Isaiah, Chapter 1

Good morning. As we spelled out before, what we'll do here is we'll proceed about a chapter a week. Sometimes we'll make exceptions to that. About a chapter a week, and we'll do kind of a high points of the chapter, an overview, and then look at a particular passage. So we'll take that approach.

One of the things that we're going to see throughout the book, and it shows up immediately in the book of Isaiah in the first chapter, is the phrase, the Holy One of Israel. It is a phrase, a reference to the Lord, that Isaiah uses repeatedly. We see it here in the first chapter, but it's going to appear all the way to near the end and scattered well throughout. One of the things we'll see that fits this title for the Lord well is we'll see Isaiah characterizing the Lord as holy. Consistently, we'll see him characterizing the Lord as holy.

One of the interesting things, look how long the list of references to that Holy One of Israel is in Isaiah. Here's the whole rest of the Bible. So Isaiah overwhelms the rest of scripture with this title, underscoring repeatedly the holy character of God. Not only that, the Holy One, uniquely holy. And interestingly enough, in the first chapter, a title that sounds similar, that appears only in the first chapter of Isaiah out of the whole Bible, and that is the Mighty One of Israel. A slight variation on the same thing.

If we look at the first verse of Isaiah, It says, the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos, concerning Judah and Jerusalem, which you saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Now the first thing he gives here, this vision, that's the what of the book. We called previously the book of Isaiah a prophetic anthology. It's a collection of prophetic things. The word vision here needs to be looked at kind of broadly. It isn't just he had a vision and wrote it down.

This is the broad sense of the perspective that the Lord gave him on things. And so it's a collection of both things that the Lord gave him. We'll see in chapter 6, the Lord gives him a vision of heaven. And we'll see later on, the Lord also has him record things that were simply historical events. So it is indeed a collection, an anthology, and a vision is a way of summarizing it. Now, the who of the book, it's written by Isaiah, son of Amoz.

Interestingly, 2 Chronicles 32.32 has precisely the same title for the book, adding Isaiah the prophet. It's good, it's clarifying, it's also confirming that it is indeed the book that we're talking about here. The who of the book as to who it's about is Judah and Jerusalem. We're going to read a lot of other things, other nations around, but specifically Judah and Jerusalem were the focal point of this wonderful book.

And then finally, the when. He defines the time frame of the book by these four kings. These are the kings reigning from Jerusalem. It was typical in biblical times, and as you see throughout, even into the New Testament, time references, because they didn't have AD and BC and BCE and all the references we have, They would make reference to the kings and their rule, and they would say, like, the first day of the second month of this ruler, and that would be common. The exception to that, and we don't have time to go into it, would be the Egyptian pharaohs, but there is a good reason for it.

We just can't take the time to go into it now. In order to get this on your handout, there'll be a little bit of jumping. This is on side two, and we'll have to jump back to side one here. That's the only way I can do it without asking you to get out the magnifying glasses.

If you look at here, we've got the first and the last phrases. We've got something to take a look at here. These two lines are in distinctly Jewish patterns of speech. We've looked at this before, but I want to go over it again just to make sure it's clear to us. Here's one.

It starts off in Genesis 1.1, the very first book of the Bible. It starts off with this phrase, the heavens and the earth. This is a kind of a word association that was in common use. We see it in scripture from the very first verse all the way into the last chapters of the book of the Bible and scattered throughout as well.

It's an example of what's called a Hebraism, a Hebrew or Jewish pattern of speech. The idea is this. In the Hebrew way of saying things, to say the whole thing or everything, you mention both halves. That was, in the Jewish mind, that was the way you say everything is both halves. You give the heavens and the earth, then you've got everything. Or, the first and the last of something.

And we do that also in English. We say from A to Z. And we mean not just A and Z, but everything in between as well. That's the pattern that we see here. Basically, it means everything, if you can insert that in your thinking here. Here are some variations. We're going to continue to encounter this, and that's why I bring it up.

Here's Isaiah 13, 13. Therefore, I will make the heavens tremble and the earth be shaken. That means everything's going to be shaken. Everything's going to tremble, right? Or, Isaiah 49, 13. Shout for joy, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth. So, both halves. It's basically everything, everyone.

Or here's another, Isaiah 51.13, the Lord your maker stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. He made it all. This is the Jewish way of stating everything. The Lord did it.

This pattern is used throughout the Old and New Testaments, so look for it. We saw it when we went through Revelation. We saw it when we went through Philippians. We saw it when we went through Ephesians and Colossians. Both those books have this kind of a statement in the book. And we're going to see it multiple times as we go through Isaiah. Here's another example, verses 2 and 9.

It says, Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth. And what we see there is the two halves of the whole. Everybody listen. Everybody hear this. Sodom and Gomorrah would be the two cities of the plain. So, both halves of the whole. This is, everybody hear this, is the message he's getting across. This would be the Jewish way of saying, hear ye, hear ye.

Remember, this one may be out of our study of Ephesians and Colossians. We looked at the last two verses of Ephesians chapter 2, and both of them start with in whom. The last phrase there in each one is in the Lord and in the Spirit. There are either identical or rhyming meanings in each of those verses.

There is also restatement. Jacob is also known as Israel. founded the earth, spread out the heavens, or my hand and my right hand. And the only difference between those two is my right hand is the hand of power. My powerful hand, he said, stretched out the heavens. There's also reference to the first and the last.

Where do we find that? We find it not only in Isaiah several times, but we also find the book of Revelation. So here you see this similar pattern. Our idea in English would be A to Z. Everything from A to Z. I am the first and the last. I am the definition and source of it all. The two halves equal the whole here is that reference. And repetition is another part of the Hebrew pattern of saying things. I am he. I am the first. I am also the last. Now, as we look at this first section here, chapter 1, 2 through 9, there's something else that comes out.

The ox and the donkey, they're not considered real smart critters. Certainly he wouldn't look at them, but the ox and the donkey, he gives as examples because at least they have the sense to know who they belong to. But the people of Israel don't. That's the comparison that he makes there. They don't have even that much spiritual sense. These animals have enough sense to know who they belong to, but not my people, he says.

Now another farm story, a quick one. If you'll use a little imagination, this is our calf Victoria. who was born, add little white splotches and black splotches, because this isn't exactly her, but you'll get the idea. I was there when Victoria was born, and you know how there's this sort of, you know, principle that newborn baby sees the mother and gets imprinted? I was there and the first thing she saw, guess what happened?

Everywhere I went, that calf followed me. Everywhere. The calf had no question knew the owner. If I'd go out to pick apples, if I'd go out using a chainsaw in the woods, the calf went with me. Everywhere. It's something basic. Animals know who they belong to. If they have a problem, they know who to come to. But he makes a comparison. The animals, as simple as they are, know who they belong to.

But Israel does not know who they belong to. Not the slightest sense. Okay. Now, there's another thing, my people. This is a phrase we're going to see again and again, more than two dozen times in the book of Isaiah as we proceed through it. Sometimes I think we're going to be surprised who he calls my people. We'll wait until you get there so you can be surprised, okay? But he's going to use it again and again. But notice he starts off, these are my people. These are the ones I picked. These are the ones that I chose. But my people, what does he say? They don't understand.

And as you come into this next one, verse 4 is a summary spiritual assessment. It is, if you count the phrases, a seven-count indictment. It's one thing as we look at this book, Isaiah is one who has some wonderful things to say, at the same time he has some very difficult things to say. So he brings this seven-count spiritual indictment against the people of Israel.

His descriptions are not good, and they are not vague. They're very clear, and it's a sad story. Then we see here a kind of a description. Here's how your land looks, and remember that the land was something, this goes back to Abraham, okay? This stuff matters. Your land is desolate, your cities burn with fire, your fields, and here it goes almost as if there's a break in the sentence.

Strangers are devouring them. As a nation was being attacked in biblical times, frequently the people would make a decision, can I burn this stuff off so that my enemies don't get a hold of it? Because whatever I don't burn off, they'll come in and devour.

So here you look at the land and basically what isn't burned off and looks like a wreck, agriculturally, Then the enemy soldiers come in and help themselves to the rest. It's a mess. Then they had temporary shelters and huts for people who would guard the crops. It was the idea of staying there, making sure that you don't get animals in the fields or you don't get thieves in there.

But when the enemy attacks, it's too late. And so things look a shambles. This would be an example of an artist rendering of a temporary shelter in a vineyard. The idea is that obviously if the Assyrians or some other nation is coming in, you just abandon that and run. And if the shelter ends up looking ragtag, beaten up by the wind and the sun, so be it.

And basically he said all of Judea was getting that way. It was looking like a wreck and a ruin and an abandoned temporary shed. A watchman's hut in a cucumber field. Now if you're thinking about That's a watchman's hut? Nah, it's too fancy. Watchman's hut would be something really rough, just enough to keep the sun and the wind off. And when the season is over, let it go.

Now, stepping into the next section, verses 10 through 17, you're going to find this on page three of your handout. From 11 through 14, what we find here is something very interesting. He lists in summary fashion the very things that the Lord had told Israel as a nation to do. Things involving the temple, things involving their feasts that they were to have, and things of that sort. All these things he lists, but interestingly he doesn't say, yippee, you're doing it.

He says, I'm wearied with it. I'm tired of it. I don't like it. And this is a surprise. These are things that are all given to the Jews, described from Exodus to Deuteronomy, that they've been told, do these things. Why is he doing this? Why is he saying that I'm tired of it? Why is he saying I'm wearied of it? Why does he even come to the point in verse 14, I hate it.

Wow, what's going on? That's intense. Look at this phrase, hate, here. This Hebrew manner of speech, another Jewish figure of speech, this Isaiah 14, it's not that the Lord hadn't told them to do these things. That was exactly what He told them to do. But He said, you're doing it alongside worshipping all these pagan idols. You're doing it alongside of just doing it because it's a rote ritual. It's something we always do. But your hearts are not with me.

We see an example of it when the Lord Himself is speaking in the Gospel of Luke. He says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Is He actually saying that you've got to work up some hate for these people? No. It's a Hebrew figure of speech that says that the love for the Lord and the care for His things must be so great that your love for your family members and friends and those who are dear to you is hate by comparison. It's saying that the love of the Lord must be much, much greater.

That's the figure of speech that he's using here. Because he had told them to do these things. It's not that he didn't want them to do it. He says, your heart is far from me. I want you to love me so much that I will express this that I have asked you to do with hate.

We'll also run across this passage we'll look at in a bit, just a little more detail, and then the final verses of the passage here. Interestingly, as we come to this passage, we've got a couple of sections here, verses 24 and 25, and then 28 through 31. These summarize the actions that God will take against the people if they disobey. Deuteronomy 28 spells out from verse 15 through verse 68 all the actions in detail that the Lord would do to the Jews if they disobeyed. But interestingly, in the middle of that, verses 26 and 27, here is this wonderful promise, smack dab in the middle of it.

And I think that's something we can expect to find throughout Isaiah. Isaiah will be given this duty to tell people some things they do not want to hear, and some things that are awful. And right in the middle of that, He'll give them wonderful news. He'll tell them about the Messiah, and what the Messiah will do for them. He'll tell them about God's marvelous grace in the midst of these resounding judgments. Now, if we take a look at the particular passage we're focusing on here, Isaiah 1, 18-20, Notice that at the beginning and at the end, there's this statement.

This is the Lord speaking, so there's no question. This isn't Isaiah just writing, you know, I think if the Lord were here, he'd say this. He is saying specifically, this is what God has to say to you. This is from the mouth of the Lord. I'm serving as his instrument. He speaks very clearly in that regard, and not just clearly, but redundantly. to make it certain that they understand. These are the Lord's words.

Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Now, some folks have looked at that and thought, well, this is some nice conciliatory language. The Lord wants to come alongside us. Well, that might seem nice. The language right before this verse and one of the words in here are legal language. It's what you would use in a court of law. Let us reason together. This let us reason together is from the Hebrew word yakal. And along with the several words that we made reference to in verse 17, these are legal words.

And in context, it's not conciliatory. It's not the Lord saying, oh, come alongside and let's talk together as equals. Instead, it has the idea, you've heard the accusations against you, how do you plea? So, come let us reason together is not a nice conciliatory invitation. It is instead, how do you plea?

Here's what's the problem. Here's what the accusations, the seven count indictment has said. God is laying out in the next two verses, here's your pleading options. If you plead this way, this is how it'll go. If you plead this other way, this is how it'll go. What do you decide? He's asking to make a choice. Right now. Because this is how it's going to go, depending on how you plead.

Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow, Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. This also is a Hebrew poetic pattern. Notice that? Both of them start with though, and your sins is subsequently the pronoun they. Scarlet is rhymed with another equally difficult to take out dye color, crimson, and snow and wool. So anyway, another Hebrew poetic pattern there. Let's take this word, your sins. Your sins. See, God had called the people's sins what they were. The question was, did they agree with God? Do you agree with God's assessment? That's what he's telling them here. God has described the sins as being like scarlet or crimson, and those are colors that are intensely visible and really hard to get out.

The technology at the time did not offer anything to get those colors out once they were in. They're stuck. We have some means to do that today with some fairly intense chemical treatments. But in those days, if it was scarlet or crimson, it would stay in that color. If they'd only agree with God and believe his provision for their sins, God would deal with them lovingly, graciously, and God was the only one who could deal with it. The sins were indelible. They were bright, they were intense.

The scarlet dye was made from a Murex shell. There was one archeologist who was up there studying, and he got talking with a local fisherman in Lebanon. The fisherman went back and forth with him, and a little while later, the fisherman came back up to him, and he says, here, here's one of the shells. These are the shells that they use. He says, we have to get hundreds of those, hundreds of them, many hundreds, in order to make one dye lot. out of these shells, because much of the shell has to be thrown away.

There's only a certain part that works. Crimson dye was made from the eggs of what's called a crimson worm. That's actually just one stage in the life of the insect. But it infested oak trees, and you find reference to it there in Second Chronicles in several places. It would make these little nodules on the tree, and that's where the worm would infest the tree. They would, in the early spring, capture the little insect and they either take the whole insect or sometimes just cut it open and pull the red egg out because that was the part that made the crimson die.

So then you also think about these people in Jerusalem, do they know about snow? Yes, they do. Here's the Western Wall, sometimes called the Wailing Wall on the Temple Mount after a fresh snowfall. So yes, they knew what that was about. They also knew what wool was. Now, sometimes if you've seen sheep, the outside layer of the wool gets kind of grubby looking, but once you shear them, the inside is much whiter and cleaner. Here's shepherd and sheep in view of Bethlehem, just seven miles south of Jerusalem. There was, as we see the gospel accounts, the shepherds who were called into Bethlehem, even today, still doing shepherding in those fields around Jerusalem and around Bethlehem. They were quite well aware of the crimson and scarlet colors. Removing it was something human beings just couldn't do.

So the question is, who does the whitening? If you look at the Hebrew text of Isaiah 118, it says literally that their sins will be made white. It doesn't say directly that God will do it, other than God's the one speaking. It's interesting, I looked in the Greek Old Testament, it carries the implication forward in the passage, and it does it this way. Twice in verse 18 it says, I shall whiten them.

I shall whiten them. The Lord speaking directly. I'll be the one to do it. That's the only way it gets done. Psalm 51.7b, David writes in the acknowledgement of his sin with Bathsheba, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. This was after David had committed adultery and then murder of Uriah the Hittite. And yet he recognizes even with those extreme things that he's done, wash me and I'll be whiter than snow, he says to the Lord directly.

Revelation 3.5, this is where the Lord is writing to the churches in Revelation.

He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments. These are garments where the sins, though they be as scarlet or as crimson, have been washed white. How did the garments become white? They become white for the one who overcomes. 1 John 5, 1a and verse 4, whoever believes is the one who overcomes. So it makes it clear. For us as believers here in the church age, how do we have the white garments, the garments that are cleansed of all the sins? We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, he says, if you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. That sounds pretty black and white threatening, doesn't it? So what's this if all about? It comes down to this. We say bless you or God bless you, and sometimes it has to do with people sneezing or somebody we'd like to wish well.

But for Israel, A blessing was conditional. Conditional if they obeyed, and cursed if they did not obey. This is the substance of Deuteronomy 28. God's blessings and curses for Israel also related to the land. If you go through the 613 laws that Israel had to follow, about a dozen times the land crops up. It's related to the land. It's one of the difficulties that the Jews had when they got ejected from the land because then they also didn't have the temple. And there's even more reference to the temple in the law than to the land. But it requires the land. So the land is central.

For church believers, however, we are already and completely blessed. For church saints, all the blessings are in the heavenly. In the heavenly is where we're seated with Christ. We are a different people by God's designation, by God's creation, by God's selection, and therefore blessed differently. If we look at Galatians, written to the church, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. This is true of church saints, those saved from Pentecost to the time of the rapture, who are uniquely those who have been made to be in Christ Jesus. So here is this one-sentence summary of the blessings and curses from Deuteronomy 28.

An interesting point, if you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land, or you will be devoured if you refuse and rebel. Same Hebrew word. You're either going to eat and eat well, or be eaten and be eaten well. That's kind of the way he's putting it here. Let's look briefly at this Deuteronomy 28. Here's how it starts off. Now, if you diligently obey the Lord, and then he goes on, here's the blessings.

Blessings and blessings and blessings and blessings and blessings. Repeatedly. For 14 verses, from verse 1 to verse 14. Where are those blessings to come? In the land. The blessings are on the land, are in your kneading bowl. Your blessings are in your household and on your crops. Those are where the blessings are. The blessings are in the land.

They are conditional. They're if. They start off with an if. Here's the last half, and notice something. Fourteen verses for blessings. How many for the curses? Uh-oh. The curses are detailed. Far more detail given to the curses. If you were given equal weight, it should stop at verse 28. Instead, go to 68. That's a lot of curses, but it starts the same way. It's an if, isn't it? Where are the curses to come from? They are physical earthly blessings, or curses in this case, and they are conditional.

As we look at this, verse 118, God has spoken through Isaiah, and he uses colors. He says, I use colors, the color picture. And he uses colors to convey totality and absolutes. You want this indelibly and absolutely brightly colored, intensely so? Yeah, scarlet and crimson. It is an absolute.

Our sins are not a minor and inconsequential matter. He's not talking about shades of gray here, is he? He's not saying, well, gee, that's a little dingy. He's saying the sins are like scarlet. They're like crimson. They stand out. I can see them. Compared to God's absolute and pure holiness, the sins of each one of us stood in intense contrast. It was not a pretty picture. It wasn't good. In Isaiah's day, there was no way to get the scarlet and the crimson color out.

Once it's in, it's there to stay. It's stuck. And that points to this. There's no human way to deal with those sins. We can't. One of the ways we've compared it in the past is an overwhelming debt, a massive debt. Somebody comes to you and they say, here, you have this debt, and let me show you, the total's up to a trillion dollars. Pay it off. It's that kind of number. It's way, way too much. We're not going to touch it.

Only God can deal with it, and He has dealt with it, absolutely, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. We saw, and we'll see again as we look at it in more detail in months to come, in Isaiah 53, it took the Lord placing the burden of those sins upon Himself. Taking those sins upon Himself. The only way that the sins could be dealt with, we couldn't touch it. We couldn't begin to remove them.

They were like scarlet, like crimson. Only He could deal with it. This morning, as we have the Lord's Table, we're going to be seeing evidence here how this is done now in remembrance of me. Guess what? Because of the Lord, that's our list of sins. That's the sins that are left over to be dealt with. Sorry, I couldn't put it down in your handout. There's nothing to print. No way to do that. The Lord dealt with it all, every little bit. And so as we do this in remembrance of the Lord this morning, it won't be simply a matter of saying, boy, I'm glad you took care of most of it. He took care of it all, and only He could do so.

Some time back, we looked at a chart like this to show how Israel looked forward to this time of the cross, where the sins would be laid upon the Lamb of God. Isaiah was about here between the time of Moses and the time of Christ coming to be crucified for us. He looked forward, half-time if you will. He looked forward to that time, centuries, seven centuries in advance of his time. For us, we look back.

We have that luxury, that privilege of looking back and saying, though our sins were scarlet, they're now as white as snow. Lord, as we look at this, what an awesome thing you have done. Sins that were indelible. Sins that stood out. Sins that screamed for their presence. Sins that offended the holy God.

The absolutely and infinitely holy God. You and you alone are able. You took care of them. You dealt with them 100%. So now the sins are not just pink or some lighter shade of crimson or scarlet, but white as snow. Thank you that in you we have that marvelous place and position that we can count upon because of what you've done. In Jesus' name, amen.