Call to Repentance and Voice of being a Witness

‘The need to repent and to be a voice of a witness.’

Bible Portion: Isaiah 5:1- 6:13

Introduction

· The message of Isaiah was for the Jews who will be carried off in exile, because of their wickedness. During the times of chaos like this, there is a close relevance to our present times, as we learn that this is a time of spiritual chaos. Agriculture was the one prominent professions and a vineyard was one of the popular cultivation. The lesson of the song of the vineyard shows that God’s chosen nation was to bear fruit—to carry out his work, to uphold justice. It did bear fruit, but the fruit was bad. The nation of Israel was portrayed under the figure of a vineyard The destruction of the vineyard illustrated the judgment to come upon Israel for the nation’s disobedience to the Mosaic covenant.

We are going to look at in a time of chaos – what is needful? What kind of people are God looking for?

· In chapter 6 we come across that King Uzziah’s death in 739 B.C. marked the end of a great period of expansion and prosperity for Judah.

The calling of Isaiah we see here in a message of how we need to display the significance of our lives who are witnesses of God in this fallen world.

Message

Let us see chapter 5, the message of God to Isaiah, for the people to change and repent from their sins. The fruit that the vineyard produced sour and inedible berries. Investing for good fruit bad ones produced. So verses 1 and 2, we see the description of the vineyard of how it is taken care of, and this is the investment of God about His people and how they produced bad fruits.

Verse 1 and 2 shows the careful work done and investment for the growth, the details are mentioned very clearly and then God says in verse 3 and 4 what more should I do? Why did it produce bad fruits? Much care I have brought you in but what happened to you, your fruit turned out to be sour and wild. Now here we need to understand that this statement is from God who is hurt to see the bad fruits the vineyard produced, and God asks the listeners and the readers to remember the fault is not because God raised them badly, God didn’t provide but the fault lies with you and that is because of your sins, you have turned out to be wild and sour.

A call to action

Now we see the action by God on the vineyard what is he going to do and this is the underlying theme in this chapter and that is the judgement of the children of Israel for their sins verse 5 and 6. This is the judgement/ this is the curse of God on His own vineyard for their bad results. And this is the judgement of God on the chosen people, the one who were privileged among other nations, but they failed in their spiritual goals.

My question to all of you this morning, if God is pronouncing the judgement on the chosen ones of Israel for their mistakes – how much more is the judgement of God for people like us living today. We were gentiles, outcast didn’t have the privilege but as the book of Romans teaches us we were grafted into the family of God. We need to introspect our Christian lives of faith with the utmost seriousness of how we live in this world. So coming back to Isaiah chapter 5 in verse 7 – we see the testimony of God who is the vineyard and this is Israel and where righteousness and justice had to prevail there is a loud cry of distress. And now we see the judgement of God in verse 8-23.

Standing in judgment over his people, the Lord pronounced six woes.

· Greedy Materialism - God condemned selfish greed (5:8-10),

· Drunkenness - dissipation (5:11-17),

· Taking Pride in Sin (5:18-19),

· Confusing moral standards (5:20),

· Being conceited - proud self-sufficiency (5:21),

· The perversion of justice (5:22, 23).

When we go across these sins can we see a similar pattern in our day to day lives, can we see such things happening around us, the key question to ask is can we identify the sin as sin and stay separated – can we live up to the true meaning of our community which once our fathers hold onto. The world may see us as a minority but what matters is how we portray the standards of God’s righteousness in our Christian lives.

· Quickly we are going to examine these 6 woes or curses or problems and the judgement – we see the sin of greedy materialism in verses 8-10

Here the prophet teaches us about the sin of Israel who lack contentment from their lives, the Bible clearly teaches us work hard to earn a good life but also teaches us the significance of having a contended Christian life. The problem with the Israel was they were exploiting people for amassing riches, and their saw being rich was a sign of blessing from God. They failed in maintaining a consistent relationship with God. (story of rich man and peasant in a field)

We see that houses will be desolate, and their produce will be bare minimum.

· The second sin/ problem – drunkedness – pleasure seeking people – in verses 11-17 the people spent many hours seeking pleasure, but Isaiah by the spirit of God teaches that these people will die of hunger and thirst. Now what do we learn here that is if our pleasures do not have the blessings of God – this may destroy us. Leaving God from our lives, we allow sin to master our lives and we lose our relationship with God. Pursuing our pleasures while ignoring and exploiting the needs of others we invite the anger of God. God want us to enjoy life – 1 Tim 6:17 – but to avoid God we live a dangerous live.

When we look across our environments we see people around us who are seeking pleasures in their we need to drive their attention back to God or we need to convey the gospel to drive their attention back to God. We learn from Isaiah, in verse 13 the nation’s leaders who were honourable men, would also suffer as the common people because the lived by their own values rather than God’s standard. We need to pray for the leaders of our nations, to defy the world and to stand for God to serve God. It matters for people like us, if we don’t have a healthy leadership there we see the downfall of the nations. I would also add one more thing along with it in connection with our churches today, we need to pray for the appointed elders and deacons of our churches to stand for God and defy the world so in the days to come they will lead healthy churches.

· The third sin, being prideful of their sins I would call this defiant sinfulness, in verses 18 – 19, people who are proud of their sinful actions. This is like a rebellious nature instead of repenting the people are turning their fist against God and saying what God what are you going to do about it?

Now this is a dangerous attitude, this is living a complacent attitude to our Christian lives and God hates this attitude in our Christian lives. (story of Sinclair Lewis – Elmor Gantry). We learn from here that God should not be mocked by our actions, the chosen one of God the Israel mocked God by their actions and God judges them. Dear believers, this voice of Isaiah in chapter 5 was for the people to repent and turn – we see Isaiah teaching them to stop taking pride in your sinful actions.

· The fourth sin, confusing moral standards, when I began I said we live in an era of moral chaos, an age where people failed to turn to scriptures for answers, an age were AI like Google, Alexa, Siri has become more divine to define about moral standards. In chapter 5 verse 20 we see how the people who have failed to distinct between right and wrong in their lives.

Today we see things which were impossible years back, such as LGBT rights, living together, people who have lost their moral standards. People confused moral distinctions. What they needed to say wrong as wrong, and sin as sin, they accommodated their lives with sin and compromised their spiritual lives.

· The fifth sin, being prideful in verse 21, here we see the people’s arrogance, the people who took the advice of God lightly or lethargically, the problem here that these people led a self sufficient life in which they thought they don’t need anything anymore, in that self sufficient attitude they sinned.

The problem with this attitude is people distort their relationship with God the Father. Till we make the final step to the grave we cannot live self sufficient lives, we need to live in dependence of God. The self sufficient lives develop pride and pride destroys. People who ignore the voice of God and commit sin – Prov 16:18 Pride goes before destruction…. People started to justify their actions by their own merits. Without God they ended up in much suffering.

· The sixth sin, perverting justice in verse 22 and 23, we see bad leadership in power and the misuse of power, we see about how God points out how the leadership which represented the justice have fallen.

The wrath of God is seen in these vows but now the question is if God punished Israel for their sins what about us what we are going to do in front of the justice of God. What hope do we have? The God of Israel is the same God we worship, and we will not have any special consideration in heaven. In this age of chaos, we can imagine the same condition as mentioned by Isaiah.

Now coming to verses 24 – 30 we see the punishment of God or the judgement of God to sinful people, you despise the law you stay in sin God is going to punish you. In verse 24 we see the reason the people suffered because they rejected God’s law, (read out).

· A believer cannot live in a relationship with God based on his/ her own merits; once they become the members of His kingdom it is important to successfully live a submissive life to God, the submissive life demands our obedience. The lack of obedience drew the wrath of God on the children of Israel.

· Obedience matters very seriously because we see the anger of God and Isaiah again mentions the anger of God in verse 25 (Read out) – this is the upcoming Babylonian army to destroy Israel.

Put yourself, in the shoes of Isaiah the prophet, like any other Jew he desired for the fulfilment of the promise of the Messiah, and for him this was a heavy burden to bear. This is what Isaiah wanted to see, and to give and everything was in chaos. We need to understand the words of Isaiah, in chapter 5 as we come to a conclusion here – Isaiah the prophet would have wondered or in doubt what is happening? What went wrong? Is the battle lost? Did God lose control over His people? The answers are present to the calling of Isaiah as a prophet?

With this in mind we need to enter Chapter 6

Historians say this 740 BC, 2 Chronicles 26 says he was King for 52 years , a great time of peace, and society was flourishing. The time of Uzziah was good, he passes away because God kills him for he was proud, he steped in the shoes of the priest. Isaiah goes into the temple to get answers to his question.

· Verse 1 and 2 – God gives Isaiah the answers to his doubts and he gets answers in vision, God is still in control. Anfd Jn 12:41 says Isaiah saw God the Son, this was comforting, he sees the God in control even when the enemy was on the gates.

· Here Isaiah points out to the Holiness of God which we need to understand, that is the foundations of call Christian faith. IN verse 3, we read the character of God, the triune nature of our God who is HOLY. Father, Son and Holy Spirit

· HOLY is our God, a holiness which cannot be measured but it needs to be acknowledged. In a time of chaos in this age, we as believers we can only find the anchor of our faith strong, by understanding the Holy God. Acknowledging the holiness of God, by coming to the presence of will enable us to move forward in a time of adversity.

· In Verse 5 - Isaiah comes to the experience with a burden understanding this holiness, that contains elements of fear and judgement and when he realises he falls apart, he pronounces a curse on himself, by using the word woe is me …. He knows the word, look into chapter 5 he pronounces 6 times a curses on the nation Israel. WWhy? Because Isaiah when he comes into the presence of God he understand that he is wretched, he is fall apart he is disintegrated because he compares himself with the Holy God. He is in pain over his condition and he says I am a man of unclean lips.

God is not looking for people who are rich and affluent but people like Isaiah, who are broken and traumatised by understanding what is the Holiness of God, just like Isaiah who cries out for I am man of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts.

Ps 51:17 – A broken spirit –

It is not Isaiah was having a bad time in his life, he was a prophet, a honourable position amidst the people of God, he cries out in devastation. But what is he teaching us – the matter of his breakout as one scholar points it out like this, here is because he see the holiness of God and when he compares himself with God and he teaches us here,

If I saw God, then He sees me

If I saw the Holiness of God, then God see the sin in me

I am doomed. Isaiah pronounces a curse on himself and curse himself, when he sees the wretchedness; this is confession, in our times of crisis we need to approach the holiness of God and with confession. God will help us.

In Verse 6-7 – here we see the significance of purification, the painful experience here we see repentance. Here we see God bringing assurance to Isaiah you are cleansed of your sins. Isaiah if you are worried about your sinful nature then I provide you the solution, this is a painful experience but a beautiful experience.

So I began like this in my sermon What kind of person is God looking for in this age of chaos? A person who has the vision of the holiness of God, very aware of the sinfulness he or she himself has, a person who will be in pain understanding those sins, a person who is broken over his or her sins, a person who is touched by the cleansing power of God and forgiven.

The picture of the coal touching the lips of Isaiah we see here the picture of atonement burning away the sins and purifying Isaiah. God is not looking for such God is looking for people who are purged and repenting understanding the Holiness of God.

· In verse 8 – Isaiah in fear understanding the Holiness of God, in reverence responds to the call, who will go for US, again the Trinitarian Picture, and Isaiah says I am ready to Go and in verse 9 the answer of God Go and Tell them.

· God is looking for such people who are ready to go and tell. God is only expecting the people who are ready to go and preach, someone who is touched and cleansed, but in verse 10, the description of the people who are dull to the evangelism.

How long? Verse 11

Verse 12 - Keep doing it Until no one is left to do it. This is the OT great commission which God gave for Isaiah and in verse 13 God says amongst the whole people you preach there will be a people who come to the true saving knowledge of His love. Here we see the doctrine explanation of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Isaiah teaches that by the promise of God, by the faithfulness of Isaiah being a messenger of this message he will bring them to God.