“And they went both of them together,” but the progress seems to have been a silent one from the form of expression following Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son.” And now the son asks a question—the question of all time; the cosmic question, uttered and echoed by the myriad tongues of the groaning creation— “Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb?"
Here are the implements of judgment, but where is the Victim; here is the need but where is the supply; here is the sinner, but where is the Savior; here is the worshipper, but where is the means of approach; here are the agencies of suffering, but where is the Sufferer? Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the Lamb? This was for four thousand years the inquiry—more or less mutely and imperfectly expressed—of every devout man; and there was but one answer that could be given, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb.” Faith gave that answer with placid assurance, not doubting nor questioning—nor understanding; and faith received it with silent submission. The full answer and explanation came, however, at last; came when, at the end of a worn-out and dying dispensation, the aged Simeon held the celestial Babe in his arms and said, “Lord now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation;” came, when the stern and ascetic Baptist, looking upon Jesus as He walked, said, “BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD!”
So it is found that “in the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided “; and so the place is named JEHOVAH-JIREH. The name Jehovah was taken by God as showing the relationship which He would maintain by faith: it means I AM and whatever is needed can be, by faith, added to that “I am—.” It is like a signed check which is left for the possessor to fill in the amount as he requires. Thus we find the word Jehovah linked with qualifying terms several times, and on each occasion the qualifying term grows out of the character of the circumstances and suits it. In the passage before us, there is a position of extreme need—Where is......? and therefore we find JEHOVAH-JIREH, I am thy provider. In Ex. 17, the people of Israel, unorganized and undisciplined, was attacked by a powerless and ruthless foe; and they required a rallying point, a banner, JEHOVAH-NISSI. Again, in the beginning of the book of Judges, the position is one of continual turbulence: in the sixth chapter “the mighty man of valor” was threshing “a handful of wheat by the winepress “to hide it from the Midianites.” When he sees the departing angel, he cries in an agony of fear, “Alas, O Lord God!” But the Lord said, “Peace fear not:” so the name of the altar is JEHOVAH-SHALOM =I am thy peace. Then in Jer. 23 the sin complained of is so great that the very pastors are seen to be wholly corrupt— “Woe be unto the pastors!” there is no hope when the rulers have thus become vile, until a heavenly light shines forth from the well-known and well-loved words JEHOVAH TSIDKENU.
Finally observe the beautiful suitability of the last of these qualifying terms. Ezekiel gives a very long description of the holy temple of the future; he describes the surroundings and furniture in the glorious words of his book. What is it but the house without the father, the home without the husband, the palace without the king? He describes, indeed, many grandeurs of the millennial temple, spacious, solemn, rich, brilliant, superb in its splendor and imposing magnificence; but only to lead to this, the zenith and culmination of all its manifold glories JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH, or, THE LORD IS THERE.
And, to the devout mind, unless the Lord be there, its beauty is ugliness and its glory is shame; and on the other hand the humblest position is, by the presence of the Lord, transformed and illumined as with the golden light of heaven. This is what has taken place at the first coming of Christ. He turned His back upon the earthly temple, and sat with His disciples in an “upper room.” When king David was betrayed, dishonored, and turned out of Jerusalem, those who were loyal to him and loved him went with him across Kidron and up the bleak mountainside. They preferred the king to the palace—wherever he was, was their palace; but there was no lack of time-servers then, as now, who remained behind, preferring the palace to the king, and were ready to welcome any usurper that would leave them their places. The time has been and will be again when the Lord would be found in temples of outward splendor, but not now; “Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.”
Observe that faith goes forward, not understanding how the provision will be made, but reckoning on God's aid— “so they went both of them together.” A negro being in a difficulty to define faith, said, “Now see dat wall; well, if I prays to go froo dat ar wall, if I has faif, it's my business to jump at de wall, an' it's de Lord's business to put me froo.” But if he did not go forward, nobody could expect him to get through. Real faith always gets what it expects, and more. Abraham said, “God shall provide a lamb;” but when the time came, he “lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold behind him a ram.”
That was a good reply given by the mother of one who, coming down in the morning, swung open the cupboard door and said, “There, I prayed for a loaf of bread to be in the cupboard; and there's none, of course, just what I expected.” The mother replied, “Then you got what you expected!” Unbelief also gets what it expects—nothing.