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Introduction
How can we get rid of our guilt? Who needs forgiveness, anyway?
Read Isaiah 1:1-4,10-23
ILL.) Cain killed his brother Abel, David killed Bathsheba’s husband, Hamlet was a play about murder and revenge, His uncle had killed his father and married his mother. The Lion King follows this same plot.
Jezebel had Naboth killed so King Ahab could steal his vineyard. From the Oklahoma bombing to the streets of large cities with gangs, blood still flows. We, like lady Macbeth, can see the spot of blood staining our hands, the bloody glove does fit our hands, what can we do with our bloody hands?
The people of Judah struggled with this in Isaiah’s day.
2. Background to Isaiah chapter one:
a) chapter one can be outlined as follows:
I. The pitiful condition of Israel (1-9)
II. The sins of the nation (10-17)
III. The choice between repentance & judgment (18-31
A. The possibility of forgiveness (18-20)
B. The Prophet’s lament over Jerusalem. (21-23)
C. The Lord’s pending judgement of Jerusalem (24 -31)
b) Isaiah is focusing on prophecies against Judah, the Southern Kingdom.
Chapter one is prophecies of condemnation.
He details the condition of Judah, the sins of Judah, the choice of Judah, repent or be judged, then he grieves over Judah’s choice, and then spells out the coming judgment on Judah, the covenant people of God.
c) Isaiah began his ministry around 740 B.C.
The first section of this whole book deals with the Assyrian Crisis (37). Isaiah was a resident of Jerusalem & primarily a prophet to Judah.
In 722 B.C. the Assyrian’s had destroyed Northern Israel and carried the people away.
They attacked Judah and Jerusalem in 701 B.C.
Judah was decimated, Jerusalem still stood because God protected the city In 740 B.C., when Isaiah started out as a prophet, the split nation had a period of prosperity. The people became covenant breakers and forsook God. Idolatry was like the common cold, epidemic. Sexual immorality and greed abounded. The people were thieves and murderers. The people rebelled against the laws of the Covenant and abandoned the true God of the Bible. False worship. Heartless worship, pagan worship, murder, and sexual sins were so common God called them Sodom & Gomorrah.
God’s spanking paddle is the Assyrians.
But the people will not wake up.
They will not learn from their mistakes.
They love their sins, and they are sticking with them to the end.
God gets really personal and offer them a conditional invitation to life, that has a very short term on it. They refuse God’s final appeal as Judas ignored Jesus last appeal in the upper room.
Our Focus today will be on God’s appeal to the lost people in the Covenant community. These were the make believer, the lost church members and seekers of Isaiah’s day.
3. (Direction) We will study this under three headings:
I. Every person should consider God’s call to court. vs 18
II. Every person should consider the consequences of confession of sin and willing obedience. vs 19
III. Every person should consider the curses that come with rebelling against the Covenantal God of Scripture. vs 20
I. EVERY PERSON SHOULD CONSIDER GOD’S CALL TO COURT. vs 18 (Read v. 18)
A. The command to come.
1. God has issued a subpoena to his people.
All who hear and read the word of God, to them He commands, come to Court.
2. All who are in a covenant contract with God, you have violated your terms, now you must appear before the judge.
3. God is the plaintiff, the one wronged, and the judge.
B. The call to court.
1. What is the meaning of “Let us reason together”?
2. Several translate this as “come and let us debate our case in court.” The words used are a special ones that show us God has a lawsuit in mind.
If your friends ask what you did Sunday, you can tell them you were sued by God.
3. Long ago God made a covenant with a man named Adam, and with all his children. Adam would represent all by obeying the covenant or breaking the covenant. God made another covenant with Noah, and if your a stranger to the church family, you still are related to God by these two Covenants.
But if you're a church member then you are part of the New Covenant Community. And if you are a real Christian, you are in Covenant with Abraham and with Jesus Christ. So, no matter who you are, you are a covenant breaker, and today is your day in court.
I hope you brought a lot of money, because God could sue your socks off.
4. (ILL). Construction - signed contract - date - over-time, contract broken, court is an option.
5. We must be ready to Face the Covenantal God in court.
What is the central promise of every covenant God makes? I will be your God, and you will be my people.
There are conditions and obligations for both God and us to meet, and if we fail, we have our day in court. Are you encouraged yet?
C. The grace in the word “now”.
1. This term can mean, “please” and this softens the command to come to trial.
2. The Holy God who is perfect and hates all sin, kindly says, 'please' to spiritually dead
and sinful men. To people who have desperately wicked hearts. Fallen people who have depravity that spreads to every fiber of their being.
Yet, also, people with dignity, because they bear the image of God. They can love, and think, and feel, and choose all in accordance with their moral natures.
Come , please, and let us go to court together
D. The call is from God. How do we know this?
1. The phrase “says the Lord” vs 18
2. The phrase “the mouth of the Lord has spoken” vs 20
3. These are not 1st Isaiah, or second Isaiah or an Isaiah schools carefully pasted phrases no matter who, w/ their PH. D. Tells you that nonsense. These are the words of God recorded by one man, Isaiah the son of Amoz.
God has called you to court.
Are you ready for your defense?
He says you have broken your contract.
How do you plead? He asks for a guilty plea
E. The call to confess.
Will you agree with God’s charges? Will you say the same thing about your sin that God does?
If you will agree with the plaintiff about your guilt and repent of that sin The judge says:
He will clean you up! Read v. 18
1. Permanently dyed red robes are changed to white wool robes by God.
Bright white without a spot of dirt or blood left.
2. Why did God use the color red in this illustration? It is the color of blood.
Murders and thieves cause blood to be spilt, people to die. Babies sacrificed, their blood cries out to God.
(Isa 1:15 NKJV) 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.
(Isa 1:21 NKJV) How the faithful city has become a harlot! It was full of justice; Righteousness lodged in it, But now murderers.
Well, that may be Jews back then, but certainly not Christians. Really?
(James 4:2 NKJV) You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
Jesus in Matthew 5 taught us we break
- command against murder by hating and unjustified anger.
We too have spotted hands.
3. What are the images of white wool and clean fresh snow supposed to bring into our minds?
The contrast of pairs.
Colors: Scarlet sins vs white clean snow
Clothes Scarlet robes vs white wool garments
Doubled died permanent scarlet robes are made white again.
(ILL.) If you wash in the Jordan river, the red stays in ...
(ILL). Tide commercials, see how bright the whites are ..
God does a better job than Tide Laundry detergent.
No one can out sin God’s cleansing power.
The picture here is like watching the Duke's of Hazard TV in reverse. On almost every show Boss Hogg’s nice white suit is covered with mud or manure, something filthy, rewind that tape, filthy Boss Hogg becomes shiny white again.
4. The Hebrew poetry is beautiful in this majestic book. This book contains some of the finest literature in either English or Hebrew. But this book is not just inspiring literature for pagans to admire.
This is a word from God almighty that we are to obey.
But in Hebrew poetry there are often parallel words that help us see the picture clearer. The same thought is expressed in different words so we will be sure to understand it.
Or it is contrasted to make - picture clear. Blood-stained hands become clean
Double died garments go back to white.
5. Consider this verse from Psalm 51:7 that teaches the same thing.
(Psa. 51:7 NKJV) Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
6. Notice this surprising offer by God to sinful men.
This text is designed to be shocking, to Judah, to - Rabbi’s, to the Liberals, the Fundamentalists, and Evangelicals. Everyone is shocked. God is not as predictable as man wants. Everybody wants God to not say something or to say something different here.
7. Let's look at the defendants' choices at the trial before God.
They could repent and trust in God out of love and be spared. Or ...
They could rebel and disobey in hate and selfishness.
Every hearer of this message was directly responsible for the judgment that came upon their city. God has taken away your excuse. You remain married to your sins because you want too, so you are 100% responsible for your own condemnation.
F. Application
1. How clean are your hands? Your souls?
Are they dirty? Don’t despair.
Go to the one who can clean you up from the inside out.
I John 1:9 (NKJV) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
(1 John 1:7 NKJV) But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
[Through the shed blood of Jesus, there is forgiveness and redemption from sin.
The word "cleanse" is in the present tense and denotes continuous action.
The blood of Jesus "keeps on cleansing" from "sin in its every form."]
2. Have you tried to wash up by yourself?
It's like trying to wipe a floor with a dirty rag. The more you wipe the worse it gets.
God commanded Judah to clean -up so they could discover that they could not do it.
3. Can you see the stains? Are you guilty?
4. Only God can change the unchangeable.
(Jer 13:23 NKJV) Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil.
5. Christian friend, have you written off a person in sin or a type of sinner? Oh, that person does _____ You need to revisit God’s laundry mat and see the filth rags He makes clean every hour. That person's spots are nothing compared to the spots He has already removed.
Stop focusing on the spots and focus on the spot remover. He can pull it off.
6. Have you told yourself, “I have sinned to badly for God to forgive me? I am beyond cleaning up.” That’s a lie from the pit of hell and it Still has the smoke smell on it. There is no spot God cannot take out.
Blood red robes instantly become like the pure white snow.
He can save from the uttermost to the gutter most.
Stop looking at your sins and lift your eye’s to the Savior on the throne, if that is how you are thinking. if you are telling yourself, my hands are clean enough, I can get by on my own strength, my own goodness, then you need to look deeply at your wicked heart and sin stained hands, first, and then look to the spot remover.
(Rev 7:13-14 NKJV) Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?" {14} And I said to him, "Sir, you know." So, he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
G. Illustration, CLR rust remover and Pilgrim w/ his burden.
We have a remarkable cleaner in our home called CLR. Calcium Rust and Lime are no match for its power. It has cleaned up everything I have used it on. It is man made.
If man can do that, what can God do?
Pilgrim found out. When he approached the cross with that anvil of sin on his back, it fell off at the foot of the cross and rolled into the empty tomb to be never seen again.
II. EVERY PERSON SHOULD CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES OF CONFESSION OF SIN AND WILLING OBEDIENCE. VS 19
A. The consequences of confession.
1. We must face our awful sin in the light of truth.
2. We must turn our backs on our friend, Denial.
3. We receive forgiveness & are made free.
B. The conditions of forgiveness.
1. If you are willing . . . God will make you willing. No one comes kicking and screaming while being dragged into the kingdom. No one stands knocking at the door, begging to come in, and gets turned away. The Bible says:
Psa. 110:3 Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power;
2. If you are obeying. . . Just saying I am sorry is not enough. Repentance is turning your back on the sin and facing God.
True repentance has a change of direction and visible fruit.
C. The consequences of willing obedience to the call of God.
1. Eat the best of the land - live in it, stay in it.
2. Prosperity - both physical and spiritual.
3. Avoid the chastisement of God
D. Application
1. Are you submitting & consenting
to the call of God?
a. The call to repentance and dependent trust
b. The call to discipleship & self-denial
c. The call to service and ministry.
d. The call to forsake our idols.
2. Are you obeying God’s word?
a. Hearing His voice by reading, studying, meditating on, and memorizing the Word.
b. Heading His word ‘be doer of the - word’
c. Obeying the truth.
3. Do you want to prosper spiritually?
E. Illustration: Job’s patient suffering paid off.
The willing obedient of the suffering servant
(Isa. 53) leads to exaltation (Phil. 2)
Jesus went to the cross and God highly
exalted him. Obedience pays off.
When God hauls you into court you will not
be before Judge Wopner - Peoples Court.Jezebel thought she would get away with killing Naboth, but she found out that Payday is someday, and her own servants threw her out the window, lying there with broken bones, she was eaten by wild dogs as soon as she died, the angels carried her soul to hell. Court day is coming.
Are you ready?
There is only one way to be saved, delivered by one name
What can take away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus, what can make me whole again,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. How precious is the flow that makes me
white as snow, no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
III. EVERY PERSON SHOULD CONSIDER THE CURSES THAT COME WITH REBELLING AGAINST THE COVENANTAL GOD OF SCRIPTURE. vs 20
A. It is dangerous to be resisting the word of God - preached and written.
1. A double edged sword
2. The standard on the day of judgment.
B. It is a hazardous practice to be rebelling against the rule and rules of God.
1. Every knee should bow now, don’t wait.
2. The rebellious are going into the lake of fire.
C. It is risky and foolish to refuse God’s call to confess our sin and to turn from them in repentance.
1. Each time we resist our heart get
a little harder.
2. God’s patience has a limit, today is the day of salvation, tomorrow God may give you up to follow your depraved heart deeper into the quicksand of sin.
D. What were the consequences of rebelling for Judah?
1. Eaten by the sword - to lose the war, many killed by a sword.
2. They lost the land of promise.
3. Judah lost its freedom and self-rule. Become slaves.
4. They left the land of the living - this earth, they died.
5. They lost all of their possessions.
6. They forfeited their opportunity to enter everlasting life in the new Jerusalem; some went to hell.
E. They would receive the opposite blessing for each of these curses if they willing obeyed from the heart.
1. They would not be eaten by the sword - they would win the war; few would be killed by a sword.
2. They would keep the land of promise.
3. Judah would keep its freedom and self-rule.
4. The people would stay in the land of the living - this earth, for a while longer.
5. They would keep their possessions and get more from their enemy's defeat.
6. They would keep open their opportunity to enter everlasting life in the new Jerusalem, some would go to heaven.
F. God’s people chose to rebel. What were the results?
1. God said no problem, I have limited my sovereignty to your will, you can do whatever you want, right? WRONG.
2. The Babylonians deported them out of the land.
3. They took their silver and gold, possessions, even out of the temple.
4. They burned the temple and broke down the city’s wall of defense. (The Temple, the only place in all the earth where a man could meet with the true God and have his sins atoned for until the Messiah would come take them away.)
5. Many in Judah starved to death. They ate unspeakable things.
6. Many were killed during the fight during the siege.
7. They ceased being the light to the pagan nations.
G. The Bible had already warned these people of the consequences of rebelling against the covenant.
1. Moses was very clear in his warning in Deut. 28.
(This was a message preached and Scripture itself)
2. Deut. 28:1-) If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. {2} All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God: {3} You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
3. Deut. 28:45-8) All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees, he gave you. {46} They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. {47} Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, {48} therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
4. Deut. 30:19-20 (NIV) This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live {20} and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
H. Application
1. Paul put it this way, II Cor. 5:20-1(NIV) We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. {21} God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2. The God of the Bible is making you an offer.
3. God is offering to make your soul clean.
Would you like to have all your guilt gone?
Every time you broke God’s law and every time you failed to measure up to God’s Perfection, you sinned and that sin stained you. Look at your hands. They are bright red from the people you have destroyed with your tongue, they are stained with every lie, every lustful thought, every desire to have something that belonged to someone else.
4. They tell me that vinegar and cold water will get blood stains out of clothes.
But the only thing that will clean your crimson hands is more blood,
the blood of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth.
He will make your hands and soul as clean as fresh bright white snow.
5. God is offering an individual covenantal relationship with Himself. This is an awesome offer. You have a empty space inside your inner being that only the God of the covenant can truly fill. Our idols just give temporary relief and greater thirst. We are lonely and afraid and we want our lives to matter. We want to be loved. Only God’s love and friendship can fill up that void.
6. You are at the fork in the road.
You are on trial before God.
a. How will you respond to the invitation to life?
b. Will you continue on the road to death and destruction?
c. Will you join Judah in her folly, or will you learn from her mistakes?
7. If you continue in your love affair with sin and chose the curses of the covenant you must blame yourself for your coming destruction. Don’t get mad at God for giving you what you asked for.
8. If you have already been cleansed by God, are you willingly and obediently following Him
Do you understand Grace, or are you motivated by merit or legalism?
9. Even now your works can’t clean your hands. You serve Him in love and gratitude if you are His. And your joy is full because His cross-work did it all. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. You are not here because you are good, you are here because you are His, the only one who is good
I. Ill. Bruce Wilkerson had a friend who was about to leave his wife and children for a younger woman. Bruce walked him through the next years of pain and anguish he would experience. He was face to face w/ the price tag of his sin. In tears he repented and chose not to follow that path because the cost was too great. Learn from Judah’s mistake.
They let their time limit pass to repent and had to endure the pain of their sin.
Conclusion:
We have said:
I. Every person should consider God’s call to court.
II. Every person should consider the consequences of confession of sin and willing obedience.
III. Every person should consider the curses that come with rebelling against the Covenantal God of
Scripture.
In Pilgrims Progress after Christian gets saved, the angel come and bring him a clean white robe and helmet of salvation and the key of promise and the word of God. His filthy rags are removed and clean, clothes are put on him.
This is in part an illusion to Zechariah 3, Yeshua the priest, is in filthy rags and Satan is accusing him, but King Jesus, the Angel of the Lord, give the priest clean garments and a clean turban. Only Jesus can clean you up. Your best deeds are as filthy rags ... That’s your best shot, w/ 85% right motive, it is filthy. But Jesus can clean your spots from the inside out. Don’t delay coming to Him on His terms of trust, repentance, and surrender. Jesus has the clean hands, and He can make your hands clean too. Won’t you come to Him today?
