I would like you to open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 22 this morning, Genesis 22, and I'll read a few verses and pray. On Sunday nights this year, we have been going through the book of Genesis, and chapter 22 is where we are. Last Sunday, I spent morning and evening in the book of Mark, so I'm borrowing from as they say, from Peter to pay Paul. Here I am on Sunday morning giving you one of the Genesis sermons, but actually it's more than that, so let me try to introduce what's on my mind today. We're going to see the story today of Abraham as he offers Isaac to God, which was a powerful test from the Lord of faith in really both the lives of Abraham and Isaac, but particularly Abraham. In it, we're going to see, I believe, a beautiful picture of our own redemption from sin's penalty through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. in many respects represents God the Father, Isaac, in many respects represents Jesus the Son. We will see how that picture shifts as we go through it, but it is a wonderful object lesson about our redemption. Then following that, we will see a practical picture, which is really what I'm after today, a practical picture about essentially about sanctification. It's really about, um, giving our all to the Lord and laying all that we have and all that we are on the altar. before the Lord, even as Abraham did his son Isaac. And then the last half of the message, that's the first half, the last half of the message is going to be some very personal comments on my part, which will, I think, respect or which will be with a view to our present situation as a church. the upcoming pastor call and our considered burden regarding that. So that kind of gives you a prospectus on where we are heading today. So I ask you to pray with me. Let me read a couple of verses and then we'll pray. Genesis chapter 22, verse one. And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt or test Abraham and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, behold, here I am. And he that is God 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. Well, let's try to pray and then we'll look into this text. Father, we are grateful this morning that you have led us through every scene of our life and through every test and every trial, you have truly been present and we praise you for that. Surely in this Thanksgiving time, we have nothing more outstanding for which to give you thanks than for our own salvation and that gift of grace which has come through our Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. But also, Lord, attending that great blessing of salvation from sin are just a thousand moment-by-moment blessings which come from the creator of the universe. And so we offer our thanks, Lord, today collectively for your goodness and generosity to us. Thank you, Lord, for in your sovereignty you have let us live in the land of freedom here in America. Thank you for those who have given their very lives and many who have given much for the cause of freedom and are even at this present moment doing same. We ask, Lord, that you would give special grace to all as we endeavor in every situation, as we're admonished, to give thanks unto you. Lord, we pray that as each of us wrestles with our own consciences and convictions with respect to any number of things, both in our nation in our families, in our church, and in our individual lives, that you, Lord, would be our leader, that you would be our guide and our strength. And I do pray, Lord, that you would help us, that we may be able to put things most precious to us on the altar before you, and that you, Lord God, would then in turn either grant that they be sacrificed as worthy offerings to you or that they be restored to us as wonderful praise offerings. So Lord, help us. And we pray that you would guide us through these words and these moments together today in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Well, the story before us today is a story which can be summarized, actually the life of Abraham, which can be summarized in four points of trial. The trials of Abraham consist in four particular difficulties that he was called upon to face. I'll not spend a lot of time on these, but as we go back in the earlier chapters of Genesis, all the way back to chapters 11 and 12, we find that the first trial which Abraham is called to face is to leave his kindred. to leave his native homeland, to leave the security of the land of Ur. Now this city in which Abraham lived prior to Genesis chapter 12 has been considered by archaeologists in our time, who have done considerable digging at that site, to be perhaps the most progressive city on the planet in that day. Abraham was blessed to live probably in a 15 or 16 room villa. He had all the conveniences that a person could imagine in that day and time, including, some have suggested, even running water. So it was an amazingly advanced society or civilization in which Abraham was blessed to live. Add to that the fact that not only was it a very wealthy society, Abraham himself was exceedingly wealthy. So he was not the low man on the totem pole. Chances are he was very high on the totem pole in the society of Ur of Chaldees where he lived. God came to him, even though he was at that time an idol worshiper and a pagan. The sovereign God reached down and picked Abraham out of everybody else. In his own sovereign display, he reached down and picked Abraham, not for anything good in Abraham, but because it was God's purpose. And he said, Abraham, I call you out of Ur of Chaldees into a land that I will show you. If you're familiar with the story, you know that Abraham left and he went ultimately into the land of Canaan. This, of course, was a great trial for Abraham to leave his native land and to leave his kindred. The second trial that Abraham will face is found in the 13th chapter of Genesis when Lot, his nephew who has accompanied him on this journey, is now at a point where he is so wealthy and Abraham is so wealthy that the land literally cannot support all of the animals in their flocks and herds. There are so many animals that literally the land can't support them. And so Abraham comes to Lot after there's a strife between the herdmen of Lot and the herdmen of Abraham. And Abraham, in an act of tremendous courage, comes to Lot and he says, Lot, it's time for us to separate. It's time for me to go one way and you go the other. He said, now, let us not have strife between us. But if you will simply look out and determine, based on your own judgment, where you want to go, I'll go the opposite way. Abraham gave Lot the whole enchilada. He gave him the whole land before him. He said, you take whatever part of the land you want, and I'll just go the opposite way. Tremendous act of faith, I think. And of course, we know that Lot made a bad decision. Lot chose the well-watered plains of Sodom and Gomorrah, thinking that that was where his wealth could be best invested and produce increasing returns on his wealth. So Lot goes down to Sodom. And of course the story just keeps going down from there right on down to the end. But Abraham chooses instead the opposite direction, which is the difficult, rocky and mountainous terrain. And he is a man of faith will sojourn there. What a great trial this was. Abraham is called upon to leave Lot. Lot has been, in many ways, his one connection back to the homeland. He has been the one thing that has kept him tender toward all those people back home. He could look at Lot and say, I see your mother in you every day, or I see your father in you every day, or I'm reminded of whenever you were just a little boy back over there. He could be tender about all those memories, undoubtedly, that were lodged in the person of Lot, his nephew. But Abraham now in great courage and with tremendous faith says, you go one way and I'll go the other. It's really best, Lot. What a trial. Thirdly, Lot, I'm sorry. Thirdly, Abraham is called upon to face yet another trial. There comes a day after God has promised that Abraham, a childless man, will have a great family. Such an odd promise from the Lord. You're going to have just a great family. In fact, you're going to be the progenitor of a nation. And Abraham keeps looking around and saying, I don't have any kids. I only have one child. What am I to do? Sarah, my wife, is barren. I can't have a child. How is it going to be? I'm an old man now. Finally, one day, Sarah comes up with the idea that maybe God meant that you were supposed to have a child in our household by another woman. And in fact, if you took my handmaiden and she became the mother of the child and the child was born right here in our home, then that must be the way God intends for this promise to come about. Well, of course, you and I both know the sad consequences of trying to figure God out and of trying to put his promises into our boxes. You start trying to cram them into the little keyhole-sized boxes that we've got, and God's promises just keep breaking those boxes and keep spilling out, and so it was here. Abraham took the advice of his wife, and Hagar, the handmaiden, conceived, and a child was born by the name of Ishmael. Now it may at first appear that this was exactly what God intended, that Ishmael would be the child of promise. However, it was not to be. And so there came a time after God did bless, a time when God did bless Abraham and Sarah to have their own child, Isaac, that Ishmael must go out into the wilderness. There came a time when Isaac, the little baby, the son of promise, the one we're going to be talking about today, there came a time when Isaac was just a little baby that Ishmael, now a fairly sizable young man, mocks the baby, makes fun of him. And Sarah says, get that boy out of here. I'll have nothing to do with him. Send them away. And Abraham, the Bible says, is grieved in his heart. The thing was very grievous, it says, in Genesis chapter 21, I believe. It's interesting that when Abraham is told by God that he's about to father a child by Sarah, Just prior to this, Abraham looks up at the Lord and he says, Oh God, that Ishmael might live before you. His dream was that Ishmael would be the one. He thought, I'm old now. I'm too old to have another young and to have to chase around the house. Let it be Ishmael, please, that could live before you. That was Abraham's wish. And yet God would try him at the point of his vulnerability. and say, no, I know it's not what you want, but here's the trial. You've got to, you've got to have another son and you're going to have to give up your precious Ishmael to wander in the wilderness. The story goes on that God will indeed bless Ishmael. He will bless him to be a great nation. He will bless him to have 12 princes and there will be all kinds of children that follow forth from Ishmael's loins. And yet he is not the son of promise. Isaac is. My point is that this third trial of Abraham is that he must say goodbye to his lovely son, his wonderful son, Ishmael, whom he has loved greatly. But then finally, the greatest trial of Abraham's life comes before us today. And it is that this now promised child, Isaac, is by the Lord called as a sacrifice. What an astounding thing for God to do. Take thine only son, meaning thy darling son, thy precious son, the son of promise, Isaac, whom thou lovest. It's as if God takes time in the scriptures here to emphasize how much the sacrifice meant. and take him and offer him upon the mountains of Moriah, to a particular mountain that I will show thee." The greatest sacrifice. Abraham is called from the lesser sacrifice of leaving his kindred in Ur of Chaldees, to a slightly greater sacrifice of separating from his cherished nephew Lot, to a slightly greater sacrifice of having to depart from his son Ishmael, to an even greater sacrifice of having to actually slay his special promised son Isaac. So you can see the progression of the trials in Abraham's life. Now, we also notice that there is, as these trials increase in intensity, there is also an increasing in the faith displayed in the life of Abraham. This is somewhat remarkable as well, because it shows the grace of God in his life. God gave Abraham a trial in the beginning, leave home and family. What did Abraham do? Well, he did what God said, but he didn't do it very well. I don't know if you realize it or not, but Abraham didn't exactly, seemingly, 100% obey God. He leaves Ur of Chaldees and he goes off up into the northern land, but he takes with him his father. God didn't say, take your father. He said, leave your kindred. He took his father with him. He also took with him his nephew, Lot, who would cause him problems from then on, essentially, okay? God had said, leave your kindred, go out there into a land that I will show you. Abraham says, all right, I'll do what you say, but I'll also kind of pad the, you know, feather my nest as we go along. I'll make it not quite so tough on myself and my wife. I'll take my dad and I'll take my nephew and whatever else. They go off up to the land of Tira. This is northward, a northwesterly route, slightly westerly, mostly northerly route up to Tira. And at this particular place, it literally means delay because at that point they decided to wait until Abraham's father would die. And so they just waited. God didn't say wait, God said go. And yet they waited. Well, Abraham was doing what God said, but only in a measure. It was a little bit like Peter who had bragged to the Lord, I will follow you. I will go with you everywhere. Even if it means I have to die, I'll go with you everywhere. Peter said to Jesus. And then whenever Jesus is taken by the guards, we find in the Bible. that Peter follows Jesus, but he does it afar off. It's like Peter is saying, well, I'm doing what I said I would do. I'm following Jesus, but he does it afar off. He was of no benefit whatsoever to Jesus and wasn't at all fulfilling his vow in his heart. Abraham's faith was there, but it was not strong, I think, at this point. It becomes much stronger, I think, when he must separate from Lot. The time comes that he has to say to Lot, you pick, whichever land you want, I'll take the opposite. Well, I think that Abraham's faith was much stronger here because it is faith that causes a person to rely upon the strong hand of the providence of God. Abraham says, I'm a wealthy man and if I've got to take my cows up on that rocky mountaintop, I guess that's what I'll do because God is sovereign and it's okay. He must have thought of the whole idea that the lot is cast into the lap, but the disposing thereof is of the Lord, Proverbs 16, 33. That is, there's no such thing as happenstance with the Lord. God says, Abraham says, if lot chooses one, then God must mean the other for me. That's faith. But I think faith would have gone a little bit further had it been stronger, and it would have been something like this. As we read the scriptures, we learn that we, as individuals who have faith, are called upon to do what? Exhort others lest they be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. There isn't any record that Abraham gave any advice to his nephew Lot at all. He didn't say, now beware of Sodom, that's a bad place. It seems that the older man would have given some advice to Lot, but he didn't. He simply said, just go wherever you want. He opened the field wide up. I think that probably Abraham should have given him more counsel than that. Thirdly, we see Abraham's faith coming right along when finally the time comes that he must release his son Ishmael to go out into the wilderness. He does everything he can to provide for Hagar and to provide for the son Ishmael. He provides labor in a faithful way. I think Abraham's faith is coming right along, although his heart will not release the pain. He's not seemingly quite at the point to totally give it up to God because he's so grieved about this. But then when you come to Isaac, what an amazing transformation has been going on in his life. When it comes to the story in Genesis 22 before us today, there is not so much as one hint that Abraham hesitated in the least, nor did he even express grief. That's remarkable. Abraham's life has become so surrendered at this point to his God that when God says, jump, Abraham literally says, how high? Let me read to you now the 18 verses, if I may. Genesis 22, beginning in verse 1. 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. 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, and claimed the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went unto 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." Lovely, lovely statement. I'll come back to it. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son. And he took the fire in his hand. Coals of fire undoubtedly didn't have matchboxes and matchsticks back then. He took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. Isaac, duly curious, 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 bird offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. Great faith. 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. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, And he said, here am I. And he, that is the angel of the Lord, 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 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. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh, 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, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine 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 shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations... Sorry about that. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. The story is before us. What an amazing display of God's grace and the faith of his servant Abraham. It is almost incomprehensible that after 25 years of waiting and God giving a son, and now these years later, that God would say to Abraham, take that son I gave you in your old age and slay him upon the altar. This, of course, describes for us or displays for us the mysterious providence of God. God often calls his people to the incomprehensible, to things that we can't fully get our arms around, to things that we cannot understand. But notice that Abraham does not hesitate He rises early. It must be the hardest test he's ever faced in his life, but the smaller tests of faith, which have incrementally increased in strength and fervor to him, have prepared him for this moment. God proving his sufficiency in each of the previous cases has brought him to the point now to be able to go forward with commendable faith and with a resolve that has been legendary down through the centuries now. Abraham follows through. In verse 5, he says to the young man, wait here, we're going up on that mountain. If you follow the language, and those who care to look into such things as the original Hebrew would confirm this, the idea that Abraham has in mind right there when he says, I and the lad will go yonder and worship and will return unto thee, is that I and the lad are going to worship and I and the lad are coming back. It's a remarkable, remarkable story. In fact, the writer of Hebrews will pick up on that in Hebrews 11, 19, when he says that Abraham offered up Isaac, accounting that God was able to raise him even from the dead. So New Testament revelation lets us know that Abraham went up there fully expecting to kill his son and his son get back up from the dead because his God was that powerful. He knew this was the man. He knew Abraham. He knew Isaac was the guy. He knew that through him would come this great nation and even ultimately would come Christ. And Paul picks up on that in the book of Galatians, that the Christ would come. Isaac could not die and stay dead. So Abraham went up there full of faith. God is in charge. But imagine how it must have struck his father's heart when this precious son, whom he had bounced upon his knee, turns to him as he walks up the mountain, carrying the wood of the altar upon his back, the wood for the fire, and says, Father, here's the wood, here's the fire, where's the lamb? He understood worship. And by the way, parents, so should your children be so conditioned to what happens in worship that they would ask if there was a missing component too. Where's the lamb, Isaac says. Oh, don't you imagine that had Abraham's faith weakened at that point, he could have just collapsed at that moment and said, oh, son, I can't tell you. Oh, son, it's too terrible to imagine. It's too horrendous for me to speak. Abraham simply said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for burnt offering. God's going to provide. It's no wonder he could call it Jehovah-Jireh, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. Don't take that and say God's looking, that's part of it. But it means the Lord will provide. That's what that means, Jehovah-Jireh. God will provide. Abraham is saying God is going to provide. He's going to be there, son. He's going to meet us there. God meets his people when they worship him in spirit and in truth, and God will be there, and he will provide a lamb. Little did Abraham know how God would do it. How could he possibly have known how that that sacrifice was going to happen? He had it all figured out perhaps, according to Hebrews 11, 19, but it didn't happen that way at all. Instead, God did provide a lamb just exactly as he himself had spoken it, that whenever they arrived at the point and Isaac was strapped to the altar, no protest on the part of Isaac. Abraham lifts his hand with the knife to plunge it into his son's body. Brutal though the scene is, I want you not to remember the brutality. I want you to remember the beauty and mercy of it. For the angel of the Lord calls to him at that point and says, don't do that to your boy. You don't have to do it. You didn't have to kill your son, Abraham. All you had to do was be willing to do it. Did you see that? How do we know that we're willing to put the most precious thing we have or know on the altar before the Lord except that we go ahead and put it there? How do we know that we're willing? God stays the hand of Abraham. He could not have plunged that knife forward one inch because God was holding onto his hand. Talk about an insurance policy. That was life insurance right there, wasn't it? For Isaac, that was life insurance. God was his life insurance. Do you know who your life insurance is? God. God diverts Abraham's attention to a ram that's over here caught in a thicket with its horns all tangled in the thicket. And instead of offering his son, God commands that he offer the ram or allows for him to offer the ram in the stead of his Son." Now, I told you there's redemptive significance all through that. Let me try to just quickly show it to you. First of all, Abraham is a picture of God the Father. I think almost every scholar has come to that conclusion. Almost every Bible student, Abraham is a picture of God the Father. Isaac is a picture of Jesus the Son, to a certain point in this story. It is of significance that the mountains of Moriah where this occurred in Genesis chapter 22 is a mountain range. It is significant, my brothers and sisters, do not forget this, that Mount Calvary outside the city of Jerusalem is located in the mountains of Moriah. I have very little doubt that the very point, the very point at which Abraham offered his son to God, God offered his son to God. the very point. Don't tell me that two different people wrote the two testaments. All the Bible written by one, namely God. Profound, profound connections here. God the Father would take his son to the top of Mount Calvary, and rather than staying his hand would, as it were, plunge the knife of his holy justice and wrath into the heart of his own son, his only begotten son, his promised son, his precious son, his darling son, and Jesus would there die for the sins of every elect person. Put them away. Put away the iniquity of that land in one day. Abraham follows through, but only as a dim shadow of the way that God the Father follows through. And if you've got sins on your conscience right now, If this week you've had some sins that you've struggled with and maybe you've fallen, maybe you failed, maybe you come back this morning feeling miserable at church thinking, I surely wish I could do better than this. May I call you to the fact that there was a savior 2000 years ago who was not spared. Isaac was, Jesus wasn't. And the reason Jesus wasn't spared was to pay for every sin that you committed this week And last week, and the week before, and the week before that, all the way back to the moment of your birth, and all the way forward to the moment of your death, those sins are covered in the blood of Jesus. In the picture before us, though, in Genesis 22, Isaac is a picture of Jesus until the point where Isaac gets up and goes free. And do you know who he becomes then? Us. Those of us who are in Christ, because aren't there enough sins on your record to strap you to an altar too? Aren't there enough sins? If there's just one, that's enough. So one sin on your record or two or three or 20 or 30 or 20 or 30,000 sins or 20 or 30 million sins upon your record, it's enough to strap you on the altar of God's justice and for the knife of God's wrath to be plunged into your heart. But God allows that you get up off the altar and you go free. because of a ram caught in a thicket, because of the Son of God who took upon himself human flesh in order that he might die for the sins of his people. Because Jesus died, you and I go free from the eternal wrath of God. But then secondly, there's an application not just to redemption, but there's an application, I think, to sanctification, to the whole idea of our personal growth and grace. You see, the deal is, folks, we are all a project under construction. We are all a work in progress. I have told you before of the tombstone that I think is pretty apropos that read, on the tombstone, construction ended. Thank you for your patience. Indeed, when we come to die, Construction on our life will be done. That will be it. But until then, construction continues. Just keeps right on. We keep getting remodeled. We keep getting taken back to the woodshed again. We keep getting broken into smaller pieces. That's just the life that's lived before the Lord, a life of sanctification. I would ask you, does God make radical demands of his people? Maybe not the kinds of demands he made of Abraham, but does he make demands that surprise us, that shock us? And of course, the answer is yes, he does. To Abraham, the demand was, the command was, slay your precious son, slay him. To Job, God would require that he surrender all, all his sons and daughters, all his riches, and all his prospects of good health. To Jonah, God would say, go preach to those people you've been trying to kill, the Ninevites. They're your fierce enemies. You wanted them dead. They wanted you dead. You've been enemies for a long time. Go preach to them. Must have been a shocking thing. And we know it was because Jonah tried to flee. To Hosea, God comes and says, Hosea, take a wife who is a harlot so that I can show my people what they look like married to me. Must have been terribly shocking. To Paul, God says, very beginning of his conversion, God says to Paul, essentially, follow me and I will show thee how great things thou must suffer for my name. Suffering. Of course you know I don't believe that all of life is to be suffering. I don't at all. In fact, I believe that the way of the cross may be a painful one, but it is not a way that is joyless. In fact, that the way of the cross is the way of the greatest joy there is on the planet. I believe that there are 10,000 rivers to be experienced and explored in the person of Christ. And that coming to know the very contours, the very features of the face of Jesus is the loveliest thing that anybody can experience. But it is painful getting there. It always is painful getting there. Just as much as anything that is worthwhile in this world costs us a little something. In fact, it may cost us a lot something. It may cost us everything. And that seems to be the motif of the New Testament, that the cost is great. You will lose everything. You will give up everything. But in the process, you will gain everything. And is that not true of Abraham? He gave up his son, and God gave it back. I think this is the way with the Lord, that when we come to that point to be able to say, Lord, I put it on the altar, it's yours, take it away, I don't want to give it up, I long for it, I want it, but God, would you take it? And you know what the Lord does? Inevitably, all the time, if it's good, if it's worthwhile, God picks it up off the altar, brushes it off, dusts it off, cleans it up, and gives it back to us, enhanced over what it ever was before. when we were clinging to it and wouldn't give it to him, right? And if it's bad, God just takes it and rids our life of that thing. That's God's way. Putting things that matter, that are important on the altar, and it can happen in many, many ways. And there are so many areas in which that must, of course, play out in our lives. It's an extremely, extremely hard thing to do. Now I want to talk to you from my heart for a minute and make application of this in some specific ways over the next few minutes. And just keep praying because this is hard for me to do. I believe that there are some things that we all are having to put on the altar right now with respect to our future. I think we're poised at a similar position as a church right now to where Abraham was at a time when he would put his son upon the altar. He loved him and yet God called him to offer him. Now the gift of that story is that God gave him back his son, more beautiful, more lovely than he ever was before. We have been blessed with some lovely and wonderful things. Speaking to you as the pastor of 19 years at Mount Olive, I look back over those years with just delight upon delight, blessing after blessing. But I think we've come to the point, brothers and sisters, where each of us is going to have to place each other on the altar of sacrifice before the Lord and see how the Lord will provide. Will he give us each other back? Perhaps he will. Will he not? I don't know. I say all that to say, and I make this as an announcement and I make this tape for local distribution only because this is for us, not for the whole world. After a lot of prayer, I'm not convinced After a lot of prayer, I'm not convinced that the Lord would have me continue as pastor of this church. I'm not convinced that I'm not, but I'm really not convinced that I am. Now, I'm placing that, or I'm trying to, and I've labored to place that on the altar before God again and again and again. And I felt like I had to do it publicly today, because that kind of makes it official, to be able to say to you, brothers and sisters, I love you with all my heart and soul. You don't invest 19 years of prayer into people and not just love each other and have a bond that will last forever. But I feel like I've got to lay this before the Lord and say, God must be honored in the process of it. And I must not cling to something beyond what is wisdom and beyond what is right. Neither must you. And so we must lay it before the Lord. Let me try to explain myself now. I hesitate to do this because so much of what I do and say seems to be misinterpreted, and I don't want that to happen. I continually wrestle with trying to be clear and struggling to be that way. And I want to be clear, and yet sometimes I'm not. So I pray that the Lord will give clarity. Let's talk about the past for just a second. God has taken us all to some rich heights together. There've been times in this place when I literally thought the rafters were gonna lift off this building and Jesus was gonna come back. Really, for sure. And I really long for that again. There've been glorious moments of rich fellowship and strengthening one of another and little souls that are brought to the Lord and cultivated and nourished in the faith. And God has taken us through many deep valleys together. The losses of precious, precious people. There's, I don't think a Sunday that goes by that I don't miss some people who are with the Lord right now. Think about where they used to sit and how that they're where I wish I was. He's taken us through valleys of strife, disagreement, struggle, conflict, misunderstanding. I praise the Lord that in almost every, I can hardly think of an exception, that in almost every single episode, hundreds of them, over the past two or three years of disagreement. Very rarely, if ever, I'll say very rarely has anybody gotten in the spirit of the flesh again and again. One sister came to me and said, I've been through this trial, this kind of trial before. But she said, I've never sensed the spirit of the Lord so strongly as I do here, even in the middle of trial. That's. It's been an amazing thing. I will have to confess that on February 2nd, last year, when our church divided, something died inside me that's never been resurrected and probably never will. I would not be exaggerating to say that I think I will carry that grief all the way to my grave. It's with me every day. I wish no one ill, but I can't help wishing that the outcome then would have been very much different than it was. Yet I do believe in a sovereign God who works all things after the counsel of his own will. A God who is not in the business of looking away while train wrecks happen, but a God who is involved in every trial to sanctify us for His namesake. I believe in a sovereign God. And brothers and sisters, I'm not the same person I was two years ago. And probably you aren't either. Because when God takes you through the deepest, darkest valleys of trial, He sanctifies you. I'm a long ways from being there, and it scares me to think about how much it's going to hurt to get the rest of the dross burned out of me. C.S. Lewis said, we never doubt that God is going to do the best for us, but we just wonder how painful the best will turn out to be. How true. That's the past. We can't go back and just continually cry over spilled milk. We can all come into our sanctuary on the Lord's day and think about how it once was filled, and sometimes even with folding chairs, and how many young people there were and how much hope there was. And we can be startled at our own consciences to say, I can't believe how quickly I could travel from the pinnacle of hope to the chasm of despair. But that's the past. And may God sanctify the memory of it and use it for his glory, and I believe he will, has, and does. The present. This is the hardest part of it for me. I'm increasingly finding that my doctrinal understanding of the scripture isn't in harmony with most of the primitive Baptists across the country. That is not to say it isn't in harmony with a number of them. The men of God who have preached for us in the past few years in this pulpit are men that I would consider myself to be in harmony with and who themselves would consider the same. But when I look at the entire movement, I recognize that I am an anomaly. I'm unlike many of them. I would never have, I guess I'd say I can't deny that I believe that God has shown me beautiful truths in his word, things that I dearly love and that make my heart beat I would hope that you would trust me when I say this. It's never been my intention to ram something down anybody's throat that you didn't believe. But it has been my desire that because of the joy that these things bring to me, for you to share in that joy as you see them too. I'm reminded of the story of the native young man who lived in a primitive tribe in a little village and none of the people in the village had ever gone anywhere. They always stayed right within their tribe and right within their village. And one day a young man who had a real desire to look beyond the little valley where they were ran across the mountains and he ran and he ran and he ran and he ran across mountain after mountain after mountain until he came to an ocean. And he'd never seen an ocean, of course, and he'd never heard of an ocean. He had no idea what he had encountered. So overcome with the sight of that vast body of water, he thought, I've got to tell the people back home of this. And so he stoops down and he puts both of his hands into the water and he gets up all the ocean he can get in his hands and he goes running back to his tribe and across the mountains of course the water spills out and all he's got when he gets back is just a few little droplets, just a few droplets and of course his story isn't very convincing. And there have been so many Sundays, week after week and year after year, that I felt like, oh, God, if they could see the beautiful ocean. And some of you have, and many of you have, and you've drunk deeply and you've rejoiced in it. And I walk away thinking, you know, all I had was a few droplets. Oh, how can I do better than this? How can I get more of the ocean? How can I get more of the fullness of it and the beauty of it there? I don't know. I don't know. I ask your prayers. But I do believe there's an ocean out there. I will say it this way. I do believe there's an ocean in here. That's a better way to put it. There's an ocean right there. There's an ocean right there. Now I wrote most of this down. I hope you don't mind because I didn't want to misspeak. A lot of the things that I've preached have been misunderstood, I think. Perhaps that's exclusively my fault. I wrestle and grieve every day because of my lack of ability as a communicator. especially if so great a message as God's gospel. I certainly never have intended for my preaching to be a source of contention among the primitive Baptists. And yet all across the country, that has proven to be the case. I do long for Christ to be magnified, whatever it costs me. I'm not going to go over the issues again. I'm glad to talk with anybody who's interested in really seriously looking at these things, of course. But my heart, frankly, is so battle-weary I can hardly stand to pick up the weapons again. I'm not weary of preaching the gospel. I love preaching the gospel. I love that. But I'm weary of fighting over it. I thank the Lord for good men and good pastors among the primitive Baptist who have stood with me in this trial. And many of you who have just been so faithful and some of you who have disagreed vigorously, vigorously with me and love me anyway. I'm amazed that's the body of Christ. You've loved me anyway, and I have loved you. My greatest concern, I think, for the primitive Baptists and this controversy that's presently going on is that controversy of this nature often deflects our attention from the main thing to begin to focus on minor things. That's my greatest concern. We've got marching orders that are clear in the scriptures. We're to love one another and we're to share the love of Christ with the nations. Those are just clear marching orders in the scriptures. And instead, many of our people have chosen to take a course other than that, and it grieves me at my very heart. There's no use going into all the ways in which these things have manifest themselves. That's for you to either already know or to not worry about. But I'll just say that specializing in scandalizing is poor business, and I don't want to get mixed up in it. All of us will stand one day before a just judge, and according to the Holy Word, Jesus' own words, Matthew 12, verses 36 and 37, each of us will be judged by our words. The things which we speak will be brought into account at the day of judgment. By thy words, Jesus says, shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned. They will certainly bear testimony to the kind of person we were. And so I commit all those matters. to him who judges righteously. I want to do that. And myself as well. I think the thing that most concerns me is our local flock. Yes, I've struggled some in the greater realm as a primitive Baptist pastor who's traveled a lot. Of course, my name is involved in the controversy everywhere out there. But that has hardly ever scarcely crossed my mind. I have three or four books on my shelves at home, some of them largely written about me, trying to prove how in error I am. Some of those written without the author even so much as picking up the phone to call me and ask me for clarification on anything. I scarcely ever think of that. What burdens me is our local flock, what I want to see. as a thriving local assembly that's more and more and more and more in love with Jesus. That's what I want. Our flock is deeply divided yet today. We've labored to go on despite this internal division. I'm thankful that we've been able to do that. Again, I commend every one of you. because attitudes have been nothing but Christ-like. I mean, just across the board. Amazing, wonderful spirit. In fact, some people have come to this church knowing a little bit about our struggle and walked away saying, I couldn't tell at all that there was any disagreement in that church because people truly love each other. Praise God for that. I guess I would say as we place each other on the altar, that's what we've got to do. As we place each other on the altar, we must labor to see if this is, this context, is the course that God has for each of us. Each of us must ask ourselves that question. Do we press on in spite of our differences? Is it time for a change? I want you to keep these things in mind when it comes time two Sundays from now to vote about a pastor. That's the present. Let me talk about the future for a minute. If I do remain as pastor at Mount Olive, I thought it might be worthwhile to you to get a bit of inside information as to where I'm coming from. I have believed it to be right to allow two years for the dust to settle. We've basically done that. The Lord has blessed us with sweet meetings. I'm reminded that Old Testament story when the children of Israel were all upset with their leader and were about to stone him. And they appointed singers and the singers began to sing. And the controversy ended right there when they began to sing. You know, time and time again, the Lord has blessed us to sing together and to rejoice. And I have seen the Lord settle down a sense of peace over all of our hearts and countenances as we sang. But in the future, There are a few things that I think I need to say. One is, I have determined and will labor to the best of my ability that although I do disagree with the strict rebaptism rule that is in place among the primitive Baptists, that I will live within those parameters. That if I'm to remain here, that is something God is calling me to accommodate to. I've never argued that the rebaptism rule be totally thrown away. I do believe it needs to be modified. But I make a promise to you that if I'm here, I will not labor, I will say it this way, I will not force you to any conclusion that your conscience is not satisfied with on that issue. Secondly, I've labored and labored and labored over these issues, these theological issues. that are being so hotly debated in our primitive Baptist culture today. And I've concluded that I cannot please the Lord and accommodate in any way on those issues. To me, the other is a practical one. Rebaptism is a practical issue. I think it's a bit of an error, but I don't think it's significant compared to the gospel. And so in my heart, I must labor to continue to preach the gospel. I believe, as I've preached it, don't think that I'm going to get up next Sunday and preach a sermon on justification by faith alone, because that's not my purpose at all. But I cannot compromise the gospel. I ask you to take that into account when you cast your vote. Thirdly, if I'm to be here for another year or if I'm not, it will be necessary for the church to, I'm sorry to say, deal with some disciplinary issues that are facing us. I have felt like that we were all dealing with our pain in so many different ways that to bring up additional pain with respect to disciplinary issues of those in the church who have wandered would be too great a burden to bear and so I've left those things and I don't think we've displeased the Lord to let those things slide for this period of time. But they can't slide forever. There are fully 12 or 13 people in the church, members of the church, who are not attending, who are not supporting the church in any way, who have violated their covenant to the church, and some of whom are living in open sin. Those things will need to be addressed. And it will have to be done lovingly and carefully and judiciously, but they do need to be addressed. And as much as I don't look forward to it, by the grace of God, those too can be glorious times. in which the Lord truly grants repentance to his sheep who are rightly exhorted. Fourthly, I would long for the church to move forward with a stronger, increasingly strong, and God has blessed us to make great strides in this area, I think, but a stronger worship and praise That is that more and more our singing is God-focused and God-centered and Christ-centered, that our prayers are more and more meaty and filled with a true longing of heart after God. I will labor for those things as strongly as I can and for the pursuit of evangelism. We begin that effort, many of you know, with the message of grace back on the air in Roanoke again. on Saturdays at 1130. That program has been off the air for a while in our city and it's back on now. But perhaps even other ways in which the Lord might open doors for us to be more evangelistic, such as putting our sermons on the internet, whatever else the Lord may do. Fifthly, I will say to you, and this is, I hope you will understand me here. I hope you will. This is intended, I think, to reflect the grace of God. I hope that's true. Fifthly, and finally in this series of things, I will be picking up in January two more classes to teach at Faith Christian School. Most of you know that I've been teaching part-time there for a while. By picking up two more classes there, this does convert the position into a full-time position. That means that I will be spending most of my days at school, not half a day as I've been, but most all day at school until the end of May. If the Lord so sees that I should continue as pastor here, it will be a difficult task to juggle both things, to try to pastor a church to which I've tried to give my full time for years, 14 years in fact, or about 13 years, with a job at the school. I ask you to pray about that. I ask you not to be bitter about that. Because of the uncertainty of the situation, when a job offering occurred about three or four weeks ago, I prayed for several weeks about it and felt that this was the Lord's provision, that I must take it either way, that we choose to go here as we place each other on the altar. I hope that you'll not be bitter about that. I ask you to pray that if the Lord intends that to be a temporary thing, that it be just a few months, five months to be exact, that it be just that. That if he intends for it to be a long-term thing, that he would grant, that his glory would be manifest through it in whatever the case. So we're back to where we started. Abraham walks Isaac up the side of a mountain with wood all over his back. to build a fire and to build an altar and to sacrifice his son. The glory of that story is that when Abraham was willing to give up everything that meant everything to him, God gave it back. I believe that all of us have got to put each other and the thing we have known as Mount Olive Primitive Baptist Church on the altar. And as we do so, may God be pleased to release those straps and to lift us off the altar to new heights we've never known before. God can grant that. What we cannot do, folks, is only maintain status quo. We cannot do that. We cannot coast. We must press ahead. And if you believe that's impossible, you haven't looked at God yet. You've got to take a look at God. Because again and again, when he closed one door, he opened another. Maybe I'll preach about that another day. I ask you to keep these things in mind together with this. Hannah and I deeply love every one of you. You are dear to us, and I thank you for your goodness to us. May the Lord bless us all. And by the way, to not end on a Yes, it's sobering. It really is sobering. This is hard stuff. But do not end on a sober, somber note, totally. Let me remind you again, this is the week that starts Thanksgiving. Philippians 4, 6 says this, be careful for nothing. That is, be not overwrought with care about anything. Please don't go home and just worry and worry and worry about this. Transform those worries into moments to pray to God. Take them back to Jesus deliberately, specifically. Lay them at his feet. Commit your way to him and he will bring it to pass, whatever he chooses. Be careful for nothing. Don't be overwrought about anything. But in everything, everything, everything, everything, everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. That's my charge to you this Thanksgiving week. Let's end everything, give thanks to God. We're at a turning point, but that doesn't mean despair. It may mean virtual paradises ahead, folks. Let's pray to that end. Could we pray together? So dear Lord, I pray that you would impress upon all our hearts the glory and beauty of the fact that our savior Jesus, your son, was sacrificed that we might go free. And then remind us, Lord, that you call us to a life of sacrifice and that periodically you require us to put everything dear to us on the altar and to there sacrifice it to you. We're asking, Lord, that you might, in your good grace, allow us to go up to the mount to worship and return, if that could be according to your will. Lord, we ask that you would give us all good and solid meditations in your word. Lord, move upon this congregation. Baptists from time immemorial have believed that the Spirit of God manifest his will by the accord of a congregation. So move upon us, Lord, that we might be unified according to your own word and according to your grace. Help me, Lord, that I might be wise and humble before you, how I thank you for your love and care and your care for all these dear saints. We ask your continuation of that while we travel, while many of us are away from each other this week, In the name of Jesus, amen. Stand together.