The Names of God

We are going to have our have our reading now. And the reading is from Genesis 22. So that's gonna come up on the screen. Genesis 22, and you can follow along. We're gonna be reading the first 19 verses of that together.

Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham, Here I am, he replied. Then God said, take your son, your only son whom you love Isaac and go to the region of Moria. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will show you. Early the next morning, Abraham got up and loaded his donkey.

He took with him 2 of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the birds offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship him, and then we will come back to you.

Abraham took the word for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the 2 of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham. Father, yes, my son. Abraham replied. The fire and the wood are here, Isaac said.

But where is the land for the burnt offering? Abraham answered God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering my son. And the 2 of them went on together. When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven Abraham. Abraham. Here I am, he replied. Do not lay a hand on the boy.

Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. Abraham looked up and they're an authority he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place the lord will provide.

And to this day, it is said, on the mountain of the lord, it will be provided. The agent of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, I swear by myself to declare the Lord that because you have done this and had not withheld your son, your only son, I would surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me. Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Baeshiqa. And Abraham stayed in Baeshiqa.

What a fantastic story and a fantastic passage of scripture. And Chris Tilly is going to open that passage up for us and preach God's word to us. But before he does, let's let's pray for him. Father, we thank you for Chris, and we thank you for the work that he's put in to this passage we thank you for your spirit who has been his teacher and who has impressed things upon his heart and his mind. Thank you for how he has been able to wrestle with your words and for his work in preparing this sermon for us and Lord, we pray that as we look into this story, which will be perhaps very new to some people or more familiar to others, that you would show us wondrous things in your law and that as we look at you, the lords who provides the 1 who grants, a sacrifice, for sinners, like us, that we would we would appreciate your grace to us, all the more, and we ask it in Jesus' name.

Ahmed, Well, good evening and a warm welcome from me. It's it's good to be back here and opening up for God's word. With you all again. And we've been going through in our evening services the names for god, various different names for god that we find in scripture. And today we come to Jehovah Jaira or the Lord will provide Jehovah Jaira.

Now, you could be forgiven for not being particularly familiar with that name for God. I've got to admit it wasn't the most familiar name for God. That I'd never heard. I I had heard of it before. And I think 1 of the reasons for that is that this is the only place in the whole of scripture here in Genesis 22 where that name is used as a name to describe God.

The word gyro can also be translated. And in fact, everywhere else it is used, it it means to to appear or to be seen in some kind of way. Only in this passage here in Genesis 22, does it mean provision or provider? So that drives us to ask a question when we come to a passage like Genesis 22. What does God provide if this passage is specifically and singularly about God's provision, what makes God worthy of the name?

Jehovah gyro the Lord will provide. And that's what we're gonna attempt to address this evening. So to get us into the story because it's such a cracking story, it's 1 of those that makes you kind of sit bolt up, try anything. What what on earth is going on here when you read it first a time round. We need we need a bit of context before we get straight into this.

So I'm sure we're largely all familiar with the story of but let me do a quick recap just to bring us up to speed with where we're at. So Abraham called out to the land of the Chaldians by God to to follow him, to give up his old gods and follow him. And God promises to Abraham that he's gonna make his descendants as numerous as stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore as we saw in Genesis 22. But there's a big problem with this. And that's that Abraham has no children.

His wife, Sarah, is Barron, we're told. And he cannot he cannot have any offspring. So how is he gonna have descendants? How is Abraham gonna be the father of a nation? And it's looking less and less likely this is gonna happen as old age begins to close in on them.

So God performs a miracle and brings Sarah's dead womb back to life so that she can have a child. Now this happens when Abraham is a hundred years old and Sarah isn't 90 years old. So think what you wanna think about that. Whatever you wanna think about that. That is miraculous.

That doesn't happen. It never happens. But it did hear. So you start with a miracle child. A child that shouldn't have been physically, humanly possible to be born is born.

And then we come to Genesis 22. Abraham and Sarah have their long awaited for child. And god drops an absolute bombshell in verse 2. In verse 2, he goes Take your son, your only son, whom you love, go to a mountain I will show you, and sacrifice him there. Kill him.

I want you to sacrifice your only son whom you love to me. Now that if that doesn't shock us, I don't know what does. That's meant to shock us. That's meant to I think actually a poorness. It's a poorly, isn't it?

I mean, is God's suddenly into child sacrifice? Has God's character changed in some ways? He turned into some kind of murderous vindictive God? To sacrifice a child, it just doesn't sound right. It doesn't sound right on so many different levels.

And yet, that's what God's asking Abraham to do here. So what is going on? Well, you may have noticed already if if you look in your biopsy heading for this chapter is Abraham tested in many translations. And that's what's going on. It's a it's a test of Abraham's faith in God, a test, a test of his trust that God will do what needs to be done here, that God will provide a way out of this situation.

And clearly, this is the way Abraham sees it. And we get clues to that throughout the passage. If you look in verse 5 when they go with their servants, they get to the place or near to the place. And Abraham turns to the servants and says, you wait here we will carry on up to the mountain. And then we will come back to you.

Both Me and Isaac are gonna come back. Abraham believes that god is gonna do something that enables them both to come back out of this situation. So up the mountain they go. And Abraham takes the word that's gonna be used for the off and places it on his son's back. Isaac carries his own funeral pyre up the mountain.

Abraham himself, knife in hand, fire in the other. He is going to be doing the deed. The father will be killing the son. That's the picture we're beginning to get. And so they go up, they arrange the fuel pie, And I mean, Isaac's no no slouch.

I mean, he's a he's a smart cookie. He realizes there's no lamb and he's he's asking questions. But anyhow they go ahead, arrange everything. Abraham takes his son. Places him on the fire, binds him to it, reaches out his hand to grab the knife in your thinking, Something's gonna happen.

It's gotta happen now. It's like those scenes and films where it builds and builds and builds and you think we're about to lose a main character here. Surely something is gonna happen. But in the back of your mind, you think it might not. We might be about to lose someone.

This could be horrendous. It might not happen. There might not be an intervention that this time there is. Thankfully, this time there is. And his Abraham's fingers close around the knife that he's gonna use to kill his son.

A voice from heaven. Abraham, Abraham, stop. Don't do it. God stops the sacrifice. And actually provides provides a scapegoat, actually, there's a RAM that they use instead.

And this prompts Abraham to to to to give god this name Jehova Jaira. The Lord will provide on the mountain of the lord, it will be provided. So there's the backdrop. There's the context. That's what's going on in the story and it's it's It's a pretty pretty shocking story, isn't it?

It makes us sit up and try and take notice of what's going on. And I don't think it's gonna come as a surprise to most of you. If I say right now at the beginning of this speech that that is clearly a picture of another event that happens almost 2000 years later. But that's quite clearly a picture of another mountain. Of another son carrying the word up the hill, of another father sacrificing.

It's a picture of Jesus on the cross. Now it might sound like I'm giving the whole thing away, but as I say, I don't think that comes as a surprise to many of us. And if it does, we'll then great for you because we're gonna dive into this passage. And we're really gonna try and understand how deep a picture is this chapter in Genesis right here at the start of the bible giving us about the main event. God is painting a picture for us here in Genesis.

He's using these brush strokes that that signal his intent for what he's going to do in the future. And so I've got I've only got 6 points Don't worry. It's not gonna take too long to go through them all. But these points are fantastic. Points of God's provision.

Points that show us what exactly it is God provides. Why he earns the name? The Lord will provide Jehovah Jaira. So point number 1, right here at the beginning, we see these words your son your only son whom you love. And this point's emphasized by God 3 times in verse 2, verse 12, verse 16.

Your son, your only son. You have not withheld from me, your son, your only son. He is your only son whom you love. I'm fully aware of this Abraham. God really rubs that point in.

Isaac is highly valuable. He means a lot. He's a treasure for Abraham. He's the gift through which the nation is going to be born, through which god's people are going to grow, he is immensely valuable. And writes at the moment of execution, you get this voice from heaven, the angel of the lord, and if you know the angel of the lord, You know that this is actually Jesus himself speaking, you know that because he says you have not withheld your son from me putting himself as God, the angel of the lord Jesus himself calls out from heaven and says Abraham stop this.

You have not withheld from me your son. Now, it it should remind us of another time when a voice from heaven calls out this is my son whom I love, which of course happens at Jesus' baptism. So you're getting links, you're getting pictures, you're getting brushstrokes, building up this picture. And then look at verses 16 to 17, and you see the picture this is giving us. Verses 16 and 17, you have these words.

The Lord called out for Abraham from heaven a second time and said I swear by myself declares the Lord that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. You see the picture that's giving? There is blessing that comes because the father did not withhold the son. A father doesn't withhold his son and blessing comes as a result of it in verses 16 and 17. So there you go.

0.1 first brush stroke that builds up this picture of God the provider. 0.2, 0.2 is the location that this takes place. A region, the region of Mariah, a mountain that God shows Abraham in the region of Mariah. Now at first glance, this this doesn't actually appear to mean much. But if you follow it through in the rest of scripture, then you see you come to 2 chronicles and this is the mountain that is pegged as the location on which Solomon actually builds the temple some 900 years later on.

Coincidence, I think not. There's obviously meaning loaded here if that's the case. So what is the temple? What's the significance of this sacrifice this picture being built on the same spot as as the temple is is to be built later on. Well, the temple of course is god's dwelling place.

The temple of course houses the holy of holies. The temple of course is where the temple curtain exists. That separates people from the holy of holies. They can't just enter into God's presence because they're simple people. There has to be sacrifice made so that people can enter into the presence of their father.

There needs to be atonement. So the temple is a place of dwelling with god is a place of sacrifice is a place of being a 1 with their father is the place by which this is all achieved. And that's built up through exodus, through the tabernacle, through the desert when they were sacrificing all the time. I mean, they must have been, they anything anything led you into sin. Pretty much anything.

It's impossible to go a day without sinning. Or in some way, turning away from your father in heaven. And so there's the sacrificial system. There's the tabernacle. It's an early picture of the temple.

A place of sacrifice. And this is where Abraham is led to. This mountain It's a picture of a place of sacrifice. And even then, sacrifice can only be performed by the high priest when it comes to the day of atonement, the big sacrifice, the 1 that atones for the sins of the people, where the high priest enters into the holy of holies, once a year. And in John's gospel, Jesus equates the temple with himself with his actual physical self.

He says, tear this temple down. And in 3 days, I will build it again. And of course, all the chief priests and the Pharisees are scoffing at. I'm saying it's taken us hundreds of years to build this thing. You're gonna build it in 3 days.

Are you mad? But of course, the temple is torn down on the cross. Jesus does go down for 3 days And on the third day, rises again. And in him, the temple is rebuilt. You see how Jesus casts himself there.

He casts himself as the temple as the place of sacrifice, as the place where atonement is made, as the way in which you come back into relationship with the father. And all of this in Genesis 22 on that mountain top, I think not a coincidence. And it brings us on to 0.3. 0.3, we're still in verse 2, by the way, is the burnt offering. So Isaac is to be taken up to this mountain top and sacrificed there as a burnt offering.

Again, another thing that is loaded up with old testament meaning and mean, we just don't have time to open up all of these things. You could talk a length about this, about the temple, about the rest. But the burnt offering, essentially, if you turn to turn to the Vitticus, is a is a type of sacrifice that's to be made in the temple and it has the primary purpose of providing atonement between god and the people. That is the burnt offering's primary purpose at 1 moment. A sacrifice for transgressions, a sacrifice to make atonement for sin.

So you see the picture that's being built up on this mountain top in Mariah with Isaac an Abraham. And of course, not only was the temple built on this hill where they're currently standing, and playing out this scene. But this hill is right next to another hill, isn't it? If Abraham and Isaac just looked across the way, they would have seen a different hill. A hill on which Jesus was crucified.

A hill on which the ultimate burnt offering would be made. The hill on which the sun carries up the the wood and that brings us up to 0.4. I'm told you we're gonna be running through these points fairly quickly, but this is like painting a picture. Some parts take longer. Some parts are quick.

0.4 is the wood. Look at the word in verse 6. In verse 6, you see Abraham, the father, took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac. The picture of the father placing on his son the very wood that would be used to incinerate him. He's so much too much to bear, isn't it?

It's unthinkable that the father would ever have to go through that kind of pain, that the father would would be planning his son's sacrifice that the father would be loading him up with that burden and making him carry it up the mountain. And yet, that is exactly what God endures as he allows Jesus his son, his perfect, blameless, righteous, sinless son, whom he loves where he had allowed him to carry the cross of wood through the streets of Jerusalem. Enduring mocking and derision and beatings and every kind of persecution and shining imaginable. He carries the cross that he's going to be nailed to. Why would God do that?

Why would God allow such a thing? Why? Well, it's because of the next point. Point number 5 is that God himself will provide the lamb for the offering. Verse 13, Abraham looks up.

And there in a thicket, he sees a ram caught by its horns. He went over, took the ram, and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. And this is exactly in line with what Abraham believed would happen when Isaac says, but where's the sacrifice? Where's the lamb? We've got all the rest.

And Abraham says, my son, don't worry God himself. Is gonna provide it. It's a substitute. Rather than that Isaac die, because of sin, he provides a substitute. Rather than accepting Isaac as a sacrifice, for sin to make atonement.

God provides a substitute, a scapegoat if you like. Why? What's the point of that? Surely, actually, if you think about it objectively, Isaac is a bit more of an acceptable vice than just any old Ram. I mean, Isaac's infinitely more valuable than a Ram.

Surely, the sacrifice of Isaac would have lots more meaning. In the end if you take out the horror of the situation. Well, actually, it's because the death of Isaac would ultimately be pointless. By all rights, god could demand the life of every first born child on the entire planet Such is humanity's turning away from god. I don't have to work very hard to explain that 1 to you.

Just turn on the news. Just have a look at what's going on in the world. Just have a look at how humans treat 1 another. Have a look at what we do. Have a look at what we think.

Have a look at what we say. You know this in your own lives. I know this in mine. I know how I think about people. I know how I treat people.

I know how I tramp along people. That's just me. That's just my contribution. Multiply it by billions of times over and you begin to get an understanding of the magnitude of the debt that's owed. Biorights, god could demand the life of every firstborn by all rights God could just demand the life of everyone.

All of us, he would be totally just to do so. But what would be the point? How can the death of a sinful person pay and make amends for sin? We're told in Romans that the wages of sin is death. So the death of a sinner, well, well, that's just the price, isn't it?

That's that's the penalty. That's what we get for turning our backs on God. The life giver, the sustainer of all things, the creator. We reap the whirlwind. Our evil deeds bring that upon us.

We earn a salary, withhold enrolment. We work towards a payday. We literally earn our own death. We're working pretty hard for it. And there's no way out.

There is no way out of that on our own steam. Even if we were to sacrifice the most very precious thing to us. There's no way out. Even if we were to sacrifice our sons our only sons whom we loved, it wouldn't even begin to make a dent in the debt that's owed. Because of humanity that's turned its back on God, it's lover and creator and life giver.

So God provides the only thing that can break that cycle, the only sacrifice that can ever be acceptable. It must be pure. It must be holy. It must be blameless. It must be perfect.

It must be the most precious thing that's ever been. It must be sin free, utterly sin free. Isaac wasn't SYN-three. Parents, I don't have to work very hard either to explain to you that your children are not SYN-three. I think you can probably just think over the past 24 hours at some of their antics to know that's definitely not the case.

Only 1 who's ever lived a life like that on this planet. Only 1 can make that claim. And so there's only 1 option, isn't there? Payment for sin must be the sacrifice of a sinless 1. Death can only be broken by the life giver.

And so for god so loved the world that he gave his 1 and only son offers him up as a sacrifice offers him up as a substitute, offers him up as a scapegoat, pins our sin on him and says, I tell you what, I'll take that load. I'll take that wooden load that you should rightfully be carrying through the streets. I'll take that mockery and derision that you deserve, and I'll put it on my son instead. He will carry it. He will go up the hill.

He will sit on the funeral pyre. I will take the knife and I will sacrifice him there to save you, to save us, to rescue us. That is why God is worthy of the name Jehovah gyra. That is what God's provision to us is. It's not in material things.

It's not in food and water and clothing and shelter. Yes, Scott provides all of those things. Of course, he does. Jesus even takes them almost as a granted when he speaks about it. And look, But God's provision.

God's provision that matters. The biggest provision that's ever been given is the death of his son, is the sacrifice of his son, is the burnt offering of his son on top of that mountain. What a lord? What a god? What a father?

What a savior? What a son? That he would do these things in our place that we so rightfully deserve. If you know God as your provider in that sense, then what a life you've been given to live in light of that? If you don't, no God is provider in that sense, then I urge you to take a serious look at the picture that he's painted for us here in Genesis, and I urge you to look at the fulfillment of that picture in the cross.

Know what it means for you because god provided you with the scapegoats, with the substitutes, with his son.