2024-03-14- Obedience

And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, he said, behold, here am I. 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. 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, enclaved the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went into the place of which God had told him. 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. Pray with us tonight. Lord, Father, God, we ask you, Lord Jesus, to be in the house, God. Lord, God, we ask you for the anointing on these people, Lord, Father, God. Anointing in the altars, Jesus, Lord, Father, God, use us for the edifying of your name. Use me, Lord, Father, God, I pray to speak your word, God, to preach the word of God, your blessed word, God. I pray, Lord, Father, God, for the anointing. Oh, God, I know that you can and you will, God. Thank you for the visitation. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. This is a very, very familiar scripture. All of us know it very, very well, and many of us could probably quote it, Brother Anthony, and know exactly where this is, what it's about, the stories that come from it, or the commentaries that come from it, rather. But I'm here to tell you guys tonight, I'm going to come at you with a simple thought. Simply obedience. Obedience. Simply obedience. It's where I've laid my thoughts on it. The Lord has led me to this spot, and I thank the Lord for it. I prayed and prayed about it, and I almost felt like, Brother Anthony, all of us know that when us preachers are praying and studying, Brother Cannon, for a message, it comes like that, right? All of it lies out just perfect. You know the part of me, the self part of me, I was praying for the Lord's will in this, and I really hope that I have found it, and I've come before Him tonight, and I'm going to preach His Word. We all know here in the scripture where the Lord comes to Abraham, and He speaks to him, and it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, Behold, here am I. 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. You know, I don't, reading this scripture, saints, I don't read here where Abraham hesitates, Brother Anthony. I don't read where he sits there and he kind of debates. I'm reminded of the scripture where the Lord comes to Moses, and He tells him to go and deliver the children of Israel out of Israel. And he tells the Lord, he kind of tells Him, I can't, I'm not an eloquent speaker, I don't have the words, I'm not, Brother Camden, I can't see myself going forward and doing that. I don't see that here in this verse of scripture. I read here where Abraham rises up in the morning, and he saddles his eyes and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac and his son claimed the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place for which God had told him. I see obedience right here. I see that the Lord is moving on Abraham to obey Him. It's not a matter of does Abraham have the faith, it's to show the faith that Abraham does have. And he goes, and he goes farther down here in the scriptures, and it shows where Abraham takes the two men, and he sees a far off, Brother Camden, he sees the mountain far off where he's going to sacrifice his son, and he tells them right here, and he says he took the wood, let's see, Abraham said unto the young men, abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. Come again to you. Let that tell me right there, he's obeying, he has the faith that God will carry him through, he ain't worried a bit about what's going to happen, yes, it's his only son, yes, it's his love, yes, he loves his son. Robbie, would you come up here real quickly? Up here, I don't want to embarrass you, but would you come up here to the pulpit please with me? It's his only son, Brother Camden, he loves him, Brother Jameson, he adores him, he prayed for him, he waited for a number of years for this son to come into his life, and yet I see no hesitation, I see no second guessing, this is my one and only son, this is my loved and cherished son, Robbie Durbin, Robert Durbin, this is, I hesitate a little bit, I'm just going to be straight up with you, I feel like, I feel like that I probably questioned a few things, I would love to be able to, God I trust you, sorry son, I trust you Lord, I'm going to go and I'm going to sacrifice my only son because I love you. There wasn't no apology, there wasn't no Isaac, come with me, come on, we're going to go, and you see it there, you can go sit down, there's a whole lot of obedience here in this verse of scripture, and I'm here to tell you tonight that we need to obey the Lord to move forward, Brother Camden, he might come at us with a simple request, it might be something that's as deep as this is, and you are feeling like, you cannot, I can't do this, this is too much, I don't know, that's a lot, I'm awful attached to my son, or I'm awful attached to this in my life, or I can think of so many things that I could give up, but that, I love that, I can't get rid of that, but the Lord was testing Abraham. He goes on further in the scriptures in verse number six, and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son, and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and they went both of them together. I'm going to back up up here to verse number two, 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 therefore a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I tell thee of. And verse number 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 listen to this, and clave the wood. I looked up the word clave. He had the, clave means chop, or prepare to burn, split the wood, there's that, you've got to prepare the wood, you just can't take a round log, or you don't want to just take a round log and go try to make a fire with it, it doesn't catch very well, but the preparation in that wood, and I got to thinking of all the spots and all the things in this scripture where it has, and Abraham, he went to sleep that night, he rose up that morning, and he was getting prepared, and he was, I wonder, Brother Quentin, we've split wood before a lot of times in our life, growing up we had a wood stove, and that's a lot of preparation to get that to burn right, and I can only imagine an altar, you want to make everything, everything has to be correct, and you can't just, you can't put a little thought into it, you've got to spend time on it, and you've got to prepare for an altar, and we read here where he claimed the wood, he took the wood, he prepared it, Brother Anthony, he was preparing it for an offering, an offering of his son, and he was believing that God would use him, and use his circumstance, and put him through, but you don't see that here, you see Abraham obeying the Lord, and moving on into it, and he's going, and he gets to the spot where he can see it, and Isaac spake unto Abraham his 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 the burnt offering? You might not see the hope of what God's telling you to do, you might not be able to see exactly what the Lord's, the outcome of what the Lord's telling you to do, but since I'm here to tell you tonight, we just need to simply obey, we need to trust the Lord, and know that He is going to take care of us. I'm going to turn over here into Proverbs, chapter number three, and verse number five, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thy own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. We need to think about this, saints, we need to remember when we are being told by the Lord to follow Him, and obey Him, we need to trust the Lord that He's got this, and He's not going to lead us into something that's not correct, He's not going to put us in something that's going to harm us, He's not going to say, you know, I wouldn't do this myself, because as many of us know, that this verse of scripture that we're in tonight, it's a direct reflection of the Lord giving His Son to die on a cross for our sins, He brought Him to us, old rugged cross, you see here where the scripture in verse number seven, and Isaac spake unto Abraham his 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? The lamb, Jesus Christ, He was the lamb, the sacrificial lamb for our sins, He was an innocent person, Jesus was, and He went to a cross and died for our sins, and I'm here to tell you tonight that because of that, we don't have to go, and we don't have to give in, brother Anthony, we don't have to sacrifice our son, we don't have to go give all that, God did that for us, He gave Jesus for us, and He died for our sins, and took away the fact that we had to go get a perfect lamb, we took away the fact that we had to go prepare, and we had to do all that, and we had to sacrifice it for God, because God's Son went on a cross and was sacrificed for our sins, and He made it for us. Verse number eight, and Abraham said, my son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering, so they went both of them together, and you see here, Abraham didn't ever have a doubt, he says here, God will provide. How many times have we thought that in the middle of a trial, in the middle of obeying the Lord, God will provide, or how many times have we let self get in the way and we've doubted on it, and we've been thinking, me, me? When I was 18 years old, or around 17 years old, I felt the calling of, the call of Christ on me, or the preach on me, and I ran for it, brother Anthony, me, no, no, not me, I'm of anything, I couldn't even, I've always had trouble reading, as most of you probably see that, or reflect that, but I've always had that little bit of that part of me that I always had in the back of my brain, I can't hardly speak in front of people, and I can't hardly read in front of people, it's always been a problem, but here I am, obeying the Lord, but it was not without me getting self in the way first and running from that, brother Quinton, and that never ends well, I'm here to tell you tonight, once God calls on you, there's no way you can get away from that calling, you can run as far as you want, but God is still going to be there, it's like when I backslid and I was running from God, I always knew what was right, when I was doing things I had that voice in my head telling me you need to go back, you need to get back in church, and it was a continuous, and I was running from Christ, I was running from the beloved Christ, brother Anthony, I was running from it, and I never outran it, I'm so glad that it caught up with me, and the Lord showed me what I could do, and as adults we go about our day to day, brother Quinton, we don't no longer have to worry about our parents trying to tell us to obey them and do exactly what they say, but it comes a little bit different as an adult, we ourselves have to depend on God to lead us through this life, and we have to have ears that can hear, did I say that clearly, we have to have ears that can hear, and you see in the verse part of this where Moses says here am I, he heard him brother Camden, kind of literally, I don't want to, I'm not taking for what brother Tim preached about the other day, but the here am I, here we are again, where the voice, the Lord speaks out and the servant heareth, here we are again, and how are we doing in our day to day, is our self so deep and so set into us that we can't hear nothing but what we're thinking, we can't hear the will of God when we're supposed to be doing what we're supposed to be doing, we know that we're not in the will of God, so we're just stuck on self and we're just depending on us, and we're not doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing, but here we see the scripture and it's a test, it says in the very verse part of it, and it came to pass after this, these things that God did tempt Abraham, tempt him, he gave him that, the ultimatum, you can disobey me and not offer your son, or you can obey me, and you can take your son and offer him for a sacrifice, brother Tim. I love this verse of scripture, this text here, I love this text, and the more that I've studied it, as many of you know, most of the time when I study something, it ends up smoting me in the process of studying it, and I look at myself, brother Tim, and I wonder, how much have I disobeyed God, how much have I missed out, because I second guessed myself. When you're sitting in a church, you're sitting at home, and the Lord deals with you, he tells you to do something, he tells you to put this down, he tells you to not look at this anymore, he tells you to pick the Bible up, or you know, you've got a whole busy day, just take a little bit of time and pray, pray to me, pray to your father, I've got a busy schedule today, I'll get to it later, I'll do it, I'll make up for it tomorrow. We need to obey God, because what do we have here? It's a test from God. He didn't, he was never intending on sacrificing Isaac, he was, Isaac was never going to be sacrificed, there was a lamb that was already going to be there, but it's the test of Abraham, and the fact that he had the faith that God would provide, and it shows that in the scripture, and I keep reflecting back to it myself, how often have I let stuff get in the way, and I was so doubting, and so stuck on myself that I got in the way of it, and I didn't see that, and the test was put on another time, because I failed. A lot of times at work, we have a lot of competency checks where we have electrical and hydraulic and things like that, and I've been doing a lot of that lately with associates at work, and I tell them, this test that you have, you don't really fail it, you just come back later, and you practice out on the floor, and you get better, and you come back in here and you try it again, because we need the people, and the tests are sometimes hard, but I don't want that to be anything that I look at as my spiritual. I'm going to kind of wing this, and I'll listen to God later, and if I have to come back later, I'll go, you know, do my thing, and I have to come back. I don't want to be that person by the Jameson, I want to listen to the Lord right then and there. I don't want to ever put self in the way and think, you know what, it wasn't God calling me, that was just my thoughts, that was just me. Maybe I'll catch it later. We need to get ahead of this thing, and we need to obey the Lord. I'm here to tell you tonight, guys, if there's saints, if there is a person here tonight that the Lord has been telling you to do something, if the Lord has been telling you and dealing with you to do something, and that could be His touch, it could be your miracle, your promise, your salvation, that's waiting on your obedience. So I'm here to tell you tonight that the Lord's dealing with you, and He's telling you to step out. Trust me, I have never looked at somebody, and I've said this a lot in church services, you've probably heard it many times, I have never looked at anyone that got out of a pew at an altar call or during a service and came to an altar, and I sit there and try to figure out what they did wrong. It has always been, I wish I had that strength when I need it. You can have that strength, saints. You can step out, and you can go to the altar, and God is with you. I was kind of looking at the different things, and the Lord was dealing with me on it, and one of the things that the Lord was really pushing me on to mention tonight is the altar. And when we look at the altar up here, it was just a slab of wood on top of some legs, and it's really an altar, Brother Tim, and we can lay everything down on this altar. But what is it that we're laying down, Brother Austin? What is it the Lord is telling us, Brother Camden, to lay down on this altar? What is He telling us to take to the altar? Is it your sins? Is it the will of God? Is He dealing with you, telling you that there's more for you, and you need to get this out of the way, and you need to follow God with this more, and you come to this altar? And I couldn't get away from the thought of the warmth of the altar. And there may be someone here tonight that feels like they're all alone, and they're being told by this voice that they just can't get rid of in their mind, and they're being told that you need to go out, and you know what to do, and you need to go to this altar, and you need to pray, and you need to be in the will of God. And then there's this other voice that tells you, ah, they'll look at you. Everybody's going to be looking at you, and they're going to think, what did you do? Or why are you going to the altar? The voice that's telling you to go to the altar and pray and get everything out of the way is the voice you need to listen to. Understanding the voices that are talking to you. And as we look at this, and we see Abraham says, behold, here am I. And it says this in several different spots in this text, and it goes down, and we see here, Abraham took the word of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son, and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went, both of them together. And you see in verse number seven, and Isaac spake unto Abraham, his father, and said, my father, and he said, here am I, my son. And he said, behold, the fire, the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? This text that I have tonight is literally, as I stand up here before you, I'm asking you to be obedient. And the Lord is dealing with you, and we have here, we have Isaac, we have Abraham's son, and he's starting to question, and he's depending on his father, and he's reaching out. And as you hear, and as you are moving on into your journey in this life, and you become more mature in Christ, and you have more things, and more things, and as Brother Cameron preached, the sanctification starts setting in, and you start, the Lord starts moving on you for the things that you have in your life, and move this, and move that, and give this up, and give that up, and you can take it, and you can go to the altar, and you can give it all right here, or you can do it right where you're sitting, or you can do it at your home in your prayer closet, but the Lord is dealing with you to move forward and get those things out of the way. And as we read here, and we see that Isaac starts to question it, and he asked his father, and he says, son, I'm here, and he says, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering, so they went, both of them, together. So I'm here to say tonight, if you are feeling alone, if you're feeling like you don't have what it takes to come to this altar, saints, whoever that this message is for, you are not alone. There is help in this altar. There are saints around here that will come to this altar with you. It's the warmth, Brother Jamison, of the surrendering. I've never went to an altar and stayed by myself, Brother Anthony. I'm going to be honest with you, it would feel kind of awkward, Brother Tim, if I went to an altar and none of the saints, everybody just kind of sat there and just watched. I would feel awkward. If I had that to example, Brother Tim, that I've seen that before in my life, that would be something that would keep me sitting right there. But I've never seen that. Just like I've never seen in this Bible where the Lord forsook or let any of His children down. You can come up and you can come to this altar. You can obey the Lord today. And you might not be able to make sense of what's going on. You might be questioned, but why? But I feel like I could do this later. I could put this off for another time. I don't really want to go to the altar because I'm just, you know, I've got all these doubts in my mind of things that I could be doing better than that or, you know, I'm fine. But here's the altar. We're within sight of it. 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 on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. All the way to the end, Brother Anthony, all the way, he was the Lord's going to provide. And 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 anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, and 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. Saints, we see here in this text that the Lord has provided, the faith, Brother Camden, that Abraham had that brought him this far. And he was, he was obeying the Lord all the way to the end. He was going to, he's, I trust in the Lord. I trust he's going to provide. I've already told my two manservants that we'll be back. We'll be back. I could only, I'm paraphrasing here, but I've got the knife. I've got it ready. He's here. He's on the altar, but I'm still believing. I still have the faith, Brother Camden, that the Lord's going to provide. I've got the knife and here we, here, all right, here's the sacrifice. And the Lord provided. He called him, stopped him. Caused no harm to him. It was, you passed the test, as you might would say here. If anybody, if everybody was staying together tonight, when you obey God, you show God that you trust him. How much does it take? How much are you? What's the messages you're given when you don't obey God? And it pushes like Abraham had the faith. Once at each step, he rose up in the morning, he prepared the stuff for the altar. He got everything ready and he went on his journey. It's three days journey. And he came down to it and he got the altar and he built the altar and he had it all ready. And what did he say, Brother Camden? He said, we will be, me and the lab will be back. And when we look at Hebrews chapter number 11, verse number six, and it says, but without faith, it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And I read that verse of scripture to say this tonight is, you know, as, as we look at our life and what the Lord is telling us to do and how he's telling us to move in this life that we're living in, in all of us are living it for a purpose and that is for Christ. And each time that he deals with us to do something and go that farther mile, you can rest assured that when you obey God, he will be there. He will be your strength. He will be your power. He will be your guidance through everything. And we, I'm going to keep on continuing to read and implement the system, uh, or brother Austin, if you want to get us a song. Verse number 14, and Abraham called the name of that place, Jahira, as, as it is said to this day in the Mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and said, by myself, have I sworn, said the Lord for, because thou has done this thing and has not withheld thy son, thy 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 seashore and thy seed shepherd possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou has obeyed my voice. What can we influence by obeying the Lord, brother Anthony, those around us generations to come obeying the Lord and finally coming back to the altar when I did and I prayed and I thank the Lord. I thank the Lord, brother Tim, for that preacher that reached out to me and said, would love to have you coming to the church and me coming there and visiting. And it never, I didn't come there to do what I did that night, but the Lord moved on me and he showed me exactly what I needed to do. And I obeyed him. And I love to say that I've obeyed him, brother Jameson, every step of the way. I've never doubted it. I've never second guessed it, but I've been in that spot where I sat there and I weighed in that and I weighed in this and I thought about that and I just got in. The next thing you know, that moment that the Lord was dealing with you is slipping away. And tonight, saints, if we're here tonight and the Lord's moving on you for a circumstance, for a situation, or you just need to build your faith and obey the Lord and more and more and more. Give me, Lord, the strength. Teach me, O God, show me. If you are that person tonight, would you come to this altar and pray? Ask the Lord, please, Lord, Father, God, show me the way. Give me the strength to obey you. Help me get self out of the way and move out and follow your will and your grace. Lord Jesus, we ask you, Lord, Father, God, to come and be with the saints tonight in these altars. We ask you, Lord, Father, God, for the anointing. We ask you for the warmth of your spirit as the saints come forward tonight to pray. We ask you, Lord Jesus, for you to be with each and every one of those. Search them, God. Show them, Lord, Father, God, what they can use in their life to obey you. If everybody would come to this altar. 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