KILLING ISAAC

 KILLING ISAAC

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Years ago, two of America’s great poets, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, wrote a hit song: “This is Where Dreams Come to Die”. Many of you may feel this song was written for you and about you. 

All of us have things we want God to do in our lives. But often we see those things die. These things are Isaacs to us. Isaac was the son of promise given to Abraham and Sarah. An “Isaac” is a promise God gives. Often, we will see that promise die and we wonder if it will ever happen. At that moment we have the opportunity to release it to God and trust Him for its fulfillment. 

TEXT Galatians 4:28 (NKJV) Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise.

In the book of Genesis is the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac on Mount Moriah, the future site of Solomon’s Temple.

Let’s read it together… 

Genesis 22:1–14 (NKJV) Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 

He responded immediately. This demonstrates self-control: instant obedience to the initial promptings of the Holy Spirit. 

² Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

Now this is a test. God is asking Abraham to give Him not only his son, but his promise, his future, his blessing. Warren Wiersbe writes, “Our faith is not really tested until God asks us to bear what seems unbearable, do what seems unreasonable, and expect what seems impossible.”

Offer him as a burnt offering. A burnt offering was not only killed, it was totally consumed.

Hebrews 12:29 (NKJV) For our God is a consuming fire.

Only ashes remained. Yet God is able to give something beautiful in the midst of the ash heap. 

Psalm 113:7 (NKJV): He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap,

Isaiah 61:3 (NKJV) To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

³ So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴ Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. ⁵ And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”

God asks for the Isaacs in our life to be offered up completely as an act of worship.

Romans 12:1 (NASB) Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

In the midst of sacrifice there is also faith. We will come back…

Hebrews 11:17–19 (NKJV) By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” 19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

⁶ So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. ⁷ But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” 

And he said, “Here I am, my son.” Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 

⁸ And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.

⁹ Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. ¹⁰ And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

No question, no hesitation, only obedience by Abraham and Isaac. 

¹¹ But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” 

So, he said, “Here I am.” 

¹² And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” 

¹³ Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So, Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Has God asked you to put your Isaac on the altar of sacrificial worship? Or have you seen your Isaac die?

I remember the day Isaac died at my house. In early January 2001, I was at home recuperating from my first heart attack. Reading the Bible through as a part of my quiet time this particular day, a section of the reading was Genesis 22, the passage we just read.

Some years before this, the Lord spoke to me that I would become the pastor of a particular church. I kept it to myself for many years. This word was ultimately confirmed by two elders from that congregation at different times and different places, purely at their behest; I had never shared with them the vision until they asked. 

Over the next several months, events occurred that made the fulfillment of that vision an impossibility. I took a pastorate at another church and was serving there. I was angry over what had transpired. I felt I had been the victim of lies and half-truths. Blame gripped me like a vise. My mantra became “If only…” or “What might have been…” Bitterness settled on me like a dark cloud. It was choking the very life out of me. My dream would never come true.

Only Alba knew what was cooking in my heart. I am ashamed to confess I concocted a plan to move against the pastor in a spiritual coup, take the church and become the pastor. I thought I would have the backing to get it done. We went out of town for a few days, and I had breakfast with a dear friend to share my plan with him. Sitting at a Holiday Inn over biscuits and gravy, I let my bitterness pour all over him, thinking he would support me and my desire. Instead, he gently rebuked me, saying, “You cannot do this; God will not honor it. If you do it, the day will come when someone will do it to you!” My ideas were squashed; I knew he was right. I was grateful he had the courage to stand against me.

This was the context of that fateful January morning when God met me. Having a lot of time to meditate and meet with God, I realized what was growing in my heart. God spoke to me, “That church is your Isaac. You assumed all your future, your ministry, your worth is tied to it. You need to lay it on the altar and kill it!” Sitting with my head in my hands, weeping, I remember visually seeing the church on the altar and my hand killing it, putting the dream to death. Knowing it would never happen.

As the ashes of my dream settled around me, I felt drained, but strangely, at peace. Not knowing what God would do, I was more content in what He was doing! 

But God was not done with me or my Isaac. I saw that God had been in everything that happened to me because He had something much different in mind and much greater! I can honestly say, what God worked was so much better that what I thought was best. As the old saying goes, “God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him!”

APPLICATIONS

1.    Be obedient.

2.    Be quiet.

3.    Be working. 

4.    Be watching. 

MINISTRY TIME

We cannot read this story without seeing the parallels to the sacrifice of Jesus. God, the father, gave Jesus, His Son, to die upon a wooden cross, shedding His blood so that we could be forgiven. But after three days, He rose again, and is now in heaven praying for us!