TITLES OF GOD, JEHOVAH-JIREH
DR. JIM DIXON
GENESIS 22:1-18
AUGUST 27, 1989
God called the name of the place Moriah. It was a place with many hills, and upon one of those hills, Abraham offered up his only son. Today we know that Moriah was in the region of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem has many hills and biblical scholars and theologians and historians have oftentimes debated which hill was the hill upon which Abraham offered up his son. Some say it was the Temple Hill where Solomon built his temple. Later, Zerubbabel and Herod built their temples, where the dome of the rock stands today. The Temple Hill was sometimes called Mount Moriah, and the rock on top of that hill was called the Rock of Moriah. But then all of Jerusalem was called Moriah, and some believe it was another hill, another hill in Jerusalem to which Abraham took his son. Some believe it was a hill called Calvary, a hill called Golgotha.
But you see, we do not know this. We know that Abraham never had to sacrifice his son and he never had to sacrifice his son because God provided. God provided a substitute, a ram, to be offered up in place of Abraham’s son and Abraham called the name of that mount “Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord Provides.”
This name, Jehovah-Jireh, has become a favorite of Jews and Christians through the years, and indeed people of faith have always trusted the provision of the Lord. This morning, I would like to speak to you regarding God’s provision. I have two teachings and the first teaching is this, God’s provision is providential. His provision is based on his providence.
In the year 1603, man was born in London, England. The man’s name was Roger. He was the son of a shopkeeper. He was a brilliant man. He went to Cambridge University, and he graduated with honors, studied theology, and became an ordained minister in the Church of England. But he got into trouble with the ecclesiastical authorities and with the political leaders of England because Roger believed in religious freedom. He believed in religious tolerance. He was a Christian. He wanted men and women to accept Jesus Christ, but he didn’t want to force people to accept Christ. He wanted people to come freely. He wanted people to be free to accept or free to reject, and he didn’t believe in religious persecution.
Roger was encouraged to leave England. This he did. He came to the American colonies. He was offered the pastorate at the church in Boston. Roger turned it down because he believed that there was corruption in the leadership of that church. He took the pastorate of the church at Salem. Roger soon found himself in trouble again with the authorities of the Massachusetts Bay colony because again, he believed in religious freedom and the Puritans wanted everyone to think exactly like them. And they persecuted many people who did not believe like them, even Christians who did not believe like them.
Roger was in trouble again and he was encouraged to leave the Massachusetts Bay colony. This he did. He went south into Indian territory. He made friends with many of the Indians. He shared with them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of the Indians accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. Some did not, but Roger respected all of them and the Indians respected Roger. They provided a massive chunk of land for him, which he accepted by trade. Roger in that massive area of land, founded a city and he called it Providence.
He formed that city with other people who believed as he did. That was in the year 1636. It was a few years later that Roger made his way back to England and he received the charter to establish the Rhode Island colony. Today, Roger is viewed as the founder of the state of Rhode Island and the founder of the city of Providence. And Providence is of course the second largest city in New England with a million people in the capitol of the state of Rhode Island today. We understand that many features of the United States Constitution were built on principles of government that Roger established in the Rhode Island colony, and he is known as Roger Williams.
Why did Roger Williams call Providence “Providence”? Why did he give the city that name? He gave the city that name because he firmly believed with all his heart that God had led him, that God had guided his life and his every step, that all things had happened in accordance with God’s plan. And God had provided everything for him in accordance with his providence. Roger believed that God had led him out of England to the American colonies and he believed that God had led him out of the Massachusetts Bay colony South into the land of the Indians. He believed that God had provided him with the Rhode Island charter and God had provided him with the people to establish the community of providence. God had provided all these things in accordance with his providence in accordance with his plan.
The word providence is oftentimes, I think, misunderstood today. What does it mean? The word provision literally means to foresee, and the word provide comes from the Latin word “provideri,” which also means to foresee. And the word providence is built on this same word “to foresee.” The Greek word for providence is a word which means to “foreknow,” but you see biblically providence is more than foreseeing or foreknowing biblically. Providence is for ordaining. Providence refers to the sovereignty of God whereby he has a plan for this world. He has a plan for the earth, and he provides in this world in accordance with that plan. He causes things to happen in accordance with that sovereign plan.
Some people think God causes everything to happen. They think the sovereignty of God and concept of providence requires that we view God as causing everything that happens, that nothing happens in this world that God did not cause. But that’s going far beyond what the Bible says. God did not cause Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, and God did not cause Cain to murder his brother, Abel. God did not cause the depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah. God did not cause the treachery of Jezebel or the reason of Judas. He didn’t cause the barbarism of Attila the Hun. He didn’t cause Jack the Ripper to terrorize the city of London, and he didn’t cause Adolph Hitler to incinerate 6 million Jews.
When people speak of God in this way, they form a concept of God that is hideous and they deny the freedom of man, which God, in His sovereignty, has provided. “God has made us free,” the Bible says. In His sovereignty, He has made us free, and in our freedom, we have chosen sin and we’ve brought evil into this world. The Bible says, “God is light. In Him is no darkness at all.” And yet in the midst of this fallen world, there is freedom abused. God is still sovereign, and He is still provident, and He has a plan for this world, and He acts in this world in accordance with that plan, and He acts in this world in accordance with that plan, and He will bring all things to their predetermined conclusion.
If you’re a Christian, you have entered into the plan of God. If you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, He wants you to know that He has a plan for you. It is a plan for good. It is not a plan for evil. He has a plan for you, and He wants to provide for you in accordance with that plan, in accordance with His providence, providing for you.
Sometimes you don’t have the things that you want, you don’t have the provisions you want. He asks you to trust Him, His providence. I have a second teaching this morning, a final teaching. His provisions are not only providential, but His provisions are provisory. We are subject to “provisio.” They are conditional. His provisions are given on the basis, sometimes, of certain conditions. I would like to explore with you just a couple of these this morning.
First, sometimes God’s provisions in our lives are subject to the condition of prayer. There are certain things He’s going to provide you with whether you pray or not, but there are other things He’s only going to give if you pray. He has said that in His Word. Sometimes His provisions are conditioned on prayer.
I know you’ve all heard of the SOS, a distress signal. Some people view the SOS as an acronym, that the word comes from the first letter of other words so that it’s short for something, perhaps “Save Our Ship” or “Save Our Souls” or “Stop Other Signals.” But, you see, the SOS is not really an acronym. Those three letters stand for nothing. They were chosen in 1908 by international agreement simply because, in Morse Code, the SOS are the three earliest letters to communicate and to be understood. Dit, dit, dit – dah, dah, dah – dit, dit, dit. As simple as that. SOS.
You see, the old distress signal, C.Q.D., was an acronym but it was hard to communicate. Dah, dit, dah, dit, dah, dah, dit, dah, dah, dit, dit. Now, you see, that’s hard to communicate and that’s hard to understand. When you’re in distress and when you’re in trouble, you want to get a message out and you want to be understood. God wants you to know He’s given you that opportunity. When you’re in distress, you can send a signal towards heaven and it’s called prayer, and He will understand it and He will hear it. He’ll understand it perfectly. Sometimes, the Bible says, “we have not because we ask not.” Provisions conditioned on prayer.
I recently read the story of Richard Johnson. He was a chaplain during World War II, and somehow, through a variety of circumstances, he found himself on a bombing raid in the South Pacific. The bombing raid was successful, and they were returning to base on an island in the Pacific that they were 200 miles away from. And somehow the plane developed a problem in its fuel system and all the fuel leaked out. They were without fuel. The plane made an emergency landing miraculously on this small little island in the Pacific. Uninhabited. The plane landed safely; it was not damaged. The fuel line could be easily repaired, and it was, and they had room to take off. The problem was they had no fuel. So, there they were in the midst of World War II in the South Pacific, on a little island with no fuel.
The captain of the plane came to Chaplain Richard Johnson and said, “you know many times in the past I’ve heard you say in services that you believed in prayer and that when we pray, God provides, I feel kind of embarrassed even asking for this, but would you pray? We need fuel. I don’t understand how, but somehow, we need fuel. We’ll never get off this island.”
The Chaplain said, “Sure, I’ll pray with you” And he sat down, and he prayed with the captain of the plane and the captain left. The chaplain continued to pray, and he prayed all afternoon that day and he prayed into the night. In fact, he prayed on his knees till 2:00 AM for God to provide fuel for that plane. At 2:00 AM the chaplain began to kind of feel a tugging in his heart within him and a leading to go down to the shore and the little cove on this little island. He went there in the midst of the night in the dark and he saw when he went down there, to his amazement, a metal barge floated up onto the beach with 50 barrels of high-octane gasoline, 50 barrels of high-octane gasoline, and it provided all the fuel and then some that they needed.
And the plane took off from that island and everybody’s life was saved. Subsequent research discovered that a US tanker, 600 miles away in sub infested waters afraid of a torpedo hit, had taken all the gasoline reserves off that tanker, put them onto barges and set them adrift. And one of those barges had made its way 600 miles exactly to that cove where the chaplain was. Now, if you don’t have faith, you might look at that and you say, well, that is amazing. What an incredible coincidence. But you see, if you have faith and you view these things through the eye of faith, you know it’s Jehovah-Jireh. It’s the Lord who provides and he provided in response to prayer. I don’t mean to tell you that God is going to always give you exactly what you want when you pray, God is not a magic lamp you rub to get whatever you want. He’s not a magic genie that is subject to your control. He’s sovereign. But God does want us to understand that many times his provisions are conditional, provisory, and one of those conditions is prayer. Of course, sometimes when we come in prayer, we, we don’t ask for the right things because we’re children.
As parents, we understand how it is with children. Sometimes they ask for things they shouldn’t. When Drew and Heather were younger, they asked for a lot of things that Barb and I just couldn’t give them. I remember when Heather was little, she came to us and she said, could I have a swimming pool in my bedroom? Now see, she had just seen a Disney movie where somebody had a swimming pool in their bedroom, just a little girl. I don’t know how old Heather was, she’s maybe three, four years old. She wanted a swimming pool in her bedroom. Everybody ought to have a swimming pool in their bedroom. And we explained to her she couldn’t have a swimming pool in her bedroom. And that was not all. She also wanted alligators in the swimming pool because she had a stuffed alligator and she got along just great with that stuffed alligator and she really liked that stuffed alligator and what could be better than real alligators in her room, in the pool, in her room.
And of course, we had to say no. And I think sometimes when we come to God and we come to the Father Jehovah Jireh and we say, provide us with this. In our finiteness, we do not see what he sees in his infinite wisdom. And some of our requests just seem extravagant to him, like swimming pools in bedrooms. And some of our requests he knows are dangerous like alligators in bedrooms, and sometimes in his sovereignty he says No, but he wants us to understand we need to ask.
Barb and I would grieve if Heather and Drew did not come to us with the desires of their heart. And we have a father like that, and he wants us to know when we come to him and we ask, when we come to him in prayer, many times he’ll provide us with things we never have if we did not pray.
There’s another condition that affects God’s provision. And this other condition, with this will close, is a condition of obedience. See, sometimes God’s provisions are conditioned on our obedience. God said to Abraham, truly, I will bless you and I’ll make your descendants as many as the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore, and your descendants will possess the gate of their enemies. And by your descendants, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. Provisions conditioned on obedience.
See, the children of Israel, were not provided with the promised land. One generation of the children of Israel were not provided with the promised land because of their disobedience. God withheld provision. I don’t know how many of you have ever sat down and read the 17th chapter of the Book of One Kings. You ought to. In this chapter, in this little chapter, we see in a beautiful way how God’s provisions are provided through obedience. It describes a time in Israel’s history, very much like this time in American history, a time when most people were disobedient. A time when faithfulness was very rare was the time of Elijah the prophet. And there was famine in the land and there was little water and there were little food and people were dying. And Elijah came to King Ahab, king of Israel. And Elijah said, God has withheld provision and God has withheld provision because of Israel’s disobedience, obey and God will provide. Ahab was angry and he wanted to murder Elijah the prophet. So, God spoke to Elijah and said, flee to the brook, Cherith, I will provide for you there. Elijah obeyed. He went to the brook Cherith, he drank the water there. There was no food there, but God provided food for Elijah miraculously through ravens who brought food every morning in food every night.
Now the time came when the water and the brook dried up and God spoke to Elijah again and said, I want you to go to another city, to the north, to Zarephath near the town of Sidon. There’s a woman there, she’ll provide for you. So, Elijah went there. He obeyed. When Elijah got there, he found the woman and he said to her, could you feed me please? And she, her countenance fell, and she said, “you know, we’re starving.” I’ve only got a little bit of flour left and a little bit of oil and it’s about to run out. And I was going to go in and use that oil and flour to make one last little flower cake and I was going to give it to my only son. And then we were just going to wait until we died.
Elijah said, you’ll not die. God has told you to feed me, to provide for me. And if you do, he’ll provide for you. The woman obeyed, incredibly. She obeyed and she reached in, and she took the last bit of flour she had out of that jar and the last bit of oil, and she made a flower cake, and she gave it to Elijah, the prophet, and she looked at her little boy and they had nothing. It was all gone. But then an amazing thing happened. She was told to reach her hand back in that flower jar and she did. And God had provided miraculously flour there and more oil. And day after day, week after week, month after month, whenever she’d go, that flower jar always, there was flour there miraculously provided by God. And she had all her provisions met all her needs met by Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides because of her obedience. God wants you to be an obedient people. It takes faith because you’ve got to go against the grain. The world doesn’t want you to obey. And the world’s constantly asking us to do things that grieve Jesus Christ. But Christ is looking for a special people. And you’ve got to be people of faith because a lot of things the world asks you to do seem fun. What the Bible calls the fleeting pleasures ascent.
God is Jehovah-Jireh. He wants you to believe He provides; he calls you to obey. His provisions are providential. They’re given in accordance with his sovereignty, in accordance with his plan and the supervisory. Sometimes they are conditional. They require prayer, they require obedience. Let’s close this morning with a word of prayer. Lord Jesus, you are Jehovah Jireh the Lord who provides sometimes, Lord, in each of our lives, we wish we had things we do not have. We wish you’d give us things that you do not give. Lord, help us as your people to trust your providence, your wisdom, Lord, sometimes we do not receive things because we do not ask sometimes, Lord, because we do not obey. Lord, help us to be people of prayer. Help us to be a faithful people. Amen.