SERMON XXVII.

JEHOVAH-JIREH.

GEN. XXII. 14.

And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh.

The father of the faithful, in obedience to the divine command, had separated himself from all his kindred and removed into a land of strangers. For a long time he had but one intimate friend to sooth his solitary hours. The happiness of being a parent was denied him until he had worn out a hundred years. Imagine then his joy when the little Isaac was given him, with a promise that from this child the Messiah should proceed. For full twenty years the eyes and hearts of the fond parents were fixed on this precious gift of heaven, and with tearful tenderness watched his opening virtues. One day Abraham hears the well known voice of his heavenly Father. Expecting some fresh expression of paternal love, or perhaps some new bene

diction on his beloved Isaac, he readily answers, Here am I. But conceive his astonishment when the dreadful command proceeded; "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you of." Must then all his earthly comforts be dashed at once? In spite of the yearnings of a father's heart, must he imbrue his hands in the blood of his own son? How can he endure the ravings of the distracted mother? And how then can the Messiah be born? But none of these things move him. Without hesitation or delay he sets off for the place, concealing the big cares in his own breast. For more than sixty miles he carried his unwavering purpose, until he came to the spot where the temple was afterwards built and near which Mount Calvary stood. While on his way all the father was awakened in his heart by this moving question from Isaac; My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" But he suppressed the rising tumult and went forward to the place. Here he built an altar, and bound Isaac, and laid him upon the altar, and took the knife to open the palpitating heart. His arm was stretched out to give the fatal thrust, when the angel of the Lord called suddenly to him out of heaven and stopped the father's hand. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and beheld a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, which God had sent as a substitute for Isaac. At this he could no longer refrain, but broke forth into thanksgiving

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and called the name of the place Jehovah-Jireh which signifies, The Lord will provide. He wished never to forget this great deliverance. He knew he never should forget it, and he wished the whole world might remember it too. He named the place The Lord will provide, that it might be a standing monument to all generations that God, not only would provide a Saviour for his people, but would often deliver them from straits and difficulties the most pressing and seemingly unavoidable. From these words I deduce the following Doctrine: The Lord will provide all needful relief for his people, and will often bring them sudden and unexpected deliverance from straits the most perplexing.

Let us range the ages for proofs of this. At the moment when our first parents, all dissolved in contrite grief, were bending over a ruined world, with nothing in prospect but the blackness of darkness forever, the joyful news came, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. That spot in Eden might well have been called JehovahJireh. In subsequent years, when the Church, reduced to a single family, was on the point of being buried under the corruptions of an unbelieving world, God saved it by a flood: and while the wicked lay buried under the waters of the deluge, the Church rode the unruffled wave, and sung from the top of Ararat, The Lord will provide. At a later period, when the Church was in danger of being lost in a second general apostacy, God separated Abraham from the rest of the world to be the father of the holy seed.

When the destruction of

Sodom was determined on, and the fiery storm was gathering over the vale of Siddim, messengers from heaven were sent to bring out Lot: and when he entered the protecting Zoar, he might well have sung, so loud that all heaven would have heard, The Lord will provide. When Esau came against his brother with an armed host, Jacob, encumbered with his wives and children, could neither flee nor resist. In that extremity he applied to the God who had been a shield to his father Abraham, and found such a deliverance as affects his heart to this day. The plain of Penuel, which was wet with the tears of relenting Esau instead of Jacob's blood, might have been inscribed all over with Jehovah-Jireh. When Joseph was cast into the cave, with no hand to deliver, no heart to pity, no tongue to plead for him, what relief could he expect? Yet the Lord did provide. And when he was cast into prison, with no witness to repel the foul charge, an obscure, unbefriended youth, in a strange land, in a dismal dungeon, crushed under the arm of power, what possible way could be seen for his escape? Yet by a wonderful interposition he was taken from the dungeon to be the lord of Egypt.

When the most powerful monarch on earth, bent on retaining Israel in bondage, commanded the midwives to destroy all the male children, by this very means God introduced an infant into Pharaoh's court, to be there trained up to deliver his people and to illumine the world with the records of salvation. When Israel lay bleeding and bound under the oppressive power of Egypt, with no armies to

assert their rights, and no ally this side of heaven, God found out a way to break their chains and to bring them out. And when the armies of Egypt pursued and overtook them by the Red Sea, there seemed no possible way of escape. The sea before, the enemy behind, impassable mountains on either side, and no weapons in their hands. In that moment of distress the cloud in which Jehovah dwelt, rolled between the two armies, filling the enemy's camp with darkness, while the sea opened a passage for his people to the other shore. There they sat and sung, as with an angel's voice, The Lord will provide.

Jehovah-Jireh may be set for the subject of almost every chapter in the book of Judges. The deliverance of Israel from the eight years' oppression of the king of Mesopotamia, by the hand of Othniel; and from the eighteen years of Moabitish oppression, by the hand of Ehud; and from the twenty years' domination of the potent Jabin, by Deborah and Barak; and from the seven years' ravages of the Midianites, by the hand of Gideon; and from the twenty years' tyranny of the Ammonites, by the hand of Jephthah; and from the long oppression of the Philistines, by the hand of Sampson; all proclaimed, in language not to be misunderstood, The Lord will provide.

When the Philistines fell upon the Hebrews as they were praying at Mizpeh, God wrought a great deliverance for his people; at which Samuel was deeply affected, and erected a monument and call