Safety Net Obedience Test
Safety Net Obedience Test
From my book, Kingdom Lessons One, available at Amazon.com:
This is one of my favorite teachings. I shared it at several fellowships between 2001 and 2008. I looked high and low for it while preparing my manuscript. I finally found it on an old disassembled e-machines computer. To my surprise, I found that it was one of my teachings where I just read the scriptures and then let the Holy Spirit give me the words. What that means is that I will have to write this section from scratch. I can’t just pull it off my computer or type it in, even after locating a hard copy!
Gen 22: 1 -12
(Gen 22:1) And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
(Gen 22:2) 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 for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
(Gen 22:3) And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
(Gen 22:4) Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.
(Gen 22:5) 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 to you.
(Gen 22:6) And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.
(Gen 22:7) 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 is the lamb for a burnt offering?
(Gen 22:8) And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
(Gen 22:9) And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
(Gen 22:10) And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
(Gen 22:11) And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
(Gen 22:12) And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
This was a serious test. God never asked such a test again in the scripture, except for when He sent His only begotten son Jesus Christ to the crucifixion. And Jesus, unlike Abraham, had to go through with the test. Jesus’ safety net, of course, was that He was resurrected in three days! If you hear someone today say God is telling him or her to sacrifice their child you can pretty much figure, they are certifiably deceived, and mentally ill. Keep in mind that the Lord may call for martyrs. Unless you consider heaven the safety net, when a martyr dies for Christ, there isn’t a safety net. There have been historical accounts of martyrs for Christ dying, but that the Lord deadened their pain enough so that they could preach or sing praises.
I guess things were different back in the day of Abraham! That said, you can see that Abraham proved what God already knew. Abraham was tested, but before he could follow through, the Lord sent His angel not only to stop Abraham, but provided a ram in the thicket for a sacrifice.
Abraham experienced what I call a safety net obedience test. Have you ever seen circus tight-rope walkers? They have a safety net below them that catches them if they fall. Abraham’s safety net was an angel.
Even though today God does not ask to sacrifice our children, He may still ask us to make sacrifices. While we may have to go through with certain sacrifices, whether we have to do something or stop doing something, there are cases where the Lord will give us a safety net obedience test. While there are invisible angels all around, they may be part of the safety net, but the Lord may also use events, people or any number of props.
Can you think of any events in your life where the Lord asked you to do something for Him, that you really didn’t want to do, and when you tried to do it, events actually came about where the Lord closed the door?
I have had many such safety net obedience tests. Here is the one I will share. I was once asked by a fellowship group to take in a young man with emotional problems. I felt the Lord was asking me to make the sacrifice. When I had a social worker come to my apartment, I found that the apartment did not qualify. Relatives of the man decided to offer me a rent free apartment in a different town if I took care of him. That didn’t come through. I also found out later, that merely being accused of a certain infraction, even though I was never charged with any violation, made it improbable that I would ever be allowed to do such work, anyway.
So the door closed, with quite the banging slam for me, as far as doing home health care in three different ways. Later I found that the young man, who was supposedly a well-behaved Christian young man, but just a bit mentally deficient, was very stubborn, and had anger issues. He has since spent a great deal of time in and out of court, in and out of jail and in and out of work. This is one example of a safety net obedience test. I thank the Lord for His protection.
Hebrews 12: 5 – 9
Heb 12: (Heb 12:5) And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
(Heb 12:6) For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
(Heb 12:7) If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
(Heb 12:8) But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
(Heb 12:9) Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
God may also use circumstances around us for our discipline. We may in fact be reaping the consequences of our misbehavior. Conversely, we may have done nothing wrong, but we may be going through spiritual “weight training.” By continuing on in the midst of challenging struggles we may gain the victory while achieving faith and growing in maturity. Later because of our experience we may be able to help others cope with the skirmishes they may be having in their own lives. God may even use persecution to strengthen us.
Persecution is never easy. We can all list a variety of minor persecution. Persecution may be as serious as to take away our vocation, our freedom or even our life. If we are really serving Jesus it is just the nature of things that we may be persecuted for our stance. As we endure that persecution it may even help us grow spiritually.
I would like to note here that many people have a very broad definition of persecution. My definition of persecution is narrower. If you are being “persecuted” because you have an abrasive personality, a religious obsession, or because you are trying to control people, I have news for you! You are not being persecuted; you are merely reaping the whirl wind as others react to your controlling personality, obsessive religious views, or abrasive nature.
Have a great day or great evening,
Wayne O’Conner