WHAT'S IN A NAME? Jehovah Jireh

Genesis 22:1 “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered.”

- God TESTED Abraham

What was about to come wasn’t a test designed to produce faith as much as it was a test designed to reveal faith.

Through the years, as the Lord revealed Himself, His purposes, and His plans to Abraham…through test after test, The Lord was building Abraham into a man of great faith. The test that was coming would reveal the intensity of faith that God had built into Him.

Genesis 22:2 “Take your son,” he said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

It should probably go without saying that there’s an obvious question here: How could God ask Abraham to do something like this?

Simple answer: God knew He was never going to let Abraham kill Isaac.

God is asking Abraham…and us…”Are you prepared to love and obey me completely or with conditions?”

As great an as example as Abrahams faith is, that's really not the point of the story. The hero of this text isn’t Abraham. It’s the Lord.

The emphasis is the even greater provision of God

The last verse of the passage we’ll study today contains these words: , “Abraham named that place The Lord Will Provide” – JEHOVAH JIREH

THE LORD WILL PROVIDE – Not only is the provision of God for His people the major theme of Genesis 22 but to the entirety of scripture, and yes our own lives and experiences.

The original Hebrew “Yahweh Yireh” is even more direct.
It literally means, “The Lord who will see to it”. Our God sees you. He sees your experience. He you’re your needs…and we can trust that He can and will meet them.

He is Jehovah Jireh. The Lord who sees, knows and provides in every waking second of our lives, exactly what we need.

I’ve come to know and love this name of God because I’ve experienced His provision over and over in my life. You have too.

Truly recognizing the Lord as Jehovah Jireh will transform our lives. Let me show you how.

1.KNOWING GOD AS JEHOVAH JIRAH MEANS I CAN LEAN INTO HIS PROMISES AND NOT THE PARTICULARS

Abrahams story contains few particulars when it concerns how the Lord commanded him.

- God told him to go but didn’t give him an address
- God said, “I’ll give you a son” but no timeline
- God said, “Sacrifice your son” with no explanation

YET faith is obedience without all the details.

I am convinced that Abraham was confident in obedience because He was focused more on who he was obeying than he was on the command he was being asked to obey.

It was because Abraham knew the WHO that he could obey without understanding the WHAT or the WHY.

Genesis 22:2, “Take your son,” he said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

The command - Take Isaac and go to the “land of Moriah”. The word land means “region” and offer him as a sacrifice on a mountain that I'll identify for you in My time.

THIS is most often how the Lord operates with His people.

He will give a direction but rarely an exact destination. He makes a promise but usually doesn’t give the particulars.

Genesis 22:3 “So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his young men and his son Isaac. He split wood for a burnt offering and set out to go to the place God had told him about.”

Again, we need remind ourselves that this act of faithful obedience on Abraham’s part is not an isolated event. Throughout His story, God had made some strange demands on his life and time and time again, had proven Himself faithful.

Abraham obeyed not because he possessed a perfect faith but because He knew a perfect God. He had experienced Jehovah Jireh – the Lord had provided wisdom when he lacked clear direction, Isaac when he struggled with doubt…over and over again.
Because of this, though the why wasn’t clear, the what was fuzzy and the how didn’t make sense: Abraham was able to walk in obedience because the WHO that was commanding him was His provider.

Before we move on, I want you to see something that’s easily missed in verse 4. Abraham had made his way to the region that the Lord had directed him, split that wood and was ready. Still no details on where this sacrifice was to take place.

“On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance”

He saw and he knew. The Lord had revealed the place of sacrifice.

That doesn’t happen from his living room back home. It doesn’t happen while he was meditating on it in the backyard. Abraham saw and knew ONLY AFTER he’d moved in the direction that God had called him.

Could it be that many never really experience the power of Gods great provision because they’ve never taken those first few faith steps in the direction He’s leading us in?

We don’t have to know the entire plan when we know the Provider.
We need not obsess over details when Jehovah Jirah has made the declaration.

KNOWING God as Jehovah Jireh means that I can lean into His promises even when I don’t have the particulars.

2.KNOWING GOD AS JEHOVAH JIREH MEANS THAT I CAN SEE OBSTACLES AS OPPORTUNITIES FOR HIM TO SHOW HIS FAITHFULNESS

God had made a promise to do something remarkable through Isaac – a nation and from that nation, the Messiah and yet, the Lord had also called upon Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. It made no sense.

We don’t know much about the three day journey to the region.
We can know that three days is plenty of time to second guess, come up with another plan or to think of reasons to justify turning around.

While the thoughts and emotions that must have flooded Abrahams mind during this three day period are hidden from us, one thing isn’t…at some point, Abraham decided that this obstacle was an opportunity for Jehovah Jireh to prove Himself faithful yet again.

He could not reconcile these two things he knew but decided to obey anyway.

It's also imperative to mention the faith of Isaac here.

Genesis 22:5-6 “Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.” Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac. In his hand he took the fire and the knife, and the two of them walked on together”

Verse 6 tells us that Abraham carries the fire and knife up the mountain BUT Isaac carries the wood.

Why is that important? Because Isaac isn’t a toddler or scrawny kid at this point. Scholars agree that he’s somewhere between 18 and his mid-thirties. Jewish tradition teaches he was 33 years old. Abraham was around 120.

My point is, if Isaac didn’t agree to what was happening, it wouldn’t have.
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Abraham is not only willing to lay Isaac down on the altar, Isaac was willing to be tied to it.

Genesis 22:7-8 “Then Isaac spoke to his father Abraham and said, “My father.” And he replied, “Here I am, my son.” Isaac said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Then the two of them walked on together”

Once again, neither Abraham not Isaac fully understood what was being asked of them but both understood that the Lord was Jehovah Jireh. He would provide.
If that meant He’d provide a substitute sacrifice, so be it.
If that meant He’d provide a resurrection after the sacrifice was made, so be it.

They didn’t know how but Jehovah Jireh would transform the obstacle into an opportunity to prove His faithfulness once again.

3.KNOWING GOD AS JEHOVAH JIREH MEANS THAT ALTHOUGH WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS LIFE IS UNSURE, MY PLACE IN ETERNITY IS SECURE

Genesis 22:9-14 “When they arrived at the place that God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” He replied, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me.” Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. And Abraham named that place The Lord Will Provide, so today it is said, “It will be provided on the Lord’s mountain.”
Abraham and Isaac made it to the place of sacrifice and constructed the altar.
Isaac allowed his father to tie his to the altar and Abraham raised the knife high above Isaac, completely willing to plunge it into the body of his son, believing by faith that God would raise him from the dead (Hebrews 11:19)
At this moment, the Lord speaks to his servant – “You have obeyed Me. You were willing to give up what most precious to you. Do not harm your son. I have revealed myself to you as Jehovah Jireh – and have provided you a ram in those bushes as a substitute sacrifice”

This anonymous mountaintop is given a name by Abraham.
Notice that Abraham doesn’t name it “Mount Testing", "Mount Faith" or "Mount Obedience", though all of those things are present and important parts of the story

I told you at the beginning of our time together that this story wasn’t really about the testing, obedience or faith of Abraham. It really isn’t about Abraham at all.

He’d agree and here’s how we know that: “Abraham named that place The Lord Will Provide” – Jehovah Jireh

The story of Abraham is a beautiful and powerful picture of the character and nature of God and the overarching lesson for us is wonderfully simple: God provides for His people. He is Jehovah Jireh and you can trust Him to meet your needs.

THAT IS SEEN MOST CLEARLY IN THE GOSPEL and Genesis 22 is an Old Testament Gospel Presentation

Isaac is a foreshadow of the sacrifice that God would make with His only begotten son, Jesus
- Both Isaac and Jesus were sons of a promise made many years before their birth
- Both were born in a miraculous fashion
- Both were sons loved by their fathers
- Both Isaac and Jesus carried sacrificial wood on their backs
- Both were willing to lay their lives down in obedience to their father
- Both asked their father a question just before the sacrifice was to be made

BUT that is where the similarities end.

For Isaac, there was a ram in the thicket – for Jesus, there was no substitute. He was the ram in the thicket.
God the Father went through with what Abraham the father didn’t have to – God sacrificed His only begotten son.

YOU SEE, man sits in the place of Isaac with Gods knife of judgment raised above us, ready to take our lives as a just penalty for our sins.
YET we serve Jehovah Jireh and while were sinners, deserving of death and hell, He sent His only Son to die so that we could live. Christ died for us.

Ephesians 2:4-8 “God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift”