Well, I wanna add my thanks to everybody for all you all done for us, feeding us and loving on us and just letting us hang out with you this week's been great. And we missionaries like to be together. It's good encouragement for us just to share stories and hear what God's doing in other places around the world. One night I mentioned that this last few years we have given out in Papua New Guinea, 1 million whole Bibles. Well, I never really want to travel. I do it all the time, but it's not the, that's the greatest joy in life. And many of you travel, and you say, it's not fun anymore. But several years ago, I had the privilege of going to Fiji because we had a group of our missionaries meeting in Fiji in this little quaint restaurant on the island. And this man walked in, and the missionary said to their director, that's the prime minister. And the director said, that is not the prime minister. He got on blue jeans and pull over shirt. That's the gardener. But he just stood up and started going over there and put out his hand and bodyguards came from everywhere. It was the prime minister. and he witnessed to him and took his picture with him, came back to America, put his picture in his Bible, and every day when he read his Bible, he would pray for that prime minister. So he thought about it, he wrote him a letter and shared the gospel, and then the prime minister, and just think about this, the prime minister of the Fiji Islands called us at Biayamines was talking and he said, Brother Brooks, our director said, one of the things we do across the world is give Bibles out to people who want them and so on. And he said, would you come to my island and give them to all of our students in our schools? And immediately he said, yes, I'd love to do that. And then it hit him, how many Bibles are you talking about, sir? And he said, well, about 220,000. Well, I got to go when we first started giving them out. We told the prime minister, sir, we didn't tell them we didn't have any money, but we didn't have a penny. We said, would you give us a year, let us pray, and we sent out some DVDs and so on. Within a year, the money came in, and I got to go when it first happened, and I gave a Bible to a teacher for a school. We got to go to every school in Fiji Islands and preach for an hour and share the gospel, and then give out Bibles. I gave one to a teacher. She's holding that Bible. She said, sir, would you come over here? She said, today's my birthday. You didn't know that. This is the best present I've ever had in my whole life. Well, you know what that does to the heart of a missionary? Well, then we were at this Hindu school, 1,500 high schoolers. standing out in the baking sun. The rain clouds, it started to rain. The headmaster didn't want us there. She said, oh, we've got to get them back to their classrooms. And Brother Books just bowed his head and said, Lord, stop this rain so we can give out these Bibles today. And it stopped raining. I mean, it didn't taper off. It just stopped raining right then. So it's just amazing things. And we gave out 230,000 Bibles. Well, then I told you already, Papa New Guinea a couple of years later called us and said, our kids are struggling here, would you come and give out Bibles, and we've been working at that for a long time. And I told you all that story because I have something, just one page, it won't take me long, and I don't usually read to people, but I got to go to Papa New Guinea as well and was out there, and several things impressed me. One was, everywhere I went, The national pastors and Christians were saying to me, Raymond Sorrells won me to Christ. How Williams started this church. Jim Stackhouse taught me the Bible, and so on. I wish I had written this, but I couldn't have written it because it's written not by an American missionary, but by one of those people who was reached by the missionaries in Papua New Guinea many years ago. Actually, his name is Pastor Taco. So you remember that easy, homes taco. And he wrote this when he was a boy. And I just want to share with you tonight before I give my sermon. He said, missionaries, who are they? A little 12 year old boy gave a description of missionaries like this when he was asked. They're God's special agents for a special mission. How true it is. Their mission is called mission rescue the perishing. Leaving the fort, they prepare to enter enemy lines all over the world. Given their location and strategy, they move without much logistical support. To live or to die is just the same for them. They're equipped with the art of old-fashioned technology. In their hands is the world's most powerful weapon that can crash the enemy in a split of a second. By the way, I'm reading this just like he wrote it. English is not his first language. So he said, in their mouth is the life-saving message that can save the hopeless, homeless, baseless, and lifeless, putting hope, giving you home, setting base on the solid rock, and giving abundant life to mankind, wiping tears of sadness and loneliness, and putting joy in their hearts and smile on their faces. Their feet are called beautiful with blisters and cuts and their hands have a special touch from heaven. Missionaries put their bodies and families on the line, climbing the highest mountain, walking the widest river, crossing crocodile infested swamps, driving on rugged roads, unfit for motor vehicles that can shake and twist and rock you. If you've ever been to Papua New Guinea, that's putting it mildly. They fly over breathtaking mountains that can make you nervous. Missionaries live on faith and live in isolation. On many occasions, they've been attacked, robbed, beaten, and punched, but as the saying goes, they keep on keeping on and serve their master. They adapt to the weather, they speak the lingo, and eat the local menu. Time and time again, they face struggles and hardships and pressures and perils of life. Their poor children are born and bred on foreign land with a mixture of American and Melanesian custom. What a place to adapt into two cultures. They live up to their motto, they are no fools to give what they cannot keep, to gain what they cannot lose. Missionaries are special indeed because of their special mission on frontline duties to rescue people from the enemy. We salute you all because you are our heroes. Your coming was our freedom and hope. You brought light to our darkness and set the path for our feet. You wiped our tears of pain and you relieved our broken hearts. Your labor and dedication of love is not in vain, but we'll be honored by our chief in command. We appreciate you all for coming to our land, the land of color and culture, or the land of the unexpected and the land of a million journeys. Papua New Guinea. Maybe you never thought about how nationals look at those you send. But when missionaries go, it's what I call, they change their world. Well, having said that, I want you to open your Bibles with me tonight to Genesis chapter 22 and just find it and I'll get there in a moment. Genesis chapter 22. I'll give you a moment to find it and then I'll get there in a moment, all right? I'll say it that way. For God, the Lord of earth and heaven, so loved and longed to see forgiven, the world in sin and pleasure mad, that he gave the greatest gift he had. His only begotten Son to take our place, that whosoever, O what grace, believeth, placing simple trust in Him, the righteous and the just, should not perish lost in sin, but have everlasting life in Him. John 3.16, for God so loved the world, you know it. Some of you like me, you can quote it in several different languages, whether you say it in English or French or Spanish or Wolof or Japanese or Chinese, whatever language you say it in, it means the same thing. God so loved the world. Those are wonderful, powerful, surprising words. Yet some people might think, well, why did God wait to John chapter 3 and verse 16 to tell us that? Well, He didn't. We've already heard from Brother Sinclair, from me this week also. Missions didn't start in Matthew chapter 28 in the Gospels. Missions started in the heart of God from the very beginning. God has a desire to see people saved. He doesn't want people, we know that, the Bible tells us. He doesn't want people to go to hell. Anyone that goes to hell is not because God wants it. God loves us, and God came himself and clothed Adam and gave them wonderful promises. Now in Genesis chapter 12, and I know I said find Genesis 22, but in Genesis chapter 12, God said to Abraham, and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that cursed thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And all throughout the Old Testament, you read phrases like that, that all the earth may know. I don't know if you're like me, I underline in my Bibles, I write notes and I put asterisks out there or something. But there's several things that every time I read it, I don't know when I started doing this, but every time I read in the Old Testament, God said to, or God spoke to, or the word of God came to, I underline it. You know why? It just reminds me that there are really good reasons why we believe this book is God's holy book. Something else I underline every time I read through the Old Testament, in fact the whole Bible, but especially the Old Testament, every time it says something like that all the earth may know, I underline it because it reminds me that God wants everybody to be saved. Well, Linda and I arrived in Senegal. We were just young kids, dumb as gourds. I mean, we were missionaries. We graduated Bible college and we went to Tennessee Temple and all Bible college students think they have all the answers. till they get there and realize a lot of things they do not know. But we arrived in Senegal, we spent a year and a half in France studying French and we could speak French and then we got there and not one neighbor we had spoke French. And so we started immediately learning the Wolof language but when we got there, The only, well, let me just tell what happened. They would come to me, they couldn't say Godfrey. They couldn't pronounce it, so they gave me an African name. I was Asan Ba. Asan was my first name, Ba was my family name. That's a two-color tribal name. But they would come to me and say, Asan Ba, how can you be a Christian and you got a wife and children? You see, only Christians they'd ever seen were priests and nuns from France. and they had never seen a real Christian before and they were amazed. And I would say, when they would ask, how can you be a Christian and you've got a wife? I said, well, let me tell you why. Right here in what they call the Torah, in the very first pages of the Torah it says, for this reason shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife. And they're jumping up and down saying, amen, amen. That's amen in Arabic. And then I would say, well, let me tell you another story. And I turn to this passage in Genesis chapter 22, and I said, you know, God, a few pages later, God told Abraham to take his son up on the mountain. And before I finished, they're jumping up and down again and smiling, and they said, oh, do you believe that too? You know that story? See, they kill a ram. Even now, every Muslim family every year kills a ram in memory of God providing the ram for Abraham's son. And from there, I would go to many other passages in the scripture headed to the story of the cross. I probably have used this chapter in these verses more in witnessing to Muslim people than any other passage in the Bible. Because several reasons, I started in the Old Testament. I had to redefine every word they use. They use the same words I use, but they don't mean the same thing by them. When they talk about God, they're not talking about Jehovah God of the Bible. And I would start in Genesis and I would use this story, and it's a wonderful story. I have no idea how many, I would say without exaggeration, thousands of times I've used it there. By the way, we would have 75, 80, 100 Muslims every day come off the street to talk to us. I know that people here don't think that way. They go, you can't talk to a Muslim, they'll chop your head off. Just go with me sometimes. God is part of their vocabulary. I told you it takes 15 minutes to greet somebody and half of the greetings have to do with God. Are you complaining? No, no, we're not complaining. We're all praising God. It was easy to talk to them about God because it was part of their conversation. And I use this passage a lot. I wanna speak tonight on this topic. Abraham's faith promise. Now you can't know anything about Abraham without thinking the word faith. In chapter 15 of Genesis, here's what it says. Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Isn't that a great verse? Now, when it's in the Bible, that just kind of stands out. It's an easy verse. It's a great verse. Abraham trusted, if you will. Abraham believed. Abraham had faith in God. But you know, that is repeated three more times, actually four more times. Three, that time, Genesis 15, six, and three times in the New Testament, Romans four, verse three, Galatians three, six, James two, three. And it says the same thing, Abraham believed God and it was counted in him for righteousness. Now if it's in the Bible, it's important, but if it's in the Bible, four times like that, you can mark it down. God's trying to get our attention about this thing. Did you know that America today, they're so confused, we don't know which way's up. We take a simple word like faith and we make it mean something it doesn't mean at all. Have you ever talked to somebody and they think faith means to cover your eyes and jump in the dark and hope something good'll happen? Hope that's not faith. I hope it'll turn out all right, that's not faith. Faith is trust. Pastor Sluice is sitting right back there. I could take my bilfo out of my pocket and I could throw it back there but I wouldn't do that because I might hit somebody else before we got there. I could chuck my bilfo back there and leave it with him and you know how much I'd worry about it? Not at all. You know why? Because I trust him. Faith is simple reliance upon. sincere belief in. I wanna show you some things in this chapter tonight, so I better read the verses right. Genesis chapter 22, beginning in verse one, I'll read part of the chapter. And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, behold, here am I, by the way, that's the right answer. When God speaks your name, Lord, I'm here. And he said, take now thy son, thy only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, claimed the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went into the place which God had told him. Then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, laid it upon Isaac his son, and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said, my father, and he said, here am I, my son. And he said, behold, the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering. So they went both of them together and they came to the place which God had told him of and Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order, bound Isaac, his son. Let me just pause there for a moment. Isaac was not a little tiny lad when this happened. You compare the verses in these chapters in Genesis. Isaac was at the best an older teenager, maybe older than that. He was not a little boy that his daddy could just tie him up with. No, here was a, I see as much faith there in the son as I do in the father here. But anyway, and he laid the wood upon the altar and Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by the horns. By the way, it had to be caught by the horns because to be an image of Christ, it had to be without blemish. There were no broken bones. I don't know, if you can read this chapter and not see clear pictures of the final sacrifice that's coming, the Lord Jesus. But anyway, back to verse 13. Abraham went and took the ram, offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh. as it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called an Abraham out of heaven the second time and said, by myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, thou hast not spared thy son, thy only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate. of his enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice." Wonderful story. I've already said Abraham was a man of faith. Abraham believed God. I just want to point out some things in this chapter that go together with faith. The first part is in verse number two. And he said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there. Here's what I see. Faith, trust in God, and offering always goes together. This was not Abraham's first act of faith. You remember when God told him, get out of your land, go to a land. He knew nothing about Palestine. He just knew what God told him and he went. He was leaving home. God told him later they were gonna have a child. All those things were promises given by God to Abraham. And this chapter 22 is a faith offering. He said, Brother Guy, why don't you say that? Because it was totally based on God's promise. God had told Abraham, in him, that is your son, your seed, shall all the world be blessed And I don't know if Abraham knew what was gonna happen, but Abraham knew that his son would either be resurrected or God would do it some other way. You say, are you sure about that? Yes, because Hebrews 11, verses 17 to 19, listen to them. By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, And he that received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from thence also he received him in a figure. And of course, they were headed to Mount Moriah here, where the temple would eventually be built. I'm just saying tonight, when you have faith, when you have reliance, trust in God, Offering always goes with it. I'm not talking about money, even though it may be that. Most of the time, it's not that. It's being willing to offer whatever God asks of you. But not only does faith go with offering, in that same verse, notice it says, and he said, now, and he said, take now thy son, thy only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest. Now watch it. Faith and love also go together all the time. The first time that love is mentioned in the Bible, the word love, is in this chapter. Now did God love Adam and Eve and love people before this chapter was given? Certainly he did. Yeah, there is a principle of first mention in the Bible when we see great truths taught. This is the first time in God's word that God chose to use that word love. The first mission of love in the Bible, and that offering that Abraham was gonna give is a costly offering. How much did it cost God to love? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. True faith in God and true love always go together. When I think about Calvary, when I get this, anybody, don't raise your hand, I'm gonna plead guilty. When I get backslidden and cold, you know what I've gotta do? I've gotta come back to the Bible and reread the story of the crucifixion. There's nothing that will help me more than that, because it reminds me that we preach about all the physical suffering of Christ on the cross, and all that's true, but the real suffering of Christ on the cross was not just the physical suffering. It was when all the sin of the world was laid upon him. Why? Because he loved us, and God knew that Abraham loved his son, and Abraham probably couldn't figure out exactly what God was doing, but Abraham didn't have to figure it out. Do you know sometimes our faith makes us do some things that the world would call foolish? Like take your family to the other side of the world. So faith goes with offering and faith goes with love, but also in verse three, it goes with obedience. And Abraham rose up early in the morning. Do you like to get up early, anybody that loves it? Now don't lie. I'm driving back to Tennessee tomorrow, and I hated to even tell my wife this today, but she has to have me at the airport Saturday morning at 4.30 in the morning. And I'll be in Omaha, Nebraska before noon. On Monday morning, I have to be at the airport in Omaha by 4.30 in order to, anyway, God told Abraham what he wanted him to do. and he got up early the next day, real obedience demands no delay. Don't put it off. When God speaks to you, deals with your heart, don't just say it, don't just vow it, don't just wish it, do it. in a conference like this, and God may speak to someone's heart about what he wants you to give this next year to Faith Promise. Have you noticed I don't say a lot about it, and here's why. I do if the pastor wants me to preach on Faith Promise, but I believe when we're surrendered, we'll give. because faith and obedience go together. So if God's speaking to your heart about whatever, you do it. Notice this also, verse number five, and Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder and worship. Faith and worship go together as well. Interesting to me that just like it's the first time love is mentioned in the Bible, this is the first time worship is mentioned in the Bible. In the giving of the Great Commission in Matthew chapter 28, here's what it says. And when they saw him, they worshiped him. And he's speaking to them saying, go ye therefore and teach all nations. You see, real worship changes your life. You worship first and you work next. You work next. Some people try to work and they haven't really been worshiping. God does not need cheap worship. Worship is a costly thing. And God is saying, I think, evidently here to Abraham, Abraham, I want the best you have. I don't want leftovers. My mind, anybody else like you, my mind, strange thoughts will pop into my mind sometime. And I was just thinking about way back, and my wife and I, we've been in missions a long time, spent many years in Africa, and sometimes people would send us things, and I know you ladies here, and your communication with your missionaries, you would never do this, and we joke about it, but back in the day, it wasn't a joke, it was true, and people send used tea bags to missionaries, I got a box one time. Somebody had sent a cardboard box, and I had to pay $40 to get it out of customs. I couldn't wait to get it home. I opened it, and it was little packs of salt and pepper people had stolen from McDonald's and Hardee's. Barbecue packets and mustard. It had old Sword of the Lords. I'm sorry. I can't help it. Real worship is not cheap worship. God wants the best we have. He doesn't want the leftovers. He wants us to do what we do to worship him because we love him. All these things I'm saying go together. Something else that goes with faith in this chapter, in verse number eight, and Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb. Can you imagine, we know what Isaac was thinking. Father, we're gonna go build an altar and worship, and here's the fire, and here's the wood, and you've got the night, but Father, there is no living sacrifice in the Old Testament. Sacrifices had to die. And I see here clearly the faith of Abraham and trust. God will provide. I may not be able to figure it out. I don't know how he's going to do it. No wonder it was said of Abraham, Abraham believed God. And I've already alluded to it, but it's just as astounding to me, Isaac's confidence in his own father. For a young man, A strong young man, prime of life, to allow his father to bind him and put him on that altar took a lot of confidence and trust, not only in his father, but also in God. But if your faith and complete trust go together, verse 13 tells us that there's provision when we believe that. A realm was offered as a substitute, and Abraham called that place Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord sees and the Lord provides. Aren't you glad, by the way, that God provides for us? I'm not gonna, I could tell you stories. I know people think I got more stories than I know what to do with, and they think I finally run out, but I keep getting new ones. But I don't run out of stories about how God provides. Aren't you glad he provided the substitute that we needed to be saved? He knew very well there's nothing we could do, there's nothing good in us. The best we have is filthy rags, and I need more than that. I needed a substitute. I needed the sacrifice, and God provided it. And then I'm not gonna reread the verses, but. The angel of the Lord called out to Abraham and said, by myself have I sworn saith the Lord. And then in verse 17, that in blessing I will bless thee. Look, when I see the faith of Abraham, here's the last point I must, I know one sermon only had one point and one of them had three and one of them two, and this one's got a lot, but they always go together. This is my last one. Faith and wonder. Abraham didn't know what was gonna happen at this point, but he believed that God's promise and God's covenant will be fulfilled. The seed will come that God had promised. And that seed did come. And by the way, that seed will come again. And I would say tonight, as I close my time with you all, Lord strengthen our faith. May it not be faith in faith or faith in ourselves, but may it be the faith in the God of gods who provides the exact sacrifice, the exact substitute, the exact need that we have. And don't get sidetracked by the, false ideas of faith in this world. There's some really weird ideas out there right now and I'm not gonna explore all that. But when you can trust God and say, Lord, I believe what you said, I'm depending upon you, I trust you. to be saved. And Lord, I trust you, if you want me to go to the mission field, I trust you if you want me to give more to Faith Promise or to pray more for these missionaries, whatever it is, may God increase our faith. And Lord, I pray tonight you would help us. I thank you for these days we've been together and the fellowship we've been able to have. And I pray that you bless this pastor and his family, bless this church, strengthen their faith, Help us, all of us who are missionaries, to have complete confidence in you. to love you, to serve you better every day of our lives. Work in our hearts now, in Jesus' name. Pastor, you come. Let's all stand, please. God's speaking to your heart tonight. Maybe you have faith, but you say, Lord, would you help me? Lord, increase my faith. Lord, strengthen my unbelief. And whatever the Lord's saying to you tonight, you take care of it.