Using Scripture from Genesis 22: 1-14 and Matthew 10: 24-39, this was first given at the Lynnville (IL) church on June 26, 2005. I did some very minor updates to record it here…

       During my years of attending and teaching at Wesley Chapel, outside of Jacksonville, IL, the choir would rehearse special songs to perform during the Sunday morning service. During the summer they would take a break, and various people will get up during that time each Sunday and perform something special, and for some years I would always commit to taking care of one of those summer Sundays. Once, my son, Ted, playing his viola, and the choir pianist accompanied me in an arrangement I had written of an old song I had learned as a child in my church. Twice I directed three others and myself in singing some very tight harmony… one song was, again from my old hymnal, and one was an original piece that I had written for the occasion. Two other times I sang two other original songs, each time accompanied by my computer. But the last time I was able to be there, I read a piece that had come to me over the internet… and I must say, it moved the room to tears! If I may, I’d like to recreate that moment this morning as a prelude to and part of this morning’s message…

The day is over, you are driving home. You tune in your radio. You hear a little blurb about a little village in India where some villagers have died suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before. It’s not influenza, but three or four fellows are dead, and it’s kind of interesting, and they’re sending some doctors over there to investigate it.

You don’t think much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from church, you hear another radio spot. Only they say it’s not three villagers, it is 30,000 villagers in the back hills of this particular area of India, and it’s on TV that night. CNN runs a little blurb; people are heading there from the disease center in Atlanta because this disease strain has never been seen before.

By Monday morning when you get up, it’s the lead story. For it’s not just India; it’s Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and before you know it, you’re hearing this story everywhere and they have coined it now as “the mystery flu.” The President has made some comment that he and everyone are praying and hoping that all will go well over there. But everyone is wondering, “How are we going to contain it?” That’s when the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders. No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the countries where this thing has been seen.

And that’s why that night you are watching a little bit of CNN before going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest when a weeping woman is translated from a French news program into English: “There’s a man lying in a hospital in Paris dying of the mystery flu.” It has come to Europe. Panic strikes. As best they can tell, once you get it, you have it for a week and you don’t know it. Then you have four days of unbelievable symptoms. And then you die.

Britain closes its borders, but it’s too late. South Hampton, Liverpool, North Hampton, and it’s Tuesday morning when the President of the United States makes the following announcement: “Due to a national security risk, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been canceled. If your loved ones are overseas, I’m sorry. They cannot come back until we find a cure for this thing.”

Within four days our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear. People are selling little masks for your face. People are talking about what if it comes to this country, and preachers on Tuesday are saying, “It’s the scourge of God.”

It’s Wednesday night and you are at a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the parking lot and says, “Turn on a radio, turn on a radio.” And while the church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone stuck up to it, the announcement is made. “Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from the mystery flu.” Within hours it seems, this thing just sweeps across the country. People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working. California. Oregon. Arizona. Florida. Massachusetts.

It’s as though it’s just sweeping in from the borders. And then, all of a sudden the news comes out. The code has been broken. A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made. It’s going to take the blood of somebody who hasn’t been infected, and so, all through the Midwest, through all those channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing: “Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood type taken. That’s all we ask of you… when you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.”

When you and your family get down there late on that Friday night, there is a long line, and they’ve got nurses and doctors coming out and pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it. Your wife and your kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they say, “Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be dismissed and go home.”

You stand around with your neighbors… scared… wondering what in the world is going on… is this is the end of the world? Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He’s yelling a name and waving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And your son tugs on your jacket and says, “Daddy, that’s me.” Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. “Wait a minute, hold it!” And they say, “It’s okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure. We want to make sure he doesn’t have the disease. We think he has got the right type.”

Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another … some are even laughing. It’s the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor walks up to you and says, “Thank you, sir. Your son’s blood type is perfect. It’s clean, it is pure, and we can make the vaccine.” As the word begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying.

But then the gray-haired doctor pulls you and you wife aside and says, “May we see you for a moment? We didn’t realize that the donor would be a minor and we need … we need you to sign a consent form.”

You begin to sign and then you see that the number of pints of blood to be taken is empty. “H-h-h-how many pints?”

And that is when the old doctor’s smile fades and he says, “We had no idea it would be a little child. We weren’t prepared. We need it all!”

But—but…

“You don’t understand. We are talking about the world here. Please sign. We … we need it all … we need it all!”

“But can’t you give him a transfusion?”

“If we had clean blood we would. Can you sign?”

Would you sign?

Our story from Genesis tells how Abraham feared and obeyed God, even to the point of sacrificing his only son! We read how… “When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham knew that, regardless of what his own thoughts and desires might be, God’s wishes had to take first place! There is a song performed by the ‘Gaither Vocal Band’ called ‘Second Fiddle’. I can’t play it here due to copyright ‘stuff’, but I would encourage you to look-it-up on YouTube and listen…

( https://youtu.be/CMpHxDYi49c )

Let me read the chorus to you… “It’s not a bill that’s up to be voted on, it became a law when He wrote it in stone. Number one on the list of His big ten, He came to earth and said it again. It’s been the same way since the beginning of time, don’t be fooled into thinking that it’s not a crime. He made it plain and clear, it’s not a rhyme or a riddle.

God don’t play Second Fiddle.”

You remember, don’t you, what the song means when it says, “it became a law when He wrote it in stone’? Let me read the very first of the Ten Commandments to you…

1. “Do not worship any other gods besides me.

… and the second one expands on that…

• “Do not make idols of any kind, whether in the shape of birds or animals or fish. You must never worship or bow down to them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not share your affection with any other god!

God demands that He takes first place in our lives! He will not play second fiddle to our jobs… our bank accounts… our friends… or any of the countless other things that we sometimes see as being so important to us… a round of golf or ball game… our special TV show… that new car or dress we want…and yes, even our family!

In the verses that I read from Matthew Jesus tells us that… “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

So, how does all of this figure in to the story I started reading this morning? Well, let me finish it and maybe we’ll see. The doctors had just asked you to sign the release form, knowing that doing so means sacrificing your son’s life… do you do it?

“In numb silence you do. Then they say, “Would you like to have a moment with him before we begin?”

Can you walk back? Can you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying, “Daddy? Mommy? What’s going on?” Can you take his hands and say, “Son, your mommy and I love you, and we would never ever let anything happen to you that didn’t just have to be. Do you understand that?” And when that old doctor comes back in and says, “I’m sorry, we’ve … we’ve got to get started, just know that people all over the world are dying.”

Can you leave? Can you walk out while he is saying, “Dad? Mom? Dad? Why are you leaving me? Why… why are you forsaking me?”

Where have we heard that before?

The next week, there is a ceremony to honor your son. Some people sleep through it. Some people don’t come because they go to the lake. And some folks come with a pretentious smile and just pretend to care. Would you want to jump up and say, “MY SON DIED FOR YOU! DON’T YOU CARE?”

Do you think maybe that’s what God wants to say sometimes? “MY SON DIED FOR YOU. DON’T YOU CARE?” Or do you think He might be saying instead… “DON’T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I CARE?”