Make Your Choice
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Rebellious Children
Rebellious Children
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.
2 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. 3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”
God is inviting us to witness his dysfunctional family. He’s been the attentive Father and Israel is the rebellious child.
God had reared Israel and brought them up.
To rear is similar to Daniel being educated in Babylon. God wasn’t the Father who came home from work and told the kids to go outside while he could watch TV. He was guiding their growth, investing his time, energy, and attention to them. He cared enough to be involved.
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
4 I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.
He brought them up, or literally “made them high up.” In Isaiah things are high when they are glorious, impressive, powerful. God pulled all the strings, made all the calls, and gave Israel a place of prominence for no other reason then they were his children.
Parents especially could read this in an exasperated tone. We’ve had experiences where, yeah, dumber than a donkey is a good description of the problem. The two most stubborn animals, not especially known for the intellect, but at least they know who they belong to and who takes care of them.
Israel though? They can’t put two and two together. God brought them out of Egypt, gave them instruction on how to live the good life, gave them the good land, and protected them through countless crises, and Israel can only respond “Well what have you done for me lately?”
Surely God is exasperated with Israel, but we shouldn’t miss the sorrow in God’s voice here. These are his children and he’s mourning them.
I have felt the force of God the Father so much more ever since becoming a father myself. Almost five years into it and I am just fascinated with my daughters and just want to give so much to them. I think of the futures in store for them and how I can help guide them into a full life. And I think of how God’s love for us goes beyond all the love I could ever have.
But what happens to that love when your child turns into a monster?
Joanna Dennehy grew up in Hertfordshire England and was by all accounts a great child, academically gifted, and well-behaved. But in her late teens she started getting involved in drugs, some unhealthy relationships, and periods of homelessness.
And then in 2013 she killed three men and attempted to kill two others, all within 10 days of each other. She knew the three that she murdered, but there was no motive given except the excitement of it all. The police called the murders cold, deliberate, and without remorse.
Her mother found out about all of it through the news. She wasn’t angry, she didn’t go into denial - just shock. She didn’t just grieve for the victims, but for the daughter she thought she knew. She cut off all emotional ties from her daughter and withdrew from public life.
When she was interviewed about her daughters crimes she simply said “For me, she doesn’t exist.”
What kind of gut-punch does God feel when his children not only abandoned him, but become everything he stands against?
4 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.
God can hardly call them his own children anymore. They’re children of evildoers who have rejected Yahweh their God, the Holy One of Israel. God had put himself in a unique relationship to them and they could only despise him.
The Pain of Rebellion
The Pain of Rebellion
Not only has God given them reason to stay with him, he’s also giving them good reason to come back. Rebellions happen because there’s the belief that life is better without their authority. Israel has gone out and found themselves severely mistaken.
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.
There’s a billboard I’ve seen, advertising medical check-ups, saying “40,000 men will die of stubbornness this year.” Because we’re fine! It’ll sort itself out. I can ride this heart attack out.
That’s Israel. Their head is swimming and they can’t think straight. They can barely move from the bed to the couch without getting winded. And it gets worse worse. The wounds described are battle wounds - they’ve been beaten, slashed and stabbed from head to toe and you can’t find a body part that hasn’t been hurt.
God moves from image to reality in verse 7-8:
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.
The land is full of nothing but ashes. The cities are abandoned like their temporary booths after the harvest season is over.
And Israel still doesn’t get it.
Verse 9 is their reflection on the disaster they face:
9 If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.
They’re this close to getting it! They think “Man, we almost ended up like Sodom and Gomorrah there!” Well think about why Sodom and Gomorrah we’re destroyed, and then take a look at yourselves.
10 Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
You faced destruction like Sodom and Gomorrah because you’re just like them!
But they won’t do anything about it. They won’t take treatment, they won’t find help, they won’t call the doctor. They’ll just keep pressing on further and further away from God and keep suffering for it - never understanding, or refusing to understand, that all of this is their own doing.
Connect
Connect
Are we aware of our own condition? Are we dumber than a donkey? More stubborn than an ox?
How often do we give in to sin, experience the pain it brings, and then go running right into it the next day?
We gossip about everybody and wonder why we don’t feel secure in our relationships.
We do everything to serve our pride and wonder about why we’re so sensitive to other people’s words
We lie and put up a facade of good behavior and wonder why all of our relationships feel superficial
We do all of these wrong things and wonder why life feels so wrong all the time!
It’s sort of like fighting gravity. If we break our legs by jumping off a bridge we don’t wonder why God’s punishing us. That’s just the way the world works. God doesn’t have to go out of his way to punish us. We can’t throw the monkey wrench of sin into life and complain that the gears are grinding.
God made the world a certain way, and sin disrupts it.
So God has the same question for us as with Israel - how long are you going to keep this up? How may times do we need to run into the brick wall before we start looking for a way around it?
Transition
Transition
We need to break the vicious cycle, but how? How do we get back into the right rhythm of creation and with God?
Option 1: Sacrifice
Option 1: Sacrifice
Here’s the option Israel thought would work - let’s just bribe God. We’re clearly making him mad so let’s go through all of those rituals, sacrifices, and prayers that he likes so much and maybe he’ll get off our back.
That was the common perception of how gods worked in the pagan mindset. Those beings up there are amazing in power, glory, and might, and you had better watch your step around them.
There’s an old pagan prayer that was found in Assyria “A Prayer to Every God” in which you pray to all the gods you may or may not know to stop tormenting you for all the bad things you may or may not have unknowingly done.
May the god who is not known be quieted toward me;
May the goddess who is not known be quieted toward me.
May the god whom I know or do not know be quieted toward me;
May the goddess whom I know or do not know be quieted toward me.
In ignorance I have eaten that forbidden of my god;
In ignorance I have set foot on that prohibited by my goddess. (20)
O Lord, my transgressions are many; great are my sins.
The transgression which I have committed, indeed I do not know;
The sin which I have done, indeed I do not know.
The forbidden thing which I have eaten, indeed I do not know;
The prohibited (place) on which I have set foot, indeed I do not know.
So how do you appease an angry and belligerent god who’s mad at you for reasons unknown? Feed him! They’re probably hangry! Sacrifice to them, get them on your good side, promise more bribes for their favor in the future.
That’s how everybody else did it, so surely it will work with the God of Israel, right?
To which God replies:
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. 12 “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? 13 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. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 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.
He’s had enough sacrifices. What good are they anyways? He’s the ruler of the entire universe, you think there’s anything you can actually give to him? You’re giving him a goat he already owns.
Who asked for all of this worship? Because God doesn’t want it. It’s not just useless, it’s disgusting to God. The offerings are vain, the incense and abomination, God stand another religious gathering. He’s tired of sitting through them and doesn’t want anything more given to him.
And it’s not because God hates worship - he required it from Israel.
But their solemn assemblies are plagued by iniquity.
When they raise their hands up in prayer all God can see is their guilt.
Israel wasn’t coming to the temple to honor God or repent for their sins. They were trying to get him to turn a blind eye to their sins. They assume that he’s like any other corrupt judge who is willing to let people get away with evil as long as they get paid.
Imagine someone murders a person you love. So they beg you to not turn them into the police. In fact, here’s a fat stack of cash for you to buy your silence. But as they wave it around in your face, all you can see are the bloodstains on their hand.
Could they offer you anything to ignore that?
Can we offer God anything to turn a blind eye from our bloodstains?
Connect
Connect
We don’t say or think so explicitly, but our behavior shows it whenever we continue to worship without any repentance behind it. We rebel against God throughout the week and then come here on Sunday’s so we can perform the right song and dance for God and it’s cool, right?
But hear again how God looks at our worship if we’re living out of sync the rest of the week:
He’s had enough of us
He doesn’t want us to bother walking in the front door
Our songs are abominations to him
Our prayers are meaningless to him
He hates it all, from the first good morning all the way to the final amen.
Because all those sins we commit throughout the week are against his children.
So what can we do to make things right with God?
Option 2: Justice and Righteousness
Option 2: Justice and Righteousness
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.
Do better. We fix all the pain of rebelling against God by stopping all of our rebellion!
He wants us to stop doing all of the things that make life worse for everybody. We need to wash ourselves from the guilt by ceasing to do the evil deeds that bring guilt. Stop swimming against the currents of God’s good creation and learn how to live in harmony with it and other people.
And don’t just be content with being good yourself, go out and do good. By seeking justice we’re seeking to make the wrong things in life right. We can’t just sit around and say that all is well because I’m good with God. God did not save you to sit around and tut-tut at all those sinners. God was not content to sit around while his people were oppressed by Egypt. We cannot be idle when we see injustice either.
There are relationships we have that went wrong. Have you tried making it right?
The world at large is at odds with God. Are we working on reconciling it?
There are people, the oppressed, the fatherless, the widows - the people to weak to do anything for themselves. Are we content to let society steamroll them?
We can’t just abstain from evil. We need to learn how to do good. When God finished creation it was very good, and he turned it over to us to rule over and subdue. It’s our job to continue making things good.
Reason it Out
Reason it Out
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. 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.”
God wants us to reasons things out - be smarter than the donkey!
If you’ve been a rebel and living against God he can fix that. He’s inviting you back into the family because you’re his child. He’ll take all the guilt that stains your hands and wash them for you.
And he’s offering a way of life that doesn’t feel wrong all of the time. If you are willing and obedient you’ll eat of the land, living in harmony with creation once again. a life that lives in harmony with our God.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The choice is yours - eat or be eaten. If you’re tired of things being wrong then come find the one who can make things right. You can wash away your sins through the waters of baptism and be a child of God.
If you’re willing and ready to be obedient, why don’t you come forward as we stand and sing?
