Wednesday, July 10, 2024

And turn to the Gospel of Isaiah. We're going to be in chapter 1 and we're going to read a new section. This evening. We're going to be reading verses 10 through 20. Isaiah chapter 1. Verses 10 through 20.

Judah and Jerusalem Rebuked as Sodom and Gomorrah

Hear the word of the Lord. You rulers of Sodom give ear to the law of our God. You people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle.

I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats when you come to appear before me who has required this from your hand to trample my courts. Bring no more futile sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me.

The new moons the Sabbath's and the calling of assemblies. I cannot endure iniquity in the sacred meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They are a trouble to me. I am weary of burying them.

When you spread out your hands I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes.

Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless plead and let us reason together says the Lord. Eat as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson they shall be as wool.

Eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel you shall be devoured by the sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Now the Lord is not confused. He is not forgotten that he has fire in brimstone.

Sodom and Gomorrah out of existence. They are no longer on the map. So who's he talking to you. And why is it that Sodom and Gomorrah are offering up sacrifices to the Lord and celebrating feast days and observing a religious calendar focused on the phases of the moon.

Well this is not Sodom and Gomorrah of Genesis this is Judah and Jerusalem. And he is calling them Sodom and Gomorrah. Because they are that wicked they are offending him that much he's getting their attention.

And we've already heard in the previous passage that the people are undergoing and facing a destruction like unto Sodom and Gomorrah. But it is only the Lord who refrains from completely wiping them out.

Unless the Lord had left it's a very small remnant. We would have been made like Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 9 says. So what is going on here. Well here in the first large section of Isaiah we have sermons for a difficult presence.

The difficulty of course is twofold. There are the enemies from without and there is the apostasy from within. And the Lord is being showcased in the first 12 chapters as the true Redeemer. They may look for one solution or another solution but there's only one Savior for them and it is the very Lord whom they are forgetting.

The one who against whom they are rebelling. In the first six chapters of Isaiah we are introduced to the children of woe. They've got nothing but doom on the slate. But is there any hope. And yes there is.

But first of all they need to be addressed as what they are. They are rebellious children. They've been called rebellious and now the rebellion is being played out there being being shown. First of all the first arena that their rebellion is shown is in their political arena.

Not politics in terms of electioneering but politics in terms of them being a nation. How their whole nation is like their whole nation is is has been beaten over and over again like the body of a of a drunken fool who won't stop committing crimes against the magistrate.

There they are beaten over and over again by the Lord who's chastising them. And he's saying why won't you stop. Why won't you repent. And now the arena is that of the religious. The religious arena verses 10 through 20.

And the the amount of religious language in this section is very intense. We went over those last time in a very short space of time. In verses 10 through 15 you hear the following. You hear sacrifices burnt offerings blood rams cattle bulls lambs goats courts incense new moon Sabbath assemblies sacred meetings feasts spreading hands prayers just just the whole list.

God is walking through their religious activities. He's taking inventory on all of it and he's giving them the report. It's all rotten. I don't want any of it because they are in rebellion against him.

So we begin in verse 10 looking at the particulars. The rebuke of the worshippers. The rebuke of the worshippers. Verse 10 says. Hear the word of the Lord. You rulers of Sodom give ear to the law of our God.

You people of Gomorrah. So the rulers or the magistrates those who are the chiefs those who are sitting in the city gates and making decisions and ruling on particular cases those with power in the society and then just the regular run-of-the-mill people.

So the the mayor and the townsfolk the the chief and the tribe the judge and all the citizenry all of them are being addressed. And it's not about their citizenship. It's not about what they're doing in the city gates.

It's what they're doing at the temple. It's what they're doing in their religious activities that God is drawing attention to. And he is rebuking them for all of it. These rulers of Sodom these people of Gomorrah.

The reason why they are being rebuked is because of all of their worship activities. And so God is saying from the rulers to the people all of you need to pay attention and recognize that what you're doing is not what I've asked for.

And all of you need to change your ways. So worship is not simply for those of high status but it's for everyone. Worship is not just for the paid priests. Worship is not for a professional crew. It worship is not something that you outsource and hire certain people to do it.

Well worship is something that was all the people of God were accountable to God for the way that they worshipped. God inscribes into the covenant he made with Israel the manner in which everyone was to worship.

And the reason why he inscribed it into his covenant is because it's in the way of his creation. He made us in his image to glorify him. He made us in his image to worship him. And he brings attention to that in this covenant that he made with Israel.

Remember that it mattered it mattered to Jesus how people worshipped. It wasn't simply the fact that he was getting on to the scribes and the chief priests the Sadducees those who were controlling the temple and and all the rest of that.

It wasn't that he was simply getting on to that professional class. He spoke about worship to everyone. Remember the Samaritan woman. It mattered to Jesus how the Samaritan woman understood worship and how to worship.

Didn't it the dignitaries of Jerusalem and the Dinsians of Judah are here called Sodom and Gomorrah. Now why is God resorting to name-calling. Right. This is essentially name-calling. Sometimes God when he was very frustrated with his people he would call them Jeshurun which was the.

It's basically if if God were to draw a a political cartoon satirizing the follies of Israel he would draw them in the form of a stubborn foolish donkey. Jeshurun kicked. He called them names to rebuke them.

Sometimes he called them Egypt. Well I thought Egypt was destroyed by the plagues of God because they were there because Pharaoh's heart was hardened against God and it kept on refusing God's will. Yes you're following good because that's what his people are doing.

He calls them Egypt when they're on the verge of judgment because they were refusing to follow him. Or he calls them Babylon because they're they're pagan and they're bloody here. He's calling them Sodom and Gomorrah.

This is not a cheap shot. This isn't a clever insult. God is calling them something other than their name. He's not calling them Israel at just this point Israel which means God prevails. He's not calling them Judah which means praise Yahweh.

He's not saying Jerusalem city of peace. I mean those were their names. But they were so named that way because of their special covenant history with the Lord and their present covenant obligation and status.

But he doesn't call them that. Why notice in the previous passage they've forgotten God. They're acting like he's not their father. They're they're living as if they're not his covenant people. And so he names them something other than well say if you're not my covenant people if you're not really gonna be Judah you're not gonna really be to Jerusalem there.

What's the difference between you and Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently not a whole lot. He identifies them as pagans deserving of cataclysmic judgment. But also he's showing that they have despised and abandoned their special relationship with God.

He doesn't use their covenant names because they're not acting like it. They forsake him verse 4. They forget him verse 3. So okay I'm gonna call you Sodom and Gomorrah. Now they could protest say why are you calling a Sodom and Gomorrah.

We've got the temple right. Well we offer sacrifices to your name. We gather here on very special occasions throughout the religious calendar year. We do all manner of things to praise the name of Yahweh.

Why are you calling us Sodom and Gomorrah. Well he's going to show them that all the things that they think that make them special their religious customs their sacrificial system all of it is an abhorrence to him.

In verses 11 through 15 consider further though that God could have called them something like he could have said just Egypt. He could have said Babylon. But here he says Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom was known for its sin and Sodom is synonymous with those who parade their sin.

It's been that way for a long time. Sodom is known for making sin central to their culture. Sodom makes sin essential to their identity. You couldn't put you couldn't put a page in between Sodom and their sin.

They were so identified by their sin still the same way today. They have the same same class of people in Romans 1 those who have been turned over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are in rebellion to God contrary to nature and know that it's deserving of death but also approve of those who practice them.

And God is using that language Sodom and Gomorrah to describe Judah and Jerusalem that he's already pointed out that no matter how often he chastises them they are like the fool being beaten again and again every single day by the magistrate and will refuse to change his ways.

And so he says I'm just gonna call you Sodom and Gomorrah because there's no other name to call you at this time. And yet the situation between Sodom and Gomorrah and Judah and Jerusalem it's not exactly the same is it.

It's not exactly the same. It's both better and worse. It's better because this Sodom and Gomorrah this Judah and Jerusalem have been given God's Word. They have been given God's instruction his his his Torah.

You see the word law there hear the word of the Lord. You rulers of Sodom give ear to the law of our God. Very often when we see the word law in the Old Testament perhaps we immediately think of the Ten Commandments.

Well it's part of it right. But law or Torah means instruction. It has the idea of the loving fatherly authoritative instruction. So there's a lot there. It's not simply the Ten Commandments. So there's a there's all of his instruction has been given to Judah and Jerusalem.

This this particular Sodom and Gomorrah unlike the one back in Genesis 19 this Sodom and Gomorrah are invited. They are compelled. They are commanded to hear and pay attention to God's gracious revelation.

And he's already promised that he's not going to wipe them completely out like he did with Sodom and Gomorrah. So God is showing himself gracious situation is actually better than it was back in Genesis 19.

But it's also worse. It's also worse because God has been so gracious to them because he's given them so much revelation because he's been speaking to them because he's given him given them his word because he sent them his prophets and so on.

They are accountable for all of that. They're responsible for all of that. In Matthew chapter 11 there's this past. This passage has a similar passages throughout the Gospels. But in Matthew chapter 11 in verse 20 Jesus begins to rebuke some cities.

Matthew 11 verse 20. Then he began to rebuke the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent. Consider the mighty works that God did for Judah and for Jerusalem the mighty works that he performed on their behalf.

Well Jesus did mighty works in these cities woe to you Chorazin woe to you Bethsaida. For if the mighty works which were done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

But I say to you it'll be more more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you Capernaum who were exalted to heaven will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works which were done in you have been done in Sodom it would have remained until this day.

But I say to you that it will shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment and for you. What makes the difference. What makes the difference is that when God shines his light and showcases his salvation and sends his word forth in amongst the people that they become accountable for that revelation.

And so it's better for Judah and Jerusalem. But it's also worse they are accountable for more than Sodom and Gomorrah. It is only God who sustains them who has who has made them in the first place. It is only God who can save them from their their worst situation.

And when he calls them Sodom and Gomorrah they may wonder at why he's saying that they may think that they have a special connection with God no matter what because hey the temple is there this is Jerusalem and so on.

But he's going to show them how rotten their worship is and how they must repent. And that's the point of verses 11 through 15. So a quick look at that we won't get through all the details. But this this is rotten worship in verses 11 through 15.

And we've talked about the the flow of all the different religious terms that we we find in these five verses. But God does inventory. He does inventory in two different areas. In verse 11 he said let's take a look at the altar and what goes on at the altar.

And then in verses 12 through 14 he says let's take a look at the assembly and what happens when you all get together. And then in verse 15 he kind of wraps it all up with a very structured resounding condemnation.

So in in and when God takes inventory at the altar and the assembly very similar structure. He has a rhetorical rebuke. A question that comes up. It's a rhetorical question. You know you're not supposed to answer it.

You're just supposed to bear it. It's like oh man. And then he follows up and shows that his righteous refusal of that sacrificial practice is justified. So he does that with the altar. And he does that with the assembly as well.

But when we look at the altar you find all these sacrifices being made. You see the mode there the burnt offerings. You see the multitude of them. They're all being considered and weighed and found wanting.

Verse 11 again says to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me. This term for sacrifice particularly references blood sacrifices. The sacrifice. The word for sacrifice down in verse 13 is oblation.

It's the it's the drink offering. It's a different Hebrew word. So up here in verse 11 it's the blood sacrifice where they're shedding the blood of the animals at the altar. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices.

To me says the Lord I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats. Now God's question here this rhetorical question is especially cutting the sense of the text.

You have the Lord simply kind of waving his hand towards all of the sacrificial activity that is happening around the altar. This vigorous activity it's labor-intensive. It's slaughtering and butchering animals and making fires and offering up sacrifices.

This is very very hard work. And they obviously were doing a lot of it because there was a multitude of the sacrifices. All the blood of these animals pooling around the base of the altar. Levites with sharp knives cutting slicing butchering sacrificing the smoke going up as the meat and wood are piled up on top.

And the waste is being removed by a bunch of other Levites. And the Lord gestures to all of that activity. And with disdain asks what's that for that's kind of hit hard when the Levites and the priest saying weird this is all for you.

And God is saying I don't want any of that that hits deep. But he is right to refuse. He's right to refuse. He says I have had enough. God has had enough. It's like with Sodom about the stench of their sin rising all the way to heaven.

He's he's had it up to here with all of this sacrificing going on in Jerusalem. His frustration level with Judah and Jerusalem is that Sodom and Gomorrah levels. The smell of the burnt offerings does not soothe him.

The sizzle of the melting fat does not please him. The sight of all that sacrificial blood being shed before his face does not satisfy him. Why. Because the sacrifices at the altar had taken on a pagan approach.

All you have to do is look back at 2nd Kings chapter 16. And you see this Ahaz there in verse 1 of chapter 1. Remember Ahaz. Yeah Ahaz was the one who went shopping around in Syria and Damascus to find nice better quality pagan altars and rearranging all the sacrificial system in the temple.

Because it was all about the sacrifices not about who you were worshiping. The worshippers there in Jerusalem had begun to think of the Lord as they would have bail as they would think of Chemosh as they would think of Molech or the Queen of Heaven or Asherah.

They would think of God that way. They thought that God just wanted blood. They thought God just wanted food. So just give him what he wants. The sacrifices were not God's desire. What did he desire. We talked about that last time.

I desire mercy. Not sacrifice mercy chesed covenant faithfulness. I desire someone to be faithful to the covenant. Not all the sacrifices that you offer up. The sacrifices were not God's desire. He desired a covenantally faithful servant which was lost in Adam and re-envisioned in the covenant.

So next time we're going to study a little bit more on that and think about why is God saying he doesn't want these sacrifices. He doesn't want these blood sacrifices. He doesn't want these burnt offerings.

He doesn't want them. You know putting these parts of animal parts on the offering on the altar and burning them up. We're gonna look more at that from their various passages in the Old Testament. But I will point out one thing.

I will point out one thing. He says that he does not delight in verse 11. He's had enough. He does not delight in these sacrifices like I this is not where I am being satisfied. I'm not pleased with this at all.

And that must be a rather concerning to the worshipers there at the temple. However in Isaiah 53 verse 10 whereas at the beginning of Isaiah he says I am NOT pleased with these offerings. I am NOT pleased with these sacrifices near the end of Isaiah.

Isaiah 53 10 of the faithful covenantally faithful servant who offered himself up as a sacrifice. It says Isaiah 53 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief when you make his soul an offering for sin.

God is not pleased with this. He is pleased with Christ all. Right. We'll leave it there for now. And let's close in prayer. Father we thank you for the time you've given us in your word Lord. We pray that you would help us to recognize that you are holy and that you are light and you are spirit.

And those who worship you must worship you in spirit and in truth. And I pray that you would help us to do that. I pray that you would help us to recognize it is not the form and the function of our practices that you are interested in.

But it is indeed our our worship our adoration our praise to you our love for you that you desire. And I pray that you would stir those things up in us for the glory of your name. We pray this by the name of your son Jesus Christ.

Amen.