Let My People Go

Here is the sermon for this week. It walks through Exodus. Enjoy.

We are out of Genesis this week, and will be continuing our journey through the rest of the Bible. Now unfortunately, I will be referencing parts of Genesis today that we didn’t cover. It is unavoidable when we look at Exodus, I apologize for that. You are just going to have to go back and read the Bible on your own if you don’t believe what I am saying, or you get really into it and want to know more. Many of you are probably familiar with Exodus, at least a little. This is the book that Moses is introduced in, and there have been some pretty famous movies about it. I thought about just showing the movie, but it is wildly inaccurate, and I do get paid to preach, so I thought better of it. Instead there will a sermon today covering the first half of the book, and a sermon next week coving the last half, as well as Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and the first half of the book of Joshua, maybe. I haven’t written it yet, so it is hard to say.

Before we look at much text, we need to catch up to speed on Hebrew history up until this point. We left off last week knowing that Abraham had a son, Isaac. Well God comes to him many times and also promises him that he will make a covenant as well. And then Isaac has 2 sons, Esau and Jacob. They are twins, but Jacob is the younger, and so we would expect that Esau is going to continue the line for Abraham. But we read that God loved Jacob, and as God continually does, he make his covenant with the one he “is not supposed to”. Jacob is kind of a jerk, his name means deceiver, and like, Abraham, he too has many lessons to learn about trust, lying, marriage, and God. He eventually wrestles God, at which point God touches his leg, and for the rest of his life he has a hobble. Jacob has many sons, one of whom is named Joseph. He has a colorful coat, and a musical named after him. His brothers are all really jealous (of the coat, not the musical, in fact if they had known Andrew Lloyd Weber was going to eventually immortalize their brother in song and dance, I imagine they would have had pity on him, and all of Hebrew history would be different.) Joseph rubs it in their face that he is Jacob’s favorite. Eventually they have enough, and they sell him into slavery.

At this point Joseph is in Egypt, and he is a slave. But he also has a gift from God- he can interpret dreams. This gift eventually gets him to the highest levels of Egyptian courts, sitting at Pharaoh’s side. Also because of his gift he knows a famine is coming, so Egypt prepares itself. A famine does come, Egypt is saved, and so are many others who travel to Egypt to buy food, among these people are Joseph’s family. He saves them, they all reconcile, and the story ends very happily. Joseph says to his brothers, “What you intended for evil, the LORD has used for good.” They apologize, he apologizes, there is crying, it is all very sentimental.

And since Joseph is very wealthy and has a good job, they all settle in Egypt. Which works out well for them for a while. They have good standing with the Egyptians and subsequent kings for saving the kingdom, but then we read in the beginning of Exodus:

6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. 9 "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."

11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor…

The Israelites become slaves. And things go from bad to worse. Even though they are slaves, they are still increasing in number. Pharaoh decides that this is a great way to have a civil war. To avoid this, he orders that the midwives kill any baby that is a male, so the Hebrews won’t have a fighting force. Now we are told that the midwives were God fearing woman, and they wouldn’t kill babies, so Pharaoh gets mad with them, and asks them why they haven’t been killing the boys as they were instructed. They tell him that the woman give birth before they get there, and so don’t have the ability to kill them as ordered. Pharaoh them tells the entire kingdom to kill any Hebrew babies they see by throwing them in to the Nile.

This is what Moses is born into. His mother hid him for as long as she could, we read 3 months, and then put him in a basket hoping someone would take him in. She doesn’t abandon him though. She waits by the basket. Pharaoh’s daughter sees the child, takes pity on him, and adopts him. But the thing about Egypt in those days is they didn’t have formula, so if you were to raise a child, you needed a wet nurse. Moses mother is right there, and she gets the job, being taken into Pharaoh’s home as well. This is where Moses is raised. He is considered Egyptian royalty, but his mother is there along side him while he is in his youth. She is teaching him about God and his people, and everything else.

And then the following happens. Turn with me to your programs. We read in Exodus 2

11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?"

14 The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known."

15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. 16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. 17 Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

18 When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?"

19 They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock."

20 "And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat."

21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 22 Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

This is Moses middle years, all in one short paragraph. Let’s look at it in a few chunks. First we have Moses killing an Egyptian. The entire scene is funny, if not for the murder. We read he looked this way and that. I imagine a cartoon guys looking around a corner, this way, and then that way, and then he kills him. Now I want to say that Moses reaction to what he saw was right, but his actions were not. Moses saw injustice and he wanted to do something about it. This is good. We should not be content to let injustice go on. Murder is not good though. There are limits on what we can do to fight injustice.

The next thing we see is Moses also trying to get involved in injustice between his people. Moses is considered by the Jewish religion to be the greatest of all the Prophets. Now prophets in the Bible have many functions. We today often think of Prophets as people who tell the future, and there certainly is some of that in the Old Testament Prophets, but it was not necessarily their only or primary role. One of their main functions was to call people back to God. They often did this by pointing out what was wrong. As we shall see in the sermon in the series on Prophets, very often they just pointed out injustice and sins. They are that friend that always tells the truth and so no one likes them or asks them for advise. I am very often that person. I find it hard to be sympathetic, especially when I see someone’s trouble brought on themselves. I am the guys telling them where they messed up, not taking them out to make the feel better. Be warned if you come to me, though I am better about it now than a few years ago. I am letting you know now. My wife is the compassion person. This is what Moses is doing here. He sees injustice and he has to act. He is a Prophet, but a Prophet in the raw. Later we will see him reacting differently to wrongdoing. He still calls a spade a spade, but he is a little more delicate about it, and he doesn’t kill anyone again in cold blood.

Now the ironic thing about this mans question is that soon God is going to appoint him Judge over all the Hebrews. Anyway, Moses flees, unlike the movie where he is banished, and he ends up running into some woman who are also being wronged. He helps them out, which pays off in the end, because he gets a wife out of it. Guys, the lesson here, help out the women; they may be your wife. While all this is going on in Midian, there is a parallel story still in Egypt. There is a new Pharaoh because the old one died, the murder and Moses has seemed to blow over, and the people are being worked harder than ever. God hears their groans though, listens to their prayers, and he remembers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If we remember last week, as I read one of the covenants that God made with Abraham, he let him know all this was going to happen. He said that Abraham’s descendants would be in slavery for 400 years, and then God would free them. This has all been foretold.

We pick up the story in Exodus 3

1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."

4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."

5 "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." 6 Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."

Moses has a nice little life for himself in Midian. He has a wife, a son, a great father in law. A quick aside on the father in law, Jethro. He is pinnacle to Moses story. He is a worshiper of God, and as Moses story continues, he is going to be Moses surrogate and spiritual father. Moses will come to Jethro for advice and aid many times as the story goes on. Moses most likely wouldn’t be the same man without him. As we read the beginning of Moses story we see his sister, mother, adopted mother, but a father figure is missing. There is no guy to show him how to really be a guy. That is until Jethro. We are going to see this be a reoccurring theme through the Bible. There are going to be great men who will stand on the shoulders of other great men who take them under their wings. We will see it with Joshua, the guy to takes over for Moses, with David who has Samuel to help him, with Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Luke, and Timothy. The theme is rampant.

It has also been true in my own life. I was raised by a single mother, and throughout my life God had raised up other Godly men to train me in the ways of being a godly dude. Part of who I am today I owe to Robert, the pastor of MERCYhouse, and he owes it to a guy named Tom who lives in Oklahoma. God has done thins in many people’s lives even here, bringing spiritual advisors and fathers into lives where they were lacking. And he does it for Moses too.

Moses is out taking care of his father’s sheep and he sees a strange sight. He sees a burning bush that won’t go out. So he decides the best thing he can do right now is to check it out. It is a good thing he was not in a horror movie, because he would have been toast. You know, the bush would have grown arms or something and jumped at him and he would burn, and then the camera would zoom to he sky and we would see smoke and hear screams, and then the title would come up and we would know that we are indeed watching a B movie made for the SciFi channel called Burning Man are The Unquenchable Flame. Anyway, he checks it out, and it is God.

And God calls to him, and he answers. This calling is familiar, is it not? We saw it with Abraham. God called, “Abraham, Abraham.” And he answered, “Here I am.” And we see it again, and we will continue to see it. This is the answer of almost everyone who is called by God. “Here I am.” It is short, but it says so much. It is the answer we must give God when he calls us too. It is all he is looking for. This is the answer that gets you on God’s team. Nothing else. There are no other pre-requisites. Just tell him you are there.

After Moses answers, God goes on to tell him His plan. He says I remembered my people. I hear their cries. It is time for my promises to be fulfilled. And he tells Moses he is going to be the agent by which all this is to be fulfilled. Because of time we can’t go very far in depth on these passages, though we will at house church, which, if you are not already in a small group, I would encourage you to be a part of. What I do want to do is tell you a few things about what happens next.

The next thing that happens is Moses asks how he is going to prove this to the Israelites. And God answers that they will come back to this mountain and worship, and that will be the sign. This isn’t a very convincing sign is it? I mean, put yourselves in the Jew’s position. A murderer who is on the run come back to you while you are a slave and tells you he talked with a burning bush which happened to be God on a mountain, and that you should follow him. Your question has to be, “Prove it.” And then the guys says, “Well the proof is that we will worship on the mountain that God talked to me on.” I would be skeptical to say the least. But this is the sign God says he is going to give.

Moses objects again and says who should I say sent me. Remember that in the ancient world if you knew the God’s name, you had power over them, or so they believed. And God answers Moses, I am that I am, or I will be what I will be. He is telling Moses both his name, but also letting him know he doesn’t go in for all that control things. The game is played on his terms.

And then Moses objects again. He says they won’t believe me. God gives him a staff that can turn into a snake and does many other things as well, and also gives him, and then cures him of leprosy. Moses still objects. He says that he can’t speak all that well, and God, getting noticeably more aggravated answers that he knows Moses. He reminds him that he created him, and has been with him since the day he was conceived, and he chose him nonetheless. Moses objects one more time, and God, very angry at this point, tells him to take Aaron, his brother along for the ride, and let him do all the talking. Moses finally agrees and leaves.

He goes and talks to Jethro, who gives him his blessing and Moses and his family head off toward Egypt. And when we see the movie, the next thing that happens is he is in Egypt saying “Get your hands off me you damn dirty ape.” I mean, “Let my people Go.” But in between this, there is a very convoluted and interesting story. We read it in Exodus 3

24 At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met {Moses} and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched {Moses'} feet with it. "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. 26 So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said "bridegroom of blood," referring to circumcision.)

And the question should be asked, “Whaaaa?” What is going on here. Well, we need to go back to Abraham. Remember that at one of the conversations Abe had with God, God told him that all the men should be circumcised? Well he did. And remember too that Jethro was a follower of God, and would have known this command. Moses also met God on a mountain a few verses before. Yet Moses kid was not circumcised. I believe what is happening is what often happens to many of us. We, after our conversion, think we are all set. That we are favored and liked by God and so don’t need to follow all those pesky rules. This happened to me. My freshman year at Umass I was following God, joined a campus fellowship, started my own Bible study and got a Christian girlfriend. The fellowship decided that I should be in the leadership group because I had lead some people to Christ and was very righteous. As this was happening I decided that it would be okay for me to sleep with my girlfriend because I was needed by God and he would just have to let some things slide.

I think we all do this. Moses did it. God had just told him that he will be the one to lead the Jews to freedom for the Egyptians. I imagine that Moses was thinking pretty highly of himself. And that circumcision law was pesky and for a different age. He was enlightened and knew that it was written over 400 years ago when things were different. He didn’t need to follow it. And what happens. God is about to kill him. God is telling us that although we are called, we are not that special. If he was going to kill Moses, don’t think any of us can get away with deliberately disobeying him. As for me, God released his hand of Grace and my life was like a death for years. There are consequences for not obeying God once we have decided to follow him. We need to keep that in mind. Luckily Moses had a very upstanding righteous wife and she does the right thing. This has also helped me many times over the past few years as well.

And then Moss makes it to Egypt. Many conversations happen, the Pharaoh decides that he is going to work the Hebrews harder as punishment for asking to be free, more conversations happen, and then something called the plagues start. I suppose some of you are familiar with them. We will go through them very quickly and then speak about them. In chronological order they are:

1. River of Blood- Nile, Hapi, god of Nile

2. Frogs- Heket, god of frogs

3. Gnats- Geb- god of the earth

4. Flies- Khepri, god of insects

5. Death of the Livestock- Hathor, goddess of cows, milk and Apis (Menvis) god of bulls

6. Boils- Bast, goddess if health, Thoth god of medicine

7. Hail- Baal, god of weather, Nut, god of the sky, and Set

8. Locusts- Renenutet, goddess of harvest, Anbis, god of crops, Isis protector from locusts

9. Darkness- Re, (Ra, Amen-Ra) god of the sun

10. Death of the Firstborn- Pharaoh reincarnation of Horus

One thing we need to know as we read all these plagues. Every plague is in fact a god of Egypt beginning with the Nile, which was the God Hapi. Hecket the god of frogs, Hathor was god of livestock, the god of hail was Baal, god of harvest Renenutet, god of the Sun, Re, and Pharaoh was the reincarnated Horus, a god unto himself, and the most important god to the Egyptians. As we read the plagues what is going in behind the scenes is God is showing his supremacy over Egypt’s gods. As the people of Egypt prayed to their gods for protection, God was destroying them. He is showing, even in this, His supremacy over all. We are not going to look more in depth at all the plagues at this moment, but we do need to talk about the last one more. All of the other plagues happen in Exodus chapters 8-11. And then there is an entire chapter, 12, dedicated to the last and final plague.

1The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 "This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 7"Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

21Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. 22Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. 24You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. 25And when you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. 26And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' 27you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.

the people of Israel went and did so; as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. 29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 30And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. 31Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, "Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!"

And the final plague comes. This is so important to both the Jewish and Christian faiths. Up to this point as I already said, God was taking out the Egyptian gods. There was judgment on the land. For many of the plagues, God did not distinguish between Jew and Egyptian. When it come to the livestock and harvest, God does distinguish, but frogs were everywhere. Everyone’s Nile was turned to blood. Everyone felt darkness and had hail. God also deals first with the minor gods and works his way up. We see him beginning at the bottom of the food chain, and only taking on one god at a time. By the end though, he is fighting multiple very powerful gods and rocking the Egyptians world view. The god of frogs was no where near as important as the Sun, since without sun everything would die, but without frogs some kids can’t catch frogs. By the time he gets to the death of the firstborn, he is taking on Pharaoh himself, the greatest god in the land.

Something else in new about this plague. If we were to read the text, which we had to skip because of time, we would see that God just did the other plagues. There was no action needed from the Jews. They just were. Here though, God tells them to do something. They are to sacrifice a Passover Lamb and spread its blood on the doorpost. Only this would save them. If they didn’t have the blood, or they left their house, they too were as good as dead. Also, there is nothing to say that any Egyptian who put blood on their house would not be spared. This plague was different than all the rest. This plague required the people to do something. This plague required a sacrifice. This plague required some obedience. This plague required faith.

And the Hebrews listened to Moses, the obeyed God and they were spared. And God went through Egypt and he killed every firstborn male. Every one. And Pharaoh’s house is hit. And Pharaoh’s kid is killed. And the final god is toppled.

Last week we took communion. Jesus instituted this at what we today call the last supper. It was a Passover meal. Every year, every year, Jews from around the world would, and still do, remember this night. Before 70 AD they would sacrifice a lamb at the temple, just as a lamb was sacrificed to this night. They tell the story of Exodus. How God freed them from slavery. How he beat all the other Gods. How he himself redeemed them. And they would look forward to the day the Messiah would come and free the world. In the Gospel of John we read that Jesus too was sacrificed at Passover, becoming our spotless lamb. It is through his blood that we are allowed to live. It is because he has set his protection about us through the shedding of His blood that we too can enter the Promised Land and be free forever, being slaves no more.

The Exodus story continues. What happens next is that Pharaoh decides to let the Hebrews go finally. And they plunder Egypt and begin the ling walk to the Promised Land. Pharaoh though, has a change of heart, and chases after the Hebrews. The Hebrews see Pharaoh coming, and panic. They cry out to Moses that it would have been better for them to live as slaves than to die in the wilderness. They are afraid of the guy who was just smacked down by God. Like Abraham, we see that after the call, there is an obedience, but an almost immediate lapse of faith. God ask why they are worried. Don’t you remember all those plagues I just did, and then tells Moses to part the Red Sea. He does, the Hebrews walk across, the Egyptians follow, at which point their chariots get caught in the mud, the water comes back in, and they all drown. The Hebrews rejoice, celebrate God, and we should assume that the next thing we see is them in the Promised Land.

First though, they need to make a quick pit stop. Remember the first sign that God told Moses to tell the people, that they would worship him on the mountain that he met Moses on. So that is their first destination. And if you know your Exodus story, you will know it doesn’t go as planned. Moses goes up the mountain, talks with God for quite some time, God giving him His laws ad statutes. While he is up there, the people panic and decide that they should make an Idol to worship, melting all their gold and jewelry to make a Golden Calf. God tells Moses this, sends him back down the mountain, Moses sees it, and gets so mad he destroys the tablets God gave him with the law on it. He then has to re-write all of these by his own hand.

This wasn't the first or last lapse of faith of the Hebrews either. Before this happened they complained that they would stave to death and so God gives them food from heaven. They complain that the have no water, so God tells Moses to hit a rock with his staff, and water comes out. Repeatedly the Hebrews say that it would be better for them to have never been freed and longing for the slavery of Egypt.

And so God makes them wander the desert for 40 years, until all the unbelieving people who worshipped the Calf were dead. He wasn't going to allow any of them to see the land he promised their ancestors and heirs. And so they walk in giant circles all over the wilderness. And even Moses isn’t allowed to enter the Promised Land, for he too doubts God and his plan during this time. They arrive at the doorstep of Canaan and Moses is allowed to see it, and then he dies. He passes off his legacy to his protégé Joshua, and the Jewish story of Redemption continues.

You may ask why I end my sermon here. It would have been very nice to end at the Passover, right. Talk about sacrifice and freedom. End on a high note. Instead we are at a place where all the people (except Joshua and Caleb) who were in the original Exodus are dead, Moses is punished and doesn’t get to live in the place he as brings his people to, and everyone has been screwing up royally. Now, remember I am dramatically oversimplifying the end of Moses life, and next week we will pick up with him alive and well, but I think this is where we need to end tonight. Moses story, Israel’s story ends incomplete, and so must we tonight.

Israel’s story really is ours. We have been freed from slavery, yet form some reason we continue to doubt. I know I do. Over and over God shows himself faithful, giving me water from rocks and bread from heaven, and over and over I cry out that it would have been better for me to stay in slavery. And I think it is all of us too.

How many of us have run back to our old lives when things get tough. When we see danger approaching, Pharaoh’s army on the horizon, how many of us long for our old life back. We remember how good it used to be, how satisfying it was to have food and be in slavery. How predictable it was. How many of us, after accepting the sacrifice of our Passover Lamb wish that we could go back to the way things were. I imagine it is not just me. I know that sometime late at night I think that I didn’t screw my life up that much drinking. That it was really fun. I forget the pain, the self mutilation, the wanting to die. I forget the slavery and remember only Egypt. And so I erect my own god, worship my own Golden Calf, and cry out that it would have been better for me never to have left.

And through it all God is still faithful. He gives bread from heaven, he gives water from rocks. He brings the Hebrews to the Promised Land. He doesn’t abandon them or forsake them. They are still his people. Sure there were consequences, and there are consequences sometimes for us today, but we are still his children. He still has a plan for us. He still was our spotless sacrifice.

If you are here today and you want to be freed from slavery and death, I tell you the sacrifice has been made. As he hung outside the city gates, Jesus became the only sacrifice we need. He died that we might live. He bled his blood so that the wrath of God might be turned away from us. Whether we are Hebrew or Egyptian, grew up in church or have never been before, we can find refuge under his lentil. He did not save only the Jews, but all those who put their faith in His Sacrifice. And the same is true today. Just being a church kid, just coming here doesn’t mean you are safe, you to need the blood. And if you have never heard this before, if you are worshipping other gods, all God asks of you is to believe and enter His house. There are no other pre-requisites. He is the Savior for all.

If you are here today and you have lost faith, you are longing for Egypt, know also, that he is calling you back to himself. His promises are still there for you. He wants you to continue to faith in him. This is not a one time thing. We must continually rely on God not just to free us from slavery, but to bring us to the Promised Land. He who has given you his only son, how will he not give you all things? Cry out to him. He is there. He is still giving you bread from heaven.

The message for tonight is trust in God. Whether it is the first time we are taking the blood and putting it over our doors, or we have been walking in a desert for 40 years, we need to trust in God. God only asks this of us. Last week we saw a man called righteous, Abraham, who slept around, prostituted his wife, and lied more times than we could talk about. Yet God called him, an eh went, and he was called righteous because of this. This week, we see yet another man God should not hang out with walking with him. Moses was a coward, a murderer, and had a terrible temper. He 5 times in the face of the LORD tells him to choose someone else. He 5 time tries to get out of his relationship with God. We see God saving people who don’t want to be saved, who complain about him all the time, who worship false gods right under His nose. And yet we still see God initiating with them. He still provides food and water, even as the wander for 40 years.

God initiated with all these, and he is still initiating today. He is here asking you to have a relationship with him. Asking you to follow him. All he demands, all that is required is that we say “Here I am.” He is calling you, maybe not form the top of a mountain, but he is calling. How will you answer. Remember, we need not be perfect to answer him, only willing.

Let us Pray.

Sermon fo September 28

Here is the sermon for this week. Enjoy.

As many of you know by now, we are on a sermon series called “From Creation to Christ”, where we will be walking through the Bible in 12 weeks. For the last two weeks we have been covering Creation, and something called the Fall. What we need to be aware of is that the Bible is a play written in four acts, Created, Fallen, Redeemed, Restored. As we continue in the series all of this will be come more clear. So, in two weeks we covered Created and Fallen. What we will see for most of the remaining semester is that Redeemed is most of the rest of the Bible.

Before we begin this week, I want to say that we are skipping a lot. And we are going to have to skip even more as the semester goes on. It is not that the parts we skip aren’t important, just that we have limited time, and so sacrifices must be made somewhere. I say that this week because we are jumping right to Abraham, about the half way point in Exodus. If you are familiar with the Bible you will notice that we are skipping Cain and Able, Noah, the Flood, and many other things. Sorry. If you really need me to speak to them, then I will say in Genesis 4 the first murderer takes place, the world goes to hell in a hand basket, God finds a righteous man called Noah, and saves him while he wipes the rest of the world out. Many of you may have heard these stories in church as a kid during Sunday School, and you really shouldn’t have, because telling kids about the death of other kids seems very sadistic and wrong somehow. Here is a quick tidbit about the Noah’s Ark story: there are over 450 flood stories around the world, from people groups in China, the Mediterranean, and the New World. Anyway, today we are talking about Abraham, who for most of the sermon is called Abram. Know that these two names are the same guy.

As we read this, we should also try to get a feel for the entire book of Genesis, which I know is hard since we are skipping some. If you were to read the book on your own, what you will find is that it is pushing us toward this man, Abram. We read 1 chapter about all of Creation, 1 about human creation, 1 about the fall, and then 9 others summing up the rest of human history. In the same way that Genesis 1 pushed to the creation of humans, really neglecting the rest, so too does Genesis push to Abram. He is really the main character of the book. We are going to see this literary device used throughout Scripture. Often the Bible skips much of history to get to the next guy. We will see this with Moses, David, and finally Jesus, that being said, lets jump in. We read in Genesis

Genesis 11:27-32

27Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.

31Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

Now these verse are not the crux of the sermon today, so the question can be asked, why did I read them. Two reasons: 1. It is here that the book of Genesis makes a jump. It is clear from the details given and the grammatical structure that this is a history. Where some of the previous stories could be read as history, or myth, or poetry, the Bible is forcing us to read this as history. We are to know that Abram was a real guy, who really lived, had a house, a job, a family. 2. Sometimes we, as westerners and Christians, tend to skip the genealogies. We don’t see them as that important, the names are hard to say, we so no good in reading them, so we jump to the “good parts”. When we do this, we do a disservice to both ourselves, or faith, and the Bible. Genealogies are going to be very important for the rest of the Bible. Two of the Gospels, the book about Jesus life, start with them. Also, these guys are in the Bible. They did something to get in there, and we should honor that. Finally, we read in the Bible that all scripture is God breathed and profitable. This includes these genealogies. So when we encounter them, we should read them and study them, not dismiss them.

We also find out some about Abram. He is from Ur, for one. He is not Jewish, nor Hebrew. He is from Ur. We also know that he has no kids since we read that Sarai, his wife, was barren. I want to pause here just to say that this has been a very challenging sermon to write. Abram is the central character of Genesis, and the Jewish faith, and we are going to cover him in one night. The only way I found to do this is to tell a narrative. This means that some scripture which is in your program is just for you to look up, and I am going to paraphrase it. It also means you have to trust me until you can look it up, otherwise we would be here for a few more hours. The narrative begins:

Genesis 12:1-4a

1Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him

This is the first interaction we see Abram have with God. And what we see is God calling him to a different country. In a Global society that doesn’t seem like such a big deal. We are all travelling all the time, right. But for the day, it was huge. When God calls him to a new place, he is essentially demanding he leave everything behind. His family, his life, his security. This all takes place about 2000 BC. If you know anything about the time period, you know they didn’t have email. They didn’t even have regular mail. The way you talked with someone was to go to their door. If you left the country, there was large possibility that you would never see your friends again. And your friends at this time weren’t just people to get lunch with at the DC. They were the only protection you had. There was no police, or Interpol, or FBI. If you left the safety of your clan, you were toast. There were also no planes, or cars or trains, so you had to walk everywhere. The roads were extremely unsafe, because as I already said, there were no police. Bandits and robbers and murderers waited to jump upon unsuspecting caravans. I am not exaggerating by the way. It was very unsafe to travel.

This is what God is calling Abram to. When Abram goes, he is taking his life in his own hands, so to speak. He is trusting God to protect him, guide him, provide food for him, since he can’t take his farm with him, and everything else. It would be like God asking you today to go to LA, but you have to walk, could only bring one back pack full of stuff, only as much money as is in your checking account right now, cut up your credit cards, ATM cards, etc, never call home again, and you aren’t allowed to hitchhike, call for help, or pay for hotels along the way, and when you get there, just trust God has the perfect mansion for you- only much scarier and less safe.

We have to also ask the question, “Why does God call Abram?” What I mean by that is what was it about Abram that made him stand out? Was he a perfect Christian? Did he go to church every week? Was he just such a good guy? What was it that made God call him? The only answer in the Bible is a little later in Genesis, and it is that Abram believed God. See, at the time he was called, Abram was a sinner. Lets pause here for a moment. Have any of you heard of the Ten Commandments? Most, good. We can read this as a list of things that make God mad and us sinners. This is not the only or most important function of these commandments, as we shall see next week, but it suffices for now. It is a list of do’s and don’ts. Now the first tow commandments are the real big ones. The first commandment is that we should have no gods before God, and the second that we shouldn’t make idols. They are pretty big deals. So we would surely think that Abram has kept some of these. Now they haven’t been given yet officially, but one would assume that God still digs them, he did just wiped out the entire world for breaking these commandments just a few chapters earlier. I think it is a safe assumption that the commandments are still in effect for Abram.

Do any of you know what Abram did for a living before God called him? He made idols! His job was to carve graven images for people and them sell them as gods for others to worship. He must have had idol upon idol in his home and garage. He is breaking the commandments, but more that this, he wasn’t even worshipping God. God calls him when he is a idol worshipping, lawless, filthy sinner. He is actively breaking God’s rules, even profiting by it, teaching others to do it, and God calls him. This is the first in a number of scandalous relationships God will have throughout the Bible.

Well, you may say, God called him when he was a sinner, but I bet he cleaned up his act, started listening to Christina music only, got a suit, and went to church for the rest of his life, and you’d be wrong. Now I am not saying those things are bad. And certainly Abram becomes a better person as his relationship with God progresses, but he was not perfect before his calling, and we will see, nor is he perfect after. Why am I making a big deal of this? Because God gives grace to the sinner. As we walk through the Bible we will see everyone, and I mean everyone God chooses to initiate with is broken in some way. Church isn’t a place you need to be clean first to enter. You don’t need to be perfect or flawless to enter into a relationship with God. All you need to do is believe and follow him. As we continue Abrams journey we will see him doing many things, changing his life in certain ways, worshipping God. And we will also see there is only one thing that the Bible credits his righteousness with. It is not correct worship style, or a fully holy life, it is that fact that he believed.

Abram is called, and he follows, and we expect the next chapter to be him in the land God promised him. But it is not. What happens next is in Genesis 12. Abram goes to the land, but then continues on, and ends up in Egypt. He went there because there was a famine. Here’s the thing though, God doesn’t tell him to go to Egypt. He tells him to go to the land he called him to. So the first thing Abram does is not trust God. Now we may object and say, well there was a famine, and didn’t you, Nate, tell us last week that the husband is to care for his wife. If she starved he wouldn’t have been a very loving guy. And that is fair, but we also must ask, could not God have given them food, or ended the famine? Maybe the famine was so that Abram could settle the land, since everyone would have been leaving? I say he was not wholly trusting God. The reason for this is what happens next. As they are entering Egypt, Abram tells Sarai to pretend she is his sister and not his wife because she was very beautiful. He was afraid he would be killed by the men of Egypt so they could marry Sarai. God just spoke to him and told him he would bless him, and now Abram is lying to save his own skin. This does not sound like the actions of one who is trusting God.

I also cant imaging the conversation he had with his wife. So, uh, can we, uh, pretend, you know, to not be married, you know, just for a little while? I mean I still love you, but… we could have a super secret marriage. It will make it even more special.

Any way, she apparently is very beautiful because the Pharaoh decides she will join his house and be one of his wives, which, again, I can’t imagine Sarai was happy about. Pharaoh finds out Abram was married to her and kicks them out of the country because marriage was sacred, even to the Egyptians, and they are worried that God is going to punish Egypt for the sin. I image the conversation on the walk back to Canaan, the land God promised Abram, was even worse than the conversation about pretending not to be married.

So Abram screws up. We all do, right. What is God’s reaction to this? If I were God, I would give Abram a talking too about trust and listening and marriage, but that is not what happens. The next thing God does is to speak to Abram again and re-emphasize the promises He made. The pattern so far is God initiates with people he really shouldn’t, they trust Him, but not always, try things their own way, screw things up, and again God initiates with them. This is a God of Grace. God should have kicked Abram out of the family right way, but he doesn’t. Instead He reminds him again of the covenant he will make with him and his descendents.

And then a whole bunch happens that we won’t talk about, some battles, some giving of goats, all very exciting, and then we get to Genesis 15

Genesis 15:7-21

7And he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." 8But he said, "O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" 9He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13Then the LORD said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete."

17When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites."

There is a lot going on here, and we are going to gloss over most of it. God again is making his covenant with Abram. We have heard it all before. It almost gets redundant as we read the text, trust me. Here is what we need to take away from this passage though. We may be wondering what is the deal with all the animals and the splitting in two, etc.? In the ancient Middle East, this is how one made a covenant. The two parties would bring animals and kill them and split them and walk through them together. It was to show that the promise was expensive and to say that the same may be done to them if they renege on their part. What Abram is doing in setting all this up is what any Middle Easterner would have done if they were going to enter a covenant. It is what he knew. It is akin to signing a binding contract.

And then he waits for God, like he was told. He is back to obeying, so that’s good, but God doesn’t come. He waits all day. He drives away scavengers. He waits. And finally he falls asleep. And then God shows up. We read a dreadful darkness. This is something to be feared. Something otherworldly. And God speaks to Abram and makes his covenant with him, again. And then something out of the ordinary happens. I mean more out of the ordinary that having God speak to you or splitting animals in two. We see God come and the covenant established, and from what I just told you, or from your in depth knowledge of Middle Eastern Covent practice, we should expect Abram and God to walk through the animals together. But that is not what happens. God walks though by himself!

This is extremely important. What God is doing is taking the entire covenant upon himself. He knows that Abram can not fulfill it, and so He bears even Abrams half. Again and again we are going to se this in the Bible. God will assume the burden of both his role and ours, this culminating in the Cross where He will die in our place, assume the sin we amassed, and be our spotless sacrifice so we can once again fellowship with God. And it all starts right here, in book 1 of the Bible. The third act in the Play, Redemption, begins as soon as Fallen ends.

Abram would have picked up the symbolism easier than we. So know surely Abram is good. He has to understand God now. There can be no more doubt in his mind. I mean, how many times does God have to visit someone for them to get it? One of the promises of God is that Abram will have a son and that his heir will bless the world. But we read in the beginning of the Abram story that Sarai was barren, so it seems like this is an impossibility. Abram by this point is almost a hundred, and Sarai ain’t getting nay younger, so how are they going to have a son?

Abram and Sarai had the same thoughts. They knew how the human body worked. Sarai even says am I to feel pleasure again at this age? She knows that she has been through menopause and that is that. So somehow they come to the brilliant conclusion that Abram should take another wife. As if the first marital conversation Abram had went over so great. Has he forgotten how mad God was with everyone when he told Sarai to pretend to not be his wife? Now he is taking a second wife. I wish I heard the logic. You know, babe, I love you, right? Well, here’s the thing, God says I am supposed to have a kid, and who am I to go against God. I am fine not having any kids. You know that right. But he says… its not me really. But anyway, I love you, you know that, but, well, if you can’t have the kid, I was thinking, well, there’s this girl Hagar. She’s one of your servants, and well… Now to be fair to Abram, it was Sarai’s idea, but I know guys, and I imagine he had dropped hints around. And even if he didn’t, he is the husband. How about, Sarai, I Love you. I trust God. I don’t need Hagar. You are all the woman I need. But that is not what happens. He sleeps with Sarai’s servant girl, and she has a kid.

Ladies, how do you think this turned out? Cause some of the guys might be thinking, two wives, awesome. Tell them later. It turned out terrible. Sarai was jealous. Abram was getting it from both ends. The kid he had wasn't the kid God was talking about, and He tells Abram that. It gets to the point that Sarai kicks Hagar and her son Ishmael out of the house. Remember, it is 2000 BC. There is no welfare, there are no woman in the workplace, there is no food stamps. Woman were property to many of the surrounding culture, and women with kids were seen as damaged goods. She couldn’t marry, go to the wells, get a job. It was a death sentence. This is how Abrams second marriage turned out. And, as we shall see, it screws his kids up royally, who also take many wives, have infighting and jealousies, and betrayals, and everything else one can imagine. This is all found in Genesis 16. I suggest you read it. Side note, God finds Hagar by the side of the road crying and comforts here. He also blesses her and Ishmael and tells her he will be a great nation too, but a warring one. Muslims believe they are descendents of Ishmael.

And after all this happens we read

Genesis 18:1-9

1And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3and said, "O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on— since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." 6And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, "Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes." 7And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. 8Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

9They said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." 10The LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son."

Again God is giving grace upon grace. And he reminds Abram, who is now called Abraham that his wife Sarai, who is now called Sarah, will have a son. This is the second time since the debacle with Hagar that God has shown up to tell him this. The first time he gave them new names, and now he is just dropping a reminder. Look, I am really going to do it, so stop screwing around. It is like a “Save the Date” card for a wedding, and then the real invitation. What I want to draw you attention to here is the fact that three men and the LORD are used interchangeably. There are other instances where this occurs, and we need to ask ourselves what this means. I think it is fairly certain that there is a trinity without even having to stretch the text.

And Abraham’s story continues. Now, by this point God has shown up at least 6 times, Abe has messed up his marriage at least two, and over and over God has made covenants with him, really the same covenant, and shown Abraham that He will bear the burden Himself. You would think that Abraham is strong in his faith. He has been called righteous for believing God by this point, and so we should see a man who is secure in himself, his marriage and his God. And I imaging you can tell by my set up that that is not what we are going to see next. We are in Genesis 20 by this point in the narrative. Abraham is in a foreign country. And the king Abimelech is very powerful and scares Abraham. So what do you think Abraham does? That’s right, he talks to Sarah again, asking that she would pretend to be his sister. And the king finds out, and God is mad and the king is mad, and I imagine Sarah is mad. Sound familiar. Abraham has still not learned his lesson. This too will have consequences and his sons will do it to their wives. The lesson, men, is that your sons are watching you. They are going to be men the way you are men. Same for the woman. If you are not careful your sins will be their sins.

This story also resonates with me, and I think all of us. I became a Christian at 17 while in Jail after heavy drinking for a few years. After I converted I stopped drinking for quite some time. And then I had some trauma in my life, and instead of working though it I went back to what I knew best. I picked up a beer, and that was that. 6 years later I was in a detox crying out to God that he would save me form myself again. This is Abraham here, is it not? He gets scared and runs back to old habits. And this is all of us at times, isn’t it?

Now by this point surely God has had enough. Abraham has continually invented new ways to hurt himself, God, and those around him, and even repeats his mistakes. Surely God will find someone else, cancel the son that has been promised, and tell Abraham that he has had enough. But that is not what God does. After this God gives Abraham his son, and he calls him Isaac.

And it seems like everything should be all set. God came through on his promise, Abraham is finally obedient to God. The story is over, right? Wrong. After some time God comes to Abraham and the following takes place:

Genesis 22:1-14

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." 2He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." 3So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you." 6And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. 7And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here am I, my son." He said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 8Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together.

9When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." 12He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." 13And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14So Abraham called the name of that place, "The LORD will provide"; as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided."

This is another whole sermon, so let’s just pull out a few things. One, Isaac is a proto-Christ. In the same way Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, so did God sacrifice his. We also see this in the provision of the sacrifice. God himself provided our sacrifice as well. When we were dead in our transgressions, when a knife was literally going to fall, God spared us and provided the sacrifice himself. There is also a lot of theology in the fact that Isaac carried the wood, Christ his cross, etc. If you have been to church before you probably have heard all this. If not, we will be talking about it at house church, and you are welcome to come. We are starting one on Tuesdays at 6:30 this week and would love to have you, as well as to the Wednesday house church, which starts at 5:30.

What is often missed in Christian circles is the sacrifice Abraham actually had to make. This is a guy that has not really trusted God whole heartedly up until this point. He has lied many times, let his wife move into other guys houses so they wouldn’t hurt him, took a second wife to make sure he had a heir. He is not the standard of faith. And now God has told him to take his son, the one promised him, the one who was to fulfill God’s blessing, the one and only heir he is to have, his flesh and blood, to take him, and kill him and then set him on fire. That is what God is asking. Not let him die, or let him move out, or anything else, but literally take him and stab him through the heart and kill him, his son, and set him on fire. Talk about a test of faith! And Abraham does it. He has finally learned his lesson. He knows that God will provide. I imagine he is getting more and more nerous as they climb the mountain. He has said God will provide, and he believes it, but he is still on the look out for the lamb he is supposed to kill. As they climb, he is saying, ok, where is it. I know you God. I know you are good. Where is it. And he keeps going. He gets to the top of the mountain, looks around. No sheep. Ok God, where is it. I love you, I know you will provide. Where is the sacrifice. He ties his son up. A little more frantic. Where is it. He realizes that he has to kill his son. Where is it. He pauses, looks around. Where is the sacrifice. Looks in his sons eyes. Lifts the knife, and an angel of the LORD, says, What are you doing”! You crazy, crazy man. Look, there is a ram right over there. Killing your own son. Didn’t you know God was going to provide? I mean really! Quickly, when we see Angel of the LORD in the Old Testament we should always ask is this Jesus. I am not saying it always is or isn’t, but we should ask the question. Here, I believe it is.

The other quick lesson here is God is seldom early but never late, which sounds trite, and the type of advise one would give to a friend in pain to try to make them feel better, but not really. I mean you want to comfort them, but you know they messed up so you say, well the reason you didn’t get the house you wanted is that its not time. You know, God is seldom early, but never late. And then you walk away self righteous because you sure helped them to understand God a little better, and they shouldn’t be sad anyway. And it is trite, but I can say it is true as well. I have experienced it many times.

Just last month I got my paycheck, paid my bills, like a responsible adult, and then found out I had 14 dollars in my account for the rest of the month. I have 2 kids and a wife, and although I could eat only Ramen for the 30 days, they couldn’t, plus diapers can only be rung out and reused 4 or 5 times before they are gross, so we were in dire straights. And I was praying, ok God. You are going to provide. And nothing happened. And then again. And Again. And again. Nothing. And then, when it was time to food shop, I got two checks in the mail for a few hundred dollars. I was not expecting them, though I was. I know how Abraham felt, sort of. I didn’t have to almost kill my kid, unless starving them to death cause you have no money counts, but I don’t think it does.

Now what is this story all about? As I said before we will discuss it more in house church, but it has some application for tonight. See, we are all Abrahams. We were all unworthy of a holy calling, but God has initiated with us anyway. We all mess up all the time. Maybe we don’t let our wives marry other men, but there is always times when we don’t trust God, when we take back our lives in spite of what we know, in spite of the promises of God. And God continually takes us back. God continually gives us grace. God continually reminds us that he has taken this covenant upon himself. God continually reminds us of His promises. Abraham’s pattern is our pattern. We are all only righteous because we have believed. There is no action or law you need to follow, no worship style or Bible study you need to do to be good. You only need to believe God.

Here is the thing though, at some point during your faith, God will test you. There will be things in your life that he will ask you to sacrifice. He is going to ask you to trust him unconditionally. He is going to, at some point, as for your all. There will be a moment in your walk, a moment you don’t think you can do, when God is going to topple your world and demand you obey Him, and Him alone. God never wanted Abraham to kill Isaac, he had already promised Isaac a nation unto himself. What God wanted was Abraham to unconditionally follow him, to love him more than anything else. He wanted Abraham to know the depth and breadth of his faith. Abraham screwed up many times before, and if was anything like me, he focused on those defeats. He knew he couldn’t measure up. God was showing him he could. He had the faith. He did believe.

When we decide to walk with God, we need to know that his friendship isn’t cheap. He demands we leave all and follow him. We have to go to a foreign country, leave our old life behind. We may have to climb a mountain with our most precious thing, maybe our family, or job, or world view, or social standing, or anything else, and sacrifice it on an altar. We need to be prepared to give God our everything. He demands no less.

But know as we do this, that he too gave us everything. He died so that we wouldn’t have to. He sacrificed himself that we may live. He sent his son as the sacrifice, providing for all of us in a way we never could for ourselves.

There is one more story we need to look at before we end tonight. It is actually found near the beginning of Abram’s walk of faith. We read:

Genesis 14:17-20

17After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). 18And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19And he blessed him and said,

"Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
20and blessed be God Most High,
who has delivered your enemies into your hand!"

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Abraham at this point has decided to follow God, and as he does, a man, Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, a priest without beginning or end, shows up. And he reminds Abraham of the covenant God has made with him, and he gives him bread and wine. And we too have a priest without beginning or end who finds us on our walk of faith. He too brings bread and wine.

On the night he was betrayed Jesus took bread and be broke it and said, “This is my body, broken for you. Do this is remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup and said,” This cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this every time you drink in remembrance of me.”

If you are a follower of Christ, I invite you to this table. Know that there is a Priest who has met you as well. Know there is one who sacrificed all that you might live. I invite you to search yourself and see what you are holding onto. What are the idols you have made? Is it religion, false righteousness, school, money, security. Sacrifice them on this altar. Know that God himself will meet you at the mountain and provide what you can not. I invite you to follow this Jesus once again, having your heart made clean. He knows that you can not do it perfectly. He has taken the entire covenant upon himself. He took it to the cross. Eat this bread, drink this juice, and know, that just like Abraham, it is your belief that has been credited you as righteousness. God has gone to Calvary alone. He has called you while you were still in Ur, and he walks with you today.

If you are here and you are not a Follower of Christ, I invite you to use this time to pray and meditate on what has been said. I tell you God is the same God who called Abraham form Ur. He is still calling. We don’t need to be good to be called his, we just need to follow him. Search Him out. Ask him to show himself. He is Faithful. He is a Good Father. He will provide your sacrifice as well.

Scott’s going to come up and we are going to sing some songs. I invite you, if you know this Jesus as your Priest, as your Sacrifice to come and eat. He has brought bread and wine. Let us remember him. Let us pray.