Pastor Kent Christmas | Raise The Knife | April 3, 2024

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Pastor Kent Christmas | Raise The Knife | April 3, 2024

Pastor Kent Christmas Podcast www.regenerationnashville.org

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Well, I’m glad you joined me. Today.
And, um, I wanna talk, uh, on something that just really been in my spirit the last couple of days.
Um, I wanna talk about binding yourself to the promise of god.
And, uh, we’re gonna Take our texts out of the book of Genesis chapter 22.
And, um, this is the story such a powerful story of of where Abraham, who is the father of faith, is challenged by god to sacrifice the promise of god to the lord.
And, uh, verse 1, it says that it came to pass after these things, that god did tempt Abraham, and, uh, this is really not a good word because the Bible says that god doesn’t tempt him, man, with evil.
It’s really test. It’s a test. God is testing Abraham.
And I wanna tell you, before god will ever let you walk, in a really unusual realm of faith, it is you’re gonna be tested.
God is gonna see if you can be obedient and yield to what god asked you to do.
And, got test Abraham, and he says into him Abraham, and he said, here am I.
I love the fact that this story starts out because Abraham has a relationship with god.
They’ve had communication, and god generally will never begin to challenge you unless there’s in place a relationship between you and the lord.
And god sees sees something in you that he says I can use them to advance my kingdom.
And verse 2, it says, Take now thy son, thy only son I see.
Boy, god is driving this home. He’s He’s he wants Abraham to understand what I’m asking you to do.
And we know this said that Isaac is not Abraham’s only son. Ishmael is also Abraham’s son.
But God only recognizes that which is born of the spirit.
And so the lord’s not asking for something out of flesh.
Ishmael was born out of unbelief, and he was born of the flesh.
Uh, the new testament teaches as Romans deals with it, I believe.
And he says, take thy son thy only son, Isaac, whom thou love us and get thee to the land of Mariah and offer him there for a burn offering on one of the mountains that I would tell you.
And so, um, says that Abraham rose up early in the morning, got everything together.
And, uh, I love this verse and verse 5 when they’ve got to the base of the mountain that god told him to go to, which was Mariah.
Um, he he said to his young men, he said, y’all stay here with the donkeys.
He said, because I and the land, I and the lad are gonna go up this mountain, and we’re gonna worship.
And then we’re gonna come back to you again. Isn’t it profound how Abraham labels this experience?
He didn’t say I have to go up and go through a very difficult time.
I’ve gotta go up and kill Eisey.
See, when god challenges you when god challenges you to do something that is gonna require great faith.
You know what he views it as? When you obey, he calls it worship, not sacrifice.
Abraham, he said, I’m going up to worship.
I’m going up to do the will of god.
When you do the will of god, especially when it’s difficult, and god’s asking you of something that that pushes you beyond your limits.
And you do it. God says, oh, that’s worship. Hallelujah. That’s worship.
And, Abraham verse 6, he takes the wood of the burn offering, lays it on Isaac as son, he takes an fire in his hand and a knife and they both got together.
So they’re headed up this mountain, and and, of course, they didn’t have matches in those days.
And He has a little pot, excuse me, that that he has coals in, and he has the knife and it said he laid the wood on Isaac.
Boy, there’s this is such a type in the shadow of Jesus Christ.
That when Jesus is walking up the mountain to calvary, he’s carrying the wood on his back.
I seek is the type of Christ.
He’s going up at the mountain and he’s carrying on his back that which he is going to be killed with and laid on.
And, um, verse 9, it says they came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built and altered there and laid the wooden order bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar of the wood.
So we’re talking today about binding yourself to the promise of god.
And, this scripture here begins to give us an understanding that unfolds what takes place.
And so first of all, I think it’s in, maybe Genesis, because we’re in chapter, uh, 22.
I think it’s in Genesis 17, maybe verse 16, the lord has has told, um, Abraham that that Sarah was gonna give him a son, and she would be the mother of many nations.
And, of course, that the seed of of Isaac would produce nations.
And so, Isaac is the promise of god.
And now here we find Isaac We don’t know how old he is.
He I personally think if he’s a type of Christ, he’s probably, uh, in his thirties, Uh, but we know that he’s a grown man and and god has allowed Abraham to enjoy the promise of god in Isaac for all of these years.
He’s grown up and they fished together, hunted together, uh, had great fellowship.
And now it’s almost like god what he gave Abraham. He said I want it back.
And see, that’s what god the Bible says the lord gives seed to the sower.
And god makes us responsible for things that we don’t know.
And when god and I’ve experienced in my life, I’ve seen it over the years in ministry, God will give a gift.
He’ll give a seed to somebody. And they think, wow, this is wonderful.
He’ll allow you to enjoy it. Then then there comes a time. It’s like god asked for it back.
It’s not that he wants it back.
What he’s telling you is it’s a seed it needs to be sewn so its purpose can be released.
And so this whole story is about sowing a seed.
It’s about releasing the DNA, the purpose, and the possibilities of the promise of god.
And so he Abraham, he he’s standing there, and and god has already told me he said, I want you to sack profise him to me.
And then I want you to offer him as a burn offering. A lot of times we hear the story.
We think about, well, god just told Abraham to, you know, take a knife and kill That was just half of it.
He said, then he said, I want you to set him on fire and burning to ashes as an offering under me.
So this is the crux of what I wanna talk about.
Abraham, first of all, relationship with god for you and I is always around and all her.
Is this why the church is in such a mess?
Is this why Christians are depressed, discouraged, broke, because and think about this.
Most churches that we know of today, even spiel for spiel churches, they never have older calls.
And most of them are taking their altars out.
When you remove the altar from your life, you remove the place where you and god meet.
God meets man around an altar.
And when you go back, Moses built an altar, Abraham built an altar, Noah built an altar.
They this these old testament saints are everywhere you went, the Israelites, they built altars.
Because that was where it them and god met.
And so Bible says that Abraham, that what he does is he bills an altar, and then he takes Isaac and He puts him on this altar and the Bible said that that he bound isaac, his son, and he laid him on the altar of the wood.
What did what Abraham was doing was he was not he was not binding his son just to that altar, but he was binding, Isaac, to the word of god because he knew that god cannot lie.
And god had already told him that this boy is gonna be the father of many nations.
So Isaac, by faith.
See, this was this is I really believe this is where the the the very DNA of faith got loose in the earth.
We call him the father of faith that if if Abraham had failed to kill Isaac, He would not have been the father of many nations.
This whole thing was around a pivotal apex in his life And when Abraham begins to to to physically bind the Isaac his son, the promise of god.
When he’s binding the promise of god, he is binding the promise to the word of god.
Many of you are in difficult places or god is is is challenging you.
I I’m in one of those things with our church. On on building this building.
But see, god has already before god ever test you, he will give you a promise He will tell you, and this is what I’m gonna do.
And you see, the Bible says the word of god isn’t bound.
It’s our will that has to be bound to the word of god, to the promise of god.
God has made promises in these last days that the church is gonna be glorious.
So it doesn’t matter what media says.
It doesn’t matter what the state of the union of the church is right now.
God is gonna fulfill his work. So, Abraham by faith binds his son.
To the word of god.
Now Abraham being well over a 100 years old, possibly a 125, a 130s, depending on Isaac’s age.
He had killed a lot of a lot of sacrifices.
He had watched the the just the horror of animals die and cutting the lamb’s throats and the blood flowing and the bleeding of of death that came out of these animals.
He understood that the severity of killing a sacrifice for god.
And now he’s looking at what is most precious to him, and He, in his heart, he kills Eisey.
You and I both know this, that that many, many times our mind will take us to the scenario of something that we’re afraid of before we ever encounter it.
Or that we know we’re getting ready to to walk into.
And Abraham, and he’s a man in his mind, had to be going through him, what this is gonna look like.
I’m gonna I’m gonna sacrifice my son. I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna cut his throat. His blood’s gonna flow.
And then I’m gonna set him on fire.
He had the wood there and the fire, but here’s the key.
He bound His promise to the word of god with faith.
Faith is the cords that you and I use to bind our sacrifice to the promise of god.
I don’t care how difficult it is or what god is asking you.
God will never ask give you something that he does not make provision in order for you to do it.
And that day, as Abraham, though in physical. He was using rope or cord in the spirit, hallelujah.
He was wrapping the promise of god with the chords of faith. Faith, Hallelujah, was was binding Isaac.
And when you bind something with faith, It can’t die.
And all God’s watching from heaven and his Abraham is is wrapping this boy with cords of faith because Romans chapter 4 verses 17 through 21 says this that Abraham, when there was nothing to hope for, he still hoped, and he believed that god was able to quicken things that are dead, bring him back to life, and speak things that are not even when Isaac no longer looked human, but he was a pile of ashes that god could speak things that are not even as so they were.
In that day, hallelujah, the faith of Abraham bound the promise of god to the word of the lord.
I wanna challenge you because, see, right now, um, you and I, Paul says this.
He said we are living sacrifices.
And so god is asking us of things that are difficult And he’s asking is these challenges were being tested.
He said, are you willing to suffer loss, permanent loss? To be obedient to me.
And, see, this is why it takes faith. This is, uh, Paul said this.
He said, Nothing’s gonna separate me from god, from the love of god.
I’m not gonna let anything stop me from walking by faith to just shall live, boy, that just shall live by faith.
And so when when you and I were living sacrifices, god’s not asking us to die physically.
But as a as a sacrifice, in the old testament, when, uh, god told Moses to build the the the brazen altar, he told him he said, put four horns on the four corners.
And when they would bring in the sacrifice to offer to the lord, that animal wasn’t just gonna lay down and let itself be slaughtered.
Uh, it could smell the blood that was in that room from the previous animals.
They could smell the death in that room.
And the Bible says they had to tie the sacrifice to the altar.
See, your flesh doesn’t wanna walk by faith.
It it will use reasoning, imagination to convince you.
This is not a good idea, but god said, first of all, you and I have to have it all turn our life.
You know what our altar is? It’s prayer. In prayer, hallelujah is where we meet god.
It’s where man and god meets.
And so the lord says that this is why it’s so hard for us to pray.
Because our flesh don’t wanna be there.
So you by faith take your flesh and you tie it to the altar in prayer And then you take your sacrifice that god is asking for And see, when God asked you for something, it’s like you think I’m never gonna get this back.
Or this is I give this up, and I it’s gone forever. No. No. It’s a seat.
God only asks you of things that he’s already given you, the seat in seat form.
And when you and I by faith, tie ourselves to the promise of god or to the word of god.
Then god comes through.
And when Abraham raised the knife, He had already come to grips in his heart that I am killing my son.
And when Abraham raised the knife, hallelujah, God said stop. I’ve made provision for you.
I wanna tell you, some of you got your hand on the knife over something in your life that god is asking for and you’re thinking, god, I can’t live without it.
This is my son. This is the promise you gave me. This is my ministry, my gift.
Raise the knife. Raise the knife on it.
Hallelujah raised the knife on it because I’m telling you about the spirit of the lord, that when you raise the knife, you just tied.
Uh-huh. You just bound God to his word.
You bound you bound your sacrifice to the word of the lord, to the promise of god, and God is bound to his work.
And when Abraham raised the knife, god said, Kotta do it. Hold on, Abraham. Look over there.
There’s a ram and a thicket. He said, now I know that you love me.
You and I are in a place to work. God is is after precious faith.
Whereby are giving it to succeeding great and precious promises.
Peter talks about precious faith. And, um, precious faith is what’s gonna change the world.
Precious faith is what’s gonna bring in the harvest in these last days.
Precious faith is what’s gonna pay off regeneration Nashville’s building.
Precious faith is what’s gonna break the areas in your life that nothing else will raise the knife because when you raise the knife, god’s gonna raise his voice.
Well, I wanna encourage you today that god will never leave you. He’ll never forsake you.
I hope this has been a blessing to you and encouragement. God bless you. I’ll see you next week.
For more information about Kent Christmas Ministries International or regeneration Nashville, go to Kent Christmas.org, or regeneration nashville.org.

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