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This is a chapter which, I think, teaches an important lesson to those of us who desire the salvation of men, for it shows us how God sets about that work. He begins by exhibiting the sinner’s sin to him before he proclaims mercy to him; and if we want to be the means of doing good to men, it will not be by merely crying to them, “Believe, believe, believe;” but there must be a laying of the axe at the root of the tree of self-righteousness, and a cutting away of all trust in self. A man must realize his danger before he will desire to escape from it, and it is a mistaken kindness which refuses to set before him the peril in which he is. God, who is infinitely tender and inconceivably merciful, shows us, in this chapter, how to go to work with sinners.
Isa_1:1-2. 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 hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
“If they were simply my subjects, I could bear their rebellion better than I can now, for they are my children. I have nourished them, and brought them up; and after long and persevering kindness towards them, I might have expected some affection from them in return: but ‘they have rebelled against me.’ “
Isa_1:3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
See how the Lord still owns the children of Israel as his people, though he contrasts their conduct with the behavior of the ox and the ass. So we see that, however far God’s people may have gone into sin, they are his people still, and he does not deny their relationship to him: “Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”
Isa_1:4. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: What a terrible picture!
A nation burdened with iniquity, as full of sin as their fathers were, and their offspring growing up like themselves. By hereditary transmission they have received a predisposition to evil that cannot be taken out of the blood except by divine power.
Isa_1:4. They have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
What a description this is of the state of the unregenerate, — even of God’s elect among them who are still crushed under the ruins of the fall! Peradventure, as I am reading this chapter, some poor soul here is saying, “That just describes me.” Well, let it describe you; and lament, and mourn, and humiliate yourself before the Most High as you realize what is your sad condition. You have acted worse to God than an ass does to its master; you have behaved shamefully to him, and thus you have provoked him to anger. Do not think lightly of your sin, but let it weigh heavily upon your spirit; as you are “laden with iniquity,” God grant that it may be a heavy burden to you! The Lord next goes on to exhibit the sin of the people in the light of his chastisement. When a child sins, and does wrong, a wise parent uses correction to see whether he cannot overcome the evil tendencies; but, alas! there is no correction that will ever get sin out of the sinner. See what God did with these people, and what came of it.
Isa_1:5-6. Why should ye be stricken anymore? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
“You are already in this terrible plight, and your sufferings are the direct result of your sins.”
Isa_1:7-8. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
Now, to translate all this into plain English, I have known men who have been chastened for their sins, and by their sins; God has chastised them, and they have been severely chastised; but no obedience, no repentance, has followed upon the chastisement. Men have been brought, by their sin, from wealth to poverty, from competence to actual want. Have we not seen them by drunkenness brought to rags, and by vice brought to rottenness? Have we not seen men brought to the very gates of hell by their iniquities, yet still they have clung to those iniquities? They have begun to drink the cup of their own damnation, and even when they realized what they were doing, they have still clutched the burning chalice in their hands, and have willingly drained it to the last dregs. Oh, it is horrible, it is terrible, to see at what a cost men will ruin their own souls! They go to perdition as if they were at a steeplechase; no hedge is too high, and no brook too wide for them, and they ride to destruction at a desperate pace. If we who are God’s people were half as earnest in serving him as the ungodly are in their efforts to be lost, what great service we should render to him! God reminded these people of all that he had done to them by way of chastening; yet no good had come of it.
Isa_1:9. Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
I am afraid that this verse applies to London at the present time. To what an awful extent has the sin of the people gone, and among those who commit it are many of the great ones of the earth. It is a crying iniquity, which may well make God angry. I marvel not that there are alarms, and all sorts of frightful rumors in the city which has become like Sodom and Gomorrah of old.
Isa_1:10. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
Isaiah next goes on still further to expose the sin of the people; and, anticipating that they would say that they had been very religious, that they had attended the means of grace, that they had been observant of the outward ritual of God’s sanctuary, he admits the truth of it all, and then shows what is the real value of it.
Isa_1:11-12. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
Have not some of you at times felt as if the Lord had said to you, “What right have you to be among my people?” For years, you have been worshipping professedly, but not sincerely. It is a wonder that the seat you sit on bears you up when your worship has been all hypocrisy, a delusion throughout; you have only given to God the external husk of devotion, the kernel of true heart-worship has never been there at all.
Isa_1:13-14. Bring no more with oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
When God is wearied by a man’s best things, what must his feelings be concerning the man’s worst things?
Isa_1:15. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
When even a man’s prayers become an abomination in the sight of God, what must the man himself be? As long as men live in sin, and love it, God will not hear their supplications. Whether their hands are stained with blood, or whatever other sin it is of which they are guilty, until they forsake the evil, God will not answer their prayers. The Lord, having thus set before the people their sin, the aggravation of that sin in that they had continued in it after severe chastisement, and the further aggravation of it in that, all the while, they had professed to be true and faithful servants of Jehovah, though they had been in constant rebellion against him, he yet goes on to speak to them in this gracious fashion: —
Isa_1:16-17. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
That is to say,” Bring forth fruits meet for repentance, so that it may be seen that your heart is really changed, and that you desire better things, and things more pleasing in my sight.” Then listen further to this marvelous message: —
Isa_1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
There is not as much music, to a poor convinced sinner’s ear, in a whole oratorio of Handel as there is in this one verse of Scripture. But your ear must be attuned to this music before you can appreciate its blessed sweetness. He only knows the music of mercy who knows the misery of sin. I think that must read this precious verse again: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet,” — we will not dispute about them; they are all you think they are, and much worse; — “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Isa_1:19. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
“You shall not any longer be ‘as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city;’ you shall be no more desolate, but ‘ye shall eat the good of the land.’ I will take away from you my chastisement when I take away your sin. I will take care to feed you if you will but come back to me. There shall be feasting, and music, and dancing, instead of starving, and sighing, and sorrowing, if you will only return to your Father’s house: ‘If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.’ “
Isa_1:20. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
So the Lord has mercy in his right hand for those who will turn from their sin; but he has a sword in his left hand for those who will abide in their iniquities.
God grant to us grace now to yield to the sweet reasoning of his love, and to turn from our sins, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.
Isa_1:1. 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.
During the time in which Isaiah prophesied, the worship of God was, upon the whole, maintained in Judah; yet, prosperous as the times appeared to be, there was visible to the eye of the Lord much iniquity. He who seeth not as man seeth, but who looks beneath the surface, and into the hearts of men, saw that the condition of the people was exceedingly unsatisfactory. Do not forget that these upbraiding words were spoken during the reigns of comparatively good kings, and try to imagine how the Lord must have felt towards the people who lived in the reigns of bad kings.
Isa_1:2-3. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
God’s own people were worse than the brutes that perish; they had no gratitude towards their Maker and Preserver. Am I not addressing many persons of the same kind, who have little or no thought concerning him who made them, and who supplies all their wants? God seems here as if he were tired of appealing to his people, so he speaks to the heavens and the earth, as if he knew that even inanimate things would be more capable of feeling than hardened Judah was.
Isa_1:4. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
If I am now addressing any who have backslidden from God, let them take these words of his to heart, he observes how you have forsaken him; he feels grieved at your provoking him; he mourns over your going backward from him. May you be moved by the Holy Spirit to mourn, too!
Isa_1:5. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
One of God’s ways of bringing people to himself is by chastisement sad affliction. He had tried that method upon Judah; he had used his rod so long that, at last, he exclaimed, “Why should ye be stricken any more?” What is the good of my sending any more affliction upon you? “Now, whenever the rod is of no more use, there will be a sharper instrument to follow. When men can no longer be chastened for their good, the axe of execution is ready to be brought forth. What a sorrowful description is here given of the people of Judah and their land!
Isa_1:6-8. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and purifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
The Lord had suffered invaders to pillage the land until it was almost reduced to a desert, yet, even then, the people did not, and would not, bow unto their God. It is a terrible thing when sickness, or loss of property, or frequent bereavements do not bring men to their knees. Unsanctified afflictions prophesy certain condemnation to us. “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”
Isa_1:9. Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
The state of the country, even under godly kings, had become so bad that, if there had not been a remnant according to the election of grace, there would have been no help for the land and its inhabitants, and they would have been burnt up, like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Isa_1:10-15. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me; saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of ram, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them; And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
It is very possible for people to be outwardly very religious, and yet really to be very wicked. The fact is, that the multiplication of rites and ceremonies, the observance of forms, and feasts, and fasts, and new moons, and all the rest of mere external ritual, — may rather indicate an increase of sin than an increase of anything else. Often, in proportion as men’s hearts get further and further away from God, they have more and more of outward ritual, more Roman rags on the priest’s back, more smoking intense, more gorgeous architecture; — more of all the externals of religion, the less they have of the internal and eternal. If a man is conscious that he needs something in the shape of godliness, and he knows that he has none of it in his heart, he often tries to get it outside; but this is what God says: —
Isa_1:16-17. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well;
Repentance, practical change of life, renewal of heart, the giving up of evil, the following of right, this is what the Lord approves. Otherwise, all your fripperies and trickeries of worship are loathsome to him. Think you that your finest music is sweet to the ear of him who listens to the angels everlasting song? Do you imagine that you can build temples worthy of him who made the heavens and the earth? What careth he for temples made with hands? He despises all material things where the heart goes not with them, but purity, holiness, true spiritual worship, — these are the things in which he delighteth.
Isa_1:17. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
This is better than all your incense, or the fat of rams and he goats.
Isa_1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
This, too, is what God loves, — confessed sin, pardoned by his infinite mercy and grace.
Isa_1:19-20. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
May we be instructed of the Holy Ghost while we read this inspired Scripture!
Isa_1:1. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amos, which he saw—
Prophets were called seers, they saw what they were called to say; and every true preacher of Christ must first be a seer of Christ. He must see, that is, realize for himself; and then he must tell to others what he has seen. This Book is about “the vision of
Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw
Isa_1:1-2. 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 hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
It is an appeal of God to inanimate creation to bear witness to the ingratitude that he had received, as if it was of no use any longer to speak to men. The appeal is stated very solemnly and impressively, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth for the Lord bath spoken. I have nourished and brought up children,” cared for them, loved them, fed them, “and they have rebelled against me.” The ingratitude of a child is something shocking; and the ingratitude of man to God is of that character.
Isa_1:3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
Men are more brutish than the beasts that perish. The lower animals, as men contemptuously call them, acknowledge the hand that feeds them; but men receive the bounty of God through long years, and yet live as if there were no God at all, and feel no gratitude to him whatsoever. Israel was God’s peculiar people, highly favored, and greatly indulged, and this made it all the worse for the Lord to be able to contrast them and the brute creation: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”
Isa_1:4. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
Thus the prophet spoke to the people of his day, and we may say much the same to the people of our own time. The professing church of God has gone away backward, forsaken the doctrines of truth, and turned aside from the purity of its life. God have mercy upon the world when the church itself becomes thus defiled!
Isa_1:5. Why should ye be stricken any more?
What is the use of chastisement to such people? It is supposed that punishment is always healthful, and that we grow the better for it; but God says, “Why should ye be stricken any more?”
Isa_1:5-6. Ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
The nation had been so beaten that it was covered all over with bruises and sores. It seemed to be of no use to afflict Israel any more; and there are some persons in the world who have been chastened in every conceivable way, and yet they are none the better. There are graves in the cemetery where lie asleep those they love; the house that was their joy has long ago been sold, and they have not a roof to call their own; they have been themselves at death’s door by fever and by other diseases; and yet all that God’s rod has done for them has come to nothing. The old Roman lictors carried an axe bound up in a bundle of rods; and, when the rods had been tried, and had failed, then came the axe. And if the milder forms of chastisement do not bring men to repentance, sooner or later will come the axe of destruction. Thus the prophet says it was with sinful Israel:—
Isa_1:7-8. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
The land had been so harried and worried by invaders that it was little better than a poor shanty; the nation was comparable to a poor hut which the Arabs put up in the vineyard just to sleep in: “As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.” -
Isa_1:9. Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
And this is true of London as well as of Jerusalem. If there had not been a remnant of godly ones still left, “we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”
Isa_1:10-11. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
These people were a very religious people, although a very wicked people; and it is a strange thing that, when nations have become demoralized, and injustice reigns supreme at the same time, Ritualism and outward pomp and external religion come to the front. This is a wretched business, to give to God the husks when the kernel has long ago gone. What cares the Lord for “burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts . . . the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats,” when men have left off doing that which is right in his sight? The Lord may well say to those who bring offerings to him under such circumstances, “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?”
Isa_1:12. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
“Who invited you to come to my courts?” says God. “Who asked you to pretend to worship me, when you are living in sin, and your hearts are not reconciled to me?”
Isa_1:13. Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
If you are hypocrites, if your hearts are not right with God, you may multiply your church-goings, and your chapel-goings, and your sacraments; but all these are only a provoking of God to anger. There is nothing in it all that he could possibly accept; he cannot endure it. He says, “It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.”
Isa_1:14-15. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
This is plain speaking; but God never sends velvet-tongued men as his messengers. They who are called to testify f or God speak out boldly, and faithfully denounce the sins of the day in which they live. Blessed be God for Isaiah and for men like him! When men are committing crimes, when they are oppressing the poor, when they are living in the daily practice of injustice, when they indulge in secret drunkenness, when their whole life is a lie, they may do what they will, but God will not hear their prayers. While we keep sin in our hearts, it is in vain for us to stretch out our hands unto God. He is a holy God, and he seeks holy hearts and holy lives; and nothing short of these can be acceptable to him.
Isa_1:16-17. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
This is what God asks for: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
18—20. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
May the Holy Spirit make us to be willing and obedient, that we may “eat the good of the land”; and may none of us be found refusing God’s gracious invitation, and rebelling against his authority, lest we perish in our sins!