Encountering God's Promise, Part 1

There are times in our experience when it looks like God said one thing and the opposite is taking place. Dr. Tony Evans says while we're waiting for God to keep His promises, things sometimes get worse before they get better.

And it is during those times all of us question how real this thing is. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Even when all our Christian experience is telling us that God keeps His promises, our confidence can get shaken when it looks like He's doing just the opposite. Today, Dr. Evans will tell us the story of a man in that very situation who was forced to decide what he really believed.

Let's join him. If the truth were told, there are times in our Christian experience when we don't feel like God keeps His promises. There are times in our experience when it looks like God said one thing and the opposite is taking place.

And it is during those times when all of us, to varying degrees, question how real this thing is. When it comes to God's promises, we know the theology that He can't lie. But sometimes you feel like He lied to you. Because what He says and what you are seeing do not match. They don't agree.

They aren't coming together. Sometimes it looks like He bails out on us, like the pilot who was on a small four-seater plane and the engine began to have problems. And there was only one parachute on the plane.

So the pilot took the parachute and went to the door. He said to the four folks sitting on the plane, don't panic, I'm just going to get some help. Sometimes it seems like the one in charge has bailed out on you. And His promises to take you from here to there to meet this situation or address this need is not just happening. It's not being fulfilled. Well, I want to take you to a situation in Scripture that is going to stretch you if you're not familiar with it. And even if you are, it's going to perhaps take you to a place to understanding God and His confusing you with His promises. God's promises come at two levels. There are the recorded promises in His Word, and then there are the applied promises in our experience. That's where He takes a principle or precept from the Word but applies it to your unique situation. It's when the Holy Spirit lifts the print off the Bible and says, this is for you. When you and I were in school, the teacher did not take our word for it that we understood what they taught and remembered what they said.

They didn't just believe it because you said, I got it. They gave you a test. The test usually came in two forms. One would be a quiz.

Those would be pop quizzes. Those were small tests along the way, but then there was the big one. There was the midterm and the final. Those were big tests.

And those usually carried the weight of the percentage of your grade because they were just so big. We're going to take you to one of the big tests in Scripture. And through this test, we're going to tell you and me and us how we can have an encounter with God and His promises. In Genesis 22, we have one of the most recorded events in history repeated over and over again in the New Testament, although it happened in the Old Testament, and that is Abraham offering up Isaac. Let me read the first two verses of Genesis 22. Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to Abraham, and said to him, Abraham, he said, here I am. He said, take now your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. Somebody say this is a test.

That's what he said. God tested Abraham. So before I get any further, let me explain something. When God wants to give you an encounter with Him, it will typically involve a test. God did hear you say amen in church. He heard you say praise the Lord. He knows that you are here in the building. He's seen you wave your hand in the air like you just don't care, but He's not banking on that. He's going to give you a test.

You ladies know what it is to have something in the oven cooking for dinner and know that it can look brown on the outside, that turkey, that roast. It can look well done, but what you do, you stick that fork in it because you know externally it can look good and it still be raw inside. God knows on Sunday morning His people can look good, but He got to stick a fork in it to see whether it's well done and ready to go. So your encounter with God and His promises will involve a test. But this is not any kind of test. Tests come in different shapes and sizes. This is a test related to a promise.

I'll explain. This test is unique because it involved a series of contradictions. A contradiction is when God says one thing and appears to be doing another.

It's when He says this over here, but He's doing the exact opposite over here. I don't know if you've had that yet, but when God says something here and the exact opposite is occurring, you say, well, what's the contradiction? Number one, there was a theological contradiction. You see, God had promised way back in Genesis chapter 12 that He was going to make a great nation out of Abraham and it would come through the son of Sarah whose name was Isaac. God had made a promise. But here in Genesis chapter 22, God tells Abraham to kill the promise. Isaac is a teenager.

He's unmarried. But you said through Isaac the promise would come of building a seed that would become a great nation. Well, how can it become a great nation if you're telling me to kill the very promise that you said it would come through? That's a theological contradiction.

That's where you said one thing and you're telling me to do something that's opposite to what you said. Kill what you said should live. Not only is it a theological contribution, it is also a biblical contribution because that's murder.

To offer your son on the altar as a burnt offering means to kill him and that's murder. But isn't it you, God, who said thou shalt not kill? Isn't it you, God, who in Genesis chapter 9 verse 6 said if any man kills another man, he shall by man be killed for man is created in the image of God? Didn't I hear you say that?

Well, if you said that over here, how you asking me to kill him over here? That's a contradiction involved in a test. It's not only a theological contradiction.

It's not only a biblical contradiction. It's an emotional contradiction because he says sacrifice your son, your only son, and then he says whom you love. He loved this boy.

This was the only son through his wife Sarah. He says, and I want you to give him up and I want you to turn him over. This boy is the love of my life and you're asking me to take the love of my life and give him up. My only son, you're asking me to turn over and to even take his life.

That's killing my emotions. And worst of all, it's a spiritual contradiction because he says I want you to offer him as a burnt offering, which is an act of worship. That's worship. In fact, he's going to say I'm going to worship. Worshiping God in a crisis. Everybody feel like going to church when you're blessed. Everybody feel like worshiping God when God is meeting all the needs and He can take care of everything and the bills are paid and the money is flowing and your health is good and life is working. No, then you want to work, but how do you worship when your world is falling apart?

How do you sing songs of praise when problems are killing you? He says I want you to sacrifice your son and worship, even though I'm calling on you to make the biggest decision in your life. Because when God wants to give you an encounter with Him, it will be a test. And the test will often involve something that doesn't make sense. It will often involve where God looks like He didn't know what He was doing. And if you've never seen God confuse you, then you haven't been hanging with Him long enough. Because none of this stuff makes sense. It goes against the very thing you thought about God, which is why, this is an aside, you cannot put God in the box. Because He often appears to be contradicting Himself.

So that's the problem. There's a test full of contradictions. But God has a habit of sorting out those contradictions in some pretty amazing ways, and Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with more about that. First though, I want to tell you about his brand new book. It's called Kingdom Encounters, an intriguing collection of stories of biblical characters who found God at the times they least expected, quite often in the middle of trials and troubles.

You'll discover why sometimes when God feels farthest away, you're right where you need to be to have your life changed. And we'd like to send you a copy as our gift when you make a contribution to help us keep the alternative coming your way each day. Along with it, we'll include all eight full-length messages in Tony's current series, Divine Encounters. You can download the messages immediately while we send you a copy on CD along with Tony's Kingdom Encounters book. This special offer won't be around for long, so visit tonyevans.org today to get the details and make the arrangements. Or reach out to our resource center at 1-800-800-3222, where we have team members standing by day and night to help you.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, Dr. Evans will be back right after this. It was my first time meeting Jesus in the Bible. That's what one student is saying after studying bibliology through the Tony Evans Training Center, taught by renowned theologian Dr. Tony Evans. These online courses feature compelling and exclusive video and audio teaching, plus an interactive scripture-based curriculum you can access online or through the mobile app. Sign up now at tonyevanstraining.org.

Take a course with Dr. Evans and explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. tonyevanstraining.org. What is Abe going to do? Because this is certainly not something he wants to do. Verse 3 says, Abraham rose up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son, and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and he arose and went to the place which God had told him. It says, when he was told to do this thing that he didn't want to do, that didn't make sense, he got up early. Now, I know why he got up early. He got up early because he had to get up before Sarah got up. He would have never been able to get out of that house to sacrifice her boy if she was woke when he did this. So he had to tiptoe out of there. He got up early. Sometimes, men, when you know your wife, she's not going to understand, but you sure as God, you got to get up early. He got up early and he got the two servant young men and he got Isaac. He said, let's go. When God puts you in a contradiction and He calls on you to do something you don't want to do, go ahead and do it and get it over with.

Go ahead and do it and take care of it. Because the longer you delay the obedience, the more often you have to take the same test. God bleeds in retesting. You say, I fail. Okay, go back to school. We're going to take that test over and over.

In fact, some of us have been taking the same test for 50 years. Abraham gets up early. He gets with the young man. He gets with his son.

He says, okay, let's go. Now, what motivated him to do this? What enabled him to do this thing even though it didn't make sense?

It contradicted. It wasn't an emotional thing because it had to do with the love of his son. So something had to be there to help him get over the hump. Something was there because Hebrews 11 verses 17 to 19 says, Abraham offered up Isaac and he considered that God was able to raise him from the dead in order to keep his promise.

Did you hear that? The reason he got up early is because he had such confidence in God that even if it didn't make sense and even if he killed his son, God would get him up out the grave. See you have to have a bigger view of God, particularly when he doesn't make sense.

He said because he believed that God could raise him from the dead. So what does he say to the young men? He says to the young men in verse five, Abraham said to the young men, stay here with the donkey. I and the lad will go over there. We will worship and we will return to you.

Well, wait a minute. God just told you to kill him. Yeah, I'm going to go kill him and we coming back. Hebrews 11 tells you what he was thinking. He considered God was able to raise the dead. So you have to have a view of God when stuff is not making sense that he can come up with something that is out of the norm to reverse the situation. You've got to have that kind of view of God. But why would he have that view? Why would Abraham believe that God could raise the dead?

Well, you have to go back a little history here. See, Abraham was 100 years old when he had Isaac. Sarah was 90 years old when she had Isaac. The Bible says that Sarah was barren all of her life. God had closed her womb and she could not get pregnant. She was biologically unable to conceive. God now comes to Sarah and says to Sarah, you're going to have a baby. The Bible says Sarah laughed.

You got to be kidding. Come on, God. I'm barren.

I can't get pregnant. Abraham's 100 years old, but at 100 years old while she was 90, she conceived. The New Testament says she conceived by faith. So Abraham is figuring if God can bring life out of death.

When I was 100 years old and my wife was 90 years old, he can handle this new situation as well. You have to learn to remember what God did yesterday for the new stuff you're dealing with today. Now that's a problem if you've never had God do anything for you because you don't have anything to remember. So this situation you're in now is your first memory.

Abraham raised up his eyes. Look, verse 13, and behold, there was a ram caught in the thicket. Now this is the quietest ram in history.

If a ram is caught in the thicket, it's trying to wiggle, it's trying to get out the thicket. He does not see the solution until the obedience occurs. See, a lot of us are looking for the ram when we haven't finished the obedience. So God is keeping the ram quiet. The solution was already there, it just wasn't revealed until after God felt him.

So many of us could be delaying seeing the ram because we are delaying fulfilling the obedience. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with a personal example of a past victory as he wraps up this message from his current teaching series, Divine Encounters. Remember, when you help us keep Tony's teaching on the station by making a contribution, we'll send you all eight full-length messages in this set, including material we won't have time to share with you on the radio as our thank you gift, along with his brand new book I mentioned earlier, Divine Encounters.

This special double offer won't last long, so don't wait. Call 1-800-800-3222, where resource team members are waiting to help you. That's 1-800-800-3222. Or drop by our website, tonyevans.org, where you can check out Tony's huge collection of helpful biblical resources. Once again, that's tonyevans.org. Well, tomorrow, more from Dr. Evans on how to not lose heart waiting for God to come through, even when your situation looks more impossible by the minute.

Right now, though, he's back with a personal story to wrap up our time together today. We only had one car back in the early 70s, and it was the kind of car where the neighbors knew when you came home. It's a clunker. It desperately needed a tune-up. I made $350 a month. That's how much I made. So we weren't poor.

We were poor. But we would always give $50 a month to the Lord, and it would be off the top. We'd give the first $50, which is a high percentage on $350. We'd give the first $50 to the Lord.

The tune-up back then cost $50, so you can imagine how tempting that was. God would understand. But I guess I was feeling real spiritual that day. I said, God, I'm going to put you first, and I believe you got my back with this car.

I don't know how you're going to do it, because we don't have any money, but you're first. Couple days later, I'm driving down the road, and smoke is coming up out my hood. And when I pull over to the side, I lift up the hood, and the engine is on fire. I got to call the fire truck out, embarrassed all on the street to put fire out from my engine. So right now, I'm ticked at God, because as far as I'm concerned, I trusted you, and you set my car on fire. Me and God were not in a good place that day.

I put you first, and look, you made stuff worse. I had insurance, but there was a $200 deductible that had not yet been paid, and I didn't have the $200 to pay for the deductible, and you know the deductible has to be paid first. They towed the car in. I went in the next day only to discover they are working on my car.

I'm trying to figure out, how are you working on the car? I didn't have the money to pay you. Oh, he said, oh, the insurance company approved it. We called the insurance company and approved it. I said, but I didn't pay the deductible. To which he said, what deductible? I showed him the paper, $200 deductible. He showed me a sheet of paper. It said, deductible $200 and then the small print, except for fire.

No deductible. So we had church up in that dealership. I'm going to tell you that now. We had a worship service up in there.

Now, it was only $50, but I never forgot the point. The circumstances since then has changed, but God has not. So what God did was He made something worse to answer a prayer. Didn't make sense while it was going on, but that's how God does.

Sometimes He goes loop-de-loop on you in order to fulfill His promises and to demonstrate He's faithful to His Word. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.