Wednesday, July 3, 2024

9 verses. Again if you don't it's not required that you grabbed the handout but it is a little bit updated from last time. You can grab one on your way out if you have to. Let's read together Isaiah chapter 1 verse 1.

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days it was a kings of Judah. Hear O heavens and give ear O earth for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib but Israel does not know. My people. Do not consider alas sinful nation a people laden with iniquity a brood of evildoers. Children who are corruptors.

They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backward. Why should you be stricken again. You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faints from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores may have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment.

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers. So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard as a hut in a garden of cucumbers as a besieged city.

Unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant we would have become like Sodom. We would have been made like Gomorrah. So in this passage verses 2 through 9 as we begin to think about what hope there is for rebellious children that are being addressed here in chapters 1 through 1 through 5 we are looking at the areas in which they are rebellious.

And in verses 4 through 9 we find the political arena of their rebellion. Politics not in terms of candidates doing zany things but politics in terms of the nature of their nation the nature of their country their city their land their their citizenry.

And that's what we're encouraged to pay attention to. So last time we looked at verse 4 and we looked at this nation of betrayers in verse 4 that they are filled with traitors and all they do is treason.

Seven lines in verse 4. The first four lines lay out the traitors identifying them and the last three lines identify their treason. But now we we zoom out a little bit in verses 5 through 6 and we are shown a rather disturbing if not grotesque metaphor followed by a clearly explained a clear explanation for the parable.

So verses 5 and 6 is kind of the and verse 7 is the explanation. What we have in verses 5 through 6 is someone familiar to our eyes if we read Proverbs a lot. So in in Proverbs 19 and verse 29 we read judgments are prepared for scoffers and beatings for the backs of fools.

Right. So so back in the ancient Near East what did you do with fools. Were you supposed to beat them until they until their folly parts from them or they part from your country or something else more drastic.

Today we either imprison them or elect them. Sometimes both. But generally fools got beaten way back when now in Proverbs 26 verse 3 this is this is a proverb that really goes well with Isaiah chapter 1 verses 4 through 9.

Proverbs 26 verse 3 says. A whip for the horse a bridle for the donkey and a rod for the fool's back. Horses have to be whipped. That's just the way it is. Donkeys have to be bridled. That's just the way it is.

And fools have to be beat. That's just the way it is. Right. That's Proverbs is my favorite cartoon strip by the way it's funny. Read Proverbs. Enjoy it like you would the Sunday morning funnies. I mean that is a lot of it is that's what it's there for.

Is it's better though. It's filled with the wisdom of God. Now in verses verse 3 of Isaiah 1 we hear about the beasts of burden right. The ox the donkey. But now we're hearing about the fool. Verses 5 through 6.

The idea is that is that Judah Jerusalem they are so rebellious and so stuck on their ways that no matter how many times they get beaten they just keep on doing the things that they know will get them beaten all over again.

That's the purpose of the question. Why should you be stricken more. The idea is you've already been struck a whole lot. Why should you want that more. You're going to revolt more and more. And there's just no place left on the fool's body to hit.

There's no more fresh areas. That's how bad it is. So that's the point. The whole head is sick. The whole heart faints from the sole of the foot even to the head. There's no soundness in it. But what do you find from the foot to the head.

Nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores that haven't had time to heal. You see that they've not been closed or bound up. They haven't been taken care of. This is the kind of fool has no one left to care for them doesn't even care for himself and is so intent on doing folly that as soon as he gets beaten he goes right back to doing whatever it is is going to get him beaten again.

That's kind of a striking metaphor. Isn't it that we find there in Isaiah 1 5 through 6 they are very very stubborn is what God is saying. Didn't he promise that he would chastise them. Didn't he say in Deuteronomy 28 if you don't keep covenant with me and you go off and do these things.

Here's what I'm going to do. And if that doesn't work I'm gonna do this. And if that doesn't work I'm gonna do this. If that doesn't work I'm gonna do this. Well they're testing him and God is being faithful.

God is doing exactly what he said he would do. And they're and they're putting him to the test over and over and over again. At this point however it's come down to the fool is just saying well you know this is the cost of doing business right.

Judas saying I want to worship the Queen of Heaven in the marketplace. I want to worship Baal. I want to offer up sacrifices to Molech and Kimosh I I want to go to the to the Green Hills and worship right worship Asherah all that.

This is the cost of doing business. This is the way we want to do it. We are going to make alliances with Egypt and Syria. We're going to do the things we the way we want to do them. And if we have bad things happen to us if God punishes us.

That's just the way it's going to be. It's the cost of doing business now the explanation of the metaphor in verses 5 through 6 is given in verse 7. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire.

Strangers devour your land in your presence. And it is as desolate as overthrown by strangers. So in times of great distress when foreign invaders would come rolling over the the low hills of the Shephelah and come up the ascent and take out all of the various armored cities the walled cities and the garrisons as they approached the people would flee to Jerusalem and they would flee to Jerusalem and hole up there.

And Hezekiah knew that was the way things went. That's why he dug that irrigation canal and made sure there was plenty of water in the city. But everybody would run into Jerusalem. And then you'd have nothing to do except look out from Jerusalem and see the smoke.

Yep they're burning everything. They're burning your fields. They're burning your homes. They're burning your your cities. And the question really is coming from the Prophet. Are you done rebelling yet or do you want more.

Because so far all you've done is say me again. So you can. You can see that there is a an attempt by God through his prophet to grab hold of the shirt collar of Israel and say stop it come to grips. Come to your senses.

In verse 7 when we read that the country is desolate the cities are burned with fire. Strangers are devouring your land in your presence. Now this word and it is desolate as overthrown. See that word overthrown.

Overthrown is a very technical term in the Hebrew language. It is reserved only for things that reference Sodom and Gomorrah. Right. We have an expression getting nuked. Right. Right because we live in a post Hiroshima post Nagasaki world.

Don't we. They lived in a post Sodom and Gomorrah world. And there was a term that meant getting the kind of judgment that Sodom and Gomorrah got. And that's what's used here. So this is a setup for verse 9 and verse 10.

Right. Because verses 9 and 10 are suddenly talking about Sodom and Gomorrah. Where did. Why. How does Sodom and Gomorrah come into this. Because of verse 7 and the word overthrown that's just the term that everybody knew was the Sodom and Gomorrah term about how they went down how they got destroyed.

So what's going on God is is forcing those who would ignore him those who forgot him. He's forcing them to pay attention to him. And he's saying I'm the one doing this. I'm the one bringing this all this disaster to your doorstep.

No other explanation will suffice. It's not that you had a less-than-stellar King. It's not that you had bad trade agreements. It's not because somebody did something wrong to you. And now you're suffering the consequences.

He's saying I'm the one doing it to you. It's not a happenstance. The problem is they are fools and rebellion to God and their continued success of disasters are his jealous judgments. They have broken his covenant.

And so he beats their country as a magistrate beats a fool. And they have to come to grips with that. They have to come to grips with that. And this leads us to verse 8 a city besieged so again as the country is overrun by a foreign armies you can think of the mercenary armies of Assyria taking systematically taking out all of the garrison cities and the and the fortified cities all the way up to the point that now they're surrounding Jerusalem picture is this.

And is left. I bet that's all that's left. It's one city left in all of Judah just the daughter of Zion. She's left as a booth in a vineyard as a hut in a garden of cucumbers. Explanation. As a besieged city.

So here's the double metaphor. A small flimsy shack hurriedly erected during a time of work and labor in the field. So you build a flimsy lean-to kind of shelter a little bitty shack that no one's ever gonna live in.

You just take your rest there. That's all it's there for. And there it is in a vineyard. Oh there it is in a cucumber field. But you know it's served its purpose and you just let it go. What happens when you leave a structure like that in the middle of a vine field.

What do the vines do. I climb all over it. They climb up and around it until they cover it. And you see this big mound of vine. And eventually it collapses everything underneath it. And the word for the for the vinage here is the kind that would block any approach or exit.

It's that kind of thick tangle around here. We have Arkansas traveler vines that are full of thorns. And you get one of those bunches of thorns in your path and you ain't getting through. You have to go around it or cut it down.

And this is the sense in which this city is besieged. There's no there's no way that any help can get to them. And there's no way they're getting out past those who are besieging them. That's the situation that they they find themselves in.

Well what's their hope. Their hope is the Lord. Yes the very same Lord. Verse 9. The very same Lord whom they have forgot whom they have denied as their father whom they have been rebelling against. The same Lord who has been beating them as a magistrate beats a fool.

The same one that they have been complaining against and raging against. He's their hope. Verse 9. Unless the Lord of hosts. Unless the Lord God over all things. He owns all the locusts. He owns all the vines.

He owns all the stars. He's Lord of all the hosts. He's Lord over the Assyrian hosts too. Unless the Lord of hosts is God of all power and all sovereignty. Unless he had left to us a very small remnant we would have become like Sodom.

We would have been made like Gomorrah. Look at the destruction all across the land. It's like a Sodom and Gomorrah disaster. Except for one thing the Lord of hosts intervened. He showed his sovereignty and his mercy.

They were facing the Sodom and Gomorrah type destruction. And according to verse 10 when God calls the leaders of Jerusalem rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah clear that they were deserving of the of the judgment deserving of the title.

But he diverts that ultimate disaster. It was the mighty unrequested mercy of God that intervened and kept these rebels alive. Which leads us to ask the question how often are the lives and paths. And David.

I didn't know you're gonna bring this up brother. But this is my question in my notes. How often are the lives and paths of rebellious children sustained by God's indefeatable mercy. He has his plan. He preserves now the next section verses 10 through 20 upon another arena of rebellion.

Not the political arena but the religious arena. Verses 10 through 20. And we're gonna in future opportunities work at a survey about the whole thing right now as treason in verse 4. In verse 10 another address that also includes a rebuke he's cut.

So so God through his prophet is calling the leaders in Jerusalem rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah. Every once in a while you'll find this in the Bible that God will address the unfaithful rebellious people of a city usually Jerusalem.

He'll call them Babylon. Or he'll call Sodom. And a warning mercifully giving them a warning hey this is what happened to these other cities here the Lord you rulers of Sodom give ear to the law of our God you people of Gomorrah.

So so God is addressing the covenant there in Jerusalem. There they are in the temple. But now they are addressed as rulers presiding over the infamous wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So in a sense it's not just that Judah and Jerusalem deserve the same stuff as Sodom and Gomorrah.

They are them now in what way. The following verses wing indictments our versions are located. This is precisely why God is calling them Sodom and Gomorrah. Because of the way they're in through their worship practices their religious practices.

It is their religious customs and their religious calendar and their religious assemblies and their religious leaders that make God want to vomit fire and brimstone upon them. So this is very interesting in verses 10 through 15 just 10 just versus 10 to 15.

Here's the list of different religious terms. Sacrifices burnt offerings blood rams cattle bulls lambs goats courts incense new moons Sabbaths assemblies sacred meetings feasts spreading one's hands and prayers.

And what I found very interesting times any of these terms are vice. You'll see in your English did twice in verse 13 you see the same word sacrifice blood sacrifice either one relation the drink offering.

Since when you don't have you have barely a repetition in the list of all of these things one one thing that we could say is Isaiah is deeply familiar with the priestly customs. He's got a very deep understanding of the priestly work.

We could say that but I think more importantly what we're seeing is that God just inventory their entire religious system and declared it rotten and bankrupt. You can go through the entire inventory. There's nothing here that I want.

He basically says he goes through the whole store and imagine this is something that they're doing for him supposedly all of this religious ceremony and sacrifice all of this this is what they're doing for.

It's like they have one customer and they're supposed to be doing all this for him. And he walks through the entirety of their store and says this is all trash. So we find that God is the one who knows.

He thoroughly knows what they do. He knows all the details of what they do and he has judged everything that they have done and found it very lacking. And I think we can observe from this that the problem that vote that went on with Judah and drew not that they weren't that they had failed to do sacrifices.

It wasn't that they had forgotten to follow the days on the calendar or forgot the ceremonies. And who's supposed to do what and had learned how to sacrifice but they had not learned tested in Hebrew.

God says in Hosea 6 6 I desire mercy not sacrifice. And the word being translated as mercy there is the Hebrew word tested which means covenant faithfulness towards us. Is God loving us because of who he is and not because of who we are.

When it's in the reverse order and there is a service unto God then it's like I'm going to serve you because of who you are not because of who I am. And it's a sense of covenant faithfulness. And so what God is saying in Hosea 6 6 he says I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

He's he's not forgetting the fact that he ordered them to do these sacrifices. He told him to do that. But what he means is I'm not looking for people who go through all the sacrificial system and call it good.

I'm looking for people who are actually covenantally faithful. And of course this was made much of by Jesus and his teaching in Matthew 9 13 as he was telling the religious leaders go and learn what this means.

I desire mercy and not sacrifice a certain the Bible's Psalm 51 Psalm 51. And we'll read verses 15 through 19 after being confronted by Nathan the Prophet thou art the man. This is part of the psalm that posed in his repentance being in burnt offering.

Now this is the same David who near the end of 2nd Samuel purchased the threshing floor of our honor the few and sacrificed them to stay the hand of of God's judgment. Okay. So what he's saying the man did it.

Of course he did. But but David's trying to get at the heart of what God was wanting ultimately overall verse 17 the sacrifices of God what we are to offer to God bless. There's is the kingdom of heaven.

Great sin. Okay. Yeah that was worth a bull. All you know I'll sacrifice all because of this terrible sin broken heart. He's looking for repentance godly sorrow. And then David said build the walls of Jerusalem.

Then you be pleased. Sacrifices of righteousness with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then they shall offer bulls on your altar. There's David knows that there has something has to happen that God has to do something.

He has to do something to to the heart of man. And he has to do something to Jerusalem. He has to transform the man. And he has to transform the city before God will ever be pleased with the worship coming out of that.

So we are reminded. I think we're gonna look at this in detail in future opportunities as the Lord allows here in Isaiah chapter 1. But the religious rebellion that they were showcasing here. It's not that they refuse to offer sacrifice or they refuse to go through the calendar.

They did that they did a lot of that. The problem is that they excelled at the performing arts and failed to honor God and spirit and truth. And and this is where we get the two definitions of religion.

So the Bible is against religion and for religion. The Bible is against religion when it is used as a covering to look good everywhere in in all both sides of the Bible. If religion is used as a covering to look good God is against it.

But when religion is used for communion to love God. Organizing organizing one's life to worship God as a definition for religion. When religion is is used for communion to love God that is well approved well approved in the scriptures.

Okay we'll close there. And let's close with a word of prayer. Father we thank you for the time that you've given us tonight. I pray that it has been a blessing to us. Thank you for the reminders that you give us about what you desire in our worship.

And what I pray that when our hearts need to be broken that you would break them in your grace. And when our hearts need to be encouraged and strengthened that you would do that as well. And I pray that in all things whether we find ourselves sorrowing in a godly way over our sin or rejoicing greatly in your salvation that you will be pleased to receive these sacrifices of praise we pray these things in Jesus name.

Amen.