Yahweh's Court
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Come into the court of Yahweh where we face our sin and can receive his gracious judgment.
We must hear, lament, and repent in his court, thus receiving his gracious judgment.
Isaiah 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.
Isaiah was written to Judah and Jerusalem.
Is anyone here from the tribe of Judah?
Is anyone here a citizen of Jerusalem?
No, of course not! Yet I would suggest that this message is also for us.
Judah and Jerusalem represent the human condition and thus represent our sinfulness before God.
Today let us come, hear, lament, and repent to receive his gracious judgment.
Isaiah 1:2-4.
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;
for the Lord has spoken:
“Children have I reared and brought up,
but 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 understand.”
Ah, sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers,
children who deal corruptly!
They have forsaken the Lord,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel,
they are utterly estranged.
Heaven and earth were called as witnesses against them. All that we do is under heaven and on the earth. There is no hiding our sin from Yahweh.
It is here, in Yahweh’s court, that we have to face our sins.
We are all guilty of the sin of rebellion. Each of us wants our way, not God’s way. We are worse than livestock, who at least understand where their provisions come from. Often, in our rebellion, we bite the hand that feeds us. We do not know or understand what God is doing, so we rebel against him by blaming him for our problems.
Sin brings forth sin.
Rebellion brings forth corruptive dealings.
Rebellion brings forth forsaking Yahweh.
Rebellion brings forth despising the Holy One of Israel.
Rebellion brings forth estrangement from Yahweh, our Father, who made us.
When we face our sins, how do we respond?
Isaiah 1:5-9.
Why will you still be struck down?
Why will you continue to rebel?
The whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores
and raw wounds;
they are not pressed out or bound up
or softened with oil.
Your country lies desolate;
your cities are burned with fire;
in your very presence
foreigners devour your land;
it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.
And the daughter of Zion is left
like a booth in a vineyard,
like a lodge in a cucumber field,
like a besieged city.
If the Lord of hosts
had not left us a few survivors,
we should have been like Sodom,
and become like Gomorrah.
We respond by owning our sin through lament. Paul and James model this for us in Romans 7:13-25 and James 4:1-10. Paul concludes Romans 7:24-25 with:
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
To lament, we turn to God and are honest with him in our feelings concerning our sin. We receive the truth about our sin, grieve it, and then celebrate the forgiveness brought to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
When we lament our sins, we stop rationalizing and justifying our sins.
We recognize our destitution and our need for Yahweh.
When we have owned and lamented our sins, we are ready to hear Yahweh’s call to repentance and put away our hypocrisy.
Isaiah 1:10-15.
Hear the word of the Lord,
you rulers of Sodom!
Give ear to the teaching of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
“When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this trampling of my courts?
Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
When we own our sin through lament, we stop faking it. We stop just going through the motions.
Owning our sin through lament is the quickest cure for hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy flourishes in these ways:
when we perceive that we are okay
when we think that our sin is not a big deal
when we rationalize it away, thus not owning it through lament
Hypocrisy is going through the motions with God, but our hearts are not in it, for we are walking in our way and trying to dress it up with external religious practices. For the Jews, it was sacrifices, feasts, and gifts. For us, it would be coming to church and giving because we think it makes us good with him.
God does not want us to be religious; he wants a relationship that affects all our actions. We enter into that relationship through repentance.
What does this repentance look like?
Isaiah 1:16-20.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Yahweh has spoken. Hear his call to repentance. Receive his gift of repentance.
Repentance is turning from your way and choosing God’s way.
God’s way is:
learning to do good
seeking justice
correcting oppression
bringing justice to the fatherless
pleading the widow's case
When we come to Yahweh’s court with hearts that hear, lament, and repent, we receive his gracious judgment.
He makes our scarlet sins white as snow. Our crimson sins are white as wool. These sins are made white by Christ’s blood shed on the cross.
Church, let us be willing and obedient to choose God’s way, thus receiving his gracious judgment.
