Ron Dunn Podcast - Midlife Crisis

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

Ron Dunn delivers his last message from the "Believing Against The Grain" series.

I want you to open your Bibles again tonight to the little prophet Habakkuk, chapter 2. And those of you that were here last night, I hope will remember that we looked at the prophet Habakkuk last night, and we're going to look at him again tonight, and we'll probably put him to rest tomorrow night. But the second chapter of a backup. Within the last three years or so, I had some little physical problems, more of a nuisance than a danger, but some problem anyway that the doctors generally agreed was caused by pressure and stress and traveling and doing too much. But I remember talking to one of these doctors, and after he had examined me and done everything to do,

he picked up a pad and pencil and began writing down some things that I was to do. He said, now, first of all, I want you to start walking at least three miles every day. And he said, You must do this within 30 minutes time so that, you know, you'll get your heartbeat going and respiration and all that sort of stuff. And three miles, at least three miles every day. And then he said, I want you to get eight hours of sleep each night. And he went on three meals each day and of what kind of meals they should be. And he kept making a whole list of that stuff. And I said, wait, wait, wait just a minute.

Wait, wait just a minute. Wait, wait just a minute. Can't you just give me a pill that, you know, will do all of that? I'm, you know, I'm not really interested in changing my lifestyle. I'm not really interested in this, you know, walking three miles a day and eating three kind of meals a day that, you know, all that good stuff. And all of these things you're talking about, what I really would prefer is if you could just give me a pill. And if I could just take the pill, and that would do all of that. And he laughed and said, no, there was no such pill. And then he asked me how old I was. And I hate it when you get to be middle age and they start asking you how old you are.

And then they dismiss everything by midlife crisis, you know. And I've had the longest midlife crisis on record. It started when I was 30. And I don't think I'm through with it yet. But what I was really wanting, and I was wanting an easy answer, an easy solution. I was not interested in disciplining myself to walk three miles a day and to eat the right kind of foods and do all of these sorts of things. I have a lot of books on how to overcome stress and tension and how to do this and how to do that, but they all require discipline. And I think the part of the original sin was laziness. And man's always really

looking for the easy way out. If you get to thinking about it, when Jesus was giving all of his demands for discipleship, they always involved discipline. Our Lord never took the easy route. But we always are looking for the easy way out. And it would be wonderful if there were such a pill that we could take that would cure all of our ills and whereby we wouldn't have to alter our lifestyle at all. And really this is what Habakkuk was needing. Habakkuk didn't need a cure for midlife crisis as much as he needed a cure for

mid-crisis life. He was living a life in which he was always in the middle of crisis. And he was like an innocent bystander caught between the guilty and God's judgment. God had said that he was going to raise up the Chaldeans and was going to use them to bring judgment upon the nation, that they were going to be the instrument of God's chastisement. Well, of course, where does this leave Habakkuk? He is a righteous man. He is an innocent bystander in all of this, like one who's been struck by a stray bullet. And what Habakkuk needs from God is an answer, a solution to how he's going to survive in this situation. And last night we read from the first three verses of the second chapter,

but we stopped short of verse 4 because this is really the answer that God gives. This is the solution that God gives to Habakkuk. But I want us to read again the first three verses and then verse 4 of the second chapter of Habakkuk. Habakkuk says, I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie, though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry. And then in the fourth verse, Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. Now, what God is doing in this fourth verse, I think, is comparing and contrasting the two kinds of life or the two reactions to life that is possible for a person to have.

The first part of that fourth verse is very difficult to understand. And you check out all the various translations and nearly every one reads a little differently. But basically, I think what God is saying is that you can react in two different ways to crises, or you can react to God's judgment in two different ways. You can react to difficulty and adversity.

There is one in which the person is puffed up, that he's lifted up. It's the person who is presumptuous or proud, or he responds or reacts to difficulty by pride and anger and presumption. And God said his soul is not upright within him. His soul is not stable. In other words, the person who reacts to adversity and difficulty with presumption or reacts in a prideful, arrogant way. He is condemned to a life of instability. There is nothing stable or secure about that man's life. But then comes this famous statement that is to Habakkuk the secret

that is going to sustain him in the coming crisis. God says, but in contrast, the just shall live by his faith. The righteous shall live by his faith, or really more accurately, by his faithfulness. The just shall live by his faith. What is the cure that God has for Abbaqa? What is the promise that God makes to Abbaqa? What is that sustaining secret? Granted that I'm caught in the middle of this crisis. On the one hand, you have the guilty people. You have the nation that is going to be judged. And on the other hand, you have the guilty people. You have the nation that is going to be judged. And on the other hand, you have God's judgment,

and you're going to be caught up within it. You're going to be swept away within it. And that's one of the tragedies of our world. The innocent often suffer with the guilty. And the moral live in an immoral world, and we suffer the consequences of it. But God says to Habakkuk, Habakkuk, this is your secret. This is the way out. The just, the righteous one will live. He will survive by his faith or by his faithfulness. Now, I want us to look at this for just a few moments and then I want to try to help

us to see just what it means to live by faith. What does the word faith mean and what does it mean when it says that we will live by our faithfulness? The two words faith and faithfulness really are almost interchangeable. The words that are used in the Bible have almost a two-fold meaning. There is that faith which indicates that frame of mind that relies upon somebody else. And this is basically what faith is. It means that I rely upon the Lord. I'm committing myself. I'm committing my circumstances to the Lord and I rely upon the Lord. I'm committing myself. I'm committing my circumstances to the Lord and I rely upon him.

But interchangeable with that word throughout the Bible is also the word faithfulness. And it has the idea that it is that frame of mind that can be relied upon. In other words, I have to rely upon somebody, but the person that I'm relying on has to be reliable, basically. I trust God because God is trustworthy. And those two words are almost interchangeable. The idea being that if a person trusts God who is trustworthy, he himself becomes trustworthy. He himself becomes dependable. He himself becomes steadfast. In other words, you become like the God you trust. And since God himself is steadfast and faithful and trustworthy, if I put my trust in him and if I rely upon him,

then I myself become like that. I become reliable. I become steadfast. I become trustworthy. And this is what God is saying to Habakkuk. He's saying, Habakkuk, because you are righteous, because you have put your faith and trust in God, he said, you'll be steadfast. You'll be faithful. You don't need to worry that you're going to be

swept away. You do not need to worry that you're going to collapse and crumble in the face of adversity. If you are righteous, if you have placed your faith in me, don't worry. It may seem that you're going to fall apart. You may feel like you're coming unglued. You may feel as though you're losing it all. But he says you want for the just shall survive. He shall live by his faithfulness. The very fact that you put your faith and trust in God means that you yourself are going to be faithful.

You yourself are going to be steadfast. You yourself are going to be reliable. And so he's saying, Habakkuk, you'll survive. Not to worry. I'm glad that that's in the Bible because frankly, there have been many a time I wondered if I would survive. Most of the translations read like this, the just shall live by faith. But I found one old translation that read the just shall survive by faith. And I really caught hold of that because that was the word that seemed to really express what I was feeling. I was wondering

if I was going to survive. But God says you will survive, even though you may not know it, even though you may feel like you're not going to. And even though the pressure may be so great and the circumstances may be so difficult, you may be afraid that you're going to fall to pieces at the moment of crisis. But He said, you won't. For having put your faith in God and become righteous,

you yourself are faithful and trustworthy and steadfast and the just will survive and he will live by his faithfulness. That's the sustaining secret. The person who has put his faith in God, God makes him comparable to any task that he sets to him. And the person who has put his faith in God, God makes him able to withstand and stand fast in any circumstance. That's what really faith is all about. It's having faith that God is Himself so faithful that He instills in us the ability to remain steadfast.

But faith is one of those words that I'm afraid we grow up knowing and using so much that we're not even aware that we're not certain what it means. I heard about a little boy that went to the first grade and he wanted to impress his parents. And so he asked somebody in the higher grades to teach him a little bit of arithmetic. And so he came home that night and stood in front of his mommy and daddy and he said, two plus two equals four.

And his mother and dad were just so thrilled. You know, here was this little boy in the first day of the first grade and he was already able to add two plus two equals four. And so they were beaming with all kinds of pride because what they'd always suspicion was now confirmed that this little boy was a genius in fact. And so while they were standing there beaming with pride, the little boy said, what's it to? And I have an idea that a lot of times we use this word faith and trust. We say, oh yes, I trust God. I'm just trusting the Lord. I'm just going to trust God. But if we were really honest, we might want to say, what is a trust? What is a faith?

What does it mean to trust God anyway? Have you ever felt that way? You know, you hear preachers especially throw these words around. And you get around people who seem to have a certain aura of faith about them. And they'll say, well, I'm just believing God for this. I'm just trusting God for this. And what you'd really like to say is, well, just exactly what do you mean? How do you go about it?

I want to have faith. I want to trust God in this situation, but just how do you do it? I'd like to see somebody doing it so I could copy them, so I could watch them. And if I had to find anybody in the Bible who God has set up as a model for us to follow, it would of course be Abraham. In Romans chapter 4, Paul says that you and I are to believe

as Abraham believed, and if we believe as Abraham believed, we will receive just as Abraham received. The model of faith is Abraham. If I want to know tonight just what are the steps or what all is involved in living a life of faith, the person to go to is Abraham and watch him. Because Abraham is the first man that ever believed God, or at least that's what the Bible says. The first time the word believe is ever found in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 15 when it says, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. And so the first man that we have any record of, own record as actually

literally saying that he believed God is Abraham. He is the father of the faith. He is the monument to really what this statement says, the just shall live by faith. So what I want to do tonight is to look at three of the incidents in the life of Abraham that reveal really what it means to live by faith, the call of faith, the call to trust God. I believe that there were three primary crises or three major calls that God brought to Abraham, all that involved faith. And I think just by looking at these three, you and I can get an idea tonight of what it really means to trust God. The first one is found in Genesis chapter 12.

So, I want you to go with me to the 12th chapter of Genesis and we'll read the first two verses. Now, this is really the beginning of Abraham's walk with God. And in the last few verses of chapter 11, they serve sort of as a prologue to this 12th chapter. And we're introduced to Abram and Sarah in the latter verses of chapter 11. But in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great. Now what I want you to see especially is what is found in the first verse.

God comes to Abraham and says, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. Now, this is God's first approach to Abraham. This is where it all started right here. This was God's first approach, first revelation to Abraham. This was where faith began as far as Abraham is concerned in our understanding of it. And it began with this call. A call to get away, get out from the land, from your country, away from your kindred, and away from your father's house. Now, one of the things that strikes me as interesting in this matter of faith is it seems to always involve separation.

I want you to remember that because as we look at this tonight, that's going to be one of the key words in understanding this matter of walking with God. As a matter of fact, if you get hold of that concept and go through the New Testament even, you find that constantly again and again and again, the Christian life revolves around this matter of separation. God is always asking us to cut our ties with something else to separate ourselves, to deny ourselves. If we don't love Jesus more than father and mother, sister, brother, husband or wife, son and daughter, if we're not willing to turn our back upon this, we're not fit for the kingdom of God. All the way through, there seems to be involved this matter of cutting our ties,

of burning our bridges, of separation. And so the first step of faith, as far as Abraham is concerned, God says, I want you to get up and leave your country. Now, you know, we read this and we've heard about it, and it really doesn't mean very much to us because we're all used to moving. We all are. I've moved before. You've moved before.

I was born in Oklahoma. I grew up in Arkansas. I've lived in Dallas, Fort Worth since 1958. I've moved three times in my life. And I've moved two or three times even here. And it's no big deal. I hope I don't have to move again. I may, but I mean, even if God called me to move to,

you know, Arkansas or California or New York, it's really not that big a deal. I can always pick up the telephone and keep in touch, hop on a plane and come back and visit. We're so used to migrating. We're so used to moving around. When we read about Abraham's call to move around, it doesn't really strike us as that particular and that peculiar. but we don't understand what that meant to Abraham.

Back in those days, the nomads, the wanderers, they were low life. They were considered low life. I was talking about this last week in Mississippi, and there was two missionaries from Brazil in the congregation, and the minute I said that, they blurted out gypsies. And because they said in the congregation, and the minute I said that, they blurted out, gypsies. And because they said, and I tell you,

they were apologizing to me later, and they said, well, in Brazil, they said that we have gypsies, and they're considered the lowlife because they have no settled home. They have no permanent home. They just wander about the countryside. They just go in circles and everybody's suspicious of them. And they're considered far, far inferior to everybody else.

And when Abraham was living in the Ur of the Chaldees, it was a very sophisticated city and very sophisticated land. And what God is asking them to do is to pick up all of their belongings and to cut themselves off from civilization, to cut themselves off from family ties, to turn their back upon security, upon social stature, upon everything that they know, and to exchange that which is known for that which is unknown. They're to take that which is seen and real and they're to follow God which is unseen into a land that they know nothing at all about. God is asking them to do something far beyond what you and I are capable of comprehending. They were to become a despised, wandering group of nomads. And God was saying, I want you to abandon all ties.

You must be willing to give up all human security as we count security. You must be willing to give up all of the values of life as you know it and become a despised nomad and put your faith in that which is uncertain. Give up that which is certain and that which is clear and that which you can see and follow that which is unseen and tolerate a life of absolute uncertainty. That's exactly what God was asking Abraham to do. You say, well, what does that have to do with us? Well, it really, in a sense, it has everything to do with us because as you go to the New Testament, there is one thing that is peculiar about Christians. They are constantly referred to

as strangers and pilgrims in the earth. I think the first act of faith, the first step in trusting God is my willingness to give up the value system of the society in which I live, the security which this society gives me, and be willing to be a pilgrim in this world, to realize that this world is not my home, that this world is not my world, that its value system is not my value system. And what spells security for this society doesn't necessarily spell security for me. I must be willing to be a pilgrim and a sojourner in this earth, to live as a stranger in this earth. If you go to the 11th chapter of Hebrews, there's one verse that has always intrigued me. It's the ninth verse, and it says that Abraham lived as an Abraham left the land of Ur, he was an alien. Everywhere he went, he was an alien.

But finally, he came to his own promised land. This is the land that God gave him. But even when he got to that land, he refused to settle down and live like a permanent residence he lived as a foreigner in his own country why because he realized that there was something far more valuable than this land he looked for a city whose builder and maker was God Abraham discovered something far better than the land he discovered the Lord and he discovered that his security and the land. He discovered the Lord. And he discovered that his security and his inheritance was not in the things that life and society and this world offer,

but his security was in the things that God offers. His security was found in the Lord. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that if you live a life of faith, put your trust in God, about the only thing faith will do for you is make you a pilgrim in this earth. Now, the reason I think that's so important is because many of us are attracted to a life of faith because we somehow feel that if I can unravel the mystery of faith, I can tap into all of God's resources and that somehow faith will make me healthy and wealthy and faith will make me a winner and faith will make me a successful person in this life but if i understand what the bible is saying and especially 11th chapter of hebrews faith won't necessarily do that basically what faith will do is make you feel like a stranger in this

world and what i think god is saying to me is that when I begin feeling at home in this world, and I begin feeling at home in the luxury of this world, and I begin feeling secure in the security that society offers me, there's something wrong in my fellowship with God. For faith is always doomed to disappointment. Faith can never be satisfied. Why? Because faith is always reaching out for more than this world can offer. What I'm saying is this, that if there's anything in this world that can satisfy you, you have not yet learned what faith is. For faith reaches and will settle for only one thing, and that is God Himself. Therefore, faith is always doomed to disappointment

as far as this world is concerned because there's not a thing in this world that can satisfy the longing of faith. The only thing that can quench the thirst and hunger of faith is God Himself. That's why the Bible says we are pilgrims and strangers in the earth. They weren't just exiles, the writer of Hebrews says, in Egypt, but they were exiles anywhere on the face of the earth.

Even in the land of promise, they were still exiles. And I'm afraid this is a concept that is a strange one to New Testament Christian. I really doubt if we know much about this. And yet, the more I study it, the more I'm convinced that the very first element in following God in faith and in the life of trust is willingness to be a pilgrim in this world and to recognize that I am a sojourner and a stranger upon this earth. The second great crisis, I think, that came to Abraham and that reveals what it means to have faith and follow Him,

came with His call to give up Ishmael. I love the way the Living Bible records this, and I know that Living Bible is not a translation it's a paraphrase but you remember God came to Abraham and said that he was going to give him a son and that this son would become so great that all the nations of the earth would be blessed and but the only problem was Sarah was barren she couldn't have any children. And so one day Abraham and Sarah decided they would attempt to help God out in His plan for world redemption. It was really Sarah's idea.

She had a little handmaiden called Hagar, and Sarah said, Why don't you take Hagar and have a son by Hagar? And so Abraham did. But the only problem was that when Hagar bore Ishmael, why, then Sarah became despised in Hagar's eyes. Of course, it was a reproach among the Hebrews for a woman not to be able to bear children. And so when Hagar was able to bear Abraham's son,

why, she looked at Sarah and said, uh-huh, see? And so Sarah got terribly upset and she went to Abraham and the Living Bible reads like this, she said to Abraham, it's all your fault. Well, the fact of the matter is it was Sarah's idea. So we have Ishmael. And the Bible makes it very clear that Abraham loved Ishmael, loved him. But when you get over to Genesis chapter 17, God comes back to Abraham and renews that covenant. But he makes it clear that Ishmael is not to figure into it. He makes it clear to Abraham that Ishmael is not the chosen seed. And I want you to look at verse 18, Genesis chapter 17. And Abraham said unto God, oh, that Ishmael might live before thee. Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee. First go back up

to verse 17, when God is saying to Abraham that Sarah is going to bear a son. Notice Abraham's reaction. Then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed. Now, I don't want to seem irreverent, but I think that's terribly funny. I hear God speaking, and I'm assuming he spoke in a solemn, God-like voice, and he's saying these things to Abraham, and he said, Sarah is going to conceive, and Sarah is going to have a child.

And Abraham falls out. I mean, he just falls on his face laughing, just laughing. He can't believe it. I wouldn't think you'd do that when God was talking to you. Of course, what it does, it reveals Abraham's unbelief. He just can't believe this. Now, this is just too much. Now, I think what Abraham is really doing, he's laughing in order to sort of break the ice.

And what Abraham is wanting to do, he is wanting to sidestep what is incomprehensible and unbelievable to him. You see, it's just unbelievable that Sarah, now that she's 90 years old and he's 100, that Sarah can have a child. I mean, she never could have a child, and now that she's 90, that's just incomprehensible. And what Abraham is wanting to do is to gently and delicately and diplomatically sidestep that which is unbelievable to him and try to get God interested in something that's already a sure thing, Ishmael. That's what he's doing. And so he cries out, Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee.

What he means is, Lord, this talk about Sarah bearing a son, I just can't take that in. Could I interest you in Ishmael? Because Ishmael is a certainty. I mean, Ishmael is a reality. And this is a more reasonable path. If you're wanting to bring forth redemption, if you're wanting to bring forth a seed, a line that will bless all the nations of the earth, the most reasonable thing is Ishmael because he's here and he's alive, and this is a certainty.

Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee. You see, Ishmael, I think, represented man's attempt to take matters into his own hands. So I think what Abraham is saying, Oh, Lord, that my plan might be your plan. That my will might be your will. And he cries out, Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee. And how many times you and I have said the same thing. We haven't used those words, of course.

But you see, we have our own reasonable, rational way of seeing things as they ought to be done. And I think what we're constantly trying to do is to get God interested in what is to us the more reasonable way of running our life. Lord, this is what I want for my life. This is the way I want things to work out. Oh, that Ishmael might live before Thee. Lord, if You could just somehow see your way clear to bless my plans,

and to bless my efforts, and if you could somehow see your way clear to make my will your will, and to make my attempts your attempts, and to make my plan your plans. You see what he's saying? And I think that the crisis of faith is this, you and I have to be willing to give up Ishmael. That's what it means to trust God, to give up Ishmael, to give up that which is certain, to give up that which is rational, to give up that which is absolute. I mean, I can see it, I can touch it, I can handle it. All my senses agree that this can happen because here is Ishmael standing here in the flesh, and God, you're asking me to believe something that is irrational and incomprehensible and physically impossible. But Lord, I've already figured out a way that we can do it and it can be done

and it won't require all that much faith. It won't strain my faith. Oh, that Ishmael might live before Thee. Somebody has said that everybody writes two books in their life. The one they write when they're young is the book of what they hope to be. has said that everybody writes two books in their life. The one they write when they're young, it's the book of what they hope to be. All your dreams, you know, and your daydreams,

what you're going to do. And then there's the other book you write with your life, the things that you actually do, the things that you actually accomplish. And any similarity between the two books is purely coincidental. I doubt if there's a single person here tonight that's reached adulthood that could stand up and say, everything I plan to be and plan to do, I've done it. I am the man, I am the woman I always dreamed I would be. I've accomplished everything. Oh no, we're having to constantly reorganize. My life hasn't taken the turns that I planned for it to take, and neither has yours. And the greatest struggles I've had at every point is whether or not to give up Ishmael. I mean, I've had it all so planned out and it's so reasonable, and I've figured every

angle and there's no way it can miss, and God comes along and says, No, not that way at all. You see, there's always Ishmael that we're having to give up. Now I think there's something very important that we need to realize at this point about faith and it is this. God is not bound by our faith, nor is He bound to it. Now what I mean by that in the first place, God is not bound by my faith. In other words, my faith doesn't make God jump through hoops. I greatly resent this kind of teaching that says,

if I just believe, I can have and do anything that I believe. God isn't bound by my faith. Simply because I believe that God is going to do something doesn't mean that God has to do it, my friend. And this is where we need to draw the line between biblical faith and positive thinking. Positive thinking says that whatever you believe, if you believe you can have it if God has already promised it. But if God hasn't promised it. But if God hasn't promised it, all the believing in the world is not going to change anything. God isn't bound by

our faith. But here's the good news for me. God isn't bound to our faith. I mean, God can work without my faith. I may start out believing, and along the way way I may falter a little bit. My faith may sag a little bit. But that doesn't hinder God. And this is what we're seeing here. Abraham is having trouble believing right now. That's why he fell on his face laughing at God's proposal. Because he was having trouble believing. But notice God just goes right on notice God just goes right on.

God just goes right on and fulfills his promise. What God has promised, God will perform. God isn't bound by my faith, nor is he bound to my faith. But a great deal of faith involves my willingness to let go of Ishmael. To let go of Ishmael. To let go of Ishmael. And then the third thing, and when I think about it, this is a big surprise to me. God not only had to be willing, or Abraham not only had to be willing to give up Ishmael. And you know, I can understand that, really.

From my standpoint, now that we've got all these thousands of years behind us, and I've got the whole biblical revelation to help us understand, I can see now how foolish Abraham was. And of course, Abraham should have known better. I can understand that. Ishmael was not the right way. And I can understand. I can understand.

But Abraham not only had to give up Ishmael, he had to give up Isaac. That's a little bit more difficult to understand. I can understand Ishmael because that was never God's idea in the first place. That was Abraham and Sarah's idea. But Isaac was God's idea. But when you get to Genesis chapter 22, you find what I believe to be one of the third great crises of Abraham's faith.

Verse 1 of chapter 22, it says, And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Now I want you to notice how God deliberately details all of this. And he said, ìTake now thy son, thine only son.î But well, Ishmael was a son, not as far as God was concerned, not as far as the promise was concerned. ìNow take thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest. He just kind of keeps on, sort of like twisting the knife in the wound. Take thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest. Take him. Get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

Tell you what I believe about believing. I must not only be willing to give up the land and separate myself from the society and the sense of becoming a pilgrim and a stranger, and not only must I be willing to give up the ishmels of my own plans and purposes and devices, I even have to be willing to give up Isaac, who is totally right and totally good. You see, following God and trusting God involves not only giving up that which is wrong, but

even giving up that which is right. It involves not only sacrificing that which is bad, but it is also sacrificing that which is good. Isaac is everything that God said he would be. He's the focal point of redemptive history. He is the fulfillment of God's promise. He is the pledge that God keeps his word. He is the key by which the world is going to be redeemed.

There's not anything wrong with him, and yet God says to Abraham, I want you to take him and offer him up. Of course, we know how that story ends. Finally, Abraham didn't have to offer him up. He said, spare thy hand. I see now that you trust me, that you believe me, that you love me. See, I don't think that God ever intended that Isaac should die.

But I think that God intended that Abraham should die to Isaac. For until God had Isaac, He really didn't have all of Abraham there was to have. For Isaac was the apple of his eye. Isaac represented to Abraham the promise of the future, the hope for the future. He represented everything that was good and right and the promise of God. And yet, if God's going to be on the throne, Isaac has to be on the altar. And there is a part of our Christian life in which you and I not only have to drive

out Ishmael, but we have to be willing to put our Isaacs on the altar. Those things that mean most to us, those things that nothing wrong with them in themselves, not anything wrong with them. They may be gifts from God, but they have to be on the altar anyway. I'm always interested in Paul's thorn in the flesh, and that is an illustration of so many facets of the Christian life. But one of the things that interests me most about it

is that the reason God gave him the thorn in the flesh, you remember in that 12th chapter of 2 Corinthians, it tells about Paul being called up into the third heaven and seeing things that was not lawful for a man to talk about. Oh, the blessings. I mean, just the blessings. Paul just, I mean, he just had been blessed. He had seen revelations. And it says three times, he said,

And lest I should be exalted above measure because of the abundance of revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. Why was that thorn in the flesh given to Paul? Lest he should be exalted above measure. But why should Paul be exalted above measure? Because he had been blessed so much. And God, in order to keep Paul usable, had to give him a thorn in the flesh to keep him weak and dependent.

Now, the point I'm making is, what was it that was jeopardizing Paul's usefulness? It was his usefulness. The thing that was jeopardizing Paul's future blessings was the fact that he had been blessed so much. You might say that it was his Isaac. I think every preacher sooner or later has to be willing to put his ministry on the block, on the altar. It took me a long time to realize that there's a difference between surrendering to the ministry and surrendering to God. And that oftentimes in serving the ministry, it's not necessarily the same thing as serving God.

And the ministry itself may become my God, the thing that I worship. I can remember a number of years ago when our family was going through a time of difficulty and such. And one day my wife and I were driving downtown, and I was talking about this, and I guess I was trying to sound spiritual. And I said, well, you know, my only concern, my only concern is my ministry. You know, I thought that sounded real good and real spiritual. I just don't want to hurt my ministry. And I'll never forget it.

She said, whose ministry? And there's one thing that I cannot stand. It's when my wife re-preaches my sermons to me. Well, there's one other thing that's even worse. It's when God re-preaches my sermons to me. Whose ministry? Why am I so worried and concerned about my ministry? Maybe that's why I'm forced at times to compromise. Maybe that's why at times I compromise my integrity. Maybe that's why I do some things that I perhaps sought not to do because I'm trying to build my ministry, my Isaac. Even something that God gives. It's amazing how the blessings of God can become the curses of man. And you and I have to be willing to put our Isaac on the altar.

And God so pleases, He can give him back, and if not, that's well and good. What is your Isaac? What is your Isaac? Faith involves not only getting rid of that which is bad and that which is wrong and severing ourselves from it, but even to the point of laying upon the altar of sacrifice that which is best in our lives, that which is godly in our lives, that which is good in our lives. The purpose of the Lord, as the old hymn used to sing, is to wean us from all else besides until alone with Jesus we are satisfied. The just shall live by His faith, by his faithfulness, his reliance upon God, willing to give up the seen for the unseen, willing to give up that which is certain for a life of uncertainty as far as the world

is concerned, even willing to take the best of my life, the blessing of my life, and offer it up and to say nothing but Him, nothing but Him, nothing but Him. This is what faithfulness is. And the just shall live. More than survive, really. The Hebrews never spoke of life just as existence. They always meant it in terms of a full and vigorous and honorable life. And only that person who knows how to trust God in these ways, I believe, can even in

the midst of crisis, even in the midst of disaster, have the kind of life that is envied by anybody else who doesn't know God. Not just existing and surviving, but living to the fullest in honor and vigor and joy. The just shall live by faith. Would you bow your heads with me now as we pray together? As we close our meeting tonight, I'd like for us to have just a moment or two of quietness, meditation. It may be that you're mid-crisis right now, that you're caught in the middle, and that there is revolving around you uncertainty, difficulty, adversity, and you may even question, how am I ever going to hold it all together? And the answer is the just

will live by their faithfulness. But that involves my willingness to separate myself from the so-called human security of this world, the human value system, the becoming a pilgrim and realizing that everything else in this world other than God is insufficient. drive out the Ishmaels in my life. To give up my Ishmael, my pet plan. It's a willingness Isaac's, until there's nothing left but just me and God. I trust that the Lord tonight will show us just exactly what our land is that we need to leave, that He will show us just exactly what is our Ishmael that we need to drive out, and that He will show us just what is our Isaac that needs to be placed on the altar. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, on that offer. and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.