What makes us any different to think that God would reveal all to us in a moment so that we could know everything and never ask the question, “God what are You doing, what is the purpose of this trial I'm going through? If indeed it's coming at Your hands, what's the purpose in all of this?” I think there are a lot of people who would like to throw me into the camp with the rest of the nut bags on TV, who are quote/unquote, “talking about religion,” and it's really unfortunate that those individuals obviously have never watched my program on TV. They have never watched, because I do not make financial appeals on television. Now this service is going live over the internet, it's going live over radio; it will be edited for television. And if you've been around that's what I've done all of these years since I've had a program on TV. We've never made an appeal for money. The, the idea is you put the gospel out there and if people are interested they will keep listening, and eventually they will switch from the TV station to listening throughout the week on the home network and eventually you'll get taught about giving and how to respond to God's word. So only the people who have never listened to me would throw me into the category of people who do fundraising. And there's nothing fun about fund raising, but would throw me into that category, or people who toss around words towards me, like “sowing,” sowing like how people toss that term around. You've heard it in religious circles where people say, “Sow your best seed.” Have I ever said that to you? (No, Ma'am!) I'm glad that you're listening, because I believe that once I've taught out of the book and I, I have nothing that I've made up on my own. That's the other part that's missing in this amazing equation is if it was up to me and God said, “Hey, use your own imagination,” believe me, I've got enough of it that I could come up with real creative ways. But we're supposed to be doing it God's way, and that's what I've tried to do. I'm not saying, I've told you I'm not perfect, and there's no perfect person. There's no perfect pastor. And those people who elevate anyone who's in the pulpit, whether you're a Catholic or a Protestant, do that and you're a nut bag in my case, because we're just all flesh pots. We all have the same disease, the same issues, the same whatever; God sees it all the same way. He puts some as gifts to the church, but it doesn't mean that they are different than you or different than me. It's all the same. The issue comes down to is that individual going to be trustworthy with God's word? So when I tell you this, it's, you know, there's always somebody out there who doesn't listen who will toss around things and say, “Well, she does this,” or “She does that.” And it's interesting because I find the more that people don't listen, the more that people are ignorant and obtuse about the things that they say, because many of the things that are said couldn't be farther than what you see every single week and the things I've told you. Don't know where the money's going? Look at the back of your check. I have never personally endorsed a check or taken a check that has been put in the offering and said, “This is mine.” We take up an offering two times a year that's designated as the Pastor's offering, and even, I hate to be a, you know, somebody would like to say, “Oh well, shouldn't you do something for yourself?” Even though over the years there's been many things that have been proposed, look at even those offerings that have been taken on special occasion: they end up in the general fund. Look at the back of your check. Really exciting life I lead here in the pastorate. Of course if you listen to those people who make up these things it's quite exciting. I could very well have a━where was that one evangelist they said that that certain one had a gold commode. I just don't know how you can get around that. I'm going to leave that one alone. But for those people who are interested in how we do things here, I told you. I teach. We may not be the biggest ministry, we may not be a mega-church, This church has never been going with the flow and last time I checked we're still not going with the flow. If you want to, if you want to really pick it apart, you'd say only someone who's really silly would do what I do week in and week out for what I get out of it. And that's the honest truth. So all I have to say to you is when we talk about the offering, the offering isn't, contrary to all of these people who are out there would like to say, “Oh, well, you know what? You know what this is?” Contrary to what they might say, the offering is not for me even on those special days. I've just said that. The offering is something you do between you and God. And you might say you might be one of those people that say, “Well, I don't need to come to church and I don't need a place to do it.” Well, then tell me where you're going to put your time and your money? Tell me. If you don't need a church, tell me where you're going to do it. And those people fit into the category of the words of Christ: “thief and robber.” I don't know how else you'd say that, but that's just the way it is. And I've told you, you either it here or you do it somewhere else, and you find a place to participate not robbing God. I don't care where it is. This isn't about me and Faith Center and what people say is “your ministry.” I'm just a steward here for whatever time God gives me, a steward of God's word and at least in some part trying to tell people whether you do it here or you do it somewhere else, it's your responsibility. Find someone who you deem trustworthy enough to make it the place where you place your tithes and offerings. Don't focus on the individual themselves, but the place where you're, you're doing this act. And then once your act is done, your part, God sees what you've done. Don't look on the thing as if to say, “Well, then,” like these people that say, “Well, what happens to the money?” But that's really none of your business. Your business is responding to the word. That's your responsibility, responding to the word of God. If you've come to the faith and believe that the Bible is true, then it's your responsibility to respond and not to ask beyond that because you've done your part. God sees the part you've done. I will tell you that today in the message I'm going to deliver, but right now, we're going to put those thoughts into actions, because the ushers are going to come. We're going to take up an offering. It's offering time. (applause) Now after all that I just said as the precursor to the offering, let me paint a really clear picture. Sometimes what God says in His book, the instructions He gives don't make any sense at all; they make no sense. An on-looking world would say, “That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard,” or an on-looking world still today says, “That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard!” “Oh, how archaic!” “Really?” Now here's the reality. Now last week I chose a passage out of the book of Exodus highlighting the Lord's Passover, tying it to, again there's a, there will be a theme and you'll see it real quickly here today, I'm looking at dimensions of Christ's work in the Old Testament, shadows and types that point in some way to the work of Christ. So as we looked at the Lord's Passover last week, somebody might listen to that message and say, “Well, that's pretty ridiculous that God would command the people to kill an animal and apply blood to the doorpost,” but that's what God said! And the proof that God's word was true was the people who did it lived. Now there's other examples of this, of when somebody might say, “Well, how preposterous! How crazy!” And I find my text actually looks, if someone doesn't know the Bible, looks rather frightening. It's a passage I've visited before, but again I'm looking at these passages from a different standpoint, that is looking at something that is before the cross, but pointing to the cross or the finished work of Christ. So if you'd like to turn with me to Genesis, the book of Genesis, and the 22nd chapter. And as you turn there, those familiar will know this is the chapter that God tests Abraham in giving him a charge to sacrifice his only begotten son Isaac. And I'll read the text in a minute, but it is undoubtedly to the modern reader one of the most shocking, disturbing, perplexing demands made to an aged man, Abraham, regarding the sacrificing of his only begotten son. Now Abraham we know had two sons, the one that came out of Hagar that was the impatience that took hold. And God gave a promise to Abraham and to Sarah that they would have a child. Now they had a child eventually the old-fashioned way, nothing miraculous about the production of that child, but what was miraculous is that they were both too old for that event to actually be, well, that is miraculous, let's just put it that way. She even says she's past her time and he's past his most undoubtedly. So it's interesting when God says, “take your only begotten son,” He's referring to Isaac, as Isaac was indeed the child of promise. When we open up this text even deeper, and it is, although it has details it is an ambiguous text. What we can glean out of here is the power of love, obedient faith, and the heart of God's fidelity towards His creation. Three times in this chapter there are three different voices that will speak. The first one is God speaking to Abraham: “It came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.” And you know there are a lot of people that say, “Well, God doesn't tempt people.” Well, I've explained this and taught on this word, and there's abundant teaching on this word on the network that describes the tempting here is to see what is in a person's heart, what is inside there. So the first voice is God obviously speaking directly to Abraham, and He gives him this command which is rather disturbing, “He said, Take now thy son,” and He makes sure that it's not, there's no confusion here, “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 thee of.” So the first voice is God speaking. The second voice, as I read on, we'll see will be Isaac, who will be asking a question, and the third will be the angel of the Lord, so this is a passage in three different voices, and probably for the modern reader, because we're so familiar with the text, familiar with the New Testament, we won't ask the same questions that, say, individuals who would have read this passage before there was a New Testament, before there was an unfolding of Christ, would have understood. Imagine, indulge me for a minute, try to imagine there is at this point we know of no New Testament, there is no such thing, we're thousands of years away from that in terms of living in Isaac's time and Abraham's time; in Isaac's time. So the first thing that we would have to wrap our minds around is what was God's purpose? If we didn't understand ultimately, because we have the full picture, but if we didn't and we were Abraham, the first question would be “What is God's purpose in giving me these instructions?” which, again, our modern frame looks on this with disgust, because essentially God is saying, “Go sacrifice your child.” But in the days, in these days, in this particular timeframe it was not uncommon, we read of people who offered their children and it was a practice that happened. Now I'm; it is despicable, but that was a practice of the day. That's why I said you can never read out of context, and sometimes isolating like I'm doing and imagining there is no New Testament, we have no frame of reference, the question is, “What is God's purpose in telling me to do this?” Can you imagine that? Can you actually try and wipe away the New Testament for a minute, and put yourself in Abraham's shoes and ask the question, “Why would God tell me to offer up the very son that He promised and gave me?” It makes no sense. What was God doing? And I would say as a footnote here if━now God has not spoken to me audibly, but there are times when I have said to God, “I don't understand what You're doing.” You ever said that? Okay that's three of you. I don't understand what You're doing, God. What makes us any different, other than we live in the New Testament dispensation, but what makes us any different to think that God would reveal all to us in a moment so that we could know everything and never ask the question, “God what are You doing, what is the purpose of this trial I'm going through? If indeed it's coming at Your hands, what's the purpose in all of this?” Why such a barbaric and brutal request from God? Again, in Abraham's day this would have not been so barbaric because it was practiced, it was known, but let's first start with the testing of Abraham, because that's where I want to kind of pick up and we'll move forward. When God is very specific and says, “Take your son, your only begotten son,” So He specifies it's not Ishmael, “whom thou lovest,” and tells him to get into a certain place, the land of Moriah, and then very clearly, “offer him there for a burnt offering.” And the burnt offering was one of the most common offerings before the law of offerings was established, one of the most common offerings, simply put: completely offered up, usually consumed by fire unto the Lord, so what a strange request. And again try and put yourself into the mind of Abraham and not someone who knows the book cover-to-cover. There's an interesting thing, we tend, we tend to maybe approach the text as thinking that maybe Abraham knew this was only a test. You know like when sometimes you're listening to your radio and the emergency sound comes on and says, “This is only a test,” so you know it's only a test, it's not the real thing. But how did Abraham know, because we're using the English word “tempt,” or “testing,” that this was not going to happen, or God would not let it happen? In other words, Abraham had no guarantee, so in his mind this wasn't just a test; it was for real. And if that makes any sense because it does to me, the fact that God says, “Offer him as a burnt offering,” really puts it down to something that is, as I said, kind of disturbing. But you know, you can, even here, glean some New Testament goods out of the Old. Why, maybe God wanted to see, did Abraham love Isaac more than he loved God. In the New Testament Christ talks about those, if you don't, He says, “If you don't prefer Me above your husband, wife, sister, mother or brother, father, etc, you cannot be My disciple.” And in an answer to one of the lawyers in terms of what is the greatest commandment, He turns around and says to essentially, to love God with all your heart, all your soul, your entire being, which would bring us to a concept of obedience unto the Lord. So even in this Old Testament depiction, we do have a picture of God kind of smoking out whether Abraham had more love for God and His word and His commandment, which we're not talking about the Ten Commandments; we're talking about a word spoken by God. Remember, previously Abraham doesn't have such a great track record when God said go somewhere, and Abraham's display of lying, and doing what was right in his own eyes, going into a strange land when God did not tell him to go there. So I think oftentimes there's always these wonderful lessons nestled inside of these texts. Oftentimes God will, and He does, let us get off the track until finally we do indeed learn just like it says of Christ, “He learned obedience through the things He suffered,” that we begin to learn that when God says something we need to take special heed and pay attention to what's being said, not just to dismiss and say, “Oh, that's somebody else, and that's in the Bible, and that's archaic.” Now I, I go back to that statement I just said about somebody saying, “How crazy is that!” Well, it's crazy enough that God decided to put down however you want to describe this, this text which could have been omitted, could have maybe not been preserved for us. And as I said it's well-woven, and yet in its well-woven-ness it's still yet ambiguous, it doesn't give us the full details of many things that we might want to know, but enough to know God was searching out something in the heart of Abraham. And let's just take a look at the rest of the text because this is what I like about the text. You have here something that most of us cannot claim with Abraham. After God gave him the instructions it says, “And Abraham rose up early in the morning,” which means he did not procrastinate. Now I'm talking just to my congregation, to the people in the sound of my voice: how many times have you been reading the Bible, something leaps out at you, you feel conviction in your heart, no one's urging you to do anything; that's you alone in your home reading, something is tugging on your heart but you, you dismiss it, you put it off, you put it aside, has that ever happened? I'm glad I'm not the only one raising my hand. My point is God also sees that when we don't procrastinate, when God says something and we're maybe not eager in the sense of, “Oh goody!” but we get up and we begin. And that's what I like about this, there's little things inside of this text that tell me a lot about Abraham, who's by the way, well into his hundredth year here, if not well beyond that perhaps, but certainly in his, in that age area, and doesn't put off and say, “Aw, my back hurts,” or you know, “Suffer me to do something else.” He “rose up early in the morning, saddled his ass, took two of his young men with him, Isaac his son, clave the wood for the burnt offering, rose up went unto the place of which God had told him.” So what I love about this text is it tells me about Abraham did not procrastinate, he was prompt, he made sure he had the proper provisions with him. Can you imagine being, sometimes as we are we don't equip ourselves, and we set out to do something and we realize we don't have the right equipment, we don't have the right tools. You ever have a flat tire and realize you don't have the right tools to change a tire in your car because some genius, your husband, wife, your child took the tool out of your car and put it somewhere else? No, hasn't happened to you? Good, okay, well, think of some other thing that's happened to you and then apply. The point is it would be terrible to set out to do something and not have the equipment for it. So I like the fact that he provided, Abraham made provision for himself knowing the task at hand. It says that he took what he needed essentially for the trip, for the offering. “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.” This is another interesting thing. It's a three day journey for an old man, and yet you don't hear any excuse-making on his part. Most people will make an excuse that they can't drive for thirty or forty minutes to come to church, even just once a month. And you may say, “Wow, where, where did you get that from?” From the book of life, which happens here every single day where I hear people make excuses about things. And I love that I'm reading this elderly man, three-day's journey, you can do the math that maybe if he traveled fifteen, to at best twenty miles in a day, which is pretty darn good for a guy that's around a hundred years old. At least a forty-five mile journey, and he gets there, “lifted up his eyes, saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” This is the other thing that I like. I like the fact that Abraham takes the position that he's not only in charge, he's not some old fuddy-duddy. He says, “You guys stay here,” and basically, “we will be back, we will return.” Now I don't know, and I'm telling you honestly I don't know that if in the heart of Abraham he was certain that God would not go through with the act, or that God would let him go through with the act and then raise him up again. I don't know, but certainly this statement, which many have, many great theologians have been perplexed over, I can't profess to tell you I know what was in the heart of the man, except that he said, “We will be back. We will come again to you.” So there is in this, “We'll go yonder and worship,” there is humility towards God. He didn't look at this charge to go and sacrifice his son as something begrudgingly, “I've got to go do this thing.” He says, “We'll, we're going to go worship and we'll come back,” a statement of faith. I choose to see it that way. “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, laid it upon his son Isaac; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.” Here's where Isaac speaks. I told you three voices; God is first, then the son Isaac speaks “unto Abraham him father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” His question is really valid, whether he, Isaac was playing a little dumb, or maybe it was really that he was asking, “Father, where is the offering, where is whatever we're going to offer for a burnt offering; where is the lamb?” Right? “And Abraham said,” in answer to the question, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burn offering.” So here we confirm the faith that Abraham had when he said, “We will worship and we will return, we will come again to you.” But I want to point out something which I think is really important, because I've read this passage so many times and I'm familiar with it, but the fact that it says the wood that Isaac his son, he “laid it upon Isaac his son to carry.” Here you see, and you can say it's mere coincidence, one of the Gospels records Christ carrying some part of His cross. And that's why I said there are types in here where many people choose to just say, “Oh, it's mere coincidence,” but when you really begin to read the text aright, this is not so much a text about how God's going to put some money in your pocket. This is about the Lord providing the sacrifice. In this case, when the child says, “Where is the lamb?” this brings us straightway to John's Gospel: “Behold, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.” I told you my text from last week and this week are connected to the work of the cross and the work of Christ, and they are shadows indeed of the substance, which is Christ. So it says, verse 9, “They came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built him an altar there, laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And this is the remarkable part about the text. If Isaac had asked the question, “Where is the lamb?” now it should be obvious to Isaac that the “lam”" is now bound to the altar and he is it. It should be obvious. There's something, again, it's an unspoken, unwritten thing about the submission of Isaac. Think about it. Isaac would certainly be at least a teenager, perhaps even a young man, and could have, once he saw what was going on, he could have said, “I'm getting the hell out of here!” and ran down the hill, “Catch me if you can, old man!” right? Or they could have chased around the altar, you know. But it says he “bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.” There is something, again, even though Abraham is with Isaac, even though he tells the men at the bottom of the hill, “We will be back,” there's something very solitary if we're just simply focusing on Abraham, there's something very solitary about something that Abraham himself had to work out with God. He had to work out something in his heart and in his mind that the Lord was going to do something. Otherwise, maybe the reason why he told the men to stay at the bottom of the hill, maybe these men didn't have the same type of faith or mindset, and maybe as soon as they saw that knife coming up they would have grabbed his arm and said, “What are you doing?” Or they would have tried to stop him. Or maybe once they saw that Isaac was bound to the altar, they would have said, “Ah, the old man's lost his mental nuggets. We've got to save the boy,” right? And so there are all these dimensions, they're, they are layers. That's why I said it's very interesting the willingness of the son to not only carry his burden, his part, his portion up the hill, his question to his father, and his total submission. These are interesting things. When you get back into the text, you see “Abraham stretched forth his hand, took the knife to slay his son.” Here is the third voice speaking, “the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him,” here is the purpose of it all; what's the point? What's the purpose? Here is the purpose, “for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” And I think the wonderful lesson of this text; I shouldn't say one lesson, there are multiple lessons, but I believe that sometimes when things are happening in our lives, a lot of times it is, I'm not saying everything is a test of God. Some things are brought by the devil, some things are just it, it is. But the one thing for sure when it says, “I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me,” as if to say, and let's put this now, let's put a little faith dimension on this and say when things are going a little bit out of our course as we would like them to be, it should be that we keep trusting, we keep committed enough to keep trusting and saying, “I don't know, God, I have no idea of what You're doing, but I know Your faithfulness and Your fidelity, the same God that's seen me through a thousand other events in my life will see me through this one.” I love the fact that this third voice speaking, says the purpose is disclosed, “Now I know.” And it's interesting how it's the angel of the Lord, but then if you, if you read carefully, it says, “For now I know,” first person, singular, “For now I know that thou fearest God.” So I think, interestingly enough, and there are, as I said, there are layers upon layers in this text, but the first thing is about the Lord and His provision. The first thing is that the Lord sees. I tried to say this last week with the blood being applied to the doorpost: the Lord sees. He sees our imperfect worship, He sees all the cracks in our faith, He sees the fact that sometimes we get up and we try and we fail, and we get up and we try and we fail; He sees all of that. Here's an application for you and for me, the fact that the Lord sees exactly the state we're in and maybe we're acting in faith, and although it is the act of whatever we're doing is rather imperfect and flawed, God sees that as perfection in His eyes, the act of trusting Him fully, which brings on the purpose of God. In this case, God wanted to know. And He gets His answer. Then there is the provision of God, “Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.” So this intention of God to see what was in the heart of Abraham. Would he continue to trust Him? Would he keep trusting Him, even in the act of, until that voice spoke and said, “Now I know,” and the Lord provided? And all of this, by the way, as I said shadows and types pointing to Calvary and to Christ and to the cross, and the difference here some people have proposed the concept of essentially the resurrection of Isaac, which Isaac was never sacrificed, but in type when God said, “Offer your son there,” the faith that Abraham had to go all the way. And unlike the difference of course, unlike is that Christ actually dies on the cross. It's not just a test, it's not just an idea, it's not just a statement; He actually dies and He's raised up by the power of the Father, just as He said. But at least we have these things woven in here. “Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah-jirah: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.” And what is interesting about this, and I've taught on this before, is, and this is where we have to be careful because you can always take something and lift out and try and make it become something else. The Lord will always provide for His people in different ways. You want the, the New Testament version of that, in Matthew 6, where it talks about casting your cares upon Him, be not anxious: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” here it is, and all the things that you've been anxious about, the things that you really need, those things will be added to you, not the things that you ask for that are over and above, but the things that you really need. And if you look at your life, I'll say it for me, if I look at my life, God has provided for me the things that I've really needed. I've asked for things over the course of my life which were stupid, they were futile, they were dumb; a lot, asking a lot in before I came to know this, in immaturity. Now I know the Lord will provide for what I need for the thing that He's brought me here for and it's the same thing with you. When people say, “Will my need, will my need be met?” Well, let's define what that need is. Is the need to be walking with Him and the need to be faithing and trusting Him? Well, that that is an activation. God starts the process, then the rest is your part. But again, when people try to make this as “The Lord will be your sugar daddy and put everything in your hand that you need, no, because otherwise maybe Abraham could have asked for, “Hey God, if You're going to take my only begotten son, can You figure out how to hook me and Sarah up again, so we can make another one?” There's a second request. Or, yeah, okay, somebody out there got it, thank God. “The angel of the LORD called unto Abraham our of heaven the second time,” so not just once, but twice, “and said, by myself I have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou has done this thing, and thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” Now if somebody listening to me in the sound of my voice would say, “That's rather archaic,” or, “Really, do you believe that?” Well, let me just tell you something. There are many texts, ancient texts that have circulated in antiquity. Some of them are distortions of this text. In fact, the whole book of Genesis, there are at least three different streams of what I'd call distorted versions from other cultures. And when I say distorted, none of them recognize God as the Creator, none of them recognize certain things that are the stamp with which we identify going forward that crimson stream that flows throughout the Bible, that goes throughout, which brings us ultimately to Christ. Which is why when the Gospels open, at least a few of them give the genealogies, cataloging and going all the way back to Adam, going to the seventy-seventh generation pointing to Christ to say and it was for this purpose essentially at this particular time that He came. So why did I go down this pathway? Because something out of this is quite staggering, see, God gave a promise to Abraham. And we can often forget there is a reiterating of that promise that is 16, 17 and 18 that are reiterated. But God gave a promise regarding a seed, a promised seed. And again, God's fidelity to provide, when God says a thing God is true to His word. Now in, I've said this before, the wonderful thing about Abraham and the account of Abraham is how long did it take for God to make good? And it took a long time. We're talking about the period in one case of twenty-five years and then keep adding as you keep, as the story keeps unfolding, but a shadow of something to come. And I taught on the words in Hebrew that talk about a future time, this “In the mount it shall be seen,” looking to a future time. The place, by the way, because I've talked to you about the purpose, the provision and the promise, but the place is equally important, because this place, Mount Moriah, will be a place of prominence in the life of David in the acquisition he makes when he buys the threshing floor. It will also be a place of prominence to the time of Christ. And when we talk about this, that's why I said, it's important to kind of paint the full picture. If you're looking to the New Testament and when people say, “Well, do you believe thing about Christ? And do you believe that,” and they go on with whatever do-you-believe; do-you-believe whatever, you almost have to go back to look at all the shadows and types that are clearly laid out in the book to realize God was saying, “I'm laying out a template for something.” He was laying out a template all along, saying, “This is the pattern, but right now, all you can handle; you can't handle the real thing, so I'm just going to give you something that is the outline.” And for God's people in Abraham's time, this is what is kind of mind-boggling, because there was no understanding of a coming Christ, they weren't looking at this point for a coming Christ; they weren't looking for a deliverer. That's why I said sometimes you've got to switch gears and throw everything back a little bit to realize we're thinking eventually they're going to be all looking for the Deliverer, but there is no deliverer being looked for here. There's just a promise of God. And that simple promise of God that God made good on, pointing to Christ. Now for me the most important thing in this is not, because I've been through this passage before and many times, is not so much the events that are outlined as I, we've just read them, as it is to see how many times in the book God is pointing to something that will ultimately happen, now looking from the New Testament perspective, has happened. And you can't ignore these. If I were to travel from the book of Genesis, we were in Exodus, I could look at a passage like Isaiah 53, talking about now more description about the man of sorrows who came to take our sins and sickness. I could go to other passages in the Old Testament that all━in other words, if you line them all up they are all contributing to the tapestry that ultimately the Old Testament is seeing those threads that are sticking out, but once you get to the New Testament you see that that tapestry from the front side is complete: you see Christ. Now putting that part of the lesson aside, let's talk about something that can be applied to us, because I always like to make an application to something that we might glean, not just, you know, in this case the focus is on the work of the cross, but something in here speaks to me greatly. And that is the solitariness, if you will of Abraham. Even though he had his son with him, even though he had the men at the base of the hill and his family's left behind some forty-five-plus miles away, he still had to march on God's word and work it out for himself. Now tell me that there's not a more New Testament thing staring you in the face than the fact that this requires for many of us working it out with God. There isn't going to be a whole group and a whole fanfare and people holding your hands and passing the Kleenex box. The idea is you take this information and just like Abraham having to go it alone, in this case you're not alone; you've got Christ with you, but you've got to work this out alone. You've got to work it out by yourself. You can be given all the tools; in this case you have all the tools in that you've got the Old and the New in front of you. Abraham didn't have the luxury of knowing what was ahead. He only had the luxury of knowing God's fidelity at this point that God would, based on the fact that He said, “You will have a child, you will become father of many nations,” which became good in Ishmael and Isaac. But the key thing here and probably the key thing for us is as a take away, this is, these are things that when we talk about the faith there isn't some key to some group where we, we as in a group we work it out somehow. These are the things you have to wrestle through with God, and those who come to the faith, ultimately it becomes steps of faith that grow that increase the faith. And even if you have increased faith like the disciples asked and plead, you know, “Increase our faith,” even with increased faith it still requires you working it out by yourself. That is through the word, through the preached word, through the spoken or the word that is being read, and then ultimately something that you've got to take to yourself and work out. What is it in your life today that you feel is such a gross contradiction that somehow two things are not meshing together and you might be asking the question, “God, what are You doing? What is the purpose in all this?” And the take away from this is I'm not saying it's always going to be perfect and it will be perfectly revealed, because it's not. You can spend years in torment trying to figure out what is going on, and why is this happening, but the key from this passage to keep trusting. Maybe an angel of the Lord will not appear to any of us and say, “Now I know,” but I can tell you, by His Spirit, He says, “Now I know.” And I can tell you that through acts of faith where you keep trusting, you keep trusting when the appearance of everything says, “Nope.” And you know what I love the most about this passage, because it applies to each and every one of us, yes, it's foretelling something else, but it applies to each and every one of us, and that is we're all going to face something, and I think it will be more than one thing, that seems so preposterous that you just can't wrap your mind around the “why,” the purpose of it all. You know, I've had to do a lot of talking to God on this subject because over the years, and I've made no secret, I've kind of put myself out there and preaching to you and saying I'm preaching for me and I'm going to be the beneficiary of something, something I needed to work out that I passed on to you because I know if I'm having these issues, undoubtedly a lot of people around me are suffering the same thing. I told you many years ago when I preached the message on forgiveness that was something I actually was crying out to the Lord of how to reconcile functioning according to the word of God where it says “putting aside all malice, evil speaking, clamour, being kind to one another,” how to accomplish this, how to look at what the Lord said in His teaching and instructing the disciples in the Lord's disciples' prayer. Six times “forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive,” and here I am trying to figure out how do I exist with so much malice coming my way, with so much hate in my world, how, how do I exist and not let it poison my soul? And I told you it was the genesis of that prayer that opened up Matthew 18 for me and I began to preach on the subject of forgiveness. Well, lest you think that it's something like a one-and-done, you know, “Okay, I checked the box, now it's, it's done.” That's something repeatedly over the course of my life I'm going to have to deal with. Why? Because in the ministry, and especially in the ministry, now I'm speaking to some of the clergy and some of my fellow ministers, it's something for the rest of your life, as long as you're committed to preaching out of this book, you are going to suffer. It will make no sense to you and you'll be asking yourself the question, “Why do You permit these things, Lord? Why do You let this happen? What is the purpose in all of this?” I found myself just like last week asking that question, “Why, Lord?” And I'm going to tell you I didn't hear an audible voice, but something became clear to me. There are things that the Lord still wants to work out in my heart and my mind that until these things are worked out and they become clear these things will, will still happen. And they, once the clarity comes, by the way, it doesn't mean oh, that won't happen anymore. It just simply means that once I have clarity on His direction and His guidance these things as they happen will be shaping my character into more of Christ and less of the flesh that says, “I can't deal with this.” Now if you can't apply that lesson to you, you can just toss out the rest of what I said for forty minutes and say, “That I can deal with, that I can accept as a lesson.” Why? Because it's probably true for every single person in the sound of my voice, something that makes no sense to you as to why you are suffering through this thing, and for some people in, in this sanctuary, not out there because I can't see, but in this sanctuary I could start naming the things that I could say unequivocally. I know some people are, they're, they're in a marriage that started off good and the marriage has taken a turn that's not so good anymore. And the question is “Why is this happening?” And the flesh says, “Well, that means we should just be apart, because it's not working out.” That's the easy way. The harder way is to turn to God and to say, “I don't know what the purpose is here, but Lord, I'm, I'm going to lean on You to show me that this can be remedied.” Whatever the problem is, whatever the testing is, this, in this case it was what; to see what was in Abraham's heart. Would he love the Lord more than his only begotten son? Will you love the Lord more than the opportunities that may be away from the Lord or contrary to the Lord? Will you love the Lord more, and you fill in the blanks for you; than whatever substance you get high on because you just can't resist the substance. You prefer that even though your mouth says you love the Lord, you prefer the substance over the Lord? You can put this into any practical application of your life and realize that this chapter should be faith building and faith inspiring. Why, because we can depend on God's faithfulness. I don't want to hear about people who are talking about a god that doesn't exist, because I, standing in front of you would have never chosen this path. It wasn't chosen out of weakness, it wasn't chosen out of confusion, it wasn't chosen because gee, I had nothing better to do with my life. I can honestly look━I don't, we don't do testimonies here, but if there was a testimony, it's to say that all the steps that led me here, you either say it makes no sense, because I'm a rational person, I'm a very analytical person, I'm a thinking and critical thinking person. So there wasn't a breakdown in my moral or mental capacity, there wasn't like, “Aw gee, you know, I can't do anything else, so I guess I'll, I'll just do this.” I didn't even ask to be here. You know, wrong place, wrong time. My point though is you can see God's hand in certain things. Why is it that some of you, some of you who were out there twenty, thirty, forty years ago, hardest nuts to crack, convinced that your way was the best way, and somehow you heard the message. No one coerced you, no one said, “Get down here and say the sinner's prayer!” What happened? That brings me back to say that God had a purpose and with God's purpose comes His word of promise and His fidelity to that word of promise. So just like Abraham having to work out in his solitariness, to make up a word (I'm not sure that that's really a true word or not, it doesn't matter), you will have to work some things out with God. And then take Him at His word and trust that even though the trial or the temptation, it's, it's wacky, it's way out there, it doesn't make sense, but if I have been looking unto Him there is a purpose behind all this. He wants me to work it out. He's not going to hand it to me on a silver platter and say, “Here, this is what I wanted from you all along.” In order for it, I'm sorry, in order for it to really make sense to you and to me in our mortal, fleshly mind we've got to go through some stuff. Just like Abraham had to go through some stuff and realizing God saw him in his disobedience, God saw him in his lies; God caught him multiple times in his lies, and yet God still wanted that one and the Seed to come out of that one. There was the purpose, the promise, and the unfolding of it is in this short passage, what is it, all but 19 verses or so to tell us something that God intended to flush out of Abraham to make something clear. Now it may not happen in your life in 19 verses, whatever that means. That could be a day, an hour, a month, a year; it may be 19 years like the verses, one for each year of your life until it becomes clear. But at least the working-out process should begin by recognizing I can trust God, I can take Him at His word. And all the things that are embedded in here that point to Christ, they're another layer for me to say I can trust Him, I can take Him at His word. This word becomes the reality in the New Testament. The word of the Passover becomes a reality, as Paul says, “Christ our Passover.” You want to talk about the, the types: Rahab's red cord, which is a type of practicing faith when it makes no sense, “Hang this cord out your window.” We, in our frame of reference might say, “Why? Why'd you hang a stupid cord out your window? So somebody could identify you as the person who trusts God? Ha! And they'll come burn down your brick house while you're asleep. You don't need to put a cord out there. Just, you know, you don't need to do whatever God says, just go in your house and be,” that, that would be the modern thinking. God said, “I want you to do this thing and you and your household will be spared.” “Apply the blood to your doorpost: you and your household will be spared.” And keep going down the pathway of things and you recognize that God is still saying the same thing, except we have the wonder of Christ being given for us. We don't need to apply to the doorpost; we don't need to look for a special sacrifice: Christ is the final one. But ultimately in the big picture, it comes down to trusting and taking Him at His word, which is what Abraham did, which is what I'm sharing with you today, which should inspire some people to say the stress of working it out will be soon forgotten to the victory on the thing that God makes good and makes come to pass in your life and in mine, so don't stop faithing, don't stop trusting God. And I've managed to weave in my second message on pointing to the cross and the work of Christ. I don't know what next week will bring, but this week at least ties into last week of something that I've been trying to get people's attention to: you cannot escape Christ and His work in the Old Testament. All the New Testament does is like taking a cloth off of something that was covered and making it visible and real to what God was saying all along He was going to do. Pretty silly if we can't just take Him at His word and trust Him; and that's what I'm asking you to do. That's my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you'd like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
