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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

An Indescribable Gift

And during this time, a 25-year-old Chinese seaman named Poon Lim was working as a steward on a British merchant ship, the SS Ben Lemand.

And after leaving Cape Town, the vessel was torpedoed by a German U-boat near South Africa's coast.

Well, very quickly, everything began to unravel.

Poon Lim quickly grabbed a life vest, and he jumped overboard just about the time that the huge boat exploded and went down.

For 2 hours, he floated with just this life preserver that he had, wondering his fate, there off of South Africa in the Atlantic Ocean.

Until he saw over on the distance, he wasn't for sure the waves were bobbing him up and down, but he saw what looked like a life raft.

And so with every effort he went over, and sure enough it was a life raft, there was nobody in it, but he found some supplies.

And so climbing aboard, he found and took inventory.

He had some chocolate, a bag of sugar, some flares, a jug of water, and a tin of hard biscuits, and a flashlight.

So for the next 7 days, he chose to do his best to survive.

It wasn't until a week later that he spotted the first forms of human life when he saw a ship go by and he did everything in his power to get the attention of this boat, but it continued traveling on.

The sickening feeling that he had not been spotted, nor would he be.

Then he spotted some US Navy patrol planes and he sent off some more of his flares to try and get their attention, but again, no use.

Each day he'd have a ration of a biscuit.

He tried to gather and collect more in this sail that he had and funnel it back in.

Perhaps 1 of the more creative things he did was he took his flashlight apart and he found that spring in the bottom and he reworked the spring to make a fish hook.

And he took some of that rope apart so it was a little thinner and he did his best to put a little biscuit on there with some of the hemp out of the rope, and he began fishing for fish.

And out of the can that he had, he used that to slice the few fish that he would catch, and he would dry them in the sun.

And so each and every day, he tried to do his best to get by.

In fact, he even determined, in order to keep my muscle strength, I'm gonna have to exercise.

And so he would get out, he'd lash himself to the raft, and he would swim.

And this continued to go on day after day after day, week after week, month after month.

Should he continue to wait or should he just give up?

No, he was determined and he kept waiting and he kept waiting until in April, April 5, 1943, About 4 and a half months later, his waiting was over as he drifted up on the shores of Brazil setting a record of 133 days alone on the Atlantic.

And he says, I hope no 1 will ever have to break my record.

Maybe once or twice you've honked the car horn.

But to wait, and to wait, and to wait, and to check, and to wait, how long are you willing to wait?

I'm reminded of another story in scripture that I want to look at this morning, where God makes a promise to Abraham at 75 years of age.

In Genesis chapter 12, he says, "'Go to a land that I will show you.

"'I will bless you to you and your descendants.

I will give you this land to all the families of the earth.

Yet he and Sarah waited and waited and waited.

Finally, by year 10, they're beginning to get a little anxious.

Patriarchs and prophets says, a delay was permitted to test his faith.

But they became unwilling to continue to wait, so they decided to take matters into their own hands to help fulfill God's word, rather than let him do it in his own time and his own way.

And so after 11 years from the initial promise, Ishmael was born through Hagar.

And to this day, the effects of that decision rage on.

But God affirmed that the promised child would come, in fact, through Sarah.

And so they were to continue to wait and wait and wait.

Another several years, 5 years, 6 years, 14 years.

They waited once again until finally at the ripe age of 100, Abraham was given a son named Isaac.

Twenty-five years since the first promise was made to him.

God had called Abraham early on to be the father of the faithful and his life was to stand as a model, as a pattern, an example of exemplary faith to all succeeding generations.

But like so many of us, his faith faltered and he showed distrust in God.

Now he didn't turn his back on God in a decided way.

It was not a full rejection of God, but it was an eroding distrust of God's plan, God's timing, God's purpose, God's methods.

Abraham still attended church, he still paid a faithful tithe, he was still part of church life, but in his inner core, his faith was waning.

Time and trial revealed his lack of faith.

I'll help you generate an heir through Hagar.

Lord, they'll kill me if they take my wife, or they'll certainly kill me for my wife because she's so beautiful, so I'll just simply say she's my sister.

Have time or trials ever worn down your faith in God as you wait and wait?

Maybe you're not turning your back on him.

You're still here bodily, but your heart, maybe it's your heart that's drifting.

The trust you once had, you feel is faltering.

If so, I challenge you to hang on, friends.

Abraham had to learn to wait on the Lord under that starry night sky.

Joseph had to learn to wait on the Lord in a prison cell.

Moses had to learn to wait on the Lord in the desert.

David had to learn to wait on the Lord in a cave.

Learn the difficult lesson to wait on the Lord, to be patient, to trust blindly.

Patriarchs and Prophets 147 we read, that he might reach the highest standard, God subjected him to another test.

The closest, yes the hardest, which man was ever called to endure.

Let's take a moment to look at it just now.

Genesis chapter 22, and we'll begin in verse 1 of Genesis chapter 22 this morning.

Genesis chapter 22 beginning verse 1 we read, now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham.

Notice right here from the beginning, the focus is on who?

And in verse 2, then He said, take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on 1 of the mountains of which I shall tell you.

Now the land of Moriah is what we now know as Jerusalem.

In fact, 2 Chronicles 3, 1, we read that Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah.

So that's the same spot that our story is going to unfold this morning.

But from where Abraham is now in Beersheba, it was a good 50 miles away.

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An Indescribable Gift

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