I will not offer a sacrifice that costs me nothing

Let's go to the First Book of Chronicles. Verse 21 of chapter 21, 21:21 beginning, it says here: "And David coming to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and coming out of the threshing floor" the threshing floor is a plot of land, a place where wheat was threshed, where he separated the wheat from the chaff, as when Gideon was also threshing. It was also like a platform where the wheat was separated from the corn and the chaff was separated from the grain itself, that is a threshing floor.

And then, Ornán was there, David approaches him, Ornán sees him and leaves where he is working and prostrates himself on the ground before David, because David is obviously his king, his sovereign. "Then David said to Ornan: Give me this threshing floor to build an altar to Jehovah. Give it to me for its full price." Look how interesting, he says: "Give it to me for its full price" that is, for what it's worth, exactly for what it's worth, no more but no less. "Give it to me for its full price so that the mortality in the town ceases." Wow, I could actually just stop there and preach on that word of David, give it to me for its full price to stop the slaughter in town.

"And Ornán answered David: take it for yourself and my lord the King will do what seems good to him. And I will give the oxen for the holocaust, and the threshes for firewood and wheat for the offering. I give it all." Look at David's response, David was a man who loved the Lord intimately, deeply and who had no limits when God wanted something from him. "Then King David said to Ornan: no, thank you, but I will indeed buy it for its fair price. Because I will not take for Jehovah what is yours" and these immortal words "nor will I sacrifice a holocaust that costs me nothing."

"And David gave Ornan for that place the weight of 600 cycles of gold" a considerable amount of money, "and David built there an altar to Jehovah on which he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings and called upon Jehovah who answered him by fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering. Then the LORD spoke to the angel, and he returned his sword to its scabbard." May the Lord bless his Holy Word.

I like this passage because it reflects a value, an important value of the Christian life that is very applicable to the time that we are currently living as a congregation, and something that God is saying to each of us individually, right? It is this idea that in order for some great spiritual process that God has in his heart to take place so that that result can be produced, that spiritual effect that God wants to bring to a nation, to a community, to a life, there has to be some investment, there has to be some sacrifice that costs. And many times there has to be a purchase, a sale of something on the material plane. That is, for sublime, eternal, spiritual things to occur on the abstract plane, generally an equivalent in some way on the material, physical, human, earthly plane. The two things are.

That is why the Lord Jesus Christ says in one of his promises, he says that: What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, what you unleash on earth will be unleashed in heaven. There is an equivalence in the universe between the world of spirit and the world of matter. God does not deny the things of matter, God recognizes the things of matter. God recognizes history, God recognizes politics, God recognizes culture, God recognizes the economy, God recognizes the anthropology of races. And He works sovereignly, supernaturally, spiritually through that matter.

That is why we Christians always have to reproduce that partnership, that intimate association between matter, time and space, and spirit and eternity. We have to tie the two things together so that the results that God wants them to occur occur. There are Christians who are so spiritual that we want to spiritualize everything. Oh Lord we love you, my life is yours, oh Father make a sacrifice, a holocaust of my life. But when they call him brother, he contributes something to the financial campaign, oh no I can't there because I don't have enough money, because I have to think about this, I have to think about that.

So we spiritualize things too much. And sometimes we believe that well, if I am spiritual enough, holy, and pray, and I move in the spiritual world, like God is going to do all things. But many times God wants you to use your efforts, your mind, your culture, your intellect to carry out the works of God through you in your life. God works in the material through the spiritual, or works in the spiritual through the material, however you want to see it, the two things go together, they go together.

That's why it's like God gave me that image, here of this Bible with this device. This is hard, it is glass, it is technology, metal, chemical things, and this Bible, which is paper, and is Word, and is something eminently spiritual, but the two things are united, they have to be united for the miracle of evangelism to take place. in the 21st century, growing congregations, transformed youth, transformed lives. In fact, that is going to be my text, I am going to be preaching in Slovakia of all countries.

How many have heard of Slovakia? Perhaps someone has heard of Czechoslovakia, which was a united nation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, those separated, I think it was in 1992, I was reading a bit of history. And I am going to be with Dr. Elvin Villafañe, and I am going to be preaching precisely because there is a curiosity there or a desire to learn more about the movement of the Holy Spirit.

And one of the things that I want to talk about precisely from my pastoral perspective, Elvin is going to talk about his rather academic theological perspective, but I want to talk about how, in my opinion, I have been in several countries in Europe . I believe that for the Gospel to grow in Europe as it is needed in such culturally developed nations, congregations are required that have two things: on the one hand, they are filled with the Holy Spirit, and they know how to move in power and mystery. , and in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but who are also culturally agile and well-informed.

I think, sometimes I see many fundamentalist evangelical churches in Europe, or Pentecostal churches in Europe, that are too gloomy, too serious, too fundamental in their Gospel, too square. And they believe that if they are like that God, by being faithful, is going to make his Church grow and they are not growing, they are declining more and more every day despite having sound doctrinal foundations. And I think that what is missing is the other part of recognizing the culture without violating faith, also recognizing the culture, the needs of those nations, the importance of the intellect and reason, and finding a way to preach a biblical Gospel of the 1st century but in a 21st century way, do you understand me? The two things together.

Because one cannot ignore the needs of the people, the sensitivity of the man of the 21st century, technology, sexuality, questioning and so many other things that the modern Church has to be both modern and ancient at the same time. So it may seem like I'm getting off topic, but no, I'm on topic. What I want to tell you is that one always has to, for God's processes to take place in the world, one always has to unite matter with spirit. And God requires Christians with their heads in eternity and their feet in time and space, well planted in the now and here, feet on the ground, heads, in heaven, amen. That, and hearts after God's own heart, both have to be.

So, for God to be able to do things that He wants to do through the Lion of Judah congregation, an eminently spiritual Church will be required, consecrated to the Lord, holy, a Church of people radically committed to the Kingdom of God, but also a Church of people people who study, people who commit, people who serve, people who attend church, people who invite people to church. That is to say, to God praying and with the mallet giving as the Bible says. It doesn't say it, like the Bible says to God praying and giving the mallet, but it's a good beginning, anyway, you know? It expresses a biblical truth.

As it says in English, praise God and pass the ammunition, worship the Lord and pass the bullets, both are important, right? (laughs). So you have to love God, you have to adore him, you have to give yourself to Him but you also have to give to the Lord. And it seems to me that this passage here expresses that truth. Do you know what the background of what we just read is? Poor David had the idea of sending a census of his people, a census of his people. And his general Joab and his captains tell him not to do that King, because that will be deeply offensive to the Lord.

No one knows exactly, we don't know exactly why that thing about ordering a census, to take a census of the town, to find out how many people there were, how many men, because what it names are the military, the men who could use swords, the men who could use weapons. So it seems that in David's heart there was a kind of arrogance of wanting to know how many people he really had who were soldiers, who were warriors, who could use a sword. There seems to be an element of pride in this, and God wanted his people to be kind of dependent on him.

And from what I theorize, no one can ever be completely sure why this census was deeply offensive to the Lord, but it seems that when David wanted to number how many warriors he had, he fell into a kind of spiritual arrogance. And this offended the Lord, more than his own general and his main men, officers warned him not to do it, this will be a sin for you and God will be offended when you do this. But David stubbornly decided to order this census to be taken anyway, he sent his soldiers throughout the land, they came back about nine months later, and they came back with a number. There were about a million sword pickers in Israel and about 500,000 in Judah who were two segments of the Jewish nation.

Well, the census thing happened, but what happens? God was definitely offended and sent the prophet Gad who was David's official seer to give him a message. It was the second time the Bible says that it is going to say something to David after sinning, remember the other one? It was with Nathan when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and also sent a prophet to warn him: you have sinned. Again, this is actually before. And they go and notify David: God is angry with you and gives you three options. He did the Lord David a disservice by giving him three options because all three were equally terrible.

The first was three days of pestilence on the earth, a plague, a terrible disease that ran, spread throughout the earth for three days and those who died died. Or three years of fleeing before his enemies, three years of continuous defeat. And the third era, now I don't remember, it escaped me at the moment, does anyone remember?, of the sword of Jehovah, yes exactly. Ok, so there were three equally terrible, equally destructive options, and David says: you know what? I'd better entrust myself to the hands of the Lord, because God is merciful, I don't want to fall into the hands of my enemies. And he decides well, let the pestilence come on the earth.

And God does so and in three days, the Bible says that the angel of Jehovah, a mysterious character from the Bible, who was like an emanation almost from God himself, or a very powerful angel, very principal of all the heavenly army, spreads throughout the land for three days killing people. Of course, on the physical level it manifested as disease, but behind it in the spiritual world there was an angel with an outstretched sword traversing the earth, and blinding lives, and cutting lives wherever he wanted. It's interesting, isn't it? That happens many times in the world. One sees the material part, one sees the biological part, for example our societies right now.

One sees for example, yesterday there was a tornado in New York, which seems to have even lifted up and destroyed cars in New York of all places. I could see that in Alabama or Oklahoma where these storm demons are but, New York, there are other demons but not necessarily those, there are other demons, some pretty big ones in fact. But from storms like this, all of that, one sees hurricanes, one sees tsunamis, one sees cataclysms on the earth, war, rumors of war, one sees societies in unrest, nations are restless, there is terrorism, uprisings and revolutions everywhere. There are questions about the relationship between men and women, sexuality, there is crime, there is a collapse of the family in many of our cities, there is a scattered, disoriented youth, there is separation in the world everywhere, conflict.

We are in a time when externally, on the plane of time and space, of history, of the sociology of man, we see precisely a terrible amount of mortality. War, thousands of people dying continuously, drug addictions, neuroses, madness everywhere, all of this is level, it's a plague, it's a plague, it's a pestilence that comes precisely from sin, from a God who is angry with his creation , with his people, with his creatures, because they have forgotten him, they have offended him, they have denied him, they have humiliated him in the sense that they have not recognized his Glory, and God as it happens has always sent his judgments.

What's more, I believe that nature simply rebels. When man persists in sinning against God, sometimes it is not even God who is sending the punishment, it is nature, because nature feels. The Bible says that nature feels, nature groans for the day of its creation, there are brother mysteries. Animals understand many things. I believe that the trees and the very chemistry of the universe understand things. The planets of the universe move and are moved when there is sin on Earth, when creation is separated from God who is the One who sustains it and gives it coherence, keeps it in order.

When God separates, disorder comes, conflict comes, incoherence and chaos come. It manifests itself at the level of nature. When a nation has injustice and immorality and things like that, the land itself is cursed. The Bible talks about that, doesn't it?, that the earth is cursed, cursed when there is sin in the nation. So in the natural plane people were dying, there was a plague, and I imagine that if it had been in the 21st century there would be doctors everywhere testing people, what is the virus from which they died, and trying to cure, a vaccine for the plague, whatever. But on the spiritual plane there was an angel of death, as happened with the firstborn of Egypt, with his outstretched sword going through the houses and blinding lives under the judgment of God.

And there comes a time when David, his heart cries out, there is a moving moment there in this passage in chapter 21, read it from his own time, where David says: "Lord, have mercy" seeing his people die that way. way, "it was I who sinned, turn Your sword against me, against my house, do not punish people for the sin that I committed." The fact is that David said: you know that, originally when you had to choose between those punishments, he said I am going to entrust myself to the Lord because at least God's mercies are great, and perhaps He will have mercy. The Word says that it was the same: God had mercy and ordered the angel to stop and stop killing people.

And the angel, do you know where he stopped? He stopped at the hera of Ornán. All of this is happening at the spiritual level. Perhaps not everyone could see this, what they were seeing was perhaps the plague, the pestilence at the biological-physical level. But this angel at the level, imagine, it's like there are things at the spiritual level, it's as if you had an X-ray and at the moment you can see another dimension. As happened with Elisha and the Syrians, when his servant was filled with panic and fear, Elisha said to him: Lord, open his eyes so that he can see, and he saw a powerful army to protect them from this enemy army that was coming to kill them. and to capture them.

There are many things happening at the spiritual level right here, there are parallel things right now, there are parallel worlds of the spirit that are going on right now as I speak here. Who knows how many angels are walking around this place right now, amen? Glory to the name of the Lord, and a couple of rebellious demons out there too that need to be cast out in Jesus name as well. Because the spiritual world is very mysterious, brothers, very mysterious. I live in that mysterious world and you must live in it too.

The fact is that God orders his angel to stop the sword and the angel stops in this place that is the hera of Ornán, in another passage it is called Ornán Arauna, it is the same character with two different languages. He stops there and Ornán sees him, Ornán sees the angel who still has his sword outstretched. David sees it, and knows, and God commands him to tell David through his prophet to sacrifice some oxen there on that place, as a peace offering, a reconciliation offering, an offering of confession of sin and acknowledgment that the Justice and Holiness of God has been violated so that the wrath of the Lord may be appeased.

Look again at this idea that for something to happen in the spiritual world there has to be something equivalent in the material world. In order for God's ultimate forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, and God's heart to be applied, He requires that a sacrifice be offered. Then David alerted about the need to make a sacrifice is coming, he goes to the owner of the hera. Because brothers everything in life has its laws, David had to respect the laws, he was not going to steal his land from this man simply because God.

Note that this is important, we have had to deal with many things here. We have to buy the materials. We don't go to a store and say, you know, the Lord says that like the disciples, right? The donkey needs it. If I go like this they say hey, who is the Lord? Here the gentleman is the owner of the store. So you have to pay the price, you have to buy materials, you have to pay a price, you have to deal with different city agencies, you have to get permits, you have to use natural processes and David goes to Arauna Ornán and says "sell me your property "because it is necessary that this property be used here to give a sacrifice. And David already saw other things as well that we are going to see later.

So things have to be done in order brothers. We have to pay a price for this construction, and that is why we need to do things. God does not mysteriously choose to rain money from the heavens, you have to use a process. And you are the key to that process, to the natural plane. And David tells Ornán: sell it to me for its fair price, I don't want you to give me favoritism or anything because this is something that requires total integrity. What we want to do is something great and requires that we do things legitimately.

Arauna or Ornán who knows what is happening, he sees the angel and all this, he knows that this is going to be the key to stop the mortality in the middle of the town, and he says: no sir, in no way; take the land, what's more, I'm going to offer you my oxen with which I'm threshing and I'm going to offer you the firewood, the wood with which I guide them and the yoke of the oxen, all that was made of wood, take it and with that make the firewood for the sacrifice, and I give it all to you. But David insists, no, because I have to get this, there has to be legitimacy. Certain things have to be fulfilled brothers.

I believe that there may come a day when the Lord will send incredible amounts of money to this congregation. You know that we have had many prophecies that God is going to send. And let me tell you something, several years ago, several years ago people prophesied that the Lion of Judah was going to receive a million dollars, that this and that, and that he would go, and I would listen and amen, glory to God, Well Father, if you want to do it, I'm here, of course. I even bought a big ball glove just in case (laughs).

But there was a little bit of skepticism, we are talking about fifteen years when we started in this place. You know that brother, the federal government recently gave us three million dollars for the purposes of the Kingdom, to work with vale esperal, which Delmi announced. And we have received hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years in different ways and this congregation has processed millions of dollars, you will have given almost two million dollars when this process is over, and you will still have many millions more to give in the future just like that. Get ready (laughs).

Okay?. But they will come, which means that I have gotten used to talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, our budget is a million and a half dollars, but that's how money goes, comes and goes, so have Be careful, oh, a million and a half, so I don't have to give anything, all of that is compromised from the moment it comes in right away because of all the expenses and the things we have, all the investments we've made.

The case I want to tell you brothers, that I believe that one day God will bring even greater amounts of money. I'm always getting prophecies about that. But, I think that first, it's like you have to comply with the Justice of God. And before the great prosperity comes, I believe, a precedent has to be established that we have given generously with faith, sacrificially to the Lord. I believe that before the great prosperity comes there has to be something like, there has to be a time to live in faith, move in faith, give to the Lord. Because it is very easy when you have a lot of money to give a lot, but how important it is to give to the Lord when it hurts, when there is not that abundance, to give to the Lord legitimately.

And so God has always spoken of my life. God says: Roberto, I want you to do things at the basic level, at the level of wisdom, justice, knowledge, institutionalization, integrity, and then the supernatural will come in large numbers. Because sometimes we want the sports car before learning to use the bicycle, right? And God wants us to learn to use the principles of the Word of God, humbly, simply, and then He will unleash supernatural power, because God's Justice has already been fulfilled.

It is that God is very orderly brothers. When He is legitimately moving in a town, or in a person, He does things according to the patterns of His Word. And I see that always. Then David said: no, this is something wonderful, important, it has to be done in accordance with integrity, with the laws of justice. I'm going to buy you, I'm not going to receive you, thank you for offering it, but I'm going to give you the price it deserves. And first of all, I am not going to give the Lord a sacrifice that is easy for me, a sacrifice that does not cost me anything. If I am going to give a sacrifice to the Lord, it has to be an expression of my love, my surrender, my tears, my sweat, my struggle.

And that is what we, I think we have to understand. God is not going to give us that building. He is glorified when we give him a sacrifice that costs us and that reflects true love, the integrity of a people that believes in the Lord and gives to the Lord, and I want you to be part of those tremendous processes. So when that moment comes, when David pays his price, buys the materials, then the slaughter ceases.

And I end with this, a couple of things here that I want to settle on you. Number one: that place that was mysteriously designated by God, that place that later after the sacrifice becomes the place of the tabernacle that was still in Israel, that was used in the desert, and then it is the place where the Solomonic temple is built . That place, you know what, where the ruins in Jerusalem are now, where the golden mosque is where it is the place of the sanctuary, of the Solomonic temple, where the wall is there, the wailing wall, that is the place where gave this drama

And that history asserts, there are lots of geological and archaeological documents that clearly. That humble place where an angel of death stopped his sword and a king sacrificed some oxen bought from the Lord with his money to stop the mortality acquired a magical, mystical, mysterious, sublime, spiritual value, then it serves as the place for the mortality ceases and so that the love of God can manifest itself again in the midst of his people.

So I see a parallel there. You know that what I am going to say is nothing new to me, I am not forcing things. This place where you are sitting right now, this land is a holy place to the Lord, it is a place chosen by God. That place where that sanctuary is is a place chosen by God. That place has been reserved from eternity so that a number of crazy Latinos and from other countries would worship the Lord crazy with love for Him, and they would adore Him in strange and spiritual ways. This is a magical place here.

You remember when God gave me that vision of the Lion of Judah, that dream of the Lion of Judah over this city exercising dominion and authority over those demonic hosts that were over the buildings of the city, I woke up that morning with this thing that God had given me a vision of the Lion of the tribe of Judah and that our Church that was in Cambridge had to move to Boston. Long story short, before we got this place, I told the Church that I felt that God was calling us to change the name of our Church to León de Judá Congregation, instead of Central Baptist Church, León de Judá Congregation and come to town.

And you remember when we found this building, I didn't even realize it, there was a lion there and it's still there roaring at the front door, a sign that God has a purpose for this place. And I have had dreams and other things that clearly reveal to me that this place here is a magnetized place, to use a magic word, it is a spiritually magnetic place, here this place where we are, and many things in this city affirm. This place is a spiritually charged area here, and God has a purpose for this place.

If we could take an X-ray in the spirit world we would see many things about this place. God has chosen this site for sublime and eternal purposes that He has. So like David, we are also here in this place, and God wants things to be bought, things to be built, things to be done so that the mortality of the city ceases. In the city there are people who are perishing for lack of the Gospel. People are going to hell for lack of the Word of God. Families are falling apart, young people are going into total corruption with no destiny, no purpose in life. There is death in the city, there is decay, and a sacrifice is required, a place that can allow death to cease and the Grace of God to come again to the city.

I believe that God wants to use us. I don't mean he's going to use only us. There are other very good churches, beautiful ministries in this city that are doing many things for the Kingdom of God. But I am concerned about what God wants to do with us, the others glory to God, God bless them, we work with them, we do wonderful things, but God wants to use this town and He wants to use that sanctuary for His Glory, so that the mortality, so that sacrifices may be offered to the Lord, sacrifices of peace, sacrifices of healing, sacrifices of life. And men like David and Ornan are required to say give me the privilege of building that sacrifice to the Lord and raising that structure to the Lord.

Then David gave his son Solomon all the materials that he had reserved for years and had been storing for the construction of the sanctuary in that place. That place was sanctified by the Lord, and for centuries and centuries it served for the King of kings, Lord of lords, to be worshiped there and there is still a remnant there, there are some ruins that remind us that one day that place was still there, the temple of God has to be rebuilt there in Jerusalem, there where the ruins are, where the Muslims, the Islamic ones do not want, there the temple of the Lord will be built again.

Meanwhile here I believe there is an equivalence. This temple here is a statement that God is still moving in this region. And there are things that have to be done and we have to pay the price. The mission is great brothers, the price has to be great. Let us not offer the Lord sacrifices that cost us nothing. Get a blessing of generosity towards God, because what God wants to do is transformative and powerful.

God bless you. Lower your head for a moment now. We are going to give our lives to the Lord, we are going to commit ourselves to God. There is nothing too great that you can give to the Lord my brother, my sister. There is nothing too excessive that you can give to the Lord because God's purposes deserve the best of us. So if you have not yet made your promise, you have not conceived a surrender in your heart, a significant offering to the Lord, do it now. As if you were David, God is telling you, raise an altar for me so that I can make mortality cease, so that there is a place where my Word is proclaimed and many can come to know my Son Jesus Christ. And we are going to make this possible my brothers.

I am not very good at financial campaigns and asking, but I depend on a people that is tender to the Word of God, and that allows itself to be impacted, influenced by the truths of the Gospel, of the Word of the Lord, and I do not believe that I am asking for nothing illegitimate, excessive, if not for something that God wants that I am sure is in His heart.

Father: we love you, thank you for the privilege of moving in those sublime areas of Your Word. We want Your Glory Lord to spread in this place. We want Your purposes to be fulfilled, Lord, and that what You want from us does not remain in us, but rather that we give You everything that You demand of our lives. I bless this people, Father, raise up a people that lives up to the full, holy, powerful, sublime, majestic God that we serve, and make this Church an exemplary church. Father, in this time of history, may there be a community that reflects the values of Your Kingdom Lord.

Have mercy on us and work in our lives so that we can honor you by being what you want us to be Lord. We adore you, we bless you, we thank you in the name of Jesus we pray, and the people of God say: amen and amen. God bless you my brothers.