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Experiences A Death And A Resurrection
Pastor Floyd's final message in his series "Big Faith."
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If you have a copy of God’s Word, I want you to begin to find with me Genesis, the 22nd chapter. As you are looking in your Bible for that specific chapter in the Scripture, I want to share with you about a friend of mine.
Keith Thomas has been a friend of mine since college days. He has served for a number of years now at a large church in Mobile, Alabama. Keith was diagnosed 4 years ago with pancreatic cancer. Do you know that when you are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, unless God does something mightily, within months many times you’ve gone into eternity? In fact, research shows that 4% or less of the people ever diagnosed with that disease live. When Keith was diagnosed 4 years ago, I will never forget what I felt when I heard his voice. I was on a golf course, which you won’t find me on very much, in Florida. We knelt on our knees right there in that fairway, me and 3 other preachers, and we prayed that God would heal him miraculously.
Keith had extensive treatment, major surgery, and today he is alive, and he has been healed of pancreatic cancer. In his journey of that, he has seen the hand of God move mightily. Saturday a week ago, the evening, while I was watching college football, Keith called me and shared with me that he had been to MD Anderson Hospital that week and the news was not good. And the doctor gave to him some alarming words.
He said, “I’ve been on a journey this week and I needed to tell you about my journey since you were praying for me all that time.” He said, “I went in for normal tests, the doctor came out, looked grim, and I knew there was a problem.” He said, Keith, he said, cancer has returned to your pancreas. It’s located in a place where surgery will be near to impossible. You also have a blood clot between your pancreas and your liver that is life-threatening, but I believe I can deal with that through a strong medication that costs thousands of dollars that you will take, and prayerfully in a number of weeks that will be gone. But you still have this cancer in the pancreas, yet, I want to tell you Keith, I don’t, I don’t understand all of this because some of this doesn’t add up to me, and I want to ask you to stay over, and I want you to do a couple of more tests, and go back to Mobile, and I’ll call you tomorrow night because tomorrow we’re going to spend with some of the doctors, and all we’re going to look at is your case, because something isn’t right, I think.
So Keith boarded a jet, got back home, believed the entire time he was gone, or in that jet, always, also to walk into his family that this cancer had returned to his pancreas in a situation that probably surgery was going to be near to impossible, and that he had this life-threatening blood clot. Later that night his doctor called him from MD Anderson, and said, Keith, he said, our team of doctors have made a decision that you do not have cancer in your pancreas. He said you have a gallstone that has been lodged in your pancreas. We think that it will take care of itself in time. You still have this issue with your blood clot, but we do believe that you’re going to be okay with that as long as you are faithful to this medication.
Keith said, “You know, what a week.” He said, “You know, Ronnie, I learned something over the last 4 years.” And I said, “What’s that?” And he said these words to me, he said, “A faith that can be tested can be trusted.” What a great statement. A faith that can be tested can be trusted.
Do you realize that Abraham understood that? That’s right. Abraham understood that when his faith was tested that it was God who was going to see him through, and that God was going to be the One who would end up being trusted in the midst of the great test that he was going to go through in life.
This morning we’re going to finalize this 7 part series on Big Faith. And today I want to talk to you about something that Keith understands, and something that Abraham understood because I want to talk to you about how Big Faith Experiences a Death and a Resurrection.
Without any question at all Abraham understood this principle in his life. My only regret of dealing with Genesis 22 today is that I don’t have 2 hours of time that I would love to walk with you through this text. I really believe I could talk about this text for at least 2 hours and really wouldn’t need to look at a whole lot to do it because it’s such a great text of the Word of God.
There are 4 biblical truths that I’m going to attempt to share with you over the next several minutes together. And no, I’m not going 2 hours. Truth #1 is that:
1. God will test us. Genesis 22 teaches us that God will test us. It’s an incredible passage. The first 6 verses we could spend a long, long time on. The Bible says these things in chapter 22 of Genesis, “After these things,” now if you’re here for the first time in this series, all these things, and after these things, these things begin in Genesis 12, verse 1 all the way through chapter 21. All of that is his life, and now he comes to this pivotal moment in chapter 22, and the scripture says, “After these things,” after all he had been through, “God,” did you see the word? “…tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham?’ ‘Here I am,’ he answered.” Notice the personalization of this next verse. Don’t read it quickly. Read it slowly. “Take your son, He said, your only son, Isaac, whom you love. Go to the land of Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about. So early in the morning Abraham got up, saddled the donkey, and took with him two of his young men, and his son Isaac. He split wood for a burnt offering and set out to the place God had told him about.” Notice verse 4. “On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance, and then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey.’” Now notice this next phrase. If you have a pen you need to underline it. “The boy and I will go over there to worship, then we’ll come back to you. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and,” notice what he did. “…laid it on his son Isaac. In his hand he took the fire and the sacrificial knife and the two of them walked on together.”
Biblical principle #1, God will test us. Anyone know anything about God testing you? This word “tested” is the word “nissah” in the Hebrew language. And this word “nissah” in the Hebrew means, “to prove the quality of…” In other words, God was going to put him the refiner’s fire and to prove the quality of his faith. God was going to call out of him worship and faith that is greater than what he himself could ever imagine that ever existed. I want to make it very clear this word does not indicate, nor does it mean that God entices Abraham to sin and to do wrong! God doesn’t hold something out to you in a test and says, “Okay now, I’m going to see if you’re a good boy, whether or not you’re going to sin or follow me.” No! God is not that kind of God. God puts us in the middle of the fire, and God puts us in the middle of the test to call out of us the highest quality of the faith that is already in us.
So what was the test? Verse 2. What a verse. “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love. Go to the land of Moriah. Offer him as a burnt offering.” The term “only son” is mentioned 3 times. It’s mentioned in verse 2. It’s mentioned in verse 12, and it’s mentioned in verse 16, but it’s very, very significant. God was asking him to take Isaac, who at that time of his life was probably around 20 years of age. The one may I add that God had promised through Isaac the promise would be fulfilled and all of the nations would be blessed. The one, remember, that Sarah was barren and Abraham was 99, and Sarah was 89, and she got pregnant, and at 90 she had him. At a 100 he became a father, and now fast-forward about 20 years. And the same God that had performed the miracle telling him that it’s going to be Isaac through all the nations will be blessed, is telling him to take Isaac up to Moriah and slaughter him as a sacrifice to God.
While that did not make sense, Abraham set out the next day to obey God. Now, I’m just telling you I really wish I had a lot of time today because it, it is amazing to see the correlation between Isaac and between the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It is amazing to see the correlation between Isaac, the fulfillment of the promise, and the Messiah, the Anointed One, Jesus Christ, who is the ultimate fulfillment of the promise. The correlation is amazing. In fact, if you will recall verse 2, all of that terminology a moment ago, “Your son, your only son, whom you love.” Take him to Moriah, offer him as a sacrifice. Wow.
It reminds me of this passage. Anybody remember? “For God so loved the world in this way that He gave His One and Only Son so that everyone that believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life.” John chapter 3, verse number 16. You think of Genesis 22:2 when you read of John chapter 3, verse 16, and what you see in Genesis 22 is that God was giving us a sign. God was giving us what we would call typology. God was giving us a type of Christ. He was preparing us for the coming of the cross! Not only did he do it through that terminology, but he even did it through the place. Moriah was a very significant place. It was a place where the temple would eventually be built. Moriah consisted of several small mountains, but the, but the base of it all is known as Moriah. Well listen very carefully, it was at Moriah when God called, called Abraham to offer Isaac. That was where the sacrifice was going to take place. But that was a foreshadowing of, of God offering His Son, Jesus Christ, on that same mountain hundreds and hundreds of years later. Because of those who have been with me to Israel know that it was on Moriah, just outside the city of Jerusalem, where Christ was offered for the sins of the world.
Verse 3 tells us that without delay Abraham left for his 2-day journey. He took his son. He took 2 of the young men with him. He took the wood with him for the burnt offering. Verse 4, very significant, he uses the term third day, third day. On the third day God led them up to worship up on the third day. Remember there was going to be death, but we’re going to learn that God was permitting life to occur as well. This again is a foreshadowing of the significance of the third day! Remember Christ had suffered and died for the sins of the world, but it was on the third day when God took Him, and took death, and, and, and stamped out death, and raised the One who could not walk on His own back to new life through the resurrection of the Son of God. God showed him the place where eventually the Son of God would be slaughtered.
Listen to verse 5 what he told those 2 young men. We are going over there to worship, but then we’ll come back to you. Now here’s a man who saw an 89-year-old woman get pregnant. He saw a woman who had been barren at 90 have a baby. He’s seen a woman that was shriveled up; in her own words she said that, Abraham was smart enough not to call his wife shriveled. And he saw Sarah give birth to Isaac. He had seen the impossible. He had seen it again, and again, and again. And now he was convinced that even if he obeyed God, that God was great enough, and strong enough to raise Isaac up from the dead in order to fulfill the ultimate promise of the coming Messiah.
Verse 6 says that Abraham had wood, very important and another significant correlation with the Son of God. And Abraham had the wood. Notice what he did with the wood in verse 6. Who did he give it to? Isaac. And what did he do? He laid it on his back. Isaac carried the wood up to Moriah, the place of sacrifice. Let me ask you. Jesus carried His cross up to the place to be sacrificed for the sins of the world until He physically was unable to carry the cross any longer. Abraham had the fire. Abraham had the knife, and the 2 walked on together. Could you imagine what it must have been like when, when Abraham had this, this time, this, this, this private time with his son, Isaac? Can you imagine what that must have been like? Josh, you had 2 of your boys up here a moment ago on the stage with me, Caleb and Micah? Imagine what it would have been like. Ron, you have boys. Imagine what it would have been like the way you’re in church today knowing that one of them was going to be sacrificed. You know how that would be? All of you dads who have had a son, can you imagine what that dialogue must have been like? That inner turmoil? That experience of faith being tested? But in Hebrews 11 God gives us some insight that is absolutely remarkable, and you’ve got to read this. You’ve got to understand it.
Look at the screen. Hebrews 11. Note it in your note-taking today. Verse 17 through 19. “By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac, he who had received the promises was offering up his,” listen to what he said, notice what the Scripture says, “unique son.” Same as John 3, “One and Only Son.” Same as Genesis 22:2, “One and only son.” “…about whom it had been said in Isaac, your seed will be called. He considered God,” listen to this powerful statement of faith. “He considered God to be able to even raise someone from the dead from which he also got back as an illustration.” In other words he knew that if God wanted him to go through the sacrifice with his son, that God would give him back, or God was a liar. He had big faith.
Now why was God testing him? Hm? He was trying to call out of him the highest level of his faith, and the highest level of his worship. He’d say surely we can gain faith, and we don’t have to go through those tests. Wow, I wish I could tell you that, but James chapter 1, verse 2 through 4 tells us differently. It says, “Consider great joy,” now think about it, next time you go through a time of testing, just throw a party. “Consider it a great joy my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, but endurance does, endurance must do its complete work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”
Now what does all that mean? When we look at all of that from beginning to end, and through this whole fanatic principle we learned today that God will test us, here’s what I want you to know, God will test us, and He will call out of you the highest quality of faith that He is the positive in you at salvation. You don’t walk alone; Jesus walks with you. It doesn’t matter what element you walk through, how great the test may be, God wants to do everything He can to call out of you the highest level, the highest commitment of worship, just like He did in Abraham’s life.
And it reminds me, of what Keith said to me. “A faith that can be tested can be trusted.” Anybody would agree with that today? But not only will God test us:
2. God will provide for us. He will provide for us. Verse 7 through verse 14, back to the 22nd chapter of the book of Genesis if you would please. God gives us some words here from chapter 22, verse 7 through 14. Let me read this for you today. “Then Isaac spoke to his father, Abraham, and said, ‘My father,’ and he replied, ‘Here I am, my son.’ Isaac said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham answered him, ‘God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ And then the two of them walked on together. And when they arrived at the place that God had told them about, Abraham built the alter there, and arranged the wood.” Listen to what he did. “He bound his son, Isaac, placed him on the alter on top of the wood, then Abraham reached out, took the knife to slaughter his son. But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ He said his name twice to indicate the urgency; the knife was at his throat. And he replied, ‘Here I am.’ And then he said, ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy, or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your only son from me.’ Abraham looked up and saw ram caught by his horns in the thicket, so Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Then Abraham named that place The Lord Will Provide.” So today it is said it will be provided on the Lord’s mountain.
Isaac asked Abraham a very important question in this text. What’s the question? Where is the lamb to be sacrificed? We have the wood, father. We have the fire, father. But where is the lamb? I wonder why the lamb? Verse 8 says, “God Himself will provide.” What an incredible statement. That was a big faith answer, by the way. He knew God would come through. He knew that God was going to do something because he had seen God do it before in his life. You know, why do we have spiritual amnesia when we walk through times of testing? We have seen God through something before in our lives, and yet, we act like we have forgotten the miraculous hand of God! But we’ve seen the miraculous hand of God. You say, “well I don’t know of anything miraculous that’s really ever happened to me.” Did Jesus save you from your sin? Have you ever been miraculously forgiven of all of your sin? There is no greater miracle than God forgiving you of your sins! And if He can do that, certainly He can see you through, and He can provide for you in the greatest hour of your need.
The word “provide” here is the word that means “sees,” s-e-e-s. Therefore, the Lord, here’s what it means, the Lord sees our need, and provides for it. That’s what it means. So when the Lord saw the need, and the Lord provided for it. Verse 9 and 10 the alter was built, the wood was arranged, the son was bound, the knife was at his throat, and all of a sudden in verse 11, “Abraham! Abraham!” Indicating the urgency. The knife was ready to bring the slaughter. God said to him in verse 12, “Don’t slaughter Isaac, God knows you. God knows you love him. God knows you revere him and holiness, and you are so caught up with God that you were even willing to give your one and only son!” All of a sudden God called Abraham’s attention, the provision occurred.
He saw a ram, a lamb, over there caught in the thicket. And you know what Abraham did? He went and took the ram, and he slaughtered the ram, and he offered it to God as an offering. Another correlation of the cross; what did the ram get caught in? What does the scripture say? Can you say it out loud? Thicket. You know what that was for you and me? It represents the coming crown of thorns that would be forced upon the brow of the Savior who would die for the sins of the world. The Lord will provide according to verse 14. That’s word Yahweh Yireh in the Hebrew, which it means that this is the Lord’s mountain. The offering was offered, and the Lord will provide on the mountain, and all pointing to one day there will be a greater offering. I am preserving Isaac so there will one day be a greater offering, and the offering will be for the sins of the world! And the ram, the lamb, the question of Isaac, where is the lamb? He’s the one who should be sacrificed. God will provide, and God took the ram out of the thicket, took Isaac off the alter, pointing us one day to the Lamb of God, who would come to die for the sins of the world, named Jesus Christ. And it was according to the Revelation, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive riches and honor, and power, and glory forever and ever.” Who was slain? Jesus Christ, the unblemished Lamb of God slain for the sins of the entire world, including your sins, and my sins.
I’m telling you that will be the greatest provision in your life when Christ forgive you of your sins. It’s amazing what all that pictures for you and for me. Moriah, Calvary is one of those places on Moriah, the place where Christ died. Isaac, taken off of the alter; ram with caught, being caught in the thicket. Abraham took, slew the lamb, placed him on the burnt offering as a sacrifice to God. Amazing. A substitute for Isaac took place. Dial forward hundreds and hundreds of years later, God looked back over the course of human history, since the Garden of Eden, everyone who had ever lived since the Garden of Eden had sinned. By nature they were sinners, and by their choices they were sinners. God knew nothing would ever change. That’s just where men and women would be. They would get worse. They wouldn’t get better! And God knew something had to happen. And so what God did is that God took you and me off of the alter, laid us aside, took His One and Only Son, His unique Son, none like Him anywhere in the world, anywhere in the history of the universe; took His One and Only Son, laid His own Son. Isaiah said, “God is the One,” in chapter 53 of Isaiah, “who crushed Jesus.” He was the one who killed the Savior for you and me. He who knew no sin became your sin and my sin so that we could become the righteousness of God in him according to 2 Corinthians 5. Isaiah 53 said they beat him so much, so much that they could not even recognize Him, and they made Him a man of absolutely zero reputation! And all that represents the substitution area atonement for our sins. You don’t have to die in your sin, and for your sin, because God loved you so much He took His One and Only Son and placed Him on the alter of sacrifice so you and I could have forgiveness, and eternal life in the presence of God living in us until we go to heaven!
We believe in the substitution area atonement of Jesus Christ. Aren’t you glad God took Him and substituted the Lamb for you and for me? You can count on it, God will provide for us. God will provide for us. I want to challenge every one of you today, when you are willing to walk in complete obedience, even when that obedience is extreme sacrifice, listen carefully, God will provide for you! You do whatever God ask you to do; He’ll take care of you! God will provide for us.
But also:
3. God will bless us. I won’t take the time to read verse 15 through verse 18, but I’m telling you in verse 15 and 16, the Angel said because you have not withheld your only son, the Lord is going to bless you greatly. Well he already knew that, but God was reaffirming it in a brand new way, putting an exclamation point and 2 and 3 beyond it, doing it all in caps, like man God is making a major statement here.
Verse 17, He said I’m going to bless you with great and numerous offspring, and their enemies will not even be able to defeat you ultimately. Again, He had already promised him that he was going to be a blessing to the nations over in Genesis 12; reaffirmed it again between 12 and 22. Now in 22:18 He says, “Nations of the earth will be blessed your offspring.” Now follow me! Abraham had Isaac. Isaac had Jacob. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. Follow the lineage! There was Jesse. Then there was what? David! David, the son of Jesse. Then, according to the genealogy of the New Testament, then there was who? The Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came from the root of Jesse, now follow me, which means through David, back through Israel, back through Isaac, and there is Abraham, and now the nations are blessed because of the promise and love of the Messiah, who came to die for the sins of the world. I’m telling you God means business, and God will bless us.
We need to understand when we give God our all, and we’re willing to be what God wants us to be, God will bless us! Don’t you ever question God about whether or not He’s going to bless you. That is a very, very sad place to be in life. But:
4. God, also, will teach us. Here we’ve learned so much. God will test us to call out the quality of faith within us. God will provide for us. God will bless us, and now, God will teach us. Oh there are so many things that we could learn. But what does Genesis 22 tell us about big faith? Now that he’s going through this big faith event in his life, what do we learn? Here’s what we learn:
(1) Big faith is a spiritual adventure. That’s what it is. If you’re looking for something; you’re always going to know what’s happening, you don’t need to have the Christian life. If you’re looking for something you always figure out, then you don’t need to follow Jesus. You’re not going to be able to figure yourself out; you’re going to die, and you’re going to perish, and you’re going to spend eternity with God in a place called, or away from God in a place called hell with the devil and his angels, and everyone who’s died not believing, and died in unbelief.
But I want to tell you what big faith is. It’s a spiritual adventure. It’s a spiritual adventure. You think about the biggest adventure you’ve ever been on in your life. It’s a spiritual adventure! It’s a call to the unknown! It’d be like getting on a roller coaster and yet you see some of it, but you don’t see all of it! Up and down, up and down, oh that’s part of the life we all live, right? It’s a call to the wild! You never know what’s going to go on, but you’re okay because why? God’s going to provide for you.
And it’s a call that involves a high cost! You’re looking for something easy out? There’s no such thing as an easy out. It doesn’t matter whether you live a worldly life, or you live a godly life; there’s no easy way out. There’s always a high cost. And great faith always has a cost. Some of you have been through those great faith moments where something you loved died.
We also learn:
(2) Big faith is a call to sacrifice your best on the alter for God. Your best. Abraham was called to sacrifice his best on the alter for God. God sacrificed His best on the alter of Calvary, His One and Only, His unique, unblemished sinless Son of God. You know what? This thought occurred to me, and I really think it’s worthy of conversation. If your best is not sacrificed to God on the alter, then it will become an idol in your life. If your best is not sacrificed on the alter, then it will become an idol in your life. Think about it! If you don’t sacrifice your children, you’re going to idolize your children! I don’t mean sacrifice them to some pagan God like they did in the Old Testament; I mean, “Lord these are your kids! They’re gifts from You to me! They’re transient in our lives, God I give them to You! I sacrifice them to You!” Wow.
For those of us that have raised kids already, I would advise every parent, of every preschooler, child, child, children, middle schooler, adolescent, puberty, male/female teenager; you’re going to be a lot better parent when you sacrifice that kid to God. Because if you don’t, you’re going to idolize them, and you listen very carefully. When you idolize your kids, you look like an idiot. Schools are full of them. Churches are full of them. You hear me? You say well that’s kind of abrupt, isn’t it? Parents, if you don’t offer your kids to God, you’re going to idolize them. They’re going to run your life, and eventually you’re going to look like an idiot that cost you your entire marriage, your entire family, and the future of your kids because you’ve idolized them, rather than been what God wanted you to be with your kids.
Boy I wish I had about 2 hours. Your career, if you don’t sacrifice your career to God, you know what you’re going to be? You’re going to make it an idol. Your business, your job; if you don’t sacrifice your job to God, and use it for God, you’re going to idolize it! It’s going to ruin your life! You’re going to worship it! It’s going to get allegiance way beyond the Lord God of heaven! Money. If you don’t sacrifice money to God, and I mean none of it belongs to you anyway, why do you run around acting like it does? When you act like it does, that means, that means it’s all your problems. You don’t have any problems because none of that money belongs to you anyway. They’re all God’s problems. What you need to do is get up and say God, this is your problem today. This isn’t my problem God. All I’m doing, I’m a trustee of that which you’ve given me, nothing more. And God there appears to be a little issue over here, would you please take care of this issue? That’s a whole lot better than sitting there idolizing your money, being a miser over the money. It doesn’t belong to you anyway, and if you don’t sacrifice it to God, and recognize it’s God’s, you’re going to idolize it, and that’s one of the real issues in Northwest Arkansas, America, and the world!
God knows where to hit us. Trust me. Did you hear me? He knows how to get our attention. And then you think about fame, you think about your future. Wow. Big faith is a call to sacrifice your best on the alter to God. Anybody today need to sacrifice your best on the alter to God? A gift? A talent? Whatever it may be.
(3) Big faith also can be tested and trusted. Tested and trusted. If your faith cannot be tested then it cannot be trusted. How about that? I’m telling you if you were in a test right now, God is not trying to get you to sin. God is not luring out here like you with your little boy. Okay, here’s good, here’s bad, which one are you going to do little Johnny? That’s not the way God is. God’s not a cruddy parent. God tries to call you to, to likeness of Him. God is calling you up. He’s calling great faith out of you in the midst of your test! Yes, God’s trying to see what you’re made of, but God is also trying to call out of you the sterling quality of your faith. And taking you through the refiner’s fire because once you’ve been through the fire man, you understand our God is real! Until then, you don’t know. You just talk about it, write about it, pray about it, think about it, read about it; but it’s somebody else’s faith that you just kind of, “Well I’m a Christian. I’m kind of in here.” And you may be, but it’s through the test of life that everything comes into reality and changes. And that faith that you’ve believed up here becomes personalized and dynamic, and life changing.
(4) Big faith experiences a death and a resurrection. What a great lesson for all of us. Abraham, the promise of Isaac. Then He told him to put him on the alter. Then He told him to slaughter him. And then what did God say? Take him back, you’ve shown Me you love Me more than you love him. Now if there’s ever a parent who would have wanted to idolize a son, it had to have been Abraham. I mean what else do you do when you are a hundred years of age? You walk in the nursery of a local church and they say what are you doing in here old man? Well, I’m here for my baby. Sarah had a baby? Where’s Sarah? Well, she’s that shriveled up one over there. You see what I’m saying?
But he didn’t idolize him. He didn’t go to his soccer games and like he never made a mistake, and everybody else is a big loser. And everybody at church and school, everybody’s against your kid. Doesn’t believe in the kid. Oh give me a break. It’s not about that folks. If anybody could have idolized him, but he didn’t because he saw, and he knew that God would take this, this, this dream that he had given him, and there appeared to be death, but even if there was death, God would raise him back to life in order to be faithful to His promise. What big faith.
And speaking of dreams, any of you ever have dreams? I mean dreams about your life? I’m not talking about dreams that you have after you’ve had pizza at 10:00 one night. I’m not talking about that kind of dream. I’m talking about dreams for your future, dreams that you when you were a kid you thought about. Or when you were a young adult you thought about it. Even in your middle age you thought about it. Even in your older age you said, “Oh I dream of this. I’ve got this dream here.” We all have dreams. Often your dreams have to die before they can life. Anybody here ever gone through a death of a dream? Boy, I have? Death of a vision? Man, I have. But you know what? There’s something about it, when your dreams have died, and then God decides to bring them back, they’re not idols for you, but they are testimonies of the power of God! That’s what they are because you realize it wasn’t you that did them. It was God. Amen? Anybody with me?
I read something this past week John Barrymore said, and I quote, “A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” If you want to find out if you are old or not, look at that statement today. It’s kind of challenging, isn’t it? Is your heart filled with regrets, or is it filled with dreams?
Some of those dreams you have to, you have to have in your life. Can I give you a little hope today? God may still want to raise them up. They may appear to be gone and dead, and out of your heart, but I’m telling you, don’t live in regret. Trust the Lord. And then you think about the Messiah. The Messiah? Here He was, came to save the world, and sin took Him to a cross, and He became sin when He wasn’t even a sinner! The devil seemed to have a victory. The devil seemed to have a parade. The devil seemed to walk all over Calvary, and make fun of it! The Bible says he descended to the deep according to Ephesians. Which means Jesus went into hell, and He literally took away the power of hell because on the third day, the morning, God took Him and raised Him from dead back to life! All of that to show one thing! There’s always a death, and there’s always a resurrection in big faith.
Oh listen, I’m telling you sometime we get bitter, mad, cynical, skeptical, oh this didn’t work out, this didn’t…there comes a time in your life when you have to trust the Lord, and you’ve got to know. I’m not saying there’s not going to be a struggle, but you’ve got to know, you’ve got to trust the God of heaven, and you’ve got to believe God.
Some of you, you’re walking through a big test, and with this we go. You know think about it this way. Some of you have already walked through the worst test a person could ever go through. I mean some of you have buried your children. I can’t imagine what that would be like. I mean to bury a child? What could be worse in life than burying your child? I pray that I never have to bury a child. I don’t ever want to go through burying a child or a grandchild. Some of you have buried your spouse. Some of you had 5 years with them, 20 years with them, 50 years or more with them. I mean, I can’t imagine what that must be like to walk away from that grave, and there they are, and you’ve lived with them. You fellowshipped with them. You had children with them. And you leave them at an old dead, dreary cemetery. How do you go forward?
And then some of you who have gone through major trials and sufferings whether it be financially, or with your career, or something going on in your business. I mean do you understand today where I’m going? What I’m telling you is once you’ve gone through big fire, some of that other stuff looks so trite, and I guarantee you the man or the woman that’s buried a kid looks at some of the frivolity that we all jacked out of shape about, and say dude you don’t have a clue!
Then we get in a little huddle group, have a little cry sessions, and share sessions, and sloppy agape is exercised, and there is that one mom and dad that just walked away from burying their 16 year old boy. Everything else seems pretty small compared to that. Here’s my point. When you’ve walked through the greatest moment of fire in your life, whatever it is, God has let you be there so that the rest of life and its troubles will not look like any big deal.
Big faith of the past gives you even bigger faith for the future.
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- MP3:
- http://www.ronniefloyd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2Z243L-Experiences-A-Death-A-Resurrection.mp3
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