Participants: Pr. E.C. Polite
Series Code: HG
Program Code: HG000001
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00:34 We want to invite you to, we want to say come
00:40 We want to say come let us adore Him 00:43 Am I right? Alright. 00:53 Come let us adore Him 00:58 Kneel down before Him 01:04 Worship and adore Him 01:14 Come let us adore Him 01:19 Kneel down before Him 01:25 Worship and adore Him 01:30 Immanuel, Immanuel, oh oh 01:36 Immanuel, Immanuel, oh oh 01:40 Immanuel, Immanuel oh oh 01:45 Immanuel, Immanuel, oh oh 01:51 We worship You, we worship You 02:01 Come, come let us adore Him 02:11 Kneel down before Him 02:16 Worship and adore Him 02:28 Come let us adore Him 02:32 Kneel down before Him 02:36 Worship and adore Him 02:47 Immanuel, oh Immanuel 02:55 Immanuel, oh Immanuel 03:15 Immanuel, oh Immanuel 03:35 Immanuel, oh, oh, oh 03:50 We worship You, oh oh 04:06 I shall wear a crown 04:18 I shall wear a crown 04:29 When it's all over, when it's all over 04:40 When it's all over, when it's all over 04:51 I shall see His face, I shall see His face 05:11 When it's all over, when it's all over 05:21 When it's all over, when it's all over 05:31 I shall see His face, I shall see His face 05:42 I shall see His face, I shall see His face 05:56 When it's all over, when it's all over 06:13 Oh I'm going to put on a robe 06:20 Oh yes when it's all over 06:36 Oh I'm going to put on a robe 06:40 And tell the story when it's all over 07:17 I will put on my robe 07:21 And tell the story, oh 07:33 I want to put on my robe 07:54 I want to put on my robe 07:59 And tell the story, oh 08:14 When it's over, when it's over 13:37 I want to direct your attention to the book of Genesis 13:40 Genesis the 22nd Division and consider with me verses 13-14 14:41 I've entitled our message for today 14:44 He sees and will see to it 14:50 He sees and will see to it. The holidays are supposed to be 14:58 times of joy and times of cheer 15:04 Yet it is not unusual for many people 15:08 to fall into what we call holiday blues 15:13 Holiday depression can occur at any holiday 15:18 believe it or not during a vacation or at the beginning 15:25 of a New Year. The causes are myriad. It may come about as 15:32 a result of some family distress some economic distress 15:38 perhaps it may come as a result of missing some absent family 15:43 member who would usually be there at this time of the year. 15:46 But they're gone for one reason or another. 15:52 Or perhaps it comes as a result of unrealistic expectations 15:57 that sometime we place on ourselves. 16:02 I have seen many to-do lists 16:06 that kind of give some sort of prescription 16:13 for how to deal with the holiday blues. 16:16 Unfortunately you cannot take a Tylenol and get rid of it. 16:24 What's that little powder? 16:27 BC or AB powder? Won't work. 16:32 You can't take anything. This, that or anything else. 16:38 When the blues hit you, you're just blue. 16:44 But in all of those lists, those to-do lists 16:49 of things you can do to deal with it 16:51 I have yet to see one list that includes this one simple 16:56 prescription, FAITH. What did I say? 17:02 Hebrews 11:1, what does it say? By what? I don't hear you. 17:14 See you just quote Scripture that ain't it. 17:17 You're quoting to me Hebrews 11:6, I'm asking you 17:21 about Hebrews 11:1. 17:26 I am in church ain't I? You do have a Bible don't you? 17:29 What does Hebrews 11:1 say? 17:35 Now faith is what? the substance of things hoped for 17:40 what else? The evidence of things not seen. 17:47 The evidence of things not seen. Now let me help you with that 17:51 Let me show you what faith is not. 17:53 When I first got into the ministry 17:57 It was a little tough. Trying to keep my family together 18:03 keem 'em fed on the amount of money that I was receiving 18:07 And so I was sitting at home one evening and I was watching 18:14 one of those segments of "All In the Family" I think it was 18:22 You laughing cause you saw it too, didn't you? 18:27 And on this particular segment, Edith had just, guess she was 18:33 reading the Bible, I don't know whether she was getting religion 18:35 or what. But she read that passage of Scripture in Hebrews 18:38 11:1, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence 18:43 of things not seen. And so she went and said, Archie, 18:52 what is faith? And Archie started trying to quote that 18:57 Scripture. Now imagine Archie Bunker quoting that Scripture 19:03 It was laughable, it was laughable. 19:08 So after he went through his profound explanation 19:13 on what faith was, Edith looked at him 19:20 Archie, what is faith? 19:26 Now you know the exchange, the dynamics between them. 19:29 Archie was so frustrated. He just blurted out, Edith, faith 19:35 is believing something that nobody else in their right mind 19:38 would believe. Now while that has some sort of comedic 19:45 overtone to it, it was the truth, in fact. It takes faith 19:53 sometimes to believe things that are unbelievable. 19:59 Back to my story. I decided I was going to exercise that kind 20:04 of faith the next day. And I walked down the street 20:08 to the grocery store and I wrote a check and got some 20:13 groceries for my family. Nothing unusual about that except that 20:19 there was no money in the bank. 20:25 You know you've written some of those Spalding checks before 20:31 And this was my reasoning for it. 20:38 I'm a child of God. I've returned a faithful tithe. 20:45 He said that he would open the windows of heaven 20:51 I just wrote the check before the window opened. 21:06 Imagine my surprise the next morning when I heard a knock 21:11 at the door. And I opened it and the kindly gentleman 21:17 stood in the door holding my check. 21:22 informing me that he was the manager of the store 21:27 Somewhere in my thinking I had thought 21:30 that after I wrote the check, God would open the window 21:36 one window, in fact it could've been a just a little skylight 21:40 I didn't care, money would somehow fall into my account. 21:45 So that before the grocery store tried to clear it 21:49 there would be money in there already to sustain it. Now 21:55 beloved, that's not faith. That is foolishness. 22:02 In fact, in legal terms, it's called theft by deception. 22:07 Right? Theft by deception. 22:09 Anytime you got to do something wrong, hello 22:15 in order to try to put God in gear to come to your aid 22:22 something is wrong. Let me say something to you. 22:26 It's one thing to have faith when your cupboards are full 22:31 of food. But it's another thing to have faith when you ain't got 22:35 but a heel of bread in the house. It's one thing to have 22:39 faith when you got four good tires on your car. It's another 22:45 thing to have faith when steel belts are breaking through 22:49 and you can see them. Obviously it's another thing to have faith 22:52 when your kids are well behaved and manageable, it's another 22:57 thing to have faith when your children have eaten a five 23:00 pound bag of sugar. It's one thing to have faith when you're 23:06 walking around in the bloom of health, but it's another thing 23:09 to have faith when your doctor just told you, you have stage 4 23:13 cancer. It's one thing to have faith when your husband is 23:18 bringing you candy and flowers and another thing to have faith 23:23 when your eyes are getting bruised and your body is getting 23:26 battered because of a man who has not come to value you as 23:38 his wife. Listen to what the American Standard Version says 23:41 about this passage. It interprets it this way: 23:46 Faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction 23:53 of things not seen. What everybody? 23:58 A conviction. Then the New Testament in modern English 24:02 translation, translates it this way. Faith is the title deed 24:08 to things hoped for. The pudding to the proof of things not seen. 24:17 The title deed. Stay there with me for a moment. 24:20 I got to go way back to help you try to understand this, 24:24 way back. Anybody ever remember a store called Woolworth's? 24:31 Is that going back? 24:36 Y'all could have Wal-Mart's, Targets, J C Penney's, 24:43 Give me Woolworth's. That was it. 24:50 One day we went to the store with Mama. And as we looked 24:58 around the store we saw all kinds of things that we wanted. 25:02 I wanted a pair of hip hugger pants. 25:18 Brown corduroy, hip hugger pants. 25:27 My brother, he wanted a pair of chuck converses. 25:39 Y'all got some old folks here. 25:47 Then there was one other thing that I wanted 25:52 I wanted a Nehru jacket. 26:06 But mother didn't get us anything that day. 26:11 We just went on home. 26:17 I was styling in my corduroy pants and Nehru jacket 26:21 in my sleep. But one day I came home from school and mama 26:28 gave me this little ticket and she said 26:32 Go to town to Woolworth's and give them this ticket 26:37 to the person in the layaway department 26:47 I thought to myself, Layaway! 26:50 That sounds pretty good to be. You don't go to layaway 26:55 unless something is laid away. 26:59 I didn't know what was in there but I took the little ticket 27:02 my mama gave me and I took it to the lady in layaway 27:07 and lo and behold here comes my pant, a brown corduroy 27:14 hip huggers. A Nehru jacket. 27:18 And some Chuck converses. And I took those things home 27:27 excited about the fact that mama had sometime ago unbeknownst 27:34 to me already went back to Woolworth's and paid for 27:40 those things and all I had to do was exercise the faith 27:45 to take, Oh Jesus, to take that little ticket, give it to the 27:51 lady in Layaway and watch her give me the things I hoped for 27:56 cause I had the title deed to them. Beloved whatever it is 28:03 we're hoping for, Jesus has already paid the price 28:09 if we use our faith to claim it. 28:15 To claim it. Here's the big point of my message today 28:19 Strong faith is born out of strong trials. 28:29 I ain't got nothin else to say today. It ain't that deep. 28:34 If you can just find some kind of way to wrap your mind around 28:38 that, strong faith is born out of strong trials. 28:47 Have you ever heard the Psalmist say, Lord don't move my mountain 28:53 Just do what? Give me the strength to climb it 28:58 Please don't move my stumbling blocks, leave me learn around it 29:03 That old slave understood something about trials 29:07 and troubles and problems and tribulation. They build strong 29:13 bodies in a way that no vitamin ever could. 29:18 And there, right there, in those difficult experiences, we give 29:24 birth to a quality and caliber of faith that we would not have 29:29 otherwise had we not gone through that particular trial. 29:35 We ought to stop praying, Lord please take my trials away. 29:42 You may be praying for the Lord to take something away from you 29:45 that might be of great benefit to you. I believe that there is 29:53 no more profound illustration of this kind of concept 29:58 this experience than that found in Genesis 22nd chapter we 30:03 we classically call Abraham's Test. Abraham's Test, go there. 30:11 Go there with me to Genesis 22nd chapter. 30:15 I want to lift up verses 1-3. 31:07 Abraham was called the Father of the Faithful. Yet on two 31:15 occasions in his life he did not seem to exercise a whole 31:20 lot of faith. Once when he went to Egypt with his wife. 31:24 And he told the king what? That she was his sister. 31:29 Concealed her true identity because he did not have the 31:34 quality of faith to be honest about it. The second time 31:39 he demonstrated a lack of faith is when God has promised him 31:45 some 50 years prior that he was going to give birth to a 31:50 child, a son and that son would be the progenitor of a great 31:57 nation. His seed would know no end. 32:00 And instead of waiting, because he doubted, he was 100, his wife 32:09 was 90 when the Angel said you're going to have a child 32:12 what did she do? I don't blame her. 32:15 My own daughter right now, I don't know how old she is 32:20 how old is she baby, huh? 26. 32:28 We're getting old. 26. And she calls home everyday 32:37 I see her posting on FaceBook, talking about her experiences 32:42 she's supposed to be giving birth on January 1 32:44 She's not going to make it, is she sweetie, no she's not 32:49 Just think. She's 26, talking about the challenges of being 32:56 pregnant, but here's a lady 90 33:10 Keep em up Abraham, keep em up. 33:26 Give me your minds, come back, come back. 33:36 We're going to do what? Have a child. 33:40 Abraham couldn't see it and so Abraham gets a secondary wife 33:49 a concubine and has a child by her. 33:55 His faith? How could he be the father of the faithful? 34:00 And he's trying to find his own solutions to deal 34:05 with the circumstances that God had allowed to come into 34:08 his life. Abraham. Abraham. I want you to take your son 34:16 your what kind of son? your only son 34:24 Now he wasn't in fact his only son, was he? 34:26 Cause he just had a son, his name was Ishmael. 34:29 14 years older than Isaac. However, he was the only son 34:36 who fulfilled the conditions of the covenant. 34:41 The promise. I want you to take that son, not that other one 34:48 that son. And I want you to take him and offer him 34:53 as a burnt offering. Remember now,, Sarah has waited how long? 35:06 Now he's having this revelation this epiphany in his sleep. 35:12 Surely somebody ought to wake him up. 35:17 Surely he's having a nightmare. Surely he's had something to 35:23 drink before he went to sleep that night. 35:25 Because here he hears a voice telling him to get up, take your 35:31 only son, the one that you waited so long for 35:34 and kill him, offer him as a sacrifice, understand? 35:39 You got to know that you know that you know the voice of God 35:45 That's the only way in the world he could've been obedient 35:50 it's the same voice that had told him to leave Ur of the 35:54 Chaldeans, it's the same voice that had promised him 35:58 that He would make of him a great nation. He understood the 36:01 intonation of the voice when you heard the voice of God 36:05 once you recognize it, you'll never forget it whether you're 36:09 wide awake or deep in sleep you'll know the voice of God. 36:18 Take your son. Understand what God is asking him now. 36:24 Understand. All the heathen nations, the Semitic tribes 36:29 around him practice child sacrifice. 36:36 He's not a heathen. He is in fact, a believer of the true God 36:43 When you read the 6th chapter of Micah, somewhere about verse 36:48 7, you will discover that Israel got so disconnected from 36:54 God that they too started practicing child sacrifice 37:02 just like the heathens around them, because somehow they 37:07 believed that if you would sacrifice the first fruit or the 37:13 first born of your body some kind of way it would lead you 37:17 into a greater relationship with God. 37:21 You would have great approval. But Abraham recognized 37:27 that's what heathens did. That's not what Christians do. 37:31 How often, how often do we find ourselves reflecting and 37:37 doing the things that people who don't portend to know God 37:42 and yet we follow their practices. 37:46 And do the things they do in order to fit in. 37:52 In order to belong. Abraham also knew that right there 37:59 in the law it says, Thou shalt not what? Could this really be 38:05 the voice of God contradicting Himself 38:09 Kill your son, when you commanded that thou shalt not 38:14 kill? Once again you gotta know that you know, that you know 38:18 the voice of God. Look at verse 8. 38:58 Here's Abraham. He recognizes that it's the voice of God 39:02 he heard the night before. He goes into the tent of his son 39:07 while he's sleeping. We got to go. We got to offer a sacrifice 39:13 This is not unusual. They had been to other altars before 39:18 to offer sacrifices. So this is not strange to Isaac. He gets 39:23 two other servants to come with him. He gets wood, he gets 39:26 fire and they begin to walk. They're living in Beersheba 39:31 and yet he recognizes that it's a 3 day journey so he's got to 39:38 walk for days with this secret inside him. He does not tell 39:44 Sarah because he recognizes that Sarah has the blood 39:50 of a colored woman running through her veins. 40:06 He does not want to see the perm just come out. 40:17 You goin to do what? With who? 40:31 He recognized that she would try to prevent him. 40:36 And so he holds it in. He doesn't tell the servants that 40:41 accompany him. Because they too would try to prevent him. 40:45 From following through with what God has asked him to do 40:50 it's a 3 day journey from Beersheba to Mount Moriah 40:54 and each night that comes, Abraham stays up all night 41:00 praying, hoping he can get God to change His mind. 41:04 Have you every done anything like that, when God puts you 41:06 in a circumstance? Huh? And you prayed and asked God, 41:11 He needs to think about it again. Can you change your mind 41:17 about this thing? He did that the first night. He did that 41:23 the second night. And when he wakes up on the third day 41:26 he can see in the distance Mount Moriah and he recognizes the 41:31 sign that God has given him. I'm going to show you where you 41:34 supposed to do this. He sees the glory, a glorious little 41:39 cloud hovering over Mt. Moriah and he knows that's where I 41:43 gotta take him and so he leaves the two servants behind 41:50 takes the wood off the donkey, places the wood on the back 41:53 of his son, gets some glowing embers in a container 41:58 picks up the knife and they began to make the trip 42:01 up the jagged slope of Mount Moriah and when they reach its 42:07 summit, being an astute young man, being a knowledgeable 42:15 young man, Isaac says ''Dad, 42:21 we got wood, we got a knife, we got some fire 42:29 but where is the lamb? 42:36 Imagine his surprise when Abraham says, God will provide 42:44 Himself a lamb. Up here? We're on a mountain, man. 42:52 If He was going to give us a lamb we should've brought one 42:55 from our flocks. We've got thousands of flocks. 42:59 But they go on and they build the altar. They take the sticks 43:02 and place them on the altar and now comes the moment of truth 43:06 Son, God has told me you are the sacrifice. 43:17 Remember now, Abraham is over a hundred years old. 43:25 Isaac at this time is somewhere between 20 and 22 years old. 43:32 Take a 20 or 22 year old young man today 43:36 and insert him into the story. 43:55 Daddy, PCP is not good for you. 44:04 But there's something, something cradled in the story that we got 44:12 to expose. Think about the regard, the respect and the 44:18 recognition the son had for the father's relationship with God. 44:23 For him to say God told me to do this and for a 20 year old 44:30 son to submit to the will of his father because he respects 44:36 him, he knows he's got a relationship, he knows he's got 44:39 a connection with God. That says something to us today. 44:44 Oh if we could raise children in our homes that respect us and 44:50 regard us as godly parents. The only they're going to do that 44:55 beloved is if we act like godly parents. 45:00 You can't say one thing and then do another 45:04 and expect your children to give the same level of respect 45:10 They see through the hypocrisy, the recognize the duplicity 45:16 and they've already made up in their minds, like we all have 45:20 said, when I grow up and have children I ain't gonna act like 45:24 our mama. I ain't gonna act like my daddy. 45:29 But understand just as poignant as the faith of Abraham's is, 45:38 so too is the faith of Isaac. 45:44 Horror runs through his veins at first and then he transitions 45:50 into submission. Daddy, if God told you to do that, do it. 45:57 You've got to obey him. There's something here you've got to see 46:16 finish it for me. 46:22 The Hebrew says, and we will come again to you. 46:30 Remember now what is he being asked to do? 46:32 Sacrifice his son. But what does he say even before he leaves? 46:39 We will be back! Yes. 46:47 Will you read Hebrews chapter 11, verse 9? 46:50 You'll find out that Abraham was able to do this 46:54 because he accounted God with the ability to raise his son up 47:01 from the dead. The ironical thing about it is there was 47:05 no historical record of anyone having been resurrected from 47:10 the dead at this point. 47:13 Where then do you get the faith to believe that God is going to 47:22 somehow resurrect your boy. Faith is the substance of things 47:28 hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. 47:36 So he lays there and his daddy raises his knife 47:42 and as he raises the knife and understand something, he is 47:48 going to kill his son. We love to hasten and get to the other 47:54 part where the angel says, hey Abraham stay your hand. But 47:58 let's stay right there. The Angel would not have said that 48:01 if He was not sure that Abraham was going to follow through. 48:05 Isn't that right? If you had an ATM and somebody comes to 48:11 you with a gun and says, give me your money. You gonna start 48:16 laughing? What're you gonna do? You gonna give him the money. 48:21 Why? Because you think they're gonna do something, right? 48:26 The Angel understood this man was going to take his son's life 48:34 And He stops him. In that synaptic moment He stops him 48:41 He arrests his hand. Abraham I understand now you won't 48:45 withhold anything from me. I understand you won't put 48:48 anything before me, not even your precious, only son. 48:55 Imagine the relief, imagine the relief. 49:02 Here's what I learned when I was studying this message. 49:06 Sometimes our greatest anxiety is not what happens but what we 49:12 think is going to happen. 49:15 We stress ourselves out thinking that the proverbial sword of 49:24 Damocles is going to fall on us before anything ever happens 49:32 and so we find ourselves leading distressed lives. 49:38 Always living with the anticipation of gloom and doom 49:43 forgetting the rest of the story. 50:18 There are seven compound names of God that are found in the 50:23 Old Testament. In Exodus 15 verse 26 He's called 50:28 Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals you. In Exodus 17: 8-15, 50:36 He's Jehovah Nissi, the Lord my Banner. In Judges 6:24, 50:43 He's Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our Peace. In Psalm 23:1, He's 50:50 Jehovah Rohi, the Lord is my Shepherd. In Jeremiah 23:6, 50:54 He's Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness, 50:58 In Exodus 48:35, He's Jehovah Shamma, the Lord is Present 51:03 but in Genesis 22:14, He's Jehovah Jireh. In the Hebrew 51:12 it's Yehovah Yireh. Yehovah Yireh. Now when we hear that 51:20 word, when we hear that word we love to say it means what? 51:28 Talk to me. The Lord will Provide. Isn't that right? 51:36 The Lord will Provide. But I'm going to give you a lesson 51:41 in Hebrew. The original Hebrew says, The Lord Sees 51:47 and will see to it. 51:55 That speaks to my lack of faith. 51:58 That speaks to my doubt. That speaks to my lowliness. 52:03 That speaks to my despair, that speaks to my pessimism. 52:09 That speaks to my negative attitude when I know if I could 52:13 just know that God sees what I'm going through 52:17 sometimes we get into such a place, a rut that we don't 52:21 believe that God even knows that we're in trouble. 52:25 That we have needs, and yet Jehovah Jireh says I see it. 52:32 I see what you're going through. I'm well aware of your 52:39 circumstances. But that wouldn't be enough. J.B. Phillips 52:45 in his book Your God is Too Small, says if you don't have 52:50 a God that can do something about your situation 52:55 then your God is too small and you need to trade Him in 53:00 and get you another. If your God can't pay your electric bill 53:05 then your God is too small. If your God can't fix your broken 53:09 marriage then your God is too small. If your God can't raise 53:14 up your sick body then your God is too small. If your God can't 53:19 get you another job then your God is too small. If your God 53:23 can't take you to work on empty then your God is too small 53:26 If your God can't give you a promotion, then your God is 53:30 too small. If your God can't help you raise your children 53:34 then your God is too small. If your God cannot help you pass 53:38 that class, then your God is too small. If your God cannot 53:42 find another mortgage payment then your God is too small 53:46 If your God cannot stop fore- closure, then your God is 53:50 too small. If God can't step into your circumstances 53:54 and do something spectacular to change them for your good 54:00 then you need to trade Him in and get you another God. 54:04 Because the God I serve, He sees I said He sees, He sees 54:11 and He will see to it. 54:23 He sees and He will see to it. 54:29 Let me close with a challenging verse of Scripture. 54:33 Luke 18, verse 8. The Bible says: When the Son of Man shall 54:42 come, will He find faith in the earth. 54:51 When the Son of Man shall come 54:56 will He find faith on the earth? 55:01 Times are bad now, are they not? 55:10 Bible Prophecy in Daniel 12:1 let's us know 55:14 that there's a time of trouble coming such as there never was 55:20 since there was a nation on the earth. The problem is 55:24 that we're looking at that particular passage in future 55:30 times, when in fact I believe it's here. 55:37 There's a time for occupy Dallas occupy Dimlah 55:44 occupy L.A., occupy Cairo 55:49 occupy Iran. Look all around this globe. Trouble everywhere 55:56 It seems there is unrest every where, there is an erosion 56:01 and loss of stability. People appear as if they've lost their 56:07 minds. But it's in fact time when things look the darkest 56:13 and the most forlorn that we can never ever forget that 56:18 that God sees and He will see to it. 56:25 That he fixes everything. 56:29 Do you believe that? If you believe that stand on your feet 56:33 with me today, if you believe that. 56:37 If you believe that He sees and will see to it, while you're 56:43 standing, there's someone who's here today, there's someone here 56:49 today. You're here and you're saying Pastor 56:57 I must confess that I'm one of the folk who can't believe that 57:04 God is even aware of me. I pray and I pray. It doesn't 57:12 appear as if my prayers go any where. So I got discouraged 57:18 I must confess Pastor I haven't prayed in quite a while 57:27 because I don't believe He's listening anymore 57:32 But today, I heard something today. I heard you say that 57:37 He does see and He will see to it. |
Revised 2016-03-16