I have entitled our message this morning, “Knowing God as Jehovah Jireh,” and I wish to look at our passage of Scripture in a practical way. First off, I want to say that I am well-aware of the symbolism that parallels the crucifixion account of Christ; however, there is more to this passage than a prophecy of the Messiah. We find here an example of walking in obedience to God, and an example of experiencing the Lord’s provision in our lives. This is a message on faith, and I believe that many of us will be challenged this morning. So, let’s go ahead and begin by looking at verses 1-2.
God Will Test Our Devotion (vv. 1-2)
1 Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Here, we encounter a huge dilemma for Abraham, which is probably an understatement! The Lord asked him to sacrifice his only son Isaac and offer him as a burnt offering, which poses two huge problems.
The first problem is that the Lord was asking Abraham to do something that totally goes against God’s nature, which is to offer a human sacrifice. In Leviticus 18:21, the Lord said, “You shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech.” In Jeremiah 32:35 the Lord tells us, “They built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.”
In The New Bible Dictionary we are told that “the worship of Molech seems to have been associated with the sacrifice of children in the fire,”(1) and the Lord says that such a practice is an “abomination” and “sin” in His eyes. Let me caution you that we must not jump to the conclusion that God delights in human sacrifices. Some will take this passage out of context and say that the Lord is sadistic, and that He requires human sacrifices. When we view this passage in light of the entire Bible, we see that the Lord despises human sacrifices; so, there must be something else happening here, and I will discuss what that is in a moment.
The second problem with what the Lord asked Abraham to do was that God had earlier made a promise to Abraham that could only be fulfilled through his own offspring. In Genesis 17:4-6, the Lord told Abraham, who was then called Abram, “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.” Listen to Abraham’s response: “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child’?” (Genesis 17:17).
Did you hear what their ages were when the Lord promised a child? Abraham was one hundred, and Sarah was ninety! Another situation that made this promise seem impossible was that Sarah had been barren her entire life (Genesis 11:30). The Lord came through, though, for in Genesis 21:1-3 we read that Isaac was born! The huge dilemma here is that the Lord was asking Abraham to sacrifice the very son of promise, and the anticipated son of hope! It didn’t seem to make any sense! How could this promise of Abraham becoming a great nation be fulfilled, if the promised heir were dead? Well, let’s look at this a bit more!
God wasn’t requiring a human sacrifice, and God wasn’t going back on His word that He would provide Abraham with an heir. This was a test of Abraham’s faith, or faithfulness. The Lord had given Abraham a big dream or promise, but He wanted to see which was more important to Abraham – the big dream, or God himself. He also wanted to see who he would trust – God, or himself.
Back in Genesis chapter sixteen, we read of how Abram and Sarai became impatient waiting on God to fulfill His promise, so they thought they should help Him out a little. They used their own human reasoning to conclude that Abram could have a child from His own flesh if He went in and had relations with Sarai’s maid Hagar. So, that is exactly what he did, and Hagar conceived and bore their son Ishmael. Ishmael, however, was not to be the son of promise.
I believe that the Lord was testing Abraham to see if he would once again use his own human logic instead of trusting in God’s way. Human logic would say, “Isaac is the son of promise. I cannot sacrifice him, or the bloodline will be cut off, therefore I will not do it!” The Lord was testing Abraham to see if he relied on God, or himself, and He wanted to see if he were willing to give up something that was extremely valuable and important to him, and place it all in the hands of the Lord.
Isaac was the son of promise and the hope on which Abraham’s dreams rested. In verse 2, we see how the Lord asked Abraham to take Isaac to the land of Moriah to sacrifice for a burnt offering, and only once he arrived in Moriah would the mountain for the sacrifice be revealed. Abraham was commanded to carry his dream to a certain location, and once there he was supposed to let it all go.
To apply this to our own lives, the Lord might make a promise to us that He will use us in a mighty way for His kingdom and for His glory. The promise that He shows us is so dear that we carry it close to our hearts, and then God will tell us that we need to act on that dream. God will say that we must go to such and such a place, and once we arrive there, He will show us what we must do. So we go, expecting a breakthrough in our lives, but once we get there God requires a sacrifice; or rather, He allows us to face a challenge that demands that we put our full faith and trust in Him.
We Must Choose Obedience (vv. 3-10)
3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.” 6 So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. 7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together. 9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
What I think we need to understand from these verses is that Abraham responded in obedience to what the Lord asked of him. He didn’t ask any questions, such as he did when God promised him a son in his old age. In fact, he did not say a single word to the Lord. He saddled up his donkey, gathered up his servants and supplies, and took off as God commanded him. He not only left out on the long journey to Moriah, but every step of that trek was one of obedience. He cut the wood for the sacrifice; and once he saw the place for the sacrifice, he continued with the long climb up the mountain; he carried with him the supplies for the sacrifice, the wood, the fire, and the knife; and he bound his son Isaac upon the altar and stretched out his hand to take his son’s life. He did everything God commanded of him, no questions asked!
It’s amazing to see the difference in his response here, compared to before when God made him the promise of having a son in his old age. It is even more astounding that Abraham didn’t ask any questions whenever the life of his son was at stake! I guess that seeing God perform the miracle of giving him Isaac in his old age encouraged his faith in the Lord. Even so, he had to trust that God would still somehow uphold this promise of making a great nation of his seed, and we see here that he did have faith, for he said to Isaac, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering.” The Lord asked Abraham to do something that didn’t make any sense whatsoever, but he responded in faith and obedience!
We will sometimes be asked to do something that doesn’t make sense in the natural realm, or the world of reason. In John chapter 6, we read of how Jesus tested His disciples by having them distribute five loaves of bread and two fish to feed five thousand people! In John chapter 11, we read of how Jesus made Mary and Martha wait two days before He would come to see about healing Lazarus, and He even allowed Lazarus to die. Mary, in her own reasoning said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). Afterwards, He brought Lazarus back to life in order to teach everyone a lesson on faith!
In John chapter 21, we read about how Jesus, after His resurrection, appeared to His disciples as they were out fishing in their boat. Jesus asked them if they had caught anything yet, and when they had said no, He told them to toss their net on the opposite side of their boat. That didn’t logically compute, because the other side of the boat would have been the exact same spot in the water. They obeyed Jesus anyhow, and then their net became so full of fish that they could not hoist it into their boat!
The Lord will sometimes ask us to do something that doesn’t make much sense, but as you can see from at least two of the examples I gave, obedience led to the experience of a miracle, which brings us to our next point. But before we look at our next point, let me once again remind us that when the Lord asks us to do something, even if it does not make sense, He expects us to obey him. Sometimes God will ask us to let go of reason, to let go of our handle on life, to place all of our hopes and dreams into His hands, and to trust Him to provide.
Obedience Leads to Provision (vv. 11-14)
11 But the Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” 12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” 13 Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”
If we want to see a miracle happen, it comes through our surrender to God’s will and by obedience to His commands. Abraham obeyed God and set out to do something that did not make sense, and he was willing to give up what meant the most to him. It looked as though God was not going to come through, because as Abraham was raising the knife to strike his son, he was at the point of seeing all of his dreams lost. It probably appeared at that moment that all hope was gone.
God will sometimes require us to take a journey of faith, and He will ask us to lay it all on the line for Him. Some of us will say, “Okay Lord, I will do what you say,” and we begin down that road. However, as we approach the point of seeing everything lost, we will oftentimes break under the pressure and retreat. If we retreat we will miss God’s blessings. We know this from the account of how Israel retreated from possessing the Promised Land for fear of battle; and for their disobedience the Lord sentenced them to wander in the wilderness for forty years (Numbers 14:26-35).
Retreating will land us in the wilderness. Going to the point of no return will enable miracles to happen! We must step out in obedience to what God asks, and we must continue on the journey in perseverance and determination, trusting that God knows what He is doing. If we continue in obedience to the point that it looks like it’s all over, that is usually the point in which God steps in. And we see that God stepped in at the very last “second” to provide for Abraham.
The Lord provided for Abraham by having an angel speak to him to spare the life of Isaac. The angel then directed Abraham to a thicket where there was a ram caught by the horns. This ram was to be the sacrifice, not Isaac. In response, verse 14 reveals to us, “And Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-Will-Provide.”
The phrase, “The-Lord-Will-Provide,” is actually a name of God in the Hebrew language – a name that was assigned by Abraham. In the Old Testament a person would assign a name to God based on how he or she experienced Him at a particular moment. In Hebrew, the name Abraham gave to the Lord was Jehovah Jireh (or Yahweh Yireh), meaning “The-Lord-Will-Provide.” At this very moment Abraham came to truly know and trust in God as his provider.
If we truly desire to know God as our Jehovah Jireh, or as our provider, then we must be willing to follow Him in obedience to the very last second. If we do, then He will provide for our needs in a miraculous way, and our experience of God will make a lasting impression on our lives that will thrust us into a new level of faith and trust!
Obedience Leads to Blessing (vv. 15-18)
15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Here is something else that we must not overlook. Obedience leads to experiencing the Lord as our provider, but it also leads to blessings. Did you hear what the Lord said to Abraham? In verses 16-17, He said, “Because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son – blessing I will bless you,” and then in verse 18, God said, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Whenever we obey God to the very end He will provide for us and give us abundance, and the abundance will be so large and overflowing that we will be able to share it with others – even the entire world! The blessing that the world received from Abraham is that the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, would come through his lineage. All nations and all peoples have access to salvation and eternal life in Jesus Christ!
Within us is that same potential to become a blessing to all nations, because those of us who know Jesus as Savior and Lord are now engrafted into the lineage of Abraham (Galatians 3:29), and the Lord tells us, “Ask of Me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession” (Psalm 2:8). If we obediently walk in the steps of the Lord, God can use us to bless the nations!
Time of Reflection
I wish to encourage you this morning to be obedient to do whatever the Lord has laid on your heart. If you will follow through, then you will come to know Him as your Jehovah Jireh, your Provider.
For some of you here today, the Lord is speaking to your heart about how you need to surrender your life over to Jesus as your Savior and Lord. If you will respond in obedience, and receive Jesus into your heart, you will experience God as the Provider of your eternal salvation, and you will receive eternal life in God’s kingdom. And once you have become blessed with the gift of salvation, your heart will overflow with such joy that you will become a blessing to those around you. Come, surrender to the Lord today!
NOTES
(1) “Molech,” The New Bible Dictionary (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1962), taken from Logos 2.1E on CD-ROM.
