Encountering God – Part 11 – Encountering Jehovah Jireh
Overview and review
We have been looking at what it means and what it is like to encounter God and how we respond to Him when we encounter Him. Over the past few weeks, we have moved from the subject of encountering God in corporate worship to encountering God in person. We spent the last 2 weeks looking at Abraham encountered God. Last week, we looked at how God showed up in person to Abraham and then revealed Himself as “El Shaddai” – the One who is All Mighty and All Sufficient. Abraham is promised a biologically impossible child through his aging wife Sarai.
This week, we are going to find out what the rest of the story is. We are going to look at that child and discover something else about God…we are going to encounter God as “Jehovah Jireh” the One who Sees our needs.
Gn 21: 1 Then the LORD took note of Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had promised. 2 So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.
Gn 22:1 Later on God tested Abraham’s faith and obedience. "Abraham!" God called. "Yes," he replied. "Here I am." 2"Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you." 3The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son Isaac. Then he chopped wood to build a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place where God had told him to go. 4On the third day of the journey, Abraham saw the place in the distance. 5"Stay here with the donkey," Abraham told the young men. "The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back." 6Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the knife and the fire. As the two of them went on together, 7Isaac said, "Father?" "Yes, my son," Abraham replied. "We have the wood and the fire," said the boy, "but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?"
8"God will provide a lamb, my son," Abraham answered. And they both went on together. 9When they arrived at the place where God had told Abraham to go, he built an altar and placed the wood on it. Then he tied Isaac up and laid him on the altar over the wood. 10And Abraham took the knife and lifted it up to kill his son as a sacrifice to the LORD. 11At that moment the angel of the LORD shouted to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Yes," he answered. "I’m listening." 12"Lay down the knife," the angel said. "Do not hurt the boy in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld even your beloved son from me." 13Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering on the altar in place of his son. 14Abraham named the place "The LORD Will Provide." This name has now become a proverb: "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."
This passage is very troublesome for many people, new Christians are aghast at the command to sacrifice his son, non-Christians use it to say that God is blood thirsty and mean, and mature Christians are often at a loss to explain the passage. So let me start out with a disclaimer:
It appears from a casual reading of this passage that God was asking Abraham to do something that totally goes against God’s nature and which God repeatedly forbids, which is to offer a human sacrifice.
We have to understand this passage in the context of what the ENTIRE bible says, which we know God prohibits human sacrifice. This should make us ask, “what is God doing here?” Why would he ask Abraham to do something that is contradictory to His own nature? What is God REALLY doing here?
Let’s start by looking at verse 1: “Later on God tested Abraham’s faith and obedience…”
Later on or after these things. What things? Later on after what?
After the birth of the promised son that his dreams were wrapped up in.
You might recall over the past two weeks that the pivotal point for Abraham’s life is the reception and the fulfillment of the promise by God to provide a son for Abraham through whom nations and kings would come. As we look back over his life, we find everything has been pointing to this child. Now that he has this child, the central axis of his life, God does something extraordinary and asks something of Abraham that seems impossible!
God tested Abraham’s faith and obedience. Many translations simply say “God tested Abraham.”
Let me clarify the word test.
Later on in the passage it says that “Now I know that you truly fear God.”
God doesn’t test you to find out what you will do because He already knows it.
This word means “to test or assay through stress”.
Just as a chunk of gold ore is “tested” by the application of acid to determine what it is made of, God is testing Abraham’s faith and supposed devotion.
Many of you have toasters and small appliances that carry the UL (Underwriters Laboratory) tag of approval on them. “Underwriters Laboratory” tests thousands of products, not to break them, but to demonstrate that they are as good and reliable as they claim to be.
God tests us:
So we will be refined – God tests us to bring out the best in us, to burn away the dross and impurities in our lives so we might be more wholly devoted to Him..
So you will be able to know your own heart. There is no way we ever really know how we will react in a certain circumstance until we are actually in it.
Our motives, our hidden fears and emotions all lie to us until the time comes to make a CHOICE.
Choices and decisions in the heat of difficulty inform us as to what we are really made of.
Many a soldier thinks he is brave until he comes under fire. It is only in the heat of battle that his character is proven.
So you will realize that faith is not real until it used. It is only words or hopeful thoughts until it is put to the test of real life situations where you have to depend on God. Many people say that they love God until their faith is put to the test. How about you? How will your faith look when things get tough?
v1-3: God called. "Yes," he replied. "Here I am." "Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you."
For the very first time, Love is used in the bible. God says something that the New Testament writers picked up on from this account. “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.”
In the NT, we read "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)
John 1:14 (Monogenes = one and only) “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Explain as needed.)
God says, “your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love. “
God is making it very clear who he is talking about and He is putting His finger on the fact that Isaac was everything to Abraham.
He didn’t say to take the son he didn’t love, Ishmaal.
God didn’t tell Abraham to offer one of his possessions.
He says instead, to take the one he loves the most, the one in whom his life is totally invested as a result of his own longing and the promises of God, and to “sacrifice him there.”
This is the test. God is saying, “We’ve walked together for many years and now you have the son you’ve longed for. Tell me, Abraham; is this son more important to you than your relationship with me?”
That is the question everyone of us must be asked from time to time by God. God gives us wonderful blessings, and occasionally He asks for them back. The bottom line…do we love the Giver or the gift the most?
I’d like you to think of what Abraham must have pondered as he walks along for 3 long days! (3 = the number of resurrection – Jesus in the tomb, Jonah in the belly of the whale)
Remember that in Genesis 21:12, God had promised him that "Through Isaac his descendants would be named". Now the son of promise is to be sacrificed.
The dilemma running through Abraham’s mind had to be, “How will God fulfill His covenant promise that through Isaac a great nation would come if God has me offer him as a sacrifice?”
I have to believe (based upon Abraham’s subsequent statements) that Abraham most likely concluded that if God is big enough to do the impossible task of getting his wife who was well past menopause pregnant, then God is big enough to handle this impossibility as well.
If you are a parent or know someone who had lost a child you know it is one of the most devastating things we have to deal with in life.
What parent wouldn’t rather deal with their own death than a death of a child? Who wouldn’t say, "Lord take me instead!"
And we don’t even have to get to the issue of death, most parents cannot even stand to see their children in pain; with little boo-boos; sick or even just muddled down with life’s issues... we would gladly trade places with them, even when we know they should have made better decisions for themselves.
God, are you talking to me? Did you say go offer your son as a "burnt offering?" Lord, I don’t even like for my son to get sun-burned!
V4-6 On the third day of the journey, Abraham saw the place in the distance. "Stay here with the donkey," Abraham told the young men. "The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back." Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the knife and the fire.
This is one of the pivotal passages in this story.
Abraham sees the hillside in the distance (which incidentally is the present day temple mount in Jerusalem, and is the same hilly range where Golgotha, the mount of the skull where God the Father offered up His only Son, the Son Whom He loved (Jn 3:16, 3:35)) as a sacrifice for your sins and mine.
So they leave the donkey and the young men who are helping him, and carry what they need to perform the sacrifice.
In verse 5 Abraham says, “we will worship there, and then we will come right back.”
Was he lying? Or was he expressing his faith that God would work this thing out somehow?
In the New Testament, the writer with hindsight says in Hebrews 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.”
I believe that as Abraham climbed that mountain with his son, Abraham was climbing in faith. It is a pattern for our own faith as well. Faith comes down to what or who you depend upon. What did Abraham have?
Depend on his feelings? They were in turmoil. They changed every minute.
Depend on others? Everyone was left behind. His wife was at home. His servants were left at the bottom of the hills. Sure it is nice to have family and friends, but some trials of life we have to face alone.
Depend upon God? Abraham could depend only on the promises and provision of the Lord God. He had already experienced the power of God in his own body so he knew that God could do anything.
Just an interesting parallel:
In verse 6, Abraham places the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders while he himself, the father, carries the instrument of death.
Note that "wood" is translated in the Greek Old Testament "Xulon" which is the same word Luke chooses for the cross in Acts 5:30.
Just as Christ the dutiful Son of God, carried the instrument of his own death, the cross, Isaac must carry the wood of his own demise.
v6-9: As the two of them went on together, Isaac said, "Father?" "Yes, my son," Abraham replied. "We have the wood and the fire," said the boy, "but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?" "God will provide a lamb, my son," Abraham answered. And they both went on together. When they arrived at the place where God had told Abraham to go, he built an altar and placed the wood on it. Then he tied Isaac up and laid him on the altar over the wood.
This is beyond my ability to even grasp the gravity and the emotion of the moment. The trusting son, the faith filled father.
“God will provide a lamb” – that is at the least, a statement of hope if not faith.
Sometimes you must travel a road blindly for a time. You have nothing but a promise to hold onto. God says He will do this or that for me. I trust Him. It looks bad. But I will trust Him.
So Abraham ties up his son, and lays him on the wood. Waiting, hoping, believing that God will somehow make this all work out.
I cannot imagine Isaac’s confusion as he was tied up by his aging father and placed on the wood. What explanation did he give? Did Isaac resist or comply with his own act of faith? Such details the bible doesn’t give us.
V10-14: “And Abraham took the knife and lifted it up to kill his son as a sacrifice to the LORD. At that moment the angel of the LORD shouted to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Yes," he answered. "I’m listening." "Lay down the knife," the angel said. "Do not hurt the boy in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld even your beloved son from me." Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering on the altar in place of his son. Abraham named the place "The LORD Will Provide." This name has now become a proverb: "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
Imagine the raised knife to the throat of his precious, beloved son. Imagine the tears streaming down Abraham’s face as he prepares to let go of the most valuable, precious possession and promise that he has.
In verse 11 it says “at that moment the angel of the Lord SHOUTED (as if to accost) to him from heaven.”
The angel interrupts him and then explains the reason for this difficult encounter.
“…for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld EVEN your beloved son from me.”
This is the meaning of true worship.
True worship holds nothing back.
Worship involves a willingness to surrender all to Him, holding nothing back.
How foreign to our western concept of ’’worship’’ where one’s senses are pampered to rather than having one’s heart laid bare, broken and contrite!
And then we begin to understand the story, we begin to understand the basis for God commanding such an contradictory command. You see, God did not want Isaac’s life. He wanted Abraham’s heart.
God doesn’t want your money, your stuff, He wants your heart.
What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do?
For Abraham, we see just how far he was willing to go in his obedience and trust.
What God really wanted was not the sacrifice of Isaac, but the personal, total surrender of Abraham.
You cannot give Him your heart until you are willing to let go of everything else.
God calls each one of us to part with all for Christ,--all our sins, all our loves, all of those things that are competitors and rivals with Christ
What is your "Isaac" that you dearly love and you would rather God not ask you to release to Him?
I believe that this time of worship with the God provided sacrificial lamb led both Abraham and Isaac to worship God like neither one of them had ever worshipped Him before. Their lives had been given back to them. They had great cause for worship and joy and celebration. I think their time of reflection, adoration, devotion, awe and wonder was unsurpassed.
Jehovah Jireh means God sees and provides:
The name God reveals in this place is “Jehovah Jireh” which means “The Lord will Provide.” (Jehovah means “the Lord”).
It can also be translated, “The Lord who sees your need.”
The English word "provide" is from the Latin (pro = before + videre = vision) meaning literally to "see beforehand."
God sees our need before it arises and makes provision for it.
Have you come to know Him as this kind of God?
It’s like the story I heard of a house on fire. The little girl was trapped in her upstairs bedroom. As she leaned out the window, her father, who was on the ground said, “Jump. I’ll catch you.” The little girl was afraid and replied, “But, I can’t see you!” To which the father shouted, “That’s OK. I can see you.” She jumped to safety into her father’s arms.
God sees your need today.
God knows your need long before you do.
Perhaps you’ve been trying to meet your own need.
There is a ram in your thicket—God is ahead of you—God knows what you are going to need and when you are going to need it. If you will be obedient to do what God has asked you to do, He is the God of Supernatural provision.
God has provided His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ to be full provision for all the needs of his people.
He sees us in our need, because of our own sin, and provides for all our needs in his Son.
The Lord graciously saw the needs of his sinful people long before we were even aware that we had any needs before him.
The law of God demanded our punishment (Gal. 3:10).
The gates of hell were opened wide, ready to swallow us up
We were all perishing, dead spiritually and condemned to die eternally.
But our great and merciful God beheld our need and intervened to save us by his free grace (Eph. 2:5-9)
God provided the substitute, His OWN Son to take our place.
I wonder if we have the courage to pray like A.W. Tozer did: “Father, I want to know You, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from You the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that You may enter and dwell there without a rival. In Jesus’ Name, Amen” (“Pursuit of God,” Page 31)
Romans 8:32 He who did not spare (withhold) His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
What are you holding onto today? What is keeping God from providing for your needs? Are you willing to take the first step of faith to let God be YOUR all in all? Will you lay ALL you are and all you have on the altar to let God be the sole object of your affection?
Let’s pray.
