Hartley, Mark: Studies In Hebrews-26-Hebrews 11

Hebrews chapter eleven, and we'll finish up, Lord willing, today the life of Abraham found here, the longest, um, story, longest reference to... another quick statement. Um, you know, we really appreciate, again, all the hard work that was done on the windows and everything. I, I think it's just fantastic. It looked well, and thank those that were generous and, and gave for the cost of the windows. They know who they are. Um, thank those that came and worked on them. I know, uh, Herb and his men, you know, came here and worked. Um, uh, they're also changing out the baptistry up here. You know, it was leaking quite a bit, and we bought a new baptistry to put in there, and, and uh, they're working on that. Hopefully have that done in the next week or so, so we can have a baptism here. And then um Gil, I know, came up here and was working with them, and Carolyn and the kids came up and cleaned up and hung the curtains back up, and there's a lot of work. Um, and we really appreciate that. Um, uh, Carrie and Lydia and Anna, I think maybe some others did the cleanup last night. Uh, I think Junior came and cleaned up some in the subpoena. We just, you know, these things happen when nobody's around, and uh, and if you get a chance and you see these folks, just go up and say thank you, because we enjoy the benefits of it. When I get up here and preach and people say to me thank you as they walk out the door, you know, and and uh, that's all well and good. I mean, you see what I do, but there's so many that come here behind the scenes. I know Jinx came over and worked late one night cleaning, uh, up the back, and we enjoyed that Saturday morning. Coffers all set up for us and everything. We, we enjoy those things that happen behind the scenes because, you know, it's like, like when you clean the house, you know, you know, the, the, the wife's mother cleans the house, and, and you don't really notice it much that she cleans it, but you sure would notice that she didn't clean it. And we don't notice it much when the chapel's clean, but we sure would notice if they didn't come and clean it. So we really w- thank just as you're walking by some of these folks, Gil and Carolyn, the kids, Jinx and Corey, they come up here, and some of the girls that cleaned up the chapel, Herb and his men that worked, and just, just say thank you and show the appreciation. I think as Christians, you know, we, we've just gone through a time of Thanksgiving, which, you know, Herb told me the other day, every day is Thanksgiving for him, and I said, man, you have turkey every day? Wow, that's pretty good. Anyway, so I would weigh three zillion pounds if I eat like I eat on Thanksgiving every day, but anyway, that's a whole nother matter. But, uh, so I'm glad Thanksgiving only comes once a year, you know, in that sense, but we ought to be, as Christians, be thankful every day. Every day ought to be a day of Thanksgiving. So let's just show some appreciation to these folks that work behind the scenes that we don't always notice what they do, and uh, we really appreciate them. So I thank them publicly for all of this, and you do it privately as the Lord guides you later on this afternoon. Well, here we are, Hebrews chapter eleven, and like I said, this is... I, you know, I get excited about this chapter just because I see men and women of God doing impossible things. Impossible for men to do, and yet what's impossible for us is always possible with God, isn't it? We have a God of impossibility. That's why he's God. You know, we, we can do certain things, you know, we can accomplish certain things, but God can do what is impossible. And I think one of the greatest impossibilities that God performs is the salvation of a sinner. Don't you think? I mean, that's the greatest miracle there is, is that somebody like me, with all my wickedness and sin, with all my shortcomings, with all my waywardness from God, he reached down and saved me. And if he saved me, he could save anybody. And I'm not just saying that, I believe it. I believe it. And so we see here is a man, Abraham, an idolater who lived in the hotbed of idolatry, and he, he lived in that place where idolatry and the worship of pagan gods were all around him, and yet God spoke to that man one day, and he believed God and was counted him for righteousness. If God can do that for an idolater like Abraham, he can do it for you. And if you're here this morning, I hope that you hear the things that are said. I hope it touches your heart if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, you can come to God the same way Abraham did, by grace through faith. Read in verse eight. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should not, which he, which he was after received for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promises in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was a past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang even of one, and him as good as dead, as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore, innumerable. These all died in faith or according to faith, not having received the promise, but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country, and truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to, to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly. Wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city. By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that received the promise offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said that an Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him from, raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of God's word. So we see Abraham, this idolatrous man in the, in a nation among a people of idolaters, and God calls him out, and he says, you go to a place, and I'll show you where it is. He didn't know where he was going. I think of Baiju and his family just came over here from, from Oman, uh, by way of India, and what do they know about America? What do they know about the United States? Uh, what do they know about what's going to be waiting for? Everything's new and strange to them, as you can imagine. And those of us that have been, have gone from one culture, from one country to another, understand in some way that experience. But at least they knew where they were coming, right? They knew they were coming to Durham, North Carolina. They didn't know what was Durham was going to hold for them, but they knew the place that they were going. But God didn't even show that to Abraham. He didn't tell him where he was going. He said, you just start traveling, and I'll show you the way. Isn't that way for us in our Christian experience? I mean, we go along through our Christian life, and we don't know what the next step holds. We don't know what the next day holds, but we trust God. And he leads us and guides us along the path, and we have this assurance from him that because he loves us and he wants the, the very best for us, that we can have assurance in him and him alone. Now, that's a great comfort to us as Christians, because as we grow older and as we, as we experience new spe- new aspects of our lives, different and new things, I think of, of Jamie and Elizabeth. They're going to be parents soon. They've gone through this experience of just being joined together in one flesh. Everything's new for them. They don't understand. We understand what it's like to have kids, don't we? But they don't understand. You know? Uh, I was talking to, to uh, uh, Les and, and, and Mildred's grandchildren yesterday, and, you know, they talk about, you know, how they, well, you know, are not always the very best of children. I mean, that was from them, you know, how they like to do certain things. And I said to them, that's all well and good until you become a parent and it's your kid doing those things, you know? Everything I did when I was young was all right while I was doing it, but let my kids do it. Yeah, that's a whole nother matter, right? Better not catch them doing what I did when I was young. Because it's a new experience for us when we become parents, and it's a new experience for us when we become grandparents, it's a new experience for us when we go through the aging process, or when we move from one situation to another. All the things are new to us. But we know God's leading us along the way, and we can trust him because he's been faithful in the past, we can have trust for him in the future, and God saw Abra- or excuse me, Abraham saw God leading him through and taking him out of the, out of the land of idolatry, out of that, that country that he had known all his life, and taking him through to the promised land of Canaan. He saw God's faithfulness all the way through. And here's Abraham's testimony. He didn't look for a city in this world. He didn't look for a home. He was a stranger and a pilgrim. He was a foreigner and a traveler all of his life. He didn't set down deep roots because his hope was for an eternal city, a city that has foundations, a city whose builder and maker, whose architect and who the constructor is God himself. And let me tell you, what God builds, it doesn't fall down. It doesn't fall apart. You think about here, years ago when this building was built, they put in windows, they put in a baptistry, they did all these things, and they thought, well, this is good, you know, we're doing this, and we're never gonna have to change them. They didn't have that in mind, but here we are, the building gets older, time passes, and we have to change those things because man's work always fails. Man's work always deteriorates, but God's work doesn't. It just grows and multiplies, and it's so much better in the end than it was even in the beginning. And so that's what Abraham had in mind. That's why when Lot came to him and said, there's not enough land for both of us and for all our cattle, Abraham was able to say to him, you take anything you want. You take it all if you want to. You choose what you want, and whatever's left over, I'll take. Because his trust was in God. You think about that. Think about all that you possess. Just, just run through your mind all the things you possess, your house, your cars, your clothing, your books, your, the things that you, your tools and the things that ladies you have in your kitchen, your sewing, all these things. And think, what if God said to you, I'm going to take it all away? What if it came down to a point where you had to give it all up? Would you be like Abraham? Would I be like Abraham? I'll tell you what, when I was, we were in Peru, right before we left, I packed up all the stuff I really wanted to keep, and we had a bunch of stuff like down there, I didn't care, but I packed it all in these duffel bags, I had it all ready to go, had it out in the garage area, they're already with locks on it and everything, and somebody broke in that garage, and you know what they took? Every one of those duffel bags. I said, they could have taken all the rest, it wouldn't have bothered me, but they took what I really wanted to keep. And there were certain books in there that had been given to me, books that are out of print that you can't even get anymore. And I'll tell you what, what the Lord showed me was I love those books too much. Those books had become an idol to me, and God took them away. And you know what? It was hard, and I did everything I could to get those books back, but looking back over years later, I say, praise the Lord for taking those from me. See, the Lord, if, if we don't give them up, he's going to take them from us, isn't he? If we put anything in our lives, if we, if anything becomes an idol, anything takes a place, uh, in our lives that belongs to God, God will take it away. That's why you have to be willing to give it up. Say a quick story. There's a brother, when Angie and I were, uh, first moved to Arkansas, she lived with her father for a while, and I had an apartment, then we got married and moved in together. We went to a little Baptist meeting there. There was no assembly there. We didn't know what an assembly was back in those days, but we went to a little Baptist meeting there, and there was a dear brother, and and he he told us a story that happened to him one time. He got to a point where he said, Lord, I don't want to have anything that I'm not willing to give up. If somebody needs it or wants it, I'll let them have it, anything I own. And he would always, they would always have people in that, that particular church. Every, every ti- every Sunday, people would come over to your house, or you'd go to their house. It was just one of these situations where, where everyone went to eat at someone's house every Sunday afternoon. And so he in- invited some people over, and one sister from the meeting came in, and she had, he had this beautiful plant in the foyer area. I may have told you this story before, but if I have, fine. If I haven't, well, it's a new one. Uh, they had a beautiful plant in the foyer, and she said, I don't know what kind of plant it was, because I don't know anything about plants, you know? I know that dandelions you don't give to your wife because they're not flowers, but I thought they were. Anyway, you don't give those. Anyway, so that's about all I know about it. That shows my, you know, my vast knowledge of plants. And if it grows up, cut it down with the lawnmower. That's my, my philosophy, you know, get it all cut down. Anyway, so, so, so she, the whatever plant this was, it was a plant that she had always wanted, and this was a beautiful plant. She said, I've wanted one of those plants all my life. Oh, that's just the most beautiful. And he said to her, you can have it. Well, as soon as he said it, boom. He thought, uh-oh, what'd I do? Because he loved that plant too, see? So they went on, and this is a true story now, they went on, and he didn't say any more about that plant, and she didn't either. She went home, and he breathed a sigh of relief. I guess she forgot about it, you know? You know what happened to that plant? It died. That's no lie. It died. He said within a few days, few weeks, it was dead. He did everything he could to revive it. It died. And the Lord taught him a lesson. Don't ever have anything in your life that you're unwilling to give up. You see, the Lord will do that because he wants our hearts to be pure towards him, and he purified Abraham's heart. And he took him out of that idolatrous nation, and he set his heart and his mind not on the things of this world, but on the things above. Well, now it's one thing to say, I'm not going to set my heart and mind on my tents and on my cattle and on my servants, on these things, but you know what Abraham's heart was set on? His son, Isaac. And he loved Isaac. Why wouldn't he? He was the son of the promise. He was the son that God had given to him in his old age. He was the son that he'd been waiting for from the moment God had first spoken to him. He was the son that all of his future was tied up in. He was the son through whom the seed would come, and the multiplicity of, of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren would come through this one son, Isaac. Huh. And we're going to see this morning what God says to him about Isaac. I just want to make a couple comments about verse sixteen before we move on to that. It says, but now they desire a better country that is in heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Abraham's heart, Sarah's heart, Isaac and Jacob's heart. Remember we said last time, Jacob knew Abraham. Jacob was fifteen years old when Abraham died. They all lived together. That's how they did it in those days. Family units would all live together. You see that even later on when Jacob and his twelve sons, they all lived together in the same area. Jacob knew Abraham, and he, Abraham taught him, and even though Jacob will find out about him, Lord willing, next time, but even though Jacob was a conniving, deceitful man, let me tell you what, we'll see him at the end of his life totally changed. And you don't think Abraham had an influence? Absolutely he did. Absolutely he did. Grandparents can have a great influence on their grandchildren. But Abraham was one, and and Sarah and J- Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and his family, all, they all were pilgrims, and they looked for a country, a heavenly country, and God was not ashamed to be called their God. You know, God didn't force Abraham to come out of Ur of the Chaldees. He didn't force him to come back out of Egypt when he went down there. He didn't force him to stay in Canaan. He could have gone home anytime he wanted. God didn't force him to do it, but he stayed there. And because he stayed, and because his heart was set upon God more than anything, God said, I'm not ashamed to be called his God. And how was God known throughout the Old Testament? You remember? He was the God, he is the God, I should say, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What, I mean, can you ima- just think about that for a moment. Wouldn't it be great to be known that God would be known, he's the God of Mark Hartley? Put your name in there. Wouldn't that be wonderful if everyone around and the scriptures would say, s- say, and God would say, I am the God of you, of this individual, and put your name in there. Over and over again, both Old Testament and New, I am, not that I was, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He wasn't ashamed to be identified with them. He wasn't ashamed to have his name associated with them because they've left everything behind, and their lives were characterized by a pilgrim attitude in this world and going on for God. So I guess the question is for all of us, is God ashamed of us? Is God ashamed of me? Is God ashamed of you? You know, we call ourselves Christians. Remember, the church in Antioch was where that title was first given, and it wasn't by the Christians themselves, the world called them Christians, Christ-like ones. We're talking about this, uh, yesterday in the Bible study, the men's Bible study. Isn't it strange, sometimes we go out, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, and yet what evidence is there? Isn't it a whole lot better when people look at us and say, you must be a Christian. I can tell by the way you walk and by the way you talk and by the way you behave yourself and by the way you live your life, and by the things that you do, you're a Christian, aren't you? You've had that experience before. Meet somebody, didn't know him from, from, had never met him before, and, and you come across him, and just in a brief moment you can see this one must know the Lord Jesus. And you ask him, are you a Christian? Why? You all you could see from just that brief moment, maybe something they said, maybe something they did, maybe they something they didn't say or do. Just by their lifestyle and that brief snapshot of time, you can see this one has Christ living in him and through him. He's a Christ-like one. Are you a Christian? And I guess that's questions for all of us. Is there enough evidence in our lives? Is there enough in the way we behave ourselves that other people can see Christ in us? Or is it a surprise to people when we say, I'm a Christian? Oh, really? Oh, I would have never imagined that. That was the farthest thing from my, from any thought I had about you. You're a Christian? Really? Okay. Or do our lives manifest the relationship we have with him? Is God ashamed of us, or is he proud to be called our God, our Lord, and our Savior? Remember in, in John chapter six when the Lord began to teach concerning the, his death, that, that they would have to eat of his body and drink of his blood, and of course he was using those terms figuratively, as, as we can tell from the context. We won't go into the whole exegesis of all that, but just, just to understand in the context of that, that the Jews, they really had a problem with it. And so this multitude of people that was there, that he had ministered to, that he had taught, many of them walked off and left. And what was his response to the disciples? He turned around to them and he said, will ye also go away? What would you have done at that moment? What would I have done at that moment? That's the question. Are we ashamed of him? He says if we're ashamed of him before men, then he'll be ashamed of us before the angels and before God. We're living in the last days. We need to be bold for the Lord Jesus. We need to take a courageous stand for him wherever we go. Don't worry about what people think. We're going to stand before him someday, and he's going to tell us what he thinks. Is he going to be ashamed, or is he going to be proud to say, I was so glad to be your God. I was so proud to be associated with you. I'm glad you carried the name of my son and that you were known as a Christian because of the life that you lived. I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, the Lord Jesus said in Matthew twenty two. You know, one thing that's interesting you'll never see in the scriptures, God never calls himself the God of Lot. Lot was a righteous man. Lot was a believer, according to what we find in First Peter. We wouldn't have ever imagined that except for that particular statement that Peter makes, guided by the Spirit. But you never see in the scripture that I am the God of Lot. Because though Lot was a believer, though Lot was saved. His testimony before his family, before his friends, before his neighbors, before the world was one that was so horrible that he ended his life all alone. All alone, having lost everything. So you see, he put his investment in the things of this world, and he lost everything. Abraham put his investment in the things eternal, and he gained everything. And every one of us has to decide, am I going to be a Lot, or am I going to be an Abraham? There's no middle ground. There's no in between. It's hot or cold. It's one way or the other. You can't be both. You can't serve God and mammon. You can't do it. You'll either despise the one or hate the other. You got to serve one or the other, and the decision has to be made by every single one of us. Every single one of us. Abraham made that decision, and he looked for a city, and and he never saw that city. We haven't seen it yet, have we? But let me just read it described in Revelation chapter twenty one, and just for time's sake, I'll just, I'll just read it, Revelation twenty one one through four. You can read it later on if you'd like, but I'm just going to read it here for us. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. This is John, this wonderful vision that he saw. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them, and they shall be and and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. I like to say to that is, wow. And it goes on to describe the city in great detail, the size of it and the, the quality of the city and the beauty of the city, that crystal river that runs down through. And there's no sun or moon because God himself, the light, is shining out there day and night. What a wonderful, wonderful place. Whole lot better than anything we could imagine down here this side of glory, right? Well, that's what Abraham had his heart set on. What do you have your heart set on? Huh? What do you have your heart set on? Is it something in this world? Well, let me tell you, if it's something in this world, it's going to be here today and gone tomorrow. And God's called each one of us to set your heart, set your affections on things above where Christ is seated. If your heart's set on anything else, you're going to be gravely disappointed. Abraham wasn't. Then in these verses where it says, verse seventeen, I just want to read William Kelly's translation of verse seventeen. He says, by faith Abraham, being tried, hath offered up Isaac, and he that accepted to himself the promises was f- was off- was offering up his only begotten son, as to whom it was said, in Isaac shall thy seed be called, having counted that even from the dead God is able to raise, whence also in a figure or a parable he received him. In Abraham's mind and heart, he had already sacrificed Isaac, maybe even before he ever went up that mountainside. I, we, we don't have much time, but I think it's, it's going to be powerful. Let's go back to Genesis twenty two because there's just some things in here, and what a picture, we're going to see this, what a picture this is to us of the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Uh, Genesis chapter twenty two, and we're going to read those, those first eighteen verses. And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt or test Abraham, and he said unto him, Abraham, and he said, behold, here I am. And he said, God said to him, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac. Of course, he had Ishmael, and you say, well, what does he mean his only son? This was the son of the promise, the only begotten son. That other son had come out of the desire of the flesh, out of a fleshly, uh, uh, decision that was made that God's not able to complete his promise, so I've got to somehow do it on my own. Don't we do that so often? No, we don't wait on God. God's made a promise, and we don't wait on him. And we go out in our own flesh, with our own strength, and we try to solve the problem ourselves. Well, that's what Abraham had done, and it was a miserable failure, and we're suffering for it all the way, you know, four thousand years, five thousand years later. We're still suffering the consequences. But this was his only son, his only begotten 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. No argument from Abraham. I'm sure he had a struggle that night, but look what verse three says. And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went into the place of which God had told him. Now you ask yourself, why did he take these two servants with him? I'm gonna tell you what I think. I think he took them as a testimony. He could have gone and come back, and what evidence would there have been of what took place there? But in the mouth of two or three witnesses, all things are established, aren't they? I think they would. What else did... what was the other purpose for them going? They were down at the bottom of the mountain. They didn't go up there with him or anything, but he took them, and you'll see what he says to these two men and what a testimony it was to them. So he rose up and he did, went to the place which God had told him. Verse four, then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and 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. Now, what a testimony. Circle that verse. What faith in God. God had just told him, you're going to offer him as a burnt offering on that mountain, and it wasn't because Abraham didn't know what a burnt offering was. He had offered up burnt offerings to God before. He knew exactly what God meant when he said, offer him up on that altar as a burnt offering. He wasn't just going to kill him, he was going to lay upon that altar and burn every aspect of him, every part of him. There was nothing gonna be left over. But he says to them, I and the lad will go up and worship. That's worship. Today's concept of worship is we're gonna sing a bunch of songs. You ever hear that? Uh, like the worship, you know, like they'll say, well, this is the worship aspect of the meeting, the first thirty minutes of the meeting or twenty minutes of the meeting worship. That's not worship. That- that's one aspect of worship. We can sing, you can sing, and that could be worship, but worship is proclaiming the worthiness of. When we gather together at the breaking of bread, we're worshiping. We're bowing down before God and proclaiming the worthiness of him. Well, that's what he said I'm going to do. I'm gonna go up on that mountain, and I'm gonna worship God, and this lad's gonna go with me. And then what does he say? And we will come back. Wow. What faith. Now, here's what you've got to remember at this point. No one has ever risen from the dead. It wasn't like Abraham had some kind of history to look back on, some kind of evidence that God was able to do this. And that's the great thing about this chapter, is you see men and women of God doing things that had never been heard of before. You'd never heard of water falling from the sky, and yet Noah believed God. You had never seen a sacrifice before God, and yet Abraham believed God and offered up a sacrifice. You didn't see anybody walk with God and all of a sudden be translated, but you saw Enoch do it, and you didn't see anybody ever heard of anybody being risen from the dead. And yet Abraham had faith that God... You know why? Because God said, this man, this boy right here, this son is the one who I'm going to complete the promise that I made to you. And Abraham said, God cannot lie. And if I'm going to go up to that mountain and I'm going to sacrifice my son on the altar, the only way that God can complete his promise is to raise him up from the dead again. Now that's faith. Things that had never been seen, things that had never been experienced by man, things that were all against human logic and human rationale, men said, God said it, and that settles it. I accept that, and I believe it, and I'm going to act on it, and he did. Verse six, and Abraham took the, the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son. Let me tell you what, and we, we talk about this a lot at the breaking of bread, but if you can't see a beautiful picture and a type of the Lord Jesus and the Father here, wow, you're missing out. He took the wood of the burnt offering, and he laid it upon his son, and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. Death and judgment were in the hands of Abraham, death and judgment. And Isaac spoken to Abraham and his father, and he said, my father, and he said, here I am, my son, and he said, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. And thank God that he did. Amen? Thank God that he did. He provided himself. He didn't leave it up to you and me to provide a lamb. We would have failed, wouldn't we? He provided himself a lamb. He sent his only begotten son, the Lamb of God that shall take away the sin of the world. There he is, the Lord Jesus. God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering, so they went, both of them together. Now, sometimes the parallel that God gives us, sometimes the picture that he gives us isn't exactly perfect. Because we know that the Lord Jesus went there to the cross, and the Father was with him at that beginning when he was first hanging on the cross because he was able to say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. But when that darkness fell on the entire world, when the sin was laid upon him, when he became sin, and the judgment of God fell upon him, and the condemnation fell upon him that belonged to you and me. He didn't say, Father. He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? God, in his graciousness, didn't take Abraham to the point that he himself would go someday. Abraham lifted up that knife, and he got ready to stab his son. He got ready to kill him. He was right there on the altar, and as soon as he stabbed him, he was going to put the fire there, and he was going to burn him up. Now here's something to remember. Remember the burnt offering? They put the fire and the wood, and then the sacrifice. In his graciousness, God allowed him to put the wood and the offering, and later on he's going to add the fire. But where he stopped Abraham's hand from coming down and striking his son in the heart and killing him, God's hand was not stayed with his son. And the rod of Jehovah fell wholly upon him. And he suffered. And he died. Oh, Isaac died in type. Isaac died in parable. Isaac died as a shadow or as a picture, but Jesus Christ died in reality. We know the rest of the story, just for time's sake, we'll just, we'll just remind ourselves of it. God stays him, the angel of God says, stop Abraham, don't harm the boy. He looks over into the thicket over there, and there's a lamb. He goes and takes that animal and sacrifices on that altar in place of his son. I want to tell you something this morning. Every single person, listen to me just a moment, every single person in the room, I want to say something to you. Jesus Christ died as your substitute. And what you've got to decide for yourself is, do you want that substitute to be valid? Do you want that substitute to be effectual? Do you want that substitute to really be your substitute? Or do you want to let him just die in vain, as far as you're concerned, and say, no, I'm going to stand in front of God on my own merits, even in part, even in part. I know so many people that say, well, Jesus did his part, I've got to do my part. He did some of the things, I've got to do the rest. He did most of it, I've got to do just a little bit, but any of that, any of those concepts are foreign to the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. He paid it all for you. If you haven't received it, if you haven't put your trust in him, if you haven't believed on him, let me tell you what, there's no better day. In fact, the only day you have is today. You know, we pray for it every Lord's Day. Men gather together, and the ladies in the, in the, we, we pray that the Lord will touch somebody's heart. And I know there's people that come here every Lord's Day, every Sunday, and you put on a facade, you put on, uh, uh, some kind of outward me- uh, outward sign that you're a believer, and yet you know deep down in your heart that if you died today, you spent eternity separated from God, or at least there's doubt in your mind. A Christian should never doubt. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Not my own, but his. Take thy son, thine only son. He took him. He went up and he worshiped God, he came down from that mountain. He gave everything he had, and once he laid it all on the altar, what did he have left? Just God. Just God. And dear believer, our challenge this morning is lay it all on the altar. Romans chapter one or chapter twelve verse one says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable, logical service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Have you laid your life on the altar? Dear brother or sister, lay it up there. All you'll have left is God, but I'll tell you what, compared to what we have, isn't that so much better? Isn't that so much better? William Kelly wrote in his commentary on this, he said, to man, death is the end of hope, but to God is an occasion to exercise the power of resurrection. To man, death is the end of hope, but to God is an occasion to exercise the power of resurrection. And if you've died to Christ, you've been raised up with him as well. And the power of that resurrection. Isn't that what Paul said? Everything I've done, everything I have, all my accomplishments in life, they're worthless to me because I've given them all up that I might know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of the suffering. Do you know that? Have you given it all up? Have you laid it all on the altar for him? I just want to close with these two verses in Romans chapter four that I think summarize Abraham's life. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able to perform. If we're men and women of faith, we're children of Abraham. Let's put our trust in him and him alone. He'll never fail us. He won't. Has he yet? Certainly not. He never will. Let the glory be to him. I'm gonna ask Gibby to close us in prayer. Would you do that for me, Gibby?