Scripture reading: Genesis 22:1-14
I want us to look at the place God is bringing us to. When you look in Genesis 22:1-14, you can read a little story about a flesh and blood man who pleased God. As you read through it, you will notice that verse 5 is a very peculiar verse. Just imagine: Abraham is carrying the boy to kill him, to offer him as a sacrifice, and he is telling the young men who was with them that, “He (Isaac) and I will come back.” Amen! Halllelujah! Now, that is some sort of faith! He was going to kill his son believing that God would raise him again from the dead.
Now there are a few other things that God has been showing me concerning this story. First of all, God made Abraham choose a site in the middle of Jerusalem. There was no Jerusalem there at the time, and on that site right now, the Mosque of Omar is covering the stone where Abraham offered up his son. I believe God preserved the site because He has something else to teach us. God did not want any Jewish temple to be put over it, and so He made the Arabs come along and put an abomination over the stone so that the Jews might not worship the ground.
The Lord is speaking to us through this story. What I want to talk to you about is “righteousness.” Righteousness! Abraham, as a physical, natural man, was not righteous; but the Bible said that because Abraham obeyed [believed] God, it was counted to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3). So obedience became the standard of righteousness for us.
Now, if you obey God, you will also be righteous. As a matter of fact, you cannot be righteous without obeying God, and you cannot be holy without obeying God. Holiness is a requirement for seeing God. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:14 that you cannot see God unless you are holy. I am asking you, how many of you here are holy? Raise your hands. So then, you will not see God! Isn’t that what it says? I should think so! I should think that the Bible is saying that without being holy, “NO MAN SHALL SEE GOD!” Without holiness, no man shall see God, and without righteousness, you cannot serve God.
So, what we are looking at? What are we talking about? We are talking about God calling a people to the place of an altar. Do you know that the altar that Abraham built for his son was a type of the Golden Altar in the Tabernacle? Right there he was ready to kill him, but did he kill him? He did. Yes, he did. Amen! Jesus was slain from before the foundation of the world, yet Jesus walked up and down in Galilee and in Israel until He was slain on a cross. In other words, when a thing is done in the Spirit, it is done! God knew that Abraham was not fooling. He was coming down with that knife, because he knew that God said he should do it. God said he should do it, and so he was coming down with the knife. Now, God is talking to you about your Isaac!
We were discussing things that God would allow if God is good. If God knows everything I am going to do tomorrow, then, you see, as a fatalist, I can say, “Well, everything is all right. There’s nothing I can do! I really cannot do anything!” And yet, the Almighty God, Who made the heaven and the earth and all men, said to you, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Why should God be telling me that I should be perfect even as God is perfect if I cannot do anything about it? Don’t you see that you have the handle and you can do something about it?
There is something that God wants us to understand, and that is that we are unfinished work. I am not finished. I am an unfinished work, and God says the only way I can be finished is if I will do what He tells me to do to finish the work.
(Excerpt from The Omega Message, November 1999, pg. 4-7)
Thought for today: Choose to obey God today so that it would be counted to you for righteousness.
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