What do you do when God asks for everything? 

<p>What do you do when God asks for everything? </p>

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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dee Casper

Your Son, Your Only Son

So let's pray, and I'd like to begin our message this morning, which is entitled, Your Son, Your Only Son.

God in heaven, thank you for this privilege to come into your presence.

And I just ask specifically that you would come into this place, wherever we may be listening, and that you would do something marvelous for each of us, that you would do something in this moment together that none of us would soon forget.

God, I'm praying as Moses prayed in Exodus chapter 33, Lord, I ask that you would show us your glory, that we'd hear your voice clearly speaking to our hearts as we're addressing a very relevant issue on the topic of surrender.

And I just pray, Lord, that substantive decisions would be made today for you, especially myself.

So what we're gonna be covering today is 1 of the most challenging calls I believe God will ever give anyone, and Spirit of Prophecy actually confirms this, but we're gonna be spending our entire time today in Genesis chapter 22.

So beginning at verse 1, it says, And he said, here I am.

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 the mountains of which I shall tell you.

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took 2 of his young men with him and Isaac his son.

And he split the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place for which God had told him.

Patriarchs and prophets picks up on this and says that God had called Abraham to be the father of the faithful, and his life was to stand as an example of faith to the succeeding generations.

Can you imagine that your life is going to be the metric of what faith should look like in succeeding generations?

He had shown distrust of God in concealing the fact that Sarah was his wife, twice, and again in his marriage with Hagar.

Thinking he might reach the highest standard, God subjected him to another test, the closest which man was ever called to endure.

In a vision of the night, he was directed to repair to the land of Moriah and there offer up his son as a burnt offering upon the mountain that should be shown him.

He doesn't even know where he's going yet, which reminds me of his initial call in Genesis 12.

At the time of receiving the command, Abraham had reached the age of 120 years.

He was regarded as an old man even in his generation.

In his earlier years, he had been strong to endure hardship and brave danger.

But now the ardor of his youth had passed away.

1 in the vigor of manhood may with courage meet difficulties and afflictions that would cause his heart to fail later in life, when his feet are faltering toward the grave.

But God had reserved his last, most trying test for Abraham until the burden of years was heavy upon him and he longed for rest from anxiety and toil.

That's when God shows up and asks him for everything.

The patriarch was dwelling at Beersheba, surrounded by prosperity and honor, and he was very rich.

And he was honored as a mighty prince by the rulers of the land.

Thousands of sheep and cattle covered the plains that spread out beyond his encampment.

On every side were the tents of his retainers, the home of hundreds of faithful servants.

The son of promise had grown up to manhood by his side, Isaac is 20 at this stage, And heaven seemed to have crowned with its blessing a life of sacrifice in patient endurance of hope deferred.

It's a direct quote from Proverbs 13, verse 12, that hope deferred makes the heart sick.

God giving hope or promises and they just seem to continually be outside of your grasp and make your heart sick.

But hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life, a gift that keeps on giving.

And so now in this circumstance, what was a tree of life may now put you back into the situation that makes your heart sick.

In the obedience of faith, Abraham had forsaken his native country, which was difficult, had turned away from the grace of his father and the home of his kindred.

He had wandered as a stranger in the land of his inheritance.

He didn't even get to fully inherit it yet, which was difficult.

And as soon as he got there, he had to flee to Egypt because there was a famine when he got there, which even that in and of itself can make you wonder, was God really leading?

Maybe you've been in a situation like that, God leads you somewhere and then it doesn't go as you thought it would.

He had waited long for the birth of the promised heir.

And at the command of God, he had sent away his son Ishmael, and now when the child so long desired was entering upon manhood, and the patriarch seemed able to discern the fruition of his hopes, A trial greater than all others was before him.

The command was expressed in words that must have rung with anguish the father's heart.

Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him there for a burnt offering.

Isaac was the light of his home, the solace of his old age, above all else the inheritor of the promised blessing.

The loss of such a son by accident or disease would have been heart-rending to the father, and it would have bowed down his widened head with grief.

But he was commanded to shed the blood of that son with his own hands and it seemed to him a fearful impossibility.

And then Satan comes up to him to make him doubt that God would even ask such a thing.

God says that you shouldn't murder, right?

Like this is not something that should take place.

I mean, yes, it's a sacrifice and not premeditated murder, but still, like there's a lot of thoughts going through his mind that God would never ask for such a thing from you, especially if God made a promise to you, why would God take the promise away?

Right, maybe you've been in circumstances like this, can be deeply challenging to a soul, But Abraham doesn't give in.

But can you imagine how tempting that temptation is?

Abraham walks outside and he looks to the sky and here's why.

7 chapters earlier in Genesis chapter 15, God comes up to Abraham and says, I am your exceedingly great reward.

And we would assume based upon the New Testament record of Abraham's faith that he would say, Amen Jesus, you're everything I've been looking for.

Means grandpa was probably better than that.

Look up Abraham, if you could count those stars, your descendants will outnumber them and they'll come from your own body.

Because Abraham protested, look a servant of my house is gonna be my heir.

God says, my promise to you has not changed.

Then he goes a step further and there's this spooky scene where Abraham cuts animals in half, has kind of this dark dream, and when he wakes up this torch passes between the halves of these animals.

It was covenantal language of their area.

And what God was telling him is, so let what happened to these animals be done to me if I don't keep my promise to you.

So let me be torn asunder if my promise to you is not kept.

Beloved, the Godhead was torn asunder to provide the promise to Abraham.

Jesus himself was torn to reinstate humanity.

The veil was torn as a representation of Jesus' flesh, Paul tells us in the New Testament.

So in this weak moment in Genesis 22, Abraham walks outside hoping that he'll have the same encounter he had in Genesis 15.

Will you encourage me because this is really scary and this is hard?

So side by side, well now he ends up in a situation where he's got to go tell his boy, but he can't really, so he has to go into the house after he wrestles with God.

So he goes and looks at his son, can't tell, he's just wrestling.

He walks back outside and just wrestles with this whole process.

And what ends up happening is he has to wake up his boy without telling his wife.

And I mean he's offered sacrifices with his dad before so Isaac doesn't really know what's happening just yet but it's about to get really really difficult.

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Your Son, Your Only Son

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