15 October 2017
Dear Phyllis,
I
knew a fellow in Japan who had a 10 watt radio transmitter in his
attic. It carried about 100 yards. Every night he would go up in his
attic and broadcast the Gospel over the radio. Unfortunately I don't
believe many of his neighbors who were within the 100 yard range
listened. This morning I preached to an overflow crowd at the church of
two old ladies and two old men with an average age of over 65, plus one
boy about 21. I have been pleading with the Lord for years for a voice
to proclaim the cause of Christ to thousands and I will leave the
results of today's message with the Lord. But I did have a marvelous time
sharing a very important message.
The 15th chapter of Genesis tells of a pivotal moment in the life of Abraham. Verse one begins with the statement “After these things”.
Obviously that refers to what happened in chapter 14. There we read
about the civil war going on in Canaan land and his nephew Lot being
captured. In a moment of haste Abraham, armed his servants, took off
after the captors, and rescued Lot. Returning back, the king of Sodom
met him and said, “You keep the booty and just give me the souls”.
Abraham said, “I won't take a shoe string lest you say, 'I have made Abraham rich'”. Would to God that we had more men of God today who would refuse to enlarge their bank accounts with the riches of Sodom.
Obviously
Abraham had some serious thoughts on his mind when he went to bed that
night and was worried if he had made a mistake. The last thing he wanted
was to get involved in local skirmishes and he had just kicked that can
of worms. And he had some second thoughts about giving back all he had
won to the king of Sodom. Some time after midnight Abraham woke up
realizing that the Lord was speaking to him. The first thing the Lord
said to him was, “Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward”.
That settled the two concerns on Abraham's mind. But then Abraham
brought up the old problem about Sarah having a child. The Lord told
Abraham to go outside and look up at the sky. It was a gorgeous night
outside. He told Abraham that if he could number the stars that was what
his seed would look like. The next verse says that “Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness”. Paul quotes this in Romans 4:3.
But
then the Lord gave Abraham some very specific instruction about
offering a sacrifice. There was a heifer, a goat, a ram, and two birds.
Sometime shortly after dawn I'm sure Abraham was busy making an altar
and getting the sacrifice ready. Then he sat down fully expecting the
Lord's response. That was a wonderful place to be. The ball was in the
Lord's court. He had done exactly what God had told him to do.
This
was not something that Abraham had thought up; that he thought would be
a good idea to try and see what God would do. In this Abraham is much
different than 90% of Christian activity today where we think something
is a good idea and hope that God will come on board to help us with our
project.
Having
done everything God told him to do, Abraham sat down to wait for the
response of God. Nothing happened. After a while Abraham looked up and
saw a black spot in the sky. Then two. Then three. Four. Then they got
larger. Buzzards. Abraham picked up a stick and verse 11 says “When the fowls came down on the carcasses Abraham drove them away”.
Here Abraham was expecting the glory of God on his sacrifice and
instead he got buzzards on the carcasses. There is something depressing
about that noun “carcass”. A sacrifice is something holy but a carcass
is just dead meat.
What
a bummer of a day! It started out with such high expectation. Abraham
had every expectation of nothing but the best, and instead of meeting
with God, all he got for the whole cotton-picken day was a stand-off
with buzzards.
That
is the way it works. We have such high hopes as we launch out to follow
the Lord and instead of blessing all we get is a bucket of worms.
Paris
Redhead was an outstanding missionary to Africa. He left the states to
go to Africa with every expectation of success, but when he got there he
was surprised that the Africans were not appreciative that he had come.
Worse than that, he discovered that the Africans were really bad
people. They were so bad they weren't worth saving. Finally he got
genuinely angry with God. He protested, “Lord, this isn't fair. I have
sacrificed so much to come here to save these people and they aren't
worth it. They deserve to go to hell”. But then Jesus answered him; “You are right. These people aren't worth saving, but I am worthy to have them. I paid the price for their sin and I deserve to receive the reward of My sacrifice.”
That is the reason why we preach the Gospel. It is not because people
are in bad shape and going to hell. No one deserves to be saved. But Jesus paid the price for our sin and He deserves to receive the full reward of what He paid for.
Don't
be surprised if you start off serving Jesus with full expectation of
the blessing of the Lord and things go south. Abraham spent the whole
day with the buzzards. He was wore out. Evening came and the Bible says,
“When the sun was going down a deep sleep came upon Abraham; and lo a horror of great darkness fell upon him”. But then in verse 17 we read, “As the sun was going down, and it as dark, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces”.
This is the only place in the Bible we see the Lord responding this
way. With Able, Elijah, Solomon, and a couple other places we see the
fire of God coming down on the altar to consume the sacrifice. But here
we see the fire of God passing between the pieces. We know there was a
custom in ancient times when two people were to make a covenant they
would slay an animal, cut it in down the middle and pass between the
pieces (Jer. 34:18). Verse 18 tells us, “And the same day the Lord made a
covenant with Abraham...”
This
was one of the major moments in the life of Abraham. The night that
started off worrying about what had happened the day before. But then
that wonderful exchange with God during the middle of the night only to
wind up spending one of the really bad days of his life with buzzards.
But then when it got dark again and he was all wore out God made the
major covenant with Abraham.
I
don't know why I preached this message or if anyone got anything out of
it, but the Word was as alive and powerful as it ever gets. I don't
know if this is a word from the Lord for me. I don't feel the least bit
old but one of these days the sun will go down for me. I know that
frequently the Lord has to take us to the end of ourselves before He can
use us. I qualify for that. It is pretty dark. I see little hope that
the Lord will ever use me. There are only two things I am asking Jesus
for. One is the salvation of my son Dave. The second is that before I
leave this plant I would like something of my life to be a credit to the
Lord. All of that is in God's hands.
Thank you for the privilege of your fellowship,
In our marvelous Lord Jesus,
bill
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