Are You Willing?
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 30 viewsNotes
Transcript
Are You Willing?
Are You Willing?
“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?” Says the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, Or of lambs or goats.
“When you come to appear before Me, Who has required this from your hand, To trample My courts?
Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.
Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; They are a trouble 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 hear. Your hands are full of blood.
The book of Isiah open with a declaration that he is speaking from the authority of God
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.
Vision - Hazon; a divine vision, a word revelation, secular - from an oracle - indicates a heightened “perception of truth”
Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his goodness, indeed they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.
it is a message to the divided Kingdoms but Isiah is located specifically in the Southern Kingdom of Judah as per the list of Kings he served
The message starts strong and clear - even though they are in a time of strength, they had forgotten the God who brought them there!
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;
He speaks to the heavens and earth as the people are refusing to listen to him so there is a witness to his obedience!
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.”
Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.
The charge is interesting because the religious practices were strong in those days! Everything appeared “religiously correct” on the outside!
God charges them with guilt, corruption and forsaking Him
Therefore the Lord said: “Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths And honor Me with their lips, But have removed their hearts far from Me, And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men,
There is always a danger in plenty to forget the days of famine!
In the wilderness when God wanted to meet with the people they feared appearing before Him:
“Then the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me: ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken.
Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!
So Jehoshaphat was king over Judah. He was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi.
And he walked in the way of his father Asa, and did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord.
Nevertheless the high places were not taken away, for as yet the people had not directed their hearts to the God of their fathers.
Jesus said of the religious crowd:
Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, To walk in their own counsels.
“But My people would not heed My voice, And Israel would have none of Me.
So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, To walk in their own counsels.
The Lord takes them to task over this issue:
Hear the word of the Lord, You rulers of Sodom; Give ear to the law of our God, You people of Gomorrah:
“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?” Says the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, Or of lambs or goats.
“When you come to appear before Me, Who has required this from your hand, To trample My courts?
Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.
Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; They are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them.
God is feed-up with and sick of the practice of religious ritual
It has become the curse of the church today!
The buying and selling of conscience - the soothing of the guilty conscience by the false hope of redemptive acts of contrition
God tells them
“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.
“Come now, and 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 be as wool.
If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land;
But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be devoured by the sword”; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
But how?
And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us,
and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
Paul prayed:
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—
to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
To know the love of Christ is to experience the forgiveness of Christ!
To receive the forgiveness of Christ means to demonstrate the love of Christ!
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’
So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”
Enter today the rest of God by the release of the guilt of your sin!
that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.