God desires life, not death. God created life; man took on death. Thus the instructions are found throughout scripture, "Death leave, Life come!" This simple prayer was introduced to me by my former pastor, Billy Newell. For weeks he declared it over our floundering congregation, and it worked! But the prayer reaches further than that. Regardless of whether we look to the Old Testament or the New, we find that declaration:
"Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of lambs" (I Samuel 15:22); "This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says,"Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead they followed the stubborn inclination of their hearts" (Jer. 7:21-24); "Jesus said, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners'"(Matthew 9:12-13); "[Jesus] answered, 'Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread--which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate that day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath . . . If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath" (Matthew 12:3-12).
1:1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
1:2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
1:3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: [but] Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
1:4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
1:5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
1:6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head [there is] no soundness in it; [but] wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
1:7 Your country [is] desolate, your cities [are] burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and [it is] desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
1:8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
1:9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, [and] we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
1:10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
1:11 To what purpose [is] the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
1:12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
1:13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; [it is] iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
1:14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear [them].
1:15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
1:16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
1:17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Hosea 6:6 verifies, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings." The note in my NIV Study Bible says the "Hebrew word hesed, [is] a word that can refer to right conduct toward one's fellowman or loyalty to the Lord or both--the sum of what God requires of His servants. Here it perhaps refers to both. The same Hebrew word is [sometimes translated love] not sacrifice. Sacrifice apart from faithfulness to the Lord's will is wholly unacceptable to Him."
Ever consider the words "living sacrifices," and what an oxymoron that is? What is a "sacrifice"?--something that must die, right? What an astonishing new concept this would have been to the people of Paul's time: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 121-2).The old man in the flesh dies; the new man in the same flesh lives. Miraculous! God rejoices in the life!
Our God is a God of life, not a God of death. When we live a life that conforms to the world, we are dead, and no more death through any kind of sacrifice can make us alive. When we live a life given over to Christ, we are alive to the fullest and no more death through any kind of sacrifice can make us more alive. And so I pray, "Death leave, life come! Make me a living sacrifice to draw others to life in You. Amen"
9:13 Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."
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