How are you saints i heard about 1200 of you i said how are you  saints okay because i’ve seen about 50 of y’all   getting starbucks all day so i know you’re woke  uh i i i say this every tgc conference that i  

Have the opportunity to teach it i i need to let  you know i’m from a country called black church   okay you might have heard me say that before  what that means is when someone is speaking or   teaching it’s not a monologue it’s a conversation  okay so when when i say something that moves  

You in your spirit you have the right and  the authority and the permission to talk   back to me you can clap you can speak in the  tongue just find a translator but don’t throw don’t throw no shoes though okay you can do  everything else but don’t throw your shoes  

Up here unless i like them throw the other  one and i’m gonna take it take it back home   please turn in your bibles to genesis chapter 22. say amen when you got it sorry to get verse one it says after these things  god tested abraham and said to him abraham and he  

Said here i am he 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  

So 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 rose   and went to the place of which god had told  him on the third day abraham lifted up his eyes  

And saw the place from afar then 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 and 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 and isaac said to  his father abraham my father and he said here i am  

My son he said behold the fire and the wood  but where is the lamb for a burnt offering   abraham said god will provide for himself the lamb  for a burnt offering my son so they went both of  

Them together when 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 then  

Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to  slaughter his son but the angel of the lord called   to him from heaven and said abraham abraham and  he said here i am he 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 and abraham lifted up his  eyes and looked and behold behind him was a ram  

Caught in a thicket by his thorns horns and  abraham went and took the ram and offered it   up as a burnt offering instead of his son so  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 let’s   pray lord i thank you for this moment thank  you for your word i thank you for your spirit  

I thank you for your church i thank you for our  feelings and our emotions and how they are so   involved in the way we read your scriptures i pray  that you would do whatever it is that you want to  

Do with us in this moment i pray that you would  help me that you would use me that you would speak   in jesus name amen this narrative opens up  with the words after these things god tested  

Abraham i think before we even get to the nature  of the test we need to know something about the   one being tested we are introduced to abram his  original name in genesis 12. when out of nowhere  

God calls abram an idol worshiper to leave his  home leave his family leave his country and then   god gives abram a promise he tells them that he  will make him a great nation and that all the   families of the earth shall be blessed through  him we also learn some about his wife’s arrive  

And how she is barren they have no children which  makes god’s promise a smidge complicated because   if abram is going to be a nation then abram needs  a child in genesis 15 god speaks to abram again  

This time he expands on his original promise he  made he tells abram he’s going to give him a son   but not only that god gets all built now the  science guy on him and tells him to head outside  

Look at the stars and that the amount of stars  he sees is the amount of offspring abram will   have this is a big promise because remember abram  ain’t got no kids sarah’s womb is bearing barren  

So abraham is like god how i know that’s going  to happen this is the jhp version by the way so god backs up his promise by entering into  a covenant with abel a covenant is a promise   made between two parties to perform certain duties  one party might promise to share their resources  

Their strength and protection while the other  party promises their loyalty if abram were one   of us hypothetically speaking and he wanted  to buy a house in 2022. he would have to get   a realtor get on zillow redfin whatever’s  your your thing find a house hopefully his  

Credit score is in order that’s a word for some of  y’all know some of y’all in the 500s god is able   he’s able to do exceedingly and abundantly  above all we can never ask i think his lender  

Would then have to give him a decent loan to  purchase the house when it’s time to close on   the house he would sit down with a lawyer with  a realtor they would give him a big old stack of  

Papers for him to sign these papers and contracts  between him and the bank he’s getting the loan   from the contracts have a bunch of words but the  bank is basically saying hey we promise to give  

You this money you promise to give us the money  back if you don’t you’re going to be homeless so   when you purchase a home then you are entering  into a loose kind of covenant both parties  

Are making a promise to do a certain thing and  if one party fails to keep that promise there’s a   consequence in abram’s cultural context covenants  weren’t ratified by signing a bunch of contracts   they were a little bit more dramatic than that  what would happen is that uh they would get  

Some particular animals who would be killed sliced  in half laid side by side creating a path for both   parties to walk through the bodies by making a  covenant this way the parties were reenacting what  

Would happen to them if they didn’t do what they  said they would do is them saying if i don’t keep   my promise to you let me be put to death like  these dead animals that i just walked through   to establish his covenant with abram  then god has abram get a heifer  

A goat a ram two birds basically the whole  meat section of the grocery store and abram   cuts the animals in half except the birds because  that’s odd and lays them side by side usually both   parties that are ratifying the covenant would walk  through the animals but this time shockingly abram  

Isn’t awake for the ceremony abram goes into a  deep sleep similar to the one that adam went into   in genesis 3 and the bible says that a great and  dreadful darkness came over him but what i don’t  

Want you to do is take this as a abram laying  down and taking a nap taking going to bed it’s   probable as some commentators say that he is made  unconscious by god’s presence and as that happens   god manifests himself as a smoking  fire pot and a flaming torch and god  

Himself walks in between the dead animals  god himself all alone walks in between   their bodies walks in between their blood and  by doing so god is saying that he is putting   his very own nature on the line so as to make  sure that this covenant is maintained remember  

Abram asked god to give him evidence that god  was going to do what he said he would do and god   responded by saying if i don’t give you what  i promised you the blood will be on my hands  

Now that didn’t convince abram that god was worthy  to be trusted i don’t know what else god could do   moving forward you might be thinking okay now god  then showed up as a pot in the torch and walked  

Through some heifer blood sari is definitely  going to get pregnant next week but nope abram   and sarah just get old and older and older making  god’s promise seem that much more impossible   in genesis 17 when abram is 99 and sarai is 90  god shows up again adding even more specificity to  

His promise he tells abram that sarah will have a  son from her own womb whose name will be isaac in   genesis 18 god shows up again and tells abram now  named abraham that this time next year god will  

Give him a son sarai now called sarah was being a  little nosy don’t know if you remember the story   she heard what the lord had said and the text  says that by this time the way of women had  

Ceased with sarah what does that mean it means  sis ain’t got no time in the month no more okay her uterine lining ain’t shedding  nothing but dust she ain’t used always she ain’t had kotex in her cabinet in decades and now god is saying it’s a  women’s conference i can say that

Now god is saying she’s going to give birth  to a son which is absolutely crazy so sarah   laughs she like god must don’t know how old i am  how in the world am i going to have a whole baby  

This is one of my favorite parts of the bible  the lord says to abraham because sarah had   laughed when god said what he has said uh  god says why does sarah laugh is anything   too hard for the lord to which sarah responds  like she ain’t talking to god i didn’t laugh

Then god was like no but you did  let’s be clear but in all seriousness i think we all need to remember the reality of  god and that there is nothing too hard for him   all of us have something in our life  where this truth needs to be applied  

It may be the salvation of a family  member the restoration of a marriage   deliverance from addiction the opening of a  barren womb the resources to adopt the power   to forgive the ability to put to death your  favorite sins whatever it is god can do it  

Because this is the thing god is not like anyone  you have or will ever know he has no limitations   he is the one that made the heavens and the earth  he is the one who has all power he is completely  

Sovereign always strong and never tired but  unbelief will move you to construct a god in   your own image and therefore you will start  to believe that either god has a weakness and   cannot do the impossible or that god isn’t good  and therefore he won’t do the impossible for you  

Which isn’t to say though everything  we ask of god he is obligated to do   god is god so he has the right to move however  and whenever and wherever he pleases but the   challenge is this to believe that god is god  which means god can answer my impossible prayers  

And god can give me an impossible  faith to still trust him if he doesn’t   is anything too hard for the lord in genesis 22  or 21 the impossible happens it says the lord   visited sarah as he had said and the lord did  to sarah as he had promised and sarah conceived  

And bore abraham a son in his old age at the  time of which god had spoken god is not a liar   so by quickly walking through genesis chapter  12 to genesis 21 we are clear on three things  

God has promised to make a nation out of  abraham that all families of the earth will   be blessed through him and that god will do this  through abraham seed isaac with that in mind now   when we get to genesis 22 the first two verses  should be shocking it says after these things god  

Tested abraham and said to him take your son  your only son isaac whom you love and offer him   there as a burnt offering if you’re like me the  first time i read this passage i was like now god  

You promised this man that all nations of  the earth will be blessed through his seed   isaac you don’t make covenants you don’t walk  through blood and became pots and stuff and now   you’re telling him to sacrifice the son he done  waited decades for not only that god’s promise  

To abraham hinges on isaac being alive it’s  crazy but what helps us to give us some pause is   the beginning of this verse and how it begins by  saying that this is a test the concept of testing  

Is all throughout scripture usually it’s explicit  like in exodus when god said he allowed israel to   be in the wilderness for 40 years to test them or  in luke 4 when it says that the holy spirit led  

Jesus in the wilderness to be tested god tests for  two reasons usually to reveal and to refine when a   test is used to reveal something what is exposed  is whatever is in your heart testing reveals  

What you really believe if you really have faith  if there are a few idols hiding in a corner   somewhere a little pride that you didn’t know you  had which is such a merciful thing for god to do   because i don’t know if you know this we  tend to think really highly of ourselves  

The natural state of the sinner as described in  romans 1 is that we think we are wise when we are   full so we may have a self-conception that has  nothing to do with reality but also we can get  

Therapy we can take enneagram tests enneagram  three wing four and b as be as self-aware as   possible and even then it is impossible for you  to discern everything about yourself so in god’s   sovereign compassion he will allow your kids  to act up so you can see how impatient you are  

He’ll let your money get funny so you can discern  your greed or your distrust in god’s provision   tests reveal but tests also refine peter  said in first peter 1 6 though now for   a little while if necessary you have been  grieved by various trials so that the tested  

Genuineness of your faith more precious than gold  that perishes though it is tested by fire imagine   who you’d be if you didn’t go through anything if  your faith was never challenged if life never got   hard intense if you never had any angst or  confusion or anxiety about what to do or where  

To go and and who to trust without the refiners  fire what would the quality of your life look like   i can bet that it might be easier but  would it be fruitful why because tests   purify your faith it is only fire that refines  gold and it is only trials that will refine  

You and yes i know trust me no discipline seems  enjoyable at the time but it will yield the   peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who  are trained by it circling back to genesis 22   since this narrative is fr as a test we can know  that whatever god is doing with abraham it will  

Reveal something to him and reveal something out  of him and what greater test is there for abraham   than for god to tell him to sacrifice his son the  son he loves note that this is the first mention  

Of the word love in the bible which is really  fascinating to me that it’s set in the context of   sacrifice and not self-centeredness but that’s a  completely different conversation anyone one thing   about this test is that if you’re  familiar with abraham’s story at all  

If you followed his life up until this point you  know that this test actually isn’t unfamiliar   do you remember when god commanded abraham in  the beginning in genesis 14 what he commanded   him to do he told him to leave his country leave  his family leave his home and go where god wanted  

Him to go abraham then is well acquainted with  god telling him to sacrifice stuff that he loves   since abraham was called he was repeatedly tested  so even though sacrificing isaac is an extreme   test god didn’t start there he has been readying  abraham’s faith so as the test got more intense he  

Had the stamina to endure it charles spurgeon said  this he said the lord knows how to educate you up   to such a point that you can endure in your  years to come what you could not endure today  

Just as today he may make you stand firm under a  burden which ten years ago would have crushed you   into dust perhaps this is the reason you don’t he  read anything about abraham pushing back or asking  

Questions he just he just gets up and obeys verse  three abraham rose early in the morning saddled   his donkey and took two of his men with him and  his son isaac and they cut the wood for the burnt  

Offering and arose and went to the place of which  god had told him in other words abraham obeyed   immediately why because he had faith the writer  of hebrews says that faith is the assurance of  

Things hoped for the conviction of things not seen  another way to see it is that faith is an inner   certainty regarding things you cannot see that  engages your will leading you to act in relation   to what you believe i’ll say it again because  y’all taking notes faith is an inner certainty  

Regarding things you cannot see that engages your  will leading you to act in relation to what you   believe for example you ever seen one of those  team-building exercises called the trust fall   it’s weird basically one person stands on  a platform with their eyes clock closed and  

Their arms folded looks like they’re  about to die beneath them behind them   are co-workers or their team standing in the line  with their arms out ready to catch not the bouquet   but the person the reason it’s a trust fall is  that the person on the platform can’t see nobody  

Can’t see the people behind them so they have  to trust what they cannot see but it wouldn’t   be enough for them to just say they trusted their  team like yeah i trust you and stay there that’s   not good enough words are easy trust is actually  realized when the person chooses to fall backwards  

The inner certainty gave them confidence that  their team would catch them even though they   couldn’t see them and that certainty engaged  their will which was why they chose to fall i   use this example because faith cannot be separated  from behavior faith is at work in abraham because  

Remember god has made him a promise and isaac  is a pivotal piece of that promise is isaac dies   the promise does too the irrationality of it all  doesn’t seem to hinder abraham though i think any  

Rational person would be like um god this test  ain’t it there has to be another way tell people   to steal my donkeys and burn down my tents but  don’t make me sacrifice my son but the thing  

Is abraham isn’t like me he doesn’t barter with  god he is certain that god is going to do what   he said he would do because he is god so because  he believes and trusts god he behaves accordingly  

It says that he woke up early in the morning  cut the wood that he would sacrifice his son on   and he goes to the place that god told him to  go to then we finally get an idea of what’s in  

Abraham’s mind in verses five and six look at  it it says on the third day abraham lifted up   his eyes and saw the place from afar then 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 do you hear his faith   somewhere in between god telling him to sacrifice  isaac and him getting the wood he has concluded   that after he has killed his son isaac is  going to come back how does he know that  

Who or what is he trusting to make  him so certain it’s simple he believes   god not merely the promise of god but the person  of god because the promise is only trustworthy   because the one who made the promise cannot lie  so so it’s the very nature of god that abraham has  

Considered and in so doing he has reckoned that  because god cannot lie he is obviously going to do   something to ensure that isaac ultimately doesn’t  die the writer of hebrews said this by faith   abraham when he was tested offered up isaac  and he who had received the promises was in  

The act of offering up his only son of whom it was  said through isaac shall your offspring be named   he considered that god was able even to raise  him from the dead wait we are in genesis 22 right  

Amen no yes okay so we are centuries before  elijah raises a widow’s son from the dead   we are we are centuries more for when jesus  raised lazarus easter ain’t on abraham’s radar   he don’t got a clue about pastel outfits and shiny  white shoes there has yet there has yet to be an  

Empty tomb for him to base his faith on so how  is it then that abraham knew the very concept of   resurrection was even possible i think that before  abraham rose early in the morning while he thought  

About what god was calling him to do and that it  meant that he have to put his son to death i think   i think abraham remembered his own body and  how god had brought life from death before  

So surely he could do it again unless you think  i’m just making up stuff i want you to remind   your romans 4 19 which says this he abraham did  not weaken in faith when he considered his own  

Body which was as good as dead or when he  considered the barrenness of life or lifelessness   of sarah’s womb the word dead here literally  means corpse-like so then god had to resurrect   their bodies in a real sense so as to give  them the power to create life in the form of  

Isaac abraham had the audacity to say that  he and isaac would go worship and return   because he remembered that god had did it before  in 1953 this guy by the name of henry malaysian   went in for brain surgery to treat his  epilepsy during the procedure the doctor  

Removed a piece of henry’s brain affected  his memory especially his short-term memory   and one recording a doctor doing a study this  on netflix by the way i ain’t making it up a doctor doing a study on the brain in  memory asked henry if he remembered what  

He did yesterday henry said i don’t know the  doctor asked him again what he did that morning   henry said i don’t remember that either then they  asked him if he knew what he’d do tomorrow to   which henry responded whatever is beneficial you’d  expect henry to have some kind of loose schedule  

I’m gonna wake up i’m gonna get some coffee  i’ma watch the news but he didn’t because   henry couldn’t tell you what he would do tomorrow  because he couldn’t remember what he did yesterday   he answered the question the way that he did  because the portion of henry’s brain that was  

Removed affected henry’s ability to make new  memories and since henry couldn’t remember the   past he had no context for how to imagine  his future without his memories henry had   no expectation when abraham thought about the  sacrifice that he had to make in the future  

He remembered the resurrection in the past and  that if god could do a miracle then then god   could do a miracle now almost all of us have  a hard time trusting god to do what he said  

He would do in his word through his son and  it might be because we have a memory problem   how quickly we forget that he made the heavens and  the earth that he split the sea and delivered his  

People out of bondage how he brought life from a  dead womb we forget how faithful he’s been to us   and our family how he’s provided for us when we  didn’t even ask how he’s protected us from all  

Kinds of mess but when trials show up now all of  a sudden is i don’t know if god is going to come   through i don’t know if god is going to do this  i don’t know if god is going to do that i don’t  

Know if god is going to show up hasn’t god always  showed up hasn’t god always been good hasn’t god   always been faithful just because you change your  mind every six seconds doesn’t mean that god does  

He is the same god today as he was yesterday  some of us don’t need to fast we need to remember   and it isn’t isn’t this true that the word  of god has provided for us 66 books worth  

Of memories of who god is and how god works which  will inform our faith so that we can obey without   hesitation because abraham has faith in his  god he is willing to sacrifice his only son the text says abraham took  the word of the burnt offering  

And laid it on his son isaac he took in his hand  the fire and the knife and they went both of them   together to the place that god had told  him i want to be clear about something   a burnt offering was a total sacrifice there  were other offerings that would allow you  

To sacrifice an animal and the priest  could take a portion of it home to eat   but a burnt offering was the one offering where  the whole animal was totally consumed the process   went something like this as described in leviticus  1 a male animal without blemish was taken  

The offerer would lay his hand on the animal which  was symbolic of the transferring of the offer   ascends onto the sacrifice an act of atonement  then they’d kill the animal blood would be   collected and thrown on the altar then the animal  would be cut into pieces and arranged on the wood  

Then the animal would be burned and totally  consumed and as the smoke of the animal   rose towards heaven it was said to be a pleasing  aroma to the lord and god told abraham to do that  

To his son the son he loved if this were not a  test god’s character would be questionable at best   seeing that god himself said that human sacrifice  was detestable in deuteronomy 12 and 18.   but since it is a test sacrificing isaac or at  least being willing to do it resolves god of any  

Guilt and refines abraham of any potential sin  this test solidifies abraham’s loyalty to god   over and above love for his son it is clear  that abraham has a deep affection for isaac   god even acknowledges it by saying take  your son your only son isaac whom you love  

And this love is natural this love is good  we should love our children they are good   gifts from a creative god but how easy it is  to take these good gifts and make them god   isaac was special he was the promised  child the seed through whom the whole world  

Would be blessed abraham had parted ways with  his son ishmael years earlier so this was the   only son he had and maybe god knew abraham’s  potential abraham was an idol worshiper before   he was called so it wouldn’t have been out of  character for him to worship something other than  

God maybe god knew that the son he loved could  become the lord he worshiped so to set him free   from any inkling of idolatry god had to put him in  a position to choose and he did he built the altar

He laid the wood he took some rope and wrapped  it around his son’s body so he couldn’t move   and i can only imagine the pain because it  wouldn’t be a sacrifice if it didn’t hurt   a sacrifice isn’t a sacrifice  if it doesn’t cost you something  

This body on this altar is his boy who  he saw every day ate dinner with every   night on the altar he probably looked at  him and saw his own features in his face   alongside fear but either way even with all the  faith in the world sacrificing what you love is  

Devastating but even then god must be worthy of it  all and abraham knows that so with inner certainty   engaging his will leading him to act in a way that  is relative to what he believes he takes the knife  

Ready to slaughter his son then he hears his  name verse 11 abraham abraham and he said   here i am he 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  

If there was any doubt who abraham’s god was  this moment made it clear god had refined   abraham’s heart removing any other allegiances  and now he’d revealed it to for god to say   i know that you fear god this anthropomorphic  language god knows everything so it doesn’t  

Mean that god didn’t know it it means that  god is affirming that abraham’s faith is real   and isn’t that what we all want the affirmation  that our faith is authentic because there are   those who will present themselves before jesus  with a bunch of evidence for why they deserve  

Glory did not prophesy in your name did not cast  out demons and perform miracles on your name i   think some of us in this room we would say god  did not preach and expose at the passage correctly  

Did not tithe didn’t i go to seminary and  lead worship and go on mission trips and   vote though certain ways surely that’s proof  of my faith all of which looks impressive   it looks like power it looks like the fruit of  faith but jesus turns to these kinds of people  

And calls them workers of lawlessness god forbid  you have to wait till judgment to find out who   you really are but the irony of it is this the  very act of looking to what you’ve done for jesus  

As evidence of that you know jesus might be the  proof that you don’t because the truly faithful   ones know that they have never done anything  apart from jesus so when they stand before god   they stand before him like the men and the parable  of the talent saying this is what i’ve done with  

What you have given me and do you know what  the master will say to them he’ll say well done   my good and faithful servant and that  is the point of everything my friends   when all the tests and all the trials and all  the pain and all the angst and all the discipline  

And all the suffering is over the point of it  all is that the god of the glory the judge of   the universe the one who cannot lie seated on the  judgment say will say i know that you fear god  

Verse 13 and abraham lifted up his eyes and  looked and behold behind him was a ram caught   in a thicket by his stars and abraham went and  took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering   instead of his son so abraham called the  name of that place the lord will provide  

This moment right here is an  act of substitutionary atonement   instead of isaac being sacrificed  the ram is killed in his place   with substitution one person takes the place of  another bearing the penalty that we reserved for   someone else if isaac was killed as a burnt  offering a few things would have happened  

He would have experienced the death and thus  he would have been separated from his father   he also would have experienced the desecration  of his body as it burned in the fire   and all of this would have happened at  the hands of his father it is because  

God provided the ram that saved isaac from death  separation and destruction but there’s a problem   with all of this sacrificing the burnt offering  functioned as atonement abram and isaac were both   sinners and the wages of sin is dead god’s  justice had to be satisfied by virtue of blood  

Being spilled a life being taken either their  own life or somebody else’s life so the realm   was not only sacrificed instead of isaac before  isaac but even then the ram wasn’t good enough   why because hebrew 10 4 says it is impossible  for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin  

Meaning that this ram though it was a sacrifice it  wasn’t a sufficient one if anything this ram was a   shadow pointing forward to a better sacrifice  one that would not be accomplished by jehovah  

Providing a ram in a bush but by jehovah jireh  providing his son in the flesh and who is this son   i’ll tell you first of all the son was  born to a woman by virtue of a miracle  

His mother wasn’t barren but she was a virgin  named mary who by all accounts should not have   been able to get pregnant seeing as though she  had not been with a man but because nothing is   too hard for the lord she conceived by  the power of the spirit the son grew up  

Learned obedience through what he suffered  being tested by the devil to turn stones   into bread and to worship and thus love  anything more than god but he resisted   every single time to which god publicly affirmed  that his son’s faith was real by saying that this  

Is my beloved son with whom i am well pleased by  then or but then the scenario for which the son   habit was born came to pass the night before the  son had prayed to his daddy prayed to his father  

Said that he wanted this cup to pass from him  he was in a position where he had to choose he   had to choose either his will or his father’s will  and he did this son was made to carry his own wood  

On his own back as he walked toward the top of  a mountain and while up there this son’s body   was secured to the woods so that he couldn’t  move the people said if you are the son of god  

Come down the cross what they didn’t understand  is if he came down they would have had to go up   in his place not dying for them but receiving  the penalty of death that belonged to us because  

It’s easy to forget that since i was born a sinner  and the wages of sin is death that if jesus did my   sins i would have had to pay for my own that even  if i sinned once that meant i deserve the judgment  

That through this death i would be eternally  separated from the life of the father that i would   endure the the pain and the desecration of eternal  destruction and that all of this would happen   at the hands of god the father but for these  people to tell jesus to come down the cross  

They clearly didn’t realize that if he came down  there would be no substitution and that the reason   he stayed is because he loved them to death maybe  they didn’t remember that day when abraham was   asleep and god himself walked through a line  of death walked through blood making it known  

That he was going to keep his promise and do you  know what on the cross god got blood on his hands   god became man so that he could die so as to  maintain a covenant relationship with his people  

There he was god in the flesh being killed like  an animal being slaughtered like the animals   that he walked through becoming a lamb that he  promised to be and there were no rams this time   there was no voice to cry out from heaven to  stop it there was only silence and then those  

Three hours and the dreadful darkness of god’s  presence was the only begotten son whose very own   father was pleased to crush him jesus became  sin so that you could be declared righteous   jesus died so that you could have life jesus  was bruised so you could be healed jesus rose  

From the dead so that you could too that is  the beauty of substitution jesus is the ram   and the bush and jesus is the son who returned  from the dead to worship with his daddy and now   it is through this son jesus that all  who have faith in his name are called  

The sons and daughters of abraham and look at us a  people from every tribe and every tongue and every   nation a church that has lasted for centuries  with millions of saints that have gone before  

Us and who will come after us and if you just look  into the crowd don’t we look like stars what god   promised to abraham in genesis 12  has been realized in us the children   of the promise is there anything too hard for  the lord lord we thank you for this day we thank  

You for your faithfulness we thank you for your  nature and how you have revealed it through christ   by the spirit in the scriptures we pray god that  this would be more than words that this would be  

More than knowledge that it would actually inform  the way we do life the way we love people the way   we engage on social media the way we engage with  our families and our friends in our local churches  

I pray that it even changes the way we pray that  we would pray with power that we will pray with   confidence knowing that we are praying to a good  and a faithful god we love you in jesus name amen

#Jesus #Substitutionary #Atonement #MyNameIsJackieHill