God's name in terms of Jehovah Jireh has more to do with Abraham's deduction than divine revelation. Somebody has said, the hearer of God's word ought to be like those animals that chew the cud. He ought not only to feed upon it, but to ruminate in it.

That was sent to Augustine, actually. Jews are very wonderful people in the way that they have been gifted. The great theaters of learning, of art, of philosophy, of psychology, great breakthroughs in medicine have often been attributed to those who come from the Jewish tradition.

The Jewish race, this is not a point of contention, it's a point of fact. They are contemplative people when they want to be. They're a meditative sort of person when they want to be.

And here is Abraham, and he's the father. He's going to be the father of this Jewish nation. Now, he has had several intimations from God.

There have been remarkable points in which God has shifted him in his life. He tested him in regard to his father. Will you get up from Ur of the Chaldees? Will you move away from your dad? And when father dies, will you continue to move on? Will you put yourself before me, before your father? Will you put me before your father? Will you put me here before your son? Abraham, as he hears this voice whispering into his ears about taking his son, has had time to reflect upon who God is and what God has disclosed and what deductions can be drawn through the actions that God has already taken upon his life.

God who would not accept Abraham's suggestion to let Ishmael live before you when he thought that God couldn't keep true to his promise and let a son be born from his loins. Abraham who got God out of a mess when it seemed as though his life was threatened and passed Sarah off, you remember, as his sister and not his wife. You see, Abraham begins to grow, to grow in grace, to grow in an understanding of God.

And what I'm saying here is this. That when he's confronted with this particular dilemma, he uses his own understanding, his own intellect. Somebody has said that people will travel four miles, we'll put it in wording context, will travel four miles to hear a sermon but will not spend four minutes in reflecting on the sermon afterwards.

Sometimes we Protestants are too quick on the draw in directing criticism at Catholics. There is something for the meditative, to be said for the meditative and the contemplative life. Abraham is a man who goes for walks with God, who sits in the council of the Lord.

Not often does God speak to him but Abraham has an awareness of God as I mentioned, as I argued last week. Richard Sibbes, known as the heavenly preacher in the law courts some centuries ago, he said, My God and I are good company. And Abraham is a thoughtful man.

And there is what you could call inductive reasoning that you find Abraham engaging in, in this chapter. For instance, as he takes his leave of his servants, he says in the fifth verse, We will worship and then we will come back to you. Now he knows full well the servants are not privy to the whole drama.

That he is to go to the top of Moriah and there sacrifice his son. And yet Abraham is working this out inductively, he's using reason. He believes that Isaac will come back somehow with him.

Why? Because of the relationship that exists between Abraham and his friend, the Lord Almighty. When God whispered the name El Shaddai into Abraham's ear, it was revelation. But this is not revelation.

Not Jehovah Jireh. Where does God here tell Abraham that this is his name? He doesn't. It is his name, but it is his name through Abraham's recognition of this attribute.

Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. And this is my argument at this point in terms of application. My dear friends, we do not allow God sufficient time to reason with us.

Come then, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Some of you say, if only I had a greater experience of God, then things would be that much easier.

Here is my retort, here is my response. How much time do you give to this God? A. W. Tozer says, the man who would know God must give him time. And you see, unless you have given God time, when the great dilemmas of life come in, when certain things fall across your pathway, the possibility is that you will panic and draw a wrong conclusion.

Abraham does not. And ultimately, he births this term as a description of God. As a result of his own innate spirituality, Jehovah Jireh, it has more to do with deduction than revelation.

And what's more, it places prediction firmly alongside conviction. Abraham called that place, verse 14, the Lord will provide. And to this day it is said on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.

Here is strong feeling. Spurgeon says, the confident speech of the believer is akin to the language of a prophet. I believe in prophecy today.

I believe in the whole panoply of spiritual gifts today. I've never budged, never flinched from saying this. All the years that I've been at the tab, I reserve the right to judge in terms of an alleged manifestation of a gift.

But the Apostle Paul has put no qualification on the invitation to prophesy in Romans. Not in Corinthians, in Romans, though it is also in Corinthians, but my reference here is in Romans 12. Let a man prophesy according to the proportion of faith.

The confident speech of the believer is akin to the language of a prophet. When your prophecy is intermingled with the promises of God, you're on sure ground. And Abraham likewise is.

The Lord will provide. Now look, he's naming a place. I've only ever been associated with one other church besides this, apart from the place where I was brought up as a lad for any length of time at any rate.

Now a church treasurer in North London called his home Hitherto. I think I've mentioned this before. I often wondered what the postman thought in the morning when he's got his batch of mail and he's popping it through the letter box of this house called Hitherto.

Now those of you who are well acquainted with the Old Testament and the authorised version of the Bible will know that there's a great and glorious scripture that says, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. If you want me to confuse you more, that's an interpretation of the Hebrew word Ebenezer. Which does not actually describe an old man with a flowing beard, but actually earmarks one of the characteristics of God.

He helps. Hitherto this man called his house. Well here is Abraham and he is going to name the mount where God has got him out of the dilemma.

Because you know the story well, that Isaac is not going to be sacrificed. God has something else instead. And so as a result of the provision of this ram and the staying of Abraham's hand, he names the spot.

The Lord will provide. Now he should have called it the Lord has provided. Or at the point of this activity, the Lord is providing, but he doesn't.

He casts it in the future tense. The Lord will provide. He weds prediction to conviction.

And he brings into birth a prophecy, or if you like a proverb, that the Hebrews many will live with throughout the whole of their lives. You know what a proverb is. A stitch in time saves nine.

Too many cooks spoil the broth, that's why. Don't rush to wash up after Sunday lunch because there may be too many people. But I'm sure that you all do that in any case.

Man's extremity is God's opportunity. Ah yes, but look at this. It's exciting.

I've never noticed this before. I only spotted this yesterday. I was running with Lane Gruber yesterday and wearing him to death telling him about this thing that I just discovered from the word of the Lord.

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. You see it's a proverb.

It's a proverbial expression. As though looking back, well listen to one commentator, he expresses it better than I can. The event is so unusual, the character involved is so prominent, that Moses when he wrote this up hundreds of years later heard from trusty witnesses this proverbial saying had been perpetuated.

Men will still want to speak of that hill as the mount of Yahweh and to recount the substance of the experience in the words on the hill of Yahweh provision is made. This is not just conviction. It's prediction.

You understand what I'm trying to say? There is somebody out there. You're listening. You see, Abraham is amongst the prophets.

Don't put prophecy on such a high level that you feel that no ordinary person can ever move into the area where God is revealing to them. God is supplementing and confirming our understanding of scripture. My appreciation of preaching at its best is that it has a prophetic element in as much as the unction of the spirit comes upon the preacher and he makes relevant to the people the written word of God.

And sometimes they'll go out and they will chew over what has been said because the word came with power. And here is Abraham. And to the conviction that the Lord has provided, he moves into prophecy and he employs prediction.

God is to be trusted, says Thomas Watson. I'm still in the Puritan age. I love these men.

God is to be trusted when his providences seem to run contrary to his promises. God is to be trusted when his providences seem to run contrary to his promises. You know, the promises of God to Abraham was that this boy, after he had been called Isaac, he would be the means whereby the promises that God made to Abraham would be fulfilled and he would become the father of many, many people.

But here his providences seem to be opposed to his promises. And Abraham is still able to cope. Because he does believe, even as he starts to climb the mount, that somehow, in an incomprehensible fashion, at that moment, as far as Abraham was concerned, God will get him out of his difficulty.

You say, but Abraham and Mariah, they're far removed from my situation. I've got horrific things, however, to get through in my life. I have habits I can't put down.

I've got problems at home, my marriage, my job. And I just can't cope. Listen.

The Apostle Paul, writing to Corinthians, the tenth chapter and the thirteenth verse of the first epistle, There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted more than you are able, and will, through the temptation, make a way of escape. That's Jehovah-Jireh theology.

This is the consistent hermeneutic, the consistent principle throughout the whole of scripture. This Lord will see to it. He will help you through.

He will help you to cope. Somebody has said of this incident that it's just like the drawing of a great artist who has in mind a greater work. The pencil sketch is perfect in its own right.

Yet the finished painting far surpasses the original drawing in which the same hand can be seen to have been at work. Here is Abraham, here is Isaac, and here is this great God. It's the pencil drawing.

And then there comes the masterpiece. That awful day. When God's own Son is on that skull-shaped hill.

And there is no staying of the hand. God provides a way whereby your sins can be resolved. Now says the apostle, if he's been faithful in the greater, will he not be faithful in the lesser? If he has done this for you, will he not therefore give you all things? This, you see, is the conviction of Abraham.

He's writing a prophetic note. His prediction runs alongside his conviction. As should be the case for us too.

His loving times past forbids me to think. He'd leave me at last in trouble to sink. Each bold Ebenezer I hold in review confirms his great promise to see me right through.

I've known widow ladies come into my office and say, I'm not going to be able to cope. And years later, they've said that they have been able. What has happened? Well, they have discovered the provision, the resources of God.

You see, there's more than one ram that's caught in a thicket. There's more than one means whereby God can move into our situation and help us out. So let me hasten on to what is my third and final conclusion about this incident, which I haven't dealt with graphically because I'm assuming that you have knowledge, and it was read so beautifully to us in any case, of the events.

Here's my last deduction. The theology is more important than the geography. The theology is more important than the geography.

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. Now, the geography was important, especially in Old Testament times.

You read through the book of Chronicles. You'll discover that this is where the Ark of the Covenant came to rest. Again, I must just rapidly sketch all these things so that they're in front of you, but not with any degree of minuteness in detail.

There isn't time. It's here that the temple is built. It's to this place, around which will be built the walls of Jerusalem, that the Jews will look.

When you read the Psalms of the sense, which speak about going to Zion, when you read of the encouragement in the Old Testament for the Hebrews there to leave Galilee and the southern parts of Palestine and move to Jerusalem, what do they have in mind? Well, they're going to the place where Abraham was met by God in the sacrifice of Isaac, or the attempted sacrifice. If you take a flight to Tel Aviv today, you'll quickly be on a bus that will take you within 45 minutes to Jerusalem. And there you'll see the Dome of the Rock, this great mosque, which towers over the rock on which Abraham was to have sacrificed Isaac.

Basic to Jewish theology and Islamic theology is the importance, the geographical importance of Moriah. And just a little to the side of where Abraham is to sacrifice Isaac, or so he thought, our blessed Lord Jesus will be slain. These are not accidental things.

These are all part of the predetermined purposes of God. Abraham will mirror God. Abraham will anticipate God.

And in this area where the drama is to take place, when Isaac is to go willingly as a sacrifice and yield himself to the knife of his father, so a greater than Isaac shall offer himself. And Jehovah God will take the knife and allow the death of his son. But I tell you, the theology is more important than the geography.

What do I mean? God does not covenant now to be with us just in one geographical location. Where two or three are gathered together are the sweet words of the Nazarene, there I am in the midst. That's why you can take the first part of Hymns of Faith, those great hymns that enjoin us to praise and worship.

Let's go up to Zion. We are the people of Zion. We can approach Zion.

Because Zion is no longer a geographical entity, though I'm not in any way suggesting that there is no interest in Jerusalem and so on and so forth. But all that it stood for now pervades the whole world in terms of the availability of the provisions of God and the presence of God. And this is why Christian people come together in their communities around the world to worship the Lord and to feel his great presence and to know his provision.

Someone has said we turn to God when our foundations are shaking. Only often to learn that it is God that is shaking them. And God was shaking the foundations of Abraham in order to give Abraham a greater conception of who he is.

And God is shaking the foundations of some of you here. Some of you have had to surrender your Isaac and for a number it's not been a voluntary submission. But if he takes away it's only that he can replace.

One thing he will never do is abdicate his responsibility as far as you are concerned. Listen again. The Apostle Paul, he does it so beautifully.

He that spared not his own son, will he not therefore give you all things? You don't need to go to the actual place, Moriah. You don't need to fly to the temple area. The theology is more important than the geography.

Abraham says Jehovah, Jireh and it becomes proverbial amongst the Hebrews. He always will provide. It's a character of God.

It's his natural activity. Take the name into Monday and into Tuesday and so forth. And live by what you've heard this morning.

Amen. The Son of Man will arise. With Him in all His glory arise.

Father, what can we say in the face of such love? We ask that you'll send us on our way with sustenance to be able to cope with all that lies in front of us. You didn't make it easy for Abraham. You exploited a practice of the day and gave it its correction.

But you showed him, for he lived to see the day of Christ prophetically. As you show us that there was no way out for you in resolving the sin question of this world. Apart from the offering of our beloved Savior.

We thank you that you have done that for us. And that you've promised that your love will continue with us to the end of life's journey. You will stay with us down to the end of life's journey.

For you are Jehovah Jireh. To you be all unqualified praise, honor and obedience. And all the people of God said.