Isaiah Part 1: The LORD is King 1.1

Prayer Requests:

Suzanne: Miguel and Jenny on trip; Texas situation

Gordon, great-grandson, pnemonia and another one needs prayer

Carol, Jamison

Sandy, prayer for friend’s, continued David cancer

Cheryl, pray for incoming mission pastor Adam and Cori Willard

Deon, neighbors visited friends in Persia and trying to get back

Jean, praise for a friend, open to Jesus

Isaiah 1-4

Here’s our outline today:

God exposes sin (ch. 1),

God calls for repentance transformation (ch. 1:18–20),

God brings down pride and idolatry (Ch. 2-3)

God restores a holy people (ch. 4).

Israel’s Failure

Last week we introduced the vision of Isaiah and talked about how these opening verses represent YHWH’s indictment against Judah/Israel. This is the “cosmic court case” of God’s indictment, and these chapters will show us the totality of Judah’s failure—their sin and disobedience, the necessity of judgement at this present moment, BUT also seasoned throughout with future hope. This whole section, chapters 1-5, represent a sort of preface to the rest of the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah 1:5–8 ESV

5 Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6 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. 7 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. 8 And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.

We see here the totality of their rebellion. There is no soundness, there is righteousness, their faithlessness then seems to be the dominant feature of their culture and way of life. We also are reminded of who it is they’ve forsaken. V. 4: The Holy One of Israel. They have despised God, who is, and this is worth noting, refers to Himself as the Holy One of Israel. He refers to Himself related to them, Israel—I am yours and you are mine—even in their rebellion He still makes a claim on them, but even in that claim, what emerges: His holiness! They are sick in their faithlessness and they have sinned against a holy God.

We see in v. 6 that there is no relief, no one is treating their ailment or their wounds. The image shifts from a body that is sick to v. 7: “a country that lies desolate, cities burned with fire; foreigners devour your land!” Now it seems as though this is not literally true at this present moment, Assyria has not yet overthrown Jerusalem. But whether or not they are actual in ruin is beside the point, for this people is already spiritually in ruin. Physically, they will get there. But now they are in spirit.

They are called a “booth” or a “shack” in a vineyard. Not the great estate or mansion that YHWH envisioned for His people, they are a husk of what they were and what they were meant to be. BUT, there is yet hope for at least Judah is something! Not completely destroyed and the implication here is clear: God could have destroyed this people totally like Sodom and Gomorrah, but there are survivors yet! This is not some act of weakness by God, but instead a show of mercy. And here’s the good news: even a shack on the edge of a broken down vineyard can be redeemed and restored to do great things for the sake of the Lord!

There is hope yet.

Isaiah 1:11 ESV

11 “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.

This is a common refrain against the people from God. He chastises them for their sacrifices and their worship practices. And there’s some irony here because God is the one who commanded them to do these particular sacrifices and feasts (See: 12-14), BUT they are practicing them with the intent to get something from God, manipulating YHWH for their selfish gain. (We know this because the later indictment is that they’re not caring for the orphans and widows in their midst). This is a common tendency for Israel: they focus on the physical, the outward expressions of worship, the observable, the measurable, while ignoring the spiritual, while ignoring their purity of heart and their care for others. They were offering sacrifices not as expressions of covenant love, but as transactions while ignoring his heart for justice and calls to obedience.

God cannot abide this, he cannot endure their sin and the solemn assembly. He identifies this as hypocrisy. Look at v. 15. “When you spread out your hands (as in a prayer), I will hide my eyes from you., even though you make many prayers, I will not listen for your hands are full of blood.” Oh, can you imagine hearing this from God?

Their unholiness, he can not longer abide, one scholar put it this way: “YHWH will not longer participate in the charade of receiving gifts from people who are not sincere...and that every effort of the people at communion with God is rooted in pretense, dishonesty, and disobedience.”

This is a low moment, but there is hope!

Isaiah 1:16–17 ESV

16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

There is hope? There is a way that the people could become clean and washed of their sins? All these charges that have been laid upon the people and they could be free of them?

Wash yourselves, be clean; remove the evil. There is the possibility of a washing and cleansing, a regeneration!

Then, once they have been made clean, once they have been washed, then they can “learn to do good,” they will be enabled by a clean heart to “seek justice…plead the widow’s cause.”

But I want to point out the progression here and we’ll see it highlighted in v. 18.

Isaiah 1:18 “18 “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.”

YHWH is saying: you need to be made clean, and I promise that it will be so, I promise that a cleansing will be effective, so effective that it will make your sins—red as blood as they are—gone and make you white as snow!

There is this interplay between humility, recognition over one’s sins, repentance and then with a new heart and a changed attitude that can do good.

Though the nation is lost, wayward, completely lost to the way of YHWH, there is hope and God is the guarantor of that hope!

This is the image that’s come to mind: the people are walking around wearing filthy rags, I mean the filthiest you could imagine. And to fix it, they’ve taken an old wet sponge and they’re trying to use that to completely clean these rags. It’s totally ineffective, it’s just smearing everything around. That’s their attitude toward prayer, toward religious practices that are empty of God. “If I just pray in the temple, I’ll be clean, who cares about God?” One commentary put it like this: They wanted to pray on Sunday and prey on their neighbors the rest of the week.

No, they and we need a deeper cleansing that would change them beyond the small amount of religious practice. And that’s the hope YHWH is offering here.

As the people repent, God will apply grace to them such that they could be re-oriented to Him. He promises that they will be made clean, but there is also here presented the choice—as we see through so much of scripture—between life and death.

Isaiah 1:19–20 “19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.””

That’s the choice laid before the people, it’s an echo of Deuteronomy—that the people would obey the Lord and then he will give them protection in the land, it’s a choice echoed in the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 7:13–14 “13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

This is the introduction that Isaiah is giving the people. In the rest of chapter one we’ll see further indictments of how the people have rebelled: specifically they are called out for their lack of care and justice for orphans and widows in their community. Isaiah 1:22 “22 Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water.” He says that whatever glory they have, whatever wealth they have, anything of value that they offer is muddled and tarnished because they have so forsaken the care of others.

The oppressed, the widow, and the orphan makes up a triad of groups that are ignored, mistreated, and violated by Israel. And God is done with this. The language of the rest of chapter one is of a refining fire, but it’s not for the purpose only of destruction. See Isaiah 1:25 “25 I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.” and then Isaiah 1:26 “26 . Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.””

V. 27 says that Zion—that’s the name for Jerusalem used throughout Isaiah—will be redeemed by justice! and those who repent, by righteousness. Repentance and obedience lead to restoration. BUT, those who rebel, they, it says

Isaiah 1:29–30 “29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks that you desired; and you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen. 30 For you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water.”

What does this sound like? Anyone? This is the language of Psalm 1! It’s actually the opposite of Psalm 1...

So what’s the pattern an emphasis here in the first chapter of Isaiah? Repent and you will be restored. This is not so different from Jesus’ call to repent and believe, repent for the Kingdom is at hand!

Let’s move on—

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 opens with a clear separation. Isaiah 2:1 “1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”

It’s a repeated phrase, but it is used to mark the start of a new section here and I want to look at Isaiah 2:2–4 “2 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, 3 and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

We get this beautiful picture of what Judah, Jerusalem, is destined to be! And it is a scandalous vision, The Mountain of the Lord will be established as a place for who? ALL nations! Not just Israelites, but all people will flock to this place, the Mountain of the Lord. And we don’t have to wait for Jesus to return to see this, it happened at Pentecost! And we wait for it to be fulfilled perfectly yet.

And what will they find there?

They will learn from God, and learn to obey His ways! They will learn what it means to walk in His path. This is the vision for Judah, for Israel, that they would be a place that the world could come to and learn of the goodness of God and His ways.

This Mountain of the Lord will also be a place of justice—disputes will be settled between the people and nations, his judgements will be perfectly carried out among the people. And this will be a place and time of peace! This will be a place where the people will take their swords and spears—their instruments of war, their tools of killing and violence—and they will be reformed and redeemed into farming tools! And there will be no more war!

This is a return to Eden, back to the garden where Adam and Even were commissioned to work the land, but it was good!

The final statement here of the opening of chapter 2 is this: “come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!” How beautiful! What a vision, what an invitation! For us today, we hear this beckoning call to walk in the light of the LORD, the light of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. I think of 1 Peter 2:9 “9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Like Israel is to be a holy nation but they are now in darkness.

Chapter 2 then moves on to introduce the idea of the Day of the Lord. What is the Day of the LORD?

It is a coming day of judgement; judgement on the people for their idolatry and their pride, for their trust in military or political might, for their trust in wealth and prosperity. This is where we get that great passage I mentioned last week. Isaiah 2:7–9 “7 Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots. 8 Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made. 9 So man is humbled, and each one is brought low— do not forgive them!”

The Day of the LORD will be a day in which these things will be brought to their end. Look at v. 10: Isaiah 2:10 “10 Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of his majesty.” ...and v. 11: “The LORD alone will be exalted in that day.”

The language here is incredible, it talks about the mightiest things that a person could imagine—the cedars of Lebanon; the lofty mountains; the highest towers and fortified walls; the greatest navy in the world, all of this will be brought low and v. 18: “all the idols shall utterly pass away.”

And you may ask, what is the purpose of this day of the Lord? The purpose is to bring about their inner transformation as a people. Isaiah 2:20 “20 In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats.”

And the vision of this day is terrifying! Chapter 3 outlines the collapse of society—there is no food, no water. It says that God will take away from Jerusalem the support of soldiers, judges, prophets, elders and so on. The scene is dire, but it will carry out it’s purpose to refine and restore this people.

Now i want to say a quick word here about the Day of the Lord—we hear the Day of the LORD and we think of some future day, when Jesus returns and judges all things, we think the book of Revelation, we think tribulation.

That will certainly be the Day of the LORD. But the prophet Isaiah may also have in mind other “Days” of the Lord. The impending fall of Jerusalem and the fallout of Judah in exile in Babylon, that will truly be a Day of the Lord. And through exile, God promises restoration. Is there more than one Day of the Lord.

In some ways, and we’ll see the theme of messiah emerge in Isaiah, we might consider Jesus’ crucifixion to have been a Day of the LORD. It was divine judgement against sin and rebellion, an upheaval that paved the way for our salvation, restoration, and transformation.

I should say this: we may face a deep and hard pruning in our lives, refining work that God is using to shape us more fully into the image of His son (much like the purpose of the Day of the LORD). But we should also walk with assurance. Assurance that when that Day comes, we will be secure in Christ.

Though here in Isaiah, the picture of Judah in chapters 2-3 is bleak. So I want to close with this. Chapter 4 is kind of a mirror image of the beginning of chapter 2, that image of what Judah is destined for. Let us have this in mind as we leave today:

Isaiah 4:2–6 ESV

2 In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. 3 And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, 4 when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. 5 Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. 6 There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.

God has not given up on Judah yet, He is making them into this people, the nation they were intended to be. Cleansed of their sin and a light to the world. See the language—”cloud by day”—it brings us back to Exodus, there will be a new exodus out of exile, a restoration.

One commentary put it this way, that the opening and closing of this section show that “proud, self-sufficient Israel can become the witness to the greatness of God only when she has been reduced to helplessness by his just judgment and then restored to life by his unmerited grace.”

So it is for us, we can be the holy nation, royal priesthood that God intended us to be when we throw ourselves at the grace of our Lord Jesus, when we trust in the transforming and cleansing work of the cross.