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Text: Isaiah 1
Diagnosis of the nation of Israel (vss 1-9)
- The nation is like children who won’t listen to their heavenly Father.
- The nation has less sense than the animals do.
- That led to moral corruption in the nation (vs 4).
- It is described like a doctor would describe a disease. Notice how the prophets talk. Isaiah is not literally talking about a man being sick. He is diagnosing a nation.
- As Jude described them as corrupted with purely financial motives, despising authorities, hating what is good, and uncontrolled sexual behavior. Jude said these are spots in your feasts. They are festering sores.
- There was always faithful people in the nation, so the LORD had a choice. Either let the nation be destroyed and the faithful people with it or keep the nation around and therefore the faithful seed.
- Like calling Las Vegas “Sin City”, the LORD begins calling the capital city of Israel Sodom and Gomorrah. This is something John does in Revelation as well. He calls the city Sodom, Egypt, and Babylon.
Reasonable faithfulness (vss 10-20)
- What is the point of your religion?
- Form of godliness but denying the power thereof as Paul said.
- Jude said these spots in your feasts.
- Your iniquity has separated between you and your God. He isn’t listening. In fact, the LORD is tired of your righteous deeds. They are filthy rags.
- You pray while you have hatred in your heart.
- Command to clean themselves up.
- Wash yourselves. Learn to do well! These are moral things.
- The filth is unreasonable. It is as Hebrews put it, the contradiction of sinners.
- Paul asked God to deliver him from unreasonable and wicked men because those two things go together.
- The LORD doesn’t demand faith, He invites reason.
- Do notice that verse 18 certainly will be applied to Jesus Christ, the prophet Isaiah is telling this to a group of people expected to clean up their lives so the stain of sin will go away exactly the way Nineveh did it.
- In verses 19-20 the nation of Israel had these promises. Goodness and mercy would follow their obedience. But destruction would follow their disobedience. This was a different relationship than any non-Jewish nation had. Ninevites said we’ll repent, but we don’t know if God will put off our judgment or not.
Mother of harlots (vss 21-31)
- John writing Revelation will pick up this illustration of Jerusalem as the harlot city and essentially a cage of devils.
- Branches of the unfaithful will be broken off. Paul explains this in Romans 9-11. Jesus explains this in John 15. Which also makes clear that the Holy One of Isaiah is the LORD Jesus Christ.
- This is all done in the new covenant. Faithfulness is the issue. God’s righteousness is the issue.
- And yet again the words of God imparting the Spirit of God is likened to waters by Isaiah.
- The maker of the nation who is the LORD will burn the corruption and there will not be any firefighters to stop that. Wickedness will be thoroughly purged in the new covenant. This is why the destruction of the temple and burning of much of Jerusalem was such a big deal in the first century. The LORD burned the relics of the Jews religion, the anti-Christ religion anyway, to the ground – none shall quench them. Those participating in that anti-Christ religion were forced to come up with something new because they could no longer perform their religion like they were accustomed to.
- To this day that Jewish religion that opposed Jesus Christ has never be able to worship as they did when there was a temple.
- Sacrifices no longer existed because there was no temple, no altars, no priesthood to administer it, and no place for them to do so.
- Temple worship and gathering in Jerusalem at the “house of God” for holidays became impossible. They were forced to reinvent the holidays.
- Local synagogues became more important.
- Prayer services replaced the sacrifices.
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