Consider this your official invitation to open up to the book of Isaiah with me. Everyone, Isaiah is what we're going to be looking at together tonight. So, if you can grab your Bible and turn there with me. And you might have already seen in the bulletin, we have a whole schedule of what we're going to be reading. And we've already made videos at places like the Getty and the LA Philharmonic, because this is a masterpiece of Scripture, this book. This is rich literature. This is how you could really grow in your knowledge of God, the Holy One. And so, who's in for reading the book of Isaiah? Okay? Well, if you didn't raise your hand, you're in either way, because we're going to read it tonight, and by the end of this sermon, if you don't want to read Isaiah, I don't know what more I can do. Okay, I want to strongly encourage every single person here that you need to read the book of Isaiah. And if you're someone who does enjoy reading the Bible, this will be the last book that we will all read together before our brothers and sisters go off to plant the church in Long Beach. So, it will be six chapters a week for eleven weeks that we will read this together. And it will take us right to the commissioning service, where we send out the church into Long Beach. And so, I really want to encourage you, if there was ever a time for our church to come together and read a book, it's this book. And it's this time that that line that we were just hearing from Handel's Messiah. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. That is a prophecy about Jesus, and we will be reading it on Election Day this year. In fact, we will have our election night event where we will all gather together to look at Isaiah 9:6-7, and talk about who's really in charge of the governing authority. So, we're going to learn amazing things through this book, and I'm just going to give you a preview right now of the first 18 verses. So, out of respect for God's Word, if you could stand for the public reading of Scripture. And I'm going to read Isaiah 1:1-18. If you don't have a Bible, it's on the handout there in your bulletin. All the verses of the entire chapter of Isaiah 1 are printed there on your handout. So please follow along as I read. This is a book of ancient prophecy, and yet it can tell you the future. This is the Word of God, Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 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. 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. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” 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. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 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. 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. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! “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. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? 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. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden 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 listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. “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.
That's reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have your seat. And I encourage you to take some notes on the book of Isaiah with me if you got our handout. In fact, I would encourage you to go buy one of these Isaiah journal and learn as much about this book as you possibly can. I have been reading this book for weeks now, getting ready for our study of it, for this sermon, to make these videos that we'll be watching together this week, if you want to, on our YouTube channel. So, I am very encouraged by the reading of the book of Isaiah, and I strongly encourage you to read it with me.
And Isaiah means “the Lord is salvation.” So, if you are taking notes, let's get that down as the first thing. That's what his name means. So even when he's introduced here, it already gives us a theme for the entire sixty-six chapters that we're going to read over the next eleven weeks.
Hey, even though a lot of that might have sounded intense and sounded like God's going to judge his people. And even though he is going to bring nations to come and judge his people, God's ultimate plan for his people is always salvation. That's what God is about, and that's what Isaiah’s name means. “Yahweh is Salvation.” Now we met Isaiah in 2 Kings 19:2, if you remember it. If you read through Kings with us, it was during the reign of Hezekiah. So, there are four different kings mentioned here and Isaiah, he prophesied during their reign. So, we have a very clear idea of when this happened. In fact, we know where it happened.
Let me just throw this map up here on the screen. So, we have Israel that gets broken into two kingdoms. There is the northern kingdom, which is known as Israel, and then there's the southern kingdom, which is known as Judah. And what is the famous city, the capital city that's there in the middle of Judah, everybody? It is Jerusalem. So, you have to kind of get this in your mind, that Isaiah, he's at the time that the northern kingdom falls to Assyria. But he's speaking to the southern kingdom of Judah. He's really speaking to the city of Jerusalem. So, around 722 BC is when the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians; and that's right in the middle of the time that Isaiah is prophesying. So, he's kind of saying, hey, look what's happening over here. It's going to come down, and it's going to happen to us if we don't turn to the Lord, if we don't stop despising the Holy One, we're going to be judged too.
So, let's make a little chart. Do you guys like charts? I like charts. Anybody else like charts? Let's put the four names of the four kings that are introduced to us in Isaiah. Let's put them down in the middle there on your handout, and then let's talk about these four kings, and we'll talk about what we've already read about them in Kings. Uziah/Azariah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah.
So, we're, as a church, reading straight from Kings into Isaiah, which is the order of the Hebrew Bible. Our order that we have in the English translation today is a little bit different than how it was back in the day with the Jewish people and at the time of Jesus. So, we're going to use the original order by which you get the Kings, and then you go right into this prophecy. Like, how did this happen? How did how did Jerusalem get taken by King Nebuchadnezzar? How did it all fall apart? Well, if you want a detailed account of how it all fell apart, that's what the book of Isaiah is. How it all falls apart, and God's plan to not just put it back together again, but God's plan for a salvation beyond our wildest dreams. That's the book of Isaiah at the lowest of lows. God wants to tell you the glories of what he has in store, even what is in store from our perspective, in the year of the Lord 2024. So, Uzziah, let's just throw some of these references up here. He was known as Azariah in 2 Kings 15. That's where we met him. And then we met his son, Jotham a little bit later in 2 Kings, I believe, starting in verse 32-38. But so, Jotham, we got a little bit of Uzziah, a little bit of Jotham. And then we’ve got this guy, Ahaz, he's going to be a bunch of trouble. We’ve got him in 2 Kings 16. And then the main guy that we’ve got, like three chapters, about from 2 Kings 18 to 20, was this king, Hezekiah? Okay, now we're going to come across some of these same kings as we read through the book of Isaiah, because what it just says here in chapter 1 is Isaiah prophesied from the time of Uzziah all the way down to the time of Hezekiah. So, there were four different kings where Isaiah was. So, in Isaiah 6:1, that's where we're going to hear that Uzziah has died, everybody. And Uzziah dies right there at the beginning of Isaiah 6:1. It's the end really of the introduction to the book.
The introduction to Isaiah is the first five chapters, and then it really gets going kind of in chapter 6, and it starts within the year that King Uzziah died. King Uzziah had been king for 52 years when he died. Okay, that would be like someone being president for 13 terms, if you can imagine it. So, during the time of King Uzziah, there was financial stability. You'll read in Isaiah, these people were doing pretty well financially. In all of their compromise and all of their hypocrisy, they were still doing pretty well. So, when Uzziah dies, it's this end of an era of stability that they've had. And so, what's going to happen? And that's when Isaiah has this vision, where God shows him his Holiness, and Isaiah says, “Here am I. Send me.” So then in Isaiah 7:1, that's where we're going to get in there with Ahaz. So, it kind of just skips over Jotham here in the book of Isaiah, but we're going to get into a story that happens with King Ahaz. And there are amazing prophecies about the birth of Christ through that story with Ahaz, and then eventually Assyria is going to come a knocking in chapter 36 with King Hezekiah, and we're going to get into it with him. And Isaiah is going to be a counselor to King Ahaz and to King Hezekiah, and he's going to give many other prophecies as well. So that's Isaiah 3:6, so roughly the time period here, and these are just estimates, but you could say Uzziah dies around 740 and Hezekiah, where we pick up the story with him, is around 700, just to complete your chart there. So, Isaiah, time of being a prophet is going to exceed these forty years, and he's going to have a lot to say to this nation right in the middle of it; the northern kingdom is going to fall. And so that puts this book of Isaiah right in the middle of God's revelation. Do you guys like that chart?
Here's a timeline for you. If you enjoy a good timeline. We’ve got one of those for you, as well. Isaiah, coming roughly around 700 BC, is halfway from the law of Moses to the time of Jesus Christ. So, Isaiah is this bridge, taking us from the Law, applying the Law to God's people at that time, and then preparing the way for theLlaw to be fulfilled in the birth of the Messiah, the Holy One, the Anointed One, the servant, the King who is coming, the Lord Jesus. And so, what you're going to see is you're going to see the Law of Moses brought up and the people exposed that they're not keeping God's Law. But then, you're also going to see these prophecies regularly given throughout the book of how Jesus is going to come and save his people. Throughout reading Isaiah, there will be these high notes, almost like you’ve got the violins over here, just really bring in some drama, and then all of a sudden, like the wood winds over here, you know, the flutist over here has a solo and hits these beautiful notes. And it'll talk about a kingdom that is yet to come, a kingdom that you and I can be a part of, the Kingdom of the Lord When he returns, when he will actually reign in Jerusalem and fulfill what Isaiah is talking about. Seven hundred years before Jesus was ever born, Isaiah is clearly talking about him in this book. So, that's just the introduction.
Now let's get into what it actually says. Look at Isaia 1:2, right? What the first thing that it says, and one thing I love about reading these prophets is they'll write in the first person from God's perspective. So, if you read Isaiah, it's going to be many times like God himself is speaking, not just like the Word of the Lord, going through a man, but actually God speaking in the first person. And that's what happens here in verse 2, “Hear O heavens and give ear O earth, for the Lord has spoken.” And then he says, my own kids don't know me. Even ox oxen, even donkeys, they know where to put their head. They know where their food comes from. But my own children, my chosen people, my beloved nation, they don't even know me. Children have I brought up and they've rebelled against me. So, God starts speaking right away, and when God says this, this is the definition of epic. This is the definition of a masterpiece, right here, when your story begins, when your prophecy begins with, “Hear O heavens and give ear, O Earth,” like what God just did there. And the first time my eyes were open to see this, it just blew my mind. I hope you've seen this before, if not, I'm so excited to be the person to get to introduce this to you. But when God says to the heavens that he created and to the earth that he spoke into existence to hear and give ear, what God is doing is he's calling his two witnesses because he's about to make an accusation against his people. And so, the only two witnesses that would still be around throughout the whole time of God keeping his word to his people are the heavens and the earth. And so, this goes back. You have to know what's already happened to understand the significance of why God is calling the heavens and the earth.
Go back to Deuteronomy, Chapter 4 with me, and let's just see how God set this up over seven hundred years beforehand, when he spoke these words through Moses in the Law, Deuteronomy, the second telling of the Law. So, there's a lot of Deuteronomy that is going to come to pass in Isaiah, especially with the theme of holiness. There's going to be a lot of Leviticus references. If you get down with Leviticus here, if you're part of the no slander Leviticus zone here at our church, if you think Leviticus is Leviticus, then Isaiah is going to be a joy for you, because there's a lot about the holiness of our God. And look at Deuteronomy, chapter 4. Pick it up with me in verse 25 look how epic This is. This is God telling you what he's going to do seven hundred years before he does it. And it says here in Deuteronomy 4:25, “When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you.”
That is the setting of the book of Isaiah. God says, many generations from now, if you guys do what is evil in the sight of the Lord... Let me ask you all, who read Kings, were most of the kings doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord? They were provoking him to anger. He says, if you guys do that, I'm going to call Heaven, and I'm going to call Earth. I'm going to drive you out of the land I'm giving you, and I'm going to have other nations, and they're going to come and take you away. So, Isaiah is picking up on this thought from Deuteronomy 1:2.
Okay, so go back to Isaiah 1. Now I'm just trying to paint a picture to give you the context. Now I want to give you four reasons to read Isaiah. Okay, now we can really get started. And some of you already getting nervous, because I think we went for two hours last week, so I want to apologize about that. Don't worry everybody. Meatball subs, just keep thinking about that. But I'm going to give you four reasons to read Isaiah from these first 18 verses, all right, four compelling things, not just the context that's fascinating, but compelling in these very verses themselves. And after God says, hey, I want to call my witnesses, because my children are not acting like they know me anymore, God says this in verse 4 of Isaiah, chapter 1. “Ah, sinful nation.” Or you could even translate it, whoa, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity. “You're so burdened by your own sin, you offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.” And here's the big thought of why things have gone so wrong. They have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are utterly estranged.
So, we're going to get very specific about the sins that are happening in Judah and Jerusalem. In fact, it's going to get eerie how similar the sins that get described in this nation at this time, how much they compare to the sins in our nation at our time. So, it's going to get very specific about what the issues are. As you keep reading in chapter 3 and chapter 5, it'll make it clear what their sins were, but the big problem is they despise the Holy One. They don't see him high and lifted up. They don't see him for who he really is. They actually have forsaken God. They actually don't have a high view of God. They actually look down on Yahweh. And so, this idea that God is the Holy One, this is referred to more in the book of Isaiah than all the rest of the Hebrew Bible.
So, let's get this down for your first reason to read Isaiah: “You need to know God as holy.” You need to know God as holy. You want to grow in your knowledge of the Holy One. You don't want to bring God down to your level. You don't want to think of God like everybody else thinks about God. When somebody talks about God as the man upstairs, when somebody talks about God like he's just good and he's just love, you want to talk about a God who is holy. Holy, Holy. That's the revelation that Isaiah has that kicks off the whole book in chapter 6. So, you want to see God for who God really is. You want to make sure you don't have your own view of God that you've made up, or a lower view of God that's more palatable to you. You need to know who God is, and God is not like anyone else. He's not like you. He's not like me. There is no one like our God. And he's going to say it throughout Isaiah, over and over.
There's a commentary that I really enjoy reading through the book of Isaiah. We've got it in the Book Nook, if you're into commentaries and you want to read it. It's by this guy named J. Alec Motyer — The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary. And he talks about how twenty-five times God is referred to as the Holy One of Israel in the book of Isaiah, and there are only seven times outside the book of Isaiah. So, the problem here in verse 4 is they don't know who God is. They're despising him. They've forsaken him. They don't see him as holy. So that begs the question, how do you see God? Do you see God as holy? What does that even really mean that God is holy? This is supposed to make you want to keep reading, and you're supposed to see that the big problem there are going to be many symptoms of the problem, but the big problem is they forgot the holiness of their God, and they didn't see him as other than everyone else, as special, as unique as there's only one God. No, they started to bring him down and see him as one of many gods. And they worshiped idols. And they started to see themselves not as God’s set apart holy people, but as one of many people. And when they started looking at it in this pluralistic way, where they're seeing all these different options, they've lost the holiness of God. Do you see God as holy? I want one passage we're going to get to is Isaiah 57:15, if you guys want to turn there with me. Just a preview of Isaiah 57:15 but a good verse that summarizes the thing you want to learn about God as we read this book over eleven weeks, six chapters a week. So, it'll be a while till we get to Isaiah 57:15, but maybe you could put this verse somewhere where you could see it as we read through the entire book together. “For thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” That sounds like that would be a good song. We should get Ryan Pierce to write a song like that. I think maybe we'll be singing it a lot over these next few weeks. But see, here's what happen is your view of God starts to come down, and your view of yourself starts to go up, and God's like, no, no, no, I'm high and lifted up. I inhabit eternity. I live outside of space and time that you're a prisoner of. No, I'm holy. There's no one like me. Holiness of God is not just that he's perfect and doesn't sin, it's that he's completely other than everything else. He's in a category all by himself. This idea of being set apart, not just set apart from sin, but set apart unto himself. There is no one on God's level. That's the idea. And those who have a have a high view of God, they then have a low view of themselves in comparison to God, and then they're sorry about the sin that they would do before a holy God. And so, the people who can see God as holy and see him as high and lifted up, those people are lowly, those people are contrite, they're sorry about their sin, and God says, I'm with those people. I'll revive those people. I'm going to be up here in heaven, but I will also be with the people who humble themselves before me on earth. And you can't humble yourself before God unless you have this high and exalted view of God. You have to see God as holy. And the problem is the sinful nation. They've despised the holy one. Can you believe that God's own people no longer cared about who he really was? Oh, that was a big problem. And that gets us into the rest of the book.
Go back to Isaiah 1 and this idea of a sinful nation. So, there's going to be a lot said to the nation of Judah and even a lot said to the city of Jerusalem. So, people are going to be addressed on a macro level throughout the book. In fact, other nations will be called out throughout the book. When you read Isaiah, it's primarily the context is Judah and Jerusalem, but it's going to talk about all kinds of nations and what God thinks about them. And so, as you read through this book, it will be easy to see comparisons to the United States of America in our election year that we're having, and you'll be like, Oh, wow, a sinful nation, people who are becoming burdened by their own sins. Wow, I see that happening in my country. So, there will be a lot of comparisons here. In fact, look at what God says in verse 9 here. He says, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.” Now, who's ever heard of Sodom and Gomorrah before? Right? Maybe, if you go back to Genesis 18, you know about how fire came from heaven to consume these cities that were known for their sin, for their evil, sexual immorality, and so there was a judgment that came from heaven on these cities. Now this is what is crazy, what is kind of mind blowing. Hey, Heaven and Earth gather around. I'm about to make a strong accusation. And the strong accusation is that God's calling his city, the city where he put his name, the city where his temple is, Jerusalem. He's now comparing his people to the people of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah. And he's saying, If God didn't leave survivors… you could write down next to verse 9, and God always has a remnant. That's kind of a key word, where that because they're God's chosen people, he doesn't completely wipe them out. God leaves a remnant of his people. And if God wasn't kind to do that, we are just as wicked, just as evil, and we could be judged by God in the same way as Sodom and Gomorrah. If you're one of God's chosen people, one of his religious Jewish people there in Jerusalem, and you get compared to Sodom and Gomorrah, those are fighting words right there. Hey, hey, hey, we're not like those people, but it implies you would be judged just like those people if God didn't have a promise to keep a remnant because of what he said to Abraham, because what he said to David. And so, there's this idea here, hey, that these people, they have become a sinful nation, but they also have this unique promise of being God's chosen people. So, let's now compare that to us. We are now clearly living in a sinful nation. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? I mean, we don't need to say everything that's going on, but, wow, you can't even turn on any program on television or watch any monetized video on YouTube without having things just put up in your face that and don't vote for this person. Has anybody seen these ads that are just everywhere right now? Whatever you do, don't vote for that person. They're the worst kind of person imaginable. And you're like, wow, what could be the evil that this person would do that would make them so bad? Well, they are against abortion. That's the evil that they're doing. They don't think that people should kill unborn babies. That's what makes them so wicked. This is what's being said all around us every day.
So, we are living at a time where people's rights to do whatever they want with their body is like priority number one. And see, we’ve got to be very careful. Are you going down with America? Are you going down the same path that the nations go down eventually? Most nations go down this way of Sodom and Gomorrah. Most nations end up falling apart from the inside out. They're rotten at their own core. It's their own sin that does them in, that's happening to us and God's people. They were supposed to be different than Sodom and Gomorrah. Are you any different than your fellow Americans? Are you set apart as one of God's people if you serve a holy God, what makes you different than anybody else? If you know the one who is the other, the one who is holy, then how does that affect the way that you live? Or do you just go along with everything else in America?
See, point number two, let's get it down like this: “You have been elected out of a sinful nation.” You have been elected out of a sinful nation. If you're one of God's chosen people, if you're one of the people that God called through his son Jesus, that the father decided to set his love upon by sending his Son to die for you, then you're not supposed to fit in with the sinful nation, because you've been called out to be priests. You've been called out to be a holy nation. You've been called out to be one of the people of God. And so here God does something shocking, where he calls his own people like Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, look at verse 10 of Isaiah, chapter 1, because he just rams it home here as he gets into the next section. “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah.” Yeah, you would have ended up like Sodom and Gomorrah if God didn't have a plan to reserve a remnant of his people. But let's just make it very clear, your leaders are leading you the same way that they led Sodom, and you people are just like the people in Gomorrah. And so, that's very intense language to say to a religious group of Jewish people; they would be thinking themselves morally superior to other people. They would be thinking they're right because they're the chosen people of God. And so, referring to Judah and Jerusalem as Sodom and Gomorrah, this would have been very offensive. What Isaiah was saying, what God is saying through Isaiah here in chapter one. And so, this is where we are at in the United States of America. We have gone all the way down to the debased mind of Romans chapter 1. And one of the things I'm concerned about for you, I'm concerned about for myself, I'm concerned about for my wife and my kids is, I think we are becoming desensitized to how sinful we really are as a nation, like that frog in that pot of the boiling water, the sin just keeps cranking up the temperature, and we don't realize how much it's burning us.
I remember when I had a friend, a brother or sister in Christ that traveled to our country from another country where they lived, and they just looked at me, and they asked during their visit here, how do you guys become okay with all the pornography around that you can look at all the time? And they were just referring to things that you could see out in public. And it was shocking to them, from the country that they came from. Are you becoming desensitized to the fact that we are living in a sinful nation and that there needs to be a clear, dark and light, black and white difference between the way you're conducting yourself and the way the rest of America is conducting itself? Maybe you need to read the specific accounts of the sins of the nation of Judah so that you can make sure you're not getting caught up in the sins of America yourself, because the sins of the people God's saying it is like Sodom, it is like Gomorrah.
But the people are confused about this. There's a reason that God has to say this because it's not as obvious. And maybe at this point, maybe there's some of the people that would be hearing this, they're in Jerusalem, and they'd be thinking, yeah, I know the people you're talking about. And they would get out their pointy finger, and they'd be like, yeah, there are some people in our nation like that. See those people over there. But no, he's not talking about some people. Look what it goes on to say. And this is where it really cuts to the heart. Starting in verse 11, where God starts going off on their sacrifices. He says, what to me is the multitude of your sacrifices. Now, if you go back to Leviticus, they had to offer sacrifices as atonement for their sins, right? And when he looked at that, they laid their hand on the animal. They killed the animal. Because of sin, there has to be death. The wages of sin is death. Blood has to be shed. But see, God's like, with this ritual that you guys are doing with the sacrifices, this going through the motions, I've had enough of your sacrifice like. Like, you need to hear the frustration that God has with these people, these people who are doing the sacrifices that he told them to do, but he doesn't like their sacrifices. In fact, look what he says in verse 13, “Bring no more vain offerings. Your incense is an abomination to me.” Yeah, you're doing the new moon festivals, you're keeping the Sabbath. You're calling for the convocations. Yes, I gave you a calendar, and you're going through the days that I gave you on the calendar, but I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. It's like you're coming and doing sacrifices to atone for sin, while you're still doing sin. You're taking a day to rest, to remember I'm your creator. I'm your savior. While you're still in your sin. Don't have another feast. Don't have another big assembly of the people like you're coming to worship me, because I cannot bear how you come and supposedly worship me in your sin at the same time. I cannot bear with this iniquity and the assembly at the same time. It's hypocrisy, and God's had enough of it. He says, look at verse 15, “When you spread out your hands.” And that in the Hebrew Scriptures, the spreading out of your hands, the lifting of your hands, is the posture of prayer. That's what they would have thought when you spread out your hands, that's the idea that you're speaking to God. You're praying to Yahweh. “And 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.” I'm tired of the way you treat other people. There's going to be a lot of references to how all of them are in it for themselves, and they don't care about other people around them. And so, God, he says, when you do those sacrifices, here they are doing what should be the symbol of the atonement for their sin. And God's like, stop it. Here they are having the Sabbath to rest and remember God, and God's like, I can't stand it. Here they are coming to pray, and it's like God's covering up his ears, like, stop praying to me. See, one thing that you and I need to get clear in our mind is the problem is not with America. The problem is with the church in America, and that's us. We're not talking about somebody else. Isaiah isn't written to somebody else. It's written to us, unto us, a child is born, unto us a son is given. I mean, yeah, it's to these people originally, but Isaiah, with prophecies that are still the future, from our perspective, this prophecy was clearly written for everybody, and especially people who go to church.
There's a book that I want to recommend if you've ever read it, some of you have here at the church. It's called Devoted to God's Church, by Sinclair Ferguson. He's got a chapter in here, chapter five. It's like, are you going to church or worship? And he uses this passage from Isaiah, and he just tears us apart. He's like, watch when you ask people how to worship. Hey, how was worship? When you gathered together, how was worship? What are people going to start talking about when you say the word “worship” these days. They're going to say, oh yeah, I like that song that we sang. It was a good worship song. It was a good worship set. It was a good worship service. It was a good worship night. He's like, oh man, don't get Sinclair Ferguson started on that right there in that chapter. If you've ever read that chapter, you know what I'm talking about. Does anybody want to say, amen right now? Do not get him started with that. The rating of, did I like the music? Was it my style? Did any of the songs appeal to me? Did any of the songs speak to me? I mean, the tone of the chapter is basically, if the only time you think of worship is when there's music, it's probably fake, because worship is when someone responds in their heart to the holiness of God. Worship is when someone sees God. They see him with the eyes of their soul, and they want to respond to God. And they know that God is worthy. Now, yes, you could do that in a song, but you don't need music to worship. And these people singing wasn't even one of the things God expected them to do, although they did have their songs that they sang on their way to the feast, it doesn't even mention singings, but the things they did, the sacrifices, the Sabbaths, the prayers, the feasts, God doesn't care about those things if you're still in your sin, if you're a hypocrite.
And let's just get real, the culture of the church in America is filled with this kind of hypocrisy in the southern part of America, where there are the most churches. I lived there for some time. It is regular for people to get drunk on Saturday night and be praising Jesus on Sunday morning. I've gone to church most of my life right here in Southern California, and people will be pumped up about these worship songs, and they'll be dropping expletives by the time they hit their car in the parking lot after the service. Worship is like something people do at a certain place at a certain time, rather than a genuine posture of their heart towards God. And don't get caught up in the hypocrisy. Don't think because you came to church on a Saturday night, everything's all right, because God, he doesn't even want to hear the prayers of these people.
So, point number three: “You need to be set apart from hypocritical worship.” You need to be set apart from hypocritical worship. You need to have a genuine thought about God in your own mind, in your own heart. And yeah, if there's a song that helps you think about that thought, sing it out. But don't leave it up to the music to put you in the mood to worship God. You can worship God in the stillness of your heart, when it's just you and him in the secret place. You can worship God at a beautiful sunset. You know what I've seen some people here at this church do? They've worshiped God in the hardest moments of their lives. They've worshiped. No music required, no sacrifice needed, no formalities, no place to go, just you responding in your heart.
And so, where are you at like when God looks at you today? Does he think that you know he's holy when the eyes of the Lord are looking at you? Does he think that you see him high and lifted up? Does he think you're different than the rest of America? Does he think you just go through the motions of going to church? Or does God look at your heart and see worship? Does God look at your heart and see someone who is lowly and contrite, and is God pleased when he looks at you? That's what we're getting to here. It's not just that the nation is in sin. Point your finger at other people in America. No, the nation, this nation, was supposed to be the people who worshiped God, and the way they were going about worshiping God was hypocritical, and he calls it “trampling my courts,” like, well, you guys just leave the temple alone. Well, you guys just stop praying. I've had enough. You cannot bring your sin before me. Like, I don't see it. I am the Holy One.
Isaiah is the prophet. Isaiah probably was God's guy, like he was the Righteous One. And when you get to chapter 6, and that's the most famous part of Isaiah, and the first five chapters are all just a setup, so you'll really feel the punch of Isaiah 6, because when the most righteous guy in town sees God high and lift it up, and he hears the voices saying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts. What does Isaiah say about himself? “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live in the midst of a people of …” That's the point. We're all supposed to get in the book of Isaiah, not like, oh, God's okay with me, because I go to church on Saturday night. God's okay with me. I've read the entire book of Isaiah. You ever heard somebody say that? I've read the whole Bible. I'm fine. No, God wants your heart. It's a watch-out for the hypocritical worship. God's not having it here.
And then he says, you have to respond. Look at verse 16,”Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.” You can't keep bringing that sin when you're supposedly coming to make sacrifices or pray. You’ve got to get clean from that sin. You’ve got to turn from evil and do good. This is a call for repentance. This is a call for a change of mind. This is a call for a turnaround. In fact, here's one of the ways that God's going to bring up often that they need to do good is seek justice and correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widows cause. Hey, do you care at all about other people? Are you actively thinking how are other people doing? Particularly, it brings up people like widows, who don't have someone there to care for them like they used to, or orphans who don't have parents there to watch over them and bring them up and God's ways and protect. Turn from evil and provide for them. Are you aware that there are other people out there who need help, or is the entire criteria of your life, how am I doing? And so, God's like, you’ve got to repent of this self-focused way that you're living. You have to get clean from it, you need to be washed.
And then verse 18, where God says, “Come now, let us reason together.” Hey, here's God inviting; this is what is really surprising about this first chapter, because the fact that these people are despising the Holy One, the fact that the nation is as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah, the fact that the religious pursuits of the people is pure hypocrisy, you would expect at this point for thunder and lightning and judgment. And there's going to be plenty of that in Isaiah. But before we get to all of that, God wants to make his appeal, and he says, hey you, why don't you come? Let's talk about this together. Here's God, inviting this wicked people. He doesn't want to hear their prayers anymore. He's ready to judge them like Sodom and Gomorrah. They've forgotten who he is, and yet, still, do you see the heart of God who reaches out to this sinful nation, these hypocritical people, and he says, how about me? And you just have a talk right now. Can we talk about how this is going to work out for you? Because, right now, when I'm looking at you, you have a stain on your soul right now. You're like Scarlet right now. You're like crimson right now. You are asking for it. But why don't you come over here and reason with me, and you could be white as snow. You could be like, whoa, man, right at the point of the chapter where you're thinking, bam, here it comes. Bring on Assyria. Bring on Babylon. No, no. I mean, they're coming, don't get me wrong. In fact, all God's got to do is whistle and they come, and that's how powerful God is. But before he gets to them, Come now. Come now. Judah come now, Jerusalem come now, America, let's decide together how this should go out. Because right now, you're like this, but you could be like this.
This picture here of white as snow, has anybody ever been blessed to be out there when it's fresh powder and it's just pure white snow? Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Okay, the idea here, when we get these pictures of white as snow, or white like wool, you don't bleach snow white. Okay? You don't bleach wool white. Like when God makes you white as snow, when he makes you like wool, it's like he's not just changing you a little bit, he's changing the entire nature of who you are. So, this is talking about Yahweh’s salvation here. This is talking about a radical transformation of the soul, that where there would be a soul that is sick with sin and stained with guilt, there would be a new heart that is pure, that is white.
So, let's get this down for number four: “You need your soul to be forgiven.” You need your soul to be forgiven. And before God brings the judgment, he always offers the way of salvation. And that's what Isaiah 1:18 is. That word there, let us “reason together,” says the Lord, it's often translated, “decides”. And you're going to see it in the very next chapter of Isaiah 2. If you decide to read through the book with us, these are four compelling reasons. I would encourage you to read through the book. You're going to see that “decides” is often used of a judge who kind of makes his judgment like the judge decides. And when the judge decides, it doesn't matter what you think, because the judge has decided this is how it is. But before the judge starts to decide, God says, let's decide together. Let's reason together before we get to judgment. Let's decide together how this should go. Do you want what's coming to you? Do you want what's coming to the nation? Do you want what's coming on all the hypocrisy because you don't see me as holy. Or would you like to be made pure? Would you like to be made clean? Would you like to be washed and cleansed, so that you would have a new way in your soul?
See, this idea of forgiveness, this this idea that God doesn't want to judge; he wants to save. You're going to get to hear God talk like this in the book of Isaiah, where God is going to say tender words to his people, like he says in the Later Prophets. I always think of Ezekiel 18, where God's like and why will you die? Say, why will you die when you could come to me and live? Why are you choosing death? Hey, let's talk about this. I would like to give you life. Could you stop choosing death? Come to me. Come now. Let's talk about this together. This idea of being forgiven is going to be throughout Isaiah.
Go to chapter 43 with me. Isaiah 43. Let me just give you some verses to whet your appetite on the beautiful righteousness that God wants to offer a sinful people, or the pure heart that God wants to give to the hypocrite. God wants to make his people holy, not just to know that he's holy, but that they could be holy as he is holy, and so in Isaiah 43:25, this is another verse you could put somewhere to inspire you to keep reading Isaiah. Look what God wants to say. “I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” Would anybody here tonight like to know that God doesn't remember your sins anymore? Is that a comforting thought to anybody? See, I think we have all had forgiveness, ruined and tainted in our mind by that scene of the confessional booth where you go in there and you say what your sins are to some other person, and then they give you these Hail Marys, or they give you these Our Fathers. And then what do you do after you get out of the booth? You go, what? You keep on sinning. See, that's not the kind of forgiveness that God's offering. That's never been a picture of confession and forgiveness. Knowing God really forgives when a sinner really comes to God and they understand that they have a debt on them that they could never repay, and then God removes the burden of their debt and blots it out. He erases their sins like they never happened. God doesn't just forgive; he forgets the sin. That's what this verse is saying. How could you go back to the sin when God just erased it?
Look at Isaiah 6:10. Here's another verse that could inspire you to keep reading until we get there. Isaiah, 61 verse 10, he says, and this is the idea that God is sending some very challenging words through Isaiah, not because he wants to judge his people, but he wants to save His people. That's the overarching theme. And the salvation that God's going to bring through his Son, Jesus, in the future is just. It's idealistic. It's just awesome. What is prophesied here in this book, and so here it says in Isaiah, 61:10, “I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh. My soul shall exalt in my God, for he has clothed me with garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.” Does anybody want to guess what color the robe of righteousness is? Right? It's white as snow. It's white like wool. It's pure white. See, God will clothe you with salvation. We got to see this in Revelation, which is referring to Isaiah, that everybody who's going to go to the marriage supper of the Lamb is going to be wearing white robes, white robes that are granted to them in the salvation of our God.
Turn with me to Psalm 51. Let's go to Psalm 51 where it also mentions this idea of being white as snow, where it's not just like you get cleaned up on the outside, it's like God does a work to your heart on the inside. God completely gives you a new nature. He completely clothes you with a different garment, with righteousness, rather than being described as someone who has sinned. Now you would be described as someone made righteous. And so, this is supposed to be one of the reasons. Do you want to know the Holy One? Do you want to learn what's going on in the sinful nation? Do you want to have the hypocrisy exposed? And I mean, those are all reasons to read. But do you want to know that you're forgiven? Do you want to know that you're right with God? Do you want to know? Well, how could this even be? How could a sinner like me have all my sin forgotten, have all my sin erased? How could somebody like me actually be in the holy presence of a God like him? How could these things be? See, that's the reason you would read Isaiah. How does this even work? It seems impossible that sinners like us could be welcomed in by a God like him, how? And then that's supposed to be like I want to find out, and you're off to the races in the book of Isaiah. How could God say this to people as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah, to people he doesn't want to even hear them pray. How could he offer them a soul as white as snow? And Psalm 51 is the heart of David, that we know God was pleased with even though David sinned, he still, after he sinned, gave his whole heart to the Lord. And so, here's an example of a real confession in Psalm 51:1. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Erase my sins. Wash me thoroughly, wash me completely from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.” What he's saying here is, I don't want to keep sinning. I don't want to continue in my evil ways. I don't want to come before you, bringing these sins with me. I want you to be done with them. I want you to get rid of them, for I know my transgressions. I see what I've done. My sin is ever before me. In fact, against you only have I sinned. “I've done what is evil in your sight. I'm like one of those kings. I'm like the people of Israel of old, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin. Did my mother conceive me? Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom and the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” God, I need you to forgive me for these sins, and it's a pure cry for a pure heart before the Lord. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Can I get an amen from anybody on that one? Anybody ever taken that verse to the bank before? 1 John 1:9. Is anybody here excited to know that all of your sins have been separated from you as far as the east is from the west, that your sins that used to separate you from God have now been separated from you. In fact, if you wanted to go find your sins where God puts them after he forgives you, you couldn't even find them, because it's like he cast them to the bottom of the sea.
See, that's Micah, chapter 7, verse 19. That's one of the contemporaries of Isaiah. That's something that God wanted his people to know at this time, is that judgment was coming, but for a limited time, forgiveness was available. And so, the reason that you should read the book of Isaiah is because you need to hear God say to you, come now, let's decide together before it's too late. Come. Now America, is this really the way you want to go, the way of all the other nations, the way of all the other hypocrites? Is that really what you want to be a part of? Let's decide together before I have to make the decision by myself. Come now, let's look at your options. Do you want to stay in a crimson stain of sin, or do you want to be as white as snow? Let's talk about this together.
That's the introduction to the book of Isaiah. And so, if you want to grow in your confidence that you have been forgiven, I would strongly encourage you to read this book, and even as I say that, I know there are people sitting here tonight, you know you're still in your sin, and you maybe have asked for forgiveness, but you know there hasn't been this washing, this cleansing, there's not this new, pure heart. You just keep going back to your sin, and it's not going to be enough that you're also coming to church or you're also reading the Bible if you're still in your sin, no, you need to get washed. You need to get cleansed, and you need to hear God say to you, tonight, come now, there's still time for us to talk before the judgment comes. I know you've been sinning for a long time. They've been sinning a long time. By the time Isaiah starts writing. Come now, we still have a moment together. What a beautiful invitation from God. If you've never really turned from your sin, if you've never really asked God to forgive you, to cleanse you, to wash you, you need to hear God say to you today, come now, and let's talk while we still can.
And if you don't know how to talk to God, I would be happy to talk to you after the service. There are plenty of people who'd be happy to talk to you here. And so, I want to encourage you to consider the forgiveness of our God. Who's in for reading the book of Isaiah? Is anybody in? It would be a mistake to not be in to read Isaiah. Let me pray for us right now.
Father in heaven, we need to come before you, Father, and we need to confess that these are four compelling reasons for us to read this book in these first 18 verses, because we need to make sure that we have a high and lifted up view of you. And Father, on behalf of everybody here, I just want to confess that sometimes we lower our view of you and we don't see you as the Holy One. We may even despise you. And so, Father, will you please grow all of us in the knowledge of who you are as the Holy One of Israel. Could we all see this vision of you as holy, on your throne, in heaven above? Could we see that you are not like us? Could we see that you are set apart from our sin, Father? We ask that you would show us who you are. And father, I just pray that we would not get caught up in the sins of our fellow Americans, that we would not judge them or act like we're better than them, but we would be set apart from them. I pray that would be true of everybody here, that we would be both citizens of America and citizens of heaven, that we would both be a part of this country, but a part of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and that we would be standing out from the dark. We would be shining as a light. Father, I just pray for everybody here, not really worshiping you. They're not really coming into your presence. They're not really humbling themselves before you and acknowledging you are worthy. They're just waiting for a song to play, waiting for a mood to strike, them, waiting for a feeling to hit. God help us see that's not what you're looking for. You desire people to worship you in Spirit. That's why you made us in your image. We have a soul. We're spiritual beings, and you want us to worship you in Spirit and in truth. So, whether there's music or not, let us worship you. Let us not be hypocrites. Let us come to you in sincerity and in truth, and let us give you all of our lives. And Father, I just pray that we would all know there's only one way we're going to be washed. There's only one way we're going to be cleansed, and it's nothing but the blood of Jesus that can wash our sins away and that we would read Isaiah. How does Jesus show up? How is Jesus going to take me in my sin and make me righteous? How is Jesus going to take me from being separated from God and make me one of the people of God? God, put it on our hearts to read this prophecy and let us experience the revival, the life that comes from your Bible. Let us experience the forgiveness that you can give to sinners, where you erase our sins, where you remember them no more, where you separate us from our sins as far as the east is from the west, and you cast our sins into the bottom of the sea. Let us all know that our sins have been washed away and we are as white as snow. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.