<TITLE>08. Par 35-39</TITLE>L-35 Abraham, when he was on top of the mountain with his only child, little Isaac... He'd waited for twenty-five years to get the child. And then, when the child was about fourteen years old, God told him... What was He doing this for now? To confirm that God keeps His Word. No matter how unreasonable it seems, He still can perform and make a paradox.
He said, "Take this little fourteen year old boy of yours, take him up on the mountain, and offer him up for a sacrifice." And he took him up to the mountain.
And now, if that--him being then about a hundred and fifteen years old... Waited twenty-five years on the boy, and here the boy... And he was going to destroy the only evidence he has of seeing this promise of God, to be father of nations, ever taking place, and then he's asked to destroy that. That's the reason he called the place, "Jehovah-jireh." For when he was just about ready to fall in line with complete obedience to God, the Holy Spirit caught his hand, and a ram bleated behind him, hooked by its horns in the wilderness. What was it? A paradox.

L-36 Look. He was three day's journey from his home, back among the wild beasts, and besides that, on top of the mountain where there couldn't have been a sheep. And he wouldn't have been up there where there's no water. Where did that ram come from? It wasn't a vision. He killed the ram; blood run out of it. It was God, the Creator. Because he stayed in the line of duty to God's Word, there come a paradox, and he killed the ram... died in his son's place. A paradox.

L-37 It certainly was a paradox in Sodom, a little before then, when Sarah laughed at the voice of a Man in human flesh out there, which was God. And He had His back turned to the tent, the Angel did. And He spoke to Abraham, and called him his name, "Abraham" called Sarah, "Sarah," when he'd just received that name a few days before, and said, "Abraham, I'm going to visit you according to the time of life." And Sarah, in the tent, laughed. And the Angel with His back turned to the tent... Not--not one of these, just like a theophany. He was a Man with His back turned to the tent, said, "Why did Sarah laugh in the tent, saying, 'This cannot be so.'?" It was a paradox.

L-38 One time when Israel's armies was standing in defeat... And there was great soldiers there, mighty men, Joab, Saul (head and shoulders above every man he had in the army), all armored with great armors and swords, trained men from boys to fight. But because they seen the opposition so great, they was afraid to meet the challenge of the boasting Goliath of the Philistines, afraid to meet it.
But there come a little stoop-shouldered, ruddy-looking fellow. His mama had baked some raisin pies, and he brought them up to give them to his brothers. And while he was a milling around, hunting his brothers in the camp, this Philistine walked out and made his boast, said, "Choose you a man, and come over here and fight me. If... We won't have any bloodshed between the nations." 'Course that's the way the enemy likes to brag, when he thinks he's got the edge on you. Said, "Bring him over here, and then we'll choose. And we'll fight, and then, if I kill him you serve us; if he kills me we'll serve you."

L-39 And you know what? He said it at the wrong time. There was a little old stooped boy in there, ruddy, the Bible said, that had knowed what God meant. He'd seen God in action. He knowed that the God of Israel was a God of eternity. He knowed that God had delivered him out of the paws of a lion, out of the paws of a bear, with a slingshot.
And he said to his brethren, "Do you mean to tell me that you Israelites of the armies of the living God will stand here, and let that boasting Philistine say the days of miracles is past? Do you mean to tell me that you'll let him get by with that, when God's promise is behind us? Hallelujah. God's promise is back of us. Do you mean to tell me you'll let him boast, and say...?"


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