Hebrews 11:17-19 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. NKJV
RESURRECTION HOPES
God is good, but God is tough.
“Lord, don’t mention me to the enemy. Lord do not say to him ‘Hey, have you seen my servant Robert?’ No Lord, please keep my name out of any conversation with him, lest I be tested like Job of old. As for Abraham, Lord just what were You thinking? Asking a man to kill his own son? Putting him through what can only be described as torture and for days and for what? Just so You could experientially know of his trust in You? I tell you Lord, if the social services ever get their hands on You, You're done! They shall lock You up and throw away the key, for abuse, yes, for abuse! There has to be a better way Lord of You conducting Your business, there has to be better way of You knowing and us, growing? Surely?"
Abraham had to endure days of terrible torment, days of torment of heart and of mind. Jacob his grandson however, would undergo years of torment, thinking his Joseph was murdered, blaming himself every day for sending his lovely son on that last mission to Dothan. Joseph did no better, who whilst being sick with unfulfilled promises, spent years in prison for a crime he did not commit. I could go on and indeed, I will do so now and even with you, yes, even with some of you reading this tonight.
For whatever reason, be it drugs, be it sexual sin, be it sickness of mind, be it raging anger, be it self-sealed pride, be it misunderstanding, be it distance, be it whatever! Many of you this very night wish you could exchange your circumstance for the comparatively simple test which Abraham had to pass through! “Good grief,” you say, “Abraham had that torture laid on his soul for days, but mine, mine, I have had it laid upon my heart for weeks, for months, for years even and I don’t know, I just do not know, how I can ever face the coming days, for each morning and each night, I lay my lost child, lost to drugs, lost to madness, lost to lifestyle, lost to self hurt, lost to dishonour, lost to anger, lost to God, LOST TO ME! Oh God, every morning and every night I lay my lost child by faith upon on Your altar, hoping, pleading, praying, looking, longing, waiting, for a resurrection and I am still waiting Lord! I am still waiting!” To all the Abrahams of this night, both male and female, I bless your broken hearts and pray with all my might, that your hopes would be resurrected upon this very earth you place knees upon. May God grant you strength and continued belief for this oh most pressing miracle. If however, hope is dead, died even long ago, for maybe even your altar-child died, when the circumstantial knife was not halted by an angel and when the sharp self-hating scythe, cut the limbs off life, then I am so sorry; I am so very sorry. Please yet believe, even let me believe for you, in a better resurrection yet to come, for who knows if all your prayers were not answered and answered in FULL, answered even in the last moment of their time here on earth, answered in an elongated second, where all eternal business was transacted in it’s fullness and into which, all the abundant grace and goodness and the rescuing power of God, was poured forth in abundance. Who knows? Believe yet.
I hope my friend, that your daily and your nightly, altar-laid child, will rise to walk through your open door on this very morrow. But if not, even if that can never be, then I hope my friend, that your child awaits you, smiling, looking this time for you, to walk through that final door of your own eternal destination.
Tonight, millions of Abrahams lay their child on God’s altar, believing in a resurrection by the good and able God. Join them in their prayers, join them in their weeping, join them in their hoping, join them in their believing, join them in their faith! For you are not alone and you are not forgotten.
Listen: - "Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me. Your sons shall make haste; Your destroyers and those who laid you waste Shall go away from you. Lift up your eyes, look around and see; All these gather together and come to you. As I live," says the Lord, "You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament, And bind them on you as a bride does. "For your waste and desolate places, And the land of your destruction, Will even now be too small for the inhabitants; And those who swallowed you up will be far away. The children you will have, After you have lost the others, Will say again in your ears, 'The place is too small for me; Give me a place where I may dwell.' Then you will say in your heart, 'Who has begotten these for me, Since I have lost my children and am desolate, A captive, and wandering to and fro? And who has brought these up? There I was, left alone; But these, where were they?'" Thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, And set up My standard for the peoples; They shall bring your sons in their arms, And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders; Kings shall be your foster fathers, And their queens your nursing mothers; They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth, And lick up the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord, For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me." Isaiah 49:15-23 NKJV
Pray: Lord, lift up my head and my feeble, hanging hands, that I might hope in You once more. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment