What does it mean that God provides?

Then with keen prophetic gaze he looked beyond the coming centuries and called the name of the place "JEHOVAH-JIREH" (the Lord will provide). Faith mounted up with eagle's wing, and cried aloud in exultation, "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen."

It is the fulfilment of JEHOVAH-JIREH. It is an answer to "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." That Man bearing a cross to crucifixion is the grandest and greatest of Abraham's seed. He is the Seed of promise. Beyond Him there is none other. In Him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Outside of Him there is nothing for this sad world. All is wrapped up in Him.

And yet hundreds buy the text, JEHOVAH-JIREH, hang it on their parlour wall, and think it means the Lord will provide for their needs, the rent, food, clothing, etc. How selfish are our hearts, and how we naturally drag things down to suit our mean horizon... But let JEHOVAH-JIREH stand in all its matchless majesty and sublime simplicity.

Isaac is undoubtedly the living type of Christ which gives Him to us most in the work He has done for God, and thus for us. For a moment, as it were, from the solemn institution of sacrifice the vail is almost removed. Man for man it is must suffer: man, but not this man. Isaac is withdrawn, and faith is left looking onward to the Lamb that "God will provide for Himself" as a burnt-offering.

But if Isaac be the type of this, another comes no less distinctly into view. It is a father here who gives his son... In the antitype, the God who provides Himself the lamb answers to the father in this case. It is the Son of God who comes to do the Father's will. But what a will, to be the Father's!

The Lamb of God is the Lamb of God's own providing, and now to deal once and for ever with the question of sin, and the sin of the world... The Lamb of God was the one sacrifice to which all their own directly pointed — the one sacrifice, provided for them in the grace of God, which, since provided by Himself, would meet His own mind, and abrogate the necessity of their continually offering those sacrifices which could never take away sin.

Abraham's answer, though he may not have known it, was prophetic of something far beyond his own days: "God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." No lamb that ever died on any altar, patriarchal or Jewish, was other than provisional, and in view of that which was to come. The question, "Where is the lamb?" was unanswered until John the Baptist was able to declare, "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world."

Not a lamb merely but a ram... caught in the thicket by its horns, symbolic of its strength, and it was offered as a burnt offering "in the stead of his son." Though the actual words, substitute, or substitution, do not occur in our English Bible, here we have exactly that which the words mean... our blessed Lord was held to His sacrificial work by the strength of His love. No nail that ever was forged could have detained him on the cross. What held Him there was love to the Father, and love to us.

It is deeply interesting to mark here how Abraham's soul is led into a fresh discovery of God's character by the trial of his faith. When we are enabled to bear the testings of God's own hand, it is sure to lead us into some new experience with respect to His character, which makes us to know how valuable the testing is. If Abraham had not stretched out his hand to slay his son, he never would have known the rich and exquisite depths of that title which he here bestows upon God, viz., "Jehovah Jireh." It is only when we are really put to the test that we discover what God is.

He showed that he could not merely trust God for an innumerable seed while Isaac stood before him in health and vigour; but just as fully if he were a smoking victim on the altar. This was a high order of confidence in God; it was unalloyed confidence... Isaac, without God, was nothing; God, without Isaac, was everything.

The Lord acquires His holy honours by all those acts and mercies which He accomplishes for His poor people. Thus His memorials are engraved on our blessings. Wonderful grace and perfection of goodness this is, that God should be celebrated by and in that which blesses us! He got the title of "Jehovah-jireh," because He graciously provided a ram in the place of Isaac; He was celebrated as "a man of war," because He got the victory for His people in the Red Sea; He was "Jehovah-rophi," because He healed the bitter waters for the camp; He was "Jehovah-nissi," because He was their banner against the face of Amalek.

What a promise! "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." The very arrangement of the words is precious. Our need and His riches are strung together, looped as if by two bands... A millionaire might give a penny to a beggar, but he would not be giving according to his wealth. Our God is the 'Giving God,' and the Lord Jesus said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive:' and He will ever have the more blessed place.

It is all our need that My God promises to supply; our need, as one has pointed out, not our greed. And I am so glad to think it does mean our spiritual needs as well as our temporal needs: needs for our soul and our spirit, for these are often greater than the needs of our bodies: need for more devotedness to Christ: need for more earnestness in finding time for prayer and the Word: need to 'break the power of cancelled sin.'