The incident and the name became the occasion of a proverb, as the
historian tells us, which survived down to the period of his writing,
and probably long after, when men were accustomed to say, 'In the mount
of the Lord it shall be provided.' The provision of all sorts that we
need has certain conditions as to the when and the where of the persons
to whom it shall be granted. 'In the mount of the Lord it shall be
provided.' If we wish to have our outward needs supplied, our outward
weaknesses strengthened, power and energy sufficient for duty, wisdom
for perplexity, a share in the Sacrifice which taketh away the sins of
the world, we receive them all on the condition that we are found in
the place where all God's provision is treasured. If a man chooses to
sit outside the baker's shop, he may starve on its threshold. If a man
will not go into the bank, his pockets will be empty, though there may
be bursting coffers there to which he has a right. And if we will not
ascend to the hill of the Lord, and stand in His holy place by simple
faith, and by true communion of heart and life, God's amplest provision
is nought to us; and we are empty in the midst of affluence. Get near
to God if you would partake of what He has prepared. Live in fellowship
with Him by simple love, and often meditate on Him, if you would drink
in of His fulness. And be sure of this, that howsoever within His house
the stores are heaped and the treasury full, you will have neither part
nor lot in the matter, unless you are children of the house. 'In the
mount of the Lord it shall be provided.' And round it there is a waste
wilderness of famine and of death.
Further, note _when_ the provision is realised.
When the man is standing with the knife in his hand, and next minute it
will be red with the son's blood--then the call comes: 'Abraham!' and
then he sees the ram caught in the thicket. There had been a long weary
journey from their home away down in the dry, sunny south, a long tramp
over the rough hills, a toilsome climb, with a breaking heart in the
father's bosom, and a dim foreboding gradually stealing on the child's
spirit. But there was no sign of respite or of deliverance. Slowly he
piles together the wood, and yet no sign. Slowly he binds his boy, and
lays him on it, and still no sign. Slowly, reluctantly, and yet
resolvedly, he unsheathes the knife, and yet no sign. He lifts his
hand, and then it comes.
That is God's way always. Up to the very edge we are driven, before His
hand is put out to help us. Such is the law, not only because the next
moment is always necessarily dark, nor because God will deal with us in
any arbitrary fashion, and play with our fears, but because it is best
for us that we should be forced to desperation, and out of desperation
should 'pluck the flower, safety.' It is best for us that we should be
brought to say, 'My foot slippeth!' and then, just as our toes are
sliding upon the glacier, the help comes and 'Thy mercy held me up.'
'The Lord is her helper, and that right early.' When He delays, it is
not to trifle with us, but to do us good by the sense of need, as well
as by the experience of deliverance. At the last moment, never before
it, never until we have found out how much we need it, and never too
late, comes the Helper.
So 'it is provided' for the people that quietly and persistently tread
the path of duty, and go wherever His hand leads them, without asking
anything about where it does lead. The condition of the provision is
our obedience of heart and will. To Abraham doing what he was
commanded, though his heart was breaking as he did it, the help was
granted--as it always will be.
3. And so, lastly, note what we are to do with the provision when we
get it.
Abraham christened the anonymous mountain-top, not by a name that
reminded him or others of his trial, but by a name that proclaimed
God's deliverance. He did not say anything about his agony or about his
obedience. God spoke about that, not Abraham. He did not want these to
be remembered, but what he desired to hand on to later generations was
what God had done for him. Oh! dear friends, is that the way in which
we look back upon life? Many a bare, bald mountain-top in your career
and mine we have got our names for. Are they names that commemorate our
sufferings or God's blessings? When we look back on the past what do we
see? Times of trial or times of deliverance? Which side of the wave do
we choose to look at, the one that is smitten by the sunshine or the
one that is all black and purple in the shadow? The sea looked at from
the one side will be all a sunny path, and from the other dark as
chaos. Let us name the heights that lie behind us, visible to memory,
by names that commemorate, not the troubles that we had on them, but
the deliverances that on them we received from God.
This name enshrines the duty of commemoration--ay! and the duty of
expectation. 'The Lord will provide.' How do you know that, Abraham?
and his answer is, 'Because the Lord did provide.' That is a shaky kind
of argument if we use it about one another. Our resources may give out,
our patience may weary. If it is a storehouse that we have to go to,
all the corn that is treasured in it will be eaten up some day; but if
it is to some boundless plain that grows it that we go, then we can be
sure that there will be a harvest next year as there has been a harvest
last. And so we have to think of God, not as a storehouse, but as the
soil from which there comes forth, year by year and generation after
generation, the same crop of rich blessings for the needs and the
hungers of every soul. If we have to draw from reservoirs we cannot
say, 'I have gone with my pitcher to the well six times, and I shall
get it filled at the seventh.' It is more probable that we shall have
to say, 'I have gone so often that I durst not go any more'; but if we
have to go, not to a well, but to a fountain, then the oftener we go,
the surer we become that its crystal cool waters will always be ready
for us. 'Thou hast been with me in six troubles; and in seven thou wilt
not forsake me,' is a bad conclusion to draw about one another; but it
is the right conclusion to draw about God.
And so, as we look back upon our past lives, and see many a peak
gleaming in the magic light of memory, let us name them all by names
that will throw a radiance of hope on the unknown and un-climbed
difficulties before us, and say, as the patriarch did when he went down
from the mount of his trial and deliverance, 'The Lord will provide.'