Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Sunnyside Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

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

00:17

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

00:26

I Kings of Judah hear

00:31

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

01:01

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

01:51

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 in 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 parable and verse 7 is the explanation what we have in verses 5 through 6 is someone familiar to our eyes if we read

03:54

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 so so back in the ancient

04:20

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

05:04

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

05:28

Proverbs is my favorite cartoon strip by the way it's funny read

05:35

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 it's better though it's filled with the wisdom of God now in verses at 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

07:30

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

07:41

I'm going to do and if that doesn't work I'm going to 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

08:06

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 want to go to the to the

08:18

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 low hills of the

09:08

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

09:52

Prophet are you done rebelling yet or do you want more because so far all you've done is say hit me again so you can you can see that there is a an attempt by God through his

10:10

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 that word overthrown overthrown is a very technical term in the

10:45

Hebrew language it is reserved only for things that reference

10:51

Sodom and Gomorrah right we have an expression getting nuked right right because we live in a post

11:04

Hiroshima post Nagasaki world don't we they lived in a post

11:10

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

11:34

Sodom and Gomorrah come into this because of verse 7 and the word overthrown that's just the term that everybody knew was a

11:40

Sodom and Gomorrah term about how they went down how they got destroyed so what 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

11:55

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

12:13

I'm the one doing it to you it's not a happenstance the problem is that they are fools in 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 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

13:04

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 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 are the vines do they climb all over it they climb up and around it until they cover it and you see this big mound of 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

14:30

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

15:06

Lord yes the very same Lord verse 9 the very same Lord whom they have forgot whom they have denied as their father who may have been rebelling against the same

15:18

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 first night unless the

15:31

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

15:41

Lord of all the hosts he's Lord over the Assyrian hosts too unless the

15:49

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

16:04

Sodom and Gomorrah disaster except for one thing the Lord of hosts intervened he showed his sovereignty and his mercy they were facing the

16:17

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 undefeatable mercy he has his plan he preserves now the next section verses 10 through 20 and upon another arena of rebellion not the political arena but the religious arena verses 10 through 20 and we're gonna in future opportunities 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

18:22

Bible that God will address the the unfaithful rebellious people of a city usually

18:28

Jerusalem he'll call them Babylon or he'll call

18:34

Sodom and a warning mercifully giving them a warning hey this is what happened to these other cities here the

18:48

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 indictments are versions are located this is precisely why

19:44

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 the religious assemblies and their religious leaders that make

20:02

God want to vomit fire and brimstone upon them so this is very interesting in 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

20:32

Sabbaths assemblies sacred meetings feasts spreading one's hands and prayers and what

20:40

I found very interesting times any of these terms are vice it you'll see in your it twice in verse 13 you see the same word sacrifice the 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

21:18

Isaiah is deeply familiar with the priestly customs he's got a very deep understanding of the priestly work 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 he's like they have one customer and they're supposed to be doing all this for him and he walks to 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 go 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 forgot the ceremonies and who was supposed to do what and had learned how to sacrifice but they had not learned chesed in Hebrew God says in Hosea 6 6

22:59

I desire mercy not sacrifice and the word being translated as mercy there is the

23:05

Hebrew word chesed which means covenant faithfulness towards us is God loving us because of who he is not because of who we are when it's in the reverse order and there is a service unto

23:18

God then it's like I'm gonna serve you because of who you are not because of who I am and as a sense of covenant faithfulness and so what

23:25

God is saying in Hosea 6 6 he says I desire mercy and not sacrifice 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

23:36

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

23:52

I desire mercy and not sacrifice a certain the

23:58

Bible's psalm 51 psalm 51 and we'll read verses 15 through 19 after being confronted by Nathan the

24:25

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

24:49

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

25:15

God was wanting ultimately overall verse 17 the sacrifices of God what we are to offer to God there's is the kingdom of heaven great sin okay yeah that was worth a bull you know

25:52

I'll sacrifice all because of this terrible sin broken heart he's looking for repentance godly sorrow and then

26:04

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

26:17

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

26:41

I think gonna look at this in detail and 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 refused to offer sacrifice or they refused 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

27:04

God and spirit and truth and and this is where we get the two definitions of religion so the

27:11

Bible is against religion and for religion the Bible is against religion when it is used as a covering to look good everywhere in an all both sides of the

27:23

Bible if religion is used as a covering to look good God is against it but when religion is used for communion to love

27:30

God you know organizing is one organizing one's life to worship God as a definition for religion when religion is is used for communion to love

27:40

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

27:51

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

28:01

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 would be pleased to receive these sacrifices of praise we pray these things in Jesus name