What is the church? Condemned...

What is the church?  And what can we liken it to as we continue with Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22?

"And Isaac said to Abraham his father, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went together."

Isaac is a dead man walking.  He just doesn't know it yet.  Maybe being in his teens and no dummy, he begins to suspect, yet he walks on.  Abraham has known for days.  Yet he walks on.  And here's the very simple point i've tried to make before and will try again today, the church is not inherently free from sin or its penalty: death.  

"They are corrupt.
They do abominable deeds.
There is none who does good.
Yahweh looks down from heaven upon the children of humankind
to see whether there is one who has insight,
one who cares about God.
All have gone astray;
they are altogether corrupt.
There is not one who does good;
there is not even one."  Psalm 14

"Because of this, just as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned." Romans 5

There is nothing lovely in these people who have come to be known as the church in and of themselves!  They are sinners.  They are thieves and whores and liars and murderers when they are called, every last one of them.  The church are dead men walking...

but they are also prophetic.  "And Abraham said, “God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” 

What is the church? Taking a walk.

What is the church?  And what can we continue to liken it to in Genesis 18?

"Then Yahweh said, “Shall I conceal from Abraham what I am going to do? Abraham will surely become a great and strong nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed on account of him. For I have chosen him..."

Yahweh God reveals himself to his chosen.  He opens his mind and his heart to his children.  And not just so they can obey with blind faith, but so they can hear and think and respond!  Abraham responds to God's plans and not necessarily in the affirmative!  He pleads for mercy on what he must know to be wicked towns for even he is not sure there are fifty, forty, thirty, or even twenty righteous people there deserving of being spared God's just wrath, but he argues him down to ten.  Of which four are his own flesh and blood.  

And God is pleased to walk with Abraham alone and speak with him like this!  God, who knows what He's going to find in Sodom and Gomorrah and Zeboiim and Admah.  God is not argued into changing His mind.  He is delighting in the compassion He sees in His child!  The maturity.  As any parent who has had one of their first "adult" conversations with their son or daughter does.  It could be about anything, from life itself to their favorite band but it gives us joy to hear not just their opinions but the way they present them, the consideration and budding wisdom in them, the heart behind them being conformed into the heart of our savior, Jesus Christ.

The church are those in whom God delights.
"When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
When I called them, they went from my face.
    They sacrificed to the Baals, and they sacrificed to idols.
And I myself taught Ephraim to walk;
    I took them in my arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.
I drew them with human ties,
    with the bands of love."  Hosea 11