SPEAKER_00: I want us to turn to the book of Genesis and chapter number 22.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Genesis and chapter number 22.
SPEAKER_00: And uh can we stand for just a moment for the reading of God's Word?
SPEAKER_00: Uh Genesis chapter 22 and verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to speak on this subject tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Our one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: As I was listening to uh what the kids said, I was reminded again of what their testimonies were.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that any of those kids said in that video that doesn't apply to every person in this room.
SPEAKER_00: They're seeking to know the will of God for their life.
SPEAKER_00: Are you seeking to know the will of God for your life?
SPEAKER_00: Our one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: How do we know what God wants us to do?
SPEAKER_00: Here in Genesis 22, I think we have an amazing story of what could have instructed Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: What could have influenced him in making a decision based on his instructions.
SPEAKER_00: One determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see if you can find it as I read this passage together.
SPEAKER_00: And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, Behold, here I am.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, 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 thee of.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him.
SPEAKER_00: And Isaac his son enclaved the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place of which God told him.
SPEAKER_00: Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder, and what's the word, church?
unknown: Worship.
SPEAKER_00: Worship.
SPEAKER_00: And come again to you.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son, and he took the knife, the fire in his hand, and a knife, and they went both of them together.
SPEAKER_00: And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and he said, My father, and he said, Here am I my son.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
SPEAKER_00: So they went both of them together.
SPEAKER_00: And they came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him upon the altar of wood.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son, and the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, Here am I.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham went and took the ram, and he offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jirah, as it is to this day in the mountain of the Lord it shall be seen.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for the reading of your word.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us, Lord, the one thing.
SPEAKER_00: As we move forward by faith, and we praise you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for standing and be seated together.
SPEAKER_00: As I think about my life, I think about the ministry of the Calvary Baptist Church, opportunities that God is presenting to us as a church family, steps of faith that lay ahead for us.
SPEAKER_00: What is the one determining factor when you think about your life?
SPEAKER_00: I've often said people move to a different town and buy a house and a car and take a job and never never even think to acknowledge God.
SPEAKER_00: Heard people who've said to me, Yeah, we moved to this town and I had a good job and we bought a house, and I never thought if there was a good church there.
SPEAKER_00: I think they might have missed the one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many things that could have influenced Abraham to make a different decision.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at those.
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, it's the one thing that God does is the thing that we must do when we come to that place of decision in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And it's very difficult for me to hold the good news in, but I'm going to try to hold it to myself until I give it to you in time.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're writing some notes or taking score at home, number one, I want us to think about resistible factors.
SPEAKER_00: Resistible factors.
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about those factors in Abraham's life that would have persuaded him to not obey the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, I thought about physical reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Take now thine son, thine only son Isaac, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon the mountains, which I will tell thee of.
SPEAKER_00: I thought about his hands.
SPEAKER_00: His hands are to love and to provide.
SPEAKER_00: It was these hands of Moses that held that little boy of promise, these maybe 13 or 14 years before.
SPEAKER_00: The hands that had picked him up when he was teaching him how to ride a bicycle.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure in the Old Testament they had something similar to a bicycle.
SPEAKER_00: He picked him up, he dusted him off, he taught him how to throw a ball, those hands.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a physical reason that was resistible to Abraham not to obey the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: I think there were some domestic reasons.
SPEAKER_00: This is the son of promise.
SPEAKER_00: This is the child that they've waited for for a hundred years.
SPEAKER_00: When God began to speak to Abram at 75 years of age, he promised him a family, a son, a seed, and a soil.
SPEAKER_00: And at 99 years old, God appears to him and says, At a set time within the year, you're going to hold the son of promise.
SPEAKER_00: Me and my wife, Abraham could say, waited for a century on the promise of God to come, and now it would seem as if God's request doesn't meet our domestic interest.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe his domestic reason for not sacrificing Isaac would be his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: Telling Sarah of this plot, of what God has asked him to do, I can only imagine in the story that it would be a bitter pill, a difficult conversation, to say the least, for Abraham to persuade Sarai to obey the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: There would be domestic reasons not to follow through in this plan.
SPEAKER_00: Then there's the blended family.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking about Isaac's age at this period, most Bible teachers say that Isaac's somewhere around the 13 or 14 year mark of life, and I began to put some pieces together.
SPEAKER_00: Abram lay with Hagar when he was 86 years of age.
SPEAKER_00: And Ishmael was a little boy, a teenager, when Isaac was born, and he began to pick on him.
SPEAKER_00: And God said to Abraham that there was a decision that needed to be made about this blended family.
SPEAKER_00: Now keep in mind, guys, it was Sarai's advice that got them into this mess in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: Go lay with my handmaid, have a seed of her.
SPEAKER_00: Well that that sounded good on paper until it was in living color.
SPEAKER_00: And now God is coming to Abram again at the behest of Sarai, who says they have to go.
SPEAKER_00: Now, guys, I don't want to be a smart eloquer, but if I'm Abraham, I'm probably saying to Sarai, it was your advice that got us into this mess, and it's not your advice that's going to get us out.
SPEAKER_00: And God comes to Abram and says, No, no, no, hearken unto the voice of Sarai, thy wife.
SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you, guys, I've known some guys that should have listened to their wives just a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, ladies.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd get a few rousing, hallelujah, revival, kick the back pleat out of your choir robe, amens on that one.
SPEAKER_00: Domestic reasons.
SPEAKER_00: So now Isaac is probably about the age that Ishmael was when Ishmael and Hagar had to leave the family, and so this blended family would be quite a mess, and it might send some mixed signals that this was the seed of promise when Ishmael was of the flesh and not of the spirit, and it would just produce a lot of domestic confusion in the family.
SPEAKER_00: Domestic reasons.
SPEAKER_00: How about some national reasons?
SPEAKER_00: This is not just one couple having a baby.
SPEAKER_00: This happens every day of the year.
SPEAKER_00: This is a quite a different situation.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, the I Am is the God of Abraham and Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: This is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason this is a big deal is because this seed is one of promise that will be in a long line of generations that will lead to the birth of Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: That Ishmael was a sign, this is what the flesh can do.
SPEAKER_00: Isaac is a sign of this is what only God can do.
SPEAKER_00: Ishmael was a sign of men taking matters into their own hands.
SPEAKER_00: Isaac was the symbol of God's mighty hands doing what men cannot do.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the tribes of Israel, David and Solomon to the generation of the Lord Jesus Christ in Bethlehem 2,000 years later.
SPEAKER_00: This child is the progenitor of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: This child is the progenitor of the people, of Messiah, of Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've told me that Ishmael is not the promised one, you've told me that Isaac is the promised one, and if this seed will produce this universal Savior, there is no other way for salvation but through Isaac himself.
SPEAKER_00: There's a national reason, there's a physical reason, there's a domestic reason.
SPEAKER_00: Number four, there's a spiritual reason.
SPEAKER_00: It is our one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what it is yet?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you think you know?
SPEAKER_00: Don't blurt it out.
SPEAKER_00: You'll ruin the quiz.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you think you know the one determining factor?
SPEAKER_00: We raise your hand, you think you know.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Pastor Stewart back there thinks he knows the one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else you think you know the one determining factor?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here it is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, verse two, and he said unto him, listen, the one determining factor is not what Sarah might think, what Ishmael might think, what Hagar might think, what the nation of Israel might become, what Abraham's feelings are about his participation in this sacrifice, one determining factor is God told me to do it.
SPEAKER_00: God spoke to me to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but no, God led me to do this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, can we be honest together about this?
SPEAKER_00: How many of us, when God speaks to us, we begin to inform God of our personal domestic reasons why we cannot do what he's asked us to do.
SPEAKER_00: If you're with me, can you say an amen?
SPEAKER_00: We've gotten really good at informing God.
SPEAKER_00: God says to Ananias, I want you to go down into the city and I want you to go to a certain place, and there is a spiritual hitman.
SPEAKER_00: He cannot see.
SPEAKER_00: When you find him, you'll know it's him because he's praying.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to call him brother, and I want you to encourage him.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to take him with you to Barnabas, who can introduce him to the church?
SPEAKER_00: And what does Ananias say?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: I I know you're the omnipotent, omniscient, infinite, eternal, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God.
SPEAKER_00: I know that, but did you know what activities he was just involved in?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever known any members of the CBI, the Christian Bureau of Investigation?
SPEAKER_00: And we inform God of things that we need to relay to his attention.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but wait, there's one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: God said to Ananias, Go and speak to him.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: Listen.
SPEAKER_00: Opportunity doesn't always meet obligation, but we must know what God wants us to do.
SPEAKER_00: And the way we know what to do is we hear the voice of our shepherd, and despite all these other factors, we follow him as he leads us and speaks to us.
SPEAKER_00: We step out on faith because that's our one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: So there are resistible factors.
SPEAKER_00: Notice number two, I want you to think about reasons for Abraham's obedience.
SPEAKER_00: There are good reasons that he can trust this unknown process to a proven God.
SPEAKER_00: There's three things I thought about here.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, I want you to think about God's continued direction in Abraham's life.
SPEAKER_00: The first time we meet him is at the end of Genesis 11.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 11 begins with Nimrod in the building of the Tower of Babel, and there in the Mesopotamia, in the city of Ur, is a polytheistic family.
SPEAKER_00: And a son, whose name is Abram, who grows up in a garden of gods, and his father comes up out of Ur and gets to Haran, and he stays there.
SPEAKER_00: And God appears to Abram and says, Get you up out of your kindred from your father's house.
SPEAKER_00: Go pursue a land of which I will tell thee.
SPEAKER_00: Well, where is it?
SPEAKER_00: Just follow.
SPEAKER_00: When will we get there?
SPEAKER_00: When I tell you.
SPEAKER_00: Just follow me.
SPEAKER_00: So Abraham leaves Ur, he comes to Haran.
SPEAKER_00: From Haran, he takes a trip into Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: He comes through Canaan down into Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: He comes back into Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: And now this journey to Moriah is just the latest installment in a journey in which Abraham is learning to walk by faith.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just say, as God has directed us in our lives, there's no need at this point in the Christian life to doubt him now.
SPEAKER_00: Has God directed your life?
SPEAKER_00: You can say amen if you if you'd like to.
SPEAKER_00: Has God led your steps?
SPEAKER_00: There's no need to doubt him now.
SPEAKER_00: God's continued direction in Abraham's life ought to dictate to him that the God who led me out of Ur, who's revealed himself to me as the I am, and he's made a promise to me, he's made a covenant with me.
SPEAKER_00: We could talk about the events of chapter 15 and 17 and 19 and how God has sustained him and cared for him and ministered to him and used him as a mediator, that it is the same God that's been with him every step of the way is the same God that will not forsake him to his own devices.
SPEAKER_00: He's with him now.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say God is with you now.
SPEAKER_00: He's with us now, he's with me now.
SPEAKER_00: He's not left us, he's not forsaken us.
SPEAKER_00: God's continued direction.
SPEAKER_00: How about number two?
SPEAKER_00: How about Abraham's next steps?
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's take a little journey in our Bibles here.
SPEAKER_00: Use your Bible if you have it there, or your iPhone or iPad.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Genesis chapter 12, look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to notice, notice what happens here.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 12, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him.
SPEAKER_00: And Lot went with him, and Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran.
SPEAKER_00: And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his uh brother's son, and all their substance.
SPEAKER_00: And they they had gathered, that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: Into the land of Canaan they came, and Abram passed through the land, unto the place of Sikkim, unto the plain of Mora, and the Canaanite was then in the land.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord appeared unto Abraham and speaks unto him.
SPEAKER_00: Abram's on a journey, verse eight, and he removed from fence, verse nine.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham, Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.
SPEAKER_00: Then go to chapter 13 and verse number three.
SPEAKER_00: And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Hai.
SPEAKER_00: He's just he's following, he's journeying.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 20, if you will, in verse number one.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country.
SPEAKER_00: He's on a journey.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, how does he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's walking.
SPEAKER_00: He's walking.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Let's trace his steps.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we've journeyed with him.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's let's walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 13, verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 17, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: And when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to him and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 18, very quickly, verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: The scripture says, And the men turned their faces from fence and went toward Sodom.
SPEAKER_00: But Abraham stood before the Lord, and Abraham drew near.
SPEAKER_00: He's journeying, he's walking with God.
SPEAKER_00: So when we get to chapter 22, back to our text, verse number four, then on the third day, Abram lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off, and he continues to walk.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, this chapter is just the next installment of a series of next right steps.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep walking.
SPEAKER_00: Well, where are we going?
SPEAKER_00: And when will we get there?
SPEAKER_00: And what will it look like?
SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep walking.
SPEAKER_00: If God is speaking, just keep following him.
SPEAKER_00: I feel sorry for, I think about the testimonies of these kids.
SPEAKER_00: We put so much pressure on young people to try to figure out so many things about their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want that pressure for you?
SPEAKER_00: Three of them talked about controlling their future.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, many things about tomorrow I don't seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know he holds my hand.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that when I get to tomorrow, God will be there because he is already there.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep walking.
SPEAKER_00: So what do they talk about?
SPEAKER_00: Reading the Bible, praying, being faithful to church.
SPEAKER_00: You know what they're learning?
SPEAKER_00: They're learning if I'm going to get to the end of the destination, I've got to take the next right step.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, it's getting up in the morning and just reading God's word and letting him speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: Praying and seeking his face, doing the next right thing.
SPEAKER_00: We we we so fixate on not knowing what to do, and we don't do the things that we Know to do.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm saying that there's reasons for his obedience.
SPEAKER_00: God had continually led him.
SPEAKER_00: Abram was walking with God step by step.
SPEAKER_00: The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He delighteth in his way.
SPEAKER_00: There's a third thought I had here.
SPEAKER_00: It's regarding God's covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Now God had made a covenant with Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And I ask you this question.
SPEAKER_00: Did Abraham have a covenantal reason?
SPEAKER_00: A covenantal promise?
SPEAKER_00: A covenantal caveat or exemption in the fine print?
SPEAKER_00: Did he have an exemption to disobey God in chapter 22?
SPEAKER_00: Can you find anywhere in black and white, and sometimes red, can you find in black and white anywhere that Abram had an escape clause from obeying this command of God?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you say no?
SPEAKER_00: He has no reason to disobey.
SPEAKER_00: Now, check it out.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to understand it.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to agree with it.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to understand all the implications of it, but he does have to do one thing.
SPEAKER_00: He has to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because Sarah said not to, no.
SPEAKER_00: Because his servants questioned why he's taken wood and fire and no lamb and a knife in his hand.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Why is he doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Because God said so.
SPEAKER_00: That's our one, that's our one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, I want us to think about the results of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: When he obeys, watch.
SPEAKER_00: When he obeys, it's not as bad as he thinks it is.
SPEAKER_00: I make a very non-masculine confession to you guys.
SPEAKER_00: I hate needles.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are with me?
SPEAKER_00: A few of you.
SPEAKER_00: When I go to the doctor, after they diagnosed me with white coat syndrome, how many of you know what white coat syndrome is?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: But you'll be proud of me.
SPEAKER_00: I did very well today.
SPEAKER_00: Very well today.
SPEAKER_00: My blood pressure did not spike when they came in and began talking to me.
SPEAKER_00: My palms did not become sweaty.
SPEAKER_00: But they normally ask me, are you allergic to anything?
SPEAKER_00: And I inevitably say, yes.
SPEAKER_00: Pain and needles.
SPEAKER_00: I'm deathly allergic to them.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's not as bad as you think it's going to be.
SPEAKER_00: What Abraham has created in his own mind that this is going to look like?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look like that at all.
SPEAKER_00: For time and perpetuity, we call this chapter the sacrifice of Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: Do we not?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have called this story the sacrifice of Isaac?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, what does not happen in this story?
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice of Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to call this chapter the emancipation of Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: We should call this the resurrection of Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: We should call this Abraham's greatest victory of faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the sacrifice of Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, when you step out on faith, it's not as bad as you think it's going to be.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because when you make that step towards God, He's already there, and He is our solid foundation when we step out by faith.
SPEAKER_00: So there's some rewards for faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, when you write down the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are in the Bible, make a beeline for the cross, cut the Bible anywhere, you'll find the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It just really bleeds heavily right here.
SPEAKER_00: So we have a story of a father who has a son of promise who is born who is an only son, and it's stated that he's not just the only son, it's that the son really loves him.
SPEAKER_00: He's born without a physical explanation.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews says that Abram was past age, Sarah was incapable of having children.
SPEAKER_00: It was at that moment of impossibility that God stepped in.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you want God to step into the impossible?
SPEAKER_00: So we have a father, we have a son, a miraculously conceived son, a son of promise, a son loved of his father, who is told to go to the mountains of Moriah, which, oh, by the way, is the modern city of Jerusalem, and on the mountain that God will show him, I want you to take that son that you love, and I want you to offer him as a not a sacrifice, the word is a burnt offering, a holocaust, a whole offering in smoke.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible says that they took their journey, and three days' journey, three days in the distance, Abraham says to his servants, just sit here, mountains three days afar off.
SPEAKER_00: Me and Isaac are going to worship, and we're going to come again to you.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's really cool.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're going to the city of Jerusalem, and for three days Isaac is dead in the mind of his father.
SPEAKER_00: At some point up the mountain, Isaac begins to put two and two together.
SPEAKER_00: There's fire, there's the wood, there's sacrifice, but where's the lamb?
SPEAKER_00: And finally, he gets the gumption to ask his father, hey Dad, I noticed you didn't pack something for our camping trip.
SPEAKER_00: I see the fire and I see the wood and I see the knife, but I don't see a lamb.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham makes one of the early great prophetic statements in all the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We read it a moment ago.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham said, My son, God, will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering.
SPEAKER_00: That ought to make a Baptist job.
SPEAKER_00: So he gets to the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: He lays the wood in order.
SPEAKER_00: He takes that son and he puts him on the offering.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what does Isaac say when his father straps him to the cording, holding a fire in his hand?
SPEAKER_00: As the sheep to the slaughter is dumb, Isaac did not open his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, Dad, you can't do this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the son, I'm the only son, I'm the one you love, I'm the son of promise.
SPEAKER_00: Let me go free to take Ishmael.
SPEAKER_00: Don't take me.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't protest.
SPEAKER_00: He says, nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And in the city of Jerusalem on a mountain, two thousand years later, the Lord Jesus Christ came into the city as the Lamb of God.
SPEAKER_00: As a lamb before the sears is dumb.
SPEAKER_00: When he was reviled, he reviled not again.
SPEAKER_00: He opens not his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: They nail him to an old rugged cross.
SPEAKER_00: And on the same mountain, he offers himself as a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: So here's Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: He's got the knife in his hand.
SPEAKER_00: He's readying himself to do the unthinkable.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are with me?
SPEAKER_00: He's about to do the unthinkable.
SPEAKER_00: And at that moment when Abraham is to plunge that dead knife into the living heart of his boy.
SPEAKER_00: God stays his hand.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: About that time you can hear the rustling of a ram caught in the thicket.
SPEAKER_00: And Isaac goes free, and the ram is slaughtered.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what do you think about?
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about those servants that watched Abraham leave three days ago when he comes back the other side of the mountain singing, Down at the cross where my Savior died?
SPEAKER_00: Glory! Glory to his name.
SPEAKER_00: You know what one of the rewards of obedience was?
SPEAKER_00: Abraham and Isaac, two thousand years before Calvary, put on a passion play inspired in Scripture for all of us to read.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, Galatians 3.8, the Bible says that the gospel was before preached unto Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: It's preached.
SPEAKER_00: Right here.
SPEAKER_00: But there's there's two more.
SPEAKER_00: I'll get them get them to you quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Notice verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: The second result of obedience is multiplication.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham, you have you've taken the ultimate step here.
SPEAKER_00: You have proven to me that there is nothing in your life more meaningful to you than me.
SPEAKER_00: Love so amazing, so divine, demands our soul, our life, our all.
SPEAKER_00: You can't love God and love Isaac in rebellion against God.
SPEAKER_00: He loves God so intimately.
SPEAKER_00: He's willing to gain in the Christian life by subtraction.
SPEAKER_00: But when you start playing the subtraction game with God, God starts playing the multiplication game in your life.
SPEAKER_00: He is no fool to give what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.
SPEAKER_00: That in multiplying, verse 17, I will bless thee.
SPEAKER_00: In multiplying, I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, as the sandwich is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: You may want to write this down.
SPEAKER_00: The way to have more of what you need is to give what you have.
SPEAKER_00: Give what you have.
SPEAKER_00: Multiplication.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a third one here, and this one's going to really shock you.
SPEAKER_00: You're willing to give me the one son you waited a hundred years to have?
SPEAKER_00: You're willing to give him to me.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: You're willing to prove it?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how impossible it was for that man that was a hundred years old to bring a child into this world?
SPEAKER_00: You remember that story?
SPEAKER_00: Well, check this out.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: It came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham saying, Behold, Milka, she hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor, Huz, his firstborn, and Buzz his brother and Kimuel, the father of Aram, and Hesed and Hazo, and Pildash, and Zidlaf, and Bethuel, and Bethel begat Rebekah, and these eight Milkah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother, and his concubine, and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: You know what happened here?
SPEAKER_00: The family began to grow.
SPEAKER_00: That family of faith that God had spoken to him about begins to grow.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: He's willing to give to God what God requires.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to lead our lives.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to lead our church.
SPEAKER_00: We have decisions to make moving forward.
SPEAKER_00: Good decisions.
SPEAKER_00: Good things to pray about.
SPEAKER_00: What's the one determining factor?
SPEAKER_00: What is God?
SPEAKER_00: What is God going to say?
SPEAKER_00: God has some things for your family.
SPEAKER_00: It's exciting to see God work in our children's lives.
SPEAKER_00: They're going this way, they're going this way, they're going this way, they're going this way, they're going this way.
SPEAKER_00: They've made up their mind, they're going this way, and God speaks.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks, and the sound of his voice is so sweet that the birds hush their singing.
SPEAKER_00: We need to hear from an Almighty God about next steps, because that, beloved, is our one determining factor.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let God lead us.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a decision to make, be in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: You know where God speaks?
SPEAKER_00: He speaks through his word.
SPEAKER_00: Our pastor used to say that God he speaks to us through his word, and we speak to God in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's good.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's really good.
SPEAKER_00: Do you like that?
SPEAKER_00: We speak to God in prayer, he speaks to us in his word.
SPEAKER_00: But I gotta tell you, when we pray, we can either have a monologue or we can dialogue with God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever have a soliloquy with God?
SPEAKER_00: It's just a performance.
SPEAKER_00: Just a monologue.
SPEAKER_00: We're just talking to God.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes God just, I think he wants to say to us, the purpose of prayer is not just to blabber on with endless words.
SPEAKER_00: When you open your mouth in prayer, open your ears to be attentive to the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: And may He do that.
SPEAKER_00: Even this week is my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: May we all pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Our determining factor is to know the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you to be the type of Christian that would say, I was reading my Bible this week.
SPEAKER_00: God spoke to me.
SPEAKER_00: I was praying, I was meditating on God.
SPEAKER_00: I was driving down the road.
SPEAKER_00: I began to pray by way of intercession for something or someone, and God spoke to me.
SPEAKER_00: We hear so little of that in Christianity today.
SPEAKER_00: God spoke to my heart.
SPEAKER_00: God impressed this on my heart.
SPEAKER_00: That ought to be the most native speech at Calvary Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: God was speaking to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's how he works.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you say, I've got a decision to make in my life?
SPEAKER_00: I need the direction of God.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor, pray for me.
SPEAKER_00: Would you lift your hand?
SPEAKER_00: You say, I have a decision in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: These young people that gave testimony, some just graduated high school.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: What's your one determining factor?
SPEAKER_00: God wants to speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: May God speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: The altar is open.
SPEAKER_00: Let's all stand together.
SPEAKER_00: We'll close in just a moment.