Sunday, June 23, 2024 PM

Isaiah’s Covenant Rebuke of Rebellious Children

Well, let's open our Bibles and turn to Isaiah chapter 1, especially verses 2 and 3, as we are in the middle of answering the question, what hope is there for rebellious children? This is a question that we are driven to ask in agreement with Isaiah's themes, and Judah is addressed.

The people of Israel are addressed by God as His children who are in rebellion. And this is the way that Isaiah begins, after the announcement that, of course, Isaiah, the son of Amoz, is the one who is prophesying, and he prophesies during the timeline of these particular kings.

The message begins, and immediately, the people of God are being confronted with their relationship to God, confronted about their rebellion. So let me pray for us, and then we'll read the Bible together.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the day. We thank You for our gathering here tonight. I pray that You would bless us as we read Your Word and consider what it means, and that there would be a hearty amen within us concerning this Word that You have given to us.

We pray that You would help us see Your Son in this Word, that we would look like Him in this world. We pray these things in His name, amen. Isaiah chapter 1, verses 2 and 3. 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. Now last time we were thinking about the larger context, how this is the opening salvo of rebukes given by the prophet Isaiah to the people of Israel here at the beginning of this massive book in the Old Testament.

And we were focusing in on the relationship. God calls Israel His children, not because they are all born again, as we would think of in the New Covenant context. He calls them His children in the Old Covenant context.

Some of them certainly are born again. They are a remnant who truly are spiritually alive, grieved by the wickedness that they see, sincere in their worship of God. But there is a great majority of them who are not spiritually alive.

Their hearts have not been circumcised by faith. And so they continue in their idolatrous, wicked, and rebellious ways. Now the blessings that God had designed in the Old Covenant were dependent on how faithful Israel was going to be to that covenant that God made with them.

If they were to be faithful to the covenant, they would experience blessings in which one man could chase off a hundred enemies, where they would be the head rather than the tail. They would have great influence.

Their crops would be good. The rain would come in its season. All would be well. But if Israel as a whole did poorly, and they were not faithful, and they neglected to address one another sternly and say, know the Lord.

If they did not keep up their covenant faithfulness and encourage everybody around them to do the right thing, and they began to drift away, begin to become idolatrous and pat themselves on the back for all their successes and begin to forget God.

In that scenario, God would begin to remind them of who He was through curses. The rain would stop coming in its season. The famines would begin. Pestilence would begin to break out. Other nations would become stronger than them.

They would have no more military strength or courage to face their enemies. And God said, I'm going to do this again and again until you turn back to me. That's the relationship that God designed for His people Israel in the covenant that He made with Abraham concerning His descendants.

He tightens up this covenant when He deals with David and his descendant as He speaks of David's son as He would the entirety of Israel. So when He talks about them being His children, there's a whole lot of background to that.

He even called Israel His son, His firstborn son in Exodus, which is why He so harshly braided Pharaoh. Let my firstborn son go or I'm going to kill your firstborn son, which of course He did. Now when we think about that relationship, it's not simply the fact that God is a father to them and they are His children, but the thing that goes on in that is that God has nourished them and brought them up.

So we were just looking at this on, hear, O heavens, give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. And we consider the fact that the Lord is calling Israel His children. Remember that when He invokes the heavens and the earth as witnesses, these were the witnesses of the covenant originally at Sinai.

Now notice His relationship to the children is one of nourishing and bringing them up. He's brought them up. He is seen to their needs as a father provides good, strengthening food to His children. God has raised Israel up, maturing them and elevating them in proper order and timing.

Israel has never lacked for good instruction. Israel has never lacked for good nutrition, proper protection, plenty of affection and promises and direction. God is righteous in His covenant obligations.

He has shown covenant faithfulness. He has shown mercy. He has shown love in the Hebrew chesed and emeth. He has said, I am faithful to you because of who I am and faithful to everything I ever said to you.

What a good father. He invokes heaven and earth to be witnesses to this. Can heaven and earth, which in a sense encompass the entirety of all witnesses, can heaven and earth spot a place where God has not been faithful?

Not in the least. How often do we read about God feeding Abraham, even providing that ram in place of Isaac? Remember how Isaac begot a hundredfold harvest in the land of foreigners. Even when apart from the land of promise, he had a hundredfold harvest.

Jacob, whose flocks and herds went from Laban to him, and how he had what he needed during famine. God continually fed Israel in the wilderness and brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey.

Has not God nourished Israel? What a good father. Did not God converse with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, providing instruction or Torah through Moses and the word of the prophets? He's a good father. He's provided bread from heaven and his very word.

What a good father. Do you see that? Here, O heavens, give ear, or if the Lord has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children. And what a great job God has done. So much there, this metaphor of God being father and them being his children, him nourishing them and bringing them up.

So much story of the life of Israel is on board that metaphor. We know our father by his son, and his son is given to us as bread from heaven. We remember that the word of God was made flesh. Do we see that we have a perfect father to so thoroughly, perfectly nourish us and bring us up?

He has given us his son. How will he not also with him freely give us all things? In Romans chapter 8, we think about the way in which God cares for us, how we're supposed to recognize that he provides all that we need, that he gives us his spirit, he gives us his son, and that we know that all things are going to work together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

We know that he continually loves us. And who is it who can condemn? Who is it who can bring a charge against God's elect? Not God. Not Christ. We do not face charges of condemnation, for we are in that fulfillment of Israel who is perfectly faithful to the covenant, and God the Father finds no flaw in God the Son.

The Rebellion of a Vassal People

Now consider their rebellion, and here we come to the heart of the matter. Now notice how there's several parallels here. Heaven and earth, God nourished and brought them up, the ox and the donkey, Israel and his people.

You see how there's just a set of two and two and two and two, but here in the middle, this is the complaint, this is the problem. As often as the main point's right in the middle, concentric parallels coming out around it.

And they have rebelled against me. And we see that the Lord is in focus. The Lord is the one who has spoken, he's the one who's nourished them. He takes the position in the analogy as the owner and the master.

After all, they are his people. The focus is on who the Lord is, who rebelled in general, and they've rebelled against me, he says. And he's the one who's nourished them, he's the one who's brought them up.

The word for rebellion here is often used in other contexts to describe the political or militant revolt of a vassal state. Do you remember the story in Genesis where Sodom and Gomorrah, Abba Zebouim rebelled against Chedder Laramore and his allies to the north?

They were his vassals, they were making tribute payments, and they had an agreement. And then they decided, we're not going to honor that agreement, we're going to go our own way. And Chedder Laramore came down with his armies to punish them for that.

This is that kind of rebellion. Agreements of this type were made in the ancient days, they're called Caesarean treaties. And in a Caesarean treaty, you had a mighty king, he was great and powerful. And when he would make a treaty with his people, he would begin by reminding them of everything he's ever done for them.

And how it all came about, the fact that we're in this situation where I'm your king and you are my vassal state. Do you remember how we got here? Emphasizing his power, his glory, his generosity, and so on.

And then, after that's set, then he says, so here's how it's going to go down. You're going to do this, this, this, and this, and lay out all the requirements of that relationship. And that's the way the book of Deuteronomy is structured.

In Deuteronomy chapters 1 through 4, God says to his people, do you remember how we got here? Do you remember how you're my people? Here's all the things I've done, here's all the things I've done for you, and therefore, here's how it's going to go.

Chapter 5, Ten Commandments. Here's how you're going to live. So God had told these people by Moses and the rest of the prophets who they were and how they were going to relate to one another. Here and elsewhere, this word, rebellion, focuses on an extended and expansive transgression.

This is not where a renter forgets a payment or a citizen forgets to pay a fine, forgets to update their license plate, some sort of minor transgression. This is a concerted effort for a people to rebel against their king.

That's the kind of word that we have in front of us with this word rebellion. This is not a simple matter for, for, for the HR department. Now let's take a look at the terms of your contract. Are you really fulfilling those terms?

No. This is, this is personal. God is saying, you have rebelled against me, you rebelled against me. This word is the word that can be translated elsewhere as transgression, transgression. So what can be done?

What can be done? What hope is there for transgressors to be delivered, to be delivered from the guilt of their transgression and be forgiven for their transgressions? Isaiah is going to talk about that, isn't he?

In chapter 53, about another servant, a servant in the, in something of the form of the old servant that was unfaithful, but they're the transgressors. Here comes a new servant, capital S servant, who was faithful, who always pleases the Lord and he will bear our transgressions, bear our transgressions.

The Ox, the Donkey, and Israel’s Failure to Know

So God rebukes them for their rebellion and he brings up the ox and the donkey. Now what do we know about the ox and the donkey? I know we're not very agrarian, not like the Israelites were. They were experts about donkeys and oxen, but what do we know about oxen and donkeys?

Don't yoke them together, that's for sure. What else? Stubborn. Aren't they stubborn? They do make a mess. When you think about the ox and the donkey, they are notoriously stubborn animals. The ox may seem dumb, dumb as an ox, but you know what?

An ox will obey its master. Others may have a hard time to get it to function productively. If someone came along who wasn't the master and tried to get that ox to do something, the ox probably is like, forget about it.

But the owner could get it to do something. The owner could get it to plow a field and pull a cart. I mean, the ox may be dumb, but at least the ox knows its owner. In contrast, Israel readily follows others, as we'll discover.

Oh, they're fascinated with this trend and that new thing amongst the pagans. Oh, they'll follow a lot of people, but they don't know. I mean, the ox knows its owner, but Israel doesn't even know their own father who has nourished them and brought them up.

The donkey kicks. One of God's favorite rebukes and pejoratives of Israel is he calls them Jashurin. Jashurin is his name for the stubborn Israel who kicks like a donkey. But, you know, the donkey has to eat, and he can be corralled for want of food.

Israel by contrast seems happy to starve. Their loving father nourished them, why would they not continue to seek him for provision? I mean, consider the ox, consider the donkey, and then look at Israel, oh my.

And you see you have this connection. The ox knows its owner, the owner has trained it, told it how to operate, knows the voice of the master, will do what it's told, and God has brought up children. He's nourished those children, and the donkey knows where to go eat.

You can see how there's a cross parallel there. So God is definitely talking about Israel here, making some connections. But the contrast being made here is between the instincts of the animals being compared to the insults of the children.

The instincts of the animals being compared to the insults of the children. First, as a father, God's care for Israel has been far superior to any farmer's care for his beasts of burden. The farmer will care for his animals, but God's care for his children has been so much better than that.

Second, Israel's behavior has been far inferior to that of the beasts of burden. Not only is God better than these masters and owners, but Israel's behavior is far worse than these dumb animals. I remember talking to an old-timer in Tennessee, a member of the church we were at previously, and he grew up in the hills of Tennessee, West Tennessee, in Hardeman County.

Hardeman County, Tennessee, was famous for its mules. Famous for its mules. And you may imagine that that industry went away with the onset of the tractor. But Jim liked to talk about the mules that they trained and brought up.

Why were they stubborn? And he said, he remembered one time that he was trying to, and they were ornery, and so he was trying to work around the family homestead, and he got behind that mule, and that mule decided to give him a kick.

Put him flat on the ground, and it took him a long time to recover. But when he recovered, he came back with a sledgehammer and hit the mule right behind the ear on the back of the head. Made him stagger.

And after that, that mule didn't kick him no more, and tended to do what he told it to do. He had to have a certain mentality to survive back then. He said that mule was, he said he was better than any man they could have hired.

Because he and his father would go out into the woods and go logging, and they would fell a tree, and Jimmy would be at the wagon, his father would be out in the woods. His father would fell the tree, cut off the extra branches, hitch the trunk of the tree to the mule and say, go find Jim.

Hit him on the rump, and that mule would wind his way through the forest, pulling that log, and he would go right back to the wagon, where Jimmy would put the log up on to the wagon. The ox, the donkey, they know, but Israel, Israel is far, far worse.

When we think about that, sometimes God will use that example of animal instincts and compare them and contrast them with his own people. He's done it elsewhere. In Jeremiah 8, 7 there, he talks about different animals who will flee when there's danger, and they'll know if there's no food or no water, or they'll know if there's some sort of physical danger, that they will avoid it, and they'll do what makes sense.

But his own people, his own people can't figure it out. And so the relationship of beast and master is compared to children and father. As I reflect on that, I think how much more sweet then are the pictures of Jesus as our shepherd, and that we are the sheep of his pasture.

Jesus is the bridegroom, we're the bride. All that we need, he provides. That in the pictures of, in the pictures of the new covenant, we are not beasts of burden, and we are not failed children because of grace.

Israel Does Not Know and Does Not Consider

And lastly, think of their regression here. We have the ox and the donkey already put in the position of children, contrasted, compared, and then clearly God makes his point known. It's Israel who does not know, my people do not consider.

The heavens have been addressed, the earth has been addressed, the heaven and earth knows. Heaven and earth knows, and God has spoken, his word has gone forth in every generation, prophet after prophet, generation after generation, his word has been declared, but they don't know.

They don't know. They don't consider, despite the revelation of God. And the identifiers here are placed and stressed emphatically. Israel, God says Israel and my people. They're placed in parallel with oxen and donkeys, but this is emphasized because here, it's lost in the English, but in the Hebrew it renders, and they of all people, they of all people have rebelled against me.

Now, this emphasis is made, I think, because of the name. Let's think about that name, Israel. How'd they get that name? How'd that come about? God changed Jacob's name, but that came after what significant event?

Yeah, Jesus bushwhacked Jacob, snuck up on him, took him down. God is picking fights a lot, if you'll notice, in the Bible. Very often God is the one picking the fight from Genesis 3 .15 and so on. In Genesis 32, and in verse 22, we have clarity that their very name that's so emphasized in this opening comes from a story in which Jacob wrestles with God.

It's interesting how the name Israel is emphasized since Isaiah is preaching to the southern kingdom of Judah, but Israel is the name emphasized here. Now, Jacob is wrestling with God, but notably he cannot prevail.

What's the situation in Isaiah's day? The people are in rebellion to God, but guess what? They're not going to prevail. Hey, Israel, you got your name from this whole scenario. Now, in verse 22, we read of Jacob.

He arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed over the fort of Jabbok. He took them and sent them over the brook and sent over what he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.

Now, when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him, and he said, Let me go, for the day breaks.

But he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. So he said to him, What is your name? He said, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. Israel, meaning elevated with God or honored with God.

For you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked, saying, Tell me your name, I pray. And he said, Why is it that you ask about my name? And he blessed them there. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for he said, I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

Just as he crossed over Peniel, the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip. Therefore, to this day, the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip in the muscle that shrank.

They strove with God in Jacob, and they were forever marked. Israel walked different from that day forth. He limped everywhere he went. Israel, as a nation, was marked by God. And God said, Before you do this or that, you're always going to have to do this first.

You read the law, and in some ways you think, That's an awfully inefficient way to do things. And there's no nutrition reason here. There's no sanitary reason here. Why is God telling them to do this, this, and this?

And very often we say, Well, this is the shadows of Christ, and ultimately this is the case. But don't you see that God struck them with a limp? Israel wandered through the wilderness. Everywhere they went, they were to have that distinctive limp.

Everywhere they went, they had to do this, this, and this before they could ever do these other things. He made them walk different than anybody else, didn't he? So, their very name speaks of God and their privileged position with God.

They got their name through this event that we read about in Genesis 32. Their name invokes His name, Israel. I mean, if you got a limp that changed the way you walked every single day, wouldn't you remember how you got it?

I remember how I got that. And yet they do not know. My people do not consider. So, that's the problem. So, God will make them know. And He will make them consider. And He will bring to them remembrances of what has been said again.

He will give His word again. And ultimately, they will know who God is. And they will know Him as He manifests His servant to them. To know the full, true name of God's covenant servant, and to be named by Him, is to know and be known and to be saved.

Just like Jacob. Okay, any thoughts or questions as we close our study of those opening verses? Alright, well let's conclude by singing the doxology together.