Revive Us As Our Provider - Revive Us Part 4 Series

Revive Us - Part 4

Revive Us as Our Provider

Genesis 22:1-14

It was a warm summer’s evening in 1968. My folks had been divorced for over a year, I was seven years old, old enough to know we were in trouble. My mother, my sister and I had been trying to survive in a single run-down hotel room on the wrong side of town for a number of months while Mom tried desperately to make ends meet. A single mother raising two kids (6 and 7 years old) is hard in anyone’s books. Add to that the harsh demands of poverty and life becomes unforgivingly difficult.

That particular evening Mom had called us to the supper table - and I knew that we were all out of food, and all out of money to buy any with.

We bowed our heads to pray - and I wondered how Mom was going to do this. She thanked God for His faithfulness and for the food we were about to eat. I was watching Mom. Where was she going to pull the food from? How could she be thanking God for food we did not have? Why were we sitting down at the table when there was noting on the table? It was awkward, but I knew enough not to say anything - just to watch.

But I was watching in the wrong direction. I was looking at Mom, but Mom was looking to God. Mom had grown up in a home that knew God as Yahweh Jireh - Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. When Mom was a child during the depression, her mother had sat at an empty table like ours and thanked God for the food. And just then a local farmer had arrived with a bag of flour and a basket of veggies, some milk and a few other things. You see, Mom had grown up believing that God is a faithful God - and had many, many times in her life seen God provide their needs in miraculous ways. So there we were - I was looking at Mom, and Mom was looking to God. "Amen" Mom said at the end of the prayer - I looked at Mom - nothing. I looked at the empty table and the empty table was still the empty table.

But just then there was a knock on the door - Mom got up to answer it - and would you believe it, a couple from our church was there. God had laid on his and his wife’s hearts to put together a huge basket of fruit and veggies and other food stuffs - and to bring it to us, and wanted to know if that would be all right with us.

We are studying our way through a mini-series entitled "Revive Us."

Psalm 9:10 tells us that ". . . those who know Your Name will put their trust in you!" Speaking of this verse C.H. Spurgeon notes that "Ignorance is worst when it amounts to ignorance of God, and knowledge is best when it exercises itself upon the Name of God."

By ‘knowledge’ we are not referring simply to that intellectual appreciation that comes from diligent study, but to that ‘knowing’ that comes from personal intimacy.

You see my friend, your walk with God will rise no higher than your knowledge of God.

The better you know God the more you will seek Him.

The better you know God the more you will trust Him.

The better you know God the more you will obey Him.

The better you know God the more you will be available to be used by Him.

That is why Daniel says [11:32b] "The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits."

Are you ready to know God better?

Are you ready to be strong and do mighty exploits?

If you want to trust God and be used by God, get to know God by Name.

So far we have looked at two names of God - "Revive Us as Our Shepherd" and "Revive Us as Our Righteousness." Our title this week is "Revive Us as Our Provider."

Please open your Bibles with me to the book of Genesis, Genesis and the 22nd chapter. At age of 75, Abraham was enrolled in God’s ‘School of Faith’ - and God was taking him places he had never been before.

Genesis 22:1-14a - Read - Pray

I want to give you four profound truths that will help us know God as Yahweh-Jireh.

1. The Promise of Provision

Here what I want us to get about the provision of God - it is promised, and it is promised all over the Bible. It is promised through instruction. It is promised through illustration. It is promised in the Old and the New Testaments.